Tournament Poker Frustrations - Finally Relieved!

I finally made a big score in a tournament. Tied for my biggest score ever. In a $100 tournament I got 1st out of 414 people, for $7200. It's funny because I don't play $100 tournaments, or any big field tournaments, during the week because they take too long, and I have to sleep. I found this one that starts at 9 at night, and is a turbo. I played it once, and it only takes about 3-3.5 hours to finish the whole thing (if you last that long). And, I'm very experienced at playing turbo structures from playing turbo MTT SNGs, and I noticed that the vast majority of this field were making large fundamental errors for a turbo format, so I tried to play it every night. Because i felt I had a solid advantage over the field. And on just my 4th night playing it I took it down. These moments come so rarely in tournament poker (even when you're playing well), gotta cherish them. Also, Dennis Phillips was in the same tournament and got 6th. He's not that well known, but he made the 2008 WSOP final table as the chip leader, and ended up getting 3rd for probably 3 million ish (i don't remember).

Best part about it is I feel like i'm consistently playing really well in tournaments right now, and making very few mistakes. Now I just need to final table the sunday million, or any big sunday tournament and I'll be happy.

Tournament Poker Frustrations

Even though you can make more consistent money at cash games, I've been starting to play more tournaments again recently just because I think they're more fun and more competitive. That is they have a beginning, and an end and a winner. Whereas cash games you just come and go as you please, win some, lose some (and if you're good, consistently win over time). But they don't really satisfy the competitive drive as much, plus don't have that possibility of the huge one time score like tournaments do. The only downside to tournaments is that you have to block out large chunks of time where you're going to be at home and not have to do anything else.

Anyways, anyone who plays tournament poker knows how frustrating it can be. Not just the individual hands where you may get unlucky. But the times when you play well, make good decisions, and DO have decent luck (that is don't get UN-lucky) for a long time, and you get close to that big score and then get unlucky just one time at a vey crucial point. I don't even mind getting knocked out early in a tournament by someone drawing out against me, because I know that I would have still had to go through a whole lot more before it even became significant. But when you play an online tournament for 5+ hours and you're down to the last 1% of the field, and you've already made some decent money, but are inching closer to HUGE money and THEN you get unlucky, it's just painful.

In 4 of my last 5 tournaments I made it to the top 1% of the field, which is very rare. And every time I made somewhere between 7-30 times whatever the buy in for the tournament was, which is a great Return on Investment. And despite what should be considered a very successful little run, I was way, WAY more frustrated than if I had played 5 straight tournaments and busted out of all of them and cashed for nothing. Just because the mega scored loomed so close, but didn't come. And every time it was definitely within reach. Not to mention the 1 tourney I busted out of was a big buy-in, and all the ones I cashed in were medium to low buy ins.

You Get What You Vote For

I've noticed since the election of this man there has been an outcry against the direction he is taking the country in by a lot of people. That outcry is just and warranted of course, as he is in fact making atrocious decisions, based on unsound policy, and leading the country down a path toward destruction and ruin. However, it is nothing other than precisely what he said he would do during the campaign. And we as a nation elected him by a decently wide margin. Therefore this outcry must becoming from one of a few different places. 1) People who didn't vote for him in the first place. 2) People who didn't vote or pay attention much during the campaign, but are now. 3) People who voted for him, were aware of his ideology and proposed policies, and now are surprised that he's doing.. exactly what he said he would do? There's not much to say about groups one and two. I'm in group one, I knew what his policies were, I didn't like then, and I don't like them now, but they certainly aren't taking me by surprise. Group 2 was just ignorant, and when you don't pay attention, bad things can happen. Again, not much to say about that. Just pay attention.

Group 3 is the group that I'm interested in. They may not even be a large group, but I know they do exist because I've heard a lot of people on talk radio, or posting online say things like "Obama, I voted for you, but this is crazy!" or other similar notions. How could you have sat through the campaign, listened to everything the man said, understood it, and now feel bamboozled? How is that possible? He is the quintessential big government, tax-and-spend liberal, and he told you as much during the campaign. If you didn't know what that means, especially given the conditions he was coming into where a REPUBLICAN president was already nationalizing private industries, then you're just not very bright. Yes he's going to nationalize everything within arms reach. Yes he is going to spend 10x what Bush did, which is tough to do when Bush himself was a pretty massive spender. Yes he is going to raise taxes. Yes his policies will cripple the economy and bankrupt your children. Yes he will expand government's role in your life and infringe on your liberties whenever possible. Yes, yes, yes. Of course. What did you think was going to happen? That you'd elect a quasi-marxist ideologue and he'd govern like someone who loves the country's founding principles and be a defender of capitalism?

That's why none of this, nothing that has happened to date in this administration, has so much as made me raise an eyebrow. He's doing what he said he would do, and we elected him, and so you get what you vote for. It's that simple. Now, the majority of people who voted for him probably don't have a problem with what he's doing. Not yet anyway, until they see the consequences. And the majority of people who voted against him don't like what he's doing, but they never did. It's that small middle segment that really boggles my mind, who both voted for him, and now express discontent and frustration. It is YOUR fault that this is happening. If you want someone to blame, look in the mirror and blame that person. Blame yourself. I'll blame you too.