Skill + Luck = A Successful Tournament

Posted by poker kat

April 7, 2008

Today I headed out to the Bike for their monthly Ladies Tournament. My plan was to raise preflop whenever I wanted to be in the pot when in a good position. I wanted to pick up a lot of small pots early on in order to build my stack. I didn’t want to find myself stressing over the antes and blinds as they began to increase. My starting table (which did not break until we were down to 2.. which was great) included a lot of tight play. Myself and 2 other women picked up on this fast and took down many small pots… and in my case with marginal hands…

I had a nice thing going.. I didn’t want to scrape along until the bubble and play for 5 hours to go out in 10th (top 9 paid). Unfortunately.. my skills were there.. but the good hands matched with big pots just never happened for me. I remember Chris Ferguson mentioning (among other pros I’m sure) that you need to have luck and skill on your side to win a tournament.. which is why this is no way to make a living playing tourneys alone..

So after 4 hours and a run of horrible horrible playable cards and situations, I find myself with only 2200 in chips with the blinds at 300-600 and a 100 ante. Not good.. I need a good hand to be all in with. I’m in the SB with 3-3. There were 2 limpers in MP with nice stacks and the Button (a shorter stack) goes all in. That was my move and there is a good amount of money in this pot now for me to definitely want to be all in.. so I make my move.. 1 limper calls while the other folds. The MP shows 4-4 and the Button shows K-10. I think I’m done.. until the top card on the flop revealed a 3. Yay!!.. the table starts to get excited for me (but knowing my luck sucks and that right before leaving for the tournament I lost online with set over set.. I’m still holding my breath..) The other cards were a 5 & 7.. the turn is a 6 and the river a 2. I’m out. My set loses on the river to a straight.

I went out in 17th place today. I’m over it now.. haha. I’m glad that all I heard about LA players being fast and aggressive isn’t effecting my game. I’m still finding my spots and making good plays. I just didn’t have luck on my side today to help me pick up nice sized pots.

Next tournament.. Friday… with some cash game sessions at Commerce mixed in between.

P.S. Online still sucks. (for me)

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

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