I am almost entirely an online player. There is not a single aspect of live poker that I like better, however, the bigger buyin tourneys are almost exclusively played live, so therefore, if I ever want to become a world class player, I'm gonna have to start playing live.
With that in mind, I played a $33 Rebuy tourney last week, where the top 2 won a seat to the main event at Foxwoods. Somehow, without even rebuying (I always do the auto rebuy at the beg, and always do the addon) I won my seat: total cost= $100. Sweeeeeet.
I've only played in 2 major 10K buyin tourneys in my life, last years wsop main event, and the last foxwoods tourney. I went to the wsop through Bodog, and they hooked us up with a great room, buyin to the tourney, and one of their famous "Bodog Parties." At the time, I had played in about 10 tournaments total in my life (online inc.) and although I had already made a great deal in poker, I had no tournament strategies. Needless to say, I busted out late day 1.
After the world series, I decided to start focusing on tourney play. After a month of tourney play solely on Bodog, I began wanting to play more and bigger tourneys than Bodog was offering, and I opened accounts on stars, dise, UB etc... BodogAri was thus Born - Ari being both my screen name on Bodog and my actual name.
By the time the last Foxwoods tourney came around, I had significantly developed my tournament strategies, and promised myself one thing: "I'm gonna play this like it's online." I didn't even bother looking at my opponents; what would I learn from them? I had no experience reading the physical actions of others, and therefore I believed (and still do) that the "reads" I'd make from physical actions were just as likely to be correct as incorrect.
All was going well as I came back from the dinner break with a stack of almost double what we had started. Preety soon after a guy came to our table that had triple as much as the previous chip leader at our table. His first pot at the table, he raises from early position and gets 3-4 or callers. To a flop of aaq, one of the blinds leads out for a half pot sized bet, he flat calls, and the other fold. The turn comes out a j, and it goes, bet-raise-allin-call, the blind shows aj, and the chip leader miserably turns over qq, with one card to come he's hoping for the only queen in the deck. No luck, and he loses a large pot.
Next hand he raises again (still in early position), this time almost everyone after him calls. My thinking goes as such. If any of the callers had a big hand they would reraise, so as not to allow others to draw out on them. As the action approaches me, I see the number of chips in the pot, and I decide to regardless of my cards go all in when the action comes to me. I feel that as long as I can get by the original raiser, I will be fine, and everyone will fold. The raiser of course, is probably steaming a little from the last hand, so he is likely to raise with less than premium hands too.
I decide to look at my cards anyway, so as to appear normal, and i see 84, which of course makes no difference, as I am hoping everyone folds. I pull my move, and my brilliant analysis goes up in smoke as the original raiser quickly calls, and after the rest of the table folds, flips over AA, an ace on the flop ends my misery early.
Although this might seem like a bad story, it really isn't. Succesful poker requires making reads and acting upon them. The problem here wasn't that I raised with 84, it was that he had AA.
I mean by that one of two things.
A) My read of the "situation" was correct, everyone else would have folded, and all I had to do was get by the original raiser, if he happens to have anything other than the couple best hands, my "move" works, and I have a much nicer chip stack.
B)Making moves based on reads, is only a good idea if your reads are gonna be right, it is ok to be wrong once in a while, but, one incorrect move is worth much more negatively, than one correct move is positively. Therefore, caution is very important with this extremely reckless move.
