Chương 41: Tournament styles
"You know why everyone suggests your bankroll should be the size of many buyins? Because a lot of the time, no matter what you do, you're not going to win. As much as poker is a people game, it's also a numbers game. In the long run, that means poker is a marathon, not a sprint. Personally, I don't mind it at all though; It just means I get to play a lot more poker."
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After the pool, everyone went to do their own thing. Some people started playing. Some people took a nap. Joey was eating lunch with Anwar. "So, how long have you been playing?" Joey asked.
"...A couple of years." Anwar answered.
"I heard poker wasn't popular until recently though...How'd you get started?"
"Hmmm. Well...I scored a 680 on my Math SATs. My father called me a failure. It really affected me. So at university, I persisted and worked hard and finally scored full failing marks in my 1st year to let him understand what real failure is. Delusional old man."
...
"After that, my family stopped sending me money so I started dealing and playing poker," Anwar explained.
Before he could lose any more brain cells, Joey excused himself to go play.
...
The poker room was filling up. Joey took a look at the 2-5 games and frowned. He recognized most of the players from yesterday. To put it simply, the game didn't look good. Most of the players were at least decent. He thought about what Andrew told him yesterday and evaluated his options. He remembered someone said the casino has daily tournaments, so he went to the desk staff to ask about that.
"We have a tournament starting in 20 minutes. It's no limit hold'em with a 200 dollar buyin," the staff member said.
'Seems like a good opportunity to work on my tournament game.' Joey bought in and waited for it to start. The tournaments in this casino took place in a large conference room nearby the poker room. It was a bit more plain, and not quite as well lit, but more than adequate.
Once registration closed, the staff began to assign seats. Approximately 50 people signed up. So the prize pool was $10,000 minus the casino rake. Similar to cash games at private clubs, casinos took rake from games. In the case of tournaments with a buyin, they would rake a total amount upfront. For this tournament, it was 15% so the total prize pool was $8,500.
After everyone got in their seats, the staff finally handed out chips. Ten minutes later, the dealers were prepared and the tournament started. As the first cards were dealt, Joey thought about a concept he'd realized during his last tournament. He found that there are two broad styles to how you can approach a tournament when you're above average in skill level versus the field of players.
The first is conservative. In this style, you avoid taking risks when you're only a small favorite. You'd prefer to get large amounts of money in only on the river where you can't catch an unlucky card, or in spots where you already have a very good hand or are very confident about a read. This strategy's strength is in reducing the effect of luck on your results. The downside is you need to get lucky enough to encounter good opportunities to build your stack. Otherwise, you'll pass on many decent chances and could be blinded out that way.
The second style is high aggression from the start. Since Joey knew that the prize pool was weighted towards the top 3 places, and large stacks have a big advantage, it's reasonable to try to build your stack early when other players are still warming up. If you can build an advantage early, it could snowball into a crushing lead like Joey had in his last tournament. All in all, he felt the aggressive style is probably more profitable.
The disadvantage is obvious as well--the exposure to luck is much higher, increasing the risk. There's a much higher chance of getting knocked out early. 'I should probably name these two styles. I'll call this aggressive style...Tiger Claw Dragon Fist.' Joey squeezed his hands into fists. He closed his eyes, feeling the raw strength...
Shortly after, he woke up from his power fantasy. 'I'll shorten it to Tiger Style.'
He thought about what to name the conservative style...
'Turtle Style. Because f*ck it, why not?'
Now the only issue was choosing the best style for the tournament. 'What should I do?' Joey contemplated. He looked back in the direction of the poker room. Soon after, he smiled because he found his best move. Joey realized he had an external advantage here. Even if he lost the tourney, he had a good backup option to play the cash games.
The downside of early aggression was a higher chance of losing quickly, but since he had a solid backup which negated that, it only left the positive—higher overall profitability. So he decided to go with Tiger Style.
This wasn't a tournament where he cared about becoming the champion. If it was a big tournament like The World Series of Poker where he was playing for more than just money, that might be a different story. Each situation has its own best solution. Joey started his engines. He looked for early tells to choose his targets, and morphed the rest of the table into an animal farm.
...
A few hours into the tournament, it was entering the late stage. There were 15 players left and the top 10 got paid. Joey hadn't gotten good cards but he still had an average chip stack so he was optimistic about making it into the money.
A few minutes later he got involved in a big hand. The pot was built preflop, and his opponent went all in on the flop. Joey had a pretty good hand, but he took his time to study his opponent before making a decision.
"Come on junior, don't take all day, we're trying to play poker here," his opponent complained. Joey looked at this young guy wearing sunglasses.
Everything was telling Joey that his opponent was very strong. He shook his head and pushed his cards forward to give them to the dealer. "I fold," he said.
"No, you don't. That's a call you twerp," his opponent said.
Joey frowned.
"That's a call." The dealer said.
"What are you talking about? I just said 'I fold,'" Joey clarified.
The dealer pointed at his hand. "The chips. Once your chips cross that line...if it's half or more of the bet then it's considered a call, even if the chips stay in your hand."
Joey looked down. His hand that was pushing the cards forward was also holding most of his largest chips. He'd been playing with them while thinking, a habit that many poker players have. 'So they have a rule like that here...' Joey unwillingly pushed his chips into the pot, his opponent had him covered so Joey was now the one all in.
The dealer dealt out the cards which didn't improve Joey's hand. His opponent turned over a set, three tens. Joey looked at his pocket queens and threw them into the muck. He was knocked out from the tournament and out of the money. He sighed.
He lost the tournament but he just learned a valuable lesson. Another reason to start slow in a new venue, besides the players, is to get used to all the house rules. The rules are often slightly different in each place, whether casino or home game. If you don't know them, you could get burned badly, especially in a tournament. From now on, he would remember to ask about them before making such a mistake. Knowing he learned that, he wasn't upset.
As Joey got up to go to the poker room and look at the cash games, the sunglasses guy gave him a little dig for good measure, "Hey buddy, thanks for the donation, better luck next time, hahaha."
Joey snorted and continued on his way. He knew it was pointless to argue with him. After all, if you get bitten by a wild dog, you don't bite it back.
While it feels good to destroy your enemies, the best way forward is usually to build yourself.
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