The Double Douche

This week my plan was to grind out a profit from a bunch of small games, then take a shot at one of the big tournaments on Sunday (a pattern of behavior repeated in thousands of households across the world, I'm sure.) For those who don't know, Sunday is a big day for poker players. There are a few reasons why, but I think that primarily it's because time-consuming responsibilities during the week don't allow for fun until the weekends. Poker, for most people, being fun. Secondly you have the aforementioned big tournaments. All of the casinos and major poker sites hold their biggest games on Sundays, so even the sharks are drawn in (by the scent of donkey blood.) Every moderately skilled poker player has at least one fond memory of a past Sunday when they took a shot and hit it big. Mine was in 2007, when I basically free rolled my way into seventeen grand.

The shot I took this Sunday was not that big. The Double Deuce is a $22 tournament with a $200,000 guarantee and a $31,000 payout for first place. To win it I would need to beat nine thousand people. To best a huge field like that you need a lot of things (skills, patience, aggressiveness, blah blah blah), but most importantly you need to go All-In as a statistical favorite over and over and over again until you reach the final table. Sure, there will be a lot of coin flips along the way (maybe even a suckout or two) but ideally you always want to have that percentage advantage. The reason why I can never win a big tournament is because when I have the best hand it never holds up. Don't believe me? Well here's one example...



... pre flop, a player from middle position limped (or raised, I forget) and the villain shoved about 30xbb from the button. My short-stacked call from the small blind was for approximately 8xbb. The original limper folded (probably an ace) so I was all set for the triple-up that would have put me back in contention.

I hadn't taken a shot in a big tournament for a while, so this was no way to be welcomed back into the fold. There was a $25,000 overlay, so I thought it would be smart to take advantage. Silly me for being observant. Oh well... I guess it's back to the drawing board