So you want to know how to win a poker tournament? Well, I really don’t have a lot of experience on the subject, but I did manage to pull one down the other night.
How about a timeline of events that led up to me luckboxing my way into my second tournament victory this century? Alright, here goes.
901: Draw for the button - I start in the small blind… there goes 5 chips right there.
912: I double up with KK against KQ after a flop of Q32.
913-930: I get too aggressive with my new found wealth and piss most of it away.
931: I almost double up again after turning a flush with a very aggressive opponent.
932-1000: Refer to 913-930.
1000-1005: I go into a secluded area and yell at myself for being reckless with my chips.
1005-1105:Â I play solid aggressive poker and chip up - no double ups or huge pots, just a lot of small ones.
1105-1110:Â Go to the bathroom.
1110-1140:Â Go card dead - the blinds start to eat away at my stack a little bit.
1141-1210: Fight to survive - I go all in three times in this period, surviving all of them. At this point, I have managed to make it into the money. One point to note here is that I didn’t play to cash, I played to win by going all in with various hands at different points during the bubble period.
1210-1215:Â Do absolutely nothing .
1220-1240: Double up with AQ against AK, and with 77 v AK. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
1240-130:Â Never look back.
I played the last hour of the tournament putting constant pressure on my opponents. As my stack grew, my confidence grew. At one point in the final table, there were 8 of us left and I had 3 times the chips of everyone else at the table. I mention this because if you come to this site often, you know I’m a tight player. Even though I’m a tight player, I know what to do with a lot of chips when I get them.
There was one point in the heads up match when I got short stacked, but I was fortunate enough to suck out one time, and that’s really all I needed to get my head back into the game and take the tournament down.
Another point I want to make about this tournament is the fact that sometimes it’s just about keeping your emotions in check more than anything. I was really lucky that my aggression early on with a big stack didn’t come back to bite me either time. My regrouping at the first break was a big reason I won the poker tournament.
You can play great poker and lose, and you can play bad poker and win. Honestly though, in one way or another, you really have to get lucky to win a poker tournament - Good players just have to get a little less lucky than someone with less experience and talent.
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