Another Live Play Update

I again had the opportunity to sit in a few home tournaments recently, and fared pretty well, winning 2 of the 3 tournaments played during the evening. This was with essentially the same group that I talked about in my last post (the make-up-the-blinds as you go heave-'em-and-pray group). I can't say that I've really come up with a strategy for playing in this type of game, but something was obviously working quite well, and I'm pretty confident that it wasn't just luck.

This group made a lot of amateur mistakes, and in general showed me that they had little discipline or patience. We were playing short-handed (6 or so players, plus or minus 1), and they seem to like paying to 1st and 2nd, with 2nd just simply getting their buy-in back, and 1st getting the rest. Now this is okay I suppose... I always do something like a 70/30 between 1st and 2nd, or else winner take all with 5-7 players... but man do these guys have no clue how to play heads-up. First of all, I'm not playing to get my money back, I'm playing to win... and no, I will not chop. Stop asking.

I was amazed at how eager several people were to simply "get the game over with", when they had a good shot to win it all. During both games that I won, when heads up, my opponent kept pushing all-in, something like every other hand. This is so easy: I simply kept folding and giving up my blinds (which angered my opponent!?), waiting for when I knew I had him. Then he made the mistake of letting me see flops cheap, thinking that that was the only way he could get me to play. Eventually I flopped two pair, he pushed, and I won.

I'm also hosting a NLHE late tourney on New Years Eve, finally taking the risk of inviting some guys from work who at least have a basic handle on the game. We could end up with as many as 9 or 10 players, but 6-7 seems more likely. Following on the success of the last game I hosted, we'll be using the same structure, chip color-ups and etc. As well, I've been working on some plans to build a nice top to fit my dining room table, but also with detachable legs so it could be used alone... probably something like Chris Norrick's poker table with a wooden outer ring. A few matching drink/ashtray/etc side tables might also be a good winter project. We'll see!