by Degenerate with Pokerism
OK let’s qualify this BIG tournament. $25 buy-in with no re-buys.
110 players and about 70 of them are good players and about 20 are very
good. I almost quit playing this tournament after about 17 tries. I
had come in 3rd (which should have been 1st dammit but I got AA cracked
by J10 with all the money in pre-flop) and bubbled out in 9th, 10th,11th
about 8 times. I seemed to win so many side games and do so well in
cash games that I almost decided to follow the money. Then I had an
epiphany. I am not a professional poker player. I made a decision that
I was going to play poker to enjoy and challenge myself. The biggest
challenge I had was the 100+ weekly tournament. So I began to focus.
Soon after this fire was lit I finished just inside the money at 8th
and 10th. Then a couple of weeks later I placed 9th. Then the very next
week I snagged the big number one. I noticed something about winning
and losing a tournament versus a cash game. When I win $250 in a cash
game I am happy for about 36 hours. When I lose $250 in a cash game
I am depressed for a week. When I win a tournament paying $900 I am
on cloud nine for a week and a half. When I lose a tournament I am sad
until I go to sleep and that’s if I don't win a sit-and-go right
after which does happen allot. So it seems like tournaments are the
way to go right? Well the problem is I rarely lose in cash games and
I lose tournaments about 96% of the time. Something about tournaments
though really gets my adrenaline going. The truth is I am not going
to pass up any poker game my wife will let me play in. So anyhoo I love
poker and I won a tournament.
