With a starting stack (if I’m not mistaken) of T6000 chips as well as 60-minute blind levels, this tournament will allow for more play than any I’ve previously entered. It’s kind of exciting that my strategies won’t be dictated quite as much by my stack size, but at the same time, I hope my judgment will be sound enough to choose the right strategy for each situation. That said, here are what I believe to be my primary keys to success in this (and just about any) tournament:
1. Stay prepared. In my case, this basically means getting plenty of sleep the night before the tournament. I usually handle distractions pretty well, but if my focus suffers due to a lack of rest, it’s all over.
2. Stay patient. With the fairly generous structure (at least compared to what I’m used to), I’ll probably limp often in the early going, hoping to catch a player capable of stacking off with a hand like top pair. I’ll also widen my range against players whom I feel I can outplay (either pre-flop or post-flop). Other than that, I think my best bet is to play ABC poker and not try to take down every single pot. Along those same lines, should I at any point find myself cold-decked at an aggressive table, I’ll have to stay disciplined enough to not force the action and just keep folding until the situation improves. In short, I have to do my best to play with selective aggression.
3. Stay composed. We all know about the potential detours that lead straight to Tiltville, yet so many of us continually fail to stay on track, myself included. I have to continue to make good decisions regardless of how many poor hands, band beats, and obnoxious players I encounter. Much of this will depend on my ability to disassociate the ego.
4. Trust my instincts. When I know I’m beaten, don’t call ‘just to see it’. When I sense weakness, attack it. Deep down, I believe that I’m gifted with some pretty decent poker instincts, but they’ll continue to go to waste if I never fully believe.
5. Take things one step at a time, worrying little about the things beyond my control. In the movie "The Untouchables", Sean Connery's character, while waiting in ambush, attempts to calm an anxious Andy Garcia by suggesting that he neither wait for nor want anything specific to happen, but rather to simply watch what does happen. In tournament poker (and life in general) all we can really do is use our best judgment to choose a course of action appropriate for the situation at hand. So you got it all-in pre-flop with pocket rockets and they got cracked by a two-outer on the river? So what? So you're now short-stacked and in serious danger of bubbling out? So what? If you can look back and say that your judgment was sound, there's really nothing else left to analyze, regardless of the final outcome.
If I come back home this weekend confident that I achieved each of these 5 objectives, it will have been a successful performance.
Win or lose.
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