Tournament Poker Stories
By Tony Guerrera
A broad spectrum of tournament players exists, but tournament players can be roughly classified into three categories: players who know virtually nothing about poker, solid cash game players who don’t fully understand tournament dynamics, and tournament pros. If you want to be a tournament pro, you need to think like one. And one of the biggest steps towards thinking like one is telling your stories like one. Here’s a tournament story from someone who knows almost nothing about poker:
| Another day…another suck out! I raised preflop with AK and was called. The flop was K93. I bet and was called. The turn was a ten. I bet and was called. The river was another king. I bet; he raised; I reraised all-in; he called. He had TT…he caught a set on the turn and a boat on the river. What the hell is up with that! |
Let’s take the same hand, but let’s look at it through the eyes of a different player-well, this hand isn’t exactly the same since this player played it differently. This player knows a bit about hold’em from playing in cash games, and he might be a highly profitable cash game player. However, he hasn’t played much tournament poker
| The blinds were 100-200, and I had 5,000 in chips. The table was 10-handed. I was in middle position, and I raised it to 500 with AK. Besides a caller in late position, everyone else folded. The flop was K93 rainbow. I bet 400, and my opponent, a relatively straightforward player, called. The turn was a ten. At that point, the pot was 2,100. I bet 1,000, and my opponent called. The river was a king. I bet 1,000, and my opponent raised all-in to 3,000. At that point, I had 2,100 left, and there was 8,100 in the pot. The only hands that I put my opponent on that could beat me were KT, TT, and 99. My opponent could also have had KQ or KJ; however, I think that he would have just called my bet on the river with those hands instead of raising. Therefore, I mucked my hand. |
The difference between these two stories, of course, is the detail with which they are told. This difference in detail illustrates the difference in how the two players think. The weak player focuses on just one thing-the outcome. Ultimately, he is only concerned about having lost. The reason that this player is a losing player is that he’s not engaged with the poker-playing process. He offers virtually no information that can help us meaningfully reconstruct the hand. There’s very little thought, if any, in this player’s story, and therefore, there’s probably very little thought in his play.
In contrast, the more experienced player offers many details. It’s not possible to convey every detail about every player, but he does provide information about his general state of knowledge of his opponents. He also does an excellent job of recapping the betting action. Perhaps most importantly, he takes all that detail and he gives us an idea of what he was thinking at the time he played the hand.
The second player’s story is good, but it doesn’t cut it when it comes to analyzing tournament poker. His story is detailed, but given that this hand took place in a tournament, a lot of information was left out. How many players entered the tournament? What kind of tournament was it? How many players were left? How much time was left in the 100-200 level? What was the next blind level? What was the payout scheme? What was the average stack at that point in the tournament? When playing in a tournament, you always need to ask yourself these types of questions, and if you aren’t addressing these questions in your poker stories, then you probably aren’t addressing them while you are playing. With that in mind, let’s take the hand that we’ve already considered twice, but this time, we’ll look at it from the eyes of a seasoned tournament player:
| I was playing in a $100+$20 no-limit hold’em tournament at the casino the other day, and a tough hand came up. The blinds were 100-200, and I had 5,000 chips. Everyone started the tournament with 2,000 chips, and we were down to about 50 players out of 200 that entered, meaning that the average stack was about 8,000. Play at the 100-200 level had been going on for 10 minutes, and we had 20 more minutes before the blinds would go up to 150-300.The table was 10-handed. I was in middle position with AK, and I raised it to 500. Besides a caller in late position, everyone else folded. The caller had about 4,500 chips after he called. In other words, we had about the same number of chips. He was a relatively straightforward player, so I took his call to mean that he had two high cards or a medium to high pocket pair. He probably would have reraised with aces, kings, or queens, though. The flop was K93 rainbow. I bet 400, and my opponent called. He would have made this call with a pocket pair, AK, KQ, or KJ. The turn was a ten, and the pot was 2,100. I was ahead of KQ, KJ, JJ, and 88; I was tied with AK; and I was behind KT, TT, and 99. Given my hand compared to his distribution, I bet 1,000. My opponent called, meaning that I could probably eliminate 88 and possibly JJ from his distribution.
The river was a king. My stack was 3,100, and the pot was 4,100. With the average stack in the tournament at 8,000, this was a really important hand to pick up. If I checked and my opponent moved all-in, I probably would have been forced to call. However, given my opponent’s distribution, I didn’t want to put my tournament life on the line. The best option, I thought, was to put in a blocking bet of 1,000. Given that AK was a threat if he had KQ or KJ, he would have most likely just called with those hands. He only would raise all-in if he had a boat. My opponent pushed all-in after I bet 1,000, and I folded, assuming that I was beaten, and left myself with 2,100 chips. 2,100 was about two double-ups from the tournament average, but I still had 10 big blinds, so at least I had a small amount of maneuvering room. The top 30 paid, meaning that the bubble was coming soon. I was confident that I’d be able to steal lots of blinds on the bubble to put myself back into contention. |
This player’s story provides much more detail than the seemingly detailed story from the seasoned cash game player. It conveys information specific to the hand being played and to the tournament dynamics; this story exemplifies what you should be thinking about at the table when you are playing in a tournament. If you focus on telling your tournament stories like this, then you will find yourself thinking like this at the table, and your tournament results should improve as a result.
Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker by the Numbers
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