Taking it Live

I played a live tournament for the first time in quite a while tonight. It was part of the local free poker league, and there were about 40 players. I played a really solid, aggressive game that seemed to pay off as nobody really wanted to play ball with me. I made it to the final table with the second largest stack, but the blinds were already so high that people started dropping every hand. I ended up having to take a couple gambles which paid off nicely and gave me a chance to go heads up with close to even chips. My opponent didn't seem to have much knowledge of heads-up play and folded almost half her stack to me before winning a couple showdowns and then folding it right back to me. Finally her luck at the showdown ran out and the tournament was mine.

I can't say that I was too impressed with the overall play in the tournament, but it still felt good to play a solid poker game and come out on top. Playing live made me realize how much I miss the human interaction and the interesting psychology that is so much more relevant in live games. I felt like I was able to really get good reads on my opponents tonight and take advantage of their lack of reticence.

I'm definitely going to try to play more live games in the near future because, while it won't necessarily get me closer to my bankroll goals, it will definitely help to keep me focused and motivated on the game and should allow me to improve my skills much more rapidly than in online poker since you have to spend so much time just focusing on your game and not multi-tabling.

1 Comment:

  1. Anonymous said...
    Very well played mate! Looks like you owned that game.

    Would you mind linking up the new blog please?

    http://burnleymik.ukpokerscene.co.uk/

    thanks

    BM

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