The Two Tournaments I Played With Russ

First off, I want to thank Russ for picking me up with the offer.

I got to be the middleman in the private games with Fell Knight and
bubbleboy. I sat with the speaker phone on and one hand on the
mouse. The games went so fast, and I'm no Stud8 player to begin with,
so I'll leave it to Russ and the other guys to discuss whatever needs
to be said.

I wanted to play a tournament like Raider did.

Russ offered to play me through a couple of tournaments, a PLO8 and an
NLHE. Russ doesn't like NLHE but I am interested in learning what I
can about it, so it was in the mix.

First, let me say that in the time before the tournaments began I
prepared a message in my email so that I could copy and paste it
quickly into a new post to rgp. The message was that we were down to
the last few tables in such-n-such tournament in case people wanted to
watch, and if we never got there, fuhgedaboutit. When I told this to
Russ, he said to just post the whole thing before we began, so I did.
There was actually no reason for us to play these in public at all, so
you gotta give the guy a lot of points for willingness to put in all
on the line in public ahead of time.

So, the tournaments . . .

The NLHE was over soon when we made a bet that should have been
impossible to call got picked off. The short summary is = Ace on the
river (the other guy's Ace). Such is life.

I'll admit that I was optimistic about the improved chances playing
with Russ gave me to cash in tournaments that had some serious
payouts. The fact that we didn't cash will be fodder for some of the
guys here who want to bust Russ' chops, but what I went into this
really wanting was a lesson, and that's what I got.

Actually, both tournaments were running at the same time, so it wasn't
until we were down to only one that we had more time to talk about
hands. For people who are interested in playing a tournament with
Russ, I think the talk is the main benefit. What you'll learn about
is hand selection and the discipline of playing TIGHT. Not too far
into the tournament we had a very respectable stack. Something it
showed me about my own game was that even if I had played exactly the
same hands myself I wouldn't have had as many chips because my betting
would not have been as strong. I've made my share of final tables but
I never get there with a big stack. My chip gathering in the middle
game is lacking but I never quite knew how to fix it. If I get a
chance to play with Russ again I'm sure I'll catch on to some greater
refinements, but I think what I learned so far are three important
ideas.

One, if you're playing really tight, when you're finally in it's with
a choice hand, so get loose with the chips and push hard. Where I
would have made what I considered a decent bet or raise, Russ would
pot it.

The second thing I think that will help is not being bent out of shape
over the idea of exiting early. There were times when Russ felt that
we just couldn't get away from a hand saying that if we have to go out
then it'll be with this hand and in would go another pot size bet or
reraise. In the PLO8 tournament I think it was in the first or second
hand we were in that we ended up all-in. We won and doubled up. On
my own I probably would hesitate to put the whole thing at risk so
early, especially with everyone on rgp watching, but Russ' attitude is
if the first hand has to be the last hand, then so be it. I've played
my share of big B&M tourneys (I'm in AC) where I washed out when they
got down to the last four tables or so. IF and WHEN I can actually
work this stuff into my game, and IF I could replay those tournaments,
I think I would mow probably bust out of many or most of them sooner,
but I'd like to think I'd also make it to of some of the final tables
I never got to.

(I remember having read in Ken Buntjer's book (which I do not
recommend) that a certain kind of player erroneously thinks he's
getting better if he washes out at progressively higher non-paid
levels. That was me.)

Some guys will probably say, "so this is supposed to be news?" Well,
yes and no. It may seem like the obvious, but for me the
understanding of it is a matter of degree.

The third thing I learned was about keeping a close eye on the clock.
I watched most of the game Russ played with Raider. When I played
there weren't any time-outs, or maybe only one. There were times when
we dragged ass before responding and only used the time clock once and
there were plenty of times where we folded as fast as possible to save
every second. What we were doing was controlling the rate of play so
that we would be on the button when the blinds went up. What a trick
that is! It's a whole dimension of the game I never thought about
before. When the blinds are hurtfully high at the end of a tourney,
how sweet it would be to have the guys to your left take the heavy hit
first when they're out of position.

Taken all together it was definitely worth it and I have great
confidence in Russ.