The Poker

Ok so looks like we didn't all die yesterday. Which is a good thing. Now I really want to know how the experiment at CERN went, and if they had any interesting results that were immediately apparent.

But anyway. The title of this post is again about poker. So that is what I shall discuss - again.

If you have been keeping up with my blog you will be aware that I am trying to win my way into playing poker online with real money. This is because I have vowed never to use my own money online. A good vow. But one that is annoying me at present. I have to win a tournament or place in the top 80. Only problem is that there are 2000 opponents trying to do the same thing, since the tournament is free to enter, and you can win a little money if you acheive a top 80 finish.

The thing that makes these tournaments so hard is that because they are free to enter a lot of people don't really care about how they do. So until about the top 200 you have players constantly going all in. I know that this is a big element of no limit hold 'em, but why would people consistently go all in on things like 10 high? When a lot of players go all in at the beginning, inevitably one of the players that don't care wins. That means they double or triple up, and then make it a bit further down the line with their poor strategy. This is incredibly frustrating. I'll find myself going into pots on a good hand and having to make bad decisions just because I can't see a pot to showdown without going all in.

The amount of all-ins severely inhibits the skill you can play with. So I find myself of late unable to finish in the top 400. Although I think this is also partly down to impatience. By the time I have waited for all the gamblers to go out of the tournament, the blinds are so high that I myself am forced to go all in. Not a good way to play poker. I suppose all I can do is keep trying until I get lucky and win a few chips at the beginning, then I might be able to progress through the tournament.

This is therefore why my vow not to use any of my own money is annoying. I can't play much proper poker because of it. But a vow is a vow, no matter how tempted I may be I shall have to always resist it. For now I'll just have to hope that I can place well in one of these tournaments. I still have to be grateful that PKR have these freerolls going so that I can potentially play for real money one day.


If anyone has any ideas on what I could do to reach the money in these tournaments please comment. At the moment I'm playing tight aggressive as best I can.