Not counting one very brief (winning) session at Excalibur in Vegas, I just started playing no-limit hold 'em at the casino less than 3 months ago. I have played 7 times, mostly at Ameristar, and it has gone very well. My only two losing sessions were when I quit while behind because I had been waiting for another game or tournament. One time I was down $80 and the other I was down $70. My profit from the other 5 sessions is over $1000.
I have played very tight and probably a little timidly. I am aggressive when in a hand, but it takes a lot of concentration and willpower for me to make bold plays. (Oddly enough, I haven't had much trouble getting paid off for my big hands, thanks to the weak competition.) I have to think a lot about bet sizes, and I'm sure I have made a lot of mistakes. I will write more about some specific hands, so I can hopefully learn from my mistakes and make improvements.
I have also played in 7 NL hold 'em tournaments in the past 6 weeks, trying to cram in some tournament experience before my WSOP debut. I played in 3 $125 nightly events for the big touring tournaments that were in town in April. The first was the Heartland Poker Tour at River City. The $125 nightly was the first tournament I'd played in a very long time (home or casino). I barely knew what to even take note of, so I don't really remember a lot of details. I actually felt like I played OK, but I busted after about 2.5 hours. I think there were about 100 people in it, but I'm not sure. After that, I played in 2 Saturday night tournaments at the Hollywood Poker Open. These nightlys were still relatively small events with 20-minute levels, but they had around 100 players and the blinds started much lower than the cheaper nightly casino tournaments. In the HPO tournaments I busted in 21st and 26th place (not in the money). I felt pretty good about how I played and about the experience overall.
The 4 tournaments I've played at Hollywood have probably been a waste of time. I played in 2 $60 nightlys, that were real stupid. The $75 bounty I covered in my last post. The other $75 tournament was the best of the 4. It was a new structure for a Saturday-night tournament sponsored by the Deepstacks Poker League. Apparently they used the structure usually reserved for their more expensive tournaments - more chips, lower starting blinds, antes in play after a few levels. I definitely want to write more about that one, because it was weird and frustrating. I didn't do well in any of these, and I'm not sure if I learned anything useful. The only tournaments I will be able to play between now and when I get to Vegas will be this variety. I don't know if it's worth my time and money to play in more, or if I should just stick to playing NL cash games for now.
Meanwhile I am reading "Harrington on Modern Tournament Poker" by Dan Harrington (thanks, Danno!), and devouring as many online videos and articles as I can. I have also read Jared Tendler's "Mental Game of Poker" books and will be trying to work through both of them. What else should I be doing/reading? I just have 5 weeks!
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