marchand chronicles

My Long Disappearance Explained

Or: I Am A Huge Sellout

It's a hard way to make an easy living.

I've spent the last couple weeks attempting to rack up enough points through Full Tilt Poker's bonus program to get a seat into the World Series Of Poker main event. It'd also be nice to make some money on the side.

Unfortunately, it's slower going than I thought.

I started out very well; in fact, my first-ever hand at a real-money table was Aª/A©. Several hands later I woke up with K¨/Kª. Both times I made a nice haul.

Sadly, you can't get those kinds of hands all the time, and I'm currently down about 25% of my investment.

I've learned, the hard way, that no-limit hold'em tournaments and limit hold'em ring games are two different beasts, even though they're ostensibly the same game. In no-limit, you try to beat people to death with sledgehammers (metaphorically speaking), but in limit, you have to inflict a thousand paper cuts. In a tournament, you can lose significant chunks of stack without really affecting your overall cashflow (unless you bust out), but in a ring game, each loss (or win) represents real money.

I could play my usual hyperagressive, sledgehammer-swinging style with pocket aces or kings because, well, they're pocket aces or kings, and you're supposed to jam the pot with them. But what if I have middle pair with a gutshot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw? In no-limit, I fold almost all the time if I face a sizable bet: the odds just aren't there. But in limit, in certain circumstances, you can ride some hands out to see if the draws hit.

Since bets are rigidly defined in limit (I've been playing at $1/$2 tables, where bets are $1 pre-flop and on third street, $2 on the turn and river), I've been taking beats by longshot draws that I never see in no-limit. Only idiots play 9§/3§ and attempt to hit a flush in no-limit. But in limit, while it's still not the brightest play in the world, it can work, because the bets are smaller. In fact, I lost to that very hand while holding A¨/Kª. I was very, very angry: Why did you stay in with that awful hand? Why can't you play smart and fold crappy hands, like me?

But then again: he won and I lost. Perhaps I'm the one who needs to adapt. Thanks to some tips from Beck, I realize that I'm going to have to do just that: adjusting my style to fit the game will work a lot better than bitching because the game doesn't fit my style. In the meantime, I'm going to have to take those beats in stride, because the parameters of the game just make them more possible.

If not, I can still crush my weekly no-limit tournament. Wednesday night I cashed out for $70.



Oh: I'm not sure if it's really noticeable (hmm), but I've joined the Full Tilt Poker Affiliate Program. FTP has, without a doubt, the most generous deposit bonus program and, in addition to all the ways you can get into the WSOP, tournaments to let you play along with their pros, and it is an impressive roster: Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, and Phil Gordon, among others. Just use the Bonus Code MARCHRON when you sign up.

If you sign up with me, then hell freezes over and I make the WSOP, I promise I'll send you an exclusive souvenir, free. No shipping. Otherwise . . . well, I'll think of something.

And I promise I'll start blogging again soon, probably because I'm going to go broke in the near future and will have to come back to blogging to occupy my time.

posted by Marsh @ 5:00 PM