Staying Power

Congratulations to the two winners from last night’s WSOP satellite, Lucko21 and myradiohead.  I logged onto Stars this morning to check the results.  What caught my eye was the finish time, 4:10AM EST.  That’s an assload of poker right there.

Part of me wishes I had played, but the other part of me realizes that if I went deep in that tournament, my Tuesday would be shot to hell.  I was at the G-Vegas Big Game™ donking off buy-in after buy-in.  When I was into the game for about $600, I thought I might have been better off just taking the night off from poker.

But that’s heresy.

We were 6-handed most of the night, yet that didn’t stop the pots from being huge.  Thankfully I won half of the only $1000+ pot of the night with the second nut full house in NLO8.  I had to call an all-in for about $300, and let me tell you, second nuts doesn’t seem so great when you’re facing that move from a check-raiser.

One scooped pot later and I’m back to positive for the evening.  The swings are crazy at that game, and that’s part of the reason it’s looking for more players.  I was just happy to turn things around from a big losing session to a minor positive one.

****

That’s really the name of the game, being able to play your best under adverse conditions.  Whether you’re losing to suck outs or losing because you’re simply playing poorly, you have to be able to maintain focus.

A player-to-remain-nameless has some trouble doing that.  There have been times when after losing a sizeable amount of cash, he’s had the wherewithal to just get up and leave.  He knows that he can’t turn things around for whatever reason, and understands that the best decision right then and there is to stop playing.

I almost left last night.  But I’m too stubborn and perhaps a bit too proud to get up from a game while it’s still going on.  I wasn’t really even on any form of tilt, but I did realize I was playing rather poorly.

And just like I’m sure last night’s tournament winners had to do, I buckled down and re-focused on the game at hand.  Home games in G-Vegas usually last between 4 and 5 hours.  Some players lose focus and their game deteriorates over the course of that time.  I like to think my game holds steady.  If I can keep my play level up while others tend to weaken as the night wears on, then my edge increases the longer we go.

And that’s why I stay and play.