An Unremarkable Tournament Win

This past Saturday, I won a $4.40 180 man sng on PokerStars. These tournaments run around the clock and a new one starts every time the previous one fills. They are a great training ground for learning tournament poker from a strategy standpoint and from a time commitment standpoint (they generally finish in 4 hours). I would recommend these to anyone looking to learn tournaments or sharpen there tournament skills as you can multitable them and get to a meaningful sample size sooner.

The tournament that I won was completely unremarkable, I didn't make any miraculous plays, I didn't flop top set vs 2nd set to win a big pot. Most of the poker I played was solid, not too tricky and pretty much standard. I did however pay very careful attention to my final table mates and was able to avoid some tough situations and capitalize on others inability to adjust their formulaic ways. Paying careful attention at the final table is far more important than paying additional attention at earlier tables because of the significant differences in payouts at the final table.

I am giving myself a gold star for each of these observations, but realistically, this is something that should always be done.

GOLDSTAR #1 - There was an opponent at my table who seemed pretty solid, played his hands well, and was generally fairly tight. I wasn't particularly watching him to start as he wasn't opening too many pots when we were 8 and 9 handed.........as the play got shorter handed, and I was short stacked so I was observing more than playing flops........I noticed that he began making proper strategy adjustments and opened many more pots............I did notice, however that 2 times, he open limped (when he had otherwise opened with a raise) and in every one of these situations, he overbet the flop. ALARMS were blarring in my head, THIS GUY OPEN LIMPS HIS BIG HANDS,...............fast forward to later in the tournament, we are now 4 handed and pretty evenly stacked (I think i have a slight chip lead), the enemy open limps on my big blind.............I have 88, now normally, against your usual weak tight final table opponent, i would raise this 4 to 5X and pick up the pot...........but I remembered my opponents obvious betting tell and realized that if I raised, he would probably reraise and I would be forced to fold, or if the reraise was small I would have a substantial portion of my stack in the pot in a very tough situation...............so i checked................as if the poker gods were looking down, I got a glorious flop 9,8,2, giving me a set of 8's...........(we are all sitting behind 30 to 40 bb's), I checked, he overbet the pot, I jammed and he called, felting (interwebally) AA, as expected............the board blanked and he berated me for sucking out on him :)

GOLDSTAR #2 - I had a very very tight player to my immediate right when we got 3 handed, which meant, I was on the button when he was on the bb.............when this situation occurs, I find any reason to open the pot with a raise on his bb.............having the biggest stack, the other player stayed out of my way, so I raised liberally, probably over 90% of the time (I am talking the ugliest of hands, like J2, Q4, 10,5 etc).........if he played back, I folded, if he opened a pot on me, I folded...............EZPZ

GOLDSTAR #3 - After the uber-tight player was eliminated, I was left with a loose aggressive opponent as my heads up mate.................I played for a little while with him and realized that he would repop my raise almost 50% of the time and then follow with a continuation bet........one time I even saw him jam the flop when I called his continuation bet..............I wasn't sure if he had anything, but I felt this would be my way to win................I pick up J10s on the button and raise, he obligatorily 3 bets.............and I turn to my wife (who was watching) and tell her.............I have a strong heads up hand with a lot of drawing power.........I am going to flat call and if I hit anything I will win the tournament.................the flop comes Q, 10, 2..............my opponent lobs out a pot sized bet............at this point, I like the flop, but want to reevaluate on the turn, I also want to see how my opponent acts towards me calling...........I call.............turn is a Q, the best card in the deck for me................this means that it is highly improbable that he has a Q, meaning only AA, KK and JJ, a 10 with a better kicker or very rarely 222 has me beat...........I check, my opponent jams the river, and I instacall..........he felts K3s, no pair, no draw and the river blanks.

Playing unremarkably is a good thing most of the time, making the most obvious play is generally best in low limit tournament poker. Also, overlooked is the attention to detail that is necessary when playing a final table, observing opponents and making tough decisions for most of the money is key in tourney poker.

Remember these keys the next donkament you get deep in................