The Hard Rock, my regular room, hosts an interesting kind of tournament: a six-man turbo-tournament with 15-minute blinds. They have a running sign-up list and, as soon as the last tournament ends and there are six people waiting, they start the next one.
I have played in three of them recently and enjoyed some pretty significant success: I took second in the first one and first place in the second two.
In the first one, I played conservatively, biding my time until I had solid hands. This wasn’t very successful, since there was a maniac at our table who kept making huge bets and stealing pots. I eventually wound up in the (very) short stack and, thanks mostly to luck, won an all-in pot to knock out the guy ahead of me in second. That meant I would definitely cash. We played two more hands before the leader said he was tired and we chopped the payout evenly.
The second time I played one, I just kept making hands. It is important that I remember that night since there seem to be so many nights when I can’t catch a single hand… I need to remember that night, when Ikept catching second-pairs and flushes on the river. I couldn’t lose. I busted each of the other five players by myself and won the whole thing in about 35 minutes.
I returned last night and played another. This time, I decided to use Daniel Negreanu’s Small Ball Strategy, which involves making the same 2.5x pre-flop raise every hand, no matter what your cards are. It seems crazy, but this technique allowed me to take control of the table early. I scooped the blinds on about 50% of the hands (at least) and, in many of the others, I hit something on the flop and made a continuation bet to take the pot.
I got out to an early lead and never really looked back. I didn’t even really slow down until we were heads-up and the I had the other guy out-chipped 3-1. We circled each other for a while but I eventually limped from the button/SB and, when he raised all-in, I called with A2c. He had KJo and neither of us paired so I took it. I had eliminated all of my opponents for the second tournament in a row.
It’s nice to win. 
Filed under: Poker
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