Anybody out there share this sentiment? Its a bit of an over-simplification and although I've been doing it for a while, it sorta just came to me in words today, while responding to another strategy thread. A little bit of it has been confirmed by stuff I've read in strategy books, but mostly this "theory" has just risen from personal experience and reflection on that experience.
One of the earliest poker lessons we all got was to play the player, not the cards. That's a great concept overall, but for tournaments I think it's important to take that even a step further - play the tournament, not the player or the cards. There are probably dozens of ways to do this, but the basic point is to pick your own spots. No single hand matters very much, until YOU decide that it matters. The discussion this morning was about when hero raises 3x preflop and villain 3-bets all in for 25bb - people had different responses of how to handle this situation, and those responses changed, as more information trickled in. But my best response to this is, it doesn't matter what the cards are (unless they're aces, which they seldom are) and it doesn't matter who the villain is (unless you have a stone-cold read, which you seldom do.) What matters first is what's going on in the tournament. How's your stack? How's it compare to others'? How soon will the increasing blinds and antes affect that? How's your table - are there 9 tough players there, or are there a few you can exploit?
To me, the answers to those questions are FAR more important than the range I assign to the villain in this hand. Because typically those answers will dictate my action, and hopefully the answer is "I don't need this shit. I don't need to decide whether it's a good idea to risk 25bb on this hand right now - I can get away from it." That villain can have the three bigs that I've already tossed in. I'll wait for better spots, maybe with better cards, maybe against more favorable opponents, maybe in better position. But what I'm not going to do is put MY tournament on the line right now, as a response to the action of somebody else.
I'm not saying strategy threads aren't important - of course they are. Its nice to know the best way to act in any given situation, and it's very much worthwhile to figure out when and how and why you didn't act optimally. But to me, EVERYTHING IN A TOURNAMENT IS SITUATIONAL - and understanding those situations is far more important than understanding the cards or the player.
Thoughts?
One of the earliest poker lessons we all got was to play the player, not the cards. That's a great concept overall, but for tournaments I think it's important to take that even a step further - play the tournament, not the player or the cards. There are probably dozens of ways to do this, but the basic point is to pick your own spots. No single hand matters very much, until YOU decide that it matters. The discussion this morning was about when hero raises 3x preflop and villain 3-bets all in for 25bb - people had different responses of how to handle this situation, and those responses changed, as more information trickled in. But my best response to this is, it doesn't matter what the cards are (unless they're aces, which they seldom are) and it doesn't matter who the villain is (unless you have a stone-cold read, which you seldom do.) What matters first is what's going on in the tournament. How's your stack? How's it compare to others'? How soon will the increasing blinds and antes affect that? How's your table - are there 9 tough players there, or are there a few you can exploit?
To me, the answers to those questions are FAR more important than the range I assign to the villain in this hand. Because typically those answers will dictate my action, and hopefully the answer is "I don't need this shit. I don't need to decide whether it's a good idea to risk 25bb on this hand right now - I can get away from it." That villain can have the three bigs that I've already tossed in. I'll wait for better spots, maybe with better cards, maybe against more favorable opponents, maybe in better position. But what I'm not going to do is put MY tournament on the line right now, as a response to the action of somebody else.
I'm not saying strategy threads aren't important - of course they are. Its nice to know the best way to act in any given situation, and it's very much worthwhile to figure out when and how and why you didn't act optimally. But to me, EVERYTHING IN A TOURNAMENT IS SITUATIONAL - and understanding those situations is far more important than understanding the cards or the player.
Thoughts?
(y) :thumbsup:
