I finally figured out what I have been missing from my tournament game....I need to start getting luckier! This is not a bad beat story or even a bad beat story disguised as a regular story. This is just a story about how much luck is involved in tournaments. I played in the $1,000 NL WSOP Event #4 and busted sometime in the 5th or 6th hour. I didn't make any mistakes or do anything that I wish I would have done differently and I still didn't win or even cash, but that is the nature of tournaments. It is possible there were a few spots that a really great tournament player might have squeezed out a few extra chips here and there, but I played to the best of my ability.
Twice at my table people had pocket aces while their opponent held pocket kings. Both times the aces held up. Its not like either player did anything wrong or even anything well in either one of those hands. When two people happen to get dealt those two hands all of the money is going to go in the middle (barring some extreme/weird situations) and either one of them is going to go broke or someone is going to double up. When you get dealt AA or KK you are prepared to hopefully win a big pot, but you at least want the chance to play a big pot with those hands.
I got dealt Kings once and Aces once. Both times I happened to be in the cutoff and it was folded to me. Both times I made my normal raise and both times everyone folded behind me and I won the blinds. Its not like I played my hands any differently than the people that doubled up with aces at my table would have played them. I just wasn't lucky enough to get involved in the same situations that they were.
There are other times in tournaments where action is forced in ways that it wouldn't be in a cash game. For example: I raised on the cutoff with 33 and the short stacked Pokerstars pro Dario Minieri raised all-in just like I suspected he would be doing in the near future. I already knew he would be doing this with a very wide range of hands and that eventually I was going to end up in some type of race situation with him. This time he had K9o and he caught a 9 on the river in about a 4k pot (when the blinds were 75/150). Then about 45 minutes later I raised with AKo and Dario re-raised me...we ended up getting all in preflop again and he help QQ this time and he won again and this time it was for an 8k pot and I was eliminated. There was nothing I could have or would have done different in either spot and I don't think many other people would have either.
That is just the way it goes in tournaments. In the next tournament I play in hopefully I will have some better luck and these unavoidable situations will end up going my way, because when they don't there is little you can do to help your chances to succeed.
My next tourney may be tomorrow in the $1500 NL and if not then it will be the following day in the $2500 Half Pot Limit Hold'em and Half Pot Limit Omaha.
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