Fuck you, Mr Goodbar (AKA 'The Bubble')

The WSOP is three or so months away, which means the demoralizing season of satellite play has begun. I’ve won maybe 2000US in seats over the past 6 weeks, and I don’t have a fucking shekel to show for it. I’ve won about four or five double shoot outs on Poker Stars and a couple of re-buys deals on Full Tilt. With the seats I’ve won, I’ve gone on to go deep in at least three of the bigger satellites (the 650 on ‘stars and two of the 215 ‘Winner’s Choice’ on Full Tilt). It seems to me two things happen when I get deep (by ‘deep’ I mean around a table away from the prize bubble): 1) I go card dead and 2) I get outplayed.

The first point is not to rail against the poker gods or to initiate a great lament over my dream-crushing bad luck. The cards just haven’t broken my way. I believe that if the cards had run my way on any of the three occasions, that I probably would have a WSOP seat by now. But they haven’t and I haven’t. This is the standard. To win a satellite, where the ‘prize’ is often only won by 5 per cent of the field (and usually less) there really has to be a point later in the tournament where you hit some cards. Not being one of that small percentage hitting the right cards at the right time isn’t a great tragedy, it’s just the way it is.

However, not being ‘lucky’ isn’t a good enough reason. I’m probably not good enough either. I would rather be lucky than good, as being good is what matters in the long run; however, the problem is that I’m not really either.

I’m an aggressive player and I can switch between being loose and tight pretty easily. I can check-raise-bluff, I can play position, and can call down opponents with marginal hands if I think they’re on a steal. I feel confident in most tournaments in most situations, I adapt well to short-handed play and I love playing heads-up. But I tell you what: I’ve felt out of my depth when I’ve gotten deep a couple of the big buy-in satellites.

I’ve sat there with those reputed to be the best – Johnny Bax and SamEnole and others of that ilk, and watched them raise and re-raise every other hand. And so I try to play my game: I don’t clam up and wait for Aces. I try to steal with rags, get re-raised, and have to lay it down. Or I get called, make a continuation bet on a flop that I’ve missed entirely, and get checked-raised all-in, and have to lay it down. I get deep, really deep in these damn WSOP satellites, and my game and my confidence seems to hit a brick wall.

So, in the absence of a miracle run of cards, I’ve really thought about how I can improve my game. I do this regardless, but this is about good players. Problems like this don’t come up in low buy-in satellites - as a general rule, the intelligent uber-aggression I’ve seen in these situations doesn’t really happen in lower buy-in events (why should it? - I’m talking about the plays the professionals make). Therefore I haven’t had much of an opportunity to think about countering it. But I’m working on it.

The re-steal, for one, is a move that I’m increasingly convinced a tournament player needs to be successful. It’s something that I’ve recently begun working on getting right. Particularly if you find yourself card-dead later in a tournament when the blinds and antes are usurious, the re-steal – done right - adds valuable chips with limited risk. I won’t go into the theory of re-stealing – there are a number of online forums that have gone into the detail far better and more comprehensively than I ever good. Rather, I want to emphasise the biggest obstacle thus far for me in using this weapon well:

It’s bloody hard.

It goes against my every poker instinct to put all my money in the middle with nothing (the essence of re-stealing). The theory is, of course, that you pick the right moment against the right opponent and the cards don’t matter. But holy shit when I look at a raise of my big blind and then down and a nine and a deuce, pushing all my chips in is the last thing on my mind. But, again, the nine and the deuce don’t matter, what matters is timing. If your timing and read is right, the hand will never have to be shown down.

So, it’s about having the stones and the self-confidence to make the move. I’ve done it a few times here and there and, incredibly, it has worked. But I need to get to the point were it is part of my game; where I am good enough to do it without hesitation. We shall see.