My 35 Cents Worth...

Through a successive number of bad decisions I am now down to 35 cents. You would expect it to be bad decisions that would do that to a stack. Of course, I started with zero. So, technically, I am still 'up'. Make that 35 cents and a chance. I'm in a ten seat tournament, with six left. I've got the second largest stack. I'm working on patience.

Don't get me wrong, although there have been a couple of minor ones, the major mistakes of the day haven't been on the poker table. The major mistakes have been made while deciding which tables to sit down at in the first place.

Five at the table, now.

I've bought into three 'C-n-C' $1 multis. I wrote about the first one. The other two were less than satisfying. I am not good with multis; I know that. I need practice, true, but now is not the time to be spending a third of my bankroll on a learning experience. I need to keep up the freeroll multis if I want to practice. No more paid multis. I need a guideline on the multi buy-in. For now I'm going to arbitrarily set it at half the amount I would willingly buy into a single table for. I have a feeling that may change downward unless I get better at coming in the money in multis. For now, it's a moot point. With 35 cents I can only afford the freerolls.

Still five, I'm chipleader.

I've been doing o.k. on the limit ring games. I've arbitrarily set my buy-in level at 25 times the blind, and it seems to be working out. I'm comfortable with a third of my bankroll on a limit table at one time, simply because I'm trying to build. This will cause problems later on.

Four now, still chipleader.

My next major mistake was turning from limit ring games to the no-limit tables. Twice I sat down with 50 cents on the no-limit game and walked away with nothing. Limit provides the opportunity to limit loss. An error that cost ten times the big blind in a limit game is survivable. The same error in a no-limit game ends the game. When you are trying to build your stake, and are putting a third on the line, the last thing you need is to lose it all in one go.

Three now, dropped back to second.

The other mistake I did was to sit down at a limit ring game with only a couple of other people at the table. Limit can be brutal if you are short stacked and you're paying the blinds every other hand. From now on, I only play the full tables.

Two now. I am significantly short stacked.

It's funny how I can speak with such logical sense, just to flip like John Kerry on Waffle Wednesday at the IHoP the next time I pull 9 4 offsuit. Everybody does it. It's what keeps people in on the long draw, just to see if they can pull the straight flush. It's an addiction, only all over, because when you finally hit it you want it even more. We're always looking over the next hump, when what we really need to learn is quit while we're ahead. The biggest mistake in poker isn't overbetting Big Slick, or sandbagging the set just to let that bastard pull the flush . The biggest mistake in poker is optimism. Stick with what you know. Play what you can win. Leave the chance for the other guy. Grind it out.

The short stack doesn't last long, and I'm out. Took second. That puts me at $1.10 overall.

That's just enough for a buy in at the Chip and a Chair.