LOL Donkaments

I believe I've mentioned that I'm pursuing a personal "Steps" effort relating to the LAPC Main Event. I'd cruised through Steps 1 and 2 of 4 and yesterday was poised to demolish Step 3. Then in the span of about fifteen hands I was reminded why I don't play many tournaments. There is such a high-degree of short-term luck needed (or, really, avoidance of bad luck) that the best way to successfully counter it is to put in extreme volume. A decent tournament player cashes in tournaments only 15% of the time with an ROI around 35%. In order to smooth out that variance and volatility the decent player needs to play a high number of tournaments. Some online MTT grinders play dozens of tournaments a day.

I'm unwilling to do that. Most tournaments devolve to pushing pre-flop and then estimating the strength of your own hand versus your opponent's pushing range from his particular position on the table and his stack size. Yesterday, I was correct about a shorty twice near the bubble and it didn't matter. I became the new short stack and was out on a flip a few hands later.

Sure, it's nice to try to punch the lottery ticket once in a while. It's not like I won't be playing some tournaments at the LAPC in a week. But I'd rather spend the majority of my poker-playing time in cash games. Cash games aren't about pushing pre-flop; they're about post-flop play.

If you have a skill edge you want to force your opponents to make as many decisions as possible in a hand. There's only so much skill involved in getting the chips in the pot pre-flop with five cards to come, especially since the underdog almost almost always has 20-45% equity.