About the Author
Curtis Mayfield III is a freelance poker writer with several years of online and live experience. He is also the son of R&B superstar Curtis Mayfield. As a player Curtis excels in all forms of poker and prefers No Limit Deep Stacks tournaments. Curtis is author of the Do or Die Poker blog He resides in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and 2 daughters. Favorite Quote: “In order to live, you must be willing to die!” –Amir Vahedi |
Curtis Mayfield III's Poker BlogLarge Multi-Table Tournaments are toughI am quite sure we can all tell stories about how we went deep in a poker tournament. But how about going deep in a large multi-table poker tournament? Now that is not only tough to do but also requires a lot of luck to get there. This past weekend I decided to try my luck in several of the larger online poker tournaments. By larger I mean 1500 entries or more. It just so happens that the tournament I played was a no limit tourney with 3997 players. Yes, that is a whole lot of poker players and the odds are certainly against you but I went on to take down a few bucks and finished 225 after 4 hours of play. Strangely enough I tend to do quite well playing in large fields. I really believe the reason for that is a little more than just playing well. The reason is that I pick the right spots to get my money in when it matters most. I manage risk / reward better than most of the field in larger tournaments. A lot of players will take flush draws early for their entire stack or make big bluffs while I tend to lay back and wait for premium hands early. Once I double up I continue to play steady poker and accumulate chips. However, when I see an opportunity to double up against another big stack when the tournament is an hour and a half in or so. By doing so and winning those big flush draws I am then able to launch myself well above double the average stack and make a run. WSOP Circuit event coming soonThe WSOP circuit is coming to my neighborhood in a few more days. I have been looking forward to this event since playing in it last year. The fanfare associated is not exaggerated by any stretch. The structure is fantastic and the field is tough as usual. Last year I played well with absolutely no cards and lasted deep into day one on nothing but a bunch of timely bluffs. This time around I am looking forward to a bunch of playable hands at the least and making it into the money. The way I see it the field will be a bit smaller this year due to the economy. I do realize that every player that enters the tournament will have the exact same mindset as I do. However, I have always thrived playing in space so with 45 minute levels and 10k in starting chips I feel like I have more than a good chance of making a run at this tournament. Poker players join the Amazing Race TV showPoker players Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho have joined the TV show "The Amazing Race." You probably remember Tiffany Michelle from her appearances as a hostess for various online poker news sites. She also went deep into the WSOP Main Event a couple of years ago for a nice cash. The same goes for Maria Ho. She too went deep in that same WSOP event with Michelle. Apparently these two decided to forgo this years WSOP and participate on the reality show. So how does this play out for the poker world? I'm not sure. John Robert-Bellande did the survivor show and had a decent showing but nothing that would catapult him into stardom. Annie Duke did "Celebrity Apprentice" and got down to the final two. However, Duke didn't do much to quash her reputation for being overly chatty and bossy despite playing the game well. Poker Players more Polished on TVI thought I would take a moment to praise the poker world and how it has responded to being a high profile sport. Initially some of the players conduct was not real good for TV. It took us a long time before players finally realized that bad behavior really does not play well with advertisers. Seriously, Phil Hellmuth does his act every tournament. It's amusing more than offensive. Besides, we all know Hellmuth is truly not a bad guy. The same goes for Mike Matusow. Especially if you have read his new book. Mikey is a teddy bear for goodness sakes. So who do you have left that is truly a bad guy? Improving your Live poker gameImproving your live game will always be a part of playing poker. Why? Because every one of us should be working toward improving our game one way or the other. Poker is just like any other sport in that it has trends that come in and out of season. If you are not working on improving your game and recognizing those trends then you can consider yourself behind the curve. One of the ways I work on my game when I am at the casino doesn't even require my sitting at the tables. Usually I arrive early to the casino even if I am playing in a cash game. The reason for this is that I prefer to rail the game I will be sitting in for 30 minutes or so. In my local casino there are two games spread that I play in. Nothing large but juicy games nonetheless. Even though it is a local room and most of us are familiar with each other it still has a number of new players that frequent the tables. What better way to get familiar with their games than by watching them play for a while? This way the blinds aren't eating up your stack and you get to analyze their play before you sit down. Decrease the field and Increase your ProfitDid you know that by decreasing the number of entries in your tournament you increase you opportunities to cash? You know now. Usually this mistake is made by poker players that are new to the game. The excitement of getting out there and playing a tournament can be overwhelming for some. Unfortunately, you can also forget about the details if you allow your excitement to stop you from thinking clearly. It is true that many poker tournaments today have much larger fields than they used to due to the growth in popularity of the game. Tournaments that used to field 100 to 300 players now have 500 to 1000+ players. This is even more evident in the World Series of Poker where the numbers steadily increased up until this year for the No Limit Main Event. One thing that I believe is key to tournament selection is the size of the field. None of us can predict the exact number of entrants in any tournament until it is announced. However, we can approximate based on similar events in the same venue and therefor arrive at the correct conclusion when entering the tournament. Too good to be true?This weekend I decided to put my money where my mouth is and played 10 heads-up matches online. I won 8 out of the 10 and one of my losses was to a bad beat. So this scenario just begs the question "Am I really that good?" Naturally when anyone poker player goes on a run it feels great. However, reality can be a sobering experience if you fly too far off the ground. In my case I quickly realized that while I am playing well I am also running good too. Indeed a deadly combination when both are in sync. However, even a mediocre play can break even playing heads-up on a good day. So after I thought about my little run this weekend I quickly realized that for the stakes I was playing at I am certainly an excellent player. Does that mean I can wipe out Dan Harrington or Johnny Chan in an 10 game match? Who knows? What I do know is that sometimes when we are playing well our ability can appear to be distorted and give us the impression that we are a better or worse player than we really are. For me I simply looked at my run as just that. I expect to win 70 percent of my heads-up matches. If I fall short then perhaps I need to make some adjustments before attempting to run again. Fine tuning my heads-up gameLately I have been spending a lot of time playing heads-up. I consider myself to be a pretty good heads-up no limit player but never really bothered to play heads-up by choice. I still enjoy the grind of tournaments. The other day I just happened to read an article in a major poker magazine about exploiting your advantage heads-up and I decided to jump in for the heck of it. Lo and behold I took down 3 out of 3 matches. The thing that really surprised me is how easy it was to determine what my opponents approach to playing me was going to be. One was only interested in playing small pots. That was fine by me as I prefer to play small pots heads-up as well and believe that is the best path to victory. The other opponent wanted to play large pots and became a rather easy player to trap. Online Poker Regulation and LegalizationOnline poker continues in its popularity around the globe. Almost every country has players that are involved in poker in one form or another. I think we all understand that this was inevitable even before Chris Moneymaker won the big one in 2003. Even before online poker came to the fore there was still a budding online gambling community ready for a serious growth spurt as early as 2000. Since then all of us have heard the various situations facing online poker players around the globe. Some of these countries have found reasonable ways to tax and regulate online gaming, poker included, into their revenue streams. This allows the players to be happy and be taxed on their earnings while not being prohibited from playing as well as the state to establish a revenue stream. I must admit that I thought other countries would follow suite once they saw how successful their neighbors were in implementing regulation. Now, several years later, with several countries dealing with lost revenue and varying levels of recession they still do not seem to get it. To me it's a no brainer. The poker industry and those that own and operate online poker rooms have been saying for years that they have no problems paying taxes to the proper authorities in the location in which players live. Stop worrying about the Chip LeaderYou would think by now poker players would get it. I know the more experienced ones do so this post is for those that are new to the game. We all had to learn the ropes one way or the other. Some of us were lucky enough to have mentors that taught us and helped polish our skills. Others simply read books and pretty much anything they could get their hands on to get better. Then there are those that just plunked down their money and learned the hard way. Each method works although others are considerably easier on the bankroll. This particular lesson is real straight forward. Time and time again I see poker players, particularly online players, worrying about who has the chip lead in the early stages of the poker tournament. Not only is this a complete waste of time and energy but it also serves as a distraction to your own detriment. Here is the deal. The tournament chip leader does not matter unless it's you. Know that there will be times when you will triple up on the first hand of a poker tournament and vault into the chip lead. Now count the number of times you have had the chip lead and never won the poker tournament.  |
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