LittleRedElf Arrives at Three Final Tables, and Faldo Two!

Sorry for the two days in a row without an article. Just too busy until Saturday when I wasted that playing poker! I think you can forgive me for the Saturday thing.

Ladies and Gentlemen – volume, volume, volume was the key, with significant shrinkage (twss) - and some timely sets flopping never hurt either.

I have always been a fan (junkie) of the multi-table tournaments (MTT’s) with thousands of entrants. I like to hunker in to the war mentality – battle of the fittest and all of that. And I plan on still playing in those, but they will no longer be my main diet.

My work schedule makes mega-tourneys a little tough to play in. No time at night - besides, I’m exhausted - and to burn the entire weekend playing in the volume of MTT’s required to hit a cash window, would earn me full doghouse status. It’s already cold on the road. I don’t need it to be freezing at home, if you catch my drift.

Ring play - on-line – is a total grind for me, both limit and no limit. People flow in and out and tables break up. I’ll be trying to play on three tables at once, but one table is down from nine to three players in like 30 seconds, one table has one player with a killer-slow connection, and the other table I am getting smoked by players who seem like pros. So during my ring play, I have to spend half my time searching for soft tables that stay together for longer than ten minutes. Like I said, it’s a grind.

As my distain for variance seems to be growing, the spaces between cashes in those mega events, and the ups and downs of internet ring play is draining – mentally – much more than bankroll wise.

Enter the Multi-table Sit-and-Go (MTSNG) tourneys. On PokerStars, not only do they fill up in just a couple minutes, but I can get my tourney fix for the time I have available to play. My tables auto-fill, cashes come more often and I can select my ‘locked in’ variance level.

Armed with this new plan, Faldo entered two MTT’s (I had the time and permission yesterday morning) and two MTSNG’s. I crashed and burned in the MTT’s fairly fast, middles one MTSNG and sort of bubbled in the last one.

That afternoon (finished up work reports and paid the bills); I had time to play before the UFC fights I was sitting in Buffalo Wild Wings to watch. Again, I could adjust the size of the tourney to the amount of time I had. A MTT could last past closing.

I ended up entering six more MTSNG’s prior to the fights starting – getting in one as I busted out of another - but never playing in more than four at one time.

Tourney #6 (180 players) was a 2nd place finish and tourney #10 (180 players) was a 6th place finish! This returned a 9 times return on entry fees spent! I’ll take it.

Two things jumped out at me as to why I cashed. Ok three, I got some cards at the right time. But no one does well in a tourney without that happening. One is that the tables of the MTSNG's hold together longer, enabling you to get a read on players. Big MTT's sometimes you move continuously.

The other is, playing that much volume got me in "the poker zone". I got to that happy place to where - even though I didn't stop myself - mistakes I made I knew were mistakes before I made them. But most the time I did stop myself - and almost all of my reads were spot on.

The UFC fights are now closer to staring so it was time for some one-table SNG action. Entered three of those and doubled my entry fees with a 2nd and 3rd place finish.

I might be on to something here, and wanted to share it with you. But not needing any advice from Faldo is LittleRedElf, who continues to be a force. I think it is the NPP hat he wears.

Yes, we are all getting crushed by the K9isadog juggernaut in the league, but LRE is still carrying the NPP banner to victories.

LRE won the same 30 player 7-card Stud tourney twice in six days! He also finished 4th in a Limit Holdem tourney out of 365 players!

NPP – home of the champions. Pure and simple.