A Poker Lesson from Pablo

I am a lot like Steve Dannenmann. Not because I finished in second place in the 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event and won $4.2 million, but because I often feel like I am only the third or fourth best player in my home game -- which Steve Dannenmann has been quoted as saying about himself more than once.

Speaking of home games, my wife and I had a chance to play with our regular group of friends a couple of weeks ago at our house, and my buddy Pablo was down in Atlanta from Washington, DC to visit. We played a hold 'em micro buy-in tournament w/rebuys and I was heads up with Pablo at around midnight for all the marbles. I do not often find myself in this position at my home game. For whatever reason, I seem to do quite well in tournaments with strangers, but rarely as well in my home game. I tend to think it is due my loose play, combined with my consumption of an adult beverage or two throughout the evening, finally compounded with the superior skills of my opponents.

Throughout the 20 minutes or so of heads up play, I learned a good poker lesson from Pablo. You may remember from a previous post that, for various reasons, I have sworn off chopping pots. For now, this is primarily due to my need to take advantage of every opportunity I can find to develop my heads-up skills.

The lesson Pablo helped me learn was how fatigue plays a part in late tournament play. Is my opponent excited about winning the whole thing, or will he be just as happy to to go home with more money than he came with and get to sleep as soon as possible? Before heads-up play, when the game was three-handed (I was up against Pablo and my wife), I did something sneaky. I asked them both what their thoughts were on chopping the pot. They both were up for it. (I was a distant second in chips behind Pablo, with a slight edge over Katie). After asking this question, and hearing their reply, I said I was not quite ready yet. They both read this blog, so they knew as well as I did that I would never be ready!

After my wife was eliminated, Pablo offered several times to chop the pot. Given the late hour, I knew Pablo was getting tired of playing and wanted to go home -- which is the essence of the lesson I learned: Tired tournament players are often impatient, and will either gamble with coin flips, or call large bets with marginal holdings. I declined each request Pablo made to split the winnings, and inched my way back into the game with what I thought was solid post-flop decisions.

A long story short, I won the tournament and 100% of the money (although it involved a fairly significant bad beat for Pablo) and I was happy with how I played. For the World Series, I plan to use this lesson to my advantage, getting plenty of rest the week before, avoiding alcohol, eating right, and exercising regularly. I think this will help to keep me alert and energized for the tournament.