Drunk Mike > Sober Mike

Apparently Drunk Mike is a better poker player than Sober Mike.   Sober Mike has been getting his ass kicked playing ring games for the past week or two.  Drunk Mike decided to play a $5 MTT on PokerChamps a few days ago and came in first out of 38.  Drunk Mike returned tonight to play in a 180 SNG on PokerStars and a $10+1 rebuy on PokerRoom.  Drunk Mike came in 14th in the SNG paying out $43.  Drunk Mike also cashed in the $10 rebuy, placing 13th out of 299 for $55.20.    

Apparently Drunk Mike also enjoys blogging in the third person.  

Unfortunately, one of the problems with playing while intoxicated is that I don’t really remember enough details to do a decent play by play recap.  

I can tell you that in the SNG, I was stuck around average stack for most of the tournament, doubling up in key situations when my stack got low.  I was also able to steal the blinds and antes pretty effectively in the later stages.  In the final hand I went all in with wired tens and had two callers.  One had my other two tens and the other guy had AK.  Both an Ace and a King came on the flop, so we were just about drawing dead.

In the rebuy I got QQ twice and AK once in the first five hands, which helped me start off pretty well.  I played real tight after that and let the monkeys knock each other out.  I drifted down below average as we started to approach the bubble, and I couldn’t get any cards I felt I could play.  I didn’t think I’d make it but pocket kings allowed me to double up at just the right time, and then I was able to start using my chips to steal pots more effectively.

One move that worked well in both tournaments was the reraise all-in after an early position min-raise.  Stealing those extra chips really helped, and I’m happy to say that all night was able to avoid making minimum raises from early position, so I didn’t put myself in that situation.  When the blinds start getting real high, you have to be willing make more than a minimum raise if you want to play a hand.  You can’t afford to show weakness and then have to fold when some one comes over the top of you.  Make a decent sized raise or fold.  Stealing the blinds and antes is often better than getting called and having to risk missing the flop.

Now that I think back on it, I’m not too pleased with how I went out in the rebuy tournament.  I was short stacked, and opted to push with A9o from early position.  The blinds were going to cripple me so I felt like if I didn’t push then I might not be able to force anyone out of a hand again.  I got called by 99 and didn’t improve.  Probably should have waited.  

I was able to make the money twice tonight, now I need to work on not just getting to the money, but making it to the final table, where the payouts start rapidly increasing.  Sure doubling my buy in is nice, but there are probably easier ways to do that than playing poker three hours.   On the other hand, I’ve been pretty frustrated with my tournament play recently and being able to outlast a fairly large field definitely feels good.  I really needed something like this to get my tournament confidence back.
On a somewhat related note, 299 players turned out to be perfect.  One more and the top thirty would have been paid, meaning less of a payout for those of us that finished in the 11-20 range.  And the rebuys padding the prize pool didn’t hurt either.