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 he Guardian Poker Column |
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| Victoria
Coren |
| Friday March 17, 2006
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How to play poker
(How to play has been running from issue 16) |
The tournament dream is getting out of hand. Time was when
poker was all about the bread-and-butter cash games: grinding out a living over
hours at the poker table. Patience was key. People waited for hands. As Al
Alvarez likes to say, you needed "a leather ass".
These days, it's
less leather ass than ants in the pants. The speed of the internet, the vast
sums involved in televised poker and the lower average age of players combine
to make a world where everyone wants to win a fortune between lunch and dinner.
No one can wait. Cash games are old hat; it's all about the jackpots of the
tournament trail, where patience takes a back seat to aggression and
luck.
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Last week, I was at the final of the
European Poker Tour in Monte Carlo. First prize was €900,000
(£600,000). Those who were knocked out played "sit-and-gos" - one-table,
10-runner tournaments completed within a couple of hours. On the second day,
they ran $10,000 (£6,000) sit-and-gos. That is, each player put up
$10,000 for a two-hour poker game. On day three, they ran a $20,000 version.
Playing in these games were two world champions: Greg Raymer, who
won $5m at the 2004 World Series, and Joe Hachem, who won $7.5m there in 2005.
For these guys, the stakes were peanuts. For others, it's dangerous to be
dazzled by sums like this. A €1,000 multi-table tournament, which ran on
the fourth day, was referred to by players as "the little comp". Ten years ago,
it would have been the feature event.
If you ask me, it's all gone
crazy. However respectable and glamorous poker becomes in the modern world, the
fact remains that you can still go broke. Many people do. Chasing pots of this
size is particularly expensive. Tournaments are knockout in nature: nine-tenths
of the field will never see their buy-in money back again. Cash games are
slower, safer and involve a lot less gambling.
Nevertheless, a trend is
a trend; and while luck plays a part in tournaments, there are tactics too. For
the next few weeks, I'll be talking particularly about tournament
strategy. |
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