Grinding out MTT's

The last two or three days for me have been pretty brutal as far as playing tournaments go. Yesterday I went 0 for 10 and ended up losing about $317 bucks, the day before that I went 2 for 8, only winning two $150 satellites... def not the kind of money I want to be losing on a daily basis, but on the positive side, I played fairly well and made the best decisions every hand. If I can keep that up, Winning will be inevitable, luck will take its course but good play will always prevail in the long run.

I was feeling pretty down yesterday and went to wine and complain too one of my buddies, to talk about how bad as I was running and how I deserve to win more. After I bitched a little bit... Well he metophorically bitch slapped me and got me to realize how bad I was playing and how my negative thinking wasn't going to do anything to better my game.

I could not be more thankful for all the help this guy has given me, I owe alot of my success (and future success) to this guy. I'm not going to be very surprised when he starts tearing up the mtt scene.

It turns out my big score from the other weekend, has conditioned my mind to believe that that is how poker is supposed to be on a weekly basis. Going deep in every MTT you play in, Winning all of your coinflips and 60/40's, catching good hands and running like god for a good duration of mtt's that typically last 5-6 hours. I could not have been more wrong... Poker is nothing like that at all.

In fact its the complete opposite of all the glory I just described above. What playing mtt's is about though, is "grinding". Playing patient, being aggressive, making the toughest lay downs, picking off the hardest bluffs, timing, picking your spots well, and most of all... being lucky. I believe all of these factors have to be accounted for those times that you do/will get deep in any mtt.

My new strategy for mtt's is going to be to play really patient in the beginning and mid stages of the mtt, I'm not going to try and build up a huge stack early... I just recently realized how bad of a strategy that was, whoops. If you catch hands early and build up a stack, then good for you, life will be much easier in the middle and maybe even the late stages if you can keep up the good play and not get unlucky (assuming your playing good poker). But the real MTT doesnt start until the late 2nd hours to the 3rd hour of online MTT's, when the blinds and antees are big enough to really start building a stack. Now it is really time to go to work, this is where all the fun begins :D . Now you can really open up your game and start the blind stealing and playing poker, this is the part that seperates the men from the boy's, the winning mtt players from the losers.

Now all you have to do is get out there and do your thing, play well and let luck take its own path... and I guarantee you will be on your way to your own... the path of winning.