Reflection after FTP Espana Grand Finale

I have a bunch of notes on NAPT and EPT Barcelona, but that post will be pretty extensive and I had something in need of regurgitation after last night`s FTP Espana Grand Finale bust.

A circle of skilled players of various backgrounds had begun an e-mail thread discussing the advantages/disadvantages of min-raising from sb in bvb battles. The conversation evolved quite thoroughly and would qualify as premium content for any respectable poker column. I won't go into any detail on the arguments presented, but I will leave you with a reflective response on my end:

M: "You keep your opponent in more of a controlled environment, that can make him/her easy to read. Things just get way too complicated when you add that extra dynamic of how
they will react to that min-raise. It just seems to me that people will play more predictably when you 3x it in that spot."

When I read this initially I was in the middle of the tournament owning souls and was still pretty much on Derek's side. By the end of the day half the table formed a pact to take turns retaliating by doing some ridiculous stuff. I realize this thread began as a discussion of bvb battle and I've always discounted the advantages of making easier decisions, but I have to admit there is definitely some merit to staying under the radar (which includes not raising too small to instigate). I guess I had an epiphany of sorts after my bust last night. I can win 90% of pots I play vs. awful players, but as even the most unobservant players realize this, they will either play better, be more spewy, or at least take thinner edges to counter this - this phenomenon may even multiply exponentially if you are of the opposite gender. In tournaments where you have only one bullet, no matter how great the structure is there is an advantage to having players play predictably against you, or lead them to assume you're playing predictably against them.


I realize my statement probably makes most of you guys think, "well duhhhh", and although I call it an epiphany it's really more like a deja vu after bouts of amnesia. Perhaps D, this is why K and M have way better tournament results than you and I! We`re doing the meta all wrong and it`s much better to approach your table as a wolf in sheep`s clothing unless the competition is actually tough [we prefer to play as many hands with bad players as often as possible w/o being shy about this.] I`m definitely not contributing anything original again, but I thought I'd like to share my progress with you all anyway...

Loose Cannon!

aight so this is my Pokerstars Big Game submission. I only had to play in a bunch of freerolls to get his far, but after checking out the competition, I'm feeling pretty good about my vid, and yet anxious at the same time because it would suck if we worked this much harder than most of the rest of the pack and still didn't get picked :/

Long story short, I thought we'd only have 3 days to do this vid, so first night I met up with Louis, we discussed what I wanted and he basically told me my script was garbage lol. Next morning we began getting props and shooting, I even had to buy a peachy dress right before I got there because I don't really have girly colours in my wardrobe, but I knew it'd look nice against the wallpaper he bought. Right after we started, he totally regret agreeing to help me after he realized what a wreck I was in front of the camera lol! I was also super tired and had no idea what to expect, have always hated public speaking, and was torn between wanting to make a generally appealing cliche video and listing my credentials/talking technical babble. Anyhow, after about 10 hours of frantic improv in between technical difficulties, we called it a day. Louis called me later that night after he found the perfect song off one of the royalty-free music sites Pokerstars recommended, and after playing it for me over the phone against my voice, I began to have hope that my video would not suck. I quickly rushed to e-mail Stars pointing out that they had sent me the instructions very late, and asked for an extension, which they ok'd about half an hour later (are you paying attention, FTP support? :D)

So we were able to get together briefly another night to film and adjust a few other random scenes. There was actually a section that was totally perfectly shot from the original day that we couldn't use because there was this incessant buzzing from the equipment, which was really disappointing because it was a scene where I actually didn't feel like cringing when watching myself. After watching a rough edit of the final I became even more stoked! This guy is so awesome and I can't thank him enough for all his talent and hard work while he was in between other gigs and a day job! If it weren't for him I would've attempted to go buy (and later return) some cameras from Best Buy and shoot some monotone snore myself and goodness knows what would've happened.

So yeah, I left out a lot of "real" credential stuff I could've listed and decided not to talk about real strategy and what not, but overall I think it should fit nicely with what they're looking for. Let me know what you guys think!