Thank You Dan Harrington!

Results: 1.5 hours played; up $12

Tonight, I played my first sit and go tournament since reading Dan Harrington's books, and I have to say my play is drastically better.

It was a cheapie $3 single table, but I felt like I owned the game. Early on, I noticed that the other players liked to limp in or post a min raise. Only me and one other player were entering with healthy 3x BB raises, and for the most part, the limpers would all fold. When someone would make a mistake and call, they usually folded to a continuation bet on the flop. By the time that half the table was gone, I was chip leader by a comfortable margin and never really had a monster hand.

Once the blinds got up to $200/$400, I started playing a little more aggressively. This got me in trouble three different times when I put the short stack all-in with a low pair and lost. Luckily, my blind stealing and aggressive betting won it back in short order.

It really started getting interesting when there were only two of us left. I was still leading in chips, and he raised big; I had AKs, so I put him all in. His QT held up when a Q hit on the flop. At that point, he had 5x my stack, and I thought I was finished. His passiveness payed off though, because I kept pushing him off pots with aggressive betting. Every time I'd climb back into the lead, he'd win a big pot and take the lead again. Eventually by betting got the best of him and he called a bet that put him all-in when he thought I was bluffing; my pocket J's held to win.

I know it's early to think that I'm the next Daniel Negreanu, but my play style, especially short-handed and heads up, is markedly better. I'll try a few more from time to time, but I really want to get back to the home game I've been playing!

If you play no limit tournaments and haven't read Dan Harrington, you're not winning as much as you could.

posted by Kent @ 7:49 PM