Lowball lesson

Last night's session cemented my belief that 8-game sit and go tournaments provide the best value for play money in the poker universe. For the price of a single buy-in, I was able to play 8 flavors of poker for over an hour, a total of 122 hands. Not only are 8-game tournaments highly entertaining, they don't feel as constricting as other types of tournaments.

I ended up coming in third, just out of the money. I was pleased with my play, with the exception of a single hand. I learned a lowball lesson the hard way :-) It was an Omaha Hi/Lo Limit hand, and I mistakenly thought I had a lock on the low. I was dealt 4s 4c Kh 2d, and the flop came Jh 3h As. Seeing that I had four cards to the nut low, I turned my poker logic off. I believed I couldn't lose, and stopped thinking. The killer card was the turn - the deuce of hearts. What I didn't take into account was that with three cards to the nut low on the board, my "nut low" could very well have been busted. When an opponent led out on the turn, I should have exited stage left. Instead, I called him down, and ended up losing $2,338 on the hand. Sure enough, he had the nut low. I'll try not to make that mistake again.

Since I'm going to be playing 8-games exclusively, I've decided to keep track of that tournament balance separately.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6       122     3        0

delta: $-50,000
8-game tournament balance: $344,500
balance: $9,792,270