Appointment poker

Last night, I was planning on playing an MTT HORSE; the only problem was, I was caught between tournaments. They run every two hours, and late registration for the currently running tournament had already closed. If I really wanted to play MTT HORSE, I'd need to wait nearly an hour for the next one to start. I'd kind of assumed there'd be a nightly MTT HORSE starting at 9:42pm, since there's a nightly MTT 8-game which starts then. However, these tournaments are staggered; at 42 minutes past the hour, either an MTT 8-game or an MTT HORSE is starting, but not both.

Since late registration was still open for the 9:42 MTT 8-game, I entered that one instead. This turned out to be a big mistake! I only lasted 9 hands. I now believe the best time to enter an MTT is not when it starts, and not 10 minutes or less before the end of the registration period, as was the case last night; the best time to enter is about 25 - 30 minutes after the tournament starts. That way, there'll be some dead money in the pool, but the blinds won't have risen to the point where your starting stack can be eaten up as fast as it could be if you waited longer to enter.

After my MTT 8-game fiasco, I played three sit and go no limit hold'em tournaments. I steadily improved my results, finally making the money in the third one. Given my current habits, the 9:42 MTT 8-game is the ideal tournament for me. Also, I've realized that no limit hold'em is too important a part of my arsenal for me to ever consider HORSE as anything other than a fun diversion now and then.

People talk about appointment T.V. I can see myself becoming an appointment poker addict :-) My appointment occurs at 10:10pm nightly :-)

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

  4500       500           6         9    72        0
  4500       500           6        13     4        0
  4500       500           6        25     3        0
  4500       500           6        63     2     9450

delta: $-10,550
Sit and go no limit hold'em balance: $1,270,850
balance: $9,379,090