Luft

One of the common checkmates in chess is the back rank checkmate. That's when one player moves a queen or a rook to the opponent's back rank, giving check to the king, and the opponent has no legal move. The opponent doesn't have a piece which can capture the attacking piece, doesn't have a piece which could move to a square in between the king's square and the square occupied by the attacking piece, and doesn't have an escape square for the king. It's common for players to remove the possibility of getting back rank checkmated by taking the time at some point in the game to move one of the pawns in front of the king up one or two squares, providing the king with an escape square. In chess terminology, this type of move is said to give luft (the German word for air) to the king.

Luft is required in poker also. In order to make the money in a tournament, a player must get a chip infusion at regular intervals. Poker chips can be likened to oxygen. When you don't have enough oxygen, you suffocate. Yesterday, in the one tournament I played, I was lucky enough to get three or four chip infusions, providing me with the luft I needed to make the money.

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    88000   1200       9     355   81    75   147000

delta: $47,000
2025 balance: $-175,000
2025 blue distance: $175,000
balance: $16,122,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.59 (1284 of 3087)