For a busy full-time professional, internet tournaments offer speed and convenience. If you want to win a six-figure sum playing offline tournaments, you have to pony up big entrance fees and book some serious time off work. Online, the size of the fields and the pace of the deal, the play and the strucutres mean that you can win these sums in a few hours with a small buy-in and you can still be in work the next day (albeit probably a little later than normal)!
Poker developments
Due to these convenience factors, I have focused my recent poker development in this area and it has paid big dividends. In the last 12 months alone, I have cashed, final-tabled and won several major online events cashing for over $275,000 in the process. However, despite these stats, I actually prefer playing offline. I like the human contact, I like the increased pyschological battle and I think I have an increased edge over my online play. In offline poker, there is a large additional skill related to 'reading people' and I believe my skills are above average here, both in terms of reading other players and controlling my own tells.
As a result I have been playing offline tourneys for over 10 years and I have won or chopped at least 20 events, and have shown profits in this every year. However, due to work commitments and size of bankroll in previous years, my exposure in offline tournaments was always limited to one-day non-ranking events. Late last year, I decided this needed to change and I committed to start playing and proving myself in bigger offline ranking tournaments.
Ranking tournaments
I played in three London-based ranking touraments in late 2005/early 2006. I went deep in one but fell just short of the money, getting knocked out ten minutes before the end of day one. Then I went to WSOP in June and I played three of the early events. Again, I did not cash. But I am delighted to say that yesterday I broke my duck :)
Playing in the £300 one re-buy only NLHE at the UK Grovesnor Open, I managed third place in a field of 69. We did a deal three-handed, meaning I took home £6k. Obviously this was a nice prize, but more than anything it was great to get my first ranking result on the board. I enjoyed the experience of playing over two days (from which I will learn a lot) and I loved that special buzz that comes from bagging up your chips at the end of a satisfactory day's play. I hope to be doing it a lot more in the future!
Until next time...
10th August 2006
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