Variance and understanding

Today I cashed in 4 out of 23 MTTs and 1 out of 5 satellites. I had two deep runs finishing in 13th and 16th and was a race away from the FT in each. So many of the structures on Merge are short stacked enough that there is often a key race in the final couple tables. Obviously this is a vague statement but I believe it to be true.

For example tonight in one of my deep runs I was chip leader with 19 players left. It's folded around to me in the SB and I have Ah9h and 32bbs. The BB has 15bbs and is a decent regular. I think the correct play is a shove from the SB as any shove chart would show. We do not have a strong enough hand to min-raise to induce a shove, and our hand is to strong to fold making a shove the best line. I shoved and unluckily ran into AQ and lost.

In my opinion the play was standard and there is nothing to be upset about. The situation helps me to explain a couple important points. Even when we are the chip leader with some of the structures we are still vulnerable and often the fate of our MTT life comes down to a key race. With this in mind I believe we should be aware of the structures and understand variance. At any point in time we could win several races or lose several races so it would be best to stay level headed and get your chips in as good as possible.

So my first point would be to get very comfortable at short stack play and get very familiar with a shove chart. If we are playing a lot of short stack structures a few important things need to be understood. It is very important to know the stacks of everyone in the hand before you open and have a plan for each. It is also very important to know with what stacks you should be opening, shoving, or re-stealing with. Short stacks can be played optimally and is one of the easiest forms of poker to play correct. Using a shove chart is one of the best way to play short stacks correctly.

My second point would be to fully understand variance and think about the big picture not the results of any one MTT or day. When playing MTTs most good players get in the money around 15%, that leaves 85% in the loss column. That simple statement should make it very easy to understand why keeping our emotions under control is improtant. It should tell you why we should understand variance. Simple math tells us we will lose about 85% of the MTTs we play so why would we ever get upset at losing? It is so important to understand variance and take a big picture outlook. This is why I talk so much about positivity and emotional detachment. It is important we can give our "A" game during the 85% of losses to maximize our potential during the 15% of cashes and turn as many of the cashes into wins as we possibly can.

LONG LIVE ONLINE POKER!

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