As the Name

Of my blog may or may not suggest I am a tournament player.

When I first started playing, I had never played Texas Holdem so I figured I needed to learn the Game. I was playing on Full Tilt and I was using play money, I didn't feel like losing what I already didn't have enough of. I found a game and sat down and it didn't take long for me to start losing. This went on for awhile, and one day another player asked me if I ever played in sit-n-go tournaments, I tried it and have been hooked ever since.

For about the first 3 or 4 months I couldn't get past the first table, and I found that to be frustrating. I finally stopped trying to play every hand and I started getting further in the tourney.

I soon noticed that one or two people would sit out of almost all of the hands. After I made it to the final table one time i noticed that one of the players hadn't played one hand and he was at the final table. This lead me to conduct an experiment:

•  on full tilt every time you lost all your play money you could get another 1,000 chips
• The one restriction was that you had to wait a minimum of 5 minutes between times
• I would enter in 4 250 chip buy in 18 seat tournaments which took about 5 minutes
• Then I would get another 1,000 chips and do it again, up to 4 times
• so I would be entered in 16 tournaments for a total buy in of 4,000 chips

then I would sit out of all 16 tournaments, believe it or not out of 16 tourneys I made the final table at least 11 times and usually made between 500 and 2000 chips per each time I made it to the final table.So with out playing a single hand I was winning chips.

 So I built my Tournament strategy around not playing every single hand that I was dealt, and by playing a very tight game. The pro and Con of tournament play is you can only lose the set amount that you buy in with, the Con is you can't win unless you make it to the final table.

While I have been know to bluff now and then, it's not a tactic that I tend to rely on. I have one stead fast rule, and it's not so much a rule it's more like a genetic manipulation ... LOL ... I play my game, I refuse to be sucked into the other guys game.

I read one time that if you can't win the hand with your hole cards you should fold. I can't tell you how many times I've folded a weak Ace. Every body has their own style of play, and that is as it should be. But a little caution and a lot of reading your opponents can carry you all the way to the final table.

And the one most important thing to remember is that A pair of Aces will only beat a pair of Kings, thee deuces will ruin your day. 

Welcome to the Final Table

Welcome to XLNT's Poker Blog

I have been playing online poker since early 2009

since then I have played somewhere in the neighbor hood

of 3/4 of a million hands of poker.

So I thought I would start a poker blog, My addiction is Texas Holdem.  There are two distinct flavors of Texas Holdem, Cash or Ring games and Tournaments. A Ring game is any game that you are able to buy in multiple times (There are tournaments that allow re-buys, But that's a whole nuther animal). Ring or Cash games can cost you every thing you may have in your pocket. A tournament on the other hand costs a set buy in and you receive a specified amount of chips. The object is to make it to the Final Table. Depending on how many players are registered in the tourney, the bubble (the number of players that can win a prize.) can be any where from 9 to 250 or even more.


This will I hope become a continuous Blog, we'll see I guess.
My intention is to give Players a place to ask Questions and Leave answers.

The following is from a tourney I was playing in on Full Tilt Poker I ended up placing 18th, out 17,455 total players. Below is the first and I hope not the last Royal Flush I've caught in my Poker Career.

This was the 22nd hand I played in the above mentioned tourney.