Jimmy Fricke

I had a conversation today that involved the amount of focus that I have at the beginning of poker tournaments. I've always had a bad attention span and I've actually been told that it's possible that I have some form of ADD. This didn't come as much of a surprise, considering that everyone and their mothers are being diagnosed with it these days, and I think for my profession in particular it's going to end up costing me in the long run.

I've always thought that discipline is my problem, and that's definitely true. My weight problem is mostly caused by the fact that I'm too lazy to get up and exercise when I should for basically no reason. In the past six months I've had almost no motivation to play poker like I did before basically because I was so worried about going busto. Now, thankfully, I don't have to worry about that, but a friend of mine put it expertly when he said, "You're not a poker player because you say you are, you're a poker player because you play poker and make money off of it." I have definitely not been a poker player in the past six months.

A lot of interesting tournaments are coming up, a lot of them live, and I feel as if I'm being too impatient in the early parts of live tournaments. I definitely play a lot of hands, and most of them are good spots to be playing lots of hands, but some of them aren't and it's in those hands that I tend to spew off a lot of chips. With a combination of being way too results oriented in the moment, I have a tendency to unfocus and start to play bad in the early stages of live tournaments. I have an absolutely amazing record of going deep in the tournament if I make the antes, but unfortunately my play before then has been less than stellar. Both 10k events where I went really deep had the antes starting in the third level (which is something I love, obviously).

So it comes down to lacking discipline to do the things that I know I should be doing, which is true in a lot of parts of my life, and I know other people have problems in it too. Why do I do it? Because I really, really want to win pots. It's a good feeling to drag a huge pot after snapping off a bluff. Making a sick fold doesn't have nearly as good a feeling, does it? I feel like I have incredible instincts but I just don't have the ability to make awesome folds, because when I actually do make a good fold they ALWAYS show a bluff (because bluffing gobboboy certainly is a good play in most positions). As a result, for the next few tournaments I enter I'm going to try to focus, not drink any caffeine, and maybe keep a few trinkets nearby to remind myself that at the top of my game, I'm a good player and need to trust my instincts.

I'm an avid reader of most of the forums on twoplustwo.com, and the Televised Poker forum is definitely not one that's full of particularly good poker players. Most of them are people who are fans of the game but don't actually play it, so a lot of the discussion is one sided to a few players who get shown on TV a lot. To anyone who doesn't really 'get' tournament poker, Phil Hellmuth is probably a god. There was one thread in particular called "Who is the best NL Holdem player in the world?" Phil's name got tossed around a lot and I was one of the adamant people on the opposing side. I've seen people play him in cash and I've talked to a bunch of people who have, and they say he's pretty laughable. Most people will say that he is one of the best at beating weak players in NLHE tournaments though, even though he is weak against the good players. To me, this idea makes no sense.

So, what, are the good online tournaments players not good against the weak players? Of course not. A 'good' player wouldn't be good if they weren't good at exploiting the bad players' tendencies of being bad players. So if a good player is good against other good players, that would make them a great player. How can you be considered the best NLHE tournament player if you're not good at playing against other people who understand tournaments? That would make you a bad POKER player.

I think the reason that so many live pros who obviously don't understand NLHE as a whole go deep in big live tournaments consistently and seem to do well deep in tournaments is that their image as a live pro gets them extra fold equity in all the pots they play. People like Hellmuth have such a table image from television that they get folds maybe 20% more than they should, and in tournaments when you play a lot of pots, that's a hell of a lot of chips you get to pick up without a showdown! The online pros don't get nearly that much respect, and people will play seriously against them. It would be easy to be Phil Hellmuth in tournaments if people always fold to you and then all of a sudden try to bluff you off your monster. That's not to say Phil isn't a good tournament player, he obviously plays a lot of them and has a ton of things that work for him, but figuring out things that get you chips and being a good NLHE tournament player are different. Some things will get you chips but unless you actually know the reasoning behind them it won't make you the best in the world. Some of Phil's commentary at the final table of the main event this year was laughable.

I know my opinions aren't going to be popular, but I don't parse words when I think something is one way. I welcome anyone who thinks I'm wrong and a douchebag to talk to me, but keep it civil. I have no problem having a friendly discussion with people who disagree.