Two Thoughts

This is one column – with two completely different subjects.

It's been a long – time coming.

I've spent a fair amount of time playing online one-table "sit-and-go" tournaments recently. They're a fun way to spend 30-45 minutes, and they've been quite profitable for me. There's plenty of one-table tournament action out there, and I know people who have become specialists at such events. Just so we're all on the same page here, I'm talking about one-table 10-player tournaments, in which the payoff structure is five, three, and two buy-ins for first, second, and third place, respectively.

I play no-limit hold'em almost exclusively in these tourneys; I think it's the game in which correct play provides the biggest advantage in a time-compressed environment. Oh, and it's the most fun, too; I love shoving all of my chips in and seeing what happens.

This brings me to the point of this demi-column: Patience is the key to success. Actually, I don't mean patience. I mean capital-P Patience, Job-like discipline, and a willingness to wait. I can't prove this, but I believe it's correct to play insanely tightly in the early going of the tournament. Wait for absolute premium hands – aces, kings, maybe queens, and maybe A-K, and look for a way to get all your dough in the middle right now. A good percentage of the time, you'll find somebody willing to gamble all of his chips on K-J suited or 8-8. Late in the tourney, those are fine hands. Early on, you should toss them without a second thought.

The only other hand I'll play in the very early going is a pocket pair. If I can see a flop for a small percentage of the amount I can win (say, less than 10 percent), my plan is to flop a set and bust somebody.

Otherwise, I don't look at the flop. Now, you'll see many of your opponents smashing into each other like digital bumper cars. And, you may be disturbed to see one guy collecting the entire contents of two or three players' stacks. So what? Look, if one guy at your table busts the other eight players, you're guaranteed second-place money – a 200 percent return on your investment – not to mention a snowball's chance in hell of winning the whole thing.

I'll probably talk more about my one-table strategies later, but for now, during the first few rounds of these sit-and-go events, read a book. Chat with your kids. Check the screen to make sure you didn't wake up with a preflop monster. Otherwise, wait. PATIENCE.

What's your name, little girl, what's your name?

This is a true story. I couldn't make this up …

My oldest son, David, goes to a small liberal arts college in Los Angeles. My wife and I were down there visiting him and dropping off his brother for a weekend of college visits and hanging with his elder sibling. We were standing in David's dorm room chatting, and one of his friends, a junior woman, stopped by to chat. We were actually discussing analogies between computers and the human brain when she stopped me in midsentence, seeing an online poker site's logo on my coat.

"You play poker! I love poker. I watch it all the time on TV, and I play online, too."

Thought bubble over my head: "I'm not sure this is really happening."

"Oh, I just love that World Poker Tour show and the World Series of Poker. My favorite player is Phil Hellmuth – he's so cute … "

Thought bubble: "This definitely is not happening."

"I mean, he just looks so calm and collected up there, and he's tall, and what else would you want? Well, I do have to say that my other favorite one is Devilfish. All those other guys – they're playing so tight and everything, and then here he comes with his 5-3 offsuit and he's going all in; don't you love it?"

As this was happening, David and his brother, John, were looking at her, me, and my wife. But they were mostly looking at each other with looks that clearly said, "There is no possible way this is actually happening."

"And I also liked watching Chris and Sammy. Didn't you like that? I couldn't decide which was cooler – Chris with his sunglasses and hat, or Sammy just looking very suave. What did you think?"

"Well, I thought they both played quite well; it was a good match."

"Me, too. Anyway, it was good meeting you all; I better run, I got two five-page papers to write tonight … " Ah, for college days – it was 11:30 p.m. and this young lady wasn't the least concerned about the 10 pages of writing ahead of her.

She headed out the door and to her writing. If I hadn't had witnesses, I wouldn't be sure I'd actually seen it.

Memo to Phil Hellmuth: Smile, you're being watched.