(0)
I had been running well in small stakes tournaments in online poker. When this happens, it is hard not to want to jump up in stakes and play larger buy-in events. This usually means that you’re playing out of your bankroll. An unfortunate run, a bad beat, or a cold deck means a lot more when you’re playing outside of your bankroll. You plainly cannot absorb the loss as easily because you cannot keep playing at the high stakes and have to make your money back at lower buy-ins, now with fewer buy-ins and smaller prize pools.
What I suggest for these times you want to play poker over your head a bit, is to test out some larger buy in KO or knock out events. In these events, a certain portion of your buy in (typically about 1/6) is set aside in a knockout pool. For each player you knock out of the tournament directly, you win their bounty from the knockout pool. So, if you knock out 6 people, you are essentially freerolling in the event. If you get really far, you’re often making a profit just by playing normally and knocking people out. But, if you don’t make it too far, it’s sometimes a compromise for playing at higher stakes because you are getting some of your money back.
For example, I played the FTOPS poker event #24, which was a $120+$9 event. I had been doing well at $15 -$22 tournaments, so I decided to give it a shot, play against some top players and have a shot at some big money. 7000 people entered, the maximum, and I got down to about 2000. I didn’t make it in the money, but I KO’d three people for $20 apiece, making half of my buy-in back. The tournament was worth it, I played well, got some experience, and for half the price! If you’re gonna lose, a partial refund is hard to argue with.
