I have been playing a few big tournaments in poker recently. The tournment experience for me has always been a good one. On these last four tournaments the experience has been anything but good. The first tournament I busted out in the middle of the crowd because of my lack of knowledge about who I was playing. There is a type of player that always continues to beat me, this type of player is the kind who is still a beginner and does not understand what bets mean. If I raise with top pair and top kicker, there is no reason to call a high raise because you have middle pair. If I raise even heavier on the turn, there is no reason to call with middle pair. These players do not know any better though. The players see that they have a pair and get excited, then the turn comes and they make their two pair.

So what can I do in situation? My only idea is not to commit so many chips to these players. No matter what I bet, they are never going to fold. This type of play is just like online poker. People always complain that there is so many bad beats in online poker. I do think that is always the case, people just do not know how to fold when they are behind.

So lets talk about how I did in the tournaments. In three tournaments, I played for about 12 hours and busted on or few players away from the bubble. The bubble is the spot right before the payouts start. So after 12 hours of poker and not placing in any money, I was irritated. This happening three times is even more irritating. I know what my mistakes where and I have an idea of how to adjust my game. Here is one small situation that happens to me a lot in a tournament:

I have 7H 8H and the player is hold Ad Kd

The flop brings 7d JH Qc.

The player is first to act and raises me so high that its not callable. I know for a fact he has AK, it was just an obvious raise. If he connected at all with that flop then he would probably make the raise callable for me so he can get some more chips. Nine times out of ten in that situation I fold with bottom pair. I know its the best hand at the time, but I am so afraid of being sucked out on. So I lose a good amount of chips if this happens a lot during the tournament.

Some people will say I should not be playing this hand to begin with. Suited connectors are not my favorite hands but when you are card dead or the table is playing too tight then its a good idea to play a few. I had position on the player so I took a shot. I just hate putting all my chips in the middle with bottom pair to two over cards.