Repechages, Beating Ivey and Punching Monitors

No blog of mine would be complete without expressing my disappointment to the powers that be about repechage events. No concept on the Australian tournament circuit has left me scratching my head more than the “repechage”. As a novelty or as lead ups to Main Events, any variation is understandably worth a try, but on so called “Main Events” I believe the concept is totally redundant.

So currently we have:

Freezeouts - the most common tournaments – when you lose all the chips, that’s all folks!

Rebuys – Die and buy back in for countless rebirths usually for the first three levels in live play.

Repechage – Die, buy back in the next day and possibly the day after that.

Whilst there will be some defenders of the concept essentially citing bigger prizepools, I for one largely have no interest in attempting to get through day ones on more than one occasions. And if you need a bigger prize pool why don’t you make the events bigger and a Freezeout? Previously you had a gradual progression of stakes at Crown from the “Joe Hachem Series” to “Melbourne Champs” to “Vic Champs” to “Aussie Millions”. Now it seems like every $550 event you need to allocate $1,650 to be on level footing. This concept is turning the game into something only the elite few can afford or for the privileged few that are staked. Why should main events be repechages? If it was a grand slam event at Wimbledon how do you think Roger Federer’s competitors would feel if at the end of his losing 4^th round match he announces, “ Fuck it, I’m buying back in!”

Leave the repechages as a novelty please.

I mean what could be easier than trying to beat MonsterDong, FlopNutsOnYou and company not once but three times!

In accordance with this I think the most laughable concept in poker is people who think that playing superior opponents will benefit them more than playing bad players, even when they aren’t beating these very opponents at lower levels.

A catch cry I often hear is, “Well good players will fold to my bluffs”.

Sure poor opponents can make some increasingly awful plays that may send you to the rail prematurely, but do u really think that you are better off playing Phil Ivey or the previously mentioned players like Jono and Jarred than “Bluffy Mcgee” in your $11 Sit ‘n Go on 888Poker? Do you think that if Ivey folds his hand to your well-timed bluff that it’s going to make up for all the times he picks you off and relentlessly exposes your weaknesses?

And finally I would just like to add a warning to all players out there playing online…

If you are going to punch and break your monitor when your opponent’s flush hits on the river, please make sure you didn’t also simultaneously hit a full house and actually won the hand!

I recently learnt this lesson the hard way…

- Jake “The Moose”