I haven’t played the main in 15 years, but one consequence of its structure and length that comes from the factors you identify is that *people are literally on tilt and still playing deep-stack tournament poker,* in a way that is so rarely true in any events with lower buy-ins. My guess is that it’s basically impossible to a have a smooth ride through the main to the final table, there’s just too much tournament not to have several psuedo-devastating setbacks that cost you a major portion of your stack but do not fundamentally cripple you. In a lot of tournaments, you just bust and go deal with the tilt at some other venue (cash game, pit, barroom). But in the main you can literally go backwards for an entire day and still be fine; it’s an empirical question, but my hunch would be that as fair number of people who finish in the Top 100 had a losing day along the way. Adjusting to this---both in terms of self-regulation and in terms of identifying and exploiting it with other players, is an important (and pretty main event unique) skill, IMO. And like all the rest, it’s magnified by the recreational-heavy field.
I haven’t played the main in 15 years, but one consequence of its structure and length that comes from the factors you identify is that *people are literally on tilt and still playing deep-stack tournament poker,* in a way that is so rarely true in any events with lower buy-ins. My guess is that it’s basically impossible to a have a smooth ride through the main to the final table, there’s just too much tournament not to have several psuedo-devastating setbacks that cost you a major portion of your stack but do not fundamentally cripple you. In a lot of tournaments, you just bust and go deal with the tilt at some other venue (cash game, pit, barroom). But in the main you can literally go backwards for an entire day and still be fine; it’s an empirical question, but my hunch would be that as fair number of people who finish in the Top 100 had a losing day along the way. Adjusting to this---both in terms of self-regulation and in terms of identifying and exploiting it with other players, is an important (and pretty main event unique) skill, IMO. And like all the rest, it’s magnified by the recreational-heavy field.
In case it's useful, the "basically destroyed my livelihood" link seems to be broken. I hit https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/131a4691-aa08-48e8-948c-140e3d4119d3 , which redirects me to literally "http://as%20online,%20limit%20hold%20‘em%20cash%20game%20pro.?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email", which obviously doesn't work.
I hope we get part 2 before too long. I'm too shit at mentality to be good even at little tournaments, but how it goes is fascinating!
Don‘t forget part 2
This link for "basically destroyed my livelihood" does not work http://xn--as%20online%2C%20limit%20hold%20em%20cash%20game%20pro-wf77a./
> that basically destroyed my livelihood.
This link is still broken
Congrats on the deep run Nate, always enjoy reading your work and look forward to the upcoming book!
Broken link: "basically destroyed my livelihood. "
hth
You talk about developing the skills to identify other players' tells - have you spent any time on trying to ensure you don't have any yourself?