Posted by The Captain | Filed under Bloggers Corner
The Main Event is under way, and Day 1A saw 1,297 hopefuls take to the felt. By the end of the day, the field had been reduced to 657 runners. To put this in another context, 640 folks made a $10K contribution to a prize-pool that they’ll see no part of. While this might not seem like a lot in terms of big-name pros, it’s still a hefty chunk of change. Just making the decision to buy in to a tournament at this level requires a great deal of commitment. This is where the “psychology of money” begins to come into play: being able to deal with it as an abstraction and not an object.
Of all the skills that it takes to be a winner – which I’ve read about extensively and don’t possess – being able to deal with winning and losing huge amounts of money/chips one hand at a time over the course of a tournament (and career) is critical. It’s tempting to look at the wealth that a top professional possesses and dismiss it by saying that a $10K buy-in is nothing to them. But if you look into it a bit deeper, there’s a lot more to it than that. Take Mike Matusow for example: the guy’s accumulated over $6.5 million in carer tournament earnings, but what’s he spent to get there? What is that a return on? The point is, to get to that level, the pros have won and lost a lot of money – and dealt with it.
Clearly, having the money and being able to effectively use it are two entirely different animals. While you don’t necessarily have to have an abject disregard for money that some pros appear to exhibit, you can’t be hung up on it. I think Doyle best summed this up in Super System:
“You must have respect for your money and know its value…but if you want to be a strong No-Limit player you can’t think you’re betting a Lincoln Continental every time that you bet $10K or $15K. If you do think that way, you’ll never make it playing No-Limit.”
In a nutshell, if you’re completely freaked out about the money that’s on the line, you’re not going to be focused and your game will reflect it. While a $10K buy-in is a bit rich for my blood, I like to think that for the majority of the folks who are still playing in the Main Event are well within their personal limits and likely to be playing serious poker. Either way, following what they do on the way to the money and the final table will definitely be entertaining.
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