Quite recently a couple of my Poker playing buddies (Kev B, Kev S and Jools) headed over to the Killarney for the Irish Poker Open having qualified on Ladbrokes Poker (I think? lol). Sadly they were unable to make a big score although Kev B did come home with some change for us endeavours as you'd expect, his tournament game has really progressed in the last 2-3 years.
But it got me wondering about the worth of making journeys to far and beyond with the sole intention of playing Poker. Now not being totally oblivious to the fact that Killarney is in a nice spot of the world, I'm sure our heroes also took the time to see a bit of the area and enjoy a few pints of Guinness along the way, but of course Poker was their main motivation for going to Killarney, so I was wondering if this at affected their game?
Let's consider the cirumstances involved here for our heroes. They'll have had to of taken a number of days off work to attend this tournament, caught a flight to Ireland (Shannon Airport) and then drove 2.5 hours to Killarney and all this before a single card is in the air. Then begins a long and arduous tournament consisting of 15k chips and a 1 hour clock, it's going to be a long road and massively different to the kind of formats our patrons are used to.
Clearly our crew got unlucky along the way, but do these combined factors listed above affect our game? Did they ever once think to themselves "well i've come all this way, I can't make this risk on this hand' kind of thing? Personally I think our players in this instance are too strong for that line of thinking, however I think it's possible that all the other pyschological factors can play on a person, particularly if you don't do this kind of thing often.
I can recall from my own experience playing a low buy-in event at the '06 WSOP that it's a drain on you, whilst I didn't play bad I certainly didn't play great either and come the end of it I was actually 'genuinely pleased' to be eliminated, it was that gruelling. I think for myself, I wouldn't take a long journey with the main purpose of going to simply play Poker for a couple of days (1 big tournament for example), I believe that if you're going for a couple of weeks, say to a big festival and you intend to play over many days you will get better as it progress and you'll reach form before it is time to depart, whereas if it's a 1-2 day trip the factors are not in your favour to perform against locals or regular circuit players are comfortable in these conditions.
Food for thought perhaps for you Poker Playing revellers?
Food for thought perhaps for you Poker Playing revellers?
