significantly different from the others. Here's how it works. There are seven clubs involved, and each one fields a team of eight players. In addition, any club can enter additional players who play as individuals rather than as team members. It's a twenty \dollar buy-in tournament with cash prizes and the team players also earn points based on their finishing positions. I think the extra points start with the player who finishes in 50th position; they get 2 points. The 49th finisher gets 3 points, 48th place gets 4 points, and so on. These points accumulate over the course of the year. The teams with the highest total scores at the end of the year get cash prizes (1st, 2nd and 3rd, I think). There are also prizes for the highest individual points-scorers. This end-of-year prize money comes out of the prize-pools of each of the monthly tournaments. I don't know the exact details but something like 25% comes out of the prize-pool each month.
It is primarily because of the amount that comes out of the prize-pool that I don't use my poker bankroll to play in this tournament. I treat it as a fun day out and just play using my regular spending money. Another good reason for not treating this as a 'bankroll game' is the team factor. The expectation is that team-mates help each other out in this tourney. Although you usually start out on a table full of players from other clubs, as the day progresses and tables get broken down, you are likely to end up with one or more of your fellow team members on your table. This is where it starts to get tricky. The general idea seems to be that you soft-play when in a hand with your team-mates. So if your opponent has a good hand and raises, you can call but not re-raise, and then the two of you just check it down. That's the theory anyway. But if a player from another team is also involved in the hand it starts getting more complicated. I don't know about other teams but our team has never got together and discussed strategy. This becomes particularly hard to work out when you start getting short-stacked. When a team-mate pushes all-in and you are sitting there with 10 big blinds left and pocket nines, what do you do? The answer? When I was in this position I called and eliminated my team-mate, who had AJ. He didn't seem to mind in this instance, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of my other team-mates objected to this type of play .There are lots of difficult decisions of this type in the later stages of the tournament.
If you are playing as part of a team and also as an individual there is always going to be conflict between actions that are likely to get you closer to the money, and actions that might benefit the team. As a rule I tend to come down on the side of increasing my chance of cashing. After all, I pay my entry fee, not the team, so I figure I should be trying to get some return on my investment. But in recent months my team has actually been doing quite well and it has become increasingly important for our players to all go deep in the tournament and rack up the team points. So the conflict between individual and team progress has become even more pronounced. We've got one more of these events coming up before the end of the year and our team is currently in second place overall. So I guess the pressure is on.
I was reluctant to get involved in this tourney, mainly because of the diminished prize-pool. But my wife was keen to play and eventually I got my arm twisted enough to join in. So I joined the team and started turning up on a regular basis. The tourney is hosted by each of the seven clubs in turn, so you get to go to a different venue each month. There are usually 60 or more players involved and it goes on from 11 am through to about 6 pm (with a lunch break included). The starting stack is 20,000, and it's usually after the second break, when the big blind jumps from 2,000 to 4,000 that a lot of players start dropping out. I usually go reasonably deep in these tournaments, having finished in the top three a couple of times and cashed on one other occasion, although I've never been able to take out first place. But even if I get knocked out early there's usually a cash game going among the other eliminated players. Although I don't play the tourney with my bankroll cash, I always take some along for the cashie, as this is a straight-up un-raked game. In fact, truth be told, I look forward to playing in the cashie more than I do playing in the tournament.That's not to say that I don't give it my best when I'm playing the tourney. Although I'm more inclined to drink during this game than I am during other sessions, I still take it seriously, and I follow pretty much the same tourney strategy that I would elsewhere. As a rule, the standard of play in this tourney is better than in the other games I play. This is not surprising, as I assume it's the keenest poker players that turn up to these events, rather than just casual 'walk-ins'. There are still quite a few loose-passive 'fish' about but there are also plenty of good solid players. It's just a matter of differentiating one from the other and playing accordingly. And of course, remembering not to bet into your team-mates.
The next interclub tournament is to be held this coming weekend at the venue of the club that just joined the competition this year. So this will be the first time any of us have been to the Tuakau club. This is the prize-giving event, when the points are finally tallied up and and the prizes awarded. The hosting club is situated in Tuakau, a town about 50 km south of Auckland. It should be a fun end-of-year trip, as long as we don't get lost.
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