POTD #181 Monte Carlo Monday: I'm Rewarded for Showing Up Early

But can I squeeze the most value out of my full house

I’ve always prided myself on playing the first hand of a tournament, so much so that I made my PokerStars avatar Sam Sheepdog. It’s important to punch in every day and show up on time. At one time in my life, that meant following Patrick Leonard’s advice and “never skipping a Sunday;” other times, it meant never skipping a live stop and never late regging a tourney; and right now, it means posting 6 blogs a week that get sent to your inbox at 6AM EST six days a week. The financial incentive of playing the actual first hand is negligible, unless you are playing a tournament that refunds rake to game starters, but I’ve always liked doing it because it’s a small goal that I can accomplish early in the day that sets me up for success.

When I started playing live tournaments, registering early was important for another reason: No one knew how to play poker and you never knew if you’d get a table with someone who might punt off hundreds of big blinds. Darren Elias, one of the most successful big-field tournament players of all time, shared this advice when he was interviewed by Sarah Herring in 2024.

“The biggest mistake players make is signing up late… In a big field tournament, when there’s thousands of players, you have to realize the very worst players in that field, the weakest players, are not going to last very long…If you’re going to wait three or four hours to register, those players won’t still be in the tournament, they’ll have been knocked out and somebody has their chips and you’ll miss your opportunity to to take out these weaker players.

The weak players get knocked out quick, so you really want to be there in the opening levels. I know a lot of people use these excuses, “Oh, the blinds are too low”... Speaking from experience, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stacked somebody at 100/200 for a 100,000 chip pot.”

The irony of me developing this habit for the reasons Darren outlined is, this edge does not exist in the games I regularly play. High rollers have unlimited re-entry, and it’s rare for a weak player to bust and not re-enter. Things that winning poker players care about, like getting a rebate on your rake, more time bank chips, or extra Player of the Year points, are things VIPs often do not care about. VIPs may late reg because they were up all night playing cash games that I’d never be invited to play. That means that oftentimes the reward I get for getting to the table on time is playing a table like the one I was at in today’s hand— Luc Greenwood [Looking into if there’s any relation. -ed], Julien Sitbon, David Yan, Jason Koon, myself, and my opponent today, Ognyan Dimov. Fortunately, I made a full house in a three-bet pot; unfortunately, I played it poorly.

Triton Poker Series Monte-Carlo 2023 - Event #7 $30K NLH 7-Handed
(500/1k/1k) (SB/BB/BBA) Level 1. Registration is open.

It folds to Ognyan Dimov (225k) in the HJ who raises to 2.5k, it folds to me in the SB with 6♥️5♥️ (233k) and I make it 13k, it folds back to Ognyan who calls.

Flop (28k) 7♦️6♣️5♠️: I check, Ognyan bets 7k, I call.
Turn (42k) 6♠️: I check, he checks.
River (42k) A♣️: I bet 42k, he folds.