On Friday I swapped the cash games for playing all of the low stakes MTTs on Ladbrokes as a 'warm-up' for the LEOCOP. I figured that it had been a really long time since I'd played an online tournament, and I should take a while to reacclimatise to things like how quickly the blinds increase, and how soul-sappingly slow 10-handed poker plays.

I started around 11am and by 1pm I couldn't take it anymore, and stopped registering for new tournaments. I ended up playing 10 small MTTs, 2 places, 1 bounty, and 1 win, and finished incredibly thankful that cash games have 3 streets of betting, and, sometimes, more than two levels of thought.

Some people may question practicing for 3-figure buy-in events with a $5 tourney, but I thought it was better than nothing, and in all likelihood a tournament donk was a tournament donk however much they could afford to play for. Once the tournament I won got to 7 handed I was being criticised in chat by the other 6 players for not letting them play properly! They had around 10bbs each to my 50, so I was probably shoving about a 50% range, stealing a huge amount of antes, and occasionally winning or losing a race with a weak hand. I expect the satellites put similar players in the LEOCOP tourneys, so spotting them and shoving widely is probably the thing to do.

Sunday was the 1st event - $150 with $75 rebuys, and although I got off to a decent start, up to about 11k, I card dead from there. Some steals kept me in a while, until I shoved JJ in mid position for around 14bbs (antes in play) and got called by KQs in the big blind.

Monday's was the $50 rebuy and I again got off to a decent start, wasn't as card dead this time, and got up to about 12k before losing two flips in a row to shorter stacks to know me back down to 5k. Push-bot play kept me between 3.5k and 6k until the 250/500/50 level, and then I won a race with the worst hand to get back to around 12k.

The interesting make-break hand; folded to me in the small blind, big blind has 6.7k behind, 1200 in the pot. He's a decent cash-game player and has 3 tight players to his left, so I figure he will not call a shove lightly hoping he can shove his button and cut-off and pick up risk free antes rather than racing. So I decide it's a shove with any hand, shove J4o, get called by KQo and lose. I still think the logic is sound, but would be interested to hear if tournament experts disagree.

I got my remaining 4k in with Ako against AKs and lost to a flush, so it's 0 for 2 so far.

I estimate that total buy-ins for these events will be around 4k more (after already winning free entry to some), probably just under, so winning at least that is the primary target for these 15 tournaments. I'll probably not get to play all 15 because I'm moving house from Friday and may need a night off, but I'm hoping I only drop something like the fixed limit event and the $20 rebuy.

During last night's event I played the $10 O8b, to remind myself of the rules and was genuinely amazed at how badly everyone plays it. I know the buy-in is different but again I'd actually be surprised if that made a difference, I'll reread a few books and watch a CR vid if there is one beforehand, so the O8b LEOCOP event should be a really good chance for a cash.