MzoneReport – How Space Invaders Video Game Made Me a Better Poker Tournament Player

I know it sounds implausible but hear me out. As a holdover from the 1980s video game addicts I have a thing for classic titles like Galaga, Pacman, Asteroids, 1942 and yes, Space Invaders. Having racked up many proud moments with my friends who were just waiting their turn to bust my high score, these games became ingrained in my teenage social evolution.

Fast forward to 2007 and I am kind of doing the same thing, only now with online poker. This hobby however (after deep psychological wounding and healing), being turned into a full time income by way of playing low limit poker tournaments at several popular poker sites.

The thing is, without Space Invaders it may have turned into a complete disaster with me hanging about in the lower rungs of addicted online players always chasing, never coming out ahead. How did Space Invaders transform my poker game you may ask Malaysia esports betting and odds?

Well about 3 or 4 years ago, I was trying to manage my bankroll by playing sit and go games and doing a fine job at building it up, albeit slowly. So slowly that I often went into multi table tournaments hoping for a big score, but I kept failing and would have to revert back to my sit and go action to keep my bankroll from dipping.

Around that same time my friend sent me a link to a website that had Space Invaders as one of their free games. I jumped on it and started playing, forgetting I had already signed up for a multi table tournament. Deeply engrossed in my long forgotten teenage video game era, a window pops up from the background and tells me to fold, check or raise my Q6os. It was an easy decision and back I went to the real game – killing crawling aliens in strategic formation. KJs fold. ATos fold. 63s fold, etc. etc. My hand was getting sore, but there was no way anything was stopping me from reliving the 1980s. K6s fold. QJos fold. Wait – KK with a raise before me. I was almost incensed the poker window had bothered me with this hand. I reraise and two callers. The flop is AK6 rainbow. Somebody bets and the other dude reraises. I reraise the both of them and I got 2 monkeys in a pot with a weak hand, and a weak draw to my Kings full by the turn. They were drawing dead and I tripled up – fine with me and back to my game.

So taken I was with Space Invaders I completely missed the 5 minute break when I usually take a bathroom visit not really paying attention to my position in the tournament.

Before I knew it, the second hour was up and I sat with a stack fifteen times the starting stack and four times the average stack. I only played about 8 to 10 hands those first two hours, because I was so engrossed in Space Invaders.

Still killing little Martians after the third, fourth, then 5th hour of the poker tournament when I looked up, paused Space Invaders and discovered I had made it to the top 20 of a field of more than 1300 players, playing none other than those infrequently dealt – good hands!

I can tell you now that I finished first in that tournament and won my biggest prize ever of nearly $2,000US. It was my first final table and my first win, and I was barely paying attention for the first 4 hours while becoming the chip leader with the last 15 players and never relinquishing my lead. I discovered something about my game that day and have never looked back. Thanks to Space Invaders, I finally understood what tight-aggressive really meant. True story!

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