Tournament Breaks

If you're an MTT grinder, you live and die by your tournament breaks. Even if you rarely play tournaments, you love the breaks. Live or online, they're our chance to decompress, compose ourselves, run to the bathroom, laugh, give each other pep talks, and check email and social media. They also provide an opportunity to smoke a cigarette (and whatever else you might deem appropriate, but I'll save that for another post).

When the major online sites implemented synchronized tournament breaks, we all squealed with joy. Gone were the days of hoping we didn't miss a hand to go to the bathroom or (for some of you) pissing in a bottle. At last, we actually had a few minutes to attend to the business of being people every hour instead of being machines non-stop for an entire day. Heat up a slice of pizza, have a smoke, grab a fresh drink, and resume the grind feeling awesome. And if you were incredibly lucky, maybe you could even squeeze in a quickie every so often (no, I've definitely never done this, why do you ask?).

Breaks in live events are even better because we get a chance to catch up with our friends face to face and trade stories. That shitty beat you took still sucks, but it matters so much less when you can vent about it to a buddy who actually gives even a fraction of an airborne fuck. It works the other way too; when we have good news to share on the break and people are happy for us, it puts us in a spot where we feel fantastic and play our best games. I love being able to make the "hey mom, I'm the chip leader!" phone call, even though my mother knows precisely dick about poker and has previously told me to consider cashing out after winning a big pot in a circuit event (I've been playing for 10 years and this is still happening).

And glory be to the dinner break! Not only do we have time to do just about everything we could want to get done, but people often binge on heavy food which slows them down mentally and makes even otherwise competent opponents play their worst poker of the entire day until the food coma wears off. That guy who'd been giving us a run for our money for most of the afternoon may now donate half his stack since his bloodstream is saturated with beef fat, grease, and sugar, whereas we knew to have a large but delicious salad, a piece of fruit, and perhaps a coffee or tea as well. Fuck, I want a tea.

Somebody go get me a tea please. I'll wait.

Thank you. That was fast (that's what she said).