A Lesson To Be Learned?

[MrMon]

I just had my most pathetic ITM finish last night, came in 3rd on a Paradise $20+$2 while only playing 3 hands in the midst of a noisy phone line. There's a serious question at the end of this.

Here's what happened:

Start playing and immediately started dropping the modem (still on dial-up, don't give me a hard time). Redials kept hitting massive noise on both phone lines. Finally got through to play game #7, where I won to put me at 1265.

Folded a bunch of rags, dropped again, got back on to fold rags, played game #21 which put me at 1405. Immediately dropped and couldn't back on for 27 minutes.

Now I'm back on, barely, at 14.4K, where I see I'm still alive, game #54, small stack at 520, 4 left, and I've got A2o. (My opponents are at 7290, 1215, and 965.) Knowing I could drop at any second, I go all in, big stack calls with K8s, I see the flop miss both of us, and drop again. Never could get back on until this morning, where I see I came in 3rd at game #60.

Going over the game, which I managed to retrieve, I see I would have played many hands that ultimately lost. Decent stuff. I doubt I would have did as well by playing. (Even folded AA preflop 3-handed to a min raise!) I did very little to win this game, and ultimately my opponents lost to a dead hand, albeit one with a slightly larger chip stack. Yes, having one massive chip leader helped, as did the small number of hands, but still, it's an interesting experience.

The serious question is this: Are we and our opponents usually defeating ourselves? We'd all like to believe we're good, but are we really just less bad, especially at this level of poker? I know there are times where my play helps me win, but this experience confirms for me that tight early is better and we should just get out of the way while our opponents destroy themselves, then swoop in to pick up the spoils.

[YourFoxyGrandma]

Playing with your internet connection as-is is definitely -EV.

And yes, it's generally accepted that tight early is the way to go. Loosen up as the blinds get bigger and more worth fighting over.

[Marcotte]

In a zero sum game, being less bad is the same as being good. You don't have to be as good as Lederer, Brunson, et al. You only have to be better than the nine guys at your table. And one of the hardest lessons to learn at poker is to fold preflop. If you learn how to do that, you're probably in the upper 50% of $10+1 players.

[bigredlemon]

I've noticed that if I fold every hand.... I usually have enough to pay the last blind when there's only 3-4 people remaining.

Thus the solution to having the highest ROI:
open up a lot of tables and check off away.

[bweiser8311962]

Here's a lesson for people: Always raise when someone behind you is disconnected. I love watching a small blind fold to a disconnected big blind. I laugh every time and realize I am playing with a moron.

[bigredlemon]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a lesson for people: Always raise when someone behind you is disconnected. I love watching a small blind fold to a disconnected big blind. I laugh every time and realize I am playing with a moron.

[/ QUOTE ]how can you tell if someone is disconnected?

[SlowStroke]

In the early stages I just sit there and wait for the other players to self-destruct in my direction.