Every natural gift has its corresponding cost. The greater the gift, the greater the burden.

Tournaments are a completely different animal. That's what Joey was learning today.

In the beginning, everyone had a large stack of 100 big blinds which is a common cash game buyin, so things started off not too unusually from what he was used to. Most players took their time and waited for good cards.

Joey focused on observing his opponents. As a result, he wasn't able to significantly build his stack early on. However, once he started to pick up on their patterns and tells, he believed the investment would pay significant dividends. It didn't take long to reach that point.

An hour later. 'It's time.' Joey had gained enough information to feel he could now take control of the table. Just as he prepared to impose his will, someone came up to him and tapped his shoulder.

"Joey Fiore?" a female staff member asked.

"Yes?" he responded.

"You're moving tables. Please take your chips and move to table 3."

"Why?"

The staff member was confused for a second before realizing that Joey had probably never played a multi-table tournament before. "As players lose and get knocked out of the tournament, we have to consolidate the tables to avoid shorthanded games. Eventually, there will only be one final table. For this reason, some players have to move to fill in new tables."

Joey frowned. What the woman said made sense, but it completely ruined his last hour of effort. Nevertheless, he didn't have a choice. He picked up his chips and moved to the new table. Brand new players. A troublesome new start. 'It's alright. I'll just observe again. How many times can they move me anyway?'

The answer was...more than he was comfortable with. An hour later the same staff member came and asked Joey to move again. 'UUGGGHH.' Another restart. Luckily at this point, he at least caught a few good hands and managed to triple his stack to 3000. However, the blinds had already increased drastically from 5-10 to 75-150!

Small tournaments like this never gave you much time to play patiently. The blinds increased quickly, so if you didn't get into the action, you would get blinded out. It was already well into the middle stages of the tournament. Even with 3000, Joey only had 20 big blinds.

With 20 bb, that meant every hand could easily put him all in. Compared to cash games, much less information was available, but every decision became even more crucial. It was like dancing on the edge of a knife.

'I see. I can't afford to be too patient. Playing a tournament is like holding a grenade. You need to take risks to throw it or it'll blow your hand off!' He was beginning to understand the dynamics. Joey also noticed one interesting point that served to benefit him.

In cash games, players can rebuy infinitely, so they're never in danger of truly being knocked out. Conversely, in a tournament, every hand could be a threat to your stack. If you lost one all in, your tournament life was over. There were no second chances. This grave reality created an interesting effect on the players.

You could say that the constant danger in tournaments created significant pressure, and resultantly more anxiety. Joey noticed that players were exhibiting more meaningful emotional and physical responses than in cash games. For example, if a man bluffed in a cash game, he may or may not give off a certain tell, but even then it was slight and hard to catch. In the same spot in a tournament, the man would be much more likely to give off the tell and it became more pronounced even if he tried to conceal it.

The problem with concealing tells is that a lot of them occur unconsciously. Many are also uncontrollable. That's why having the ability to read people is so powerful. Joey was starting to realize all of this. Luckily for him, despite his poor start, these different dynamics allowed him to keep building his chip stack at a reasonable rate, at least enough to hang around.

As the tournament progressed, and the blinds grew massive, more and more players were knocked out. Cash games were even starting to open on the side with the players who had exited the tournament. The late stage of the tournament had arrived. In that period, almost every hand involved an all in. Every hand...a game of Russian roulette where someone had to eat a bullet.

Andrew was watching Joey from the side. He had already gotten knocked out due to an unlucky hand earlier and was waiting for his cash game to start. It was surprising that Joey had made it this far since he knew that this was Joey's first tournament. He was looking forward to this little junior showing him an interesting performance.

It was approaching the climax. There were two tables left. Every few minutes, at least 1 player would be knocked out. It was a brutal deathmatch. For the first time in a poker game, Joey felt the pressure of merely hanging on for dear life.

'This hand's not bad, but is it the time to play it? This could be the end.'

'I think he may be bluffing, but I'm not sure. If I make the wrong call, my tournament run will be over.'

'I need to make a stand, I can't wait anymore. The next round of blinds will destroy me!'

Joey and most of the others at the table shared similar thoughts. At the end of the day, it would be the ones who got luckiest and made the slightly better decisions who would become the victors. There was no mercy to be found here. Piece by piece, the dominoes fell.

One more knockout and it was the final table. There were 11 players left including Joey. Andrew could feel the tension. Although there wasn't a lot of money at stake, each tournament victory was a big boost to self-confidence and would propel your future. He noticed Joey had been losing the last few hands he played. His stack was dwindling. Joey needed to be careful or he might be the last one knocked out before the final table.

"All...in," Andrew heard Joey declare. 'Good luck buddy,' he thought. Andrew moved closer to watch the action.

"Call," the opponent said.

Joey slowly flipped over his cards onto the table. "Flush," he said.

Tch.

The opponent was unhappy and getting ready to throw his hand into the muck when the dealer said something. "That's not a flush sir, king high."

Joey had flipped over [J♥ K♦] and the board read [5♥ 6♥ 7♥ 2♦ Q♦]. Joey had misread his hand! He thought the king of diamonds was the king of hearts which would have been a flush. The opponent won the pot and Joey was knocked out!

Andrew found this strange and walked over to take a look at Joey. His eyebrows raised as he saw that Joey was struggling to keep his eyes open. He was falling off the chair. Andrew ran over to stop him from collapsing. He picked Joey up, put his arm around his shoulder, and carried him to a chair on the side.

"Final table! Last ten players have been decided!" the tournament director announced.

Joey managed to slightly turn his head to glance at the final table as the last ten players started to take their seats. He only managed to look for a second, before he was overwhelmed by brutal exhaustion and a certain feeling in his heart, regret.