Poker Tournament Formula 2 by Arnold Snyder

For Arnold,
I bought your PTF book #1 and it tryly has helped my game. I had been reading things from Hellmuth, Hones, Harrington, etc., but something about your advice clicked. Especially position play and your comments about wimps. I had been playing tight and aggressive, but waiting for cards too much. Also, I play in short blind tournaments that are largely crap shoots. Invariably, unless I got a couple of big hands early, I got to the final table, but with a short stack. And from there, I just let the aggressors knock each other out and tried to get to the final 3 or 4. Now, I often build large chip stacks or am out earlier than I was. At least I go down in flames. I've gotten a lot of high finishes, and won a few, but still have not made that big breakthrough. I'll be heads-up and often lose to a suckout on the river. In fact, it has happened 5 times out of my last 6 heads-up when I got second place. I made the pot odds too high to call (flopped a straight on one and went all-in. He stayed on a J3 and got runner runner flush), and still got nailed.
The other 4 were less than 10% shots for them and they got what they needed, and I just knew it was coming. One a lady tried to bluff me and I knew it. She pushed all-in, I called with a decent hand and she had 95 unsuited. You guessed it, she got a runner runner runner flush with her 5. It was disconcerting. The one where it was not a river suck-out was when it was getting late and we wanted to get it over with and pushed in our chips and I had the worst hand.

So, how do you get past that? I don't know any magic answer, and don't like the feeling that I know the river is coming, and I feel really tight, tilted, then defeated, and lose confidence for a while. Maybe it's Karma. I examine the tournaments I have lost and cannot see a mistake in the betting. I know you say (If I am talking to Arnold), not to talk about the bad beats, and to examine what you did wrong, but it's tough when they don't have the odds to call, or any business calling, and you get beat. I know that these things happen, but what mental attitude can I get to get past the barrier besides just knowing that anything can happen in poker?

Paul McCreary

Correction to the first 2 sentences: tryly is truly, and Hones is Jones.

Dear mr arnold Snyder,

Thank you for both of the tournament books. I would love for you to write a book on casino cash games. I made one mistake when I read your books. I actually read your second book first. It took my game from being a fish to being the shark at the tables, I then read the First book. It had alot of great info but I made the mistake of playing my cards above my image and position. Thank you for both books. I should be playing major tourneys within the year thanks to you.

Thanks for all your info,
Robbie