Recognising a win

You can play pub poker for quite a while before you finally win a tournament. The good news is... the problem might not be your play.

One of the fundamental differences between pub poker and casino poker is that a pub poker tourney is designed to be finished in 3 to 4 hours.
The starting stacks, and (more importantly) the 15 minute blind periods guarantee it.

The various pub-poker providers (leagues) make a living by bringing warm bodies into your local club. Once there, the club would like you to stay for a while, buy a few beers and maybe put a few dollars through the pokies. Ideally you'll hang around, socialise and maybe even buy dinner.
Your patronage keeps the club running and in return, they give you a place to play.

To me it seems a fair trade, I get a few hours entertainment in exchange for 2 or 3 beers and a calamari and chips... hard to see the downside really.

The only real catch is closing time.

The game has to be over before the bar staff turn off the lights.

The 3 hour structure leads to a situation commonly called "Final Table All-In BINGO".
By the time the game has boiled down to the last eight or ten players, the big blind can be as much as one third of the average stack. Accordingly your decisions are often all-in or fold.

It doesn't leave a lot of room for real poker playing. Luck will almost always be the deciding factor.

So what can you do about it?
The answer is not much, it's stitched into the fabric of the game. The very thing that makes pub poker so accessible is the same thing that turns final table play into a lottery.

So, accept that which you can't change; adjust your definition of winning. Probably the best measure of success is how many final tables you make. If you're frequently in the top 10, but just never quite snagging that victory, you're probably playing a decent game.

Most poker leagues recognise this and have special monthly deep-stack, long-blind events. Players qualify through consistent deep finishes over the month. Try to qualify for a few of these and see how you go in longer games.

Next time you're watching two world-class poker heavyweights in a drawn-out heads-up wrestle on the telly; don't wonder
"Why don't I ever get to play like that?"
just remember... your entry fee was two beers and you were home in time for work the next day.

C U @ the table :-)