A bad run - followed by a small MTT win.

As mentioned in my previous post, I was doing very well over a 2 day stretch, then did bad at PLO. My poor run continued on Saturday and Sunday afternoon - losing at SNGs, PLO, and NL holdem. Nothing seemed to go right.

Sunday night, I entered the bugsys round 2 tourney. Only 89 entrants, so not a huge field, but I won it for a modest little ($710) score.

The tourney was incredible, as I built a nice chip lead and pummeled everyone from there. It is a really interesting tourney since there are really 2 bubbles. A final table bubble (which is also when the money starts), and a bubble because 4 players get freerole entries into a tourney that pays 2 WSOP seats. When we were down to 2 tables, I moved from 200K to 400K (about 1.2 million chips in play). I maintained at about 400K, perhaps moving to 450K when there were 6 left.

With 6 left, however, I really picked on short stacks. One player made a mistake of saying how he "bubbled" at 5 last time and how it really sucked. Big mistake. I raised him first in every time (he was bb when I was sb). Others were way too tight also. The general trend went: I chip up to 600K or so, then lose 100K back when all in with T5 vs. AJ, etc.). I was at 550K, however, when I started getting a mild run of cards - KTo, QTs, etc. With no big stacks (over 200K) and with the bb at 30K, I pushed every hand. Without seeing one turn, I was up over 800K with 5 left. Then I pushed 96s and was called by A7 and A8. Even then, I only risked 120K chips. When I flopped a 9, I knocked out both players and went to 3-handed play with a 90% of the chips in play. On the first hand 3-handed, the other two confronted each other and we were down to 2. Then I got K8s on the next hand (I think), and went all in (opponent had 180K and bb was 40K - no brainer decision). He had 55 but I won the flip and the tourney.

My play at the final 2 tables with the chip lead deviated a lot from "by the book" strategy. I might try to post the HH here - it was a really fun tourney to play.

Update

I have played some poker in the past few days, with good results overall. I had a great stretch from Tuesday-Thursday afternoon. The highlight was a stretch of 8 SNGs where I had 3 firsts, 2 seconds, and 1 third. I also did well with PLO and a bit of NL and limit holdem.

Thursday night I played tourneys and had some awful outdraws to knock me out. On Full Tilt I was 1/350 in their $24 8:00 tourney. Then I lost with KK to 97 when he called a PF reraise for 12x the bb and all in with an OESD. I still had well over teh average at 7K when the same player raised and I had QQ. I made a massive overbet reraise all in thinking the donkey would call. He did with his 99, but unfortunately he hit. I got outdrawn to bust out of a Stars tourney at the same time. I also played the $100 UB tourney - was on the same table with Johnnybax, Poker HO, and Sheets at the same time. I was short stacked when they got there, and lasted for a while before my flopped top pair was outkicked and I was out with about 50 left (30 paid).

That started a downward trend that continued last night when I lost quite a bit playing PLO - just did not end up on the right side of the confrontations.

All in all, however, I am up quite a bit for the week. The time to keep playing will probably not last. There are 3 weeks left in the school year - so things will be quite busy until mid-December. Right after that we have our third child.

Still swamped - just a quick update

I have had time to play an hour here or there, but not much. A quick update:

- Lost big last Wednesday

- Won big Thursday (so up slightly over Wed and Thur combined), but the win was in W$ from winning a satellite entry to the PCA (which I cashed for W$). There was some truly awful play in the PCA satellite win - if I get a second I might try to post some of those hands here.

- Essentially Broke even Friday-Saturday.

Won moderate amounts Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Mainly from playing very few SNGs, but doing quite well in them. Those turbo SNGs that only last 40 minutes or so are great when you want a taste of poker but don't have much time.

Work is so busy I don't envision myself playing too much before Thanksgiving break, but Thursday night is my one night I can sometimes get in some poker - hopefully the trend holds this week and I can play a few tourneys.

I am still doing a bit of work for SharkDAQ. It is quite fun, although challenging, to go through the candidates and select players.