well it's beena while since i posted. i've been sick and busy and having had time for a lot of poker or much of anything else. Just as an update: i'm taking a break from tourney's for a while. Not because i don't enjoy them, but because i found a much more time efficient way of making money lol. I've started playing shorthanded limit tables and i love it. Not nearly as much sucking out and the pots are bigger on average too. In the past week i've made like $600 or so. Just today i'm up over $200. That's with only 3-4 hours of play today too. It's awesome. This isn't an exceptional thing either. I've been winning consistently like this everytime i've sat down lately. It's been a blast. It just seems so easy for some reason.

Oh, just as a fun thing, here is my new favorite hand ever:

fstgrndr55 Posted Small Blind $1.00
blondie1559 Posted Big Blind $2.00
secman Posted Return Blind $3.00
Dealing CardsYou Were Dealt (Js, Qs)
thepurdle Raised to $4.00
petepatel Calls $4.00
secman Folds
kaptainkrunch Folds
fstgrndr55 Folds
blondie1559 Calls $2.00
Dealing Flop (Tc,8h,5d)
blondie1559 Checks
thepurdle Bets $2.00
petepatel Calls $2.00
blondie1559 Folds
Dealing Turn (Td)
thepurdle Checks
petepatel Bets $4.00
thepurdle Calls $4.00
Dealing River (Kc)
thepurdle Checks
petepatel Bets $4.00
thepurdle Calls $4.00
petepatel has (7d, 9d)
thepurdle has (Js, Qs)
thepurdle Wins $34.20 from pot 1 with : Pair of Tens

lmao. yes i called him down with queen high and was succesful. had to be one of my finest moments ever.

Ok, so i know i just posted not long ago, but i thought i would do a follow up. I said i was going to play the next $10 Nl if it got over 50 ppl in it. It did. 66 ppl registered to be exact. Well, i got hot early on. Picked up aces early on and more than doubled up. Then flopped 2 pair from the big blind with 9-4o and busted fellow forumer thechach. From there it was mainly smooth sailing other than my kings getting sucked out on by j-7s going all in on a flush draw on the flop. Other than that all was good. Made the final table and all was good. Ended up having a rough FT. Got sucked out on twice by the same guy, on the river no less, which really hurt my chances. The second time i had to make a miracle comeback from less the 1k in chips and in about 3 hands got back up to 10k. Alas, it was all for nothing. Ended up getting blinded off for a couple rounds and then the same guy who rivered me the last 2 times went ahead and rivered me for a flush on what would have been a split pot. I really just couldn't get lucky once the FT started other than my comeback. Not that any of the beats were all that bad, well, the one was pretty bad since he was drawing to 3 outs, but other than that the others weren't that bad other than the fact that they came on the river which always makes it seem worse. I'll take the positive out of this though. I played in 2 tourneys of over 50 ppl each today. I ended up taking 3rd and 5th in them and making almost $100. Pretty good showing, it's just a shame because it could have been so much better. I really feel like i had a great chance of winning both of those tournaments and that kind of hurts, but i guess i'll take what i can get. @.@

Ok, so lets start this out by saying that my streak of up and down hasn't changed. I started yesterday out really well by finishing in the money in my first 2 tourneys of the day. That was good. The bad started when i sat down at a NL table and first got QQ sucked out on for like a $20 all in by a donk on a straight draw and then like 5 minutes later the same thing happened to my AA, only it was a flush draw this time. There wasn't anything i could do about it, but it still sucked to lose over $50 in 2 hands. Seemed all to reminscent of me calling a all in with JJ against A-5 and the guy making a flush. So that was all fun. Then i went and lost some more at a limit right game which was fun.

The good news is that today i haven't played much, but i just finished a $10 NL tourney. Ended up finishing 3rd which was like $60 so that was a good thing. Now i'm deciding on my next move. I think i'm going to play the next $10 NL coming up in like 40 minutes (if it gets over 50 ppl). Hopefully i'll be able to do well there too.

You know, as much as my cash game experiences have sucked lately i can't help but think that it's going to get better. Every big pot that i've lost in the past week or so i've been about 70-30 to win it when the money went in. It's just that the cards haven't fallen right for me. If i have a couple of hands hold up i'm looking at a completely different situation right now. I guess the only thing i can do is take consolation in the fact that i'm getting my money in good consistently. ^_^

Alright, so i haven't played much today. But, i did have a good day thus far regardless. Got up this morning and started watching the muralific muralusion bubble out of the $200 guaranteed. I was only half awake so i decided i might as well go ahead and play the $5 NL tourney. You know, half asleep and poker is a great idea. Well, it ended up working out pretty well. Things looked pretty grim though coming up on the bubble. I was down to about 6 BB's and decided to semisteal with pocket 5's and moved in. I got called by QQ, but ended up getting lucky and flopping a set. That turned out to be the differnce in the tournament. From there it was on to the final table and that worked out well. I ended up being the big stack with 3 left. Then i knocked the one guy out so i was the big stack going into heads up. Unfortunately i kind of lost the HU match. He outflopped me when i had the best hand a couple times and that was it. Not too much i could do about it, but still a second. Didn't take a pic as it was a second and not a win, but overall i was very happy with the result. I think i'm going to play the $1500 short hand guaranteed and hope i can do well there as well. I seem to kind of be getting back into my MTT groove the past couple days. (>~.~)>

Woohoo, still more of the same. Up and down up and down. It's getting kind of frustrating. I can't put together 2 good days. Started out awesome today. Won my first 2 sng's so i was up $30. I quickly lost 3 more so i ended up like $15. Also had a bad day the other day. Lost a bunch. Sat down at a NL table and lost like $50. Made trips to get rivered by a flush, twice. Made 2 pair to get rivered by a, guess what, flush. It was pretty sick. Very frustrating. I think i'm going to stick to just MTT's and SnG's for a while.

Had a good showing in the $1500 guaranteed tourney. Over 100 ppl in it and i went out like 17th or something. Kind of got unlucky. Kind of not. Got my money in with the best hand with a chance to more than double up and got beat. It happens. Couldn't have really folded though with a-10 in my BB with only 3 BB's left. If i was a midish stack i probably fold there, but shortstacked or bigstacked i would have been forced to call. Gonna go and do some SnG's right now and hope it works out well for me. ^_^

LoL. Not a lot to post about just felt like i needed to keep updating. it's been more of the same, up and down from day to day. thanksgiving night i went and lost like $80-$100. Not really much i could do. I either missed the flop completely or made a great second best hand. It was absolutely brutal. Then yesterday i decided to take a break from ring games after such a bad session and went and played some $5 sng's. Well that worked out pretty good. i placed (meaning 1st or 2nd) in 8/9. I took 1st in 6. It was pretty amazing. I ended up making like $100 on sng's which basically got me back to where i was. Today i'm hoping for another day like yesterday. If i can string a couple of those together i will be a very happy camper, but we'll see.

Been so up and down the past week or so. Haven't been able to win any tourneys, but have been getting pretty consistent results. Mad $20 in the 10k freeroll on sunday and $20 in the 1k freeroll (with some help from my wife) yesterday. Other than that i've barely been staying even. Actually down quite a bit from my highest, but what do ya do. Ring games have been the same as tourneys too. I'll have a great session, then i'll have a down session. I just don't feel like i'm in rhythm overall, but i don't think i'm doing anything wrong. Just the cards are consistently falling the wrong way right now. I can't complain too much as i am going deep in my tourneys and overall i'm doing alright in ring games, but it's kind of frustrating after the rush i had been on. Honestly though i feel pretty comfortable with how i'm playing. I still feel like i'm a threat to go deep in any tourney i enter and that's what it's really all about as it is impossible to win them all (i'm not phil hellmuth ya know)...Anyway, things are ok and i have faith that i have a big win coming up soon. Just have to keep playing my cards correctly and eventually good things will happen. ^_^

BPT - The House of Blues

Just got underway. Kind of missed a couple hands because of an unfortunate incident with some chocolate milk, but i'm here now. Looks like a tough table. On table 3 right now with a couple BPT winners and a 20k freeroll winner. Not very excited about my table, but we'll see how it goes. Table looks awesome though.

Down 200 chips right now due to a misread on a bet by Kufolem. I thought he was bluffing with position and i had a pocket pair and check raised..oops. Grrr. Flopped a pair with a flush draw. Didn't work out very well. Down 3 chips now. Gonna have to bounce back. Down 400....not doing too well here. Think i need to sit back a little. Apparently i love j-8..i've had it 4 times already..Big pot just now between Markster1 and Kufolem. Kufolem had a flush and markster1 2 pair. Kufolem is running over my table at the moment. Wow....currently in 107th place out of 109. This is not looking good. Kind of feel like the whipping boy right now. Need to actually hit a hand because thus far i'll i've shown are bluffs, semi bluffs and second best hands. Think i'm going to tighten up and wait for a premiumish type hand now. Losing too many chips with OK hands. Just picked up a bigger pot from markster1 with a semibluff. Woohoo, not in last at my table anymore. reverted back to my limit hold 'em limpaholic strategy and it seems to be working. 90th out of 107 right now, kind of on the comeback trail. Still fine for chips though so i'm not really worried. Markster1 lost another big pot. This time with 2 pair to a straight. Wow, i just donked out in 103rd place or something. Grrr. went all in with top pair and a weak kicker after it was checked on the flop by markem. I bet the turn and he raised, i reraised, he called with a king kicker. I had 100 chips and went all in the next hand with K-jo. He called with K-6, he made 2 pair. YES! that was some terrible poker right there. I just never found a rhythm honestly. I hate that. Just felt out of sync and like nothing i was doing was working.