All I wanted to do was clear a bonus...

...and now I've got this pesky $190 I didn't have before.

The rest of this weekend continued to go well for me. Saturday I played 3 tournaments, spending about 3 minutes at the computer. I got 200-somethingth out of 700-some in the Aussie Millions Freeroll. Not bad for showing up just as the blinds gobbled me up. I didn't show well in the $2k freeroll I earned with my points. Of course, I jammed with the first face card I saw when I was checking on the Aussie Millions tourney. Then the $500 started at 6. My wife was going to the computer to do something, and I told her to push if I got a good hand. Well, she doubled me up w/QQ and then won another small pot w/KK. Imagine the possibilities... But in the end I got 34th out of 200-some, sadly matching my best finish in that tourney.

You see, I had better things to do on Saturday. Had friends over for tailgating before the game, went to the game for about 4 minutes (41-10 trouncing at the hands of f'ing KANSAS), then when we came back we ended up playing euchre until about 7:30, hence my missing everything. Friends over poker, after all.

Yesterday was my last chance at the $500 freeroll for new depositing players, and, can you imagine? I went out 66th out of 211. In 5 attempts, that makes four 6Xth finishes, and one 3Xth finish. Like I say, I'm nothing if not consistent. What I learned was that I need to figure out a way to close the deal, because I spent time in the top five in 4 of the 5 tourneys, eventually fizzling. I'm of the belief that you can't bluff in a freeroll (correct me if I'm wrong), and I went card dead in all of them, so I guess maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

Anyway, while I was playing yesterday I also sat down with $91 in a 10-handed .50/1 NL table to keep working on that bonus. In a fairly early hand, I pissed away half my stack when I lost with top two pair to trips. By the river I knew I was beat, but I still made a $20 call. Hopefully I won't have to learn that lesson too many more times. It was just an assanine hand, and I hated myself after calling the river. I'm not even describing it, because I'm so embarassed about how it played out. So things were not off to a great start at the cash game, and they only continued to get worse. Once I hit about $30 I decided to try and break out of the funk by opening up a 6-handed table again and buying in for $30 there. Just like Friday, this proved to be the catalyst to winning. Early in my 6-handed session I doubled up when two of us had trips and I outkicked. While missing AK like it was my job at the 10-handed table, I proceeded to win a big pot at the 6-hander when my JQo flopped queens full and I was in the hand with someone holding the case Q. I think I got about all but $15 in, really thinking he wasn't as strong as he was. Turns out, he probably would've been willing to double me up. After that I called a pathetic bluff attempt w/JJ and a 9-high paired board, when he didn't improve his AQ. That was another $25 win. Then, finally a little good fortune at the full table when I limped with 78 and saw a 6 9 10 flop. I let a couple players draw to their hands and got it all in by the end. Unfortunately, at the time "all in" was only $20. As I'm winning that hand, I pick up AA at the 6 seater and take another decent chunk of change off a player who liked his top pair on a Q-high board.

About this time I had cracked 2k player points, unlocking the first 10% of my bonus, and after I cashed out of my tables, my total tally came to just South of $260. After another miserable start, accentuated by my HORRIBLE play, I stuck it out and hung in there for the rush, promptly cashing out with a win.

Seriously though...AK has NOT been kind to me at the full tables. I had it about 5 times on Friday night and then another 4-5, including twice in a row yesterday, and I didn't win with it ONCE. That's a lot of preflop raises down the crapper. Oh well, I guess I'll just stick to my 78 flopping straights.

I find it hard to care about my results in the $500 freerolls when I'm earning player points and becoming eligible for $1k and $2k freerolls. I blew off Saturday's $2k, but will be giving tonight's $1k my all, as the old lady is going to a friend's and its just gonna be me, poker, and Seneca Wallace's first win as an NFL starter tonight. What I get a chuckle out of, is the fact that over the course of 2 months playing SNGs, I earned just over 2000 player points. Since Friday, I've played about 5 hours of two table .50/1 NL and earned 2000 player points. I've got 18,000 to go by 11/30 to clear all of my bonus, so we'll see how that works out. Looks like the SNGs will be taking a back seat at least for the next 24 days. I just hope the cash games don't take a dump on me. There's several elements to consider, including the level I'm playing at (probably too high), my multitabling skills (I'm generally comfortable w/2 tables plus an unimportant tourney table, but may have to strech that), and volatility of NL. If any of those combine with variance and sneak up on me, I could be telling a sad story real fast. So I *really* have to be careful.

Bloggers are already off to a killer start this week, as I found great posts already from HighOnPoker (about pushing the limits, and his "Good Players Have..." question), TripJax (about bad beats and tilt), doubleas (about micro limit cash games), and slb159 bringing to my attention the fact that my favorite site, Poker.com has a Blogger Poker Tour. All of these posts hit very close to home for me, so thanks to these posters for putting your thoughts out there. As I become more engrained in this blogger community, I see that that's what this is all about. We've all got the same basic goal, and in the different paths to that goal, endless knowledge that will benefit others. I only hope that eventually I'll be able to contribute to the community.

Along those lines, I've got my first idea for a theory post that I'll work on getting out as soon as I can. I don't know if its been done before, and I hope it doesn't suck, but I guess I'll just run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

Thanks for stopping by, and good luck at the felt.