100% + 33% = 133%

Well, while I didn't technically hit my goal of reaching $300 online on Friday, by the time my poker weekend was over, I had improved my bankroll 33% to bring it back up over $400 for the first time since the WSOP Circuit Event in January.

I don't have many specifics to report from my day off on Friday. It was just a whirlwind of SNGs. That's one thing I can be majorly proud of is that I didn't play outside my roll, I stuck to the SNGs (my bread and butter), and didn't take shots messing around in MTTs, token races, or anything like that. How many times have I harped on this in the past?? Friday was purely about strong play and strong discipline. FINALLY. Unfortunately, Friday was also about losing coin flips like it was my job. For the first part of the day I'd play my sets of 2 SNGs, blank in one, and take 2nd in the other, netting $-1. I couldn't win heads up to save my life, either losing a coin flip for all my chips, or pushing my little ace into a bigger ace. Finally later in the day I managed to put together some profitability, and when all was said and done I was a $40 winner. The hourly rate was by no means impressive, but it got me to the highest point in my online bankroll since January, and I felt like I did it with less than average luck.

The real interesting part Friday was that I was looking around in the MTTs seeing if there were any cheap 6-max to play and there happened to be a freeroll kicking off. Without even seeing what it was, I went ahead and registered, because a little freeroll action never hurt anyone. I managed to figure out it was a Main Event qualifier of some sort, but wasn't too concerned beyond that. Until after the first hand. In the BB I find A3h, and it checks around to me with 5 limpers. The flop comes down with 2 hearts. SB checks, I go ahead and bet, I get re-raised all-in, and it calls all the way around to the SB who folds. I make the obvious call, miss the turn, but spike the nuts on the river and all of the sudden I've got 7500 chips and am in 7th out of 300. I manage to continue to hit cards early and run my stack up another 1500 or so, and I'm playing probably the 2nd deepest I ever have in any MTT (I seem to recall chipping up to about 10k early in a Poker.com tourney once). I'm gonna be honest, I continued to concentrate on my SNGs and don't know what the hell even happened, but I put in my best ABC poker effort on the thing and managed to hang around and hang around and hang around. I never really dropped out of the top 20 until we got in the neighborhood of 3-4 tables, then it was 27th out of 35, 13th out of 27, 8th out of 15, and then I found myself at the final table on the short stack, still waiting for my exit. Only 1st place paid a seat to the 2nd Round freeroll, so it was all or nothing. While I was waiting for a hand to push with 9th place fell, then 8th, then 7th, and even 6th. I managed to steal a couple blinds, but was still nursing a 10BB stack. But with only 5 left now I'm thinking if I find a way to double up I've got as good of a shot as anyone. I finally do manage to find A10, but someone has me dominated w/AJ, and I go home in 5th out of 315. It really was a blip on the radar, but even in a turbo freeroll 5th out of 315 is a confidence booster. That freeroll paid one seat to Level 2, which paid 9 seats to Level 3, which had a guaranteed 2 seats to the Main Event. Well, someone's gonna win those seats, so I figured why not me? Anyway, it was a fun little run, and whenever I've told any of my friends I start it off with "Man I got so close to winning a seat in the Main Event"...haha...

Friday was also my monthly home game, which saw our biggest turnout ever. First tourney had 20 runners, the 2nd had 24, and the third had 14 players and a prize pool of 17 after rebuys. I managed to work my way to 4th place and a micro cash in the first. I was a short stack before we even got to the final table and I managed to flop trip queens in the BB on an attractive board. We checked the flop and the turn brought a 9, which promped one of our LAGs to bet. It was called in a couple places, as well as by me. The river was another gorgeous 9, UTG bet again, another caller or two, I got it all in, and tripled or quadrupled up w/Qs full vs. 9s full vs junk. That got me to the final table with a decent stack, but the blinds eventually got so big it was a crap shoot and I couldn't find any cards. That paid for my buyin and my beer money to the house. So I was even. The 2nd tournament, which I *really* wanted to score in due to the 11x buyin 1st place prize, was a HUGE disappointment. Early on in the big blind I flopped a medium flush draw on a paired board. I wanted to get to the turn cheaply and it checked around. The turn brought my flush, but I still checked it since it was just a baby. A player in MP bets 100 (25/50 blinds, 1500 starting stacks, 15 minute levels, blinds double every level), so to see where I'm at I raise it to 400. He labors over it for a while and smooth calls. The river falls blank, I check to him again, he bets 500 this time, and even though it looks like an ugly situation I feel compelled to call. I flip my baby flush and he rolls two fours for flopped quads. I wanted to be sick. Shortly after that I got my last 600ish in with 22 on a 10 10 7 board. Two callers, one with a 10, and I'm done in 21st place. I was SO tilted by that quads hand, called the wife, went and ate some food, licked my wounds, and waited for the cash game. We play a little .25/.50 on the side until the tourneys are over, and finally the tourney combined to two tables and we fired up a cash game. I bought in for $10, and for a couple of orbits I didn't see any cards, while chips were all headed to one guy and I was afraid the action would dry up. I finally won like a $4 pot and got up above my buyin, but then gave it back relatively quickly trying to bluff at pots. Back down below my original buy-in, the tournament finally wraps up. I declare it will be our last hand, and I look down to find QQ in the SB. I couldn't have loved it more. At the 7-handed table, there are 3 callers around to me. I make it $2.50 to go for a couple of reasons. First, if I take down this pot right now, I'm about even and I'm just fine with that. Second, there is one major LAG at a table and I don't think he'd folded to a raise the entire time, so I do NOT want to slow play and not at least make him pay to suckout on me. It also didn't hurt that the BB was a shorty and $2.50 would definitely commit him. Well I got calls in 3 spots and down came the flop. The only thing I loved more than the two queens was the flop...a 9-high rainbow. I bet $3, the BB called off the rest of his chips, whatever they were, the LAG raised all-in, and the next seat called him. The last two callers were basically playing because it was the last hand. I may not have gotten this action any other time. Anyway, I declared all-in, and the late position player called that. We see some cards. BB has junk, LAG has A9, and I don't even remember what the other LP player had. J8 or something. I manage to hold up and scoop a big pot somewhere north of $30, more than tripling my buyin, and taking me from the megaist of tilt to the highest of highs. We played one more tourney with rebuys and I just dicked around for at least the first 30 mins with rebuys in effect. After my brother-in-law snapped me off when I was betting a hand blind and forced me to fold on the turn forfeiting about 600 chips, I found myself on a short stack with less than 15 mins to the end of the rebuy period. Needing a rebuy, I didn't raise with AJ and got it all-in against a flopped pair of Qs, and with about 5 mins left until rebuys were over I had mine and it was time to get down to business. I managed to make the final table as the short stack and again found that while I maybe should have gone out these other stacks kept dropping. On the bubble, I managed to double up off another short stack when I flopped top pair in the BB and he flopped 2nd in the small. Then after that I eventually found a real hand, and before I knew it, I was a contender. I managed to work my way to heads up against my brother-in-law at a massive disadvantage, and after trying to fight for a few hands I finally gave up and pushed w/J9 when I knew I was beat as it was late and people were looking to get home. I'd be more than happy with $30 profit on the night considering some good luck I had in the 1st and 3rd tourneys and the cash game, and the bad luck I had in the 2nd tourney. So that makes me a pretty decent winner for several months in a row now, and capped off another fun as hell poker night.

Its getting out of hand here, so I'll try and be quick with my Saturday update. My wife was crazy hungover, so while she rested I hit the tables. With $237 in the account and feeling pretty strong, I went ahead and played a $22 SNG. This thing was a major roller coaster and was dominated by one very strong player getting very strong cards, but I managed to back my way into 2nd and felt good about cashing for the first time ever in a $20 SNG (I'd taken some other shots back in the day while employing poor bankroll management and pretty much gotten throttled). I say I backed my way into the money because with 3 left I was the shorty, but then 2nd place went AFK and the big stack and I pretty well cleaned him out before he got back and ended up pushing into a dominated situation with the leader. But that'll happen, and I still feel like I was strong enough to outlast that player anyway...but we'll never know. I'm just happy to cash, regardless. The bad news is that while I was playing 1 $22 SNG, I also played 2 $11 SNG and went 0-fer in those. I remember them as being ridiculous and irritating the shit out of me. I think maybe in one I might have majorly screwed up and in the other I got majorly screwed, but I dunno. So at that point I was down $2. I didn't have time for any more SNGs as it was about time to go see Lewis Black, so I decided to fire up some .10/.25 NL and give it a go. I think I found my happy place with cash games. IMO, the key to being successful at cash games online is to find the perfect balance for your skills at a certain level, coupled with the number of tables that allows you to both not get bored and play good poker. While I normally suck at multitabling and hate having more than 2 tourneys open at a time, I was on cruise control with 4 tables open. It was just the right amount of action to keep hands coming so that I wasn't dicking around chasing marginal hands and trying to make plays because I'm bored, but I was also able to play strong ABC poker and maximize my profitability against these donkeys. So I think I've got it figured out...tourneys + multitabling = bad...cash + multitabling = good. You just have to find the right balance of number of tables to play based on the level you're playing at. The lower the level and the greater advantage you have over the table, the more tables you can play because its pretty much ABC poker and reads don't mean a lot. But I can certainly see as you move up in levels and your advantage over the competition gets lesser and reads become more important, you don't wanna get too out of hand with multitabling. I know, I know...welcome to 2004...but hey...I've proven that the basics in profitable poker have a way of evading my grasp. Anyway, four seemed to be the magic number for me at .10/.25 as I felt like I was keeping busy, in a zone, and playing profitable poker. It got a little dicey when I'd make hands at 3 or even 4 tables at the same time, but I find it hard to complain if something like that is gonna be happening. I think I had a nice run of above average luck and hands, but winning is winning, and I won about $20 in 40 mins or so. I even let $20 slip through my fingers when I folded 99 to a raise and a re-raise and would've flopped quads and stacked a guy, but that'll happen from time to time. It was a good fold. I was gonna pay $1.10 to see a flop, but not $3. That got me to $255, and I'll be playing at least 2 more $20 SNGs without any fear of severe bankroll depletion.

So that about sums it up. Great weekend for me, and hopefully I can continue the slow and steady approach and keep this thing headed in the right direction.

Its coming up on my 100th post and a year since I started blogging, and as I become more engrained in this community, it amazes me how close-knit it is. While I've yet to play one of the regular weekly blogger tournaments, I hope to soon, but something I definitely want to get involved in is the Blogger Bracelet Races that Al has put together. There's one strictly for bloggers where you have to email for the password, and then he's put together another with a non-secret password under his Riverchasers moniker. Click on the link above to get the details on both. Plus, there's the Blogger Poker Challenge that Al, Mook, and I believe Hoy all were involved in conceiving. Plus, its sponsored by Poker On A Mac, which is run by an awesome guy and is a cause close to my Apple loving heart. Anyway, I know all of this is old news, but I feel like I should pimp because with any luck, as the TV schedule begins to wind down and I start spending more of my nights playing poker and less of them watching TV, and, (poker) god(s) willing, my bankroll continues to grow, maybe I can get my foot in the door among some of these big name bloggers. I'll never have as good of a blog as any of them, but what the community has done for my game in the last 9 months is immesurable.

Anyway, this post has gotten ridiculously long at this point, so I'm gonna let it go. I'll be back when the time is right.