Shame On Me

Well here we are again and I've gone over a month...almost two...without a post. I've had quite a bit of playing, a lot of working of course, a vacation to Dominican Republic, but mostly a lot of reading up on the WSOP that I've been doing. Its been fascinating reading the really compelling 2008 WSOP stories from Pauly, Pokerati, WCP, and all the other numerous blogs and outlets who, as usual, have done an outstanding job covering the WSOP and all that goes along with it. Sadly, I predicted last year to be the year the pros took back the WSOP to any friends that would listen, but turns out I was a year premature on that prediction.

Anyway, personally speaking, things are about the same as usual. Break even at best. I finally received another bonus offer from Full Tilt, so I put $60 in there, and after working off like $27 of my $30 bonus (which is a pretty big accomplishment for me), in addition to some rakeback, I'm sitting at something like $43-45. In 3 significant sessions I ran pretty decent in the first and ran it up a little over $90, but then played tiltier than I'd have liked and couldn't buy cards in the 2nd two sessions and subtracting bonuses and rakeback, ended up down a good $50 overall at the .05/.10 NL tables. I also worked in one brief session of .25/.50 Limit that was basically break even. Anyway, thank goodness for the bonus and rakeback or I would've damn near gone broke. I ran pretty bad in those last couple of sessions, but I also played equally as badly, so I'm not gonna whine about my results. Looking back, I was more focused on clearing the bonus than I was actually making money playing poker, which is pretty f'n sick, but I'll live to see another day. It would've been nice to show some winnings in addition to the free money, but if I had to use the free money to not go broke, so be it. In the end, I end up with a fair amount of money on Tilt to play with, and with my rakeback there and their Happy Hour promotion, I think I'm gonna focus on it as my cash game site to try and not only try to play more cash games, but get optimum value for my play.

That said, I kind of burned myself out on cash games working to clear that bonus, so for the time being I've gone back to PokerStars and the SNGs I know and love. I'm not comfortable with what had happened to my bankroll on that site, and I'm determined to build a respectable bankroll, and I think I want it to be at Stars. It also doesn't hurt that they're running this 2x promotion during the month of July, and even though my FPP "bankroll" is piss poor at the moment, I would someday like to move up in their VIP program and have some FPPs to mess around with for satellites and whatnot. Also, given that I am a self-proclaimed "SNG Specialist", I would like to at some point get some sort of value out of their Battle of the Planets promo. This may be the week as I have currently gone 3, 1, 7, 2, 1, 2, 7 in my 7 SNGs. Its hard enough for me to play 20 SNGs in a week (I've yet to ever even do it), so I have to focus and make sure my first 20 SNGs are my best 20. So for now, I'm content at the 1.20s and trying to get ITM, but more preferrably 1st and 2nd place finishes for the Battle of the Planets points. With any luck, everything will unfold naturally and maybe next week I can move back to the 5.50s and try the same thing.

I also broke a disgusting run of non-cashes in MTTs on Sunday. As of that point it had been almost 4 months and 18 MTTs (7 of which were the WSOP turbo freerolls which only sorta count) since my last cash. I had forgotten what its like to get past the first 90 mins of a tourney. In the end it was a microcash where I basically doubled my $5.50 buyin, but for me its always more of a pride thing and I feel like I made a good run. Recently, MTTs have been too big of a hit to the bankroll to play too many, so again, I'm hoping to get back to the point where I can play more MTTs, specifically the $20k Guarantee a couple of nights a week, and maybe finally make a real run at some money after playing this game for 4 years. But for now, I'm pretty damn thrilled to cash after 4 months and 11 MTTs.

Incidentally, I did manage to work in a 1/2 NL live session back at the end of May, but there really isn't much to say about it. I posted a $5 loss that felt like a $195 win, considering there was a point where I was $200 deep and had the last of it in the middle. I then made a steady run to recover and walked out of there with what I came in with minus $5 and experience.

I also need to plan in a couple more 1/2 NL sessions between now and August 21st, because we have booked our annual patronage to Vegas, and it is 8/21-8/25. While my good buddy who lives out there unfortunately will be gone for most of it, we are going w/my bro-in-law, so he and I plan on working in plenty of poker, and then it sounds like Jorgen will be back in town on the 24th for one good session before we leave bright and early Monday. So once again I'll be doing my best to work to put together a bankroll and counting down the days to that nice little midday flight out of Des Moines and 4 nights in my favorite place on the planet.

So I guess I am capable of blogging in a positive, or at least even keel manner. Right now, things are looking up. Of course with me, that could all change tonight. But I'm trying to just persevere, focus, and take it one hand at a time. If I could run decent between now and the end of August, I'd be the happiest poker player on the planet. But I'm not gonna get greedy, and I'm not gonna count my chickens before they're hatched. I'm just gonna play 4-5 more SNGs tonight and hope for the best each time the cards are dealt, then do the same thing tomorrow.

Thanks for tuning in, and I'll do my best to keep you posted.