Ups and Downs...but overall a good weekend!

So the week started off not all that well and I dug myself a pretty big hole losing $700 playing HU .5/$1. I won't get into many hands but I will say that I took some horrid beats which tilted the hell out of me causing me to lose some money in a fit of frustration. Tilting off a ton of money like this is something that I've been trying hard to prevent and for the most part had done a good job with. It just one of those feelings you don't like having and if I weren't use to the swings I would have probably gone on a bender and lost a lot more. But I quit when I knew enough was enough and just didn't play again for the rest of the week. Taking time off when the cards aren't running in your favor is always a good idea. It helps you to clear your head and not have poker on the mind 24/7.

So come Friday night I was out of town with my girlfriend house sitting for some friends of hers and decided I'd fire up and give a session a shot. I started out mixing things up a bit and played some .25/.5 6 Max NL. I was 4 tabling and the session was a major roller coaster ride. I would be up a few buy-ins and then lose a monster to bring me back down then grind it back up and then fall again. It really wasn't all that great of a 1st session back and the 2 set over sets didn't really help much. I want to say it was around midnight when I decided to check the tourneys that were about to start and saw that there was a 4K guaranteed about to start. It was PL hold'em (not my best) but the field was small, it was a double stack, and first place was still going to be over 1K. I figured I give it a shot and see what happens. 3 hands in I pick up AKoff and a guy who has made it apparent that he wants to go to sleep has just re-potted from early position. I knew I had his range crushed so I potted on top for pretty much an all in. It folds back around to the initial raiser and he folds and the donk puts it all in w/ J9 sooted. I flop my A and was the chip leader 4 or so hands in.

So I'm thinking things are looking up and this might end up being a pretty good tourney until the next hand made me want to cry. I won't give you the play by play but rather give you the unfortunate outcome. 4 limpers, I flop middle set, guy flops top set, and another guy flops the nut flush draw. Top set holds and 6 or so hands in I'm back down to my initial starting stack :(. I rebound from that debacle of a hand and manage to build a nice stack carrying me deep into the 3rd hour of play. I want to say the key hands for me were back to back at the 200/400 level. I was sitting with roughly 5500 chips and I picked up AQ from early position. I raise and get min re-raised from the very next player. At this point I made up my mind that I was going with the hand not matter what so I called and flopped top pair and a gut shot. I push on the pot for about the pot size and get insta-called by AK who flopped top 2 pair. I figured I was behind with the texture of the flop but had to go with it. Well I needed to run well after all that bad luck in the cash game and rivered a jack for broadway! That catapulted me up to a nice sized stack of roughly 11K and I was in prime position with about 50 people left.

The very next hand I pick up 99 again in early position so I limp them and get about 5 other limpers. We see a flop of 9 10 J and I begin to salivate! The action though was a little scary in front of me and forced me to make a quick decision again for all my chips! A short stack pushed and the next limper just called his push!?!?!?! The all in by the short stack was enough to make me worry when the player behind him just called but I wasn't folding my set so I repotted on top. Sure enough when it folded back around to him he insta called with KQ for the nut straight! But again luck was on my side and I turned a 10 for the boat! Now I had a monster stack and was in first with about 45+ people left.

I played a great tourney from there on out and like before, if I had chips late in the tourney I definitely knew how to use them. I made the final table and used aggression and mixed with a little luck from picking up KK when another decent sized stack had JJ to get me a second place finish! I pocketed a cool $800 and covered my losses from earlier in the week.


Then just last night I won about 6 buy-ins at a .25/.50 HU table and secured my bankroll well over 2K! I'm very happy with my play of lately and my tournament showings have been outstanding for the volume I've been putting in. My next goal is to continue to grind out the HU game and lower stakes tourneys and work the roll back to around 5K. Rakeback has been key, bringing in about $100 a month and that figure will only rise with the more I play and the higher I get stakes wise.