Its THAT time of year again....

The reason that I haven't been updating much lately, is because I haven't played any poker either - it's  not because I don't want to. Believe me!

See, the thing is that its hayfever season. It's the time of year when I find myself being allergic to grass, and thats the way its going to be for a couple of more weeks or so. Sucks, but such is life....

And since I respect my money way too much to be playing poker when either feeling sick or on medication, there's no poker these days. And, as such, no pokerblogging either.

C'ya when its over!

Finally - a profit!

After having had a couple of horrible nights at the tables, I finally was able to get through a nights session with a small profit.

Granted, the 12 tournaments of the night only gave a profit of $7.70 and granted that I only cashed in four of them, far from the fifty or so percent that was the case during my 'rush' last week, but they included two tournament wins & one secondplace finish, all in single-table SNG's and one fourth place finish in an 18-player SNG. 

I played ok and ought to have cashed in the 180-player SNG as well, but busted only four (!!) places short of the payouts, when my aces got themselves cracked by K-10 hitting an inside straight on the river, of all places. But ok, such is life.

Time to eat some, then off to sleep. Tomorrow night I'll be back at work again - it sucks, but what's to do?  

Hm...

Another annoying night, where I finished $10 lower than where it began. Thats bad!

But most annoying was the $5 90 player SNG, where I made it to the final table, had enough chips to play with - at least relatively!- and still managed to donk it all away to a seventplace finish. See, the 90 SNG is a doublestack tournament and it pays out to top 18, which is by far much beter value than playing the 45-player tournaments with payout to top six players. Which aren't even doublestack, btw.

So, after four hours of crueling play, I found myself at the final table. Had been second in chips at that table, had dropped to a narrow fourth but nothing to worry about. Then, after the break, I first donked away a third of my stack on two illtimed bluffs, before losing everything with KJ on a A-K-A flop. My opponent was a known 'spinster', so I didn't believe his allinbet,, turned out he had A-6 and off I was; collecting $18 for seventh place. 

But, oh well, it was a fun tournament to play and I'l definately return to that particular format once again. They're fun, doublestacked so no need to hurry too much and payouts to top 18 out of 90 - clearly good value by almost any standard!

Tilty yesterday

Yesterday was somewhat of a tilty experience for me. Tilty, because I played below standard. Tilty, because the cards I was dealt were substandard as well - and tilty, because I just didn't have the necessary luck in marginal situations. But mostly because I played badly, made the wrong decisions a bit too often. I played a total of 14 tournaments, cashed in two - for someone who's used to cash in apprx 50 percent of his SitandGoes, that pretty much says it all. Those two cashes were both in singletable SNG's, and were one first- and one secondplace finish. Each were ok finishes, except that there should've been more.

But that was yesterday, today is today and it would appear as if my tilty behaviour has been altered. Maybe because I was smart enough to spend the better part of the afternoon at a café, sipping cappucinos and gazing after the girls - who knows? But the facts are, that until now, this saturday has brought me two cashes in five tournaments (one second, one first!) and one tournament, where I was knocked out on the bubble with AA vs 10-10, where the tens hit a Full House on the flop. So I've played well so far. Tilting appears to have been put behind me for this time. 

Going!

Decided to run up the gap of $14 which I left earlier this morning, I played 3 $5 SNG's late this afternoon. Two losses, and one first-place. This left me a mere $3 short of target, but as soon as I realized that the MINIFTOPS event that I desired coudl be entered for FTP-points (4,400) instead of cash money, I decided to go for it. We're 7 mins away from the first break, there were 5957 entrants and there'll be payouts for top 738.

All is well so far. No major hands. No major wins, no major losses. Startingstack was 5000 chips; I've got apprx 5100 right now.

Not quite

Yesterday morning I finished a long nights pokerplaying only $6 from target, so obviously I was hoping that today would bring me where I needed to be. But that's not what happened. As I write these lines, its only minutes before I'll go to sleep and as we speek, my sharkscope-stats tells me that I'm behind by $14. So, basically, I lost $8 today! 

Here's the scoop of what happened: I played a total of 14 tournaments tonight, and cashed in 6. There were no first-place finishes among them. Single-table tournaments brought me two third-place finishes and two second. In a 18-player SNG I finished third, and in the tier one token-tournament, I finished 6th and thus missed getting a token, but was paid $14 instead. 

Not a perfect day, far from it! Yesterday I actualy did meet the goal, but only for one tournament. Only for one tournament...   

Almost there

Today I bring you good news and semibad news. Lets start out with the semibad ones: During todays session, I played 12 tournaments and 'only' cashed in 5. Over the past few days, I've been used to cashing in half the tournaments that I sign up for, so five of twelve is somewhat below standard. But okok... statistically I'm only supposed to cash in a third of these, when playing one-table SNG's and generally slightly less than that in the 18-player ones. Still feels somewhat like tilt though...

Good news are that I've been making money - yay! In $5 single-table tournaments I've made two third place finishes and won first place in the only $10 single-table tournament that I played today. The score for that particular tournament alone was $45, so that's cool. 

Then I also played three 18-player tournaments. One $10 where I donked out 13th, one $5 that I won (second in a row at that level - YAY!!) and a tier one token-tournament, where I finished 6th and cashed $14 for the effort.

Now I'm only $5-6 away from meeting my goal; breaking even on Sharkscope, and its time to set a new one. I'll do so after we get the MINIFTOPS over and done with, there's plenty of time for that. I need to think about what it should be.