more frustr... never mind

Hah.

So I went on quasi tilt this evening. I admit it. The really awful play at 3/6 was taking it's toll on me. You know, I normally like it when players can't get rid of marginal hands, but this was one of those evenings when players could not fold overpairs (when I didn't have enough), couldn't fold marginal hands (when I had them beat, but they'd hit their hand more often than not on the river), and when I had the goods... they had nothing. We've all been there. Frustration.

So, as is the hallmark of any sensible bankroll management technique... I looked for a bigger game. Hey, I never said I was entirely intelligent with how I went about these things. Even smarter is I knew I wasn't playing my A-Game. My reads were off, and as a result, I was gunshy about following them when I thought a strong play could take a hand. So, yeah, moving to a 5/10 table was huge +EV.

And then a funny thing happened. I hit one of those miracle cards. I made a raise preflop with T9 of hearts. The button smooth called (6 handed). The flop came 673 with two spades. I checked, and the player bet. I called, figuring two things: one, he would bet with anything there and two, there were many cards that I could hit that would either enable me to take the pot. The turn came an offsuit nine, which was nice. I checked again, the player bet again, and I check/raised an amount that appeared as though it wanted a call (it wasn't much over a minraise). I thought this line appeared monstrously strong. Well, the player called. With the call, I figured I was most likely against a pair of queens or jacks that couldn't fold. The river was my yahtzee - the eight. I went ahead and put the rest in and was paid by precisely queens.

That was nice for a change. Whenever you've been taking tough beats on the river all night, and have made strong plays attempting to get overpairs to fold (which is probably my mistake, but to my credit, it seemed whenever I had a nice pair/draw combo I was against a shorty with an overpair that was willing to die with it, not a shorty with overcards that could get away. They had the overcards when I flopped straights and two pair) it's REAL nice to be able to hit that miracle on the river and stack the overpair. I didn't feel the least bit bad.

Anyway, the night turned winner when I stacked that same player, who rebought, taking the same line with aces. Even figuring in the party super tuesday I played in (and hit nothing, thank you for asking) and that massive $15 investment in the stars $3 rebuy (lost a coinflip to go out, surprisingly), I was a healthy winner for the evening.

I'm now in the home stretch of getting ready for AC. In two weeks time, I hope to be trying to fall asleep figuring out a game plan for the final table of the event. I've taken some very big steps in my game lately. I think I learned a very important lesson in the UB SCNII, one that will hopefully be paid with interest at the Borgata. The excitement is very slowly beginning to build. I think I'll play one more deep stack tournament Saturday, and undoubtedly the Sunday tourneys. Hopefully I'll get a nice payday to give me a boost in confidence going to AC.

Damn, it's 2 o'clock already? Time flies when you're hitting miracle rivers.