boo

Well, this weekend was a continued failure. It came with the usual bad luck, but I mixed in some really awful play and some really good play, just for variety. I made a horrible play at the Party Million on Saturday, played about as well as possible given my service in the Big One, eked into the money after donking it up in the FT 40k, and busted out of the Saturday 200k after playing very well and getting horribly punished for it.

Today I managed to go 0/5 in 75%+ situations in a satellite to the stars million - since I'm mad at Stars anyway (I've always hated their tournament structure, so this is just a continuation) I didn't put any more efforts in.

I went out of the party 500k in the first hour, in glorious fashion. I lost a fifth of my chips early to a runner runner flush, lost half of my remaining stack value betting two pair into a set of aces (it was the one hand out of about 35 that was a realistic option for how he played the hand that beat me), and then had TPTK against a set. I was bet off a draw that hit the river and was raised off a weak hand by a weak player with 25o on the BB when the flop came 222 and people went apeshit with 44 and AQ. That was a little frustrating.

I played the Full Tilt 200k and again had two pair into a set of aces - though this time I was fairly certain he had it but I still felt obligated to call a value bet. I started with a very soft table and slowly kept accumulating chips. Unfortunately, that table broke, my new table was much tougher and I stopped getting hands. I had the two pair against the set, and then lost a coinflip to go out.

I also played the WSOP satellite on Full Tilt this evening. I played very well, picked up some chips early picking off bluffs, including a memorable hand when I button raised with AJo, got minreraised from a player who had no problems telegraphing his big pairs in this manner. The flop came ATrag, he bet I called. The turn was a baby, same deal and then the river was another baby and I called one more time, and he tabled jacks. I had snapped off a bluff of this player's a few hands previously, so I had no problem just calling with my moderate hand that was likely best. It was after these two plays that I was called an idiot and retarded by a couple at the table. The good thing about that - you're usually stacking chips. Unfortunately, that was it. I got KK a couple times, but couldn't get action on them, and QQ a couple times as well with no action. My moves with T2s, KQo and the like were getting heavy action, however. I ran into a shorty's KK with KTo, and I had a couple of favorites die to shorties. I was ground down, and at one point was 25th of 25 with 8BB.

I was down to about 6BB when I pushed in MP with 43o. The BB woke up with eights, but I was lucky for the first time all day and made trip threes. I really felt good after that, but I was ground right back into the red zone when I was forced to lay down KQ after I was reraised all in. What followed was some of the best short stack poker I've played. Obviously, it was great short stack poker because nobody was calling me when I was pushing with 94o, 57o and the like. I picked up queens again, but my push with that got no action either. I ultimately busted in 14th when I pushed with KQo, cracknaces picked up tens and protected, but I could not win the flip.

I was very pleased with the way I played today. I didn't get a lot of service, but played quite well. I got horribly unlucky repeatedly, both in terms of all ins (disregard the 43o> 88 for this) and in terms of my opponents having the one hand in a range that beat me. I'm feeling much better about my play than I was after the Party Million yesterday. Having said that, I think I'm still not playing consistently 100% - the results are seeping into my play.

This week I'm probably going to just play the 5/10 limit tables since I've been crushing them, maybe I'll play the heads up on stars since I'm doing well in those, and give the multis a miss until maybe Friday. If I get the tournament jones maybe I'll play some small buyins on Bugsy's or maybe I'll just blow steam in freerolls, since that's fun. I'm still definitely looking forward to the grand next weekend. Winning that would make up for a lot of these past three months...