Friday Night Pokah

I decided to play tonight because there wasn't anything to do really. Some friends went out and hit up the bars and to be quite honest ever since I met Angie I haven't had the urge to go to the bars and make a fool out of myself. As you know if you have read my last couple of blogs I've been on a downswing and things started off awful again tonight but that would change later on in the evening. I had 3 bubbles tonight coming in the Stars 162, Stars 77 6 max, and the Cake 33 rebuy. The Stars 77 6 max was obviously the most brual as I had a huge stack the entire tourney. I lost a 90BB coinflip and a 120BB coinflip to the same exact guy all on the bubble. I held the best hand both times but couldn't get either to hold. I cashed the 11pm Stars 109 in which I lost a 26BB flip with AKs vs 66. I also cashed the Turbo Fiddy at Tilt where I got 13th when I lost A2 vs T9 and than ran 66 into 99 to bust. That tourney was 5200 to win and could of easily happened in "turbo" mode. Oh well, I ended up winning the 12:15 Stars 50 single rebuy single addon for a little over 3k. I was tied for the chiplead with 10 left and the other chipleader was at my table and was steaming a bit as I took a pot off him the hand before. We are playing super deep as we both have around 65 BB. He raised and a player flatted and I called with 86s out of the BB. The flop rolls out 882 rainbow. I check he bets, other guy folds, and I raise it up and he snap shoves and I obviously snap. He rolls over A2 in which im a huge favorite. The A turned and I was like here we go, but he bricked and I had a massive chiplead going into the final table. I ended up winning a flip on the first hand of the final table and took down another big pot with a flush draw that was uncontested. All of a sudden I had a 4-1 chiplead and was thinking that I will run the table over, I was dead wrong. Another player, basically ran the rest of the tourney over until headsup. In which I dominated him, he kept bluffing into me and I was snap calling every pair I had. I was in shock he kept bluffing his stack off to me and figured he would adjust. He had me down 3-1 headsup and I came back and took a 3-1 lead on him heads up. I ended up getting QJdd in against his 88 on a 742 with 2 diamonds flop. The turn brought the 8d and the river came the 2 fill him up and to double him right back up to make us even. Once again, I just kept chipping away at his stack. The final hand came where I called a raise with 97ss and the flop rolled out T85 with 2 spades. I ended up checkraising him on the flop and he shoved and flipped over A8. This one didn't end in dramatic fashion as I peeled off the 6 on the turn and leaving him drawing dead.

This tourney was a huge cofidence boost to me even though it's not the biggest score but it might be the biggest win for me. I've had a rough two weeks, I couldn't win a key hand when needed to be. That means me not holding on a 80/20, 70/30, 60/40. I couldn't win the key coinflips deep in a tourney. I had already made the decision tonight to take some time off from the game. When I say it's been a rough two weeks, I mean I can't sleep at night, lay in bed for hours upon hours thinking about the beats I just took. I've played poker for way to long now to let this affect me. I have had way worse swings than this one, most notably the 21k downswing last year from August through October. I rebounded though and made some serious money from November through Feburary. I just need some time off and get back to exercising daily like I was before I went to Vegas. That could be a huge part to my sleeping problems I really dont know. I do know when I exercised daily I felt better about myself everyday. I was always upbeat and in a good mood. One positive thing I can take out of this downswing was that I never gave up, never gave up in one tourney. I battled through and tried to make the best out of every tourney. Yeah, I might of cried to mattster on AIM about the beats, but I didn't let it affect my play one second. I don't know how much time I'll be taking off, its hard to take off time after a good win. It could be a few days, a week, a month I really don't know right now.

Me and Mattster are playing in a 2 man scramble on the 26th of this month. I'd say we'll be on the course a bunch this next week preparing for it. I really need to get my driver figured out as I hit it badly in mens league on Thursday night. I just haven't played as much golf this summer as I'm used to and its affecting my game as well. I really need to be playign 4-5 times a day and there is no reason not to really. I'm hoping Matt's putter is hot on next Saturday as it usually is this event. Last 2 years we have played we shot even and 1 under par. We'll have to do much better than that to get in the top 3. We end up with way too many bogeys and and if we eliminate them totally we could give it a run for a good finish. Well its past 5am here, time to try to get some sleep. I know when I wake up tommorow it will be a good feeling for the first time after a poker session in a long time. Take it easy, later.