Last Chance For Romance

So, as you read yesterday, I was down to my last $20+$2 buyin before having to go back to the old $10+$1 grind, tail between my legs.

I also mentioned before that I was considering not playing these in the morning as I seem to run into stiffer competition. Review of my PokerTracker database doesn't really support this theory, though. The play is still atrocious in the daytime, if not a bit tighter in some respects.

To warm up, I jumped into Ultimate Bet. I hadn't been to UB in a good long time, and I found that I had $5.49 left in my account. $.01 short of the buyin for one of their $5+$.50 sit and goes. What the heck. I fire up a NL cash table, score a buck and a half quickly, and head to the tourney.

A couple of things I like about the UB tourneys are the T1000 in chips you start with and the slower progression of the blinds. It makes it a little more of a contest of skills and less of a contest of luck. The thing I don't like about them is they are glacially slow. From what I can tell, the blinds progress up every 10 minutes, and then not very rapidly. I spent probably a good 45 minutes getting whittled away by no cards connecting for me and I finally got bored and did something stupid to get myself knocked out. Oh well. So there's like a buck and a quarter left in the UB account... Guess it's back to the NL tables for me to try to build that back up. Not that I much care about UB, but I lack sufficient funds in there to take it out.

Finally I decide it's time to put my bid in on Party and I sit down at the $20+$2 table, ready for battle.

$20+$2 - 1st - +$78

Now that is what I'm talking about! Getting to the money wasn't particularly challenging is this one.. There were guys in the 7 and 8 seat that took turns being the table bully. I was in seat 10, which was the perfect place to be. I sat back and let the bullies take out player after player, only taking stabs at pots when the bullies were out of the hand. This kept me in a reasonable chip position all the way though to the money, where I then, of course, found myself at a bit of a deficit with T1300 to a complete monster stack and the other guy with T2000 or so. I fold a few hands and find my stack at T1015 in the small blind when I look down at KJo. Three handed, this is a pretty decent holding, especially when you're getting desperate. Button/UTG puts out the usual 2x blind steal and I shove my remaining T715 in and get called down two ways. Flop misses me cleanly with 3d, 2s, Qd, and both guys check through. Turn is Js and I'm praying it holds up. Checked through again and the river brings a harmless 4h. Checked through again and I rake up the T3045 pot, instantly feeling better about being me. A couple of hands later the hobbled 8 seat makes a bid and fails and we're heads up with me at about a 3 to 1 chip disadvantage. I find that the guy in the 7 seat is wicked weak/tight heads up and I make short work of him to take the win.

This one was huge for the morale. It proved to me that I can win at this level, and it also put me well into the $20+$2 level (darn near into the $30+$3 level!).

I've played 69 tournaments (yeah, I know, lucky 69) since I started this challenge, 57 $10 and 12 $20.

At the $10 level, I finished 1st 11 times, 2nd 5 times and 3rd 9 times, for an In the Money percentage of 43.86%.

Combined with my small $20 sample, my ITM goes to 40.58%. Still rather respectable, but given the small sample of $20 tourneys, it's difficult to tell where I'm going to end up. Right now I have a 25% ITM in the $20, but with the bad run and only 12 in, that tells me pretty much nothing.

For those that care, my Aggression Factor is 2.79.

Let's hope this is the beginning of a run! I'm going to stop with the win today. Don't want to push my luck and I have some tasks around the house to take care of before work.

Oh, there's one more thing... A few posts ago I took a poke at HD for not including me in the All-In article he wrote, again forgetting that my strange sarcasm is less effective and more prone to misunderstanding when put to text. I write this blog because I enjoy writing this blog. I also find it mentally stimulating to put my thoughts about my game in written word, as it helps me to analyze how I played and puts my wins and losses into perspective. I've also met some fine people. That is what this is all about.

Thank you for reading.