I played quite a few tournaments on Sunday and was overall satisfied with the way that I played.  I finished 125th in the Sunday Brawl and captured (5) KOs for an additional $200.  I’ve played this tournament on only a few occasions and this accounted for more KOs than I collected in the previous attempts combined.  I held KK v AQo in the last hand that I played.  It would have been for a sizable stack, but I was unable to do so.  I played in the $11 tournament on Stars that had 35,000 entrants.  That, the $55 (125), the early $26 on Tilt and the Tilt major were the other tournaments that I managed to finish in the money.  It was still a losing effort for the day, but I was satisified nevertheless.

Today I spent most of the afternoon with clients.  I’m backing Erik Ryland again and RPT Staking brought Gronnie aboard.  ER will be playing 100 NL 6-max and Gronnie will be playing 50 NL 6-max.  Brad is now playing 200 NL FR and Andrew and Jake are now playing 100 NL FR.  I’ve also began coaching a player that is in pursuite of Super Nove Elite (SNE) on Stars.  Mike multitables NL FR and hired me to help him along the strenuous journey to SNE.

Hailey and I are leaving for Vegas on Wednesday for New Year’s and in celebration of her 25th birthday that is on Januray 1st.  We arrive in the afternoon and going to have a late lunch and sweat the Kansas v. Minnesota.  We don’t have plans for the 31st yet, but that’ll be figured out by the time that we arrive.

It’s been quite a while since I played tournaments.  I’m playing ~$1,500 worth today.  Lets see how it goes.

I had an incredible session at Commerce yesterday.

Hand 1:  This hand was toward the beginning of the session.  Villain, a LAGish player straddled, I limped w/ JJ, villain raised to 240, I quickly raised to 640 and Villain instantly raised to 1440.  I was about to muck before I realized the action that Villain had taken.  The 4bet was made almost instantaneously and eventually I just didn’t believe Villain’s range contained that many AA/KK/QQ .  I decided that he wouldn’t raise this quickly w/ AA or QQ.  He may w/ KK.  If so, he’d also would with AK and I thought there was a good chance that he could have air.  I shipped the last 2,600 in after a few minutes of deliberation.  He sighed, called w/ TT and I held.

Hand 2:  This hand occurred at the main game.  The other was at the must move table.  I limped w/ 33 and a hyper-aggro Asian player raised to 110.  I called.  The flop came T43 w/ mixed suits.  I checked, he bet 260, I quickly raised to 600 and he immediately raised to 1,800.  I wasn’t going anywhere, but we were really deep and I needed to consider the options.  I thought for a minute or so and called.  I had a little shy of 10k remaining and Villain had me covered.  The turn was a J.  We had a little history from a few hands before in which I raised w/ AA, he instantly raised an additional 400 on the flop (743), I check/called 1,000 on the turn (9) and he checked behind on the river (J).  I really sensed that he hand nothing after the way that he checked on the river and was disappointed that he didn’t follow through with another barrel.  Anyways, I pondered for about a minute  w/ the 33 on the T43J and eventually checked.  He bet 5,000 and I thought for a few moments before raising ai for another 4,500ish.  I wasn’t going to fold, but I wanted to wait a little bit before going ai.  He asked, “How much?” and I was relieved.  I thought I could have been beat but after he overbet the turn I wasn’t going anywhere.  It’s still a little nerving though that I could have lost a 25kish pot.

These hands were each respectively the biggest pots that I have won in my career playing live and this was the best session I’ve also ever had.  It demolished my previous high of 6,500ish at 5/10 NL at the Wynn over the summer by about 12k.  This was a very pleasant surprise.  I ran very well, but I also played extremely well.  I didn’t lose more than 500 in a single hand that I played and made a handful of good laydowns throught the 7hour session that I could have easily just reluctantly called in.  My reads were pretty spot on and I’m thrilled that I had the courage to go with my read at the beginning of the session with JJ.  I’m excited, but I know that the swings that I’m soon to experience could be volatile.  We’ll see how I’m able to handle them.

I haven’t been able to stick to one particular form of poker for a lengthy amount of time in quite a while.  After a successful trip to Vegas the previous weekend, I decided to start playing live again and went to play 10/20 last Saturday.  I didn’t play that long, but I was able to have a moderate win that felt very good.  Yesterday, I decided to play instead of study.  This turned out to be a very good decision.  I didn’t do particularly well on the exam today, but I managed to have a steady session that left me a 5,100 winner.  Unfortunately, I misplayed a couple hands in which I had the nuts or the obv best hand.  That’s okay though.  These mistakes will not be made with such frequency in the future.  There was a huge fish that dropped 15ish across the session.  I didn’t extract as much as I would have like, but I’m still pretty satisfied with the session overall.

I haven’t played much FT lately, so I decided to start Friday with a session there.  It only took about  406 hands before I had enough.

Strike 1

Strike 2

Strike 3