Friday, July 23, 2010

A cool poker milestone

I broke my self-imposed poker fast for 24 hours on Thursday/Friday, in order to maintain my VIP level at Pokerstars. The basic deal is, you need to earn a certain number of frequent player points each month to earn bonuses.
Along the way, I enriched myself by about $300, and hit a pretty cool milestone. According to sharkscope.com, I've exceeded the $5,000 plateau in terms of total tournament profits on Pokerstars. Pretty sweet - and I actually still have most of the cash.
On Thursday evening, I was playing about as well as I ever have. I played 14 sit-n-go tournaments, mainly single-tables at a $20 or $30 buy-in. I managed to cash in nine of those, including three wins. I was playing aggressively, and it was like the virtual tables were tilted towards me - I was a magnet for chips.
The sick thing is, I made about $300 while getting close to 100 per cent return on investment . . . and yet I felt the session could have been better. Some of the thirds should have been seconds, and some of the seconds should have been firsts. It was a combination of decision-making and sick beats, but all in all, I can't be too upset making that kind of cash.
I got back at it on Friday morning to finish clearing my bonus, and basically treaded water for eight tournaments. The last one I played was a 180-player, $20 buy-in multi-table tournament, and I left with bit of a sour taste in my mouth. In the latter stages of that event, I had KK and got it all in against two opponents with a chance to more than quadruple up (two early-position raisers folded preflop, creating a ton of dead money in the pot). I was up against AQ and 66, and I flopped a king. But there was also a 10 on the flop, and the turn was a FREAKING JACK to make a broadway straight for the AQ.
Had I won that pot, I would have had a well-above-average stack as we hit the home stretch, and the way I'd been playing, I liked my chances. As it stood, I busted in 59th place. First place was $1,000, and let's just say, some couch cushions got tossed around the living room.
Just like a poker player, to win a whole bunch of cash and then whine about a bad beat. Sorry about that.
Anyway, it's back to the poker fast for at least another week. The break really helped to clear my head, and I think that coming back fresh was a big part of my success over the last 24 hours.
Bankroll = $4,600

No comments:

Post a Comment