It has been a very rough 2010 for me, but in the past two and a half weeks I feel like I have really upped my game and am playing my best poker in a long time. So when I started to build my stack in the 50/50 tonight, I felt like it was a long time coming for me to make a deep run in a mid-stakes tournament.

I registered early in the day for it, knowing I would have to sit out the first 40 minutes of the tournament, but this doesnt' really phase me and typically do this. (plus i was kinda feeling it) So once I finally loaded it up, I noticed that red-pro Lee Watkinson was at my table, and had a stack around 2k, where I still had 2800 from sitting out...should sat out lee...

About two hands in i ended up doubling through JJ vs AK on a 10 10 10 flop. With that double up, I shifted my eyes to Lee's shrinking stack thinking how adding a 6th T-shirt to my collection would always be nice. This came to fruition as he raised UTG+1, a player mid position made the call. Lee had around 20bbs, and the caller had about 33bbs. I sat in the SB with about 70bbs and made the call with AJhh. I caught a pretty sweet flop of 235 with two hearts. Seeing that flop I laughed and said, ship me your bounty Lee. Lee lead for pot, the other player jammed what i assumed to be a mid-pocket pair, obviously i'm a favorite here so i called his jam and Lee joined the party. Lee ended up with 77 and the caller had 88, neither of them with a heart. J on the turn, and 4 on the river just for overkill rocketed my stack up to around 11k with 40/80 blinds. (Who doesn't love the whole tournament reading your name written in red in their chatbox as they say, "lucky bastard got to knock him out, I never get to knock a pro out")

I hovered around there for a while then ended up doubling up QQ to AK after the A hit the flop, but all spades with it, spade on the river to ship it to me. (I run good right?...just wait) From here I had a stack and i just opened up my game, took the blinds, three-bet a couple players and continued to just abuse the players to my immediate left on their blinds.

Right at the money bubble with about 30bbs i picked up 99 on the button. The BB seemed to be an active, thinking player who had 50bbs. All folds it came to me, i opened for 2.5x, the sb folded, and he ended up jamming his whole stack. I figured since we were on the bubble, he could be doing this with so many hands, and since he didnt' three-bet me, but instead jammed, that it made his range wider and took away hands like AA KK QQ. I felt confident with my 99 and made the call to see his AJo.

A ON THE FLOP! noooo...wait there is a 9 too...f'in sweet!

With that i now once again had a huge stack to use against my opponents. The player to my left got short, I ended up knocking him out, in sat POKERPRO. I wasn't too happy about that seating assignment, but it is what it is. Him and I didn't get engaged much, and much to my delight I was moved after a couple orbits. I mention this because him and I would end up sitting at eachother's table 4 different times throughout the tournament which I thought was kinda funny.

I kept between 60-90bbs for most of the next hour, scooping blinds and small pots. Then a big pot came when a player 2.5x'd it from MP with about 75bbs, he got 4 callers to me with 63cc in the SB. I decided that since him and I and two of the 4 callers were very deep stacked, and none of the callers had less than 15bbs, that this was a good spot to peel a flop. 10c 3h 7c it came. I checked to the raiser who bet out about 3/5 pot and got all folds around to me. I didn't think just calling was a good play since then i'm stuck calling down with what is basically just a 6high flush draw. I decided that if i raised and he jammed, i still had a good % to win over what he would be jamming in my eyes. (flush draws, over pairs, and sets) I have all of those beat except for the sets obviously, plus all the times he folds. I raised it alil less than 3x, he time banked jammed, i quickly called and he shows J2cc. The board ran dry (still running good i know right?!) and I was in 2nd place with about 100 left to play.

I kept up my active style, opening a lot of pots and didn't hit too much resistence due to my now huge stack (fill in 'that's what she said' joke here) Soon tho the table started to catch on...or pick up hands against me and I started to get 3-bet a couple times. I decided I was pretty content with my stack, and was getting kinda card dead, so I chose to NIT it up alil bit.

I floated down to around 60bbs and was still in the top 5 stacks in the tournament. I had KQhh in the SB when a player MP opened for alil more than 2.5x and got three callers to me. I debated between 3-betting or flatting. The raiser and one of the callers were just as deepstacked as me, and there was one player with only 15bbs, so I decided he would definitely call my 3bet and with KQhh playing fairly well post flop even against this many players, I again decided flatting was the best choice here.

4h 4c 7h was the flop.

Again I flop two overs and a flush draw with the hearts. I checked and the raiser bet 2/3 pot. It went all folds to me and I debated my move. Folding wasn't an option, calling didn't seem like a great play since I thought there were hands he was c-betting he would definitely fold to a 3bet, also there were hands that were ahead of me that he could lay down thinking I might be holding a 4. Also given it will be hard to extract value once I hit my flush (see the power of positive thinking there?...ya I hated listening to matusow say it too) so i 3-bet, he time banked and got it all in, I made the call and he showed up with a shocking 97dd (my favorite hand btw). 15 outs and I would have a huge stack, K on the turn and brick on the river. When does this guy stop running good geez...

With that win, we were down to about 50ish people and I was the chip leader go me go me go me...

Alright, I think that is enough for this part, i'll wrap up how how this tourny ends and explain why i think its a "blown" chip lead in quotes in the second part...didn't expect to explain the whole tourny, but it just came out, so hope you enjoyed alil of the mini-thought process and i'll write the 2nd part right now since I can't get it outta my mind anywayzz

January was the worst month I have had since i started playing poker. It came at a poor point since beginning/middle of December I thought I was playing a solid game and was just hitting unlucky spots late in tournaments. January has made me forget what going deep in a tournament even feels like.

I did my best all through January to stay positive each day...today will be the day it all turns around, today is the day I will hit something. Then double guarenteed week came for FTP, this would be my time. If the time I was referring to was me losing everything I signed up for, then yes, double guarenteed week was definitely my time.
Now that that week is just about at its end, with only Sunday remaining, my plan to is to stay the course, finish it out, and then take a break to ease my mind and let the poker gods pick a new victim for Feb.

As i sit here the last day before January ends, I look back at it, and although I would say it is by far the worst run of cards I have been on, my play has altered negatively. I have started playing more like scared money because I haven't even been tasting the feeling of cashing on a regular basis. Each time i raise and I get called, I have visions he has smashed the flop and I am not getting maximum value from my hands.

I have been playing very weak lately and I know this is because of my poor run this month. When you aren't maximizing your value on hands and instead doing plenty of check/calling, you lose your chances to make runs in mtts. I know this was a problem I had toward the later stages of January, although it never helps when you finally have a chance to get a top 10 stack with a hundred or so to go that you lose your 80/20 a couple times, but it is something we have all experienced and all have to get over.

My goal for Feb. are to get back on track, playing my solid, non-scared money game. If I can get back to my "A" game, then I know the results should be following me...instead of me chasing the results that never come.

Grant it if the poker gods could close their eyes and let me hit one huge score on Sunday then perhaps I will be singing the praise of January and that she was always my favorite month and that I never gave up on it....

I'm gonna go watch some episodes of House. I think it is one of the best shows out there if your into witty humor and creative thinking. The more and more I watch of it, the more and more I feel like House and I are the same person (minus the medical degree, walking with a limp..although anytime after a soccer game I usually am, and an addiction to pain meds/hookers). Both emotionally unresponsive to anything/anyone else, very witty, love solving puzzles, no desire for relationships, love making fun of people regardless of how tramatic or awkward the situation is....no i'm not gay for House, although I'd be down for pretty much any chick on that show.

Peace out January, hello Ms. Feb....maybe I'll even take her out on a V-day date if she treats me right...if not, I guess I'll be stuck asking Jennifear or Annette..

So I have fallen behind already on the number of blogs I wanted to write a week, but I am hopefully back on track here.

I just finished writing about three paragraphs for a blog about how I've been running terrible, not hitting anything, and the more volume i put in, the worse and worse I seem to do...then i just felt writing a whiny blog isnt what I'm about (or wanna be about) So in the the last week I have taken on staking three players...just to keep the money flowing outta my account...and although they haven't had any great success, I do feel like positive things are going to come out of them (and soon hopefully)

I am staking one player for mtts with an ABI of 8-10 dollars. So far he hasnt' hit anything, but I have seen his bustout hands and they have been pretty brutal, clearly I didn't wash the unluckiness off my money before I gave it to him. I have confidence in his mtt game that he should hit a FT sometime in the next week or two, hopefully a top three finish.

I am also staking a player to grind out 45man tournaments on FTP. We have a chart so he knows BR wise if he's playing 5, 10, or 24 dollar 45mans. Right now he is sitting in the 10 dollar range and I have seen him make plenty of final tables, but only with a victory or two. His final table luck has been anything but lucky. Seems like everytime he gets down to the FT of the 45man, I happen to search him, bring his table up and see him get knocked out AK<A7 or KK<A10. I feel like this player is really going to turn it around this week and make some serious cashes in those 45s.

The final player I am staking is for SnGs. He is using the 40 BI chart to know what stakes sngs he is playing, he started out at 5 dollar, won his first 4/6 sngs and is on his way up. He ran so hot in the beginning had like a 175% ROI at sngs over like 25 sngs (super small sample, but still kinda sick). This player put up huge success in sngs last year, spent his money...we'll say frivolously outside of poker...and is looking to get back into it. He spoke to me at the start of the year about getting staked under me to start playing sngs and after seeing his success from last year I had to take him on. Him and I have a one year deal that we will re-eval at the end of the year, but this player I hope will be making both of us some serious cash with his high volume and solid sng skills.

So I feel like with SnGs, 45mans, and low stake mtts, that I have many of the bases covered. I have another plan to stake another player (you know who you are) but because of my limited success...that would be no success at all....in january, I have to wait till I can get my game back on track and start winning again before I can put anymore of my funds out there.

So this week, GL to my horses, Gl to me, and gl to my readers

PS. Lame blog, i agree....maybe i should have gone with the whiny bitch blog about how shitty I run...