I finally won a Sunday Major after playing 476,204 of them in my lifetime. I choped the Sunday Mulligan 3-ways.. and ended up winning the extra 3k after the chop. I had mixed feelings about chopping. I felt like I was playing better than anyone else at the table, but I also felt that the way the table had been playing preflop, unless I picked up AA over KK, I was going to be racing. We all three had even stacks so decided to take the sure $36k. (which was more than 2nd place) I can't be flipping coins for 12k.. (3rd was 24k or so)

I felt like I had been playing well leading up to that point, I had a 9th in the $1k on Tilt the monday before and a 7th in the Friday night fight. Sickening to get so close to big scores both times and end up 9th and 7th, but the Sunday Mulligan made up for it I guess. No complaints. I made some mistakes in the previous two that I learned from so I'll try to look at it from that perspective..

On the other hand, I have not been playing well in smaller tournaments. I find that I really have trouble concentrating in a tournement where 1st place is $5k when I am in others where it is $20-50k. I need to figure out a way to fix that or stop playing them all together. $5k is in no way chump change for me, so..

I had set a personal goal to motivate myself in my first blog back in April. Obviously my main goal is to make money for my family, but I figured I'd make it P5's oriented since I am writing here. I wanted to Make top 100 in Sliding PLB within 1 year (April 2011) ~ 6000 points, (which I'm pretty sure would mean I am earning money...) At that time I was #1186 with 2562 points. I am currently #878 with 3,366 points. An improvement, but without being able to play a full schedule like most it is going to be tough.

Finally, with the recent win I decided to head to Vegas for 4-5 days. Plan on playing 2 events, the $1500NL on June 25 and if I am out of that the $1000NL the next day. If both of those go bad the Bellagio starts on Sunday with a $1k event.

Hope to follow some P5's at Final Tables when I am out there.

Sadly, not much to report since my first post.. (if anyone read it.. ? ha) Best result has been 21st in the Sunday $109r rebuy on Stars I won the week before, just went card dead at the wrong time.

Have played pretty regularly the last week or two but really haven't been running good. Not any worse than just a regular bad run, just a lot of set under set, coolers, and lost races - which we all run into. Really hard to made a deep tournament run when you keep running into those, as you all know.

Whenever I have a slow week or slow few weeks, I try to keep perspective by looking at the results of top players and seeing the periods they go through with nothing to show for it. Seeing that all the top ranked players on here have had a few slow weeks every now and then reminds me that is is going to happen and helps me not to press my game. A bad month in poker tournament play feels like an eternity sometimes. Hell, I feel like i have been cold forever when in reality I had a big score less that 2 weeks ago. It is easy to start getting away from your game if you dont maintain that perspective, I know I have been guilty of it in the past.

I think a lot of people get frustrated quickly and I think it is good to make sure you remind yourself you should have weeks where nothing goes right, everyone does.

FTOPS starts today and SCOOP shortly after. I've never had much luck in these events but my plan is to change that over the next month. Again, it sucks having to work the 9-5 job and miss the afternoon events, but I guess I should just use that as motivation.

Best of luck to all of you who are in FTOPS Event #1, while I am chained to my desk..

I've decided to start a new blog here. I have been playing for several years, with varying degrees of attention payed to playing poker. I really enjoy playing, and would like to pay more attention to becoming a top player (and support my family and quit my day job..), and even though I have had periods of pretty good success, I've have found it hard to really be dedicated to poker with distractions like school, work, etc.

So I figured if I started a goal oriented blog, maybe that would light a fire under me to put more time and effort into playing.

I had my biggest online score on Sunday, winning $42k in the Stars $109r. I have had a few scores around $20k in the past, but nothing this big, and nothing on a Sunday. (finally!)

I won't be able to play full time, family responsibilities, but I do want to set a lofty goals for myself: Make top 100 in Sliding PLB within 1 year (4/11) ~ 6000 points. (currently #1186 w/2562 pts)

I realize this goal would be tough no matter what with so many good players, but it will be even more difficult since I can only play half as many tournaments as a pro would. But if I dont challenge myself I won't push myself.

So anyway, I hope to blog my tournament progress as I go along. I have followed up my $42k score with a decent $4.5k - 13th place in the Super Tuesday.