Making the best of a slow week.

Haven't had a lot of time to play online this week, but the good news is that when I did, I made the most of it.

With the $75 I had won from PS ($50 for a promo and another $25 for TellAFriend), my bankroll got a very healthy boost that allowed me to play .05/.10 NL. Since then, I've really noticed three things. First, the play at this level is so different than the lower limits. By that I mean, the player skill is quite a bit better. Oh sure, there are still donks, but the overall skill set is higher. Its been a good transition for me so far, but I have to tighten up just a bit more, at least to start off. Played one hand by accident that turned very nice for me though. Dealt T8dd in late middle position, and I accidentally limped in with it after everyone in front folded. Normally, I would fold in this spot, or if I had been in slightly better position, raise to steal the blinds, but I was rushing between tables and hit call instead of fold. Anyway, get like four callers including the blinds to see a flop of 797, with two diamonds. A flop like that, and I'm going to see the river at most times. I lead out and get called by the bb. Turn throws me a brick, 4c, but again I try to take it down here with a 2/3pot bet. I get raised by 1.5times my bet, and I seriously considered folding here, but I have a LOT of outs to fill to straight and flush and call the raise. River comes the magical 6d giving me a rare straight flush, and bb pushes all in on me. Thank you sir. Good thing I hit hard too, because bb had 97 for the flopped boat. Got very lucky, but it feels good to be the one sucking out like that instead of getting beaten up on for a change. ;) I"m sure the bb labeled me with a note right after that hand too, but it didn't do him any good because a few hands later, I felted him again when I hit a wheel straight on the river and took him money again. I'm sure he would have me labeled as a big fish, so I'm sure I'll see him sit on my tables again soon.

I managed to apply some good strong theory to my game and usually ended up almost doubling up on every table I played on this week. Bankroll is at $300 now woohoo!!! I'm purposely avoiding looking at Elephant charts and data this month too even though I'm recording every hand. I want to see what the month end chart is going to look like as a surprise instead of after every session. I found that when I looked at it after every session, I got frustrated more and more, thinking I could have done so much better, and decided I would do it this month only once at the end and then review. Might not be the best decision I make, but I'll determine that next week after I review everything for May. If I had to guess, I've made profit, but it would be rocky up and down, and my personal data will show I'm a lot looser than I think I am, but we'll see.

One of my league players is hosting a game this afternoon, kind of a WSOP warmup for him and his buds who are playing a couple of events this year. Its a $80 freezeout with deepstacks and 45min blinds, so lots of play, and 40 players in total. I've reviewed some of the players and either have played most of them before, or know of them through pokerforum.ca and know they are solid players, so its going to be a pretty good aggressive game. I'm going in with the plan to play a bit looser up front and try to build my stack early, and hopefully change gears after a while and slow it down. Play my monsters aggressively, and try to trap with mid range cards like suited connectors in late position. And of course, there will be a $1/$2 NL cash game as players bust out and if I do get busted out of the tourney, I'm hoping to apply some of the knowledge from PokerStrategy.com to this cash game as well and see what happens. Again though, these guys are very qualified and it'll be a real good test of skills.

Graham, from pokerforum.ca, has asked if I would be interested in updating a couple of blogs for him on a couple of other sites he manages...for pay!!! Says he'll pay $10 per post, and would like to see four to five posts per week. Sounds like a good way to build a bankroll to me. Told him I would be interested, even for a short while, just to see how things go. Haven't heard from him lately though, but it could be fun to do and get a few extra bucks doing it. The best part is they don't have to be very long, mostly just news and views in the poker world. I think I can handle that much so we'll see.

Everyone's been sick here at home now the past two weeks. First, the kid was sick and missed a week of school. Then over the long weekend last weekend, I was sick and never left the house. Then the wife got it and she's been sick all this past week. Seems the only not sick is the dog, lucky her. I think its passed through now though thank goodness, and things are returning to normal...or what is normal for us anyway ;) Mark still has my truck though. He hasn't had a lot of time to fix it lately with everything else in his world so he's asked if he could have another week. I guess why not, at least it will be done and I can feel confident it won't break down on the side of the road anywhere.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll update next week on how I did at the tournament as well as the cash game (but hopefully, I'm in the tournament long enough to not be able to play the cash game).

6 Man games; First Golf game; $50 Promo win; SET Victory!

Found the pleasure of playing 6 man NL tables. Man, the bankroll is growing fast! Took a beating yesterday though, three buyins in less than 30mins, but I hit my stop wall, and quit after that. Looked like it was going to be the same today, but I managed to break even today before quitting, thank goodness. But I have to say, playing 6man games seems very profitable for me. My bankroll on Titan is sitting at about $180 right now, almost ready to move up to .05/.1 NL games, but I want 20 buyins which is $200 before I do that (prefer $250 actually, so not sure if I'll move up when I hit $200 or not). Oh, and I played some .12/.25 cash on Supreme, and doubled up my buyin in an hour AND won a SnG and a Cooler tournament. That roll right now on Supreme is sitting at about $400 euros which is nice too. Mind you, my Party and Stars accounts are still very low...Party I think is at <$20 and Stars is around $50. Will have to work on building them up, but its so hard to find the time to do it. I can only but in a couple of hours a day in, and not every day either, but it seems to still be time well spend if the bankroll continues to grow.

Last week, PokerStrategy held a promo for posting hands for analyzes, and I won $50 to go toward my bankroll too! SWEET! I'm trying to find out if I can combine it with my Tell A Friend bonus too and get all of it transferred before I set it up. Right now its a total of $75, which would be very nice right now. BTW, if you want to join up to PokerStrategy.com, just click on the banner on the right hand side. Signup, take the very easy quiz, and I automatically get the Tell A Friend bonus. If asked, though, tell them STR82ACE sent you.

The league held the Season Ending Tournament last Thursday, and I won it again. Again, made a very mediocre season profitable. To tell you the truth, though, I couldn't help but win it with the hands I was getting. Big pockets when I needed them, and my reads were solid all game. We're on a break right now for awhile, not sure when I will start it up again. I hope the turnout will be better though, this last season was pretty weak as far as turnouts. A few times, it was tough just to get a game going. Hoping for better things for the summer though.

Its Mother's Day today, and I have tried to call Mom a few times, no answer, and no answering machine. Wonder if they had it reconnected when they moved or not. I'll try later again.

Went golfing for the first time on Friday this year. OMG, I SUCK! I barely finished the round, I think I was at 120 when I decided to not score any more. I REALLY need to hit a range and work on my irons and short game. Not to mention, I'm stiff and sore since then too. WAY out of shape, but hey, ROUND IS A SHAPE, right? hehe

Ada just got back from another Scout camp. Rained the whole time, but she says she still had fun. Good. Brenda and I went to see the new Star Trek movie last night. Very well done too. The guy who plays Bones was a dead ringer for Deforest Kelly, uncanny likeness. Close your eyes, you would swear it was him.

Well, I finally arranged to get my truck up to Mount Forest for Mark to work on. Think its going to cost a small fortune, but it has to be done. Ball joints, brakes as required, new brake line, exhaust work, general overall maintenance. I was going to borrow his old Olds for the week, but Shannon offered me his Taurus instead, and its a much nicer ride albeit a Ford.

Next weekend is the long weekend, and I'm not sure what's going on. Might be heading to Dave's for the weekend with my parents and Rob and his family, spend some time with Dad, do some fishing, go golfing, play some poker...just spend time with him. He doesn't have much time left I'm afraid, and only God knows when it will be his time, and I want to spend time with him and have Ada with him again too. He really likes my daughter, they have hit it off so well since she was born. Its really great to see how they interact together. There's something special between them that no one really understands, but I'm very grateful for. I guess the weekend all depends on Dad and how he is feeling later in the week, so I will have to talk to my new boss and tell him it could be a last minute decision. I hope he understands...he seems to, at least.

Anyway, enough for this edition. Not sure when I will post again, might be a couple of weeks. See you then.

A profitable end to April; A profitable OOPS in May

April ended on a high note for me. Sat down for about an hour the other night on four tables and in no time, I tripled up on three of them. I do love it when you hit cards ;) Only hand that cost me was the last one, when my QQ ran into AK and villain won the race.

Wish I could spend more time online and really try to build the bankroll, but all I can do is MAYBE 10 hrs a week. But its a profitable 10hrs a week, so that's positive. My bankroll from the original $50 I got is now at $150. I do like that, a nice positive upswing. The site is great, pokerstrategy.com It has so much info and great information, and it doesn't cost a dime. Win-Win-Win.

Took the kid to a Scout camp last night, and when I got home I decided to play a couple of SNG's on Supreme before I called it night. Was planning on only playing a couple of 5euro shorthanded sng's, but the last one, I misread the buyin and didn't realize it until the table opened up. I took a look at the prize payout, and it said top two, first 175euro, second 75euro. WTF?? Why so much? I accidentally registered in a 50euro shorthanded game!!! Now, I have over 300euro in that account, with about 55euro in tournament bucks. It came out of my tournament buck account, but that still is my bankroll. From the moment I caught my mistake, I started to fire every brain cell in my head to apply my BEST effort to this game. Made no mistakes, was the chip leader for the better part of four levels, then catch AKs in bb. Get four limpers, so I raise it big, 7 or 8x bb. Get one caller, so I'm now oop, but the flop comes Kxx. I bet out 2/3 pot, get cold called. Turn is blank, raise it pot sized this time. After a second, villain pushes into me. I have him covered by about 700 chips, so I call. He shows KQo and I'm way ahead. River is Q!! Damn it!!! Down to 700 chips, with blinds 100/200. But I hung in there, played very well, and take some very nice pots by pushing in position. Before the next level starts, I'm back up to about 15bb, and back in the fight. Finally get headsup with the guy who sucked out on me. Second or third hand in, I'm dealt 99, first to act, and raise it 4xbb. He 4 bets me, and I go all in. He calls me with KQ again, and hits his damn Q on the river again. Sigh. But I put forth my best effort and made an OOPS profitable by 25euros, so I'm happy with the result.

Lesson learned...PAY ATTENTION!! When you're tired, double check the buyin!! Stupid mistake, could have hurt me big time.

Brenda has the place completely converted into a sewing room, making costumes for the kids' play next week. I feel like I have fallen into Zinger Hell!! Pieces of costumes, needles, thread...everywhere you look...lol...but its all going end next week. Play is next week.

Just got off the phone with Mom. Dad is in the hospital again up at my brother's place. Was complaining of bad chest pain, and they ended up giving him about a dozen shots of nitro. Now they say he has fluid in the lungs, so they're keeping him in until that clears up. Hang in there Dad!