I made a killing playing 3/6 today. People might have saved themselves some time and simply deposited the money into my account directly. I didn’t have amazing cards to accomplish this, just truly terribly opponents. God bless Party Poker.

For fun I decided to take a small portion (!!) of my 3/6 winnings and play a $55 one table SNG. I played really well and built a large stack of chips, only to lose most of it with JJ vs. QQ on a ten-high board. Grrr. I struggled from there on and ended up finished on the bubble, the worst possible place to finish. It was very frustrating, but the play was interesting and I enjoyed it. Chris likes to remind me that poker is my hobby, not my job, and that having fun should be the main objective, not making money. So mission accomplished, I guess!

One thing I liked a lot about the 55 SNG was the extra starting chips. For a few minutes there I felt like I was actually playing poker! I would like to play more of these…

Chris meanwhile had another great finish last night, this time third in Ultimate Bet’s 100K guaranteed. Good job, baby!

Less than one month until the Party Poker Million IV…which sets sail on my birthday! Poker, a cruise, non-stop food…what, I ask you, could possibly be better than this? Oh I know: prefacing our voyage with four days in Las Vegas. March Madness indeed…I can’t wait to clean up in the weekly tournies at the Orleans. They’re small buy-in tournies, some with rebuys…it’s like I’ve been in training for this since September. Unless someone out there would like to back me in the WSOP circuit events? Too bad I can’t stay for the ladies no limit event. It’s called “LIPS.” But the ship leaves before that one starts. Who am I kidding. The day I play in an event called “LIPS” is the day the fish stop biting at Party.

LIPS?!

Finished OOTM in five SNG’s and the Stars 11R today. In each case I ran up a nice stack, got sucked out on, and came up short. Now I’ve got the whole weekend off ahead of me, and my bankroll has taken a dip. This is never a good combo. At this point in my bankroll management program, I’m suppose to lay off SNG’s and play limit ring games to rebuild. Trouble is, I don’t feel like playing limit. This means I’m not allowed to play at all.

Gonna be a fun weekend.

Played the Stars 11R this evening, ran my stack up nicely, lost with KK vs AQ, ran it back up again, made it to the money. Then I made an online poker blunder and limped with TT in early position. Of course I meant to raise it up – but I misclicked. Talk about an absurd error. And after all the efforts I’ve been making to slow down my play! My finger just slipped. In the words of my idol, Jack Bauer, “DAMN IT!”

So the flop comes 589 rainbow. I bet, a huge stack smooth calls and another guy behind him calls. Oh dear. Turn is a 7. I am wading into really nasty territory. So I check, the big stack bets, our third wheel folds and I decide to call and see the river, because I have a decent stack and I can afford to see this blunder through. Or so I think. The river brings my six for the six to ten straight. I shove, the big stack merrily turns over the JT that I let him play when I failed to raise pre-flop. He takes all my chips with his jack high straight, and I am left staring angrily at the offending, misclicking hand.

What a frigging moron.

Edit: Anybody think that the best way to correct the pre-flop mistake is to move all-in on this flop? On each street I was trying to think of how to rectify my mistake as best I could. Obviously I had the worst possible result with the choices I made here. After much thought between (and during) my classes today, I think pushing on the flop is the best move. Since both the other players limped pre-flop as well, it’s unlikely that either of them has a bigger pair than I do (unless they are misclickers as well). That means I need to be concerned about a possible set on this flop, two over cards to my tens, or the draw that the villain had here. My stack was about 74,000 chips to his 114,000. With the blinds and antes, along with my call and two others, there’s about 16,000 in the pot pre-flop. If I push, I don’t think he calls with his draw. He’s in a good position to move up in the money and doesn’t need to gamble for that much of his stack. Anybody out there calling for that much of their stack on an open-ended straight draw? Upon reflection I think pushing on the flop is the best course of action to fix the pre-flop mistake.