Secrets of the Amateurs

... sometimes you just have to smash out of it. I did,for the month, last night on Full Tilt. Good job too, becuase up till then I was well on course for the Worst. Month. Ever. Perseverance paid off though, particularly in this tournament which I've had 15 attempts at now, with this being the first decent cash. Here's the hand history, with some comments on hands of interest :

Full Tilt $150, 4th place

50 - I liked this one, I improvised the check-raise on the turn and I think I might well have made him put down a middle diamond.
179 - I've probably played this too passively and should have seen the river one way or the other.
199 - This one was pretty funny. I thought I was semi-bluffing the pair+draw but it turned out I had the best hand and was a monstrous 53-47 to win.
239 - I should do this more often, with or without a hand.
261 - He had 33 believe it or not. There was some history with this guy (see hand 252) where I had checked the flop and passed the turn, so I was expecting him to bet out, but I was shocked (and pleased !) after the hand to see he had called my turn raise and then called the river with that.
262 - Can't blame him for trying, but my hands are holding up tonight !
286 - This hand shows the benefits of pot control even with a hand like an overpair. I keep the pot small enough so that I can call his river bluff without any qualms. Would I be saying this if he had rivered a King though.
313 - I might have been strong enough to check-raise the turn here.
339 - In hindsight my check-raise was too big. I could have kept it smaller so that he might think he can knock me off it by moving in.
349 - It never crossed my mind that he might have a Ten. I shut down too easily in these spots sometimes.
356 - By this time I have been check-calling with top pair after defending my blind quite a lot, and this guy's a good player, I think he was wise to it.
372 - It doesn't get any better than this !
399 - If you're going through all the hands you'll see me playing quite passively around this time. The reason was that I had two strong players on my left and there was quite a lot of re-stealing going on. So I preferred to wait for something half-decent and 4-bet all-in, as here.
449 - Sometimes these bluffs work ...
470 - Yarg, this was a cooler.
477 - ... and sometimes they don't.
484 - Note how I wait for the blind instead of playing what is an above-average hand
486 - Doh. It's hard to survive losing three all-in coups in a final however many chips you came in with.

So, $14K for the win would have been nice but this was one of those final tables where you just don't get the breaks on the allins. It's nice to "crack" another tournament, and this one has a really good structure if you go deep. Next on my list must be the $50 rebuy on Stars, $27K first prize last night, unbelievable !