Secrets of the Amateurs

Warning : brag post ! Thanks to the new setup, I've already put in $22K this month and that was even without last Sunday. Good job too, as I'm off to Dublin this weekend for the IPO, which is going to take another Sunday out of the mix. After the novelty of playing 17 tournaments in a night has worn off slightly, I'm tending to play the 8-10 best tournaments over all the sites plus a few turboes, and skipping over the smaller 100 freezeouts, 20 rebuys and so on.

The best part is I've managed to "crack" a couple of sites after a long time trying. I hate when you haven't managed a decent result on a particular site and you keep depositing, feeling like a total egg. But on Friday 3rd I won the E50 rebuy on Paradise for about $12K, if you haven't played that one, it's a super loose/aggro game where you really have to cut out a lot of the moves and just ship it in with your best hands and see what happens.

By contrast, the rebuy tournaments on iPoker can be total nitfests, at least when there's any money dangling in front of people. I played one last night where I actually considered folding QQ pre-flop with a 6 BB stack. With two players to go till the money, UTG shoved for 9 BBs and I did think about it, not for long though ... and of course lost to AA. I'd be seriously prepared to bet that he open-jammed because he didn't want a caller, the way these people play around the bubble. Luckily this didn't bother me too much because on Friday 10th I shipped the $75 rebuy for $33K, aaaaahhh. It was possibly the worst standard of play I've ever seen at a $50+ rebuy final table online. Literally 7 out of 10 finalists had no interest whatsoever in winning, just inching up the ladder. One other guy was trying but with basically no idea, limps and minraises from 8 BB, which left me and one other player basically going for the cheese. Well, I suppose I did end up heads up vs a "survivor" with only a 3-2 lead, but that was basically because 3-handed I jammed on their short stacks with J5s or something and they both called with AK/AQ.

Anyway it was nice to close the deal in both of those as I have recorded too many 2nds and 3rds in the last few months. Next weekend is Dublin as I said and then somehow on the last weekend of the month I have to fit in the 888.com TV donkament and two gigs in town (Slayer and Living Colour, rock !!!). Thanks to the new setup though I'm still well on course to put in $40K volume in the month, which would be a good target going forward.