A Little Tournament Play

Full Contact Poker was just getting too boring with their slow software chugging out the cards and waiting for players to complete their decisions with their bad layout. So I've been watching the action on Full Tilt Poker and have noticed that there are a lot more people playing there than when I played regularly. It's more than doubled in size. Plus the action is a lot looser, especially in the middle and micro limits. The small limits are still a bit conservative. I deposited some money and decided instead of playing cash games I'll try my skills at tournaments. I played a satellite and won a seat into a $200 +$16 $60,000 guaranteed tournament which ran today. 364 people registered for this tournament including a couple of well known pros Allen Cunningham and Aaron Bartley. They didn't do too well and placed far out of the money. I actually made in the money, but wish I could've won more. I ended up placing 25th and netting me $400. First was around $18,000 which would of been really nice to win. Anyway, now I have some money to do some last minute christmas shopping since the place I work at stiffed me on a holiday bonus. It's workplace crap like this that makes me wish I could either own my own business or be a professional poker player. The straw that breaks the camel's back will eventually happen someday. Hopefully by that time I will be ready for it and travel off on a nicer ride.

The School of Fish

I deposited some money back into my neteller account for use at a
new site backed by Daniel Negreanu, Full Contact Poker. The players
here are so unbelievably bad! I should be raking in some cash here at
this site for sure. I've been focusing a lot more on two things
recently...poker and music. I play in a few professional jazz bands in
the area which has helped my pocket book a bit. The subject of poker
has more cerebral for me than tactial since I've been on a tight
budget. Basically I've been mentally honing my strategies to
perfection. Hopefully they play out well in reality.

Turkey Day Tourney

Thanksgiving weekend was nice and relaxing for me. My whole family
got together and we basically had a really big pot luck. Everyone
brought dishes they've made so we had tons of food which was very good.
After dinner, some of us played a small $5 tournament of no limit
holdem. The money paid three places and I took second, which wasn't
bad. A few relatives of mine play online poker quite a bit. None of
them are winning players, but after seeing their playing style I can see
how a few small adjustments can turn them into winning players. My
cousin showed me a couple of websites that look like they can be pretty
useful. www.pocketfives.com and www.thepokerdb.com were two that he
told me about.
With all the poker resources that are available today, I'm surprized
that I haven't been able to turn things around yet. I'm very patient,
though. Despite still having no money to play anymore, I've been
keeping fresh by constantly studying preflop strategy and running
scenarios in my head against different types of opponents. When I make
my comeback I'll be playing in full force.