The Swings Continue or Friday's Outlook

Not a great week in poker, that’s for sure. I lost like $300 and I’m back below my goal of $1000 for the month. I’m at about $825 right now. My aces and kings have been running up to flopped sets quite regularly. It is getting really old. I’m overall playing pretty solid poker, but reaping no rewards. I am going to play some $25NL for a while until this downswing subsides a little. Maybe I’m just a $25NL kinda guy. No, I don’t believe that, but this crap is getting on my nerves. I have 2 days left after work and 2 days off to get back above $1000 and meet that G goal.

Friday Chris and I are going to the casino and play in a holdem tournament. It will be a first for us both. I played at the elks once, but no a real tourney where everyone knows the game. It is a $30 buyin with $10 rebuys. And I’m guessing a $10 addon. You can buy back in anytime during the first 3 rounds. The guy said that usually around 40 people enter. We will see. I really know nothing about the tourney structure. I don’t expect to cash but I think I should go kinda deep. Not because I’m a great player or anything but because I plan to sit and wait for some nice hands. I’ll play hard when I hit, but I’ll not get in a lot of hands. I’ll play my usual cash game strategy during the early going. I’ll loosen up in the middle some if I have chipped down. If I get to the push game, I will tight right up and pick my spots, depending mostly on my stack and If I can isolate. Also I will be semi-playing the HOH M-game, but I don’t see mixing it up with total crap as early as he suggests. But when my stack starts looking bad I will look for a place to make a stand. Hopefully if I get caught-up in the losing end of a nice hand it is early on when the blinds are small and I have time to try at a comeback. All I can really hope for is to have fun this first time, gain a little live tourney experience, and not lose to a suckout. I’ll try to keep good mental notes and give a thorough update next week. I am looking forward to playing in a live tourney. I’ve heard some of the players at the cash games at a different casino talk about playing in this tourney. So I will get to see experienced players play. Hopefully they take me for an ESPN watching fish-boy and call me down or bluff me with TPSK’s, not respecting my game and thinking I over-value hands.