I have no idea if this means the worst run of my career is over or if it is just an isolated stretch of good cards, but I had some excellent results at the cash game tables this weekend! I am really excited about it because poker really means a lot to me. I pour a lot of energy into this game and when you have subpar results for a 40 day stretch, it feels like you’re never going to win again.
If it was just 40 days and I only played a little here and there it would be one thing. But over the past 40 days I have been glued to the computer screen and it has been difficult to have it go bad for such a long period of time. Such is poker though, none of us are immune to it. No matter who you are or how well you play, sometimes it just goes poorly for a VERY, VERY long time. In fact, I’m sure there are tons of people who would’ve been great poker players but they happened to have a terrible run during their introduction to poker and may have simply felt they had no talent for the game only to became frustrated and walk away from the game. I was fortunate in that I ran pretty well the first few months of my career and had that not happened, I am sure I wouldn’t be posting this blog on Cardplayer.com right now.
Anyway, enough babbling. For the 3 day grindathon I had for myself Friday-Monday, I played something in the neighborhood of 25,000 hands and won around $35,000. It is the best 3 day stretch I have had in a little while and it really felt good.
The crack up was I used a big chunk of my luck at the wrong time today actually. I played in the Poker Stars Sunday 1/4 Million today which is a great tourney for the small stakes player. It only costs $11 to get in and over 36,000 people turned out making the purse more than 50% greater than the guarantee! I got some chips early in the event and I just got on the run if a lifetime. I mean I ran so good it was insane. I was running so hot in that particular event that if I hadn’t known any better, I probably would have just shoved all in preflop every hand because no one could beat me. No matter what I did I won. No matter how bad or good I got the money in, I would just win. It was amazing.
If you are going to win tournaments, you have to get lucky at the final few tables. Unfortunately with 16 people left I got $6,000,000 chips in the middle with AK vs. my opponent’s 99. The flop was a queen, a ten and a rag, so I had some pretty good equity. Unfortunately the turn and river bricked which left me crippled and I went broke on the next hand. Even so, I got $650 on an $11 entry so how about that for some ROI?
This week I am going to be starting to play some poker in my new office. I’m very excited about that. I will be in Eugene, OR for a few days this week as I will be watching the Oregon Ducks golf team try and take the annual Duck Invitational and then assuming the role of head golf coach (sorta) for a whole 2 days as the head coach has a commitment so I will be with the team for the OSU JV tournament this Friday and Saturday. Hopefully I can win another $35,000 this week and the Ducks can take a few titles home, not to be greedy or anything.