Quick recap of my last week...

-This is my third week being ranked in the PocketFives tournament player rankings. I've moved up to #89 this week. The rankings are updated every Wednesday and can be found here.
-Speaking of the P5s rankings, they've recently introduced a sortable feature which separates rankings by state and country. As my home is still "officially" Houston, I was pleased to discover that I was the 4th ranked online tournament player in Texas. They wrote a feature on us last week: A Closer Look: God Bless Texas. On a side note, I do think it's kind of funny that I've been ranked now, when my tournament volume is relatively low. I think I would move up higher and faster if I played a lot of them, but they drive me nuts. And I like to travel. If I was grinding at the pace I was for the first half of 2006, I probably would be ranked even higher.
-While I didn't play much poker while I was in Houston, I still found time to play a few tournaments. None of those went well, but (for reasons I don't even remember) I decided to fill some time with 30/60 limit hold 'em. I caught a huge heater early on (making something like $8800 in 500-odd hands) and decided to stick with it. My winrate has cooled down, but I'm still turning a steady profit. I think my aggression and hand reading skills translate really well to shorthanded limit.

I'm in Louisiana now, so my social life is going to be mostly nonexistent for the next couple of weeks. I hope to translate this into lots of poker and writing. I'm trying to make some good money in time for the new FTOPS and the Turning Stone Empire State Hold 'Em Championships, which are both full of events that cater very well to my style of play:
The FTOPS schedule
The Empire State Championships schedule

OK, time to relax and call it an evening. More tomorrow.

Sorry for that, but I was in the middle of getting things together to leave Las Vegas. I wasn't playing much poker anyway, so there wasn't really anything interesting to report.

I flew out of Las Vegas Friday night and returned to Houston. I haven't been in a couple of months and thought I'd see some friends; however, many of the people I knew here are now gone, and not that many of the other people know I'm here. And I lost my phone in Las Vegas, so I didn't have any of my numbers when I replaced it. So I'm just sort of bumming around... I have a few books, perhaps I'll read them while I'm here.

I played most of today, but I wasn't feeling well and I had commensurate results in the Sunday tournaments. I can't really identify specific plays I thought were bad, but in general things just didn't break my way-- I lost all the races that were for big chunks of my stack; I made a couple of moves with light holdings at people who were playing too aggressively, and they happened to have hands each time.

Sundays don't seem to agree with me.

I think I'm going to take a few days off from poker while I'm in Houston. I can play poker anywhere, but I should be using this time to visit the friends I still have in this city, go to my favorite places, etc. In a few days I'm going to visit my family, and while I don't prioritze poker over them, they're all early risers and I'm not so I should have plenty of time by myself to play.

When I play again, I'm going to be playing more cash games than I had previously done. The high variance in tournaments can be frustrating, and the nature of living by the big score encourages being lavish or wasteful with the money when it does arrive. (This certainly wasn't helped by living in Las Vegas, surrounded by plenty of people willing to party and gamble and plenty of establishments ready to take as much of your money as you'll let them.)

I want to, at the least, always be able to make a consistent living from this. And that just won't happen through tournaments. There's more money in cash, and if I keep the discipline to play at stakes I can beat and afford until I have the bankroll and experience needed to move up, I think I can be pretty successful at this.

We'll see either way, eh?

I decided not to enter the Bellagio Cup main event. I played a $1500 supersatellite for it Tuesday night and after busting with JJ < AK in the first half hour decided it wasn't meant to be, and as good as I thought the event would be, I didn't think it was worth another $10,000. A well-run tournament with an ideal field size doesn't make up for variance I can't afford right now and burnout.

I've just had enough of live poker this month. The frustration of tournament play is only exacerbated when you're playing for twelve hours, or multiple days, only to miss on a big score, instead of just a few hours, online, while you're probably playing some other games at the same time. It's been fun on the whole, but like most fun, it gets tiring, and time off is necessary.

So that time has just about come, for me. I'll be heading South for a little while, seeing friends and family, resting up, and figuring out where I'm headed next.

I'm going to be playing more cash games, too. I haven't played any in the last few months, but I want to learn them, and get back to playing them regularly, which is how I started in poker originally, long ago. I know I Can make more money at this, and this time I'm going to take the simple and consistent approach-- grind it up, less shot-taking, less wild play, more fundamentals.

I may hit a couple of live events coming up soon, too-- Turning Stone in mid-August and Aruba late September are the early favorites. I don't think I want to get off the tournament circuit completely, but I do want to not have to hope for a big score to keep going.

Anyway, it's been a pretty busy and hectic month, so while I have a lot of stories, I haven't had the time to tell them. Once I get away from Vegas, I'll have more about my time there, as well as a couple of other things I've been working on related to theory.

I'm liking this new FTP rebuy schedule. I've been playing them as much as I can since they added the $55 rebuy and the $109 6-max rebuy. Tonight I finished 4th in the $55 rebuy for about $2475.

So this is good. I'm gonna keep trying to play these regularly.

Just trying to stay off the strip until the Main Event, more or less. I need the rest for the mental endurance and focus needed to do well.

OK, this one isn't exactly like a huge beat, except that i can't get there on the river:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

saw flop|saw showdown

SB (t4033)
BB (t1122)
UTG (t5351)
MP (t2085)
Hero (t8208)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K, J.
2 folds, Hero raises to t400, 1 fold, BB raises to t1122, Hero calls t722.

Flop: (t2319) 5, T, 8 (2 players)

Turn: (t2319) Q (2 players)

River: (t2319) 6 (2 players)

Final Pot: t2319

Results in white below:
BB has 9h Qc (one pair, queens).
Hero has Kc Jc (high card, king).
Outcome: BB wins t2319.

Which is followed up by this hand, two hands later, against the same guy:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

saw flop|saw showdown

MP (t4183)
Button (t2244)
SB (t5201)
BB (t2085)
Hero (t7086)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J, J.
Hero raises to t400, 1 fold, Button raises to t2244, 2 folds, Hero calls t1844.

Flop: (t4713) K, 5, T (2 players)

Turn: (t4713) A (2 players)

River: (t4713) 3 (2 players)

Final Pot: t4713

Results in white below:
Hero has Jc Jd (one pair, jacks).
Button has 3s 3h (three of a kind, threes).
Outcome: Button wins t4713.

This summer has led me to one conclusion: tournaments are stupid.