Brief review of my last three live tournaments:

-I start at a very tough table in the 5k six-handed and bleed chips until the table breaks. I double up AQ > 55 the last hand before that table breaks. I take my 11k to 22k at my new table and then slowly hover and bleed away until I inevitably bust shoving the T6o with 9100 chips at 600/1200/100.
-I ran my stack up to 9k early in the 2k, then gave away a bunch of it check-shoving 77 on a 468 flop in a reraised pot. AA good. Oops. I short stacked the rest of the day until that table broke; the third hand at my new table I open shove 99 from the SB with 2200 chips at 100/200/25. A young-ish Euro calls with A2 and flops 345.
-The $1500 actually had a lot of interesting hands. I couldn't find my wallet this morning, so I showed up an hour and a half late, but I more or less short stacked until I caught a huge rush at 100/200/25 and ran it up to 17.5k, then lost it all, the last 5/6 of it or so on standard plays and/or plays where I got my money in as a large favorite.

I actually had a lot of fun at my starting table in the $2k. JaspudUF and the other two guys on our side of the table made for great conversation. We had a good time and a lot of laughs-- one of the things I really appreciate about live poker. It isn't always like that, but that's when it's really fun.

I'm gonna grind Sundays online tomorrow. I'm definitely taking a break from poker before the ME, and from tournaments after the WSOP is over, but I feel my tournament game is sharp and my edge will be biggest there tomorrow.

Remind me to post some of the hands in more detail. I don't have too many questions, but they make for fun stories.

After some hassles with a bank that has a dim view on shipping to a different address than the billing address, the order should go through today and I'll have a new one in time to start updating when stuff goes down again.

Conveniently enough, I had a vacation scheduled these few days already. I've been utterly refusing to play poker, and it feels good. My brain needed a rest, and I clearly needed to stop pressuring myself so much to win.

Sunday's results were nothing special (651st in the million, 8th in the 215 HU), but overall a profitable day, and more importantly, I had mentally reminded myself to keep attacking, to not shy away from big pots, to not fear busting out, and I feel my play, at least initially, was much better as a result. I wasn't able to maintain the same level of play throughout the day, but getting off on the right foot felt good.

Anyway, it's more rest until the $5k shorthanded at the WSOP on Thursday. I pretty much have to play my best to give myself a chance in that, so... I'll try to do just that!

Apologies for no updates the last few days. I've been out of communication because my laptop-- which was already my backup laptop, broken keys and prone to fits and starts-- finally stopped taking a charge, and thus for all intents and purposes no longer functions. This may be fixable, and as soon as I get some money offline from Saturday's scores, I'll likely buy a new one.

On top of that, my iPod inexplicably gave up the ghost a couple of days ago. So now I have no music and no reliable source of communication with the Internet world. This is a little difficult for me.

I'm making it, though. I still have my blackberry (when it doesn't run out of batteries). It's just hard for me to post unless I can sneak onto someone's laptop long enough to do that. Usually this means someone has made it deep into a live tournament, though, so they don't mind.

Anyway, updates will be sporadic until I get a permanent means to update. Meantime, nothing exciting has happened. The $2500 shorthanded was a disappointment, as was today's $1k at Bellagio. I did go swimming and disc golfing with some of the guys yesterday, though, so at least I'm doing what I can to stay well-rounded and healthy.

Might play the $2k at Bellagio tomorrow; might play the $1500 at Rio Saturday. There's nothing really big to gear up for until the $5k shorthanded on Thursday, so 'til then it's a matter of finding the best value on any given day, and keeping my head in the right place.

I busted the $1500 today about 3 1/2 hours in; I donked my stack down to 600 at one point, fought valianty back, then lost A9 < QJ and A3 < A4 to end it.

I felt like I still had some poker in me, though, so I fired up an online session.

...I was right! I took 2nd in the Stars nightly $100k and 1st in their $55 50k. I took a series of gross beats HU in the $100k, but won a long battle in the $55 where I blew a chip lead, fought back from down 3:1, and eventually closed out.

It feels like. I definitely ran good-- I picked up hands at the right time and won some crucial flips. But I felt my play on the whole was solid, in retrospect. I feel like a few days here, playing lots of poker and surrounded by poker players, as well as a day of rest, is keeping my game sharp.

I'm gonna try to wind down now. I'm debating whether to play the Sundays or the $3k at the WSOP.

on 2+2 in the High Stakes MTT forum:

Four quick decisions from yesterday's $2k nl

interesting pf spot from yesterday's 2k NL