Sigh...

I had my most successful Sunday as far as tournaments are concerned in quite some time. It was also the most frustrating. My first deep finish was in the $530 tournament on Party. I survived into the money fighting with a shortstack the entire time, but finally busted on the final table bubble 11/103 for $867. Next up, the Mansion tournament and the Doyle's Room 54 rebuy. Both had 20K+ first prizes and I was top 5 in chips in both as we made the money (63 places). I quickly took two terrible beats on Doyle's Room and busted in the 30s for $400ish, and Mansion went badly also and I finished 21st for $600. However, as it was Sunday there was still a lot of poker to be played.

I went on a heater in the Stars 2nd chance and built a monster stack after winning a coinflip against another top 10 stack. I had a substantial chiplead in the tournament with around 150-200 people left. At the same time I rebounded from an awful start in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series $535 main event to build a 2nd place stack with 600 left. My AK beating AA all-in preflop was the highlight. As if these two weren't enough, I sucked out badly twice in the 100 rebuy on Stars and had a top 5 stack with 40 left. Unfortunately this is where things unravel. I lost a big pot to JohnnyBax in the 100r and busted 39th (36 paid). I treaded water in the 2nd chance for a while and finally found a spot to get my now short stack in with the best of it, but the river was not kind and I busted 30th for yet another whopping score of $760. Mike's friend Will ended up finishing 2nd for 25K in this tournament though, so congrats to him!

So that left me with just the biggest of all the Sunday tournaments. The Full Tilt main event exceeded its 1.5 million guaranteed prize pool with over 3200 players at $500 a head, and I still had a top 15 stack as we reached the money with 450 players left. Unfortunately I went incredibly card dead from this point on. I hung around stealing as many chips as possible to stay afloat, and I managed to survive for quite some time. One of my all-ins was eventually called, but as it turned out my QTs was in fine shape against 55 to get me back into contention. I flopped a Q but there was a 5 next to it, and another Sunday ended with a 70th place finish for $2400. Between playing tons of tournaments and having a bad day shortstacking the big cash games I still managed to lose lots of money despite my plethora of mediocre tournament cashes.

The shortstacking hasn't been going as well lately. People seem to be adjusting and I'm not running as well. I'm not ready to give up on it yet as my overall winrate is still extremely solid, but the huge swings may be more trouble than they're worth. It can also be a pretty boring grind at times playing mechanical preflop poker (without the excitement of going deep or playing a final table like in tournaments). Anyways that's enough ramblings for one post. Hopefully next Sunday will end better for me.

Mike