A Major Sunday

Getting to play the "Majors" isn't something I get to do often so when I see a chance to do so I really look forward to it. Today was one of those days. By "major" I'm not talking the Sunday Million, rather the Quarter Million on Stars, the Double Deuce on FTP, The Dime on Cereus, and the $5000 GTD on Bodog. Those smaller buy-in games that still attract large fields on a Sunday afternoon... well, large relative to their respective host site.

As has been chronicled previously I haven't exactly set the world on fire with results lately. Today I'm happy to report that things can change pretty quickly when it comes to the pokahs. Again, I set out to get in a lot of volume and I succeeded (despite FTP's 2-hour server crash) and played 36 games on Sunday for about $485 worth of buy-ins. Over the weekend that made nearly $1000 in buyins....that's not a bad two-day total!

Oh, results you ask? I'm getting there. I only cashed one major, my first career cash in one of those monsters, a min-cash of around $13 in the Quarter Million. I had 8 other cashes, most of which in the $20-$50 range (one being a 3rd in a small Bodog jaunt). As is the case with MTTs its the big scores that propel you.

The first was a win in the $16.50 turbo on Bodog, good for $648. I was left for dead a few times in this thing. I was down to 1200 at 200/400 and 2200 at 300/600 but they forgot to kill me. At least twice the BB elected to fold getting big odds to take me out... thanks friends! The final table looked to be a repeat of the same. I came into it in decent shape but a cold deck started to make it look like I was merely trying to creep up the cash ladder. As it was, I someone got heads-up, but at about an 8:1 chip disadvantage. My opponent was horrible however and with a few decent cards and a break on the last hand I stormed back to take the tournament. This is the third time I've won the 7:30pm version of this game and to be honest I'm not sure how I got away with it.

The second big score was in the $11 bounty on UB that runs at 8pm each night, I think it carries a $5000 guarantee. I tripled up fairly early in the first hour and hung around 5500 chips through the second break. I took a hit that brough me down to about 2000 and it looked as if I'd crash and burn before the bubble but I somehow won two hands in a row and got back to 10K in chips with a couple bounties thrown in. I honestly can't tell you how since the Bodog win was going on at the same time and had more of my post-flop attention.

A huge hand in front of the bubble got me to near 30K in chips as I shoved a flop with 15 outs and fold equity (well, he called so did I really have it?) and hit to win. From there I was selectively aggressive, caught a couple decent breaks, and got paid off on my big hands to get 3-handed. At that point I lost a race (AQd<66) and ended up in 3rd for $626 and change, plus 7 bounties worth a total of $14 more. Not bad for a 6-hour tournament!

All in all, I ended up with a profit for a touch over $1000 for Sunday, more than making up for the previous week of losses. This is why I'm so glad that I've learned that making decisions is all you can really control. I played no better and no worse on Saturday than I did on Sunday and yet the results were completely different. This is one reason why poker is such a unique game.

Anyhow, looks like I'll wait until later this afternoon to get my HUSTs in. I'm bound to start killing people in those things soon. I realize by a previous post it looked like I was considering dumping those, but I'm not. The statement was more of an inside joke to myself... I gotta remember that a sarcastic tone doesn't come across in the written word very well. :)

This evening I might fire up a session of SNGs on UB since I still need a bunch of points to keep my status. I have 4 days to do it so I'll need to play at least two of them to accomplish that goal, depending on how much free time (read: bored) I end up with this week. As for now.... I'm gonna go play some hockey on my XBox. Weeee!