Bing Blang Blaow*

I’m seriously kicking myself for being such a lazy cunt. Although I’ve only really had two poker sessions since my last blog entry, both would’ve definitely been worthy of a post. However, by letting the initial burst of emotion fade away, I’m afraid I’ve missed out on an brilliant piece of writing or two. However, I’ll still give it a try and will hopefully learn from this mistake.

As you can probably remember from my previous entry, I recently had a few fairly deep runs in some MTT-s. In relation to that, I was anxiously looking forward to the upcoming Sunday (31th May) to have another big night of tourneys.

Unlike pretty much ever before, I actually had a bit of a bankroll now and was determined to keep it that way. Thus, in order to play in any of the major tournaments, I needed to qualify through a satellite. I started out with the $1 Million Turbo Takedown, registered for some satellites and the awaited poker session had begun. For some reason, however, I wasn’t feeling any passion for the game and was completely unable to focus. It didn’t take me long to qualify for the Sunday Million but other than that, everything was heading in the wrong direction.

It was one of the days again – I had this blank stare in my eyes and just kept registering for pretty much anything that was coming up on PokerStars, playing like a complete moron. Long story short, after several hours of play, I was down roughly $1500, having spewed off my chips at the Sunday Million, Sunday 500, some $109s and $55s … well, you get the point.

I had just registered for a $109 2R1A and made a double-rebuy when something suddenly struck me – “WHAT AM I DOING!?!”. It felt as if I’d just waken up from a trance. There I was with a bunch of my bankroll already flushed down the toilet and this random tournament that I’d just spent $309 on in front of me. I checked my PokerStars account balance and thought to myself: “fuck my life“. I stood up, went outside, took a nice deep breath and figured it’s about time to go and play some serious poker.

Several hours later I was sitting in the final table with a decent chiplead, as calm and confident as I could possibly be. However, that’s not always enough to win a poker tournament. I managed to maintain my lead throughout most of the finaltable until when in a span of 8-9 hands I lost JJ vs Q9s, ATs vs KQo and QQ vs AJo in pre-flop all-in pots and finished 3rd, scooping about 8,500 USD. A bit disappointing at first but pretty standard really.

Since then, I’ve played a few fairly small tournaments, made some terrible moves in bubble situations and missed out on some semi-decent scores. Oh, and just the other day I felt generous (read: needed to let some steam out) and spent about $400 on a $3+R tournament on PokerStars – preflop shove with any two cards, Double Auto-Rebuy during the 90-minute period and didn’t miss one single hand. Ahh, the suckouts I made on some poor microstakes grinders and the ‘love’ I was given in the chatbox made every cent worth it.

* BING BLANG BLAOW