Owned heads-up

Few days ago, a dude named INTillerman on Betfair sat down with me at 10/20 NL. I jumped out to an early 1k lead. Then, we battled for a while, but I felt like I had control of the play. However, I gradually fell to 3k down, then back to even, then back to 3k down, then I finally felt like I hit some hands and I swung to 3k up. Then, shit got ugly. He went on a mega-heater and ended up taking 8k off me. I made bad plays for about 3k of it. Even after all this play, I'm not sure how strong this opponent is. I don't know if I got outplayed, or if I was outplaying him for 80% of the hands, then he just hit perfect on all the big pots. There was more and more 3-betting pre-flop as the match went on, by both of us. I found he was capable of big river bluffs, but also of big value bets on the river with marginal hands. I paid him off a couple times for pot-sized river bets with a close 2nd best hand. I tend to dislike playing opponents who are good at this. But still, I felt like I played this guy hard and well. Maybe I just got so outplayed I can't even figure it out, or maybe it was just a bad run. He sure seemed to hit perfect a lot. But, once I stacked off for a $7,200 pot with AQ on a A92 flop against a set of 9s. This is a big pot for 10/20 with just top pair. He min-raised me on the flop, and he had NEVER done that. I didn't trust the obvious tell, and allowed myself to stack off for a big pot when I had another chance to make a big fold. But whatever, hard to get away from shit like that for under 200BB in an aggressive match after a re-raised pot pre-flop. I'd like to play this guy again, but I might not bother anytime soon. He has me psychologically beat a little bit and his style seems to work against mine and I was having trouble adjusting. I'll wait until I'm running really good to give him another shot.

During the same time I got down about 3.5k on Party. But then I hit 2 big hands simultaneously and got all the way back to only down 300. So, I decided this was a good way to end a bad session and booked the tiny loss on Party and gave up against INTillerman (I don't think this is the actual Tillerman if you know who that is).

I took a couple days off after this session and waited until I didn't feel quite so frustrated anymore. I jumped into a few tourneys today. Standard knock-out in a $320 on Betfair. Then, I played this interesting Betfair tourney. I think it's daily actually. $530 6-handed deep stack tourney. It only had 16 players, but I enjoyed it. I'd like a little bigger field (and maybe sometimes it is, though you'd think Sunday might be the largest). I got down to 6 players, but just before we merged for final table, a guy jammed my BB and I woke up with QQ and called. Lost to A7 with an A on the flop. So, that was gross otherwise I hit final table as 3rd chip leader.
I also played the Stars Sunday Million ($530). Something like 3700 players, and I got down to 900. Then, I flopped top set with TT, and got oversetted on the turn by JJ. So, total cooler, otherwise I would have been top 20 in chips at that point. Boo!

I also jumped into a 10k Full Tilt Player Points tourney. Winner got a seat in Poker After Dark TV show and a shot at $120k. 354 players. I didn't pay any attention to this tourney all afternoon, couldn't really care less, then next thing I know I'm at the final table! Battled down to 6 players and just as I was thinking I might actually have a shot at this, I picked the wrong time to steal a guy's BB and he decided to be a hero with QJ, called, and beat me. Would have been cool to grab a Poker After Dark seat, that would have been some good times.

So, basically, a bunch more time and money blown to tourneys. However, on a good note, I made my money back from the previous session playing Betfair 10/20 again. Scraped together $8300 for the day, after a pretty slow start by a guy hitting a set on me in a re-raised pot to $600 pre-flop.

I ordered a variety of books from Full Tilt's Points Store and Amazon today. Couple on tourneys, couple on advanced cash game and short-handed, and a couple on mental game and the poker lifestyle, and Super System 2 mostly for the Omaha Hi section which I heard was good. I'll review them here as I read them over the next few months.

I decided to read up on tournaments partly because I'm on a bad run, and partly because I'd like to be more sure about my plays sometimes. I think a few new perspectives or ideas may help. If you count Vegas, I'm on about a 20k downswing since my last significant score. I'm not sure if I've ever had a downswing more than 3k between decent scores. I think I'm also playing bigger buy-ins, and thus, better competition too. I'm not too concerned, I know it's been a lot of crappy luck and cold cards. It's making me want to play tournaments more in a weird way so I can snap the streak. I want a $30k+ tournament score so bad I can taste it.

I went golfing in a scramble at Selkirk two days ago. We won with 9 under par. A team that shot 10 under was disqualified for cheating. Ha, losers. Anyway, my back held up okay throughout the day, but gradually got more sore all night. I woke up in the morning and could barely move. I spent a fun, but damn painful, day at the beach with my son, and a group of my wife's friends. I was pretty much useless all day. Dropped my keys infront of the washrooms once and took about 20-30 seconds to pick them up. I got a lot of odd looks. Fortunately, my back felt a lot better today.

Well, now that you know how my back is, I guess you can go along with your day. Enjoy! Your welcome for filling your mind with such fascinating information.