A solid day of poker....

I put in a decent amount of poker the last two days. Yesterday I played for about 3-4 hours online and ended up winning around $200 before I quit to watch the IU game. Then some friends (Josh, Micon, Dan Druff, and Brandon) and I went to goof off and play in the Sahara's 11pm $65 tourney. There was some good news and bad news about that tourney. Good: I made the final table!!! Bad: I won $0 for doing so. We started with about 60 players and they paid 7 spots. I was the first one out at the final table for 10th place. Brandon was out early. Micon made it to the final two tables. Druff finished 11th. Josh finished 9th. So all total we won a whopping $0.

Today I played for 2-3 hours and won $1484 online and then a bunch of us met up at the Venetian to play in the $200 8pm bounty tourney. There were only 74 players in it and it seemed like we made up the majority of the field. Micon, Josh, K-Dollar, Druff, Marc, Katherine (Marc's new squeeze), and myself all played in the tourney. Barry, Buxx, and Martha either played some 4/8 LHE or just birded the action. I was the last man standing of our crew, but once again I finished just out of the money. This time they paid 9 spots and I finished 13th or 14th. After I busted out we walked over to the new addition to the Venetian, The Palazzo. We ate at the Grand Lux Cafe in the Palazzo which is the EXACT same restaurant that is already in the Venetian. I am cool with that, because that is one of my favorite places to eat in Vegas.

Every time I play in one of these tourneys I just reinforce the fact that I hate tournament poker. People love the concept of thoughtlessly going all-in, flipping their cards over, running the cards out, and seeing if they get lucky. I understand how that rush of action is fun for people, but it is not the kind of poker I prefer to play. I like playing deep stack poker where there is plenty of thought and room to outplay your opponent (or get outplayed in some cases) on every street. I just can't hardly stomach the thought of playing great and basically mistake free poker and losing the same amount of money as the worst player in the whole tournament....90% of the time! This is an example of how little skill matters in tournaments. At the Sahara we were for sure the best 5 players in the tourney (out of 60)....none of us cashed. At the Venetian we had 7 of the best if not the 7 best players in the tourney (out of 74)....none of us cashed. While it really sucks that skill can't prevail more often this is what makes poker so awesome. If the best players always won poker would be about as popular (and profitable) as chess. Now I will name all the famous living chess players I can....Gary Kasparov and Bobby Fisher....err scratch that about Bobby Fisher. He died yesterday....R.I.P. Bobby Fisher
Time to hit the sack so I can get up tomorrow and get to work on my goals before leaving for Louisville. That reminds me...I booked my flight for Louisville today...leaving on the 29th and coming back to Vegas on the 4th.

I am currently +$1294 since getting back to Vegas and on my way to +$5500!!