Arrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As many of you know, I put alot into poker, mentally, physically and emotionally. Whenever I play large tourneys where I have a high expectation to do well, and I tend to drain myself. After I busted out of the WSOP $1K rebuy last Saturday, I was spent. Strangely enough, the only other poker that I played on that trip was the $5/10 No Limit game at the Bellagio, where I cashed out after 3 hours of play, even though I was up and playing well, just because my heart wasn't into it. On Wednesday night, I decided to test the waters and jump online into some big tourneys. It had been over a week since I had played online, and I felt like I SHOULD be ready to play. Well, long story short, I played in about $800 worth of tourneys and did not money in one. The loss of buy ins do not concern me, as this is the nature of tournament poker, but my play was atrocious and that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. On Friday, I decided to play something that I could have fun in, so I jumped in a few $5 H.O.R.S.E Sit and Go's on Full Tilt with x_kage_x. We had a great time playing these and I started to feel better about my poker mentality so I made a big leap into the new $25/50 No Limit Cash Game on Stars. Fortunately, I was able to double up with this monster hand below. (and yes that is WSOP Main Event Champion Joe Hachem at the table)

PokerStars Game #5563726896: Hold'em No Limit ($25/$50) - 2006/07/15 - 01:39:26 (ET)
Table 'Gersuind' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: jeffbeesdat ($1975 in chips)
Seat 2: DaMadPotter ($12264 in chips)
Seat 3: JoeHachem ($3700 in chips)
Seat 4: ragu46 ($1750 in chips)
Seat 5: Empire2000 ($6029 in chips)
Seat 6: goldy18k ($4839 in chips)
Seat 7: Sublime8700 ($5000 in chips)
Seat 8: mMagic_cards ($1250 in chips)
Seat 9: bethcox4444 ($4314.10 in chips)
jeffbeesdat: posts small blind $25
DaMadPotter: posts big blind $50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to jeffbeesdat [Qs Ac]
Empire2000 said, "sickkk keep it up"
JoeHachem: folds
ragu46: folds
Empire2000: folds
goldy18k: calls $50
Sublime8700: folds
mMagic_cards: folds
bethcox4444: folds
jeffbeesdat: raises $150 to $200
DaMadPotter: folds
goldy18k: calls $150
*** FLOP *** [Ad 7d 5c]
jeffbeesdat: checks
goldy18k: bets $100
jeffbeesdat: raises $400 to $500
goldy18k: calls $400
*** TURN *** [Ad 7d 5c] [6h]
jeffbeesdat: bets $1275 and is all-in
goldy18k: calls $1275
*** RIVER *** [Ad 7d 5c 6h] [3s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
jeffbeesdat: shows [Qs Ac] (a pair of Aces)
goldy18k: mucks hand
jeffbeesdat collected $3997 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $4000 Rake $3
Board [Ad 7d 5c 6h 3s]
Seat 1: jeffbeesdat (small blind) showed [Qs Ac] and won ($3997) with a pair of Aces
Seat 2: DaMadPotter (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: JoeHachem folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: ragu46 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Empire2000 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: goldy18k mucked [Ah 9h]
Seat 7: Sublime8700 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: mMagic_cards folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: bethcox4444 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Not a bad cash game pot!!!!

Anyways,

My Dad called me on Saturday and told me about a great fishing trip that he had with a couple friends on his buddy's boat. I have been considering buying a boat for awhile now but have not pulled the trigger, so I told my Dad that if I hit a nice tourney this weekend that I was buying a boat. (Goals are always good to have in poker and life!)

I jumped into tourneys head first on Saturday, and started off the day just playing so/so, but as the day progressed I started to get pretty deep in the Stars $100 Rebuy and the Paradise $250K Guaranteed. The Stars $100 Rebuy had a first place prize of $13K+, so I figured that if I could take first in this tourney, I would have about 2/3 of the money for the boat that I have been considering. Long story short, jeffbeesdat out in 12th place for a whopping $550. Arrrgggghhhhhh!!!!
Thats ok... I still had the Paradise tourney going and it had a first place prize of $56K!!! Well after about 6 hours of play, I reached the Final Table!!! Then I lost a huge coinflip with A,Q to 9,9, and was out shortly after that in 10th place. 10th paid $2,300. Arrrrrrgggggggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I had a few tourneys that I wanted to play today, but when I logged onto www.pocketfives.com, I found out about another tourney. A small internet poker site by the name of Titan Poker was hosting a $1 Million Guaranteed with a $1,000 buy in. About an hour before the tourney started there were only about 500 people registered to play, so I deposited money on the site and registered for the tourney expecting a huge overlay. Sure enough, we started the tourney with 568 people, meaning that the site had to subsidize $432K of the prize pool! First place in this tourney paid $300K!!! Thats alot of money! Well, I made it deep in this tourney, but it really turned into a crap shoot as their blind and ante structures escalated far to fast. Long story short, I busted out 47th for a $2500 pay day.
Everyone has been telling me how great of I have been playing and how its good that I am making it deep in these tourneys. I do appreciate all of the "pats on the back" but its very frustrating having a couple of really nice shots at Huge Payouts and falling short.
I played ALOT of tourneys again this weekend. The reason that I am saying this is because I don't want people to go and deposit a good amount of money online and expect easy results. Please, play within your bankroll, and work your way up to the next level.

Overall, I ended up with a nice profit for the weekend, but did not accomplish my goal.

PS.

Thanks to all of you who supported me... chuckdawg_00, monkeycowboy, blueboy, x_kage_x, apestyles, Dad, Ellen and anyone else that I missed...

Until next time,

Jeff