Well for the third row in a week, I've had a decent sized cash. Two weeks ago it was $142 for 2nd in a 4/180, then last week was $216 for a 1st place finish in a 4/180 and this week was the biggest field of them all.

Let me start by mentioning that I will not be attending the Heartland Poker Tour main event as I was unable to qualify this weekend. Unless, by some miracle I get the money and qualify in one of the five remaining qualifiers this week. To make a long story short, my aces got cracked by kings in a devastating flop after we got it all in preflop. It happens, but did it HAVE to happen here? Dammit!

Moving on to better news. I've been playing SNGs most of the week and doing pretty well. I love checking out my Sharkscope to see my ROI and total profits. It's a great way to evaluate your SNG play and compare which stakes work best with your play. Things are looking great and my $10 SNG play has been pretty solid. Now I know some of you hate limit games, but the 1/2 limit games seem to be my real bread and butter. These games are what keep my BR positive and allow me to take risks with higher stake MTTs. Just recently I have moved to 2/4 limit at which I've been killing it. The swings can be higher, but if you just play a pretty solid game and get away from calling second pair (unless you have a great read on your opponent) then these games are easy money. I have noticed that the 2/4 limit games are much looser then the 1/2 limit games. Another thing that I have found about my game is I get bored if I play just 1 game and if it's a limit game I have the tendency to widen my starting hands out of boredom. So the key is 1 limit game, 1 SNG and a MTT.

I wake up on Sunday after a horrific amount of drinking the night before (after getting knocked out of the HPT qualifier) and decide it's an internet poker playing day. My goal was to get into the Sunday Million on PokerStars. I invest heavily in the $8.80 double shootouts to where I not only lose, but never make it past my first table. I also attempt a $39 turbo structure tournament to the Million which gives seats to the top 59 of which I go out in 171 place. Wow I suck and finally give up on satelliting into the Million. Check my Sharkscope to see that I am now on "Super Tilt" as buying into these shootouts counts against my Sharkscope and shows that I went on a $100 downswing. Super Tilt, lol. Next goal a couple of $10 SNGs and buy into the 100 Grand and the $11 Rebuy tournament. Make a second place finish after being chipped down to 300 chips early in the SNG and take out a donkey ass trash talker in 4th place (love karma). After 2 rebuys and an add-on I still exit early in the $11 rebuy. My play in the 100 Grand is decent and I stay at the chip average through most of the tournament. Finally a breakthrough close to the bubble and now I sit at a chip stack of just over twice the average. The bubble breaks after I steal a ton of chips from everyone and we go on our second break to which there is about 3300 players left of the initial 22,287, that's right, over 22,000 players! I am just happy to be in the money and keep playing. The structure is horrific as blinds go up every 10 minutes. Next break comes and the tournament is down to about 650 players. Now I start to feel like I have a real shot as I break into the top 10 chip counts for a few moments and remain within the top 50 for the most part. First place is over $20,000 and sounds sooooooooo sweet! The next hour goes by slowly and I steal the blinds about two times a round with just mediocre cards. Every once in a while I'll get called down or re-raised to where I have to make a lay down, but for the most part I am winning about 4 of 5 steals making this a positive tactic. With about 200 players left I make my standard raise with AQ soooted clubs and another player pushes, I call and feel good about my hand against the A5 soooted spades of my opponent. Of course, the flop brings two spades and there is no waiting as the turn card is also a spade. This hurts and leaves me under the chip average for the first time since the money bubble broke. I survive all my all-in's until the following hand:

PokerStars Game #16540907178: Tournament #82580233, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXV (20000/40000) - 2008/04/06 - 20:05:31 (ET)
Table '82580233 47' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: Rockman43 (359848 in chips)
Seat 2: jdmcherson (397188 in chips)
Seat 3: DahHerbie (1110136 in chips)
Seat 4: EZ-scratch (62892 in chips)
Seat 6: sagedecarte (227761 in chips)
Seat 7: pruhurvu (140020 in chips)
Seat 8: ScrupBoy (302520 in chips)
Seat 9: AplusB (799114 in chips)
Rockman43: posts the ante 4000
jdmcherson: posts the ante 4000
DahHerbie: posts the ante 4000
EZ-scratch: posts the ante 4000
sagedecarte: posts the ante 4000
pruhurvu: posts the ante 4000
ScrupBoy: posts the ante 4000
AplusB: posts the ante 4000
ScrupBoy: posts small blind 20000
AplusB: posts big blind 40000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ScrupBoy [Qh Qc]
jdmcherson said, "you suicidal"
Rockman43: folds
jdmcherson: raises 120000 to 160000
DahHerbie: folds
Stude25 is connected
EZ-scratch: calls 58892 and is all-in
sagedecarte: folds
pruhurvu: folds
ScrupBoy: raises 138520 to 298520 and is all-in
AplusB: folds
jdmcherson: calls 138520
*** FLOP *** [7d As Ah]
*** TURN *** [7d As Ah] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [7d As Ah 3h] [5s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ScrupBoy: shows [Qh Qc] (two pair, Aces and Queens)
jdmcherson: shows [Ks Ac] (three of a kind, Aces)
jdmcherson collected 479256 from side pot
EZ-scratch: shows [Th Ad] (three of a kind, Aces - lower kicker)
jdmcherson collected 248676 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 727932 Main pot 248676. Side pot 479256. | Rake 0
Board [7d As Ah 3h 5s]
Seat 1: Rockman43 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: jdmcherson showed [Ks Ac] and won (727932) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 3: DahHerbie folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: EZ-scratch showed [Th Ad] and lost with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 6: sagedecarte folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: pruhurvu (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: ScrupBoy (small blind) showed [Qh Qc] and lost with two pair, Aces and Queens
Seat 9: AplusB (big blind) folded before Flop

This takes me out of the tournament in 115th place and paid me a cool $222.88. I really did expect a top 50 finish but hey can I really be upset after going this deep in a tournament of 22,287 players? This comes to about the top 0.5% of all players! The numbers are staggering for this tournament and being that the blinds were 10 minute levels meant I had to win a lot of races and try to see the flop as much as possible. Another thing I wanted to mention in this tournament is that my computer crashed when there was about 160 players left. My USB connection to the WiFi went dead and I tried fixing it for about 10 minutes before I went downstairs and installed PokerStars on my son's computer and started playing again. At the time this happened I called my sister to update me on where the blinds were and my position at the table. Luckily, play slowed down and I only missed one blind round but I wondered if I had missed any potential big hands that may have projected me back into contention. Just one of those variants that comes with internet poker.

I played a few more SNGs at the $20 level that went nowhere, but again made a nice cash in the 2/4 limit game of about $80 in 45 minutes. Also made a deep run in the $4 7PM limit tournament that I love so much. Thought for sure I would make the final table but a few bad beats with 30 players left negated that idea and I made my exit in 18th place for a small win. I leave you all with a couple screen shots of the 100 Grand from yesterday. Good luck on the virtual felt all!