Ahh The Rush

I am in the zone right now. I was fired from my job at school before I came home for Christmas break and I think that was exactly what I needed. I have been playing MTT on AbsolutePoker and have had great success in the two weeks Ive been home. I have played around 20 tournies cashing in half of them in which I had 6 FT appearances. I now have my living expenses paid for the next two months and should be able to eat more than the dollar menu at BK, Wendys, etc..

I have noticed that I have become quite comfortable with NL Holdem now and I would more identify myself as a LAG player rather than a TAG. I have noticed that I have been able to pick up on betting patterns far more than I was in the past. Also my live game has improved considerably too because I have bettered my ability to read body language. I have made some money playing live over the break but I do not let those results get in the way of me just naturally playing better. The other night for instance I was playing in a live home game tourney. I was dealt the 64off in UTG+3. I made my standard raise of 3x the bb and had only my uncle call. (A TAG player). The flop came 974 rainbow so I threw out a bet of around half the pot. My Uncle went in the tank and I at that point I had him on an overpair but he was thinking I had flopped a set. He said after he folded that he had to lay his hand down because I flopped my set of 4s. I was chuckling in the inside as I took down the pot with bottom pair.

I busted out of this tourney on a weird hand. I was dealt AJ in UTG+2 the utg decided to limp in early position(very loose put him on a mediocre hand) and I raised 4x the bb. I had the guy to my left call and the utg call. The flop came J85 and the UTG player bet 1k I raised to 5k and the guy to my left called my 5k raise. The UTG player went allin and put me in the tank this time. After about a minute I call and the guy to my left calls. I show my tptk and the guy to my left shows his pocket 10s. What really befuddled me was the utg showed j8 for two pair. This only confused me because I had shown a few hands to set up my table image. I showed two pair twice with my premium hands. Long story short is I was the second one out of the tourney as my TPTK did not improve. I know over the longrun I would empty this guys pockets but did not really understand his call here. Then I thought about it the good old phrase DAI (Dont Assume Intelligence.) and realized that was exactly what happened to me here.

Overall I have been playing very well excluding the misstep in that last tourney I mentioned. I am very happy to be playing like this after a dismal month of November and first week of December. I hope I can continue this in the upcoming year of 2008.