Mondays at the Hoy

Unfortunately, I was a little short of the money (top three paid) at the MATH tournament tonight. Disappointing to play over 90 minutes and miss the flop almost the entire night. I had a few good starting hands, but at least the drought kept me out of trouble. I did dip low early in the tourney, but stayed patient and got myself out of a jam.

Only one suckout tonight, but I needed to go all in before my stack got too low.

It seems like I have been running into trouble about 2/3 of the way through tournaments recently. This very clearly points to a need for me to work on that aspect of my tournament game.

One Year Anniversary of my Blog

Today marks one year of Lightning Strikes. I started the blog in order to reply to a post in someone else's blog, then continued it to qualify for the Poker.com Season 1 Blogger Poker Tour. That was certainly a wise decision, as I grabbed fourth place in the initial Grand Final (winning me an iPod) and was only a few places away from winning a seat to the WSOP Main Event in 2006.

Funny - looking back, I can see where my lack of experience in big tournaments really hurt me at the end. I certainly wish that I could go back with all that I have learned over the past year and replay my last half hour of the final. Of course, does this mean that a few years from now I will be looking at my 2007 play and say, "Geez - what a donk I was?"

Thanks to my fellow players at The Online Poker Tour, K-9 Poker Tour, Shark Poker Tour, Checkrayz, and Cardschat.com, and all the skillful bloggers from whom I've learned so much.

Dr. Mary Ann Klein, a college English instructor and literary magazine advisor, once told me, "John, I wish you'd get serious about your writing." Hmmm ... that might be a good goal for the second year of Lightning Strikes.