Catching up...

I busted early in the Mookie. I didn't get very good cards, but stayed alive for a while. I made a bad call with KJ off. Got a lucky top pair flop KK, slow played, and went over the top of a big raise (Pot sized) by Jorden. Turned out he had AQ and caught the Ace on the river. My junk hurts. Read and comment on the whole play on his blog - there are a lot of good comments there.

Played at the Big O last night. I made the final table. I continued to try and find player tells. I picked up a few. I watched betting patterns and body language to give me some hints. I am getting a little better at this, but I think the big thing is to stay focused and WATCH!

One hand the tells paid off for was: When I had middle pair after the flop and a new guy kept raising by very small increments. I had seen him show down King high on one occasion and call all the way to the river and fold to a re-raise or all in. Also, when he thought he had the winning hand – he wouldn’t hesitate to push… so I decided to check call him all the way down. This betting pattern and the fact that he would put his chips waaaay into the pot when he was weak told me to call. I was approaching the felt, so this was putting a lot of trust in my read. He checked the river and showed nothing. I won a nice pot to keep me alive for a while longer.

I didn't money, but I played pretty solid. On my last hand I went all in with my crumbs with 66 and hit a 6 on the flop. Two other players were in and there was another all-in side pot. There was an A on the flop and one of the other players had A5 the other QQ. I was surprised the QQ called after the A5 went all-in after the flop. QQ would only have 25% of his stack left if he missed. In the end QQ caught a Q on the turn and A5 and I were all gone...

My gorgeous wife, Jerseygirl moneyed fourth. She played very well and had a lesson on pot odds. She is getting better and better all the time. She is playing 3-4 live games a week, some free-roles, no on-line.

I hadn't had enough, so when we got home, I played a $10 4-person SNG on Stars and took the whole thing down in about 20 hands. I won my lost Big O money back.

I am reading blogs today and I am really enjoying reading about Chris, Carmen, and Miami Don adventures. You must read Don's story about Shawn Sheikhan, and Billy Baxter.

These kinds of stories and reliving past trips during talk at the Big-O have PSYCHED beyond belief to get to Vegas.

Today I may play a FPP tourney on Stars and will have to fix a sprinkler valve - I am so tired of maintaining the sprinkler system. In the last month I have had to make 5 repairs from chewed sprinkler heads (thanks to my dog Rocco) to broken pipes IN THE GROUND (thanks to the builder for putting them in shallow next to the driveway). This one is a wiring problem.