A tale of two tourneys..

...or the rock that broke the donkey's back.

Thuper Tuesday was a nice one for me. I checked into Bodonkey to check my Thuper Bowl props and came out a winner by a small edge. My Pats-heavy straight up bets blew, but my defensive-minded props payed off well. For lack of my dream 34-21 Pats win, the props got me a little better than even.

I took part of my small profit at put it in the inaugural Blogger WSOP series. One important note on the structure Smokee set up, it allows for a lot of play in the early going with double stacks, extended blind periods, and minimal blind amounts.

This being the second or third Bodonk I've played, I think I've gotten used to the structure and play as patiently as I can until we hit 100/200 level or so. I played very deliberately and focused, only occasionally making a questionable move until the final table. I played %14 of the hands till then and was sitting right in the middle of the pack. Unfortunately I don't remember now any hands that got me to 5 handed. I know I laid at least one bad beat on the shortstack in 6th place.

I felt really good about my chances until Kuro obviously playing the part of skidoo for the night called my re-raise push with sooted QJ. My AKs couldnt fade the Q and I busted. I'm pretty happy about my play though and have been on a bit of a mini-run to begin 2008. I was also happy to recieve the T$109 from Bodog making it a pretty damn good investment for my $11.

Congrats to Kuro for taking it down.

I also feel pretty good about my play in the MOOK last night, going into the final 2 tables, I was sitting at %12 of flops seen. My only suckout being runner-runner quad 7's vs 2 short stacks.

I hit the final table as the chip leader and managed to go out in ninth.....hows that for solid play.

My 4 losing hands were: AK vs AA (nice set-up surf), A4h vs JJ (yeah i was steaming a bit on that call), AQvs donkettes KJ (no comment), then AQ vs J3 ( I was shortstacked so I can forgive surf). I'm not sure if thats what you'd call coolered, but I wouldn't disagree with the notion.

The thing is that looking back through the hands I played I feel really good about my decision making process (yes, I'm not just mashing buttons) and not so good about my luck in a few key spots.

Mindset is huge in my personal opinion, and it's not just thinking your better than the other players, its also about being positive and accepting the outcome regardless.

I hope I can hold onto the feeling for a bit, I have my Neighborhood game tomorrow and the APBT cash game coming up on the 22nd.

Cheers!