I'm back...

Hello, the break was good!

I managed to sort things out I never would have had time to do before. Not so much dissertation work, but I arranged a golf trip, sorted out a voyage up to Liverpool to see Uni mates and booked a short break away for me and the lady. Obviously the money from the withdrawal helped a lot there, and I don't know, the break has really re-vitalised me!

August, despite being my breaking point in terms of poker, was actually break-even, so wasn't anything to be upset about. August 31st, as I had sort of planned in my head, became the date I returned to the grind of poker. However, I still didn't want to play heads up, I just fancied playing the Turbo Takedown, the Sunday 200k and perhaps a couple more tournaments. However, I decided to play a few $2 heads up games, but soon decided the $6 games would be more fun.

Underolled obviously, I managed to work up to around $90, before playing way late into the night, and nearly losing it all and extending my break, only to finish the night on $49 at 6am. The next day I scudded this up to $150, and two days ago I was on $290ish. This sharp rise was all from heads up and from around 4 fairly long sessions, proving to myself I can still crush the heads up games.

6 TABLING heads up became my way of enjoying myself, with 2 $11 games and 4 $6 games to keep me sharp. This worked fairly well, but I'm now favouring 4-tabling $11 games.

Then, a few of us from Durham decided to grind out some $4.40 180-man SNGs, something that really pleased me as I wanted to commit some time tapping in to this goldmine. We were supposed to play every one in a 3 hour stretch, but my head was hurting so I only managed 11. Early on I ran like AIDS, with my AK losing to a check shove from A7 on a K56 board, AA losing to a K3 flush draw despite my 6X pre raise, and other wonderful examples of dirty outdraws. Despite this, in a few I managed to accumulate a stack early on, one in particular I reached 6000chips from 1500 by the 15/30 stage. However, I managed to bust this before the start of the first break by losing a couple of coolers and struggling against some players limp calling hands like 10s, which plays well against me shoving AK on a low flop!

I had a couple of aggravating finishes short of the cash, with a 22nd and a 24th, and was starting to think it wasn't my night. Then on one table I had quietly reached the final table without having any spectacular hands, whilst on the other, after the bubble had burst I built up an enormous chip lead.

This chip lead went after losing a huge chunk with AJ vs A10, on a AQJKK board (he bet so small on the turn and river which at least saved me a bit) and then failing to hit with AQ vs 55 against an aggro idiot. A disappointing 7th considering where I had been, but wasn't really my fault.

Meanwhile, on the other one, the final table arrived, and here I picked up hands. In a 5way pot despite a 3BB raise, my 88 flopped trips on a KQ8 board 2 clubs, and I held vs AJcc and J10...here I had a monster stack and I think I knocked everyone out on the FT, to pick up a very nice win, and bringing my roll over $500 after just 10days (5playing days) since my $39 deposit.

I have played just 8 heads up games since, winning all in my 1st set of 4, and then getting outdrawn massively to only win 1 of my next 4.

However, can't complain, as it seems I have fallen on the good side of variance again in the $4.40s.

In 51 games, I have had 3 1sts, 2 2nds, a 3rd and now a 7th, along with a couple of other cashes, and my stats for these illustrate how profitable these tournies are.

51
$16.51
$4
374%
$842

So, now I have a roll of $519.80, hopefully enough money in bank account to last me until the end of the academic year, and the spark back to work back up to the $23s and beyond.

My September stats so far are...

281
$1.64
$7
29%
$461

This is skewed due to the 180man win, but pleasingly my HU stats are...

269
$1.02
$7
14%
$275

...which gives me confidence that I can keep winning at a decent rate playing heads up. Also, most of this has been when 4 or 6 tabling, which increases the hourly rate quite nicely. I am still miles away from my bonus on Stars, but hopefully getting Silver VIP will help me accumulate FPPs faster and I should have that before long.

I have one aim for next few weeks...get on the leaderboard on Sharkscope for HU $6-$15 Total Profit 2008. Bottom position is currently at $2k, and so far my HU stats for this buy-in for 2008 are...

1,219
$1.27
$8
14%
$1,550

...so I haven't got too far to go, and I can hopefully put in a few hundred games and possibly more in September so I hope to see a nice star by my name some time soon on Sharkscope.

Sorry for the long update, I'll post again if anything interesting happens, and with a 12 hour MTT session a few of us are planning possibly happening soon, the post could be before too long.

Laters all,

RapsFan,

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