Return to Tunica

Well I am heading back to Tunica, MS to try and relive some of the magic I had last year in the preliminary WSOP Circuit events. I plan to play in the Thursday tournament and the Saturday tournament. The Saturday event should draw a huge crowd. The cost is cheap ($340), and with it being on the weekend the numbers should approach 1,000 players. Hopefully I will be as fortunate as last year. I can't remember taking a bad beat that entire tournament. It will also be nice to play some live poker. I haven't played much live poker since I was in Vegas last June. The ups and downs of internet poker have taken a toll on me over the last year. I just can't seem to get anything going, and haven't been able to get the big score.

Last night was pretty brutal. I played well, but things just didn't work out. I cashed only once placing 6th in a 90 player $10 deep stack Turbo KO SNG. I have had pretty good results in this tournament. The play is so horrible that you need to really nit it up until you reach the final table. I came into the FT as a slight chip leader, but got slightly coolered with TT against QQ for half my stack. I just couldn't see how I could get away from it raising from the button, and the SB pushed. TT plays well against his pushing range. After that I lost a race with AK against QQ and I was gone. Would have had the chip average if I won that race, but oh well that's poker.

I played the 21k guarantee as usual and played a pretty good tournament. Unfortunately I essentially bubbled finishing 225 of 1213. I got it in slightly good with KQ on a K high board against AJ with a diamond draw. That pot would have put me back at the chip average, but I still may not have cashed. Late in this tournament I seemed to be a serious card magnet. I got reraised or called a lot once the antes kicked in and never had a hand I could go with. My results have been horrible in this tournament lately. I think I can chalk it up to variance and bad luck for only so long. I'm starting to wonder if my small ball strategy in the early stages is the best way to go. We'll see how well it works in Tunica.