Almost

My somewhat crazy sleeping arrangements on Wednesday left me with a feeling similar to jetlag on Thursday afternoon ! It's to be expected I guess, but unfortunately means I won't be playing mookie's week in week out this year. It was definitely fun and a learning experience and something I want to do again but I think next time I'll need the following morning off work… when I woke up this morning I had no idea what day it was, I just new I had to be in the office ! By 7pm last night I was through the "wall" of tiredness and into my second wind, so I looked for some value and found a $24 satellite to Full Tilts Million on Sunday. With only 16 runners and 1 $500 ticket guaranteed this was a nice bit of value so I signed up. An hour and a half later there was just myself, a german and a canadian left. The canadian busted the german then battled with me for another 20 minutes, finally with even stacks I got it all in preflop holding pocket 8's and his KQ paired on the turn to give him the ticket and me an empty feeling.

One thing that has become clear these past few weeks is I am still quite rusty from playing very little in 2007. There are some things I'm doing well, but there's also simple mistakes which have crept back into my game just from this lack of hours at the table. It's always hard to admit to shortcomings, but I think I need go two steps back and re-learn basic strategies just to remind the poker brain that the cool moves only become possible when you are first doing the simple things well.

To that end I've bought a new book "The poker tournament formula" by Arnold Snyder. (anyone read it ?) It's geared toward tourneys with fast blind structures, and the first couple of chapters have been just the refresher I was looking for. I'm sure there'll be a couple of new strategy points hidden deep in this book too that can only help me progress in the long run.

On a final note it's nice to have some comments from new people, even if you're only passing through it's good to know someones still reading ! And to you regular Brits reading here go check out Shrike and Shaubs, I'm sure you'll enjoy their blogs and learn something since they have actual poker content.

GL for the weekend all, especially the Chargers who are gonna need it most !