Thanks Fulltilt

A big thanks goes out to FullTilt for getting me back into poker. Their clever little bonus trick worked, and I managed to earn a full $20 out of the $100 they offered before time expired.

More importantly, I did pretty well in the tournaments that I played in order to claim the bonus. I played 22 SNGs during the past two weeks, a mix of $20 and $30 buy ins, with one $10 just to get my feet wet.

I finished in the money eight times which is about 36%. All things being equal, that is about what you expect. Three places pay in a nine person tourney so an ITM percentage of around 33% is average. The key here though is that I had no third place finishes. I had five wins and three seconds and over the coarse of the 22 tourneys finished up $222. Not too bad.

That's obviously a small sample size so you shouldn't read too much into it, but I'm very happy with where I'm at, and how I played in the past few weeks. To be honest, I expected to be pretty rusty and more or less break even. It was more about getting back into the game than any serious expectations at significant profit, but I surprised myself and actually played really well.

I think I was doing a much better job of reading the situation and playing aggressively than I have in the past. Normally if I miss a flop and my opponent bets I give him credit for top pair at a minimum, but lately, I've been doing a much better job of betting those hands before they act, to make them prove they've hit something, and analyzing the situation to determine how likely it is that they have what they are representing or if they are trying to steal a pot.

Of all the tourneys in which I didn't money, I was only upset with my play in two of them. I was playing them both simultaneously and at the time I really wasn't in the mood to play, I just felt like I needed to in order to keep pace with my bonus. My disinterest cost me two buy ins as I played horribly and exited quite early on.

My bonus period has now expired so I no longer have that pushing me to play, but I think I've rekindled the desire to play, and I have a slightly larger bankroll with which to work, so hopefully I'll keep going. We'll see.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com