Back some more

Maybe my hiatus is over. I played the Bodog Blogger tournament hosted by Smokkee last night. I got kind of slapped down fairly early and then didn't do much for quite a while. Bad cards, bad situations.

At some point, I think after the first break, I managed to get into some good cards at the right time and my stack took a nice jump. Then I was getting halfway decent cards for a little bit and legitimately raised a few pots in a row. It folded around every time. So I kept raising. And it kept folding around.

I've done this a few times in the past but always feel like I'm being horribly transparent. It seems inevitable that somebody will catch on and fight back, costing me a sizable raise, so I always back off after a while. But I pushed it farther and more often than ever last night. And got away with it.

Eventually, via balls and proper timing (i.e. luck), I built a very nice stack and was able to openly bully the table with near impunity. It's been rare that I've been able to do this, but I think I like it.

My game felt good last night, at least until we hit the final table. I had a bit of trouble shifting from five players back to nine. And there was another big stack at the table so I couldn't blindly raise with the knowledge that nobody could put a serious hurt on me. I never really hit my stride again. I ended up bubbling, finishing in 6th.

Kudos to Bodog for sticking with this blogger effort. Given the low turnout in September I assumed they'd terminate the offering when their initial commitment expired. Instead of backing off, they lit the afterburners. They're now adding over T$500 to the kitty, giving each of the top five finishers T$109 in addition to the normal prize pool. Rumor had it finishers 6 through 9 got T$11, making it a freeroll, but that wasn't mentioned in the payout schedule.

Bodog's commitment to this appears to be paying off. We had 22 players last night. A bit short of the 82 the MATH drew on Monday, but considering the last time I played this it was basically a one-table SnG, 22 is a big improvement. If you haven't been playing in this one, you should consider it. A $500+ overlay spread over the fairly small field is quite good, even if it is just T$. They've got a few pretty rich tournaments that will give you opportunity to turn those T$ into some big US$.

Up tonight is the next BBTwo event, The Mookie. Full Tilt, 10pm EDT. Password is "vegas1".