Solid...

Played in month 4 of the year long Hold 'Em tourney last night. I played pretty solidly and made only a couple of minor mistakes which I think I recovered from rather well. At the very least, I didn't let them eat at me and influence my decision making in subsequent hands. I made it to the final table with a decent stack of chips but the cards had long since gone cold for me and I spent pretty much the rest of the night folding crappy starting hands. I had a pretty decent starting hand that I wanted to get involved with, but was out of position and would have been calling a ridiculous raise, so I grudgingly folded my hand. With exactly $1,025 in chips left, I was dealt a pair of 9's. The blinds were $150/300 and going up in a couple of minutes. The button was making it's way around the table relatively quickly to me and decided that this was my last best chance to make some money so I went all-in pre-flop. The rest of the players folded except for the chip leader (Jeez, I think it was the same guy who put me out last month come to think of it!). Well, as soon as he called me, I knew that I was running into a buzzsaw and let everyone know it. We rolled them and he showed his pocket jacks. Flop, turn, river and I was done.

On the bright side, I earned 19 points and am averaging 17.75 points after 4 months. I'm a little concerned that I'm further back than I think I am because you do get to drop your 2 lowest scores over the course of a year. Despite that, I'm feeling rather comfortable with my game right now, so I'm not too worried - it's a LONG year of poker!