Back to Mableton

Sometimes it's hard for me to get ready in time for a tourney. You know, you have work, and then dealing with after-work -- feeding cats, feeding yourself, doing laundry, maintaining a 180-day running streak, etc.

So I thought it would have been impossible for me to make it to Amir's game OTP tonight by 8 p.m.

And I was right. The clock was 7:32 p.m. and it would have taken me 32 minutes. I still hadn't run yet.

So I bailed, focusing on my baseball, tennis and Tour de France bets, played poker online (winning just about all the money I wagered) and went for a short run.

But then Sham called and it was pretty clear both of us didn't really have anything to do on a Friday night. (My financial adviser is away on a business trip until Satty and I'm not evil enough to play online poker using her 42" plasma HDTV as a monitor).

So Mableton it is.

While we waited for the first tourney to get settled, Sham and I sat down at a NL $.25/.50 ($10 max) cash game. It was like a blogger table on Full Tilt -- Weak Player, BrainMc and that ambassador of poker, Surflexus, were all there and playing. Sham doubled up pretty quickly and I was down $3.25 at the end of it all.

We then shuffled over to a 12-person $20 SNG. I stole a pretty nice multiway pot in late using small ball poker, which gave me ammo to call a raise by Amir, which Sham also called.

I c/r'd Amir's continuation bet when a K flopped.

I was pretty fortunate later on, getting AKs a few times and even QQ. Soon it was 4-handed and then three ITM. I didn't have enough to really take on the big stack and I finished in second, which made me pretty happy, given I brought the 15-game winner Biscuits shirt back to town.

Timing is everything and if I can get myself to be a little more organized, maybe I'll make more tourneys in that part of town. It's always a great group out there and it's good to let the poker network grow.