20 of 48

Normally I would loathe that number, but in perspective it's not that bad of a number. This field of 48 is not your typical small tournament field. Very few weaknesses in the blogger lineup. My personal distractions and my wonderful weekend illness also played a factor. I was a little spaced out for most of the night. Add to that my decision to watch the Pistons/Nets game, and I'm surprised I wasn't one of the first five out.

All that being said, I should have done a lot better. My reads were very good on almost all the hands. My problem was my patience and discipline. More than once I knew it was a bad idea to call but still went ahead with it anyway. The hand that bothered me the most was when I called an all-in with JJ, even though I was sure he had KK or better. I even took the time to type "I shouldn't call" before I called.

I played very well in the beginning and was bouncing between 2nd and 4th in chips, but for some reason couldn't find it within myself to trust the reads and make the laydowns I normally would. I dropped from 4th in the tourney to one of the shortest stacks within an orbit and a half. Somehow I refocused and battled back up to 8th before I imploded again and ended the day in 20th, shortly after the 2nd break.

All in all I am OK with where I finished. I am 20th in POY points while playing in only 2 of the 3 events so far. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We need to play in at least 8 events to even qualify for POY, so I hope that I can stay in contention long enough to take advantage of a good run of cards and make a serious play for the top blogger spot. Although with poker being what it is, you never know until you see the river.