Here's a fun hand from last night and was part of the reason I was able to recover my losses:

I'm the BB with AQo in a $1/$2 Limit Hold'em full ring. There's a poster of the SB and BB in MP as well. It folds to the poster who checks, and then folds to the SB, who completes. I raise it and they both call.

The flop is AA6 with 2 clubs, SB checks - I bet and the poster calls - the SB folds.

The turn is the 8h - I bet, he calls.

The river is the 6s - I bet, he raises, I reraise, he calls. I win the $23.50 pot.

What did he have? K8s (spades).

A thing of beauty - that's for sure...

Amazingly enough, I had a decent night last night. I say amazingly because in all reality - I shouldn't have been playing. I had a hard, long day at work and by the time I sat down, I was tired, cranky and just not in the mood to deal with anything.

That being said - I got knocked out in the first hour of one tournament and on the 2nd hand of another (flopped set against two pair, river gave us both a boat - he had the better one...).

However, I did moderately well at Hold'em and Omaha Hi/Lo last night - netting $40 from the former and $4 from the latter. When I called it a night, I was literally ready to pass out - so I'm glad I did. I certainly could have played better.

Just doing a little bookkeeping - I have found that I am in the positive by almost $400 so far this month. Considering I started with just under $100 in my bankroll at the beginning of the month - I think that is great progress.

With any luck - this will hopefully be indicative that I'll be back to playing $2/$4 and $3/$6 soon. I still need to take my time to get back there - but I'm looking forward to it.

I've also been itching to play the $10 with rebuy tournament on Stars again. I figure if I have a good early session on a Saturday or Sunday - that might give me enough confidence to take another shot at it, but we'll have to see. I obviously can't play it too often with my $500 bankroll, if I want to keep growing anyway, so one step at a time...

The most significant hand I had last night was seeing A6QQ suited in the BB and getting a free flop. The flop came down 6QQ with 5 other players. I checked and it was bet and raised when it came back to me. I flat called and on the turn I get a full four bets out of one player and 2 out of another. On the river an ace came and I took just one more bet. Considering I had pretty much all of the cards on the board - I'm esctatic that I managed to get so much from the hand. I'm also real happy that no low came. That hand alone was worth about $25 if I remember correctly.

That's pretty much it for now. Hoping to finish off the last week of the month with some more solid progress. I collected enough FPP to be about halfway to clearing the bonus - which will be nice to get, when it does come.

Since my last update, I've been playing a fair amount, but haven't made much headway. I'm now sitting at around $600 total, and playing $2/$4 almost always if I am in the mood.

Beyond that, I've had a few near hit finishes in the rebuys tournaments and other tournaments I've been playing. Most significant was my $5 rebuy tournament the other week - when I was in a real good position, but just got outdrawn.

Variability has increased with the higher limits and I'm cautious about it. I am easily able to move back down to $1/$2 but $2/$4 is still comfortable for me. I'm still watching my play carefully however.