Thanks Bobby for your 2 cents. Seems like it was worth a lot more than that!

Thanks for the warning about the SH games. I will watch my P's and Q's.

Dear Diary,

It has been a while. I have been traveling more than usual which is more disruptive than I would have believed. I have been playing poker sporadically, if at all. But in the past month or so I have gone back to playing on line to "tweak my game," as someone said. On line, it needed a lot of tweaking. I have been playing mostly on Poker Stars which is a mixed bag. I really like the environment, the software, etc. But sometimes I really wonder if the place is rigged. I have gone 20 and 30 hands with no card higher than J and zero pairs. In fact, I've gone entire sessions with no pairs. But this is all beside the point. Eventually it seems to work itself out.

I was reading in the forum on SNGs because I have been playing in a lot of them -- mostly play money -- and somebody had written about their success in the micro arena. And I got inspired to enter a one-table 10-player event at the $3.00+ $.40 level. This will, of course, be laughable to all you pros out there. I was playing for third place, which was the pay-out cutoff. I thought I should be able to outlast seven players with my extremely tight style. Poker Stars conveniently provides a place to take notes, which I avail myself of to record my hands. This helps me put in perspective what seems to me the long strings of absolutely wretched cards. Turns out the "long strings" are rarely longer than 15 hands, although as noted above, on occasion they can stretch out to as many as 30-35.

Long story short, I actually won the tournament -- took down a whopping $15.00! I was absolutely ecstatic. Couldn't have been more thrilled if it was $1500. It was the principle of the thing. My strategy paid off. Here were my stats for this little 48-hand tournament:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 48 hands and saw flop:
- 4 out of 8 times while in big blind (50%)
- 3 out of 8 times while in small blind (37%)
- 7 out of 32 times in other positions (21%)
- a total of 14 out of 48 (29%)
Pots won at showdown - 5 of 5 (100%)
Pots won without showdown - 4

Hard to believe a tournament could be won with 9 hands played. Look at that! I won every showdown! I dropped a fair amount of chips twice but folded before the river because I could see I was probably beat, or if two players were all-in I have learned not to interfere in another player's attempt to reduce the field! I'm sure this was a bit of a fluke, but until the last few hands I never went beyond the flop if I didn't already have the best hand. I'm not a chaser. This is probably a flaw in my game, but it works for me.

Here are the cards I was dealt as reflected in my notes on this tournament. All hands were folded unless a point figure follows which indicates the size of my stack after action in the hand. Ostensibly good hands like TdAc or TcKh were raised preflop and I folded. The plus or minus signs indicate the direction of my chip count, "bb" means big blind, and the rest is self-explanatory I believe. Beginning chip stack: 1500.

JKh (saw flop, two went all-in and I folded), 3cQd, Td6c,
4dTc bb, 2d7s, T6s, 2cTs, Jc7h, 32s, Td2c, TcJs +2830, 48h, 7s2h,
Qh3c bb, 7d6h, TdAc, 7s7h, 6d4h, 7d8h, Qs5d, 45c, 86s,
3sTc bb, 3d8s, As5c, 4s2d, TcKh, Qh4s, now down to 5 players
JsKc bb -1875 (folded on turn - two went all-in) 9c8s, Jc3h, TJs +2450, 9s6d,
7c3d bb, 6c5h, Kc8s, As8h +3025, 5c2h, AKs +4450, KsTh,
6h6d bb +4475, JKh +5760, 94s, 6Ts, JcAh +7810, 9Kd +12445

At this point, I was heads up and didn't have time to record the last two hands.

My poker guru TUP (The Unknown Player) would have been proud. He recently evaluated my play and his main observation was that I seem to be playing scared. This was hard criticism for me to assimilate. I thought that if it was true, I did not belong at the poker table. I needed to work that out of my psychology or quit the game. So I've been working on this. As the field narrowed in this tournament, i.e., after it got down to 4 players, then I started to really get aggressive. I raised preflop on every hand if someone else hadn't already raised, or I folded.

Even though the stakes were low, this was a very good experience. I feel that I played almost as well as it is possible for me to play. If you can visualize this at all from the sketchy information I've presented, I would enjoy your comments.

Dear Diary,

I was absolutely on tilt after winning that SNG yesterday! It's funny, I get so high on adrenalin after a win that it feels like tilt. If I hadn't been so full of myself I would have registered for another SNG immediately. But I had to wait until today in order to calm down. This is ridiculous, I know. We're talking here about a $15 win. But I repeat, it's the principle of the thing.

So . . . I entered another identical event on Poker Stars today, same pony up and same prize pool. On the third hand I was dealt KK and was planning to raise but someone else raised before me. So of course, I reraised. The flop came Qxx and I thought it would be safe to go all in and I was called by the original raiser who had AA. I never win with Aces, so I was hoping for a king on the turn or river but just to rub it in, a third Ace appeared. So I was all in and all out lickity split.

I immediately entered another one and this time, long story short, I won again. So I now have notched 2 out of 3 as a winner. I really thought I was going to bust out again because there was so much pre-flop raising and I feared blinding myself out. But some of the other high chip stacks beat themselves and suddenly I was 3rd out of 3 players. Then I turned on my attack dog engines and managed to mow them down one at a time. I am wondering whether I surprised the socks off them because I had been folding pretty much the whole time and acting like a Caspar milque toast. Here are my stats for this SNG:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 65 hands and saw flop:
- 5 out of 14 times while in big blind (35%)
- 5 out of 15 times while in small blind (33%)
- 5 out of 36 times in other positions (13%)
- a total of 15 out of 65 (23%)
Pots won at showdown - 5 of 6 (83%)
Pots won without showdown - 8

I'm curious whether these stats are good, bad or indifferent. Anybody out there know of a norm I can compare myself to?

By the way, I use a masculine handle on Poker Stars. I acknowledge that this is a man's game and I use the masculine handle because I feel -- rightly or wrongly -- that it avoids the stereotypical response that some people have to a female player, evening the playing field, so to speak. I do love the anonymity of the internet. What a joy.

Anyway, this technique of laying low at first and then shifting into total aggressiveness at the end seems to work. It takes a lot of discipline to fold hand after hand, but wow, the payoff!

I will continue at this level for a few more days to see if my strategy continues to work for me and then I will start moving up the food chain.

Dear Diary,

I have continued to play off and on in single-table SNGs. I really enjoy them, even when I lose. I have now played in 12, won 4, 2 seconds, 2 third place finishes, 2 fourths, one ninth and one tenth. Admittedly I am playing at a low level, but this surely can't continue. I'm almost afraid to move up. I've been reading comments in the SNG forum and I see that others of you are keeping very sophisticated ratings on yourselves. I will take a leaf out of your books and see what the future brings. I love the finite nature of these little one-table tourneys with their beginning, middle and end. They usually take about an hour which is a nice little bite. What fun. Hope the "fun" part lasts.

I read somewhere that one's playing style may do better in some types of games than others. Maybe I am seeing this for myself. The consistency rate, albeit over a very small sample, is good enough to warrant more of my time in SNGs than other kinds of games, whether they be limit or no-limit. I have been doing all three lately, and the other two seem to be very streaky. I do okay in limit games but it feels like I am spinning my wheels much of the time. It is very hard to get ahead of the curve. I can't say I'm ready to make that a full-time occupation. On the other hand, no limit brings out the fear factor in me and I have to back off and calm down in a limit game. The SNG's on the other hand, just keep grinding along.