I got to play a decent amount of poker yesterday and this morning and had a great time, even though I didn't win any money. I finished the day in the black due to having cleared a bonus.

I played 2 $25 NL tables after dinner last night, as well as 2 $10 SNGs on Party. I hadn't played an SNG in a long time, since becoming quite disillusioned with them after a bad run. But since I am trying to work on my NL play, I believe SNGs are a cheap and fun way to get some table-time in. My strategy for the time being is to play rather conservatively in the early stages and not put my stack at risk unless I'm a mortal lock to win. After that, I loosen up a bit and make people pay to play their draws/crap hands.

In the 2 SNGs, I finished 4th and 7th. 4th is my albatross; when I was playing SNGs before, it seemed like I was getting 4th on half of my attempts. This is obviously a problem with my game and I'll need to work on it. I was generally happy with how I played these two, the seventh-place finish was an unbelievably tight table and when I went I think we were at level 6, so it was push or fold. I chose push and lost. I also won $14 in the NL ring games so my net loss so far was $8.

Later, I fired up 4 more $10 SNGs tables and finished 4th, 4th, 3rd, 5th. Kind of disappointing but I was encouraged that I wasn't going at early in the going. There were some amazingly bad plays I saw in both sessions of SNGs, but this one was my favorite:

***** Hand History for Game 2321630609 *****
cmuswim03 finished in ninth place.
15/30 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL)
(Tournament 13711811) - Wed Jul 06 21:57:04 EDT 2005
Table Table 11853 (Real Money) --
Seat 9 is the button

Total number of players : 8
Seat 1: AA_Cracked (1835)
Seat 3: Pianodude (750)
Seat 4: Buda124 (735)
Seat 5: I_AM_VICTORY (560)
Seat 6: mjb39618 (800)
Seat 7: RaginCajan (1130)
Seat 8: IcUfoo (775)
Seat 9: playsum (1415)

AA_Cracked posts small blind (10)
Pianodude posts big blind (15)

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to mjb39618 [ Th, Td ]
Buda124 calls (15)
I_AM_VICTORY calls (15)
mjb39618 raises (60) to 60
RaginCajan folds.
IcUfoo folds.
playsum folds.
AA_Cracked folds.
Pianodude folds.
Buda124 calls (45)
I_AM_VICTORY calls (45)

** Dealing Flop ** : [ Tc, 5h, Ts ]
Buda124 checks.
I_AM_VICTORY checks.
mjb39618 checks.

** Dealing Turn ** : [ Qh ]
Buda124 checks.
I_AM_VICTORY bets (205)
mjb39618 calls (205)
Buda124 folds.

** Dealing River ** : [ Qc ]
I_AM_VICTORY bets (295) I_AM_VICTORY is all-In.
mjb39618 calls (295)
Creating Main Pot with $1205 with I_AM_VICTORY

** Summary **
Main Pot: 1205
Board: [ Tc 5h Ts Qh Qc ]

AA_Cracked balance 1825, lost 10 (folded)
Pianodude balance 735, lost 15 (folded)
Buda124 balance 675, lost 60 (folded)
I_AM_VICTORY balance 0, lost 560 [ 3d 2s ] [ two pairs, queens and tens -- Qh,Qc,Tc,Ts,5h ]mjb39618 balance 1445, bet 560, collected 1205, net +645 [ Th Td ] [ four of a kind, tens -- Qh,Th,Td,Tc,Ts ]
RaginCajan balance 1130, didn't bet (folded)
IcUfoo balance 775, didn't bet (folded)
playsum balance 1415, didn't bet (folded)

Fantastic.

After the one third place finish, I was down $32 for the night. This morning, I didn't have enough time for SNGs, so I popped up 4 $25 NL tables in order to finish clearing my bonus, which expired tomorrow if I didn't clear it.

I ended up doing pretty well, winning about $27 and almost recouping my losses from the SNGs. I feel a little bit hooked on the SNGs, so I plan to keep playing them unless it becomes apparent that I really suck and have to stop.