Recap: Last two weeks

So let me take a brief moment to recap the action (as poker players say) of the last few weeks:

-6/9/09: First day of the new "job" started off great. Made some big hands and was up over $400 in under three hours. I finished the day up a solid $375.

-6/10/09: Day two was a lot slower...slow table, boring players. Finally won a decent pot towards the end when I flopped two queens with king-queen to crack someone's pocket aces. Managed to finish up $75 or so.

Unfortunately...well, maybe not unfortunately...I had to take a week hiatus from the tables to go to the beach with my extended fam.

-6/23/09: First day back in the poker room went pretty badly. I was down $150 in less than two hours and decided to play a tournament with a $120 buy-in. 155 players entered, and the top 15 finishers would be paid $1000 even. After a shitty run of cards, I finished 17th, two off the money with $0 to show for it. An hour later and $40 lost at the blackjack tables, I was down over $300. It was well past midnight at this point and the next bus wasn't til 4:30 in the morning, so I went back to the cash tables. Finally found some good fortune and cut my losses to just over $100. First day in the negative.

-6/29/09: And that brings me to yesterday...well yesterday was a roller-coaster. At my first table, not much going and was down $50 after several hours. Took a dinner break and sat down at a new table. Doing pretty well, and thought I'd call it a night up $70 or so on the night, since my bus was leaving in 10 minutes. Decided to play ONE MORE HAND. Famous last words--but in this case in a good way. Called a raise with Ace-six and flopped three 6's (667). Guy bet $25, I raise to $75, he calls. Turn is an 8. I bet all in for $150, and he calls right away. He has 45 and turned a straight to my set. River is the last 6. I make quads and take down the $500+ pot. Gotta get lucky sometimes I guess...bad play on my part, but I'll take it.

At this point I should have left, since the bus left in 5 minutes, but in poker it's really rude to win a giant pot and leave right away, especially if you had to get lucky to do it...so I decided to stick around until the 4:30am bus. I was up $350 at this point. Thennn I ran really bad over the next several hours and dropped almost $300. At my low point, I folded a big draw on the river to an all in bet bcus the odds weren't quite right...turns out I would have hit my flush and won a $600 pot to put me up over $500. Alas, that's how it works sometimes. It was a fine fold, but I was now only up $60 on the night after having been up $350 at my high point. Luckily I managed to finish strong and played my best hand of the night to get some back. After all the ups and downs, managed to post a decent win, going home in the wee hours of the morning up $170.

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So, after four days "at the office", I've done pretty decent. Probably shouldn't have played that tournament, but I've still posted positive numbers in three of the four days. Made $520 or so in total, which means about $130 a day...that's a lot more than I'd be making working a 9-to-5 temp job at $9 an hour, that's for sure. So far so good. Keep you updated.