Two shoes

I had quite an embarrassing moment the other night doing something that I've never done before in my life. I took Joshua and my wife's niece, Laura, to the park the other day (the weather here has been gorgeous lately). Joshua and I are swinging away and at the top of my swing, I get a great view of my shoes right in front of me. There was a problem - I was wearing two different shoes! I had a black tennis shoe on and a black casual shoe on.

Laura, who is fifteen, couldn't stop laughing. After thinking about it for a while, I'm surprised I've gone almost 41 years without ever having made this mistake. I have all of these shoes in the closet, I grab a couple, and I'm off. I can see where I might make this type of mistake. If anyone has done this also, please post a comment as it would make me feel a little better :).

Sunday's tourneys didn't go too well. I cashed 50th in the UB $215 and that was my only cash. I lost a big pot with A-K vs AJ with about 60 left which would have put me in the top 3 in chips. I made some really good calls on Sunday that I was quite proud of, and I think indicative that I am starting to understand the online player a little better. I did make some questionable plays in the FTP 750K guarantee. I was doing quite well in that event. I had 7 tables up and running and I find that I sometimes panic when 2 or 3 tables are going. I need to learn to use the time clock and take my time on big decisions. In any case, there was a raise, and I made a big overbet allin raise with A-K from middle position. The SB woke up with AA and busted me. I should have known better to commit such a large stack but I just started to panic a little and didn't think about my position and the players behind me. It seems like every Sunday I make one of these types of "online" mistakes due to multi-tabling.

Now that I am playing a lot more online MTT's, I can see where the variance is quite frustrating. In many of these tournaments, 50% of the prize pool is paid in the top 3-5 spots. Let's say you have a 50% ROI. You invest $100 in the tournament. You expect to cash $150 for each tournament played. This means you get $75 when you finish in the top 3 and $75 for all other cashes. You are losing money until you get that top 3 finish! So far this year in the bigger tourneys, I've won one PS nightly tournament and won a seat to the Bahamas. I've had lots of cashes, but most in that 11th to 50th range. Getting close just isn't good enough in tournament poker. I feel good about putting myself in a lot of situations to get that big win, but it's frustrating falling short so often. Hopefully if I keep working on my game, just a very slight improvement here and there will get me over the hump.