Fired Up

Yesterday was one of those start-to-finish travel days that I am likely going to avoid once I've made my millions. It did give me a chance to catch up on SURVIVOR: California on my laptop and spend a lot of time thinking about poker. I haven't thought about the game this intensely since the World Series. I listened to several episodes of The Circuit which is surprisingly entertaining and stimulating. Paul's appearance on the show shed some light on a couple ideas that amazingly, he and I have never discussed. I thought about what Kathy Liebert was doing the other day which paved the way for her final table appearance at Foxwoods tomorrow afternoon. I thought about all the successful players I've played with the last couple months - and what they've been doing.

As I was trying to fall asleep I came to a startling realization - every move I made at Foxwoods worked except for one. The one that didn't work only failed because the guy had the courage to rebluff after making a physical read. Even on that one I put him on the right sort of hand, but underestimated his ability to make a move and may have given away something physically. Before and after that I made a number of big bluffs, some of them with absolutely nothing, and each one worked. I also made two laydowns at Foxwoods that most players would not even consider, and they were both correct. I played one bad hand against Bernard Lee in the 5k event, and again, if I had followed my instincts, I would not have lost anything on the hand.

After really thinking it through I concluded that I was playing great at Foxwoods but the cards just weren't coming and the players were quite a bit better than the fools at Caesar's Indiana. So after a lukewarm period of consideration, I'm now gung-ho for the Five Diamond series of tournaments at the Bellagio in December and hope to be there for the duration.
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A few quick thoughts on random topics:

• Like I mentioned above, The Circuit really is good stuff and makes for perfect i-pod listening while exercising or travelling
• The WPT has this thing called WPT Academy where they display every hand from previous WPT final tables. Literally. Right now they only have Season One up there but supposedly they'll eventually have more. An incredible learning tool and also pretty entertaining for poker junkies like me.
• Starting to think about the Bahamas (January 4-11) and Australia (main event starting January 14). I'm also thinking I'll probably go to Europe this spring to visit my brother (he's going to Saint Andrews in Scotland) and play a poker tournament, most likely the EPT Final in Monte Carlo. Let me know if you're interested.
• I'm scouting out my online options and mulling things over before I really start playing. Pokerstars 10-20 shorthanded seems like a decent option and so does the same game on FullTilt. I'm going to have to get back to my real bread and butter which is online NLHE cash games unless I win a big tournament soon.