Full Moon Fever

Today I played two more FTOPS tournaments, the $535 PLO (co-coing with the Bag) and a juicy $100 rebuy. I busted on the bubble of the rebuy. Normally when an afternoon of online poker tournaments ends, I immediately leave my computer and go do something else. This afternoon I just kept on watching tables - watching friends, watching big names wielding big stacks, watching the final table of the PLO tournament, and watching Genius28 battle Phil Ivey in 300-600 NL. I had all these tables on Full Tilt tiled across the screen and was just staring at them slackjawed. I had a headache and felt nauseous. Eventually I did leave the house, but I kept on thinking about poker. Even while playing Settlers of Catan later in the night I kept thinking about poker tournaments.

I go through these periods from time to time where I don't care about anything but poker. I guess this means I'm still in the right business.

It's a lot of fun playing on Full Tilt. I love everything about Full Tilt. The software is so good. I just feel so comfortable playing there. I really commend Howard Lederer and the rest of em for building this empire the right way. I sometimes think about how satisfied this guy must be every day. He spent most of his life on the submissive end of the negative sum game that is poker, and now he's the one collecting the rake.

It's funny pouring in all this effort into these $150 and $200 tournaments considering how relatively low of stakes they are compared to $10-20 and $25-50 NL cash games - especially shorthanded. I am just more passionate about tournaments than cash games right now. Really I view most of the online "donkaments" as practice for the big live tournaments, where you can really make a score.

Having said that, the FTOPS really kicks into gear this next week with the massive $300 Sunday tomorrow, the $1k 6-max Monday, the "bankroll breaker" $300 6-max rebuy Wednesday, and the $2500 (the best tournament in online poker) next Saturday. Our team is in good shape in the $5k per team bet, but there is still a lot of poker to be played.