Shake n' Bake!

In the freeroll at my local last night I finished 2nd and won a case of beer for my efforts. The $100 would have been nice but my luck ran out in the end. I shoved with A9 into A7 and she flopped trips. Good luck to her and she deserved the win having played really well. One thing to take out of the tournament is that I'm a very different tournament player to last year. This is primarily down to
- I play a much looser but more math oriented game and move alot of chips throughout the tournament. I built a monster stack and most likely was chip leader at different stages. This almost never occurred in the past as I played a very careful TAG game by the book in the past. I saw alot of show downs, I won some pots while behind and gave the impression I didn't care if I won or lost - which was true.
- I was very happy with my 'pace' in the tournament. I've always thought of tournaments as being similar to Nascar racing. You need to push your car pretty hard, on some corners your car will float and you'll need to back off. But the harder you push, the better your chances of winning.
- I really enjoy these brick and mortar freerolls now. When I first started some years back I was pretty nervous and clueless. Then I progressed to the angry Tagfish that was bitter and frustrated when I was almost always getting my $ in good and getting bad beats put on me. Now I realize it's all about the enjoyment. Of course I'm EXTREMELY competitive, but at the end of the day this is a hobby (with side benefits) and I have enough stress at work without creating more on my private time.