No joy

I missed cashing in both the $1000+$50 Limit HE event and the $1500+$80 Spread-Limit HE event (and missed the PokerStars Blogger tournament entirely).

I actually felt physically sick after the bust out of the Limit Hold'em event. I busted very early in level 3, having won exactly 1 hand. Hand #1.
Overall, I played fairly poorly. Initially, I wished I could have gotten away from the last 2 big hands I got involved with, but after some reflection I think I can live with myself for calling down on the river in both hands. In both cases I had fairly decent 2nd best hand, and I think I'll never make it far in LHE events if I consistently lay those types of hands down with so much of my remaining stack in the pot.

The winner of the LHE event was this year's 4th place finisher at the Main event of the WSOP. The tournament director made a funny remark pointing out that "Aaron ~finally~ won a tournament!".

In the Spread Limit hold'em event, I was actually surprised that there were a few name pros playing. I busted close to the end of level 7, about 20 places away from the money. With the exception of one complete donkey, all 3 tables I played at were moderately tough. Unfortunately, I didn't get my hands on any of the donkey's chips when he busted in 11 minutes, 28 seconds when he got all his chips in preflop with JJ against, of course, AA and did not suck out.

I had above average chips for the first two levels only, and remained slightly below average for the remainder of the tournament. The last 2 levels for me simply degenerated down to all in blind steals or blind defense. My bustout hand was the classic coinflip where I called a slightly larger stack's EP all in from the SB with my best starting hand of the day, TsTc. Villain had AQo. A in the doorcard, and IGHN. I had allowed myself to drop to a mere 4.25x BB, so perhaps I should have made a move earlier to get above 10xBB or bust. hard to say...

The winner of the $1580 event was, again, a named pro. (Dan A.) Geez, can't they keep out the riffraff?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In terms of preparation to play for these tournaments, I slept very poorly the night before the LHE event, but got a very good night's rest before the SLHE event. I've got to be more consistent about getting a good night's rest before any big events.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I went pretty deep in a PokerStars PCA super. In the teens, I was at a great table where there was one player that was ~the~ sheriff. He was successfully able to call ~well over~ 2 dozen all in's. When I say successfully, I don't mean that he won them all or lost them all. He probably won close to 70% of them. When I say successful, I mean that he was successfully able to call every time with the worst hand. A2s, 22, JTs, it really didn't matter, his hand was always the underdog. In all fairness, there were only a few situations that his hand was truly dominated, but in the majority of the situations there was virtually no possibility that he could think that he was ahead when he called. He was the kind of player you want at your table in a super sat when you ~already~ have a large number of chips, and just want the remaining players to get busted by ~somebody~.

I went 0/3 with the sheriff, and busted 13th. Sigh... maybe next time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In ring game play, I had my best session ever in multitabling $3/$6 6max, and my 2nd best session ever in $20/$40 live.
Overall, I would say that my confidence level is about 80% after all the tournament bustouts, but decent ring games.

I've been trying to read more poker psychology and lifestyle books lately. I'm hoping to strengthen the psychological aspects of my game.