Three weeks later... The PartyPoker police came by and confiscated my $20 "just for living" bonus and left me with a whopping $20 in the account. Two losses in $5+1 SNGs whittled it down to $8 and change. My biggest problem with playing SNGs is that I don't often devote 100% of my attention to the play. I've gotten lax with my note-taking, and frankly, kinda bored with the whole online poker phenomenon. Or at least bored enough not to have the discipline I had weeks and months ago.

So on Monday, I took my last $8, entered a $5+1 NL Hold'Em SNG and immediately placed third, bumping me back up to $12. I said "Well, I'll just play two more $5+1's and see how it goes." You guessed it, I won the first one and bumped the account back over $30. I was lowstacked with 5 players left (400 chips) and was BB w/43o. Checked around with four callers, flop was 842 rainbow. I went all-in and was called by AJs. The pair of fours held and I was back to 900 chips. In SB the next hand, I had QTo, called with two limpers and BB. Flop was T94. Went all-in again with one caller, tripped the tens, and was in the chip lead for good.

So why am I not as involved or dedicated? Well, baseball season, hockey playoffs, my wife's continued efforts to deal with the death of her mother, school for the kids, little league, work, a plethora of reasons. I need to pick my times VERY carefully for playing when distractions and interruptions can be kept to an absolute minimum. This will likely be around 10pm after the kids are in bed, my wife is usually lounging watching TV, the baseball/hockey games are over, and I can give the games my full attention. Right now, I might restrict myself to that one SNG per night, max, and just see how that plays out.