With my Party bankroll at a robust $35+, I was feeling my oats and decided to risk over 30% of my wad in a SnG. Of course, since this was Party, one person exited early after losing most of his stack with QQ vs. KJ rivering a Kings-up two pair on Hand 3, and immediately going all-in on Hand 4 with JJ and running into QQ and KK. Bummer.

15 minutes in, I was the shortstack with nine players left. And this was after a pretty good laydown of ATo with a board of AKKxx when I smelled something fishy after a raise of my pulse-checking river bet. Sure enough, Kx had been slowplaying (weak-checking?) his set and boated on the river. Later, my pocket nines went unimproved against a weak-passive player with QQ (who NEVER raised), and I did well not to overplay my medium pair into Bust City.

Shortstack. Again. Stop me if you’ve heard this tune before.

I showed Mr Weak-Passive how to play a pocket pair by pushing with JJ with a 9-high board against 88, and doubled up. Now I was back to my starting stack of 800, and ready to go. I’m allowed to see a free flop in BB with four limpers with J9 and Glorioski, I see JT9 flop. I immediately priced out the straight draws with a pot-sized bet and they all dutifully fold. With seven left, I bust someone with 77 when he calls a 644 board all-in with Q9o (?). God bless Party.

Anyway, I probably play about ten hands the remainder of the time and make the final pair with a nice little 5-1 deficit (about 6700-1300), cashing a windfall of $30, almost doubling my bankroll! I need to maintain my playing discipline and not lapse into the malaise that sent my bankroll spinning downward earlier. Last year, I made the bulk of my money playing $5 and $10 SnGs with a few $20/30 thrown in, but my bread and butter is the low buy-in NLHE and O8 SnGs. Admittedly, it’s not exactly the WPT or WSOP, but it’s profitable…. And like someone said (Sklansky?), the goal is to MAKE MONEY.

My goal is to parlay my Party cash or Pacific cash (currently $54 at Party, $100 at Pacific) to $200+. If I can do that, I’ll pull $100 from that site to Neteller and slide it over to FTP to try it out.

And not that anyone axed me, but the June 4th blogger tourney, while an intriguing thought, is probably a no-go for me. I’m coaching Little League and we have a 4:30 game that day. If the tourney starts after 9pm or so, I can catch a quick flight and play.