It's late Thursday night, and I've just finished playing for the night.

Things just didn't seem like they were getting better. It wasn't cards, or players, it was my own dumb freaking play. The best way to describe my play was "lazy."

I would say it was lazy because it's as if I didn't feel like having the patience or discipline early that I need in these SnGs. I think that I wanted to try to "get lucky" early so I could just push people around until bubble time and turn it up even more and go for the win.

I came home and went out early in a 4.40. Then, I went out early in a one table SnG.

I took a long break, got a latte, and came back to it. But, before I started, I wrote this:

Early on, you're not getting involved in any big pots. Big pots are something that can develop, and you should realize or recognize ahead of time pots that are going to be big. If you have a great hand, that's one thing, but a pair, even top pair, isn't worth getting into a big pot early.

Early, you want to profile your opponents, and see who's weak, and loose, and so on. You want to get down to about 7 people, and you increase your pre-flop aggression somewhat.

Early on, in the first few positions against a loose table, hands like KQ, AJ, and so on, you do not have to play. You can if you want, but you don't have to. The truth is, you just don't have to get involved early. You don't want to really be in a position where you HAVE to hit the flop.

When it gets finally down to 6, this is when you start picking up the blinds, and so on. If you go out here, so be it. You are taking chances, and you are going for first, there is no shame in that.

Of course, you want to make sure you make good decisions here, but you don't have to fault your aggression at all.

Summary:
Tight early, no big pots without big hands.
Profile early. Who's weak, who's wild.
Get down to seven to increase agg.6, 5, 4 increasing agg. No shame in agg.
ITM most agg. Win it.

I wrote that to myself, and I think you'll notice that it focuses on my early play the most. I think that a lot of my problem was that I was neglecting these very fundamental and simple rules because I was a little impatient, and a little undisciplined.

So, right afterward, I end up winning. I pretty much stayed tight early getting only in a few hands. I increase aggression when it got down to 6. In this particular SnG, however, enough people went out quickly that when it was down to 6, the blinds were very low still. So, I didn't panic that I was like 5th out of 6th, but I also didn't tighten up more. I just played how I have been playing when it gets shorter handed.

During the play of this, I was also at a cash table because Stars was having a hand celebration. I thought I would just hang around and try to catch that hand, and in the process I made an additional 14 bb's! We obviously didn't hit the celebration hand though. So, I made more than my SnG buy in at the cash game, and I was really only playing the very best hands, and some middle pairs.

Tomorrow, I'll play more online, and on Saturday, I'll be in a live limit Omaha Hi/Lo tourney.