This Friday, there will be a no limit deuce to seven lowball tourney with rebuys, and Saturday is a H.O.R.S.E. tournament. Both are live, and will be fun.

I am actually 6th ranked in this series of events so far, and I still have three very good tournaments left that I could probably take over first place in. I really feel that I can do it, but I know one thing...I have to understand the value of my hand better in the non-hold 'em events. I really underestimated the value of my hands in the Omaha game, and didn't get pots that I probably should have. No problem, you live and learn.

I won't be playing any poker from now to Friday. I'll be gone, so I'll take a poker break. Frankly, I kind of need one.

Last night, I decided to change things up if only temporarily. I asked myself, what is mostly happening to me in these low limit SnGs? I think I'm going nuts early trying to get a big stack so I can push people later. While this isn't a bad idea, I've taken the concept too far and have been doing some really moronic plays.

What I said was, I'm going to just wait through the 10/20, 15/30, and 25/50 levels and really only play very good hands, or spec hands with a lot in the pot. For example, if I'm in the SB, and it's like 11-1 to me with 76o, I can call. Or, I'm on the button with 55, and 4 people are already in the pot, fine, I'll call. I still raised with my good hands, and folded when I had to. For example, I had AKo UTG, raised 3.5xbb, got four callers, was bet into with nothing on the flop to help me, and folded. No problem.

In both of them, I get 3rd. I don't really like 3rd, but I think it was more of a learning experience for me. I think it showed me that there is that in between that I need to be at between getting aggressive enough to accumulate and push, and being selective enough so I'm not bleeding chips. Selective aggression, but not the extreme of either one (selectiveness or aggression).

In both instances, when I got ITM, I was the short stack, I pushed, and someone had a somewhat better hand that held up (although I was never more than a 3 to 2 dog).

Another thing is, as you know, I can't complain about luck in the recent month's downswing. I mean, I've put some beats on people, and I've gotten some beats, and it seems as if it's all evened out, who knows. The point is, this downswing that I've had has been my fault. I've been calling people down with hardly nothing because I'm "mad" at them, and I don't know how many 9th place finishes I've had. If I'm playing the way I know how, I should rarely get 9th place finishes. I mean, like 1 percent of the time I should have last place finishes. I know they happen, but they should be from a beat or something. Really, they should be only if I have AA pre-flop, and someone reraises me, and we get all in, and they put a beat on me. Otherwise, I shouldn't get last place.

I know another thing too...if I am correct, when I was in the upswing, I wasn't calling as often as I have been pre-flop. Just limping. I wasn't doing that.

I would still get in on hands, but I would be more selective, and what I would do is, if it folded around to me, and I was mid to late position, I would raise with whatever I had. Now, that was if the players behind me weren't nuts. Or, if I felt they would call, and fold on the flop.

Lately, I've been calling too often, and instead, I need to be stop the limping, and increase the raising, but decrease the number of hands pre-flop. Profile the table's players, and see who I can raise, and who won't let me get away with anything. Some people are going to showdown no matter what.

When I get back on Friday, and play, what I need to do is, readjust my game to have more selectivity early, raising when I get in BUT in the correct situations against the right opponents. This will help my early level game in that even if I am stopped, it will set up later play, and if they allow me to take chips, it just helps me to accumulate, and may set up a play when I actually have something. I need to be much less inclined to just call pre-flop, especially raises.

When it gets down to 6, turn it up, 5 turn it up even more, 4 even more. ITM, the most. Have patience HU.