SHOP recap

I played at Pops' on Saturday.  It was a $100+$20 headhunter tourney (for those not in the know, a headhunter tourney means that you put a certain number of $ under your stack and it goes to whomever busts you out.  In this case it was $20).  I ended up doing a chip chop with Vince for second - making $480.  All of this ended up being profit since I made back my $120 buy-in in bounties. 

Then I played the cash game.

I played my first buy-in stupid.  Then I played my second buy-in stupid when instead of folding my top set to Travis when I knew I was beat, I decided to mush (I swear, I think there is something in Pops' basement that affects my brain chemistry).  Sadly, the board did not pair. 

Then I got in for buy-in number three, even though it seemed unlikely that I would be able to make my money back.  I figured I *might* be able to double and make back at least one buy-in if I was lucky.  Next thing I knew, I was even - sitting on just over $900.  "How did that happen?,"  I thought to myself.  I did have a couple big hands (flopped quad nines against Travis and flopped sixes full of fives against Keenan), but none of the pots I was raking in were bigger than $150. 

Right before my third buy-in Keenan and I were talking and he was like: "You're not gong to be able to make your money back.  Everyone here knows you too well."  I kinda agreed with him, but being a degenerate, I got back in the game anyways.  That's when I realized that maybe this could be one of those rare occasions when I could really exploit my table image.  Mostly I have a pretty good table image, I think.  People will put me on draws when I am just check/calling or calling behind, but generally I think most people give me credit for some kind of hand if I am leading the action.  Sadly, I have to be very careful about trying to exploit my image in the other regular 1/2 game I play at on Mondays because there are so many horrible players there who either don't care about odds, don't pay enough attention to realize what my image is, or just don't want to fold.  This can make this game very profitable, but you really have to play pretty tight and hope to connect with flops and have your hand hold up.  However, given the people at Pops' on Saturday, I was able to float a decent number of turns/rivers, plus I was able to smell out weakness AND know that the person might actually fold which allowed me to make some moves that I wouldn't generally try on Mondays or at a casino, for example.

I ended up stuck in the cash game only $20 (game broke immediately after I lost about $40 over two hands), but still ended up managing to leave a winner thanks to the tournament.  As a side note, I'm pretty sure I'm the leader in the SHOP player of the year race so far since I cashed for over $800 (first) in one tourney and now the $480 second place finish.  I wonder if I can keep it up.  I'm certainly not as good of a tournament player as a cash game player, but it's something I'd like to get better at.