Shirley Rosario May 6
Last night, I played in the $77 6-handed No Limit event on PokerStars and managed to pull out a sixteenth place finish after I made a come back with only $700 in chips late in the tournament.

I made a couple moves in the later stages that worked out and I was fourth in chips for awhile. I lost a large portion of my stack when I reraised my opponent when holding 99 and he called my raise. The flop came QJ6 and the guy led into me. If I decided to call his pot sized bet, I would have been committed and he had me covered. What could he have called my reraise with preflop that I could beat? I could beat AK or TT and that is about it. I folded and the guy chatted "KK". I was knocked out a short time later.

This weekend I will be doing the Revlon Walk to raise money for Breast Cancer. I just started running and have worked my way up to about 2 miles a day (with short walking breaks when needed) and enjoy it because it is a good way to clear my head. The walk (run) is only 5k and I am going to try and run the majority of it. Anybody interested in making a tax-deductable donation, click here.

May 2
I am so relieved about having those poker definitions finished finally. I spent hours on end trying to get them done and was tired of looking at terms like counterfeit, marked cards, and straddle. As a reward for finishing them, I gave myself a day off from the computer and went to the Bike to play some No Limit live action.

I headed over to the casino by myself and sat in the $300-500 buy-in game with $5-5 blinds. Immediately, I won a few hundred dollars when I flopped top pair, top kicker with AQ and it held up. For the next couple hours, nothing exciting happened and I fluctuated a little bit. There was one guy at my table who seemed like a crazy man and I won a big pot off him when I held pocket tens. I still have no clue what he had, but I got a bet out of him on every street on a board of 227Q2.

The next exciting hand was when a player moved in on me for about $130 from first position on a board of 653. I was the preflop raiser and was holding pocket 7s. I thought there was a very good chance my hand was good and if I was wrong, I at least would have outs. The guy behind me mucked pocket nines face up. The turn was a seven giving me top set and the river paired the five. I showed my sevens full and the guy that had moved-in threw his cards face up and walked away with disgust. He had flopped a set of threes - poor guy.

Most of the time I go play live, I tell myself "I gotta get out more". I enjoy playing at the casino a lot more than I enjoy playing online these days. On top of it, I play much better sitting face to face with my opponents. So, my next trip will be within a week or two.