January 3rd, round 2

fresh off the debacle of my opening game, the only thing open was pot limit. I am terrible at pot limit which means it is one I need to work on.

Pot limit is so different because to get value out of any possible hand people (at least online) habitually re-raise each other until they hit the maximum so just to see the flop you are paying 100 chips or more. On the one hand, this means you s/s/would play fewer marginal hands like a 5/6 off suit....but a lot of people do anyway. But then you have to hit it or in no time flat you are short stacked.
I adopted a new strategy. I decided to work on my patience so I sat in on a sit & go version. I went in with a new plan. I would only play with painted hole cards or a pair. It makes for a slow, boring, grind it out game. I saw the flop on all of 1 of the first 17 hands...but I did win that hand. In fact, I quickly became the chip monster when I hit the next two hands. It turned out to be an easy win. I only saw a handful of flops, but when I saw the flop I usually hit it and since everyone was contributing large numbers of their chips pre-flop they felt pot committed and would then overcall my subsequent raises.
I do note that online "table image" means nothing. Even though I folded hand after hand after hand and the few hands I played I won, people would still call to the showdown no matter what possible hands were on the board. Bluffs simply don't work in that environment.
I ended up dominating the tournament and winning easily.

Almost instantly I bopped in on a No Limit game. First hand,2 people went All-In. One of them had Q/J off suit...the other 6/10 suited. And he won when he paired his 6s. Next hand 3 people went all in. Next hand another person went all in. 5 straight hands saw people go all in. By the time I did not fold before the flop 4 people had been eliminated. The 6/10 dude had rivered one more person and had a huge chip stack. I played conservatively again, caught a coupe hands here and there, slowly built my chip stack while the all-in machine steadily bled chips. Came down to three of us, all within about 1000 chips of each other. We traded the lead for a while until I caught the pocket rockets, they both called and I had back to back tournament wins.

Played a couple other tournaments. Finished 3rd and 2nd. In the one where I finished 3rd I was not catching many hands and by the time we hit top 3 the other guys had about 9000 each while I had less than 2. They were betting strong into the pre-flop and the antes and blinds were bleeding me dry so I had to make a move a hair early. I paired my King but he had pocket 8s and hit trips. Not much I could have done different, I just did not catch the cards I needed. When I did have the cards I did what I could...when I got pocket rockets I bet into them strong and they folded...the next time I tried a value bet, got a few more chips, but not enough. It is a valuable lesson; getting into the money is nice, but to really have a chance you have to hold enough chips to withstand a dry spell. I need to be a little more aggressive before reaching the money round.

In the one where I finished second I opened with pocket rockets. I did not want to go all in so I bet 500. 4 people stayed with me. The flop was not bad at all, no straight or flush draws so I laid out another 5. 2 people stayed. 4th street brought a third suited card to the board so I checked as did they. I king came on the river, I checked, one guy put in his last 500, I called, the other guy folded. Sure enough, he caught the river king...and had nothing else. I instantly had almost 5000 chips. On the 11th hand I got them again and again took people for a ride.
Then I did not catch a hand for a while and bled chips. by the time we hit top 3 we were about even, all of us with between 4900 and 6800 chips. We went back and forth for a while until we all three caught hands at the same time, got pot committed, and on the river my King/Jack pair with Ace kicker ran into an Ace high straight.