Not off to the best start. I played six $4 180 seater sng’s over the weekend (as my wife was away).

Never got close to the money. On game two, I build up a stack of around 6,500 quite soon. I was on the BB with AQ and the button raises. I think this is a move on the pot and re-raise. He calls. The flop comes AQT, I check-raise him all-in, he automatically calls and shows AT. The turn is a T and I lose around 5,000. Then it was just a matter of holding on and hoping-I didn’t last long.

The other major talking point was game 5. I lasted 2 hands. Hand one I have KK, raise preflop, then make a weak bet on the flop and turn, get suspicious that there’s still someone with me, check the river and lose to a straight. On the second hand I get dealt AA, push all-in and lose to a 89 offsuit.

On all the other games, I think I’m waiting too long before attacking. My M is dropping to around 5 before I start pushing all-in and I think I would probably be better off only letting it drop to around 8-9. The problem is, by time my M drops to 5 (say 1,500 total), I’m finding I’m being called by players have already got 8,000+. My stack size obviously makes their call easier.

So, the plan for my next few tourny’s is to not let my M fall below 8 in the early stages and to start accumulating chips in the middle.

On a side note, I‘ve just ordered Gus Hansen’s “Every hand revealed”. I’m going to Cancun for a wedding in August. This will be my ‘holiday book’. I quite like his loose style, so it will be quite interesting to learn a little more about his thought process.