3 in a row

I'm not a fluke! I'm not a fluke.

We started with a $30, 10-handed, freezeout tourney. I won. Next, we did $20, 7 handed. I won. After that, again we did $20 buy-in, 7-handed. I won that too.
Pretty unbelievable. Especially because these players weren't jokers. Or maybe that's why I performed better. Players weren't making ridiculous calls. They were considering pot odds and generally playing solid poker, which made the game better. It allowed more bluffing for me and less sucking out by my opponents.

The truth is, I played some of my best poker last night. My opponents were unable to put me on a hand. I pushed hard from the button and stole a bunch of blinds. I never "did anything stupid," which is what usually kills me.

Making a conscious effort to change gears at different points in the game also helped. This is important aspect of tourney play. An early loose pre-flop call set me up with two-pair which gave made me the strong stack early in game one, and set my table image up for the duration. I mixed up my game quite a bit, and though my opponents did call my hand a couple times,... they weren't really sure what I had most of the time. A couple of my opponent's bluff all-ins resulted in disaster for them when I flipped a hand.

All in all, it was a good night of poker. We had a ton of fun,.. which is the point after all. And I made money. AND I redeemed myself from my last place finish against these guys last time.

3 in a row baby.