Hmmm--What are the Lessons Learned?

Padraig Harrington, Dan's cousin

+EV for the weekend, although some weird, gimmicky ways of getting there:

• About two hours of $15/30 moving tables twice, +$360
• About 80 minutes of NL$200, -$117 (KK beaten by flopped set of 6's)
• 109 minutes of NL$600, +$1017.09: notable pots
  
• KK beats flopped Q (+150)
  
• Cracked AA with flopped QJo two-pair (+$295)
• AQs doesn't improve, beaten by 99 (-$84)
• 99 bets at pot with board of 8A83 (+55)
• Limp in with 99 with five callers, flop of 632 rainbow I bet $50 and one raiser of $50 I call, turn is 5d raiser bets $100 I go all-in for another $173, which he calls, 9 on river I didn't need--67o had top pair and gutshot (+$415)
• JJ with A on board (-$80)
• AKo I raise 3x pre-flop, sb raises it to $72 to go and I call, flop is KQ3, raiser bets $100, I go all-in for another $419 which he calls, A on turn and J on river but he turns over AQo for lower two-pair (+$597)

I'm stuck for $778 in NL$200, with one small win for six tries. My impression is that it is too much wait for the monster flop or trap for the big win, so I may need to get away from trying to beat it. A bit fortunate in the $15/30, with a flopped straight taking down an overpair and a made flush on the turn winning a huge pot from a flopped two-pair (raise/re-raise/re-re-raise three times over). It was a nice recovery, although a bit lucky. I was concerned with my retreat backwards last week, but I've almost recovered the losses now only down $220 or so for November. I decided to play my best and was able to have the time and space to do it. Also didn't play tired, which I could have last night (my wife fell asleep pretty early, still recovering from catching the bug that I had last week).

I went to the PGA Tour Championship yesterday and was icing my knee the evening (I have a bad wheel). Parked on the tee-box of #7 for a good chunk of the early afternoon to watch the leaders come through. My best line of the day was yelling out, "All-in Dan, I mean Padraig" to Padraig Harrington. He is a distant cousin of Dan Harrington. Supposedly they've never met, but after Padraig won a big tourney and called his Mom, she said, "That's nice dear, but did you see that your cousin Dan almost won a big poker tournament?" This was after the 2004 WSOP Main Event final table. I got a grin out of him. I was also able to score a free bottle of water from the tee-box lady, who I was assisisting by handing the rope to her to rope off the crosswalk when the players would approach. She had a good final day until the Tiger group and their million-man march came through. The extra staff wasn't prepared, and the tee-box guy mad a major stumble, dropping the tee-box rope and ending up grabbing the cross-walk rope and just stretching and praying. He had been eating a Snickers that he had forgotten in his pocket earlier in the day, so he may have gotten overconfident. It is always important to focus and play your best, whether it is being a tee-box marshal, driving a golf ball, or playing Closet Poker. Or at least that's what I always say.