There was a chart at the top of the front page of the Chronicle today…Seven days without recorded rainfall in the area since June 1st.  There was a definite link between the sky and my fortunes.  Apparently tomorrow is supposed to improve, just as my luck has started to straighten itself out.  And I could appreciate the glint of silver ushering away the clouds.

I knew things were starting to feel a little easier when I qualified last night for a huge Stars tournament on Sunday.  One hand…no, one CARD saved me from being blinded out, as the second lowest stack in the tourney lost to a queen on the river to bubble just before I was to get the big blind which would put me all in.  Sure…it was just a prize of $11, but it was a fortune to me emotionally.  There are SO many people in the tourney on Sunday…I’m not going to sweat if I don’t get the incredible amount of luck I’d need to cash.  Being there on a qualifier will be prize enough for me.

Tonight, I managed to finally land in the right place at the right time a couple times..and even in the wrong place when I needed to be.  My evening started out wonderfully.  I raised 3xBB from middle position with aces and the flop came out A22.  I checked and smooth called 600 chips.  The next card was a Jack, which I bet out 1000 at and was re-raised all-in.  Luckily enough for me, he had just caught his set of Jacks.

I continued to play pretty tight aggressive, picking up a few nice pots with smart raises.  I got lucky a couple of times and hit a couple more sets.  It was a $5 bounty tourney, and I managed to collect six silver pesos (bounty markers) by the end of the night.  One that I was especially proud of was when I called Bonnie’s short stack all-in for  ~1600 chips with pocket sixes and they held up vs. two overs.  I have to win those sorts of hands to build the kind of stack to compete for first.

I even managed to survive an extended dry spell.  I allowed myself to drop below M5 again tonight, because there was a lot of pre-flop raising going on and the average M spelled desperation for most of the final table participants.  Where I got REALLY lucky is when I tried to make a play for the BB as I raised 6000 with QT and was re-raised all in (I had him barely covered) with his AA.  Queen on the flop, Ten on the river.    I held on to chop 1st and 2nd with Lenny…who really should have considered trying to bust me out, as doubling up once would still leave me behind him.

Regardless, I did well tonight, and managed to qualify for an invite-only (have to have placed 1st or 2nd this year at a CH tourney) $75 freezeout in two weeks.  That’ll be a lot of fun, I’m sure.

Okay…it’s late.  I’m off to bed.  Lots of work tomorrow throwing away crap from the old apartment.  Oooh… Massage tomorrow at 2.  That’s going to help a lot.