Last play at Poker Mountain.

I pulled everything out of Poker Mountain. Tried to play their tournaments over the weekend but they kept having problems. On Saturday it froze up 45 minutes after the start. It worked on Sunday but I have little trust in their software working.

On Sunday I had an interesting game. I bounced in the beginning before doubling up with A Q when one idiot gets moved to the table and is pushing on every hand. I get lucky when the flop comes 3 6 9. He has A 3. Turn is a 6 and the river an A. My Q kicker wins me the pot.

Later I would take a huge pot with Cowboys. Blinds are 30/60 and UTG goes for a raise to 180. I raise it up to 480 mainly to put him all in. I get 3 callers altogether! Not quite what I expected. I wonder am I in trouble here? Flop comes K high but with 2 spades. I am first to act and push my last 720 in. The two left with chips call. Huh? One has A Q spades. The other has A 10 off. The early pusher had 3s. I jump to 3600 and into the top 7.

But then I start to give chips away. I raise with K Q suited from early position and get re-raised by the min. I call and totally miss the flop. I bet it out and get re-raised again. I have no choice but to fold. Same thing happens with 5 5. Limp in and miss the flop. Bet it and get re-raised. My table image must be for shit now.

I am sitting around 1500 now as the cards are pretty cold. I finally get a hand. Pocket rockets. UTG, a small stack goes all in. Blinds are 150/300. The 60 overbet is nothing. I decide to just limp in, hoping I can trap someone and build a pot. I rarely make a move like this but then again, it was the second time I did it in this tournament. SB completes and the BB checks. Flop comes 9 high. I push and get one caller, the SB, with J 9. No help and I am back to 3800 and 6th spot when I knock someone out with 8 8.

But now the play changes. It seems to be to go all in on any hand. Too many people going all in with huge bets with crap hands, just trying to steal. All they are doing is helping the small stacks survive when they suck out on the river. Happened to me twice and I was getting mad. Some people just do not want to play poker at the high levels and want to get lucky. Yeah, I should have folded the A 10 but he only had J 9.

I get a major boost when two blacks aces show up again. I am able to triple up to over 13000. Suddenly I am in 2nd with 17 left.

I can sit back and wait for a while and play only good hands. We get to the final table and SURPRISE the site goes down and kicks everyone out. No wonder I moved my money out. We are able to get back on only for it to go down again. One option Poker Mountain has is the ability to make deals and split the prize pool. With the instability of the site, you think people would consider it. No, 3 people are not willing to proportionately split it up.

One guy gets knocked out but he gets dealt cards in the next hand. There is no flop. Nothing is happening. We are locked because of a player who is no longer playing is still seated and the software is waiting for him to act. Unbelievable. Then the site goes down again. This time, you cannot connect to the server.

I email them and they finally (after a half hour) reply that the tournament is over and you will win money based on the chip count. So I should have 40 some bucks coming in.

I am fine tuning my play. I had played earlier at PokerRoom paying $5 to play with 491 others. Came in 62nd after I blew chips out the wazoo in the second session. I was disappointed as I was in 11th at the break but played too many hands out of position. This time around, I played a bit tighter and let the better hands do their job. I threw a lot of hands away that I used to play. K 10 off in early position. Low pairs in early position. Hands that if you don't hit the flop you are screwed if you move them off their hands. But I still dump chips in bad bluff scenarios. If you are going to fire the first bullet, you better be prepared to fire the next two.

Overall a good weekend of poker when I played. Hopefully I will get some live play later this week.