So after a day or two rest and a lot of sleep I woke up at a good time to play the Sundays (yes that means I woke up at 11pm!)

I really felt in the zone and enthused to play. I think I might have underestimated how good the break has been for me.

This was definitely the Sunday to be in the zone for too, what with 3 FTOPS events and the Party Birthday Million event on in addition to all the usual stuff.

I was so looking forward to playing that I even entered a $22 tournament 45 minutes before the Stars Warmup/Party Million just to get some hands going along with the 150K gtd on Ongame.

2500 runners, with a 50Kish prize pool.

As more and more of the genuinely worthwhile tourneys started appearing on my screen I started increasingly wondering why the hell I had bothered to register for a $22 tournament, but I just never busted as the hours went on.

I felt pretty stupid when I had 15 tournaments running at once on my laptop, overlapping each other and stressing the hell out of me, while I checked the lobby and saw that even though I was deep into the money there were still 80 people left and I was guaranteed like literally $48.

But sure enough, time went on, and I kept accumulating. I really am good at crushing soft fields.

I have a ridiculously good record in midstakes tourneys. Eg. I have 3 wins and a 2nd place in the 50/50, which is just absurd considering it has 1500-2000 players most of the time and I've probably only played it about 80 times.

I'm so suited to soft fields where players spazz out at the start but then turn into huge nits deep in the tournament, as I am very comfortable playing extremely laggy when I have some chips.

I think in high stakes tourneys I am far too willing to bust out to try and create a stack, when in a tougher field the implied odds of getting a stack big enough to open tons is nowhere near as high, so my marginal shoves and resteals are often marginally bad instead of marginally good and I would sometimes be better off just doing the PearlJammer thing and folding until I find the nuts.

In a weaker field however, my edge is so ridiculously huge if I can manage to get a 50bb stack for the bubble and pre final table periods that it is worth playing somewhat recklessly to either get there or bust.

Anyway, I just kept accumulating and accumulating and eventually I wound up utterly destroying the final table.

From 3 handed on I played literally 100% VPIP when I was opening from either button or SB.

They were both utter nits, and it was great fun slowly relieving them of their chips.

So I wound up defeating all 2500 men for $7000, which was a really great confidence boost.

At the same time I was managing to win all my crucial showdowns in the Party Million, and after getting AA vs AK and AA vs JJ, I found myself as the chipleader with 100 left, first place paying $233,000 US.

With 50 left, still the chipleader. Getting pretty damn excited at that point.

Lost KQs vs TT for a decent amount, and a couple of small hands. 2nd in chips with 32 left.

Then an MSNLer I have played 5/10 with who posts a little in the Party Regs Thread won a couple of pots and got his stack roughly equal to mine, and we both msged each other at the exact same time on 2+2 asking if the other person wanted to swap 10%, haha.

Pretty cool, especially since we even both said the exact same % amount and were simultaneously typing the message to each other.

I then got AT allin vs A2 and lost, AQ allin vs A6 and lost, and only had a little over average stack.

The table I was on was playing very aggressively so I pretty much had to wait for hands.

Nothing came for a very long time. I didn't play a single hand for 2 orbits I believe, and I found myself with a little below average with 25 left.

Finally I found a hand, AQ. It folded around to the button who had around 25bb, i had 20.

He opened, I shoved. Sadly the BB (10bb or so) woke up with QQ, and the board blanked out and halved my stack.

Next hand I openshoved the button with Q8 and took it down.

Didn't find anything for the next orbit, found myself with 10bb again next time I had the button and it folded to me.

I openshoved 53o, and Fazi found AJ in the SB and called.

The flop gave me some hope with 42x, but blanked off and I was out in 21st for a measy $4363

However, my horse now had the chiplead with 20 left!

I kept the table open and watched while I played everything else. I cashed in way more stuff than I usually do.

I cashed in the FTOPS HU event, but lost two flips back to back to go from 4500/1500 to busto in the 128-64 round.

I cashed in the FTOPS 1.5M gtd event too, but busted soon after.

I also cashed in tons of other small-medium stuff, but didn't really get anywhere.

But I still had my horse, and thank god, because I would have been gutted to have gone from chipleader with 40 left to busting in 21st if I didn't have someone to sweat.

He played really good, and despite getting restolen on a million times by the same guy (who kept voluntarily showing strong hands when people folded) made it to the final table with about 12bb, which sounds really short but was basically equal 3rd in chips as nearly everyone at the table had 10-15bb, other than two guys with big stacks.

He managed to double up pretty early when T9 beat 88 on Q8xJx, but then with 9 left he opened K4 in SB, BB who had similar stack size called, and they got it in on a flop of K85cc or similar - BB had KT and it blanked out...

Fazi was left with 0.75BB and our dreams were crushed!

Obviously due to antes he had to call allin next hand no matter what the hand, he found J3.

HU with the BB who had two random cards, the board rolled out A245!

Then the river was a devastating 3, wtf

So they split the antes and he had 1.25bb. Next hand he found 76, gotta call allin again.

This time 3 callers, 5-6bb monster pot!

The board comes A76!

But the turn is an 8, and the river a 9! WTF!

Somehow though, he still wins!

So now he has a massive 6bb stack, and openshoves, and everyone folds! Next hand, again! Everyone folds! He's back at 10bb!

So sick. God it was so fun railing. Totally turned what would have been a soulcrushing experience into a really fun one.

In the end after playing really great throughout he finished 3rd, after getting AJ allin vs the chipleaders A6, and coming up short.

So he won $82K, and shipped me a nice $8K.

I've gotta admit, it's always fun when other people win you money.

So I think overall I'm up probably about 35K in 3 days play since my detox, which is absolutely huge given that I've just been playing MTTs/400 PLO.

I feel great about it, and feel good and relaxed about poker again ie. I feel like I can go back to playing only when I feel like it for a while, there is less pressure now that I won some money back and I am gaining steam once more.

I do still feel a little like I left some money on the table these past few days, but the important thing is getting my thinking and feeling in the right zone, the rest will continue to follow.