$1643 - Laddering up to 2/4 NL, and Taking Down CC's Thursday Bash

I have managed to get the ladder challenge roll north of $1600 again so it's back to 2/4 NL. It really feels like the FullTilt cash games are softer now then ever. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, there are tons of PartyPoker fish swimming in the FullTilt pool now. There were almost 35,000 players last night on FullTilt, which is the most I have ever seen. Second, I think that there is a class of players who never got around to playing online, and are jumping on now, knowing that it may not last long. Does anyone else think this is what is going on. The consensus was that the games would get tougher after the Port Security Bill, but I am convinced the opposite is happening. At least for now.

Last night I jumped in to CC's Thursday night bash. It was a small but fun crowd, and there was a nice $75 bonus for 1st and $25 bonus for the bubble. I played real aggressive at the first table early, and accumulated some chips. When the Final table formed, I had about an average stack. Smokkee was there and as usual was talking smack non-stop. I told him I was going to come over the top of one of his reraises at some point. Then I got in a pretty good situation. Smokkee was rasiing from the button every time it folded to him, and getting all-in way to often. I picked up QQ in the BB, and smokkee did his typical 3x button steal to 600. Kat was short, and called putting her all-in. I jammed for about 2500 total, and smokkee called with TT (Kat had K8). My queens held, and I took a nice chip lead with Dr. Pauly a close second. I played a few interesting hands with Pauly, restealing one of his button steals, and jamming with AQ on a AJT flop (pauly released KJ). Then I got AK and reraised Pauly's preflop raise. The flop came K high, and I checked behind Pauly to appear weak. He led out on the Turn after a blank fell, and I jammed. This time Pauly had to call with his KQ, and my chip lead became massive. From that point on, I stayed aggressive and picked my spots, eliminating the rest of the field without ever really giving any chips back to the shorties. I ended up heads up with CJ with a 19k to 2k chip lead. Thanks CC for hosting the event and providing the bonus. I guess I have a shot at the points lead if I can finish in the money next week.