Three Month Progress Report as of Oct 28

Three months in and I sit at $4100 down a bit from my high of $4900 reached a couple days ago, but well up from the $1600 I had one month ago.  I ran into a bit of bad luck to end the month, losing twice with AA in cash hold'em games, and getting knocked out of two tournaments with QQ.  The first the money went in pre flop and I ran into AA.  The second I made a re raise and got called, often a sign of a good, but not great hand like AQ or AJ, and the flop came 5 7 J.  I made a 3/4 pot size raise and was called.  The turn was a 2.  I put him on AJ and figured I could get all the chips in so I went all in.  He called and I was right, he flipped over AJ.  The turn was a J giving him a set and knocking me out.
I am very happy with my progress this month and hope to continue things.
November brings the next FTSOP, so I may try to win a seat to an event or two, I one I am really going to try to play would be Event 4 on Thursday Nov 11 at 21:00 which is a $216 Rush HORSE tourney with $150,000 Guaranteed.

Sometimes it Seems so Easy, But...

I have added on close to another $1000 in the last two days and now sit at $4700. 
I made a couple hundred playing in Rush Hold'em cash games and then made another $700 profit after making the final table of the $200 buy in $30,000 guaranteed Sunday Night HORSE tournament, which had 148 entries.  I finished in 7th overall taking a $900 prize.
I have made it deep into several tournaments the last couple weeks and over the last month have jumped from a low of about $1000 to today's new high of $4700 an increase of $3700 in less then one month playing about 50 hours total.  Those types of stretches make me feel like I could quit work and put in 40 hours a week playing poker and make more then enough to live on.  Then I remind myself that from Aug 26 until Sept 26 I had lost about $1800, and I could not pay the bills during stretches like that. 
I am almost three month into this and have turned $50 into $4700, but my journey so far has certainly reinforced how much variance there is in poker and managing that variance is the key to being profitable over the long run, because even the best players have losing streaks, especially when playing tournaments.

New High

It has been a long time since I hit a high of $2800 and I have finally broke past that point to set a new high.
I was down to $1500 when I entered a $11 buy in Rush tournament with 1543 players.
I took 6.5 hours, and over 1300 hands but I made it to the final two.  The top prize was about $3350 and 2nd about $2000.  My opponent had about 3,500,000 chips to my 1,400,000 and we decided to make a deal with me getting $2443 and up a bit over $2900.  It was a very long tournament considering it was a Rush and I played very patiently when I was short stacked towards the end of the tournament.  I was in last place with 30 players left and was also in last with 6 players left and both time I just waited for premium hands and got a larger stack to pay me off.  I was able to do this because of the slow blind structure as even when I was in 30th of 30 I had 25 BBs so thee was no need to get desperate.
With this payday I now sit at $3950 overall with about a week until the three month point.

Another Final Table

I am at another Final Table on Pokerstars.  This time is is a PLO H/L tournament.  it was a $10 re buy with 215 entries and a prize pool of $6430 and a top prize of $1318 with 9th getting $112.  I bought in for $20 and did the add on for another $10 so a $30 investment in total.
Before I discuss the final table I will update my play since my last post.  I had $2200 and moved up to $2400 before things went south.  I managed to drop back down to $1900 after that with a few bad beats and a couple bad decisions.
I am starting the final table with 137,144 chips of the 1,032,500 chips in play which puts me in 3rd place.
A first place finish would move me up to about $3200 crossing the $3000 mark for the first time and a second place finish would get me to about $2850 which would be a new high by $50.
On the 2nd hand at the fianl table a short stack goes all in and gets busted when his set of 10s loses to a straight who no low hand and we are down to 8.
I am out in 8th after re raiseing a K 7 7 flop with a AK in my hand.  The other guy at in the hand was the chip leader and I thought he was bluffing after raiseing pre flop with a low hand.  I was right the he had a low hand but it included a 7, so I was out.
I now sit at about $1950.

When to call a all in pre flop raise from a small stack in the late stages of a tournement.

I moved some money over to Pokerstars for the first time.  I entered a $55 buy in $70,000 guaranteed tournement and finished to 12th out of 1345 players for a nice $625 payday, but not as nice as it could have been.  First place was over $12,000.
The key decision I made which prevented me from making the final table came with 20 players left.
I was in great shape with 350,000 chips and in 3rd place.  There were just over 4,000,000 chips in play so I could have probably just folded my way to the final table if I wanted to get there as a small stack, which was not the plan.  The blinds were 4000/8000 with a 400 ante and I had Ad 9d in the bb.  Everybody folded until the button who only had 150,000 and would have been in about 16th place..  He went all in.
A 150,000 bet to try to pick up 16,000 is certainly an overbet.  I knew he just wanted me to fold, but I figured he had a little something to take that risk when we were at 20 players and the prize jumped from about $375 to $450 when we hit 18.  I also figured he did not have one of the big pairs or AK, AQ because he most likely would want to try to do more then pick up the blinds with a big hand, which was clearly the hope with his all in over bet.
If I just fold I keep my chip and stay in 3rd out of 20 players, if I call and win I move to 500,000 chips and would become the chip leader.  If I call and lose then I would drop to 200,000 chips and would be in 10th place.  So what should one do?  First of all I had to put him on a range of hands.  I already eliminated all the biggest hands, I thought he most likely either had a low to middle pair, or a weak Ace.  A couple hands could have me dominated, like A 10, A J or 9 9, 10 10, anything better then that and I do not think he would have gone all in.  he could have any pair from 2s [ 8s which would be a coin toss or he could have an Ace with a lower kicker then mine which would make me a 80% favorite, or he could just be buffing.
Overall I thought I would win about 60% of the time vs his range of hands.  So the right move seems to be to call and play for 1st place instead of being more conservative and fold.
I called, he flipped over A 4 and I was a huge favorite until the flop came with two 4s.  I did lose the hand but still had plenty of life, but the way I had to play with 200,000 was different then if I had 500,000.
A bit later I tried to steal a pot preflop with 55 when a player who had been raising a lot pre flop made yet another raise.  He went over top of my 50,000 reraise and I felt I had to flop leaving me with about 150,000 chips.  Then I went on a cold streak for a bit and folded about 25 hands in a row which brought me down to just over 100,000 with the blinds at 6000/12,000 and a 600 ante.  This is where I would have down things much different with those extra 300,000 chips but we were down to 12 players I was in 12th place and the prize money did not increase again until the final table of 9.  I had As 10s, a big stack raised to 36,000 and it folded to me in late position.  with 400,000 chips I call and see a flop with 100,000 I either go all in or fold.  My hand is pretty strong 6 handed and the raiser is a big stack who has been aggressive so I decided to go all in.  Had we been at 13 players or 10 players, I think I would have folded.  He flipped over 99 and it was a coin toss that I lost and was out.  I was happy to have the $625 because I had been on a bit of a losing streak.  The win brought me back up to $1600 overall, and since then I have increase that up to $2200 playing at the PLO tables.