"Pokah's nice. I loves play pokah." --Chau Giang

OK, well, sometimes I do! I won't get into detail because I have yet to tell the stories from London, but I've been doing a lot of bubbling lately ...money bubbles in big events, final table bubbles in online donkaments, etc.

Well I finally managed to come through in the clutch (and be a huge lucksack) this week!

First I took down the $10k guaranteed $55 tournament on Lock. While it was on the smaller side, it had been a while since I'd had an outright win in any MTT. Sometimes a little push like that is all you need to get the ball rolling again.

And roll it did. On Monday night I did something that I've been trying to do for a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time: ship Tilt's Monday night $1k buy-in.

It's one of the toughest tournaments online, and the top spot has eluded me for my entire career. My best finishes came in back-to-back weeks about two years ago when they first started running the tournament, finishing 4th and 3rd.

I had a decent stack for the majority of the tournament, but was never one of the chip leaders. I was somewhat short as we approached the money, but I doubled up just before we hit the bubble and never looked back.

Looking back, this may have been the win that I'm proudest of despite the fact that it's not my biggest score (this was ~$86k, while the Sunday 500 win netted me ~$105k).

There were a few key hands that I was especially happy with how I played. I went with my reads on a lot of hands when I had nothing, and fortunately I was correct almost every time...it doesn't usually work that way for EVERY hand deep in a tournament.

I picked up another win the following evening in the new Lock Poker $20k guaranteed $162. The tournament has a great structure, terrible players, and pretty good payouts. They've revamped their entire nightly schedule and it's becoming more and more juicy by the day.

Anyway, it feels really good to be "in the zone" again and playing some of the best poker of my life. I was on the worst downswing of my life, totaling about $220k. Now nearly $100k of that has melted away and I'm back on track and feeling great!!!

Matt Stout