Runner-Runner-Rebuy

I went to Mexico for Christmas. I didn't want to. I'd never been to Mexico before, and had no desire to ever go there. I'm not sure why. I think I had an impression of Mexico that was rife with corruption, poverty, and sweltering heat. Kind of like Las Vegas, but without the poker rooms. I did not want to go to Mexico.

I have a somewhat complicated and strained relationship with my family at times, but Christmas has always been a time when we all can get together and really enjoy each other's company. I'm not sure why this is, but I have always had a soft spot for Christmas because of it. For thirty-three years I had spent Christmas with my family, but this year, I was going to Mexico.

Jocelyn's family always travels for Christmas. Dominican Republic, Aruba, Costa Rica. Always somewhere warm with a beach. Far from what I consider to be a Christmas atmosphere. This year, they were going to Turkey, and Jocelyn decided to stay behind with me. Joc and I have been together for many years now, and with the exception of once when her father was reaching the end of his ALS death sentence, we have never spent a Christmas together. Normally, she ships off to warmer climates and I stay behind to have Christmas with my family. I was very exited to have her around this year to spend Christmas with me and mine.

In early December, Turkey decided it was a good time for a full air assault on Northern Iraq. This complicates things for American travelers, and Jocelyn's family had to cancel their trip to Turkey. Instead, they were now going to Mexico, and Jocelyn wanted the both of us to go too. Of course, I flatly refused. Mexico was the last place I wanted to be for Christmas, especially with a bunch of bah-humbug grinchs. It was the one time of year when I have a genuinley great time with my family, and I certainly was not going to Mexico instead. I told her she should go if she wanted to, but I was staying home.

For days she pestered me to go, offering to pay my way, telling me how nice it would be, and reminding me how I needed a good vacation after my past few months of very busy work and long commutes. I eventually caved, but not really due to her pressure. I reasoned that eventually in a person's life their own family unit is formed and plans are made around that family first. As I envisioned my future with Jocelyn, I knew I should spend this Christmas with her, as a step towards us forming our own family. This doesn't mean I was happy about it, and my family was certainly not pleased with the news either, but understood my decision.

Day by day the holidays approached. I grew more frustrated with my choice as a sense of foreshadowed homesickness and nostalgia settled into me. I'm sure Jocelyn will attest that I was visibly agitated with going on this trip. Despite Joc's great efforts at organizing a pre-Christmas Christmas dinner with my family at our place, I gave her a really hard time about the sacrifice I was making.

Due to the slight neurosis infecting the brains of Joc's family, we apparently needed to leave for the airport 7 hours before our flight's boarding time. This enhanced my grumpiness about the whole situation, but I dutifully departed at 11:30PM on Dec 23rd to catch our 6:40AM flight to Cancun. What follows is a brief account of Christmas Week 2007.

December 24, 2007

After a very cramped 4 hour charter flight and an hour bus ride, we arrive at Catolonia Playa Moroma, a resort on the Maya Riviera, nestled along a beautiful white sand beach and surrounded by fantastic jungles and wildlife. Our room was large, clean, well stocked, and perfectly situated between the beach and main entertainment area of the hotel.

In Iraq, a platoon of four tank crews deploys from Bagdad to an undisclosed location. They are cold and cramped into tight spaces in their tanks. Their makeshift barracks have no electricity, morale is low, and are unsure when their next meal will come.

December 25, 2007

We spent the day on the beach, soaking in the sun and enjoying a never ending supply of Mai Tai's from the bar. Joc and I started a game of Chinese poker that we decided to play until one of us hit a Royal Flush. Dinner was great - we had fresh pasta, roast pork, and a huge variety of desserts. I missed my family, but was having a great time.

An eighteen year old in Afghanistan spends his Christmas patrolling the Pakistani border. He has received no mail in weeks, and his only wishes are for some news from the states and a fresh pair of socks.

December 26, 2007

We went on two snorkeling excursions today. One was in an underground river called a cenote. The water was cold, but crystal clear, and we saw amazing stalagmites. The other was in the gulf over a kelp bed where was encountered sea turtles, stingrays, and barracuda.

A co-ed group of twenty soldiers share a bunker in Iraq. The conditions are poor and they are not within range of a post exchange for supplies. Their life is gloomy, and they need personal hygiene items or snacks of any kind. They make the best of it anyway.

December 27, 2007

Another day on the beach. Much drinking ensued. We watched an "international" female arm wresting competition, and then had some fun later that night in the "disco."

A new father is doing maneuvers somewhere in the Herat province of Afghanistan and was unable to reach his wife and family for the holidays. He is unaware his daughter was born yesterday, and was thinking of his pregnant wife when he steps on a mine and is killed.

December 28, 2007

We played lot of cards today, and I went from down 30 points to up 30 points. No royal flush yet. The water was nice today and there were schools of some kind of fish swimming around us. The rest of Joc's family went to Chichen Itza, a Mayan city and pyramid, and we had a great meal together when they returned.

In Iraq, an airman and her squad are routinely running many missions outside the wire. Their days are long and they miss many meals. They request toys be sent to them to hand out to local children.

December 29, 2007

Snorkeling on a reef today. I had some problems and had to return to the boat early, but Joc had a good time. I got a little sunburned yesterday, but it has mostly turned tan.

A group of soldiers volunteer for a deployment in Bosnia after serving throughout Operation Iraqi Freedom. All they want is to receive some letters and mail from the U.S.

December 30, 2007

Our last day in Mexico we decided to go check out Playa del Carmen, a town about 15 miles away. It was a little tourist trappy, but had a nice walking street with shops and views of Cozumel. We got some gelato and I bought a few Mexican wrestling (luchador) masks. Joc finally hit the Royal Flush and won our Chinese poker match 407-390. Turns out, I am very happy I went to Mexico and spent my Christmas with the woman I love. It was a wonderful trip that I will not soon forget. Home tomorrow for New Years Eve and then the NHL Winter Classic.

Many soldiers around the world - our friends, our sons and daughters, our husbands and wives - don't know when they will return home. Many will not. Yet they endure. They don't whine about it. They serve to protect us, our values, and our country. However you might feel about the War or decisions our government has made, make no mistake - the soldiers are risking their lives for you; and despite poor conditions, low morale, and isolation, they do this without hesitation or complaint. I have a lot to learn from these Heroes. They wish for simple things. Help grant these wishes.

2008 Poker Goals

1. Win a Mookie - I don't think I have ever even cashed in a Mookie. It's embarrassing.

2. Be 2008 overall money winner at the MATH - I was off to a good start last year, but dried up for the second half of 2007. Cashed in one so far, but the new 6-handed game is tough for me and I'm easily pushed around. Need to work on that if I'm going to reach my goal.

3. Play less SNG's - these things are a time sink. I used to think MTT's were a time killer until I really looked at my numbers. I've been playing 55+5 and 110+9 turbos and show an ROI of around 12%. That's pretty good, but I just can't see myself spending hours and hours grinding out $5-$10/SNG. I don't multi-table all that well, so long term, SNG's just are not going to make me much money.

4. Play more Cash games and MTT's - I used to be a cash game player. I guess I still am, but online I have moved away from it. I need to play more cash games (the 2-4 NL on Fulltilt seem to be pretty profitable) and use the money to fund MTT's and try for a big score. Grinding sucks, I really don't understand why anyone would want to be a professional poker player.

5. Score a 10K win in an MTT (live or online) - I want a big win. A cash in the 2008 WSOP would be nice, or a big online MTT win. Last year I busted towards the bubble in the WSOP. Will try to improve this year.

6. Go to Okie-vegas - The Gcox's rule and the lake looks great. I'll be there.

2008 Life Goals

1. Lose 40 lbs - Possible. I'd like to get down to 165.

2. Quit smoking - I wish.

Got 3rd in the Math last night after getting smacked in the head with the deck early on. Here's a quick synopsis.

My QQ cracked Bayne's AA early on to double me up.
AA held up against KK to get me to 10K against pvanharibo.
Pushmonkey22 gave me a gift by calling all in with bottom pair against my KK overpair - up to 16K
Won a race with Fuel55 and my 99 makes a set against AQ - 20K
K7 pushes against my AJ and I hit 2 pair to get to 23K
Slowly get up to 30k, all the big stacks are at my table.
Double up surf when my 77 runs into 99 (both over pairs to the board) - down to 22K
Get pushed around with re-raises when I have shit, and no action on KK twice, QQ, AKs twice, AJs, AA twice.
Double up through surf with AQ vs JJ - 27K
Get to 44K when I beat bartonf's AQoff with KJs in a 60-40. Not quite a suckout Hoy, but close.
I double up twoblackaces on a miss timed re-raise steal and he calls with QQ to my K8.
3 handed goes on for a while as chips leads are traded around.
Bust in 3rd, boat over boat to two black aces, who goes on to win it all.

3rd place sucks. With the hands I was getting, I should have run away with an easy win. I got really lucky with my hands early, but then got no action late with good hands. Hoy pushed me around a bit, and then everyone jumped in. My biggest problem is not knowing what hands I can call likely re-raise steals with when playing 6-handed. Surf really used his stack well, and I should learn something from that. It's easy to win with monsters, but I need to work on short handed hand ranges. I'll have to study my short handed stats on people and see how they compare.

I jumped into TripJax's blogger luck game last month 2 hours before I had to leave for Cancun. I won. Here's how to do it.

1. Make sure not to get seated in the blinds on the first hand.
2. Get AK early and double up.
3. When the blinds are about to hit you, request a table change and get seated at a new table on the button. This must be strictly followed.
4. Suckout with K-10 vs AK by flopping a straight.
5. Now with a monster stack of 300 and rule number 3 working, take your time and wait for big hands.
6. Win all your races.
7. Flop more straights in 60-40 and race situations.
8. Have 33 hold up 3 times.
9. Now it's time to start flopping sets. 88's, 88's, 88's
10. End it with a suckout K9 vs AK.

Thanks Trip, when is the next one?

This is a test.

To see if I fixed my feed xml correctly.

To see if line breaks are working right now.

Hope they are.

Don't forget to sign up for the Blogger Big Game tonight.

You still have time to win a token, so go do it. Speaking of token wins, I managed to turn $8 into a seat into the 1 Million Guarantee on Full tilt tonight. Started in an $8 +.70 for a $26 dollar token, then turned that into a $75 token, used it to win a tier III SNG for a cool $310. I was very happy with myself, and though I don't think my roll quite allows it (I usually only play up to 110+9's) I figured I would take a shot at a bigger MTT and used part of my winnings to buy into a 150+10 satellite to the 1 million.

It seemed like every hand that was behind ended up winning. Underpair beating overpair over and over, dominated hands hitting straights. It was crazy. I mostly stayed out of the train wreck that was going on and played very few hands. I think I had only played one hand to this point and had a stack of around $2000. Ah, hell, I'll just grab the hand history.

Full Tilt Poker Game #4923130282: $1 Million Guarantee Satellite (37364268), Table 1 - 50/100 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:40:26 ET - 2008/01/19
Seat 2: another_rack (3,180)
Seat 3: JustLuck1337 (1,320), is sitting out
Seat 5: Fear The Snake (2,985)
Seat 6: dankworth10 (1,745)
Seat 7: VinNay (2,100)
Seat 8: McNallyville (760)
Seat 9: acatlover (1,410)
dankworth10 posts the small blind of 50
VinNay posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to VinNay [Kd Ks] w00t
Fear The Snake: hate when that happens
McNallyville folds
JustLuck1337 has returned
acatlover folds
another_rack folds
JustLuck1337 folds
Fear The Snake raises to 300 Raises every time from the button
dankworth10 folds
VinNay raises to 900
Fear The Snake has 15 seconds left to act
Fear The Snake raises to 2,985, and is all in Bullshit re-steal attempt
VinNay calls 1,200, and is all in
Fear The Snake shows [Ah Ad] ahhhh, crap
VinNay shows [Kd Ks]
another_rack has reconnected
Uncalled bet of 885 returned to Fear The Snake
*** FLOP *** [Th 4c Qh]
*** TURN *** [Th 4c Qh] [Td]
*** RIVER *** [Th 4c Qh Td] [Kc] w00t
Fear The Snake shows two pair, Aces and Tens
VinNay shows a full house, Kings full of Tens
VinNay wins the pot (4,250) with a full house, Kings full of Tens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4,250 | Rake 0
Board: [Th 4c Qh Td Kc]
Seat 2: another_rack didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: JustLuck1337 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: Fear The Snake (button) showed [Ah Ad] and lost with two pair, Aces and Tens
Seat 6: dankworth10 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: VinNay (big blind) showed [Kd Ks] and won (4,250) with a full house, Kings full of Tens
Seat 8: McNallyville didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: acatlover didn't bet (folded)

Terrible suckout, but I rode the chips to a win and got my seat in the Million Guaranteed. I know I'm able to lay down kings, I've done it before, hell, I even did it in the TOC, but I just can't see getting away from KK in the BB with only a maniac on the Button raising.

See you all in the Blogger Big game tonight, and maybe some of you in the Million Guarantee. Oh, one more thing - F the Pats. Go SuperChargers!!!!!!

Normally I don't don't like to chop, but down to 4 players last night in the Big Game it seemed like a good idea. Against three solid players (bayne, MiamiDon, and Chad) and everyone about even in chips and having an M of < 10, it seemed like too much of a luckfest to risk losing out on a cash after playing for 4 hours. A $450 payday is much better than a $0 payday.

About 2 hours earlier I busted out of the Sunday One Million and was pretty pissed at myself. I had to lay down an overpair and lose a big pot that put me in a struggling position for the rest of the tourney with maniac big stacks on my left. Now, I'm glad I can lay down an overpair, many players can't, but it seems to put me in such bad spot in online games, I'm starting to question how smart of a play it is.

In a live game I can get a better read on a player, but online, when a maniac hold any two cards pushes on the turn or river every other hand, it hard to know what to do with an overpair. Risking my tourney life just doesn't seem smart, but in the big MTTs it seems like this situation comes up at least a few times per tourney, especially when committing large amounts pre-flop and on the flop. Maybe I fold too much, maybe I'm more tight weak than I thought. I ended up going at around 1500 out of 2300. Suckage.

After busting in the Million, I jumped into a 24+2 turbo 18 player for a $75 token to use for the Big Game. I love the two table satellites, where 6 places pay. It is so easy to beat these things. Won my token 4 min before the Big Game started and signed up.

Twenty min in, I picked up KK and won a $2400 pot against LJ. Two hands later my Aces up calls lifesagrind's river bluff on a busted inside draw for a $9000 pot. At 11K in chips, twice the table average, I decided to see lots of cheap flops and pressure the table to grow my stack. Normally, my $VPIP is around 12%, but it was up close to 25% for a while while I pressured the table.

When wonka and Hoy arrived at my table, things got interesting. The both of them are re-stealing maniacs. I the table was constantly being pushed of hands by the two of them. I laid down AJ to an all in bet by wonka on a board of A24. Hoy started his all in fest, and post flop would push and then beg players to fold. I'm not sure if he was trying to induce calls or folds, but I laid down A7 on a 572 board to Hoys all-in after be begged me too. I was getting sick of this shit.

And then it got even worse. With wonka and Hoy on my left now with bigish stacks, they began abusing the table even more. Nobody, was getting free/cheap looks from these two, so I had to plan carefully and put them to decision, instead of the other way around. I got my chance against wonka. With 200/400 blinds, he pops it to 1600. Like he did third hand for the past 1.2 hour. I call from the BB with AQ. Flop of T46, I check-raise all-in on his 2800 bet. He mucks and starts swearing.

Three hands later I get the perfect situation. Wonka and Hoy are in the blinds and I pick up AA. Time to let one of them do the work for me. I normally do not want to limp with AA, it is almost never a good idea, but in this spot, I was pretty sure one of these two would come in for a raise. I call, Don calls, Wonka calls, and I start to worry. Hoy pops it to $2300. Thank you. I re-pop to 6000 figuring he will either fold, giving me credit, or go all-in, figuring me for a frustration steal attempt. He pushes, I insta-call and AA holds up against AQ, a better hand than I gave him credit for.

Now at 28K, I essentially rode this stack to the 4 way chop. I put the pressure on and got my stack up to 46K at the final table and then made a really bad mistake at one point calling off 20% of my stack with A7. It was the final table, down to 7 players and Chad was pushing every other hand with a shortish stack of 10K. I raised 3x to 2400 and he pushes. I think about it and call into his AK. It was kinda stupid, but he had been raise-stealing sooooo much I figured about 50% chance I had one over and was ahead by 10%, a 25% chance he had me dominated, and a 25% chance I had him dominated. So, overall I guessed I was ahead by 10% on average. Add to this fact that Chad is a really good player, and I had a big stack, I wanted to eliminate him if I could. The more I think about it, I'm not so sure it was a stupid move to make. I was left with 35K, still almost double any other stack. Any thoughts on this hand would be appreciated.

I didn't let this deter me, and I kept the pressure on, remembering the week before how effectively Surf used his stack in the Math. A flopped straight got me up to around 50K.
Bayne caught a two outer to double up though me with boat over boat, and then hits a river ten to knock out swimmom95. Down to 4, we traded chips back and forth for a while, and when we all had about even stacks it was chop time. A fun game, and my second cash in the Big Game out of three attempts. Guess I should play this thing regularly.

Three people answered an ad for a an open job - a mathematician, a physicist, and a lawyer. When the physicist went in, he was asked: "What is two plus two?" Suspecting a trap, he thinks for a moment and answers - "I'm not sure, but I think it's on the order of 1."
When the mathematician went in, she was asked the same question: "What is two plus two?"
Also suspecting a trap, she answered, "I'm not sure, but I think it converges."
The Lawyer went in next. When the same question was posed to him, he looked around furtively, shut the door and drew the blinds closed. He leaned in close to the interviewer and responded -
"What do you want it to be?"

A number of recent posts by various bloggers as well as some conversations with some friends has gotten me thinking about a few things. Particularly, I have been considering methods to improve my poker game, how others approach this, and what is effective and what isn't. Certainly, different people will benefit from different approaches to varying degrees; what works for one person might not work for another.

Also, I would imagine that most of the poker blogging community started blogs to accomplish a few things -

1) To have a place to sometimes rant and get some tension out (bad beat stories),
2) As a creative outlet, or
3) What I think is the most common answer - to be part of a community of similar interest, with hopes of an exchange of information (on the blogs or at the tables) leading to a better understanding of, and improved skill at the game of poker.

I don't think I've met a single poker blogger that I thought was an idiot. In fact, it seems to me that it is a highly intelligent group. The bloggers games are at an all time high, with a game going just about every day of the week, and most of them pulling in a good number of participants.

However, at the same time, there has been a fair amount of mean-spiritedness that has cropped up from time to time, as others have pointed out. I think this is mostly due to the unreliability of tone interpretation in posts which ends up escalating innocuous comments or opinions into flame wars, but sometimes its just "can dish it, but not take it" syndrome.

I'm guilty of this myself from time to time, as I think we all are. I remember the first time the worst poker player blasted me. I had never read his blog before and I was furious at waffles. Pretty stupid in retrospect, as I now see more humor than maliciousness in his posts. Recently, I was "victim" to a classic Hoy re-interpretation of a hand. I wasn't even in the hand in question, and it was mis-characterized anyhow. I wasn't really mad about it, but posted a response clearing up the hand. This was taken as an affront to Hoy's "right to his opinion". I suppose I should have just not commented at all, it would have been better for my table image anyhow to let people believe I would call off 90% of my stack on a flush draw.

This is the kind of silly escalation that is annoying to me. I do realize there is a certain irony of continuing the cycle by posting this entry, but I'm really just trying to figure out how to get better at poker by looking around at what I consider to be a pretty smart bunch of bloggers and see how they do it. My point is, I'd like it so much more if there could be more honest back and forth in the comments when talking about and analyzing hands, instead of people getting all worked up. We would all improve our game so much more if that happened more often.

The more I think about this, the more I keep going back to TripJax and Hoy's posts about the large number of lawyers among poker bloggers. Hoy made some strong points in his post on this matter, citing the similarities between the two including Logical and Risk Analysis, Aggression, Bluffing, and Reading People. I really considered these points and for the most part, I think they are true. But then I began to think about what skills make up a lawyer, what kind of person would be a good lawyer, and how does this relate to the rest of the post?

Of the lawyer/bloggers I can think of off the top of my head, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of online drama involving them. And after thinking on this, I am not surprised. While playing poker and being a lawyer may have similarities, I do not believe lawyering and post game analysis and skill improvement have anything in common.

I was surprised to find that only one of the top ten law schools in the country offered a critical thinking course as part of the curriculum. And while legal reasoning employs logical and risk analysis, it is only in a weak sense critical thinking. It is good at pointing out the inadequacies of others reasoning, but does not point out or apply the same skills to one's own argument. The adversary model does not encourage lawyers to examine critically either the client's or their own arguments. The lawyer's task is to argue a conclusion and persuade others to embrace it. Legal arguments reflect reliance on authority and precedent, which are both logical fallacies.

While this makes for winning cases, it hardly serves people in improving their own game, and encourages hostility towards those that want to honestly discuss hand analysis. I often see this in serial offenders blogs - repeated reminders of how many poker books they have read (appeal to authority), selective memory, aggression.

I'm not advocating that people don't write what they want on their own blogs, but I think a critical thinking approach (unbiased scientific) as opposed to an advocacy approach (lawyering) is a better way to improve your game and a much better way to belong to a community of poker bloggers. This is not to say that the "offenders" are not good poker players, I think most of them are very good poker players, but they could be great poker players, and I might learn more from them that way. Which is what I'm interested in.

I got pretty deep in the Full Tilt 16K KO last night. Finished in 14th, which sucks. I hate getting so close to the big money and ending up with a few hundred instead.

With 5 or so tables left, I noticed Kajagugu was still in it as well, and we railed each other a bit, which was fun, and helped keep me aware at 3AM. We got put at the same table when it was down to 18, and she ultimately went out in 17th with AQ vs. AK. I don't really blame her for the call, and she has a good write of up of it, so go check it out when your done here.

I just noticed I refer to Kaja as a she, when in I don't really know if he/she is male or female. For some reason Kajagugu sounds like a female name to me.

My bust out hand was an interesting one I think, and I'm not really sure if I played it right. Maybe some of you out on the internets can give your opinions.

The blinds were at 2000/4000 with 500 antes, 14 players remain. Blinds were going up in > 1min, and it folds to me in the small blind. I have 40K in chips, and BB has 140K. BB will def not let me limp, every time I have tried, he pops it, but he has been willing to lay down to a pre-flop raise. I get dealt 22.

We all know 22 sucks. At best, your only in a coin flip with them. I push all-in, and he takes time, and when just about to time out, calls with K6o. Turns a 6 and IGH.

Now, I know 22 sucks, but I was getting pretty short, the blinds were about to go up, and I thought there was a good chance he would fold. Why risk 30% of your stack calling without anything but a premium hand? So I figured there was a lot of fold equity for him.

The flip side is, should I push here and risk a race when down to 14? 10 hands later it was down to 9 players. I could have folded into the final table and taken down over 500 instead of ~250. I wanted to win the thing of course, and getting to the final table with around 25K was probably not going to help me win it, but if I had 80k, I would be in a pretty good spot to make a run for 1st.

Well, thats my thinking, but I really interested in other opinions on what to do in this situation.

On another topic, Karol from Ihadouts sent me a link about the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society, which she does some work for.

"The head of the group, Harvard Law Prof. Charles Nesson was on the Colbert Report.

He had some pretty interesting things to say about poker and asked Stephen Colbert to host a poker tournament for the presidential candidates.

Charles Nesson on Colbert Report"

Check it out.

After my deep run (14th out of 499) in the FT 16K KO on Friday, I decided to give it another go on Saturday night. It had a slightly more players, about 550, and I managed to get to 15th. Only 1 KO, as opposed to 5 on Friday, but I actually think I played a much better game.

I stayed about an average or slightly lower than average stack for most of the tourney, and showed down only 2 hands the entire night - I won the first one, and busted on the other. Again, I got myself into a mess in the blinds.

With 45K, and blinds at 2500/5000 with 600 antes, I find QdJc in the BB. It fold around to the LAG SB who makes it 19,800 to go. I push, he thinks, then calls with KQ, hits a K and busts me. Obviously, I need to work on my end game strategy in these things, in particular, playing from the blinds.

Does anyone out there push here with QJ? I doubt it, I could have waited for a much better spot, but at the same time, I think KQ is a pretty bad call too.

Sunday was a cooler day for me. In the Fifty-fifty, I had AA cracked by AsKs early on to cripple me. Picked up AA in the SB, 2nd position open raises, is then re-raised, then another caller, then I push all-in. He insta-calls with his AK and flops a flush. I'm crippled and go home a little bit later.

At the same time, I was playing a FTOPS satellite 10+1 rebuy. Made it to the final table with an average stack, and Hoy was on my left with a big stack. The entire final table was a sick, sick, series of bad beats laid all over the place. I check in from the BB with Q2 and hit a board of 2QQ. All the money gets in against QJ, and of course the J hits and I lose boat over boat. I then saw QT crack AA and 22 crack QQ. My Q8 hold up against 29 to double up my tiny remaining stack. A few hands later I push with K9, the BB makes the call with 83 (he had to, it was like 300 into 10K), and I flop a 9, giving him only runner-runner outs. You know the rest - runner-runner flushed and go home in 5th with a profit of $11.

I guess I can't complain too much, I'm over all winner ~400 for the weekend, but I'd really like a straight up win sometime soon. Maybe tonight in the MATH, 10PM EST on Full Tilt, password:hammer

See you there.