Random thoughts about my interests which include (in no particular order) poker, finance & investing, politics, football and whatever else I happen to see that piques my interest

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

"There are no atheists in a foxhole"

I wanted to use that title in homage to one of my favorite bloggers, Rachel Lucas, who used it as her title last week and immediately started catching flak from .......... ATHEISTS. She was referring to some bad things that had happened recently in her boyfriends family and how desperate she felt at the time. The atheists apparently took umbrage to that title because according to them, there are atheists in foxholes. Lets put aside the fact that this is just a saying, and she did not coin the saying but felt it applied in her situation as she is not a religious person. Like many of us, she is feeling her way through the minefields of belief in what cannot be known and the hope that there is something more to existence. She and her boyfriend and his family were going through a very rough time and she decided to share that with her readers which is something I'm not sure I would have done, or at least not so fully. But she thought it would be important so she did.



I'm sure she regretted it once the emails and comments from various atheists started rolling in. They really got offended by her title and the fact that according to them, there are actually atheists in foxholes. Yes, I'm sure there are some atheists in foxholes just like good fences don't always make good neighbors and the early bird doesn't always catch the worm but come on people, what ever happened to common decency??? Is it that uncommon?? Do you have to come down on someone going through a bad time over the title of her post? I swear the country is getting stupider all the time. The smartest people say the dumbest things and common sense is so uncommon that it should be on the endangered species list. So you people who decided to take offense because a woman in pain felt it applied to her should be ashamed of your reaction and the way you went about telling her how you felt. You should wonder why you cannot even feel the basic human emotion of sympathy for someone going through a bad time when she needed some support from her friends and had the guts to put it out on cyberspace for all to read instead of keeping it to herself. Take a look at yourself. Is it that important to "defend" your point of view at a time like this? If you answer yes to that question, buddy I don't want to know you because obviously you care more about your own needs than anything else.



I don't read a lot of bloggers but I have a set rotation of those I enjoy for their intelligence, their humor, and their warmth. I don't always agree with them but I always enjoy reading what they think and they usually make me smile as well as think about what I believe too. There are some amazing people blogging today and Rachel Lucas is one of the best. So you asshats who feel obligated to give her a hard time take note, there are a lot of people out here like me and we don't take kindly to people who would insult someone in their time of need. If you do not have the common decency to act like a civilized human being then do the next best thing and shut the fuck up. The world would be a kindlier place if you just did that.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Weekend Update

It was a pretty quiet weekend on the home front this weekend. No major poker tourneys to play in, or minor ones either. Was a little money tight so didn't want to spend a lot. I did play a fair amount online actually. Lately I have been playing this tourney that is half No Limit Holdem and half Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo. I'm a decent hold em player but I play a lot of Omaha and I think I have an advantage against most of the players when we play Omaha. Last 2 times I have played this tourney I have finished 4th and 3rd. I would have made the money time before that if the guy I had caught bluffing hadn't caught a runner runner straight to almost knock me out too.



So I have been slowly building a stack online now mostly playing low stakes Omaha Hi Lo ring games and these occasional tourney cashes and I have played enough to qualify for these bigger freerolls. Saturday there was a $1000 free roll that payed a top prize of $150 that I qualified for. I managed to last 4 whole hands in that one lol. I had AQ, called a raise to 80 and flopped 2 pair on A-Q-10 flop only to lose to the raiser with KJ who flopped the nut straight. Sucked to be me. I feared the straight but thats the way it goes. But I noticed I had almost qualified for a $10,000 free roll on Sunday so I played some Omaha and made a few bucks that night and played enough Sunday to qualify for the 10K tourney. That was fun I must admit. I managed to suck out a straight on the river with AK when a Jack fell. The guy I beat was PISSED. He was going off on me being a donkey, etc etc. And it was a slightly donkey play but he forgot one cardinal rule. Make sure you bet enough to not make it worth my while to stay in.



He raised to 150 over blinds of 25-50. I raised to 450 with Ace of hearts and King of Diamonds and he called along with 2 other guys. Flop came Q-10-8 with 2 diamonds. He bet 600 into a 2 thousand chip pot and I thought a second and called. I figured him for either a low pair or maybe AQ or QJ and he caught the queen. The way I watched him play, he was easily capable of raising on QJ and calling my reraise. But a king or jack wins it for me I figure. Next card is the 9 of diamonds. If he has something like QJ he has the straight already. But I have the king of diamonds along with 3 others on the board and a jack still makes my straight so at worst, unless he is holding the A of diamonds which I sincerely doubt, I have 3 jacks and 9 diamonds that will win for me, or maybe only 2 jacks if he has QJ. As it turns out, I was wrong and he had flopped a set (so he said, he never showed) and he bets 1200 on the turn. The pot had 3200 before he bet and so I figured my odds at 34-12 or a little under 3 to 1 to get a winner vs his bet of almost 4-1 pot odds and called him again. Next card is a lovely jack of clubs. He thinks a second and bets another 1200. I wait a second and raise him all in. He folds after thinking for a while and says AK so I decide to show I did have AK and that sets him off!!



He starts talking about what a donkey I am for calling, that I'm a calling station etc etc. And it was a little donkeyish as he pissed me off for calling my raise on inferior cards (I felt) and he had raised me off some other pots before when I didn't catch. But it all came down to money and odds. He gave me too good odds to stay in the pot. Yes he apparently flopped a monster, my guess is he had 8-8 or 10-10 preflop but maybe he had QQ. He wanted to keep me in the hand to suck out as much money as he could so he kept the bets reasonable but by the turn, I was getting decent odds to stay in with 3 diamonds and a gutshot straight draw. So it was proper for me to call him down. I mentioned to him that he bet 1200 into a 3200 pot and asked him what kind of odds he gave me. Well he didn't want to hear that now. Of course most players don't want to hear it when they have goofed and allowed someone to suck out on them. But unless you have quads or a straight flush, you are often times taking a chance on exactly that happening if you underbet a pot. He bets 2K on the turn and I have to let it go because I'm not getting good enough odds to call. I almost let it go anyway because the one thing about pot odds in tourneys is that you can play the pot odds perfectly right up till you go bust. Then you cannot reload and try again lol. It's not like playing in a ring game. Our table broke before I was able to watch him go bust which was too bad. What really pissed me off was someone else sucked out on him another time and he went off on that guy being a donkey etc. He may have been right as I don't remember if the guy played good odds or what, but take your beats like a man.



On Saturday night I also played some Omaha at the Dog track. I had some good luck on my first hand and won a decent pot so I was up all night while we played. I turned my $60 buyin to $160 but then went card dead. A lot of bad hands and the good hands caught crap. A-2-3-6 and the flop is JJ9 and crap like that. Twice the dealer flips one of my cards over while dealing to me and both times its a freaking Ace. When you aren't getting decent cards and the best card possible keeps getting burned it irritates you. The first time it happened I just laughed and then the very next hand I look at my cards and its A-J-A.................. and the last card is ANOTHER FREAKING ACE. If you don't play omaha, hands that contain 3 of a kind are really bad hands because you can only use 2 cards in any hand so it's hard to win with it. I was in the small blind so I called the $1 to see the flop but the last Ace didn't hit and neither did K-Q-10 to complete a straight for me so I immediately dumped to the first bet. But I stuck it out and stayed in with mostly solid hands and eventually turned it around. I did stay in on a hand that wasn't very good and got proved why you don't play crap. I ended up turning a full house 9's full of J's but lost to J's full of 9's and I had to call it down even though I figured him for that hand just because it was possible he had something else. There are some really loose players in Omaha who think any flush or full house is the nuts (it's that holdem background again, where full house over full house is nearly unheard of but in omaha you can see it quite often, especially if you play shit cards lol) and they win some big pots but if you watch, they lose it all back.



I was losing enough chips back that I was getting ready to quit if I lost enough to fall back to 60 again but the cards finally turned and I flopped a flush with an A-5 low. If someone had A-4 they had a better low because a 2-3 were on the board but the flush held up and I had a number of callers on the hand that it turned out was a winner for both ends. That pulled me from 80 to 130 bucks. I fell back a bit but hit a winner on my last hand to finish out at 130 when the table broke. So it was a successful stint on the tables even if it wasn't as successful as it could have been.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Well Whoopdee Doo

So, apparently our Democratic challenger for president is a black man. Barack Obama. Let me get this out of the way. Yippee, hip hip hooray. Ok that's done. Now if I don't hear anything more from him for awhile, or from his stupid wife, I will be fine. Because I have some very serious doubts about his candidacy that's for sure.

First off, what has he done? Nothing at all. He's a very junior senator who has no clue about foreign or domestic policy running on a platform of "change and hope" Change for what? Hope to do what? Well according to him and especially his wife, change the tax laws to take more money from people who work for a living and give it to people who don't. I mean if you are running on a platform of "change" don't you think you want to put out some concrete plans about what you want to change? Oh one thing he is willing to change is he wants to sit down with the leaders of outlaw states N. Korea and Iran and negotiate. Negotiate what? Is he gonna negotiate Iran from sending people into Iraq and causing trouble. Thats a big duh. But then he probably doesn't believe Iran is doing anything in Iran. Ole Nancy Pelosi is even worse. Instead of giving credit to the administration when they get something right like the troop surge and General Petraeus' handling of the war over there she credits Iran for negotiating an end to hostilities in Basra. Yes that's right, I fucking RAN. She didn't credit our troops, she didn't credit the Iraqi troops who did a lot of the work in Basra, she didn't even credit the Iraqi people who have turned on Al Qaeda, nope it was due to the good will of Iran. I suppose that means we should be happy if Iran reduces it's terror operations in another country and give it credit for doing less of what it shouldn't be doing in the first place. Nancy Pelosi is a miserable excuse of a California politico who is more interested in winning elections than in supporting her own country. People like that in positions of power are what gives aid and comfort to our enemies.

Now don't get me wrong, we have a right to disagree with each other, hell this country was founded on dissent. But come on people. Some clown saying that from a soapbox on the corner is one thing but the highest ranked member of congress saying that is completely bogus and she is patently doing a disservice to the people who have gone overseas and sacrificed, some of them have sacrificed their lives, to allow her to say stupid shit like that.

Now on to other stupid shit. Seems to me Barack Obama is getting a major free pass on his affiliation with Rev Wright and the Trinity Church. Oh sure, now that he has disassociated himself from the church and from Rev Wright (and Fr Phleger too who as a lapsed Catholic really really sickens me) we are supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy about him. Yet I was reading an interview he gave a few years ago when he was a newly elected senator. The interview was mostly about his beliefs and his church association etc. In the interview he specifically says he goes to that church "every week, 11 am service" So you tell me how he misses all of those anti American, anti white diatribes ole Rev Wright is spinning out from the pulpit. How does he sit there, as a senator, a representative of his country, while Wright is going on about how the government is responsible for AIDs in this country and in giving it to black people? And he does nothing about his associations with these people until he gets called on the carpet about it by the press, amazing they even noticed considering how far over they are leaning on his candidacy (must have been the NY Times since they were big Hilly supporters) and now we are supposed to think he doesn't feel the same way? Let me tell you, if I go to church and the pastor is going on about how the government is doing all these bad things, and is telling falsehoods to get his point across, I'm not going back. I expect politicos to lie, but I don't expect the people who interpret the word of God to do that right in front of me on Sunday morning at 11 am.

So in 6 months we have the election. I know a lot of conservatives are not sold on John McCain who they call a Republican in Name Only. I know he doesn't thrill me to tears either. But I also know some other things. Like he was a man who was willing to give his life for his country. He comes from a naval family, both his dad and grandad were admirals in the navy, I think his great grandad was too actually. He is a man of principals who could have gotten released from prison camp early since he was son of an admiral but chose to stay until people there longer than him were released which meant he stayed till the end of the war. I know he supports the troops and what they are trying to accomplish in Iraq. He won't pull them out before Iraq is ready to take care of itself and as much as I don't want them over in Iraq, now that we are there, we better do the job right. He supports America's friends and won't negotiate with outlaws. I think I'll take a chance on his not being as conservative as I would like over the chance Barack Obama fucks everything up and I end up paying for the rest of my life. Cuz in 4 or 8 years ole Barry won't be around for me to kick anymore but his policies, his taxes, and his screwed up foreign policies will haunt us long after he is gone.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

A donkey by any other name .....

Sure I felt ready to play in the WSOP qualifier this past weekend. I had been patient, avoiding trouble hands and big pots when I didn't have the goods, and playing aggressive when I was in a hand. Funny how things can change



We started with 10,000 chip stacks and 30 minute blinds so there was no pressure to play fast and loose to build a stack. That can work for or against you. If you are picking up some nice hands and people feel pressured to make moves with marginal hands, you can make some big chips fast but if you are on the other end, it can cost you fast. This way, you get time to settle in and play.



I started off slowly, making a few calls with suited connectors and either not hitting or getting raised off the pot. I made sure I wasn't doing anything in early position as that's just suicidal. And I'm not catching anything either. There are a couple of aggressive players at the other end of the table and so I am avoiding calling and having them raise me off it. Then I get 7-7 from early position. I want to play these and I don't want to be raised up if I limp so I raise to 200 (blinds are 25-50). I get 3 callers. Haven't raised a pot yet and as soon as I do, everyone wants to call. Flop comes A-5-4. I'm sure at least one guy has an ace and I hope he is weak like A-8 and not A-4 so I bet 400 trying to represent a big ace. Guy folds and the aggressive guy further on raises to 800. Now I'm fairly certain I am up against either a set or 2 pair because if I am on AK, he would be foolish to raise me on Ace anything else. Everyone else folds and I decide to call him. Next card is a 6, a good card for me giving me both ends of a straight draw. I check and he bets 600, which puzzled me a bit cuz it looked weak. I thought he would bet more into this one as he had been pretty liberal with his chips. If he makes a bigger bet, I probably have to chuck it as the pot odds aren't good enough for me to play this hand. To me this narrowed his hand down to a big ace or a small 2 pair as a set or top 2 pair would try to move me off the pot. Of course he may be afraid I have a set too, though I don't see that. Anyway final card is a blank. I check, he is obviously confused by my wacko play and checks showing me AQ to take it down. I felt pretty stupid and wondered if I should have pushed the last bet but I just didn't want to get involved in a huge pot on a bluff. Not at that point.



The next 2 hours or so is a blur of lousy hands and decent cards that hit nothing. I did get to see 9-3 and 10-5 a number of times each but never saw AK or a big pocket pair. I am slowly bleeding chips as the antes kick in after the first break but still have some chips at least. By time of the second break I am down to 5400 and haven't played a hand past the flop in well over an hour. The only hand I thought about playing and didn't, K-9 suited in middle position, I decided to dump because I couldn't stand a raise then. Of course no one raises, the flop is K-9-9 and I want to shoot myself.



We come back after the flop and I'm talking to the guy on my left who is also short stacked. Guy next to him has made some big chips and the guy next to him is the one I want to play against. He is obviously used to playing in low limit tables as he is making some very thin calls with 2nd and 3rd pair against raises. And winning when other guys have AK and don't catch. He knocked out the first guy on my left when he called his healthy raise with A5 suited. Flop is 9-10-J, guy makes another good sized bet and he calls that. Next card is a 5 and the guy pushes all in and Mr Low Limit calls with a pair of 5s. He has to put this guy on a complete bluff which it was cuz he had AK but still, he could have had QQ in that position too. Last card is a 2 and he takes the pot and knocks this guy out. That was the 3rd time I had seen him go to the river on a hand I wouldn't have called originally. Of course I never get cards up against him cuz I know if I have top pair, I'm going all the way with him.



But of course he gives away all his chips before I ever get a hand so I don't taste any. I do win a couple of pots from the blinds, once with 5-5 which held up all the way to the river and another with a 7-3 when I river a 7. So my stack is building back up slowly to about 7K. Then I pull AQ in the small blind. 4 people call to me and I decide to just call the blind too. I hate playing AQ in early position and if I raise it and don't catch an A or Q I probably have to fold it cuz I'm not going broke with that hand again!! Since blinds are now 300-600 I would need to raise it to at least 1500-2000 and thats a good chunk of my chips so I would rather see the flop first, then make a decision. Flop comes down Q-7-3. I bet out 1800 and get one caller, the big stack 2 places to my left. Next card is a Jack. I was going to bet another 3000 but that only leaves me a little over a thousand behind so I decide to push all in. He calls and I wonder if he has QJ but he tables Q8 so I am ahead by a good bit. Last card is a 9 (thought it was an 8 when it first flipped) and I pick up a good pot which gets me up to 17K.

After that I lose some blinds and one hand when I flop zippo with AJ. Guy to my left gets AA, guy to my right also gets them, but they keep avoiding me, as do KK and QQ. I'm down to about 14K when I pick up 10-10 on the button. Guy who is new to the table raises to 1500 from 3 seats to my right. He had just raised a couple hands ago and picked up the blinds. I raise him to 4000. He goes all in for about 11K and I start to think. I really put him on a steal on that hand. He was fairly late in the hand and it just feels right, but maybe he has a big ace. I'm favored over either hand though not by much over big ace. For some reason I didn't think he had a big pocket pair. So I call him for most of my chips and of course he has AA now. Sucks to be me. Needless to say a 10 did not hit the board and I was crippled. Not long after that I was out.

I'd like to say I played well except for that hand or I was unlucky but really, I was a donkey and I made a few mistakes during the tourney. Usually unless you are all in, you can come back from a couple of mistakes if you play solidly. But going all the way back to the 7-7 debacle earlier and the 10's near then end, I really did not play all that well when I had a good amount of chips riding on it. I'd like to think I could have gotten away from the last big hand if I had just called his raise and seen the flop but in reality I probably still would have gotten hammered. The flop was 9 and below (I actually had a straight draw on the river) and one of us would have bet after that flop for sure. And I probably would have put him on big ace then too. Maybe I would have gotten away from it but there was a pretty good chance I wouldn't have. And that's on me, I had made up my mind and didn't look at the range of hands. And I should have. His initial raise was not that big, could easily have been for a big hand. Still in the middle I didn't play poorly, I stayed out of hands a lot and when I did make something decent, I got all my value out of it. So I would grade my self a C+ or maybe B- for the day. Unfortunately I would have needed A- to hit the money that day. And some luck lol. Oh well it was a learning experience.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Omaha in Florida? who'd a thunk it

Because of the holiday weekend and being a little flush with cash from finishing second on Saturday night, I decided to play in the Sunday night Omaha tourney at the Tampa dog track. I don't usually play there because it's a little bit of a haul for me to go that far and they almost never have an Omaha Hi/Lo ring game going and I don't care for low limit holdem anymore. They don't usually have that going there either come to think of it, its almost all 1-2 no limit going there. But they do have a Sunday night Omaha Hi tourney. It's not my best game by a long shot but I do enjoy it so I decided to play it.





Only about 40 people sign up. You start with 2500 in chips for $25 and you can do 1 rebuy for $20 to get 3000 chips and 1 add on at the end of the first hour for another 3K chips for $20. So I start playing. A lot of young players at my table. As Teddy KGB said "Aggresyeve and Strong like a bull". I of course folded most of my hands because I was getting utter horseshit and when I had a decent hand, someone is raising the pot and I don't have that good a hand to put my whole stack in on at best a draw and not even 50/50. You know in Omaha a lot of times you'll fold a hand and the flop will come and you are wishing you could take that hand right back out of the muck because it hit you so well? I wasn't even getting that! My hands were so bad, so many times I had stuff like 2-3-7-J all different suits and crap. So I just kept dumping hands. I played a couple and the closest I got to winning was a having a 5-6 to go along with the 7-8-9 on the board but another guy had 6-10 for the higher straight so I lost that one too. Fortunately I didn't put many chips in so it didn't cost me much.





We get to the end of the hour and they ask if I want to rebuy and/or add on. I'm thinking if I shouldn't just say the hell with it since my cards are running so bad but I take the 6000 chips for $40. We start back up and it's more of the same except now the blinds are up and it's costing me chips every go round to fold. I do get to see some of the these young guys do some stupid crap with their chips though. 3 people call the $400 big blind and the button pots it to something like 3300. He has about 20K and is one of the chip leaders. All 3 people call. Flop comes 10 and two low cards and he pushes the rest of his stack in. 2 people call, guy to my right is all in with Q-Q-9-8, guy to my left is all in with J-10-10-9 and the original raiser is in with A-A-7-3. There is no flush draw on the board to speak of and he is pissed cuz 3 people called his raise and the guy with pocket 10s makes a boat and wins a monster pot. I can tell he is normally a holdem player just from his cards and his reaction. Yes having AA in Omaha is good but not so much with a 7 and a 3. Also he thinks these people called with crap but a good wrap hand like the winner had was probably a better hand than Mr AA had, especially after the flop. Even the guy who busted with QQ had a good enough hand to call the raise with, though maybe not the all in after the flop. Anyway, this guy could have gotten away after the flop with losing less than a quarter of his stack. Instead he is down to 4K after the hand, in my range now lol, and he immediately pushes all in on the next hand and loses the rest of it. I'm thinking, I can't even sniff a decent hand and these idiots are going busto with them.



So I'm still getting blinded down but we are down to 15 people or so. We've been playing for almost 2 hours and I have not won a hand. This is getting sad. I finally get into a hand from the big blind and I've got the nut flush draw and a back door straight draw I'm not even looking at, up against a set of 8s. Turn and river are the 3 and 5 and I make the wheel I wasn't even looking for to win the hand. This puts me up to the lofty amount of 6K in chips. Guy next to me is sitting on 25. Luckily people are going bust left and right it seems. I am still bleeding chips from the blinds trying to get some kind of playable cards when the director announces we are down to 11 people and one more bust puts us at 10 and the final table. I'm down to 2K in chips again, when some guy at the other table goes all in and loses and they break the action to seat us at the final table.



I get seat 4 and luckily they redraw the button and it's at seat 6 so I have a few hands to play before the blinds come my way. The blinds are up to 1000-2000 now so I have just enough to play one hand. A couple of hands after we start up, I look down at AK of clubs and 6-9 of hearts. Not a great hand but not bad either, especially compared to what I have been getting. So I push all in. There are 4 callers at this point so I can turn my 2000 into 10,000 if I get lucky. Flop is perfect for me, 5-7-8 and I pull the nut straight. I'm sweating because there are 2 diamonds and I'm just sure someone has 2 in his hand. A couple of big stacks start betting and 2 other guys get all in on the hand. Turn is a black 10 and now I'm worried someone is sitting on a J-9 for a higher straight than I have. Last card is a 4 of hearts. Big stack lady to my right bets 10K and gets called by the remaining big stack across the table. He flips over a set of 10's, she has 5-6 for a low straight and takes the side pot (which is a lot bigger than the main pot lol) while my 6-9 hold up for a bigger straight in the main pot and 2 guys are knocked out.



So we're down to 8 people, I have a few chips though only enough for 5 big blinds, and I finally start seeing some playable cards. I get all in on another pot with one of the big stacks and another guy who is also all in and pull it out though I cannot remember what I had. I pull it out though and increase my stack to 30K while the other guy goes bust. I'm still not a big stack but I'm not tiny anymore and people are respecting my bets, some of the time at least.



A few hands later I'm on the button and look at a beauty hand, AAQJ with the AQ of hearts. Guy 2 places to my right calls the blind and the lady with the large stack between us also calls. I raise the pot which bumps it to 11K and both of them call. Not what I'm looking for at all. The flop was also not what I was looking for either as it's 7-7-6 with 2 clubs. Guy bets the pot, lady next to him repots it and I know I'm up against it now and unlike the idiot at my last table, I can put down AA in this situation which I do. Guy pushes back all in and the lady calls him. He shows 8-9-10-J for a massive straight draw and he might have had 2 clubs for the flush too but the lady shows 6-6 for a made full house and he is drawing almost dead and goes out on that hand. The lady is now the massive chip leader with something like 90K cuz he had a fair stack and she got 11K out of me too. I am down to 19K now and in last place still but at least I avoided going bust. I'm talking to the lady telling her she has the money made now as she is such a large stack that she can fold down to final 2 or 3, but she doesn't want to play that way.



We go on break and a couple of guys are giving me a hard time telling me that everyone hates me because I have been all in 3-4 times now and not busted and we are one away from the money now. We are having fun but I am sweating it cuz I do want to hit the cash too. Next lowest stack to me has between 25 and 30 K so I am a fair amount behind and blinds are up to 2000/4000 now. I fold a hand when the guy to my left raises and the lady to my right calls him. He pushes all in on the turn, all low cards with 2 hearts and the big stack lady next to me thinks about it then calls him. He had a big straight wrap that he hit and she had 2 hearts and was trying to knock him out with a flush. Now he had a little over 40K preflop so she had to put in a nice chunk of change to call him but she didn't even think about it. Heart doesn't hit the river and he doubles up and becomes chip leader on that hand.

I don't know what is going on in this lady's mind to call that hand down and to play like that with such a big chip lead. I konw she won some races and marginal hands, maybe she felt invincible or something, but in her situation I would have been avoiding going all in with anyone unless I had the nuts or a massive draw with straight and flush. Or if she was up against a small stack like me, then the risk is minimal. Instead she gives up half her stack on one shot with just a flush draw. Next hand the 2 of them tangle again. She pushes on the flop and he calls her with a big straight draw again. Which he hits on the turn. She bets, he raises her, and she pushes all in. This time she has top set but he already has a made hand so she only has 10 outs. She doesn't catch and it's good night irene for her. From chip leader to bubble girl in 2 hands. And ole lucky Kevin is cashing now. Yippee!!

We shake our heads and talk a little bit after she is gone cuz we all can't believe she donked off all her chips like that when she was this close to cashing. Then play gets intense and I keep catching some good cards. I win a small hand with a set that I couldn't bet because of all the straight cards on the board. Then one guy goes all in against the chip leader next to me and damned if he doesn't catch another straight and take him out. I then manage to take out a guy in 4th place when I flop the nut flush and the board doesn't pair up to give him a boat. He was in the same position I had been with the lowest stack and the blinds eating him up and he found a decent spot to push it, just was unlucky I had already made my hand. We play 3 handed for a while and I am getting plenty of respect when I push now as I have been all in 5 times and won every one. And they can see I'm not pushing garbage either. Even though I am small stack now, I have 50K now. One guy has about 65 and the leader has about 130K and he isn't ready to chop as he has enough to cover us both right now.

Finally I flop top two pair with AJ and bet the pot. The next bigger stack raises me all in and I think about it a second then call him hoping we have a split or he's on a draw. Nope, he has bottom set which puts me behind. Unfortunately he also has a jack which is one of my outs. I don't catch on the turn or river and finish in 3rd. I am plenty pleased by this, especially the way the first 2 hours or so went, but I really felt I had a chance to win this one if I kept playing. But enough about that, I went about 6 places further than I should have lol. And that's 2 cashes in 2 days for me which is unheard of.

Now I felt fairly ready to tackle the WSOP satellite tourney I qualified for at Derby Lane. I'll post next about that.