In Which Your Humble Scribe Provides Further Detail

Two items on the agenda today: yesterday's Mookie and the events of today, which forced my alarm clock into service for the first time in eight months.

OK, the Mookie: yes, I took a bad beat, bla bla bla. It's poker; it happens. It didn't erase what I thought was a decent showing for The Kid, and I can hang my hat on that until the next Mookie. I did well without being the overlarge beneficiary of lucky hands. One hand I remember, I would have lost around 20% of my stack unless I pulled a miracle queen for a chop, which is what happened. That's really the extent of my suckoutus disgustus.

Here's a hand that was extremely profitable without requiring a lot of poker genius on my part. Not "lucky," but the hand played itself right into my pocket. Positions are my best recollection: Jew II or Joanne might be able to recollect a bit more accurately.

I'm in middle position. Joanne111 and PokerMeister were SB and BB respectively. I look down at A3 and I decided to make a play for the blinds so I raised it up (I think - I mighta just called. Forgive my forgetfulness please). Both blinds stay in; I make a mental note to drop it like the conversation about Ma's yeast infection.

Flop comes 245 rainbow. I flopped the prettiest wheel in all the land. I figure at least one of them has something they think is enough to grab the hand so I check.

Well, I blinked, and took a breath, and looked up to see that they were both all in, and would I care to call?

Damn Skippy I would.

Well Joanne had pocket fours. The flop gave her a set. She must have thought she was a lock for the hand.

Jew II had 45. The flop gave him two pair. He must have thought he was a lock for the hand.

Now, I'm not privy to this information but I have to suspect after seeing my straight that both of them poo'd, just a little bit, just enough to make it a little squidgy below decks.

I wasn't out of the woods - J2 needed a 5 (no more fours left) for his boat, and Joanne needed a deuce or runner runner for another pair to make hers (a 5 would have helped her too but would make her boat a smaller one to J2's). But no, everything held up, I dragged a huge pot, crippled Joanne and knocked the Hebrew one back to Mt. Ararat. Poor guy, he was the final table bubble. I took no joy in knocking him out. Wait: that's not true! After the first break (I think) he said that now that his other game was over he was going to devote his full attention to felting me. I told him thanks for the heads up and crushed the little Red Sea Pedestrian right where he stood, the little turd.

Actually he's a good guy who was just giving me some good natured shit, but that's how the cards fell.

And I guess the other stuff will have to wait, since I just invited myself to a private tourney that starts 21 minutes from now. A plus tard, mes amis!