So much luck - so little money

Yesterday, as was my wont, I was lying on my couch doing nothing when a faint beep inside said couch not only finally solved the "Case of the Missing Mobile" caper, but also told me that I had a text message.

Odd, you say? Wasting the day away in great hours-long chunks, you opine? Does the thought of so much raw sloth just make that type-A go-go-go corporate joyboy asshole of yours pucker up like it's gonna lay a big smooch on Grandma? Deal with it. I like doing nothing. A perfect day for me is one wherein I don't ever have to do anything, except for filling one side of, and emptying the other side of, my food tube.

Left to ruminate on the circle of life as I was, and the happy part that peristalsis plays in it, I reached in and grabbed the phone. It was FDD Spuds, asking me if I'd care to join him in a $2 2-table MTT. Sure, says I, and without the bother of having to close anything I was doing, jumped on and away I went.

My performance at this tournament served only to make at least three people, whom I'd never met, and against whom I had absolutely nothing, curse my name, their horrible luck, and the sacred name of Poker herself (and can we at least agree on this: Poker is every inch a woman?). My luck was just oozing out of every pore. A three-outer that fills his set but makes my straight? Check. The two-outer to fill my lower pair at 4.5/1? Check. TWICE. Miracle runner-runner flush? Check. Fellas, you name it, it happened to me. I was a luck box of astonishing size and scope.

For which my total recompense was $12, if you count my buy-in.

That's right. I traded an all-day tournament's worth of luck to beat 17 people, 13 of whom couldn't play poker to save their lives, for a $14 pot that I had to pay a deuce for. Thus spake Zarathustra: Even my good luck hurts me bad.

FDD Spuds, ever the optimist, suggested that I should look at it like I kicked 17 asses and should take a treasurebath with the money (think Dom DeLuise in History of the World Part I but Holy Buddha! Can I really, rightfully claim a victory when its clear that despite my horrible play I was saved from ignominy my Lady Poker herself?

Yeah, sure, why not.

Until next time, please remember that luck lies at the intersection of preparation and opportunity, and Capitol Records lies at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine.