EPIC

$20 tournament. I won a few bucks on the first hand, then nothing for quite some time. My stack withered away to less than $200. I got 22 under the gun and crossed my fingers and called. I flopped my deuce, but could only wrench a couple of hundred out of the opponents. I was still alive with a few hundred bucks.

I was forced to pick a hand and go all in. I chose TJd. I flopped a flush. I had to hope it held up, so I could get some return on investment, so I let others do the betting until I was all in. Now I was up around $1500, where I started.

Play of the day: QT. Flop comes 6J8. I bet the inside straight draw. There is one caller. Turn is a Jack. I bet, he called. River is a 6. I decided to make a play for the pot and go all in. He pondered awhile, then folded. Suddenly, I'm over $3000.

I waited around for a hand to play, and joined a multi-way pot with AQd. Again I flopped the flush. I extracted a fair amount of money on this hand and now I was a player, back from the depths thanks to that initial set of ducks. After this hand, I was 9 of 23 remaining players. There were 125 entrants.

Penultimate table: 10 of 20.

Nothing to play for awhile: 10 of 15.

KQ in small blind. I raised, he called. Flop came 6QK two spades. I bet, he called. Turn was harmless. I checked. He made a hefty bet. I raised all in. He typed in a curse, then called. He was the chip leader at the time of the call. He feared I would hit my flush; I feared the same of him. The river was a spade and we were both worried. He had Q6 courtesy of the big blind. He figured I was stealing and didn't put me on top two pairs. After this hand I was 1 of 12.

When it got down to 5, we played for a long time without anyone going away. I gave a ton of my money away on flush draws that didn't pan out. Finally someone left, but I was now 4 of 4.

The wild player kept making huge bets to buy pots. One time I called the river with my 77 despite 3 overcards on the board, but I was correct and I won the pot. Another time, he tried to steal my big blind with a huge bet, but I defended with KK. I finally lost to him when he made a huge bet with K4, and I played back at him all in with TT. He flopped the K and it was over for Dude.

4 of 125, good for $225.