THE COST OF WIRELESS GOES UP

I was playing a $5-10 ring game concurrent with a tournament in two separate windows. I called a $5 bet in the ring game with 22. There were several other callers. The flop came 442 as I was attending to my tournament hand. Suddenly, my cursor froze and I was unable to get back to the ring game. This has been happening often lately, but only when I wake the computer from sleep. I figure my wireless mouse is losing some battery power, but since it only has occurred at wakeup, I have not felt the need to change them. I simply unplug the receiver's USB cable from the computer and replug it. This has worked every time.

This time, it does not work. Would you expect any different? This is a whole new breed of poker war story in which it is the technology and not the cards that conspire against me. My mouse will not work, and since the other window is foremost, I am unable to use the keyboard function keys to bet my full house. I frantically begin rifling through my desk drawer, which contains the wired optical mouse that was recently replaced by the wireless. It is a race against time, as the thinking bar is running down on my chance to play my hand.

I get the mouse plugged in, I click on the window, and I position my cursor over the BET button, just as time runs out, a nanosecond before my CLICK. I am folded. Needless to say, the turn brought another deuce, giving me the would-be quads. The guy with the four, who won the showdown against an overpair, would have raised and reraised me all the way had I been around. As it was, he raked $92. That would have been much more had I been around to fool him into thinking we were chopping the pot.