HOW THE HEARTBREAK COMES

I'm glad I don't play poker for a living.

I found the perfect table today. There was plenty of action and new guys I have never seen. I got all my money in with the nuts twice today and twice I lost. Two other times I had all my money in with the best hand and I lost those too. I should have won nearly $400. Instead, I spent the night battling back.

Yesterday I finished in the money in the $50,000 guarantee. I think I'm playing the best tourney poker I have ever played. I decided to play the Grand Prix tonight. I made a lot of good plays and found myself coasting towards the money in the top 25% with only about 30 players left before payout. Then I ran into this hand.

With folds all around I raise one off the button with AcKs -- The big blind calls. The flop comes KdJc4c. I bet and the big blind raises 2x. I call. The turn is a Kc. Now I have 4 clubs and 3 kings. He checks, I bet, he raises, and I put him all-in. I figure he could have KJ, but he probably has KQ, and I even have some clubs in case he has AK too. The river gives me a flush, but the big blind has 33 for a full house. I Just couldn't give him credit for that hand. Since I raised preflop, I had to figure he was calling with some sort of K and didn't believe my pushing.

It didn't knock me out. I still hung on with 3000 chips that I doubled to 6000, but I eventually busted with less than a table to people to go. The good news is that it was the best I had ever finished in the GP and I ended the month making money playing MTT during a month anyway. In the past I have only played MTT for variety, but since I thought I would be playing in an early WSOP event in June, I started playing MTT more regularly back in March. I have usually focused on the cash game, because I've been a steady winner and I knew that I'd have to subsidize tourneys through my ring play. Once I decided I would outlay $1500 for the WSOP, playing $20-30 MTT seemed like a bargain.

The toughest part of today wasn't losing the money, but the realization that I have to work again Monday and I wasted the weekend playing poker for nothing when I could have finished the book I'm reading or watched a couple of movies. I realized that I wasn't playing for fun, but playing because I felt I was in a groove and it became a job in my head instead of a fun way to earn entertainment money. And for that, I sacrificed the time to enjoy that entertainment. I remember reading Daniel say that he had a friend that quit being a poker pro because he didn't like the lifetstyle. Just a few bad beats this weekend and I think I know what he means.