APRIL 17, 2008

I demonstrated the perfect push-up several times but some kids just couldn't make their muscles do what was necessary. One kid told me straight up that he can't do push-ups. I explained and demonstrated in loving detail how to go about it, but when he tried, his arms never bent. Sometimes the bottom half of him would move toward the ground and other times nothing would move except the question marks around his head. I guess some people just can't do push-ups.

I had a couple of extra hours after the fitness tests so I went home and tried to squeeze in some work at the NLHE tables. I went down a couple of buy-ins before finishing strong and profiting $107 on the session. At night, I played two small tourneys - a $26 Stud H/L just for practice (I finished in the middle of the field) and a 12-person $75 HORSE satellite in which the winner gets a $525 ticket to an upcoming HORSE event. I got to heads-up with a slight chip lead but he ramped up his aggression during the O8 portion while I went card dead. I couldn't hit a flop and I couldn't fake my way out of it with bluffing so I went down by quite a bit. When it got to razz, we simply traded come-ins for awhile before I decided on a gambit. I figured the only way to get chips was to take a hand in which he was ahead and get all the chips in with several cards to come. So when he raised to take my come-in against my jack, I repopped him with two low cards in the hole. We both got good cards on the turn and all the money went in. He had the better hand when the money met the middle but I nearly got my double up as I was leading with one card to come. He caught a good one and won the ticket. I got $190 for runner-up.