RIVER QUEEN OF DEATH

I played great, I really did, but still the ledger shows a $1120 loss on the day. I remember hearing a long time ago that most of the professional baseball players in the minor leagues are just being paid to provide competition for the prospects who have a real chance of making the majors. The poker equivalent that I was reminded of today is that most of the hands you play in any given session are just there to set up the occasional huge pot and it is how you perform in the big pots that defines the session.

I was chipping up steadily with my $600 buy-in until the first big pot brought an untimely river queen to kill me in a $450 pot. I was heads-up with A-K and position. The flop was Th-Ts-9h, and I checked behind him. The turn was the Kd and I put in a healthy bet after he checked. He pushed and I called. After checking twice, he wasn't about to convince me that he had trips or better. I figured he had either K-Q or K-J and either one beat me once the queen came. It was K-J.

I lost the remainder of my initial buy-in when I got comped into a three-way flop and caught top/bottom with two random cards. There was significant action and it all got in. I lost to top two from the random cards in the small blind.

I was down $600 but not discouraged. But the next beat was brutal. I was in the small blind with A-K and there was an early limper. I figured my best way to play it was to merely complete the bet and disguise the strength of my hand. The big blind took the bait and bumped it up to $30. I considered my trap a success and repopped it to $125, looking to take it down out of position. He comes back with his entire stack, which I called for my remaining $600. The board came 7-3-2-5-Q. There were no flushes but as the cards fell, I was still thinking I needed to connect or else I can only beat A-Q. When the queen fell, I knew I was dead, and indeed he had A-Q. So, there is some solace that I got over $600 in with way the best of it, but it still sucks when the result is so wrong.