Why We Play

at the online poker tables, that is.

Every once in a while, I manage to have one of those nights. You know of which I speak, the kind of night that follow months of enough junk-kickings that make you just about want to give up the ghost, but after which, you can't wait to dive right back into the fray.

Well, last week during my recovery, I had one of those nights. Well, almost. Yes and no, because I still did not make a major score. But for a hard luck loser like myself, it felt great.

I managed to cash in both of Full Tilt's daily doubles for the first time in ages.

Final tabled the Bodog $2.5k guarantee $5r (finished 3rd, when a river flush knocked out my top pair, but would have still be the smallest stack)

And best of all...

The Stars $3r at 6pm? Well, at one point, I was 2nd of 21 remaining (something like 4900 started), when AQs went down to 99 for half my chips. Unfortunately, I went out 14th when my AKo ran into AK sooted all in preflop....and the 3rd spade fell on the river. Ouch, what a fucking way to go out, 4-flushed on the river, only five spots from a major final table. So I got like $150 instead of $7,000. Yet again, another "almost".

But the upside of that is I still managed to outlast 99.5% of the field, picked up about 18x the buy-in (given my rebuy/addon), and it took an AK beating AK to deny me a four-figure cash. So maybe my game's starting to get somewhere, who knows. Or maybe the RNG's just starting to come back in my favor a wee bit. Either way, I'll take it. Even if the overall bankroll addition was fairly minimal, to the tune of a couple hundo, a night like this is a reminder that poker can be rewarding, and that sometimes, strong aggressive play isn't chased down by the donks every time.

Anyway, good luck to Lucko and LJ as they play Day 2 at the Borgata. You can follow the action live over at $mokkee's joint. Lucko, in particular, is primed for a really deep run. I'd be thrilled to see one of these two fine folk make a huge dent in the live tourney scene. Good luck, take it down!