To quote Alice in Chains, "Damn That River"

While on vacation in New England, I was fortunate enough to be able to hit up a local casino in Seabrook. They had a $100 tourny at 7pm and I made the hour trek to enter. The drive was amazing. There is nothing like it where I live. A massive gathering of trees, stone and water. Simply beautiful. I arrived at the racetrack/poker room with 15 minutes to spare. So I signed up for the local players card, which is needed to play, and handed over the entry fee. Then, I waited.

I was assigned table 1, seat 6. Perfect seat for me, right in front of the flop. Four hands into the tournament this old dude, who is a regular, sits down and calls the bet to see the flop. The only other player in the hand makes a 2/3 pot bet and the old guy says, “Does that B stand for bitch or Boston?” Stone face from the other player. The old dude speaks again, “Look at that face. I bet I’m beat.” then he folds. Now the other player breaks his silence. “Dont you ever call me a fuck’n bitch again.” The two exchange words for a few seconds then old man stands up and says, “I’m 65 years old and I’ll kicker your ass. You want to take this outside?!?” The guy in the Boston hat gets up and proceeds to walk out the front of the pokerroom. The floor was called over and the old dude was ejected from the tourney. Apparently, this has happened before.

As for the tournament, the first three levels, I played a total of four hands, at a 50% win rate. Right before the first break, a short stack pushed twice in a row and when I looked down I saw ATs and called. He flipped over AKo and I said “Nice hand.” The flop was all low cards and the turn brought a lovely T for a suckout/knockout.

Now I have T6500, a build up of T1500. The next level I’d pretty quiet as I steal the blinds once. Near the end of the next level, level 5, I look down at QQ and limp in UTG, knowing that someone would raise it up. The chip leader makes it 1200 and I re-raise to 2900. He re-raises me to where I am left with T100. I call. The flop is Q74 and I check, he bets 100 and I call. He shows AK and I table my QQ. I’m way ahead and when I win this pot I will have over 12k in chips and have a very healthy stack. The turn is a T and the river brings a J for the other player to get runner-runner straight. I shake his hand and make my way to the cash tables. 6 hands played in two hours. I will now drive longer to get to the poker room and back to the hotel than I played in that tourney. Sick.

Cash tables was more of the same junk kicking. Table full of donkies and I can’t win a hand. Everytime I play a hand the river kills me. I keep telling myself, “that’s poker”, but the past couple of weeks have been too much. I keep getting everything in ahead and lose. I’m really starting to doubt myself now. I’m not sure if the WSOP is a good thing now. Why waste $1500 on the suckout that I know will send me to the rails?!?