The Weekend

Friday night I got in the mood for Kat's Donkament by having a couple margaritas at dinner. The real kind, on the rocks, not those watered-down slushy things. Then I fixed a big gin & tonic when I got home. In the proper mood, let the donkery begin!

As is my habit, I did an immediate rebuy. If losing chips, might as well lose as many as possible. Very first hand I get QJs and figure that's good enough to join a 4-way all-in. Naturally, it was Julius Goat with the massive 92s who took down the pot with a full house. Rebuy!

And that was my last rebuy of the night. Next hand I catch QQ in another 4-way all-in. I was accused of playing unfair by going all-in with an actual hand, but so it goes around the virtual poker table. Three hands later I caught KK in another 4-way push-fest. Five hands into the tournament and I'm sitting on a 10k stack.

I don't think I've ever been the really big stack in one of these things, at least not in the very early stages when everybody is pushing on any drop of paint. Turns out there's a side benefit I'd not realized before. When your stack is way the biggest and you come in second place, you sometimes take away almost as much, if not more, than the winner. Good to know should you ever find yourself in this situation.

My cards rather dried up for a while. Sitting on such a big stack there seemed little point (other than the sheer fun of it) in pushing with nothing, so I did a lot of folding. Until Kat did an I'm-bored push and I sucked out a straight at the river. My stack was up to 18k.

A total nonsense hand, 63s, that I played cheap flopped the nut straight, eventually turning into a flush, growing the stack to 22k. JJ vs 88 took me to 26k. Another mid pair vs junk brought me to 29k as those remaining joined the final table.

My stack eventually grew to 44k before my AA fell to K2o. I should have seen it coming. I really hate it when I fall in love with those first two cards and can't give them up. And having it happen against the second biggest stack only adds to the injury. In one hand I went from chip leader to seriously short stack.

I hung in though, building my stack little by little, eventually moving back into second place with a river suckout against the big stack. Many hands later I bubbled on a straight over straight hand.

It may sound odd to speak of being proud of your play in a donkament, but I was quite pleased with the way I recovered from the big hit. Going from about M=6 back to second biggest stack and well in the hunt is not bad. Would have been nicer if I'd made the money, but so it goes.

The Quest was up and down and back up again over the weekend. Had a decent session at lunch on Friday. Then made the mistake of playing after the Donkament and had two disastrous tables. Play later in the day on Saturday got me almost back to even.

Sunday I played just one session, but it was great fun. Within the first few hands on two different tables I ran into lotto players while holding AA, and both held. On one of the tables I later ran into another of the one-card-too-late plays. I started with KK, had a few limpers ahead, so I put in a decent raise to thin the field. Two callers. Flop is something like Q73. I bet a bit more than half the pot and get one caller. The turn gives me a set of kings. Somewhat to my surprise the other player pushes all-in. I've got the nuts so, of course, I call. He turns over 77. My set holds and I leave the table with more than four times my buy-in. I finish the day up over $7, bringing the bankroll to $89.65. If things continue as they have I should be ready to start flirting with $0.02/$0.05 by next week this time.