You don't say....

Warning, this could be misconstrued as poker content. Read on.

This weekend was up and down at the tables for me. I ended doing rather well over all, but the swings within each session were horrible. Glad I am a super donk and chase my losses.

I won more than enough in cash games to justify entering Don's Big Game on Sunday night. Last time I played in it I ended up chopping with Don, and this time around he won it outright after a chop that left about $100 in the mix for the first place finisher. Blogger Big Games are so rigged.

For me the Big Game started off well enough. I chipped up early by mixing it up in a few pots and getting paid on my nut flush. Things were going well, and I was the early chip leader when I looked down at pocket aces. I thought I had played enough to get somewhat of a LAG tag for the game thus far, even though it was early, so I was pretty confident I could pull in a decent sized pot here. I make a standard 3x raise and get one caller, our tourney host. Innocuous jack high flop with two clubs and Don bets out at me, 200 into a 225 pot. I think about pushing here but elect to just call. Seven of spades on the turn can't help him at all, yet he bets out 500 into a 625 pot. I put him on AJ clubs, but would expect a little bigger of a bet if he wanted to bet the turn. I loudly proclaim, to no one cause I am alone in the room, that I am no doubt ahead and reraise all in. Insta call. Don flips over pocket 4s and a flopped set. DOH!

Maybe a better player doesn't double Don up there, but that's just not me. My m.o. in the blogger tourneys is get the chip lead as soon as possible and use all that rope to hang myself in some elaborate manner. I'm getting rather good at it, I just need to play more of the blogger games.

A couple hands later I drop another 400 to Don when I 3x raise from MP with AK and he repops me from 120 to 400 from the big blind. Flop comes rags and Don bets out about 1/2 of my stack and I am forced to throw it away cursing my luck. I am now 18th in chips out of 18 remaining players....at least I didn't bust out 1st as we only had 19 runners.

Not too long after that I double up when I flop a flush and someone pushes with top pair and a draw at a better flush. Thankfully the river was kind for once and I didn't exit earlier than Iak who wasn't even playing. As a matter of fact, after building my stack up quit nicely into the top 5 of chips once again I ended up going out in 8th, just two spots ahead of the m.i.a Iak, when I ran my AQ into Hoy's AK. Oddly enough, that was the second consecutive hand that AQ got all in preflop against AK. Rigged.

After I busted out I did a couple quick things around the house and sat back down in a limit game, not ready to be parted of my $75. Unfortunately I didn't downshift from the tourney quick enough and found myself in a hole pretty quick. As I battled back I decided to take a shot playing with the bloggers at the 1/2 NL table. At one point I had a Rounders moment as it very much seemed we were all targeting a couple of the non-bloggers at the table and pretty much staying away from each other. "You don't see Pirahna eating each other do you?"

Glad I did it. It was only about an hour or so, but I had a good time and walked away from the table up $74.75. I figured that only paying a quarter to play that much with the bloggers was quite the value and it was time for bed.

Hopefully sooner or later my work schedule or sleep schedule will permit me to play a few more blogger games this year. Everyone has a few poker resolutions, and this is one of mine. I have always enjoyed the blogger games, but hated getting up for work an hour or two after they were finished. I need to make adjustments and see that I get into a few more games each month.

Side note: My links are all effed up cause I got so sick of my last blog template and discarded it with haste. I will build my blogroll up soon and get my linkage back on track.