Busted at the Doctor's

Almost a live poker report here from Pauly's tournament. Got knocked out in 77th in the first hour by last night's winner of the WWdN Invitational, penner42, who as I write, is now in 1st finished in 45th place.

Iggy recently posted,

"Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn't play poker." - Amarillo Slim

Yup, even good players lose often.
Accepting that truism as a student of poker is one thing. Using it as an excuse for poor play is another. Discerning the difference is what separates the long-term good players from the bad.

Which is about as true as anything I've read lately. As usual when I lose, especially when I lose early, I can usually chalk it up to a combination of bad cards, bad luck, and bad decisions, rather than any one thing. All three of which played a role in my exit this time around, although, as usual, impatience also caught up with me, and I played hands I shouldn't have been playing. So, as I write this, I'm in a 3-table SNG, seeing if I can recover my noive, (and my buy-in) as The Cowardly Lion says.

Nothing much else to write about Pauly's tournament. I started at a table with Iggy, as well as a few other recognizable blogger names. Iggy, btw, placed 2nd in last night's Wil Wheaton tournament, and from the chat at my table, it was a wild final table. Iggy - who didn't remember my screen name at first - hit me with a hard raise when I was holding bottom pair, and I had to fold. And that kind of set the tenor for the rest of my tenure. The small pocket pairs that have plagued me for my last few games - whispering in my ear of sets and quads but never delivering - continued to show regularly in my hands, and I spent most of my time at the first table donking my chips away, a term I learned from reading Wil's site, with minimum bets, and then folding at hard bets with over cards on the board. The one hard raise I made was greeted by a harder re-raise, and a call to that, and I folded my pair of 7s. The right decision, for once, as the first raiser had a pair of 9s that would ultimately take the hand. I think I won one hand in the 15 or so minutes I was there.

And then off to the second table where I'd ultimately meet my nemesis and short-stacked, push hard with an A9 when a 9 showed as high card on the flop. Unfortunately, penner42 also had a 9 in his hand, as well as a 5 card and thus two pair vs. my one. His two pair turned into a full house when another 5 showed at the turn... and that was all she wrote for Lil' Rico.

And, I just busted out in 14th place at my 27-person SNG when I called an All-In with 945 chips left and AJo offsuit and ran into a pair of Jacks. As I write, Maudie's in 16th place and Iggy has finished in 36th with 31 players left in Pauly's tournament. Good luck to Maudie, and I'm calling it a day.