And in last night's Wheaties

... humming Oingo Boingo's Dead Man's Party for no particular reason, Mr. Rico sat down at his table, part of a tiny field of 33, at 8:30 ET last night. At 11:07, he stood up, finishing in 2nd place and $79.20 richer.

I think it's my 3rd WWdN 2nd. Lately I've been hooked on micro-limit H.O.R.S.E. and I wasn't sure how that was going to affect my NL Hold `Em game. I'm still not sure. Last night was one of those rare nights where the ol' engine was firing sweetly on all cylinders, the cruise control was on, and I didn't need to do much more than strap myself in and enjoy the ride. I saw the flop 39 out of 258 hands, won 85 percent of the hands that I played out to the River, and took 46 pots without ever seeing a flop.

Notable notables... Apparently in sympathy to my lousy finishes in the past couple of weeks, Iggy rigged the game so his set of 3s ran into a set of Js early on, and he appropriately finished in 33rd place. The Travelin' Pokester was around, but left in the 20th spot before we could sit at a table together. ISS Spock looked for awhile as if he were going to take his namesake tournament, making me fear a rip in the space-time continuum, but he finally went out in 3rd place, giving Blinders a commanding stack over lil' Rico. Never played with Blinders before, but he was a good sport as my railbirds - led by fellow New Hamsterite xkm1245 and including BrainMc and Kyhunny78 - tried to cheer me into 1st.

But 2nd is good. 2nd keeps the Bear fed. Until next week.