and in the Weeekly Wheaties...

... Mr Rico finished almost in mid-field, 27th out of 52, trapped and beaten all but to a pulp when his pocket Queens met a perfectly slow-played AA.

Even then the indefatigable Rico brought his remaining 90 chips up to $400 something until blinds ate him back down to $260. A pair of 5s seemed worth the move, but an AJ hand matched both on the flop and that's all she wrote for me.

I was going to beat up on the ballless poker blogging community, which seems to have bailed en masse from online poker, apparently worried that they might be the last fool getting their money out, but 52 is a helluva lot better than the 20 who were signed up when I arrived at 8:00, although nowhere near last week's 72. Kudos to those who played. And to those who didn't, I hope you have a better excuse than cashing out. Me, I've developed the `tude that I'm playing until PokerStars throws me out... I'll take my chances, thank you.