We'll start with the WPBT from earlier this month. I think I actually played pretty well in this tourney. I had made the right calls at the right time and built up a nice sized stack.

To my left was the unpredictable Doctor, Otis' brother. I hadn't had good success against the Doctor. In a few garage poker experiences, I gave quite a few bucks away. And during this tournament, I really felt as though the Doctor was bullying me.

I had raised on the button a few times with pretty good, but not great hands. They weren't pure blind steals, but close. And a number of those times, the Doctor came over the top of me and I had to lay my hands down. I vowed to catch him at some point.

That point was when I was dealt A3s. The flop came 10-high with two spades. That's when the Doctor pushed all in. I started going through the possibilities in my mind. I didn't put him on a big pair because the pre-flop action just wasn't there. I suppose it could have been a set, but if his hand was that good, wouldn't he have bet enough to induce a call? I suppose he could have been trying to push me off a draw, but I really liked my outs.

I called and the Doctor flipped pocket 9's. Now I realized why he made the move. He figured I didn't have the T, but didn't want me to see anymore cards. I had a good number of outs. In fact, the hand analyzer just put the Doctor at a 55% favorite. It was almost a coin flip. I didn't catch my spade, but the A on the river sealed the deal.

So I got a little lucky. Was it a bad beat for the Doctor? I suppose so, but not the kind that gets burned in your mind. That happened to me a little later.

I've got a pretty good sized stack when a slightly smaller stack makes what I considered to be an unusual play. I had called the BB with A5s and after a few other limpers, this player pushed all-in. It screamed of a steal. There was some good money on the table from all the limpers and I thought there was a chance I had him beat. I called. He flipped A2o.

The hand analyzer says I'm only supposed to lose that hand 20% of the time. The 2 on the flop, however, did me in. I was crushed, and I don't think I reacted well.

It's not like I was crippled at that point. But I still responded with a reckless all-in call. I was holding just AJo. The other stack was slightly shorter, but not by much. He flipped AQs. I was dominated. The J on the turn gave me some hope, but my luck wouldn't hold up and the Q on the river crippled me.

A few hands later, I pushed with AJo again and got called by someone holding, you guessed it, AQ. That knocked me out. I was sorely disappointed.

------

Fast forward to yesterday. I'm playing in a Party Poker $5 tournament with 2000 players. I'm playing really well, finding myself in a very strong chip position throughout the entire tournament. The top 220 pay and the critical hand comes when we're down to just about that number.

I'm dealt AKo UTG. I raise my standard 3xBB. It's folded to a guy in late position who raises from my T900 to T4000. I've got about T32000 at this point and the other guy just bet about a fourth of his stack.

I don't think he's got a better hand than me. I suppose he might have a big pair, but the play just didn't seem like a big pair. I pushed all-in and decided to put him to the test. Was he willing to commit his remaining T14000? When he didn't immediately call, I liked my position.

The clock started counting down and it went all the way to zero. I though that was it, but it reset to 60 seconds and started counting down again. It got all the way to 1 before he called me and flipped up AQ. I was a huge 71% favorite. My read was dead on.

The flop came 3, 8, T. No problem. The turn is a 9, and suddenly, he has 7 outs. Any J gives him a straight. And it's a J that falls on the river. I was devestated. The guy proceeds to apologize for taking so long he says, "Because if I lose, I go out 221." I was furious.

I was down to about T14000 now and just around average stack. This was no time to panic. If I just played my game, I could get back into it. A few hands later, I get pocket 9's. I raise to 3xBB again, and a guy with about T5000 pushes all-in. I call, figuring I'm likely ahead.

I am. He flips KJs, and it's time for a race. The flop and turn do no damage, but K on the river puts me in big trouble. Another tough one to take. If I win that hand, I'm back up to about T19000 and in okay shape. Instead, I'm forced to push with a marginal hand a short time later and I'm out in about 210th place. My $5 investment got me just $9. It could have been much better.

I drove in to the Paragon Casino parking lot and it was still raining. I hopped out of the car, and sprinted for the door, realizing my wallet was still in the car. A sprint back to the car, and back to the door, and I was inside, ready to play cards.

I got my name on the list for 4/8 Hold 'Em and there were 4 ahead of me. There was just one table playing at this point, so I was sure I'd be waiting until they got enough for a second table.

Last time, I waited by throwning money away at the craps table. I was determined not to do that again, so I settled in with a couple of players at the Pai Gow Poker table. You couldn't lose much there, right?

A short time later, I was down $35 and wondering when Pai Gow became so difficult. I clearly should have taken this as a sign, the cards weren't with me. I got up and decided I'd wait in the poker room until my seat opened.

It wasn't long, and I dropped into seat 4 at the newly opened table 5. The same seat at which I won my last $300. I bought in for a hundred, with $40 left in my wallet and a $25 chip in my pocket. I didn't figure I'd need to dip into either.

I was wrong. My flushes never hit, my pocket pairs never flopped a set, and every premium hand I saw got beat by small two pairs. I kept repeating to myself, "Variance, variance, variance." After all, I owed this table after taking so much last time, right?

The $40 was already gone, and I only had a few chips left in front of me. That's when I pulled out the $25 chip to make the rest of my stack feel better. I wasn't going to violate my rule of never visiting a casino ATM, so this was it. It would be a short trip unless something good happened, really soon.

That "something good" happened.

I'm sitting in early position when I get dealt pocket 10's. I had been calling this hand "long distance," but after this hand, I think it deserves a new nickname. I call the big blind and about 6 of us are in the pot.

The flop is A-8-A. That's not too bad. With a couple of Aces on the flop, the odds of someone holding an Ace are diminished. And my 10's beat any 8 out there.

I check and the grizzled little man to my left bets. He's wearing an old gray Members Only jacket, a black baseball cap and thick glasses. He doesn't talk much, and often has to leave the table to catch a smoke break at the slots. It's a good thing he didn't leave for this hand.

There are two other callers before it gets to me, and I call. The turn is a deuce. I check again and Mr. Members Only bets again. Does he have the Ace? I don't have a read on him. In fact, I'm really bad about reading people. It's something I'm working on.

Everyone else gets out of the pot, and I call. He may not have the Ace, right? The pot was big enough and, frankly, this is one of the best looking hands I've had all day.

The river is the third Ace. Except for, perhaps another 10, I couldn't have asked for a better river. I'm Aces full of 10's, and even if my opponent pairs the board, I'm still a winner. At this point, only pocket J's, Q's or K's, or the case Ace beat me.

I check, he bets, I raise him, he re-raises (uh oh), and I call, flipping my 10 of hearts and 10 of spades. He flips a 10 of diamonds, and that fourth Ace. I probably should have known I was beat all along, but I kept playing it. About half my remaining stack was in that pot, and I was close to going home.

The dealer picked up my pocket tens and turned them over in front of her, then began shoving the pot toward Mr. Members Only. That's when a couple of players at the other end of the table said something about a jackpot.

My ears pricked up. I glanced up at the red flashing ticker above the tables as something about a "Bad Beat Jackpot" scrolled by:

"For 10% of the Jackpot, in 7-Card Stud or Texas Hold 'Em, Aces full of 10's beaten by 4 of a kind, and in Omaha..."

I didn't need to read any more. I spoke up as well, "Hey, that might be the jackpot." The dealer stopped and started to recover our hands. I could tell by the looks on everyone else's face that this dealer might have just ruined our chance at the cash.

You see, money was at stake for everyone at the table. The Jackpot was at about $33,000. This hand would qualify for 10% of that, or about $3300. The "losing hand" (that's me) gets 50% of that, or $1681, the "winning hand" gets 25% of that, or $841, and the rest of the table splits the remainder (8 players get $105 each). Not a bad deal, huh?

Once the cards were recovered, casino big wigs were called to the table. The dealer started counting out all the cards in the deck to make sure they were there. Big wig #1 called security to check the tape and get the hand certified. Big wig #2 gave us a hard time by telling us how many ways this hand didn't qualify. Thankfully, he was just joking.

A half hour later, and after clearing up the fact that my name was not James Christoph and my address was no longer in Knoxville, TN, I signed a couple of documents including something about taxes. Guess it's time to ask someone's advice on writing off my losses!

In the meantime, I had called Otis, my brother, my sister and my parents (they weren't home, so they've got a weird message on their answering machine).

Shortly after that, they arrived with the cash, and they counted it out on the table. I tipped the dealer $120. I have no idea if that was too much or too little, but no one seemed to complain.

I played for about 6 more hours and actually won back some of the money I had lost earlier, but it didn't matter. I could have lost every hand and been satisfied.

Of course, with my new found riches, I was playing a lot more hands, including The HAMMER. I'm UTG when I look down at 7-2 off, and I call. What the hell, right? Six are in the pot when the flop comes A-4-A. I bet out and everyone folds. I flip my cards and mumble something about The HAMMER. I don't think anyone was impressed.

For the rest of my session, 10's were clearly my magic cards, winning me quite a few pots. And I've decided I'll no longer refer to this pocket pair as "Long Distance." From here on out, it's "Jackpot!"

There's a few signs when things are running well, besides the obvious cash money: basically, the premium hands hold up most of the time, flopped sets on non-scare boards don't get crushed, and you get at least one or two "big blind specials" that pull in nice pots.

Well, that just hasn't been happening the past three days. In fact, and I think this is pretty impressive, I went through a stretch of seven straight big premium pairs -- aces three times, kings once, queens twice, jacks once -- where not only didn't I win any of the hands, not once did i even manage the second-best hand! Ultimately, in my shorthanded play, I did have my Kings hold up on a two-pair board (though I did blow the last hand of the night when I threw away Kings on a raised JJ33 board, only to have the guy flash his T9 at me). It was the first of these losing big hands, the one that triggered the slump, I guess, that was the most interesting to me (though when my pocket Aces lost to 5c4c on a J33 board with one club, that was certainly interesting)(sorry, I'm whining, and I try so hard not to).

Kill pot, and somebody has already called the short-stacked early-position raiser when I look down to find pocket Aces. I three-bet it, we're five-handed going to the flop, and I'm already not expecting to win the hand. There's enough in the pot to make almost any draw worth going for; hell, you could be drawing dead and almost be getting pot odds.

Still, I like the flop a whole lot: 9-6-4 with two diamonds. I have the Ace of diamonds, so even that has some promise. Original raiser bets, I raise, he re-raises, I cap, and there's still four of us who see the turn, a black 7. The OR throws in his last two nickels, I complete, and we lose nobody.

The river pairs the board, a 6. I almost can't imagine that somebody is in there with a 6 (and the flopped 6 was one of the diamonds, so something like Ad6d is out), but still, something doesn't seem right, and the pot is huge. Checked around to me, and I just turn over my Aces.

"Ha!" the woman in the small-blind cries. She's a decent-enough player, there every night, but has tilt tendencies. She jumps from her chair and throws down her K6 offsuit, screaming "You tried to get me out of that pot but you couldn't do it, could you?!" I mean, just gloating about this shitty K6 suckout as she's pushed the tiny side pot.

And at that moment the original raiser, who, like me, hasn't said a word during this performance, turns over his hand: pocket 9's. He flopped the set and rivered the boat, shutting the small blind up real quick-like.

And folks: I have never, in my entire life, been so absolutely ecstatic to finish third in a hand and lose a side pot. "Nice hand, sir," I said as I rapped the table.

My near-nude experience signalled the end of the act. The crowd's applause led me out of the comedy club and into an adjacent dance club where my friends were waiting for me.

My synapses were in the middle of an epic battle. The beer and euphoria were throwing haymakers. The echo of the hypnotist's final words to me were fighting back. Something inside my head was, in a word, off.

I tried to shake the hypnotist's unmistakable anger, the moment of fear he mainlined into my psyche. There was a part of me that knew that if the hypnotist had the chance, he would've sliced my throat and watched me bleed out on the stage.

***

The club hopped, bumped, yay, grinded in time with pre-produced college dance music. I downed drink after drink, trying to forget the angry eyes and sick breath in my ear. I found myself dancing, hip-to-hip with some girl, side-by-side with my buddy, Joey Two-Hands. I was starting to feel better, starting to feel like the hypnotist wasn't actually waiting for me in the john, a sharp knife in his hands.

Who was this guy? This redneck with no shirt elbowing me in my side, pushing me inch-by-inch away from the girl who had chosen to dance with me? What the fuck is on his mind?

My beer goggles became blinders. I didn't see what was coming. I scooted over, dancing the girl with me, never the one interested in throwing down and getting bloody.

The guy was back, elbowing, pushing.

Was this the hypnotist, somehow immediately reincarnated into a 6'3" redneck with beer-breath and blurry eyes?

I turned away from the girl and my vision tunnelled to the redneck.

I only said, "What?"

He must've learned his lines from his collection of redneck beer-drinking fight videos.

"You want some? Outside?"

I offered, "I'm not going outside."

He smiled and said, "Take one step forward."

And I did.

His first punch hit me square in the mouth. My friends would tell me later they saw my right hand cock back at the same moment the redneck and his two friends jumped on me.

Joey Two-Hands jumped in just as one of the rednecks threw a bar table. It caught Joey right in eye, cutting him open, dropping his blood on the dance floor.

As the bouncers chased the rednecks into the street, my friends pulled me up. My face was starting to swell, but Two-Hands had suffered the worst of it. He needed stitches and an apology. The hospital gave him the former, I offered the latter later that night.

It wasn't until many days later I stopped asking, "What the hell happened?"

***

Last night, after watching the World Poker Tour's Aruba episode, I decided to play a few rounds. When I got bounced from a $30+$3 NL Sit-N-Go on Empire on the second hand, I should've gone to bed. When I bought back into a second like tourney and got bounced on the first hand, I should've gone to a bar. When I switched sites and went over to True Poker and my trips got beat by a hidden boat, bouncing me in 27th out of 35, I should've decided not to play poker for three days.

But I didn't.

I did exactly what I've always said I had the discipline not to do. I went up in limits. Something in my head was, in a word, off.

I sat at a $5/$10 ring game on True. I noticed that a guy two to my left, vietguy, was playing loose. Beyond loose. He was capping nearly every bet. He played every hand and rarely folded before the flop. I was sure, with the right discipline, I could take his $250 buy-in.

The game moved slowly for half an hour or so. Vietguy's buy-in trickled to nothing and he bought back in, still slinging chips, capping pots. That's when it happened.

My pocket aces got cracked by two running diamonds for a flush. Ten hands later, my pocket aces got cracked by two running hearts. Big Slick held up for a small pot. But then my pocket queens got cracked by vietguy's 6-4. He pulled a six on the turn and a four on the river.

Something in my head said at that moment, "This is not poker. It's slots. You're not playing against vietguy. He's not playing poker. He's throwing chips in, hoping to catch a big pot. This table is a slot machine and you're losing."

I didn't listen to myself.

I started trying to figure out if he was working with somebody at the table, building pots for their hands. I watched and watched but couldn't find the evidence to send to the host.

It was poker slots and I was losing.

I looked at my previously strong bankroll and noticed how bloody it was. He cracked my kings several hands later and I fell apart.

All poker sense I had slipped away. I can't account for about half an hour. All I know is that I had lost half my roll and I couldn't see or breathe anymore.

The last hand of the night for me was pocket jacks. We capped pre-flop. The flop brought me a jack and two rags.

Finally.

We capped the flop. The turn brought another rag. We capped it, too.

The river came with an ace. We capped it.

Vietguy dragged a $257 pot with a set of aces.

I pushed back from the computer and stared at my bankroll. I said out loud, "What the hell happened?"

This morning, I still don't know for sure. I only know that I should've walked away four hours earlier. I should've quit. I never should've jumped up in limits. And I should've had a better understanding of variance before I tried to take on a guy who played poker slots.

I took some solace this morning in Hdouble's post on poker, why we play, and what it says about us as players. It helped me set my head straight, but I'm not sure I need to be playing for a while.

Before I went to bed, I took my bankroll at True and cashed out. My Empire bankroll is still intact. I'm not broke. I'm still way up from my fresh start last February. But as the song goes, I ain't broke, but I am badly bent.

I have a homegame this Saturday and then the World Poker Blogger Tour III on Sunday. Hopefully that kind of play, the fun kind, the kind that serves as the reason we play, will rejuvinate me.

But this morning, I feel a lot like I did the night of the hypnotized beat-down. And I'm still asking, "What the hell happened?"

You think there's any chance that vietguy was actually that hypnotist exacting revenge?

Me, too.

I'm in late position with A-10s. I raise to $1, but the small blind re-raises to $3.50. I call.

The flop comes 8-9-J rainbow. I've now got an open-ended straight draw with a back door flush draw and an overcard. Playable. He bets $3.

At this point, the pot is about $12. I'd be putting in another $3. I think pot odds probably said fold, but I'm not good enough at those numbers. I call.

The turn is the Q. Bingo! He bets the pot, I think it was about $15. I raise him all-in (I had about $57 going into the hand). He calls.

I wasn't worried at this point. There's no way he was holding K-10, based on his previous bets. If he flopped the straight, at worst I'm splitting. If he flopped a set, he's got very few outs (I'd be about a 70% favorite). If it's an overpair, I'm in even better shape. Hell, if it's American Airlines, he's drawing dead!

It wasn't rockets, it was cowboys.

The handy-dandy Hand Analyzer puts me at a 94% favorite. He's got just three outs, that would be the three 10's not in my hand.

We all know what happened next. Without playing that hand, I finish the night up about $75. If I win that hand, I finish up about $125. Instead, it's just $25 for my three and a half hours of play.

I think I'll be able to sleep easier tonight thanks to this blog. It's been cathartic.

Blinds are 600/1200. I have 40k and my opponent has 16k. I've fought back up the mountain and destroyed his confidence.

I pick up AK offsuit in the 600 big blind. My opponent raises. I reraise. We then have THIRTEEN MORE RAISES until I just call.

FLOP: 2 10 8 rainbow. There is already 19,200 in the pot. Based on my read of him, he has nothing. Call it intuition, call it pattern recognition, but I put him on nothing. I bet, and there are three raises until I call.

Turn: Q, which puts 2 hearts out on the board. I bet, and there are 4 raises until I call his all in.

My heart is pounding. He flips over KJo. Going into the river, I'm an 85% favorite.

River: 9, filling his gutshot.

My opponent collects the 32k pot, and now has me outchipped 32k to 24k. He continues to catch amazing rivers, and goes on to win the tournament and $550 more than my $1100 2nd place.

Well, the first matchup is probably no contest, as it was just about as bad a beat as one could have. Interestingly enough, though, both times I was holding the exact same hand!

Playing in a loose $4/$8 game at the Trop in AC when I call with 9d7d in late position. My weak play is temporarily rewarded when the flop comes 773 with no diamonds. There's an early bet, one call by a Asian women who's playing everything and calling to the river, I raise, and it's just me and her. The turn is a Queen: check, I bet, she calls. The river is...another Queen, and she bets out! I mean, did she...could she...yep. She turns over Queen Jack to take it down.

I don't know why I was annoyed, though. I mean, I was only a 99.39% favorite after the flop! Only running Queens or Jacks could kill me, and there they were.

My suckout was a healthy support of my rule about slowplaying: Don't Slowplay! Okay...I mean, you flop quads or another absolute monster you can string people along a bit, but otherwise, you give enough free cards and eventually somebody might find something.

Later that day, in a game at the Taj, I call with the same 9d7d one off the button (don't let it be said that I ever learn a lesson!) only to be raised by the button. The blinds actually fold, and four or five of us see a 348 rainbow (one diamond) flop. Checked to me, the raiser checks, and we see a free turn: a 6, putting two spades on the board. Well, I figure I'll try a bet with my open-ender and some scary low cards, only to get raised again by the button. Folded around to me, I call (probably yet another bad play this hand) to see the river: the 5 of spades, making my straight but putting a possible flush out there. Check, he bets, I call to see him turn over pocket 8's!

The button slowplayed his top set on what looked like a completely safe board (and I guess it was; I obviously fold to a bet on the flop), giving me a chance to find a little something. Things weren't completely dire, though: I did have a 7.37% chance to win the hand after the flop.

So after one week, the standings are Bad Beats 1, Suckouts 0.

I was doing pretty well, had moved up from my starting 1,000 chips to more than 1,700. I had A-K suited when an A-8-4 rainbow came on the flop. I bet a solid amount when another guy came over top of me all-in.

During this game, this guy played pretty loose, just throwing chips around. I figured him for an ace, but didn't think he could beat my kicker. I called him, and was right... just A-10. Unfortunately, when the 10 came on the river, I was down to 600 chips.

I worked my way back up when I found myself holding pocket J's. A guy with a shorter stack in front of me went all-in pre-flop, and I called him. He showed A-9 suited. When the cards came 2-3-4-5 on the board, I was down to just a couple hundred chips again.

Now I'm down to next to nothing when I get a pair of 8's. It was now or never and I moved all-in. I got called by a guy who showed A-5 offsuit. Unfortunately, this time the board showed 3-4-6-7, and another damn straight sent me packing. Oh well...