quick 5am update, got back to the room after playing a long live session and of course a long online session this afternoon. the online session was a big fat 5 hour break even marathon where i felt like i played ok but couldn't really get anything going. then around 9:30 i got some quiznos and headed to bellagio for their 5/10nl which was sick juicy. managed to hit a few hands and build my stack up to 2200 or so before getting 1 outed with my KK down in flames to AT on a K T T flop. Can't make this shit up. brutal to say the least... but here's the kicker... the guy with the AT was the most donktastic player ever, so much so, that i actually FELT BAD for the guy as the previous hour he had dumped a ton of money by both playing terribly and getting unlucky.

here's the thing... usually i view the poker table as an extension of darwinian theory... let the strongest survive. what people do with their money is their business... but this guy was just brutally playing awful, and then once he'd accidentily play a hand well, he'd get terribly unlucky or cooled and lose his stack. He had his trophy wife sitting behind him watching the whole time... they obviously had plenty of money to spill because he'd reach back into his pocket for another wad of hundos after each donkey play or suckout or cooler... so like I said, it was a VERY RARE situation where I actually felt bad that not only was this guy a donk but he was unlucky as well...

Of course, then he one outs me.

To top it off, he told me when he bet on the flop he "knew" I had kings full but he didn't care because he had the Ace. lol ? Anyway after the turn spiked the ten, the whole table looked at me awaiting a reaction. I'm happy to say I just smiled. It really just one of those moments where it just doesn't get any worse, so why even bother getting upset. Just bend over and take it with a smile. And that's what I did. Even after the guy told me that when he knew i had kings full but wanted to bet and get it in anyway, I refrained from making a smart ass comment and just said "oh really? good read man" -- he said thanks. haha.

So for the next few minutes people were still looking at me and rolling their eyes, shaking their heads, saying "tough beat" etc, but I'm happy to say I just smiled. It wasn't long after that I got called to move to the main game (fuck the whole concept of must-move games btw, i hate it, but thats for another day).

So to round out the story, about an hour later Mr and Mrs donkey get moved to the main game. It appeared he had chipped up a bit more even after the hand with me, but playing his style of see 90% of the flops made his stack in a constant flux. an hour or so later, his final hand came up. Guy opens utg to $40, one caller, lady calls, another caller, folds to donkey in the big blind who makes it $140 with JJ (lol), original raiser calls, next guy calls, lady calls, final guy calls. So there's 5 to the flop, for $140 a piece, $700 in the pot.

Flop comes down 2 4 5 rainbow. Donkey tanks for about a minute, counts up his chips and bills, thinks thinks, finally "i'm all in" with his pocket jacks and $760 total. original raiser thinks for a bit and folds, next guy folds, lady starts doing some counting, thinking, finally she makes the call, last guy shows me 69 offsuit and folds "pot odds" he whispers (lol). But it gets better. Turn A, River A. Time to show down. Donkey triumphantly shows his jacks for 2pair. Lady flips over 9c 3c for the turned straight, and scoops a nice pot. Donkey drops some 4 letter words and walks away....

I didn't feel too bad for him this time.

Live poker... gotta love it.

=)

Aaron