I unexpectedly found myself home alone all evening and ended up playing some poker for most of the night and then finishing The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass. I had been speaking with Brian earlier in the day about tournament poker and, as talking about poker always does, it got me motivated to play. When Christina told me I would have the evening to myself, I went online to see if there were any interesting tournaments to play. As luck would have it, there are a nice lucrative tournament with a signficant overlay guarantee. It was a 1 rebuy/1 add-on so the field is also small relative to the payout – There were 128 players with 15 paid. I didn’t really have much to work with throughout the tournament but I held my own and consistently sat in the middle of the pack even as the field continued to shrink. Three hours in, we were down to 20 and I was sitting at 22k in chips in 15th place when my bustout occurred in a brutal river suckout.

Blinds were ~300/600 with 50 antes. Early position player raised a standard 3x blind to 1800, one of the chip leaders to my right flat-called, and I raised it to 7500 with KK. Initial raiser folded and big stack immediately pushed all-in. I insta-called. I wouldn’t have folded anyway but the pusher had been playing quite aggressively the whole time I had been seated at a table with him. In addition, in the previous 3 or 4 hands, I had played back at him twice and won two good-size pots off of him so I’m sure part of his push was just to bully me. Needless to say, I was a heavy favorite to his AQ (though you always dread seeing Ax when you have KK) and even more of a favorite on a flop of J 7 3. The turn was an ominous 10, giving him 2 more outs — any of the aces or two remaining kings would give him the win (~10-12% chance to win for him). In truly sick fashion, I made three of a kind on the river K and gave him an Ace-high straight. Surviving that sick beat would have put in the top 5 in chips and set me up for quite a nice payday. Moments like that though are why I would never recommend anyone play poker for money — you have to be able to take these brutal beats and move on. Finishing just 5 places shy of a payout is soul-crushing.

After I relaxed in front of the TV for about 15-30 minutes to blow off some steam, I wandered upstairs and played The Phantom Hourglass on the Nintendo DS the rest of the evening (and into the morning). I ended up beating it and, without a doubt, that was a superb game. I’ve been playing it mostly on vacations and flights for the past 9 months and it is definitely a must-purchase if you own a DS.