~~Bridgie's Daily Poker Blog ~ Sept 15 ~

Today it was Regular Omaha Hi Lo.

I was well on my way to my 21st Final Table when...well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Read on.

I got placed at a table with a bunch of mutts at the beginning and luckily for me, my cards were red hot so the raising and re-raising (with nothing) mutts built three huge pots for me which I swept, and after only 30 peeps had been eliminated I had the overall chip lead. It was very early, so I would lose it, regain it, and lose it several times which didn't really concern me. By the end of the first hour I had 31K which put me in good standing.

The second hour was much rougher for me (the mutts were gone!) but I hung in there and late in the hour rallied to where I had 39K at the second break with 34 peeps left. That's not a huge stack for that stage so I still had a lot of work to do to make the FT. But I was doing fine and churned my way down to the next to last table and was looking good to make the FT with over 100K in chips, when I played a hand where the flop was 8-6-5. There were 5 people in the hand and the first guy to act bet. When you're first to act and you bet, usually you have a strong hand or you're stupid, and since there were less than 20 peeps left I was assuming he wasn't stupid. The question for me was did he have A-2 for a low or 7-9 for a high? At that point I didn't know. I had A-4 so my low was pretty good if this guy was going high. Plus, there were two more cards to come, so I could make a better low, so I called. And that's what happened as the turn card was a 2. Now, if the first guy was playing A-2, I've got a better low since the board paired his 2. But again he led out with a bet. That made me think he was playing 7-9 (which the 2 did not hurt), so I called. Mind you, this was a 24K bet so nothing to take lightly at this point (I had already put 48K in the pot at this point). And no one raised so I had every expectation that my low was good and I would split the pot with the best high hand. And then it happened. The river came and was a Q so did nothing to change my analysis. The first guy bet 24K again. I was all ready to call, and was trying to call when F**KKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was disconnected. I didn't reconnect in time so my hand was F**KING FOLDED. And I would have won the low and my share would have been 138K. So I put in 48K, had the best hand and got zilch, zippo, nada. And I was down to 67K in chips, so suddenly I was at risk to not make the FT.

But I did (my 21st, yay!). Even though it wasn't her fault, I spent most of the time glaring at the ho who stole that pot from me. I had a few moments on the FT, but never got untracked and went out in 6th out of 680. Those extra 138K in chips would have come in handy because my small stack kept me out of some hands that I would have won. That lucky ho who "stole" that pot from me finished 2nd.

Oh and e-cup will be excited to know that I played against a player named Buttercup, but it wasn't me!!!!!