'Tis the Season

IN this latest collection of words and imagery, you may have noticed the King Kong picture. And I, in the absence of others due dilligence, feel I must comment on the movie which has just hit the silver screen, and more broadly, the collective national conscience.

To describe was King Kong is, would be akin to describing what the great pyamids of Egypt are. Words, and bladder control almost fail me (I stole that from Sheen, on the Jimmy Neutron Christmas episode). Either way, it is a start-to-finish spectacle of movie magic. Afterwards, the audience laughed, we cried, and in the end, we ALL had a big group hug. Yes indeed, the world is a better place.

But the poker still sucks a big giant monkey butt.
In fact, here, you hear it first. I, under my own free will, am giving up poker.
At least until mid January.

Here is the sad, sad story.

Over the last few weeks, I have been getting knocked out of tourneys, three times, while holding A-A. Thats sucks, and I can look beyond that, in of itself. But the way in which I have lost can easily be summed up in this perfect example.

Last night, while playing an online $8k tourney, I play my usual tight style, only one or two hand involvement in the first hour. I had only gone up a little, due to small pots. I then pop a straight on some guy, who had two pair, to give me a nice little pot.
I'm up to about 5k in chips, with about 75 people still in it. The tourney paid out to 30, so again I realize I'm near the money.

I then get a suited A-J in the big blind, and one person raises a decent amount. Everyone folds except for the small blind who called it. I then re-raise. The original better (aka=OB) (who by the way, was a very active player, in and out of pots the whole time I was at the table) calls, and so does the small. This leaves three of us in it, with the flop to arrive, me sandwiched in the middle.

The flop goes 2-3-J, rainbow (meaning, no two of the same suit). Small blind checks, I bet heavy. OB raises, small blind calls. I think about, and I call too.
Turn is and Ace, and now a four card rainbow.
With this, I have two pair, and feel prety good about it.

Small blind checks, I bet very heavy, OB thinks for a very long time, and eventually folds.
Then, as if the moon, Jupiter, and Venus all align in a perfect axis, the small blind re-raises to all-in.

I'm stuck. I'm thinking, what the hell does this guy have? A-A? No, he would have re-raised himself after the flop... J-J, no, same thing, most will have re-raised before now. After thinking about how all the betting had transpired up to then, I really put him on the same hand as me, A-J, with two pair. So I call.

Nope. He held a friggin 4-8 offsuit, and has a four card straight, which to the layman, means jack squat. Nada, nil, nuthin. SO, for a brief a second I am happy. I should win.

But, alas, Texas Hold'em offers five community cards. And wouldn't ya know it, a five lands on the river, and moron catches a straight. Another four-outer sinks my battleship.

So, it happens again. I can play no better, and yet lose again to the worst, crappiest players.
And what is wierd, is that a few months ago, and all through the summer, I hadn't seen nearly as many dumb stupid luck-ass players as I have recently.

I figure it's one of two things.

1) Harry "Dumb Luck" Dilrod got his Christmas bonus from the ice cream cone factory, so he decided to play online poker for the first time.

or

2) Desperate times, call for desperate measures. I mean, after all, watch the news. Every year its the same thing, crime rises, and stupid people crawl out from under thier cave rocks to steal a pack of Huggies from the local Quick 'n Queezy Mini Mart. It's just a tiny piece of some people's human nature. They want sooo bad to have a merry Christmas, that they are willing to be a fool for it.

So, sometime after all the donkey brains get thier just due, and the world rotates back to some degree of normalcy, I will cautiously test the figurative, poker waters.