”One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl…” – Donny Osmond

You know I must have effed something up pretty bad to be quoting Donny Osmond. Although I always liked Marie, even during her awkward manic depressive, multiple husband phase… but that’s another story. Suffice to say, one bad play DOES spoil the whole tournament.

4th place really sucks. Especially when everyone goes into the Final Four virtually tied with 2000+/-300 chips. I made an questionable call protecting my BB with Q6 over a single raise. After a flop of Q43, I made a horrendous push all-in. I think I was putting the raiser on Ax or Kx or pockets and wanted to push while I had the supposed advantage. Naturally he called. Naturally, he had pocket kings. Naturally, no queen or six came on the last two cards. Naturally, I fucked up.

I stared at the screen, astounded at my own stupidity. It was like someone else had clicked all-in. After a bone-breaking 42 minutes of play, one completely asinine play had wiped me out. I’m not sure if I just lost focus, or didn’t even consider that AA or KK or AQ might be out there (I don’t think he’d raise on KQ or Qx). It was simply the worst single play I’ve made in a couple of weeks, more so because of the lack of consideration and clear thought process. If I could honestly say I thought about all the possibilities and decided that a raise was the percentage play, I could deal with the result better. But I didn’t think. I just clicked. There was no rush. I just fucked up.

Some positive notes: I didn’t get caught with Ace-rag. I had pocket queens twice and won, and laid down pocket jacks when AKx flopped. Speaking of pocket queens, I really don’t like calling them the Hilton sisters, because they’re not queens to me… how about if we call pocket queens… “Wham!”. Two queens, hidden, in the hole. Sounds like Wham! to me….