Decision time. I played three SnGs at three different sites last night, and crapped out on all three. I may pull the bulk of my money out of the online poker sites and contemplate whether to keep hemorrhaging cash, or be happy with my brief little run of luck, and cash out with a tidy profit.

Not that my horrendous play was the sole contributing factor to my shutout; I was sucked out on multiple hands, but I also made some terrible reads and some shaky calls to complete the How-to-go-bankrupt Trifecta. The worst suckout was when I flopped a boat late in an O8 SnG. I had crap in the BB, Q743, but it was checked around, so I saw the flop for free. Q77 flopped and I had the boat plus some low possibilities. I bet (this was limit) and was raised by one guy with two other callers. I just called, trying to keep everyone along for the ride. T on the turn locked out the low draws and I checked, trying to extract some information. The raiser from the previous round bet followed quickly by two folds (fishing for low, no doubt). Now that it was head-to-head, I kicked him back, wary of the TT that might have had me beat, but didn’t see him raising me without at least a Q or a 7. A King came on the river, putting a possible straight on the board. I bet, he raised, I re-raised, he capped, and showed…. KKxx for the rivered boat, a two-outer. Nice to get all my chips in as a prohibitive favorite and lose to 5% shot. Went from possible chip leader to 30 chips in one card.

The other SnG losses were almost entirely due to my own incompetence, overvaluing TPTK to a board of rags (big hole for me) and ignoring the possibility of pocket pairs. I’ve been willing to cripple my stack by pushing hard with shit like K9s on a board of 963. Of course, someone has the TT or JJ to knock me down to the felt. Sigh. And I don’t learn! I just keep doing it… That’s why I may need to step away entirely and keep my ill-gotten gains.

Sports-wise, my predictions on the MLB playoffs were pretty accurate. I pegged two series exactly (Boston in 3, St Louis in 4), and would’ve had the other two right if Ron Gardenhire and Phil Garner hadn’t royally effed up their games. Gardenhire left Joe Nathan in too long in Game Two and let him fall apart. Poor Nathan had the same defeated look he had in 2002 when he was with the Giants. Garner pulled a Dusty Baker and overmanaged yesterday’s game against Atlanta, pulling Clemens when there was really no reason to (see Ortiz, Russ), and letting his bullpen cough up the potential series clincher.

The Niners won, beating the pathetic Cards in a battle of the two of the three worst teams in the NFC (I put the Bears in the mix too). Tim Rattay looks exactly like Steve Bono and Elvis Grbac, mediocre quarterbacks who can put up big numbers in a pass-centric 49er offense, but really can’t effectively carry a team through an entire season. 4-12 is a distinct possibility this year. Funny thing is that I would almost prefer 2-14 since we could fire Erickson and draft Mike Williams #1 next year. Jeff Tedford in 49er scarlet? Hmmm….