The only poker update I'll be giving

It was uneventful in all the good ways, and eventful in all the bad ways. Saturday, in a $500 tournament I almost didn't enter due to a bad premonition, I had my nightmare scenario: I went out of a tournament in about 20 minutes when my pocket Kings ran into pocket Aces. I've obsessed about that one enough for 10 lifetimes, so I won't be talking about it any more.

Sunday, I played a single table and then I played in a $200 tournament that started at 10pm. I know that my poker brain shuts down at about 1am, so I probably should have avoided this one. Ultimately it wasn't fatigue but cold cards and an inability to get anyone to respect my bets that put me out. However, my friend Richard was playing in only his second tournament and came in 11th, netting $324, so that was the one high point of the trip from a poker perspective.

Monday I played in one single table and came the closest I've been to winning. Ultimately, I was ganged up on by 2 little snot nosed kids from UGA who had traveled there together and all but openly conspired to put me out so that they could chop the win. But I played it as well as I could, and that was all I could ask for.

Yesterday, I played in a $300 event. This was the best poker I have ever played in one of these things, and for the first time I actually felt like I was getting respect at the table other than in a Ladies' Tournament. There were several excellent players at my table and I had built my stack up nicely, until a hand that I should have played but didn't because I was scared of having 4 people in the pot when I only had pocket 7's. In retrospect, I think I should have reraised to isolate the smaller stack who had pushed in front of me, and hopefully forced out the other 2 players. I would have doubled up, and would not have been in a position to have to fold when my big bet with 99 was reraised all in, or pushing with a short stack when my JJ was beaten by QQ. Drastically crippled, in my final hand I had 6-7 suited versus not one but two sets of pocket aces.

Despite not winning anything, the last tournament was significant for me. I can hold my head high on that one because with the one exception of one hand I was too cautious, I played everything else perfectly and I made it at least to halfway in a tournament of nearly 400 players. Even if I didn't make money, I finally got to feel like I knew what I was doing.

Other than the poker, the trip was the mixture of fun, dirt, beauty, sleaze and sadness that is New Orleans these days. There are far too many high points to mention, but a list that includes riding the streetcar on Monday for 3 hours, Antoine's for brunch, a lovely blues club on Frenchmen Street called DBA, and good times with good friends would be a good start.

On the downside, my hotel room had bedbugs (before I got moved to another room) and so I shall now commence to being paranoid that I am going to accidentally bring them into my house through my luggage. Which is still in my car. For this very reason.