Did Marburger play poker?

The search continues for a cure for poker's version of hemorrhagic fever, a disease transmitted during certain times of the year by the normally innocuous donkey fly. I'm desperately hoping to survive this scourge without resorting to a painful transfusion.

My course of treatment has been to continue playing -- mostly SNGs and MTTs -- while rededicating myself to the game that has made the online world a cash producer for the last 2 1/2 years. I almost find comfort in knowing that no one can run this badly for much longer. It's probably self-deception to think this, but I figure false confidence is better than none at all.

Live-game play has treated me far better in recent weeks. I won a 41-person tournament ($20 buy-in) on Wednesday, chopped for first two weeks ago and have had some decent scores in the .25/.50 NL games that break out during and after these twice-a-week affairs. (We have an extremely active Poker Meetup Group here in Cleveland. There is a POY race attached to two of the weekly tournaments and there are other tournaments/cash games virtually every day of the week.)

Played like crap in last night's tournament and then lost a couple of buy-ins in the cash game, thanks to a loss on the river to a 10-1 shot and then a far more reasonable 6-1 shot. I'm praying that those frickin' donkey flies haven't been blown into the world of live poker by some evil trade wind.

E-mail me and I'll send all six of you who read this blog $3 each for having been subjected to this continuing bad-beat saga. I hope your computers have updated virus protection. I wouldn't wish this shit on anybody.