The Big Sleep

Got home from the basketball game last night after watching our hometown high school heroes get run out of the gym by a bunch of short, extremely talented white kids and decided to play some poker. With the PS account back down hovering in the low two-digit range (where's my bailout, Mr. Obama?), I chose to enter the $5.50 PLO8 tournament at 2140.

It quickly became apparent that any online poker would be a mistake. I was dog tired after a long week and found myself struggling to stay awake. But the other button-pushing monkeys out there, unaware of my altered consciousness, decided to gift me a bunch of chips, so many that by the time the bubble broke three hours later, I had a top 5 stack. (654 runners/99 paid.)

My good fortune could not overcome the need for sleep, however. With about 60 monkeys left, I went from nodding off for a few seconds to a deep REM state. Perhaps an hour later, I woke up to discover that my stack had been eroded to the point where I was in 12th place with 15 players remaining. (I went from around 100K to 55K, not a huge loss.) It was now 2:30 a.m., but I did feel refreshed.

Long story short, I nursed what remained of my chips, made the final table with the shortest stack of about 6BBs and ended up finishing 4th for a $240 profit.

It's a welcome boost to the bankroll, having grown tired of reloading every couple of weeks to pay for my latest addiction -- 6max PLO. I'm not too good at this game yet, but I'm breaking even after about 2,500 hands and am having fun learning the game. I just need to make sure I remain awake.