Aw man! I was so stoked to share the little video diary I was making over the last couple of days of my poker adventures. But... sometime during yesterday's tournament, I lost my little point and shoot camera. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I tool my hoodie off. I am so bummed. I shot a ton of footage during the breaks, and explained my hands and how I was playing. Instead, you are going to have to settle for my bad grammar, and poor writing skills.

So Monday, President's day. I was at the Ocean's 11 Casino in Oceanside for their holiday tournament. They buy in was $335, but I won my seat through a $60 satellite over the weekend. There were 213 player and a prize pool over over $63,000. The paid the top 21 places. Long story short, I played well... really well actually, the got very unlucky towards the end. They key hand was when I had pocket jacks on the button. There was a raise in front of me, then I reraise with my big hand. The guy just called. The flop came 7h Jd 2c... I had top set, with no straight or flush draws out there at all. The guys just goes all in... way over-betting the pot. So I said," I guess you totally missed that flop eh? I knew he was bluffing and I had the best possible hand at that time, so of course I called and showed him the bad news. He showed Ace King. I was around a 95% favorite to win the hand. Until the turn brought a Queen, and he rivered a 10 for runner runner straight. It totally crippled me and I wasn't able to recover. I guess it's better to be lucky than good some times. At least I got my money in with the best hand. I got knocked out a few hands later... but it was uneventful. I finished in 38th place. Had that lucky donkey not sucked out on me, I am sure I would have made the money with the amount of chips I should have had. Oh well... that's poker!

On Tuesday... Jessica and I played in the LA Poker Classic at the Commerce Casino. It was a $545 buy in and I won a few satellites back during poker school so we basically had both of our buy ins paid for. Again, I am devastated about losing the camera, not because it was an expensive camera, but because there was some great footage on it. I was interviewing Jess before we went in and asked her to show the camera her best poker face. She held it for about two seconds before completely losing it and totally started cracking up. She looked constipated!

So anyway... 605 entries... that's over $350,000 in the prize pool. They were paying the top 63 places. It was by far the biggest tournament I've played in since the WSOP Main Event last summer. The difference was... during the Main Event, you get a few hundred pros... and then thousands of wanna-bees (like myself) and it's kinda like buying a lotto ticket. It's a crap shoot. This time, I sit down at my table and I recognize 3 of the people from watching poker on TV. Not big name players, but I certainly had seen them before. It turns out, there were 7 full time professional poker players at my table and they all knew each other. The old poker saying goes, "If you can't spot the sucker at the table, then you are the sucker". I was definitely the sucker. But... I did manage to outlast 6 of the pros! They started with 60 tables. When I got knocked out, they were down to 12 (which means I finished in the top 120, but they didn't have an actual number). I really was card dead most of the night and got unlucky when I flopped two pair, but lost to straight on the river. Again.. Oh well... it's poker. I still had a great time and I got even more experience.

The good news is, when I got home last night, I won an online Sit n Go. I seem to always play better online after playing in real life for a while. This post would have been so much better if I hadn't lost my camera. I am going to try to start video blogging again soon.