I do not believe or agree with the paranoids who say all online poker is fixed, and that the RNGs (Random Number Generators) ain't really random at all. Why would poker sites take such a chance and cheat as an institution (we won't talk about random individual cheating right now)? Why would sites care about any one account, especially a small one, when they make so much money off rakes and fees?
Then bad luck smacks me in the face, and all I can do is shake my head and repeat one of my mantras: "This too shall pass; I'm a good person!"
Sunday was basically an out-and-out disaster for me on the faux felt. The imperfect ending to the imperfect day came when I was knocked out of Satellites to Full Tilt's Big Little Tournament, not once, but twice, on rivered flushes when I was ahead. Don't tell me the odds...
The first time, I was sitting pretty in about 25th place of 70 left in a chase for 41 BLT seats. I should've just sat out and backed in. But I flopped a Broadway straight, looked at cementing my seat by taking the pot by pushing all my chips to scare others, and got called by the only stack at the table bigger than me. I should have gone slow with two clubs having fallen in the flop; another club turned, Stackie had two clubs in his hand, and I was out in 65th with no seat and down a buck-10.
Another 1.10 satellite was just starting, and I jumped into it, really ticked at myself for blowing one game but confident I could maintain the steady good play I'd been doing and win a seat this time. But I was card-dead early, which is not a good thing to be in a turbo (5-minute levels) event. Finally I pushed my last 800 chips with T9 from early position, and got called by one player who showed AKo. Wouldn't ya know it, I flopped another straight and got the lead! But the shamster (me) is the unluckiest of players; there were two spades in the flop, caller's A was a spade, and the turn-river came 2 of spades, 3 of spades. Flushed again! Why me???
Sunday had started horribly with me 22,239th/33,736 in the weekly Big Little Tournament finale. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't pretty; it was also 5-minute turbo, and I wasn't in sync or in the right frame of mind ... I guess. I do promise to do much better in next Sunday's BLT (regular 10ish-minute levels) -- and I will cash!
Bombed in two other tourneys Sunday to make the day a total washout. Was much more fun watching the Arizona-Green Bay NFL playoff scorefest. Today I haven't played anything yet; a touch of sinuses and depression and just not feeling in the groove. We'll see what the evening brings. I will play something somewhere sometime!
I am intrigued after finding out Absolute Poker is holding AP Touchdown Wednesday tournaments this month, with Super Bowl packages as the prizes. I'm going to have to look into that, especialy its satellites. Also hoping PokerStars has a new round of NAPT-Venetian qualifiers this week; nothing on their schedule yet, but then again they didn't start playing them last week until Wednesday.
As a final thought on Full Tilt's reputation for unbelievable bad beats on rivers and an inordinate amount of worst-hand-wins ... well, it happens everywhere. Even live. There's no perfect online site for a good game. The software hangs up too often on the Merge Network, the Cake Network, worst of all on Microgamings (I grandfathered in so I can still play some of those). Even PokerStars, my first site to play online and to play real money, is not always dependable. I got royally rooked by them when they did their Player Quiz; I got the survey all correct I am certain, but they never gave me the ticket to tournaments that they promised and I earned. Probably because I didn't capitalize the "S" in my site name or something trivial? You'd expect a lot better from "the best." Nevertheless, grumpily, PokerStars remains my favorite site, followed by Full Tilt, Doyle's Room, Reefer Poker and ... let's call it about a seven-way tie for fifth.
If you hear a scream later tonight, you'll know I just got flushed again...
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