Tuesday night, my fourth bar tournament of the week. Phew!

I get AA. Go all in for about 4K and the guy to my right calls and has less so I have maybe 1250 left. He shows KQ and I show my AA. He says "oh, s**t!"! I am the dealer and flip them over. A king in the flop and a queen on the river. Phbbbttt!

I am crippled and play a while. Finally go all in with 1K on KK but that doesn't work either.

What are ya gonna do? What I always do, pay my tab and go home.

That is pretty bad. A beat is a beat.

Maybe the only thing worse than that was yesterday, I met some friends from my former employer for lunch. I go by my old stomping grounds where pub poker USED to be played only to find out three of the four nights have been cancelled and the night they play wasn't the night I was in town.

So the worst beat was not getting to play at all!

Here's one from me from a couple months back--I was playing in one of those celebrity things at Fort McDowell. Phil Hellmuth hosted it--most of the celebs that I could recognize were retired NFL guys--Too Tall Jones was at my table. I got someone elses' comp so I was free rolling.

I was totally card dead the entire tournament---and pretty short stacked at this point. I picked up KQ in early position and raised half my stack--everybody folded to the button who barely has me covered. He goes into a Gus Hansen impersonation fiddling with chips and stuff---I almost call the clock on him. But Hellmuth is just behind my chair--blathering away "entertaining" the crowd". It becomes obvious to me he's trying to make a move with air--finally he goes all in--he doesn't seem to realize that I have to be pot committed at this point. He turns over 6-3 suited--and grimaces to see he's dominated. I am astounded at this play--so is the rest of the table I hear somebody on my left say the word "donkey"---I just look at the guy roll my eyes, and shake my head. He just looks embarassed.

He spiked a 3 on the turn.

As soon as you said the guy on the button started to fiddle with chips I knew there would be no justice! LOL! I hope the guy at least apologized. Donkey is right.

How'd you get a comp into a tourney like that? With your M post and others I am positive I am not in your gambling league nor keep some of the same company but even a celeb event is pretty cool from where I am in beautiful downtown nowhere North Carolina.

I got the seat from the wife of a friend---actually we're also very good friends. She is a true VIP--in LV she plays like $10-25/line VP. Yeah they have that in the high limit areas. She simply didn't want to play in this thing for some reason--she's actually a decent poker player.

So anyway--with her juice---it was no problem transferring the $1000 seat to me. I would never have paid that kind of money for it. In fact in the last 12 months I've played in that room exactly once.

I know what you mean about NC--I "summer" in Wilmington--the only live game I've found is at the Elks Club--its' supertight and not much fun--and they play wierd games like "double omaha".

What sort of prizes does your bar league have Sips? When I visit my brother down in Fla, we usually play a couple of nights in the Florida Bar Poker League. (Destin/Ft. Walton/Pensacola area) Besides the bartabs and gifts that you win from the bar you are playing in as a nightly prize, they have a freeroll tournament once a month with a couple of thousand dollars in the prize pool. They base entry on how many points you earn playing in the FBPL that month. Several of my brother's buddies have cashed in the freeroll.

Reb, the place I am playing now has cash prizes only. Depending on the number of people playing, they pay from 2-8 places. Some of the money collected goes to a monthly tournament for point leaders, and some goes to the fund to send one of our players to the WSOP this summer. Whoever wins a monthly tournament gets an entry into the final in June. The winner of that goes to the WSOP with the entry fee and expenses paid. The good thing is that all of the money collected is either paid out or goes into a prize fund, and none is retained by the bar. Zero rake.

I have played at another place where they had prizes, which they would buy back from you if you didn't want them. I prefer this.

I am not doing so well lately. I haven't finished in the money in a while, so I probably will not be going to the WSOP as our representative. Sob. But somebody I know will!

Good Luck on it. That Florida league has enough bars participating that you can play a sanctioned tournament every night of the week within a 30 mile radius of Ft. Walton. Some nights have more than one bar offering the game. Do y'all have that opportunity? My best buddy is in Birmingham 5 days a week with the National Guard. He likes poker. I might point him in these tournaments direction.

Don't know about that. There's a game just about every night somewhere around here, and some of the guys I play with frequent multiple locations. I just stay with one. P/M me and I can give you some particulars for your friend if he is interested.