Rockets and Weirdness

Sunday morning at the Crazy Moose I was playing in the $60 tournament and was having continuous bad luck. I was pretty short stacked with about 2400 left and the blinds at 300-600. Scott (seat 6) raised to 1800 from middle position. I was in seat 8. Our seat numbers are important in my story of the 2nd tournament (below). Anyway, I looked down to find the black aces. Ta da! Yippee!! I reraised all-in, everyone else folded, and Scott called. He was pretty short stacked too and only had me covered by about 500 chips. He had A-10 diamonds. Ta da! Yippee!! He got runner-runner straight cards and knocked me out. Boo hoo. Cry. Sob. Damned A-10 diamonds.

That same night at the Cable Bridge I was playing the little $15 tournment. On the very first hand Bob (seat 6) raised the 25-25 blinds to 100. Me (yes, seat 8) found black aces. I was still upset about the morning fiasco and could have almost folded them, but being a prudent player (ha) I raised to 500. Everyone folded, Bob only called. The flop was 8-A-3 with 2 diamonds. Bob immediately pushed all-in and I immediately called. He had - you get one guess - the A-10 diamonds. Gak!! Even though I had flopped a set of aces I was not happy at all because he was four flushed and I just knew he would hit it. I tried mightily to suppress my apprehension and got very lucky. He hit nothing and I doubled up on the very first hand!! Ta da! Yippee!!

This double-up and some other lucky hands (and good play if I do say so myself) got me to the final table and I will get to play in another tournament of champions. I just can't get over all the similarities of these two hands . . . it's like being in the Twilight Zone. Then I read the post by my buddy Dr. Phil about his fun with A-10 and I'm beginning to think that this will be the hand of the month or something. Too strange.