kicked in the junk for a good cause

Thanks to OhCaptain for putting on a sweet tourney - I even made the money, finishing 5th out of 61 runners.

As is their wont, The poker gods both giveth and taketh away on this evening. I was blessed with pocket aces four times in the 356 hand tourney, when I should have expected to receive them only 1 or 2 times in this number of hands. Of course, I might have been better off not receiving them, as they were cracked 2 out of the 4 times, including a stunning, jaw-dropping suckout on my bustout hand to leave me staring at the monitor and wondering whom I had pissed off and how badly.

We were 5 handed - all five were competent, aggressive players. Most of the game was preflop - raise and folds, or raise, reraise and fold. I was the short stack with 14 big blinds, one other player (OhCaptain himself) was close to me. Someone raised my big blind and I had the rockets waiting for them. Instead of reraising, since I knew I would be heads up, I chose to call and checkraise shove any flop.

The flop came deuce, six, eight rainbow - harmless enough. I carried out my plan and checked, after a sneaky two second "oh no, what do I do now that I've missed" pause - and my opponent bet big - committing himself to the pot. Perfection personified. Patting myself on the back, I shoved it in. After his requisite "whoopsie, hand caught in the cookie jar" 3 second pause - he called, with ace-six. Middle pair. Getting all your money in the middle as a 9:1 favorite at the final table of a multiway tourney is a sweet feeling indeed...

...until another six rolls off on the turn.

2-outed to the rail. Man, that hurts. Oh well, all for a good cause.