I am a survivor

As you might guess from the time stamps on recent posts, I decided to stay home today. I played two HORSE tourneys on Stars, finished 3rd in the $5 and 1st in the $10.

About a month ago I did a post about a long, drawn-out, heads-up battle in one of these suckers. The situation is similar here: I've gone 18 times without a win, which is just awful, and I went into these games bound and determined to take one down. This heads-up match turned out to be even longer than the last one I wrote about. We were one-on-one for 23 minutes (an eternity, as these things go), 85 hands. We started in Stud, went through Stud/8 and hold'em, finally finishing in Omaha.

I was behind most of the way. In fact, I survived six, count 'em, six showdowns where I was all-in with a call. My worthy opponent (who frankly, I think, played better than I did) survived one, then died on his second.

Here's how the stacks went:



Hands 112-117 were Stud 300/600; 118-152 were Stud/8 400/800; 153-194 were hold'em 500/1000; and 195-196 were Omaha/8 750/1500.

Unfortunately, I still can't show you the stud hands, there being no online hand replayer. (Why oh why does somebody not remedy that glaring lack???) But I have put up the entire hold'em and Omaha portions here. When you see me making bad plays, no need to post critical comments--I've watched the replay myself and cringed appropriately.

But I got lucky when needed and played just well enough to take advantage of the good fortune. That's just about always what it takes to win, I suppose.