Brownie update

As reported here, Josie has given me until August 5 (extended from the original deadline of July 31) to get my Black Chip Poker account up to $1200 in order to earn a batch of what she claims to be the world's best brownies. This challenge was issued when the balance stood at $661. I have been trying mightily, but with little to show for it. I've had a couple of min-cashes, but that's about it. It has been fail, fail, fail, several tournaments a day every day. Deeply demoralizing.

Tonight was the first glimmer of hope I've had. It was an $11 freezeout, which is most of what I've been doing, with the $2000 guaranteed prize pool well exceeded. My stack was below average for most of the tournament, but never in dire straits. The lack of flexibility that a cramped stack brings forced me to just play solid ABC, not get much out of line.

Just before the money bubble burst, I cracked aces with tens by flopping a set, won an enormous pot, and took over the tournament chip lead with 27 left. But then I entered the card graveyard, and was dealt a never-ending string of J-2, 8-3, etc. The big stack gave me the ability to just ride out the flurry of all-ins that inevitably occurs for a while after the bubble bursts, but that meant that I was not the one profiting by knocking out other players. I was just coasting. By the final table bubble, I was down to below average.

But I got a big opportunity. At a four-handed table, the short stack open-shoved with what turned out to be A-2. I re-shoved with Q-Q, expecting that to end the action. But the big stack in the small blind called, showing A-K.

Here's how it played out:

As soon as I flopped the set, I relaxed and actually missed the fact that Mr. A-K turned the straight. When my table disappeared, I thought it was just because with the elimination we were on to the final table. But the new table didn't pop up. That's when I looked at the hand history and realized what had happened. It made me want to throw up.

So I finished in 8th:

If I had won that pot, I would have had about 198,000 chips. I would have been way out in front with the chip lead, and would have been in a prime position to go for the $625 first prize.

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

I've done so many buy-ins with so little reward that the $82 I won only brings me back up to $415. This is still more than double what it was a couple of weeks ago, before I had those two nice scores back to back, but obviously still well down from my peak. It seems impossibly far from $1200, given less than 48 hours left to get there.

Along the way, I had two opportunities to prove the power of the Mighty Deuce-Four, and it did not disappoint. I flopped two pair both times, bet and won both pots:

I'm afraid it's going to be back to brownie mixes from the store for me. So sad.