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The significance of today's date is not lost upon me. Unlike the media, I'm not going to hype it up to increase my ratings.

But it still brings me to tears. It still saddens me. I cannot look at images of the Twin Towers on fire without feeling sick. And you know what? I don't want to. When you become numb to it, all significance is lost. All those who died are forgotten. What happened five years ago is a horrific tragedy. No, tragedy isn't the right word. Katrina was a tragedy. The Titanic was a tragedy. This horror was man-made because some individuals thought 3000 dead would benefit mankind--a reminder that evil--true evil--really does exist. I want those images to remain powerful to me. I don't ever want to become "used to it." without the emotion, the events of 9/11 become just another chapter in your history book.

I played in my first ever Las Vegas poker tournament this weekend. It was a lot of fun, but I sorta feel like I got the big stiffy. The initial buy-in netted me $1500 worth of chips and I was holding my own. But there were three guys at the table who were just awful and forced to re-buy immediately. The re-buy was for $3000 and it was only one re-buy per person. This added another $9000 to the pot--most of which was divided evenly amongst the three decent players at my table. Big blind was 50 and small was 25. I played it tight and after about 45 minutes, I still had around $1500. That's when things started to slip.

I'll admit, I don't know a lot about poker tournaments, but I feel this one was set to an unnatural time limitation. After 45 minutes, the big blind doubled to a hundred bucks and small to 50. Things got a little more costly and I dropped to about $1300. I was still playing well. I only lost a small portion of my initial buy-in but easily had the least amount of chips at the table because everyone else re-bought.

After an hour into the tournament, everyone was allowed a seven minute break. The three crappy players at the table were still crappy. Even after their re-buys, I still had more chips than them. But the problem was the three good players had all their extra chips. Jon told me that I should re-buy just to keep up with everyone else--and it seemed like a good idea.

Immediately after the break, the big blind skyrocketed to $400--an obscene number given my chips. Remember, I wasn't losing a lot--but I wasn't up by enough to bet such an amount. Making things worse, I was the big blind and small blind the first two hands of the deal. I had a couple decent hands (seven-eight suited; king-ten off-suit) but couldn't call any of then $800 raises because that would take a huge portion of my chips. Meanwhile, the three crappy players (still with less chips than me) simply kept folding without having to bet anything.

It was about the sixth hand after the break and I was dealt a ten-jack suited. It's a decent hand and probably the best I'd get in a while. I figured I probably needed to take that pot because I wasn't gonna last much longer. I called the blind of $400 and immediately someone raised 2600.

I was pissed. I only had $3000 worth of chips left. To this guy, $2600 was probably about one fifth of his chips and chump change. To me, it was everything I had--with probably the best hand I'd see in a while. It seemed foolish to call that much preflop, but I really had no choice. I shuffled my chips trying to determine my odds. The blinds were coming to me soon and I probably didn't have enough to last very many more hands. I wasn't going to bluff or buy the pot from any of the good players given the number of chips I had. This was my chance. Now or never. No guts, no glory. Win big or go home.

Pick your clich�.

"A $2600 and I got three grand? A lot of good 400 bucks is gonna do me: I'm all-in." It was my first all-in of the night. One of the players who earlier deemed me "sneaky" folded right away. It was just me and the guy who made the initial raise.

We flipped over our cards. He had a nice hand: king of diamonds and queen hearts--almost identical odds as my jack-ten of spades. The flop came. A two, three, and ten--all different suits--and none of them were mine. With the flush out of the question, I realized I had a chance. My pair of tens were currently leading. It wasn't a great hand but the only way he could be me is if the turn or river was a king or queen.

The next card was useless seven of clubs and I started to think maybe I had a chance at this. Up until that moment, I was ready to let him have the pot. But now only one card stood in the way of me getting a second chance to this thing.

And wouldn'tcha know it, the bastard drew a queen on the river. Just like that, I was done.

This was a 20 person tournament and I was the first one knocked out (although two of the crappy players were eliminated immediately after me thanks to blinds they couldn't afford). I feel like I was totally screwed out of that tournament because I simply wasn't up enough early. Those three crappy players gave the three good players flexibility to call larger bets. That combined with the damn casino increasing the blinds, it felt like a decently played game immediately got wiped out in a matter of seconds.

Two learned lessons

Make sure you know the rules before any poker tournament

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