Well there’s a bunch to Blog about… but since I’m only going to post one Blog at a time, and I’m about as busy as I’ve ever been we’d better get started.

As most of you probably know this past weekend was Labor Day, and the 2nd poker tourney hosted at my place by Jana, Kevin, and I.

It was a lot of fun. I only had one rule this time… play smart, don’t be the first one out.

For those of you that haven’t been brought up to speed about the last poker tourney you can see the highlights here.

I’m proud to say I wasn’t the first one kicked out.. I was third or fourth.

Ugh.

Here’s how it went down.

Bob was to my right, and the eventual winner was on my left.

I folded the hand and it was down to Bob and our champ. Bob had three Aces, and lost to a full boat.

THE VERY NEXT HAND I had three aces.

I did as much raising as I could but it didn’t amount to much. If I checked he checked if I bet big he thought forever and called.

I put him on an Ace but not the boat.

Since I wasn’t able to push him out I was feeling as good as I could about my hand. I also had an ace but figured I had him out-kicked.

Then the river.

A nine.

I bet big … like every other round.

He came back over the top to put me all in.

I knew he had it.

The bastard had ace - nice and made his full house. He did it again.

The voice of Phil Gordon and Mike Sexton rang in my head.

“Throw it away Doug he’s got you!”

“He made his hand Doug.. get out!”

But I couldn’t walk away from three Aces.

I just couldn’t.

The stupid side of me silenced the more logical voices.

“Oh come on … what are the odds he did it again… he didn’t make it.. he wants me to THINK he made it.”

I called all-in even though I knew deep down it was the wrong thing to do.

He made the boat with the river nine and took me out.

Bastard.

And yup you guessed it… our winner was Ken Jansing… AGAIN.

This guys’ unstoppable. He got some serious cards this time though and coupled with his no expression, never show ‘em card play he was quite a competitor.

Not even the $20 bounty we put on his head was enough to knock him out.

Now the champion bounty is up to $40 and the next time we play he may not be so lucky.

This tourney was an epic battle of stamina and will.

It lasted from 1:40 PM until nearly 11:00.

The final two players Ken, and Ryan slugged it out head to head for hours on end. Giving the lead back and forth many times.

And once again Jana played very well.

She made it to the final table and finished third. Which means she took home $60, ten more than her entry fee.

She played smart poker and made me proud.

Kevin has given Ken a knew poker name “Reaper”.

Fitting. He knocked out nearly half the field.

In the end Ken took our money again, and a good time was had by all.

Can’t wait for another shot at Ken “The Reaper” Jansing though.

Especially since he made it a point to tell us at the beginning of the day that he was buying his entry to the tournament with the money he took from us last time.

On the upside… I turned $18 into $156.30 at the horse track the day after the Purdue game… so at least I made my entry fee back.