Above: The shot clock after I busted out of the World Poker Open.

There were a total of 829 players in Event No. 13 of the WPO being played at the Gold Strike Casino. I hope that's enough runners for this guy who LOL-ed at one of the earlier tournaments. There were 72 who would be paid, and first place offered $50,416. That would be a nice number to hit, but unfortunately it didn't work that way.

The game started at noon and I was pretty much card dead the whole afternoon. When I had K-J or A-J, somebody raised in front of me. When they folded to me I had trash. Finally, a lady raised and got a caller. I held ♥A ♥K, had around 7K in chips and the blinds were 600/300/75. The lady had played fast and loose, but it was working. She had a big stack. What would you do?

Because of how I had seen her play, I shoved. Sure enough, she called and the other guy went away. Her cards? ♠K ♣10 -- yes, I had her crushed.

Unfortunately, the flop was 10 high and I didn't improve. It was around 4:30, so I trotted over to the Horseshoe. Their $160 buyin, 4 p.m., $10,000 guaranteed tournament had just started. The structure isn't as good as a WSOP or WPO event, but still excellent. The had 85 runners and 10 were in the money. I advanced to the final table and won a big coin flip with Q-Q versus A-K to establish a hugh chip stack.

What the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, or so they say. When the blinds were 16,000/8,000/2,000, I raised to 45,000 with A-Q. A short stack moved all in for 47,000, another 2,000. I called, of course, and he turned over 4-4 which held. This pot had 134,000 counting the blinds and antes, so was tough to lose.

Then, another shot stack moved all in, a loose cannon called and it folded to me. I had J-J and decided to move all in. The loose cannon actually had a hand this time (he had previously called an all-in with A-8 off-suit and another with K-J) with A-K. We were off to the races until a king came on the turn and I was crippled.

Maybe because I had a big stack, I shouldn't have engaged in the second hand, but you can't quit playing poker. You do, however, have to win the coin flips. Finishing eighth was worth only $342, whereas when they got down to six, they agreed on a chop. The payouts were $2000, $2000, $2000, $1850, $1200 and $1200. Losing the flip cost me around $1650+, but that's tournament poker.

Above: The shotclock at the Horseshoe just at the break before the level I busted out.