NBC Sports Championship #5: Don't Blame My Brother

It took a sit-n-go win at 2:45 in the morning, but we qualified for the NBC Sports poker room weekly championship tonight. And if they had awarded money for the top ten percent of the players, we would have taken home some -- finishing a best-yet 55th place out of 697 players. (Sadly, only the top three get checks.)

How did it go -- and how in the world did we get that title? Here's a summary....

:08 IN: We finally reach an online table, after our computer starts freezing at 6:57 pm. We're convinced it was another one of those "mal-ware" attacks to lock us out.

:16 IN: We have A-K, and a player ahead of us pushes all-in. "Daring us, eh?" we write -- and we wind up all-in with him. Our opponent has A-Q -- but a King on the flop wins us $1,720.

:22 IN: We're in the small blind with A-K. We decide to limp -- and are rewarded when no Ace or King comes up. The loss is minimal.

:32 IN: We play K-9 suited. The flop is K-3-3. Another player with more chips goes all-in. We fear the worst, but dare to call. Indeed, that opponent has A-A. BUT a King on the turn gives us a full house, for $3,270. "Alleluia," we write.

:42 IN: Our computer slows markedly, and a "latency" message appears on the screen telling us we're hopelessly behind play and need to reset. The thing is, the poker game is the ONLY thing open on our computer. We're delayed a few minutes getting the game reset, and return just in time for....

:47 IN: Q-K. We play it, and the flop is K-4-6. Our small bet with top pair is called. The turn is a 4. Our bet is called again. The river is a 9. Both of us check, and we beat the opponent's K-5 to gain $3,400.

:55 IN: K-K with cautious betting wins us $2,850 more.

Then comes the one-hour break, with our stack at $6,545 -- 23rd place our of 149 still playing. An opponent notes 500 players were dismissed in an hour, and we answer: "More pushers than at a drug addiction clinic."

1:25 IN: The first good hand in awhile comes our way -- A-K. A King on the flop brings a $2,900 all-in bet from us. The opponent folds, and we're back to $5,395.

1:30 IN: At about this point, our older brother calls from another state. We seek his advice with an A-8 before us, but he's admittedly a poker novice and doesn't really know what to do. We call, but miss the flop and lose about $1,200 to rising blinds.

"Bet you never thought you'd hear running poker commentary when you called me," we joke. Big blinds and antes erode our stack during the discussion, and then just as our brother is about hang up so we can "concentrate on the game"....

1:45 IN: We're down to about $2,400 with Kc-8c. With blinds at 1,600, we dare to raise all-in. But Queens and 9's come instead, and we're out.

We promised our brother we would NOT blame him for the outcome. So there, we didn't. :-)