The turn to 2012 apparently will bring big changes to National League of Poker. It's going to a browser-based format this coming week, with a "lifetime points" system which doesn't reset every Sunday morning. We don't know everything about it yet -- but tonight apparently was the last time we earned our way into a weekly Sunday night championship tournament. How did it go?
:06 IN: We have A-2 of hearts -- and our Internet connection has a hiccup, preventing us from playing when it's our turn. We can't blame McAfee for this; we intentionally kept our computer on all days to keep updates from getting backlogged. So we find AT&T at fault for costing us a three-way split of a pot, after an Ace comes on the flop.
:23 IN: We have 6-6 -- and while the table is running slowly, at least we can play. The flop is Q-9-5. Everyone checks. The flop is 10, and we call an opponent's bet of 140. The river is 2, and we fold to another bet of 100. The table folds and the winner doesn't show, but we doubt fourth-best pair was good enough.
:27 IN: We turn the cards around next hand, with 9-9. We call a doubling of the blind to 200. The flop is 7-4-K, and the raiser goes all-in. This is far too risky for us, and we fold. (The hand remains a mystery again.)
A desultory first half-hour brings us to the break at 460 chips. Out of 830 players still alive, we're scraping by in 764th.
:34 IN: We have Q-A out of the break. The flop is 6-6-5, and another player goes all in. We fold, wondering if we should have raised pre-flop. Perhaps not - the turn-river were 10-7.
:36 IN: We have 9-10 of clubs in the big blind. The flop is 5-9-9, and we feel compelled to go all-in with 210 left. A player calls -- with K-9! We're seriously outkicked. But the turn is 10, to give us a winning full house! (The river is 8.) "PTL BBS" we write (the latter meaning big blind special), as we recover to 1,020.
:40 IN: Two hands later, we have A-J and the button. A player raises ahead of us to 480, and we call -- but then a player behind us raises 340 more to go all-in. The first bettor calls, and we dare to join him even though it leaves only 125 in our stack.
ON THE FLOP: Q-5-10
Our opponent bets the expected all-in amount for us -- and with a big pot commitment and a straight draw, we see little choice but to call. That opponent shows a mere 8-9 of hearts! The player who pushed before us has 9-9, and leads the race.
ON THE TURN: 5
The board pairs, and we need a big card.
ON THE RIVER: 8
Not close enough.
The player who never pushed has 8's and 5's for a sidepot; the early pusher has 9's and 5's for the main pot. We dared to dream and wound up with nothing -- except a lowly 657th place, out of 1,438 contestants. We'll see what the new format holds (especially when it comes to having a good online connection).
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