Poker Sucks

*In case anybody might have gotten confused, I made my previous posts on Edmund's account. I'm now registered as a contributor so I'll be posting on my own account from now on. 

I bubbled a fairly large online tournament this afternoon. 108 spots paid and I had the honor of finishing 111th. Since I only play about three real tournaments a month these days, it was extra painful this time around. Things started off exceptionally well. It helped getting dealt Aces three times- and busting people out on each of those occasions-  but I played some pretty solid poker between said Aces and found myself in the top ten in chips at the first break. Then it all fell apart. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but I just couldn't win a pot to save my life and by the time we were getting close to the money I was in the bottom quarter of the standings. I hadn't played a hand in three or four rounds so I felt I had a good shot at taking down the blinds and antes (which equaled about 20% of my stack) by pushing with Ace-Jack suited under the gun. Unfortunately, I ran into Ace-King and that was that. Blah. 

While I'm talking about poker, I guess I should mention that the World Series (of Poker, not baseball, darts, dice or otherwise) starts in a week. I'm excited to see what happens with the new $10000 events. But I'm still not over the fact that they're playing the final table of the main event in November. Really? What are those guys- maybe even a woman or women for the first time ever- supposed to do for four months? I see how they can justify things by putting the prize money in an interest bearing account and giving the players a chance to get fair endorsement deals, but the bottom line is that Harrah's and ESPN are doing this to build hype for better ratings and it destroys any purity that is left in poker. Before I was just bothered by this. Now I'm mad. Poker sucks.