It's a rare and surreal experience, despite being a somewhat standard possibility during NL tournaments, to work up a huge stack, slowly and steadily building for several levels, running good and playing good, only to dust off all the chips in one hand.

That's more or less how it went down in yesterday's event, $3K NL (event #28).

My table draw was good, and I felt I had solid reads on my opponents, which I was able to use, along with a juicy run of cards, to accumulate many chips during the early levels. I made a few straights and flushes to start the day, then won a healthy-sized pot with AA vs JJ and TT all-in-preflop, and, before I knew it, I was sitting on 35K+ chips with blinds at 100/200, an enormous stack.

For several levels, I maintained that level of balance and confidence--I felt great, playing precision poker and not prone to making a mistake, aware of all the table dynamics, energized to go deep again--when things took an unannounced turn for the worse.

During the 150/300 level, a young, blond European player was moved to the one seat, and he had almost as many chips as I did. He looked sharp and confident, wearing a crisp-looking Versace jeans-jacket and sitting on an imposing stack. I figured he was a poker expert, and I knew his presence constituted potential trouble, and that it was not inconceivable one of us winds up with a disgustingly large stack before the table broke.

Before and during the crucial hand I'm about to describe, the atmosphere at the table became chaotic: There was a petty dispute taking place. First, it was between Mimi Tran and the dealer, whom Mimi was criticizing for not making change correctly. Instead of smoothing out the situation, or just moving on, the dealer called over the floor, even after the technical matter had been resolved. Then, David Tuchman, who wanted Mimi to stop talking about the incident after the fact, inexplicably called the floor to delegate again, and the whole vibe at the table became unruly and somewhat unfriendly.

While Mimi was bitching, and David was calling the floor, I tried to ignore all the noise, turned up the volume on my headphones, and picked up QQ in early position during the 200/400/50 level. I still had about 35K and was called by a seemingly inexperienced, but not incompetent, player on the button, who had about 12K left in his stack. The blond kid called out of one of the blinds, and we saw a flop three-handed, J54-rainbow.

The Euro checked, I bet 3600, then the first caller threw out 6,000, a botched raise. The dealer informed him that he was required not to make a minimum raise to 7200, which he did. As soon as the raise-size was sorted out, the European guy casually and instantly pushed allin.

If there's one very noticeable leak in my game, it's that I don't give myself enough time to ponder certain crucial decisions. Although there may have been a small chance that the European guy had a hand I beat, like top pair, or a straight draw, and was figuring he could safely gamble with the shorter stack flop-raiser while getting me to lay down many hands, it was far more likely for him to have a hand like a set, a sneakily-played overpair to my QQ, or, what he did wind up having, a two-pair type of hand, in this case 54 for bottom-two.

In any case, once again, I didn't take a proper amount of time to consider all the dynamics and made a snap-decision that one pair of queens was good enough to gamble for a huge pot in level five. I could have folded, regrouped, and still had plenty of chips, but instead I called the allin. The guy in the middle--the one who tried to raise to 6,000--had AJ for "top/top," and the European's two-pair held up.

I was left with 2700 chips, which I got in remarkably good with KJ in the BB vs JT for a 6K+ pot (thinking to myself, maybe here's another classic roller coaster tournament, where I get crippled then soar back up), but I lost and undertook, once again, the long Walk of Shame back to the Rio parking lot.

***

Perhaps My biggest mistake of the trip so far was going to see Bill Maher perform at the Hard Rock on the same night that Roger Waters played the MGM. Maher's political comedy was good, as always, but not exactly better than he would have been if I was sitting on my couch watching his HBO show. I heard from a couple of different friends that Roger Waters was amazing. What was I thinking?

***

Tomorrow is the 5K Headsup "World Championship," and, since I intend to win, I really hope I don't get busted in round one.