On to Day 2...minus most of my chips....

Everything was going so smooth. I was card dead for most of the first day, which was just fine with me. With 20k for a starting stack, and a great structure, I could have cared less if I made it out of day 1 with just an average stack.

Add to that my first table featured the always pesky Tyler Smith, as well as Jared Ingles and Vanessa Rousso...and I just wanted to sit like a bump on a log and let the action come to me.

Things would go exactly as planned. Vanessa's day was a nightmare. She would get all sorts of hands and have very few of them materialize into winning pots. Or she would fold hands like 44 to a raise behind and then flop quads. She looked at me after that one and whispers "Monkey...I am now on LIFE TILT!" She would finally get it in with A3 and run into the pest on my right with AQ...and miss it all and leave somewhere in Level 5.

Tyler on the other hand...he was having just as irritating a day. Only, in his case, some of it was by his doing. But when he got down to 4500 he got pretty lucky. First, he got me to fold 88, and Vanessa to fold AJ when he jammed on the button behind our raises...which helped. Then a couple hands later on a hand that nearly the whole limped on....me with A10....a flop came out 333. Tyler just happened to have A3. How nice. And gets paid off by someone with KQ. So he was back up to 10k.

Cue the disaster. And cue the introduction to what I would have to say was the worst player I have ever faced in a Main Event anywhere. Mr. Two Seat. This guy was utterly phenomenal. Granted, after I figured out his deal, and deciphered his tells, he became my personal bitch. I worked him over for two or three substantial pots. Most of the table though continued all day to keep this guy around but simply getting unlucky. He is what we shall call, as coined (so as NOT to deprive him of the credit) by Sir Kai Landry...

THE CONSUMATE LEG HUMPER!!! (yes click this to see funny video and further hammer home the point I am making!)

The guy who likes to limp a lot. With anything. A guy who call any raise once you have put in a bet, whether it be a reasonable bet (say 600 on a 100/200 level) or a ridiculous bet (say 4000, after a raiser makes it 1200 at 200/400 and someone else re-raises to 4000!) There is nothing you can do to shake this guy off of you. No can of repellant you can spray at him to back him down. He is....THE LEG HUMPER!

Flop top pair, top kicker? Thinking about trapping? Don't even think about it. You will only trap yourself. Because if your top pair is a jack...and he has an ace...he will definitely be calling you. And NOT betting it? No big deal really...he wont bet. Or maybe he will, and if so, WAY too much...which tells you if you know ANYTHING about poker, that he is trying to buy the pot with a stupid overbet. To which...once you figure it out you just fire twice his bet back at him...watch him insta fold...then snicker to yourself at just how truly remarkable this guys lack of intelligience is.

This is how he got Tyler...just when Mr. Smith was in the throes of mounting his epic comeback from the ashes of destruction yesterday:

200/400. Lots of limpers. Myself included with something like KJ or Q10. The leg humper limps in with 22. Tyler makes an excellent raise out of the small blind to about 3000. We all fold....except for...THE LEG HUMPER!

The flop...wait, wait...lemme tell you what Tyler has first. AdQd. He actually DOES have a good hand...which is about 20% of the time for Tyler... as 'good hands' are measured. I'm sure if we asked 'Red' what constitutes a 'good hand' we would get 289 different answers! So...okay, in OUR book...he has a pretty nice hand.

Here comes the flop..... 10d-7c-4d. Nice flop...definitely one geared for a c-bet. So Tyler does what most of us would do and fires out a very nice bet...something like 3500. And what happens? The Leg Humper snap calls. Yes. With deuces. Turn card? How about a non-diamond effing deuce? Why not? Tyler shoves all in. And misses a diamond on the river.

At one point Donkey Hump had about 45k in chips. He would lose them in the most hilarious fashion possible. Call, Call, Call....fold. Call, Call, Call......overbluff.....fold. Or like he did against me on two occassions...and these were kind of fun hands:

Multi-limp pot. Me in SB with KsJc. Flop Js-8s-4h. I bet out good amount. He calls. No one else does. Turn 8c. Two pair. Flush draw still. I bet a bigger amount. He calls. River 4 of spades. Ick! Flush out there. But if I check...I know he slapping a 4k bet out there. I bet 2200. And he calls. I must be dead. I have to be dead. Right? Nope. He turns over AQh. Nice call sir.

Next hand. He limps in for 400. SB completes. I'm in BB with 77. I don't raise. Why bother? He isnt folding. Flop comes A-5-A. No way in hell he has an ace. SB checks. I check. He checks. Perfect. Turn...5. SB checks. I bet 1000. He calls. I know instantly he has K-high and am fading a King on the river...or of course praying for no 5 to hit. Ace I'm okay. River is a harmless 8. I bet 2k. He calls again...I show my hand, he mucks. I know he has King high. The table turns to me and snickers.

Lady on my left...from Texas...who actually played pretty well all day finally takes the largest portion of his chips. Never saw either hand...but didn't need to, it was still hilarious. 3-way pot. Started small enough. But by the turn...the lady checks. This toad bets 5000! She raises to 15,000!!! He smooth calls 15,000....which causes the whole table to just gasp. WTF??? River produces whatever he could have POSSIBLY been drawing to. She bets 10k. He folds. We all sit looking at each other after he pissed off about 75% of his stack.

He gets down to 1900 chips at 150/300. He raises to 1000. Jared Ingles re-raises to 2000. It folds around to him. He folds!

Now with 900 chips in the BB....I raise with 22. Button calls with 33. Leg Humper folds. Flop comes Q-9-8. I bet 2200. Button folds. He now has 600 left.

Next hand. In small blind...he completes...with AQ. He flops the ace...but ends up losing to a flush with 4 clubs on the board and the other guy holding A5. Kind of a fitting end.

I texted the world and Facebook that King Leg Humper was finally eradicated. Now we just needed to bust the K-10 loving donkey in the 4 seat and the table would be a perfect world. LT would take care of that....raising with Ah9h and being forced to call his all in (priced in) with 10-10. LT would flop an ace and have it hold. Finally. A donk-free table.

Then we broke. Damn. I had lost two big pots after dinner break to fall from 23k down to 16k. I got moved to a new table and had Jonathan Little to my left and really no one else of any real concern. Into the 2nd orbit I pick up AK. Its the last hand before break. I raise to 1200. (200/400) The guy from the previous night's mega...who is really tight...re-raises me to 3000. But he also only has 15000 behind that. I dont think I can lay down AK at this juncture of the tourney, and I really decide to represent AA and hope to God he doesnt have that hand. So I re-raise him to 9,000. He almost instantly shoves. Shit. I can't fold. 80% of my stack is in there now. I call. He turns over AQ. Holy shit. Really????? And someone...he misses a Q. I double up to around 35k. Nice!

I coast for awhile...picking up an occasional pot. Then disaster.

With about 10 minutes left in the night...at 300/600...UTG raises to 1850. He gets another call from a shortstack. I look at AQ off in the SB...and decide just to call. Which I think is the right play there. The flop comes ace high with two clubs. No other face cards. I check. UTG bets out 4000. And the 2nd guy goes all in. I run all the scenarios through my head and figure this guy either has the same hand AQ...or possibly AJ...and an outside shot at a flush draw. I am a little worried about calling though and having the first guy shove and be stuck in another bad spot. But I also know I have a chance to get to 70k and end the night in great shape. I call. The first guy disgustedly folds.

Dude rolls over KJc. Shit. Flush draw. People have been hitting these damn things on me all friggin week. HOLD DAMMIT!

Turn is the J of spades...giving him some more outs of course...but not a club! Turn....come on baby...I'm behind the dealer silently chanting 'put a heart out there...come on heart!!!!'

TEN OF FREAKING CLUBS!

!&@#*&!@#*&(~^*)(!~^$E*(!&^&!*#)@(*

SHIT!

Takes me down to 18k. Then two hands later, I pick up AK. Raise. Get called. Flop comes 10 high. I bet out. He calls. Im done with this hand unless I pick up an ace or a king on the turn. A three. I check. He bets big. I fling my cards in. Count my stack...and start to get that sinking feeling you get when you see your Main Event dreams slipping away.

Squirrel was there watching the last hour. She has gone through this swoon with me that is 2010. It hurt her just as much as it hurt me when that damn club hit the river.

But then on the drive home...I decided to re-adjust my thinking. Hey! You know what? We go back at 400/800. I have 14,400. I am STILL alive. Some of my greatest wins have come when I grinded a small stack all day. My boy McLean Karr went back for Day 3 this year at Bay 101 with the SMALLEST stack in the field...and came back to win that thing. There is over half the field who still wishes they were in right? I'm not a quitter. Squirrel and I had a really nice, long chat with Chad Brown after we bagged up our chips...and that also left me feeling a little better, and upbeat. Chad...if you've never met him...is such an incredibly positive guy. Going back 20 years to when we played baseball, I'm not sure I have ever known anyone who is so optimistic about EVERYTHING!

So I woke up this morning, went outside, threw Jasper the ball about 20 times...enjoy the sunshine...and said another little prayer to the poker gods to just for once this year...let me win something that will give us a little breathing room financially this year. I've been so close, so many times...and had it ripped away. But I know, we ALL go through it. It's not just me. I know that. Bad beats and river suckouts hit us all. Plus...I also thought about this; what if I had bagged up 70k in chips. I would pretty much be expecting to make the final table then, wouldn't I? At least now...I am the under dog. Not expected to make it. So when I pull it off...won't it be that much more satisfying??? Hell yeah it will. So thats it...I'm heading for the shower...and getting my game face on.

WE CAN DO THIS!!!!!!

MONKEY