I finally got my first taste of a big buy-in, non-home game on Sunday when I played at the Port Washington Elks Lodge. I found out about it when I returned from lunch one day last week at work to find a note from Paul. I asked him about it, and he said someone had come to pick up some giveaways for a charity outing, and the first thing they said was, "Does anybody play texas hold 'em?" To which Paul described my passion for the game. I called the woman up when I got back from lunch, and found out that there was a $100 buy-in tournament being held in Port Washington to benefit their charity foundation. 100 people were expected to enter. I registered, got the directions, and began to get excited.

On Sunday, I headed out, stopping at McDonald's first. My nerves were tangible as I spilled my drink all over my table as I went to sit down. I got off the exit on the LIE to find that the road I needed to take was closed by police. I somehow found my way to the place at 3:58 for the 4 o'clock start. It turns out it didn't start until more like 5:15 because of the traffic incident, so I hung out for a bit.

One of the first things I noticed was Mike Sexton, the host of the World Poker Tour, sitting at a table, eating a hero and drinking a beer. I went back up to the woman I had registered with and said, "How did you get Mike Sexton here?!" She told me that her cousin was Mike Sexton's boyfriend, so he agreed to come to announce the tournament, but he wouldn't be playing, which really would have been cool. She told me she would introduce me to him, and I went over and talked to him for about ten minutes about poker, the tournament, and North Carolina, where he told me he used to live. I was wearing my Carolina shirt and hat, so he could spot me a mile away. I really wanted to ask him where Shana Hiatt was, but I'm a wimp and I didn't.

Soon after, Mom and Al showed up, which didn't exactly thrill me. First off, Mom told me that she was coming to watch me, no mention of Al. To make things exponentially worse, they decided to enter into the event as well, even though I told her not to when she told me she wanted to come watch me. This isn't even taking into account that they still don't really know what they're doing at a hold 'em table(Mom's never-fold-a-face-card strategy still baffles me). Anyway, that got things off to a bad start, but I didn't worry about it too much. At least it would keep them out of my hair while I was playing. After a few words from Mike Sexton, who won the World Series of Poker main event sometime in the '80's, incidentally, things got started.

We picked our seating assignments out of a hat, and got going. I was seat 6 at table 8. The total number of entrants was about 95, I think. I also found out, much to my chagrin, that there was one re-buy allowed. I HATE REBUYS. Maybe it's just because I can't afford them. Or maybe it's because if you lose, you should be out, and I shouldn't have to deal with someone I already eliminated. I'm leaning towards the latter. Anyway, I was totally calm when we started, not worrying about the train wreck compilation of events that preceded the tournament. I started out in the blinds, like I always do, despite there being about a 75% chance that I won't. For the first hour, I literally only put money into the pot voluntarily one time. Aside from the blinds, I limped in with jack queen in middle position, saw a flop of Ace 5 6, and folded. Part of this was because I wanted to feel out the strength of play at my table, but mostly it was because I got the worst cards I've ever sen in my life. King 4 about five times. 3 8 about five times. The jack queen was the only time I saw two cards above a 9 at once, and I got no pocket pairs.

After the break, I had about $1200 of my original $1500 still intact. Not so bad considering I hadn't won a pot yet. Also, I had noticed without too much critical thinking that my table was composed entirely of terrible players. When I say terrible, I mean TERRIBLE. Everybody wanted to see a flop, so everyone limped in. Nobody ever raised preflop, except to double the blind the few times that someone had kings or aces. People bet and called all the way down with ace high. All sorts of things that show you why the poker gods keep plenty of thunderbolts handy. At one point, I got pocket 6s on the button, which is usually a decent position to be in, but the guy before me had raised coming in, which meant that he had a high pocket pair. The people didn't even raise with ace king. I'm serious. I folded, knowing I would need to set up to drag the pot, and sure enough the flop had a 6. Unless the guy had pocket queens (there were two out there), I would have taken it and probably doubled up at least, especially when you consider the old, grizzled lady that called everything down to the river was in the hand, too. I still couldn't get anything even remotely worth playing, and I slowly got blinded down. What made this excruciating was that I really wanted to raise, but there had only been two pots in 2 and a half hours that didn't result in a showdown. There was really no way to raise someone out of a pot.

Eventually, our table got broken up, which was great, because maybe now I'd get at a real table and get some cards. Wrong. I pulled the ace, putting me at table 5. As an aside, that was the only ace I saw in my hand the entire night. No joke. I got put on a new table, where I sat for an hour without getting anything. Finally, on the button, I saw pocket tens, my favorite hand. 5 people had limped in for the $200 blind (as you can see, this table wasn't much better), so I went all-in for another $800 on top of the blinds. All 5 players that limped then called my raise, which was four times the big blind, for God sake, and I pretty much knew I was done unless I either caught a ten or saw 5 undercards. Calling my raise left 2 of the players with about $200 left, so you can see how bad these guys were. The flop was 8 9 king, and one guy bet out $500, basically alerting everyone that he caught a king. One guy called, as the others folded. The turn was a jack, giving me hope, as I now had an open-ended straight draw. One guy check-raised the other all-in, and he folded. He flipped over pocket jacks for a set. Remember, this guy limped in. I needed an 8 or a queen to stay alive and quintuple up, but the river was a king, and I was done. Mike Sexton was at the table when I went out, as he had been making the rounds any time he heard an all-in to make sure the retarded knew how to make side pots. After I got knocked out, he shook my hand and said, "Sorry to see a fellow Tar Hell get knocked out," so that was nice, at least. I ended up finishing in about 45th place out of 95 people, without winning a pot, and without using a rebuy. I know, I'm speechless, too. I didn't stick around to see who won the awesome trophy and the $4,000+ for first, as I was understandably spent. I had gone almost four hours without winning one hand or seeing two good hole cards, save for the tens, which got whacked. It frustrated me to no end, because I knew if I had gotten any cards at all I would have dusted the whole place. Oh well, I'll have plenty more chances, I'm sure.

Quote of the day: "What's with kiting my checks? You tapped out? You didn't spend it all on the hooker, did you?" "Mike, please, relaxation therapist."

Terrence's bankroll: $245-$115=$130