Around the same time that I met me old boss for lunch, I developed a bad headache that got progressively worse as Thursday afternoon went on. So bad, in fact, that I almost didn’t want to play poker. Still, I had a little bit of time to kill before having to go work on a group project. I fired up Empire and figured I’d try to get a premium hand, make a killing, and leave.

First hand in, everyone folded to the big blind, so I got my blind back plus interest. Second hand ate the interest and got thrown out. Hands three and four were also tossed. The flop on number four would have given me two pair, kings and sevens. I went upstairs to get some stuff for the group project.

When I came down, it was my action for hand number five, and I was looking at pocket rockets and a raise from the guy to the left of the big blind. Two people had folded to his raise, and I quickly re-raised, hoping that Empire wouldn’t time me out in that split second it took to hit “raise.” The raise went through and two more people folded. SB, BB, and raiser called. I noted that the previous hand had been won with a set of fours, and hoped my Aces would hold up.

Flop came up J-3-2 rainbow. So far, so good. You never know with fish, and I wasn’t sure if these were fish. The raiser definitely wasn’t, as near as I could tell. The other two… I don’t know. But all three callers checked to me, so I bet, SB folded, and BB and raiser called.

Turn came up 5H, which ruled out any runner runner flushes, but made a low straight or fishy two pair a distinct possibility. Still, both my opponents checked to me, so I bet again, and watched the BB call and the raiser fold.

River came up 9. BB checked, I bet, BB called. I still had my rockets, and BB had… Ace ten suited? He decided to pay an additional dollar on top of his three dollars to play for high card? With his hand, I don’t think I would have seen the flop with two raises before me, BB be damned. After that flop, I definitely would not have called.

Looking at the brief history on this guy, it seems that he’ll see 4 of every 5 flops. This is why people love Party. Some people will play any two cards and never know when they’re beat.

Anyway, the rest of the hands for that round were junk (with the exception of a pair of 8s that flopped two overcards), so I bailed with my $6.50 profit and salivated over the 72BB/100 hands stat I had achieved in those 9 minutes. After I got back from my group project meeting, my head still hurt and I was ready for bed. Up $6.50 for the day.

Wednesday was more typical. 4.37 hours of game time (versus .15) with some nice profits, which weren’t so typical. I won $52.75 combined at 5 of the 9 tables I played, lost $7.50 combined at 3 tables, and broke even on the ninth, giving me a net gain of $45.25 at a rate of 17.01BB/100 hands. At this point I would like to thank Travel Channel and the World Poker Tour for making all of this possible.