Bubbling Hot

The thing about poker, is it is one of few sports where you can play perfectly, not make one mistake, not put a foot out of place and still end up losing. This is why it is such an emotional roller coaster and the ability to control ones temper is imperative to prevent making mistakes further down the line. Now whilst I do have an extremely long fuse, and very rarely do I need to lose my temper to make myself heard yesterday was a testing time indeed.
Having sat in the same seat for 6 hours, whilst 112 players had fallen by the wayside I found myself with 11 players left in a tournament, 10 of whom would finish 'in the money'. In poker terms this is known as the 'bubble', and is without doubt the most irritating place to end up. Good players change their play around this time to put other players to the test, because they know most people want to get some return for their endeavours, and try and hang on for the bubble to burst. Other players are just idiots.
I don't really blame the guy for moving all of his chips in with Ace, 4 because most of the time he will have the best hand and he wasn't a good player, but when I look down at Ace, King I couldn't push my chips in quickly enough. The problem with his play (and I had been lurking in wait for him to make this mistake because he had done it time and again), is that he was 3rd overall in chips and I was 4th. He didn't need to risk such a large portion of chips when he was going to be at best a 25% chance to win the pot, if I called him. The bottom line is, it was a perfect spot for me had the poker gods been smiling on me.
Needless to say the first card out was the 4 of hearts, one of three in the deck he could have hit to win the pot and I had to bite my tongue in gentlemanly fashion and scarper for the door, with a return of $0 before I said anything I might regret. I don't smoke and nowadays lashings with a cat o' nine tails has gone out of fashion, so I need a temper abating solution. I might try a pipe, because you can get some wonderfully fruity flavoured tobacco.

Be luckier than me

Lord F