I bought in at 8:00 pm for $500. I folded every hand dealt to me until 9:50 pm. Under the gun, I get Q-Jc and raise to $25. I got five callers.

At this point, I could not help but laugh out loud and remind the table that this is my first hand played in nearly two hours and I raised under the gun. I finished off my pre-flop speech with, “I am fuckin’ lovin’ this!” I am trying to represent some kind of big Ace here.

The flop comes Qd-7c-2c. Top pair and flush draw. I bet $50 and get one caller.

The turn is 8h. I fire out $125 into the $225 pot and my opponent, who is a calling station, insta-calls me.

I put him on a flush draw or a better Queen.

My money card hits on the river: the Ace of Spades.

I pause a few moments longer than normal, hoping to project the image of me calculating how much to make the value bet. I am actually praying my opponent folds.

I bet $100 into the $475 pot. To my surprise and delight, my opponent chucks his cards into the muck.

As the subsequent table talk ensues about whether I was holding A-A versus Q-Q versus A-Q, I get moved to the main game.

The time is now 10:00 pm and I sit down to 9-8h, on the button.

After limping in, the small blind makes it $25 to go and gets three callers. Priced in, I call.

My opponent bets $50 on a flop of J-10-6 rainbow. Action folds around to me and I call.

The turn is a Queen. My short-stacked opponent checks. I put him all-in for another $150.

He calls.

“I think you are dead to a King,” I tell him.

“I have Aces,” he says.

“I have the ass-end of the straight. You need a King for the nut straight,” I reply.

The river was a blank.

My opponent left the table. And so did I.

Two hands in two hours doubled my buy-in.

I have not run this bad for this long.

After taking a few days off from the poker room, I returned tonite refreshed and relaxed.

Over the course of six hours, here are the hands I played and the short-story outcome:

1. 4-4: Nothing on flop; two pair had me beat.
2. Q-Q: Beaten by A-2 off on flop.
3. Q-Q: Beaten by K-9 off on flop.
4. 6-6: Beaten by flush on flop.
5. 9-9: Beaten by gut-shot straight on turn.
6. 4-4: Beaten by trip jacks on flop.
7. K-K: Beaten by A-2 off on flop.
8. 7-7: Beaten by trip Aces on flop.
9. Qc-Jc: Beaten by diamond flush on turn.
10. 7s-8s: Beaten by trip 9s on flop.
11. Q-Q: Beaten by a pair of Kings on river.
12. K-K: Beaten by set of 3s on river.

The sick part is all other hands, roughly 120 of them, that I folded pre-flop never hit.

At least my reads rang true for the few hands I was in. And I had it in good.

One of my rounder friends, “B”, is going through the same tundra as me right now.

I got unlucky on my first hand yesterday. Flopped a set against someone who could not fold Aces. She rivered the case ace for a better set.

Had pocket tens beaten by someone who flopped top two with A-Q.

Then, I started to play bad. Flopped bottom set and folded to a big bet that represented a bigger set. My read was wrong, and it was a bad fold.

On my last hand, I had trip 4s. Folded to a big bet that represented a straight. Turns out it was top pair only. Bad read and worse laydown.

They say that when you are going through hell to keep on going. I hope I am in the final stretch of the cold deck.