Last night I had my first opportunity to play in a BBT5 invitational freeroll. I was a virtual card rack for the first 40 minutes, catching cards and taking advantage of some sloppy play. In no time I had my 3,000 opening stack built up to over 13,000. However, the poker gods decided to turn the tables on me, sending me packing much earlier than I thought possible.

Three key hands got me a big stack: A-A vs K-K, floping trips with top kicker in the small blind, and felting a blogger who shall remain nameless when I had two pair on the flop. However, I lost about one third of my stack when I raised with K-K and had one caller. The flop was Js-Qs-6d. There was a raise and I shoved because of the flush and straight possibilities. Unfortunately, my opponent had J-J and I lost over 4,200 on the hand.

I lost a lot of chips several hands later when I hit a set on the turn. Unfortunately, the same card that gave me the set completed a gutshot straight for Kat. She had me the whole way since she had an overpair, but having us both hit the same card really screwed me. After this hand, my stack was down to 5,157. I spewed some chips on draws that never came. Then I had the misfortune of running my top two pair after the turn into change100's flopped set of deuces. I was down to almost nothing and was out one hand later -- 69/108. It was a very poor showing considering that I had a tremendous chip lead early on. Yuk.

I have several things going on tonight but hope to play in the BBT5 tournament this evening. I hope to see you at the tables!