I was playing an on-line tournament getting ready for the Degree Poker Championship and just wasn't catching any breaks.

First off about 10 hands in I geat dealt AA. Raise nicely pre-flop - have three callers (yippy a big pot). Flop comes Kc-6d-Ac - SUPER - floped a set and there is a king to keep people interested. Another raise - call - call - fold. Turn comes garbage. Raise (still two callers). River comes Qc!!!... Check.

One player raises large. Second player calls. I'm no ninny. Board shows possible straight possible flush. I have every reason to believe both of these monkies have been chasing their flush since the flop. I fold. Sure enough both are sitting flush - One with Jack in his hand.

It was a smart fold - but a fairly bad beat.

The tournament goes on and 30 more hands of garbage. Short stacked I know I have to take a stand on a hand, but none are worthy. Then finally, a nice AKs. Raise, re-raised, raise all in.

Flop comes 8-2-2 rainbow and not a heart to be seen. But, that's not the worst part. Buddy is sitting 8-8 in the pocket and just flopped a full house. (I'm drawing virtually dead unless 2kings or 2aces were to show up - they didn't).

Now this isn't a bad beat - my short stack didn't intimidate the player sitting pocket pair - and the flop just went his way (in a big way). Nothing I could do.

Busted out 341st out of 725. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

Bad beats or good beats - busting out sucks.

andre