The Universe Conspires Against Me

I was really cranked about Poker yesterday. I was sitting pretty in my PSO promotion, and ready to take full advantage of the Rookie Freeroll Tournament at The Gaming Club.

I started pretty soon after arriving home. I told the wife I was excited about the Tourney, there was only about 250 people entered and I really liked my chances. Plus I would get the chance to compete with some of the PSO players and hopefully impress them with my vast poker skills. She was excited for me and (so I thought) happy that I was enjoying my hobby.

I made some small change at the ring games while warming up for the main event, and really got into a groove early in the tournament. By the first break I was second in chips, flirting with the lead constantly. If I held high cards, I would hit every flop. AJo produced a Jack, AKs would flop two pair. I wasn't dominating every hand, but when I chose to play things seemed to work out well.

After the first break, my wife kind of wanders into my computer room and asks "Do I have a place in your life anymore?"

WHAT THE FUCK!?!

I'm in the middle of something I have told her, repeatedly, is very important to me, and I am obviously concentrating hard on it, and she has to come right into the middle and start talking about our "relationship?"

Anyway, I deal with her, pretty rudely, and go back to my tournament. Its still in the back of my head, however. "Why the fuck would she choose now to jump my shit about poker? Of all the million times she could have come in, I could have just left the ring game I was in and I could have done all that reassuring BULLSHIT that husbands have to do once in a while."

Things still progress pretty well in the tournament. I make it to the final two tables. 20th place is a pretty critical spot, because 20th pays $50 and 19th-10th pays $100. I'm dealt QQ just before the break. "Good" I think. I can pick up some chips here and be in good shape for the stretch run. I am around T15000 and bet T8000. I still want to be able to dump out in case of a disaster flop and hold on for the extra $50. A player in front of me raised to 14K, which I could barely cover, and I was preparing to call him. I would still have 1K and would fold to any Ace or King flop.

Suddenly the hand ends and we are on break. It folded me automatically and took my 8k. There was no internet lag, no timeout warnings or anything. Just bang, you lose. The player who raised said "What happened? I didn't want to raise."

So now I am crippled, 7k in chips. To make matters worse I doubled through when the big blind reached me. Had I won the hand with QQ, which is likely, I might have doubled up near the chip leaders, or even higher. That's not certain of course, but now I will never know.

Things like this happen to me WAY too often in online tournaments. It's as if someone came up to your table in a B&M tourney and grabbed 8k in chips and gave them to your opponent. Nobody would stand for it, there would be pandemonium. But online, people go "It happens, get over it."

It shouldn't happen. This is a Rookie Freeroll. It's for all the new players. If this is how things work in tournaments on their site, if their software is THAT SHITTY, how can they expect that to make these "rookies" want to stay and play more? When playing in a tournament, things are made THAT much harder for them to win. They have to deal with all the other players, stupid calls and suck outs from hell, you also have this little glitch that can ruin your otherwise perfect play?

No. I simply will not tolerate it. I know there are people out there that think I'm a jerk because this was a FREE tournament and I did end up with $100. But my pride was at stake, and I was beaten by a fellow PSO player who was BEHIND me at the time of the glitch. It made me look bad, and I will do everything I can to make TGC look bad unless they go to extraordiary lengths to make this right.

I have sworn to never deposit money in another Poker Site because of their intolerable software problems, and I will probably end up doing it again with TGC. I don't anticipate them doing anything special for me. I'm sure their attitude will be "It was free, you made money, go fuck yourself."

We will see, they have 48 hours. I will try to finish the promotion this weekend in turbo mode, and it may be the end of TGC.