Garry Gates

I had just gotten off the phone with Gary when the third hand of a $22+1 turbo heads-up match was being dealt between myself and an online player named "lot-o-balls" on FullTilt. We started with 1500 chips each, and I had Mr. Balls covered by 40 chips. I was dealt a pair of red kings and made it 180 to go. Mr. Balls, living up to his name, decided to kick it to 600, and I reraised to put him all in. He called rather quickly and showed an offsuit A K, making me about a 70% preflop favorite to win the hand and the tournament. So much for odds... The A 10 10 flop all but crushed my hopes of a quick W, and with no help on the turn or river, I was left with a measly 40 in chips.

Many players are content with throwing in the towel at this point, as the chances of coming back from a deficit this big are slim to none. Knowing I'd be all in on the next hand, and probably the next two or three after that if I survived, I called off the 10 chips I had left after the big blind hit me for 30, and moved my mouse pointer to the red X in the upper right corner of the window, fully prepared to accept defeat. My opponent showed J 8 offsuit and was dominated by my Q 8 of hearts; a bittersweet moment I thought to myself. My hand held up and I was now sitting on 80 large.

A 3 offsuit was my next all in hand, which held up over Mr. Balls' K 2 suited and increased my stack to 160. Hmmm... Maybe? Nah... he's got 2840 to my 160, and the blinds just went up. I was dealt an ugly 2 4 offsuit in the small blind and rather than try to get lucky, I decided to fold. Down to 140 now. The Q 9 of diamonds I am dealt on the next hand looks much more inviting, so again I shove in the rest of my meager "stack" and cross my fingers. This time my opponent has A K offsuit, but a beautiful Q of hearts on the flop takes me off the respirator. With 280 chips, I wouldn't exactly call myself a favorite to win... but I hadn't given up, and the cards were falling my way. After a few more folds and a pair of double ups, I found myself with just under 1000 chips when disaster struck...

I had been playing on my girlfriend's computer (her monitor is huge), and it's usually reliable. The blinds had just jumped to 50 and 100, and suddenly I couldn't move my mouse. Not a single program was responding... My revival efforts consisted of franticly punching Ctrl+Alt+Delete on my keyboard while yelling "Come on, you effer!!!" No luck. I decided to abandon ship and try to log in on my own computer, which was already turned on and only a few feet away from the frozen one.

I have a zillion icons on my desktop, and struggled to find the blue and red FullTilt logo amidst the mess. Forget that... Start, Programs, FullTiltPoker. Sweet... I might only miss one or two hands! Wait... what the hell? A new software update? Jesus... When was the last time I logged onto FullTilt using my own computer? Now I'm impatiently tapping my foot on the ground waiting for the damn thing to finish up, certain that I've lost at least 250 chips by now...

When I finally get the program up and running, I'm happy to see that I still have 750 chips, and was facing a raise from my opponent, who I assume was trying to steal my blinds while I was away... Not so fast, pal. I moved all in with the K Q of clubs and Mr. Balls called with 7 6 offsuit. Two pair on the flop for me!! Guess what... we're even now. With my newfound momentum, I took down the next two pots before the flop and now had a 400 chip lead over my opponent.

On the next and final hand of the tournament, I was dealt A K offsuit and raised three times the 100 blind. Mr. Balls re-popped it to 700, leaving himself with just 600... I, of course, moved all in and lot-o-balls suddenly became lost-my-balls. He used his entire time bank before deciding to call. His attempt at taking me off my hand failed miserably, and he reluctantly called off the rest of his stack with the 8 5 of spades. The flop came A x x, with two spades, for dramatic effect, but a 3rd spade never showed up and I had successfully come back from 40 chips to win the tournament.

Mike Ditka once said "you are never a loser until you quit trying." Take Mike's advice in poker and in life...never quit.

(I apologize for the sorry ending... I'm late for my own home game!)