The best of all worlds, I’m hanging out at the old homestead (my oldhouse where my sons now live), and little miss, 12 day old, cutie pie is asleep on the couch right next to me, the only glitch is I missed the damned free roll on Duplicate Poker to the PokerNews Cup by 17 minutes. KEE-RIST!

But I did sign up for a tournament at Duplicate Poker and managed to win a whopping big $21.??

I won the first few hands in the first round, and watched the tournament screen to see where I was in comparison to the vilians that were in competition with me to move to the 2nd round. I folded the last four or five hands (other than my paying my blinds, I put nothing in the pot). I did the same thing on the second round, I knew I didn’t have to play a hand on the last four hands that were dealt…so I didn’t. Even if I’d picked up Aces I would have pitched them. My feeling on Duplicate is still up in the air, I don’t know if I love it or hate it, but I’m going to keep testing the waters. And I’m going to try for the last three free rolls for the PokerNews Cup – Sundays at 4 p.m. Eastern.

Last night was a lot of fun. Tami, Ryan, Carole, Gordon, and I met at the SunCoast for the buffet and then played a little poker and a few machines (Carole and I played machines anyway). We got to the poker room about 7 minutes late for the start of the tournament, they allowed alternates for the first hour. Gordon wasn’t going to play, Carole didn’t know if she was going to play, Tami knew she didn’t want to play the tournament and was going to play live, Ryan and I were going to play the tournament.

There were four names on the alternate list and if we signed up – and one more player showed – they would start another table. We did. We paid $65 and waited. I asked for a receipt. NOPE! They don’t give them. Umnhhh. I was told that their tournaments NEVER reach a spot where first prize would be over $3K and that’s what we would have to win in order to fill out a form for tax purposes. OK, but what if we had other tournament wins in other places and wanted to show our expenses. Tough! They just don’t give receipts.

Two seats opened, two alternates got in. The blind level went up. I was contemplating….I’d lost my zeal to play in this tournament. I was just ready to ask for my money back when a few more people came in andmanagement decided to open another table. They did. No dealer though and we waited. About 40 minutes into the tournament, we were still waiting. UGH! Gordon was sitting at an empty table doing nothing, Carole was outside in the casino somewhere, Tami was in a $2-4H game, and I DID NOT want to play the tournament. I asked the TD if Gordon could take my place since we hadn’t played a hand. “Sure!”

I went to a $4-8H table, it was just starting and ran short off and on. I managed to pull a $40 win out of the game and cashed. Gordon made it past the first break and went bust. Ryan went bust shortly after. I went out to find Carole. I circled what I felt like was the whole damn casino and couldn’t find her. I gave up and plunked my butt down at a machine that graciously took a bit of my money and then gave me back more than I put in it. I ended up winner for the night, over the tournament buy-in loss, had a great time with great friends, and headed for home so damn tired I couldn’t think.

It’s almost the end of Sunday’s plan and tomorrow night’s Suzie’sBirthday Bash. C U there!