Thursday, August 28th action

We were six-handed last night with the nuttiness beginning right from the very first hand. Poor, unlucky Action\Drunk Dan was all-in pre-flop with A A against Michael J. Hauer’s Q Q with a queen burnt by a folding player. Mike, of course, hit the case queen on the river and Dan was down $300 before his VO had a chance to even chill. How unfortunate. Unfortunately for both Dan and Mike, that was the high points of both of their nights.

The big winner of the night was the often unassuming Kevin T. Cooper who took a $1200 pot with an Ace high flush versus a King high flush for Mr. Hauer. Cooper briefly crossed the $1,000 mark before settling for a +$920 night which was his third straight winning session (the longest such streak) and moved him firmly into the black for the year. Cooper’s endless Favre-like retirement talk has, once again, been put on hold.

As for other players, Mr. Hauer went straight downhill after his quick start losing $540 for the evening to close out an absolutely dreadful August. That’s -$840 lost AFTER the bad beat he put on poor, misunderstood Dan and represented Mr. Hauer’s fourth straight $400+ losing session. Mr. Hauer, once atop the leaderboard for the year-to-date standings, is firmly in second place but needs a telescope to see Lawrence after losing nearly $2,000 during August. Mr. Hauer was always known as a September player anyway and we’re sure he’ll turn his fortunes around next week.

In other action, our host, Sir Lawrence, finished out an extremely impressive August of +$3,000 with a +$570 haul last night despite his penchant for paying Mr. Cooper when he knows he is beat. Lawrence had the call of the night with his river call on Drunk Dan (he was no longer Action Dan at this point) for $50 with QUEEN HIGH. Something tells us we might be reminded of that call for the next couple of years. Lawrence, job well done the last several weeks and the pumpernickel pretzels you served were also an excellent addition to the game. Keep up the good work, Sport.

Joseph Crawford broke his typical pattern last night and actually did NOT get cracked with his first buy-in and, instead, started out winning, then lost, then won again and finally yielded a minor loss of -$49 for the night. On the positive side, Msgr. Crawford was able to finish his thesis and mow two lawns while waiting for Lawrence to finally, FINALLY make his killer call on Drunk Dan.

As for Drunk Dan, he lost another $779 bringing his total losses to $2,389 for the month of August alone which is even more astonishing considering he only played 3 times during the month. That’s nearly a loss of $800 per session for the month. Dan’s year-to-date losses in the FIVE months we have played are just a shade under $6,000. For those counting at home, that pro-rates to $14,400 over a full year and $144,000 over the next 10 years. Let’s hope his liver holds out and he lives that long. Dan’s mistakes are too numerous to mention and this is a commentary, not a research paper. Let’s just say, calling and folding remain two weak spots in his game.

Finally, last but certainly not least, this commentator’s new favorite player, Mr. Chad, lost $122 for the night. Mr. Chad did have the bluff, and the play, of the night when he raised to $15 pre-flop with 2 4 suited and won a $3 pot. For those who like coincidences, $3 is also the exercise price for Mr. Chad’s oldest SEI stock options.

Have a great Labor Day weekend, see you next Thursday.