I hate Kings. Have I mentioned that before? Not just in poker. All of ’em. King Hussein, The Sacramento Kings, Billie Jean King, Elvis, Burger King, Evelyn “Champagne” king (Come on, you don’t remeber that classic song “Shame”). I hate King street. I hate Prince William, and he’s not even king yet. I hate Martin Luther king. OK, no I don’t hate Martin Luther King, that’s where I draw the line, I have enormous admiration for the man, but that’s it! All other Kings I can’t stand.

In poker Kings are my Waterloo. Always have been. Brutus to my Caesar, Abel to my Cain, Tom to my Jerry. Kings are my own personal Lex Luthor, I think you get the general idea. And once again today they did their loathesome best to derail me… and almost succeeded. Despite playing card-dead most of the day, I played beautifully. A little steal here, a little three-raise there, and somehow I was well in contention through 6 one-hour rounds of play. And then I saw the dreaded Kings. without going into great detail, once again my KK ran into AA. Ugliness ensued. I went from a healthy 42K in chips to a gasping 15K in one fell swoop.

Over the final two hours I rallied a bit, won a few good ones from the bad guys (once with Kings!) and bagged my chips at the end of day one with 36K. Of the 387 in the (surprisingly small) starting field, 230 remain. At this point I’m probably around 160th. The average chipstack is a little over 50K so I gotta go to work and I gotta do it relatively fast.

Saw a guy in the elevator on the way up to my room and he asked me if I was still in the tourny. I told him I had a meagre 36K left. He said “you’re in great shape then, I’ve only got 18K”. Bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, I think the latent Jew who lives deep inside me might have muttered something about the luckiness of “Chai” and “Double-Chai”. The lack of response indicated that either the gentile didn’t hear me, or assumed I was “Chai as a kite” myself. Anyway the door opened for my floor. So fuck him.