What really happened....

For the previous 6 weeks, my raison d’être has been winning the WPBT tourney. I was in full training mode, observing a strict diet and abstaining from all forms of sexual activity (carpal tunnel). I had met with the staff at Aladdin and had instructed the dealers how, when and what to deal to me. Nothing could possibly go wrong. I had prepared a winner's acceptance speech that I could rattle off in my sleep and was already planning on spending the very attractive first prize.

There remained, however, one obstacle. Despite statements to the contrary, I had no good reason to believe that Bill Rini was actually going to change his bounty from last year's knee to the groin. So my gameplan was to avoid any direct confrontation with him - in fact the script had him going out in 3rd place with his cowboys getting cracked by CJ's suited jackhammer. I figured that after getting kneed in the junk by Rini, CJ would be in no position to pull off something unexpected, and it would be a cakewalk from there on. Why Bill and CJ, you ask? It was the least I could do to compensate Bill for last year's Gigli. And CJ had to be rewarded for all the time he put into organizing this event, for goodness sake!

And then it happened. I was dealt JJ in early position and raised all-in. Bill, who was preordained to get A4s and subsequently fold, called!!! Eight-handed and he puts his tournament life on the line calling an early position all-in raise with A4 sooooted!!! This was not in the script and to his credit, Davor, the dealer, did manage to find one of the jacks he had stashed away at the bottom of the deck for just this type of emergency, but somehow the second one eluded him. I knew that the only way I could lose this tournament was due to some unexpected move by one of my opponents, so I had reluctantly prepared a bounty together with a silly bust-out speech that I had no intention of uttering. Well, who woulda thunk it?