The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.

Tonight was possibly my last big poker event anywhere and I have to say I’m a bit disappointed in how it went. My table at the Final Table $20K GTD NLHE First Friday was pretty active.

On one of my first hands in seat 8, I raised with [ad td] and got several callers. The flop was [jc th 9s] and there was an early-position bet. I folded, then a player in seat 1 re-raised to 2,200. The original bettor shoved and the raiser called fairly quickly, showing [jx 7x]. The original bettor had the straight with [qx 8x]. Then the board ran out [ax ax], and I would have had the second nuts. Not that I was going all-in on that draw.

Seat 1 rebought but managed to get stacked and forced out of the game in ten minutes. In all, by the end of the first hour or so, there were 15 rebuys, and a third of them were from our table. But they weren’t coming my way.

The end for me came with a whimper. I limped in with [jx tx] and less than half my starting stack, but still about 30bb. Nearly the whole table was in the hand and the flop was [kx jx 5x]. A guy who’d been making a big fuss about winning the previous week’s $10K (at a table with the likes of Kim Pok and Casey Ring) opened the betting and I called. We were heads-up. The turn was a ten, I was first to act, and I went all-in. He took a while to think about it, then finally called with a pair of aces that he’d slow-played. Two aces, three kings, four queens, three fives. It was a king.

As you may know, I am not a fan of rebuys, but I figured there wouldn’t be too many more options to do so. I hadn’t stopped by the bank to get any cash out for a rebuy, so I told Bourbon Bill that I needed to hit the ATM. When I got there, though, the screen said it was Out of Order. I walked back to the table as Bill was dealing a new hand and told him I wasn’t going to be able to do it, and he started to gather up the cards for a misdeal (since he’d dealt in my position), A couple of people offered to loan me the money, but by then I figured I’d caused enough trouble and slunk into the night of Southeaast Portland.

Played a couple of Ignition Casino $2 NLHE Jackpot Sit-n-Go tournaments. Won one, lost one.

Here’s how I spent Pearl Harbor Day six years ago:

“A Day of Poker That Will Live In Infamy”