Jay’s #TBT: My Embarrassing Exit in High Stakes Poker Tournament

Almost one year later and I still think about this poker hand on almost a daily basis.

For those who don't know, I am an avid poker player. Keep in mind, I didn't say, "great poker player", but I do play often. Truly, at this stage in my life, I really only thoroughly enjoy one thing: Being around my children. However, I'm not able to have them on a nightly basis anymore, so I have found love for two hobbies to hold me over on days and nights that I don't see my kiddos.

Ironically, both of them are tremendous ways for me to lose money.

I love playing golf, and try to play twice a week. I'm not very good though, in fact, when I golf it's like a mixture between an Easter egg hunt and cricket. The other hobby I can't get enough of is poker. I also try to play poker at least once a week, although with the local poker rooms closed, that's not always as easy as it sounds.

Today, I realized we're almost a year removed from a prestigious poker event held at the Horseshoe's Riverdome. Last year, when the Southern Poker Tour came to town and transformed the Riverdome into a massive poker room, you know I couldn't miss it for the world. It was like something off television, quite different than the standard weekend at the regular poker room. There were lights, cameras, and a lot of action on the felt, with everyone eyeing down the big prize.

That prize, of course, being a smooth $200,000. The buy-in for the event was $420.

my time in the three-day tournament lasted about thirty minutes. It was, of course, an enjoyable thirty minutes, but it came to a crashing halt much quicker than I would have liked it too.

Thirty minutes into my tournament, I had about $14,000 in tournament chips. That's pretty good considering we started with $6,000. At this point, I'm playing super cautiously, only playing really great starting hands. I'm folding left and right, letting the rest of the table duke it out... Then it happened.

I got dealt the monster. Pocket aces. To my surprise, before the flop came out, another player raised the pot to about $3,000. I raised him instantly to about $7,000. He is the only one at the table with more chips than me...

He goes all-in... I have to call.

For all the chips... I flip over pocket Aces, he flips over King-Nine of Hearts. I'm the monstrous favorite. The good news, I hit a set of Aces after the flop.... The bad news is the flop came out with three hearts, giving my opponent a flush.

One year later, and I'm still not over this tragic ending 30 minutes into the biggest poker tournament I'll ever (probably) play in.