Personal first

I first used this blog post title on February 13, 2017. Here's an excerpt of what I had to say:

Personal worsts are relatively rare. The same is true for personal bests. The really rare beast, however, is the personal first. That's when something happens to you which has never happened to you before. By definition, a personal first can happen only once.

Last night, I had another one. For the first time ever in an NLHE tournament, I only lasted a single hand. Considering I've played in 1,659 NLHE tournaments, you can see how rare an event it was. It should never have happened at all; the problem was that I succumbed to the imp of the perverse. In a poker context, that's when you call a bet you know you shouldn't be calling; you just can't help yourself. I'd been dealt KQo (king queen offsuit), and the flop came 4s Kd 9s, giving me top pair with a decent kicker. An opponent shoved, and I called all in. Our hole cards went face up, and I saw the bad news - my opponent had been dealt 94o (nine four offsuit), and was a 73.03% favorite. His two pair held up, and I made personal poker history.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE   174000 26000       6     1      17    6     -        0
MTT-B NLHE   174000 26000       9    29      88   18     -        0

delta: $-400,000
MTT NLHE balance: $4,224,668
2019 balance: $19,133,150
balance: $65,717,410