Instant Karma (long, little content)

[sabre170]

My Comcast cable Internet service is normally pretty reliable, but last night it threw a tantrum. I was playing Sit'n'goes on Empire, two $50 single tables and a $30 3-table. A hand ended, and the next one wasn't dealt. After maybe 30 seconds, the boxed message "Establishing connection..." appears over each table. Whatever the software is doing at that point occasionally works, but not last night. After maybe another 30 seconds, the boxes blink "Connection lost."

There is a ritual to be done for this condition. Open Internet Explorer, enter the magic IP address to bring up the interface to my SMC Barricade router/firewall, reset the Barricade, reboot the PC. If that doesn't work, repeat while also power-cycling the cable modem. Of course, all of this takes about 4 minutes on my old PC running Windows 98.

So, when I finally get logged back in, one of my $50 tables is done and I evidently did not make the top three. On the other, we are down to five or six players and I'm in the big blind. The blind is 400, and I'm left with 90 chips after posting it. I'm holding 82o. All fold to the button, who minraises to 800. The SB folds, and I cavalierly fling in my last 90, getting about 11-1 odds. My trip 8s take the pot (he had KK or AK, I forget which). When stuff like this happens, I type in the chat box, "Talent [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]" I have to get some new material.

I proceed to go on a tear, catching good cards, stealing blinds, folding trash while my opponents knock each other out, avoiding mistakes, and getting very lucky. I take first in this SnG. Yeehaw! Meanwhile, I go out in 8th from the 30-player $30 SnG. I think I lost a coin flip.

Pressing my luck, I open two more $50 singles. I play my usual game and nothing spectacular happens. I'm the short stack at both tables when the big blind is 100. I bubble out on one, making a marginal call with JTs from the big blind. The button had raised with A7o, and I got no help.

Meanwhile, on the other table, we're in the money. Yahoo! I'm the short stack with about 2000, versus about 2200 and 5600. My internet connection goes out for a smoke.

This time, my ritual has to be repeated twice. It takes me about 15 minutes to get back into Empire. I've long since given up hoping for anything better than third place. After all, my opponents aren't idiots. They'll see I've disconnected and split my blinds between themselves.

Of course, I'm not taken automatically to the tournament table, because I've been knocked out of the game. I open the cashier window, and check the balance. I take the opening balance from my records, subtract the night's entry fees, and add the first place award from that one SnG I won. I subtract the result from the balance the cashier shows I have in my account. Evidently, I took second place in that SnG I was disconnected from while in third place!

For you stats lovers, for the night my ITM was 40% and my ROI was 58%, while being disconnected at most inconvenient times.

Now, I would never disconnect deliberately to try to take advantage of this phenomenon. What goes around comes around.