argh

did my weekly contribution to the Poker charity today. Played in the weekly 6:30 NLHE tourney at the Golden Nugget tonight. First of all, I did confirm that the house takes absolutely no juice from the game. Talk about sweet. I blew off nearly half my stack in the first round when I found pocket Queens from early-middle position and raised it from T50 to T300. One of guy calls and late position guy goes over the top and makes it T1000. Now I think the one thing I'm trying to work on in tourney poker is to stay alive. So I was half tempted to go all in but instead I call. Flop is A K x with two of the cards suited and I have to lay it down to the raiser's all in. So the good news was I made a good laydown (I think), but the bad news was that I lost half my stack before the first round was over. So still in the first round I pick up JJ and go all in over an early position raiser. He calls and flips over Kings. I have a glimmer of hope when three spades flop (I have one, he doesn't), but the next two cards are blanks and IGHN.

There are worse ways to spend $30. Although I wonder if maybe I'm probably inhaling enough second hand cigarette smoke that that $30 will come back and haunt me in the form of health bills?