Vegas -- Still a Screamer

Play the game with fear and arrogance, even when you're getting beat.
-Bull Durham

LAS VEGAS -- It's five-handed at the Excalibur and it's folded around to me on the button. I look down and I see JJ.

I raise, making it $13 in the $1/3 NL game. The bb, a local who's been tilty recently because of a flurry of bad beats, makes it $38.

I call.

Flop is all low cards. I bet out $20. It's a five-handed game, right. Tilty local makes it $50.

All of a sudden I don't like it. But it's five-handed, right?

I push the rest of my stack in, about $120 more.

He instantly calls and flips over AA.

Nice. Well, this will be the first time in my 5-day trip here that I've made a mistake.

I get up, and start to head for the door.

Turn is a J! I take down the pot and deliver yet another horrible beat to the tilty local.

I scream out loudly and wildly, like last Monday when my 1-outer set of Ks beat aces, right before the robbery.

I'm not sure what it is. For the last few years, I've mirrored the Phil Jackson reaction to things. The Zen coach of the L.A. Lakers doesn't show any emotion, usually, win or lose.

I'm a little embarrassed but elated at yet another win, my first double-up of the trip, on my birthday.

I tell the story of the last time my underpair won.

"Maybe someone will knock over the Excalibur now," I joke.

It's been a good -- and businesslike -- trip. I've done everything right, and like the Cat Series of Poker, I've steadily built up my chip stack over a series of days, only the blinds don't go up and I can leave whenever I'm at a bad table.

I sort of hate the fact that I'm playing well under my bankroll but I'm happy at all the easy money. And playing the right poker. I'm still in a rebuilding stage, after all, and having a tremendous bankroll for what I'm playing helps give me the confidence to play, even when I may be beat.

This likely will be my last poker trip of the year, although I would love to sneak back when Caesar's Palace's poker room opens up Dec. 20. Barring a catastrophic loss of chips, I'll end up something like 12-3, way better than how I did last year.

Hopefully I'll regain the confidence to play middle-limit again at the Bellagio, the Mirage, the Wynn and the new Caesar's Palace. I know my bankroll will get there once again.

But I'm happy of what I've been doing so far, in NL.