I was going to start off with telling you what happened in the main event the other day but I think I would rather start with what happened directly after I went out as that's what rarely gets written about.  It usually takes me a couple of days to recover from going out of a WPT major.  Sometimes I wonder if I play with too much emotion as when I come up short there is this deep empty feeling of disappointment in my stomach. Then again, I look at top competitors in other sports and always find that behind great accomplishments rides great emotion. I know many professionals who are strictly mathematical and remain detached from their results and when you're playing cash games that is certainly what you have to do. You have to be thick skinned in this business. But tournament poker is a different animal and to win a major event like this I think you have to play with a lot of heart and passion. After all your objective is to obtain every chip in the tournament. And what is passion but strong, focused emotion.

So I've learned by now that it takes me a couple of days to rebound and begin my next attempt at the summit. After I went out the other day I left the building in a daze. As if returning from a missed summit attempt on Everest I headed back to base camp a little light headed. I got in my car not knowing where I was going as I hadn't planned on seeing the daylight today but now found myself looking for a place to hide. So I headed for the movies. I got a bag of popcorn and a soda and watched the movie "Vantage Point."

Today I started out with an exercise routine which always makes me feel better. I'll pick up my kids and spend some time with them the next couple of days before Saturday's celebrity invitational at the Commerce.

It's always nice to report about winning and the glory which I expect to do in the coming months but as I said before my goal in this column is to blog about the whole experience of traveling on the world poker tour. And so I thought I would write this column on what I do when I bust out of a tournament. Simple things really, that restore good feelings and a balanced perspective. Surrounding myself with simple pleasures helps me do that. Like going to my kids guitar lesson or baseballs games, enjoying pizza and beer and going to the movies. Some of my favorite things to do away from the poker table. As far as the daily chores like taking out the trash, opening the mail and paying the bills….well, they'll just have to wait another day.

As far as the tournament goes it basically boiled down to three hands which in summary played out like this:

I was up to 140k in chips and sitting third in chips on my table. I opened limped in middle position with the 5/6 of diamonds. I got three callers. The flop fell 8/2/2 with two diamonds. The small blind on a stack of 60k led out for 8k. I called and everyone else folded. The turn was a 9 of diamonds giving me the flush. My opponent checked and I bet 14k and he moved in for the rest of his stack. I called and he flipped over J/2 for trips. The river was a jack which made him a full house and I got flushed down on the river and was down to 80k.

I certainly got unlucky in the hand but I made some mistakes as well, such as playing a multi-way hand out of position and open limping with my stack size instead of raising and taking control of the pot. Actually playing mediocre hands defensively is really what brought about my demise. In the next level Alan Goering raised the 2400 BB to 5k from early position and I flat called behind him with AJs. Again, I didn't take an aggressive stance and it cost me as the SB came along for the small raise with A6 and made Aces and Sixes and I paid him off to the tune of 40k when the flop fell A/9/6!  I was now down to my last 21k and with the cost per round at 7500 I elected to move all-in UG with KT rather then deplete my fold equity any more by going through the blinds. I got called by pocket 55's and failed to improve and was out in roughly 95th place about 30 players short of making the money.

Three long days, almost 20 hours of play with no pay but that is the challenge you face in tournament poker. All said and done if you are not going to enjoy the journey you might as well not get on the ride. So on the way to the next championship bracelet, ring or whatever it may be, make sure you-

ENJOY THE JOURNEY,

KENNA JAMES