Welcome to my latest poker disaster, starring yours truly as the hero who managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of... well, mild mediocrity. Started the Mystery Battle Royale with pocket 5s and immediately established my tight-is-right philosophy by folding to an all-in shove. Smart? Maybe. Exciting? About as thrilling as watching paint dry. Spent the next dozen hands perfecting my folding technique - 6T offsuit, 5s-2s, 6s-Jh, 3s-6h all got the axe faster than a lumberjack on espresso. Finally played a hand with K9, flopped air on 6-7-4, and somehow managed to bluff the river for a whopping 110 chips. Felt like Phil Ivey for exactly 30 seconds. Then came the A9 disaster where I called down with ace-high against KQ on a K-2-6 board because apparently I thought my kicker was made of magic. Continued my nitty ways folding J9, 8-3, 3-K like I was auditioning for the World Series of Folding. But then THE HAND arrived - picked up AK (Big Slick!) and my brain decided to take a vacation. 3-bet an opener, flop came 5-9-3 rainbow, I c-bet 338, opponent shoves for 740 total, and I called because 'I have ace-king!' Plot twist: they had A9 for top pair. The river brought an ace to give me false hope before revealing they made two pair while I had one lonely pair of aces. Tournament over. Lesson learned: Sometimes ace-king is just ace-high, and sometimes your opponent actually has something when they shove. Revolutionary stuff, I know.