"Somebody eliminate that f... clown"

This was the compliment given to me by one of my opponents last night, just after I eliminated him with QJ vs JJ (turned a Q). Probably one of the better compliments I have received so far :-)

I was playing at PKR. This site is graphically very intensive, and it looks like this attracts people for whom the way a pokersite looks is more important than playing good poker. I think they come there to have fun. Well, I had fun last night!

Unfortunately, PKR doesn't do hand histories (at least none that I have been able to find), but it went something like this. After about half an hour, with still basically the starting stack 1500 in front of me and the blinds already up to 75/150. Then I shared an all-in pot with somebody which also did not help. But then there was a hand that somehow tripled me up! I think I held some pair, maybe jacks, and two opponents were interested in going all-in against me. One held a lower pair and one held an Ace, and I won the race.

By this time the blinds were 100/200, but this stack enabled me to try some steals, which I did with abandon. Sometimes I got called, but mostly they just let me take their chips. Other times, I managed to win the race that followed (I won a lot of races last night).

One hand was very nice. I had Q2 and decided to just call in middle position, intending to steal the pot after the flop. Only the big blind called, I think, and the flop was K22. He bet out 400 (the minimum bet at the time). I looked at my cards. I should probably explain why I emphasize this. The point is that at PKR, you do not see your hole cards continuously. You actually have to click a button to have them revealed to you again. The effect of this is that your avatar actually peeks under his cards, so the whole table knows that you just looked at your cards. For this reason, throughout the game I was writing down the hands that I got and that I might want to play, so that I would never have to look at my cards, since I think this is a sign of weakness.

So on this occasion, I actually had a look at my cards to make it look like I was debating whether to call. Then I just called. On the blank turn, he bet 800, which I also just called. Then on the river, he bet out 1600. Now I raised to 3200, putting him all-in, and he called :-) I don't think he had put me on a 2!

One hand was very scary. It was the second time that I got AA that evening. The first time, I was UTG and minraised to 1200 or 2400 or something, causing everyone to fold. The second time, I just called for 6000 (it was much later in the game) and was very happy to see the SB raise to 12000. I reraised to 30000 and he called after some thought. But then! The flop came out KKx... This was definitely not the flop that I wanted to see. However, he checked, so I went all-in for my remaining 50000 (I had him covered by 10000). He folded. Now, I could have bet less here, but I guess I did not want to face a checkraise from him here. I sure was glad to see him lay down that hand, which put me up to nr.1 in chips.

This was already after the QJ vs JJ incident. That happened after I had called with QJ on one hand, lost quite a bit of money, and went all-in on the next hand with again QJ. My stack was 13000 and the blinds were something like 2000/4000 I think, maybe 1500/3000 but definitely not less than that. So I got called by JJ, flop AKx, turn Q...

Surviving the final table was relatively easy until we were down to three players. It seemed that these three actually knew what they were doing, and after some back and forth I went all-in with A7 and got called by AK. I actually flopped a 7 but the turn was a K, and that was the end of my tournament. Still, I had a lot of fun! Also the win of $131 was not to sneeze at, being my second biggest win ever.