By T.J Cloutier
Poker News: In the $5K no-limit hold'em event, I finished 23rd and cashed for $20,034. (The $34 is about what it costs for a real lunch at the casino, and every dime you can get ahead of the game counts, I figure.). It was a funny (funny-strange, not funny-ha-ha) days in which I hardly held any hands but the hands that I played either won the pot outright, or somebody paid them off at the end. I mean it was uncanny, the hands that were played against me. Play online poker

For example, after starting with $10K in poker chips, I had won a couple of little pots and had built up to about $16K in chips. We started with 640 players and woman poker players and were down to about 450 when I moved tables. Sitting exactly to my left was Chris Bjorin from Sweden, a great poker player - but on this day, he hadn't brought his A-game to the table with him. It was passed around to me and I raised the pot with two queens in the hole. Chris called from the button, and the big blind called. Read poker blogs

The flop came something like J-6-4 with two spades. I bet on the flop, Chris called, and the big blind folded. When another 4 came on the turn, I just moved all in on Chris. He hesitated for a minute and then called. When we turned over our hands, he showed a Q-J against my two queens. Play route 66 poker

For a poker player the caliber of Chris, this was a horrible play. He was in really bad shape, dead to a jack with one card to come. Obviously, he couldn't catch a queen and win it with queens and jacks, because a queen would give me queens full. He didn't catch it, and left quietly. With that pot, my chip stack rose to over $30K. Download poker wallpapers

A little while later, with the blinds at $150-$300, I looked down at two aces in the big blind. It was passed all the way around to the little blind. "Oh, boy," I'm thinking, "I'm just gonna win the antes with aces." You know, you wait so long to get them and then you just win the antes and you're disappointed. Instead, the small blind called and I raised him $1,000, about a standard raise. He didn't hesitate in calling me. Play full tilt poker

The board came K-Q-4. He checked to me and I made a decent bet at the pot. Guess what? He check-raised to $9K! "Okay," I said, "Let's go for all of it!" and moved in. "I call!" he said real quickly, and turned up a K-6. He had nothing! Top pair with a bad kicker up against two aces! So my aces held up and up went my stack again. This is what I mean about this poker tournament - the money was just given to me.

Poker News Source: pokerpages