Well, I got the invitation to the PokerStars Blogger Championship that I mentioned in the last post, so I figured I’d better brush up on my game.

I joined a single table Sit-N-Go game, and did pretty well, hanging out in the top three for at least half the game. Going into the hand, blinds were 100/200, I was chip leader in middle position, and I was dealt pretty good cards: [Ks][Qc]. When it came around to me, I called. The next player went all in. Since he had been making monster bluff bets all game, and since I had plenty of chips to cover him, I called. We turned them up for the showdown, and I was surprised to see he had a decent hand too: [Ac][Jd].

The flop came [7d][Kd][Td], so I was pretty happy. I had top pair (kings), and as long as he didn’t get any diamonds or an ace, I had a good chance of winning the hand and knocking him out of the tournament. Unfortunately, the turn card was a [Qd], which gave him the flush. As I was typing “nh” into the chat bar, the river card came up: [Ad].

I caught a flush on the board, and he caught a Royal Flush on the river.

Nice hand, indeed. A very nice hand. Some would say I suffered a bad beat; that I had a good hand, but was beat by another player’s luck. In this case, I disagree. Yes, I had a decent hand on the flop, but when the Queen of Diamonds showed up on the turn, it was all over. He had me dominated before the river card ever came.

As it turned out, I went on to finish fourth in the tournament (one spot out of the money, of course) and he was knocked out sixteen hands after hitting his Royal.

Ahh, poker. I’ve missed it.