Thanks, PokerStars!

I've been playing some solid poker lately, and I've been feeling that I'm on the verge of something big. I entered PokerStars' $10 tournament that guaranteed $20K in the prize pool, meaning the winner would likely get somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000. While that's not my biggest single-day cash (I'm kind of awesome), it's still a great amount of money, especially considering it costs just 10 bucks to enter.


Spirits were high. I was ready to dominate every European idiot I came across, a tall order indeed. Before I could even scope out the other dead men at my table, I was dealt JJ on the 2nd hand. 


I absolutely HATE pocket jacks. They're exceptionally difficult to play. They look beautiful, but in reality there are 3 overcards out there that can easily trump them. The blinds were at 10/20 and I was in early position. Wanting to be careful, I opened with a bet of 64 chips and got 3 callers.


With 3 callers, I was pretty much ready to toss the hand away. It was really early on in the tournament and I didn't want to get into a macho shoving match with someone else at the table and OH HI THERE FULL HOUSE!


The flop came 4 - 4 - J. A monster hand. HUGE. One of the 3 callers threw out a small bet of 60 and scared the other two off. I called. Turn was irrelevant. He bet 60 again. I raised to around 400. He called immediately. River was irrelevant. I bet around 700, and he raised all-in. What an idiot! Thanks for the early boost, amigo! I called immediately. And saw this.

And that, my friends, is a classic PokerStars ass slamming.