sorting and grouping with min/max

[vivawasser <d(dot)piekarski(at)vivawasser(dot)de>]

Hi everybody,

my table is:
id    params    player    cmd_nr    date
1    a:4:{s:3:"cmd";s:7:"bewegen";s:2:"id";s:1:"8";s:8...    dompie    
1    2009-02-28 23:45:48.020761+01
2    a:4:{s:3:"cmd";s:7:"bewegen";s:2:"id";s:1:"8";s:8...    dompie    
2    2009-02-28 23:45:48.530177+01
3    a:4:{s:3:"cmd";s:7:"bewegen";s:2:"id";s:1:"8";s:8...    dompie    
3    2009-02-28 23:45:48.977044+01
5    a:4:{s:3:"cmd";s:3:"neu";s:4:"name";s:4:"Oger";s:...    thoto    
2    2009-02-28 23:46:20.754546+01
6    a:4:{s:3:"cmd";s:3:"neu";s:4:"name";s:6:"Magier";...    thoto    
3    2009-02-28 23:46:29.898683+01
7    a:4:{s:3:"cmd";s:3:"neu";s:4:"name";s:5:"Prinz";s...     thoto    
4    2009-02-28 23:46:37.643187+01
8    a:4:{s:3:"cmd";s:3:"neu";s:4:"name";s:10:"Prinzes...    tamborin    
1    2009-02-28 23:46:51.675636+01
9    a:4:{s:3:"cmd";s:3:"neu";s:4:"name";s:6:"Drache";...    tamborin    
2    2009-02-28 23:47:23.30321+01

i'm looking for a query that returns one row for each player with the 
smallest cmd_nr value. after several hours i figured out the following query

SELECT * FROM command_queue GROUP BY id, params, player, cmd_nr, date
HAVING (player, cmd_nr) IN (SELECT player, MIN(cmd_nr) FROM 
command_queue GROUP BY player)

that seems to me a bit complex for such a simple task. Is there maybe a 
more easy way to achieve the same result?