I had a bit of time to kill tonight so I signed up for a $2 Multi-Table Tourney.

Now I don’t have much MTT history, back when I was first checking out on-line poker rooms I did finish in the money in a couple of largeish (field size, not prize size) freerolls but I really put that down to good luck rather than good play.

Anyway the field was 61 and… well let me get straight to the point:

Very poor form, but hey this blog is here to share the good times and the bad. Here’s a run down of the hand that killed me:

In middle position, I am dealt:

with only limpers behind me I decide to try and narrow the field and bet 3xBB ($150). This is around 10% of my stack at the time. I get three callers and the flop comes:

The action is checked around to me and with an over pair and a gut shot straight draw I decide to bet the pot, the player in dealer position flat calls me and everyone else folds.

Turn:

I’m now first to act and decide to represent the king, as the pot is now larger than my remaining stack I push all-in. He calls and turns over

to show me his set. The river is a rag and my 8′s don’t improve… I’m out of there in 39th place.

Now my MTT experience is very limited and I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be saying I shouldn’t have been pushing pocket 8′s so hard out of position at this stage of the tourney and they’re probably right, however, I think the real problem with my play is my inability to put someone on a set. Any suggestions?

Haven’t had much of a chance to play poker so far this weekend (hoping to turn that around tonight!), even so I could resist a bit of SNG action at around 3am this morning. Just for fun I joined a $2+$0.20 table and with one too many beers under my belt and in desperate need of sleep I managed to fight my way into the money.

The other two in the final three were playing crazy tight and with the clock nudging 4am I decided push a little and play any ace, king or pocket pair aggressively, for a while it worked and I was stealing a lot of blinds or winning pots on the flop. It was short lived however as I ran into AJ and AK in consecutive hands to exit in a respectable (although slightly disappointing) 3rd place.

Last night night I got my first chance since I started putting this page together to get onto Poker Champs and play some poker.

I ended up playing full ring cash games (2c/4c), one or two tables at a time depending on the number of available tables and how full they were (at the moment I’m preferring to play on a full ring table with at least 7 players seated and playing).

All in all I think I played a solid game, got some unlucky beats early but managed to fight back to finsh the session in the black (ok, so it was only 45c in the black but it still counts!!).

It was a fairly short session (around 90 minutes) so I didn’t play that many hands, here’s a few that stood out:

Hand #1 – Bad Beat?

Position: Middle
Hole Cards:

The action is folded around to me and with only 4 players remaining to act (the blinds, dealer and person directly to my left) I decide to check and see what the flop brings. My idea here is that I can easily throw these cards away if the flop is not kind.

All remaining players call/check and we see a flop.

Flop:

Lovely flop but it has it’s dangers, the possible straight for KT and any number of straight draws.

Action is checked around to me and I bet half the pot, everyone folds except the dealer who re-raises me double my original bet.

Now at this point I look at our stacks and note that I have him out stacked by about 3 times, this is a good thing as it means I’m not going broke on this hand. Next I think about what hand he could possibly have, the only hand that’s beating me right now is KT and the chances of him having it are remote. I decide to push and due to his small stack size I bet enough to put him all in.

He calls without hesitation and flips up for TPTK, I smile at my computer screen and flip up my cards to show him my two pair. Beautiful. Of course at this point I have forgotten about those pesky turn and river cards…

Turn:

River:

Ahh the river, a two-faced beast. One day it’s your friend, the next it’s stabbing you in the back.

Hand #2 – Unlucky

I won’t go into as much detail about this one, got preflop on the button and limped in, blinds checked and we saw a flop:

Flop:

I hit my set and decide to slow play as nothing about the flop is overly scary (no likely straight or flush draws), so I check. The turn brings a 7 and I decide to make a half pot sized bet to see if I get any bites. All fold except the big blind who flat calls. River comes a 9 and with no flush or reasonable straight on the board I look over to my opponents stack and place a bet to put her all in, after some consideration she calls and shows me her pocket J’s. She’d flopped the higher set from the beginning.

I’d love to be corrected but I really don’t see any way I could have gotten away from this one??

Hand #3 – Retribution

A different table to the above two hands with a couple of maniac players battling it out (lots of big raises/all-ins with very questionable hands preflop – your stereotypical micro-limit table). So, anyway, I was riding it out waiting for some cards when the poker gods smiled on me and I looked down to see:

I was first to act and decided to put in a weakish raise of 1.5BB, the table folds around to the dealer and I start to worry that no one wants to play, at this moment the dealer calls, the SB folds and the BB (maniac) goes all-in for about 3/4 of my stack. With the dealer still to speak I decide to re-raise all in in an attempt to get him out of the hand, he calls.

Unfortunately the cards flashed by quicker than I could write them down so I can’t tell you exactly what everyone had but I can tell you it was pretty mediocre. My aces held up and I scooped up quite a nice pot.

I’ve gotten used to seeing plays like this from my opponents at these mico-limits, I expect as I move up the limits I won’t see this kind of play as often… although from some of the stories I’ve read I shouldn’t expect too much .

Well I’d love to say that my ultimate aim is to win the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event, back to back to back, quit my day job and never work another day in my life. It’s a nice dream, one that’s shared by many aspiring poker players… I’m a realist though so let’s start small.

In the short term (over the next 6 months to a year) my aim is to become a profitable poker player, sounds simple right? Well, thousands have tried before me and failed. Why should I be any different?

I’ll tell you how! By mastering some basic concepts that I believe (from research, word of mouth and just common sense) that all new poker players serious about their game should learn to master.

I plan to …

… play within my bankroll
… play with patience
… play with discipline
… push when my cards are good
… fold when my cards are beat
… learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others
… learn to be aggressive
… learn when not to be aggressive
… have fun!

Now all this is easily said, but much more difficult to do. Over the next few weeks I’ll be going into more detail about the above points. Until then I’d love to hear how other new players are looking to strengthen their game and if there are are any seasoned veterans reading perhaps you’d like to share some of the important lessons you learnt while you were getting your game up to speed?