Well, this past week has at the same time been the best and worst poker week in the history of my short poker “career”.

How is this possible you ask? Well it’s a case of two games, ring limit hold’em and no-limit sit and go’s. In the former I am up over 100 BB and I have been killing my current limit, in the latter I haven’t cashed in the past 8 that I’ve played.

All this puts me slightly down for the week money wise and significantly down in SNG confidence.

For now I’m going to put the SNG losses down to variance, for the most part I’ve had my money in the middle when I’ve been ahead. I’ve also had my fair share of “second best big hands”, sets vs sets, straights vs straights etc. I’m not by any means saying I haven’t made any mistakes because I have, in fact it all comes down to the old:

Fold when you are beat

Which my limit study (mainly Small Stakes Hold’em by Miller et. al.) has to some extent contradicted with the argument that in loose games you can’t really tell what your opponent actually has and folding can often cost you more than paying off a better hand. This is fine for limit when it costs you one BB, but it doesn’t translate well to no-limit where it can cost you a buy-in or a tournament. There’s a happy medium somewhere that the truly great players are able to find, I think I’m a way off finding it myself.

It’s not all bad though, it’s Christmas eve and I’ve got three weeks off work to relax and enjoy the summer! With any luck I’ll be able to get stuck into improving my poker game a little over this period too.

Happy Holidays!

Poker Stars, 5c/10c limit. I’ve been playing quite tight and getting a lot of bad cards, then these three within 5 hands of each other:

Hand #1:

In the BB I’m dealt:

Action is checked around to me and I check to the flop:

Full house! Tables checks to the turn (rag) and I bet. Everyone folds. Damn tight image.

Hand #2:

Dealt:

I raise and get two callers, flop:

Another full house! This time I bet and get one caller, we see the turn:

I decide to attempt a check-raise but my opponent just checks and we see the river:

A scary card, I check (wrong move) he bets and I decide to just call. Turns out he was bluffing so either way I probably wouldn’t have made money by raising here.

Hand #3:

I’m again dealt:

Lovely! I raise again… only one caller this time:

A set, this is unbelievable. Even with the potential flush out there I decide to try for a check raise, which again backfires and we see a free turn:

A potentially dangerous card, we’re heads up though so the chances of him having the straight are quite low. I bet and he instantly folds .

So… that’s three monster hands in a row and very little pay off for them. Good news is it did loosen up my image a little and 2 orbits later I got won a 15BB pot when I hit yet another full house. Good times!

Seriously though I’m going to think about these hands a little longer, I have a feeling I might have missed a couple of opportunities to extract an extra bet or two out of my opponents.

In their latest episode (#25) the boys over at Poker Diagram were asking for your worst on-line poker mistakes.

This got me thinking about mistakes I make when playing on-line and I would have to say that my main downfall in my current on-line game can be summed up in one word:

Multitasking

Like the great man Zog himself I simply do too many things at once, some examples from the past 24 hours:

1. Playing a 7 card stud tourney (freeroll) on Poker Stars while also playing no-limit hold’em over at Poker Champs
2. Playing limit hold’em on Poker Stars while also playing no-limit SNG’s on Poker Champs (this one cost me two tourneys through lack of concentration)
3. Reading web/e-mail
4. Watching TV
5. Cooking
6. As we speak I am playing while writing this blog entry!

That’s just the past 24 hours!

New years resolution:

Concentrate, concentrate and concentrate!

Let me say now that this post has very little strategic value, I just had to tell someone

5c/10c limit hold’em, in late position I am dealt:

I limp along with 2 callers and the BB and we see a flop:

Flopped quads, glad this wasn’t live because some might say that laughing out loud could be considered a tell! Now how to play them… The action is checked around to the player on my left who bets, I put him on the ten and decide a call is the best move here. Everyone else folds and we see the turn:

Probably doesn’t improve his hand at all, he bets again and I decide to call, if he does indeed have the ten a raise here would probably scare him off. The river:

This is my dream card! If my read is correct he’s just made a full house and is paying me off, he bets, I raise, he re-raises and we continue until the betting is capped. He turns over:

Ahh, poker perfection. Flopping quads and then having someone willing to pay them off… it made my night