I’m not sure if I’ve written about this before but myself along with a few friends have started up a small poker league where we get together at least once a month to play a low stakes game (usually a sit and go style no-limit hold’em tournament) and keep track of the results.

I’ve generally had reasonable success at home games and although I don’t track my results as closely as I do on-line (I see them as more a way to have some fun rather than a way to win money) I believe I’m “up” overall. However, all of this was irrelevant at yesterdays game where I screwed up royally!

It’s the second round, blinds are 20/40 and I’m in early position. I haven’t really played any hands up until now and I still have most of my starting 1500 in chips. There are seven players in the game and it has been folded around to me, I look down at:

An instant fold right? Well, I’m not so sure. See at this point I’d been doing a lot of folding, I’d probably only seen one or two flops the whole game. Also, there hadn’t been a lot of raising at the table so far so I liked my chances of seeing a cheap flop. If I hit no one at the table would expect me to hold cards like this, if I didn’t these are easy cards to get away from. It’s not something I would do often, nor would I necessarily recommend it but the time felt right to play so I limped and with three other players (including the blinds) I saw a cheap flop:

Giving me top two pair and a back door flush draw. Just about the nicest flop I could have hoped for apart from the two clubs. Now here’s where I make my first major mistake (ignoring preflop which I’ll analyse a little more later), in a pot of $160 I only bet $50. My defence here is that I was hoping to be raised, but in hindsight the table was quite passive at that point so I really should have expected callers not to mention my bet of $50 gives anyone on a club draw nice odds to call with even if they don’t realise it. Anyway, two players call and we see the turn:

Which (ignoring the fact that any over card is potentially dangerous) looks like a nice card for me as I now have four to a spade flush. After the callers on the flop I decide I need to bet bigger this time around and make it $200 to go. One player folds, the other smooth calls which is extremely suspicious as $200 would be considered a large bet into almost any size pot given how the game has played so far.

The river is a rag and I bet out again, this time $400 which my opponent considers and then calls turning over:

(suits may vary)

For a higher two pair. This leaves me as the short stack at the table and although I definitely should have done a better job at surviving I was out soon after in 7th place (out of 7). Not my best day at the poker table and all because of one hand – 94s! What was I thinking? I never play 94 even if it is suited! Let’s consider where I went wrong…

Preflop:

• It’s good to be creative and occasionally play cards that your opponents wouldn’t expect, however, 94s in early position is maybe taking that a little bit to the extreme.
• Why call preflop? I should definitely have raised here, if I’m going to to try and be a little deceptive then I should represent a big hand. A standard 3 X BB raise here would likely have caused T9o to fold.
• There was no real need to try this move here at all, the blinds are low and I have plenty of chips. I should wait for a better opportunity to win some chips.

Flop:

• Preflop mistakes don’t matter now, I hit top two pair but there is a flush draw and I am also vulnerable to pretty much any other 9. In this situation you have to bet big, $50 is not enough. Make it at least the pot, maybe a little more. $200 has a nice ring to it. 

Turn and River:

• I think I played these streets correctly, out of position I was giving chips away here regardless. With no raise on my turn bet I had no reason to consider T9 and when no flush came on the river I was fairly confident I had the best hand, however, due to my mistakes on other streets (preflop especially) my opponent could have had absolutely anything.

So there you go, sometimes when the cards aren’t running well for you and you feel you’ve got a tight table image you’ll be tempted to play “any two cards”. This is good. Just make sure when you do that you learn from my mistakes and pick your moments based on table position, table feel and your opponents and please, when you hit that flop hard always make your opponents pay to outdraw you. You’ll have a much better idea of where you’re at and just maybe you’ll avoid donking off a lot of your chips like I did.

Of course, you’ll do much better if you just have a little more patience than I did and wait for that big hand to come along… no need to force these things, especially early in the tournament.