Winning money is fun, playing well is more fun. That describes the most recent self-discovery I’ve made in terms of poker, and is something that I’m quite proud of. I’m leisurely riding a fairly sweet upswing right now and my bankroll is being very nicely padded because of it, and while I’m not complaining that I’m winning money (as mentioned previously, I’m not stupid), I still cringe over poorly played hands more than I feel good about large pots won. One of my recent sessions, where I ended up something around 20BB after 100 hands played, left me feeling stupid about the fact that I missed a river bet:

It’s $3/$6 or $5/$10 (can’t remember now, I played half of each last week) 6-max limit hold ‘em. Button seems to be a non-descript typical player, but I haven’t played with him for long.

UTG folds, and I’m holding KQo in middle position. I raise first in. Button cold calls and the big blind calls.

Flop comes K-T-3 rainbow. Big blind checks, I bet, button calls, big blind folds.

Turn is the 5 of spades, putting two spades on the board. I bet, button calls.

River is the 8 of spades. I think for a second, and check.

I’ve felt awful about that check ever since I made it. It’s an awful, awful check. In my head, I was thinking that I’d checkraise him. That’s horrible. If I check and the passive player (he sure seems passive throughout this hand, at least) suddenly decides to bluff, he won’t call a river checkraise anyway. He’ll three-bet with a rivered flush, though. But he will also check behind many hands that he would call a bet with.

Bah.

I’ve been wondering lately how high I’ll go in terms of limits. Where will my journey take me? $10/$20 is within reach soon, and $20/$40 doesn’t seem that impossible either. Lori - tongue in cheek - asked me the other day how soon I think I’ll be sitting at the $1k/$2k tables on FullTilt. I said something about how that day isn’t likely to ever come. She asked “why not?” It’s a good question. “I’m not skilled enough” is one answer, but I would presumably get better as I work my way up, although I may never be so good as to beat the really high stakes - but I won’t know that until I try. “I don’t have enough time” is another, to which she said “you’ll live another 40 or 50 years. I don’t think you can blame time for this one.” Or maybe I’ll lose interest and quit playing poker altogether.

I dunno. Ultimately, of course, it comes down to how large stakes I can profitably play, which in turn actually does come down to how much time I can afford to spend on the game. In order to stay ahead of the curve at, say, $100/$200 I would need to practise and play a lot - a lot lot. I don’t have that many hours left in the day. Although to continue down that line of thought, would I really keep my current job if I’d be able to crush $30/$60? I’ve said many times that I don’t even consider playing fulltime as an option - and I don’t - but the reasoning around it is still interesting.

And at the end of day, I’m still just a small stakes player who probably is arrogant to even think along these lines. Oh, well.