Every action you take in a hand should have a clear intent and purpose. Before folding, checking, calling, betting, or raising you should ask yourself, "why?". Why am I taking this action? What is my intent? Furthermore, you should consider each possible result that does not end the hand and have a planned reaction for it. If my opponent calls, what do I do on the next street? What if my opponent bets or raises? You need to think this way right from the beginning of the hand and you MUST follow through.

I think this is a key weakness in a lot of people's game. They make moves whithout a clear intent and/or they do not follow through on their original intent. This can become very dangerous.

Some examples are:

• Calling a raise or re-raise with your small pocket pair to try and hit a set. Missing your set and trying to take the pot down anyway when the flop comes ragged. Your intent was to make a set, you missed, follow through and fold.



• Limping with a mediocre hand hoping to see a cheap flop (especially with a medium Ace like A-10 or A-J). Getting raised and calling convincing yourself that you might have two overs. Flopping your ace and going broke. You wanted a cheap flop, your opponent is not letting have a cheap flop, so follow through and fold.



• Calling a large bet on a draw hoping to get paid off. Hitting your draw on the river and checking or betting a tiny amount. You called the draw to make maximum, follow through and bet the hell out of it when you hit.



• Calling a flop bet with a hand your unsure of and whithout any read on your opponents hand and whithout any draw, with no reason other than you liked the hand pre-flop and don't feel like letting go. And with no plan of attach for later streets.



• Betting whithout knowing whether your intent is to make your opponent fold, call, or raise.



• Making a probing bet, looking for information on where you stand, getting a raise that tellls you you are behind and calling anyway.

From now on, no moves will be made at the table whithout a clear inmtent and every intention will be followed through to the end.

Well, I'm just coming off a week-end of very mixed successes and failures. I played in 2 live tournaments this week-end. The "Team Tourney" which had a shootout format and allowed people to compete in teams for points and prizes and a the "CPT Deepstack" which as you've probably gleaned from the title had a deepstack format. I made the money in both, taking 5th place in the Team event and chopping top 3 in the CPT event (I believe I was second in chips by a very small margin, so we split 1st place money evenly and gave the guy with the fewest chips some extra cash for 3rd plus points in the league).

On the flipside of that, my cash game and online play has been abismal. Starting with a very bad decision to sit down at the 1/2 game after the Team tourney. It was a friday night, I had worked all day and I just finished a grueling 7 hour tournament session. I was so tired I could barely see straight, much less think straight. So of course I donlk off my tournament winnings by misreading my hand for the 3rd nuts instead of the 5th nuts. It was so stupid.

Meanwhile, I had tons of work to get done this week-end and I've picked up the habit of working while I play online. This is the worst habit ever. It has out my bottom line in ruins and my productivity in shambles. So, this blog entry is dedicated to the avandonment of this habit for good. I think it will mean a little less poker, but I'm really just giving up the losing sessions and choosing quality over quantity.