Texas Holdem: Sick Winning Streak

In the last few months, I've been winning - period.  I'm winnng on-line.  I'm winning in Friday Night Poker.  I'm winning when I'm not interested in the game.  I'm winning when I'm badly distracted.  I'm winning when I get bad to medium hands.  And last night, I won when I couldn't miss.  I got 2nd, 1st, 1st last night.  My hands last night were so lucky that I was embarrarssed to keep winning.  I even folded what would have turned out to be great hands, including a full house.  The thing about getting cards though is that you have to play them right.  I wrote a while back about not mis-playing hands:  http://floppedtheboat.blogspot.com/2010/08/avoid-mis-played-poker-hands.html. 

Well, I can only think of maybe 1 or 2 hands that I mis-played last night.  Most of my moves last night were on purpose, meaning that even when I made questionable calls, it was for a reason.  For example, I played a couple of hands all the way to the river and made small raises and straight calls and lost the hands because I didn't even have a pair.  That was sort of my way of mixing up so the other guys don't "figure me out" like they used to all the time.  There's a guy that I play with that I swear sometimes he can see my cards before I do.  In recognition of this, I have to try to keep him guessing.

I had a couple of other winning hands that I might have folded in the past.  In one of them, I hit the straight on the river.  I wasn't chasing the river.  The bets made just weren't big enough to get me off my hand and I hit.  The river card was the 3rd club on the board and my opponent made a big bet THAT I DIDN'T BELIEVE.  So, I went with my gut and made the successful call.  In another hand, I had A J suited and the board paired 7's and some other small cards.  It was checks on the flop and checks on the turn (keeping me in the hand) and then my opponent bet the river.  I quickly calculated the odds of what I thought he had and found that the odds were against him, so I made the call and won.  He also had an Ace in his hand with a smaller kicker.

I know the way I've been winning lately has to be frustrating for the guys I play with.  I would be frustrated if I was them.  Then again, frustration is a weakness in poker because it brings a loss of focus, but it's hard to avoid sometimes.  Right now, I'm questioning my poker ability because this kind of winning makes me wonder how much of my success is pure luck.  I'm happy to have it on my side for as long as possible, but in the bigger picture, luck isn't why I want to win.  I'm going to be re-evaluating my actual skills over the next week.  Some of the guys I play with are too good for me to hope for luck each time I set down.  I want to be good enough to play with anyone.  I'm not there yet and that's going to be my focus.

This has been a sick streak though.