This just happened last night... except I was the lowest flush. I was able to escape with a relatively small dent, though, cause the nut flush was a short stack.

Took Monday off and got a decent day in yesterday. I'm getting in to a routine that I kinda like. Basically I get to the casino between 3 and 4, play 3-4 hours until dinner, take a break to eat, and then play 3-4 more hours. Usually its 1-ish when I leave. In the future I may start playing more of the night hours, playing until 3 or 4 am, but for right now I'm just too tired to play that late and it would take a while to adjust my sleep schedule to be able to play that late.

Yesterday did pretty much exactly that. Played from 4:30-7:30, took a dinner break and then played from 8:30-12:30. Got in quite a few spots, way too many to post all of them but I will post one because it leads to another topic.

I had been playing my normal tight aggressive game but I had been getting a better than average run of cards and winning a lot of small pots without having to show, so I think some of the players thought I was looser than I was. I had raised a couple times from late position to steal the blinds and ended up having to fold so I knew some of the guys thought I was full of ****. Shortly after that I picked up KK from the Hijack (two positions to the left of the dealer). I raised to 20 and the guy to my left, one of the guys that I am pretty sure thinks I'm raising with bad hands makes it 55. It folds back to me and I make it 155. After a little thought he moves all in and I called fairly quickly. The board ran out AT7QQ and I lost to his AJ. After the hand he told me that he thought I was just making a play and thats why he shoved his AJ, so I was pretty happy with the hand even though I lost.

(what follows is going to include some basic things that some people may find boring but I didn't highlight them since it does include some other things that wouldn't make sense if you skipped the parts I would highlight.)

The topic this brings up is all-in equity. All-in equity is just the % of the time I expect to win the pot on average when getting all-in. So in this example I have roughly 70% equity with KK all-in preflop against AJ. So even though I lost the hand it is a winning play.

What I have started doing is keeping track of every hand that I get all-in with before all the cards are out and calculating my equity. Then I tabulate what actually happened and compare the two. For example, if I have 60% in a $100 pot, I have $60 in equity. If I lose I don't actually get any money this time, but I still would end up with $60 on this bet in the long run. If I win I still will only get 60 in the long run but this time I got 100. That means I ran above my expectation for that hand. I have been doing this since I switched back to holdem just to see what would happen. I have had 13 all-in hands in that time and I am running significantly below my expected value, mostly because of a few big hands where I had 70% or more and lost. The point of me bringing this up is to show those less familiar with the game how good players can lose on a given day or week even by making the correct plays.

Let's talk about all-in equity: Yeah, it's great. I have used it before to maintain sanity after a couple of brutal beats in a row. But it's arbitrary and the next time you find yourself in the situation of an 80:20 favorite, it could just be another part of the 20 that comes out. The 80 could happen on the table next to you.

All we can do is make the right plays at the right times. We're going to suck out and we're going to get sucked out on.

Keep grinding. I see no reason to switch your schedule if it is working for you. Maybe on Friday and Saturday nights, it might be profitable to keep playing a little later, past 2 a.m. or whatever, but as long as you're winning, play when you are alert and comfortable.

Yea I know it would take a long time to even out, and even though I might be running bad in all-in situations I may very well be running really well in non-showdown situations. Its really the only thing that can be kept track of in live play so I wanted to do it just to see. I definitely see your point though.

Thanks cush for all the explanations being new helps me alot.Instead of asking for basic stuff and being called Donk etc etc.

I have noticed I seem to make money off people in the 2-5am window. Not that I can play that time much anymore since I am working, but that seems to be a time that has a ton of tired people or drunks looking to gamble. Last night for example, 11-2 I was stuck 100. The table sucked and I got moved. Next thing I know find some bad players and I am up nearly 600. I should keep track of session times to see how it works out by the time played.

I find that to be a profitable time as well. Where I play a lot, the 2/5 game will break and those donks will join the 1/2 game to kill time. They don't care about money, so it's make a monster and get paid time.

No update for my Wednesday session, mostly because it was an extremely boring session. Basically within the first 10 minutes I got all-in preflop against a short stacker with AK, board ran out K2742 and he showed the 4c and nothing else, so I'm assuming he had something like 4c5c and was bored. After that I don't think I played a hand past the flop for the rest of the night.

Yesterday was a different story. Got in quite a few hands, winning some and losing others. The most interesting part was I got in probably 5 hands within about 2 hours against the same guy. He was an older guy playing pretty tight, but since I had taken some pots from him, he was definitely getting fed up with me. I actually had good hands against him though, I flopped a set of 9's against him and he folded to my turn bet, had aces and he folded to my turn bet, and I barreled him off one hand. So even though I had good hands, from his perspective I'm some young punk bullying him around. Literally 15 minutes after the first time I had aces against him, I got them again in the big blind. He raised his button to 15 and I made it 50. The flop came down T84, and I had the A. I bet the pot and he raised me almost all-in. I went all-in and he called. The board ran out 4 6 and I figured I was beaten by his flush, but he flipped over J9 for a flopped open-ended straight draw. I guess he had just gotten fed up with me, thought I was bluffing, and decided to raise me.

In the middle of my two aces hands with the old man, I had aces again, this time losing the pot. There were 4 limpers to me in the small blind and I made it 35, getting two callers. The flop came J89 and I bet out 75. The player in the middle went all-in for 160 and the guy to my right called like lighting. How quickly he called just scared the crap out of me since usually if someone overcalls (overcall means when a 3rd player just calls a bet after an initial bet has been called already or raised) a raise on the flop it indicates huge strength. I don't know how I can be good here between the all-in player and the overcaller so after thinking for a long time I fold. To my delight the overcaller shows QT for a flopped straight, making me feel much better about folding.

After that session, which was at the Venetian, I decided to try something different. After dinner instead of going back and playing there, I decided to hit one of the smaller rooms. The logic behind this is that if a 2/5 game gets going at a place that doesn't often get one, its going to be a good game since all the regular players go where there are always games. So if a 2/5 game sprouts up at say Planet Hollywood/Ballys/Palms etc, its most likely a bunch of tourists or 1/2 players wanting to take a shot. Checking my game tracker on my phone I noticed a 2/5 game had started at Planet Hollywood and I decided to check it out, as the room is notorious for soft 1/2 games so if it got a 2/5 game it is likely to be good. It was a good game, not as good as I was expecting but definitely better than most, if not all games at the Venetian. I found out that it started as a 1/2 game and the players decided to make it 2/5, which almost always means there are some people playing over their head.

I was unfortunately unable to capitalize since I just couldn't hit much. The only hand I got in early was when I flopped top pair with Q7 when in the blinds and it limped around pre-flop. I bet flop and turn, rivered two pair, bet again and my opponent folded. For the next couple hours I pretty much just folded pre-flop, and the 2 or 3 hands I did raise everyone folded. At about 1am I played my only major hand. I raised QQ from early position to 25 and the most active player at the table 3-bet to 75. He had been playing really loose, raising a lot of hands and would absolutely not fold pre-flop once he decided to play, calling huge re-raises with hands like AJo. Another player flat called the 75 from the blinds and even though this usually indicates strength, this guy was loose as well and would call here with many hands he wants to see a flop with. When it got back to me I shoved all-in and both players called. The flop ran out with an ace (I don't really remember the rest of the board) and I lost to the first players AK. The player in the blinds mucked so I have no idea what he had.

Pretty happy with my play overall the last two days and it was interesting to play in one of the smaller rooms. I don't know how often I'll be going back to Planet Hollywood since they don't get 2/5 much and I don't really like the room. Its not closed off so smoke gets in easily and its right next to some sort of night club or something so there was super loud music going the whole time and it made it really hard to concentrate. I couldn't even hear what the dealer said most of the time.

Do you think you would have a better chance at getting at some good tables(drunks and tourist donkeys) if you played late nights? Seems like days you would be more likely to run into sober good players.

how old is this "old man"?

Yea probably, I've usually been too tired to stay much later than 1 or 2. Eventually if I try to play later my sleep schedule should adjust. I'm going to start doing that soon because once the WSOP is over it will be harder to find good games during the week days so I'll want to be playing nights for sure.

I'd guess somewhere in his 70's.

I was back at the Venetian on Friday for some 2/5. It ended up being a pretty boring session. Didn't get into many interesting spots and only got into one big hand where I was all-in pre-flop with AK against AK. No one hit a flush and so we split the pot.

Saturday I decided to try the Bellagio again. I had tried to play there on two other occasions but the list was 20+ people long and there were only 3 tables going because of a tournament so the list was going really slow so I just left. This time I basically said that I was going to wait out the list no matter what because I really wanted to play there since the 2/5 game buy-in there is capped at 500, which keeps away some of the best players that want to play deeper (all the other places 2/5 games allow at least a 1000 buy-in) so the games should be good.

It took about 35 minutes to get a seat, which wasn't too bad. My session was very up and down. It seemed like every time I won a hand, the next one I played I would lose some of it back, then I'd win another decent pot, and then lose some back again. So my stack was trending upward, but along the way it was up and down a lot. I lost a big pot late in my session when my KK got cracked by 99 on a 964 flop. I had re-reaised preflop, bet the flop, and put my opponent all in on a 7 turn.

Not too long after this I flopped 255 with pocket 2's and doubled up against this guy who was sort of tilting. I had a pretty short stack since I hadn't re-bought yet, but I'm pretty sure thats why I got paid off. I called his bet on the flop as a slowplay. Normally I don't like slowplaying but this guy was aggressive and I knew he would be betting again on the turn. The turn came a 7 I went all-in over his bet. He called it off with pocket 6's and I'm fairly convinced that if I had more money he would have folded to my raise.

Finished my session after about 6 1/2 hours and was able to make a little bit despite the KK hand. The WSOP is pretty much over. Tomorrow is the last day of the main event until they play the final table in October, so it should be interesting to see how the scene changes once the WSOP is done.

I like playing at the Bellagio for some of the same reasons as you. I am anxious to see how things change as well. The 30 or 50 list at some places was rediculous, but will the games be worse with the smaller crowds?

Not sure, but I certainly hope not. A lot of good players come for the WSOP so they will be gone but so will a lot of the bad players that come for it. We'll have to wait and see.