OK update time, though been so busy lately my timelines will be a bit off so gonna wing it and generalize things...

Quick Aria 7pm practice. This makes 3 and I'm supposed to cash in my first 4 of these...pressure! lol...pretty standard bustout around where I keep busting these, got in 3 ways w/nut flush draw, couldn't resist the triple up spot given the structure. (funny I passed up on this same triple up spot early in HPT)


Got to hit up the wonderful 5-50 pizza again though and try the much touted 'Gotham' ...good stuff.


Played a short session @GVR not long after the last update, made +$117 (no pic) and grabbed dinner at the seafood/sushi place there. I really like this joint its always very fresh and good service+portions ect...


Next day was back at it @GVR, played only an hour but ran up to +$409.


Next day I hit the Stratosphere trying to get into one of the $120 sats to the $360 sats for HPT...waitlist got up to 9 and we were seated but only 7 showed and that fizzled out and didn't run so...part of the time (15 minutes) I was waiting in a cash game and stole a quick +$122
(was only in for 2)


Got into one of the $120s the next day and took it down easy for a seat to the $360. Played the $360 the following day and was playing/running fine until missing a triple up spot all in AA vs 1010 and Axs when a 10 binked flop...as you will read AA has been particularly terrible to me this week. Sat in cash game a few hours and lost a hundo.


I had one more short session @GVR but lost just shy of two hundo...oh yeah this was the hand I butchered and in so allowed this guy to run a 3 barrel dry bluff on me and smack down the bluff face up like a true @sshole when i fold river.

This brings us into last weekend and the HPT main. Was bummed I got K.O.d out of the easy satellite but sht happens...at least was still playing main. I was a little nervous because in previous years the field has looked super soft in this event but this year, due to an odd coinciding number of tournaments in town, the field was sickly pro heavy. Had Carlos Mortensen 2 seats to my right, and a number of lesser known pros at the table as well. Despite the tourney pro infestation, It became clear early that I still had a massive edge in this thing given the structure so my main gameplan was to avoid flips and marginal spots for the most part and ride post flop play and fold equity hard. Fortunately playing this style the cards were fairly irrelevant, because the best cards I got all day one were pp JJ four times and pp99 5 times...all 9 lost. The worst was a hand I had ppJJ and put in a !3 over an EP raiser (very aggro S.American guy)...one other came along and original raiser leads out on a 7-10-4 flop w/2 hearts. I decide he has a lot of air and some draw/over combos so flat. He fires again on the brick turn pretty large and this is where I have to make a decision, I'm in no hurry to go busto after Scott told me he busted on JJ Day 1A...at the same time I have seen this guy run some poorly implemented hyper-aggression so I'm usually crushing him here. The issue is if I call turn I am obligated to call any moderately sized river bullet on virtually any card which I decide is necessary. He fires again on a K river and I snap he has KQ...#%#$K, I still like my line & decision because I'm 100% sure he fires ANY river. Well that being on the heals of being card-dead and a pretty solid table had me in less than ideal shape going into the mid stages of Day1C. Starting stack was something like 30k, average was up to mid30sK, and I was bouncing around 15-20K but not too concerned because the structure is just really good on this tournament. Do end up having to make a few squeeze plays and fake value bluffs to keep floating.

HPT lets gooo


Random wolf dog in a service vest roaming around, was much bigger than pic suggests


Ryan Riess firing second bullet in 1B having busto 1C


The first turning point for me was then I opened in position with 9d10d and a pretty tight image, I think I went to 1200 @200-400 blinds and maybe 19k behind, BB calls and mp limper calls. I'm obviously going with any flop that connects strong with my hand so when the 2sKdQd hit, despite me less than ideal, bb leads out 2k w/about 20k behind, limper folds, and I shove expecting to have fold equity sometimes and other times to be getting it in against a K...uhoh...he flips pp22 for bottom set and I am in the worst spot I have or will find myself in all tournament at 34%. To make matters worse, UTG says "oh I folded A6 diamonds pre"...don't too me that sht dude...

The suspense is short-lived when a Jd turn gives us one shy of the royal...wow maybe only my 3rd or 4th 2 card str flush of the year and what a great time to come.


I think I'm just under or over 40k at that point and slightly above chip average so have a lot of new options. My really tight image lets me start to put some post flop pressure on the table except for the super aggro S. American guy who is slagging all over the place with no regard. I call w/AQos in the BB when he raises pretty big pre and we have one other guy in pot...flop comes Qc4h7h, I check as does the other caller and he c-bets pretty strong. I make the unusual decision to just c/r ship it into his big stack because I feel like it looks draw-ish from us especially since he saw us ship the diamond draw previously. The other guy folds and S.American guy tanks. I say "just lay it down man, I have a big hand this is a lot of chips" ...he says "your on a draw?" (this is good news to us because most people suck at table talk and it's unlikely he's leveling here having a draw himself, thus we dominate most of his range now) ...I'm thinking he has like 1010 at this point and wants to put us on a draw bad. "No draw, you on a draw? Ill show you when you fold so you feel better about it" ...clock gets called on him and he calls off w/QJ and I hold and am sitting at close to 85k. He claims he was folding but the table talk got him...not sure if that's the case or not but pleased with the outcome.

Some up and down ranging 79k-110k for the last few hours. I have really had it BAD on table reseats...they took the player 3 seats to my left and sat Rex down who is a competent aggro player, and much worse they took the easy spot to my left and plunked down Joesph Cheong. Nice guy but really strong Slag who hates $ and will !3 a massive range from most positions knowing that he balances it enough to profit from light !4s and has good post flop skills...in for 4 or 5 bullets so he really doesn't g.a.f. about survival. Total sicko to have on your direct left and in conjunction with Rex put me in a situation where I had to just ride out the rest of Day 1 or so I thought.

Sicko to have on your left


Getting really late on Day 1, we have played over 12 hours. Being the table talker that I am, I inform the table that I have become too tired to play post flop correctly and apologize that I will be shoving the top of my range pre...not entirely lying but suspect if will make for an interesting dynamic as they try to think if I'm leveling for some weak shove spree. True to my word I shove in over an EP open w/ppKK right in the closing hour of Day 1 and show when she folds. Only a few hands later LAST HAND OF DAY 1, Ryan Hartmann opens from EP with something like 95-100K behind, folded to me and I just barely cover and insta shove AsKs...in retrospect I don't love it but I was honestly tired and had a headache. He tanks...tanks...tanks. At this point I know were at worst flipping so I don't mind a call, though taking this down and bagging for day 2 is a fine outcome as well. I say "don't go broke on the last hand of the day...you know I got at least Jacks..." ...he keeps tanking saying something to the effect of how it's sick but he doesn't think he can ever fold (I'm thinking it's QQ or AK), I can tell he's leveled himself on my speech about shoving earlier and then showing the KK so now thinks I am trying to take advantage of that on the last hand...I give him the Scotty line "You call its gonna be all over baby" and he finally calls and shows JJ. Board is some garbage like 2-7-2 flop 4 turn...oddly I'm not even sweating this at all...I'm so tired and want to get some sleep that in my mind I'm just like "ok put that Ace on the river and lets bag it up" ...well you know how it goes, A on river and he shouts FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK at the top of his lungs and storms out last hand of the night; I felt a bit bad since we a talked a lot of strategy and such all day but he did make what I was certain was 2 light !3s on me exploiting my tight image over my opens earlier so...anyhow, suddenly I'm bagging up in very good condition for Day 2.

Bag Em


I had planned to just get a room since online it was saying it was $34 for the night and it was after 2 a.m., however at the desk she said that was the NEXT nights price and I would have to pay like $150...I am far too cheap for that so made the drive home. Came in the next day pumped up ready to crush. My table draw was excellent, by far the best table remaining I would say, the only notable being Vanessa Russo but I wouldn't consider a big problem even if she hadn't been short stack and I had position on her. Abandoning my tight image from the previous day, I was chip leader and took off quick as Lagro captain. Pushed up my 195k all the way to 400K coming up on the bubble without even showing anything down. I finally felt I Was able to play some post-flop meta lines that I really excel at. I float a young (I don't know him) pro's open on the button with AJ in sb as I can see that BB wants to ship it...if BB folds I'm pretty comfortable playing this hand oop but as hoped BB ships his 75Kish in w/QJ, original raiser folds and I call it off (was no point in flatting here to fold to this shove) and win. I am up over 500K now and one of the overall chip leaders, by far biggest stack at table.

Starting Day 2


Russo in the house


Russo stare down


This crazy amateur lady gets involved in a big pot with me. Were coming up on the bubble and it's a miracle she's still in. She was shoved all in 3 times in the last 20 minutes preflop...66 > A10, A10 > AQ, and one with no showdown. I open I think 18-22K? in early position with AKos and it's folded to her on button where she shoves all in 200K. The move makes 0 sense and is just terri-bad with her whole range...my EP range, ESPECIALLY that which I can call off with is going to be crushing the kind of garbage she has been shoving. Vs some opponents I'm folding here but her range is not even just any pair, but also a lot of Ax...its bad. I tank and decide I just am not laying down what is at worse going to be a flip here with the chance to become tournament chip leader so I call it off. She flips 88!?!?...says 'I put you on AK' when i flip them...wtf yeah my range here is EXACTLY AK huh? actually that's the total bottom of my range I call with here, so she got it in with a hand she did'nt need to shove, had position, and was only flipping vs 1/5th the range I call her with...nice. She spikes an 8 and doubles up yet again and I am down to 300K. It really messed up my momentum because I would have had the extra stack/slack to really abuse some spots coming up on the bubble and instead had to tighten up a bit.

At 320K when the bubble pops, Sindelar has been seated at my table a little while ago and he came in with just over 150K BUT got it in with KQ vs AK on a K94 flop and went running J-10 to double up...dude runs sick. Only 2 hands after bubble busts, I'm planning navigating this thing to final table no problem and I look down at ppAA on the button. Sindelar makes a standard open in mid position and I want all his chips in. The line I take will often lose a ton of potential value with me having position BUT I felt this being so close after the bubble it's higggghly exploitable. I say "well the bubble broke lets gamble" and snap-shove 320K all in hoping he reads me as some dumb #$%K who was playing for a min-cash and is now punting off light post-bubble. Objective accomplished when he doesn't even tank and snaps off w/his 400K stack and ppJJ. Asian guy at the table who has seen me play all day laughs and asks how the hell I get everyone to snap me when I'm so far ahead. Winner of this hand is the tournament chip leader (or at least a close top 3) and can more or less cruise control to final table. Alas...9-10-J flop crushes me and I don't improve. Sindelar mumbles an apology and I just say "**** happens it's poker" and busto in 43rd or 44th place for the dreaded min-cash. Interestingly enough that pot was 660K and Sindelar went into the final table much later with right about 800K, also the short stack coming into FT was 400someK...sick . I have little doubt that with that stack if I win there I could find my way to ft with slightly over a mill...

This guy...f#%K this guy lol.


The nasty K.O.


Was super bummed out about busting in that fashion and in the position when I was having such ease beating up on the field up to that point. Life tilt ensued driving home when LVB was closed for a marathon and I had to mill through backroad detours for 20 mins. Took be a bit to get over it since it was the largest $ mtt I have played up to this point but hey I'll get it next time, it's good to know it was so easy to navigate the field pro heavy though it was and I felt fairly invincible at most points with that slow structure.

It was a fun tournament because the atmosphere was very casual. Conversation was open and plentiful and they weren't over enforcing unnecessary rules or anything like that. As I mentioned the only trouble spot all tournament was Joe Cheong having position on me. To sum it up I got bad cards and even the better ones lost Day1, had to win one bad flip when I was 34% and another closer to 50% but other than that was all post flop play, bluffing, and using fold equity. Busto at the end @82% favorite for the chip lead. This was my first tournament stake/sale in the 2+2 marketplace though so it was nice to get everyone who invested some $ back, even if it should have been much much more.

I took the next day or 2 off but was pumped up to come back into some cash game momentum. Unfortunately ran into a cooler and a bad river at two different locations 2 nights ago and out a few hundo at each place so bad start. Was feeling a little unmotivated yesterday and today so hanging out, doing some reading ect...back to the pokerz tomorrow or Saturday I should think.

Did the 2+2 dinner with Gobbo and others at Mundo last night. Awesome food but super heavy. Everything was good and seasoned great. My pics are garbage because the lighting was bad again. Peter the magician from the Netherlands came and preformed some magic which was highly entertaining as well. (first 2 images are not mine)








Oh yeah, shaved off the scruff as planned if I cashed the HPT. Instant image problems I think since the cash game after a guy called a big river bluff on a 4 club board (and my line made sense) with no club...fml.

before: dirty and tired after HPT bustout


what I wanted to rock for a week or 2 for lolz but the gf shut it down...


annnd back to 12 years old and getting called down light on any bluff attempt



So it will be back to the cash grind volume volume volume then the small 50k 'Golden Saturday' mtt end of the month, some small Venetian New Years mtts, then big plans for tournaments in late Jan-Feb (stay tuned for that when I finish planning schedule)

Random CTS I really liked...was very disappointed when I test drove one a while back but it was a couple years older than this one

this sounds like an excellent plan Bacon.


And will do Cerebral

Now that's what I call a trip report update. Nice one!

Bro I love living vicariously through your thread. Keep up the good work!

Awesome thread keep up the good work.

Insanely riveting update, loved the meta/range analysis going through your head. Run it up!

Great update whey! ugggh. Can't wait till I get there Sunday. lol

Brian

Thx, I usually try try to avoid too much pokerz talk but will include it from time to time in the context of a big tournament narrative and such.

Long gym session this afternoon; Mixed feelings since I felt super weak from all the time out yet still very satisfying upon completion. ...there's a good sex joke in there somewhere

Getting a solid workout has always been plus EV for my game

Drinking 18 beers has always been minus EV for mine...

watched a German kid at Ballys put in a 30 hour+ endurance session in which he consumed more beer than I thought humanly possible (if you dig far enough back itt he made me lay down 3rd or 4th nut flush in a gross very deep all in) at one point he was up about $1800 at 1-2 but when I caught up with him (the next day, he was still playing!) he was stuck like $600 and could barely speak/walk

30 hours wow... Feel like My eyeballs would be oozing blood lol.

lol my longest session was 34 hours back when I lived in Fl...all that extra time was not profitable and I could not remember where the hell my car was afterward. Maybe I'll do a 24 hour binge later this year and rail it on here live for fun.


so...ugh gdam...thought it was a bit too easy jumping back in the gym...today I wake up sore as hell and my neck/arms don't wanna move around/straighten out quite properly. trying to clean my diet up over the next few months but all that's on my mind at the moment is burgers,bbq, and 5-50 pizza.

good luck to everyone still in the WSOPC main, will probably drop in tomorrow night and rail for a bit.

I did a 36 hour session one time in Tahoe during a circuit event like 4 years ago, never again . it wasn't even a great winning session for those hours

I ended up hitting the bed and sleeping for like 17 hours and wasted a day

try yoga on your off days for the soreness

And for mental clarity plus Tilt prevention. Yoga/meditation are instrumental to my game.

used to do da'yoga, lots of benefits, I should get back to it.

So played a few hours last night for +$75, butchered the first big hand I played putting myself in the hole -$120 so gave myself more work than should have been.

Tonight played about an hour and a half...few ugly spots and then I flop a set, check 2 spade board, preflop aggro c-bets decent size, gets a flat from other guy in hand, and I decide to take the lower variance approach and check/raise shove enough to effectively price out the flush draw as much as possible, especially given I have no more chips for implied...original better is running sick though so snaps with J-high flush draw and gets there on river so I was out a b.i. and frustrated decided to quit early. Not happy with my results or trajectory since mid-month but I'm playing solid so pretty much just disregarding results and focusing on analyzing my play.

Read the whole thread took me 2 days. Great stuff man very inspirational. I was wondering if we could see your graph/stats of all games played since the TR started?

Way to be analysis oriented.

heh

Just curious how much you can make at live 1/3 if you're a solid player. If he doesn't want to show than that's fine I'd understand.

Such a great thread, cheers for keeping it updated.

In one of the beginning posts Whey mentions making somewhere between $25-30 an hour.

lol no np but you picked a bad time to ask as i totaled my ipad (and apparently the data stored in the software therein) a few weeks back...i 'try' to keep handwritten records also but pretty sloppy and would be hell to generate overall from.

I dont like talking numbers too often but guess I can tell you i was at about $27/hr before it broke, since buying new ipad at the beginning of this month Im running at $24.17 over 84 hours...started off the month strong but been experiencing a pretty typical though still unpleasant downswing this last week. so thats about $2030 from llsnl in Nov then the $1000 or so I profited from HPT though I dont really incorporate mtt results with my cash stats. I would hope to get in another 30 hours before the month ends and in all likelyhood that hourly will tick up a bit but who knows.

speaking in generalities a decent llsnl player can make 12-15$/hr at 1-2/1-3, the best are at about 23-25$, I'm sitting at about 27$ over a pretty massive sample size but have been doing this far too long and do a lot of table selection and playing deeper stacked games when possible. It doesn't sound too horrible if you assume 40 hour weeks/160 hour months BUT I assure you that sort of volume proves much easier said than done. Some of the benefits of playing in regards to freedom present some of the biggest challenges in being consistent and productive. I really need to be transitioning more into 2-5$ (what I'm supposed to be doing but I'm being too sticky) and need to be $2-5 exclusively by after this coming summer.

Ok thanks for sharing. I admire your professionalism when it comes to bank roll management and your overall approach to the game. I'm going to Vegas in a few weeks I can't wait. Played live poker maybe 10 times so I really enjoy it when I can play it. Any tips for a live fish like me are much appreciated Anyways great thread keep it up.