Played a bunch of no limit holdem 3 way tournaments yesterday. I had position on the worst player the whole time. The beer was flowing and the chips were flying, but I managed to remember this hand:

We were down to heads up and I was down ~2:1 in chips. Blinds 100/200. I had about 4k in front of me.

Button limps, I raise to 600, he calls

AT7r

I bet 1k, he calls.

3

I check, he bets 500, I call.

2

I check, he bets 500, I call.

He shows KJo, I show and win with my KQs.

This was the turning point in the match as I never gave back the chiplead. I took it down a few minutes later.

I ended up a winner for the day and I quickly spent my winnings on McDonalds, cigarettes, gas, and laundry.

Non poker gambling:

-$3 on scratch tickets. I really hate scratch tickets.

I played a mix of 4/8 holdem, 10/20 holdem, 1/2 no limit, and a few homegames with friends over the past week.

I took a bunch of bets out of the 4/8, only to redistribute them among the 10/20 players' stacks. I did a little better than broke even at 1/2 no limit, and did pretty well at the homegames.

Unfortunately, I did a bit of non poker gambling. I'm definitely not sharp when I'm tired. In the future, I'm not going to play anything past 1am. Instead, I'm going to try to quit when I get tired. I don't care how good the game seems to be. The fact is that I don't have a winrate in games after 1am over the past year. Take those games out of the equation and I'm doing alright, so I think the solution is obvious: don't play tired.

I played some 25c/50c heads up limit holdem last night. I think I lost ~6 big bets over the course of about an hour and a half. My opponent, who happens to be one of my best friends, appears to have been reading "The Intelligent Poker Player" which I let her borrow a couple months ago when she was sick with appendicitis. She was check raising flops, which she never used to do, and she was generally playing very well.

Also, yesterday was a really good day. During the day I did some yardwork with a different friend and we had a fire outside. The jokes and the beer were flowing, which made for a very enjoyable Friday.

Played some cards tonight just for fun. Spades was the game. I was paired up with the prettiest Spades rookie ever. Unfortunately, the cards weren't in our favor and we lost ~200 to ~90. I may have gone too far with the table talk when I said, "let's bid four and try to lose them all" in the hopes that our opponents would be overbooked for the 100 point loss. Our opponents were not happy about that, but my hand sucked so bad. I had one spade and my next highest card was a king. It looked like this:

58J
58J
235TJ K
9

Useless.

We ended up with two books to our opponents' eleven, which was enough to set them back 30 points, but we didn't make our four books so we lost 40 points. I thought that minimizing the loss to 10 points total was a pretty good outcome for such a bad hand.

Then I was dealt one spade the next hand, and none the hand after that. Some people play that if you don't get dealt a spade, then the hand is dealt again from scratch, but we don't play that way so I kept my mouth shut so as not to tip my hand.

My job has decided to stiff me out of a weeks pay from three weeks ago, so there will be no trips to the casino in the near future. I'm currently enjoying the week off by playing on the internet, and practicing my jump shot. I'm just about ready to take bets on how many three pointers I can hit out of five from the top of the key.

The non poker gambling has not been going well. I've managed to limit my losses to a few bucks a day playing $1 scratch tickets, but that's still a few bucks too many, which add up over the long run.

Does this make my self imposed challenge a bust? Not in the least! It's a work in progress and I'm taking it day by day.

I hosted a 25c/50c limit holdem homegame last night. My brother was on a tear. He made many straights, flushes, and full houses. I lost ~40 big bets, but I had fun, which was the most important thing.

Haven't played a hand of cards in a while now, but I've been kicking ass at work. There will be some card playing in the near future.

The non card game gambling has been nearly non existent over the past two weeks. This means more money to do nice things like cooking for my girl last night. I made a porterhouse for myself, a strip for her, and some homefries.

I played some cribbage for fun over the weekend, the highlight of which was getting 17 points on one hand, where I held 5JQQ. The cut card was the T giving me a double run, a bunch of 15's, and the right Jack to top it off. I couldn't be caught after the 17 point hand in the first game. Then I took an early lead in the second game, which I did not give up. Then the next night we played a late night four way game which had me teamed up with a partner who was quite amusing. We won that game by about 20.

The non poker gambling has been almost non existent over the past week. Almost.

I plan to play some real cards very soon.

Love cribbage!

Really enjoying your thread and updates, keep it up!

Hey thanks. Cribbage is awesome, but I'll admit I'm still a beginner. I've probably played less than 50 games but more than 30 by my estimation. There's a local game where they play heads up for real money, which I may join sometime in the far future if I ever feel like I'm really starting to get it.

I made it down to the casino earlier in the week. There wasn't any 4/8 running so I sat in an open seat in a 1/5 stud game for fun. I won one of my very first hands, but then that turned into a small loss. Then there still wasn't any 4/8 running so I sat in a 1/2 no limit game. I bought the button, which turned out to be a great decision because on my first button I won about $115. It was all downhill after that though and I quit the game about two hours later booking a small loss.

After that I decided that I suck a little bit less at limit holdem, so I sat in the 2/4 for fun, which it was. I played for about 3 hours without winning or losing a lot of money, and booked a small loss.

Despite my three losses, I consider any trip to the casino that doesn't involve the touching of slot machines, dice, nor blackjack to be a success.

I lost a few bucks at 2/4 the other day waiting for my 4/8 seat. Then I got called for 4/8 and proceeded to carve out a nice chunk of chips for myself, which lasted well into the night until the game broke when we got down to three players.

They hate to see me go, but they love to watch me leave.

I lost a few bucks playing 1-5 stud today, leaving myself with enough to still play 4/8, which went well. That's two 30+ big bet 4/8 sessions in a row, which is pretty meaningless in the long run, but it still feels good to win at my main game.

At the moment, I have a handle on the non poker gambling. I bought a few scratch tickets the other day when I was bored, but none in the past few days. Two trips to the casino since Monday as well with poker being the only game played.

I'm going to celebrate tonight with steak and beer.

I'm in exactly the same boat; introduced to it recently by a friend, really enjoying it. Only playing socially with the same buddy atm, but looking to play more as it's a real fun game. A lot of non-poker card games bore me so it's nice to find another that I enjoy.

GL!

Thanks,

My favorite non poker games in order from favorite to meh are:

*******
Spades/Whist
Skat
Blackjack
Cribbage
Gin
Rummy
Golf

I have a female cousin who could probably crush 99% of the population at Rummy. She's wicked good at it, which is part of the reason why I dislike the game compared to the other games.

******* is probably the best game ever though. I've been witness to the declaration of many differing house rules. These are mine:

Twos are wild and threes clear
Doubles on Aces
Triples on double Aces
Skip on the social*
Thumb rule
No seat changes

*This particular rule comes from the realization that any time a social is thrown, then there should be a skip involved for the player to the left of the player that threw the social. Therefore when the player who threw the social starts the next round, the player to his left is skipped and must drink.

I played 17 hours between 2pm yesterday and 8am this morning. I'm wiped out, but it was a successful trip. The 4/8 was particularly wild, but I managed to take down a few big pots to put me squarely in the win column. I took a break to take a walk and eat around 1am. Then I smoked a few cigarettes and I was ready to get back into it but the game was full with a name on the list. I sat in one of the many good looking 1/2 no limit games, which didn't disappoint. There were many callers for big preflop raises and there was a lot of action after the flop. At one point I was down to my last $120, but I managed to turn that into just over a rack of reds before heading home, with the help of some good cards and bad opponents.

I'll admit that I put $5 into a video poker machine while I was waiting for a 4/8 seat. Besides that the only gambling was with cards and chips.

Here's a funny one from Saturday night:

A bunch of people limp, I check the 42 in the big blind.

35T

Checks to middle position who bets, folds to me and I call, the rest fold.

Jo

I check, he bets, I call.

Jo

I check, he checks.

I declare four high. He says, "haha me too!" and shows the 42. I say, "I was freerolling you with the spades." To which only the dealer chuckled.

Might be a LHE thing but the river seems like a mandatory bluff in his spot to me.

Considering that he limped with 42o, I think it's clear that he has no clue.

However, I do give up on bluffs a lot when I think I'll be called down a lot, but if I was in his shoes on that river, I'd fire the third barrel.

I just realized that I've put in my first 30 hour week since the week they shut down Pokerstars. Had a nice steak party on Friday with some friends, and another by myself today for lunch. I'm resisting the urge to do many things with my money. I'm gonna lay low for tonight and save some cheese. I'm currently puffin a Marlboro, sippin a Bud. Sorry Kid Rock.

Booked another nice win today and made it home at a reasonable hour. At the high point, I was +50 big bets. I finished with a bit less than that, but I think I played well.

Also, besides buying six $1 scratch tickets yesterday, there has been zero non poker gambling.

I'm entertaining the idea of taking a 10/20 shot sometime soon if the game looks good. I can afford to lose 25 big bets and I think I'm in a good strategic groove right now. I doubt that if I stay in 4/8 that I'll continue to run as hot as I have the past two years. I'm gonna listen to "It's My Time" by Fabolous over and over to psych myself up.

I played poorly last night. Nuff said.

subbed.