Yep.

^ I played under PoW.Eagle, PoW.Aesa, 1trueballer, some other names... dunno if you remember. We've definitely teamed before. Often played with Vivi-, he's a good RL friend of mine.

Got asked to play LATB tomorrow, might do it. I think playing on camera is actually really good for me because it's like a tilt-safety-mechanism, at least for me I never want to do anything ******ed on camera. I guess after ~8 months my identity is finally out although it wasn't that much of a secret anyway if anyone wanted to know.

Lost $1900 today, mostly in PLO. 6 hours. Got it in with the best and won, the best and lost, the worst and won, and the worst and lost. Still definitely not very good at this game, should probably not be learning in a 5-5-10 setting but oh well =/ degens gotta degen.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

LA total: $8631, 56 hours.

Oooooh, skimming through my thread to get history and I read this (posted in May 2012) while I was going back through my thread. I would NOT be willing to offer this bet any more

Ya I remember you. Hello again! I miss WC3...such a great game. If you remember Optimum, he plays poker now as well, though he's Canadian so he can still grind online. GL if you end up playing on LATB tomorrow!

Alright I didn't want to "cheat" and add in the beginning LA total before I was tracking because I was on such a sick heater, but it's getting irritating having the money I've deposited not add up to the amount I'm posting in the thread so I'm going to go ahead and combine my total LA winnings.

Also, I went through and summarized everything since I want to have it for later.

Hot Springs, AR: $3777, 66 hours, 28 days (was working full time during this part)
St. Louis: $5783, 128 hours, 30 days
Indianapolis: $321, 5 hours
Cleveland, part 1: $4636, 32 hours, 15 days
Pittsburgh: -$2312, 30 hours
Cleveland, part 2: -$1077, 12 hours
Vegas: -$6000, 40 hours
Cleveland, part 3: +$3244, 41 hours
Elizabeth, IN: -$1200, 3 hours (next 4 stops are for the Race to Rewards Caesar's promotion)
St. Louis: -$156, 4 hours
Tunica: -$67, 2 hours
Metropolis, IL: -$76, 2 hours.
Cleveland, part 4: $12, 5 hours.
Hot Springs, AR, part 2: +$1700, 50 hours, 120 days. (estimate)
Albuquerque, $20, 7 hours.
Los Angeles: $15,231, 86 hours, 13 days.

wc3 was amazing pandaaaaaaaaaa. Ya I remember opti.

I have decided I am gonna play LATB tomorrow. However I am definitely going to nit it up more than I did the first time because wow, I was the LAGgiest player at the entire table. Tune in at 7:30 Pacific, you need to make an account but it's free

Wtf, you played wc3 too?

PoW.Eagle is familiar..

I played under eg)Panada, HU_UNDER_RATED, and FoH)Kling

First name sounds familiar, I seem to recall a Shaman avatar with it. I thought I mentioned wc3 to you at some point (due to your avatar here ofc) but I guess not. I was rank1 on USEast for a period of time =P if only I were that good at poker, sigh =(

also I was just thinking, while being on camera is really good for tilt control, god i really want to make a J high call on LATB

Will you going by Aesah on LATB? GL

I'm Don on LATB. Would be super super grateful to anyone who watches and analyzes my PLO play :P I was getting so many good PLO hands I can't remember them all, my biggest mistake in my mind was not value betting my JJA9 on 4438 vs the lady. I think I'm like always ahead there.

Also jesus christ I need to stop bluffing in hold'em, like seriously.

Right before the show, I coolered a really nice old guy with J9 on 993J when he had 93. I'm up $2965 for the day in about 7 hours.

Los Angeles: $18,196, 93 hours.

wow 200/hr not bad

It's a sick heater, I'm degen'ing up PLO which tbh I'm probably a break-even player in. I always play with limon at my table which is a double-edged sword, since he's crushing the game but the mere fact that he has chosen to play in the game means it's a really good one.

As far as I can tell, people don't immediately add on to cover me when I double up, so I know I'm not a mega-whale definitely don't know hand ranges etc. at all though.

Example: I have $500, some very straightforward guy raises to $40. I'm expecting like 2 other players to call, going to the flop with SPR ~3. What hands should I flat with here? Do I call, 3bet, or fold KK93ss? What about AQT4 suited to the ace? 9764ds? TT98ss? Never know what to do in these situations =/

Alright I feel kind of ******ed asking for PLO advice in this thread instead of, you know, the PLO forums. I'm in a writing mood so I'll post a mini-rant/advice piece that'll hopefully be more interesting to the readers here.

Playing live poker is like fishing. You wait for a bite, then you reel the fish in. Experienced fishermen don't constantly recast their lines, change their bait, move to new spots, etc. They sit there and wait. Sometimes you don't get a bite for 3 hours. That happens. Just be patient, and eventually someone will come and give you their stack. Don't give yours away in the meantime.

I can guarantee you that my lifetime winrate would be SIGNIFICANTLY higher if I treated poker more like fishing instead of an easter egg hunt, constantly searching for spots to outplay people and maybe make some money. But stop and think about it for a second. No matter what, you play value hands. If you want to be more active, that basically means you're adding in exclusively bluffs since you're already playing all your value hands. Now what's the #1 most important tip about live poker? People don't go to the casino to fold. Not even the winning players, the uber-patient old guys who play JJ+, the self-proclaimed professionals. None of them like folding. Obviously there are certain spots/players but overall, yea like I said, if I never bluffed ever in live poker I'd have more money than I have now. I'm not patient enough and it's one of my leaks.

The common 2+2 argument is that you're better than the fish on future streets so you can outplay them with marginal holdings. Please explain how that's possible without showdown value. You can't "outplay" a typical casino fish by barreling 96hh on Kd8d7s2s, planning to bet him off his KTcc if diamonds or spades hit. You can outplay him by getting his entire stack when you have KQhh here instead. YOU force HIM to exploit you when you bluff the river because he's not folding nearly enough. Now there are certain situations where a player is so bad or deep enough I will play ATC against them. These situations are rare and if you think your edge over the "average" fish is good enough to do so, you're wrong.


Take as much time to think about it as you want, but we all know you're calling.

These next couple paragraphs only pertains to winning players who play poker semi-pro or as a hobby. If poker is your only source of income, you need a bankroll. Period. But personally, I play severely underrolled. I am well aware of the fact that if I run bad, I might miss out on a bunch of +EV opportunities in the future; for example, if some billionaires start shoving all in blind preflop every hand at the 25/50 game but I can't even afford to min-buy in that game, I would regret it, right? Sit on the sidelines banging my head against the wall wishing I didn't play 5-5-10 PLO with 6 buyins?

Nope. I live my life with no regrets (well, I have one. But I won't go there now). Speculating about what you might miss in the future is pointless. Let's say instead, I play the 2-3 NL game with a good winrate, grind up my roll, eventually I witness these guys giving away money at 25/50 and my poker bankroll is comfortable taking a shot at it. My AIEV line goes up by $25,000 in 1 night (I don't even care to talk about whether I actually even make money). Does this sound better?

Before you say "yes", ask yourself "better than what?" What are you comparing this to? Think about that.......................................... No one knows the future, or even the present for that matter. You're always giving up everything else for anything. What if I busted my roll, went to a park instead of the casino and met my future wife there? I'm sure you married guys can confirm that's worth a lot more than $25k.


Hey you're cute. By the way I lost 98% of my net worth last week- want to buy this dog for $20?

I was once asked by my friends in Cleveland if you would flip your entire life bankroll with AA vs ATC. Hell I don't even need AA. Give me JJ and I'll insta take that flip for everything I own except my car, phone, and a single outfit. Because while I might miss out on the opportunity to play on some hugely +EV tables, if I lose, I might miss out on the opportunity to enjoy the free things in life if I pass up on it. Obv I can't regret it if I win too lol. (Also I feel like I need to point out it's not because I'm a degenerate gambler. I have played roulette once in my life, and that was because the casino gave me a $25 free signup bonus. Dropped it all on black, lost, insta-left.)


This movie has a happy ending, but have you ever thought about how made Mike had it in life if he quit poker for good after busting his roll

Something the younger, feistier, loves-being-right, perfectly logical me might have pointed out in that previous paragraph is "but wait Aesah, you can enjoy the free things in life anyway". Well that's both right and wrong. From a theory perspective, humans are capable of a lot of things in life. But in practice, you need DISCIPLINE and COURAGE among other things. Let me give you a simple example. Does waking up at 7:00 AM, arriving on time every day for work, cooking dinner when you get home at 5:00 PM, working out, then going to bed at a reasonable hour sound hard? LOL IT IS ****ING HARD and you can simply look at 99% of your friends who attempt to do so but fail. Does going up to a cute girl sitting by herself at Subway and saying "hi, mind if I join you" sound hard? Does folding QJs from UTG after not playing a hand for merely 1 hour sound hard?



Let's be real here, it's gonna be f'king hard for this guy to get ready for work in 5 minutes.

Many people will answer "no" to the above questions because that's just how people look at these things- they're all things that you can "just go do. I disagree". Some of you guys are probably STILL scratching your heads thinking "wait, how is that hard". Well let me ask you this. Is getting a perfect score on the SAT hard? Is playing Rachmaninoff on piano hard? Is benching 400 pounds hard? While people might say these are hard because they can't do them, which require intelligence, dexterity, or strength, respectively, can actually be much easier for some people than waking up when their alarm goes off. People have different strengths and weaknesses. People can't just randomly give themselves significantly more courage, more discipline, etc., just like they can't randomly become smarter. But they can work on it, practice, etc. But it'll be hard


I DONT GET IT GUYS, THIS IS SO EASY

My advice to anyone who's made it this far is to take a bit of time to think about what truly would make you happy every day. And REALLY think about it, because it'll be worth it. Don't overlook the unusual things, such as being a guide dog trainer, white-water rafting guide, working on a cruise ship, etc. Don't overlook the little things, such as what music you listen to in the car, tipping a couple dollars more than average, etc. And most importantly, don't overlook basic human needs, such as social interaction, security, etc. If something in your life could use a little change, then change it.

Cheers. I haven't stayed up this late in awhile and I'm tired as fk so hopefully this makes sense.

My discipline is horrendous. Right after I wrote a post about how we should not bluff randoms, I go and play super-LAG today.

Fortunately it paid off vs. another fairly active player who's shown a propensity to steal pots. He's a ~45 year old guy who folded to my flop raise 3 times in 2 hours.Needless to say he's ready to play back at me. Then this hand happens at 5-5:

Villain limps, V2 limps, SB checks, I make it $30 from the BB with AT, both villains call, SB folds.

Flop T52, pot $95
I check, villain bets $45, V2 flats, I raise to $200 total, villain immediately announces raise, slowly counts out $400 total, V2 folds, I jam for a bit over $1000 total. Villain INSTACALLS.

Turn 3, pot ~$2150
River 3, pot ~$2150
Villain mucks, I assume he had like a smaller Tx.

So yea, villain's don't often 3 bet the flop without a set, but he's been very active guy and probably thinks I'm raising him with air. Despite LAG play happening to pay off this session, it definitely is incorrect at the typical tables of randoms. No question about it.

Anyway, I suspect my LAG play may be a mixture of boredom + winner's tilt, the solution to both of which may be to take a short break from poker. NO POKER FOR THE NEXT 4 DAYS NONNEGOTIABLE. If anyone catches me at a casino during this time I will give you $100 (Posting this previous sentence is mandatory, or I won't have the discipline to hold myself to it).

I also convinced some NLHE players to play PLO for like maybe their first or second time, and stacked this guy twice in a row, both hands when he made a straight vs. my flush. lololol sorry bro!

Up $1685 in 4 hours.

Los Angeles total: $19,881, 97 hours.

It's been like 30 hours and i really want to get back to the grind. I think I'm just addicted to winning more money than I've ever made playing poker in 2 weeks right now, even though I know won't last. However I'm going to stick it out this time and not go back on my self-imposed break, although I'll admit I was considering showing up at Hustler and hoping no one that reads this thread was there

I might make an exception for LATB on Tuesday. It's very easy to not tilt on camera, although I was forced to call an all-in with 85o on the last show. I think the play was +EV.

Oh, also I didn't mention this in the thread, but I gave up video games (which comprised a significant part of my life) for New Year's, so I've been going strong on that for about 20 days now. So I guess my usual go-to time spenders are both gone for now. I am allowing myself ONE exception to try to get rank#1 on LoL solo Q ladder when I feel like it, but now is not the time.

Played some sports today, watched Skyfall. Decent movie, but made the least sense out of all the Bond movies BY FAR. One thing bugging me that I tried to google but couldn't find it- does anyone know what Bond went back for and took off the dead guy's body underwater (the one he STRANGLED UNDERWATER LOL)?

I have decided to play at the Bike tomorrow due to a few requests of my appearance on LATB. No poker today/Wednesday though. Today's agenda is shopping + job searching (although I'm not 100% sure I want one) + a meetup.com bowling event. Also considering watching Full Metal Alchemist, but if I start I'm committing 25 hours to finish it (that's just my personality type, chances of me watching the first 2 episodes and not the reset = 5%).

Reading through quadrophobia.com right now, good stuff.

I watched a couple of hours of both nights you were on. It really is a unique opportunity for you to review your own play - also you get to hear what the announcers think of your play (although sometimes they seem to be playing more for laughs than anything).

It's kind of like a golfer or a baseball player having video of their swing that they can review at leisure.

I'm wondering how you rated your play on each night and what differences you noted between the way you played one night vs the other.

I was thinking of a way I could review my own play like that after watching LATB.. what I ended up searching for was some glasses with a hidden cam. Found a lot of options, glasses, watches, ton of things with hidden cameras in them (all from like china/hong kong) I bought some glasses about 2 weeks ago on ebay
only problem is it only has a 1-2 hr battery life..so i think i would have to like turn it off / on inbetween hands, but a red light stays on in standby mode so I dont think Ill be able to. Ill just have to turn em on when I get my seat and just let it record the first hour or two.

^ haha that is hilarious. Something I did maybe 3 or 4 times in this thread was simply record every hand I played (besides obv preflop folds), just on my phone. That might work?

Re: jrr63. I felt my play overall was pretty standard (but too loose), i already mentioned the hand i think i played the worst in each session:

Session 1: 3 bet with KK to 130 over 35 or so, should have been to 90.
Session 2: checking behind the turn with JJxx on 4438 vs very straightforward lady. Easy double barrel I think.

Also calling JCW's 2 barrel with QJ on KJ66 is probably slightly -EV given the dynamic (he is scared of me)

phone update. Played 3 hours, up $349.

How to lose money:
BTN opens to $20, I make it $60 from BB with K4hh. He flats.

Flop Jh6h5c
I bet 100, he flats.

Turn 7c
I bet 225, he flats

River Tc
I check/folded.

In contrast, why you will be a longterm winner if you simply don't give away chips in stupid spots:

I raise to $25 over 1 limper with KsKc, 2 calls behind, limper calls.

Flop QdTd3h
3 checks, last guy bets 55, I raise to 205 (too small in retrospect). He calls.

Turn 6c
I bet 365, villain calls.

River 2c
I jam for 300, villain folds.

LA total: $20230 in 100 hours.

post 514 is elite

Great thread! It's inspiring to see other socal players do so well. Good luck on Live at the bike tonight. I'll be rooting for you.

shoulda slowed down with those queens even tho there was two overs... I was surprised how fast you cked the turn pairing the king... andthen another ck again on the riv !

^ he just happened to have like, the 1 hand i could have gotten value from. I'm not worried about that one.

I didn't like my open to 60 with KK over 2 limpers (I opened the previous hand to 60 with KQs, but again, no reason to be unexploitable in live poker.) Should have been like 45 to entice some callers

The other hand I really didn't like is 1-barreling vs JCW on K444x when I had AJ.

I think that's about all I remember really not liking about my play.

I was up $673 in 5 hours since my phone update, 2 of them being PLO, the other 3 obv being LATB (played 8 hours total today).

LA total: $20903 in 105 hours. SICK