training schedule looks solid! just remember to take some time to do a lot of stretching on those rest days. Grinding at the tables can really wreck your flexibility if you don't stretch enough after doing that much resistance training. im a PT so feel free to pm me if you need any training advice

Oh for sure man. I have notoriously terrible flexibility/mobility too. When I was last training legs and when I was training full time, I had to spend at least 45 minutes rolling/doing mobility stuff before I felt ready to squat/deadlift.

Benefits I guess of completely avoiding legs for the time being is that I can neglect most flexibility stuff. Some basic upper body dynamic warm ups for stuff like military press should suffice I'm hoping.

But yeah, 100% man, when I get my gym membership and start squatting again, I'm going to stretch at the casino whenever I'm not in a hand. :')

gl with the fitness goals man, also starting something similar soon.

Ty bruv

I'm in due to the threadsavers with a few caveats:

Is trolling allowed?
What do you say if Zoltan shows up ITT?
Have you ever LOL'd at Feel Wrath?
Need 4 card hands

I think that's all for now.

gl bro crush these live donkeys

Monthly Update - Jan 2017



63 hours, 22 minutes played. Pretty happy with that volume and hoping to get something similar in for Feb. Obv not the best start to the year but kinda happy to have mostly rostucko'd it.

First few months of this thread will be me getting my bearings on the live environment - ensuring I'm making the right adjustments, figuring out the best games in my area and getting some info on regs.

Goals for Feb:

64 hours volume (16 a week). Would be cool to get into the green ofc but can't make that a goal. Just keep working on spots and reviewing hands here. Have a couple video series' for PLO that my friend shipped me so I want to finish that off and improve my understanding of that game so I can be more confident in rotation/PLO lineups.

NSFW

It's encouraged.

hellooo

Don't think so yet. Not even familiar. Is he some LLSNL reg or sth?

Maay look to get some more PLO volume in for March but prooooob not Feb. We'll see how the study goes and how dry the NLH games are.

welcome.

Are you tracking results based on location? I'm not sure what app that is but in the app I use, you can enter a location.. It'd be fairly useful (limited by sample size) in your goal to find the most profitable locations.. Particularly because you can break it down again and understand your most profitable locations based on day (ie casino is best on Saturday day, home game 1 is best on Thursday night, etc). Notes against each session would assist in this, but I guess this thread is kind of a substitute for that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah the app I use can do that. I don't think the sample would ever converge to the point where itd offer me any info I didn't already know. Imagine it won't take long to figure out which game is most profitable and why just based on observations. Also important to remember variance based on location - this is something I track in a spreadsheet on my PC too.

If you're looking to learn PLO then you owe it to yourself to get a RIO essential membership and watch all the Phil Galfond videos.

Yeah I'll definitely have to do that. How many of his vids are there? I never looked much at PLO on RIO but it's so cheap I'll definitely give it a crack. Cheers.

Weekend Ending 05/02/17 - 11 hours 35 minutes $1288 - Variance 2

Another crappy start to the month this weekend. Yesterday after getting up at 3am for work, working for 8 hours, then heading to the casino to play for 7.5 hours, I was absolutely toasted by the end of the night. It was seriously dangerous driving home that tired. Because of this, I've decided I'll no longer be playing Fridays - it's just too brutal after working a labouring job all day - and I didn't even get a workout in because of DOMS.

So executive decision is that I will only be playing Saturdays from here on in. This blows because it means I'll be getting pretty ****ty volume in and there's no way I'll be getting my 16 hours weekly in. I'm okay with this since my priority right now is saving cash (i.e. working) and health - spontaneously decided to start bulking again. While prima facie this doesn't seem like a time-consuming task, it completely consumes your life - you're spending all day Sunday cooking, and eating all day every day. And sleep is vital so grinding long hours on Friday is simply not going to work with this in mind.

Friday I lost about $600. Never been so card dead in my entire life. Made one "hand" the whole night which was top pair okay kicker, and lost about $200 to a better kicker. A bunch of folding.

Also quick question, opening A9s from UTG on a 10 handed table is out of the question right, even when you're card dead as ****? I made a heap of silly loose opens and cold calls, **** like CCing KJs in UTG+1 vs a $25 UTG open simply because discipline was lacking.

Tonight I lost a $1,500 pot with KK vs AA, AK8ss flop. We were both about 700-800 deep. Unavoidable cooler I know but so brutal because these sorts of hands cripple your winrate for a long long time.

Anyway, I'm happy putting in a single session each week but with more of a focus on improving and learning as much as possible from each session. Watching my PLO videos will also be important now as I'm playing less.

For my 14 sessions this year, variance out of 10 is sitting at 4.14/10 which means I'm only sorta running bad so definitely still work to be done. Ofc, regarding results, if I'd been dealt AA in that hand tonight and him KK, as well as a few weeks ago where I was 80% favourite on the turn AI for $1,900 - had I held, in just these two hands, things would be very different. Ofc lolsample and etc. Sall G, just a little frustrating.

So unfortunately with only one session per week now, things will be quite slow for this thread. Hopefully I can save that $500 a week and get my liferoll up to $25k soon enough so I can begin a new thread whence I'm playing full time.

One hand, vs guy who stacked me tonight:

Villain opens UTG (8 handed) to $20, MP calls $20, Hero in CO calls $20 with AJo, SB calls $20.

Flop $80: KJ8

Check, Check, Muck, Check

Turn: $80: KJ8 2

Check, Check, Hero bets $45ish, Fold, Villain calls.

River: $170: KJ8 2 Brick

Check, Hero bets $115, V calls and mucks.

I think here tbh we literally always have the best hand and should overbet. Villain is the type of guy to bluff catch and I suspect he may have had a worse jack or even something like TT. So in future I think we should bet pot or even sth like $200 here.

Until then, see you next weekend.

NSFW

Hey Meale,

Wishing you all the best, just had a couple questions.

Do you prefer grinding live over online? A pro's and cons list would be great. For me an issue is I'm not a massive fan of being in casino's for long periods of time (yet I can be infront of a screen for ages ikik).

What makes you want to be a live pro over another job, anything apart from "freedom", own boss etc.

Hey mate,

TBH, I prefer the idea of grinding online as opposed to live. I'd be much happier sitting in front of a computer screen 8 hours a day than at a poker table for that length of time. Partly because there's no commute to work, increasing the freedom factor of when you can play. Some card rooms only open at a certain time (I.e. midday) so you're capped as to when you can grind. Online games generally run 24/7 so that's a huge plus. I guess most of the coveted "freedom" of having a poker career comes from the online aspect, as grinding live - I.e. strapping yourself to a table inside a degen cave (casino) for 10 hours a day after the commute, isn't exactly freedom. But the notion of being self employed is still very very appealing. There's no consequences from anyone else if you decide to sleep in or not show up to work one day. Having the ability to do that is enough freedom for most.

Cons of online:
- Games always getting tougher
- High volatility due to no control over rake increases
- Gambling bills can kill it at any time (as has just happened in Australia)
- incredibly hard to get to a point where you can win - if you don't have a roll, grinding 6m cash from micros all the way up to a limit you can play professionally is rarely achievable any more and tbf I couldn't do it.

My first paragraph talked about the pros of online and cons of live so,

Pros of live:
- Much easier to get to a point where hourly is something you can live off. I.e. $30/hour at 2/5 is not difficult.
- Tax free gambling income in Australia. For instance, if I wanted to make $100k annually in Australia, I'd need a $40 hourly playing poker - in a normal job, I'd need to actually clear ~$130k salary since a good $30k is going to tax. On top of that Id have to pay extra back for my university debt, so I'd see less than $100k.
- self employed
- can play wherever in the world you like essentially
- scalable - if you can win well at 2/5 and can find some 5/10+ games, you can make a very handsome hourly.

Obviously cons of live:
-Brutal brutal downswings/breakeven stretches that last forever. I.e. I'm confident I'm a very winning player yet I'm down 4BIs after 75 hours. Now I guess 75 hours is maybe only 60k hands online and it's very possible to be down 4BIs or A LOT more online, but you can run bad for hundreds of hours on end live and it's more difficult to do that online. So income can be sporadic.
- fk sitting in a casino being around degens for long periods of time +1
- kinda uncool that you have to spend your Friday and Saturday nights grinding instead of socialising but w/e.

Why live poker over alternative career? For me imo I can make more money quicker in poker. I think I could reach a $100k income after my second full year of live poker and yet in a real job it would take ages to get to a $130k salary.

But for me it's not about making a lot of money. It's all a financial freedom thing and the idea of working 9-5 for someone you don't like doing something you most likely couldn't care less about does not interest me as a +EV long-term life move, regardless of how much cash you're earning. I'd much rather sell drugs and/or cop welfare while having the time to write poetry than do that.

And in b4 well this is the real world bucko, you gotta work to make ends meat, gotta play by the rules son - imo is the kind of toxic culture that's resulted from this capitalist society that leads to depression, suicide, and discontent in life. And I will avoid that for as long as I'm alive. So I guess it's just a matter of values.

It really irks me that you think the dole is some kind of alternative to working. Do both your parents work? Claiming the dole is not some noble stand against capitalism and the modern grind of every day life, you are just transferring your cost of living to every other person who contributes. I know you currently don't claim benefits and hope you never will or need to but the mere fact that you are willing to make living on the dole an option is incredibly selfish and ignorant.

It's hard to see you succeeding at anything when you have this kind of mindset so early on.

Health/Bulking Update

So just did my shop for the week. AU$160 it cost me for a week's worth of food. This is the most expensive it's ever been and I think that's because I don't have any broccoli or eggs in the diet which are cheap + super high ev bulking foods. I think I have way more food than a week's worth but we'll see I suppose. Add to that another roughly $50 a week for protein supps and you're looking at $200 a week just for food which is pretty ridiculous and around 2x what I wanted to pay. Hoping after week one I'll have sussed everything out enough to be able to pay closer to $100-$120 per week on food because it's ***** ridiculous as it is.

Anyhow, goals for this week:

[ ] - Suss out breakfast: I'm not sure whether I'll be able to stomach my oatmeal + blueberries + peanut butter + yoghurt + protein breakfast 7 days a week so I'm looking to figure out the best way to prepare this meal and make it not taste like ass. Might end up leaving out the peanut butter. Going to do a test run of this meal tonight after I've finished all my cooking to see how aids it'll be.
[ ] - Min 7 hours sleep a night: This will be EZ the hardest goal for me. Anyone who knows anything about bulking up/gaining muscle knows that sleep is one of the most important factors to success here. Like I'd break it down to somthing like Diet 60%, sleep 30%, weight lifting 10% - which I think would surprise a lot of people. Fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter what you do in the gym. As long as you're moving weight, it's going to work. Where people fail is they never eat anywhere near enough food and they don't get enough rest. For me since I'm working out 5-6 days a week, and do a very physical 9-5, the only rest I'm going to get is sleep each night. Ofc I want to get this 7 hours of sleep up to 8 or 8.5 hours per night but since I'm currently looking at maybe 4-5 hours, I'll be happy with getting 7 in. That'll mean being in bed by 7pm each night.
[ ] - Super high intensity weight lifting sessions: Since I'm going to be eating maybe 5k calories a day, if I train like a bitch, I'm going to get so ****ing fat it's not funny. So the idea will be to absolutely wreck myself each session. This will probably help me get to sleep at night as well.
[ ] - Get 1 poker session in on Saturday, most likely at a home game so I can bring food with me and not worry about casino staff giving me the stink eye for self catering.
[ ] - Get promoted at work. This one's kinda high variance. My boss mentioned to me that she was very pleased with the work I've been doing and was asking if I was happy where I was at. I was like ye i guess kek, and then she mentioned she was looking for someone to come work in the office with her and I was like yeah sounds good. So when I go in on Tuesday, I'm going to mention it again to her because IMO the EV of sitting at a desk inside an air conditioned office all day is soooo much better for my goals than lifting 40kg panes of glass from A to B all day.

That's it. I'm going to spend the rest of the day cooking up meals for the forthcoming week and then early to bed tonight I guess.

Dad works, mum is unable to due to illness.

Of course it's not. And I never said it was. It's a very selfish route and a highly unethical loophole to exploit if you're capable of earning enough to sustain yourself. The fact is, I just don't care. I really have no incentive to respect a broken system. I'm happy enough to admit I'm a selfish person and if I can squeeze $200 of variance free cash a week out of thin air, then I'll gladly take it.

You're right though, it's pretty crook and I'm not proud of it.

Don't forget that this socialistic broken system is just the way for the rich abusers to keep people busy fighting over the next 1$ increase in tax or whatever is new on the socioagenda.

As long as you are living in your society, you're paying taxes on every purchase and promoting a healthy economy. People often forget that their income tax goes to crooked projects that should cost 70% less. How many hundreds of millions did the Aussie gov waste on TELCO's for offering highspeed internet everywhere? Where did the millions come from? People's income tax or the offshore savings accounts of everyone who is decently wealthy?

On a loose, splashy table I think its -EV because A9s just doesnt play that well in multiway pots (IMO). Frequently you'll end up with either a meh TP, or flush draw which is suicidal to cbet in a 4-5 way pot.

RE: whether it can be correct if you're extremely card-dead, I would argue no. A big idea I discovered a while ago was that you can open wider if you have a "winning" image, but not a "tight", or losing image.

Even people who don't pay attention to whats going on can pick up when someones losing; in these circumstances definitely bluff a lot less (or even at all) and go for fat value when you do have it.

When you have a "winning" image, i.e. when someone talks about it, you can definitely get away with murder a bit by opening a few seats wider, but obv within reason. Even with a "winning" image I would prob still fold. In terms of loose hands, I'd rather have a hand like Q9s that can flop hands like straight draws which can win very very large pots - never underestimate how important making straights are in deepstack live cash games!


Pre is fine, a little loose maybe especially if UTG limps a lot, but I have real problem with it esp with the other cold-caller.

Flop Definitely checking, fish will make all kinds of bizarre checks with hands like AK from experience, so betting is too thin IMO.

Turn When it checks, we def have the best hand. Like the sizing.

River I think your sizing is fine, as theres a BDFD could go a little bigger but I prob wouldnt overbet. wp!

Going to have to disagree with suited ace analysis above. They have sick potential vs fish (esp deep) playing random suited garbage and are relatively straightforward to play. I am 10x more likely to play them in a loose splashy deep table.

never fold A9s utg
got to factor in your post flop edge as well which is huge in these splashy lineups

I guess I'm in the wrong!

Yes I do think opening wider to some extent in EP is good because we have skill edge etc, however I'm personally not a huge fan of suited aces as they don't really barrel effectively esp. multiway on many textures except for say 832r or T62r where we pick up BDFD's and BDSD's.

This is why I massively prefer hands like QJo, or even Q9s which have some connectivity, and decent overcards. I also tend to think even extremely weak players can see a flush, whereas straights is infinitely more valuable and disguised.

Overall I still think A9s still is not a good open in first position, on a loose, very splashy table, but thats just me; in general I don't get out of line in EP due to the frequent multiway nature of live poker.

On a tightish table, or if you have a mega-winning image then I think its fine though (its still ok to fold it also).

If opening a9ss is getting folds from weaker Ax I don't mind limping too sometimes. People will limp j4ss type hands that we over flush where they might fold to a raise. Depends on our position and player dynamics too.

Well I'll be damned; we actually agree on something.