Thoughts on 2K Hours of LOLive Poker

About three years ago—when I first started tracking my live volume—I assigned myself a G and said, Let’s run it up. I now have more than a G and crossed the 2k hour mark. It feels like a middling place, in between a newbie and a vet.

Looking back, I feel gratitude. Because of these forums and convos with weathered grinders, I have a healthy respect for the abyss. I don’t live there, though. My own live poker journey has been relatively smooth. This is in part because I try to not to spew, my opponents often suck, and I’ve avoided higher-variance formats (tourneys, PLO, higher stakes). But it’s mainly because I've faded extreme runbad, and I'm thankful for that.

I think that live poker will never die. Yes, the games are less soft than ten or five years ago; yes, there are fewer whales; yes, I may be biased by where in the country I usually play. But there are oodles of donks and regfish spewing everywhere in small, significant ways—especially at the low limits. I wouldn’t recommend turning to poker for income, but I think that a committed player will be able to print $20-50/hr forever in low-mid stakes games.

I think there’s plenty of room for creativity in live poker. Solvers/GTO etc have obviously been groundbreaking in recent years, but they tell us little about multiway pots or optimal (read: most profitable) lines in live poker. I have lots of work to do in this area. When I think about my progress in the last few years, I feel like I've developed a kind of robust unknowing: the more I learn, the less I know. This seems good and bad.

I think that the next two months might be the most interesting stretch of my lolive poker journey. I need roughly 250 hours to hit my yearly goal (just booked a prop bet for added motivation) and I’ll be playing in bigger games. Hoping to finish off the year strong!

Gogogogo

Congrats on 2k, GL on the prop!

Good to hear about the bigger games - are these the 2-5 games you've talked about or are you moving up to 5-10? If you are in town here for the holidays the Friday 2-5-10 games have been really good.

Nice update on your live poker journey, and best of luck with the upcoming grind.

Lots of wisdom contained in your last post. Congrats on the 2k volume and the satisfaction of knowing you're a winning player. GL on the grind!

I'd rather be hiking Mt Rainier!

ty pure! Gotta work on my 2+2 poast count...still limping toward 2K

There's usually one "big game," either 2/5 or 5/10, so I'll be playing whatever runs. Hopefully I'll be in poker detox by the very end of Dec, but looking forward to catching up one way or another. Glad to hear the CDS games are still going strong.

ty phellas! I humbly request updates from your respective PGCs

October Results, November Goals


[60] Play 50 hours

I played with GOAT commentator Lon McEachern at the Harradise weekly. He's by all accounts a great guy and the table had a lot of fun chatting with him.

Also took a weekend poker trip up to Pearl River Misippi, where I donked around in juicy cash games with characters straight from Faulkner (and could not win ). Was nice to get out of town for a bit, as I'd stayed put the last couple months.

[????] Write 50 hours
[ ] Finish WSOP story

I never started tracking my writing hours this month--maybe I should get an app like I have for poker--but have been spending a bunch of time on a story from last summer's WSOP and feeling good about it. The goal is to capture the experience of a summer grinding Vegas donkaments that culminates in the Main, and I'm hoping that it'll be a fun read.

November Goals

[ ] Play 150 hours

We need 263 hours for the year. I have till Jan. 6th for the bet, which gives me some wiggle room (booked vs a guy trying to lose 25 pounds by that date), but will try to just knock it all out by like Dec. 23rd.

[ ] Study 20 hours
[ ] Write 20 hours

Spider in the Misippi woods!
[SPOIL]

Fluffey puppy

Poker Faces in the Crowd: Brian Williams

I chatted with Brian Williams—author of some of the most outrageous Facebook posts on the planet—about writing, nursing, poker wit and wisdom, what it means to be a man, whiteness, and unconventional career paths.

GL. That's a lot of hours given your history. "Fluffey" puppy may make it all possible, tho.

Thanks for the good wishes, G. Barring illness or injury, we'll ship the bet.

November Results, Russell Westbrook



[117] Play 150 hours

The goal is still to hit 800 hours for the year. We need 143 more hours to ship the volume bet. Given that my December should be less busy (nonpokerwise) than November, I'm feeling good. Gonna crank everything out before Christmas

I played cards with GOAT balla Russell Westbrook, who often graces Harradise with his presence on Thunder road trips. The poker gods seated me on his direct right; who woulda guessed he enjoys chatting about 17th century Italian art?

As for his poker game, I'll let you folks judge the GOAT's skillz:

2/5 NL

Weak reg button straddle 10.
GOAT limps from SB ($500).
Crusher-reg1 raise 50 from BB($4353453543)
Crusher-reg2 reray 175 from MP (covers)
Folds around to GOAT who coldflats
Crusher-reg1 rereray 525
Crusher-reg2 fold
GOAT fold.

The End!

[15] Study 20 hours

It's tempting to toss in hours spent watching Poker After Dark or practicing online, but no. Overall November was a very poker-heavy month, and I've enjoyed dipping back into studying, fanboying, and thinking more deeply about the game. A few resources that I've especially enjoyed:

Brokenstars is a recreational crusher who Twitch-streams his sessions on Ignition, and he speaks lucidly about his thought process while playing. Think applied GTO. His PGC is here.

Matt Janda's book (a "sequel" to Applications) is really good. He talks about some of the important concepts on this podcast.

I've shared some of Miikka Antonnen's narratives about gambling and the poker world. He writes some very good strat articles, too, about live MTTs.

I've played a lot of different games and stakes this month and plan to do the same next month. Fear not. I haven't abandoned my roots:



[16] Write 20 hours

Still working on the Vegas WSOP piece in whatever spare time I have. Looking forward to the new year when I can pivot back to the reading/writing grind.

In non-poker news, I'm wrapping up my class for the semester and took a nice trip to Perdido Key for Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone had a fun holiday!

Now I know why my Thunder always seem to crap out playing against an under manned NOLA squad. At least, that seems to be the case.

GG, please leave my Thunder crew alone when they are tangling in Nola though , lol!

ahhahhahh...who am I to deny the GOAT if he wishes to be entertained!

Next time you chat with your boy, tell him to leave Melo off his squad. Ideal OKC starting lineup:

Westbrook
Paul George
Lonzo Ball
Elfrid Payton's hair
Bill Wennington

That lineup would rack up > five championships. Book it.

December Goals

[ ] Play 150 hours
[ ] Study 20 hours
[ ] Write 20 hours

Lmao, well played! Adams is kind of like a younger, more mobile, shaggy version of Bill Wennington. Melo laughed it off, but I think having him come off the bench to be a 6th man would be a good move, if he didn't shut down completely.

Btw, have you read A Gambler's Anatomy, by Jonathan Lethem? A buddy sent me a copy for my birthday, and it has been a quality read. The game involved in the story is backgammon, but there are similarities to some of the reading material you have put here in your thread.

Best of luck with the December goals.

Melo is a poor addition to any aspiring championship team imo. And I say that as a lifelong Syracuse fan.

Nope, haven’t read it. Should I? I think I read a blurb at one point and wasn’t all that interested.

Thanks for the good wishes!

Poker Faces in the Crowd: Jean-Serge Baril + A Review of The Microstakes Playbook

I spoke with Jean-Serge Baril (some of you may know him as Dubnjoy on these forums) about travel, meditation, writing, and life in Dawson City. Thanks for taking the time, Dubn!

I also reviewed Nathan Williams's book The Microstakes Playbook. Aspiring online low-stakes grinders might wanna check it out.

I'm guessing the 2002-2003 Syracuse team would disagree with you lol. Has the game changed that much in the last 14 years? Have his skills eroded that much?

He has never been in an NBA organization with a good culture I don't think. I think he is finally in a pretty good one now, but all those years with joke George Karl and the lol Knicks had to be devastating to his career. I really wish he would have went and played with the King this year somehow. I root for Melo for some reason....

Good thread and good luck! Keep writing...

Jim Beyhime > George Karl? The Cuse win is what makes evaluating Melo's NBA career more frustrating, since we know that he can get the job done. My guess is it's a both/and issue: playing for dysfunctional organizations (lol Knicks!) and lacking the ability to lead a team to the championship...er, I mean thru the first round of the playoffs...

I'm also rooting for him. I like Westbrook/George/the Thunder, and it would be nice to see them do something. But, really, how does anyone beat GS?

also...
ty for the good wishes!

December Results


[140] Play 150 hours
[15] Study 20 hours
[15] Write 20 hours

We've effectively shipped the bet! I need five more hours by Jan 6th. Will knock it out here (in AZ) or the first weekend of the Heater (in Biloxi).

On the playing side, I had a decent month. I logged meaningful hours in "the big game." I stone bubbled a satty to next summer’s WSOP Main; woulda been nice to bink It's always hard to self-critique, but I feel like I played a B/B- game overall. Too spewy in tournaments, not spewy enough in cash. Still mentally foggy in-game. Trying to develop a strong sense of default ranges in all spots, and then adjust accordingly.

On the life/balance side, the month really sucked. My schedule consisted of biking back and forth to Harradise. My diet consisted of takeout sushi from Geisha, the Southwest Cobb salad at McAlisters, and—if I felt motivated to walk five blocks into the French Quarter—a super burrito at Felipe’s. And who can estimate the mental health hazards of listening to horrendous holiday music (especially the dog jingle bell song) for days on end? Heading into the final weekend, with 40 hours to go, I felt like Bruce Wayne staggering from the Batcave and running into Bane.


When I started my session last Friday at 11:30 a.m., I arrived with a gameplan. There was no way I'd be able to think for ten hours. So I'd log 5 hours of LOLimit and then five hours in the big game. That was a big benefit of playing with "the white chip people," as one drowsy geezer called us: rest. Rest and relaxation.

That wasn't the only benefit, it turns out.

Holiday Jackpot

“You gonna show ‘em how to play six-deuce, champ?” Darrell asked me as he shuffled the deck.

I knew that he must have seen my recent tweet, and told the table to get ready for some action. It was an empty claim. I was a massive nit in these LOLimit games, preferring to push a card advantage and to avoid thinking about poker. I pulled up Truestoryteller’s thread on my phone. A fellow Harradise grinder had reminded me of the thread, and I was enjoying it so far.

Miss Mary, a 4/8 reg, sat to my left in the three seat. She wore a light pink pantsuit and clutched a tan purse, from which she removed three twenties and fanned them across the purple felt. Her curly red hair was thinning and emphasized a pale prominent forehead; her mouth, curled into a perpetual frown, gave the impression that she was losing—which she often was. But as I often reminded her, Miss Mary was healthy and mentally spry enough to routinely play cards after church. At eighty-nine-years young, she was winning at life.

“Whaddya doin’ here?” she asked in a harsh New York accent (even though she was born and raised in New Orleans) and gently squeezed my left arm. “I just seen you in the big game.” Our definitions of the big game were different. For Miss Mary, any red-chip game was big. "I wouldn't play in that game if I was a millionaire,” she said, pointing to a table groaning under the weight of reds stacked in columns forty and fifty high.“That game scares me. So much money in those pots.”

We talked strategy for a while—in particular, when you should fold a set—and swapped info on our opponents. She pointed to a kid in the six seat who wore wavy brown hair and a potleaf necklace. He had the sly look of a bluffer.

“You see how he slides his cards to the dealer?" she whispered. "That’s how you know."

Miss Mary knew things. She went to church. She has a picture on her wall of the Sacred Heart. "Are you Catholic?" she asked.

I told her that I was raised Christian. Miss Mary waited, unsatisfied. “I like Jesus,” I added.

“And you believe in God.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think God’s out there.”

With each affirmation, Miss Mary sensed that it was my turn to bluff. “Who do you think brought you here, if you don’t believe?” she asked.

“I’m not really sure. But I think—"

"Check," Miss Mary said. She frowned at the board and flicked her cards into the muck. Then she counted down three stacks of white chips and muttered, "20, 40, 60, 80. I’m winning 20 dollars.”

The room was quiet for a Friday; only five tables buzzed with action. Despite the holiday weekend, our table was shorthanded. The young stoner left briefly for a smoke. “I won’t play with five,” Miss Mary said defiantly.

Eventually, by about 3:45, the game was full. A hillbilly with a Georgia hat, white whiskers, and a Bud Light hunkered into the 1 seat on my direct right. He bought in for forty bucks. “Not sure if I’m cut out for this game,” he said, looking at the heaping mound of whites and a handful of reds that were currently in the middle.

I reassured him and turned my attention back to Truestoryteller. I folded hands. At some point—maybe ten or fiften minutes later—an anxious and accusatory voice rang out from across the table.

“You got a royal?”

I glanced up from my phone and scanned the board: TJ2TK. The eight seat was standing over his seat and his hand, two tens, was tabled.

Unconcerned, Sam glanced mildly at his opponent's quads. Then he rose triumphantly from his seat and revealed his cards.

Ace of diamonds, queen of diamonds. His royal flush was good.



**

"I can't believe it!" Miss Mary cried out.

“I’ve only seen that one time, on YouTube!” the stoner said.

We hooted and high-fived. Players table-hawked from nearby games. A crowd clustered behind the glass partition to the poker room, peering at our game like spectators at a zoo. An old man in the four seat scrawled figures on a napkin, trying to calculate how the 155K jackpot would be divvied up.

When Sam's wife came to the table and sat on his lap, she was met with laughter and devious grins. “Y’all gonna make me faint here,” she said uneasily.

“There’s something called a bad beat," Sam explained to her. "The guy sittin’ right there—he pointed to the eight seat, an arch-reg in the white-chip games—“he just won 77,000 dollars. I only won 38,000.”

His wife glared dumbly at him.

“He’s not lying,” the dealer said. “He’s telling the truth. Honest to God.”

“Now I can play some more out there!” she said, staring through the glass at the table games.

“That is an option,” I said.

“No, you ain’t goin’ back out there,” Sam told her pleasantly.

The loser of the pot and jackpot's big winner, the eight seat, hunched inside a charcoal hoodie with orange lining. Hoodie up, headphones in, sullen and silent, he said and did nothing. “He was probably mad he didn’t win 100K,” one of the dealers told me later.

“I can’t believe it,” Miss Mary said again.

My own response to this spectacle was strange. I was, for some absurd reason, mildly annoyed that I would have to do nothing for an hour or two hours or however long it took to complete the process.[/I]As we signed tax forms and submitted ID's, the floor barked out names over the PA. A fresh 2/5 game was opening, and I was on the list. Could I play in another game while I waited? Yes, the floor told me, I could. I scanned the lineup of familiar 2/5 regs, all stern middle-aged men hunched over green and black chip-towers. I didn't want to play in that or any game. But what else was new? I still needed five hours; I would play. I bought in for a grand and straddled into the action.

After a few orbits, two security guards wheeled in ten plastic bags filled with jackpot money. I returned to my 4/8 seat next to Miss Mary, who was still chatty. She told me about the love of her life, Chuck, whom she met at the Treasure Chest Casino in a limit hold 'em game twelve years ago.

"I knew he was hitting on me: I knew it! I told him I was hungry and that I was gonna go eat. And he said, ‘Do you mind if I go with you?’ I said, No! We split the dinner, and after that we were together for twelve years. I asked him later on: “Why did you pick me?” And he said: ‘I liked the way you dressed, and I knew you were a good woman.’”

“He’s right.”

“We didn’t get married. I think I fell in love with him. He died four years ago. So I had two good men. My husband, who I was with for fifty-three years, and then Chuck, for twelve."

The wretched dog jingle bells song came on again. I leaned in closer.

"When Chuck knew he was gonna die, from cancer, he’d say, ‘What are you gonna do without me?’ And I’d say, ‘Where are you going?'" She frowned. “I’m so sorry I made a joke like that. I didn’t want to admit what was happening. If I had known he’d be here for twelve years, I woulda married him." She paused, nodded decisively, and said: "I liked Chuck more than my husband. I was with my husband for fifty-three years, but Chuck was good to me. He really was.”

Miss Mary's attention turned to the pile of high-denomination chips in the middle of the table. For some reason the money was being distributed counterclockwise, starting with the ten seat. The dealer ceremoniously emptied and counted the pile before shipping each "pot" to the winner. He was doing a fine job, and the process seemed to be moving fast— “very fast,” a floorman said later—but I was still annoyed by the theatrics of it all. Antsy and exhausted, I walked over to McAlisters and ordered a Southwest Cobb salad. When I returned ten minutes later, I was the only one who hadn't been paid. I signed a yellow PRIZES AND AWARDS FORM that detailed my exact winnings—a table share of 4525.27, after state taxes—and popped open my salad. “I’m gonna give this to my grandkids,” Miss Mary said, looking at her stacks of blacks and greens.

I said goodbye to the table and returned to the 2/5. Within a few hours the game had morphed into a standard 5/10: Nola's Best, Nola's Worst, and a few footnotes like me. I racked up at 11 and limped toward the cage, already planning a Saturday of poker that would start at 8 a.m. with the newspaper crew. Kaptain Karl, a grumpy man in his forties, congratulated me on the jackpot. I said thanks and wished him a happy holiday.

"Don’t know what you’re doing in a 4/8 game, though,” he added gruffly.

"Game selection," I said.

Congrats on the table share! I love that Truestoryteller thread too, compelling writing.

ty Pure! I agree. I'm about 2/3 through.

2017 Year in Review

Poker

[795] Play 800 hours of live poker

Here's the breakdown:
471 hours of 1/2 or 1/3
143 hours across 35 tourneys
125 hours of 2/5+
56 hours of LOLimit

I had a relatively successful year at the tables. I'm pleased to have hit my target goal, especially because I fell 100 hrs short in 2016. I didn't define how I'd play my 800 hours. Eyeballing these figures now, and looking forward to next year, I think I'd like to log fewer hours at 1/3 in favor of 2/5+, tourneys, and some Omaha variants.

I may also book more volume bets for motivation. Heading into late October, I was lagging far behind on my hours (surprise surprise ) and my bet helped me get over the hump. I'll log my final sesh within the next week and then celebrate at the Heater in Biloxi.

Writing

[X] set monthly writing goals

This was a pretty vague goal that I accomplished but would like to quantify more in 2018.

[] find an agent + publisher OR get rejected a lot

I've been working toward this goal for a while now, and will be sending query letters/materials out within the next month or so. I'm (finally) at a point where I have a clear sense of the book's arc and am drafting pages. Will be interesting to hear what ppl think of my idea.

I'm enjoying the writing grind as much as ever. This alone is probably the best benchmark for success. At the same time, I was curious about how much I "produced" this year so I went back and looked:

14 interviews
7 journalism/reporting pieces
3 book reviews
2 personal essays
1 poem

Compiling this list reminds me of a drunken conversation with a smart, pleasant, horrendously anxious girl at a writing workshop last summer. We were pondering a question that writers often ask themselves: why write? I had evaded the question by answering that I don't really think of myself as I writer; I think of myself as a teacher. Bull**** response or not, she responded by saying, "I want to get stickered."

"Stickered?"

"By Oprah."

Only an Oprah Book Club sticker—that prestigious marker of success and literary merit and lots of dough—would satisfy this budding novelist. Writing as a means to some end. There's great pressure, I think, to adopt this mentality. I resist it.

favorite book of the year: Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son (anyone notice who reviewed this collection way back in 1992? ). An already-classic book of linked short stories that I read this summer.

favorite essay: David Joy, Digging in the Trash. on hillbillies and listening and southern identity.

favorite short story: Kristen Roupenian, Cat Person. I read less contemporary fiction than I should so don't have much to choose from. This was interesting not only as a standalone narrative, but also because of the incredible attention/conversation surrounding it. Can't recall the last time a short fictional text has generated such a buzz.

I wrote this at the end of last year and can't say it any better: Thanks, everyone, for reading and chiming in with feedback, however small. It really helps. Writing, like poker, is a solitary journey, and I appreciate being able to poast itt and engage with the best (and worst) that 2+2 has to offer!

2018 Goals, January Goals

2018 Goals

[ ] Play 800 hours

This is a good number for me, I think. I had to push hard to hit it last year but it's way doable.

[ ] Write 800 hours

It's tough to quantity the work that goes into a book—research, interviews, staring in despair at the ceiling, etc.—but I think it'll help to quantify at least some of this process.

[ ] Read 36 books

3 per month seems reasonable. If anyone has good recs, send ‘em my way. I’ll read anything, but prefer fiction and narrative nonfiction at the moment.

January Goals

[ ] Write 75 hours
[ ] Read Roxane Gay, Hunger; Tommy Angelo, Elements of Poker; David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas; Arlie Hoschild, Strangers in Their Own Land
[ ] Cradle fluffey puppy (see proper method below)


Best of luck in 2018, y'all!

First off 800+800hrs is ambitious, can't wait for the completed book.

Here are a few book recs:

Biographies:
Mark Twain by Ron Powers
Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

Both were very thorough and they both lived exceptional lives that left a lasting impact.

Fiction:
Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Interesting story with great character developement.