11/28/13

I've reached the first pay out period on my stake. I was able to lock down ~$1200 payout for myself. This will go a long way toward getting me out on my own again. I've been able to play for the past 4 days. I was definitely tired by the end. I made a pretty bad bluff on my last hand last which cost me about $150, but overall I've played pretty well. The only value hand I had last night got all in on the turn with an over pair against two different draws, one of which hit.

Guarding against big spew hands is what I need to work on the most. If I can eliminate those things then my win rate should really go through the roof. I have a tendency also to play a little too LAG at the beginning of a session, but it does help me establish an image and get an idea of how the table is responding to me. I can probably accomplish this without giving away money however.

I'm making about $25/hr for the year at 1/2 and a ridiculous $38/hr since I started on the stake. My backer should be very happy. Hopefully, I can play one more period on the stake and then get out on my own.

12/9/13

Here's an update. I'm running insanely well and absolutely destroying the games right now. In the last 25 hours of play I've made over $2000 which is just stupid good. It's not sustainable but you gotta enjoy it while it lasts. I'm trying to play through my second 50 hour cycle on my staking deal as fast as possible. Iv'e decided that as long as I don't totally bomb in the next 25 hours, I'm going to cut off the stake. I will have raised about $2500 for myself through the stake. It cost me a ton in overhead, but it also allowed me to build a bank roll from scratch with absolutely no financial risk to myself. It was also an awful lot of fun making money for my backer who is a very good poker player himself. I should have $2500-3000 to start out on my own which is more than enough to start building up to my real goal: a 2/5 roll. I'll probably start taking small shots once the roll is in the $6000-8000 range. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later. I feel like I've completely proven myself at 1/2 with a lifetime win rate over $20/hr over a decent sample and a year to date WR +$30/hr. That being said, it can turn around at any time.

I've dabbled a little bit in PLO when the opportunity has arisen. I've basically just nut peddled, using my basic knowledge of good omaha starting hand requirements to get by. It's been enough to get it in with the stone cold nuts a few times vs. less than stellar holdings. It's something I'll have to study and improve if I intend to run in the higher stakes circles.

Special donkalicious hand of the night.

Hero raises a straddled pot in EP to $25 with TT. Serious donk in MP calls. $550 effective.

Flop As Tc 3h ($55)
Hero bets $25. To my pleasant surprise donk raises to $100. Hero calls. He loved his hand and the only hands that made sense were drawing almost dead to me.

Turn As Tc 3h 4c ($255)
Hero checks. Donk bets $100. Hero decides he's never folding and shoves. Donk snap calls with AKo and is drawing dead in an $1100 pot.

These are the players we target. This is the reason we can beat 1/2 for insane win rates. When you find these players just step on their necks. Take every dollar because they are your livelihood. This guy will be back and he'l likely make the same play again. I'll be waiting.

I've been crushing lately, but have been leaking some too by calling obvious value bets that I have no hope of showing down a winner. Tonight I started to rectify it. I still was able to bluff catch in a really good spot, but I avoided calling in spots where I was clearly beaten. It's an emotional thing in these spots and just taking a few seconds to shut down that side of my brain is important and very helpful.

That was a sick hand. Exactly the kind of spot that keeps me coming back to that room with those guys, even though I seem to run worse there than anywhere else. Probably should top off when I drop a little, but I'm a stubborn bastard about that and I've been running so bad I don't want to get in for $700 in a night. (Not optimal I suppose.)


Jeff Hwang's PLO book "Pot-Limit Omaha Poker, The Big Play Strategy" is pretty good. Covers the basics of hand selection in various spots, which types of draws to play for stacks, etc. He's got an "Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha" series which is *very* in depth and pretty good. Somewhat a tough read without a good bit of PLO experience, which is so very expensive to acquire. I've only read the first one (of three) but haven't gotten the chance to apply it yet.

I have Hwang's first book and have read about half. I need to revisit it. I haven't really studied post flop much. To be honest, if you just nut peddle with good starting hands you can probably crush most low level PLO. But of course I'm a competitor and I'll put the work in to kill it hopefully.

Definitely commit to playing longer/deeper. I'd say the run bad definitely affects your play. Assuming you had an over pair in your big pot, I judged that the proper play was just shoving the flop. You likely had them both destructed and shutting out Btn or at least making him pay max seemed paramount. I suspect that that's your normal play when not running poorly. Just an outsiders view FWIW. Fun game that RT. wild.

The first half is the one worth reading. PLO, starting hand structures, and when/how you free-roll someone (or get it yourself), etc. The second half is Hi/Lo split, both Limit and PL, neither of which I've seen spread anywhere close anyway. It's academically interesting, but not to practical.

Yea, 99 there. Figured I had the first guy crushed and should have bet about $100, but with the stack size I went for a split $60/$80 instead of shipping, should have shipped. Shorter or deeper I make a bigger bet there. Once the 4-straight drops and the Btn half jumps out of his chair I'm done.


Been too busy with work/finishing school to put in much more than 3 hour sessions in the charity rooms, instead of nice long 8 hour stints downtown. So I've ended up with about a year of more or less break-even poker, where I'll play pretty well and chip up $2-400, then lose a sick hand from ahead (TPKK vs a Bobby shove with Ax and no pair, set vs gutterball all in on the flop, etc). It's frustrating and I've noticed subtle leaks in bet sizing and hand selection creeping into my game. A good overall month would go a long way to fixing everything.

A study break can help a lot too. I took about 3-4 months off of all playing and it did wonders.


12-17
I played tonight for the first time in a week and a half. I showed up early and left early due to my work schedule so I missed the prime hours of 11P-2A. The game was still pretty decent for most of the night. There was one donk in particular driving the action. He kept trying to goad me into pots so he could stack me. I did not oblige him. I played without cards for most of the night. About 75% of my winnings were non showdown. I think I played exceptionally well for most of the night.

There were two players there who I rarely ever see. Player #1 was clearly an online MTT player. He was shortstacking for 25-50BB and doing it pretty decently. Usually, when I see stacks below 50BB I consider them dead money. He knew what he was about. Tight and hyper aggressive. Nice to see. Players #2 was just a good solid player. I did not see him make too many mistakes. I made an unusual play on him that I'm not sure was good. I limped 65ss UTG and after two more limps he popped up his btn to $15. Blinds folded and I reraised to $50. Folds around to him and he thoughtfully called. Flop was 234ccc. I bet $40 into $110 and he tank folded. The reason I tried this play out was that he was good enough to see what an UTG limp raise is supposed to be: AA/KK. I was acctually kind of surprised he called. I'm guessing he either had AK or set mining with TT-QQ. On the flop, I bet smallish to see if i could induce some spazz from a big club or even just an overpair that wants to bluff me off the pot. He could conceivably have me drawing dead with AKss, but I'm doing really well against the rest of his range which I think has a good chance of foolishly stacking off in a prideful moment. Later he decided to go on tilt and spewed off about $400+. THis is a good lesson for any readers. It doesn't matter how good you are if you can't keep control of yourself. It's a lot easier to lose money in poker than win it. One hour of bad tilt can take weeks or even months to recuperate. Don't do it. It's not worth it.


I ran a triple barrel semibluff against another weak player. His turn call was so pained that I knew I was mostly going to take it down with a decent riverbet. When the river made the board even scarier for him (didn't make my hand unfortunately), I put him to the test and he folded. So, I think that was just a good read and aggressive play.

I made one bad call tonight against the shorty. He shoved into me on an Ace high flush draw board for 2x pot ($50) when I held JJ. I leveled myself into thinking he'd never donk shove an ace. He did.

I was up $650 at the tail end of my session and then got all in on the flop with top two vs. bottom two for $500. Of course my 10:1 fave doesn't hold up and I go from a very good night to a good night when I was oh so close to having a great night. Still, you never complain about taking home $400+. A few more good sessions and I'll be out of the staking deal and back out on my own. The way I've been running, that can't come soon enough.

I've begun an experiment. Every time the table limps around to me in the SB I'm goingto record my starting hand, my action, and the result. I will not record raised pots or straddled pots. There have been debates raging in the forum about what kind of completing range you should have, and I decided to start collecting data so we could have even a small sample to work with. I've broadened my completion range some because of this which probably isn't good. In my first opportunity tonight I flopped top two and got all in vs. two short stacks and held. Consider results skewed. I'll see about posting this data in a thread as we go somehow. And now it's time for bed.

Honestly, finishing my dissertation and defending will probably help immensely. Life stress/tilt is pretty high for a little while longer. I've basically cut my table hours down to about 20/mo from 60/mo when I had more time.



That's pretty surprising since I expect to get called down a *lot* in that room. So that's gotta be very good spot selection / bet sizing.


How deep were you for the L/RR ? The call seems like a very odd play for a competent player with a fold button to make unless *really* deep. Especially without history.


I'm very interested in the SB data. It should make for an interesting discussion. I'm of the camp that you should keep your completion range narrow, similar to a limp UTG range, or even tighter. Playing the entire hand completely out of position is such a disadvantage that I just eject very easily. Although I've been thinking that I need to make exceptions a little more often when it's a family limp, since that seems to be the times that people notice how tight you're folding.

We were 200bb deep, and yes I was surprise by his call. He'd been decently tight and opened his button a few times. He was clearly a thinking player. He must have just had a broadway ace.

12/20/13

Played a very short session after work. I was unable to get a seat in the holdem game and had to "settle" for a ridiculously bad PLO game. Let me tell you a little something about PLO. Play tight and in position and play hands that make the nuts. If you do this, you will destroy PLO at the low levels. I saw things that blew my mind last night. Unfortunately, I was unable to really hit a hand at all and just watched donkeys pass money back and forth. I found myself getting into hands I should not have because they were paying off so easily. Discipline in PLO is MUCH more difficult because you look at your 4 cards and start imagining all the ways it could make the nuts. This is something I'll have to be more prepared for next time. There were zero interesting spots so I won't post any.

-$121.



I'm going to start posting my SB collection data in this thread. I'm going to keep doing it because it interests me.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0E&usp=sharing

12/21/13

Played a nice 4 hours session tonight. It was a pretty easy table to play. It helped that i got hit by the deck for the first hour. This led to me having a terrible image of being a bully, but since I had cards no one was beating me. One guy called a river bet simply because "He's been betting everything." That wasn't particularly true, but it worked in my favor. That's a good lesson for players looking to incorporate game flow into their decisions. I see a lot of posters on this board seemingly trying to BE LAG or TAG or whatever. I believe that the best course of action is to attempt to adapt your game to whatever the table calls for. My comfort zone for a long time was nit/TAG. It was profitable most of the time. Eventually, I got more and more comfortable and was able to open up my game to the point where a lot of times nowadays I'm the one driving the action. There is an important point to be made however. I don't sit down at a table and decide, "I'm going to be LAG tonight." I sit and get a feel for what the table is like. Are they loose, tight, gambling, nitty? Which specific players is my money likely to come from? Even then, I do NOT decide to be LAG/TAG/whatever. I simply understand what kind of hands and situations are going to be profitable. From there, I take the spots as they come. I don't really consider anything to be "card dead" anymore because that suggests that you have to have specific cards to play and win. I prefer the term "spot dead." There are nights where you just don't get any good spots. That happens a lot when the table is loose and gambly. If you have no FE, then playing ATC and trying to make people fold will lose. That's where a lot of "LAG" players get themselves into trouble. They decide to play a certain way when conditions don't merit that style. I suggest reading the "Be like water" thread in the best of stickys. It's fantastic. Crushing players aren't TAG's or LAGS. They're adaptable. There is no such thing as a style of play. There is good play and bad play and that can look vastly different at any given time. /rant

I will likely post hand from last night's session. There were one or two interesting spots that I'd like to get opinions on.

I got sucked out pretty hard by a gutty calling a 1.5x pot turn shove. Happens. Still had a very nice session. +$511. I've got 18 hours to go until I can get out from under the staking deal and that can't happen soon enough. I should have a very solid $1/2 roll to work with at that point and from there I'll be looking to get up into 2/5 territory ASAP.

Tonight's SB info was rather boring. Almost all of them were btn straddled and not one was even close to playable. I'm totally fine with that.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0E&usp=sharing

12/22/13

Planned to play a long session and managed to accomplish that with 9 hours at the table. I started off poorly. I found myself in several difficult spots and also not playing my best game. $300 later, I decided I'd better change course. I took 10-15 minutes off to eat and get a drink. I came back wide awake and the rest of the night looked like this.



There were several big hands obviously plus I got lucky a couple of times. In one hand I limp called 77 UTG and saw a flop three ways. THe flop was KT7r. I raised PFR's bet and whale's call. PFR called, whale back 3 bet to $112. He obviously liked his hand a lot, but unless he was playing TT or KK very passively, he was toast. I judged that he was incapable of ever folding a good hand so i just shoved for $250 more. He told me he knew he was behind but there was too much money in the pot and called. He predictably flipped over KT and I held up against he and the short stak PFR for a massive pot that sent me off to a big night. I got sucked out on the very last hand of the night, but even with that I managed to have a +$880 night. THe beat rolls on. I'm only 8 hours from finishing the staking deal. Barring disaster, I'll cash out between $1500-2000. Along with the $1000 I banked from the last cycle, I'll be rolled to play $1/2 on my own again with 100% poker profit. Then I can seriously start out 2014 with the aim of getting to 2/5. My SB completion chart is humming along. I played a couple of hands badly which drove my win rate down. It's still well above the -0.5BB mark which is where I'd like to see it stay. I had one iffy spot with KQo with 3 limpers. I elected to just complete it and avoid a nasty spot. I ended up meekly c/f an ugly flop that the rest of the table showed interest in. Onward and upward. I will likely play on Sunday night and inch closer to closing the stake by the New Year.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0E&usp=sharing

1/1/14

Happy New Year to the two of you who pay attention to this thread.

Since the last update a few things have occurred. I've played two sessions with mixed results. Session one was admittedly not my best work. I wasn't feeling very "on" and my results showed it. THat being said, I was able to finish pretty strong minus getting sucked out pretty hard on the last hand of the night. I made a lot of high variance plays that were actually pretty correct, but they just didn't work out. I played the very next night and felt a lot better about it. I got a good seat vs. a maniac and was able to take some money off him before he flamed out. I also stacked a couple of weak players. Once they were gone I was left with a pretty awful table which I left before close. I'm pretty proud of that decision. I tend to sit in suboptimal games just because i think I can still beat them. I probably can, but my time is usually better spent elsewhere. In this instance it was in an Omaha game down the street. I only had one good spot in that game and lost some of my profits for the night. I'm considering that game an investment as I really would like to get better at Omaha. Currently, I'm playing way too loose. I'm super passive preflop which I think is fine, but if I'm going to do that, I need to be a lot more selective when entering the pot.

The stake is over. I now have a personal BR of +$3200 which I will grind up to a solid 2/5 roll at which point, I've decided to end this PG&C. I will possibly start a new one or blog, but the point of this thread is to catalog my journey from $0 to infinity. Infinity in this case is into consistent $2/5 games.

V1- (UTG) semi competent bored playing nitty tonight. Prone to irrational bouts of spew. Stack $500
V2- (Btn) Passive seminit. Will take weird nonvalue lines with scary hands like JJ/AK. Stack $221
Hero- (SB) me. Aggro. Winning. Much respect from V's. Covers.

V1 straddles $5. MP calls. V2 calls. Hero calls QT . (ugh). V1 checks.

Flop: A34 ($22)
Hero bets $15. V1 calls. MP folds. V2 calls.

Turn: A34J ($67)
Hero bets $45. V1 calls. V2 shoves $201. Hero tank folds. V1 asks why it took so long since I didn't have a spade and folds.

In this situation, I realized that this particular V is basically never bluffing. He doesn't have the guts to bluff shove into two players. At least one of us has a spade, and due to the board and my hand, I know that if he doesn't have the K the best he can have is the 9 and there's just no way he's going to value shove the 9. In this instance, the third nuts is an easy easy fold because there's just no way V will do this with something else, and even if he is there's a nonzero chance the other V is slow playing. I think a lot of players get hung up on OMG I flopped the third nuts and now I have a draw to a royal flush. If you slow down you can realize that you have no draw to anything but going broke.


SB completion data is up to date. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0E&usp=sharing

Had a couple of rough spots in SB including above. I'm not real happy with how I'm playing that spot right now. Mostly, I'm doing fine, but I'll inexplicably jump into hands that i shouldn't so I need to knock that off.

May play tonight. We'll see. This weekend should be high volume.

Happy New Year to you too.

Happy New Year!!

Can confirm that the game after you left was a waste of time.

There was one big mark at my table when yours broke, and one semi-mark that had gone into shutdown mode. 20 mins after the tables merged they were both gone and the game was a waste. Reg-nits everywhere.

I've found the end of the night at small rooms to be very hit or miss in general. Either there are a couple of spewtards trying desperately to get back to even (or pumped up and playing stupid from ahead) or the table is filled with nittyish regs that have shut down for the rest of the night.

I'm fairly convinced that the proper way to approach the games is to start *before* most of the spewy players show up so you've got a seat and a stack, then play until they're busted and just leave.


Overheard an interesting conversation between the reg that used to sell mortgages and the floor about how to beat you. Reg was saying "either buy in short and just hammer good hands, or 3/4-bet a lot. Which made me lulz a little inside. Light 4-betting might work a couple of times, but then it's going to get snapped off so hard. Floor had the right idea, just avoid playing pots with a crusher.

Hahaha. you're the second person to mention that convo to me. The floor man repeated it verbatim tonight. It's pretty flattering to be talked about in such a way. I've had to adjust my game to certain players because they give me so much respect. It's kind of a weird place to be. It's funny because when I play elsewhere, I have to drop back down on the meta game knowing that none of them knows me as an aggrotard.

We talked at length tonight (me and floor) about just avoiding good players. A lot of these guys never learn to identify where their money is coming from and where their money shouldn't be going. Some of them even see it as a challenge and LOOK to get into pots with better players which is beyond stupid. I believe it was Doyle Brunson who said something to the effect of, "Always remember that poker is about making money. It doesn't matter where it comes from."

I see players at the table who are doners. They are priority one, and i will tailor my seating and strategy to get into pots with them (by myself if possible). The next tier is players who aren't necessarily good, but may actually have a fold button. I'll keep my eyes open for "spots" to exploit their leaks, but they aren't my main prey. On the rare occasion I sit down with a player that I am unable to identify gaping leaks within a few minutes, then I just decide not to tangle without good reason. I struggle to keep ego out of my game because it can really kill you fast. Choosing your targets is a large part of that.

Played tonight. Update tomorrow.

1/2/14

My first session of the new year will be classified as one of my best in a long time. I felt really sharp. My results followed suit and it was a great way to celebrate finally having my own roll again with a tidy $900 profit. The table in the beginning was not ideal. It was probably the toughest table I've ever sat in at this particular locale. That being said, I knew I was still +EV, but I couldn't coast. I think it brought out the best in me. I was able to identify holes for just about every player and I picked a couple of "spots" and was up about $100 after a couple hours. At about that time, I got into a big pot with some really tough, interesting decisions. It can be followed here http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...r-win-1403427/

After this, a couple of nitty players got up and left and were replaced by far easier targets. Coupled with a couple of the other tougher players getting bored/drunk and all of a sudden it was a gambly juicy table which provided me with plenty of opportunities for profit.

What made me so proud of my session was that I quickly identified what would and wouldn't work and I didn't press it. I had very few "spots" early on and my tendency is to try to "own" the table ASAP. Tonight, I just let the game flow and it really felt good afterward. Ex. I fold KQo UTG because at that table at that time, it was just a dominated trouble hand OOP. When I'm playing my A game, these things don't give me too much pause.

SB was pretty boring. I am A OK with having zero tough decisions in the SB.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0E&usp=sharing


This is what my car looked like after the session....

2013 Results:





Less volume due to life stuff. I'd love for the slope to continue in 2014 though.

1/5/14

I played a very short session the other night and lost a little bit. Pretty standard stuff. Hada laugh or two with Mr. Angrist at the table talk and went home.

Played again tonight because I had the day off and tomorrow is a night shift. Unfortunately, the storm of the century kind of killed the action and I found myself 4 handed at a table and it just kind of sucked. There were two tables when I arrived, but when people lost money they just went home and because the roads were impassable, nonew players were coming in. It was like a tournament. Despite this I managed to teach a girl how to shuffle her chips and stack a bad TAG for $900.

Hand
Hero limps behind onelimper in HJ with 66. CO calls. Btn makes it $12. EP calls. hero calls. CO calls.

CO is a pretty donkish player. He has $125. Btn is a bad TAG who I caught bluffing earlier tonight for his whole stack. He then caught my bluff for about $50 a few minutes later. I'm kind of irritated with him because he keeps insisting that I roll my hand over at shodown whether he is in the hand or not. Anyway he has me covered with $426.

Flop: 679 ($51).
EP checks. Hero bets $35. Co and Btn call. EP folds.

Turn: 6793 ($156)
Hero bets $125. CO calls all in for $78. Btn thinks for a second and calls.

River: 67932 ($479)
Hero goes all in for $254. Btn thinks for a minute and then angrily calls.

Hero shows a set and Btn shows QQ. HJ shows 78o Hero wins a $987 pot.

It amazes me how even the better players at $1/2 can play so badly. Set mining is like my #1 earner. If you can learn to set mine correctly you can beat $1/2. I think you can probably beat $1/2 with nothing other than proper set mining. If you can learn to lay them down once in a while, it's even better. Related to that, Btn in this hand couldn't let go of his emotional attachment to QQ. It's pretty and it's an overpair, but on that board it is almost NEVER good. It wins even less against a decent player who's putting in 200BB+ mulitway. This was such an easy fold of QQ. This is the kind of thing that 2+2 can teach you to give you a massive advantage over your opponents.


I spoke to the floor about the demanding to see showdown hands thing. They said they were going to put a stop to it. In my understanding it's only to combat suspected collusion which I obviously am not doing. IF I get called and a player in the hand says I have to show then fine. It's rude if I'm trying to muck, but this room is not known for its etiquette. But when a player who wasn't ever in the hand starts ordering me to flip my cards over, heads are gonna roll. If anyone knows anything about this situation please let me know because it irritates the hell out of me.

Anyway, Tonight's win puts me halfway to a good 2/5 roll. Hopefully, it won't take me too long to acquire the other half.

SB info up thread. After a little over 100 hands, my Vpip is a shade over 16%. That's way too high. I need to clean that up for sure. Not surprisingly, I'm losing just under 1BB/hand which can pretty easily be fixed by just folding more.

Won't be able to play much in the next week so I'll be studying and taking care of life.

Gotta love a table with J-dud trying to drive some crazy action.

I'm surprised that there were even two tables with the impending snowpocalypse, but people bailing makes perfect sense. I feel bad for the waitresses that are there until closing on a night like this. It might be profitable if you were *stuck* in a casino with people that couldn't leave though.


Can confirm that hitting sets is a big part of my winrate as well, and seems to be a significant fraction for every consistently good player that I know. Big hands come and draws hit, but no-one ever seems to suspect a set until their chips are gone. The game at your usual room is one of the juiciest in the area for set mining too. I've never seen so many players consistently call $12-15 preflop multiple ways and then stack off with complete garbage. Always a little sad to miss with a small PP and see all that money shoveled in with insane holdings.


I'm had other experiences with players asking to see hands at showdown. In one of the casino's downtown a guy got all bent out of shape about the rule, had the floor called over and the floor told him "yes, any player dealt into the hand can ask, if the player that asks has cards then the hand is live when turned over (it's not live if a random person asks)", then the guy that asked originally started invoking it every hand he could, partly as a needle, but the floor came back and told the asker to knock it off, "it's a privilege, not a right".

As much as the rule was originally intended to stop collusion, it has morphed into just another rule for many players and they use it to try to get free information. A lot of better dealers will just ignore people's requests to have hands turned over and quickly muck them when the player asking is being ridiculous. There are a couple of threads about it, but I've found the easiest way to deal with it is to use my perfectly practiced folding motion to bury my cards directly into the muck from any position.

Ya, it's definitely being taken advantage of in this situation. I gave the guy a big FU and placed my cards directly into the muck. I then spoke to the floor about it. Hopefully, that's the end of it. It's been happening to me specifically a lot from multiple players trying to see what I'm playing. I'm pretty sick of it.

That is way too small of a sample to deduce if your VPIP is too high. Let's talk after 500 more orbits. Also, construct your SB completion range and then we can talk.

I agree it's way too small, but the nice thing about that sample size is I can recall just about every hand and looking back, I know that I really shouldn't have been putting money in for about half of them. 100 hands was just a very quick snap shot.


1/16/14
I've played two sessions since the last update and I believe I played poorly for both of them. There were a couple of bright moments, but most of them were me trying to force feed aggression to a table full of aggression sponges (stations). Despite this poor play, I've managed to ~break even. I'm annoyed with myself because that break even stretch should be +a few BI if I don't horridly spew stacks a few times. My game has evolved nicely to being able to open up and really attack the table, but I'm finding that I need to remember how to pull it back and play a stronger range against certain lineups. Still about halfway to my 2/5 roll. Hopefully, I'll be able to put some volume in this week and if it goes well shot taking downtown by February where P4MS will mercilessly exploit my SB completion info.


Pretty spectacular cooler of the night...

V ($325) is a nit reg. It's taken two years of careful training, but I've finally gotten him to start calling me down light. Tonight, was the first time I was able to fully exploit the bad adjustments. I've gotten 2-3 streets off him with solid hands a few times already and he's frustrated.

Preflop- V limps UTG. Few limps to hero in MP with 22 limp. 7 to the flop.

Flop: A62 ($14)
Checks to random in MP who is just a ho hum not any good player with ~$100. He bets $12. Hero raises to$32. Folds to V who flats. Random calls.

Random has some kind of good hand at this point. When V check/calls my 3 bet I know I'm up against a set very often, the nut flush sometimes, a draw to the nutflush occasionally and rarely 2 pair. I'm really feelign this particular V has me over setted a lot.

Turn: A625 ($110)
V checks. Random checks. Hero checks.

My suspicion that V has a set is even stronger now and I think that one of them certainly has me beat at this point and i need to boat up to win/get coolered. I'm honestly thinking that I'll just call a bet from V if he bets the river on a paired board. I'll be in an interesting spot if the random shoves and I have V to act behind me.

River: A6252 ($110)
I'm obviously happy and trying to figure out if just monkey shoving the river is best. V lets me know what's up by strongly betting $120. Random calls (poor soul) and I shove obviously.

V slams down AA for top boat as he pushes his chips in. I say something like "this is a bad cooler" and roll my quads. V is dumbfounded. Truly speechless. He immediately turns around and heads for the door, not to be seen again for the night.


it's better to be lucky than good.

It's been two months since I updated. Awesome. That's because i took almost two months off. There are two reasons for this.

1. I had some life stuff going on. It wasn't traumatic. It just took up a lot of time and now that it's settling down, I think I'll have a much more balanced existence long term. It may affect my volume, but it will certainly aid my game.

2. I was beginning to experience some poker burnout. I was slipping into B and C game. I was feeling invincible and had a couple losing sessions because of it. This is usually cured by a break. It doesn't have to be two months long, but that's what this one ended at. The nice thing about being a rec player is that I can do that whenever i want and since I'm not a degenerate, it doesn't really bother me much.


I finally played a short session the other night after work at a home game. All the guys welcomed me back and I was sharp. I only made $44 but that's because I had a guy down to 1 out to chop on the river and he hit for his share of an $800 pot. Overall, I was right on with my reads and I didn't feel any adverse effects from the layoff as far as pulling the trigger on my bets. I successfully triple barreled a weak player who showed big weakness on the turn for a nice pot. Overall, i was happy with my play and I think it brought back the itch to play and play well. I'll likely be updating more frequently as the woman has OK'd the resumption of growing the roll. It's funny, they always seem to be OK with it when they realize just how much straight up cash you bring home from your forays into the poker world. Diamonds are expensive rake...

Haven't been able to play or post in a while due to work and family obligations. I'm also halfway through a move.

I was able to play last night at a relatively unfamiliar venue. It was a nice change up. None of the players knew me and it showed. I crushed it pretty hard for +355bb. Could have easily been 500 if not for a couple lost flips. It felt good to get back at it. It'll be some time before I can consistently get back into the game. For now it's a nice hobby occasionally. Still keeping the BR separate however. Those goals have not changed. I'm half way to a solid 2/5 roll and a couple thousand away from shot taking it. Hopefully I can get some volume in once life settles in a bit.