Totally agree, if both clicking need to ride it hard as you can..

Why would the thought of "I should get up" ever into your mind in a situation like that?

Played a very short session the other day. Cliffs:

Get sucked out hard for stacks.
Two hands later semi bluff AdJs on Qd9d8c3d board vs. previous suck out artist. River Kh. Shove. Called.
Look around the table at not much money.
Realize I have a **** image.
Realize I am slightly irritated.
Leave less than an hour from sitting down.


The river shove was ~.
The get up and leave was good. I don't do that enough.


Won't play as much this coming month due to early morning work shifts. It's ok. Ill study and post.


Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas!

That's a very good example of a get up and leave spot. Maybe this only happens to me but here's what would happen even if I did walk it off for 15 mins. When I get back to the table those spots will replay in my mind over and over for at least an hour. And that's devoting brain juice to spots that I cannot change - instead of devoting it to the game flow and table dynamics going on right now. So at best I'm going to be playing at my B- game because my mind is distracted by those hands.

Last night I played my final session of the year at a 1/2 home game. The cliffs are that I went super LAG and crushed everyone. I lost a couple of bigger pots, but they were all coolerish and not really spew at all. I don't think I played any hands badly with the exception of one, and that was just mediocre. Overall, it was a 3 BI night. There really aren't any interesting spots to report. It was mostly just fat value with some well timed aggression sprinkled in. And now for my annual report.






Overall stats for 2014






Tiny $2/5 sample






Solid $1/2 run






$1/2 graph for the year






Vertical view which makes me look for like a crusher



Analysis:
I didn't come close to meeting my volume goals, but my life circumstances changed pretty drastically from the beginning of the year so I'm pretty content with ~250 hrs.

My win rate at $1/2 is pretty close to maxed out. These are really soft games, and I think I'm pretty close to the max possible win rate. Once I hit 1000 hours at 1/2 I'll post those stats (getting close), but I'm pretty confident I've proven that I crush this limit.

I made the jump to $2/5 toward the end of the year and the sample is too small to make any judgments other than I'm off to a real good start. I am confident that with continued adjustments, I'll be able to beat up on that pool as well. The biggest adjustment there is toning down my hyper LAG tendencies. Not that it won't work at those levels. It might actually work better in certain games, but I just don't know the players well enough yet to play the ultra exploitative style I've grown accustomed to in my well known $1/2 pool. So, far I've been ABC'ing it up and it's working pretty well. In the $2/5 games there's a few more competent players to avoid, but the fish are still fish.

One thing I've noticed, and it amuses me. Everyone wants everyone to know that they play higher stakes. It's like a status symbol or something. There was huge banter going on at the table the other night by guys claiming to have run up huge numbers online back in the day. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. Who cares. They're playing $1/2 now and not playing it well. They're talking about how they crush mid/high stakes poker, and the games are just different and that's why they don't win huge in live $1/2 $2/5. It makes me laugh.
I also notice when I'm at the casino that everyone who's ever played a hand of $5/T (The biggest game in my town) makes sure they mention it to anyone who will listen. It makes me want to thank them for slumming it up at $2/5 with us low lives. Insert eye roll. I haven't been very impressed with most of them so far.

So my rant for today is that poker is about making money. It doesn't matter what stakes at which that happens. Just have fun and make money. It's an ego boost to play in the biggest games and win, but it's even better to play in smaller games if it makes you more. I plan to take shots at $5/T when my BR allows it, but it will be because I want to see if I can make more money there and it will be a lot of fun. Not because I want everyone to see me playing $5/T. In fact, it would probably be better if no one saw me playing it.


2015 goals:

1. Find a way to get in 250 hours again. This might be tricky. I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but I'm going to try. The thing attached to that is to get in volume without neglecting my family and making them feel unimportant. Finding balance will be key.

2. Build a healthy $2/5 roll (>$15K) and take shots at $5/T toward the end of the year if I can hit the $20K plateau. I'd be happy with one 2BI shot at the end of the year if I run well.

3. Become a competent PLO player. I'm working on this right now. I've been watching DC videos on the subject and grinding micros online with OK success. Still a lot to learn there.

4. Finish PNLH and read both Elwood books on tells. I've honestly never finished the end of PNLH. I've always just gotten distracted around the middle and moved onto something else. I'm not sure I agree with all the concepts anyway, but it is a classic and i should at least be aware of it. I'm less than 100 pages from finishing it now. Zach Elwood sent me both of his books to read a while ago and I just have not had the time to sit down and dig in. Now I will. I think that's an area where I could really improve a ton if I apply myself.

5. Post more in depth analysis in LLSNL and choose more difficult threads in which to participate. We have a tendency to cherry pick the easy ones. It's natural. If you know the right answer you post it. I also tend to be brief and sometimes snarky. It can be laziness and it can also be me on my phone at work. I want to pick a few threads a week and sit down with them and really get to the heart of the matter. I think that'll uncover some flawed thinking by me, which will be really good for my game.

6. More consistently think about ranges in the hand. I'm good at calculating odds and equities, but I don't always take that next step and apply them to ranges. I'll be unstoppable once I'm doing it every hand.

7. Do more work off the felt with Stove, flopzilla, pen and paper. It's a grind, but it needs to happen.

8. Solve my puzzling difficulty with Bovada 5NL. I have been running insanely bad and also spewing in big pots because of the run bad. Not sure how or why this crept up. It should be super easy to beat, but I can't seem to get anything going. Could be a sample size thing.

9. Prepare more for each session. I don't think I'm always ready to go when I sit down. Sometimes, I can just feel that I'm not going to have the necessary patience to fold preflop when I should. I need to get a handle on that and not play if I can't.

10. Improve my game selection/ leave when I want to. I need to just stay home on nights when I'm not feeling good or it will cause me to go to work with 2 hours of sleep or something dumb. With the amount of work I've laid on myself here, that should get better. How can I play cards if I have this much studying of the game to do?


Thanks for reading guys. 2014 has been a really good year for me in a lot of ways. Here's to a better 2015! If you like you can post some goals. Be sure to include how you're going to accomplish them. Goal setting is a huge indicator of a successful person. Be successful!

Update:

Happy new Year to all!

I have not played since last update. I did however murder a deer on the way to work yesterday. My car still drives, but it's totaled, and I need to get a new one. So, I spent yesterday afternoon at the car dealership.

I am debating between a 5 year old Fusion for $10K, or a brand new Fusion for $22K. I can actually get 0% APR on the new car which would be really nice. It's a situation where it seems pretty break even either way. Benefits for the used car are half the payments, which could be put toward a car account and draw interest myself. Benefits of the new car are that it's brand new with no interest. Insurance is almost the same for both. So, by Monday I'll have a new ride.

What sucks is that I'm goign to have to spend money either way and I hate doing that. Poker is probably going to have to fund car payments for a while. With that in mind, I'm going to take my car for it's last ride tomorrow night down to the casino and see if i can't get a good start on paying it off. I'm pulling moeny out of my savings account for the car down payment. It sucks, but that's what it's there for. So, I'll be living frugally for a while until I can build that back up.

I'm starting off my poker year by publishing a COTM for the LLSNL forum. That just went up, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's a good foot to start on as I had to do some work on my own to sound halfway intelligent for the article.

Online PLO is going pretty well. I've started grinding Zoom 5NL on Bovada too. I'm running really badly there. That has to change eventually. I'll keep at it. It's good practice.

Arite. Time to watch a movie with my kid. Cheers!

Glad you came out well in the accident!

Looking myself to throwing in a small Bovada grind soon to go with my live play.

Good luck on the grind n have a happy new year!

Thanks man, you too!

On my phone so ill update later. Last nights session was a B-. One 100bb mistake hand and a couple of smallish missed value spots. Otherwise, A game. So, overall B-. Ill take a solid win to start te new year for sure. Brand new car pics later. The sting of the down payment is lessened by half of it being earned at the 2/5 tables in 4 hours! Huzzah!

OK time for the official update.

Before and after the deer pics on my brand new car. It had 4.7 miles on it when I drove it off the lot. I paid the down payment in clean crisp $100 bills. It was pleasant.








2/5 session

I made 2 BI last night so I was pretty happy with that. I liked 95% of my play. I made one bad preflop raise which was 3 bet by an unknown, so it cost me $25. I had one big bad hand. Preflop was horrible, and I'm not sure about post flop. There were a couple of really fat value spots which helped out a lot. One woman just handed me $500. It was pretty wild. I'll post all of my notable hands today.

Hand #1

Hero limps T9 UTG. UTG+1 brand new makes it $25. Folds and I call.

Yuck. Easily my worst play of the day. He bought in full. My read was average. Nothing crazy with him. Still no excuse to play this.

Flop: T88 ($52)
I check. V bets $25. I call.

Can't ask for much better flop. TP and back door flush and straights. Ranging the unknown V for TT+,AQ+. Already formulating a plan to take this pot away from him with a favorable turn.

Turn: T88Q ($102)
Check. V bets $50. I raise to $125. He says, "You'd really play J9?" and calls.

This was a perfect card for my plan. I don't think his range really changes when he bets. With my raise, I am repping an 8, but also can pretty much shove any river card and he can only call with TT and QQ. I've conveniently left ~ PSB left for just this purpose. There are a couple of problems here though. 1. I don't know him at all. So, I can't really give any weight to my assumptions. They're just assumptions with no evidence. 2. He spoke during the hand about what I must have and still called. Either he is incapable of folding his hand or worse, he's trying to be all Hollywood with a monster. This should have been a huge red flag. For whatever reason, I was so focused on winning this big pot, that I didn't heed the signs.

River: T88Q2 ($350)
Hero shoves $325. V snap calls with TT.

Preflop was all kinds of terrible.

Post flop was bad vs. an unknown. Ironically, my reads were pretty much right about him, but he was still an unknown and i need to stop doing that stuff until I know what I'm dealing with. Against a player I have reads on, I think post flop is actually not too bad with the exception of not picking up on the obvious strength tells he was giving off.

Once this hand ended I took a short break and came back in a much better mind set and the night really took off.


Hand #2

New player in EP raises to $20. My vibe on him is that he's really standard preflop weak straight forward player. He has $250. CO and Btn Call. They're both pretty donkish from what I can tell. CO has $190. Btn has ~$500. I'm in the SB and look at AJo. I squeeze to $100.

I'm not worried about the CO and Btn really at all. Just have to make it through EP who first impressions tell me isn't crazy. He doesn't know me either so this will look real strong. He looks uncomfortable with the raise and folds. Surprisingly CO and Btn both call (lolz).

Flop: J84r ($322)
Hero ships. Fold. Fold.

Not sure I like my shove. M reasoned that I was shoving every flop with air so I have to do it with TPTK too. Upon further review, I wasn't taking the Btn into consideration enough. I could have made a $150 bet that might have been called. I'm thinking he had a PP of some sort. CO was just spewing so I didn't care about him.


Hand #3

Hero raise KK UTG to $25. Fish UTG+1 calls with $175 behind. OMC who is slightly looser than typical OMC 3 bets to $90. This is the first aggression I've seen from him. He has me covered and I have ~$1500 at this point. Folds to me and I call. Fish goes all in. OMC calls. Uuuuuummm. I don't know him well enough to know if he's trying to sand bag aces or if he has something like TT-KK. Since we're 300BB deep, I just call.

Flop: 9xxr ($530)
I check. OMC checks.

Turn: Flop: 9xxJr ($530)
I bet $150. OMC folds and MHIG vs. AJ from fishy.

That was a real weird tricky spot. I really didn't feel like I could get 300BB in preflop in that spot. Hated the J turn, but I think it's pretty straightforward post flop. OMC left shortly after that.

Thanks for the update! Congrats on the new ride.

Hands 2 and 3 look pretty good. Agree with flatting in Hand 3, and turn sizing makes sense too. For Hand 2, with the BTN in there i think betting $150 with your entire range is fine... No need to ship with your air and get snapped off by BTN.

Hand 1 was possibly an error preflop, although i think limping is fine sometimes when you are very deep and/or the table often limps through. And if you honestly think you can outplay the raiser by stealing out of position, then why not call and play poker.

Postflop is very player dependent. I would raise turn bigger. But more importantly, do we have enough fold equity for V to lay down AQ? Thats kind if the pivotal hand between the weak and strong ends of his range that we would need to target. My experience with your average LLSNL player is that they will not fold that on the river when the draws brick out (and sometimes even when the draw comes in). We can take comfort in the fact that we ran into the top of his range, but I could see an unknown player tank call with AQ or JJ here quite often.

I can't really make the turn bigger because 3/4 of the time I'm going to be shoving blank rivers and I need it to be ~PSB to get folds from over pairs and AQ. I would have liked to have made it bigger but we weren't deep enough for it. I would have loved a turn fold. I would have loved a turn call and river fold even more.

I have put in some decent volume on Bovada the last couple days and I can't believe how bad I'm running. Suck out after suck out. Probably the worst stretch I've ever had. That being said, I'm only down like 3 BI from my initial deposit so even with the run bad, I'm not doing terribly. It's just frustrating. I've taken to playing Zoom just to get the volume in and to help myself not tilt out of boredom. I'm also playing PLO and trying to improve. I think the DC videos are really going to help. I'm just starting to get into the meat of that series.

I'm getting a cavity filled this afternoon. Ick. Once I've recovered from that I'll be playing somewhere. Either big games down town or smaller house game close to home. Both are probably money makers. Have to figure out which is best. I've gotta rebuild after the car took a chunk out of my roll.

subbed! Gl!

Well, it's been a while since I updated. That's because I've been busy with life. I played the night of my last update and got hit by the doom switch.


Hand#1

I straddle to $5 on button. 3 limps and I make it $25 with QQ. OMC has been adjusting to me by raising huge with hands like AK and 99-JJ as well as calling me down crazy light by putting me on big cards. He limp raises to $175. We started with about $500. I think about it and while i suppose he COULD have AA,KK, he probably doesn't raise that big with them and so I strongly suspect AK or 99-JJ. A call makes the pot $360 with $325 back. He's not good enough to realize that if I call he has no FE, so that's what I do.

Flop: TT4 ($360)
OMC goes all in. I say, "I have to call you." He says, "I just lost all my money."

Turn: x
River: x

OMC rolls over 99


Later maniac button straddles to $15. I have $270 and raise AA to $40. Two calls including OMC.

Flop: T93 ($135)
I bet $70. All in for $100 behind and OMC ships. I call and OMC shows 99 again.


I lost almost $900 that night, but honestly only played one hand marginally, but didn't lose my entire stack. I played well the whole night despite the bad run and card dead afterward. I wasn't happy to lose the money right after losing my car and Christmas, but I truly don't think I could have lost much less.

I haven't played since. Not because I needed a break from poker, but because I've had a run of morning shifts at work and I just can't play cards when I have to be up at 5AM. SO, I've done a bit of reading and posting. I made a huge to do life list and have been checkign things off at a very good clip. I feel pretty on top of life right now and that can only help the game. I may have an unexpected shot to play tonight. I only have a couple buy ins on me right now, but hopefully it'll be enough. It'll be good to mix it up again after a week and half of no time on the felt.

Balance is a good thing. I put a lot of mental energy into poker even when I'm not playing so taking breaks from the game can help to reset. This was a decent time for a break. It's never good to finish up a good run with a big loss because you tend to dwell on it, but for me the sting of the nasty beats from last session have worn off. Thursdays are a really good night to play around here, but because I'm usually watching my son, I don't get to play them very often. Tonight, I'll get back at it.

What a bad spot to be in for hand #1. Tbh, I'd just fold QQ pre against what you say is OMC (although I think its safe to say V isn't OMC after l/r with 99) At best case scenario you're flipping against AK, and will be crushed by AA/KK. I doubt an OMC will rarely turn up with worse. You seem to have a solid read on V, so I'd just give up the $25 and find a better spot, especially if you know his tendencies.

Also, gl tonight.

No he is not run of the mill OMC. He just has that appearance. Otherwise, I'd say you're right. I've logged hundreds of hours with him so my reads are pretty solid. His adjustments were confirmed and it turns out I was right on. In a vacuum, vs. an older guy its not a stack off situation.


Played the "big game" downtown last night will update in a bit. There were some serious highs and lows in my play for sure.

And now to hit my to do list.

arg! I just had a huge pots typed up and lost it.


This will probably not be as good.


In fact I can guarantee it.

Ugh. F it. I'm not doing it.


I made $700 downtown last night.


I had a horrible image due to a shown down bluff, and then went on to value bet the **** out of the table for the rest of the night.



So pissed about this post getting lost.

Treat it like a bad beat. Do you have the control to rewrite it?

****ing deer. One of those furry bastards jumped in front of my car in October, when I was doing 80 mph on M14 at 4:30 am coming back from MCC after one of those irritating "put my money in ahead and lose 3-5 times" nights. Hood, fender, headlight, bumper, and a cracked radiator. Could have been a total, but it was close enough that they'd authorize aftermarket parts at lower cost to save the car if I wanted. Easier to pay the deductible and keep it than go new car shopping.

How do you like the new Fusion? I've heard some good things about them, but haven't gotten around to driving one yet.


That QQ vs 99 hand is just brutal. Especially frustrating when they see your hand, say "damn, you got me" and table a winner because they couldn't even see the flush.


I'm really interested to hear more trip reports and hand histories from the $2/5 game at MCC. I need to stop draining my roll for other expenses and start taking shots down there.

Heade to the casino to catch the businessmen as they avoid their wives. Promise I update. Run good woo!

Time for the long procrastinated update:

After my doom switch evening at $1/2, I had to take about a week and a half off just due to work/family schedule. This was not such a bad thing as it gives me built in poker sabbaticals, which I've found are pretty important for me. If I play too much, i start developing bad habits. It's not like golf where you get rusty if you stop playing. My reads might get rusty, but my fundamentals don't. Taking a break kind of resets everything and I start back at playing just ABC solid poker.

I returned to action a few days ago downtown which led to the epic lost update post. Here's the highlights.

Hand #1
I call a decent player's EP raise with 97ss trying to flop big/float and take it away. He checks a J high unconnected fop and I decide to take my shot right there. He calls. Turn is an A giving me a FD. He checks, I bet (stupid) and he calls. River bricks out and I fire again, and he tanks forever and calls with QQ. It was tough for me to rep anything other than AJ,sets, and weird 2P. Not my best attempt. It gave me a $300 hole, and a **** image to work with. I actually considered leaving, but decided to stay and experiment with my image. That led to hand #2.

Hand #2

An Asian whale who looks like Oddjob from the Old Bond films. He was raising 2/3 hands to $15. And he was directly to my right. And I began 3 betting him with just about everything. And he would never fold. The only time anyone else got involved, one weak bad player cold called in the SB then folded an Ace high monotone flop as if the ****ty position he'd put himself in was a surprise to him until right then.

Preflop: Oddjob raises to $15. I 3 bet to $55 with JJ. One other player aside from Odd job limp calls OOP. I have $650 and he covers with ~$1300.

Flop: AJ8 ($165)
Checks to me. I bet $75. 3rd party folds. Oddjob raises to $150. I call.

Turn: 7
Check. I bet $210. He calls.

River: 5
Check. I bet $235 all in. He calls and I'm good.


Two hands and 1 more 3 bet later....

Hand #3
Oddjob raises to $15. I 3 bet to $50 with TT. He shoves for $405. I call and say, "Gamble gamble!."

Board runs out 5 hearts and his 55 wins.


After this my image was amazing and I just value bet at every opportunity. It ended in a $700 win. The PAHWM at the top of the LLSNL page is a later hand from this session. I played that one horribly haha. I don't post a ton of HH's anymore, but I do from time to time post one that I butchered in order to be sure of what I did wrong and to keep myself humble.


Last night I went downtown early (4:15PM) and played until 9PM. I've never played with the afternoon crowd down there, and honestly it wasn't that much different from the later weekend games. There was still plenty of money to be made and i made it.

Hand #4

Two limps to young punk looking kid who's a little too aggressive. He predictably raises to $20 on the Btn. SB calls. I 3 bet AQ to $80. Everyone but him folds. He had $420 to start the hand.

Flop: QTT ($190)
I bet $100. He shoves. I call.

SPR of 1.75 and I honestly think that he's bad enough to try to push me off of this hand. Some are debating about this call. The more I think about it, the more I think you just have to sigh call. Of course he had ATo, which means I am going to 3 bet like a fiend for value every time I see him from here on out.

I ran into one guy later who sat down and raised like 4 hands in a row from EP. He was trying to run the table over and it was quite obvious. I don't allow that at my table. The trick to this is not to make stupid "stands" in bad spots. Most of the time, all it takes is showing them that you're not just going to fold to a cbet, and they slow down. I 3 bet him once or twice, and won a couple pots on the turn when he must have been c betting and gave up. One thing I've noticed about players like this is they often do not value position the way they should. Like not even close. I'm a maniac in position often when the table lets me. OOP, not so much. Another thing I see often is indiscriminate c betting. They think they're all fancy and LAG (pull the hoodie up son) and that LAG's cbet a lot.

Example: V raised in EP and got called in two places including me. He cbet a 688cc flop. That's not the worst board ever but it's definitely not one to bet into two people OOP when you've been cbetting damn near 100%. I called his bet, and bet a non threatening turn card when he meekly checked. It didn't even matter if i had it or not. It was pretty clear that most of the time, he didn't. You can't just be mindlessly aggressive. Eventually, it catches up to you. If I'm in your game, I'm going to adjust to you almost immediately. I know there are other players in this pool who are capable of crushing these young guys too. I'm not sure how much they've had to pay for their leaks at this point.

Hand #5 or so

I was contemplating when I should leave when to my joy OddJob sat down with about $1500. I had ~$700 at the time still trying to get unstuck from the trip tens hand and a successful set mine from a 25BB short stack. Within 15 minutes he was raising 2/3 hands to $15. I was OOP for about half the time this time around. Still, I began 3 betting him relentlessly and only once did anyone 4 bet me, which I gave instant credit. Oddjob dutifully called me every time and I dutifully took almost everything he had.

Three streets of value from 234Q3dd board with TT.

F'ed up hand where I got mostly all in with him and another pay off monkey with AQ on a 894ATdd board in which I 3 bet preflop (naturally). Flop checked through. Oddjob bet big on turn. Monkey called. I made a big raise. BOTH called, and river checked through and i was good. I was pretty shocked to have won when both called the reraise. If I had realized the 3rd player was as bad as he was I would have got it in on the river too. Oh well.

Overall a $900-1000 night.



Thoughts on MCC 2/5

There are some mega whale regs with unlimited cash supplies. It's glorious. It reminds me of the early days of the charity room scene only instead of a few hundred, these dudes are dropping thousands a night.

About 50% of the players are short stacking $200-300. I'd consider it a viable strategy compared to playing normal stacked 1/2 except they're just as bad as the short stacked 1/2 players. I think most of the players I see in these games are only playing it so they can tell people they play 2/5 instead of 1/2. I wonder if they tell them how much they lose too? Same thing with the 5/T players though. None of them seem to be any better than the average 2/5 player, but they love bragging to the table that they sit in that game (as if that makes them better).

There are a decent number of straight up nits. They are utterly predictable. I have yet to pay one off for more than a flop donk where i hold a good pair.


There is a group of 20 something reggy kids who think they are the ****. They're not as predictable as the nits. They know that aggressive play is cool and is better than the limp calling old guys, but they have no idea how to analyze a hand. They are pitifully easy to outplay as they have no respect for position, have only rudimentary board/hand reading capabilities, and from what i can tell do not plan their actions from street to street. I've been able to pretty successfully subdue these guys/gals by just recognizing them for what they are and not going away when they try to take things that don't belong to them. After a few unsuccessful battles with me they kind of go into a shell and don't ever come back out. It's fun to watch them sit there with a sour look on their faces because some dude isn't letting them stroke their egos with a 100% cbet rate.

There are a handful of players I haven't figured out how to beat yet. Some I'd say are probably pretty good. I know there are some legit pros in the room. I'm not sure which ones they are but I cannot say that I'm definitely the best player in the room on any given night, which I feel like I can say at most of the places I've played before. I'll need to identify them so I can avoid them if possible.

All this is based on a tiny sample so far, but it's a good initial picture of the 2/5 landscape at the biggest poker room in the area. Overall, there's a pretty cool variety of player types. It's really good practice to play a different style every time I sit down based on table conditions. So far I've pretty consistently been able to finish up my session with the table bent to my will. That's not the end goal of the game. The goal is to win and win $$, but a side effect of good forceful play is that you've taken over the game. the trick is to do it by taking advantage of spots and NOT forcing it. That's something I've had to learn to do.

For along time I just sat back and value bet people and it worked. Eventually, I realized that I had a significant skill edge that I wasn't utilizing. Once I realized that i could win hands without cards, my win rate jumped considerably, and interestingly, it became much more consistent. It wasn't as dependent on the cards I was being dealt. I can't prove it, but I think my live red line is probably pretty killer. That's a stat that isn't subject to variance. You win 100% of pots that are folded.

With that said, I can't count on people like Oddjob ever folding. Obviously. He called a 3 bet OOP yesterday with 63o. He 2x pot shipped a turn after the flop checked through. I almost called him with 4th pair (would've been good). It's about recognizing conditions and spots. Spots take many forms. The more often you recognize the various spots, the more you can take advantage of them. It requires some guts sometimes. That's something that comes with time (and BR).


2015 goals:

1. Find a way to get in 250 hours again. This might be tricky. I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but I'm going to try. The thing attached to that is to get in volume without neglecting my family and making them feel unimportant. Finding balance will be key.

That's ~20hrs/month. I'm at 19 currently so goign to hit that no problem.


2. Build a healthy $2/5 roll (>$15K) and take shots at $5/T toward the end of the year if I can hit the $20K plateau. I'd be happy with one 2BI shot at the end of the year if I run well.

After the stupid car, and Christmas I was hurting. Luckily, I've been running well and the BR has remained just north of 10K. Still on target there, although I need to start banking some of this profit.


3. Become a competent PLO player. I'm working on this right now. I've been watching DC videos on the subject and grinding micros online with OK success. Still a lot to learn there.

Massive improvement there. Been watching PLO series on DC and some light bulbs have lit. Beating up PLO5 on Bovada now in a limited sampe, but I was breaking even before. Confident I can dominate local PLO game now. Still have a lot of post flop work to do. Also starting to contribute on the SSPLO forum here.


4. Finish PNLH and read both Elwood books on tells. I've honestly never finished the end of PNLH. I've always just gotten distracted around the middle and moved onto something else. I'm not sure I agree with all the concepts anyway, but it is a classic and i should at least be aware of it. I'm less than 100 pages from finishing it now. Zach Elwood sent me both of his books to read a while ago and I just have not had the time to sit down and dig in. Now I will. I think that's an area where I could really improve a ton if I apply myself.

Only about 50 pages left in PHLH. Satisfied there.


5. Post more in depth analysis in LLSNL and choose more difficult threads in which to participate. We have a tendency to cherry pick the easy ones. It's natural. If you know the right answer you post it. I also tend to be brief and sometimes snarky. It can be laziness and it can also be me on my phone at work. I want to pick a few threads a week and sit down with them and really get to the heart of the matter. I think that'll uncover some flawed thinking by me, which will be really good for my game.

Doing somewhat better although I could do better. I'll try this week.

6. More consistently think about ranges in the hand. I'm good at calculating odds and equities, but I don't always take that next step and apply them to ranges. I'll be unstoppable once I'm doing it every hand.

Slowly improving. Still can get a lot better.


7. Do more work off the felt with Stove, flopzilla, pen and paper. It's a grind, but it needs to happen.

Haven't really started doing this yet. Need to for sure. Will probably move my roll from Bovada to Carbon at some point so I can start using my tracking software again. Not so much for the HUD but for the database.



8. Solve my puzzling difficulty with Bovada 5NL. I have been running insanely bad and also spewing in big pots because of the run bad. Not sure how or why this crept up. It should be super easy to beat, but I can't seem to get anything going. Could be a sample size thing.


Run bad has not really improved. Still pretty ridiculous. Gotten a lot better with the spew though. Crushing PLO lately so the roll is only moderately down. Need to figure out the NL5 thing though.


9. Prepare more for each session. I don't think I'm always ready to go when I sit down. Sometimes, I can just feel that I'm not going to have the necessary patience to fold preflop when I should. I need to get a handle on that and not play if I can't.

So far it's just been mostly taking a few minutes in my car before I go inside to remind myself of how i want to play. Mostly, being patient and not being an aggro idiot. Playing downtown has actually helped with this since it's a longer car ride and it gives me a chance to get into the mode.


10. Improve my game selection/ leave when I want to. I need to just stay home on nights when I'm not feeling good or it will cause me to go to work with 2 hours of sleep or something dumb. With the amount of work I've laid on myself here, that should get better. How can I play cards if I have this much studying of the game to do?

Still working on the leave when I mean to thing. I gave away some money last night just because I was about to leave and I wanted to win $3 to even out my winnings. Dumb. I knew it when I did it. I was just messing around. Shouldn't have been worth it though.


My jump to 2/5 has been smooth. I'm making a sustainable $95.48/hr. Obviously, I should quit my job.

Friday is going to be a big session. I've already cleared the night with the fam and plan to play long and well. If I run well, I could really make January a big month.

This

More consistently think about ranges in the hand. I'm good at calculating odds and equities, but I don't always take that next step and apply them to ranges. I'll be unstoppable once I'm doing it every hand

is my primary goal for the next 6-12 months too. I seem to attempt to range in most of my hands. But I prolly only range about 10% of hands I'm not in. Would like to increase that to 30-50%.

And this one

Do more work off the felt with Stove, flopzilla, pen and paper. It's a grind, but it needs to happen.

I use poker cruncher app on my phone, but have never checked out flopzilla. I gather it prolly has more functionality and makes things easier. poker cruncher has a hand range function, but it's not super easy to enter ranges to calculate EV against a range. (I still do it, but I want to make it easier for myself.)

Thanks again for the great content.

No probs.


Flopzilla is the nutz FTR. It's Stove on meth.

Tonight is a big night!

Cleared the evening with the girl and kid. Headed downtown with 5BI to play some 2/5.

I had the option to play in a 1/2 RxR game locally, which I am actually kind of excited about because i want to see how far my Omaha game has come, but I can't pass up Friday night in the D. Here's to running good!

P.S. Anyone who might be around feel free to PM me and we can meet by the fountain drink dispenser. Not in a hooking up kind of way. Just in a "hey bro" kind of way.

Subbed! Gl. Keep the HHs coming.

The Friday night foray into 2/5 was both good and bad.


The bad:

1. They had several dealers call in so even though I called in 40 minutes ahead of time, I still was #32 on the wait list when I arrived. I ended up waiting 1hr 45 minutes for a seat. It was ridiculous. I was already there however and i wasn't about to turn around and go home so i just toughed it out.

2. About 30 minutes into my wait my phone decided that 3G wasn't good enough anymore. So now if I want to use the internet on my phone I have to be on a network. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get a new phone. I really don't want to pay for it, but this thing is on it's last leg.

3. I made several overbet value shoves against people I considered prime candidates to call big overbets with less than the nuts, and only one of them called for about $250. Disappointing.

4. I made about the worst river play I can remember in the last 2 years. 55 on a 5AJA7 3 flush board and I checked it to a guy who was never going to bet AK or a flush. Of course he checked it back and I missed about 2-300$$ worth of value. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.


The Good:

1. Despite the heinous wait list I played for 5 hours which is pretty good for me these days.

2. I hit 4 boats, one of them flopped. The other 3 turned.

3. I made $1000.


Fun value hand of the night


The table was kind of dead so I decided it was time to change it up and start ramming raises down their throats.

Hand #1
Two limps to me in the CO. I raise Q6ss to $25. Take it down.

Hand #2
One limp to me in HJ. Raise JTo to $25. Take it down.

Hand #3
Took one off.

Hand #4.
Two limps to me in MP with A9o to $25. UTG and EP limper call (they're starting to suspect something).

Flop: 99Tdd ($80)
Checks to me. I bet $80. UTG calls.

Turn: 99TAdd ($240)
UTG shoves. I tank forever and call.


No just kidding I snap called and he flashed the Ad as his $240 plus the pot are shipped to my waiting arms.

Hand #5
I raise KQo in EP. EP+1 calls. Two others call.

Flop: xxx nothing for me. EP+1 bets. MP raises and EP folds then starts talking to me about how he had trapped himself by slow playing AA.



A few things to be learned from this sequence

1. It doesn't take much for a table to notice aggression. They're generally unaware, but they'll notice if you start raising preflop a lot if the table has been super passive for a while.

2. It doesn't matter how the hands have actually played out. All they know is you're being aggressive and they get all stupid. Shoving randomly and trapping big hands in horrible spots. While you're running the table, they're trying to react in the worst ways imaginable. Even though I only showed down one hand and it was a monster, they still gave me zero respect two hands later when I opened UTG.

3. Cards really don't matter all that much when dealing with a weak table. Recognizing spots does.

4. Have balls.


I was pretty disappointed with the action on a Friday night. It kind of sucked. It wasn't the worst I've ever seen, but it certainly wasn't a donkey circus like I've seen in the past. I've heard it can be hit or miss. Luckily, I ran good and my game is diverse enough that I can still crush the table via adjustment.



I saw Joe Cada playing 5/T. That was cool. He saw me staring at him, because I wasn't sure it was him at first. He looked at me wondering why I was looking at him. I loked back because I knew who he was. I was actually just railing the game. There was a big hand going on and I was trying to follow the action, and I didn't notice he was sitting there until he turned around.


Roll is strong despite the recent expenditures. It's tough to actually cut into it when I'm bringing home $1000/trip. I actually miscalculated my win rate last time. In a very small $2/5 sample I'm making $125/hr. That's not going to last, and I fear the market correction, but it's a really nice way to start off when jumping into a new stake. I think I'm really getting a good feel for that game and I hope I can crush it and start playing in the biggest weekend games relatively soon.


There is a regular small PLO that runs on Sunday nights. I'm going to try to get over to that when I can. My online training has been going really well and i feel like I know enough now to beat up on that decently well.


I've finally turned around the Bovada debacle. Both PLO5 and NLH5 are going well. I shut off the spew and the variance came around as well so I'm actually in the black now. I was down to about $20 on the site, which is ridiculous. Hopefully, that will continue in the right direction.


For the rest of tonight and tomorrow, I'm just going to be watching DC videos, posting here, and playing micros online. I count it all as off felt work. It's what allows me to beat these live games for such ridiculous rates. Not everyone has what it takes to beat live games for 10BB+/hr, but everyone can maximize if they spend a couple hours a day on average just studying and preparing. It doesn't even feel like work to me which is how I'm able to do it so much. In that regard, I'm just a few pages from finishing PNLH and am looking forward to starting in on some material on tells and mental game. Should be fun.


I have not made a bad river call in some time.

I did make a foolish all in call for $55 more dollars than my original preflop raise. It doesn't sound like that's even possible, but this one was. Straight up -EV and I made the call just for fun.


Just for fun: Post the last hand that you felted someone. It's good to feel good about your game, even if it's not that great at the moment. Here's mine.


Guy sat down with $500 and played nitty. He slowly chipped down and as he has his play has deteriorated. It's a classic situation of a guy who needs to go take a walk. He has about $350.


Preflop: I open UTG to $25 with QQ. he calls. Heads up.

Flop: T45 ($55)
I bet $30. He raises to $85.

Now, I'm like never folding, but I want to consider how best to get his money in bad. Obviously, he could have sets, but he could also have Tx, and diamonds. I considered 67s but I'm not convinced he'd call my raise in MP with it. I'm at least discounting it some. I decide to call with the plan to shove anything that's not a diamond or A. My thinking is that he's counting on the c/r buying him a free card and I'm not going to let that happen, but I'm also not going to let him fold his Tx or draws to a 3 bet on the flop.

Turn: T458 ($225)
I shove. He has ~$240 left. He wasn't expecting it and I can tell he's pissed I shoved. I've already done this a few times tonight without getting called. He thinks for a minute and calls. The river is an utter blank. I show and he mucks.


Show me something standard or epic. Just show me a hand where you felted a guy recently. Aaaaaaand go!