Thanks man. Yeah I think I'll probably go there on Sunday night or something. I don't know though. Today I think I'm going to check out the Commerce in the afternoon/evening.

ah, good luck!

No I didn't check the turn cause I was scared of the K or anything like that haha. That's why I just called his minraise. I look too strong if I raise back again. But just calling on the flop and checking the turn makes my hand look very weak. Like a weak ace. So he's likely to bet again with most of his range. My plan was to CR the turn and if that fell through just bet big on the river. I figured it was ok since he didn't have that much more behind.

Ty ty! Cits.

This is spyu. Had to make another account because the email I originally registered under is no longer active. On my phone right now so can't make a long post. Have had a bad downswing this past couple of Weeks. Variance has definitely caught up and then some. I will write all about it when I get home.

Hope you turn it around. Looking forward to hear updates.

Table games? I feel ya man

This!!

Ok back home now and settled in.

After Sessions 5-26

Date: Mon 5/14/2012
Venue: Hawaiian Gardens, Hollywood Park, Bicycle, Commerce
Hrs: Many
Game: 5-5NL, 5-10NL
Profit: -$4309
Running BR: $37824

So...... I'm on close to a $10k downswing from when we left off.
Ok so obviously I'm not going to detail all 21 sessions from the last two and a half weeks. But I've been running pretty bad. I know, I know. Everyone says this all the time. But I look at it objectively and I would say I've gotten fairly unlucky though I know there have been a lot worse and I'm nowhere near that. But it still stings. I will only detail a few hands from yesterday's session at the Commerce that pretty much encompasses how the rest of my sessions have been going.

Oh and no table games. I don't play those. I kicked that habit awhile ago. Though it used to be a big leak of mine.

Hand 1: This hand is just to illustrate how I was playing during this session. I had developed a very aggro image. I was overbetting a lot both PF and post.
This is the 5-10NL game at the Commerce. 500-1500 BI. I bought in full. This is a new game that had just started and this was actually the very first hand.
Effective stacks 500.
PF: Everyone folds to Villain on the button(who turns out is a huge fish though I didn't know it at the time). He limps the button. SB calls, Hero has AKo in the BB. Hero bets 500. Villain calls lol. SB folds.
F, T, R: 9QK K 6
Villain shows down JT

Hand 2: Villain in this hand has seen alot of my plays and I already stacked him when I 3 bet shoved on him post flop w/ 2nd pair where he called with his draw and missed. So he probably views me as a hyper Aggro monkey. So he's been raising me post flop pretty light and calling me down light.
Effective stacks 500
PF: Hero has 35 in HJ.
1 limper in EP, folds to Hero who raises to 50, Villain calls on button, rest fold.
Flop: J35
Hero bets 50, Villain raises to 150, Hero shoves, Villain tanks for about 2 min and then calls.
Turn: A
River: 9
Villain says, "I have 2 pair". I'm like "F***" He shows J9

Hand 3: This hand is vs the Fish Villain in hand 1.
Effective stacks 550.
PF: Hero is dealt QJ in the CO.
Folds to Hero who raises to 40, only Villain calls in BB.
Flop: Q9T
Villain shoves all in for 510, Hero calls.
Turn: 7
River: 2
Villain excitedly flips over 83
I'm fish food today it seems. It's not even close to over though.

Hand 4: I won a large pot not too long before this hand where it was 5 to the flop of Q 9 2 and I had 99
I was first to act and I checked, Guy bets 125, fold, Raise to 325, Call, back to me I ship for 1675, get called in 2 spots and fill up by the river and scoop the pot. The Villain in this hand is a pretty big fish who cold called the 325 and almost called my All In but opted to fold.
Effective stacks 2035
PF: 1 limper, Villain limps, Solid player raises to 55, Hero calls with QJon the button, blinds fold, rest call.
Flop(235): T98
Bingo! I'm in the perfect position, with the perfect image, vs the perfect villain. Perfect situation.
Check, Villain bets out 150, Original PF raiser just calls, Hero pauses and makes it 720, fold, Villain calls fairly quickly, OPFR folds.

Turn(1825): T
Not the best card, but I am 100% sure I still have way the best hand here. I think most of Villain's range is pretty much just combo FD's. As any 2 pair or sets he would've easily reshipped the flop vs me on a board like that. I got exactly what I wanted. Now I can shove easily and it will be hard for villain not to stack off. Villain checks, Hero goes all in. Villain goes into the tank for about 5 min. He almost folds a bunch of times, but then quietly and defeatedly says, "ok I call."

River(4345): T
My soul soul becomes crushed into a tiny diamond. I look a little sick and Villain proudly tables his hand J9 as he says, "Yeah I knew it! You were on a flush draw!" I would usually just nod my head and muck, but instead I couldn't resist the urge to show how wrong he was and I quietly table my hand that used to be the nuts on the flop that was just outdrawn by 2nd pair.

The rest of the table was pretty flabbergasted as well. Of course as it always happens the fish leaves two hands later. I guess the thing that kept me calm was that I was able to take advantage of that unlucky moment to exercise my option to not tilt at all. It's funny, 3 yrs ago, I would've been the guy you see either berating the dealer and getting so angry at the fish and going on nuclear monkey tilt spewing off the rest of my roll. But now I like to pride myself in being able to not let an event like that manifest itself negatively into my play.

Anyways that's a short snap shot of my last 2 weeks. Not very pretty. After the cash game session I decided to take a change of pace and play in the $550 tourney at the Commerce. I staked a friend of mine in it as well. Not very big, it only got 120 entrants. Of course my friend doesn't even make it to the first break. This is the first tournament I've played in a few years and I'm pretty card dead the entire time. I pretty much just stay afloat by shipping 20bb at opportune moments mement_mori style during the entire tourney. In 7 hrs of play I get dealt KK, AQo x2, AJs, ATs x2, AJo x2, KQs x2, KQo, TT, 99, 88, A8s x2, A4s, A3s. Those were my best hands. Of which I only got to play about 1/4 of those. The other hands I played were garbage hands I used to steal or resteal.

I end up getting knocked out 23 due to playing TT very poorly.

First I'd like to share a comical hand where I could've easily doubled maybe even tripled up, but I guess my radar wasn't on.

Level is 200-400 with 75 ante. Player A is a new player at the table that just sat down and this is literally his first hand at the table. Player B has been at the table awhile. We are down to about 36 players. Player A has 48k, Player B has about 22k. Hero has about 13k and is in the BB with A8

Folds to A who raises to 1200 in MP, B Goes all in folds to Hero who doesn't even think about calling, Villain tanks for about 30 seconds and then slams the rest of his chips in the middle.
B tables KJ, A shows 73 lol wut?
Of course King high good by the river.

And the hand I go out on. I play solid all tournament to just completely butcher this hand and get knocked out 11 before the money. If you get disgusted easily don't read on.

We are 8 handed. Hero is in SB w/ TT
Blinds are 400-800 with 100 ante. Hero has about 22k villain covers.
Villain is a young skinny asian guy with sunglasses. He hasn't played a hand since we redrew for tables at 27 players. I would say this is the first hand he's played in the past 40min or so.

PF: He opens UTG+1 to 2k, folds to Hero who calls?!(This part I would like to ask a tournament pro.) Do you ship here, 3 bet, or flat? I decided to flat. The guy's image is so tight and he's raising from EP I put him on a pretty tight range. I think 3 betting is pretty much out and so is folding. So that leaves us with flatting or shipping. I thought if I ship I only get AK to call when I'm ahead and everything else he calls me with is crushing me.

Flop: J97
Not a bad flop for my hand. I check, Villain bets 4500, hero calls. I think I should've just shipped it here.

Turn: 6
Hero checks, Villain bets 5500, Hero goes AI, Villain calls quickly with AJ. 1 out baby! Brick.

I can't believe he smashed the flop that hard with a hand like AJo. lol. Oh well.

Anyways hopefully I start to run a little better. I'd at least like to start winning my 90/10's when there's 1 card to come. Losing 3 of those in a week for big pots is starting to sting.

Well tomorrow I'll be at Hollywood Park. Hopefully I can stack a couple of the old retired guys that always play 5 to 6k deep. Wish me luck. Only got 1 month until my run in Vegas!

wow amazing thread spyu, subscribed and good luck!!!!

looking forward to your vegas TRs! run better pls

A few random hands I just remembered that I'd like to insert.

5-10NL at Commerce. Effective stacks 1750. Villain in hand is a young, very attractive Chinese Girl named Susie. My guess is she's around 23-25. She looks uncannily like my psycho ex and it threw me off at first. She seems to be a regular in the game. Not sure exactly how she views me. She seems like a straightforward TAG. Seemed fairly competent and thinking. Not sure exactly how she views me. Not sure how observant she is. Probably on the aggro side, but I haven't shown down any of my hands at this point. But this is my first time 3 betting anyone PF.

Hero is dealt AK in the SB.

PF: Villain opens to 45 in MP, gets 3 callers behind, Hero makes it 200. Only villain calls.

Flop(535): 884
Hero bets 400, Villain thinks for about 20 seconds and calls.

At this point I pretty much put her on TT-QQ. I think she's good enough where she's not going to stack off as my line basically looks like KK or AA and I think she's good enough to see that.

Turn(1335): 7
Hero goes all in, Villain tanks for about 1 min and then calls. Well so much for my read lol.

River(3645): Brick City.

Hero flips AKo and Villain does a double take as I'm sure she thought she was losing and flips up JJ Guess she doesn't understand anything about hand ranges.
Well that's why they call me SPYU.
Lesson learned. Don't bluff someone unless you actually see them lay down a hand even if you think they will because they seem solid. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get another hand with her during that session.

Very nice girl though. But after talking with her for a little bit I could see her hand reading wasn't all that great. She was telling me a hand in a tournament where an old man limp reraised her from UTG then b/3b a J high flop. She said she thought she made a bad lay down w/ QQ.
She said she was going to Vegas for the WSOP and was renting a house with 4 other guys. Wow. Also told me how some guy stakes her in a 10/25NL home game that he hosts every Thu. What a sweet deal. I wish I was a pretty girl so I could get stakes like that.

This next hand is vs the fish in the above post who limped the button with JTs then cold called 490 more all in PF.

Effective stacks 650.
PF: A player raises in MP to 40, hero calls on button with Q5, Villain calls from SB, rest fold.

Flop(130): 865
Villain checks, Original PFR checks, Hero checks

Turn(130): K
Villain bets 75, fold, Hero calls. One reason why this player was a fish other than his plays illustrated above were also that he would make river bluffs that made absolutely no sense. Even after I gave him $500 on the first hand at the table I took it back from him in 2 hands picking off his terrible bluffs. Why are his bluffs terrible? Because they are completely unbalanced. Like I'm talking he plays his value hands sooooo way differently that you can tell he has absolutely 0 hands in his value range when he bets most rivers. Also he keeps bluffing the same guy(me) who keeps calling him. So he has no idea of the concept of adjusting.

So the reason I called the turn is because he would never play a Kx, set, two pair, straight in this fashion. So it's pretty much an easy call. His range here is pretty much 7x, diamond draws, random bluff.

River(280): 2
Villain bets 230, Hero calls instantly. Villain flips A7
He sees my hand and goes, "What the hell?" He says, "How do you call with that?!" I just say, "Sorry just a lucky guess. I don't know I just don't like to fold when I have something. It's 50/50. Sometimes I fold, sometimes I call. I just guess." He says, "Would you have called if I went all in?" I say, "I don't know it depends what my guess is at the time. But probably fold."

That's also the reason why I was able to instant call him when he open shoves for 5.5x the pot HU with top pair. His range is FDs. And that's it. He is probably the most extreme case of unbalanced play that I have ever come across anywhere. He plays his draws one way, his marginal made hands one way, his bluffs one way, and his nut hands one way. None of his lines overlap in the slightest. Of course he left broke after 4 or 5 $500 buy ins. God I wish he had a lot of money and bought in deep.

Anyways gotta run some errands and look forward to trying to run good tonight!

OP,

That QJ v. J9 hand is gross. Don't know about you, but I would take a 30 minute walk after that hand if I choose to continue to play. But we need players like that in our game to make money so you just have to rub it off and go on to the next hand, although I know that hand was a sick amount of money. Hope your bad streak ends soon and run better. GL

Yeah that hand really sucked. I wasn't tilting, but it did hurt a little. Also most of the fish had left the table so I just went to play the tournament for a change of scenery. Yeah I frequently take short breaks during my sessions and do exercises and stretches once an hour to try and keep myself fresh.

Barry Greenstein is my inspiration for not tilting at the table.

Session 27

Date: Wed 5/16/2012
Venue: Hollywood Park
Hrs: 5.3 hrs 9p.m.-2:20a.m.
Total Hrs: 102.9
Game: 5-5NL, 5-10NL
Profit: $2604 ($984 in 5/5); ($1620 in 5/10)
Running BR: $40428

Downswing is finally over!! Well at least for the time being.

Went to play last night and there was 1 seat open in the 5-10 game when I showed up. As I approach my seat to sit down guess who is sitting to my left? The J9o uber fish guy from the other day!!! I was thinking holy crap what are the odds? Since I've never seen that guy before the session at Commerce. And I've played at HP a lot and have never seen him there. The poker gods must have felt bad for me haha.

Anyways him and another fish who was at my table when I was at Commerce was there as well. Suffice it to say I was quite excited. Unfortunately the fish only had about $800 in front of him. The table was pretty good. There was really one other good player at the table and I had played with him once before. The fish and him were both to my left. But a seat opened up on the other side of them and I was quick to take it.

I usually buy in short until I figure out what's going on, but since I was already very familiar with most of the players I just bought in for 5k to cover everyone.

The fish was donating his money pretty quickly so I was worried that it would all be gone by the time I had my chance. But luckily he sucked out on some guy and the good player made a bad triple barrel bluff vs him when he called down 3 streets with 2nd pair. Not surprising. So when this hand comes up he actually has about 1600 in front of him.

Key Hand Effective stacks V2 500, V1 1600.
Hero is dealt QQ in BB.
Villain 1 is the uber fish. Villain 2 is a new player who just sat down, bought in for 500 and posted. So no reads on him. He's a young Asian guy in his 20's. We are playing 7 handed at this point.

PF: Fold, V2 checks his post, limp, V1 limps on button, Good player completes SB, Hero raises to 85, V2 calls(at this point I already figure he's probably bad), of course V1 calls, rest fold.

Flop(275): Q 6 5
Hero bets 800, V2 looks shocked and says, "Ok I call I'm all in.", V1 says, "Ok I'm all in too." lmao. I say, "Ok I guess I call. I have the best hand right now."

Turn(2205): 2
River(2205): 6

V2 had 78 ; V1 had 84

V1 rebuys for $1k and predictably he gives it all away in less than 40min. I got another $200 off him before he went broke.

Only other semi-interesting hand is vs the good player.

Hero is dealt JT on button. Villain is a decent thinking LAG. He plays tight in EP and his range is really wide in LP and he isolates weak players in position. He is capable of making any play at anytime without a hand. But his judgement is off sometimes which makes me question his observation skills. i.e. he ran a triple barrel bluff on the uber fish who doesn't fold anything PF or post flop. And no good turn or river cards came that would be good to barrel. Not sure how he views me.
PF: Folds to Villain who raises to 45 in CO, Hero calls on button, blinds fold.

Flop(105): K T 8
Villain bets 80, Hero calls.

Turn(265): 7
Villain checks, Hero checks

River(265): 8
Villain checks, Hero bets 100, Villain pauses for a few seconds then raises to 375, Hero calls quickly, Villain instamucks.

He's a good player, but I don't think he understands how he can really have no value hands in the line he took. At least from how I've seen him play. He probably crushes this game regularly so he probably doesn't balance any of his lines at all since there really is no need. There is nothing I've seen him play this way. Only thing he could have here is an 8, but from what I've seen he would've bet 300 on the river if he had something like A8.

Anyways after the fish go broke we're 4 handed and I'm not interested in playing anymore so I move to the 5-5 game that's running. I run even for awhile in the game losing a little bit trying to put people on tilt with my overbetting. i.e. It is straddled for 10 and everyone limps, it's to me on the button and I go all in for 500. This one guy gets so irritated he gives me a 5 min lecture on how stupid my play is no matter what my hand is and that if I get called I'm crushed, bad odds, blah blah blah. I'm just laughing and say, "Thanks for the tips."

Anyways pretty uneventful table, but a lot of action and players are pretty bad. I made just under 1k at this table and then went home for the night.
Nothing too exciting. I have KQ and get it all in vs K2 on a K Q 2 flop.
Then I have 87s and get it all in vs Q7 on a 5 6 7 flop. Both hands were vs the same awful lady who limped both those hands and called sizeable raises PF with them.

It's nice to get back over $40k. That's kind of a psychological thing I guess. But it was kind of depressing when I dropped below that mark. Hopefully I will be at 50 before too long. If I can be somewhere in that neighborhood by the time I get to Vegas I will be pretty happy.

Well that pretty much sums up my last session here in LA for awhile. Tomorrow is my big move to Sacramento. I guess my next session will be sometime next week when I check out Capitol Casino and the rest of the Sac scene.

What was the thought process with leading 4x pot OTF with top set? Just wondering if there is history with big overbets because it seems like you would miss value here againt most players.

Good job on the win anyway, hope it continues!!