Making enough to trigger money-laundering protocols = baller
making time for the Survivor finale = double baller

Good fortune in 2013. Love this thread.

Thanks man, I'm a huge Survivor fan, the finale was great.

I took off yesterday but had played Monday and today at 5/10 at the Bellagio. Monday's session went pretty good. I was up right away due to flopping a set and getting two streets of value. From there I won a few more pots without showdown and got moved to the main game. The main game was absolutely horrible. Of the 9 players there was one guy that I would consider a soft spot and he wasn't even half bad. I played a few orbits and when they collected time I left. (time is when instead of raking pots, the casino takes a certain amount per 1/2 hour from each player. So whenever the dealer changes, they collect time and everyone who wants to continue playing has to pay, in this case $6.)

Today the main game was much better than Monday, so I played a full session. Already stuck a bit from the must move, I had reloaded and got AA all in on an A65 board against 89. The board ran out J2 and I lost to my opponents flush. At this point I was in for my entire stop loss, but would make a bit of a comeback and ended up booking a small loss.

I am starting to feel more and more comfortable at 5/10. I feel like I am making good decisions and playing much less weak/tight than I was in my first few sessions. Ranges are definitely different with many of the players and I'm still making some mistakes figuring that out, but that is to be expected.

Quick question.

Have you increased your daily stop loss now that you are at 5-10?

nice report to read.

Q: on past few month you ´ve been there, did you see regu faces on daily-weckly basis ( like x-players always at specific tables) or there is no significant frame ?

Not yet, still buying 100bb to start off. Once I start buying in deeper I will increase it.

Yea there are a lot of regulars. That doesn't mean they are all good players, most in fact are not. At any given time if I walked into the Venetian I would probably recognize at least half of the 2/5 players.

A little bit off topic - but please accept my wishes for a pleasant holiday season and a great 2013 !!

Ha I've been reading these various trip reports in vegas and I've finally spotted one of you besides matt moore. I was the guy to your left who spewed off with 77. And at least now I know I made the right fold when you flopped the set

Thank you, happy holidays to you as well.

haha oh **** my cover is blown! That was such a good spot, too bad we had each other's outs. Yea good fold there, 88.

Yea it was pretty cool when I realized that was matt moore. Someone called him matt and I was like "wait a minute" and from the 1 seat peaked over to the bravo, which sure enough read Matt. M. I won a pot from him where he squeezed my CO open and button call. I 4 bet and he insta folded to my AA.

I was gonna wait to do an update but I just did half anyways so here goes. So I started off at the B and played there for about 2.5 hours. During which, as I explained above, I played with the famous Matt Moore. The main game, however, was atrocious, and looking on bravo I noticed a 5/10 started up at Venetian.

I headed over there, up a bit from the first session. As soon as I got there I instantly knew the game was great. One horrible 2/5 player and as I watched the game for a few hands it looked like chips were flying. While I was waiting they started a must move, which I played in for about 45 minutes before moving. We were shorthanded the whole time and unfortunately I got into a pre flop war against a good aggressive player, and ultimately lost it, running into his KK. I really hate stuff like that but 3 handed its really hard not to.

So I go to the must move and reload. The game was incredible, with 3 splashy players, one of which seems to be fond of raising blind from UTG instead of straddling. Unfortunately I was pretty card dead and stealing a pot was just not happening with this lineup, especially since I was stuck out of position to the 3 spots.

Nothing much happened for the first hour or so, as I just got chipped away and couldn't get anything going. Once I got down too low I topped up again, now in for my 3rd buy-in. In the last hand of the night I called a preflop 3 bet, cbet, and river bet from a decent aggressive player with JJ on a T839T board. His big river sizing combined with his turn check convinced me to call, and he had J7o, having turned a pre-flop squeeze into a straight. (a squeeze is when a player 3 bets after someone else raises and gets 1 or more calls. Because everyone is likely to fold, people often do this with less than premium holdings as a bluff) I was too short and though I had more cash on me I didn't want to reload again so I left.

And with that I took the biggest loss at 5/10 or otherwise. I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting a bit, but overall I'm ok with my play and don't think I made any big mistakes. I definitely have some work to do with 5/10 though. Thanks to the early run good I'm still up a good chunk overall in the game and if this would have happened before the run good, I would probably be extremely happy right now, so it would be silly to let the order of random events affect my mood.

Plan is to play today, take Saturday off, and Sunday I'll be heading home for the holidays.

What is this Bravo thing? Iv noticed it mentioned a few times now.

Software for running poker rooms

When I read your post I was hoping to look over and see that it was the CEO of MGM Mirage posting and we'd finally have Bellagio MGM and Aria added to the Bravo app.

To answer your question it's the software that tracks who's at what table and updates the wait lists and, if the room so chooses, updates the Bravo Poker website and app so you can see what games are running from anywhere.

Played a short session today at Venetian 5/10. When I got to the main game it wasn't that great but I noticed a huge whale come in and soon after he got seated, so I stuck around. When he sat down he started blind raising/straddling and not too much later everyone had agreed to a round of straddles. I was very reluctant but I did it because of the whale. Then everyone wanted to continue straddling but I said I was done. The player next to me, a V reg who buys in extremely deep and wanted the game to play bigger was trying to convince me to straddle and so for the next one he paid for half of it. After that I said I was done, but he ended up basically paying for my straddles because he said if I didn't straddle other people would stop. After a few more orbits I really didn't want to keep playing what was basically a 10/20 game, so I took off. I debated heading to red rock, where I noticed a 5/10 was going, but my mindset was off so I just called it a night.

My session went ok, but I was extremely card dead for most of it. I did make one good hero call and value owned myself with top pair in a spot where I'm confident a value bet is +EV. I made a couple decent hands but never got more than one street. All in all I was pretty happy with my play, just a little frustrated that the couple times I had a good hand I got folds whereas I was getting almost no folds otherwise.

So here ends my first escapade into 5/10. It was really a tale of two halves, as for the first 15ish hours I ran hotter than the sun, and for the last 15ish hours I ran pretty horrible while compounding it with a few mistakes. All in all, if you would have told me before I played any 5/10 that after my first 30 hours I would be up what I'm up, I would be at least satisfied with it, but just the way it happened sorta leaves a bad taste. I also had most of my success at the Bellagio and most of the losing sessions at the Venetian. I know 90% of this is just randomness but at least a small part of it I believe has to do with the fact that the game at the V plays much bigger and I have probably been a bit more intimidated playing there. More on this in a minute.

I've learned a lot in just a short time, the main thing being that I still have a lot more to learn. I have realized that the learning curve at 5/10 is probably much bigger than I thought it was despite anticipating a fairly steep one. I've also not really enjoyed going back to buying 100bb after transitioning to playing deeper stacks at 2/5. At the same time though, I am not yet comfortable buying in deep for some reason. I am properly rolled but just haven't been able to pull the trigger on buying in deeper. This took me a long time at 2/5 also so I'm not too worried about that.

Based on that, when I come back I'll probably transition by max buying at the Bellagio 5/10 (150bb) until I get comfortable there and then branch out to deeper games, as my short time at the V's 5/10 game has shown me that going straight from 2/5 to deep 5/10 games is too much of a step for me.

So as much as it sucks to downswing into a vacation, I think a break is just what I need right now. There's really nothing to be dissatisfied with, as my shot at 5/10 came sooner that I would have expected when I went back to holdem in September. Not to mention it was still profitable overall despite the last few days. Basically what I'm saying it, a part of me (a small, evil, results oriented part) is disappointed while in reality I shouldn't be and I'm trying to get those thoughts out of my head by reminding myself that the overall picture is still very good. I think this vacation will help get those thoughts out of my head, and I'll be able to come back fresh.

For the last couple weeks I have been really looking forward to going home and seeing a lot of people I haven't seen for a long time, many not since leaving for Vegas in May. I don't think the break could have come at a better time.

Thanks for reading everybody, I know this got long and my thoughts are somewhat scattered, but I wanted to make sure I portrayed my thoughts accurately, thus the wall of text.

I don't get the whole lets straddle to make the game play half as deep as before. If you're a good player you should want to play with deeper stacks not shorter. I guess it would be okay if there are a couple fish who have a lot of money in front of them but other than that I don't see the point. Just makes the game play more straight forward.

uncapped buyin - game plays very deep

For those poker rooms that have it, you can see what games are going, how long the list is, etc.

I was wondering the same thing - thank you for your answer.

Ty.

Sorry im not the CEO of MGM Mirage, maybe someday.

I have been following this thread and it is a great read... thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences of grinding in Vegas. I will be back down Dec. 30 - Jan 4 at the B, but only play 2/5, so I doubt we'll be at the same table...

Not to derail this thread, but is the Bravo app available for blackberry? I did a search and cannot seem to find it... is it only available for iPhones/iPads?

Thanks!

Wtf is a blackberry? A fruit I'm guessing

Thanks man glad you like it. GL at the tables, I'll be out of town until the 3rd though.

I've seen people with android on it, no idea about blackberry.

Well I am back in Vegas and ready to grind! My trip home was awesome, got to see all my family and a bunch of friends and had a great time with them. I also ate a ridiculous amount of food between all the home-cooked meals and holiday treats so I probably put on about 10 pounds. Only played one short session of 2/5 while I was there with nothing really to report. Below is a sort of year in review and my goals for the year going forward.

Year in Review:

Its not really a year in review since I've only been here since June, but whatever. Looking at the last 7 months as a whole, I'm really happy with the progress I've made. I've learned a lot about being a professional poker player, the technical aspect of playing hands being just one of them. I think I've made great strides in game selection, learning to deal with losses, and being able to maintain emotional control at the table. I've also learned a lot about the ways in which my mind works, both for me and against me, and how to combat it when it is working against me.

Results wise it was certainly not a steady climb, as one particularly long break-even stretch (3 months) and some other downswings tested me beyond anything I had experienced so far in poker. In the end though I'm satisfied with how I ended up. I covered all my expenses and was able to make enough extra to grind my BR up to where I can now play 5/10, so I'm proud of that accomplishment.

Goals for 2013:

Poker:

1. Keep improving: The most important thing for me is to keep learning and getting better. As with many professions, as soon as you get complacent you are dead. Goal #2 should help with this, because at 5/10 I will certainly have a lot to learn. If everyday I can't come back from a session saying I learned something, then I wasn't paying close enough attention.

2. Beat 5/10: I'm gonna be grinding mostly the 1500 cap game at Bellagio in the beginning and moving to deeper games as I get more comfortable. I'm hoping to be ready to play some deeper games for the Venetian Deepstack in February as the games for the last deepstack looked incredible. I'm not setting any winrate targets for obvious reasons but I would obviously like to win at the game. However, my main goal is going to be to play my best and learn how to beat the game.

3. Figure out a plan for WSOP: This is a ways away, but I would like to have a plan in place beforehand. I'm still trying to figure out how much time I want to commit to tournaments, if any. I would really like to play the Main Event, but I'm not gonna do anything half-ass. Thats partly why I need to decide sooner rather than later how much time I will spend on tournaments because if I plan on playing some events I will want to practice on some smaller ones first.

I also need to decide if I'm going to be playing any PLO and plan accordingly for that. The PLO cash games are unbelievable good during the WSOP and I now have a roll for the 5/5 game that runs at the Rio, which last year was just like printing money from what I saw/heard (variance pending obviously). I really like PLO so I will undoubtedly spend a large chunk of time playing it during WSOP, which means I will have to spend 1-200 hours playing in some so-so games beforehand to knock the rust off.

Post-WSOP my current lease is up so I need to decide if I'll be staying in Vegas, and if not, where I will be going. This is going to depend a lot on how the next 7 months go and how I'm feeling then, so I can't really start planning for that yet, though it will definitely be something I need to be thinking about.

Non-Poker:

1. Improve Health: After the holidays I'll probably clock in at around 230. I'd like to get under 200 this year. More importantly though, I just want to be healthy. That means getting back on my before-Christmas eating habits and figuring out a work-out plan that I can maintain. The eating plan is pretty much in place, I just have to start up again. I also have a good idea of what I will do for working out, so its really all in place, I just need to do it. How I will measure this is as follows. For the diet part, keep it to one cheat meal per week. And for exercise, a minimum of 3 times per week.

2. Read 1 new (non-poker) book/month: I've been thinking about finding a library and starting to read again. I used to love reading but high school/college sort of ruined it for me because we were forced to read stuff I didn't like and then I didn't want to read on my free time. I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd so I'll try to find some other stuff in that genre as well as anything else that seems interesting. I'm up for suggestions if anyone has any.


......................

So it looks like I'll be busy, but I'm exited to get back at it. I'll have more updates soon.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and even though its the 3rd, Happy New Year!

Join lifetime athletic and you will never want to leave the gym! The gym is amazing.

I've really enjoyed reading your thread here...very nice work. You are 10x the player I'll ever be, but one thing that I have a firm grasp on is...well, me. All that stuff about emotional control, learning about how you think, and how to fix it when you're not thinking along the lines you know you should, etc. is, IMO, maybe even more important than the technical aspects of the game (I know it's very close obv). After all, we all know somebody who, in their right mind, crushes, but either they have terrible tilt issues, or pit leaks, etc. and it matters not what your a-game bb/100 is if you blast off 30bi at the craps table once a month or whatever. I am at least as impressed to be reading about how you devote active work to this aspect of your lie as a player as I am at your actual poker playing.

I'm coming out there 2/4 - 2/12 and will be playing 2/5 at the V, and possibly taking a 5/10 shot or two at the B. I'm old and, um...old (45) but I'd love to shake your hand and buy you a drink at some point.

Keep it up.