I am glad to hear that you had a good holiday and are back in the swing of things; I always look forward to reading your updates. Best of luck to you in 2013.

I will be in LV in June for the WSOP . . . I will do my best to say hello, and I will also do my best to stay away from you at the tables. You clearly are a player on the move.

Thanks, let me know when you're here and we'll meet up. I'm sure I'll reluctantly be at the Rio at some point during the series.

So quick update today. Thursday I again played at the Aria and the game was again pretty good. I lost my first buy in with QQ all in preflop against AK. I rebounded from there and ended up breaking even, though there were two hands back to back where I didn't really like my play on the flop and I got up shortly after the second one, played a total of 5.5 hours.

Yesterday the game at the Aria wasn't as good as the last two, and after about 4 hours I got to the main game, which was horrible, and decided to head to the Bellagio. During my session at the Aria I ran bottom two pair into bottom set and got 5-outed on the river with my overpair all in on the turn against top pair. So I was down some but pretty happy with the session. At the B the only thing of note was that at my 5/10 must move I got sat to the right of Bobby Baldwin, WSOP champ from a while back, MGM executive, and I'm pretty sure the guy they named "Bobby's room" after. Unfortunately the game was horrible and because I was only gonna play a couple more hours I didn't make it past the must move and left after maybe 1.5 hours. I would have waited if the main games looked good but I didn't see anything special so I booked a small loser.

Full throttle jelly. GL in 2013.

Bobby "The Owl" Baldwin

1978 Main Event Champ
4 Bracelets

Also final tabled the One Drop Tourney

And yes, Bobby's Room is named after him.

Here is his Wiki if you are interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Baldwin

More Aria 5/10 the last couple days. Yesterday I played earlier than normal to get a few hours in before going to a Cirque du Solei show with my air force buddy. I was fairly happy with how I played, though I think I made one mistake. Came back and ended up losing a bit but basically broke even.

Today I started off in a 2/5 game while I waited for them to start a 2nd 5/10 game. That went pretty well and I profited nicely due to an actiony player giving me two big streets when I flopped a boat with 22 on a 233 flop.

To my delight he was also on the 5/10 list and at the table when we started. I started with my 70bb and right away my JJ was no good against 44 on a 542 flop in a 3 bet pot. Was able to recover getting AA in against a smaller pair preflop and holding. From there it was pretty horrible. Lost with AQ all in on an A63 flop against A3 and then lost a flip with TPTK against a flush draw+gutshot all in on the flop. Ended up booking the loss after the AQ hand.

The thing with playing 70-100bb stacks is that you end up having to stack of with top pair/overpair type hands a lot more often and when other people hit it ends up being pretty high variance, though definitely +EV.

I'm getting a little more used to the game and players though. Today I looked at some of the things a couple of the "regs" were doing and realized that I have an edge against a bunch of them.

Because of the these two things, I think I'm close to buying in deeper but I'm gonna wait a little bit to see if I still feel that way just because I don't want a few sessions of runbad to be a part of that decision.

I was gonna take Tuesday off but might just switch it to tomorrow, or maybe even both since the games on mon/tues aren't all that great.

Good stuff, but more PLO less nl

Hey man I noticed you playing the 5/10 at aria. That main game looked pretty bad tbh. How was it?

I've definitely been getting the itch to play some PLO. Another good thing about playing at the Aria is thats where most of the consistent PLO action is so if I see a good game I can jump in. Seeing if theres a good PLO game is actually #1 on my backup plan if the 5/10 games aren't good.

I know a bunch of PLO action was available at the V during the last deepstack so I could do the same thing at the V once deepstack starts.

Assuming you are talking about yesterday, I thought it was a good game. A couple of the "regs" in that game I have come to realize are terribad wannabe pro types. They seem to have learned what ranges of hands to play in deepstack nl but don't adjust to my ~80bb stack. Even deep I think I'd have an advantage but with a medium stack I can make super easy decisions and take advantage of the fact that they can't fold pre-flop. Unfortunately I ran like **** but I was pretty happy with what I saw and how I played.

Examples from yesterday: utg+1 opened to 30, I 3bet to 100 with 90bb to start and got 5 callers. Commited with my AK on a AT7ddd flop, I got called by QJo with a diamond. His call on the flop isn't bad, but his cold call of a 3 bet from a 90bb stack with QJo is.

UTG+1 opens to 40, one caller, I 3bet JJ to 160 starting with about 85bb. Raiser and caller both call. Flop A58r. check, guy to my right bets, I fold, other guy calls. Turn (T) and river (K) check through and the original raiser shows A9o, having called my 3bet from oop preflop (same guy as with QJo). Furthermore, I don't get what the other dude was betting with on the flop that didn't have A9 beat. He had to bet without seeing me act and I could easily have AK/AQ there so why bet unless he at least has an A? The only thing I can think of is he also made a bad call pre with a worse Ax hand because everything else that makes sense beats A9 by the river.

So yea, another long response to a short question, but especially with my medium stack, I thought it was a good game.

Wait, are you sure these are pro regs? You seem to play pretty solid so I have no idea why a reg would be calling a 3bet with A9o. I think a lot of these live pros who started off playing in casinos have gotten by on good poker instincts, playing deep, and putting people in tough spots. The pros who started off online would never make those fundamental mistakes because you would get exposed so fast in the online games.

I usually just buy in 150bb-200bb but I might try experimenting with 70bb-80bb buy ins. An interesting default strategy at any new table could be buy in ~70bb and test the waters a bit to see if anyone is making any serious mistakes because of your stack size. Obviously if there is a weak player sitting on a lot of money you would want to cover him. 3bet bluffing at 70bb is also amazingly effective against TAGish regs because it's practically impossible to 4bet bluff without committing yourself. So they usually have to play straight forward to it and either fold or be prepared to commit 70bb in pre.

Yea I guess I wouldn't say he's a pro grinder because of how he plays, but he's been there every day I have playing 5/10 nl or PLO (wish I was rolled, I'd follow him there). Thats basically why I put "reg" in parentheses.

What you said about the 70bb thing is all true and its basically what I've been doing. So far for me at 5/10 its been rare that I find someone worth covering at the expense of having to play deep against the players who are better than me at deep stack play.

The guy is probably a reg. He plays regularly. That alone does not mean he is good at the game.

Good luck mate. It's fun following you.

The same applies to you as well. If you open wide from CO/BTN, regs behind you can 3-bet bluff you effectively because you have can't 4-bet bluff small without committing yourself.

What you say is true, but the situation never really arises because with 70bb stacks I'm not opening all that wide even from late position because I can't really barrel post-flop and I will need to play hands that are likely to win a showdown. So if they want to 3-bet bluff my late opens thats fine with me because I'll usually have a good enough hand to play for stacks profitably since a 70bb stack allows me to play a wider range for value in pre-flop all-ins than when I have 200bb+. Another reason this hasn't come up much is that the 5/10 games I've been in are aggro enough that its not folded to me in late position all that often.

That being said, if I were to 4-bet as a bluff with 70bbs it would only be if I had a really good reason to believe the villain was 3-bet bluffing, in which case I have no problem committing myself or just shipping my whole stack since my read is that he's bluffing and will therefore fold. Him knowing that I'm committed might even add weight to a 4-bet bluff.

Well, if you are opening CO/BTN with only strong hands, then you obviously don't need to worry about 3-bet bluffs.

I don't think there is anything wrong with short-stacking for 70bbs in 5/10 NL.

Eventually, however, you should start learning to play 100bb and 150bb poker at 5/10 NL if you want to have a high hourly win rate.

I agree.

Hello 'cushlash',
I am not attempting to 'nit pick' your post/reply; I am attempting to understand and learn; I understand the '70bb' buy-in strategy, but this statement, "So if they want to 3-bet bluff my late opens thats fine with me because I'll usually have a good enough hand to play for stacks profitably since a 70bb stack allows me to play a wider range for value in pre-flop all-ins than when I have 200bb+", seems to be going against your opening with better hands in the CO/OTB given your 70bb stack size; Please explain;
Thank you for your time and attention.

Sure, no problem. It allows me to play a wider range for value because with 200bb I'm certainly not gonna be looking to play for stacks pre-flop with hands like 99/TT or AQ as by the time that much money goes in, those hands are generally not profitable stack-offs. However, with 70bb and a reasonably aggressive 3-bettor I can profitably play for stacks with those hands because their stack-off range against me is wider when I have 70bb as opposed to 200.

Just as an illustration (percentages are gonna be wrong), with 200bb I might be opening 30% of hands but only willing to play for stacks with 2%, but with 70bb I might open only 10% of hands but be willing to play for stacks with 7%. So even though my opening range is much tighter with 70bb, the range I'm willing to play for stacks is much wider.

i havent read all the posts so i dont know if someone has mentioned this before.

www.bravopokerlive.com allows you to check what is running and what type of wait lists are up at casinos. check it out.

Hello 'cushlash',
Thank you for the reply and explanation; is it okay to pm you with the 'math' part of the question/reply/explanation?
I do not want to derail the theme of your thread by initiating a 'discussion'.
Thank you for your time and attention.

Yea that would be great as I don't really want to get too much more into strat itt.

Just wanted to stop by and say you are an inspiration to us all with regards to the pursuit of one's dreams.

Thanks for the answer; I understand what you're getting at and think you are absolutely correct; I am thinking very positive about you playing well at 5/10;

Thanks a lot, I'm glad to hear that.

Awesome, I'm glad that made sense.