Holy crap its been way too long since I last updated. I ended up playing a normal person week, playing mon-fri and taking the weekend off. First time in a long time I've taken a sat-sun off. Today I spent most of the day at this place called Legasse Stadium, a sports book/lounge thing in the Palazzo. The non 2+2er in our prop bet suggested it to watch the UFC fights and it was a blast. I'm not a UFC fan but the place was awesome. Our "table" was basically a couch with pillows on it facing a giant array of screens with everything from the fights to college bball on them. I ate so much food I felt like I was gonna overdose on calories and I'm not even sure thats possible. There was a $100 min/person but it was incredibly worth it. Tomorrow we're going to a cubs-rangers spring training baseball game so should make for a great weekend overall.

Grind Update

Poker-wise my week was all 2/5 except one very short 5/10 session yesterday. I don't really have anything to report regarding the 2/5 sessions. There was only one loss and the rest were pretty marginal wins. Many of the sessions were actually a bit hard to get through just because I was so card/situation dead and it made it a tad boring.

The 5/10 session happened yesterday because a game broke out at the V, which lately has been rare. It started out 4 handed with me, one other good player, and two fish, one of which being a massive whale I've played with before. At the peak we were 7 handed with the original other good player being the only non-fish at the table. Unfortunately two of them left for dinner and another busted out and after just an hour and a half of play the game broke. I ended up picking up a decent profit so I wasn't too disappointed.

I really need to be playing more 5/10 than I have been, but I've been so lazy with going to other places because I like the V so much. Aria and Bellagio haven't been that busy except on weekends, but with the Wynn classic going on there have been as many as 4 5/10's running over there and I need to check that out. All thats left now is the main event so hopefully the action bleeds into the beginning of this week.

Goals Update

Haven't done this in a while and I need to update on it more to keep myself accountable. I have kept with my reading goal, finishing my March book way early. It was J.K. Rowling's new book A Casual Vacancy and I thought it was very good. I haven't started another one yet but will as soon as my request is filled by the library.

Fitness wise I was slacking earlier but recently decided to start up on Insanity again. Its a 60-day program and since I'm taking another trip home in almost exactly that amount of time it would be a good time to do it. I got through the first week and after the first couple days feeling like hell I feel way better and actually pretty pumped about it. And other than today I've been doing reasonably well with my diet, though I haven't been losing weight, I'm not gaining either so still at 220. My goals right now are to finish the 60-day program with no more than 5 missed workouts (its 6 days/week) and get down to 200 by the end of the program.

Lastly, poker wise I've made a bit of progress on a few goals. Bouncing ideas and hand histories off of rob, squid and the other prop bet member has definitely had me thinking more at the tables and just generally getting my game better. Its funny how even though we are competing against each other, we all want each other to do well and get better, which is really the whole point of the bet.

Since I've been playing mostly 2/5 the 5/10 goal has been stunted a bit, but I'm happy with that decision because except on weekends or special occasions, optimal game selection is at 2/5.

I've also been doing a lot of thinking with what I want to do for the WSOP as it is approaching fast. I've been getting the tournament itch lately and so I've decided I'm gonna play a few 1K's and 1500's and the main. Although cash games have higher value, the tournament fields are so soft that the chance of a major score is too high to pass up now that my roll can handle it more than last summer. The smaller events I decide to play are going to be the ones with multiple starting days as those attract the largest fields. To prepare for this I'll be doing some studying of material I have and also playing 4-5 events in the DSE coming up next month. My plan is to mirror my WSOP plan and play the smaller events with multiple starting days and the main. I'll be selling action for the DSE main and the WSOP events, and I'll post a link to the thread when I make it. Although I don't have tournament results, I'm hoping my cash results will be enough to allow me to sell the amount I want to sell.

As for cash games I still plan to play 5/10nl and lately I've been leaning towards playing a lot of the 5/5 PLO at the Rio since I know from last year that that game is just insane and with all the PLO action during the summer I won't be able to just play holdem.

So it looks like I've got some work to do with the prop bet going on and studying up on tourneys and PLO to get ready for the WSOP. I'm pretty jacked for this series as last year I was so raw and just not ready to have a successful summer.

Thanks for reading.

Pretty frustrating last few days. During my weekend off I could feel a cold coming on and on Monday I tried heading back to the poker room but halfway there I knew it was a bad idea and turned around back to my apartment. Tuesday was a no-go as well but today I felt good enough to go in. Though not 100% for sure, I was getting antsy and wanted to give it a shot.

I told myself I would just play tight ABC poker and see how it goes. I ended up playing for just under 4 hours and just couldn't take it any more. I had to blow my nose every few minutes and it was just too much. I wasn't focused at all and was clearly not playing my best. I lost a small amount in mostly standard spots. 90% of it was just iso a couple limpers, miss, and lose whether I cbet or not. I'm really just glad I didn't stick around long enough to make a big mistake because of it.

I've learned from this that its just not a good idea to force myself to play if I'm sick like this. Despite still being +EV in the game, it just wasn't worth it. I was miserable and not having any fun. I am also positive that I'd feel the same way had I won. Theres no way to tell for sure, but I'm actually happy with how I played so I don't think I'm being results oriented.

This kind of highlights one of the great things about playing poker for a living and one of the not so great things. On one hand I can take as many sick days as I need to get better. However, there's no sick pay in this business so if I don't work I don't get paid. This isn't one of those jobs where I can just come in and go through the motions. If I play bad I'm not gonna make money, or at least not as much.

So for me right now I'm gonna take off until I feel better because its just not worth it to play if I'm miserable and have no chance of playing my A-game. Though I don't have sick pay to fall back on, I have done enough planning that a few extra days off, while not optimal, will not hurt me in the grand scheme of things. I'd rather wait to be 100% than to play less than my A-game even if I can still be +EV in the game.

So I'll miss some of the march madness-induced poker action, but on the bright side will get to watch the games.

Sorry if this was all over the place and a bit scattered but I was having a hard time organizing my thoughts, hopefully you guys get what I meant.

Good call man... In the long run playing sick is -ev. I remember playing the Arizona poker championship years back, and I had a massive chip lead and I started feeling worse as the day progressed to the point that I just wanted to leave, and it caused me to spew off all my chips 10 spots before the money. Ever since then, I don't play when I'm sick.

I hate playing with sick people, I usually table change right away. I've been sick all week too, it happened after a 4 day marathon grind, which was worth it btw.

But a few things to get better:

Gargle and swallow cayenne pepper.
Go to the steam room/ sauna, sweat it out
force yourself to run and get your heartrate up for 10 minutes, this helps with strength

Which puts you in line with everybody else who is self-employed, and 80% of everybody who works part time (US Dept of Labor Statistics, Jan 2013 Survey).

Amusingly, according to the same survey 23% of workers in the healthcare and social assistance sector are without access to paid sick days.

Just saying, IMO this does not count as a strike against poker

I totally agree. Whenever someone is sick at the table I'm like wtf are you doing here, go home. So when I was doing that exact thing, I said to myself "wtf am I doing here?", and went home.

As someone who didn't play much online poker, days like this make me wish it was back. Being able to just chill at my apartment and grind out a short session sounds awesome. And if I don't feel good I can just close out the windows. No commute/parking to deal with.

Thanks for the tips man, I have still been working out through most of my cold as I think it helps to sweat, but today it might not happen.

Yea, I know everyone doesn't have sick pay. I think the main point I was making (which probably wasn't totally clear) was that at lots of other jobs you can go in even if not 100% and just punch the clock with no immediate consequences.

Don't get me wrong, you gotta take the good with the bad and looking at pros/cons I'll still take poker over most other normal jobs.

Great thread, have always seen it but just started reading it.

Had some general questions(if you have time/thanks)

1. Do you target a certain time of day to play(eve-early am) or just play when you feel strong?

2. Do you track your results with a mobile or online program? I do understand (and respect) your not listing specific results here as mentioned by you early in the thread. I was just wondering tho do you have a standard session length you shoot for or just play as long as you/games feel good? As far as session results do you give much importance to % session win vs loss? Not looking for your #'s, just if you think this is an important stat(I've seen arguments for and against).

3. How much do tells/villain reads weigh into your decisions? You seem to hardly mention this but may be due to this not being a true strat thread.

4. From your observations, what is the upper limit for win rate for 2/5(not looking for your personal stats here)? In Limon's thread he seemed to put upper limits at 10BB/hr IIRC, just wondering if you would dispute this from your observations as you seem in tune to poker scene out there.

5. If I interpret your thread right you seem to have a loss limit of 3BI's. I usually go with 2BI just wondering how you settled at 3 not 2 or 4 or whatever.

Thanks/Go Badgers!

Have Wisconsin going pretty far in my March Madness bracket..you guys better not let me down.

Don't be so hard on yourself for not being able to play Taylor. You seem to consistently put in the time and effort at the tables so be sure to take care of yourself before you get back out there! Maybe you could use this time to reflect on your game/review specific hands/or think about things you want to work on in the future.

Sure man, lots of good questions, I'll give em all a shot.

1. I don't think it matters much when you play, but I think its very important to have some sort of a schedule. Now that doesn't mean getting there at 2:00 on the dot every time, just having a general time when you play. For me lately I've been on a late afternoon-early evening schedule. I arrive around 3 and play 6-8 hours. Sometimes I'm there by 2, sometimes not till 4 but I at least have a 2-3 hour window that I shoot for. I have been on earlier and later schedules in the past, but I find the early-late afternoon starts work best for me. Playing 2/5nl and below you can pretty much choose your target time, but for 5/10+ or other games you'll need to plan based on when those games run. This is something I've had to think about lately with 5/10 and thus should probably adjust my schedule to a bit later.

2. I use Poker Journal for iphone. I don't have a certain length I shoot for necessarily, I just play as long as I'm feeling well. For me thats generally 6-7 hours, occasionally longer. For good games I'll only stay past my "feel good" if a game is spectacular because at least at 2/5, good games are common so I don't feel compelled to play 10+hr sessions when the game is gonna be good tomorrow anyways. If someone looked at my records they'd probably think I just play 6ish hrs and quit but in reality my body/mind is just very consistent with how long it can play A-game poker and I'm good at recognizing when I should pick up.

I don't think session win/loss is an important stat just because style can be a huge determinant of your %. For example, super tight players probably win more often than me but their wins are smaller and my w/r is gonna be higher. At 2/5 I hover between 60-65% wins.

3. I have been paying more and more attention to physical tells lately but honestly its not huge. It will sometimes be used as a tie-breaker for close decisions. Sometimes I'll pick up a weak tell and stab at a pot that I otherwise wouldn't have, but as far as big decisions, tells rarely tip the scales significantly. I pay more attention to how the person plays and figure out what their general strategy is. This type of stuff affects literally every decision I make.

4. This is a conversation I've had with rob and some other people out here. 2/5 w/r even for the 200bb games is probably capped somewhere around 60/hr imo. Thats for the best players, as in top 0.5-1% of the pool. ABC regs are probably making 20-30/hr and nits make even less. Anything higher is not sustainable imo. Maybe if you play only weekends but if you have to get 35-40 hrs a week, week in and week out, you will be hard pressed to get past 60, and 99.9% wont get past 50.

5. I don't really have a stop loss anymore but when I did it was 3 BI's. When I played 1/2 in college it was 2. Now that theres no amount of money I could lose at 2/5 that would tilt me I just don't have one. Its all about personal comfort. If you could lose 2 BI's and still play well then it makes no sense to have a 2 BI stop loss. If you tilt after 1 buy in then you have to have a 1 buy in stop loss temporarily and work on tilt problems until you eventually don't have to have a stop loss. The goal is to not have one because having to stop sessions short is not optimal. This is basically a function of mental preparedness and having sufficient bankroll.

Hell yea! I'm sure they won't. Already some great games today, exciting stuff.

Hey guys, been playing the last few days, pretty much 100% out of the cold. Last few days have been a combo of 2/5 at V and 5/10 at the Bellagio. With March Madness in town I've seen 4-5 tables going at the Bellagio so I decided to check it out. Played a full session of that on Friday and a couple hours Saturday. I was honestly not impressed with the quality of the games as it seemed like every table I was at was all decent players. Ended up booking a sizeable loss on Friday and a small win Saturday.

After my short session of 5/10 I headed over to the V for some 2/5. I played 5 hrs of that to finish off the day and today played a full session of 2/5. Those games were significantly better than the 5/10 games and I booked a pretty good win yesterday and a small one today. My game today was pretty nutso for a few hours. Probably 25% of hands were 3-bet preflop, whereas average is probably around 5 or 10%. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take advantage and pretty much hovered around even the whole session.

Its been nice to be able to put in some good sessions after taking so much time off while sick. I play so much better when I'm on a consistent schedule so hopefully I can get back into a groove here.

What happened to Wisconsin? Were they tired from the B10 tourney? It seemed like every shot was hitting the front of the rim.

Yea that game was brutal to watch. The thing with Wisconsin bball teams is that they are very inconsistent, especially in years like this where so much of their game depends on outside shooting. They can beat some of the best teams in the B10/nation if they play well (eg. Indiana twice, Michigan twice, Ohio State), and then go and lose to Our Sisters of the Poor the next day.

I don't think any fatigue from the B10 tourney had anything to do with it, they just had one of those games. Super unfortunate too because they would have been set up so well with a LaSalle matchup in the round of 32 and then if they got past them, getting Wichita St. in the sweet 16 instead of having to face a 1 seed, albeit a very weak 1 seed but still not as weak as a 9 seed.

Pretty annoyed with myself right now. The last 2-3 days haven't been all that great for me despite all being winning days. When I play bad and still win I still get mad the same way I can be happy with a losing session when I play well.

Monday and Wednesday weren't awful, but I could feel myself playing on a bit of autopilot and just generally didn't want to be there but played anyways. I didn't make any huge mistakes, but certainly wasn't thinking critically even close to 100% of the time.

Today was just a disaster. Right from the get go I knew I didn't want to be playing poker. I pretty much just played ABC and waited for the day to go by so I could leave. I made one goofy ass call which kinda woke me up and I was paying attention again. I got back up to where I was at my highest point before and then right before I left lost a big pot in basically a coin-flip (AK vs QQ almost all in pre) that I probably don't need to get into. Looking at the hand logically, I got lucky to run into the bottom of the guys range and should have folded to his 3bet.

I don't really know what is going on, but I have just been in a fog at the table lately. Winning during this time has been a demon in disguise (only thing I could think of for opposite of blessing in disguise) because its subconsciously reinforcing the idea that "all you need to do is show up and you'll win". In reality I lost because if I had been playing well I would have won much more, money not won is the same as money lost.

Anyways I'll be playing day 1b of the first DSE event tomorrow. I'm pretty exited for it because I haven't played a tournament in a while and I've been getting the itch lately. PLO is going to start running more consistently during DSE time so I'll be playing a bunch of that as well to gear up for the WSOP. Exited to start playing that game again.

Sounds like you hate your job.

I had a bad day, thats far from hating my job.

Doesn't everyone with a 'real job' have bad days as well?

I hope I'm on your direct left in tournament today so I can just min 3bet over and over.

Played the 400nl donkament today as advertised. I thought it went very well. I made it about halfway through level 9, so about 5.5 hrs of play. My head was just generally in a much better place today. I made a couple plays where I could certainly have just done the "standard" thing but thought through situations and found something better. One in particular was choosing not to get it in with a big draw on the turn (fd+double gutter) where I have 0% fold equity. Especially in a tournament the best play is to flat but I feel like lots of even good players just jam it in because "lol I has combo draw".

Around level 4 I was gifted a double up with KJ on a JJ633 board against who I thought was the only other good player at my table. From there I hovered until a failed squeeze with Q9 against a super loose raiser turned into me calling a shove from a player behind with AK getting 2.5:1 where I had to call off and lost. Lost about a third of my chips there.

Stayed between 15 and 20K for a few levels before getting AT in preflop against this super tilty kids K4. T on the flop but K on the turn and I was on life support with about 8bbs. A few hands later I went with Q9hh from the big blind and ran into AQ for my tournament.

I had fun though and am excited to play a couple more events this DSE. The fields are definitely softer than the average 2/5 game, even though the hourly is still lower. It was amazing to me that 2 of the 3 good players I saw ended up losing a hand and then tilting off the rest of what was still a more than healthy stack to make a run.

Back to cash tomorrow, PLO if its running and I like it, otherwise 2/5. Next donkament will be the 600nl next sunday.

comparing tournament play to cash games in terms of softness is a mistake.

I'm just sayin

"I hope he 3bets me right here, cuz Ima 4bet him...and I know he know I can 4bet light...so when he 5bet jams, well..."

Kinda cheesy, but pretty fun imo.

Where the f did this comment come from?

Played a bunch of short sessions Saturday due to jumping around in games. Started off at PLO since the game was good. Recognized one whale who I played with some during the WSOP who is supposedly one of the main owner/operators of the Venetian or something like that. I took the last seat in a 9 handed game and within an hour the game had broken. A bit annoying because I was stuck, but I was happy with how I played save one hopeless river bluff.

Jumped in to 2/5 for a couple orbits before getting called for 5/10, which was particularly good. Unfortunately I basically just got to fold for 3 hrs until we got short and the fish left. Went back to 2/5 for a couple hours to finish off my day, won a nice chunk to get slightly in the black for the day overall.

Yesterday was just a 2/5 session. Nothing spectacular, booked a small loser due to basically running into it all day.

Got in 139 hrs of cash play this month plus a 6 hr run in that tourney. I for sure could do better but thats not bad volume, especially considering I basically took 3.5 extra off days being sick. I'll be taking the next 2 days off to recharge and then back on Wednesday.

Well, it came from the part I quoted. Thought that was pretty clear.

I've got nothing against OP. The lines I read though made it sound like you were pretty unhappy with what you were doing. Not that it's out of the ordinary for people to have down days, just an observation.

I'll be playing day 1b of the 600nl at the V today. I'll be tweeting chip updates on breaks @cucciabot for those interested.

Been playing a bunch of PLO this week, I will do a longer update on the week after the tournament.