What's with weekends? I'd imagine that it is an absolut must to play friday and saturday evening/nights when people are more willing to gamble than in the afternoon.

I think he's crushing overall. Also his religion is college football.

I pulled 33.5 hours on the tables last week on top of my regular 40 driving a desk. It was certainly no picnic, but it's slow at work the rest of the year so thankfully I can zombie my way through the morning and be ready to go for the game.

Yea weekends are busier and partly because there are more rec players/tourists, but also because literally every grinder thinks they need to play these hours.

This. Unfortunately its all over but the bowls. Went so fast.

That does not sound like something I'd be able to do. I guess if you can autopilot or "zombie" your way through your job its possible but even then I'm not sure I'd have enough mental energy to play my A-game or even my B-game for 30+ hours on top of a 40 hour/week job. I imagine if for some reason I had to do it I'd end up playing on autopilot a ton.

glad to hear you're finding some success at 5/10. have you played the aria 5/10 at all? any idea what kind of overlap there is between the two games.

i went down to florida for a week to get some 5/10 hours in. managed to win enough to cover expenses but it was a bad week for games as most tables were tough/not great action and there were a couple other traveling pros in the games. the guys down there are talking about the games in maryland so i suspect it's drying up a bit but i was still seeing at least a few new faces every day in a three table player pool so i don't think that game's dying anytime soon. most players buy in for close to the 2k max including the bad regs so there's still a lot of life in the game. it'd be sick to live a few blocks from the beach. i imagine that's worth 1 or 2 bb/hr in winrate not to mention +LifeEV implications.

i just booked a flight to vegas in feb for a week during the deepstacks. plan is to game select the bellagio and aria games V game if there is one. we should grab some grub if you're around.

That's some serious grinding, kudos to you sir. when i was rebuilding my roll post black friday working part-time my best weeks were 55-60 hrs/wk and that would feel like a lot. can definitely relate to zombing through the day.

Nah haven't been to Aria at all, they get 1 game lately and I hear its reggy as hell but can't confirm.

I've also been hearing lots about Maryland and Rob's been talking about going out there for a couple weeks next year but no plans set yet.

Definitely hit me up when you're in town, you picked a good time to come, deepstack+Super Bowl is fantastic for games. Hope all is well with you and happy holidays to ya!

Finished up my hours prop bet with Rob yesterday, marking most likely my last poker session of 2013. The last 10 days or so have been played predominantly at the V except a few short 5/10 sessions at B in which I didn't like the games and went to V. I did play the 5/10 at the V one day last week when it ran. It was a decent game and I ran pretty well, booking a solid winner.

They put a 2k cap on the game recently which I think will help the games in the long run. So many rec players are intimidated by an uncapped game with several people sitting on 5-10K stacks. I even talked to a few of these guys that have been in the game the few times its ran since putting the cap on and they're like "yea I'll play 5/10 now since I can't be bullied around as much with the cap". Obviously this logic is wrong, but if putting a cap on the game makes rec players want to play then thats the right move. It still hasn't run much but V hasn't advertised it at all yet.

So other than that 5/10 session its been a lot of V 2/5. My hot streak leveled off a bit and I didn't have any big sessions in either direction. I did get a bit frustrated on Friday and quit my session about half an hour earlier than expected. Besides that blip it was pretty smooth sailing finishing up the prop, including putting in 42 hours this week, more than I have in any week since WSOP. Rob got home on the prop several days ago so no blood was shed this time.

This is also my biggest month as a pro which is a nice way to finish up the year and start my vacation. I'm excited to get back to Wisconsin and see family/friends and eat a ton of great food.

So Happy Holidays to everyone and I'll see ya in 2014!

Nice work, cush

The logic about being bullied by bigger stacks is certainly wrong because of effective stacks but they may in fact be bullied less if more recs or even regs who value the money more play because they aren't as likely to build a pot that plays for stacks. Not to mention more recs means less bullying.

if your allowed to buy in for 10k and i can only afford to buy in for 1k i have to beat you 10x as much to win so that is not true

What? I don't understand what you are trying to say.

he is phucking with you sir. Your leveling meter is currently non functional

Wow, my leveling meter is off because he was responding to what I wrote which was the complete opposite of what I meant to write.

Wow. I'd mock me too...

Back in Vegas and ready to crush 2014 both on and off the felt!

I've only played once in the 3 days I've been back. I decided that I want to devote some time to PLO again so after playing a short 2/5 session and a bit at 15/30 O8 I played some 1/2 PLO at the V. I ended up winning the most I've ever won in a PLO session so that was fun. I got into more spots in 5 hours in which I didn't know what to do than I have in the last several hundred hours of holdem. The time also went by way faster than normal. So for as long as I see fit I'm gonna be hunting down the PLO games around town.

I'm looking forward to figuring out another game, which even though I've played a fair amount, I haven't come close to the skill level I have with nlhe.

I liked the part where you said, ". . . I got into more spots in 5 hours in which I didn't know what to do than I have in the last several hundred hours of holdem . . . " I think that is the sort of thought provoking stimulation that really helps your grow/improve your game.

Best of luck to you in 2014 !

Good choice. Late night aria game is almost always great, and as long as you can stomach the surroundings (I can't), the wsop games at the rio are amazing.

Rio 1/2 is pretty good, haven't played at the v yet. Plo it's definitely pretty good and I'd nothing else it makes texas feel really simple.

Played a couple more PLO sessions since that first one. The first, a short session at V, was an uneventful small win. The second was my first time playing the 2/5 at Aria since they went to basically always having a rock straddle in the game. This means that whoever wins the pot straddles to 10 automatically using the rock, which is just $10 in chips rubber banded together. Its a much bigger game than V so naturally my swings were pretty big. I was stuck right away and for most of the session, but came back and lost less than $100.

Thats all the PLO I've played though. I've been on an early schedule because of some non-poker things and the PLO games aren't usually running early in the afternoon. I really like playing on an early schedule so that's going to make it hard to play PLO, especially because I don't like to jump around in games that much. I work so much better focusing on one game, and I'm finding out once again that with how few and inconsistent the PLO games are, it doesn't work for me to be able to come in and play everyday without having to be on a late schedule. Aside from forcing me to play late, it would also take some of the freedom away because if a good PLO game is going, I wouldn't really be able to pass it up because in Vegas they just aren't that common outside WSOP time. The freedom to play whenever I want is part of the reason I enjoy playing poker for a living so it seems like for me personally, Vegas PLO isn't really a viable option.

So since I realized this, I've been 2/5ing at the V. Started off with a continuation of my PLO rungood, though I can't say I played all that great. Was and still am working off some of the rust of a 2 week layoff. My sessions have also been shorter while I try to get back into a groove.

The last 2 sessions have been a bit annoying as I've started up significantly and then lost both times. Sunday started off great. It was one of those sessions where I was winning a lot of non-showdown pots and suddenly was up 100bb. I lost a 3bet pot which put my stack just under 1200 when this hand came up. I'm not one for bad beat stories but Squid was sitting next to me and he said "now thats one for the blog".

I open KK early to 20 and this guy who I had successfully barreled a few times 3 bets to 60. I make it 175 and he calls. Flop K53r and I cbet 145, he calls. Turn A and I bet again, 290. He jams and I put my last 550ish in. River comes a 2 but it would prove unncecesarry as my opponent turned over

I took out another G-note and continued playing, pretty much unfazed. Stuff like that doesn't really bother me. Spots where I lose and am not sure about my decisions bother me, beats like that don't. I still ended up losing, but played well from there and got back a small amount.

Monday was another session like this, but more annoying. I was up pretty big early when I flopped top set on J97 after squeezing pre and got my boy RobFarha to stuff it with 88 ott to move me off an overpair. I run pretty good against Rob. This wasn't a cooler but I had one of the 3 combos he was worried about when he made what was a solid bluff given the information he had.

I ended up losing a bunch of pots from there, including 2 fairly sizeable ones to Rob after he moved to my left to make it a fair fight I also made a marginally bad call against an aggro asian guy and chickened out on a bluff that I should have made but didn't. The fact that I was losing clouded my judgement and made me think I would get called. There is some truth to the theory that people call you down lighter when you're losing because in their minds you just aren't winning today so they are less likely to give you credit (which is absurd btw). However in this spot it was likely still a +EV bluff. So I ended up booking a small loser but was infinitely more annoyed than the day before when I lost more than twice as much but didn't have any uncertainty regarding my play.

I generally do not gush but I absolutely have to here. I was sitting next to Mr. Cushlash when he took the most ******o beat I have seen in a very long time. When the cards were tabled I was tilted. In true perfessional form he said Nice hand - dude argues a little about how much Cush owed him and Cush replied you got all of my chips sir...no sarcasm just a very level tone. This guy is frigging 5 years older than my daughter but acts like a true pro. A true robot when it comes to the pokerz...and robots r very scary!!!

Don't be frustrated, Cush. You should be thrilled you have new spots you need to dissect and work on. It sucks when things don't go your way especially when it's your means of money but keep your head up. Learn from it and crush these fools even harder. Good luck

I will always be here to bluff into the nuts Cush. Don't sweat it.

Don't let the LVL perverts know that she is legal/almost legal/legal in some states!!!!! (Assuming Cush is ~22?)

haha thanks for the love Squid!

Thanks man. I'm really not frustrated, though re-reading the end of my post I can see how it came off that way. So far 2014 has really gone my way and a few losing days in a row is just par for the course.

Confirmed 22

Hey guys, up until yesterday I had been downswingin pretty hard so hadn't felt like updating. Before yesterday I had 2 winning days over a 2 week period, both just over $200.

I did make it over to the Wynn a couple days last weekend which I enjoyed. The room there is quieter and more low key while also being spacious enough to move around which is a great combination. The first day I played 2/5 and booked a small winner despite my JJ losing to A9o all in on TT7. Second day I hopped up to the 5/10 there for a short session and booked a loss in what turned out to be a horrible game.

Monday I was back at V and had one of the most swingy sessions of 2/5 I've ever had. Started out up about 650, value owned myself in a couple pots to be back to even, lost a big 3 bet pot semi-bluffing in to top set to be down 1k, got AA v KK for a 2.3k pot and was back to just above even, won a couple more significant pots and was up 1200, lost a big 4-bet pot with AK, lost KK all in on the turn against a shortstack's AQ on a T865 board where the guy didn't even have a flush draw, literally could only hit an ace and binked it, and finally overplayed an overpair in a 3 way all-in, running into a bigger overpair and quads. When the dust settled I had a $200 win but it was a much crazier session that the final result would indicate.

I also played some on wsop.com for a couple days and got absolutely murdered. My online game isn't great and I certainly wasn't adjusting correctly to online 6 max. In fact I probably over-adjusted by being too aggressive, especially with my preflop opens. I got set over set for about half of my holdem losses, the rest coming in smaller chunks that were a combination of run bad and play bad. The thing that frustrated me the most was I would be getting played back at a ton and then I'd get AA or KK pre and win the blinds. Or make TPTK and cbet and win. Felt like they could see my cards. (In before lol online poker is rigged). Also lost some in a short session of 2/4 PLO.

Thursday it was back to the live grind, which had me at Bellagio for the first time this year. Games were pretty meh and after getting set over set by the most miserable reg on the planet I bounced over to V and played a 2/5 session in a great game. I ended up getting 55 in 3 ways on AJ5 against A2 and AQ, winning the side pot but losing the 2k main pot when the 6 fell on the turn and I failed to pair the board on the river. I only lost like 150 on the hand even losing the main pot. Blood was not done being spilled though, as I witnessed RobFarha lose a 4k pot to the same guy's 66 with Rob holding KK all in on Q847 when a 5 hit the river. I ended up booking another small loser but was pretty happy with the session.

Yesterday started out just as frustrating as the last 2 weeks have been as my AA lost to AT all in on T74 at V 2/5. After a couple hours I jumped into a decent 5/10 that was running and ended up smashing it. I ran well obviously but was also happy with my play. I got in a bunch of close spots but the only major error I made was getting a little ahead of myself on one hand going for 3 streets in a spot that was much too thin.

It was great to book a big win after such a bad stretch during which it seemed like I ran bad in every possible way. I was also starting to catch myself making decisions without thinking critically. Last week I read about a concept in a book my parents got me for Christmas about Warren Buffet that applies directly to poker. The author talks about system 1 vs system 2 thinking, where system 1 is just basic, instinctual, surface level thinking and system 2 involves deeper though processes. As humans we revert to system 1 thinking because it's easier and requires less effort but is also much less effective. When I read about this concept as it applies to investing I realized I was doing the same thing in poker. Whether it was because I was bored, running bad, or whatever other reason, I have often been reverting to system 1 thinking and it has caused the conclusions I come to in poker hands to be much less accurate on average. Since I read that I have been making an effort to think more critically during sessions and when I do it makes things seem much clearer.

Venetian Deepstack and Super Bowl are coming up so the poker room will soon be backed with sports fans and tournament players. My dad and my brother are gonna be in town during the Super Bowl as well so it should be a fun next few weeks.