Yea for sure, he lost a ton in the 4 1/2 hours I was there. I wanted to stay longer but was so tired. Hopefully he's back today.

I've been going back and forth a lot with this tournament thing. I didn't really plan on playing tournaments much, except to get into the main event. After playing about 4 of the mega satellites and 4 of the deep stacks I realized something. Even if I won a seat, I would probably end up taking the cash rather than playing because on my bankroll right now it would be pretty silly to buy in to a 10K tourney, no matter how I got that 10K. That 10K would get me fairly close to having enough to play 5/10 no limit allowing me to make more money than at 2/5 no limit or 1/2 PLO. Being able to play 5/10 is more important to me than playing the main event. That alone isn't a reason not to play the tournaments, but because I was only playing them in the first place to get into the main even, if I'm not gonna play the main event even if I win one, then I'm basically just playing a tournament, which isn't what I came here to do. Hopefully that made sense, but the main point of this long-winded paragraph is that I didn't play the satellite today and I'm not gonna play any of them.

Secondly, the last few days I have been playing 2/5 no limit holdem instead of my usual haunt, the PLO game. Even though I came out ahead overall playing PLO, the swings really messed with me. It was a huge roller coaster ride and made it hard to put in a lot of hours. So for the foreseeable future I will be sticking to 2/5 no limit cash games with the goal of moving up to 5/10. I will still of course check out the PLO games and other games to see if anything is especially good, but unless there is an extraordinarily good game I will stick to 2/5 nl. A side benefit of this is that I have heard the PLO action sorta dries up after the WSOP so I probably would have had to go back to holdem anyways.

So to wrap up the days since my last update, I've pretty much just played 2/5 nl (nl=no limit holdem) at the Rio. The games have been pretty good and whats nice about 2/5 is that if a game isn't good, theres gonna be 10+ other tables and I can just get a table change. I definitely have been rusty since playing basically just PLO for a while. Because of this I made a few mistakes this week but I think I've taken care of most of the rust and feel really comfortable with the game. The WSOP will still be have cash game action until after the main event, which ends July 16. So most of my play will be there unless the action dries up significantly once the main event starts tomorrow, in which case I will play at a combination of different places on the strip.

Saturday:

Sticking with my recent routine I headed to the Rio for some more 2/5nl. During my day I played at 4 different tables, two before dinner and two after. The reason for this was because the tables I was sat at right when I got there and right after dinner were not that great of games and so I got a table change. Before dinner I got in two major hands. In the first I called a raise from the sb with JJ after someone made it 20 and got a couple calls. I could re-raise here but I don't like building a big pot when a significant percentage of the time I'm gonna be in a guessing game when an A, K, or Q flops. The flop came J67 with two spades. Everyone checked to the pre-flop raiser and he bet 45, about half pot. The next guy called and I raised to 155 leaving myself 170 behind. In hindsight I maybe should have just shoved all-in but I thought it would be hard to get called by raising that much. Both players ended up calling. The turn was a 4 and I shoved the rest in, the next player went all in for just a bit more than I had and the last player called. The river was the Q. The pre-flop raiser ended up having 58 for a flopped open-ender and a turned straight, so I lose the hand.

The second major hand was much less exiting. I flopped the nut straight with KJ on a QT9 with two hearts board. I bet flop and got called by two players. The turn was a 4 and I bet again. This time the next player raised all-in, the next player folded, and I of course called with the nuts. The river was the T and my opponent showed 9T and I lost to his full house on the river.

At this point I decided to pack it up and take a dinner break.

In the session after my dinner break nothing much happened as I was pretty card dead so nothing much to report from that.

Sunday:

Because of having to do a few table changes at the Rio and still ending up at some pretty average tables I decided to go to the Venetian for 2/5 on Sunday. I got sat down immediately and the table I was at was pretty good. I lost a small pot early attempting a bluff that really should have worked. On a J73 board I was bet into by the pre-flop raiser. I knew there weren't many Jacks in his range since he raised from the blinds after a few limps. His bet sizing was also really small which usually indicates a hand thats trying to "see where he's at". I made a raise and he basically min-raised me back. I folded, figuring he must have a big hand, and he showed 88. Probably 90%+ people fold to my raise there and I'm not really sure what he was thinking. Yes I was bluffing but I just sat down and have never played with him before so for him to make a move like that is ludicrous without a read, since I will have at least a Jack there the majority of the time.

After about 4 hours I broke for dinner. When I came back I was sat at another pretty good table. I won a few small pots early, and then one of the craziest hands I've ever seen came up. I raised with AK in late position and got 3 callers. The flop came JT6. Checks to me and I bet close to the size of the pot. The first player calls, the next folds and the next goes all-in. I shove all-in for just a bit more than his all-in and the other player thinks for a while and calls. The player going all-in showed 45 and the other player showed Q9, both having flopped flushes as well. The Q9 needed the 8 for a straight flush and the other player needed running cards for a straight flush. Fortunately the board ran out 8 2 and I took down a nice pot.

About 10 minutes later I would give a bunch of it back. I raised AQ from the small blind after a few limpers and got 2 callers. The flop came Q2Q and I bet close to pot and the player in the big blind called. The turn was an 8 and I put my opponent all-in. He insta-calls and shows 22 for a flopped full house.

It was a really good session for me even though I lost that hand. I feel like I have most of rust off for no limit hold'em and am making good decisions.

pretty sure i've never flopped the nut flush 3 ways and gotten it all-in against both players. congrats. i must play in that game next time i come to vegas.

This just happened last night... except I was the lowest flush. I was able to escape with a relatively small dent, though, cause the nut flush was a short stack.

Took Monday off and got a decent day in yesterday. I'm getting in to a routine that I kinda like. Basically I get to the casino between 3 and 4, play 3-4 hours until dinner, take a break to eat, and then play 3-4 more hours. Usually its 1-ish when I leave. In the future I may start playing more of the night hours, playing until 3 or 4 am, but for right now I'm just too tired to play that late and it would take a while to adjust my sleep schedule to be able to play that late.

Yesterday did pretty much exactly that. Played from 4:30-7:30, took a dinner break and then played from 8:30-12:30. Got in quite a few spots, way too many to post all of them but I will post one because it leads to another topic.

I had been playing my normal tight aggressive game but I had been getting a better than average run of cards and winning a lot of small pots without having to show, so I think some of the players thought I was looser than I was. I had raised a couple times from late position to steal the blinds and ended up having to fold so I knew some of the guys thought I was full of ****. Shortly after that I picked up KK from the Hijack (two positions to the left of the dealer). I raised to 20 and the guy to my left, one of the guys that I am pretty sure thinks I'm raising with bad hands makes it 55. It folds back to me and I make it 155. After a little thought he moves all in and I called fairly quickly. The board ran out AT7QQ and I lost to his AJ. After the hand he told me that he thought I was just making a play and thats why he shoved his AJ, so I was pretty happy with the hand even though I lost.

(what follows is going to include some basic things that some people may find boring but I didn't highlight them since it does include some other things that wouldn't make sense if you skipped the parts I would highlight.)

The topic this brings up is all-in equity. All-in equity is just the % of the time I expect to win the pot on average when getting all-in. So in this example I have roughly 70% equity with KK all-in preflop against AJ. So even though I lost the hand it is a winning play.

What I have started doing is keeping track of every hand that I get all-in with before all the cards are out and calculating my equity. Then I tabulate what actually happened and compare the two. For example, if I have 60% in a $100 pot, I have $60 in equity. If I lose I don't actually get any money this time, but I still would end up with $60 on this bet in the long run. If I win I still will only get 60 in the long run but this time I got 100. That means I ran above my expectation for that hand. I have been doing this since I switched back to holdem just to see what would happen. I have had 13 all-in hands in that time and I am running significantly below my expected value, mostly because of a few big hands where I had 70% or more and lost. The point of me bringing this up is to show those less familiar with the game how good players can lose on a given day or week even by making the correct plays.

Let's talk about all-in equity: Yeah, it's great. I have used it before to maintain sanity after a couple of brutal beats in a row. But it's arbitrary and the next time you find yourself in the situation of an 80:20 favorite, it could just be another part of the 20 that comes out. The 80 could happen on the table next to you.

All we can do is make the right plays at the right times. We're going to suck out and we're going to get sucked out on.

Keep grinding. I see no reason to switch your schedule if it is working for you. Maybe on Friday and Saturday nights, it might be profitable to keep playing a little later, past 2 a.m. or whatever, but as long as you're winning, play when you are alert and comfortable.

Yea I know it would take a long time to even out, and even though I might be running bad in all-in situations I may very well be running really well in non-showdown situations. Its really the only thing that can be kept track of in live play so I wanted to do it just to see. I definitely see your point though.

Thanks cush for all the explanations being new helps me alot.Instead of asking for basic stuff and being called Donk etc etc.

I have noticed I seem to make money off people in the 2-5am window. Not that I can play that time much anymore since I am working, but that seems to be a time that has a ton of tired people or drunks looking to gamble. Last night for example, 11-2 I was stuck 100. The table sucked and I got moved. Next thing I know find some bad players and I am up nearly 600. I should keep track of session times to see how it works out by the time played.

I find that to be a profitable time as well. Where I play a lot, the 2/5 game will break and those donks will join the 1/2 game to kill time. They don't care about money, so it's make a monster and get paid time.

No update for my Wednesday session, mostly because it was an extremely boring session. Basically within the first 10 minutes I got all-in preflop against a short stacker with AK, board ran out K2742 and he showed the 4c and nothing else, so I'm assuming he had something like 4c5c and was bored. After that I don't think I played a hand past the flop for the rest of the night.

Yesterday was a different story. Got in quite a few hands, winning some and losing others. The most interesting part was I got in probably 5 hands within about 2 hours against the same guy. He was an older guy playing pretty tight, but since I had taken some pots from him, he was definitely getting fed up with me. I actually had good hands against him though, I flopped a set of 9's against him and he folded to my turn bet, had aces and he folded to my turn bet, and I barreled him off one hand. So even though I had good hands, from his perspective I'm some young punk bullying him around. Literally 15 minutes after the first time I had aces against him, I got them again in the big blind. He raised his button to 15 and I made it 50. The flop came down T84, and I had the A. I bet the pot and he raised me almost all-in. I went all-in and he called. The board ran out 4 6 and I figured I was beaten by his flush, but he flipped over J9 for a flopped open-ended straight draw. I guess he had just gotten fed up with me, thought I was bluffing, and decided to raise me.

In the middle of my two aces hands with the old man, I had aces again, this time losing the pot. There were 4 limpers to me in the small blind and I made it 35, getting two callers. The flop came J89 and I bet out 75. The player in the middle went all-in for 160 and the guy to my right called like lighting. How quickly he called just scared the crap out of me since usually if someone overcalls (overcall means when a 3rd player just calls a bet after an initial bet has been called already or raised) a raise on the flop it indicates huge strength. I don't know how I can be good here between the all-in player and the overcaller so after thinking for a long time I fold. To my delight the overcaller shows QT for a flopped straight, making me feel much better about folding.

After that session, which was at the Venetian, I decided to try something different. After dinner instead of going back and playing there, I decided to hit one of the smaller rooms. The logic behind this is that if a 2/5 game gets going at a place that doesn't often get one, its going to be a good game since all the regular players go where there are always games. So if a 2/5 game sprouts up at say Planet Hollywood/Ballys/Palms etc, its most likely a bunch of tourists or 1/2 players wanting to take a shot. Checking my game tracker on my phone I noticed a 2/5 game had started at Planet Hollywood and I decided to check it out, as the room is notorious for soft 1/2 games so if it got a 2/5 game it is likely to be good. It was a good game, not as good as I was expecting but definitely better than most, if not all games at the Venetian. I found out that it started as a 1/2 game and the players decided to make it 2/5, which almost always means there are some people playing over their head.

I was unfortunately unable to capitalize since I just couldn't hit much. The only hand I got in early was when I flopped top pair with Q7 when in the blinds and it limped around pre-flop. I bet flop and turn, rivered two pair, bet again and my opponent folded. For the next couple hours I pretty much just folded pre-flop, and the 2 or 3 hands I did raise everyone folded. At about 1am I played my only major hand. I raised QQ from early position to 25 and the most active player at the table 3-bet to 75. He had been playing really loose, raising a lot of hands and would absolutely not fold pre-flop once he decided to play, calling huge re-raises with hands like AJo. Another player flat called the 75 from the blinds and even though this usually indicates strength, this guy was loose as well and would call here with many hands he wants to see a flop with. When it got back to me I shoved all-in and both players called. The flop ran out with an ace (I don't really remember the rest of the board) and I lost to the first players AK. The player in the blinds mucked so I have no idea what he had.

Pretty happy with my play overall the last two days and it was interesting to play in one of the smaller rooms. I don't know how often I'll be going back to Planet Hollywood since they don't get 2/5 much and I don't really like the room. Its not closed off so smoke gets in easily and its right next to some sort of night club or something so there was super loud music going the whole time and it made it really hard to concentrate. I couldn't even hear what the dealer said most of the time.

Do you think you would have a better chance at getting at some good tables(drunks and tourist donkeys) if you played late nights? Seems like days you would be more likely to run into sober good players.

how old is this "old man"?

Yea probably, I've usually been too tired to stay much later than 1 or 2. Eventually if I try to play later my sleep schedule should adjust. I'm going to start doing that soon because once the WSOP is over it will be harder to find good games during the week days so I'll want to be playing nights for sure.

I'd guess somewhere in his 70's.

I was back at the Venetian on Friday for some 2/5. It ended up being a pretty boring session. Didn't get into many interesting spots and only got into one big hand where I was all-in pre-flop with AK against AK. No one hit a flush and so we split the pot.

Saturday I decided to try the Bellagio again. I had tried to play there on two other occasions but the list was 20+ people long and there were only 3 tables going because of a tournament so the list was going really slow so I just left. This time I basically said that I was going to wait out the list no matter what because I really wanted to play there since the 2/5 game buy-in there is capped at 500, which keeps away some of the best players that want to play deeper (all the other places 2/5 games allow at least a 1000 buy-in) so the games should be good.

It took about 35 minutes to get a seat, which wasn't too bad. My session was very up and down. It seemed like every time I won a hand, the next one I played I would lose some of it back, then I'd win another decent pot, and then lose some back again. So my stack was trending upward, but along the way it was up and down a lot. I lost a big pot late in my session when my KK got cracked by 99 on a 964 flop. I had re-reaised preflop, bet the flop, and put my opponent all in on a 7 turn.

Not too long after this I flopped 255 with pocket 2's and doubled up against this guy who was sort of tilting. I had a pretty short stack since I hadn't re-bought yet, but I'm pretty sure thats why I got paid off. I called his bet on the flop as a slowplay. Normally I don't like slowplaying but this guy was aggressive and I knew he would be betting again on the turn. The turn came a 7 I went all-in over his bet. He called it off with pocket 6's and I'm fairly convinced that if I had more money he would have folded to my raise.

Finished my session after about 6 1/2 hours and was able to make a little bit despite the KK hand. The WSOP is pretty much over. Tomorrow is the last day of the main event until they play the final table in October, so it should be interesting to see how the scene changes once the WSOP is done.

I like playing at the Bellagio for some of the same reasons as you. I am anxious to see how things change as well. The 30 or 50 list at some places was rediculous, but will the games be worse with the smaller crowds?

Not sure, but I certainly hope not. A lot of good players come for the WSOP so they will be gone but so will a lot of the bad players that come for it. We'll have to wait and see.

Back at the Venetian on Sunday for what ended up being a pretty boring session. Other than getting all-in on the flop against a short stack for 150, the biggest bet I made or called in 5 hours was $65. I won a bunch of small and medium sized pots and ended with a decent profit.

Took yesterday off and today was back at the Bellagio. With the WSOP done, it was much easier to get a seat, as I was at the table within 10 minutes of getting on the list.

Won a few small pots in the beginning, and then ended up all-in preflop with QQ against A9 of diamonds and KJ offsuit. The KJ was a short stack and the A9 had shoved over him, presumably just to isolate him. The board ran out with no ace or king and I took it down.

About 15 minutes later I got into another big hand. I had KK in the BB. A short stack opened to 15. After a few calls the SB, a loose, bad player, makes it 60. I make it 175 to go (my first mistake). The short stack calls as he only has 130 so he's all-in. Then my opponent in the SB calls. The flop comes QJ9 rainbow. SB checks to me, and I put him all-in for about a 4/5 pot sized bet (2nd mistake). He insta-calls and shows QQ for a flopped top set. I needed a King or Ten, but it was not to be as the board ran out 4-A.

Now to explain my mistakes. The first one really isn't that big of a mistake but I think I could have played it a different way and gotten it all-in preflop. If I just call the 60, I am fairly sure the short stack would have shoved. Then the SB would call (or raise) and I would be able to get it in pre-flop. This is certainly not a huge mistake and it might just be hindsight bias making me think I should have played it this way. Re-raising is certainly not bad here.

The second mistake, which again might just be hindsight bias, is going all-in on the flop. Once the SB 3-bets and calls my 4-bet preflop, his hand is basically a mid-high pair (something like QQ-TT or QQ-99), AK, and sometimes AQ suited. Most players would tend to fold worse hands and shove AA or KK. The problem then with betting is that I'm not getting called by many hands I beat. AK is folding, QQ-99 is calling (some might fold TT but this guy wouldn't have), and any time he has AQ suited he is also calling. So against his calling range I'm not doing that well, especially if he doesn't ever have AQ suited. After running it through a simulator I have about 43% against a range of QQ-99, which is actually better than I thought when thinking about it at the table afterwards. So since I need to be good 50% of the time when called to break even, I don't think this is as big of a mistake as I first thought, and it may not be a mistake at all if his range includes some weaker hands.

I'd really like to hear people's opinions on that hand, as its kinda bugging me. What happens when I'm on a downswing is I start to question everything. This can be good because it helps me to improve is spots that I'm lacking, but it also can be bad because I start to "fix" things that don't actually need fixing and end up questioning plays that are actually good. Now I'm not really on a downswing but I have had a lot of sessions like today where I lose a big hand that is probably a cooler, but I end up convincing myself I may have made a mistake. A cooler is basically where two people both have big hands and get it all-in, one person just having a better one. Usually when people refer to coolers, they mean that no one played bad, the loser of the hand simply got unlucky to run into one of the few hands that beats him.

Thanks for reading and sorry to those not as familiar with the game for getting kinda technical today and not explaining everything. That hand was just too long for me to be able to include all the red highlighted stuff that would have been necessary to explain it in layman's terms. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing, and as always if anyone has questions feel free to post them (family and friends can call/email me also) and I will be happy to explain further.

I would def just call the 60 assuming the shortstack will go all-in and you can isolate when the sb calls. Worst case, you have position on the sb during the hand. I think the flop is a check and probably fold on most turns. I don't think he bets AK on the turn.

Kind of a frustrating day today. I just couldn't seem to get anything going. Every time I actually had a hand I would get folds but then when I missed suddenly I get called in 2 or 3 spots. It helps a lot to be winning pots because when you don't win any pots, people just don't believe you ever, and since you're gonna miss the flop more often than you are gonna hit, you need to be able to win pots without the best hand. This idea of winning/losing image is talked about a lot in Bart Hanson's Deuce Plays podcast and its definitely true. So after going about 2 hours without winning a pot I decided to take a break.

When I got back I was sat at the must move and after literally 2 hands I got moved to one of the main games. There were 4 main games and not only did I get sat at the same game I was at before my break, it was the same goddamn seat. Unfortunately more of the same was in store for me, except this time instead of losing a bit at a time and missing, I lost a few big pots. The main one I lost was where I raised preflop with KK and got two callers. Flop came down 952 with two hearts. First guy checked, next guy led out for a very small bet. I raised him and he shoved all-in. I felt like he could easily be overplaying a smaller overpair here and called. He showed 55 for a flopped set and took it down. After that I really only got in one other hand where I was forced to fold, but not before losing about 40% of my stack.

There's no doubt that I'm running bad right now, but I think I'm making some mistakes too. Problem is its hard to tell what is actually bad play and what is bad luck. I'm not sure why but a pattern I've had a few times is that I have a few days of "grindy" sessions where I slowly make a little money throughout the day and then suddenly I have a day like today where I lose a big chunk in a short period. This is basically what has just happened. Yesterday I had one of my "grindy" sessions and then today I got crushed. I know its just randomness but its pretty crushing to just eek out a small profit for a few days and then get pounded one day.

All I can do right now is play as well as I can and eventually the cards will even out.

Re: KK vs. QQ

I hate calling and hoping the SB ships allowing you to reraise. You don't say how much effective stacks are, but I'm guessing about $500.

Are you questioning whether or not you should check/fold that flop? I don't think I could. How much are you going to bet there? You bet about $400? If you bet $200, you aren't folding for $200 more. Right? So ship it if you are committing to the hand. If you are going to fold, then don't bet.

Running bad for two days is nothing. You need to adjust your mentality and realize you can't win every session. No matter how many donkeys you run into you can't win all the time.

I went through the same thing you are going through: Win small, win small, lose big. It sucks. It turns around. Probably tonight.

Good luck.

Ya pot was ~480 and he had 400 left so I shoved. Given the type of player he is I don't think I can really fold.

Thanks for the run-bad confidence booster, I need to hear that type of stuff sometimes. Lately I can't get any traction, but my sample is too small yet to draw any conclusions. Something I've been working on is not looking at my results at all. I use Poker Journal and I try not to look at the screen that shows the hourly because even though I know it means nothing at this sample size, if I see it and its lower that what I believe my long-term hourly to be then naturally I'm going to be disappointed. I'm trying to just enter in session info and not look at results except maybe once per week/month. I think that will help me to have a long-term view and not get hung up on short-term variance.

I rebounded a little today, nothing too exciting, bit an up and down session at the Bellagio. Played for about 5 1/2 hours and I don't think I made any major mistakes. Most of the pots I lost were where I raise preflop and c-bet. I seem to have been getting called on an abnormally high % of my c-bets but I'm pretty sure its just variance and running into hands since I don't think I c-bet too much, especially when I'm out of position. c-bet stands for continuation bet. What it usually refers to is a bet made on the flop by the player that raised pre-flop and missed. Since usually both players will miss the flop, the c-bet rates to take down the pot a lot of the time as long as it's not over-used.

The traffic has definitely been slower since the WSOP ended. There are still probably something like 20 tables of 2/5 going between the major strip casinos during the prime hours, but thats much less than during WSOP time. From what I hear August and September is basically the slowest time of the year because of the gap between the WSOP and football season.