GB @Seattle? seems like a stretch

took Seattle -5.5 and o46

lol you and me both...guess well sink or swim

Might as well wrap these up now...

Poker Goals
1: A+...crushed this one doing like 140 hours
2: C-...read the Omaha twice
3: D ...started up well but got too on my grind and didn't make enough time; this is def something for me to work on this month
4: A ...played the 3 free rolls and an $80 mtt so 4/4

Non-Poker Goals
1: A+ did several I think
2: F ...fail
3: F ...fail

Photo Challenge

1: A+ ...see the 750bb pic
2: B ...technically did this one at Nobu but its questionable as for qualifying
3: F ...seriously found myself with 0 time for this one

So was a lot of hit and miss, gonna think my goals out a little better and take more time to focus on them individually this month.

A on you goals!

Just wanted to say I really enjoy your thread and seems completely honest and not douchebagish. Keep up the hard work

Thx

Ugh...well dropped three buy-ins last night at Ballys and that wasn't even playing poorly. Gii and built pots ahead but got sickly gut-wrenchingly sucked out on repeatedly. Was down -$350 at one point w/$450 on table and lose a huge one w/pp 10 10 on a K107 rainbow to AK...then guy is praising his play there saying "well only K10 beats me and then I have a ton of outs" ...yeah 3 is so many...but oh wait what are those one things called where the guy has 3 of one of the cards? fml.

OK well heading out the door to the bounty freeroll at Ballys, will hopefully snack on a few bounties then make it to the autochop $500 to help ease this sting. Have a lot of work in front of me to pull this month out of the #%#tter so I'm likely gonna have to divert back to solid TAG and grind it out oldschool...not thrilled about the prospect but have to turn this swing around.

Well at least u got it in good with the Seahawks

A strategy I have developed since playing in Vegas. Assuming promos are not in play, if I drop a buy in, I immediately leave that casino and "start fresh" Actually, I got pretty nitty and put a stop loss at around 20% of my initial buy in.

One, its so easy to table change, casino change in Vegas.

Two, for me, when I start bad, typically it continues to go bad. When I start good, it typically goes good. Generally speaking, this is true with Villians as well. Some donkey fool is just running hot, and if the Villian is, I just leave. Yes, could I out play him, no problem. But if he is catching cards and the deck is hitting his face, well what can you do.

I am not sure how in detail your tracking your performance, but I have noticed that in all my big 200+ 300+ bb sessions, it all started with winning the first major pot I played. If I lost my first big and or pot that I was the aggressor in, typically my losses continued in that session.

Especially with Casino changing, I have a fresh Max buy in, a new scenery, new players, new seat, new environment. Most importantly I always see the rookie mistake when they drop most of their initial buy in. They might have 20 or 30bb's left and they just shove with any two cards. That 20 or 30bb's could be used for a fresh new buy in.

What time did you play at Bally's? I went down to the poker room around midnight or so, wife stayed in the room and slept after a long day walking around the strip. I dropped 2 buy-ins after a solid start, one when 10-10 lost to 6-4 on a 9-4-2 flop, went 3-5. I bet big on the flop and all-in on the turn but couldn't get the guy off his hand.

On Sunday I was only there after the freeroll in the morning.

OK well the beautiful thing about negative variance swings, assuming it is coming from mathematical improbability as opposed to bad play, is that they will inevitably reverse if you continue making +EV decisions and fundamentally sound play. Unfortunately that reversal did not come yet for Sunday. The $%^tstorm continues and has now moved up to a legitimate short-term disgusting runbad. Here are the highlights from Sunday.

The tournament offered a great shot at some $ only getting 80 runners w/bounties and a flat payout of $500 to the top 30. I got involved in a big hand in only the second level and busted with my 8-9 on an 889A board when the river Aced.

Hoping that nasty beat covered me for the day I jumped on the cash tables for a bit. A mid 40-some Jersey looking guy with a golf polo on plops down in the empty seat to my right and pops it to $10 UTG on his first hand. I make it $20 w/ppQQ. It goes folded around back to him and he makes it $40 without much thought...sometimes this should slow us down w/QQ BUT my initial read/perception on this guy is that he overvalues hands badly, so we make it $100. He moves all in for $240 pretty quick, now we should really be worried but I cant shake my initial read on him so I snap it off. He has ppJJ (lol 6-bet all in)...sweet...but board goes 7-8-9-10 and were out 3 hundo.

Recompose a bit then we get KhQh on a 10h9h10c flop anf play it fastish against a super sticky station trying to inflate the pot...fire again on an Ad turn he calls of course. We brick river and are out another hundo...he shows J9os.

The coupe-De-grace comes shortly after when we hold pp1010 on a 1074 rainbow flop and get check raised, re raise, get shoved, and lose to pp KK on turn. Out -$260 and done for the day.

A good way to see if your 'running bad' or just sucking is to run the %s on your expected outcomes for the significant hands; you can also create a compounded statistic on losing the series of outcomes but it's pretty meaningless in poker.

SO here we go...(also it is obviously only useful taking into account when the $ went in)

Hand 1 freeroll hand: 95.45% chance of winning: busto
Hand 2 w/the QQ: 81.75% chance of winning: -$300
Hand 3 the big draw: 57.88% on the flop, 38.64% on turn: -$100 (this one is interesting because we lost the edge after flop but had massive implied b/c this guy can never fold a pair...that also proved unfortunate though b/c we are left with no way to win the hand except to hit)
Hand 4 the top set: 91.41% to win: -$260

So last week was one big cluster-#$%k encompassing one of the worst (short duration) bad runs I can recall and I still await the positive reversal...may cut down volume slightly this week because when you run this bad it becomes hard to stay motivated and enjoy playing. I want to make sure I still come into each session wanting to be there so that may mean less volume and more time focused elsewhere temporarily. I have some pics I'll post later just gonna go do lunch and maybe a day session somewhere.

Whey, I'm sorry to hear about the runbad. I hope your poker hiatus doesn't last too long as I've really enjoyed the regular updates (and pics) of vegas low-stakes games. Keep at it!

Do you regularly promo hunt as with the Bally's tournament? I've read claims that promo earnings can account for 20-30% of a decent player's 1-2 winrate. My suspicion is that the expected promo win is less than the -EV of having to play long hours in games with a relatively high percentage of local nits.

Rough run. We've all been there. Find a way to hammer through. I usually put in more hours on a bad run to get through it quicker but you got to do what's comfortable for you.

I was there Saturday night into Sunday morning....we stayed at Bally's, left yesterday around noon.

Change scenery for a bit, different room, different time. Mix it up. That helps me sometimes. Or take a strategy day, watching some training vids or watching some Live at The Bike can make me feel way better about my game. Read a new book or re read an old one. I like some Ed Miller to get me in a better mindset. +EV play, always. It's a mantra.

Well I put in a solid long session on Monday trying to crack this thing...tightened up TAG too...but it aint over yet lol. Sorry it must seem I'm complaining a lot lately but I just report the situation.

GVR Mon night, came in ready to reverse this swing even if that took tightening down and doing the patience thing. Unfortunately I lost $160 early on w/pp44 flopping set under set on a 1049 rainbow board...if I'm playing a lot of volume live I seem to encounter this situation only once every 2-3 months so having it kick in now on the heels of the current run-bad was pretty painful. Added back up to $300 and worked it up towards $400 when me and the over aggro big stack get in the following hand: Bigstack Aggro in the hijack pops it to $30 pre...this is pretty standard of him with a huge range, folded around to me in the BB and I call with AJos. Flop comes J-8-J and I check to let him wreck himself. He complies by betting $60, I flat. I check again on a 4 turn b/c I have seen him fire multiple bullets with his bluff range, he pushes out $200, now I go all in and he calls. River comes 7 and he slaps down 9-10 for the str...Yup this thing aint over yet...out -$460 for the night.

Not gonna recap all the poker from last week, I think I posted session results in random posts itt. In summation it was a terribly bad week. I've lost about 90% of what I made the highly productive previous week which is pretty brutal. Makes you go "hey why didn't I just take the week off and burn the $ on hookers and blow?" ...thus is the painful beauty of the game though. It is pretty clear I am getting mathematically boned, however in light of the size of the swing I am clearly failing to readjust and tighten up the fundamentals in riding it out.

I took off yesterday and will today and Thursday also. Pretty demotivated at the moment and hoping the time off can get my head back in the game. I was going to blow off my tournament plans this month due to the downswing but have decided to push on with them anyhow. The $ is not a big deal to me atm and I am hoping the competitve environment and change of scenery will re-stimulate my drive so I will be playing the first of a few of the Venetian Deepstack Series (3.5?) on Friday and then back to the cash games for the rest of the weekend. Projecting realistically it may not be possible to unburry myself completely for September but I just want to play solid and get back as much momentum as possible going into October.

Placed my first NFL bet of the season on Thurs night. I only bet small amounts for fun, though I have never had a -$ season. If I win my bets I will usually eat out or something and if not I just chalk it up as entertainment for sweating the game.


Went and hit up the Tides restaurant at GVR which does seafood and sushi. Most Sushi+Seafood combo sort of places end up having terrible sushi but I was told it was decent here so took a shot. Ordered a few rolls and as backup ordered N.E. clamchowder figuring they couldn't mess that up too bad. The quality of the sushi surprised me and I was overall pleased with the place/food.

The backup chowda


Sushi Rolls (first one is the cowboy roll w/raw beef outside so good)




due for some Bimmer love in here too so here's the 5-fiddy



took a 60-100mph vid @a bit over 6sec w/6500rpm...the M5 is about 5.1 sec so I'll take another vid when I get the Dinan Stg 2 and see if we cant edge it down a bit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKlTwFnVuL8

First of these I have seen in person driving LVB in front of me, the Lambo Adventador...sounded incredible


kinda cool FJ Cruiser


Oh also forgot, got in a minor physical altercation with some #%holes in a a big moving truck that ran me off the road and gave me curb rash on my back right wheel yesterday. I would have been significantly more pissed off If I hadn't (ironically) already arranged to have them resurfaced and powder-coated this month.

AJ hand is rough. I am way too nitty to call the raise there PF. Either mucking or with position against described villain I am fist pump 3B.

Argument could be made for !3 b/c he is stubborn and would flat with a range were ahead of. The call though and subsequent check-call-check line was because I had sat there watching him abuse with multiple bullets on pretty obvious bluff/semi-bluffs for over an hour and was just waiting to cap some value from it.

I would prefer to keep my !3 here vs this guy contained to a range I'm going to be comfortable snapping off a !4 with though because he is aggro enough to employ that with the mid-top of his range.

I've run bad before and having a poker blog/thread to vent to a bit would have been awesome. Hopefully writing here will help you blow off some steam and will prevent any sort of tilt, although it seems like you have it under control.

That beef on the outside cowboy roll looks great. I don't go to GVR much so I'll keep an eye out for it at other places.

Remember, it's always darkest before dawn!

Move up in stakes where they respect your raises obv

While this is the plan, that's pretty irrelevant to this particular hand since the only point I raised it was insignificant to the pot size...he had to auto-call with even his semi-bluff range, as desired.

Thx yeah it's good to write about I guess, they used to have the cowboy roll at a few other places but I guess they lost their supplier or it wasn't price effective. Assuming the ingredients are quality and fresh though it is pretty delicious.

Damn Seahawks killed my parlay too bro

Cool story bro, but learn how to read obv.