Posted by asmitty
some of you oaks regs may get to see a bit of me over the summer and perhaps beyond.

I used to be reg - 2,400 hours since 2003

One thing that I find that really has helped me get through really bad runs is switch games a bit. When I run really poorly at LHE for an extended period I go play some NL. And vice versa. Sometimes you will find a much better game anyways. Some dont advocate switching games at all but I do. IMO if you guys arent checking out some of the other games going(mainly NL) you are missing out on $. And same goes for just you NL guys That is one thing about our SSLHE poster Fishyak. He plays many different games. He still thinks of LHE as one of his core games but he is not at all shy to play several other games. Successfully I might add. I know this a LHE forum but learning and playing some other games is going to be only good for you guys. Its the advice Zee gave me yrs ago and it has worked out pretty well

You'll get it back, smitty. You're too good not to. Those back to back big runbad sessions are rough, though.

I've never understood this animosity towards NL (e.g., "dark side"). In a few months when I take an indefinite break from live poker, I'm putting in at least some of my online play into NL. (1c/2c, baby!) And when my win rate for NL exceed that of my FL, I'll probably switch over entirely.

Plus, I'm trying to pick up 7-card stud and Omaha. I tried 2/4 stud live for a while, but the players are just such horrible human beings I can't stand it. The table seats 8 but it's rarely more than 5-handed because inevitably there's 3 lobbiers, people angleshoot all the time, it's filled with people whose eyesight is so poor they can't see across the table (even with the big-ass stud cards), and they're grumpy and yell at each other. The last straw was when I played for 20 minutes and got dealt 3 hands, because the floor was called twice.

"Janice, could you put me up for anything besides 2/4 stud on table 9, 15/30, or 30/60?"

Thus was born my first 5-100 SL shot. I was first up for 6/12 so honestly it only would have been just 5-10 more minutes (I ended up taking two hands at SL) but I didn't want to be at the stud table for even another second.

95 percent certain im going to harvard, but i'm probably deferring for a year to let my girlfriend finish up school and to work and save up some money for a while.

2/4 7-Stud at Oaks is painful and as you know do not play that game. The rake is a killer and there is very little money to be made. The 4/8 is just as bad imo. When they spread the 6/12 you are now taking a game. But, you need to have experience at Stud to play that game. The old times in that game are not easy - I loved 7-Stud in the 60's-90's but not I do not bother to play it much anymore - I am a life time winner at 4/8 7-Stud at Oaks. But I have only put in 30 hours of play on a few Sundays.

Very cool. Cambridge and Boston are a great cities, I hope you have a blast there.

Is your girlfriend in the Bay Area? Is that why you might be here all next year?

If you're going to be in the bay area for an extended period of time, you need to check out the other rooms besides Oaks. Bay 101, Lucky Chances, and prob Artichoke Jooe's in particular.

note to all you OL grinders out there:

if by some chance you didnt already know this, or if you're just like me and you refused to take the advice in the past, i suggest playing fewer tables.

over the past few days i've really surprised myself regarding how much i actually know about this game. i've been playing 2 tables mostly (instead of 4+) and i'm just actually able to implement my poker knowledge to the fullest extent. just intuitive stuff such as when to double barrel, when to showdown ace high, when to make a thin value raise as opposed to just calling down, these are things that are sooo much easier to grasp when you're not in panic mode because you got other tables flashing and beeps going off.

for most of january i don't think i learned that much while i was playing, unless i reviewed the session after.

I hear ya about live stud play. Reg whining bitches(the men of course). Same can go for 08 regs. Same older crew every day. When you hear arguments/bitching in the room a lot of times ou can look over to the omaha8 games and there they will be.

War 4 tabling stud hi OL FTW!

So it appears that the latest SSLHE acronym is SYAS. See you at showdown

Aiyaski!

so in short....

no

dude

tilt less

do useful things with your life more

nh nice to have met you

frond it's tough for someone who's ego demands that they crush lhe to play nl because they are afraid that they won't crush it. i have worked really, really hard to be as bad as I am at lhe and thinking about playing nl i have to assume i'd be awful to start otherwise id have to accept that i've wasted hundreds of hours working on limit.

feel free to talk to me about life/money but honestly taking a year off to save money is silly. year off to be with girlfriend = great though

and to finish the 5postfecta....met fishyak and sad donkey tonight. sad donkey found me on my way out the door and i was like "you found me!" and he was like "steelers t shirt looks like taylor hicks not that hard" and i cried.

If you want to choose either lhe or nl to be good at, you want it to be lhe anyway if you live in the western U.S. There are a lot more mid and high stakes lhe games than nl games.

wow

Once you get over the fact that you should actually be folding some decently strong hands some of the time, and sometimes pot controlling/slowplaying more marginal hands/monsters... NL is really easy.

After playing a bunch of .25/.5 online (ya I know, but it's still harder than 1/2 live NL) I'm a ridiculously better valuebetter than basically any reg that plays at that limit. This mean's it's really easy to crush. LHE players have a handreading edge on basically any player at similar NL stakes because they've played so many turns/rivers that NL players never see, that once you make the adjustment to people's raising/calling/flatting ranges it's so easy.

Also it's fun sometimes too because I could never get away with a 90/50 PF style in LHE and as I described from when I went to vegas, that was almost certainly optimal both times I played NL.

Obviously to become a winning 5/T NL reg or something you'd need to put in a bunch of work, but the edges are so much higher in that game that it's really not hard to win. Is it worth learning over LHE when you have lots of 20/40 and 40/80 games readily available? Eh I'd say no, but I'm always tempted to put in more NL volume online because I do feel like the quality of LHE games has gone down a lot recently (just less games running, they're still pretty fishy).

lol its not like im going to kill myself or disappear forever, but yes i should tilt less and do useful things more. no longer an indefinite break, i'll be back at oceans (but not playing 20) in mid april and will be there 2-3 times a week until i move up to berkeley in may. probably should make a commerce trip too.


btw check your PMs

They were indeed large, rolling tears.

I also had the opportunity to meet Frond. I say opportunity because I was at a good table, and kept looking up at his table to see if I'd get a chance to say hi. Then I got involved in a couple hands, and when I looked up again, he was gone

Yesterday:
[ ] knew what a 4-rack heater felt like
[ ] lifetime 6/12 winner

One hand before I finished up:
[x] knew what a 4-rack heater felt like
[x] lifetime 6/12 winner

Last hand:
[x] live straddle
[x] flopped straight
[ ] lifetime 6/12 winner

last night 20/40, took my worst beat ever, AA vs 89o, on board AK888, .01% on flop ftw

Runner runner quads is so sick I need to go to the restroom.

This upcoming CAZ trip could be really sweet if my Mountaineers somehow make it to the Final Four, then got to play for a National Championship on the day that jesse arrives. I'm thinkin' that we'd have to do the big dinner blow-out that Monday night.

Sound about right to you, jesse? (I think we should be able to choose the night since we're gonna be the visiting team.)

And speaking of teams, we might ought to give some consideration to a prop bet with a couple of the CAZ regs. Not sure what it would entail, but if boc plays for them, I need a pretty significant big bet handicap.