GL on your journey OP. Make the most of it, and enjoy the experience

I live in Europe, but have been in Vegas many times and also lived there to play poker for 2 months couple years ago. Most fun time in my life,amazing experience. All i did was waking up, having a good breakfast/coffee, then deciding where i wanted to play for the day. Fantastic feeling.

Ceasars is a good casino, played a bunch there. Also Wynn 1/3 deep have been amazing games on all my trips there.Lots of OMC in the 1/2 games there at Ceasars, and they are very funny to tilt with aggressive plays. Gotten several of them to rage quit on me

One of the things I had to learn when I switched from online to live is that semi-bluffs OTT are extremely rare at the lower stakes live. Unless you have a solid read that someone is from an online background, I would significantly discount semi-bluffs OTT, by like 75% of available combos.

Villain has 65 in that spot less than 1% of the time (only when he misclicks).

Makes sense. I’m comfortable with the $500 buyin (and being in the game for a few buyins) and given the cap it was unlikely I was going to spot like this one.

AP, obv we don’t have to play the hand this way, what do you end up doing OTT given all the info and stack depth?

Thanks! Waking up today was not a great feeling, but what can you do... Will still be getting my *** over there and putting in a healthy session.

Hope you can experience that feeling again whenever you’re comfortable making it out there again.

Absolutely. For the most part, I was discounting draws- even semi-bluffs. What was running through my head as I described was adding up all the stuff like pair+ FD, FD + SD, and then also potentially the same hand which is realistic, plus occasionally a weaker two pair.

And then what really got me was that it is very reasonable for V to raise off sets on the flop 4 ways and that’s all I realistically lose to. 44s and 33s.

There is that element of once they put in that turn raise, against some players it doesn’t matter how strong our hand is or how unlikely we’re beat we just let it go- especially deeper for the game. But I didn’t think that was the case here in game.

What do you think? And are you also shoving turn AP?

Thanks for stopping by

If you’re gonna play full time pro you’ll have to get used to shrugging off those spots as no big deal. Garick is definitely right that live poker is by rule of thumb massively underbluffed games and you can make some ridiculous overfolds in certain spots that theoretically are terrible. Would write more right now, but day drinking and MTT’ing the afternoon away with Masters on. Might drone on more about what I want to say another time. Good luck on your trip. Try to table select, drop your ego on this trip as much as you can and you’ll do fine (by which I mean just try to find good games to grind).

I'm already results biased and my decision would depend heavily on the dynamics (you stated he's been raising you a lot postflop), and on live reads (does this guy look like he's super strong, does he look like he has a functioning brain, what profile do I fit this guy in, etc). This is not a slam dunk call, fold or raise by any stretch.

That being said, in live poker it IS possible to exploitably fold extremely strong hands vs weak players. At the same time, you don't want to get in the habit of folding 2pair+ to weak players for the simple fact that many weak players do a lot of stupid crap such as overplaying strong preflop holdings postflop.

Villain's line here seems super strong to me because you are telling the story that you have 2 pair plus and villain is pretty much telling you to take that 2 pair and shove them up your ass. So, I'm not really looking to put my whole stack in the middle here. It's certainly possible villain is on a suicide mission with worse but it's very likely he has us in terrible shape like he did or even have QJ where we are 80% to chop and 20% to get felted.

In online poker you have to push every edge in order to be successful, and in live poker you'll want to push edges to move up and be successful in tougher games but that's not really what live low stakes is about. Sure at times you're putting your chips in with a 5 to 10% equity advantage but a lot of the time you'll have 80%, 90% or even 100% equity when all the chips go in the middle. That's pretty much what happened here. Villain got you to put all your chips in the middle when he had 90% equity.

I know nothing about the villain in this hand and this may not be him at all but this hand sounds like it was pretty much straight out of the mediocre reg playbook. Page 54 of the playbook says play lots of hands but don't play for stacks until you're nutted. A lot of these guys are just after that easy money. They don't want to work for it. They aren't balanced. They aren't bluffing in big spots like this. They aren't even putting their money in with 2 pair here. They are just on the hunt for them nizzles, and they won't go to war without 'em.

It really isn't that big of a deal though. You had top 2 and he had a set. **** happens. More interested in what's happening today at the tables.

Were these people purely online grinders with a similar history to yourself, or had they played a decent amount of LLSNL? You might need to put more weight on advisors with mainly LLSNL experience – well, I guess you're getting that from people on here.

You might find quite a lot of other spots where you need to adjust to live play. You might need to flip your mind-set in quite a big way. Will be interesting to see over next few days. You might even want to play lower stakes for a few days while making the adjustment.

In that spot with the QJ top two, I do agree with other posters that Villain is heavily weighted to sets, and rarely has worse 2p, Pair+FD, 6h5h, KsTs etc.

Also I wouldn't place too much weight on the idea that with sets they would very likely raise on flop multi-way on a wet board. They will deviate from optimal play very very often & do all kinds of stuff.

Anyway, great blog. Best of luck for the rest of the trip.

GL kid-enjoy

Play good-run better.

Great posts DC, srs. Had me laughing v hard and it was insightful as well. Thanks.

Exclusively friends, both live and online, some play live (2/5+ for a living). These are all real life friends that I enjoy talking to so a small circle.

I actually really value the advice in here and definitely appreciate it. The people I’m close to’s styles and perspectives are already reflected in my play to a large degree so some fresher ones are helpful.

Also, most of us are lacking in the experience department because we’re young.

I’m comfortable at 2/5 and because I’m game selecting I think it’s a fine place to start and progress from.

The rake also affects win rates far less which adds up quick.

Thank you.

Thanks!

We hopped into a 2/5 $500 cap earlier today at Ceasers again, which just broke.

Only one notable hand...

We have a good image despite being card dead. Picked up KKs once, next strongest hands were 88s/A10o. That’s because we’re iso’ing over limps wide-Ish and raising in LP wide-Ish as well.

I open $15 UTG with A A. Nitty middle aged rec calls next to act. Nitty grinder type 3-bets to $75 LP. Low VPIP, but raising usually when playing. Wearing hoodie, headphones in, watching something on phone. Had 3-bet before. No significant Showdowns. We cover both at around $600. They have around $500. These were the two tightest players at the table with the game being relatively good.

I 4-bet $200. V jams. I call. We RIO and hold on a T-high board. V mucks as I flipped my hand over right away.

Heading to dinner now and then will head back again for a night session.

————-
Goal is at least 75 hours played on the trip.

You won't find any players tough enough to have a turn bluffing range, but you'll find plenty that are bad enough to play Q4s/AA this way, so it makes it hard to range him down to the 6 combos you lose to. I swear I see hands that make me go "wtf" on an hourly basis.

Was starting to type up my reply, but DC and browni nailed it. I wouldn't even expect Pair +FD except very rarely. Maybe one combo, AsQs.

2/5 - y u open to 15 utg?

are you varying raise size based on position?
randomizing raise size?
tryn to induce with rockets?
this is the furst time i have seen a 3x open by you @ 2/5 iirc.

Yeah, makes sense. Ever just calling turn btw?

The reason that hand is still on my mind is because I think it’s a disaster for me to get rekt in a huge pots deepish for the game because of misconceptions I have in comparison to the (more experienced) live pros at the table. Because online, it’s such an easy stack off spot AP.

Maybe it’s just a function of being v hard on myself as well. Should be a net + though in the long run.

Just trying to keep it real!

I don’t know/remember actually lol. Not randomizing. Adjusting it based on game flow, dynamics, what/how many people are calling etc. of course though. In real time, maybe it WAS just a function of picking up AA. maybe the sizing is what induced the 3-bet/GII but I am doubtful that was my intention there specifically lol .

Maybe I should’ve made V show, curious to know if V had the KKs or was getting it in on the lighter side like JJs because he was suspicious and thought I could have some bluffs there (which I will when 4-betting) just less than online by a healthy %. This player type will find folds after 3-betting and maybe he knew that I knew...

Good questions, will keep this in mind.

If I am at a table with a doosh bag hoody wearing headphone donning reg glued to their phone I 100% make em show furst.

I hear you, I guess I’m a little too nice.

Had a high carb dinner lol, and then hopped in the Wynn 1/3 $500 cap for the max. The 2-5 is $1500 cap and Sqwid and Dream Crusher advised me to stick to 100BB and $500 buyins respectively. I plan to take their advice.

[X] Caesars Palace

[X] Wynn

They open up a new table, which I am a part of. We raise hands like A10o-AQo, KQo, 99s over a few limps what seems like 5+ times, to large sizings, sometimes c-bet sometimes don’t and lose all of them.

We win a pot or two as well multi-way flopping well.

In the game for $700 now.

This 1/3 game is GREAT. Saturday night in Vegas though. I have $700 and there are four people with more chips than me and the 3 that don’t all have $500+ and are stuck. 2 pro/grinder types apart from hero who both have more chips than me. Apart of me is a little shell shocked from getting stacked on the deeper side from the night before still (yes, I know and this should go away with experience. Just being honest.)

Only two interesting hands. Unfortunate game to be card dead/whiffing in. Didn’t want to force anything.

EP limps. Very nitty rec opens $15 MP. LP cold calls. I cold call 10 10 SB. Idk, probably bad. This is a slam dunk 3-bet online. But idk what this guys range looks like and do not want to see a 4-bet. He had opened twice before and had KKs one of those times. Anyways, 2 other callers. Pick me!

($75) Flop: 10 8 3. Checks around.

($75) Turn: 10 8 3 Q. I probe $35. I wanted to size to where I can comfortably call a raise and simultaneously get raised by worse. This happens. EP (limper) raises to $135. Stuck heaps. Definitely recreational. Overplays hands. Folds back to me. This V has a little over $500. All this being said, I think a 3-bet/GII on the turn is fairly ambitious and I think we’re joint to see J9 and a flopped flush with all the suited cards this guy has a fair bit. So I just call.

($345) River: 10 8 3 Q 5 Check, Check. V flips over Q9o with the 9 of hearts. We win.

————-

I pick up Q Q UTG and raise to $15. 3 callers.

($60) Flop: 10 3 10. I c-bet $20, not wanting to check but trying to protect as well I guess. Seems bad, but what I did for w/e reason. Very recreational player calls with $110 behind. He had lost a huge pot recently and seemed content with not adding on. He’s calling any piece vs this sizing, but is the type to slow play without the goods as well.

($100) Turn: 10 3 10 J. We have the Q and put V in for $110 because of the SPR. V calls and holds with K 10.

One funny HH.

So this guy has his chips in the rack with around $800. He’s standing up tells the dealer to deal him in one last hand.

Recreational player opens $15 UTG off $2400 (800BB stack !). The last hand guy 3-bets $40. Everyone starts laughing. Then this grinder makes it $115 (covers 3-bettor). PFR folds. Then the last hand guy RIPS! LOL. So then the grinder starts thinking and this guy (who’s completely wasted btw) is like BRO! I have AA just fold. And flips over AA. Grinder has QQs and wouldn’t have gotten there at least on the rabbit hunted KJx.

Are you guys folding QQs in that spot ~275BBs effective? That grinder saved a lot of money in EV lol.

We called it a night at some point in the AM because we’re exhausted and there are now 3 grinders all seem like/ and are playing like solid players not just wannabes.







back at it today ofc. slept in late.

Good to see you hitting up The Wynn OP. Seems like you are getting off to a good start, even though some growing pains is totally expected when going from lots of online grinding to nittier unbalanced live fish fests.

If the opener really is nitty, i dont mind calling alot with 1010. Mixing though, mostly calling if villain is nitty mcnitterson but also 3 betting from time to time.

As other posters have told you before on several occasions, one of the really huge ways to destroy live games once you get a really good feel for the dynamics is that you can make ridicilous exploitative folds/flats due to people playing their ranges incredibly faceup. Or they play their ranges absurdly unbalanced every single time. Or the fact that the LLSNL playerpool are massively underbluffing in nearly every types of spots.

As you log more hours on the livescene you will get surprised how precisely you will be able to narrow down peoples ranges in many spots.I log most of my hours in different homegames where i know my playerpool like my own jeans pocket, and often i feel like they are playing with their cards faceup on the table. They always do the same things with the same hands, they never mix it up in big spots+++.

Agree with squid and DC on game selection

Are you traveling solo or with friends?

(Asked in chat, but never really answered-if you’re solo need to be way more careful, especially first time in town is the reason I’m asking)

RTP - Its not a question of being nice. A lot of times these grinder types are going to try and not show any or one card. This is a game of incomplete info and you generally want as much as you can get. Vs fish I will generally speed roll and do not put them into awkward spots as they are supporting my life and I want to keep them happy. But v grinders I will follow the rules. If I call their river bet I will wait for them to show. If they only show 1 card I will just say table or muck and wait patiently. Same when I call their all in.

1000% this

we are still grinding... and stuck piles.

Turned Aces up no good for stacks.

Frustrating night.

will answer questions before I sleep probably

I hope we can fade a session like the one we just had for the rest of 2020.

We played from post lunch (which was late) till the game broke (just now) and.... we were rewarded with a lot less in our wallet than when the day started.

I did not take any notes this session and crazy enough during that entire stretch there was only one “big” pot.

Could be some mistakes. Reciting from memory here and I am exhausted, v tilted, and not feeling any positive emotions.

1/3 Wynn $500 cap.

$475 effective. I would classify the Main V in this hand as spewy. Young Asian. Fairly loose passive preflop, something like 40% VPIP, straddling more then anyone else (doesn’t have to be only UTG/BTN here), betting/raising lots postflop. Few showdowns. Has it sometimes, value cuts/loses others. Ran some small bluffs but no big ones (that showed down) at this point.

V limps LP. Unknown limps BTN. I iso SB A 9 to $20. They both call.

This is among the “worst” hands I would be doing this with in this spot I imagine. It’s probably bad by a tinge (or a lot). I play bad so who knows.

This is typically a bread and butter spot for me with this hand class as, as long as I’m not getting too OOL I can usually maneuver my way postflop, or take it down pre, and my image improves. I tighten up OOP. Maybe I should tighten up more. Anyways...

($60~) Flop: A J 4. I check. This is probably bad, but we’re multi-way, this V is spewy and likes to put chips in the pot, we’re OOP, and this hand class can’t go for three streets on basically any runout.

V bets $40. I call. BTN folds.

($140) Turn: A J 4 9. I check, V bets $110. I xrai for a little over $400 effective. V has the AJo and holds.

We ran good on this one. Was v surprised V didn’t have the 44s!

We lost about 97.4% of the pots we played in today so not much to share.

Stuck a lottttt after “working” more then I slept last night! Oh yeah

———-

Goals for tomorrow: Play 8 hours+ @ Bellagio 2/5 and lose less than $500

Thanks for reading. Flame away.

A9o is garbage in live low stakes. Position, position, position.