Hello all!

As a long time lurker and infrequent poster on 2+2, I think now is as good a time as any to contribute something to a community that I’ve learned a ton from in my over 2 years of anonymous perusing. I’ve taken special interest in the PG&C threads that have come and gone over the years as they contain the trials and tribulations of individuals on paths similar to my own in the sense that the ultimate goal is to master this beautiful, brutal, intricate, and unforgiving game that we all love. Big shoutouts to meale, ECGrinder, MikeStarr, Gazzy, and pokerpan for providing a ton of great perspectives and inspiring journeys of their own.


Background
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I’m currently a software engineer based in Chicago and have been a working professional in the city since I graduated from university in 2013 with my computer engineering bachelor’s. I’ve been playing recreationally (mostly online and penny stakes home games with friends) since college and started taking the game seriously near the end of 2013. My motivation for doing so was simply that I learned how fascinating and deep the game is. How it’s played and studied to a capacity that a strategy game like chess is. How you can develop a long term edge in the game and actually win compared to the losing propositions offered by every other casino game. How you play against other players and not the house (something something rake). Mostly, I saw it as a mental challenge to better my game and get that positive graph. I’ve always been an analytical thinker and that attribute combined with my relentless competitiveness resulted in poker drawing me in quite strongly.

Over the first year or so I deposited small amounts on ACR while attempting to build my skills and put in some volume at the microstakes (mostly 0.02/0.05 and 0.05/0.10) only to bust due to what seems like a natural tilt progression that beginners tend to go through: playing higher to recoup losses, chasing draws without proper odds to try and hit big pots, and ultimately not exercising solid BRM principles. Once I busted 3 deposits I really began to dissect my game and study the fundamentals. I read all the standard poker texts: Super System, Theory of Poker, Harrington on Hold’em. I watched a bunch of the then budding poker content on YouTube (shoutout to Evan Jarvis and the Gripsed training material) and started crunching numbers and really bringing the mathematical portion of the game to the forefront as the primary driver of my decisions. Once I was seeing consistent profit from one table I started to add more tables - 4 was my max as I feel that my play became too auto-pilot at that point and I really wanted to focus on each decision to maximize my ability to learn. From then on my graph started to climb. I was seeing results and becoming more confident in my game.

The next year I started taking shots at live games, $1/$2 at Horseshoe in Hammond. I had no specific bankroll to speak of outside of what I had deposited and built up online since I had a well-paying job and didn’t need to worry about withdrawing a few buy-ins to play once every couple weeks. Of course I lost in the beginning: adjusting to live games after multi-tabling the micros was quite the struggle at first but after a few 2 buy-in losing sessions I started to pick up steam. I was able to take a standard 2 buy-in shot and build it up to a dedicated poker budget which allowed me to play without having to withdraw from my life roll. From then on I’ve played exclusively from this roll and have steadily built it up through a combination of continual study and improvement as well as decent game selection (due to working full time, the vast majority of my live volume was during the weekend where games are of relatively much better quality).

Since then I have about 500 hours of live play (lol sample size, I know) under my belt with 8K in profit. I also have about 70 hours of 2/5 thrown in with 2K profits as I’ve been fairly aggressive with my ‘roll’ due to having the ability to withdraw from my life roll at any time. In the past year and a half I’ve also added tournaments to my study time and have taken periodic shots at online tourneys as well as a few live ones with decent results: a few final tables with 2 wins at Horseshoe daily tournaments and a few minor cashes at HPT events - ultimately nothing to brag about but also not a ton of volume to speak of. About 90% of my total volume is in cash games which has been and will be my primary focus.


The Plan
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I’ve been married for almost 2 years (been with my wife for nearly 10 years) and obviously the talk about kids has come up. With this in mind, I’ve gotten her full support of taking a year to live somewhere else before we come back to Chicago and settle down for the long haul. I want to use this year to really focus on a few things:

- New experiences: My wife and I both lived in this city for our entire lives. We agree that a change of scenery and starting anew in a brand new place for a year hiatus of sorts will a) force us to put ourselves out there to build new relationships and b) give us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in an entirely different life then we’ve become accustomed to. Since we’re distancing ourselves from our respective families who both live in Chicago, the time we spend together is even more crucial and will be a strong priority of mine. This will be a scary but exciting venture that I believe we’ll both grow greatly from.

- Build knowledge: I like the idea of being well-rounded and having breadth of knowledge in various areas. I have a wide array of interests that I’ve never had the chance to fully explore on account of putting all of my non-work hours into mostly poker, spending time with my wife, and keeping up with job-specific skills. This year will be an opportunity for me to employ an entrepreneurial approach to building myself where I control my schedule more thoroughly and am able to explore these areas of knowledge. Some specific areas include language (specifically Spanish), cooking, psychology, philosophy, home economics, and literature.

- Build my body: I’ve been heavily into fitness for the past 2 years and am ready to take it to the next level. Hitting the gym 3 times a week with a standard bro split and eating whatever I want isn’t cutting it. I want to get in the best shape of my life. Since I’ve already built the habit of incorporating physical activity into my weekly routine, I want to take this year to step it up and clean up my diet significantly and build a more dynamic routine with emphasis on things I’ve neglected in the past in lieu of building raw strength + size (functional movements, cardio health, flexibility, and motility/mobility come to mind).

Here’s the catch and why this is on 2+2 instead of my.blog.sensimuse.com/about_me - I’ll be spending this year without a job: my only income will be from playing poker. I’ve thought long and hard about it, and with my wife’s support I feel this is a perfect time to take a shot at being a poker pro. This is strictly a 1-year commitment and is by no means long-term plan, just a kind of 1-year sabbatical where I can focus on maximizing my earnings playing poker and determine if it’s doable. I don’t have any specific monetary goals outside of being able to pay the bills, although of course I’m trying to run it up as much as I possibly can.

While we initially considered moving to Vegas, the current climate (both poker and weather) just doesn’t appeal to me at all. The low rake is great but I can’t imagine the quality of life being very good out there, and as I’ve alluded to above, QOL is very important to maintaining the sanity of us both. If this is going to work, we need to move to a place that will offer us the ability to partake in a wide range of experiences and give us both the best chance of success in our prospective careers. The games in Vegas (I do visit a few times per year) based on my own experience and from others on this site lead me to believe that the reg-infested games on the strip just aren’t as lucrative or enjoyable as a place with a ton more disposable income being thrown around. The quality of the games seems to be largely dependent on the big tourist draws (EDC, WSOP) which doesn't bode well for grinding 30+ hours per week. My wife is a nurse and the demand in a place like Vegas vs the compensation just isn’t very desirable. I’d also rather not live in the middle of the desert where I want to kill myself in the heat. With that in mind, we’ve ultimately decided to move to Los Angeles where the increased COL for us is outweighed by the beautiful weather, proximity to national parks + the Pacific, the availability of some of the best food in the country, wider range of available nursing positions for my wife, and access to some juicy cash games (not to mention it’s a short drive to Las Vegas ).


The Finances
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My wife has a nursing job lined up in west LA quite close to our new apartment, a place which is surprisingly affordable given its proximity to Santa Monica (only a few hundred more per month than the place we’ve been renting in Chicago). I have well over 6 months of living expenses (closer to 12 months if we’re scraping) saved outside of my bankroll and my wife has about the same amount saved herself. My last day at work is May 31st but I’ve left such an impression on my manager that he’s offered me the opportunity to work remotely at any point within the next year of living out in LA if I choose to. With such a strong backup plan and my wife being able to foot expenses during potential breakeven or losing stretches, it doesn’t make sense for me not to go all-in and do my best to run it up. I’ve considered just continuing working while living out there but it would be a full time commitment. I truly want to make poker work and I realize I’ll have to devote a good portion of that time improving my game if I want to be successful. With the added flexibility of being able to set my own hours and arrange my schedule to accommodate study, play, and the self-improvement goals listed above, it’ll be a challenge to make it all work. I’ve been preparing for the past year and a half for this and I’m ready to take on the challenge.


The Poker
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My starting bankroll will be around 8K - a bit lighter than the suggested 30-50BI maxim I see quite often, but I’m ok with a bit of aggressive BRM to start as I’m confident in my ability to learn the games quickly and put up some numbers. If I hit a huge downswing right off the bat or otherwise punt most of my roll away I can easily just work remote and get on the full time work grind while playing poker part time. I’ll be primarily playing the 2/3 300 cap game at the Bicycle with occasional shots at the 5/5 500 cap at Commerce (most likely on weekends when games are more plentiful + rec-heavy). I’ll also be mixing in some 50NL on Global primarily for practice and for keeping volume up when live games aren’t great or available. As far as tournaments, I won’t be playing any outside of stuff like the nightly 7K on Global or live event stops with juicy guarantees (LAPC, WSOPc, WPT, etc…). To kick off my stint as a pro, I’ll be taking a 1-week trip to Vegas for the WSOP during the first week of June and firing at the daily deepstack tournaments + cash games. After that we’ll spend the last few weeks in Chicago before shipping out to LA at the end of June.


The Thread
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I’ll be creating an Instagram page specifically for this 1-year excursion (I won’t link it here as I think it’s against forum rules) and will update this thread with pics from there along with any insights or thoughts of mine. I don’t have a personal account so it’ll primarily act as a photo album of my poker pro life that I can look back on. It’ll mostly consist of chip porn, hikes, food, and anything else that seems #worth. I plan on updating this thread at least once per week and will respond frequently to any comments or questions from you all in between. I likely won’t be posting much in the way of poker hands besides the occasional insane pot or interesting spot as I’d rather focus on the poker life aspect of the journey as opposed to the nitty gritty hand analysis and strat talk. I’m very open to feedback, both positive and negative, so feel free to strike up discussion as I’d like this thread to be as interactive as possible.

Thanks for following along, let’s do this!

Should be interesting. Subbed.

Best of luck!

Good luck on your poker journey. Sounds like you have a solid plan and support from your wife.

Thanks! There's absolutely no way I'd be able to pull this off without the support of my wife. Unless I were single and willing to live in a cupboard, going for it on my own would likely be too much of a financial burden to bear. Also, not having someone close to share my experience with and who could provide emotional and psychological support when I'm on the negative side of variance seems like it would be quite daunting. There are trade-offs to having a life partner (100% available time vs committing time to a relationship, 100% control over personal choices vs compromise for partner, etc...) that I'm happy to have made as I feel it's provided me more stability. I've learned that stability on the home front is key in making it in any pursuit where the nature is volatile.

glgl. So cool you have a supportive wife and sounds like a great plan of action. PM me your instagram, id love to follow along

subbed gl!

Goodluck on the journey!!! Sounds like you have given this a lot of thought and have solid back up plans. This is usually conducive to a successful transition into poker. DM me your Instagram! Would love to follow the journey there ��

Thanks for following along!


WSOP 2018
-------------------
One of my favorite times of the year. There's something electric about being at the Rio with millions of dollars up for grabs at every minute of the day. I've had the pleasure of attending the WSOP in Vegas twice before, once as a pure spectator (stopped by during a trip with the wife) and once playing the Lucky Sevens event a few years ago. The cocktail of pros, wannabe pros, weekend warriors, rich flounders, and straight up degenerates all coming together to pray for cards and hit some big scores is quite enticing to me. Even when you're getting blasted with "did not cash" futile runs in tournament after tournament, suffering beat after beat, something about the magnetism of it all keeps my mind invigorated and ready to fire another bullet.

The revolver is loaded this year. No woman in tow. No friends to entertain. No shows to catch. No distractions. Just a solo trip dedicated 100% to the grind. I'll only be in Vegas for 4 days (potentially 5 or 6 depending on a few outcomes) so it's paramount that I get as much volume in as I can. I've been to Vegas at least once per year since my first visit in 2014 and I've had my fill of all the tourist spots on the strip and in downtown. I will say I haven't ventured far into the local hotspots or much outside of those two spots but oh well. The vast majority of all my trips have been either professional in nature (a few software conferences are held there every year) or as a vacation with friends. I've played a decent amount of poker during those trips but mostly in small bursts when my wife decided to go to bed early or when a few friends who play recreationally had the itch to get some hands in. This will be my first poker-specific trip and I'm pumped.

I haven't done anything specific to prep except clean up the diet a bit and keep up the consistency with my workouts. This close to the series, I don't think it's a good idea to try to cram anything or change up your overall strategy in any drastic way. It's much more fruitful to focus on the non-technical aspects of your game, namely the mindset. It takes great mental endurance to stay focused for the periods necessary to thrive in live tournaments. Your physical state is a crucial element to building that mental endurance: it's simply not possible for a fatigued body to allow the mind to perform at an optimal level. Fatigue manifests in more ways than those which are obvious. Eating heavy, calorically dense + nutritionally void foods takes a ton of energy to digest. Inactivity results in a less efficient cardiovascular which can't optimally transport oxygen and nutrients to your body. Being dehydrated negatively affects your body's ability to do the same. All of these things are well within your control to address and should be the primary focus of any person who is required to perform any activity at a high level, regardless of the particular discipline.

On that note, here are some fruit and vegetable juices I've been pounding down these past few days. 2 bags of spinach, 1 bag of kale, 1 bunch of celery, 1 carton of strawberries, 1 carton of raspberries, 20 something carrots, 3 lemons, 10 apples, 9 oranges, and 3 cucumbers, all condensed into 3 34-oz jars.



As far as physical activity, I've been keeping it light since I've dropped my caloric load significantly these past 3 days. Primarily focusing on compound bodyweight movements (squats, lunges, pushups, pullups, inverted rows, etc...) and stretching. I'll be throwing yoga into my morning routine while I'm in Vegas. Sitting for long periods of time is brutal and, although I'm used to it due to the nature of my 9-5, anything one can do mitigate the negative effects of sitting is crucial to long-term health. Yoga is one of those remedies and it feels great.

The high-value rec-heavy tournaments that run during the WSOP are too good to pass up, so I've built up a rather loose schedule for playing them. The ones I'll be playing for sure are the $150 150K GTD at the Golden Nugget (I've got 2 bullets for this one in case the first flight doesn't go as planned) and a $200 satellite to the $1100 MSPT 3.5mil GTD event. The latter event will take precedence over all others in the case I win a seat and run deep: it's easily the best value tournament I've ever seen for the price point (except perhaps the Millionaire Maker but that's an extra 400). Otherwise, I'll be playing the $250 daily deepstack at the Rio every afternoon. If I bust at a reasonable time, I'll hop into a cash game on the strip (will avoid the Rio like a plague) if I can find a good one or just rest up for the next tourney if I play later into the night.

Let's do this!

https://open.spotify.com/track/7K82u...Q9eFJVaEJnWmuQ

Glad to see a long time lurker start a thread, have a successful year!

Good read, gl

gl. that roll is super light for this endeavor.

You’re right. It’s definitely far from ideal - at least 50BI seems reasonable - this will be the only time (in between jobs and leases) that I’ll be able to take such a shot so I’m going with what I have. It’s definitely aggressive but I’m fine taking that risk at this juncture in my life due to lack of family responsibilities. Once we cross that bridge one needs stability, so I want to try the unstable path while it’s still an option to entertain. The worst case scenario being I burn up my BR or I have to dip into savings too much. In that case, I can just pick up my original job or even apply for a better one out in LA.

With 6-12+ months of money saved up to use to pay bills, Id be comfortable having a $8000 roll for poker use only. I wouldn't play any higher than 1/3 with that amount though. Id stick to 1/3 until you hopefully get off to a nice start.

Sounds interesting. 50 buy ins is a good start but you have to plan for inevitable dips.

Why not take the boss up on working remote? I would do that in a heartbeat due to the steady income stream, quality of life with the spouse, low risk and because I would need a break from all the low lifes at the poker tables.

IMO 40-50 hours per week playing is plenty and leaves room for working remotely, any more than that and you will start to hate life.

Absolutely. I do realize that a bad stretch of variance to start off my journey will inevitably cut it short, but I'll be doing everything in my control to ensure that whatever force I can contribute in the direction opposite of busto is maximal. I've put quite a bit of work into my game and in building a stable mindset, now it's time to really put in the volume and implement. I will be playing strictly 2/3 (lowest 100BB stake available in the rooms I'll be frequenting) within strict BR parameters and only taking calculated shots at 5/5. I'll address my exact strategy for shot-taking in a later post.


During my initial one-to-one with my manager, he made it clear that the remote work would be a full-time commitment. As convenient as this is for stability purposes, it would result in me doing everything I’m doing now just in a different location. I’ll be clear that although returning to that job may be in the cards when we eventually return, I want this year to be comprised of primarily new experiences. Tbh, I’d actually exhaust my options for work at a new company in LA before I did the remote gig for that very reason. My motivations for pursuing poker are definitely not those in line with what's offered by the corporate grind. I’ve done it for 5 years and if I’m resigned to doing it for another 30 then I want to live on the other side of (maybe under?) the bridge for a bit.

Being able to mostly be able to build my schedule to mirror my wife’s will allow plenty of time to commit to our relationship. As is the case with most pursuits, the quality of life for us is largely dependent on the time put in. Having full control over how I allocate my time offers a level of flexibility that gives me the opportunity to focus on building our relationship while also taking part in other pursuits. The rigidity of the 9-5 life has instilled in me a sense of wonder wrt how life would be like in another mode. Now is as good a time as any to experiment with it.

Best of luck, keep us posted and thank you for sharing.

Now I'm off to work a construction swing shift outside in 100+ degree heat and jealously thinking about grinding poker for a living in the air conditioning.

Good luck! This looks like a fun one to follow.

subbed - good luck man this sounds like a lot of fun & you seem like a very sensible/down-to-earth guy. hope you crush.

WSOP 2018 Trip Report
-------------------
As I mentioned in my last update, I've never taken a trip to Vegas specifically for poker, and even after a relatively unsuccessful trip monetarily, I'm very happy I did. The 4 days I spent out there gave me a taste of the full immersion in poker that I hope to emulate out in LA. My schedule was fairly simple: stretch, eat breakfast, go for a long walk, play tournament, eat, play cash, rinse and repeat. I kept it strict in that I only played cash at night if the lists weren't too brutal and if I busted at a reasonable time (around 7-8pm or earlier). Thus, I only got 2 post-tournament cash sessions in during my 4 days there along with a morning session before I left.


Tournaments
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What can I say other than I fired a full clip and only nicked a shoulder? Busted 2 bullets at the 150K at Golden Nugget, busted 2 bullets and scored a decent cash on the third (60th/1068) in the daily deepstacks at the Rio. Fired a single bullet at an MSPT satellite and missed spectacularly.



Golden Nugget 150K GTD: The GN tourney was a good one to get my feet wet. The structure was such that crunch time (huge blind and ante raises) came right when the next flight was close to starting so it made it a pretty clear decision to go for gusto and run up a solid stack going into the later stages. I have to say I'm a big fan of how they were running the events. Playing at the Venetian where the Deepstacks events almost seemed tacked on and in a tucked away warehouse area, the GN tourney seemed to take center stage. There were quite a few competent and polite dealers which I'm not used to seeing in similar big field events. I played decently to start but ultimately couldn't get any momentum going before blinds got huge.



My first bullet consisted primarily of two big hands, one where I called 3 streets in position with aces against dude who was barreling TPWK and spiked his kicker on the river. Dwindled down to 15BB and got it in with top pair on A55 against dude who flopped quads, gg.

One hilarious hand from my second bullet: 30BB effective + I cover, OMC minraises from CO, I call on button with J7s (fold pre, I know), BB completes. Flop is 77x w/ flush draw, BB checks, OMC bets pot, I jam, BB folds and OMC snaps with AQo. Funniest part of the hand was his reaction when he saw my hand: "Oh, f**k me, F**K ME" shaking his head furiously. For some reason this hit me pretty hard and I had to hold back with all my might to stop from busting down laughing. I had to literally look down and cover myself to at least slightly shield that dumb face you make when you're trying to hold in voracious laughter. He was a nice guy but his incessant tanking was pretty annoying. I feel like he may have had the impression I was running over the table and this was his 'making a stand' play against the aggro kid. Bad timing but good for the lulz.

The rest of that bullet had me sitting around a nice 40BB stack for most of the day. Ran a big triple barrel against one of the few solid players at the table to chip up nicely, also picked up a few good squeeze spots to steadily accumulate. Ended up dwindling down during that huge blind jump around level 8 being mostly card dead before losing most of my stack AQ < TT.



MSPT $200 Satellite: Not much to say about this one except that it's undoubtedly the worst I played all trip. I was out before level 4 due to 2 huge unnecessary hero calls in limped pots where I flopped two pair and couldn't employ the discipline to make a big fold once the board got worse and I faced resistance. Bet/Call river instead of bet/fold when facing obvious nuts. My downfall in this one was that I was simply trying to push the action too much when I had time to be patient. Just horrible.



Daily Deepstacks ($250): Anyone who thinks poker is dead needs to play a few of these and reconsider. Some of the softest tables I've ever had the pleasure of sitting at. All 3 tournaments I played had me accumulating close to 100K right before 3rd break before losing a massive flip in relatively standard spots. Most of my chips came from c-bets and a few double barrels. I don't think I ran a single huge bluff during any of my 3 bullets. It was just a series of small potshots, 3b + cb, or small c-bet + big turn barrel to punish the wide floaters. Seeing people float just to hit with no real plan to win the hand in any other way makes your decisions pretty straightforward for the most part. There were definitely some solid players, but for every one of them lay 2-3 massive fish who not only will pay off wide and leak chips mercilessly, but who will insist that this tournament is the softest thing ever. The day they become self-aware and realize they're providing the juice will be the day poker actually dies. I won't hold my breath waiting for that day.



Fun spots to prove my point:

• 3 limps, bad reg in LP shoves for 90BB with K5s and gets snapped by 99
• BvB (40BB eff), I raise AK, BB 3b, I 4b jam and he snaps with J9o.
• I raise KK from MP, bad reg flats in LP, BB completes (30BB eff). Flop J63r, BB checks, I c-bet 1/3 pot, he snap shoves and I call. He has KJo
• Forgot the exact hand, but I flopped top trips and guy bluffed into me with 4 high for stacks (20BB eff)

Cash games
-------------------
Not a ton of volume to speak of, but I played 3 sessions. 1/3 evening session at Wynn, 1/3 evening session at Aria, and 1/3 morning session at Wynn. The last session was the craziest action I've seen in a while at the cash tables and it was at 11am Literally the first hand was a 3-way all in for close to 800 bucks. It was also the first time I saw OMCs buying in for stacks. I'm used to the Hammond grind where your typical OMC will buy in to 1/2 for $40-$70 and play only premium pockets. The structure is great (1/3 with $500 max buyin), the staff is friendly, chairs are nice. Definitely my favorite spot to play cash games on the strip. Overall I booked a $250 loss in that game, a small win in the Aria session, and a small loss to offset that in the other Wynn session. People were calling large preflop raises with Q8o and Q5s OOP so the games were juicy but, at many times, simply unpredictable. I'm sure I'll need to go through an adjustment period facing such loose action as that's what I hear is the norm in California games.


Takeaways
-------------------
It was a great experience overall, I booked about 32 hours of tournament play and 6 hours of cash over a 4.5 day period. It was definitely a ton of fun to be fully immersed in the poker grind and think about nothing else. During my professional journey, I'll undoubtedly need to be balanced in other aspects of my life in order to succeed at poker. However, having spurts of total immersion is great for making breakthroughs and busting plateaus. In my case, I think it provided a good kickstart into the realm of thinking about poker for long uninterrupted periods. Long story short, doing nothing but poker is pretty great

The plan for now is to finalize stuff for the move (got the apartment locked up, just need to itemize what we're taking and get a total moving estimate, then plan the drive to LA) and hang out with friends as much as possible before leaving. I'll be mixing in some live cash games here and there as well as firing a bullet or two at the Hammond Monday tournaments ($60 4K GTD is the best value for the price point I've yet to see). I'll also be getting in some solid volume during the day on Global cash games when I'm not studying. Until next time!

Road Trip
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We've been spending the past 2 weeks mostly spending time with friends and family with the majority of last week re-packing, handling moving logistics, and planning the road trip. We're taking a relatively boring route through Iowa and Nebraska since we want to stop in Denver for a few days and our original plan of following route 66, although likely being more scenic in the first leg, would end up being too far out of the way for our timeline. The plan is to stop about halfway to Denver for a night before driving the second half and visiting the city for a couple days. From there we're going straight to Vegas before completing the final stretch to LA. This will be the first significant road trip I've been a part of in over a decade so I'm really looking forward to it.

As far as poker goes, I've only attained roughly 20 hours of online volume over that time at a decent uptick despite only being able to play a few sessions. Since we're having the vast majority of our belongings shipped separately, it looks like there could be upwards of 2 weeks between arriving and having them delivered. Unfortunately, that includes my computer so I'll be fairly handicapped initially wrt online volume. That will give us plenty of time to get established, unpack, and handle apartment + commute logistics.

I plan on taking a bunch of pictures along the way to share with y'all, until next time!

The Move
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The first leg of our road trip was fairly uneventful as we had to pass through a fairly uneventful section of the country: Iowa and Nebraska. I'm sure they have other things going on than just cornfields and flatness, but along the most direct route of I-80, one cannot gander at much of anything else. We planned on breaking the trip up into manageable 5-10 hour drives to prevent burnout, mitigate the risk of any car issues, and to minimize the amount of time spent driving at night. This meant driving into Lincoln in Nebraska first purely as a rest stop: no sight-seeing or anything, just sleep and go.

The next leg of the trip was a bit more interesting as the terrain begins to shift from the severe flatness of the Midwest to the hilly and eventually mountainous topology of the four corners region of the country. We definitely wanted to spend a full day in Denver to head into the city, take my brother-in-law and his girlfriend to Watercourse (best vegan restaurant I've ever been to, highly recommended), get a hike in at Red Rocks, and just walk around LoDo. It was a good change of pace after sitting in a Mini Cooper packed to the brim with belongings, 4 people, and our 50lb pup for 16 hours over the past few days.



Our hike at Red Rocks was interesting in that the weather started off mild only to be fiercely interrupted by hail and random bursts of freezing rain. Unfortunately we weren't able to go to the amphitheater as we arrived on the weekend of a sold out Widespread Panic festival



The next leg of the trip was the longest and most enjoyable due to the scenery offered by Colorado and Utah (sorry Nevada, you're mostly just desert). We segmented the drive near Grand Junction to give the car a break and stop for food before making the long haul across Utah. It never gets old seeing those mountain ranges, and at the distance we were it's really tough to capture the essence and awe-inspiring magnitude of those monoliths. It's like driving across a painting with all the changes in color and ever-changing sense of depth.







Our last stop before completing the final leg of the trip was Vegas, not for poker or gambling, but for tacos. Whenever we get a chance to stop in Vegas, it's a necessity to stop at Tacos El Gordo for undoubtedly the best al pastor tacos this side of the border. I've yet to experience a challenger that can step up to the plate - Leo's Tacos in LA is a contender but ultimately outclassed. We spent some time wandering the strip as my brother-in-law had never been there, and anyone who visits Vegas for the first time should set aside at least a day to just wander into all the casinos up and down the strip imo.



And finally, we made the decently short drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles early the next day. We didn't get a chance to see the apartment in person due to geographic considerations but we at least were able to get a video walkthrough of the place. Turns out it's even better than we expected. Tons of closet space, nice wooden floors, granite countertops, a gas oven, a bunch of natural light, and a ton of sink space + storage in the bathroom. It may not sound like much, but we were used to having no space in the bathroom and a crappy electric stove in a dark apartment facing an enclosed parking lot in Chicago so most of this is a step up for only a relatively small increase in rent. I'm very glad we didn't end up in a roach-infested s**thole since we were at the mercy of the vicious real estate gods of LA which, from what I hear, can be particularly fierce.

Since then we spent a few more days with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend before they flew back to Chicago, took a mini vacation of sorts while my wife is between jobs, and spent some time picking up essentials to settle in until our belongings arrive at the end of this week.








First Session
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Yesterday I was planning on getting a cash game session in at the Bike, mostly to familiarize myself with the commute and the casino. However, I noticed that a CardPlayer tournament series is happening this week and next. $150 150K GTD? I'm in there. I played the first flight which had a paltry 77 runners. After not playing a session in over a week, I was itching to get in there and came in very focused, playing my A-game. I made one fairly large mistake that cost me 25% of my stack during the middle of the day against a solid reg where I 3b bluffed on a wet flop only to have him 4b shove with what he later told me was the flopped nuts, whoops. Outside of that, I didn't make many significant mistakes and was patiently picking spots to chip up. I didn't get it in bad all tournament until this terrible stretch toward the end.

I chipped up from 15K starting to around 75K at the 1.5K/3K blind level. At this point there's 11 left on the final table bubble with 8 moving on to day 2 and ITM. We're the 5-handed table and CO shoves for 50K and I snap with 88 in the SB. He has A6s and ofc he Barry Greenstein's my ass. Down to 25K. 2 hands later, I shove A2s and run into KK, bubbling the FT. GG

I'm really proud of how I played and am fine with the result. If I win the 88 hand I'm sitting on a solid stack that takes me into day 2 where blinds are lowered back to 1K/2K, giving me a crusher stack to work with. Fairly standard spots with a disappointing finish. F**king tournaments

Now on to 4th of July festivities, followed by unpacking our things and finishing up the settling in process before getting on the full time cash grind. I may also fire a bullet at the 500K next week at the Bike

I love the drive between LV and Denver, awesome scenery. Enjoy your time in LA!

Thanks! Loving it out here so far.


The Beginning
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The last 2 weeks have been a combination of the following:

1) Handling transferal of services/monthlies (gym membership, utilities, internet, etc...)

2) Working out (new 4-day lifting split while mixing in yoga)

3) Trying out some LA cuisine + hitting up the beach with the lady

4) Playing poker


I'm pretty much trying to establish a solid routine which is proving difficult due to my wife being between jobs. It's rough on her to just be home all day while I'm grinding so I've made a conscious effort to engage and partake in various activities with her. Not having any friends out here doesn't help the issue unfortunately but it's what we signed up for. At the very least, all of our stuff has been shipped and is set up so it doesn't feel like we're living out of boxes anymore.

One stat I'm quite proud of is that over the past 2 weeks I've spent more time exercising than I did gaming. Having over 1300 hours of Rocket League and another 250 hours of PUBG under my belt, I must say that's quite the feat.

On the poker side of things, I've put in a decent 50 hours of volume over these 2 weeks, comprised of 15 hours each of live and online cash with the rest being the nightly Global tourneys and a shot at a 500K at the Bike. I'll definitely need to step it up moving forward but I think it's a solid start given the wife constraints

2 of the 3 live sessions I played were some crazy games. Definitely the highest quality games I've ever been in which is a good sign for things moving forward. You just don't see that type of action at the lowest stakes where I come from playing at Horseshoe Hammond. The 1/2 games there are typically filled with nitregs, shortstackers, and comp-grinding OMCs. The player pool in these 2/3 games is pretty varied from my experience so far. The solid players are easy to spot, the action players give a lot of action, and there's just way more money on the table. Even the OMCs are buying in full stacked for $300, a phenomenon existing in stark contrast to the $40-$80 stacks of Hammond OMCs.

Nothing to report about the 500K except that I caught a few costly second best hands in the middle stages and lost a flip for my tournament life when it came down to the wire. Standard tourneys. I did final table a 6-max tourney on Global ending up with 5th for a decent score. Cash games online have been going well. Since I started playing cash consistently on the site I've got about 27K hands logged at a little over 8bb/100. Not great in terms of hourly but I'm happy with how my strategy is working on the 20NL streets. I'm looking to move up to 50NL after grinding it out for the rest of the month.

The real action came in the live cash games. Here are a few action shots from the sessions I've played. Included is one of my biggest sessions ever






Goals for this week are to keep the workout grind going, clean up the diet and cook the majority of meals at home, start up the reading habit again (got a list of books I want to get through this year), and get in some solid volume at the cash tables. Until next time!

If the blinds were to be lowered to 1/2k, it sounds reasonable to actually play conservatively near the end of day 1, because if you have an edge you can utilize it better when every is deeper? 88 call CO shove of ~17BB seems standard ICM indeed though.

That's a very strange choice of chip colors they use.