No freeway between Austin and Houston. I blame George W. Bush and Rick Perry. Disaster.

2.2 million people in Houston, 900K in Austin, 160 miles apart. Total disgrace that there's not a freeway.

Anyone ever played in Lake Charles? I'm considering doing a night there instead of New Orleans. It also has uncapped 2/5 - well, basically. It's match the big stack. I'm curious whether the games are better or worse than New Orleans.

I have played there - STOP THERE AND PLAY! you can thank me later

Awesome... Golden Nugget or L'Auberge? I'm now looking into the hotels and how this potentially changes the trip.

Def lauberge best action is there,lowest game is 2/5

Awesome, thanks... Did you mean largest instead of lowest, though? Or do they actually spread 5/T+?

They don't offer 1/2 or 1/3, so any rec player has to hop in 2/5 if he wants to play. Don't know if they run bigger. It's a small room, and stacks are deep, so I'd say it's unlikely but possible on a weekday.




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actually, they do run 1/3 now, here's a summary of the room: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=915

they hate $ with a passion there - its is ossum





edit on weekends you may have to stay 30 miles or so out of town...it can be that insane

Thanks man! My game was very good there, even though I ran bad... Can't even get a 2/5 game in NOLA tonight.

Did manage to get a couple nights of 2/5 in here in New Orleans. The games were fine but the poker room is pretty poorly run. The comps are like .25/hr, they're not very good at managing the list and some of the dealers are AWFUL. I caught one doing some shady stuff.

But, the city is awesome, so it's worth putting up with for a bit. This is the life!

please explain the shady stuff

Will do later... I'm on my phone walking around town, it'll need more detail.

This hand history may be slightly off after the 3bet preflop and on the flop. I know there was a 3bet preflop, I looked away for a bit to order a drink and the turn was out and the pot was pretty big, so I'm pretty sure the action based on the turn bet sizing was:

Player 1 (60s guy who seemed to be a reg and knew the dealers) opens preflop.

Player 2 (20s kid who doesn't seem to be a reg and is likely a traveling grinder or a guy on vacation who plays a lot of poker) 3bets.

Old guy 4bets, kid calls.

Flop: Pretty irrelevant to the action/story, like T or J high.

Old guy makes a sizable bet, kid calls.

Turn: bricky

Old guy bets 300, kid jams about 1,050.

Old guy tanks a long, long time and folds. (This was clearly QQ+, and probably 90% of the time it's KK.)

The dealer gets the old guys cards into the muck and mucks the flop, but when the kid tosses his cards in, the dealer puts his fingers on top of them and drags them toward the middle of the felt where the flop would go. He collects the muck in one hand and gets it somewhat neat, then takes the kids cards and slides them onto the bottom of the muck. He gets the stub with the other hand, and turns the cards towards him as he puts the two together (proper procedure is with the faces of the cards out toward the players). He glances down and looks at the bottom of the muck, obviously seeing what the kid had. He then puts the stub on the bottom of the muck quickly, and proceeds like normal.

He had previously been following the proper procedure, and did so on the rest of the hands that down.

He got pushed about five minutes later and Player 1 took a walk about 15 minutes later - I'm not sure if the dealer was on break at that point or not, but if so, he could have easily been going to find out what the kid had.

Best case, the dealer was just curious and wanted to know for himself, but he's still likely flashing those cards to the 1 and 9 seat, and maybe the 2 and 8 seats. Worst case, he's helping out a reg and will tell him away from the table later.

For those who don't know or haven't paid attention to this in particular, the proper procedure is to put the players' cards into the muck toward the middle of it, so that they are not flashed when the deck is squared off, which should be done with the cards facing the players. This prevents anyone from seeing what the players at the end of the hand had, while allowing the deck to be squared with the faces toward the players - that's so that the dealer can't easily set the deck to cold deck someone by literally looking at the cards. Obviously shuffle machines reduce the ability of dealers to do this anyway, and there are other ways to do it when there is a hand shuffle in place, but that (to my knowledge) is the reason for the procedure.

There are also several dealers there who play with the pot, put a hand over the top of the pot occasionally, and shuffle chips in the pot while players are thinking, which is HORRIBLE procedure as well, but I won't automatically say it's shady - although it certainly makes it way easier to do something shady like palm a chip. With these dealers I counted my pots while I was stacking them, and they were always right... But then again, I'd make eye contact with them when they shuffled chips and kind of shoot them a look and look at their hand shuffling the chips to try to signify that it's not cool, so they'd have to be pretty stupid to do something in my pot. One of the dealers did immediately stop shuffling chips when I shot her a look. I got the impression she plays a lot and shuffles chips, but it's still a bad habit. I'm told a dealer got fired in Lake Charles within the last year for palming chips from pots, so it's happened recently within the Louisiana region.

There is also a dealer in New Orleans who pulls the turn and river off the top of the deck very weirdly (like from the back of the deck toward her instead of sliding it forward, which I suspect would make it easier to deal seconds). If I was running the room, I'd want everyone doing everything the same, by the book - the illusion of anything a little off is bad, even if nothing nefarious is actually happening.

The problem in both cases is that if I say something at the table, it's going to ruin the game, cast a bad light on me and probably piss off the dealers and thus the players, who are locals and friendly with the dealers... It'd be bad enough in my home casino, but as a dude visiting for two days, I opted not to say anything. I may e-mail the room manager, though. FWIW if it was my home casino, I'd try to pull the dealers aside later on the chip shuffling, and I'd speak to a floor privately about the dealer looking at the cards.

Aside from the dealer who looked at the kid's cards, I don't think any of the others were actually doing anything that would harm the integrity of the game, but they were doing things that would make it easier to do just that, and you never want to allow an atmosphere where palming chips or having a mechanic dealer is possible.

yep - definately some shady stuff...thanks for the detailed write up mang!

Sure thing, no problem.

I've been able to watch most of my appearance on LATB by now, and downloaded the video so I can keep it. I'll be cutting it up into a reel of just my hands for family, and I might see if I can get permission from the company that produces LATB to post a hand or two in here, but if I am allowed to do that I'll probably only leave it up for a couple weeks.

Oddly, the hand I'm most happy with is one where I bet the river for value and both villains folded. Prior to betting I was trying to determine whether I was going to be up against top pair more often or A high and weaker pairs, and I decided they had A high and weaker pairs. I actually told someone before I watched it that I thought they had hands like AQ, AJ, QJ, QQ, JJ, pairs 99 and lower. (board was KTxTx)... They had AQ and 99 and both folded, but I feel like I assessed where they were at really well and played it accordingly.

It was interesting to hear Limon say that I must be a regular viewer of LATB when I hero called and was right - I've watched a total of maybe 10 minutes of coverage in the past, which was when Duke was on... So I actually had no prior knowledge of the villain before entering the game. I can't fault him, though, it was a reasonable guess... But just not the case. I didn't know if they'd have background info on me since I filled a little bit out when I tried to reserve a spot, but landed on the waiting list - so I guess they didn't have it. Anyway, the call was based on the way the hand played out and some prior stuff that had happened at the table. If I'm allowed to post video, that might be the one I go with.

I watched that hand play out and was 100% certain you were calling. You have a propensity to hero call.

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I do, although I feel like I've eliminated a lot of the bad ones.

Kinda tough call from what i remember. Id have to rewatch the clip but i also had a feeling u were gonna pull the trigger after tanking for a while. U looked like u just didnt want to give up, which i was really hoping for! Great call and analysis of that hand would b fun

Now that I'm home I'm catching up on some of the messages I didn't reply to while traveling...

Thanks guys... I kind of figured you guys would expect me to call there, since I have been known to hero call a time or two. Here's the hand history:

$5/5/10 (straddled pot)

I'm UTG with 88 and raise to $35. The straddle calls.

Flop ($74): K75

He checks, I check.

Turn ($74): J

He bets $65, I think 10-15 seconds and call.

River ($204): 4

He bets $165, and I tank for a little over a minute and call. He shows T2 and my hand is good.

You don't hear it on the broadcast, but he says, "Nice call, buddy, I haven't played a hand in an hour."

I respond, "Thanks, and by the way, I can detect sarcasm."

I would have kept my mouth shut, but I wasn't sure whether they picked up player audio on the broadcast and I wasn't going to let him punk me on the air like that and not respond. I could've needled him way worse, though, for showing up with T2 suited after "not playing a hand in an hour."

I might have called quicker if it wasn't on a broadcast. Obviously you don't want to get bluffed while people are watching, but you also don't want to look like an idiot calling with 88 on that board and being wrong, so I made sure I ran through everything twice. I actually felt like I was in the tank 2-3 minutes and felt a little bad about it, so I was thrilled to see I'm overestimated my tanking times and it was right around a minute, which I think is pretty reasonable in that spot.

I'll break it down street by street after I get the video, and hopefully get permission to post it. It's a really cool hand to break down with the video, since there are some tells that play into it, and I'd rather say, "Look at the video at X seconds," then try to write them all out in detail. Short version for now is that I had thought it through on the turn and had a plan for the river, and I was pretty sure he was polarized after his river bet, with a high bluff frequency - which was obviously correct. I suppose I can't say him bluffing there is proof he was polarized, but I suspect he is in that spot.

Thanks guys... For those who weren't watching, right after the hero call I picked up 88 again, the flop was 832r, we built a huge pot, the turn was a 2, and I was up against 22. It was also an interesting hand since I correctly fast-played it, giving him sets, two pair and small overpairs. I wanted to make sure we got stacks committed before a scare card came since I didn't think he had any weak hands in his range there, and my line repped really thin.

Assuming you meant hot - I did talk to her, although you guys probably couldn't hear it and more of it came after the cameras shut down. She's a cool person to play with, and from what I understand, a pretty strong tournament player.

I'm not sure if that's a joke based on all of the wearing a cape talk, or if I actually passed through an area where there's a real town called Smallville.

Just a bit! Austin is an amazing town.

I hit up some food trucks, but not for BBQ, which was probably a mistake. The food I had was awesome, but I didn't get any BBQ in Texas.

I ate at a Mexican spot called Ninfa's and HIGHLY recommend it. Next time I'm in Texas I'll definitely get some BBQ though.

combo of a joke + Clark Kent grew up in the fictional town of Smallville, which is located in Kansas.

Surprised nobody has changed the name of their tiny middle of nowhere town to that, considering that there's a...

World Series of Poker 2015 Results and Summary of Goals – “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fall.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Live Cash Results at WSOP 2015 (1/3): +$641 in 1 hour, 43 minutes
Live Cash Results at WSOP 2015 (2/5): +$1,289 in ~21 hours
Live Cash Results at WSOP 2015 (5/10): -$636 in ~48 hours
Live Cash Results at WSOP 2015 (Total): +$1,294 in 69 hours, 45 minutes
Live Tournament Results at WSOP 2015: -$5,717 in 63 hours, 51 minutes

Total Live Results at WSOP 2015: -$4,423 in 133 hours, 36 minutes

The results were actually even more frustrating than this, as I was at one point up over $8K in cash, and then went on about a 7K downswing in cash combined with the tournament losses. I ran really bad, even getting one outed in a big pot at 5/T, and you guys know about the Main Event. I also lost $2,900 in an uncapped 2/5 game in 1 hour and 5 minutes, when I ran bad in ways I wouldn’t have even realized existed before. That’s poker, though. I learned a lot about how to maximize future WSOPs, so I took that out of it.


WSOP 2015 Cash Games Chart




Best Pictures from the WSOP


The view from the bar on my birthday…


After winning a big pot and before making the towers nice and neat..




This is a few days later - over 7K in play, I was in for about 1,800 and ended up cashing out +$5,163 for my biggest cash win ever.


Poker Goals


[215] Play 450 Hours of Poker

I made a few key mistakes in terms of my volume goal and my execution. I spent way too much time playing online, which accounted for over 80 hours of my volume. This would have been OK, as my expected hourly even playing 50NL and 100NL was pretty good. However, I spent a lot of time on satellites trying to win tournament lammers online, which was a huge waste of time and lowered my online EV significantly.

The other big mistake was in not realizing how much time I’d lose game selecting at 5/10. I thought I could move from say the WSOP to the Bellagio or Wynn pretty quickly and seamlessly, but given traffic on the strip and long waitlists, it could easily take 1-1.5 hours to get into a new game.

In addition, I planned on playing 12 hour days all the way through Day 7 of the Main Event, thinking the cash games would still be going strong if I busted the main. This was not the case at all, with the cash games dying off around Day 3. Factor in that there was no way I needed to be playing cash the day or two after I busted the main, given the frustration involved in that, and this was poor planning based on inexperience. I also didn’t play live for too long after busting in the Millionaire Maker.

That said, during the stretch from May 28 to July 7 when I logged volume, I put in 215 hours in 41 days. That’s about 37 hours per 7 day week. It’s not what I wanted, but it’s not shameful either.

Next year my goal will probably be something like 300 hours.

[1] Cash Three Tournaments

[X] Win a Bracelet

I played my heart out in the tournaments and played really well, so I can’t be too results oriented here.


Health Goals

I didn’t hit the gym at all, as the Rio gym was worse than my expectations in a few ways – too crowded, too small, and not enough equipment. In future years I will join a local gym and decrease my expected hours accordingly to account for the time spent there.

That said, I ate really healthy most of the time and lost 8 pounds during the WSOP and ensuing road trip. I did eat pretty terrible the last week in Vegas, as we were meeting up with a lot of people for dinner before leaving town. I ate poorly on the road trip, but I was very active so I think I probably stayed level during the road trip. I didn’t have a scale, obviously, so I only know where I’m at now.


Things I Learned from the Main Event

I already touched on some of the stuff I learned during the WSOP in general. Some things I learned are going to be trade secrets for me, but I will share most of the things I learned from the Main Event, which I had promised after busting out.

Obviously, I’m very confident in my poker skills and always have been. After playing in the Main Event, I reaffirmed everything I believed.

I saw very good, highly acclaimed tournament pros making some significant mistakes with their ranges playing deep stacked no limit hold’em, and attacked them accordingly with success. I saw bracelet winners who are highly regarded in the online poker and 2plus2 community go on raging tilt, losing control over their mental game. I saw them pounding beers at the table with a few hours left to play. This is even more detrimental than you think, since it's critical to get home and get a good night's sleep for the next morning. I faced highly skilled players with styles that varied wildly, and I was able to make adjustments that worked against them.

All of those things just reinforce my confidence.

I also learned that I’m a pressure player, so to speak, which also highlights a weakness for me in my normal games. I felt that my focus and mental intensity were elevated to a higher level by the pressure of the Main Event. I even slept better than usual, which is peculiar. I was picking up more reads, which is because I was paying attention to every little thing.

When you grind hundreds of hours of cash, it’s hard to keep doing that, but I need to get myself to play on that same level all of the time. Of course, I’m always going to want to push myself higher and higher in the Main Event, so hopefully that’s a positive cycle in the future… Hopefully I find new ways to elevate my game every year in the Main, and then apply them back to my normal game.

How much money and time did you spend going to vegas total