Thanks! In case I haven't mentioned it before, I love your dancing panda (w/ santa hat for good measure ).

It's very nice to hear that I've gotten you more interested in meditation. I haven't done much in the way of visualization exercises but would like to start. My practice consists either of closing my eyes and trying to lose myself in the sounds surrounding me or to keep them open and focus on an object some distance away and just try to experience the present moment absent of mind. I've also done some lovingkindness meditation and that's been very powerful when I've been in the right mood. Breath-centered exercises don't seem to work well for me as I've yet to not change my breathing pattern significantly when trying to focus on it. FYI, the best meditation resources for me have been the books 8 Minute Meditation and Mindfulness in Plain English. I also enjoy watching Jon Kabat-Zinn talks on YouTube.

Thanks for the good wishes. Gonna miss seeing you around town; best of luck in your journey to the mountains!

I forgot I wanted to make a list of my tournament grind music. I have a habit of listening to instrumental, mostly non-vocal music during tournaments; it helps keep me focused.

Playlist:
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross- The Social Network soundtrack
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross- Girl with the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross- Gone Girl soundtrack
Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
Com Truise - In Decay
A State of Trance Year 2014 Mix (mixed by Armin Van Buuren)
Battles- Gloss Drop
Battles- Mirrored
Boards of Canada - The Campfire Headphase
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
Hard Knocks soundtrack
Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place
Hans Zimmer - select songs from The Dark Knight Rises & Interstellar soundtracks
David Helping - Treasure
Liquid Mind - Liquid Mind VI Spirit
Tycho - Dive
Tycho - Past is Prologue
Souls in Motion - Sensual Illusion
Spunkshine - And Yet It Moves
Near the Parenthesis - Cloud.Not Mountain
Near the Parenthesis - L'Eixample
Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline
Daft Punk - TRON: Legacy soundtrack
Daft Punk - TRON: Legacy Reconfigured sountrack


I'd appreciate any recommendations similar to the above, especially along the chill vibe (best example above being Tycho; also a song like "Sunset over Mooera (Chillout Mix)" by Illitheas). My favorite album on the above list is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack; there's something about Trent Reznor's music that resonates strongly with me.

Female Vocal Dubstep mixes from these guys: https://www.youtube.com/user/MixHound

Lots of Chill music from these guys: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHK...XWAKZnH2Xp5_Yw

And a bit more for good measure (Longer 2+ hour mixes): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBP...2bOYHxA5WdoWlg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8zlUUrFK-M

gl in vegas.

Have already listened to the first one while grinding a couple of practice MTTs on bovada, moving to second one shortly; good stuff, thanks!

This made me LOL pretty hard (inside joke). Please keep the inspiration of this link contained in Ohio for the next few weeks. Otherwise I'll be living something like this scenario: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfxzFCDGzj8 (awesome movie and an awesome score btw).

Arrived in Vegas safely. Decided that I'm not going to play the Colossus after WSOP announced that flights B & D would start an hour later and would include an additional level, ending around 3:30 AM. That was the final straw for me after already expecting a major headache. Not too disappointed not to be playing it.

Hadn't been planning on playing cash today given I thought I'd be waiting in line for most of the night at the Rio, but given my decision I did end up playing 1.5 hours of 5-5 PLO before the game broke. Made ~$700 in a soft game playing well to start the trip off nicely.

So OP won $10k in a tournament last night. Details to come later.

Well, that's a good way to work out your negative feelings towards tournaments.

On pins and needles. Nice work.

Very interested to hear the newest entry. Congrats on the score!

So far, this WSOP has gone phenomenally well. A big part of why I think that is that I have been following the plan I outlined previously closely and have been exercising every other day, eating well, meditating every day, and leaving time for balance while still grinding hard. So far, since arriving late Thursday night I've played 25.5 hours of tournaments and 6.5 hours of cash. I'm 3/3 in winning cash sessions (two PLO, one PLO8) and feel like I've played very well. As for tournaments, I'll get to that.

Deciding not to play the Colossus was a decision that I never would have made in previous years but I think ended up being an extremely good decision. There were a number of reasons I found myself ultimately deciding to forgo it: a) I didn't want to deal with a long registration wait time, b) I didn't want to wake up in advance of a 10 am flight given my sleep struggles on the road, which historically have been especially pronounced during the first few nights of a trip, c) I didn't want to play a later flight that ended past 3 am when I'm still on East Coast time and had scheduled an airbnb for Saturday night only, d) it had been awhile since I played a PLO tournament and I wanted to play the Venetian $600 PLO that started around the same time as Flight D (Saturday night), e) I wanted to take it somewhat easy the first couple of days and not immediately subject myself to something as crazy as the Colossus.

Deciding an hour or so after arrival on Thursday that I wouldn't play the Colossus, I bucked my original plan of not playing my first night (which was based off my assumption I'd be waiting two hours to register for the Colossus) and ended up playing 5-5 PLO at the Venetian. The game was quite soft and I made ~$700 in 1.5 hours. The session was only 1.5 hours because the game broke rather abruptly after the two biggest action players left. Suddenly, I was reminded of an annoying trend I observed last summer, where a WSOP cash game would be awesome for an hour and then get bad quickly with the result being half the table immediately wanting to leave for a better game. I decided to just go back to my hotel and rest rather than continue to play. To my pleasant surprise, I fell asleep right away and got a quality 7-8 hours of sleep, which has almost never happened for me on the first night of a trip.

On Friday, I hung out with my buddy, the tourney genius previously mentioned itt, during the early afternoon, and then I headed to Aria to play some 5-10 NL or 5-10 PLO w/o having checked bravo. Unfortunately, I had underestimated the impact the Colossus would have around town and by that point (~4 pm), the wait lists were crazy at every poker room on the strip. Rather than wait what seemed to likely be several hours for a seat, I headed to Wynn upon seeing that their bravo looked the most reasonable. After adding my name to a bunch of lists there, I was told to expect an hour wait. I decided to walk to Venetian for the exercise and to check out how the PLO and 5-10 NL games looked before heading back to Wynn. To my pleasant surprise, there was somehow open seating at 5-5 PLO despite every other list there being insane, and I decided I would just stay at Venetian and play that. The game was good, but and despite being pretty card dead I was able to make a little under $500 in about five hours. Again, upon returning to my room and going to bed, I enjoyed another quality night's sleep.

The next day, I headed to Venetian again with the plan of playing a few hours of cash and then playing the 5 PM PLO tournament. Again, the lists were nuts, and after an hour of waiting despite having put my name on six different lists it was 3 PM. During that hour, I took advantage of the opportunity to meditate and just sat at a machine in the poker room and tried to lose myself in the presence of the moment surrounding me, being a pretty effective short meditation session. Suddenly, I heard over the loudspeaker there was open seating on 5-5 PLO8, and I found myself having to choose whether to take advantage of the opportunity to play or to stick to my original plan of avoiding cash games in variants I don't have much experience in. I've played maybe two hours lifetime of PLO8 cash w/o any of that experience being in the last 18 months. I decided I'd go ahead and play.

I sat down with the intention of playing super tight and looking at the session as a learning experience, only sitting down with $700 when the average stack was ~$1500. After observing the first few hands, with people showing down vpip'd hands like KK76 and A6Q9, I felt a lot more comfortable. My first significant hand, someone button straddled for $10, both blinds called, someone flatted from MP, and I found myself with AA104ss in the CO. I decided to keep to the conservative plan and flat. The button checked his straddle. Flop A35r. Checked to me, I bet $35, only the BB calls. Turn 4x. BB immediately leads $90. I snap fold. Whether my line is standard I don't know, but upon contemplation it seems pretty reasonable to me. Flop I would think has to be standard when checked to me, turn fold also has to be standard, but pre flop could very well be a raising spot to thin the field and for value.

Half an hour later, I was fortunate to win my first big PLO8 pot. I don't remember the pre flop action, but I recall five people saw the flop for $25 and I was early to act with AA74s . Flop AQ3ss (I don't have any spades). Checked to me, I bet $110. Younger kid in LP flats. Turn 9x. I bet $300. Younger kid asks how much I have behind (~300), then shoves, I snap. River 4x. River seems less than ideal. I turn my hand over. Villain mucks. Sweet. Shortly after that, I leave to play the PLO tournament very pleased with the ~$500 profit in my 1.5 hour PLO8 session.

To be continued.

PLO Tournament, Day 1

It takes exactly the first two hands of the tournament before I feel even more pleased with my decision to play this $600 PLO tournament rather than the Colossus, with both hands involving an allin and a call on either the flop or turn despite the fact we're still relatively quite deep and stacks getting in with the hands getting shown down is nuts. The second hand is especially absurd. EP older player pots it, other player flats, BB tosses in what he thinks are calling chips but instead raises, clearly on accident, EP player immediately repots it, other dude folds, BB shrugs and calls. Flop 1096ccs, BB leads pot, EP immediately repots it, BB calls. BB has Q872. Wat (call pot raise pre twice??). EP has KJJTssxx no clubs. Huh. EP player ends up making a runner runner spade flush to double up two hands into the tourney and bust the BB.

Despite the table draw being pretty amazing, I'm pretty card dead and arrive at the first break with 12.5k from 15k ss. After that, I win a big pot, limp/raising with a junk AAxx utg for 40% of my stack against aforementioned EP players' pot raise (which got flatted by another player) who then repots allin, other playing folding, me snap calling. He has QQ77s and I hold and bust him, having slightly more chips. Shortly thereafter, my table breaks, but my second table is similarly good and I chip up to a decently above average stack.

Registration closes. There are 190 players, with $25.7k up top, the $30k guarantee having been smashed thanks to the people in town for the Colossus. I feel like I have as good a shot of anyone at winning this thing.

My third table isn't as good as the first two but is still pretty decent. I win a bunch of pots without showdown, pretty much never having that strong a hand but getting the right kinds of boards to apply pressure in position. I chip up to an above average stack playing solid small ball poker. With ~30% of the field left, I find myself in a weird spot. Utg 14bb stack limps (at this point open limping rather than open raising was still the norm in this tourney), it gets folded to CO, a 13bb shorty who pots it. I'm on the button with KKQ2ddxx. Deciding I'm probably ahead of CO's range, I isolate and minraise, ready to call CO's shove and get the blinds out of the pot while still being able to fold if either of their large stacks wakes up with AAxx. To my dismay, utg surprises me by shoving rather than folding, meaning a likely AAxx that maybe I should have foreseen. Then, CO snap tosses his remaining chips in. At this point, I'm priced in with any hand and I call immediately. Each player has AAxx single suited, and my diamonds are live. If I lose the pot, I still have close to an average stack, I brace myself for that possibility even though I actually have pretty decent equity three ways against the two AAxx hands. The dealer fans the flop. Three diamonds. I have a flush. The other two are drawing near dead. I hold. Shortly thereafter, I run a successful big bluffraise on the river against a very capped range to win a sizable pot. Between those hands I've chipped up to one of the biggest stacks.

An hour and a half later, we're down to ~18% of the field. Several players limp to me on the BB (3k). I check and am pleased to see the flop for free with a good hand, AQTT, no suits, with the Qc. Flop Tc9d5c. Gin. I check, knowing this board is so wet that between the four others someone is very likely to bet. It gets checked to the chipleader, a young Russian kid who's been the table captain since he sat down an orbit earlier and who a couple other players has told me has been playing extremely laggy. He bets 8k into 15k. The CO calls. Then, the BTN calls. I have a stack of ~85k. I raise the pot. UTG folds, it's back on the young Russian. He tanks for a minute, then slides a huge stack of 5k chips forward, the other two players fold fairly quickly, I snap call. I turn over my hand and he looks disgusted. He turns over 5567, bottom set with a gunshot to an 8. I'm a big favorite. I hold and now I have nearly 200k. Suddenly, I'm the chipleader.

With another hour left of play, I continue to apply a lot of small ball pressure and maintain my big stack. When Day 1 comes to a close, we have 23 players left, 21 get paid, and I have the second or third biggest stack.

I bag up thrilled with my play and luck in the tournament so far. Unquestionably, I ran well, winning my AAxx allin early on, possibly having made a mistake iso'ing KK on the button but then knocking out two shorties because of it, and generally getting a lot of great boards to apply pressure with air and near air, all of which get through. But I also played well, winning almost every hand I played post flop despite rarely flopping anything too strong, and picking up a couple good pots through blocker and range based bluff raises. I was also happy with my break routine, which consisted of going to the Walgreen's next door, buying an apple and a banana (and a salad during the dinner break), and keeping my energy directed towards my brain rather than digestion.

I've been in this situation entering a Day 2 before. As discussed recently itt, I've entered Day 2 of many tournaments in a solid position only to bust before the $ or to flame out somewhere in the middle of ITM. Most of these failures I blame on sleep deprivation issues and finding it difficult to play my A game. However, one of these tourneys I did play my A game and plain just didn't run well when it most mattered, being 4 handed at a Borgata PLO FT and then losing an 85%er for what would have been a massive chiplead then losing a flip the very next hand to bust. Bagging up remembering these experiences, I feel like I have a huge monkey on my back that I need to overcome.

There's an immediate hurdle that makes me think further of these past disappointments. Hotel rates for May 30 were nuts (like average $250, which I am too much of a life nit to pay), so I went ahead and booked an airbnb for the first time ever. Historically, I've really struggled sleeping before a Day 2, and I've really struggled sleeping in a new environment. I'm suddenly at the intersection of both issues. I arrive at the airbnb apartment at 4 am (after having already been assured by the hosts that this was fine after giving advance notice it was a possibility), and I'm full of adrenaline. The bed is nice, and the guest room I'm in feels comfy and like home, but I'm just too full of adrenaline to sleep. I get maybe 3 hours of sleep, and it doesn't feel like quality sleep.

I leave ready to play Day 2, tired but feeling good, feeling like this tournament might finally buck a two year trend of Day 2 disappointments.

PLO Tournament, Day 2

Restart isn't until 4 PM. I grab lunch with my friend, who's also getting ready to play a late start Day 2 (Colossus) and I feel relaxed and ready to crush despite the ****ty night of sleep. I'm comforted by the fact that I had the two solid nights of sleep preceding it, and I know I feel good.

I arrive in the poker room about 15 mins before the restart. I sit down at the same machine from my waitlist purgatory the other day and meditate again. I realize as I'm meditating that my heart is racing; I had a venti coffee from Starbucks while hanging with my buddy and had gotten a refill as well. Realizing the coffee isn't doing my rapid heart rate any favors, I throw it out with about half the cup remaining. The meditation makes me feel more relaxed.

Even though most of the dead $ players have busted, my table draw is pretty decent, with one exception. The Day 2 draw sheet got a stack size wrong, and it turns out the guy two to my right has 100k more than what the sheet had said to make him the table chipleader rather than me. Play starts, and I can tell quickly this guy is going to be a threat. He's raising almost every hand and rarely getting played back at. The guy to his direct right literally limps or minraises 7 times only to fold to this guy's raise 7/7 times. A few times, I reraise threatening villain semi-light (decently strong AQJ5ss type hands), and each time it gets through. The bubble takes forever to burst, but when it does I've chipped up from 195k to start the day to 260k and am still a top 3 stack. During bubble play I flopped well exactly once, in a hand I flopped the nut straight and end up chopping, and all of the chips I've accumulated have come from stealing pots pre or on the flop w/ a medium strength hand. I feel like I'm picking my spots immaculately, having shown down my hand exactly once, and every time I'm committing chips voluntarily to the pot having the desired outcome happening. I feel like I'm playing my A game and have a better sense of how other players are playing than they have of how I'm playing. The dynamics have become as relevant as the cards.

We're down to two tables now ITM and I continue to gradually build my stack, playing fairly tight but applying pressure that continues to get met with little resistance. There aren't any pots where I'm committing more than 30% of my chips, and people are giving me a lot of respect if I'm getting involved in a pot. Meanwhile, the guy two to my direct right earlier is now two to my direct left and knocking out players left and right, building a comfortable chiplead, playing well and now running even better, picking up several monsters that have held. Meanwhile, I'm not getting dealt much but my spot selection has been perfect, probably a form of rungood in and of itself as I seem to not be running into many monsters. The thorniest spot I find myself in, I bluff donk the turn w/ total air in a limped three way pot on my BB (other players being an MP player and the SB) when the flop got checked through on a JdTh5h8h, expecting both players to fold, only being surprised when the MP player calls turn. River Jx and I'm pretty certain he called the turn with a weak flush or possibly a straight; it's the kind of player type who would never call with J10 and is unlikely to have a set. He's also likely to not be able to place my range with much accuracy or think I'm capable of betting the turn with nothing. I go ahead and bet 2.5x my turn bet, and the guy immediately pounds the table in agony and exclaims "The board just had to pair!" He tanks for two minutes in a way that tells me he's going to fold. Finally, he mucks. The CL threat immediately says "Now would be a good time to show your bluff," but I continue to slide my cards into the muck. This dude is good.

It doesn't take long before I'm at the FT, which happens right as the dinner break comes. I've got the fourth biggest stack. I stick to my routine from the previous break and keep things low key, getting a salad next door rather than a heavy meal and listening to relaxing music.

FT play begins. I look around the table and with only a couple exceptions it's players I've identified as good throughout the tourney; this isn't going to be easy. I find myself meditating in little spurts, usually when the cards are being dealt out; this keeps me focused. #10 busts when he shoves a very short stack utg and it gets folded to me on my BB with JJ65ss. I have bananas but am in a good position to call needing only a little over 30% equity for a call to be profitable. I call and he actually has a premium hand, AKJ10ss, but I flop a flush and he's drawing dead. Absorbing his stack pushes me back up to a top 3 stack.

Play slows down a bit with a lot of raise and take its and 3bets which get through. I get AA a couple times and pot an open or an open + flat and it gets through both times. Suddenly, I have the second biggest stack, but it doesn't mean much in the face of the aforementioned threatening player, who's continued to chip up and who knocked out #s 9 and 8, now having a massive chiplead of 1.1 mil+ whereas I have 330k and the smallest stack left is 210k. With the blinds getting nuts, a pro with a stack just under mine suggests an ICM chop between the 7 remaining players. He says that at this point there's not much of a skill edge, with the average stack being 15bb, and a couple other players nod. I disagree with him about the extent to which it will continue to be skill versus luck (while agreeing luck will be extremely important), but I suspect I will get close to third place $ ($11k) and the idea of finally getting a five figure score is appealing, perhaps moreso than it should be given the situation. No one objects to at least running the numbers, and the tournament director pauses the clock.

I become the de facto leader of the negotiations and run the ICM #s and it comes out to the CL getting just under $18k. I would get $10,600 and change as the second most, just under third place $. Knowing he has some powerful leverage, the CL says he'll be willing to do a deal if he gets $20k. Though I'm thinking I would prefer to see another player knocked out, and I don't like the idea of giving up $350 of my ICM to the CL, everyone else clearly wants to chop and I can't deny the appeal of a guaranteed five figure score. We unanimously agree on a chop, and I get the second most $ with $10,250. The monkey is off my back. I'm extremely happy with my play and equally happy with my routines that helped put me in a position to play my best. I feel ready to play my best this summer and hope it's only the start of a huge summer.

congrats, nice work.

subscribing. Your hand 1 and hand 2 opens are fine unless the table's playing back at you a lot. congrats on the PLO score. I have the same leak of playing those small mixed tournies in the past, but now that I'm a rec player with a real job I'll prob play one or two per trip.

Congrats. Nice write up.

Thanks very much for the love and subs, all.

Played a very short 5-10 nl session at Venetian just now just to get fresh for the 6 Max tomorrow, the tournament I've most been looking forward to playing after last year's experience. Finished +$226 in a fairly boring hour and forty five minutes, game mediocre. It was good to get my first nl hands of the trip in. Gonna relax rest of night and hopefully crush 6 Max tomorrow.

Congratulations! Also, well done on managing your Las Vegas schedule (e.g. skipping the colossus).

Thanks, TJO!

Glad you are having a successful trip. I enjoyed reading the write up of your tournament chop, as well as your other posts.

Still in the 6 Max with bustouts flying, < 25% field remains. I'm at 30bb, hoping for some rungood.

Still in it with 17% field left but just got crippled down to 9k with blinds approaching 400-800-100. Going to need some allin luck.

Well, I just finished one of the most intense and epic days of poker I've ever had. I'll save the recap for later, but the day involved getting owned by a German wizard (and learning a major lesson about my growth as a poker player and person in the process), busting a big name pro, roller coasting between 6,900 and 32,000 the entire day, several times during the last three levels having my stack dwindle all the way down to 9k, and pulling off one of the ballsiest bluffs I've ever attempted. Oh, and bagging.

Yep, I head to another WSOP Day 2, and now that I've shed my five figure score monkey I'm looking to shed my trend of making Day 2 of a WSOP event and not finishing ITM; I think this is my fifth Day 2. I'm towards the bottom of the counts (though if the tournament ended right now I'd be ITM), but I'm feeling good and have a ton of confidence in my game right now. Though I admit I do care about cashing, I care more about making good decisions more and I have no intention of trying to fold into the $, regardless of my experience last year taking the same attitude and being the bubble boy or very close in this same tournament. I didn't come out here to mincash.

I may write more about this later, but today was a really good example of how many different forms running good and running bad can take. I was never dealt AA, wasn't dealt QQ, was never dealt KK after the first four levels, was dealt AK once and whiffed, I never hit a set, straight or flush (or at least a three card flush), I ran into several terrible rivers, and yet I survived, and I think it probably wouldn't be accurate to say I ran bad. For one, I won several allins, and was a rivered queen away from busting the tournament, during the later stages all of my shoves got through, none of which I really wanted to get called (so I ran good in villains not being dealt strong hands), and I only found myself in a couple really tricky spots (including the one against the wizard), neither of which ended up hurting me as much as it seemed it would at the time.

I can also say I've never made a note of so many hands played in a day in my life, having jotted down notes about close to twenty hands I played. The rush I get from playing short-handed poker can't be understated; I enjoy it tremendously compared to full ring and I also think I excel at it at a level greater than my full-ring game, at least in NLHE.

Anyways, I'm full of adrenaline, but I'm optimistic I'll get a good night's sleep despite my history outlined in this thread. Even if I don't, so be it. I'll play my best and make the most of whatever situation I find myself in. I do not plan on updating or responding in this thread until after my Day 2 experience is over. Thanks for reading.

Just caught up on this thread. Awesome to hear you're still crushing the 'local' game and doing well in Vegas.

It's fun to have some interest in the WSOP; I'm definitely rooting for you. Keep up the good work man.

Thanks a lot, Dody. I'd been lurking in your thread but never posted so as to not out myself as someone who played in the same room (and I continue to not want to identify by name my main room itt). FWIW, I admire the humble mindset you evidence in your thread of above all else seeking to grow your game. I think that mindset will take you far and help you improve at a rate faster than others whose egos make it difficult to perceive leaks in their game. GL on the grind.