I am officially done with all of the bookings for this summer's WSOP. My current plan is to be out there for five weeks, with planned departure just prior to the Main Event. If the summer is going well, I'll extend my trip another week or two and play the Main Event.

Here are some things I plan on doing for WSOP preparation in advance of leaving for Vegas:
1) Make an extensive list of activities I can do on days where I need to take a break from poker. Playing on days when I shouldn't be playing has probably been my biggest leak every summer. I'm going to be grinding hard and it's possible I'll put in volume every day, but more likely than not there will be days where tilt or fatique would preclude me from playing my best, and I need to have a plan for how to spend those days off the felt.
2) Do at least five hours/week of off-the-felt study. I plan on reviewing tournament and mixed game literature as well as running some equity simulations. I might also subscribe to RIO and watch some tournament and mixed vids. I might also watch some of the voluminous free FT footage that exists on YouTube and elsewhere.
3) Shift my sleep schedule a little earlier so that it'll be easier for me to play the 11am events. I always prefer to show up for tournaments in time to get dealt the first hand.
4) Keep playing in this new local weekly 20-40 HORSE game (some talk of adding deuce next week!) to get my mixed game back up to snuff. So far, I'm the biggest winner overall over the first three sessions. Very pleased about that.

I've received some inquiries from people who would like to buy action (thanks again!). I'll definitely be selling some action but I'm still trying to figure out how I want to approach it. I will provide a headsup in this thread the moment I create any Marketplace threads.

I'll take max % of those events.

Same here

While playing 20-40 HORSE the other night, I was sweating a friend playing 30-60 O8 on bovada on his phone and I kind of got the itch to grind online again. With the WSOP coming up in just a couple weeks, I figured firing a bunch of tourneys on bovada would be a great way to shake off any rust in my tournament game. Got back on the site yesterday and I grinded bovadaments for eight hours. Had an absolute blast as well as some sweats.

Some interesting hands:

HH1, $162 $100k gty:
Blinds 125-250-25. Hero raises to 575 from MP with QsQh (6.9k). BTN calls. SB calls. BB calls (4.9k).

Flop 9c7h5s (2525). BB leads 1262. Hero calls. Everyone else folds.

Turn Tc (5049). BB shoves 3113 allin. Hero calls. BB has 9s7s for flopped top two pair.

River Ax. We lose. I like BB's line a lot and I think I probably would have played his hand the same.

I managed to run that crippled stack up into a near average stack but then busted AKcc < QQ with 28% of the field remaining.

HH2, $40 $30k gty 10k Chips 10 Min Levels:

Blinds 100-200. Hero raises to 555 from MP with AdKh (8.4k). CO flats (11.2k). BTN flats (31k).

Flop AsKs9h (1965). Hero bets 1050. CO calls. BTN folds.

Turn 9s (4065). Hero checks. CO bets 2032. Hero calls.

River 3h (8129). Hero checks. CO shoves 7563 allin (covering Hero). Hero calls.

Villain has A7cc and had been attempting to bluff me off a perceived chop. I win a huge pot.

After that pot, I gained a lot of momentum and built a top 5 stack. With ~30% field left, I lost a big pot AK <AJ aipf. Not long thereafter the following hand occurred:

HH3, same tourney:
Blinds 600-1200. Hero is on BB with Jh9s (26.7k). UTG+1 raises to 2.4k (25k). MP flats (39.6k). HJ calls (16.7k). Folded to me on BB. I call. Pot odds are too attractive to fold.

Flop JcJdQc (11,280). Hero checks. Everyone else checks.

Turn Ad (11,280). Hero leads 4300. UTG+1 folds. MP calls. HJ calls.

River 8h (24,180). Hero leads 8,700 (11k behind). MP shoves allin for 33k (covering Hero). HJ folds. Hero uses the time bank. Hero folds.

After that hand, a whirlwind of landing in some really good spots and playing patiently occurred and I went from < 10bb to chipleader in the span of 20 minutes.

With 80 players left, already halfway ITM, I was 3rd in chips. Sweat potential developing as this was one of the larger bovadaments with $7k up top. Suddenly, I'm dealt AA. A big pot develops as someone minraises and a 15bb stack shoves. I reshove. The 15bb stack has 99. If I win this pot, I'll be the chipleader. If I lose, I'll be back down to an average stack. Runout 873T...6. Ugh.

With 53 players left, I reshove 11bb w/ JJ on the BTN and lose to HJ's TT with a ten on the turn. Disappointing as I thought I put myself in an excellent position to make the FT after making a disciplined fold in HH3.

A few hours later, I played my favorite bovadament, the $40 6 Max. I was chipleader or at least top 3 in chips for a good two hour stretch. During H4H play, I lost a big pot aipf AKhh < AA and fell to an average stack. I ended up cashing a few spots into ITM, pretty disappointing.

All in all, I cashed 3/10 tournaments and had a great shot of FT'ing a couple, the $40 $30k gty and the $40 6 Max ($4k gty). I also finished in the top 33% of two others tourneys, including the $100k (basically bovada's sunday million).

It ended up being really good practice for the summer. It was also a huge amount of fun and a more intellectually stimulating experience than most of the poker I've played over the last few months. I'm looking forward to grinding some more bovadaments over the next couple of weeks.

In other news, I had a really good week results-wise last week, thanks mostly to a really nice Thursday-Friday stretch (all PLO, although I had won in NL and HORSE earlier in the week). The only downside of the week was Saturday's session, where I struggled focusing in boring 2-5 nl games, made a gigantic misread in a hand, and I ended up booking a decent loser. I'm not happy with myself for accepting less than my B+ game and am going to make sure it doesn't happen again b/c of boredom. Fortunately, thanks to the earlier part of the week I finished the week a big winner.

Ha, I'm feeling very flattered right now. I'm in a difficult spot as I've already made several promises to people irl or over PM that I won't let them get locked out of action. I may not sell initially on the MP at all given the amount of inquiries I've received off-thread. However, I'll make sure that a significant % is still available for at least you two (as well as another reg of this thread who I won't name w/o his permission who PM'd me).

I just spent some time reading posts from this thread during last year's WSOP. Before I write anything else, I just wanted to write a heartfelt thank you to everyone who offered support in here during that time last year. It meant a great deal to me and it still does. Given I think posting frequent and detailed updates about my WSOP experience was +EV in that it helped keep me mentally resilient and accountable to myself, I'm hoping to do the same thing this year and become more active in here than I've been recently.

My WSOP journey begins tomorrow. Right now, my current plan is to fire a lot of tournaments, while also grinding a decent amount of cash. As for cash, I'm planning on sticking to PLO, Big O, O8, and if I'm not too tilted by the Rio cash scene, Stud8. I'm entering the WSOP with a tournament-first mindset, but that could change depending on how things go. First slate of tournaments should include the Colossus, Goliath Million (might choose cash instead), $1500 HORSE, $1500 NL Six Max, and $1500 Eight Game Mix (probably the tourney I'm most excited to play this summer).

Over the last couple of weeks, I sacrificed some short term EV via the opportunity costs of not playing live poker and instead I played lots of bovadaments. Making thousands of tournament decisions proved really helpful in shaking the rust off my tournament game. I also discussed HHs galore with some of my most tournament-savvy friends, in addition to watching some twitch streams and televised FTs. I've also been brushing up on mixed game literature. I've put in a decent amount of off-the-felt work, and I expect it to pay off. I understand tournaments intellectually better than ever.

Life-wise, I was in a bit of a funk the last couple of weeks, in no small part because during that time I lost a decent chunk between live and online play and psychologically I really wanted to feel like I was entering the WSOP with total confidence. On bovada, I ran really awful, mostly in allins (I would love to see a graph), and in tournaments I somehow managed to lose w/ AA aipf for the chiplead several times, as friends who were sweating can attest. Live play, I also ran poorly. Fortunately, after a couple days simply not playing or thinking much about poker, I feel much better and I'm not sweating it, especially given results-wise it's still been a phenomenal year despite this little blip of runbad. A little adversity before the WSOP could end up being a good thing. Maybe I just got some due runbad out of the way.

I've been grinding Overwatch hard on my PS4 and am going to miss headset grinding sessions w/ friends, but I'll manage. Also, I was loving life as a bearded dude, but I decided to get rid of it yesterday and also got a pretty hardcore haircut, all in all removing my head of a huge portion of its hair. I'm in WSOP soldier mode. Maybe the beard will return post-WSOP!

I'm going to borrow this list from last year of things I will do to optimize my WSOP experience:

• Meditate every day.
• Exercise regularly.
• Make sure I have my own bottled water and snacks readily available, when possible.
• Make time to read, watch interesting TV, see shows, go off-strip, hang out with friends, etc. and not let my life be 100% consumed by poker, while still grinding hard.
• Be disciplined and smart about what cash games and tournaments I play and where I play.

Finally, if you spot me this summer, please say hi!

So tilted that I just bought overwatch for Xbox one instead of ps4.

QUICK UPDATE: Fired one bullet in the Colossus and busted. #lolturboments

The silver lining was that busting enabled me to head to the Venetian immediately post-Colossus for their $600 PLO, the same one that I chopped last year.

I ended up making day 2, restart in an hour and a half. $24k up top, 29 left, 18 will get paid.

So far I'm pleased with the quality of my play during this WSOP. I'm playing more focused than I was prior to departing for Vegas and I played very patiently yesterday during several long stretches of being card dead where I might have succumbed to boredom and played sub-optimally in the past. I'm putting a lot of effort into positive, focused, and patient play.

I would have liked to fire another bullet into the Colossus, but the weird 5 pm restart for this PLO event unfortunately precludes that.

Would love to ship this and get off to another hot WSOP start.

Damn, would have been fun! The toughest part of leaving home was leaving Overwatch behind. I was in a really nice groove and had progressed up to rank 35. My favorite heroes/most effective for my style atm are Torbjorn (defensively) and D.Va (offensively). Really fun game, especially playing w/ friends.

That's awesome man. Glgl. So far I'm loving tracer. Haven't been able to play with friends yet but definitely looking forward to getting a team going. Might pick it up for ps4 as well

Made the FT! Don't want to state my name in here but if anyone knows my name and wants to sweat, there should be updates on the Venetian poker blog.

..and busted pretty quickly after that post to fall well short of the $24.6k payday up top. Bummer. I don't have time to write much else, but I'll say I'm very satisfied with my play so far this WSOP. A little disappointed, but, for the most part, I'm pleased to have already FT'd a tourney this summer. Not sure if I'll be playing any tournaments before the $1500 HORSE coming up on Tuesday.

Tracer's great! Unfortunately, my style of play doesn't suit her very well, but people who play her well are complete nuisances. I play the most often as Torbjorn, D.VA, Soldier 76, Roadhog, and Bastion. Was starting to like Pharah a lot before I left. Symmetra and Lucio seem awesome but I've yet to play as either. There's no hero I'd rather see on my squad than Lucio (close second is Reinhardt).

Thanks for the good wishes.

Grats on back to back final tables in that event!

I'm still learning a ton about the game. Obviously don't get to experience the great team play aspects when playing on solo but I'm loving pharrah. Definitely need a Reinhardt and widow maker on most team compositions. Would love to play a few games when you get back.

I have been following the thread for a long time now and just wanted to chime in and wish you good luck. I was planning on heading out there for a couple weeks to jump in many of the similar tourney's but unfortunately had to sit this year out.

It has been great following this journey and I look forward to reading the updates.

~Adam

So far, so good. My WSOP has been going very well. Yesterday, I ended up playing two short sessions of PLO cash, winning pretty big the first one and then very small the second, but I also lost a couple hundred while playing in a 2-5 nl for 15 mins while waiting for a PLO seat. Ultimately finished ~+$2100 on the day.

In between the sessions I met up with bob_124 and a couple of his friends to watch game two of the NBA Finals. Had a lot of fun, or at least as much fun as I could have watching the Cavs get trounced!

Today is going to be another day of playing cash games, most likely PLO again. I have been a little tempted to hop in an $1100 satellite tonight into the $10k headsup (if I won, I wouldn't play the event but would instead use the lammers for the $1500s I'll be playing), but given the HORSE WSOP event starts at 11am tomorrow, there's a little too much risk the headsup satellite will go too late into the night for me to play it.

The rest of the week will be heavily slanted towards tournaments and features a lot of the tournaments I've been most looking forward to play. I plan on playing the $1500 HORSE (Tues), $1500 NL Six Max (Wed), $565 PLO (Thurs), and $1500 Eight Game Mix (Fri). I'm especially excited about the Eight Game Mix, as I've been wanting to play that tournament forever (it wasn't on the schedule last year). For anyone interested in buying action, thank you but this week's action is all accounted for as I had enough interest from friends and 2p2ers I didn't need to create a Marketplace thread. I will be playing 70% of myself in this week's $1500s. Thanks again to investors!

Thanks, xazel. Overwatch is an awesome format for exploitative strategy based on the opposing squad villain composition, the map and objectives, and which heroes are on your own squad. Love it!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention above I've also played a lot as Junkrat. He can be an absolute menace on some of the maps, especially on defense.

Thanks, Adam, that's very kind of you. It always makes me feel good when 2p2ers pop in and let me know they've been enjoying the thread and are supporting me. Hope you get a chance one of these summers to take a trip out here.

Today ended up featuring some torrential runbad. This post is going to be as negative and whiny as they come from me, but I feel a bit of a need to vent and get some frustration out of my system before starting up a big week of tournaments. My hope is I contain all of today's negativity in this post ghostbusters-style and enter tomorrow with a fresh, positive mindset and laugh at today's various manifestations of runbad.

Feel free to skip this post if you'd rather not indulge my rant (which is totally understandable).

The following events happened today, in chronological order:

-(morning) I'm enjoying my soundest sleep of the trip so far. In the middle of a deep slumber, about an hour and a half before I planned on waking up, maid starts pounding on the door: "Housekeeping!!!" An hour later, I discover that my do not disturb hotel sign had been removed, probably by some unscrupulous other hotel patron who needed one and was too lazy to call housekeeping.

-(afternoon session) I lose a four way aipf with the only AA hand in a 2-5-10 PLO game for a $5200 pot. Everyone else in the hand had played their hands pretty terribly but I don't say a word. As the main pot is being shipped to the guy who stuck in a zillion preflop with 6644ss I can't help but think of last summer when I ran extraordinarily below EV in aipfs involving me getting it in with AA. Guy to my left then insists on telling me repeatedly over the next orbit of hands in a lengthy post-mortem that I "should have folded" (reminder: the action was all preflop), this after he had won a sizable sidepot w/ AQJT making two pair against me on the river. I'm never really able to tell what his argument is (it's not even that someone else could have AA). I would have been +$4k for the session if my hand had held. I end up losing $1,200 for the session.

-(in between sessions) I head to the hotel fitness center to work out. All the treadmills are broken.

-(evening session, now 5-5 PLO) In a $2k pot villain check-calls my turn shove where he's drawing dead a huge % of the time against my range but happens to be live and we chop RIT.

-(evening session) I see a flop for $105 five ways w/ KKQJ. Flop AT9r. Second to act, I bet $400.

Guy to my left is an older guy sitting on his last $300. An orbit earlier, someone had insta-folded on the flop instead of checking or betting in a headsup pot out of position against him and the older guy immediately said the guy should be "banned" (wat). This guy then makes the dealer call the floor to ask whether it's permissible for a player to elect to fold before he has an opportunity to act. This is all after the guy had won a decent sized pot off the poor guy. This whole situation eats up two minutes of time without us playing a hand where everyone else at the table is asking the guy to please stop wasting our time.

After I bet $400, this guy tanks over two minutes. A couple other players start groaning at the length of time the guy is taking. Finally, he calls. Everyone else folds. We agree to RIT. I don't know what he has. The first runout comes: 2x7x. I don't improve. The second runout: 2xAx. I turn over my hand immediately expecting to get no piece of the pot.

Villain examines my hand for a few seconds. He then asks the dealer "what does he have?" "A pair of kings," the dealer tells him. The guy peeks at his hand again. Then he takes another few seconds to stare at my hand. He stands up, randomly. Finally, he turns over A955 for a flopped two pair and the slowroll.

-(evening session) The board on the turn is Q64rJhh with ~$500 in the pot, five players. After the flop had been checked, a player leads $175 into $500, another player calls, and I shove $920 on the BTN with my turned set of jacks. The first bettor folds, second bettor tanks a long while then calls and says he only wants to run it once. River Tx. Villain doesn't want to turn his hand over even though I'm pretty sure the house rule is he's the first to show per position. I start to think I might be good despite the less than ideal river. I show my set of jacks. Villain then turns over KT99 bare wrap for the rivered second nuts. If I had won that pot, I would have been +$1600 on the session.

-I ask the dealer to hold my seat, deciding I'm going to walk a few minutes, decompress after a frustrating day, and buy a smoothie then rebuy. The smoothie place is open, but in a particularly weird form of runbad, no employee is there. I leave after a few minutes of waiting and no one ever showing up.

-(evening session) I return to the table and rebuy $1300. A cocktail waitress approaches the table to take orders. I ask for a green tea. She takes my order as well as a bunch of others.

Ten minutes later, the waitress comes with a full tray of drinks. No green tea. I remind her about it and she says she forgot and she'll bring me one.

-(evening session) An orbit after my rebuy, I raise/call an LP raise. I c/c the flop then c/f the turn. Drunk guy villain (not any of the players mentioned above) turns over a complete bluff and throws the cards towards me. I had zero kind of any dynamic with this guy and hadn't said a cross word to him or to anyone else despite running so far below EV. I didn't really care about losing a small pot, but being kicked for no reason when I was down felt pretty ****ty.

Right after that hand, the same waitress comes up to the table and asks anyone if they would like a drink. There's no green tea on the tray.

Despite the game probably being the best or second best cash game I've played in during this WSOP, I rack up and leave, recognizing that I'm tilted, stuck $1300 for the session.

End grumpy rant. 'Twas a lousy day that very much fit the mold of my WSOP experience come mid-June last year where I consistently played in amazing PLO games and consistently ran terribly. The silver living is I made a good quit and didn't let growing tilt threaten to make a losing day even worse. That happened a few times last year.

Tomorrow is a new day. Hopefully a better one!

^^^ GL GL on the next one.

Now that is a brutal day but ultimately, after you start playing in these tourneys and feeling good again, you will read this one again and just crack up.

As great as these threads are for motivation, teaching, etc, it is cathartic and a good outlet to write the chapter and move on.

FWIW, in the past when i have had terrible run bad and the stars aren't aligning, I sometimes find the softest game I can enter, don't care about the stakes and just relax a bit. Whether I win or lose, it almost doesn't matter. I have found that my mind is almost able to reset, remember why I am playing and then get back on the horse.

I Know the schedule out there is crazy but just my two cents. GL today.

"Right after that hand, the same waitress comes up to the table and asks anyone if they would like a drink. There's no green tea on the tray."

I lol'd.

Me: "Miss? If you do want to bring out that green tea at some point, just go ahead and dump it in that guy's lap for me. Yeah, that guy, the one who's so proud of his bluff. Thanks."

Yea f that slowrolling douche.

Thanks for all the support, guys. I'm already laughing at all of yesterday's misfortunes. Things just went comically wrong.

Fortunately, today has gone better. After nursing a stack on life support for a decent stretch, I managed to spin up a respectable stack in the $1500 HORSE in the final ten minutes before the dinner break thanks to a couple big LHE pots. Currently sitting on 6900 from 7500 starting stack at dinner break. Table has been fun. Had James Woods to my direct left and I was wowed by him. Super nice, entertaining, humble, and fun. Unfortunately he busted about an hour before dinner. Also got Josh Beckley and Bart Hanson at the table. I got sucked out on pretty hard in an o8 pot by JJT8hh where I had AJ24 and had 3bet my BTN after an open and a flat; board runout Ah5hAx5x...7h on the river for a chop where a scoop would have put me decently above a starting stack.

Anyways, I'm just thrilled to have made dinner given I think I've run decently below average so far this tournament. Hoping for a strong finish and then entry into Day 2.

Busted w/ about half the field remaining. My table, which I had gotten very comfortable at and I thought had turned into one of the better table draws, broke about half an hour past dinner and I got moved to a new one where I didn't recognize anyone.

At my new table, I immediately lost a giant razz pot with (24)8JT3 against an ultra stubborn player's (xx)22J9. I bet and got called down on every street. On seventh, I paired the jack and he improved to a 9 low. Brutal. Admittedly, I had a brain fart and bet seventh when I shouldn't have. For some reason, the thought arose in my head during 6th street that he was drawing dead and I realized only as I was throwing out the bet that I could still lose. Stupid on my part and the only real mistake I made all tournament.

After that, I ended up getting it in (my stack whittled down to 3.2k to start), still during the razz round, with (24)A5 to start against a guy who ended up making a 6 low (I ended up with a 7 low).

All in all, other than the one mistake, I thought I played well and I felt like I had a big edge on the field. Pretty disappointed that I couldn't have run a little better, but all I can do is play my best and hope luck cooperates.

Looking forward to the 6 Max NL tomorrow!

My forecast is that you will reap the value of post #565 over time. Love the way you objectify all the toxic run-band. I recall not receiving green tea during at the RIO on more than one occasion. Anyway, smart decisions shall remain smart decisions (like ordering green tea in the first place)---all the best with rest of the series!

Thanks very much, TJO. Always a pleasure to see you post in here.

UPDATE: The last couple of days have been lousy.

Wednesday, I hopped in the $1500 Six Max and it was the most wild first two hour stretch of a live tournament that I've ever played. I’m too tired to do justice to the act of fully recreating that tournament experience, so here is the abbreviated version:

I look around. My table is amazing. Seat 1 is a quirky, restless early-30s dude who seems like a loose cannon. Seat 2 is a super lag late-30s rec player who doesn’t ever fold postflop and tries to win every hand. Seat 3 is me. Seat 4 is a humble older gentleman who has some kind of poker starting hand chart in front of him that he’s constantly taking notes on. Seat 5 is an older French guy who seems decent. His wife is standing directly behind me on the rail and I’m not thrilled about it but never end up saying anything. Seat 6 is unoccupied for a long time.

Lots of crazy hands occur the first couple of levels. Many involving me. Here are just a few of them:

HH1: Blinds 25-50. Seat 1 4x opens the BTN to 200 (5.9k stack). Earlier I noticed he had 4x’d from the BTN w/ 56o, so I thought his range was very wide and didn’t read much into the sizing. I call w/ JsTx (7.1k stack).

Flop QsJx9s (425). I check. BTN bets 500 for an over-the-pot bet (on a related note, jumbo-sized bets were the norm at this table). I recall an earlier hand history: 15 mins earlier he had bet full pot on the flop in another headsup pot with me from his BTN on a 875cc board w/ 56o. I call.

Turn 5s (1325). I check. BTN snap checks. Villain could not have checked faster.

River Jx (1325). Trip jacks! Gin. This villain seems like the type who might be induced to raise a bet he perceives as weak. I decide to bet 600 and try to induce a spaz; in the alternative, if he actually has a hand he'll call with a queen or a hand like pocket tens or maybe even lower pairs and I’ll win a decent sized pot.

I bet 600. Immediately, villain shoves allin for 5.2k. Uh, I got the raise I wanted, but I didn't want that raise. This is exactly the kind of villain I think is capable of making a bluff like this. In the hand I mentioned earlier, he had bet full pot again, no clubs in his hand, w/ 56 on 875ccKccc after I c/c his flop pot bet (I folded the turn, and then he showed his hand).

I tank for a couple minutes and try to reason through my best option. If I call and he has me beat, I’m crippled. But, his line doesn’t make much sense. It seems unlikely I could show up w/ too strong a hand, so why would he go allin? And then the fact that he went allin immediately on the river after snap checking the turn; what does that mean? It just seems bizarre to me. I can’t get inside his head. I can’t figure out what’s going on.

Ultimately, I decide to fold. The risk is too great and I don’t have enough history with this guy to feel comfortable calling. I toss my cards in. Seat 2 immediately tells Seat 1 “show the bluff; it’s good for the game.” Seat 1 seems offended by this remark. He snap turns over QQ for queens full. Whew.

HH2: Blinds 50-100. Seat 2 opens to 250 on the BTN (11k). I reraise to 750 with KK in the SB (5.1k). BB Seat 4 calls.

Flop AQJr (2250). I bet 1050. Seat 4 folds. Seat 2 calls. Some history: Seat 2 had played almost every hand. From his showdowns, it was clear he never folded a pair even if it was clear he was up against a strong range. An earlier hand, he had called down two full sized pots on the flop and turn by the French guy in a 3bet pot (French guy 3better) on A98dd3d with QdJx.

Turn 5x (4350). I check. Villain quickly takes a huge stack of 1k chips and plops them in the middle of the table, committing me allin. Having paid careful attention to this guy, I feel almost immediately it’s a bluff and he’s trying to get me to fold a hand exactly like what I have. I call for my last 3.3k pretty quickly, having a strength of intuition I didn't have in HH1 and feeling like I know this villain's tendencies better than I knew Seat 1's in HH1.

Villain turns over Q8o, confirming my suspicions. I have him in bad shape. The river rolls off a brick and I double up. I do something I haven’t done in probably over a year and clap my hands a bit then feel kind of sheepish and apologize to villain, saying I had just gotten a bit excited. He says “Whatever, you’re good, but that was a horrible call.” Alright dude.

HH3: 50-100. Seat 1 limps. Seat 2 raises to 300. I reraise to 850 with AhKx on the BTN (7.5k). Only Seat 2 calls (covers me by decent amount).

Flop K52hh (1950). Seat 2 checks. I bet 900. Seat raises to 2300. I tank for awhile then call and decide I’m probably going with this hand no matter what given my player profile on this guy.

Turn 3x (~6.5k). Seat 2 shoves allin, covering me. I call.

Seat 2 has A7o, a complete bluff. He’s drawing dead. This time he says “That call was ok. The other one was bad.”

I’m sitting on double the starting stack now before the first break. I cashed this tournament last year and the year before that I was the stone bubble (the thought crosses my mind I would have cashed w/ this new payout structure). This year I have already made two big hero calls for my tournament life and I was right both times. I also made a big fold that was right. My friend had a dream I won this tournament. I’m feeling good. Maybe this is the one.

An hour and a half later, I’m out of the tournament and feel completely demoralized and tilted. Cliffs: New guy to my left (replacing starting hands chart man), a friendly maybe early-30s rec player, ran like baby jesus and almost single-handedly took me out of the tournament. That being said, I also made at least one mistake and went for too ambitious a bluff early in level 3, which ended up being a hand I never recovered from mentally.

Here’s the quick HH of that hand, which I’ve been looking to get out of my system for two days now:

HH4: 75-150 I open the BTN QcJx. Both blinds call, including this new Seat 4 in SB. Seat 4 and I each have over 12k. Flop 965ccc. SB/Seat 4 donk leads 600 into 1050, which he had been doing a lot and I noticed he did once with bare ace hi (but on a dry texture). BB calls. Normally, I fold here. I tank for awhile and am about to slide my cards into the muck. Then I start to change my mind. Eff it, I’m going to win this pot. I decide to raise and quickly get a feel for whether any of the blinds has a hand. At worst, I think, I’m up against the Ac. I raise to 1400 expecting at least one caller but then expect to win the pot if a blank falls on the turn, a kind of line I used to take somewhat frequently in hu sngs. Both players call.

Turn Tx to add an oesd and what I’m pretty sure is more outs. Both blinds check. I bet 3100. SB calls quickly. BB folds. This isn’t good. I start to wonder based on the speed with which SB calls if he has the Ac. It’s consistent with what I think his donk leading range is.

River 3c. Either my salvation, or the worst card in the deck. SB starts cutting out a huge bet. Uhoh, that’s not good. Finally he fires out 4700. I’m 100% sure he has the Ac. I tank so as not to betray the actual strength of my line (ie, until the river, not much). I fold. He shows the Ac.

Immediately, I’m angry with myself for taking such a risky and weird and very likely bad line. The flop, I should have folded. If I was going to raise, maybe I should have raised larger? The turn, I could have checked after having picked up additional outs against SB’s perceived range. Alternatively, I could have bet larger and maybe forced the Ac out. Complicating the analysis is the fact that pretty much the situation I thought was going on WAS going on and I was basically betting against Seat 4 hitting the nut flush (which after the turn will only happen ~16% of the time). Whether I would have actually fired off that third barrell if a blank rolled off, I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty confident I would have. So, it’s weird to evaluate how big of a mistake the line was when it’s going to most likely work the 84% of rivers where the club doesn’t roll off, assuming villain checks every other kind of river.

I’m still baffled by why I played the hand the way I did. Was my foray into FPS caused by some momentary overconfidence tilt? Some annoyance that Seat 4 kept donk leading (something which I happen to do a ton myself)? Mental fatigue catching up to me after low-quality sleep over several nights and having woken up feeling kind of crappy? It’s hard to say, especially when I'm still feeling pretty mentally foggy.

Anyways, after that hand, Seat 4 godmoded and hit set after set after trips after straight etc. against me and the rest of the table, and I got stuck losing a bunch w/ pretty strong second best hands. played fine for the most part but probably fell short of my A game. Mentally, I had lost my confidence in myself after the QJ spew.

AND, damn, I had intended to type maybe ¼ of that, but I couldn’t help myself after reviewing my notes. The amazing thing is, I could write a huge amount more about my three hours in that tournament, as there were all kinds of interesting hands and those are only a handful of over a dozen of them.

So here are the cliffs of everything that has happened since busting that tournament:
-As I exited the 6 Max I felt really exhausted and tilted. Drove around, stopped at Starbucks for a bit, and felt like I could barely think but I also found myself resistant to the idea of doing any of the things on my non-poker activity list I prepared to help maintain balance. Found myself at the Rio looking to play some fixed limit cash. Played 20-40 O8 w/ a 30-60 kill. Made $100 and played well in 15 mins before I got called for 50-100 stud8. Left to play stud8, which I had no business doing given my mental state. Played decently enough, ran like god at a tough table, and made $2100 in a short session. Met up with friend for dinner and to watch the Cavs. Came back to the Rio during the second half. My mental state officially caught up to me and I played some pretty bad O8 (20/40 WHK again), playing too loose/stationy, and lost ~$500. Felt terrible mentally as I was leaving, quite mentally foggy, feeling tired but not sleepy tired. Decided to see a movie around 9 and went to see X-Men. It kind of sucked, but it got the job done and distracted me a bit from poker; I felt a little better mentally after watching it.

-Today, I woke up after one one of my better nights of sleep out here and I played the $565 PLO. Lost 45% of my stack the second level w/ turned top set of aces and a 9 hi flush draw where the nuts was broadway after I called a 90% pot bet on the turn, didn’t improve, and folded to a normal sized river bet. Busted about 20 mins before the close of registration and chose not to fire another bullet given my lack of enthusiasm about the turbo structure. Met up with friends for dinner at China Mama off-strip. Had a good time.

Headed to the Venetian to play 5-5 PLO. Started to feel mentally exhausted again but played decently, although probably my B game. Didn’t matter much as I was insanely card dead, most significantly whiffing completely in several bloated pots w/ a lot of KK86ss type hands (all played in position). Ended up in a three way aipf for $750 apiece where I was pretty sure both opponents had AA hands and I had KQJ9hh. They indeed both had AA. I did not win as a slight favorite, making it about the millionth aipf PLO hand I’ve lost at Venetian over the last two summers. My allin EV graph would be legendary if it exists. Could I have mucked the KQJ9hh after investing $70 where it was clear at least one villain had AA? Sure, but I felt like taking a marginal spot and tripling up or going home, announcing it was my last hand no matter what happened. Ended up losing $1300 for the session.

So that’s where things are at right now. I’m stuck ~$2k on poker for the trip after a week here, which isn’t bad at all considering I’ve now bricked four WSOP tourneys (two $565, two $1500s, $1500s at 70% of myself) and have run hideously below EV in allin PLO pots, just like last summer out here.

I’ve gone from feeling mentally sharp and confident to mentally foggy and pretty unconfident. The illogical part of my brain that feels cursed out here is surfacing again. Writing this all out has helped me feel better about everything, however, and realize I just haven’t run that great this summer. If I quantified where I would be if I had run at expectation in allin PLO pots, I’d probably be up at least $5k for the week. I can hardly say I've run horribly, though, FT'ing the PLO tournament immediately and also running like god in a 50-100 stud8 session I probably shouldn't have been playing in the first place.

Fortunately, I'll finally be able to sleep in a bit tomorrow instead of having to wake up for another 11am tournament (brutal change by the WSOP, for me at least). That should help greatly getting me back to my mental A game, which has been harmed primarily I think by lack of quality sleep and not by too much poker. I’m either going to play the 8 Game Mix tournament tomorrow (3 pm) or skip it and play cash. As I’ve been saying for some time now, this is the tournament I’ve most been looking forward to playing this summer, so I’ll be sad if I miss it. If I skip it, I’ll play the Millionaire Maker on Saturday.

Feel like I'm adopting a somewhat vicarious, even paternalistic, viewpoint here, but was kind of taken aback by the above, irrespective of how much I can empathise with the situation. But, I guess it's reassuring that you have the "non-poker activity" list as a reference point or what is effectively a (very useful) regulating device. The mini-narrative of your 6 Max experience does, in the end, have a pleasing arc, however, with you having dinner with friends, watching the basketball, seeing a movie, etc. I know how reflective and analytical you are about your own psychological disposition---and how experienced you are at managing the emotional swings of poker---so have much confidence in your ability to stay on track and cash in more than a few events!