POKER UPDATE:
Wednesday
On Wednesday, I played 2-5 nl for a couple of hours until a 5-10 PLO seat opened up. During those two hours, I observed a phenomenon that I've experienced before when logging the majority of my hours over a decent span of time in a single variant of poker (in this case, PLO): my nl instincts felt absent. I felt deprived of my ability to take advantage of the "sixth sense" that I've built over time with all of my experience and knowledge, the unconscious "flow" that I can feel underlying all of my highest level decision-making.
It was disturbing to know that I wasn't capable of playing my best, but, having dealt with this same situation several times over the last couple years and always finding my way back, I'm confident that it's a very short-term problem. The 2-5 session went decently well and I finished +$350. I think I played well, just not my best.
This "stream crossing" issue regarding my ability to play all games at my highest level is actually one of the reasons I like to put in at least a small amount of weekly volume on bovada. It helps keep me feel fresh in all of the three games that I consider myself especially skilled at (nl, plo, stud8). Since I've been playing so much live PLO over the last few weeks, I've barely played on bovada in an effort to maintain more of a life-poker balance.
5-10 PLO ended up going pretty well. The session started poorly when pretty quickly into it I lost $2k on a turn semibluff with 7643ss on a K52r10ss (not my suit) runout. I bet the flop and got called by two players, then I fired a big turn bet. I thought I had a decent chance of winning the pot on the turn as both of these villains consistently call flops too light. Unfortunately, the second villain showed up at the top of his range with bottom set, a top set blocker, and a turned flush draw, and he shoved on me. In retrospect, I probably should have checked the turn, as if I'm going to get called on that dry a flop then I have to be wary of villains being reluctant to fold on one of the wetter turns in the deck (villains can now pretty easily have top two, flush + straight draw, etc.).
Fortunately, after losing this hand, I basically ran over the table. With almost none of the better 5-10 regs still in the game, I loosened up and played every other hand, and even better I ran hot, ultimately turning $2k into close to $6k in three hours despite the table being pretty short-stacked (by the end my stack covered the rest of the table and more than tripled the next closest stack). I finished roughly +$2300 for the day.
Thursday
On Thursday, the 5-10 PLO main game was the worst game I've ever seen in two months, so I left after a few minutes to play 2-5 nl, where I thought my hourly would be higher, and to get back on the 5-10 plo waitlist for when a better must move would inevitably start up. 2-5 was very boring and I ended up losing ~$50 over an hour.
The 5-10 PLO must move was pretty juicy, and I actually think this is among the sessions I played my very best. Unfortunately, I lost the biggest pot I played (~$7k), even though I got it in as a big favorite. With AQ85ds on the button, I called my nemesis's (the guy who runs like god in allin pots against me) flop bet on a Q62r board, where I had two runner runner flush draws; another player, a short stack in the blinds, called.
Turn 8x, adding a flush draw that wasn't mine and giving me top two pair. Short stack checks, nemesis announces "pot," which was ~$850 (at this point in the hand I had ~$3100 remaining in my stack). Having watched this villain closely over the last few months, I decided there was a very good chance I had the best hand and I decided to shove to get value from his draws and worse made hands. Short stack folded, nemesis shrug-called and turned over 2567, for a worse two pair, an open ended straight draw, and no flush draw. We agreed to run it twice. First river 9x (straight for villain), second river 4x (straight for villain). I get scooped as probably a 75% favorite. Pretty standard against this guy.
Whereas two weeks ago I would have felt pretty angry about this hand, I felt relatively nonchalant, maybe because the last couple of weeks have gone so well. I shrugged off losing the big pot quickly and played as well as I have at any point during these games, picking off a fairly big bluff and making some good folds. I ultimately finished ~+650 in the PLO game.
2015 POKER UPDATE
So, things have gone extremely well this year, despite me running pretty significantly below EV in the largest allin pots I've played. At this point last year, I was mired in my biggest downswing ever and couldn't even show a profit for the year. The contrast presented by this year is pretty striking. I'm feeling pretty confident right now and am going to keep grinding hard while games stay this good.
Here's some data for the year:
2015 total YTD:
2015 plo/nl breakdown YTD:
Results since February 15 (heaterville):
Quote:
Originally Posted by palinca
Confirmed compliment. What about starting off with something more modest, like articles for an online magazine or something? Your poker journey is fairly atypical and there are a number of themes you could explore that would be of interest to the general poker public : mixed games/PLO as far as strat, surviving BF, transitionning from the "real world" to a succesful poker career, all the self-development stuff, sensory deprivation tanks, dog sitting, etc.!
I think if I want to start doing some legit poker writing then targeting a publication with low barriers to entry would be a good idea, but I'll have to do some more research to figure out what opportunities are out there and how I can establish credibility as someone who's unknown to most of the poker world. I do feel like I have some unique insights to lend and I appreciate your stating as much.