Fighting out of the Downswing// $250k Year Live Pokers in Mexico
12-31-2019
, 08:13 PM
Quote:
Guys who are in Mexico, I want to relax in a good place on the beach and play poker and roulette, but I'm not interested in small bets, would like poker at least 2/5, please advise where I can do it, in which city? You can in a private message. Author, your blog is very cool, I can see that you are a pro. I play for fun, lose more often, but I like your doing your business!
I think all Mexican casinos have roulette and I don't know many roulette pros so that might be your niche
GLCheers!
01-01-2020
, 11:58 PM
I'm sitting here writing this in the airport on the last flight out of town into Los Angeles. My buddy and I are going to LA for a week or so to grind some cash and fire a bullet or two in the WPT 1million $500 at the Gardens.
I am insanely hungover and already regretting flying out today but here we are. Last night was quite fun, 15 of us rented a boat and went out on the bay to watch the fireworks from the water. Cabo has a pretty epic fireworks show, every hotel for about a 5 mile stretch all shoot off their fireworks in a cordinated show. I ll post a picture but it doesn't really do it justice. Both of the kids made it to midnight and then passed out in one of the bedrooms below and we kept cruising around til 3 drinking wine and whiskeys. Pretty epic night but I am paying for it today.
Sitting here downing a coffee and trying not to puke
[IMG]
[/IMG]
Month in Review:
December 2019
The Good
Poker
-The first “normal” results month since I started this PGC. Almost 16k winner on the month without any huge sessions, just steady and straightforward throughout the whole month. In 2016/17/18 this is what I had become accustomed to. Then this year I had some of the biggest losing sessions/months of my career (in the games here in Mexico). I will address why in a later post.
[IMG]
[/IMG]
-Despite not thinking it was possible I actually got to the 160 hour mark in a month where I had a lot of other commitments. My take away from that was that I probably need to be dedicating 5-10 nights a month planned ahead of time, to fun activities and things to do. Taking 24-48 hour mental breaks like I did this month made me hungry to play and play at my absolute most focused. I put in a ton of long sessions without any guilt because I had spent a lot of time with family and friends throughout the month.
[IMG]
[/IMG]
-I also game selected better, there were 3 nights where I started playing somewhere else and after a few hours and texts to players in another game I picked up and moved locations. That is something I didn’t do in the past but I am going to focus on moving forward. It is possible to really maximize EV as far as game conditions go. As more games pop up and poker becomes more popular here I anticipate this being something that I can take more advantage of. The player pool is very small where I live but it seems to be growing and there are some new games sprouting that seem like they will have some longevity, which is great news. On the month I played 25 sessions over 22 days of actually playing.
Finance
-I was able to pay down some much needed debt and am feeling a bit more on track with finances. But I still have quite a bit of debt to clear off the books in the coming months. Outstanding debt hanging over me creates anxiety unlike anything else in my life. Paying off everything I owe will be my biggest goal moving into 2020.
Business
-Coming out of our most productive December ever I feel quite content on this front. The increase has to do with a pretty significant nightly rate + occupancy increase. This has to do with me listing our rentals on new platforms the last few months (Booking.com/ Trip Advisor/ Expedia and Flipkey) in addition to our staples (Airbnb + VRBO/Homeaway). Also the destination has seen an increase in tourism which is always good but is something outside of my control and not something that I build into my models so when it comes its a nice little bit of rungood.
The Bad
Poker
Possibly getting cheated.
-Looking back at the month I will probably be cutting out one home game in particular.
-The guy who runs the game often plays in it and literally NEVER loses despite being a losing player everywhere else I have played with him. It has gotten to the point where I was exploitatively folding in HU pots against him in spots where I would never fold if we were playing somewhere else. Whether those decisions are founded in fact or just in my biases after getting run over in the game (over an admittedly small sample of <150 hours), when it gets to that point I should probably just find other spots.
-In December I was +23k in all other games and -7k in this home game despite playing roughly the same stakes and almost identical player pool. YTD in 2019 my hourly was $42 less in that game then the next lowest hourly game I played again with identical environments.
-I have seen the dealers snagging extra rake out of pots frequently which is unfortunately standard in these games. That doesn’t bother me tremendously and while it obviously affects win rate not to the point where I am making $21 dollars an hour in a very soft game.
-It more has to do with the ridiculous coolers to the same 3 people over and over and over again. The dealers are also not dealing anywhere else, only this game and were unknown to me prior to starting in this home game. This is also rare, generally all the games share the same dealers at some point because there are not that many competent dealers in this town.
-It is a two deck game, with one being shuffled while the action is taking place, and I have begun watching very closely for anything strange but have never really found it. I am aware that this is most likely just negative variance in one particular spot but once that idea creeps into your head its hard to measure it with reason so I will most likely just take my action elsewhere.
-I am not really that aware of cheating methods so this is all complete speculation but if this is something that is tilting me/affecting how I play I think its probably worth it to just stop playing here.
Apps/Clubs
-Poker apps are becoming more common down here as well.
-I really hope this doesn’t take $ out of the live games for a multitude of reasons.
If anyone has insight into the best (from a rake/game integrity/bot/ player experience perspective) I would be happy to hear it. If this is going to be where some games go I would at least like to steer it towards a fairer environment.
I am going to end this here and do a 2020/ what I learned from 2019 post next time to keep them short(er) and readable and try to sleep on this flight.
December Stats
161 live hours
$15,902
$98/hour
Challenge Stats: October 1- December 31st, 2019
Live: -$8,749
Online:$3,602
Total: -$5147
Live Hours: 415
GLGL!
I am insanely hungover and already regretting flying out today but here we are. Last night was quite fun, 15 of us rented a boat and went out on the bay to watch the fireworks from the water. Cabo has a pretty epic fireworks show, every hotel for about a 5 mile stretch all shoot off their fireworks in a cordinated show. I ll post a picture but it doesn't really do it justice. Both of the kids made it to midnight and then passed out in one of the bedrooms below and we kept cruising around til 3 drinking wine and whiskeys. Pretty epic night but I am paying for it today.
Sitting here downing a coffee and trying not to puke
[IMG]
[/IMG]Month in Review:
December 2019
The Good
Poker
-The first “normal” results month since I started this PGC. Almost 16k winner on the month without any huge sessions, just steady and straightforward throughout the whole month. In 2016/17/18 this is what I had become accustomed to. Then this year I had some of the biggest losing sessions/months of my career (in the games here in Mexico). I will address why in a later post.
[IMG]
[/IMG]-Despite not thinking it was possible I actually got to the 160 hour mark in a month where I had a lot of other commitments. My take away from that was that I probably need to be dedicating 5-10 nights a month planned ahead of time, to fun activities and things to do. Taking 24-48 hour mental breaks like I did this month made me hungry to play and play at my absolute most focused. I put in a ton of long sessions without any guilt because I had spent a lot of time with family and friends throughout the month.
[IMG]
[/IMG]-I also game selected better, there were 3 nights where I started playing somewhere else and after a few hours and texts to players in another game I picked up and moved locations. That is something I didn’t do in the past but I am going to focus on moving forward. It is possible to really maximize EV as far as game conditions go. As more games pop up and poker becomes more popular here I anticipate this being something that I can take more advantage of. The player pool is very small where I live but it seems to be growing and there are some new games sprouting that seem like they will have some longevity, which is great news. On the month I played 25 sessions over 22 days of actually playing.
Finance
-I was able to pay down some much needed debt and am feeling a bit more on track with finances. But I still have quite a bit of debt to clear off the books in the coming months. Outstanding debt hanging over me creates anxiety unlike anything else in my life. Paying off everything I owe will be my biggest goal moving into 2020.
Business
-Coming out of our most productive December ever I feel quite content on this front. The increase has to do with a pretty significant nightly rate + occupancy increase. This has to do with me listing our rentals on new platforms the last few months (Booking.com/ Trip Advisor/ Expedia and Flipkey) in addition to our staples (Airbnb + VRBO/Homeaway). Also the destination has seen an increase in tourism which is always good but is something outside of my control and not something that I build into my models so when it comes its a nice little bit of rungood.
The Bad
Poker
Possibly getting cheated.
-Looking back at the month I will probably be cutting out one home game in particular.
-The guy who runs the game often plays in it and literally NEVER loses despite being a losing player everywhere else I have played with him. It has gotten to the point where I was exploitatively folding in HU pots against him in spots where I would never fold if we were playing somewhere else. Whether those decisions are founded in fact or just in my biases after getting run over in the game (over an admittedly small sample of <150 hours), when it gets to that point I should probably just find other spots.
-In December I was +23k in all other games and -7k in this home game despite playing roughly the same stakes and almost identical player pool. YTD in 2019 my hourly was $42 less in that game then the next lowest hourly game I played again with identical environments.
-I have seen the dealers snagging extra rake out of pots frequently which is unfortunately standard in these games. That doesn’t bother me tremendously and while it obviously affects win rate not to the point where I am making $21 dollars an hour in a very soft game.
-It more has to do with the ridiculous coolers to the same 3 people over and over and over again. The dealers are also not dealing anywhere else, only this game and were unknown to me prior to starting in this home game. This is also rare, generally all the games share the same dealers at some point because there are not that many competent dealers in this town.
-It is a two deck game, with one being shuffled while the action is taking place, and I have begun watching very closely for anything strange but have never really found it. I am aware that this is most likely just negative variance in one particular spot but once that idea creeps into your head its hard to measure it with reason so I will most likely just take my action elsewhere.
-I am not really that aware of cheating methods so this is all complete speculation but if this is something that is tilting me/affecting how I play I think its probably worth it to just stop playing here.
Apps/Clubs
-Poker apps are becoming more common down here as well.
-I really hope this doesn’t take $ out of the live games for a multitude of reasons.
If anyone has insight into the best (from a rake/game integrity/bot/ player experience perspective) I would be happy to hear it. If this is going to be where some games go I would at least like to steer it towards a fairer environment.
I am going to end this here and do a 2020/ what I learned from 2019 post next time to keep them short(er) and readable and try to sleep on this flight.
December Stats
161 live hours
$15,902
$98/hour
Challenge Stats: October 1- December 31st, 2019
Live: -$8,749
Online:$3,602
Total: -$5147
Live Hours: 415
GLGL!
01-07-2020
, 06:31 PM
Trip Report: Gardens Casino LA
Just got home from a weeklong trip in LA all action at Gardens Casino
Settled into the hotel that my friend had booked, he told me it looked nice and was walking distance to the casino so it sounded fine. He is a mega nit when it comes to spending so I knew it was going to be cheap but holy **** this was some next level cheapness. I had already told him no thanks to sharing a $60 dollar room and thank god because his room was on the ground floor right next to the trashcan which seemed to be the communal cig spot for all the nearby homeless community while my room was comfortably on the second floor. The check in counter literally had 5cm plate glass between the receptionist and the customer so that was probably not a great sign. The room wasn't horrible but lets just say I was very observant walking to my room each night.
We got in late and I was wide awake so I walked over to the Gardens and hoped right in a game.
Gardens Casino is a massive poker room with some table games but roughly 60%+ floor space is dedicated to poker tables probably 100+ tables. I was planning on playing some at Commerce during the trip but actually never left the Gardens the whole week, for LA it was quite nice.
About half of the higher limit room.
I hoped in the 5/10 must move game which is a $1500 max game. The game looked decent, 6 asian guys ranging in age from early 20's to 60ish (probably 3 reg, 3 rec mix) one 30 something white reg looking guy, and a 40ish woman with 4k in front of her.
I buy in for $1500.
BOB
I fold for the first 1.5 orbits, the player to my direct left gets moved to the main game and they call a name from the board. Lets say Bob. The woman at the table starts to get excited and says "wow you guys are going to love Bob, he is insane action" etc. Considering the way I have seen her play the two hands she's played so far if she thinks Bob is action, he must be MEGA action.
I move one seat to my left and about 3 minutes later "Bob" a 50 year old man in a track suit sunglasses on his head (its 11pm) and a Rolex slides into the seat on my direct right. Bob sits down and loudly says he just drank a monster and took 2 caffeine pills. He has insane cigarette breath, never shuts up and is generally just a massive ****ing tool. His most choice comment was when the woman at the table showed him a photo from NYE and he said "Looking at you now I can't believe I'm saying this, but if I had seen you that night I probably would have ****ed you!" Bob is a truly class act.
He immediately gets everyone to agree to make the game 5/10/20 which nobody objects to and to do a bomb pot every dealer change.
Hand 1:
First dealer change since Bob sat down. Bomb pot everyone puts in $50. We are dealt K
J
on the button
Flop: $444 (9 ways)
QQTr checks through
Turn: $444
A
bringing BDFD
EP reg bets $100, MP fish calls, Bob calls, we call
River: $844
4
Checks to me we bet $500, fold, fold, Bob tanks and calls. I show my hand and he says "I knew you were dead if a diamond comes" so I guess he called with Tdxd??
We scoop
Hand 2:
Solid 40ish guy limps UTG $20, woman calls, we are in HJ with red KK make it $100, tight older Asian man calls SB, folds to UTG limper who makes it $420 off of 2.2k. Semi interesting live spot. I have never seen somebody take UTG's line as a bluff and if he were 15 years older I would be weighing so strongly to AA its scary. But I think in this pretty wild game he can definitely be taking this line with a lot of his value.
I clicked to $800, SB tank folds, UTG insta ships, we call.
Pot ($4,500)
Two boards:
First board flop KK6 lol
Second board 8 hi
And we scoop.
Less than 2 hours into the trip we are up 3k or so, play a short session and call it a night. Very straight forward and nothing fancy.
Day 2: Live Redline Day
The weirdest live session I have played in a while. A truly insane redline session. Live is generally call happy and the money is made at showdown but this session I got some ridiculous folds in spots where I was close to 100% positive I was getting called.
In one hand a young asian "reg" 3 bets to $115, I cold 4! in the SB to $265, OR folds, he 5 bets to $1100 off of $1500, I shrug and shove AsKs and he snap folds lol.
One interesting hand came up:
Readless on villain, he seems to be decent. Mid 20's asian, nice clothes hasn't looked up from his phone once the whole session unless in a hand.
I raise AT MP to $30. 3 callers HJ,SB,BB.
Flop($114)
Ts8s7d
Checks around
Turn 3c
Checks to me I bet $70
Fold fold young Asian makes it $400 off of $1600
I??
If we call what rivers are we calling?
Days End Stack
Tournaments :
I fired 3 bullets in the $570// 1 Million Guaranteed event. 2 on the third day and 1 on the 4th day of my trip. There were a ton of day 1's all of which fed the day 2. 12.5% of each day 1 cashed and 5% moved to day 2.
Overall VERY soft field with a good pro or two on each table.
1st bullet: very boring. 100bb starting stack got down to 40 in a few hours and lost tourney cooler SB vs BU.
2nd bullet: Ran it up to 48k from 20k starting stack without much showdown.
Had a more difficult table with Maria Ho, Bill Klein (the older billionaire guy who plays cash on TV, and an insanely nice man) a younger very tough Israeli? guy that I recognized from Vegas this summer, 3 other regs and then some softer spots.
Had a pretty crazy spot come up. Israeli? guy opens MP to 2.5bb. He had been opening a ton, reg calls HJ, I 3b KTss to 9 bb from CO, SB fish cold calls, Israeli calls, HJ calls.
SB is 25bb effective after the call, MP and HJ are roughly 40bbs effective.
Flop (38bbs)
4 ways
TdTc5d
I immediately start thinking of the best way to get the money in and then SB snap shoves. Israeli reg guy tanks and shoves and then the HJ immediately re shoves
I ???
HA! Obviously the incentives are different in a tournament where 5% of the field goes to day 2 and we really want to run up a huge stack. + we can rebuy as many times as we want. But this just felt like I am dead so often. Weird spot. I put the money in feeling like there are enough T9/JT/QTs + FD's + SB spazzes to be good but it didn't feel good.
They ended up having SB 87dd, MP 55, HJ A9dd. We didn't get there and busted shortly after.
Third Bullet:
Turbo structure but went quite smoothly. I made a big river hero early in the flight to double up and just smoothly chipped up from there. Until the final table I never had less than 50bbs.
We got down to the final two tables and I had the noticeably better of the two tables. The good reg was on my direct right, the rest of the players were noticeably concerned with making the $ (top 15, and making the day 2 jump which was top 6). I took full advantage and ran up a big stack coming into the final table with 600k from 20k starting stack.
The final 9 was much tougher with only 2 noticeable rec players. On day 2 the blinds were rolling back to 3k/6k so I was pretty content to take a 100bb stack into day 2. Folded down to 7 handed (the day 2 bubble) when this spot came up.
I opened my 3rd hand in a row with AK off of 650k at 20k BB. Next to act MP shoves 300k and then SB tanks forever off of 150k and folds. We call he has AJ. Board xxxJJ and we ship a huge pot to him. A few hands later someone busts and we head into Day 2 with 360k.
If we held in that spot we were going into the last day with almost 1million (170bbs), instead we were heading in with 60bbs. Still plenty but a pretty massive difference to what we were able to do on Day 2.
Bagging
Day 2 Tournament and Last Day of Trip.
From the field of 2300 we were down to 113.
I had a great day 2 table with one reg that I had been playing with at 5/10 all week OOP to me, one very good tournament reg and a table full of unknowns.
Hand: A completely unnecessary and possibly awful punt.
Middle aged lady, pretty clearly a rec, noticeably nervous and very happy to be in the tournament on day 2. She opens MP to 25k @ 4k/8k off of 50ish bbs. I am BU with 99. SB and BB are both sub 20bbs. I want to play pots with this lady even against what I think will be a tighter range.
Flop: A78r
She checks, I bet 1/3. She calls
Turn
2 rainbow board
She checks I bet 70% she tank calls.
River
T
Chk/ I shove she tanks forever says "I know I shouldn't but I have to see it" and calls.
She scoops with AJ.
I am left with 10bbs, double once then call 88 vs SB jam for my last 17bbs lose to Q4dd. Finished in the 70's, cashed for almost 2.5k. For a roughly $800 profit with 180k up top
That night I started the "no max" game which is basically 5/10 with straddles and no max buy in. Lost back 3.5k in a bad game for a pretty meh and slightly profitable trip overall. Probably should have just quit after the tourney loss but I wanted to get in more cash hours.
6 days
Cash: 47 hours @ $42/hr Mostly 5/10 with some 5/5 and 5/10/20 thrown in.
Tournament: 17 hours @ $47/hr
Got in a lot of hours and always better to profit on a trip even if its crumbs, but being closeish in tournaments can be frustrating . Especially when I punt at a relatively soft table.
I know I keep saying this but live poker is very much alive! Good news.
Just got home from a weeklong trip in LA all action at Gardens Casino
Settled into the hotel that my friend had booked, he told me it looked nice and was walking distance to the casino so it sounded fine. He is a mega nit when it comes to spending so I knew it was going to be cheap but holy **** this was some next level cheapness. I had already told him no thanks to sharing a $60 dollar room and thank god because his room was on the ground floor right next to the trashcan which seemed to be the communal cig spot for all the nearby homeless community while my room was comfortably on the second floor. The check in counter literally had 5cm plate glass between the receptionist and the customer so that was probably not a great sign. The room wasn't horrible but lets just say I was very observant walking to my room each night.
We got in late and I was wide awake so I walked over to the Gardens and hoped right in a game.
Gardens Casino is a massive poker room with some table games but roughly 60%+ floor space is dedicated to poker tables probably 100+ tables. I was planning on playing some at Commerce during the trip but actually never left the Gardens the whole week, for LA it was quite nice.
About half of the higher limit room.
I hoped in the 5/10 must move game which is a $1500 max game. The game looked decent, 6 asian guys ranging in age from early 20's to 60ish (probably 3 reg, 3 rec mix) one 30 something white reg looking guy, and a 40ish woman with 4k in front of her.
I buy in for $1500.
BOB
I fold for the first 1.5 orbits, the player to my direct left gets moved to the main game and they call a name from the board. Lets say Bob. The woman at the table starts to get excited and says "wow you guys are going to love Bob, he is insane action" etc. Considering the way I have seen her play the two hands she's played so far if she thinks Bob is action, he must be MEGA action.
I move one seat to my left and about 3 minutes later "Bob" a 50 year old man in a track suit sunglasses on his head (its 11pm) and a Rolex slides into the seat on my direct right. Bob sits down and loudly says he just drank a monster and took 2 caffeine pills. He has insane cigarette breath, never shuts up and is generally just a massive ****ing tool. His most choice comment was when the woman at the table showed him a photo from NYE and he said "Looking at you now I can't believe I'm saying this, but if I had seen you that night I probably would have ****ed you!" Bob is a truly class act.
He immediately gets everyone to agree to make the game 5/10/20 which nobody objects to and to do a bomb pot every dealer change.
Hand 1:
First dealer change since Bob sat down. Bomb pot everyone puts in $50. We are dealt K
J on the buttonFlop: $444 (9 ways)
QQTr checks through
Turn: $444
A
bringing BDFDEP reg bets $100, MP fish calls, Bob calls, we call
River: $844
4
Checks to me we bet $500, fold, fold, Bob tanks and calls. I show my hand and he says "I knew you were dead if a diamond comes" so I guess he called with Tdxd??
We scoop
Hand 2:
Solid 40ish guy limps UTG $20, woman calls, we are in HJ with red KK make it $100, tight older Asian man calls SB, folds to UTG limper who makes it $420 off of 2.2k. Semi interesting live spot. I have never seen somebody take UTG's line as a bluff and if he were 15 years older I would be weighing so strongly to AA its scary. But I think in this pretty wild game he can definitely be taking this line with a lot of his value.
I clicked to $800, SB tank folds, UTG insta ships, we call.
Pot ($4,500)
Two boards:
First board flop KK6 lol
Second board 8 hi
And we scoop.
Less than 2 hours into the trip we are up 3k or so, play a short session and call it a night. Very straight forward and nothing fancy.
Day 2: Live Redline Day
The weirdest live session I have played in a while. A truly insane redline session. Live is generally call happy and the money is made at showdown but this session I got some ridiculous folds in spots where I was close to 100% positive I was getting called.
In one hand a young asian "reg" 3 bets to $115, I cold 4! in the SB to $265, OR folds, he 5 bets to $1100 off of $1500
, I shrug and shove AsKs and he snap folds lol. One interesting hand came up:
Readless on villain, he seems to be decent. Mid 20's asian, nice clothes hasn't looked up from his phone once the whole session unless in a hand.
I raise A
T MP to $30. 3 callers HJ,SB,BB. Flop($114)
Ts8s7d
Checks around
Turn 3c
Checks to me I bet $70
Fold fold young Asian makes it $400 off of $1600
I??
If we call what rivers are we calling?
Days End Stack
Tournaments :
I fired 3 bullets in the $570// 1 Million Guaranteed event. 2 on the third day and 1 on the 4th day of my trip. There were a ton of day 1's all of which fed the day 2. 12.5% of each day 1 cashed and 5% moved to day 2.
Overall VERY soft field with a good pro or two on each table.
1st bullet: very boring. 100bb starting stack got down to 40 in a few hours and lost tourney cooler SB vs BU.
2nd bullet: Ran it up to 48k from 20k starting stack without much showdown.
Had a more difficult table with Maria Ho, Bill Klein (the older billionaire guy who plays cash on TV, and an insanely nice man) a younger very tough Israeli? guy that I recognized from Vegas this summer, 3 other regs and then some softer spots.
Had a pretty crazy spot come up. Israeli? guy opens MP to 2.5bb. He had been opening a ton, reg calls HJ, I 3b KTss to 9 bb from CO, SB fish cold calls, Israeli calls, HJ calls.
SB is 25bb effective after the call, MP and HJ are roughly 40bbs effective.
Flop (38bbs)
4 ways
TdTc5d
I immediately start thinking of the best way to get the money in and then SB snap shoves. Israeli reg guy tanks and shoves and then the HJ immediately re shoves
I ???
HA! Obviously the incentives are different in a tournament where 5% of the field goes to day 2 and we really want to run up a huge stack. + we can rebuy as many times as we want. But this just felt like I am dead so often. Weird spot. I put the money in feeling like there are enough T9/JT/QTs + FD's + SB spazzes to be good but it didn't feel good.
They ended up having SB 87dd, MP 55, HJ A9dd. We didn't get there and busted shortly after.
Third Bullet:
Turbo structure but went quite smoothly. I made a big river hero early in the flight to double up and just smoothly chipped up from there. Until the final table I never had less than 50bbs.
We got down to the final two tables and I had the noticeably better of the two tables. The good reg was on my direct right, the rest of the players were noticeably concerned with making the $ (top 15, and making the day 2 jump which was top 6). I took full advantage and ran up a big stack coming into the final table with 600k from 20k starting stack.
The final 9 was much tougher with only 2 noticeable rec players. On day 2 the blinds were rolling back to 3k/6k so I was pretty content to take a 100bb stack into day 2. Folded down to 7 handed (the day 2 bubble) when this spot came up.
I opened my 3rd hand in a row with A
K off of 650k at 20k BB. Next to act MP shoves 300k and then SB tanks forever off of 150k and folds. We call he has AJ. Board xxxJJ and we ship a huge pot to him. A few hands later someone busts and we head into Day 2 with 360k. If we held in that spot we were going into the last day with almost 1million (170bbs), instead we were heading in with 60bbs. Still plenty but a pretty massive difference to what we were able to do on Day 2.
Bagging
Day 2 Tournament and Last Day of Trip.
From the field of 2300 we were down to 113.
I had a great day 2 table with one reg that I had been playing with at 5/10 all week OOP to me, one very good tournament reg and a table full of unknowns.
Hand: A completely unnecessary and possibly awful punt.
Middle aged lady, pretty clearly a rec, noticeably nervous and very happy to be in the tournament on day 2. She opens MP to 25k @ 4k/8k off of 50ish bbs. I am BU with 99. SB and BB are both sub 20bbs. I want to play pots with this lady even against what I think will be a tighter range.
Flop: A78r
She checks, I bet 1/3. She calls
Turn
2 rainbow board
She checks I bet 70% she tank calls.
River
T
Chk/ I shove she tanks forever says "I know I shouldn't but I have to see it" and calls.
She scoops with AJ.
I am left with 10bbs, double once then call 88 vs SB jam for my last 17bbs lose to Q4dd. Finished in the 70's, cashed for almost 2.5k. For a roughly $800 profit with 180k up top
That night I started the "no max" game which is basically 5/10 with straddles and no max buy in. Lost back 3.5k in a bad game for a pretty meh and slightly profitable trip overall. Probably should have just quit after the tourney loss but I wanted to get in more cash hours.
6 days
Cash: 47 hours @ $42/hr Mostly 5/10 with some 5/5 and 5/10/20 thrown in.
Tournament: 17 hours @ $47/hr
Got in a lot of hours and always better to profit on a trip even if its crumbs, but being closeish in tournaments can be frustrating . Especially when I punt at a relatively soft table.
I know I keep saying this but live poker is very much alive! Good news.
01-13-2020
, 07:44 AM
After really putting in a heavy grind to start the month and making roughly McDonalds hourly its time to get stop being a lazy sack and get some goals out there in the world.
Month to Date:
On to the goals...
This is an overwhelming list but it will be my reference point throughout this year and when I look at it I get genuinely fired up. I like stretching for big outcomes.
2020
I broke it down into Life and Poker and then broke poker into 4 compartments
Poker:
1. Live 2. Mental Game 3.Online 4.Study
Live Poker Goals:
A. 1900 live hours (roughly 160 a month)
B. 8 poker trips of a minimum 5 days each
C. Play 30+ tournaments with ABI of $1.5k. Most of this will come in June/July (includes ME)
D. Be a better recruiter and organizer this year. Some recent sessions have made me realize how much better the private games can be. I know the right people to make great games come together and with a little more work by me I can help put together some awesome groups.
E. $300k live poker earnings in 2020
I know $ goals are silly and something that I have less control over then studying or hours played but $ goals have always motivated me and I don't get emotionally attached to the #.
I also know posting a graph where I am winning $1500 halfway through a month and then saying 300k year seems incongruous but I have crushed these games before and I am getting back to crushing them again. Better to go ****ing big and fall short then just half step my way through another year.
Mental Game Goals:
-Enjoy poker. Seems simple but has been easy to overlook in the past.
-Treat my opponents with respect. Don’t discount players skill levels/ don’t try to run everyone over in every spot. Win more and reduce swings by just letting them make mistakes. Simplify
-Take care to maximize my time and not burn out.
-Play seriously or don’t play at all. Don’t play “just to get the hours in”.
-If I feel myself tilting/pushing too hard/ loss chasing in any way at all just quit.
-Get more comfortable booking small-medium loses. Not every session is going to be a win, but the last half of the year I turned what should have been 1-2 buy in losses into 3-5 buy in losses.
For those who haven’t read this PGC , I play the majority of my volume live but still think there is a ton of improvement value for me online and I try to get in hands every year. In the last year I shot took 6 or 7 sessions of up to 2kNL and played as low as 20NL. The majority of my admittedly small volume came at 50-200NL fast games on 888/GG/ACR. In November I cashed out all the $ I had online to pay for IRL stuff (roughly $7k)
Not playing at all online I find myself missing it, and also studying way less.
Online Goals
-Put 10% of all my winnings in live towards an online BR and when I get that number to 3k redeposit. 30k live earnings = back to playing online.
-10-25k hands @ micros
-25-50K hands @ 50NL Fast/Regular tables. Make sure I am still a winner at this stake and move up, preferably quicker.
-100k+ hands @ 100NL Fast or higher. I have always played 10-20k online hands a month and I definitely missed that last month.
-3bbEV/100 winner @ 100NL Fast +
-Not to play a single Spin N Go. I became mildly addicted to the 888 version of spins and would fire up 4 tables of 10c or 1$ spins whenever no one was home or I was bored. This is a tremendous waste of time and probably the stupidest thing I spent time doing in 2019.
-Play 300 tournaments at an ABI of $40. Ideally this would be 20 days that I set aside ahead of time @ roughly 15 tournaments a day. This would be in the months leading up to WSOP as I am planning on playing a full schedule this year. The ABI will be dependent on BR at the time. Once I put the initial 3k online I won't be redepositing or withdrawing much unless absolutely necessary.
Study
-For the first time in a while I'm in a pretty great group chat with players that are significantly better than me and also more well versed in solver work so I really want to take advantage of that and participate in that chat as much as possible. Apart from that on my own
-2 Pio sims a week with more focus on the why of the strategy then what I have been doing prior (more attempted replication than complete understanding of spots)
- Jan-March focus on common 100bb spots I am uncomfortable/unsure of + anything that may come up from live sessions.
- April - May sub 40bb spots, again leading up to WSOP
- Dedicate 5 hours a week to completely focused study solo + group chat when I have Q's or can contribute value
Life
In 2018 I said I would read a book a week and knocked it out pretty easily and with a lot of satisfaction. I love reading but maybe read 5 books total in 2019 and found myself staring at a phone way too much last year.
So..
1.Read 40 books, try to keep it eclectic and interesting. A good mix between fiction and non. I am always open to book suggestions if any of you have them please share!
2.Take my girls to Disneyland one last time before they start to be too cool for it. We went last year and for them its the absolute best
3.Achieve the magical 30% ROI across the entire vacation rental portfolio. This one will be somewhat outside of my control but there are steps I can take to push it in the right direction. We hit 23% this year and I still am fine tuning parts of our process.
4.In conjunction with the prior goal: be 100% debt free (including mortgages) by the end of the year. Including mortgages I have roughly 270k USD in debt so this is a stretch but a good year in poker + a great year in real estate will do it.
5. 3 non cardio workouts a week. I'm in decent shape from a lot of cardio (walking the dogs, basketball) but its time to build back some muscle on my skinny frame.
6. 2 "experiences" with the family/friends per week. This can be anything from taking a weekend trip to a nearby town, collecting shells on the beach with the kiddos, dinner and drinks out with wife and friends etc. Only prerequisites are out of the house // a non normal scheduled activity.
Weekly Checkup: Am I on pace to reach my goals?
A. 2 experiences with family/friends
B.30-40 hours live poker. some wiggle room on this one but should be roughly there.
C.Read 1 book
D. Run 2 Pio Sims
E. Minimum 7 hours of work on the rental business
F.3 non cardio workouts
G. Post update in PGC
H. Pay down debt- even if its $100 on something thats not due for a month, setting aside $ gives me a calming feeling.
F. Create an honest assessment of my mental state/game.
Here we go!
Month to Date:
On to the goals...
This is an overwhelming list but it will be my reference point throughout this year and when I look at it I get genuinely fired up. I like stretching for big outcomes.
2020
I broke it down into Life and Poker and then broke poker into 4 compartments
Poker:
1. Live 2. Mental Game 3.Online 4.Study
Live Poker Goals:
A. 1900 live hours (roughly 160 a month)
B. 8 poker trips of a minimum 5 days each
C. Play 30+ tournaments with ABI of $1.5k. Most of this will come in June/July (includes ME)
D. Be a better recruiter and organizer this year. Some recent sessions have made me realize how much better the private games can be. I know the right people to make great games come together and with a little more work by me I can help put together some awesome groups.
E. $300k live poker earnings in 2020
I know $ goals are silly and something that I have less control over then studying or hours played but $ goals have always motivated me and I don't get emotionally attached to the #.
I also know posting a graph where I am winning $1500 halfway through a month and then saying 300k year seems incongruous but I have crushed these games before and I am getting back to crushing them again. Better to go ****ing big and fall short then just half step my way through another year.
Mental Game Goals:
-Enjoy poker. Seems simple but has been easy to overlook in the past.
-Treat my opponents with respect. Don’t discount players skill levels/ don’t try to run everyone over in every spot. Win more and reduce swings by just letting them make mistakes. Simplify
-Take care to maximize my time and not burn out.
-Play seriously or don’t play at all. Don’t play “just to get the hours in”.
-If I feel myself tilting/pushing too hard/ loss chasing in any way at all just quit.
-Get more comfortable booking small-medium loses. Not every session is going to be a win, but the last half of the year I turned what should have been 1-2 buy in losses into 3-5 buy in losses.
For those who haven’t read this PGC , I play the majority of my volume live but still think there is a ton of improvement value for me online and I try to get in hands every year. In the last year I shot took 6 or 7 sessions of up to 2kNL and played as low as 20NL. The majority of my admittedly small volume came at 50-200NL fast games on 888/GG/ACR. In November I cashed out all the $ I had online to pay for IRL stuff (roughly $7k)
Not playing at all online I find myself missing it, and also studying way less.
Online Goals
-Put 10% of all my winnings in live towards an online BR and when I get that number to 3k redeposit. 30k live earnings = back to playing online.
-10-25k hands @ micros
-25-50K hands @ 50NL Fast/Regular tables. Make sure I am still a winner at this stake and move up, preferably quicker.
-100k+ hands @ 100NL Fast or higher. I have always played 10-20k online hands a month and I definitely missed that last month.
-3bbEV/100 winner @ 100NL Fast +
-Not to play a single Spin N Go. I became mildly addicted to the 888 version of spins and would fire up 4 tables of 10c or 1$ spins whenever no one was home or I was bored. This is a tremendous waste of time and probably the stupidest thing I spent time doing in 2019.
-Play 300 tournaments at an ABI of $40. Ideally this would be 20 days that I set aside ahead of time @ roughly 15 tournaments a day. This would be in the months leading up to WSOP as I am planning on playing a full schedule this year. The ABI will be dependent on BR at the time. Once I put the initial 3k online I won't be redepositing or withdrawing much unless absolutely necessary.
Study
-For the first time in a while I'm in a pretty great group chat with players that are significantly better than me and also more well versed in solver work so I really want to take advantage of that and participate in that chat as much as possible. Apart from that on my own
-2 Pio sims a week with more focus on the why of the strategy then what I have been doing prior (more attempted replication than complete understanding of spots)
- Jan-March focus on common 100bb spots I am uncomfortable/unsure of + anything that may come up from live sessions.
- April - May sub 40bb spots, again leading up to WSOP
- Dedicate 5 hours a week to completely focused study solo + group chat when I have Q's or can contribute value
Life
In 2018 I said I would read a book a week and knocked it out pretty easily and with a lot of satisfaction. I love reading but maybe read 5 books total in 2019 and found myself staring at a phone way too much last year.
So..
1.Read 40 books, try to keep it eclectic and interesting. A good mix between fiction and non. I am always open to book suggestions if any of you have them please share!
2.Take my girls to Disneyland one last time before they start to be too cool for it. We went last year and for them its the absolute best
3.Achieve the magical 30% ROI across the entire vacation rental portfolio. This one will be somewhat outside of my control but there are steps I can take to push it in the right direction. We hit 23% this year and I still am fine tuning parts of our process.
4.In conjunction with the prior goal: be 100% debt free (including mortgages) by the end of the year. Including mortgages I have roughly 270k USD in debt so this is a stretch but a good year in poker + a great year in real estate will do it.
5. 3 non cardio workouts a week. I'm in decent shape from a lot of cardio (walking the dogs, basketball) but its time to build back some muscle on my skinny frame.
6. 2 "experiences" with the family/friends per week. This can be anything from taking a weekend trip to a nearby town, collecting shells on the beach with the kiddos, dinner and drinks out with wife and friends etc. Only prerequisites are out of the house // a non normal scheduled activity.
Weekly Checkup: Am I on pace to reach my goals?
A. 2 experiences with family/friends
B.30-40 hours live poker. some wiggle room on this one but should be roughly there.
C.Read 1 book
D. Run 2 Pio Sims
E. Minimum 7 hours of work on the rental business
F.3 non cardio workouts
G. Post update in PGC
H. Pay down debt- even if its $100 on something thats not due for a month, setting aside $ gives me a calming feeling.
F. Create an honest assessment of my mental state/game.
Here we go!
01-13-2020
, 09:13 AM
Really enjoying your thread and darn, it is making me what to seek out some private games/play more live cash games GL 
GL
01-13-2020
, 09:18 AM
01-13-2020
, 10:03 PM
Cheers, heres to actually accomplishing them this year!
01-20-2020
, 03:22 PM
Weekly Goals
A. (2) experiences with family/friends. Accomplished
Some highlights from a fun day exploring up the Pacific Coast and ending at a favorite beach bar/resturant in Todos Santos.
B.(30-40) hours live poker. Accomplished
This one was fairly easy. I've been playing a lot of the lower stakes 3/5 and 5/5 and even some 1/3 games which tend to run longer and have more players. I have played a ton of hours already this month and am going to blast through the 160+. Results have been good as well since the last post so its definitely easier to keep going. The bigger stuff hasn't been running a whole lot recently which is fine by me. Smoother and more consistent grind at the 5/5 game.
C.Read 1 book Accomplished
Read 2! Was nice to get back in the swing of it, I have a bookshelf of unread stuff so just picked a non fiction and a fiction and brought them with me everywhere I went. When I had time to kill I tried to read instead of phone.
-Open by John Feinstein. A golf/business/ how stuff is made book about the US Open being held at Bethpage Black public course in New York following September 11th.
6.5/10
-Smiley's People by John Le Carre. A really nice spy novel from a really nice spy author.
8/10
D. Run 2 Pio Sims Fail
Didn't run one sim. This will pick up again when I start playing some online volume again.
Did however post a few hands in the group chat and participate in some meaningful discussion/ thought through a few interesting hands.
E. Minimum 7 hours of work on the rental business Accomplished
11.5 hrs.
I wake up, respond to messages, write pending reviews, respond to inquiries, get a checkup from our property manager. Change the calendars/listings daily to rig the Airbnb/VRBO algorithms. Take a quick look at the month to date spreadsheet. That generally takes 1 hour.
Occasionally I will have to physically go to the property to look at something or do a check-in but that is rare. This week I did 1 check in + my normal daily routine and had a 30 minute meeting with our accountant regarding new tax law
F. 3 non cardio workouts Fail
Did a ton of cardio, walking the dogs, swimming etc but didn't attempt to go to the gym. Am heading there right after this post for the 1st of 3 workouts this week.
G. Post update in PGC Accomplished
H. Pay down debt- Accomplished
Poco a poco.
F. Create an honest assessment of my mental state/game. Accomplished
I'm quite happy with how this week went from a mental game side. Had one really horrendous start to a session and took a 5 minute break, reset and keep battling. Overall positive about how I'm approaching the game.
Same goals for this week.
I am still saving 10% of live winnings and when I get 3k will redeposit and play my 20k hands a month. In the meantime I received a small cash "bonus" and have a ton of tourney tickets in my 888 account so I will set aside a few hours this week to get some micros hands in.
A. (2) experiences with family/friends. Accomplished
Some highlights from a fun day exploring up the Pacific Coast and ending at a favorite beach bar/resturant in Todos Santos.
B.(30-40) hours live poker. Accomplished
This one was fairly easy. I've been playing a lot of the lower stakes 3/5 and 5/5 and even some 1/3 games which tend to run longer and have more players. I have played a ton of hours already this month and am going to blast through the 160+. Results have been good as well since the last post so its definitely easier to keep going. The bigger stuff hasn't been running a whole lot recently which is fine by me. Smoother and more consistent grind at the 5/5 game.
C.Read 1 book Accomplished
Read 2! Was nice to get back in the swing of it, I have a bookshelf of unread stuff so just picked a non fiction and a fiction and brought them with me everywhere I went. When I had time to kill I tried to read instead of phone.
-Open by John Feinstein. A golf/business/ how stuff is made book about the US Open being held at Bethpage Black public course in New York following September 11th.
6.5/10
-Smiley's People by John Le Carre. A really nice spy novel from a really nice spy author.
8/10
D. Run 2 Pio Sims Fail
Didn't run one sim. This will pick up again when I start playing some online volume again.
Did however post a few hands in the group chat and participate in some meaningful discussion/ thought through a few interesting hands.
E. Minimum 7 hours of work on the rental business Accomplished
11.5 hrs.
I wake up, respond to messages, write pending reviews, respond to inquiries, get a checkup from our property manager. Change the calendars/listings daily to rig the Airbnb/VRBO algorithms. Take a quick look at the month to date spreadsheet. That generally takes 1 hour.
Occasionally I will have to physically go to the property to look at something or do a check-in but that is rare. This week I did 1 check in + my normal daily routine and had a 30 minute meeting with our accountant regarding new tax law
F. 3 non cardio workouts Fail
Did a ton of cardio, walking the dogs, swimming etc but didn't attempt to go to the gym. Am heading there right after this post for the 1st of 3 workouts this week.
G. Post update in PGC Accomplished
H. Pay down debt- Accomplished
Poco a poco.
F. Create an honest assessment of my mental state/game. Accomplished
I'm quite happy with how this week went from a mental game side. Had one really horrendous start to a session and took a 5 minute break, reset and keep battling. Overall positive about how I'm approaching the game.
Same goals for this week.
I am still saving 10% of live winnings and when I get 3k will redeposit and play my 20k hands a month. In the meantime I received a small cash "bonus" and have a ton of tourney tickets in my 888 account so I will set aside a few hours this week to get some micros hands in.
01-20-2020
, 07:55 PM
Great pictures 