Backstory: Hey 2+2. My name is Josh, I am in my later 20s currently living in NJ, working day-times as a prop trader in Manhattan and spending my nights and weekends playing online cash on regulated poker sites. In August of this year, I’ll be hanging up both keyboards and starting a full-time graduate school program in order to move on from trading and poker.

I finished undergrad in 2010 and decided to give poker a full-time shot. I was a HUGE HUGE bankroll nit playing only NL50 and NL100 FR (biggest regret was not moving up or learning to play short-handed). I was raised to believe that gambling was very bad, and every losing session drove me crazy, so I played stakes and games that I almost never lost in. My first year (May 2010-Black-Friday) went well but unfortunately black-Friday ended my early poker career, but fortunately, my trading career began. I dabbled a little bit on Merge Network after black-Friday which forced me to learn to play short-handed and 6-max. The games dried up fairly fast, and I got sick of jumping through hoops to collect my earnings so I quit poker for a few years and focused exclusively on trading. In the summer of 2015, while applying to graduate school, I decided I wanted to grind poker again while I still could and moved from NYC to New Jersey.

I still have a little bit of that bankroll nit tendency. Today I play NL100-500 (but mostly 200) 6-max on regulated sites even though I am rolled to be playing bigger.

Goals for PGC: I decided to create this PGC for a few reasons. I’m not going to deny it; the first is an ego thing. I like hearing myself write/talk/mini-brag. Second, I’ve followed a number of PGCs over the years and the good ones are a ton of fun. Finally, In June/July, as a bucket list goal, I intend to take a shot at the WSOP. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to structure what I play yet, but I want to play the ME and the colossus at a minimum. I have 0 live MTT experience to date and I’m a loser to date at online MTTs (no idea what my edge really is though since I haven’t grinded them I’ve played maybe 10-20 in my life). I will (should) play a lot more Sunday Majors before the summer and I hope (but probably won't) to take a trip to AC in the spring to at least play a few live MTTs and get some feel. It’s going to be really fun to look back at this thread after a deep run this summer (or less fun when I bust day one).

Finally, I have four and a half months or so before I have essentially zero income for two years. Another goal is to push myself to play more, and to play more NL400-NL500 and maybe even man up (sorry feminists) and play some 1k.

Going to post some daily/weekly results. And some hands I think are interesting. Pretty much copying my favorite PGCs format, here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...016-a-1402975/




Career Graphs/Play History

Stars 2011 Jan-Black Friday (Missing my May-Dec 2010 results)


Merge 2011 (Basically RB Pro with a good rb deal)


2015 Results (August-Dec)


2016 Results YTD (Playing badly, running well)



Happy grinding

First due to epic name drop obv

Best of luck mate, will of course be following

in and gl .

TY glad to have you on-board


Thanks and thanks gl to you too




3.15 Night Session


Extremely uneventful day in the office. Games were about as bad as I've seen them since moving to NJ. That's not to say games were terrible, just couldn't get many going for more than ~90 minutes tonight. I stayed up 5 tabling because I had position on two extremely fun players but left after 1 busted to get a decent nights sleep before tmrw's trading day (even though the other was sitting on 4 buyins).

Good thing AmayaStars is hitting the NJ market Sunday! Hopefully inject some life into this ecosystem.

Few hands from today with thoughts. Comments welcome. Hero is considered a pretty huge nit in these games.

Hand 1) Villain is a friend and a strong reg. Slightly nitty postflop, but very good/tough/balanced/not gonna spew.



Think he knows I'm checking this texture pretty wide 3 way (might not cbet any hand 3 ways with regs). Villain behind me is a reg I think barrels too wide when checked to. So I want to give him rope. River is blargh. Think he knows I can also have AA/Quads/AT here. Also if I'm light it's probably busted FDs so he doesn't need to rejam any sdv here. Think he just has AT here almost always.

Hand 2) Villain is a station reg. Overall impression is he's not too good.



I chose the turn sizing because I thought he'd station super hard no matter size I used (with literally any bluff catcher). Just get the impression he's the kind of guy that hates to fold when you rep super narrow.

Puked pretty hard on river. Not sure how much KTo he's opening but think he plays this way sometimes/a lot of the time with that KX combo. (He's only cbetting 50% overall so c/c'ing some weak KX, TT-QQ for sure). KTss definite possibility. TT is of course a possibility. Think given my sizing on turn/river he can't possibly be bluffing (unless he's a total lunatic). Wanted to fold pretty hard but didn't have the heart against this guy (who I consider somewhat spazzy overall, but really more stationy) especially after folding the FH earlier to the strong reg.


Hand 3) Villain is a reg. He's seen me take a few check/call or check/raise lines before in 3bet pots with the nuts. Think it's pretty self explanatory.



Hand 4) Same reg as hand 3. Don't have him 3betting sb/CO a ton (less than a lot of the regs in these games). In the past I've seen him call4bs OOP here with 99-JJ, AQss, AJss, and that's about it. Don't think he's likely doing this with any AK, but maybe KQss. My impression is the guy prefers taking SDV than turning into a bluff especially against what appears like strong ranges. The plan was to call a lot of rivers but this seemed like a particularly bad one to call with AA. I play AK the same on this run-out and probably find the call here (expecting to lose a lot, especially to this guy).



Think turn is a pretty interesting decision point. I don't have the Ac so ofc that's a possibility. If I'm drawing dead (or to 2 outs) then turn shove is awful. If he calls with AcQx type stuff he's in fine shape (given pot odds). Even if he finds the call with JcJx he's in fine shape. Also having some kind of check-back range that's not a total give-up is decent here.

Hand 5) Villain is an agro whale. Calls a ton of 3bets and doesn't fold to barrels. Very agro when checked to. Not sure the best way to proceed here on any street tbh.



Flop just trying to set a price to see the turn. Think I have some mild FE too since he's folding flops 30% of the time or so. Love my hand on the turn. Betting is definitely +EV, he's folding sometimes (fine result), calling sometimes (fine result), jamming sometimes (fine result). At the same time, I think I honestly have some sdv (lol). And it's great when he bet/folds or bet/calls turn as opposed to the times he just double floats and I wiff. Pretty upset I didn't bet river, but this guy was very agro when checked to I figured there was more (at least some?) value in just giving him rope to bet ATC.



I'll try to keep the hero folds and coolers to a minimum in the future. But the reality is I play pretty straight forwardly and try to play in the best games I can find.

Good luck, subbed!

niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

in, gl josh

gl

Gl!

Welcome new followers and TY!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I got home from work early today and decided to give the PokerStarsNJ beta test a whirl. After about ~30m I was logged into my old account with my old avatar using my old theme. I know it's now AmayaStars and really a different company but couldn't help but feel very nostalgic. I'm pretty excited to shift volume over to Stars. At first, I was a little worried since I'm already playing on 3 sites and the idea of moving over to 4 is pretty daunting. Then, I realized that all the NJ regs are facing the same dilemma. I think one of my bigger edges is ensuring I'm playing only in games I think I'm VERY +EV, so I think the added difficulty of 4 sites will actually be a blessing since lazy regs will just 1 or 2 site.

I ate an early dinner (6pm), downed a coffee, and was pumped to grind. Of course... that enthusiasm was immediately rewarded with 500 hands of “you lose every pot no matter what” poker or as my hero benaBB would say “a very grim start”. Fortunately, from that low point, things turned strongly in my favor, and I would say I was playing my A+++ game minus 1 or 2 pots. 1 of those pots was unfortunately played VERY poorly and I’ll discuss it in detail below.

The NJ 200NL tables were phenomenal tonight a complete 180 from last night. I felt really guilty quitting since games were still very playable and quite good, but it’s midnight, I put in 6 hours with only a 15 minute break and I want to go to work tmrw. I also felt the combination of fatigue, frustration, and mild tilt come in and take a toll on my game. I also looked at my Active Session tab which is a big no-no for me, usually a sure-fire sign to quit.

There were TONS of big pots; the stacks were really flying tonight. There were some very interesting 2 or 3 street pots (in 3 bet pots specifically) where things got interesting. In order to not stay up the next 2 hours, I’m only going to pick out a few.

3.16 Night Session


Hand 1: 3bet pot, 2barrel vrs good reg

He 3bet my UTG open the exact hand before this one, squeezing a fish between. I flatted [something I wanted to play MW with fish]. Flop came AQ3 flush draw. And after flop x/x I cf’d the turn. I think people tend to react weirdly to being 3-bet the immediate next hand after applying pressure. I think some guys assume you're FOS way too often, where others give it a ton of respect. My feel on this guy is he falls more into the suspicious camp. Added to the fact that I’m 3betting his iso I think ranges are more narrow than a standard, CO/BB battle.



Flop sizing debatable. I go this sizing with a lot of different hands. Turn I double block both flush draws and some of his better QX. I want to fold out any 1 pair less than QX here (and optimistically some bad QX but I doubt it). In hindsight, My turn sizing is probably a few blinds too big but not a huge deal. I think river is a superb give up. He has trips often, QQ sometimes, QX a lot and a few busted combos draws. I think river c/c is probably better than jamming here but cf is probably best blocking so many busted draws.

River becomes very interesting on offsuit ace or king. And any flush completing draw. I think I jam any heart or club tbh to fold out anything less than trips (at least in theory, think this guy is good enough not a total station to find a fold with random QX).

Hand 2) The Disaster Hand of the Evening

Few things about this hand. First, my image on this table was insane. I was running much looser than normal (had the nuts a lot) and I could tell people were getting fed up. Both villains however are regulars and know I’m fairly tight. They are probably on the more B/E agro-bad/stationy allergic to fold regs. Especially button, the guy probably has a mod that disallows ever using the fold button. That being said during and after the hand I’m pretty not happy with my play.



Prefop is debatable. Without getting into too much, my CC% and overcall in the SB is extremely low. KTss is probably the worst hand I’m squeezing this spot (as a bluff, thin/value, isolation). Flop is obviously good for my hand, better for my range. Think cbetting makes things a little dicey. Every bet that goes in (whether they call it or raise it) is going to narrow their range. I think given both regs stationy nature, there is a distinct possibility that 1 or either of them has KQ/KJ and they are NEVER folding that here. I think KT is a pretty solid hand to balance out a checking range (to check call) on the flop.

That being said, given combination of both guys hating to fold, I do think there’s some value/protection merit to a bet of some sizing going in on the flop (probably more like 1/3 pot).

Turn is a disaster. The BTN reg really tilts me for some reason. And I didn’t want to cf (don’t think I have to necessarily) but I also didn’t want it to check through. I also think he’s just monkey raising flop with any FD here a lot of the time, so I don’t necessarily think he has a ton of that when he calls flop. Think it’s a lot of 1 pair (not necessarily KX, could be a lotttt of 7x tbh, 88, 55 type stuff). The only problem is he’s going to have a pretty tough time hero’ing a turn jam for worse.

And of course what he showed down tilted the absolute crap out of me

Hand 3) Visions of hand 2 but vrs fun player

Pretty self explanatory. If he flat AK/AA/KQ pre he gets me this time.


Hand 4) Inducing/Protecting my range

You’re not often going to want to play 3 streets here with many hands. So a lot of the time, especially MW you want to check your ENTIRE range. Obviously never ever considering folding any QX to 2 barrels here. Sometimes you get people to bluff with dumb stuff. Not a very interesting spot/big pot, but an important tool to have in your arsenal!



Also noticed some of the HHs are not converting perfectly from one of the sites I play on... please let me know if any of them need editing

PGC writing kept me up late last night so I ended up sleeping in today and skipped work. Being your own boss has it's perks. Logged in to check the markets and it looked like a pretty quiet day. Quickly found out why. Today was the start of March Madness! This is unofficially a stock market holiday. I met a few of my trader friends at an NYC Bar to grab lunch and drinks. Being your own boss has it's perks. Dragged myself out of the bar around 7pm, 6 drinks in, got some delicious NYC pizza, and was ready to play poker!

3.17 Night Session - Nothing too Eventful


Compared to last night tonight's grind was very tame. Games were very solid and I put in a 4 hour session without break. Fairly happy with my play. Only going to post 3 hands. Interestingly enough they are all 4bet pots vrs solid regulars and very similar post-flop action.

Hand 1) 4bet pot vrs reg CO/BTN 125 deep

Wasn't paying attention to stack sizes. Think preflop is actually a better call than 4b especially this deep. The weaker AXs hands I'm always confused if I want to turn them into a 4b/f or flat the 3b or just fold pre. This usually leads to some sort of mixed strategy, which I think is just fine. Rather have AXs in a 4b pot than KTo or 78s.

Anyways, this regular tends to either fold to 4bets, call them sometimes, and seems to jam pretty much only straight value. Think postflop was played really well, especially continuing the story of checking down. This of course looks something like JJ-KK a lot, or maybe a "tricky but obvious" AA. Betting the flop would be a huge error. Betting the turn would be fine once I turn 2pr, but he has nothing almost always so I want to induce.

I think his river bet is quite awful. He's trying to fold out JJ-QQ and holds blockers to the hands he's trying to fold out. Never a good thing.



Hand 2) 4bet pot vrs BOSS reg

Villain in this hand is a one of the better regs in NJ. Plays 200-600, maybe some 1k too. Very very good player. Think jamming the river would be a total disaster as nothing worse calls. Unfortunately, can't fold here either, just kinda sucks.

Turning TT into a bluff on flop or turn is quite ambitious too. The only thing I might fold out is JJ, but then again he's probably just ripping this pre. I think if he has KQss or AJ he's always calling 1. And I don't want to barrel off TT here. Think my range is quite well protected that sometimes we'll check down and I'll have the best hand.

And of course preflop is value/getting it in


Hand 3) 4bet pot vrs decent/stationy/agro reg

Villain 3 is a reg who hates to fold, but imo, one of the better ones who plays that kind of style. He bluffs in some pretty tricky/good spots. He's also quite agro with the lead. He doesn't fold a ton to 4bs even though he 3bs quite a lot, so I actually really dislike my preflop play here, I should be just calling ATo.

It was towards the end of the session and I was tired wrapping up. But looking at this spot a little more closely I think villain can only have maybe 1 combo of the nuts here, perhaps at most 4. Also, I think he's probably slightly over bluffing this spot, betting any nuts/2nd nuts/chops. I kind of wish I jammed over his river lead to fold out non-Kd and chops. That being said, his sizing seemed "valuey" not "fold-out-chopey", so whatever. It's not a huge huge deal. I think calling to chop is pretty mehhh, jamming to fold out other chops is way better.

I can definitely represent Kd when checking twice. If the board paired on the river, I think I would have gone for it too.

Ah well, gettem next time (he probably had it anyways)





Tomorrow, PokerStars (AmayaStars) is hosting a meet and greet in Jersey City (15 minutes from my apt) for former "VIPs". I plan to attend and look forward to meeting some of my fellow NJ grinders (hopefully, including boss reg from hand 2 who indicated he would be attended).

In. GL!

What sites are you playing on these days? Are the 'regulated' sites all NJ-only?

I have a pretty hard time imagining villain never calls with worse here. I mean he's got some KJs and maybe J9s, but he's gonna have a bunch on top pair and two pair hands as well. But if he's really never paying you off with worse, then I guess you should just shove in all your <AJ hands and print money.

Thanks for the follow!

Yes the sites are all NJ only. You don't have to live in NJ but you do have to physically be located in NJ.

You could definitely be right. I think for this guy in particular his check 2 then bet river range is incredibly narrow, but KJss is only 4 combos and if he folds everything else bluffing wide/jamming sets could be right.

3.18 Short Day


Hand 1) Optimistic by reg
With his image think I snap QQ-AA here if I chose to db.



Hand 2) Sigh vrs Fish HU


Hand 3) Sigh runout in 3bet pot vrs 2 regs
Think my line is actually superb here for my holdings/range. Think this is a 100% check range for me in SB 3 ways with regs with the preflop action. LOL @ big blind preflop, flop (this one's not awful but still), and river lines.



Hand 4) Disgusto spot vrs ME winner Greg Merson
Think he's owning me pretty hard on this texture a lot of the time. Also 100% check range here on the flop including fds, overpairs, and sets.




Heading out to the Pstars meetup in the next half hour or so. The plan was to come home and grind, but I got roped into doing social things with the promise of single womenz (one of my biggest weaknesses tbh). Got a weekly volunteer obligation tmrw morning followed by a good friend's bday in the afternoon. I'm hoping to get a short session in-in between. No telling how late the party goes so I'm not sure I'll be getting in any hands tmrw evening. A little 2 day vacation before the PS fiesta begins is not the worst thing in the world.

Happy Friday everyone and have a great weekend

As expected the weekend recreational/social activities dominated my time. I played zero poker from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I play poker so I can live life, not the other way around. All-in-all this weekend was a blast.

I was excited to get to grinding this week after the short break. Especially because PokerStars is now live. The software is great, except for a somewhat annoying sound glitch. Games were solid today, but nothing special. It's still early goings for Stars in NJ. I played an absolutely beastly volume day today, putting in just over 8k hands. Haven't hustled like that in a while.

I would say I played a solid B+ game for most of the session, getting a little passive and lazy due to tiredness/hangover. Some hands below.

3.21 Longggg grind


Hand 1) Bluff caught by tight/solid regular. Probably need to use bigger sizing if I'm going to try this (on the river), but think it's fine. I was surprised to see one pair from him, don't think I'm overbluffing in these spots but what can you do



Hand 2) Tough one for AgroFish




Hand 3) River bluff raise vrs reg in 3bet pot
This guy was playing pretty loose/agro and had position on me. This was the second post-flop confrontation with him in this afternoon. I was a little worried he would think I was getting frustrated and then bet/call something really stupid. Fortunately, I think he just had air so this got through. First bluff of 2016 for me




Hand 4) Obilgatory biggest win of the session HH, not sure what BTNs doing but he's allegedly a winning regular. Pretty stubborn here preflop for who is in the pot with us. Not sure he can call this a cooler but I am probably jamming a handful of NFDs here...



Hand 5) Stubborn river call vrs very agro fish



Hand 6) Bluff raising the river against good regular
On second look, it appears I probably just turned the best hand into a bluff, but in theory it should be really hard for him to have a hand to click call with (is it really fun clicking call here with a crusty flush?)




Hand 7) Standard but fun when it gets through.

Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2886118
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG: $526.35
MP: $202.00
CO: $127.14
BTN: $227.75
SB: $219.60
Hero (BB): $225.44

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with Q A
UTG raises to $6, 2 folds, BTN raises to $18, SB calls $17, Hero raises to $54, 3 folds

Hand 8) Owned by fishy





More tmrw

Ok so I think there are a few miss played hands so I'll give my thoughts!

1. Not too bad tbh. As you said sizing up river (you're polarised here) would make a lot more sense. I'd advise going at least 150% pot

3. Really really sketchy. You don't block spades which is a big part of his barrelling range and you also block JQ and AQ, two of his main bluff combos. You do have a 9 which is important but I don't believe you'd call call here with many value hand, bar the occasional 79 combo. Bluff a hand like 99 with a spade or something

6. Yeah this is definitely strong enough to call

7. Just call pre. Waaaaay too good to 4b fold. Use your off suit combo instead

Hope this helps! Gl boss

7. I'm not convinced you need a cold calling range here

Woops, I thought we opened. My bad. Yeah wp

Thanks for the comments! Appreciate any and all feedback

For 3 I definitely agree it's a bad combo to bluff here. That being said his sizing screamed b/f to me (although a bossreg wouldn't have a sizing tell, but wouldn't classify this guy as boss). Also with my sizing this doesn't have to get through that often

Gotta keep in mind these guys keep getting shown the nuts and I fold a lot so when this happens I think it's hard for them to call any one pair even blocking spades. Villain also seemed like the type to bet wide and thinly and when checking almost always give up. So I thought he could even be b/fing as low as AT or something like JJ

Of course im aware this means I should bluff more, but in general I think people don't fold enough in these games

It's nearly 2:30am so going to keep tonight's update brief. Played another very long day of poker after some afternoon social things. Fortunately, running very well lately and booked another decent win.

3.22


Hand 1) Std tough spot vrs agro reg



Hand 2) Poor river bluff attempt







Hand 3) Brutal runout for regfish




Hand 4) Tilt inducing night ender against agrofish




Going to be a tired dude tmrw

Why did you ship the turn in hand 1 with QJ?

Thought about posting thoughts on that one but was tired. Think call or jam turn have very close EV

Equity when called returns more money than calling and wiffing and folding. Certainly have some small fe if he's doing a weird merge with some random AX that 3b pre. Also think in theory you can create a turn x/jam range that puts 2pr in some serious pain, but people never really folding that ever

Worried villain can play perfectly on 4 straight rivers or if I make trips. May not jam thinly on flush completing rivers. I don't want to donk rivers either

In position I think the case can be made that calling turn is a lottt better

I was pretty exhausted from last night's late play. Gave myself the afternoon off from the gym to nap and rest up for tonight's session.

Unfortunately, I finally booked a losing day. The first since starting this PGC! Pretty standard losing things, bad run-outs, losing flips, and top of everyone's range. Will try to keep the trivial ones out of hand histories below. I was also guilty tonight of playing wayyyy too many tables something I'll have to look out for. Very proud of myself for toughing it out and still getting some decent volume in.

3.23


Hand 1) Brutal turn vrs meh reg
We're 125 deep and I'm tight utg but I still think this is a mandatory 3b from him. That being said, he managed to overset me so he played it perfectly

Dont think this guy is cold calling much T9ss in the CO. So I thought I had the effective nutter butters. Was sad to see the result



Hand 2) Optimistic call from agro regfish
Some people really spaz out when you check a street



Hand 3) More spaz induction, this time vrs a very tight/stationy regfish, very out of character



Hand 4) Over-frushed by fishy, self explanatory



Hand 5) Going for it vrs reg, he typed in chat after hand "you'll have to do better than that if you want to get paid" or something along those lines.
Guy was pretty active when checked to so I figured he never had a good hand here, probably JJ was the strongest he could have. Doubt he ever checks back fds or pair+fd.

Learning if I actually want to generate the fold, I have to make it bigggg



Hand 6) Extremely tough spot vrs stationy/tight/nitty reg
I think I'm checking some turned flushes here and definitely make a lot of FHs on the river, so I can fold this hand safely. Still blows. I think it's a great combo to x/jam as a bluff since I block all the FHs but does he ever b/f the nut flush? I wasn't too sure for this guy.

In all honesty, when the river pairs, I'd be pretty unsure as well with my weaker flushes, but is he really barreling sets on the turn when the flush comes in or he just bet/3betting those on the flop? Very confusing game

Think jam>fold>call but I wussed out





Get 'em next time

Bluff raising is pretty ambitious given you only have just over a minraise left. Seems like an easy fold vs described villain.

Does he 3bet the flop with sets? Maybe, but I don't think he should.

Great thread friend!

Question on Hand #6 from last night: What hands do you think we get value from that makes it profitable for us to jam on the river board pair against a nitty/tight reg? I think we're beat here to often for the jam to be a profitable move.