Very nice month. Are you playing the Main Event?

Ty and Yes. I booked my flight to vegas this week.

1 time?

Go Go Go!

I kinda assumed the title referenced the Main Event but thought I'd ask just in case

Broke even today (too lazy to upload garff) on ~4k hands. Played really well.

Few hands

1) Turning AA to bluff against weak reg
Think his bet/call is very much losing here. This is a cbet nothing oop board (exploitatively maybe some very strong stuff) and I can credibly have all the nut flushes in my range. As for bluffs only AAd and maybe a few comes of AdXx but very few. Against many people I'll bluff here 0% and villain certainly just earned that tag.




2) River bruff raise




3) Coolered big time by fish sigh




Hand 4) Choosing great line vrs 2 fun players
... and I lose




Hand 5) Bluffing weak reg (for sure capped here)




Hand 6) Strong reg playing well
He decided/chatted that river jam was too thin vrs me ^^. Debatable but probably okay.




Drinky time. Hopefully, have the mental fortitude to play some MTTs tmrw

Are you not concerned in hand 1 that a weak reg is betting there in a multiway pot and then following up on the turn (despite the weakish sizing on the turn)?

It's probably a weakness in my game that I very rarely make moves in a multiway pot but people play them so straightforward at my stakes.

Yeah I mean I'm trying to fold out a set primarily otr. The flop his range is still wide and the turn I'm getting essentially direct odds to draw vrs a set and i still have the best hand a lot. So folding before river is out of the question

The only question is if bluffing river is better ev than call or fold. Thing call is pretty bad option. Fold is fine and I do that a lot. If you're ever going to balance a bluff in here adxx is the hand to choose and I decided to try it this time.

I played a horribly tired/hungover day of poker yesterday (Sunday). Something I know about myself is that when I'm tired/hungover my emotional control and levelheadedness goes wayyy down and my propensity to get upset/tilt goes way up (even over super standard flips/giis/etc). I don't play all that poorly when I'm in this state, I'm just very much not having fun/autopiloty/not happy.

So around 11pm after I busted my final MTT I looked at cash and decided no TY to the lineups and didn't feel like battling further.

Speaking of MTTs I played 3 Sunday majors. Busted all 3 for a total of -$600. In pretty much all 3 MTTs I ran card dead in the early stages and all of sudden I've got 15-30bb and it's all up to randomness how far I'll go.

Playing a few MTTs over the last months I've come to realize a few things. Maybe it's very common sense and "standard" but perhaps a few of you can chime in. In most of the MTTs I've played, I'm chipped down to that 15-30 blind region at some point and whether I run-deep, min-cash, or bust is mostly due to randomness (card dist. and winning flips). I believe this is what 90%+ MTTs are for most reasonable players and that's good and fine.

Some very small % of the time you're fortunate to accumulate 60bb+ in the mid-stages. The edge you generate in MTTs is how you parlay this 60bb stack into a final table (tournament winning/contention) stack. Essentially, how well you can apply pressure to the 15-30bb stacks while not spewing away your equity. I really want/need to practice this situation as this is imo what makes a great MTT player - the ability to turn a good run into a win. But of course, you need to fire at lots of MTTs to get into this very fortunate spot where you can play high variance to try to win the thing. Some % of the time, you'll be in the "agro/chip accumulation" state, lose a flip, and then you're in the 20-30bb luckfest again (just doing your best to stay alive/flip your way back to contention stack).



6.5 cash



Handz

1) Smashing flop and playing slowly
Obviously a flop that smashes my range. I'm going to want to sometimes c/c flush draws/pairs+gutters/some sets so to c/c a flopped straight is good too. Can of course fastplay the nuts 3 ways on a drawy texture, but if the turn is bad the regulars can put you in tough spots. Obviously the guy who stacks off light is just some fish. Good to let him put in more bets with low/no equity.




2) Great line choice vrs battley reg
Guy hates folding to 3bs cbets etc. This board is very BAD for my range. Most decent 1-2 regs recognize this. Decided to balance out a "showdown/give-up" range with the nuts. Snippity snap the river of course. In the past, I would tell myself I'm not going to bluff 3b the guys who hate folding. But then you're range is too weighted to only QQ+/AK and they can really own you on certain textures. I think it's good to balance out your QQ+/AK and 3b these spots some small-% of the time with a much wider/balanced ranged that can flop well on a variety of boards.

Speaking of his bluff, his hand choice is non-ideal, but this is the kind of board he's going to get me to fold everything but sets/straights/flushes/top 2, a lot of the time. So I don't think his bluff is that bad in a vacuum. Obviously, seeing this at showdown my adjustment should be to not fold so often. As they say "can't lose if you fold".




Hand 3) Moron reg taking moron line (yes I'm bitter :P)
A board that I'm cbetting near 0% lately. Plan was to xjam turn. His shove is pretty bad here imo, especially since I'm holding the nut bluff card.




Hand 4) Similar spot vrs top reg
River might be a c/c here with top set. Although this guy is more on the showdowny/non bluffy side of the spectrum so might be okay to c/f.




It's the early afternoon in NJ and games are pretty dead. I counted 4 reasonable 1-2 games going across all sites so I'm not going to play. Went for a great jog in the beautiful weather we're having and going to relax and put in a long night of play.

6.6 Luckbox



Hand 1) 1 outing agrofish




Hand 2) Good line to agrofish




Hand 3) Nitty reg 3barreling scary texture

Given turn sizing I honestly thought I was smoked here to this guy. 3way pot on this texture is so scary for his entire range except AA/KJ. Was *hoping* he thought AQ was good but he's such a nit that he's probably scared of sets (b/c I'm also pretty nitty). Anyways, if I choose to not fold turn, I can't fold to this river sizing.

This texture/spot is so interesting b/c I'm starting think he's not supposed to have any cbetting range here. It's too hard to really like your hand by the river on a lot of runouts to actually want stacks/3 streets (unless you have topset/turn a straight).




Hand 4) Another tough texture to want 3 streets (with range)

I'm experimenting not cbetting here. Villain is a massive agro/whale, but I struggle a ton in this kind of spot (flop/turn/river) when I have something like JJ that's going to hate 80% of run-outs. Against a passive fish it's probably fine to bet for value/thin-value and the fish will play straight forwardly on turn/river. Against an agro fish who's going to pot any street you check, JJ becomes much more difficult. I think the solution is to check the flop wide. Did so here. Obviously lucky with result, have to experiment more.




Hand 5) Refusing to fold trips to whale's nutted line
Think it's fine




Hand 6) Bluffing top reg

Solid night in the office. Not too many interesting or big hands. I did really well in red-line tonight (which is rare for me). Wonder if it has to do with cbetting less OOP or if I just ran well tonight (probably the latter).

Bubbled the FT of a tiny MTT for like +$80. Passed on one spot where a good agro seeming reg was 3betting a lot near the bubble. He 3bet another reasonable looking reg HJ/CO and I had KQo in the big blind with like 28bb on the stone bubble. I kind of wanted to rip it there as it looks INSANELY strong and I can build towards FT stack. Presumably a good reg is just going to town there 3betting a ton with a big stack. Butttt I didn't wanna bubble :P #pusscake

6.7 solid night's grind


Hand 1) Similar spot to the other day

Have the best hand to bluff with here. But it's offering suicidal pot odds and V seems to love his hand. Decided not to pull the trigger here today.




Hand 2) Decided to not go for "thin" (okay, not sooo thin) value and got berated

I think in this spot I'm not value betting any of my overpairs and I decided not to value-bet the small flush. Obviously, in villain's eyes that makes me absurdly polar if I do bet a spot like this in the future. But I feel like it's insanely hard for anyone who's not a super station to find a call with 88, 9X, TT, JJ, QQ here. Maybe KK makes a crying call (but it's a bad one imo) and a decent villain can turn a ton into a bluff here to "try to fold out AA" (which I'm probably not betting). Soooo all in all a nitty check back but I'm cool with it.




Hand 3) Bad spot for bottom set... butttt
Looked at who the 2 Vs are and decided it had to go in. These textures are not easy. Given showdown results obviously a super happy/great decision. Agro-fish gonna agro-fish




Hand 4) Wanted to call river but chickened out

A texture I stopped cbetting against the agro fun players. I beat a lot on the river just kinda chickened out. Had he sized a few bbs fewer I was calling.




Business as usual tomorrow. Hope to keep up the building momentum

Played great yesterday for the most part. Just failed to find myself in good spots. Had one really tough hand which I'll post below, looking for advice (will leave it as last hand).

6.8 L - a - m - e



Hand 1) Battlemaster reg puts me in annoying spot

In the future, I guess I ought to check back hands with equity that I'm not willing to stack off with (and balance by checking back sets)... I wonder what his x/r range actually looks like here. Not enough info to know. Hate having to b/f a gutter and bdfd, but I also hate not bluffing with 8 hi. I suppose that bet/calling is an option here and my hand looks insanely strong. But I also hate putting in 30% of my stack with 8 hi. And even though my hand would look insanely strong he's not check-folding overpairs ever.




Hand 2) Flop gin vrs 2 fish, river mistake

I should just check river here. Any AX is betting. Have to let him spew air.




Hand 3) Only standard "fun" hand of the night vrs fish
Good sizing by me




Hand 4) Brutality vrs table mark
Session killer hand. Love my line (as I'll want to x/call flop with all sorts of things)




Hand 5) Advice wanted - QQ vrs decent reg

Plan was to triple thru on good run-outs (eg turn brick/any river). I think I got a little fpsy on the turn. The card improves his range quite a bit more than mine, but a lot of his hands are pair+T. I wasn't sure at the time if I was going to check/shove or check/call turn (with intention of being really confused on the river).

Maybe I should be bet/folding turn (yuck) with the intention of shipping most rivers (except the 4 straights or J). That's probably ideal here even though I put myself in a lot of spots where I have to check/fold river with my QQ. He does have a ton of 9T, TT, JT, QJ, KJ, AJ which all call a turn barrel. The issue is what to do on various rivers and am I perceived to ever bluff this sort of run-out? What do my bluffs look like?

Anyways, when he x-backs turn, I expect this kind of guy to have 1 pair always. The king shouldn't change much but I also think value betting is kinda thin (because the card is perceived to help me more). I suppose I can bet river, but someone really sharp can turn a lot of things into a bluff (people rarely do this). When he bets though I'm not sure what I expect to beat so x/call river is kind of a disaster (one of the bigger mistakes I made in the session for sure).

x/shove river is an interesting idea and I'd probably play a lot of my QT like that. But I don't expect people to bet/fold sets/2pr to that line so I don't really have to worry about bluffing that spot (and QQ is a prime candidate with double blockers to QT).

halp

H1 first impression is that you can't afford to not peel this. Else, your turn range has very few bluffs when he checks to you and you'll be forced to bluff some 9x. If you peel your whole range, including two sets and A9s, you can have space to bring over 3 combo of 8high gutter bdfd. I am assuming you will check back Ax wheel gutters as well as 99.

I'll crunch some numbers later after I get off work.

Ehhh when villain takes a ridic line like 3betting and c/ring a 9 hi rainbow board I think minimal defense and worrying about having enough bluffs goes out the window. I think it's a difficult line to play back against but fairly easy to adjust to (don't stab/fold with equity).

You have to think strictly equity vrs range and likelihood of realizing. Also you have to consider the chance you make a big mistake on a later street.

If he's going to shove jj+ and a few combos of KQ or whatever ott it's going to be impossible to show profit calling the flop c/r.

I suppose I don't have enough history with him in this spot to assume he's value heavy. But continuing with 8 high against an unknown range against a guy who doesn't give up feels intuitively very bad.

Sub 87 with TT and I can mash call otf and call most turns

Ya, it makes sense exploitatively, 8 high doesn't really play well without initiative.

Last night was the first friday I passed on social plans to stay in and grind prime time in months. I was really excited to play poker. Unfortunately, right out the gate (of my evening session) I wasn't really playing poker I was playing "you-lose" for about 2 hrs. Lost every all-in (flip, 80/20, 90/10 didn't matter) for a while. The regs at 2/4 3b a lot and every time I chose to fight back I either wiffed the flop or 4b/f'd my air and never really had much to fight back with.

On the plus side, I kept it together and fought back really hard. In terms of what I can control, I think I made very few mistakes and auto-piloted very infrequently even though I grinded a monster 6.5 hr session.

6.10 too much <3 to quit evshmeev



Hand 1) Clever bluff vrs weak reg




Hand 2) Vrs top reg that was pounding on me like crazy

Even thought this guy was 3b/5b and barreling often. I think to this sizing, I have to fold river. I made a "**** you" call in this spot, which is kind of what I think he was hoping for... But he has a chop minimum and he has the QT very very often. I think his "polarized" bluff sizing to get me off everything other than TX is not going to be 4x, it'll be pot, 1.5pot, or max 2pot. This is just the nuts so so often. They was my only "mistake" of the day but it's a ridiculous spot.

Anyways, I like how he played his hand. Especially the running down the nut-gutshot part.




Hand 3) Bluffing good reg

Think this guy can definitely x/call turn with some flushes. But it's also hard to make a flush.




Hand 4) Not folding to agro-whale




I don't have plans for today either, so I'm hoping to put in another monster volume day.

Ahhh nice I know who you are now . Was at the table for one of the hands you posted. Nice job with the monthly results I made 16ish last month as well.

Haha fun

Why did you over bet in hand 3? If he were calling a pot sized bet he would have called a shove as well imo.

It's allin. He had 290 behind its not an overbet

Ah OK that makes sense. I didn't do the math.

Had a successful but very swingy Saturday and Sunday of poker. I also bricked 2 Sunday Majors today in very timely fashion. MTTs are so lame. Hopefully, since I'm running so crap in MTTs now I'll be "due" a win in the Main Event in July.

Slowly but surely getting more used to playing big pots at 400 and 500.

I started messing around with a new line on certain "difficult" to play textures OOP in 3bet pots. Getting berated by regs pretty hard for going against the grain. I'm not sure if it's moronic good or bad yet, but I love to mess around with lines that get people out of their comfort zones.

6.11-6.12 swongy but solid



Hand 1) Dusting one of to good reg

Plan was to not jam hearts (since I don't block those) and to ram thru on bricky runouts.

I'm not perceived to be 3betting this spot that widely. KTo is probably a pretty low freq 3b for me but I think it's fine some of the time.




Hand 2) berated by good reg for taking this line... lol




Hand 3) Reg fish not believing
Sigh




Hand 4) Another regfish also not believing




Hand 5) Tired/end of session/didn't notice stack sizes/whoops/good4image




Hand 6) Good bluff to same reg from h1 and h5 (he's owning me last 2 days oh wellz)

Just hitting top of his range, but the bluff is good. Block a5 and 56, pretty prime combo to a run a bluff with here.

I guess the downside of bluffing this spot is diamonds miss and are perceived to bluff. But I rarely ram thru with missed fds since you block their folding range and don't block their calling range. I'm also rarely raising naked fds ott.




Month is off to a fab start in terms of EV generation. Actual results materially lower . Playing great but I need to stop looking at results during session in order to keep composure/focus and put in a few more hands. Getting into this bad habit lately (I can't play well after looking at results no matter what they are).

[/QUOTE]
Month is off to a fab start in terms of EV generation. Actual results materially lower . Playing great but I need to stop looking at results during session in order to keep composure/focus and put in a few more hands. Getting into this bad habit lately (I can't play well after looking at results no matter what they are).[/QUOTE]

I've actually gone to looking at results only on the 1st and 15th of the month, and its working out awesome. So much less stress and wasted mental energy. It will all be there in the end, even if you stop looking for a while.

Sick thread man. Nice read and nice results

Cant you still grind some while doing grad school?

GLGL

Haha yes but then I wouldn't be able to post daily graphs and hands for this thread. I think not looking while playing will suffice for me but sometimes hard for me to do especially if losing.

Ty. Excellent question, something I'm constantly thinking/stressing about. I'll try to answer briefly with pros/cons.

Pros: I like poker. I like making money playing poker. More $$$ in short-term

Cons: Time management. Full time MBA is a huge commitment. It's not just about time spent in class/home-work, but building "network" connecting with different alumni/employers, building long-term friendships/relationships with classmates, etc. I also have NO idea what I want to do longer term, so in the short-term I need to spend time exploring that (which I won't do if I'm playing poker). Given all the time/energy spent on MBA I'm not sure how much I'll have left in the tank for poker. I also hate "half-assing" my hobbies and I know I won't be happy playing only 5-15 hrs a week while tired/distracted/not working off the tables. In turn, I won't be sleeping/resting during my free-time and my performance/energy at school will suffer too. Basically I see the potential for a negative loop in which I do poorly at both school/poker.

Making the right career choices out of school can have pretty large impact on future earning's potential. So focusing on meeting the right people and giving myself the chance to land in the right place has big-time long-term implications. Whereas making a few bucks on the side now playing poker seems less important and very short-sighted.

Then there's the question of what the poker industry's future looks like.


Of course, at the end of the day I love (unhealthy obsession?) poker. And I'm going to get the itch. But for the beginning I'm going to attempt to give up poker again, very sad indeed. I also think about the possibility that I can't stand the regimented schedule of school (and normal career life), I'm unable to work for somebody else, and that poker has "ruined" me for a real career. But there's only one way to find that out.

I would recommend figuring out what you want to pursue career wise before orientation. This will sound strange but once school actually starts if you don't know what you want to do then you're already behind. You could always just go the management consulting route and figure out what you want to transition to after that once you're working but then you should be preparing for case interviewing right now imo. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Thanks for answering man.

I don't think you have been ruined, its just a matter of enduring the first weeks and then it becomes a habit. I went back to university after poker carreer and everyone was telling me how hard it was probably going to be for me, etc. Turns out the work ethic learned from poker and all the abilities that one gets and improves when taking this path are very helpful for a lot of other things and I breezed trough uni on my comeback, getting the best grades out of all students in most classes too. Without killing myself to do it either.

Off course you also feel the need to play poker, but if you think about it as side income for sustaining your good life and taking a more recreational approach, as long as you are "obsessed" (in kind of a good way) with the MBA and doing your best at it, poker will probably fit well on the side for the time being. You will kill the need (a little bit), making good income, keep exercising all the good things that poker gives, etc.

Doing 50 hours/month or w/e even if you play lower, to reduce variance, stress and reduce study hours needed, I think it will fit well.

At least it worked for me

Anyways, best of luck man with whatever you chose, you are clearly intelligent, and a lot more important imo, hard working, so you will do well whatever you chose.

very entertaining thread