Had an interesting sort of session tonight. First half god-ran super hard in every spot and poker was fun and easy. Then something flipped and I started to lose basically every pot.

Took about all I could and snap quit. Would have been incredibly tilted to lose it all. Games were still quite good but I was definitely shifting from B+ game to worse, so I think the quit is fine. Does not matter how good games are if you're going to play like crap. Definitely a mindset weakness/leak but better than tilting my balls off.


4.12 Volatility



Hand 1) Monster above EV hand suckout at 500
Standard given positions



Hand 2) More run-g00t at higher stakes



Hand 3) BIG TIME donation from agro-fish
Pretty nice to get $400 in with 90% equity




Hand 4) Interesting spot with whale and top reg
Think flop lead/sizing is pretty xpert here. My turn sizing is face-up but matters 0 as I just want value from the whale. Don't care if reg is "exploiting me" on various rivers. Was pretty sure the top reg's range on the turn was overpairs, chops, freerolls, the nizzles, sets, and various FDs. The only hands he can call my jam with are chops, nuts, and freerolls, but I decided jamming the turn to fold out all his drawing hands and to isolate my equity against the fish was better than calling and allowing him in with excellent pot odds.




Hand 5) Standardish calldown vrs weak reg
Think his river sizing makes this way too easy. He should probably go 2x pot




Hand 6) Fun line vrs loose weird agro reg thing




Hand 7) Tough vrs whale




Hand 8) Frustrating spot on the turn vrs agro fish
Was torn between all 3 options tbh. In hindsight think a jam is best




Despite a win, I'm pretty tilted. Hopefully, a good night's sleep, a day in the office, and a hard work-out will put me back in a good state of mind for tomorrow's session.

Hand 1: In one of the games I play (on my local site), most people are weakish/passive and just flat 3bets with hands like QQ/JJ and only 4bet with AA/KK type hands. 3b/f seems right but the problem is they sit with only 40 bbs; so is 3b/f still correct?

Hand 2: Isn't BTN overplaying AK on this flop if you're folding everything worse when he shoves over your cbet? Isn't it better to just flat and let you barrel? He's only scared of FDs. What's the purpose of shoving?

Hand 3: The times I make these type of calls, I always get shown AK/AA. How comfortable are you really making these calls even against whales?

Hand 4: Are you b/c or b/3b flop when raised? What's your plan OTT if whiffed?

Hand 5: You beat almost nothing except missed spades. I'd tend to fold OTR here.

Hand 6: Would you call if he bet like $50 OTT?

Hand 7: Are you always calling 3bets with dominated kings in that spot? I do this often but mostly lose a lot when I flop TP like that and get bet into, like it happened here.

Hand 8: Does BB really have any Jx in this spot after his coldcall pre? His line looks so weird. Can't you raise flop and rep Jx or something?

1) You would need ridiculous reads to 3b/f AK from sb to btn and be making a good play. I think when my jam gets called he has JJ+/AK a lot, but he's certainly folding to the all-in too (this reg quite a bit). Fine with generating folds.

2) BTN is a rec player. Granted he was playing on the tighter side for a rec player. Anyways, his raise is huge - he seems committed and I like my hand. Why not just get it in? Don't need to make poker more complicated than it has to be. I don't think he's overplaying too hard. I can definitely get in NFDs here and maybe even KQ combos. His hand is quite well disguised too.

3) Against this whale very comfortable. I mean calling off 10x pot is never fun without the nuts, 2nd nuts, or 3rd nuts. But against this guy it was pretty close to a snap.

4) Fun spot because if the reg wants to keep the whale in the pot he can't raise the flop. Bet/folding

5) I beat spades and hearts and some hands like 45. Pretty decent bluff catcher too

6) Maybe call, maybe fold, maybe jam. Depends on reads

7) A reasonably loose/solid/agro reg 3bs sb to co, think KQss is a pretty standard defend. Against a nittier guy it can be and is sometimes a fold. Regardless, calling preflop doesn't mean I'm going call call call every time I make a pair. Some guys won't bluff past the flop, some the turn, some the river, etc. You have to know your customer, intimately. Also the big blind is a whale with 50 vpip. Very standard call behind to see a flop.

8) BB is a whale he can have anything. He can definitely have JX, random PP, air, ace high, etc. Think jamming turn to get him off ace and king high is probably best. Made a small mistake in calling.

Great insight, thanks! Please continue posting hands, it is too much fun.

In the spoilers, would it be possible to put your analysis behind your bet sizing, ranges that you put your opponents on, and what you are trying to accomplish on each street? Some spots might be obvious to some (not me), but it would be nice to understand how you got to some of your decisions. Might be too cumbersome for every hand, but I don't know.

Not going to do this sorry. Going to be wayyyyyyyyy too much work. I don't intend for this to be a coaching/learning kind of thread. But if there's a specific hand in question I'd be happy to give a few thoughts. I don't think I'm a particularly "skilled" or tough player in the sense of playing perfect ranges, applying a lot of pressure, or having a deep understanding of some high level theory. My skills are that I play in good games, I rarely tilt, and I exercise great BRM.






Played a solid 4 hr session this evening. Not sure why but I felt kind of tilty and whiny during the session even though things have been and continue to be going my way. At around the 4 hour mark (midnight) I was pretty tired of playing and called it despite a few good games running. Perhaps, it's because I only had 1 cup of coffee today and none before I started grinding.

Anyways quite a few interesting hands which I'll post below.

4.13 Truckin' Along



Hand 1) Good reg balancing his flop x/back range and pwning me
Thankfully, this guy is a bigger bankroll nit than I am and tends to play lower. Think he's quite good.




Hand 2) Super sigh vrs fish




Hand 3) Vrs loose/agro/stationy annoying monster reg
Know this guy folds nothing pre/flop. So in doing this play, I have to fire turn to get him off all his marginal pairs some of which turn equity. In hindsight, kinda meh. I do think he's slightly imbalanced pre-flop here and is going to be jamming KK+/AK almost always. The best hand he can have here (besides set) is KQ. I also block some KQ, KJ which is quite important.



Hand 4) How to play good draws against agro fish (improvement on yesterday's mistake)


Hand 5) Good calldown



Hand 6) Delay c/r fail... but wait?



Hand 7) Good bluff line vrs capped-ish range
Decided to not lead river for a few reasons. 1) I have some SDV which is worth trying to realize 2) If he has a pair of aces, he's NEVER folding to a river bet 3) I think I can get guys to bet/fold a naked AX here a lot of the time 4) I'm definitely checking river with some FHs, straights so I'm reasonably credible. He can definitely have some stuff like QT, KT which of course isn't folding






Have plans Thurs/Fri/Sat evenings. So it's looking like I'll play some short day-time sessions the next three days. Will most likely regret passing up the good games tonight to play with the day-time warriors. Happy to take an evening or two off as I've been feeling the burn out lately.

You've been grinding really hard and deserve a break! Month looks like it's going strong. Keep it up bud

Hand 1: What range do you think he's shoving over your overbet here?

Hand 3: I've noticed you (and most of the regs nowadays) make like a 1/3P cbet OTF and go 70% OTT. Why only 1/3P OTT in this hand? Aren't you letting him in with JJ type hands?

Hand 6: Are you delay c/raising because you think his range is capped at Ax and he'll fold? Once he calls, are you always giving up on the river like here? Are there no rivers you'd bluff?

1) probably something like flopped straight, set, flush draw, overpair. Doesn't much matter I have k hi

3) In 4b pots you're perceived range is really strong so you can apply lots of pressure on early streets with small bets and set up a 50% or less psb river bet. Idk about pricing in bluff catchers. It's hard to put in additional 25 bb on the turn with potentially 2 outs.

6) Bingo. Think a turn c/r puts absurd pressure on AT-AK. My range is wide and uncapped. Think most guys cap themselves in checking flop 3ways. Would be very clever to check a set here as the pfr to induce a bluff from me. But only top regs do this.

Once he calls I'm not in the business of jamming river to make stubborn regs fold top pair. Would shove all 2pr+ of course. With reads I might bluff all sorts of rivers against various regs. Had no reads on this guy

Awesome, ty ty.

Not a problem. I'll be sure to ask about specific hands next time. Mind sharing any of your thoughts on the market? Do you think the China data, oil prices, and the FED holding back rate increases are enough to keep the bull market going? Can you talk about any of your past or current positions?

Excellent questions and definitely something I read and think about quite a lot.

I'm no econ PHD or macro wiz and if anyone knew the answer to these questions they would be a very rich person indeed. I'll give my wholly unqualified opinions. This has no bearing on my day-to-day trading, you sort of have to forget your opinions and trade what you see.

I think everything comes around to suppression of interest rates and the fed trying to manage the economy and the "recovery" since 2009. Think this is having a lot of unintended consequences and leading to malinvestment. I tend to side the Austrian school of economics when it comes to interest rates. Man prefers to consume now, so to delay gratification and consume later must be rewarded (at a natural level of interest). I think the fed is playing with the very nature of humans and rewarding sub-optimal short-term, often greedy, behavior.

China was/is probably a huge bubble. Student loans/college tuition is a massive bubble. US stocks are probably overvalued, but not a frothy foaming at the mouth sort of bubble. More that the fed has successfully herded money into every corner of the public markets in effort to seek yield.

Think any sort of normalization of interest rates will crush the markets. But I don't think that's happening in the next 10 years. Rates will stay below 1%.

Oil prices imo are a symptom of the global economy entering a period of deflation (see china slow down). Given levels of public/private debt, central banks are fighting deflation to the death. It's hard to say if they're winning. Think the average consumer in US/Europe is fairly tapped out. Median good paying jobs are scarce and as a result we have huge income inequality (due to globalization, technology, and the need for highly skilled labor).

I have no opinion on market direction in the short term. Every time the SPY is down by 180 I think it's about to be the big one. Every time it's over 200 I think we're going to break-out into another up leg. And we're basically bounced between that range for like 18 months now. I mean markets always rise and fall. They'll be a crash at some point, impossible for the average person to time, and I'm certainly not trying - it's a fool's errand imo.

Not going to talk about current/past trades. I've basically made 0 high-exposure trades this year. It's been slow to say the least.

A lot of great points. Thank you for sharing the knowledge. I just got done with The Big Short. Say what you want about the movie, but I thought it put an important focus on the system. It would be pretty nice to find the next bubble before it pops, or rampant fraud.

Noob poker question. You talked about capped and uncapped ranges. Is calling a certain bet sizes in a particular position the only qualifier for determining if a range is capped or uncapped? What are some other ways of defining that type of range. If a range is polarized, then it is air or the nuts. A condensed range is all the hands in the middle. How does a cap or uncapped range play into the other type of ranges?

Like many things in poker determining if someone's range is capped is a somewhat subjective measure and process. It's a pretty powerful piece of information if you can remove very strong hands from someone's range because then that spot is ripe for bluffing and the bluff is typically lower risk.

A very good player will be able to show up with very strong hands taking somewhat nonstandard atypical lines. Mediocre players fall into the trap of always playing certain types of hands in certain ways. A lot of the time balancing with this much finesse is not important and the most important thing is just getting value from your strong hands. Especially against the recreational players.

You have the definition of a polar range spot on. I've never heard of the term condensed range but sounds interesting.

Going to do a recap of my weekend since I haven't posted results the last few days. I managed to make it home Saturday afternoon and played a four hour dream session where almost everything went my way. Lost a 150bb 3bet pot at 400, and if I faded the turn mostly likely would have gotten close to career best session.

Today (Sunday) I played only one Sunday major MTT since I was so tilted I bricked everything last week. Finally, godran one of these things and manged to finish second for a cool 4.8k (4.6 profit). Cash went so-so during the MTT, but I certainly can't complain for the day. Everything was fairly automatic, but I made what I think were two very creative/great bluffs near/on the final table which I will post below.

4/15-4/17: The rung00t continues


Hand 1) Grim turn for rec player
Think it's probably a fold


Hand 2) Smashing flop vrs agrofish and good reg
Reg tanked the flop after I shoved. I think it's not that close and definitely a fold




Hand 3) Rough pot at 400 vrs fun player



Hand 4) Poor bluff attempt by me
I think there's a few different options for how to play this hand. Guy 3bs this spot quite a lot and KQs is a pretty great defend. Think call>>>4b here. Although he's known to flat 4bs so a 4b might not be terrible. Postflop c/r is an option. Think with king high I should have elected for that one. That being said, the guy is kind of stationy so I'm not sure how often I can get him off QQ+.

River: I think I either need to go small to fold out ace highs or I need to go 3x pot (maybe jam) if I want to fold out his entire range. Sizing as played was poor. Too easy to bluff catch.



Hand 5) Rough turn vrs agrofish
Think 1.5x potting turn is fine. Expect to get snapped off by worse a lot



Hand 6) Very rough turn vrs known agrowhale




MTT Hand 1) Dream river vrs agro unknown
Villain was playing quite loose pf/postflop. Given CO/BTN I think I'm calling most river bricks. Think his jam when one FD gets there is a little too loose.

PF is certainly up for debate. I was hoping a blind would sqz jam and I can then gii comfortably. My image was fairly tight so I don't think I induce CO to 4b jam worse all that often. I don't really want to flip when I can take a flop IP (and mash call until rivering the nuts).



MTT Hand 2) Big river bluff 3 handed @ FT




MTT Hand 3) Clever river bluff



MTT Final Hand
Villain is some SNG/MTT reg (I think). He has the chip advantage and wants to win, but he's never getting it in here with > 50% equity so I think the check/shove is bad. Pretty easy c/c with top pair and a bdfd imo.






The heat has been very real in April and I'm hoping I don't totally jinx myself by posting that. Allegedly, trading should pick up this week around corporate earnings' releases so I'm hoping to make some money at my day job as well. I've played just over 40k hands of cash and with the nice little MTT score this afternoon the month is looking very healthy.

Exhausted after a very boozey weekend and an 8 hour day of poker. TBC tmrw

Thank you for the explanation. Can't wait for more hand reviews.

Awesome score in the tournament and continued cash game crushing. Gl boss

Congrats on the gret run, arb!

Hand 2: Do you think the good reg's call with 44 is correct with 2 shoves in front?

Hand 4: What are you trying to represent there with the overbet otr? Doesn't your hand look like TT/JTs or a missed FD since you'd check/raise flopped sets or something like 98s? Don't think his calling range changes much with your bet sizing here.

TY
TY

Hand 2: If you take a closer look at my original post you'll see I said I thought it was a fold with his 44 and that I didn't think it was particularly close. He obviously smashes the fish, it's just that he has 2 outs vrs me really often. And when he doesn't have 2 outs I have a flush and he's behind anyways (although with pot odds and the fish's dead money it's very close in that scenario)

Hand 4: My hand looks like air. That's why he called pretty fast. I'm not always c/r'ing sets though. I want some protection for my c/c range in this spot. Again I address some of these points in my original post.





Played a break-even four hours of poker this evening. Was quite tired tonight and felt very auto-piloty and robotic. I don't think I played particularly good or bad. Maybe a bit lazy passing up some marginal spots in favor of less headache. Certainly can't complain about a b/e'ish day.

4.18 Sleeeeeepy


Hand 1) Annoying river spot vrs loose agrofish




Hand 2) Fighting back against agrofish
Think theoretically if I think he has ATC the "correct" play is to just calldown with ace high. Wanted to fold out his random equity. Also he's short so I'm risking less.




Hand 3) Vrs agroreg I don't know much about
Not sure I love his donk (with anything). Once I generate better reads think I can make some exploitative adjustments.




Hand 4) Stubborn calldown v agrofish




Hand 5) Nitty fold vrs passive fish



Hand 6) Another stubborn calldown vrs agrofish




Hand 7) Weak reg getting stubborn vrs me




Hand 8) Same weak reg doing it again (gotta showdown a semi-bluff sometimes...)




Have some social things planned for tomorrow evening so tomorrow may be another day off. I plan to sleep in and trade from home so perhaps if the market is quiet I'll battle some daytime warriors in the afternoon.

I'm also starting to give some serious thought to attending the Borgata Spring Poker Open to play the $1M Guaranteed Championship event next week. The costs associated with such a trip are kind of a pain (renting a car, hotel, gas, and ofc a hefty entry fee) and also the opportunity cost is quite big (few days off from trading and online poker) and the most likely outcome is losing a flip and busting before the money. That being said, if I intend to play the ME in Vegas I should probably play a live MTT before that to get some experience. Also the glory of a deep run of a live MTT must be the coolest poker experience ever. Will make a game-time decision later this weekend.

First thing that I will say is good luck. I am pulling for you. Next I have a few questions. What were you trading? We're kind of similar. I traded for 4 years before going to bschool. I took up poker because I really missed trading and it was the closest thing to providing me with the feelings that I felt when I traded. Why did you decide to go to bschool and give up trading?

Anyway, good luck man. I found this thread and had to reply since we share my two passions in life trading and poker

Oh yeah, one bit of advice for bschool. Either limit the drinking or be diligent about hitting the gym everyday. The first year weight gain is far worse than undergrad because our metabolism isn't as strong...lol.

US Equities, short-term. While I've made "decent" money trading over the past 5 yrs it's not quite enough for me to forgo all other professional options. Like poker, trading is not getting any easier. Also, the exit options from "day-trading" are effectively nil, so I decided to make a change now while I'm average age for b-school. The nightmare scenario is mid-30s, some savings but not enough to retire, and no employment options.

Solid advice. TY.


Thanks for the replies always great to connect with people who have similar backgrounds and interests.

What part of the country are you studying in? Do you play poker online or live? What were your expectations for your MBA program (socially/professionally) and how has your experience compared?

Question on hand 6 of 8, "stubborn calldown". You tag the opponent as an agrofish, and that makes sense based on this particular play. With all of that, how do you find a call with two pair on a 4 flush board? Is there something that you really picked up on to call the jam? Given the betting line, couldn't your opponent have a small heart, and jam to fold out mid heart cards / or a J or Q of hearts given the aggression?

I graduated bschool. I was in school in the Midwest but I'm in the Maryland, DC, VA area consulting. Our stories are eerily similar. I went back to bschool for the exact same reason you are going. I really hope that you have a better experience in corporate than I am having. Gaining transferable experience is great but all of the work is just ****ty. There is something about the feeling that you eat what you kill that makes you feel alive imo. You don't get that in corporate. When you work extra hours because your manager can't trust your slacker Co workers with any important assignment you quickly get disillusioned with corporate life.

In terms of bschool, it was ok. I got what I wanted from the experience, which was a good internship and a good full time job. It is a bit like drinking from a fire hose though. They just overwhelm you with things that you won't remember. My finance classes were good though.

One more piece of advice, if you are not a whiz with Excel, become one before you start school. You don't want to have to figure out excel while being overwhelmed with everything else.

If you get the itch to trade again, I found the Trading Price Action series to be invaluable. Here's a link to the first book in the series.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/111806...s+price+action