Going to keep tonight's update brief b/c I'm tilted AF. Tonight was going much better and I was putting up a decent session... until I punted ~1 stack in EV to a scumbag reg I hate (2 actual stacks).

The first hand I 4b bvb (he 3bets an absurd amount in this spot like 25%) with AKo. He sometimes 5b jams light (small pair/suited ace/suited connector) and sometimes flats 4bs midpair or s00ted bway type stuff. I also know he's more or less only bluffing with equity and never pure bluffing. Anyways, it comes j22 and I decide to cbet my AK because my range is so much stronger and I expect him to be a pretty big pussy with a lot of hands (like 88-TT). I also think if it goes cbet check/check. I can bluff on the river and generate folds almost always from his entire range. Anyways, I check the turn 4 brick and he shoves and I know he's NEVER EVER EVER doing this with KQ/AQ type stuff that's going for the pure float and then fold out of AK. And yet I can't bring myself to hit the fold button. I mash call and see KJ and just lose my ****.

The second hand I pick up 8s in the sb like ~3 orbits later. He 3bets again and I decide I'm putting in the old 4bet to 27bb (spew 88 not strong enough to gii even to this monkey) and you can call the 4b IP again if you want. Anyways, he jams and I know he's not light, but I didn't 4bet 88 to fold. So I call it off hoping and praying for a small pair or AK/AQ (although he's smart enough to know I'm on tilt and not going for a 5bet light here) and of course it's just KINGS.

5.11 GG snap rage tilt snap quit


It's a pity because I felt I was finally running decent in other spots.

Only 1 hand because I'm too tilted to think about poker for the rest of today

Hand 1) GOOD river decision
So I typed in chat before hitting call that this was going to look super nitty :P. But thinking about it here I think it's the right decision. With the board paired he's never going for this with nutflush. There are 2 combos of straight flushes possible (a3ss, 67ss) and 1 possible quad combo (44). Then there is exactly 1 combo of FH I beat that he bet/calls flop (the other set). If I jam river, I truly believe he's supposed to fold bottom boat here after the turn goes x/x. It's just too sick a spot to bluff.




I think I've been raging wayyyy too hard in chat lately. Definitely not helping my mental game, which is usually much better than this. I'm not even losing ffs just a lil break-even stretch.


Bonus hand - "Above EV hand of the day"
Vrs 83/13 whale... how do they keep doing this to my big pairs in 3bet pots it's so sick. Happy to win this one but still 84o trips really guy? Poker can be so silly sometimes

[QUOTE=pokerarb;49987292]Very cool. Do we play in the same games? Or do you play lower/higher?

I play smaller games (50NL and 100NL) and don't think we've played much together (if at all), but I enjoy reading the perspective of better players than myself (+also when said players seem non-douchy)...thus I read this thread

Do you play live with any frequency (Borgata or Parx)?

[QUOTE=FastBF;50021832] No live player, although I want to take one trip to play some live 5/T before I head to vegas to play the main

Another short update. The break-even swong continues. Played A++ today. Made 1 questionable play vrs an agro reg who doesn't love folding (but he's not on the super stationy side either). Other than that very solid good poker

5.13 MOAR



Vrs agro reg (albeit marked weaker-reg). Going for the range fold. My line is SUPER credible and I would play all my KK+ this way. His bluff catch is reasonable from a hand choice perspective (all AX being the same). But I doubt I try this sort of thing all that often and the HH shows why. People hate folding top pair in 4-bet pots. I more or less figured I was targeting AT-AQ for a fold with my river jam. The hand I'm repping and blocking is of course KK.




Other than that mostly standard stuff. More of the same of not running that well, not playing A++ (but pretty good play today, definitely A- or A which is great) and generally running into very strong hands when I value bet thinly (and/or getting raised by passive players when I value bet thinly... so frustrating). I think if I focus on NL and keep up today's level of play things will turn up soon.

50k b/e and counting

Nice thread. Any interest in naming who you think some of the better 1/2 or 2/4 refs are on borgata?

I don't mind. I haven't played a ton of 2/4 so I can't comment on the guys that mostly play 2/4+ exclusively. I also wouldn't include myself in the list, I think there are definitely a lot of guys better than me in terms of poker talent/skill (even though I rage at those same guys in chat from time to time :P).

But among guys who actively play 1/2:
g*gs30
P*ltz*an
*am*ertainly
*illAtkins*n (although near the bottom of pack, but he plays tons of volume)
JO*57*2 (haven't played a ton but I'm impressed by what I've seen especially b/c he plays PLO too at the same time as NL)
F*TD*N (doesn't play 1/2 anymore though)

Probably leaving a few people out, but those are the ones off the top of my head

Yeah 5/6 of those guys play on the reg up to 10/20 when it runs, pretty sick. One thing that is hard to deal with mentally is playing multiple limits, i.e. Play 1/2 then go play 5/10 in same session. Any thoughts on how you handle this? I'm talking mainly about the variance, not about diff strat, etc

I think I'm in a similar situation to you at the moment, albeit at much smaller stakes. Feel as though I'm running really horribly but until yesterday I was breakeven for the month. I think it's just super frustration at the fact that I feel I'm playing better than ever and I've plugged some pretty big leaks but I just can't get any traction going. I think the poker gods are asleep at the wheel this month.

Keep your standard of play up and the break even patch will pass soon man!

Good question. I'm definitely not the authority on this. Going back to my OP of the thread I talk about being a huge bankroll nit and it's still mostly true.

The way to game select properly (including stakes) is to look at your poker bankroll and then look at the lobby (entire lobby) and find all the best seats at the highest stakes you're allowed to play (based on your personal brm model) and then play. If you're upswinging, b/e, or downswinging it shouldn't matter - you play the biggest and best games you can.

When things are going my way I'm good about this as last month I took shots at some soft 5/10. As soon as things even blip in the other direction for me though I snap stop playing 2/4+ until I'm on an upswing again lower. In this way I've never really established myself in 2/4+ and I've probably cost myself some money over the last say 6 months. But on the flip side I've never busted a bankroll and I think I'm close to 0 risk of ever busting a bankroll.

I think a lot of poker players (and traders) wear their previous ~4 sessions on their shoulder. If they're doing poorly in poker then it affects their whole mood and self evaluation of self worth. It's really "human" and really -EV longterm but it makes for playing lower stakes and consistently winning and "feeling good about oneself" in the short term by almost always booking wins

I think the best guys "allow" themselves to lose at the big stakes. They follow brm so they don't go bust but they have the confidence that even if they go on a 20 or 30bi downswing at bigger stakes they know they are +EV and it will come back to them (and it does if the confidence was warrented). Then again a lot of guys too stubborn to move down do go bust.

Agree. Wake up poker gods daddy needs some new toys

Thx feeling confident atm even though results are lagging. Know it will turn soon

Yeah good response to my question. I played in the most amazing 5/10 game yesterday on borg and lost multiple buy ins. I normally play 1/2 and 2/4 and the losing at 5/10 stung incredibly hard during and after. I used to play 5/10 as my normal limit pre Black Friday, and was mostly fine handling swings then so I can't really explain why it hurt so bad now. Fish lost 5k in like 45 minutes and it all went to Pam and Moose

Who are you? I'm not outed by not hiding it either... have you figured out who I am yet?

I just figured your borgata screename was same as this, no? A few names to guess would be byeo89, better than you, or thatsumpossible. I haven't linked any NJ screenames to my 2+2 name so sorry cant say.

Newp none of the above. But thatsunpossible is my friend and my twin (we play similarly)

Had a really fun (drunk) weekend. Was not too hungover today and was able to put a long day in and played some MTTs. Mincashed the WSOP 30k (+$70), busted the satty to the colossus (-$42) and busted the 100k SCOOP (-$250).

VERY happy with how I played (and ran...) in cash. Dropping PLO and actually focusing on Hold'em leads to good results. Go figure.

5.15 Breaking Through



Hand 1) Punting one off
I was actually very okay with my line/hand selection. Trying to fold out weak aces. Guy outplayed me big-time here. Sometimes you gotta tip your cap and say NH. Anyways, I realize my 4b sizing is a bit non-standard here. I want to develop a dynamic with this guy BvB where I use 2 4-bet sizings. Don't wanna get into details about it though




Hand 2) Lol funplayers




Hand 3) Vrs decent reg
Think I was calling river. His check-back shows that calling river is probably really really really good. (if you don't understand why think long and hard very important concept). I think with our dynamic (no real dynamic) his check-back with KT is okay. But yeah happy he didn't jam KT woulda gotten owned.




Hand 4) Barreling thru vrs straight-forward tighty
Plan was two and done. River was too good to not jam.




Hand 5) Vrs big nit
Was pretty sure when he raised the cbet I was toast. I tanked briefly and decided that I would pay off a set this time since I'm fairly readless against him (except for HUD stats). I also decided I WOULD NOT TILT if he had a set.




Hand 6) Standard 3/5
Guy 4b/folded once or twice before. Pretty good hand for this sort of play.




I'm on pace to play 120-140k hands this month. Hopefully, I can pick up some momentum and put up some decent table winnings in the next two weeks. Game of Thrones then a well-deserved long sleep.

Finally hit the heater I've been (un)patiently waiting for. I also busted a SCOOP 1r1a for -$300. Lost 9 from the money jamming AK vrs utg from mp with 24 blinds. Guy thought and called with AQss (bad call). Turn Q. Showers. Tournaments are soooooo dumb

5.16 Fun&Ez



Hand 1) ROYAL
His line is very good. Think he has a big range advantage on these type of boards so slowplaying my strong hands is important. Him having a river c/r range is good to get his medium value hands to showdown (and he can get me to bet/fold a lot although btn should realize that CO almost never has a c/c range here)




Hand 2) Brutal turn for tight reg (and friend who may read this thread)
Good to run good.




Hand 3) Poor calldown vrs weak/tight reg thing
Flop call is probably fine as he might be spazzing vrs sizing with anything. Turn call is bad. This is 9x almost always (even though biglol at defending squeeze wide here...)




Hand 4) Refusing to fold to agrofish




Hand 5) Going for a heroic bluff with blockers
Villain is a loose/medium agro fish. Thought (hoped) I could fold out weak AX. Think I can play AA/KK, XXhh like this (even though he doesn't care). I may just have had the best hand




Hand 6) Bonus PLO hand
Saw the great Chris Moneymaker siting alone at a PLO table at 1:30am. Figured I'd keep him company. A few more guys sat in. Villain was not MM. Basically figured I beat some 678X type hands (I Hoped...) and other random hands spewing. I have no idea about this PLO thing. Seems like bingo to me

Hand 5 above: Would you try this bluff at LLSNL 1/2 or 1/3 ever?

Hand 4 in previous to previous post (QJcc): You said this was two-and-done for you. But what range do you expect to fold to a db on 4432r? If he's calling flop, he's never folding this turn though, right?

Never ever doing that bluff in LLSNL they snap AX so fast.


In qjcc hand it depends. A lot of guys will not fold 66-tt type stuff to 1 barrel. But then fold to a second barrel on alms every turn giving you credit for jj+. Thought he was one of those folding turn too often

Played another very strong day of poker. My session last ~6 hrs with a short break in the middle to heat up some food and then immediately back to the tables. Had a really lame hand end my night... but what can you do decent day overall and back to winning. Cannot complain in the slightest.

5.17 Strong


Hand 1) Calldown vrs rec
Being in position so nice




Hand 2) Very similar




Hand 3) Vrs crazy agro guy
Not sure if villain is a winning crazy agro guy, but he's definitely on the more thinking side of the spectrum. I think my 4b can be slightly wider than usual to try to isolate the bb (whale). But villain probably perceives it as strong. Nut bad flop of course. On the turn I was hoping he was jamming wide to isolate his equity against the fun player (and to fold out my KK/AA). I think he's smart/crazy enough to try this with QQ/KK (as a bluff against me) as well as stuff like AJss, AQss... If I'm right I have just about 45% equity against his range which makes my call okay. It's certainly a spot I hate life quite a bit. If he's never jamming anything but set/straight my call is terrible, but I think it's fine against villain.

Was too tired after 6hrs+this hand to continue.




Moar tmrw

AA looks like highest ev should be a jam pre w all the dead money in the pot already no?any reason as to why you decide to flat?think it looks way stronger than a reshove
if you're giving villain a decent chunk of QQ and KKs ott callling pre seems like lighting money on fire
gl gl

He can't reraise cause the BB jammed for less than a raise so he can only call. But yeah, super gross spot for sure. Keep up the good work!

Nice hands. Why 1/4 pot on the 65Thcc? Are you going same size w/ your whole Cbet range?

Probably not. Sometimes I press buttons kind of randomly. I can always pot or overbet turn if I decide I want to play a bigger pot.

Im experimenting with all sorts of different sizing. I'm definitely not doing it in a perfrctly balanced way just looking at villain tendencies and trying to mess with them. Putting people in weird spots is good