Bad Timing

So I just remembered that tonight is my farewell party after I quit my job of 4 years 5 months. Pretty bad timing that it happens to be on the same night as The State Of Origin, when the games are renowned for being incredibly juicy. I literally think that a $50/hr win rate would be attainable at 1/3 NL for tonight specifically, and I'm giving that up to have drinks at a bar with my former coworkers.

But I guess there's 3 positives to going out tonight:
1) A break from my session. I can play perhaps 5hrs in the afternoon, go out for a few hours, then play 2hrs at night, which will improve my mental game.
2) Reference/network EV. It will help to be closer friends with my former manager and coworkers.
3) Happiness/social EV. Even though I'm somewhat introverted and don't mind spending large amounts of time on my own, I guess it is good for me to socialise once in a while.

I don't plan to make a habit of this though. My general rule is that poker comes first, parties come later. This is the one time I'll make an exception.

yup, nothing like some drinks at the bar to improve your mental game!

I think you need to grind tonight OP, never mind a farewell party for your old job, you will likely not see these people in the future.

It's not often you can achieve a winrate of $50 per hour on a Wednesday at 1/3. With this in mind i wouldn't even recommend you play these stakes today. A big part of being a professional poker player is flexibility, if you expect to make $50 p/h then your EV at 2/5 would be about $80. If you are able to grind a good 10 hours today this would increase your roll by a significant amount. If you run good you could easily make upwards of 3k tonight.

Luck is on the side of those willing to take opportunities as they present themselves, what would a real pro do?

Inb4 OP gets ****faced drunk again and goes on another gambling rampage. GL

Honestly if this was just a one-off party then I'd so no big deal. However, what's concerning is that these things keep appearing out of nowhere over and over...ie drunk session, loaning friend $700, playing blackjack, going to a party. All of these are obstacles to your success and are completely avoidable. You need to be more disciplined. You need to get into a routine because it seems left to your own vices you just live in the moment with no thought about how your decisions will affect your future.

As for playing on the softest night of the year, I really don't view that as a big deal. It's really a crapshoot in regards to what your results would have actually been, and if the game plays differently than you are used to the added EV could be less than you expect and the variance is probably way higher. The fact is that the games are good every day of the year. You should really be trying to improve to a point where you will have a sizeable edge virtually any time you play.

BTW, it's silly to think so much about hourlies. One's true hourly can't even be measured unless you have a huge sample size and even then it will change over time and vary based on game conditions and your own play at the moment. You really have no clue what your hourly is nor what it would be on a particular night. An hourly isn't going to pay your bills. Cash money is what pays your bills so go out there and get it. Focus on improving your game and stop worrying about what you make per hour, ffs.

Finally subscribing to this trainwreck

I'm rooting for OP, but I rarely root for winners

He needs to pre cook all his meals 2-3 times a week or have gf cook that shizzlle. U need to prioritize ma dude. Listen to gucci mane...

I'm hustling hard like I'm trying to get my cash back
I took a loss, had to go into my last stack
Lord Mercy! Money, got to make it all back!!!

The Sun shines on a dog's ass sometimes
Sometimes you don't laugh now you gotta laugh last.

(stop trying to ball out. Stay down till u come up)

A farewell party for a scummy pizza delivery driver? And the manager giving you a cake? Pretty odd if you ask me.

Good thread. Would definitely be 5 Stars if a mod went through and deleted all the ******ed mini essays on definitions of success, global fast food prices and incel rants on the evils of women.

Good luck OP. Love your passion and wishing you some run good. Keep it up.

Deja f**king vu... another bad start

For the third day in a row, I sit down at a 1/3 NL table and lose my first buyin within 25 mins of sitting down. And once again, it was caused by me making some highly questionable plays.

Taking a more aggressive line than usual

1 limper
MAWG completes SB
Hero checks BB with Q8ss

Flop ($9, 3ways) is 8h 7d 5h

MAWG bets $10
Hero raises to $35
1 fold
MAWG calls $35

Turn ($72, HU) is 8h 7d 5h 2c

MAWG checks
Hero bets $60
MAWG tanks, buys time for $3, then eventually announces all-in for $270
Hero folds

Maybe he was making a move with a pair+draw, he did seem like a decent reg, but I think that the vast majority of players simply have me crushed when they take this line.

How do they have it everytime?

Decent young reg opens $12 HJ
Bad reg flats $12 CO
MAWG flats $12 BTN
Hero squeezes $65 SB with KQo
Decent young reg folds
Bad reg backjams $213
MAWG folds
Hero calls $213

Bad reg shows AA and holds. I don't even know anymore. I expected him to have far more 77-JJ in his range than {QQ+, AK}, and with all the dead money in the pot, I thought it was a fairly trivial call.

Well that's yet another bad start for today... hopefully I can spend the next 6hrs grinding my way back to even, like usual. Sigh.

I even thought I was playing disciplined. Like I folded KQo UTG. I folded KJo on BTN to a UTG raise. I thought I was playing a tight and low variance style, yet these spots just keep coming up.

It was also annoying because I had to type this entire post twice after I clicked "post quick reply" and my internet disconnected and I lost what I typed. And it's so hot in the casino for some reason and the heat makes me tilt more. And the guy to my direct right does this stupid angle shooting thing where he pretends to throws his cards in the muck preflop but then pulls them back, so I end up folding out of turn and getting yelled at by the dealer, even though it was all this other guy's fault.

I'm probably going to take a break now. Go for a walk. I can't afford to let these little things get to me like this. I'm better than that.

6,

Hand 1: call flop or check behind turn. As played, good fold.

Hand 2: Bad squeeze, absolutely horrible call of reraise.

gl op.

Wtf you have to "buy time"? Wtf? Aussie casinos sound like they suck.

Getting it all-in preflop with KQos for ~60bb is not standard, it's spew. Folding KQos utg and KJos to utg raise is good. You could limp fold KQos from utg but folding is fine.

Don't post quick reply. Post reply like a pro. Don't post ITT or read your phone while you play. Focus on the game. Just some suggestions.

Six ,
You were up 12k for the year a few weeks ago. Are you still around that mark now that you are without a job?

So I just come back from my break, feeling a bit better. I sit down, fold a few hands, even fold AJo in SB against a UTG+1 raise, then this hand comes up:

Hero opens $12 HJ with AKs
Tight young Asian guy 3bets $35 BTN
I look at his stack and it doesn't look very big, so...
Hero 4bet jams $142 effective
He snaps with KK and holds

Like this is another one of those gross spots where, maybe, I guess, I might've been able to make an extremely exploitable fold, but like, it just feels a bit sick that I even get put in this spot in the first place.

The game is pretty bad at the moment anyway. I don't think it's getting any better until later tonight like after 10pm, once the rugby game is over, so I might just book a loss for now and take the afternoon off.

After today's session, I think I'm about 11k up at live poker this year. But I've stopped counting my wins and losses from before the day I went pro. I've started a clean record now where I record times and hours too. And it only started a few days ago.

Good idea.

6,

AK hand there is not sick, just a totally standard uninteresting spot. The only reason you’re even thinking about it after the fact is because you’re on such a short bankroll. That’s why you should get a part-time job.

It's just so confidence shattering when every session begins as bad as it possibly could. Like I wouldn't even care if I got coolered. If I got set over set or my AA got cracked by a flush draw when we were all-in on the flop, then I could handle those bad beats fine. No problem.

What I hate is the feeling that maybe I could've played the hand differently. Maybe I could've gotten away. Maybe it was my own bad play which caused me to lose so much. Having these kind of thoughts run through your head within the first few orbits of sitting down just completely f**ks your confidence and your mindset for the rest of the session.

Well the KQo hand was terrible so if removes any doubt.

6,

The last $142 was just bad luck. The first $300 was mainly bad play.

Q8ss hand is bad, I’d flat and fold turn if he barrels any reasonable size and we don’t improve. Weak TPGK is not a great hand in a limped pot.

KQo hand is bad, bad 3bet, bad call to a raise you should snap fold to. What range do you think you’re up against that makes this a good call?

AKss 50bb deep vs. young guy not confirmed nittitiest nit that ever nitted a nit...whatevs. It only bothers you because you have made sure you are in a bad spot financially.

I'd also like to know why you think the player with AA is a "bad reg"? What's your evidence he's a bad reg?

You sound like you need to take a break from poker. But I don't know if you can afford that. Might be time to look for a different part time job.

If you had to go back to your pizza delivery job, that's an option right? I mean they threw you a going away party so I imagine if you had to you could get your job back. So don't view going broke as the end of the world at least.

Why is this a bad squeeze? KQo seems like a good candidate for a squeeze, no?

3 bet/calling it off for a total of around $280 with the KQ off hand is just amazing spew, and just another premium example of you suffering from fancy play syndrome.

To be perfectly honest OP, with your regular spewy punt plays for stacks, tilt and discipline problems i am not so sure you are a longterm winner in the games by any good margin at this point. Your game needs some serious serious work overall before you have any chance in hell of making it as a fulltime pro.