Awesome work mate. You'll love it. Have a rad time with all the freaks and fakes!

You've stopped updating us on your results.....is there a reason for that, that ive glossed over?

No good reason. TBH I have been playing poker a lot more sporadically, it's a 1 hour drive and I'm not pressured to make money. Furthermore, there's usually 1 table and if you don't get there before it fills up you're stuck waiting with literally nothing to do for possibly over an hour.

I still enjoy playing poker but yea I dunno, been hanging out with friends/chasing girls for the past awhile. Got a motorcycle, been learning to ride that. Rode for the first time in the rain today at night. Took a 15 minute shower when I got home and I literally had no idea (still don't) if it was a hot or cold shower by normal standards because I was freezing so bad lol.

Although to be honest I should start tracking results again. It's good motivation.

Alright time to follow up on that results tracking.

Mini-challenge: $10000 in 30 days!!!!!!

This is a pretty lofty goal considering I only have access to 1/2 NL games, can get possibly crushed under variance. However I definitely think it's possible and I'm definitely gonna try. Mainly, it's a way to motivate myself, since I've been playing poker like 2-3 times a week for the past month or two. Interestingly enough, there's a very stark contrast from this to my goal for poker in the OP, so I suppose that indicates some sort of progress

LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO DAY 1 START NOVEMBER 12.

Day 1 went not so good. can't even blame variance, just played bad. Tried to force an 8 hour marathon session when it wasn't in me. Lost a huge pot triple barreling some guy on TT854 board, thought he would peel twice with any pair but fold to river bet. He had AT. Bah. Also lost another fairly big pot where I bet super small to induce from some guy who was talking about how FoS I was the whole time, he raised, I snapped with TPTK and he showed 2 pair. lol.

One hand I feel like I played pretty smart. I flat QT on CO vs some guy who is playing his first hand and opened to $5 from MP, BTN flats. Flop is 3 handed.

Flop Q85, pot ~$16
I bet $10, BTN calls.

Turn 2, pot ~$35
I bet $20, BTN raises to $40...

BTN is a typical older guy who is terrified of draws. If he has any good hand here there is no way in hell he is minraising with flush and straight possibilities out there. I literally think he has zero hands in his range that can call a turn 3-bet here, so I popped it to $100 and he folded. He claims to have had KQ.

Also, I remembered why I stopped tracking results once I got to LR. It's because the tables track them for me, haha. Not sure exactly how much I lost today, roughly $300. Forgot to check- I'll get the exact figure tomorrow.

Day 1: -$300 in 8 hours.

Gahhhhh really want to play poker but i have to do government work, generally it's not very busy but the work comes in spikes. Sigh...

aint nothin more important dan da mula

OK I haven't been able to bring myself to write about this for roughly a week now, but here's an update on what's been happening. I feel really bad for ditching my 30 day goal, but I just have not been in the right mood... here's why:

So throughout the years I've always had these arguments with my parents, both of them, about poker. My mom's impression of poker is based 100% off the movie Rounders, except she only remembers the violent parts and doesn't remember the character Knish at all for example. Last week I decided to take my parents to the casino with me to show them what it was like.

Man that was disastrous. I'm not going to go into too much details since it makes me sick to think about it, but we argued for hours. My mom's argument revolved around the fact that she "knew a guy who played roulette for a living and has been doing it for years". I obviously try my best to explain how if a hundred guys try that, 1 might succeed while the other 99 go broke, and... man I can't even finish this. It's sickening.

The REALLY sick part: both my parents have a math Ph.D. My mom is a math professor and my dad is a programmer.

Regarding the poker, I played 2 hours that day and was up $150.

Sounds like you lost the argument before it started, probably not helped by saying poker was in anyway similar to roulette?

Well i said poker is in no way similar to roulette since no one can reliably make money at roulette, my parents are both quite good at table tennis so I said if they could play completely random people for $50 a game if they could make a living. They're like "well yes, but you can get unlucky in poker".

Anyway, you're completely right that I lost the argument before it started. Shoulda known, shoulda known, shoulda known...

Explaining that I have no job and just gamble is harder than I thought and some people just can't comprehend it.

I hate to say it but I doubt they will ever understand your point of view. I would not give up on trying to get them to understand tho. Try a different approach and try to remain calm.. even tho you want slam your head against the wall when they stubbornly argue lol.

I think I'm kinda lucky regarding my parents. Both of them have done stocks for 5+ years and my dad had to deal with 100k swings about a decade ago. I know for a fact he is very knowledgeable in stocks but can still runbad. Fortunately, explaining poker to them wasn't as hard as I initially thought.

Haha, that's cool. To be totally honest though, I kind of wish my parents were humanities majors so it would be more understandable. My dad has a masters in statistics in addition to both their math Ph.D's too, heh.

oh well time to play some League of Legends

My parents were pretty against me playing poker, I just kept playing and told them when I was up and when I was down and after a year or so they eventually came round to the idea. Consistent profits and them realising how hard you work at the game will help a lot. My dad thought poker would be easy as hell til he watched me play a session online, he just couldn't keep up and when I explained why I did stuff he got a decent impression.

Been taking a long hiatus from poker, first time I've played since last posting. I feel kind of bad for being such a lazy bum, but then again I did play poker 7 days a week for most of this year (AND I HAVE THE EVIDENCE! ITS RIGHT HERE!)

Was up $300 in 3 hours. I really wanted to put in a longer session but was just feeling tired... too far away driving here. Definitely planning to be playing 5+ days a week once I make it to LA.

Hand 1: Umm I lost ~$140 in the first orbit I sat down, villain with 70bb raised, 1 caller, I squeezed preflop from the blinds with KK, both flat. I bet flop, jam turn on a 9872r board and he calls with JJ. He apologizes for the suckout and gives me the "I had to call I had a gutshot" line, I just smile and snap-reload within 2 seconds. I <3 electronic tables.

Hand 2: I've taken a few pots down with a flop cbet at this point, had some good image from that KK hand. I raise pre with A4 to $15 over like 4 limps from BTN. 2 callers, including super-fishy villain who I will call Beardguy. Beardguy is splashing around nearly every hand and talking about (terrible, ofc) poker strategy non-stop (another interesting thing about electronic tables is I actually know of all these villains' real names. heh).

Flop 722, pot ~$45 (****ing rake)
Both check. I check, Beardguy looks at me seemingly genuinely surprised I did not cbet.

Turn 5, pot ~$45
First villain checks, Beardguy bets $35, I think for 15 seconds and call. Other villain folds. This is a pretty sizeable bet so I'm wary.

River T, pot ~$115
Beardguy bets $35 again, I think for about 5 seconds when he says "I got you bro". I snap-raise to $125, he tanks for a full minute (you're only allowed 1 minute per decision here, it's actually a surprisingly long time), talking about how I must have AA because I raised preflop, but why would I raise on the river with AA, maybe I backdoored clubs with AK or rivered a boat with TT (rofl), and eventually folds.

I really didn't like my betsizing here. His most likely hand with this action is some mid-pair like 87 or 66. While he was limping like 90%, he usually folded to my "large" raises so I doubt he has many 2's in his range. In retrospect I think like $80 is better. In retrospect, I really overestimated my fold-equity vs this guy- my plan on the turn was to fold if I didn't bink (also why I didn't try semi-bluffing the turn).

Hand 3: Most of my profit for today. I raise UTG+1 to $10 with AA, folds around to this somewhat aggro (but not overly so) old guy who 3-bets to $30. Out of all the people I've ever played with at Oaklawn he's one of very few players I suspect *might* 3-bet me light due to how much I open from LP. However I'm still like ~80% sure he has like AK, JJ+. I don't suspect he realizes I'm only opening UTG+1 here with AJ, 99+.

I'll just summarize the action instead of spelling everything out, but I check to him 3 streets, which he triple barrels ~1/2 pot (river bet is a jam, he started the hand with ~130bb). Final board reads Q525T, he rolls over K8 and insta-leaves the table in embarrassment. Not sure if this helped at all but I tank/called flop/turn (obv snap river though I thought there was a decent chance he had QQ, I feel he plays KK this way too. tbh I thought his range was primarily 1 combo of AA, 3 combos of QQ, 6 combos of KK here).

*brief intermission* JEEZ have all my updates been this long? I feel like this post is already getting wayyyyyyyyyyy too long, but I'm just getting to the most interesting poker event that happened today (most interesting actual event may be me hitting on someone twice my age for the first time in my life... at least as far as I can recall. I'll spare the details on that though).

Hand 4: Not a hand I was involved in. Between Beardguy and the guy to his right. Basically, Beardguy bets an AT2 flop, gets a couple callers I think including the guy to his right. He visibly throws a fit (groaning etc.) on a 2 turn before any action and bets 1/2 pot. Only guy to his right calls. At this point Beardguy does something he's never done yet, which is show both players to his left his cards, the second of which is me. He has AJ. River is the 2, and they have like a PSB left. I'm thinking no way does he fold here. Other guy leads the river, Beardguy snapfolds and shows. Whole table is in disbelief as Beardguy is well, kind of a station tbh. Beardguy starts talking about how the other guy would only bet there with a 2, and takes two $100 bills out of his pocket and throws them in front of the other guy and says "you can have those if you can show me a hand without a 2". Other guy is like "I had the 2, I can't believe you folded an ace."

Now while I included other details, it's basically entirely because of that move with the $200 that I'm like 90% sure Beardguy saw the guy's cards. I didn't bring it up (Beardguy left shortly after) and I don't think anyone else even gave it a second thought. But why did he bet the turn??

Jesus this post is long. I forgot how I used to do this, or were they always this long?? Ah well. TBH I'm glad people actually read this. It does make me happy

yeahhhh buddy

Good post. More info on the cougar....

^ I'd love to but that not writing about that would fall under the category of "reasons I wish I didn't give this link to RL friends".

Going to play another session now.

Bahhh down $300 in 3 hours. Nothing too interesting, lost a pretty big pot all in on the flop with QQ vs ATss on T75dd, then triple barrel value cut myself with AThh on T2237r vs 42o. This particular villain was a decent overall player but he always thinks I have nothing for some reason so I thought he could call 3 streets with any pair.

Still pretty disappointed I'm only playing 3 hours at a time before getting tired.

Also I realized I wrote overestimated when I meant underestimated regarding my fold equity in hand 2 last session.

after playin live poker for a while now, do u still have the motivation to grind? long hours? or has it become pretty boring?

Thanks for the comments

Currently, I don't have the motivation to make the 2 hour round trip drive. I'm like 90% sure I'd still be dropping by daily if the casino were right by my house, but who knows.

Planning on grinding hard in Los Angeles, where I'm moving right after Christmas. Well, perhaps grinding isn't the right word, rather, playing for fun that also doubles as my primary source of income. As soon as I feel like I have to force myself to play regularly (i.e., a grind), that's when it's time to find something else to do with my life IMO. Hopefully that never happens

In other news, recently learned how to ride a bike and bought this for $3,300. It's a 2007 Honda Shadow Aero:

^but they want to hear about this too, I'm sure.

Awesome thread Aesah! I've read it from beginning to end! I was just curious...you still playing at Oaklawn these days? Also, what screen name do you use there?

I just played my last session at Oaklawn a few days ago at the "party like there's no to-Maya" event. One hand where I feel like I took the wrong line:

About 250bb deep, a bunch of limps, I make it $20 with AJ from SB. Two callers.

Flop KJJ, ~$64 pot
I bet $40, 1 caller.

Turn 8, ~$144 pot
I bet $100, villain calls.

River 2, $344 pot
I jam for about $250, villain folds.

I think river should have been a check, lots of possible missed draws on that board =/

My screen name is my real name, maybe I shouldn't say. I'm 24, asian, always buy in for $400 every time. Those parameters should be unique to me at Oaklawn :P