Hello Varx-
So Iv'e read the majority of your blog and I have just a couple of thoughts for you as you continue on your journey:
First of all,at the young age of 21 man oh man are You ahead of the game.I respect your passion for the game along with your will to improve and I wish good things for people like You who put in the work.
Your opening statement comparing playing Poker for a living as "running uphill with a weighted vest in the dry desert heat" and having learned it the hard way,says a lot about your understanding that there are so many aspects to being successful at Poker beyond being a winning player on the felt or behind the screen.
Just so You know,learning things "the Hard way" is sometimes the Only way to actually learn the lesson correctly.
The older I get,the more I realize this as it applies to all aspects of life.
Can't tell You how many times Iv'e tried to help friends or acquaintances of a younger generation by giving them the advice of something I've learned "the Hard way" (Showing them the playbook that I put together off my own beats--if You will--like Knish) but it just goes in one ear and out the other until they learn it on their own.Human nature I guess.Bit of advice,try and listen to people who have been there if You can.Trust me,it can't hurt.
One other note I thought I could mention to You:
The game of Poker is constantly changing,and the tools available today to help You improve are limitless,but don't forget that just flat out experience is still the best tool you will ever use,repetition is the Mother of all skill.Don't get me wrong,as I mentioned earlier,the fact that You are doing so many things to try and improve your game is outstanding,but in LIVE poker,things such as tendencies/visual tells/timing tells/knowing your opponent are such a Huge part of your success in improving your win rate and hourly rate.What I'm getting at is this,I notice You are posting many many hands from your sessions for feedback and that's great,but while you are putting hands in your notes and replaying hands that are over and done with,You are missing out on a lot of important information that You can use later in the session or future sessions.
Paying attention when you aren't in the hand to other players actions is invaluable to You as You will be able to exploit their weaknesses later,knowing who You can do what to and who You can't do what to.
Most Poker players have a good enough memory to review key hands later and think about better ways they could have played.I myself have a memory like an elephant as I can remember hands I have played from years ago down to the turn,river,and bet sizing.Maybe not everyone has this "Rainmanish" type memory when it comes to Poker hands,but anyway I think You get my point.
I'm wishing You the best as You continue to "figure" things out,but it's a never-ending process.Good Luck and Good Skill my friend.

"Do just once what others say You can't do,and You will never pay attention to their limitations again."
-James R.Cook

I'm a tourney fish, but why are we squeezing A3o when we have 100bb? Even in BTN vs blind confrontations it seems unnecessary and likely a losing play. We're not folding out many hands that dominate us, and with stacks that short V probably isn't folding anything we beat otf either (and our hand is probably too weak to jam for value). I just think with you being the big stack there's better spots you could take.

Bee through a run like that recently, although your beats are worse... You played all those hands fine aside from qq which is just a call his min raise given b profile...

Only advice is focus on process and be honest re: how are you playing?

Great post HereWeGoAgain. Live poker is so much more than just the game. There's physical/psychological tells and player history. They go a long away, and something online will never offer.

Thanks.

Oh what? I thought you were going to Canada?

Yeah, I forgot how fun tournaments are!

Nice soul read. No wonder you always crush me.

Thanks, that was a good post. I agree that I should be trying to learn from others with experience, I'm lucky that I am able to surround myself with successful grinders both IRL and on the forums. I just need to keep my eyes and ears open and hopefully I can find my way.

And yeah I changed my approach to be more focused on the table so I only record/remember the significant hands now. Only downside is I miss the little leaks that I am making so plugging them will take longer technically.

Reason for the squeeze was because I thought the conditions were profitable. BTN was a standard type middle age guy, he knows "he should be raising his button to steal the blinds" and the SB was calling with a loose range a lot of the time. I didn't expect BTN to continue often by calling nor 4 betting light. If he did call he'd definitely at least a range that will fold a ton pre or fold to a lot of bets (so I thought). Basically just a textbook spot for a squeeze I believe taking game flow and my hand into the equation too.

Its true that it may have been unnecessary play and/or losing play. It seemed right to me at the time (preflop at least). I think I messed up on the flop and beyond though. Which leads me to believe I should fold pre for 0EV instead of punting away for a -EV play haha.

Thanks. Being honest about your play is harder than it looks!

Rolled outta bed at around 3PM yesterday, felt a little sluggish so I decided I'll take it easy. Friend texts me and says he's gonna be at Fashion Show mall if I wanna meet up for lunch. I'm pretty hungry, and I did need to pick up some stuff for my phone... I have a few hundos on me, alright I'm going.

I get there and I'm just taking in the sights, there are always hot girls walking around in Vegas it seems. As I walk around the mall some underground rappers stop me and hand me their mixtape CD and ask me to check them out, we talk for a bit and I say sure and GL. As I walk away they keep walking and talking with me and ask for a tip, I decline and he grabs the CD and signs it for me and tries again for a tip. At this point I see where this is going and I tell the dudes forget it man and hand the CD back and I start walking away. I just realized my friend went through the same thing a few feet away too, we're off on our way again. Turns out they are asking people for $20 for their likely whack ass or even possibly blank CD. If they were truely trying to promote they would be handing them out for free or asking us to check them out on youtube or something. Seems like theres always a scam or hustle going on in Vegas too. Be careful y'all and watch out for the fast-talking guys with 3 cups haha.

Finally buy some stuff, two cords for my iPhone 5s. Damm cord was $20 for a 1M cord and $30 for a 2M. I'm an Apple fish. Also end up picking up a small wallet, I've been carrying around my two cards and cash in a frayed rubber band for a while. Hopefully the cheap wallet doesn't insta-disingrate. Go to Jamba Juice to get my fix, cute girl working the blender is receptive to me when I am interested about her healthy lifestyle, trollolol. Ok thats enough, I flip a quarter in the tip jar cuz I'm a balla. Still didn't eat yet, DD7 and another friend hit us up and we end up eating some Korean BBQ. All you can eat baby. Bill is $160 after tip. We pull out the CCR app. I'm a reformed CCR'er so I bitch out. $40 for my share, bleh. Probably should've CCRed it.

Its 9PM, and I feel like I weigh two tons. No one wants to grind after that feast and somehow we break out in some friendly trash talk. Now we're heading to O'sheas to play some beer pong. Didn't want to drink much but I already accidentally said I'll crush anybody in beer pong. Start off with a nice double shot of Grey goosey. #TeamNoChase. First game, me and DD7 vs two chicks from our hometown. Better not fricken lose this game. Very poor performance but we stumble to victory. Now the main event, we have to defend our title vs our friends. $40 says our team wins and they snap book it. Bad choice, we go 5 cups in a row and I hit the 6th one and I'm on fire. We let them catch up a little because we felt bad before DD7 put the dagger in the coffin. Ship it. I do my signature victory dance and watch my opposition squirm in pain.

As I put away the crispy 20 in my wallet, I notice somethings wrong. My $100 bills are missing. WTF? I quickly check my pockets and triple check my wallet. Look around on the floor, nothing. Ask around if anyone saw me buy something, nadda. **** **** ****. Now I'm all sick and my victory for the night is cut short. Ask a security guard if I can do anything like get the surveillance checked or something. He says I can fill out some paper work and they can check it but not likely to find it and even if so, if its gone its gone. I look around a bit more before I give up.

I am such an idiot sometimes (a lot). Only thing tripping me out is I didn't lose all the money on me, just the $100's. Four blue Benjis. I wasn't that drunk either so that makes it weirder to me. Should've known that the new wallet would activate the doomswitch. Oh well, just another lesson now.

I'm still slightly tilted about it so I might take tonight off too, I probably should man up and grind though. I guess I'll eat some dinner and see how I feel. Gotta be in tip top shape for the upcoming weekend!

Lets play beerpong again soon SNIPER POW

Just busted outta the $225 25k GTD. 21st place after 8 hours of play, pretty damm tilted. Threw away my triple deck turkey sandwich on accident, only took a few bites. -$16. Good thing I didn't sit on the cash tables.

Gonna go to the gym and sleep. Back to cash.

Built back up to 10k at 1/3 the last two weeks. Taking a weekend shot at 2/5.

Do you tip the dealers? I dont see that in your overviews....

Yeah, I just tip the minimum, $1 for a pot if I feel like it was worth it. $2 sometimes if it was a big hand or if I get away with a big bluff lol. The dealers that are funny/nice/competent usually get more than the tilting dealers.

The cocktail waitresses get $1 for the drinks, sometimes I try to get two Fiji's for $1 but I usually feel guilty and get one.

I don't record how much I pay in tips, I just tip outta my stack so all my results are net after tips.

Had a decent month in September, but it was also my lowest volume month yet. I got sick for a few days which was annoying but I also went out and drank a lot with friends . I spent some time punting my BR in tournaments, the Venetian deepstack series and a few tries at the the Wynn daily on Saturdays. I went deep enough to "almost bubble" or "almost day 2" every time so it was a heartbreak and a big drain from my cash game time.





I need to be more focused going into October, I'lll be aiming for 200+ cash game hours. I'll be playing 2/5 and 1/3, if I run hot out the gate I'll consider playing in the Wynn fall classic that starts on the 16th, if not then I'll just grind as much as I can and build the roll. I haven't been very ambitious these past few months, I've been enjoying my new lifestyle which is fine but I really need to start making some better progress.

How do you not mention crackhead with towlie voice trying to fight homie on walk back to car , smh. Gj recently tho

nice comeback month!

Hahaha that had to be top 5 moment, no way I can capture the epic-ness of that in words.

Thanks!

This hand happened a few weeks ago and I can't get it out of my head so I guess I should post it already. I'll just post what happened along with the result because it doesn't really matter for my question. My question is what the "standard-ish line" is on the flop. I know it'd be hard to say because its very villain/game dependent. And I also don't really remember the suits well in the hand so I think it can have some impact on certain combos but its ok.

HAND 36

Wynn 2/5

On my table I see two good regs that are also sitting deep, along with the standard regs and 2 really whale type of players. The whole table is sitting pretty deep with the exception of the few nits.

HERO UTG $1500 KK
V1 MP $1500 (standard reg type)
V2 BB $1400 (whale lady)

Whale guy straddles to $10 on the BTN, (it skips the SB and BB and goes straight to UTG), HERO raises to $50, 5 people call

FLOP (300): J93
HERO checks, V1 bets $260, folds, V2 calls, folds, HERO raises to $600, V1 tank folds, and V2 tank calls

Before V2 calls, she makes a big scene while she is tanking. She looks at me and complains about set over set. "Is it set over set again?? I don't think I can fold this, can anyone fold it? I don't think I can.." etc etc. She does this for a long 3 minutes while trying to ask me questions and get a read off me and I feel like calling clock on her but I decide to just sit through it.

TURN (1760): 9
HERO bets All-in for $800, V2 tanks again and calls with slightly less after some more hollywood

RIVER (3260): 3

I was thinking since we are 300bb deep in several spots I'll be vulnerable to set mining a lot of the time if I just auto stack off, would it be better to just cbet $200 for value on the flop or is checking better here (c/c, c/r, c/f depending on the action)?

GL

It seems really nitpicky, but I really hate your preflop sizing here, unless you're opening everything UTG for 5x which would be kind of weird. Good players pick up on sizing tells here, and people who are unaccustomed to playing deep usually try to size their premiums bigger to protect. It just really narrows your range and makes you easy to play against when you're OOP.

just lead flop here. Bet like $170 or something. We can b/f flop a lot here against nitty pros. I don't get what we are trying to accomplish with a c/r. We're getting all better to call and all worse to fold. We want to get value from hands like top pair, and the best way to do this is to lead flop. Also, c/r flop really narrows our range a ton.

By checking, we're also risking giving a free card on a pretty wet board when there's $300 there that is pretty much our money for the taking. It's gonna be such a gross spot if it gets checked through.

As played, when V1 sizes so big on the flop, I figure we're probably good here but we just kind of have to guess here. When V2 cold calls, that sends red flags up but if she's a whale, it's going to be tough for me to find a fold.

After we've checked and are facing V1's bet and V2's call, I think all of our options here are bad. I hate check-raising for the reasons mentioned above. We can't really fold either here because our hand is too strong. Flatting is bad because we're pricing ourselves in and giving our opponents a free card to draw out. I guess I would make a small c/r and might even fold to a shove on the flop, but I don't really know. It's definitely a gross spot that we could have avoided if we just led flop.

I think we have pretty much committed ourselves on the flop so OTT we are getting it in and praying we're good. There's no other option with such a small SPR as played.

Also, I am ALWAYS betting 795 here. We've taken such a weird line in this hand, and I really really do not want to be the first to show here. Hopefully, she says all in and I call off the last $5. If you lose the hand, slide your cards into the muck, scramble them, and when people ask you what you had tell them 72. Enjoy getting paid off on every hand you play for the rest of the night

You're not 300bb deep, you're eff. 150bb since it's a straddle pot.

Would you take this flop line with $450 in a 1/3 game when you raise UTG to $15 w/ KK and get called in five spots? Just think of what you'd do in that situation and do the same thing here.

Very good points, I think I understand why just betting could be better than my line and why. Its the same reasoning as any other hand lol, I kind of let the straddle mess me up. Its not a very special hand when I adjust the effective stack to 150bbs as you reminded me. It comes down to my read of if the whale can call the c/r with worse.

As for my sizing I decided to sacrifice some balance to maximally exploit the whales, the BTN is never folding and the other one likely wants to play anyways.

Thanks again, I thought the hand was likely sub-optimal which is why its been bothering me for a while.

The $795 part had me laughing, pretty neat trick lol sucks if she just calls though.

1st quarter of October has been a disappointment. Started off the month pretty hot, I was up around +2.4k in about 4 days. Had the +10k month in my sights, and the next few days I had some 1k swings in each direction to break even. The last 3 days or so, I played seven short sessions and dropped about $200-500 in six of them. So as of now I'm at a whopping +$169 for the month in about 45 hours.

Because of the losing streak and being down 5 BIs from my last peak, my grinding spirit has been weak. In a effort to de-tilt, I changed it up and went to Freemont Street last night with some friends and had a good time, walked around with those big tourists cups full of alcohol and watched the various freakshows while enjoying the live music. Lost a bunch of CCRs for drinks/food, I think I mentioned quitting before but I really might have to join CCR anonymous soon lol. After that we stopped off at Rhino and CCRed for some more drinks, I lost again obviously. I went on tilt so I bled off a hundo on some dances, felt loved by the strippers so it was worth it haha.

No hangover or sluggish feeling today so I'll be back on the grind tonight.

Feeling love from the strippers at least periodically is paramount in the life of young grinder. Good looks.

The Pumpkin Patch

I look around the 2/5 game I'm in, just a bunch of Aria nits since the action busted out. +$636 in three hours... not bad I guess, I'll call it a night. I grab a few racks and enjoy the victory; its a welcome, familiar feeling. As I take a brief lap around the room I notice something odd, one of my 2/5 friends is playing 5/T. My interest is peaked, so I stand and watch from a distance. I quickly realize why he's in the game, theres a well known whale having fun splashing the pots. Theres one open seat and two people on the list, I guess they aren't around. Game looks pretty damm good, maybe too good. I walk up to the podium and stare at the list until I say "Can I put my name on the... uh 5/T?" Guy in the suit says "sure, go now, its a must move." I wasn't actually expecting to get on but I guess I have to go now...

I go to the cage and buy $1k in orange with an extra $500 in black. As I walk to the table I think about my plan: play tight and look for good spots with the whale, no fancy spew. I take a seat and put all my chips on the table, the money is much bigger around me but I actually feel more comfortable than I thought I'd be, its just BB's right? I tell the dealer I'll let the button pass but she quickly tells me that you have to post at 5/T. I reluctantly post my BB while hoping no one picked up on what just happened. Cards start moving and my first hand at 5/T is... 93. Fold. I throw out another orange chip for the SB, and I watch the whale open to $40 again from EP, my friend raises to $120 from MP, must've picked up a premium, must be nice. I anticipate folding and just before it gets to me I take a quick peek at my hand, A. A.

Didn't expect to get into the action this early, but I feel my adrenaline start to pump. I think about what I should do, and decided on flatting from the SB to keep the whale in. I call, and the whale calls quickly.

FLOP (360): K64
HERO checks, Whale checks, friend bets 220, I call, Whale folds

Not exactly the result I was looking for but I have to finish playing this hand out. Decent flop and a part of me feels bad because I know this is going to be a cooler if the money goes in.

TURN (800): 8
HERO checks, friend bets 500, HERO raises AI to 1150, friend snap calls.

I table my hand out of courtesy and my friend tables his. "You want to run it once or twice?" asks the dealer. I adjust myself out of my seat to see what I'm up against. The lighting had a weird glare so it took me a second to see the bad news. KK. I slump back down in my chair and I hear the dealer ask again. My friend "says up to you man" and I honestly don't care how many times we run it. Everyone is looking at me and I say "once" which seemed to shock some of the players. River came something that I don't even remember. Should've ran it twice. I try to pay out of my pocket so I don't have to do the walk of shame for chips or have the "stuck bills" in front of me as I wait for a chip runner. I mess up the payout and it takes a minute or two to get every thing squared away and I decide to rebuy for $1500. At this point I pretty much consider the shot failed and I'm probably going to cash out soon. I move seats when one opens up to the left of the whale, and I watch one guy win 8k in about 30 minutes from the whales. Yes, whales. I realized theres a bonus whale in the game and the pots are just crazy.

I get a pocket pair and try to set mine in a multiway pot, whiffed it. Get another one, no good. Finally get AJ and raise over the two whale limps. Flop comes Q85, the whale donks for 1/5th pot, I raise. Everyone folds and he calls. Turn is a 2, he checks to me and I check back which I'm not too happy about but whatever. River is a 4 and he checks again, I check expecting to be good. Whale shakes his head like he missed, but then shows a missed flush draw that hit a pair. Great. I fold a little more and the whale gets picked up to go to the main game. My blind is coming around, and so is the $6 time rake thing. I count the money I have left, looks like I lost $1812 in one hour, not bad I guess. I decide to pick up and so does my friend, and I leave the pumpkin patch with the other, all too familiar feeling.

Brutal situation but really well written. Think it would really help your mindset if you did a similar story about your next 100bb+ win. Keep grinding!

Tough break man. You're going through the hardest part of being a poker pro. Building your bankroll and having to deal with nights like that. I think I've played with you at bellagio 2/5 and you seemed to have a good head on your shoulders. You'll get through this.

Mirrors what I do. glad to see I'm on point lol

Brutal session but i heard the V in this hand got pretty white boy wasted that night after about a shot and a half FWIW