cali as a whole def has a lot to explore

April 11th was my 22nd birthday as well as my 1 year anniversary as a live pro. I learned a lot and I'd have to say I had a good year. I came up with a 1/2 roll after going on a downswing in the underground games and now I'm in a good spot to start shot taking 5/T during the series.

Heres the graph of the year if you havn't been following along:



Right between 40-50k for the year, with slightly over 1400 hours. Thats with games ranging from 1/2-5/T.

Been looking over the data and heres some fun facts:

-Averaged 44/hr at 2/5 over 800+ hours

-Net loser at 1/3 with around 180 hours lol (I wonder if those drinking with friends sessions had any thing to do with it...)

-Crushed 1/2 for 28/hr over 200+ hours

-5/T sessions were really fun, I think I won 1 out of 5. Ran like death for -205/hr :

HERO 3800 BB JJ
V 3500 MP

V raises to 40, HERO calls

FLOP (80): 943
HERO checks, V bets 60, HERO calls

TURN (200): J
HERO checks, V bets 150, HERO raises to 400, V raises to 1100, HERO raises to 2000, V goes AI, HERO calls

RIVER (all the moneyz): 9
HERO fast rolls to save V the trouble of showing
V stares at my hand and opens 9 then the 9

-Had 3 breakeven-ish months (not including my two month vacation in Hawaii) +1879, +520, -1150

-Worst downswing was around 10 BI at each stake (and I had at least one at each stake except 5/T)

-Best to worst 2/5 results (minimum 100 hours to qualify): Wynn, Aria, Venetian, Bellagio

-Best day: Friday
Worst day: Saturday

-Nice tournament binks: 0.000

If theres any other stat you want to know feel free to ask.

So with that being said, I have some new goals for the year. They will be simple but a lot harder than they look for me to complete.

-More time on the tables
I honestly don't think I worked hard enough in putting in volume this year. I had 7 months where I played less than 120 hours (some were as low as 30-80). Thats kind of cool but I was pretty much just dicking around a lot of the time so I know I could have done better. 120-160 a month with the exception of WSOP (more hours) would be acceptable to me. I'm in the camp of playing when I feel best/have the fire but I should also remember that I'm still grinding LLSNL and I need to have some ambition to move up and out (thats for me personally, I don't think theres anything wrong with grinding out a living).

-Go to school
One of the big reasons I came to LV is because of the large selection of games going at any hour and the cheap cost of living/school. I only completed 1 year of undergrad so I want to get this done. Although I don't really see my self going the traditional route of school->work 9 to 5, I believe having the degree, expanded social network, and having better options to get a job so I could learn certain things about business beneficial. I ultimately want to get into some sort of finance/investing/real estate/entrepreneurship type stuff (I know, unoriginal) so I need to start working towards that. School and poker will probably be pretty hard but I'm up for the challenge. I'll go to UNLV if my residency gets through but if not I'll go to CC and transfer.

-Incorporate working out/eating cleaner into my lifestyle
This is a tough spot for a lot of poker players (or people in general actually) for whatever reason, I just want to stay healthy and be fit so it shouldn't be too hard (I'm actually relatively fit and athletic, a bit skinny tho). I think that the problem lies in me not motivating myself correctly, so I'll have to think about how to go about that. For now I will post in a seperate thread to keep me accountable and force workouts, kind of like a fake it till I make it approach.

This got a little tl;dr but I'm glad I put my thoughts down because now I feel like I know exactly what needs to be done this year. I have some other smaller goals I want to accomplish so I'll probably mention them down the line. I'll try to put more effort and pics into the thread too, I know I kind of slacked on it this year. I still have a lot to learn and many challanges ahead...

I'll figure it out.

Very impressive first year! It's a wise plan to get some schooling in to keep your options for the future wide open. Nice goals, best of luck achieving them!

Gotta love that yearly graph. I expect to see many more disrespect stacks in the future

Thanks guys, gonna do my best.

Two recent hands that I wasn't really happy with after it was done:

This was a 1k max BI game. V was a reg that I don't have a dynamic with since I haven't played with him much. V has been very aggro, new to table. Seen a hand this session where he triple barreled AQx and went runner runner flush and stacked someone. He seemed to double barrel with a high frequency but obv way too small of a sample as he could have just ran hot. I think we each had a 3 bet vs each other which ended in standard fashion.

HERO EP 2000 88
V BB 3000

2 limps, HERO raise to 30, LP calls, V raises to 110, HERO calls

FLOP (250): 632
V bets 135, HERO calls

TURN (520): J
V bets 230, HERO raise to 570, V folds

I think pre and flop was pretty standard but made a mistake on the turn. During the hand I felt that V was pretty light so I turned turn my hand into a bluff with the plan to reeval/ship river if he calls turn. Which I thought is kind of bad because if thats the case I think I should be just calling down in this spot. I believe my sizing and line did look very strong and most ppl are never bluffing here but I have better combos to be spazzing with such a 9x or something. Only way this is maybe decent is if V folds overpairs often enough to the turn or river bets but I think thats pretty optimistic.

Or was it not bad as I thought?

This next one was against thenorcaljew which was already posted in his LVL thread:

I didn't like my turn sizing but I think the mistakes were on the previous streets if I wanted to set up a turn ship. And I guess I'm a huge tellbox so I'm gonna be looking for coaching in that area haha

You didn't have As right? If so then I don't mind the turn ship at all given our stack sizes

And yeah I like just calling down w/88 (in your hand), although you might be put through hell on some rivers

Yep no A.

Been making up volume for the month and running really good, finally burnt out and spewed pretty hard yesterday at the Aria.

After being card and spot dead for hours I 6bet jammed AKo into a girl tournament grinder and ran into AA haha. Felt like an idiot, went something like this:

I'm MP and V is BTN

2 limps, Hero raise to 25, V raises to 80, didn't like her sizing so raised to 280 lol, she raises to 575, I ship for a total of 1k.

She left shortly after and so did a few other grinders leaving me 5 handed with some OMCs and stubborn rec players. I won't lie I was a bit tilted and I proceeded to 3 bet 5 consecutive opens as well as opening if no one did. They always jus called and were OOP to me and we were all 1k+ effective. Here was the tilted run good after they got fed up:

HERO CO 2500 QJ
V MP 1100

V raise to 15, HERO raise to 50, V calls

FLOP (105): 986
Check, HERO bets 70, V calls

TURN (245): T
V bets 150, HERO raises to 525, V calls

RIVER (1295): 9
Check, HERO goes AI for 4xx, V calls

HERO shows, V whips JTo across the table into the muck.

I kept opening and 3 betting for about 5 minutes and the guy cashed out then everyone left. Still lost $930 that session but better than being down $2500+. Timely day to take off and I'll be back at it rested and with a clear head

Wow great progress man. What made you go from struggling in underground games to building a 40 k roll crushing 2/5? Any particular "aha" moments, books, studying? Best of luck will be following

Disregarding the variance that could have went either way, I guess I slowly improved over time. My glaring leaks were being too aggressive with trash hands and being too loose in general, barreling off in not the best spots, and occasionally stacking off too loosely. I think I got a better handle on those as well as the smaller less noticeable ones like completing the SB/BB or stationing OOP post flop.

It helps to have people to look at the hands you save and discuss, then you just have to see what you did wrong and what it tells you about your strategies, fix and repeat. The hands that I post are the more interesting/non standard punt offs or brag hands but I look over a lot of small HH pretty much daily.

No 40k roll yet as that was just profits but I think I'm in a good spot to crush it this year as I'll be playing more 2/5 and some 5/T now. I'm still prepared to play 1/2(3) if I must but it would take some run bad for that to happen.

Actually working on GTO concepts was new to me as my thoughts on it was to always be exploiting and I pretty much dismissed it. I think it helps a lot to understand what an approximate GTO range could look like in a certain spot and then use additional information to exploit villains for max EV. I think overall most of the live players including myself are behind the curve/miss-apply stuff so I always enjoy studying it. Too bad I still make cringe worthy plays all the time.

Thanks for the best wishes.

Ran well at the Bellagio, flopped two sets, got two stacks. Bled some back to the table but still an easy 6 hour session. Decided to keep pushing and went to the Aria to do the same thing.

Take a pot down, then its my BB

HERO BB 1200 K4
V CO 3000

V is an older man, 50+ but looks like a good reg compared to the average OMC. Probably plays a good TAG game

V opens to 20, BTN calls, SB folds, HERO raises to 90, V calls, BTN folds

FLOP (205): ATT
HERO bets 105, V raises to 275

I can't believe V has any raising range here and I start cutting out my green stack for a 625 bet... then my friend comes up behind me and says "Hey man wassup, when ya get here? Oh sorry your in a hand.." I break my focus and say whattup back and toss my hand into the muck haha. Sick randomizer that probably saved me from spewing but still, is V really trying to cooler AK when he has Tx with this raise...

OH WELL I 3 bet too wide anyway but as played that cbet...

Rebuy and chip up to about 1400

HERO BB KK
Old Man BTN 3000
SB 2000
LIMPER MP 800

1 limp, same old man raises to 20, SB calls, HERO raises to 90, limper raises to 200, old man folds, SB cold calls! I raise to 600, limper folds?? SB goes AI??!! I snap

Drink on me if you guess the hand and what happened

HINT(s):
-I wish I went home after the Bellagio session and poured a neat one and watched Training Day instead

Confirmed good movie. I'll be at bellagio the next couple days, come by and grab a beer

One of my all time favorites along with maybe Gladiator.

Working towards the day I can enjoy a Corona at the 5/T tables but I'll say wassup anyways!

Lil late on the monthly wrap-up but its been a week of a lot of drinking haha. Won some cheddah on the Mayweather fight and won the important CCRs so the week was pretty much payed for I'm considering not drinking/going out for the rest of the month because I feel like I've been out partying in some way everyday in May. I think I have 13 hours of poker in 7 days, too lazy for my tastes. All good tho, I'll just consider it a vacation and get back on the grind.

Had a nice April, got 110 hours in



Two big sessions at 2/5 made the most of it, ran really good. Still failed at 5/T again which was annoying. My time will come... right? right?

Heres a hand from my last session, UTG raises to 15, V raises to 110 with a black chip and two reds (which would be a standard 15 call with 3 red chips) so I figured it was a mis-click, and I jam 500 effective with QJ from the BB lol. I know sometimes people do angleshot bets like that but I didn't think it was since V didn't defend it with a terrible acting job or anything. UTG ends up folding and I get snapped by V. I'm hoping he just rage called but I know I'm going to need some help from the flop anyway.

Board runs out K97 T J

I open my hand and V tilt opens AA. Pretty gross for V but after it all went down he said he genuinely made a mistake in raising it that big. I couldn't help but think I fell for it and got hustled so I thought it was justice for the good guys haha. Still a pretty sick beat that I'm not usually on the side on so that was fun.

Gonna put my head down and grind hard at 2/5 for another month, and as a reward I'm going to pre register 2 bullets for the upcoming Colossus event. So many events to play this year, looking for my 1 time c'mon!

Up early, went to the gym, got some study in, and did some chores. Feels weird being up so early and productive compared to my graveyard schedule.

At the Bellagio with the OMCs, hope I don't spew haha.

Thinking about checking out the 2/5 at the Venetian today just to change it up, anyone have any thoughts/theories/comments on the $2 rake? Games get better, worse, or business as usual?

Might also head to the Wynn haven't been there in a while.

Venetian generally makes me miserable. If you must go then try the mango chili lime salad from grand lux. And what are you talking about $2 rake?

Lol thanks for the recommendation I'll definitely give that a try haha.

For the month of May all of the games are only getting raked $2 max. Not a big deal at 5/T if they run but still pretty significant at 2/5 and especially 1/2. I'm not sure how much it helps tho never knew how to calculate how much rake I pay besides an estimate. (Still have nightmares from the hawaii underground rake).

And stare at two of the best asses in vegas

Hahaha true true ecg

lol ECG I must've ran bad and missed it.

Still got to try the Mango Chili Lime Salad tho, some OMC put his coffee on my table and messed up my artistry.



Ran pretty bad at teh pokerz too so I'm gonna be looking to dig out of the hole this month it seems. All good, got some outdoor basketball in today so I'm going to the tables fresh.

Btw, anyone playing bball in LV? I'm tired of ****ting on dab all the time in 1v1 lol (he posts in this thread). Thinking about playing at the UNLV gym and jumping in some pickup games. I'm not very good, just looking to break a sweat and swat the **** outta someone so I'd rate competition level as low haha.

How did you like the salad doe? ****s bomb right? Next time get the jambalaya, bombbbbb

Did you end up going to Coachella? Let me know if you need a place if you go next year, no need to pay sky high prices for ****ty rentals. What games do you hear about? A 5/5/10 nlhe in the coachella valley?

Salad was good, definitely wasn't enough for me though, I was hungry again shortly after. Mangos were on point tho. I was gonna get a Joe's Scramble to go along with it but the guy talked me out of it.

Nah I passed on it, kinda regret it but I had a good month in poker so I'm glad I stuck it out.

Sounds good, I'll shoot you a PM if I'm gonna be in Cali. The games I keep hearing about are the 5/5 and 5/T at Commerce iirc. People in Vegas keep saying its the easiest game ever, I generally don't believe in "rumors" about games much (I'm sure it is looser and better than LV games for sure tho, probably just exaggerated).

Had some updates but couldn't get around to it in time.

Two bullets for the colossus lets hope for some run good!

I'll update with a Day 2

Gogogogo!!