Did you get mugged or pick-pocketed? Hope you're alright.

Jesus, that's rough! Was that at Grosvenor LSQ or the Vic?

So sorry to hear that dude! Hope you're alright though...

Went alright at the hippo, made a little over 400.
I'm at the vic tonight, 100 up for now.

It's all over. The last 2, 3 weeks have been devastating, especially considering the £650 loss (I was pickpocketed, not mugged, and it wasn't at the casino but around the time Id gone out for dinner just before).

This, combined with some bad beats, coolers and tilting has led me to burn my entire bankroll.

Lost three buy ins v loose openers with AK, KK, KK all running into AA. Also had AK hitting JJ twice and bricking.

Lost a massive pot holding the nuts with JT on a 3,7,8,9 rainbow board, absolutely combing the turn, getting called with QJ and them binking a T on the river.

the bad beats and coolers lead horrifically to me becoming far too cally, and just playing terribly.

Don't know where to go now. I've blown my bankroll and am going to the states in 3 weeks time. Holy sheeeeeeet.

Obviously I do have liferoll, although am currently buying a house so that's going to get depleted massively.

Maybe time for a new challenge?

I'm definitely not playing any poker for 2 weeks. That is guaranteed. Instead, again, I'm going back to the drawing board.

To be honest, the bad beats and losses of times gone by pushed me to study harder and visit 2p2 more for hand histories etc but the last 2 weeks there's been a festering in my mind that makes me recoil even at the sight of the 2p2 icon on my phone, not update this thread and generally do no study.

So what's the next step? Give up? That'd be nice. But massively disappointing. Nah, I think it's time to remotivate. Read some rags to riches stories, people who've been knocked down repeatedly and still get back up in the face of adversity. Then study. Hard!

Of course watching your bankroll diminish so rapidly has a massive psychological effect. Chasing your losses is the most crippling thing a poker player can do. That's wrong actually - it's what gamblers do. And winning poker players aren't gamblers.

So I need a break to get over this psychological impact. In the meantime I'll study. I will outline my study shortly but time for a new goal, or goals.

I've been thinking about this, and have a couple ideas.

1. Set aside another £2,000/$3,000 and start again in earnest. OR.

2. At the moment I have $1,500 converted to dollars ready for my trip. Not a lot, of course. Not enough for a bankroll, not enough for a month in the US of A (although I've already paid for most my accommodation). But why not see how far it goes? Start the trip with $1,500, and live and play poker out of this money, and see how long I last. My whole roll will be in my pocket, poker and living expenses all in one, and I'll see how long I last. If I can come back not having spent an extra $1 even that would be somewhat of an achievement! It's not necessarily sensible, but could be fun "4 weeks, $1,500 dollars".

If I spin it up, awesome, if I lose it all, I'll just go for the sensible option, set aside a new roll, and separate poker from life.

sorry to hear man. How much was your bankroll when you started playing 1/2? good luck recovery will be following.

My bankroll at start was £2k, which soon enough became £4k. Hovered around that mark for a while until the last month hit.

Yuk.

hey man, stuff happens. you'll bounce back. Running KK into AA is just sick though..

take a few weeks off like you said. Play nit tight, limp everything except the top 5 hands.

Even AK, i'd limp and see a flop. A few times I shove and run into KK or AA.

try short stack. 2k is not enough for 1/2, if you are buying in full. I'd need 20 BIs to feel comfortable.

have fun in the USA and get your mind off poker for a while.

Amazing how every time I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. There was definitely some spew in there too though!!

Recharge button has been hit. I'm gonna slide into vegas like a wet otter fully refreshed and ready to felt some muthas!

Hey mate, sorry to hear about all the trouble.

Sounds like you have pretty good life going on (good sounding job, new house etc) so the few k lost .. while annoying and all that.. is something you can absorb and take as a learning experience.

I would advice against poker within US if you only have 1500 usd for expenses and poker (4 week). Depending (hugely) on backup plan.

What is (or rather do you have) your backup plan in case you hit 0 usd after 1 week and still have 3 weeks before your flight back?

I'd agree, 4 weeks in Vegas will cost you a bunch anyway and you don't want to risk it all at the table.

Now, obviously, you can't go to Vegas without trying the poker room at the venetian / Bellagio or Aria. But I'd sit with ~100bbs and nit it up.

After that, just enjoy the trip, rent a car, go to the yosemite, drive to LA, drive from LA to SF along the coast and just clear your mind.

Even though we're not supposed to be result oriented and all that matters is playing good, making the right decisions and whatever... I know it can be hard to lose money so quickly.

So yeah, go there, enjoy yourself and come back stronger. (but not at my table please )

While you're in Vegas, would you consider spending a few hours with a live coach ? It may be worth the investment.

Hey thanks for the advice guys.

I actually will have about another $5k as back up once I've bought my house in addition to the $1.5k, so there's definitely a back up In case I go busto!

I'm not spending 4 weeks in vegas either, more like 3 in total plus time in California and Texas. 1 of the weeks in Vegas will also be with friends to do the whole party and pits thing rather than the poker grind.

I have a coach who lives in Vegas so I'll definitely be hitting him up... But do you have any other recommendations on coaches out there? And costs?

Like I said anyway, the $1.5k idea would be totally crazy to live and gamble outta that in the states for 5 weeks! I'm well aware of that (although I have paid for most my accommodation and internal flights). I just thought I'd be fun to see how many days I last on it!

Which session are you starting with? And how many of the four will you play (if necessary)?

I'll be playing Friday 6pm. 1 bullet.

So I've been offline for a while. As you can see from the above I've had a pretty ****ty run. I took 2 weeks off the game, did some work on my math, some hand histories and some refreshing off notes, but haven't played any poker until the Thursday last week.

I decided I'm not going to go back, nit it up, play ABC. No sir, no way, no thank you.

I appreciate all the advice here but i think the problem is London can get very reg heavy, and if you nit it up its just hard to get paid unless you're playing against drunk fish.

So I'm adapting my game. I aim to exploit everyone and I'm trying new things.

You're a station who likes to chase? I'm going to make you pay through the nose.

You're a nit? Expect to get bluffed relentlessly.

You like to slow play? If I know this I'll make tiny bets to narrow your range. If you've not raised me by the river, forget it, you ain't got it.

You're a reg I see! I presume you're very familiar with the bet/fold line? Great, expect to get raised a lot - after all, you're good enough to lay down top pair, aren't you?

Of course a lot of this is standard, but essentially I'm working on two aspects of my game:

1. Hand - reading. The key to success in poker.

2. Aggression. Full throttle, you want to play with me, expect to get tested.

This new aggressive style (yes, i will 4 bet bluff pre flop against regs preflop), is high variance. Since Wednesday night I have played 5 sessions:

Wednesday night: 1/1, £250 profit, 8 hours

Thursday: 1/2, £1,100 profit, 10 hours

Friday: 1/2, £350 profit, 10 hours

Saturday: 1/2, £10 profit, 8 hours

Monday afternoon: 1/2, £600 profit, 4 hours

So far, so good.

Do not take all this as some kind of brag as of course I am under no illusions that j have a ton of work to get through to become the player I aspire to be. With the time off and new strategy however, I'm feeling better than I have done in months.

Fellow London reg here, all the best in Vegas, hope to see you on the tables when you're back!

Very nice comeback ! +1.1k in one day is very nice, I play in london too, where do you usually play?

Thank you sir. Read one of your threads a while back, look forward to clashing with you

Hippo, empire, and the vic. If I can be bothered I'll hit up aspers, best value in town I reckon!

I guess I should start posting some hands. I'm not going to bother with the standard plays but post moves and non-standard calls.

Playing yesterday on 1/2 table with a fair bit of action.

V1, 1200 behind, aggressive pro player, will bet and 3 bet extremely light (eg 3 bet on the button with 37 off). UTG

V2, rec player, 200 behind, not a good player, quite loose but will lay down to aggression, CO

Hero image is very aggressive, 700 behind, SB with T7o

v1 raises to 4. He has done this before and will not do this with a premium hand (or at least I haven't seen him do it with premium). Has tried to re steal when it's been reraised. V2 raises to 6. Table laughs. Hero, raises to 8. Table laughs a little more. V1 raises to 30, v2 calls. I believe both their ranges are capped. I don't put v1 on a hand at all due to his aggression and the bet to £4. Hero raises to £90. Both villains fold.

The only reason I 6bet here was because I know v1 is astute enough to recognise that I would expect him to try and resteal once I raise to 8. V2 doesn't bother me as I know he will fold to a raise of half his stack. if he had a decent hand he would have raised more in the first instance, or shipped it in the second instance it came round to him.

Played in a marathon session yesterday. Started slowly, picked up a bit, then got myself into a little hole. Managed to end up the day, after 17 hours, with a £45 profit. Not the best, but for my 5th (or 6th?) winning ssssion in a row, after being down £400 at one point, I'll take it.

Here's an interesting spot:

I open raise to 8 in MP with 69s. I'm raising 95% of pots I come into at this point. I have approx 450 behind.

Spanish villain on the button, likes to be tricky, likes to try and outplay others (and show bluffs etc) 3 bets to 20 on the button, with 300 behind. Folds back to me. I decide to flat for £12 more with the intention of NOT playing fit or fold post flop.

Pot 43

Flop 2c7c4x (I have no clubs).

I lead out for 25. Villain flats.

Pot 93.

Turn Tx

I lead out for 40. Villain snap raises to 100. Odd. This confuses me for a second. I think about folding. But then again, for £60 more Im getting pretty juicy odds for the double gutter. If he likes his hand so much as well, I'm probably getting good implied odds too, plus my hand is well disguised.

It also strikes me that with the board pretty wet on the board, why would he come alive now? The only hand that kind of makes sense is TT, but there's only 3 combos so such a small part of his range.

Pot £293.

River is a 9x. Interesting. I've hit a pair of 9s and am dying for showdown at this point. I check. Villain, almost as expected, ships it for about £150 more. Instinctively I go to fold my hand. Hooooold on a sec, this just doesn't make sense. There are so many made hands here that he would check back with (Tx, overpairs etc). All in here with those hands is pretty thin and although he's a tricky player I don't give him credit for getting skinny value.

I put him on TT, or air. I'm getting 3 to 1, and with TT repping such a tiny percentage of his possible combos I think this might actually be a call here. I tank for about 5 minutes. Then one final element pushes my decision. Villain has his hand over his mouth. He looks nervous.

Yep. I call.

Villain flips over 57 for a pair of 7s. I table my hand. Villain literally stands up, looks at my hand, and says "what the F***?!?" And then leaves the poker room.

SHIP IT!!

Edit ^ flop was 3c7c4x (not 2c7c4x)

Don't open 96ss MP and fold to 3bet. Gl.

Please see above. Thanks for your advice, honestly I do appreciate it, and I know the norms. However I am changing my game and am mixing it up a lot.

I know it's a lot harder to be a successful lag, but it's what I'm going for.

also, note that villain and stack size (although granted only 150bb) played a part in my decision making in this hand.

I like your idea of playing laggy to make more £, these london 1/2£ games can become very nitty and boring to play ABC. However I still believe that playing tight in these games is generally better since people really really hate to fold. (maybe even more against me because of very young image).

Regarding the hand, once you get to the river, I really like your call, he has way more bluffs then value hands. However preflop, we could make an argument for 4betting> Calling , esp vs a very aggro vilain OOP, expecting it to take it down a decent amount of the time and helps balancing our 4betting range. To flat here Id rather have hands like 87ss +

^i agree that a lot of the time we could 4bet here. I will also flat my premium hands in this spot as well though (with the new style), to balance my range.

I don't agree with you on playing ABC, unless it's a Friday or Saturday night against rec players. Every other time of the week London is so damn reg infested that I really think ABC nitville needs to go out the window and a more aggressive style needs to be brought into play.

Funny spot last night. About 2 am, one of the annoying spanish short stackers comes to table. I stack him with AK and he starts to seethe "I don't know why I bother playing with you, you're no value, you never bluff, I just know you never bluff so what's the point in playing with you".

Brilliant. Obviously I proceed to bluff him relentlessly once he tops up.

Thank you, sir.

Am in San Francisco tonight playing at lucky chances... Taking my first shot at 2/5..

Here goes ..

I played pretty well for the most part tonight.... Except one hand where I lost like $500, towards the end of the session.

This old Asian guy was consistently playing back at me (I was playing very aggressively), and had bluffed me once or twice. So MP raises to 20, i flat with JJ in CO. Button calls, so does Asian guy in SB and BB calls too. Flop comes 3c7c2x. Checks to me and I make it 50. Folds to Asian guy who makes it 150, and folds back to me. At this point I put him on flush draw. To be honest I'm tired at this point, and possibly tilting at this guy constantly playing back at me. I ship it all in, he calls and tables 33 for the set.

Terrible play, but kudos to him - he kept playing back and when i snapped he actually had the goods.

Apart from that hand I think I played pretty well, and pretty creatively. I was extremely aggressive, and picked my spots well.

Finished the session $500 up. Would have been $1000 were it not for the hand above. Clearly at this point I'm not even at my C game so I rack up and leave.

I'll give myself a 3 for play and 3 for my mental game tonight. Would be 4 on Both counts were it not for spazzing out with overpair.

7th winning session in a row. Powering through.