Yeah raising turn is definitely what I should have done in this spot. However, I don't think raise/folding turn is bad at all. I would never raise/fold turn online. But live, when UTG straddles and UTG+1 raises preflop, then double barrels into multiple opponents being ~300bb effective, that's extremely strong. Players, especially at 1/2, just don't bluff this deep against a check/raise of a strong line on a board that heavily favors the preflop raiser's range. I'm not even sure if he's jamming AQ over a turn check/raise. If I don't think he jams AQ over a turn check/raise, then I couldn't call the jam.

This could be true. I do agree that a jam from V2 is a snap call. I don't have to worry about him. V1 seems fairly knowledgeable about poker overall, and we've played against each other on a few occasions. I guess it's just hard for me to imagine that this guy would jam with a semi-bluff or even AQ. My image is that of a TAG to him. Maybe I'm giving him too much credit?

I'm a step ahead of you Ed! Every morning I wake up and the first thing I do is a 20-minute ride on my stationary bike. When the weather gets better, I like going for walks in the park, and my girlfriend and I go out for walks about twice a week with good weather.

I also eat carrots for breakfast and have a veggie bar as a snack while playing poker. It usually has like a cup of spinach in it, along with a couple other fruits. And then dinner usually has some sort of vegetable in it, be it green beans or zucchini or onions.

Regarding health wise, I think I get sick so often because of our house. Our bedroom gets extremely dry in the night time, and we've noticed that the owners sort of painted over some black mold that conveniently happened to be both below our room and in the corner of the bathroom in our room. I wouldn't mind getting a humidifier, but the last few times I've used one I've gotten Humidifier fever. And this is after cleaning it out thoroughly. So until we move, the best I can do is what I'm doing now (although it'll get better once winter is over with).

Good week volume wise. Started off weak due to illness on Monday but played 5 days live for the second time this year. And next week I'm aiming for 6. I found it easier and easier to play longer hours as the week went by, and by Friday I was in the double digit mark. Total of about 38 hours for the week, and on pace for hours goal for the month.

Results wise started off brilliant. Then it just kind of went into the ****ter. I misplayed a hand badly from trying to have a just limping range from the blinds when the Button straddles. I misplayed another hand where I called a 3bet on the flop against a guy whom everyone said was crazy with TPTK. He had bottom set. That doesn't disappoint me, but it was me calling after he showed his neighbor his hand. That's a massive tell there, and that's a spot I shouldn't be missing. But it's good that I can realize that those two spots are spots where I made a mistake. If I keep tightening those up as I have been and keep learning from them, I'll be golden.

Anyways, that was a short lived experiment. Better to just open to 4x with my entire range from the blinds (maybe even 5x in those spots) than to limp hands and try to play a smaller pot. And it seems like after that, everything went against me. The major killer this week was losing KK to 77 AIPF for a 325bb pot.

And speaking of that pot, last night was the first time I've ever physically stayed at a table because of one player. The 77 guy was just a massive spot, frequently overbetting with weak hands and bluffs. I stayed until he left, and that was a good lesson. Even though I didn't win anything off of him, it helped to show me that I need to stay in games when they're that good. I don't have anything better to do.

Of all the hands that I played this week, there really wasn't one that puzzled me. I made a few mistakes where I knew better, but thought "well, maybe if this, then that, and tomatoes and sunshine." Probably the most interesting spot, since I want to post a hand a week in here.

Loose, sticky player limps for $2 UTG. This is the player that a few months ago I called a river bet against with 4th pair and was good at 2/5, and whom I also bet/folded a rivered boat to and was correct. We've got some history. UTG and I are $400 effective. I raise TT to $12 in MP2. An unknown player calls in CO. We're $300 effective with CO. Fairly new. UTG also calls.

Flop ($39): 753
UTG checks. I bet $25. Both call.

Turn ($114): K
UTG donk bets $75.

1. What's our play here?
2. What's our play here if we're HU, given the long history we have?

This week was a semi-frustrating week. Halfway through the week, I was on pace for a perfect week despite not even being up a BI. Then I lost a couple more annoying 80/20s - results wise, bad, but overall great that I'm getting people into 80/20s. Then I salvaged the week today.

I also came into the week with the mindset that Thursday I was going to sit down and play until I physically couldn't anymore. To be honest, I kind of chicken out just short 15 hours. But I needed some food! I ate lunch at ~3pm and hadn't eaten anything since...and it was approaching 2am.

So 6 days played this week, fell about 15 minutes short of 50 hours for the week. And for the first time in a long time, I'm ahead of pace for hours in the month. Results-wise, not the greatest week, but a very productive week.

Just one hand this week that made me scratch my head. An odd spot, to say the least. We're 6 handed at the table. UTG limps. BTN, who looks like a meh reg, raises to $12. We're ~$300 deep with him. SB, a fish, calls. We are roughly $120 with him. I call with JT in BB, and the limper calls.

Flop ($48): QJT
Checks to BTN who bets $45. SB calls. I tank for an awkward amount of time and....?????????

Had to share these results, because I was blown away.

Last hand I posted, I put into Snowie today and analyzed. I usually don't pay much mind to how it wants me to play preflop.

Whereas I thought flop decision was close, Snowie has a call to be -20 EV and my raise size to be -29.50 EV! I didn't expect that, but I'm glad to have run it through.

And looking at ranges between the two players, I understand why now. BTN's range really is uncapped. He could easily have the straight already, a set, better two pair, or at worse a huge draw. SB likely has a draw or pair + draw.

My exact hand really has no way to improve, but likely needs to improve against both ranges. I'm really uncomfortable on turn A, K, Q, 9, 8, or heart. That's 26 cards out of 47! I'm also not loving life on a blank turn, and the only real turn cards I feel ok about are J and T. So I see now just how big of an error this hand was.

I wanted to comment on calling w/ JTo from the Bb, but I couldn't get my thoughts completely organized before your update.

Personally, I don't think that I am good enough, or at least tuned in at live poker enough, at the moment, to play JTo form the Bb in the situation that you described. Seems like a spot where we are going to be in the dark so much of the time that it can't be +ev unless all villains are complete droolers/extremely passive. For me personally, seems like I will be able to find spots that I am not going to have to work nearly as hard as I am going to have to with this one, but maybe that is a leak in my game in so far as mining out these thin spots.

preflop is probably whatever since they are likely all droolers, but you have 0 business raising QJT flop, especially when the pfr pots it in a multiway situation.... You are completely capped and he isn't.

Preflop is fairly close. I think with the fish in the pot in SB and having good relative position, I can get away with a call. IMO I'd rather be HU in a BTN v BB situation.

I will say that this is a spot I haven't necessarily thought about before today, but it's very akin to Omaha. We have this strong looking hand but so much can come that alters the nuts that it almost has to be a fold.

100% agree with this. Same conclusion I came to earlier. I probably should just fold here imo (which is something I've been improving recently)

It's a little past midnight. I'm laying in bed next to my girlfriend who is asleep. Little does she know the big surprise I have for her on Sunday. But I'm thinking and reading. I decide to read a few pages from this thread, about a year and a half ago.

Something is missing. What's missing? Was I simply running good? Am I simply running bad? Am I getting in my head too much? Do I have the yips? Am I not aggressive enough? Am I not playing the the right time of day? What is it?

There have been at least 3 spots in the past day and a half where the old me would have taken different lines. The new me knows so much more about poker. The old me plays so much better. I'm searching for answers when I don't have much time to find the answers.

A very frustrating week. 1 win, 4 losses. Somehow still profitable for the week. Being honest, I was extremely card dead all week. Tuesday I flopped at least a pair with unpaired hole cards just twice in 8 hours, and no sets. Yesterday I only received 3 pocket pairs in the first 7 hours of my session - 66, 55, and 55. I haven't seen AA since my first hour on Tuesday, where I lost to a 3 outer all-in on a T22 flop against QT and got the rest of the money in against QQ on the 5 turn....just to see a T hit the river.

I was bluffed out of a decent sized pot with T9 on a T9276 runout. Limped pot 7 ways, someone bet flop, 2 callers, I raised, an unknown called. Bet turn. Guy donk jams river, calls clock after 30 seconds. He was acting strange and I remember thinking that something was off with his demeanor. I decided to fold because I have been trying to fold more to big river bets. Well, he showed KK.

Listen to my instincts!

This was just a throwaway week. I had a small winning week in one where I had no real business winning. Variance dictated as such. I just have to keep plucking along.

On the positive side, I'm still ahead of pace for the month on hours!

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One of my morning routines I'm going to change is playing against Snowie. Snowie is good to play against to try and play a little closer to GTO. But it isn't exploitative play, and I think playing against it is making me a bit more passive in spots I shouldn't be. At least against 98% of the competition I'm playing. Instead, I'm going to play Zone poker in the morning to get the poker juices flowing and just analyze them in Snowie afterwards.

Good luck to everyone!

I wish I knew how to post pictures on here once photocopier went down.

Anyways, it's official. I proposed yesterday and she said yes!

I was going to do it a little later, about a few months later. My grandmother, whom I'm not sure if I've mentioned or not, has been doing progressively worse health wise since her cancer diagnosis. I wanted to speed things up a little bit so that she would be able to attend. Very much looks like I'll be a married man before 2018 is over.

Congratulations! Here's to wishing you both much happiness with this step in life. Also, here's to wishing some moments of relief and comfort to your grandmother with her health. Very admirable of you to think of others with such a big time in your life.

As far as the pics go, imgur makes things pretty easy. I tend to send photo's from my phone to my email. Then, I download them to my browser tab and drag them onto the imgur screen. From there, you just click on the image and copy/paste the BBCODE into the message box on here.

There is probably an even simpler sequence of steps to accomplish pic posting, I just found something that worked and stuck with it.

Gratz bro <3

grats

Congrats!

Thanks for the congrats everyone! It's going to be a fairly hectic time for us, we're putting everything together for a wedding towards the end of August. I would obviously love a lot more time, but it's necessary for the circumstances. This is the first breath I've gotten to take since the engagement!

The only goal I had in March was to play 160 hours. Well, I played 154 hours. I would have eclipsed the 160, but instead took Wednesday off to file and finish the taxes and look at wedding venues. We have a place booked, which is a huge relief.

I also did a financial spot check on Wednesday, just to see where I'm at. Despite this rough patch, I'm not as far off as I thought I was. This makes me feel so much better and really lifts a huge weight off of my shoulder. This has also been the best financial result month for me since October. I'm almost at the exact BE point since my downswing started at the beginning of November. It sounds prolonged, but it could have been faster if I didn't try to take the safe way and just drop down stakes.

I felt as if I played pretty well in March. I ran slightly better, although a lot of days I was just scratching my head from being absolutely card dead. I feel as if I haven't been receiving enough hands, such as suited connectors, broadway cards, pairs, etc. And there isn't anything I can really do about it except grind through it. There was a part where I was getting frustrated sometime last week, but again that felt more attributed to the card dead-ness than anything.

There is no need to list goals for April. April needs to be a month where I just grind and grind and grind. With vacation coming in May and quite a few big expenses coming, I really need to focus on just playing. I'd love to get 200 playing hours in, but anywhere between 170 and 200 would be fine with me.

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I'll play around with some image apps later to see if I can get a picture of the ring. It's amazing, and the area was perfect. We often frequent a local park about twice a week, and it has a wooden overlook deck that sits over the creek. So obvious I did the deed there, and had her best friend there to take pictures. First thing she said? "What the actual ****?!?"

Hahah questionable reaction! Nah good to see you had a good month mate, all the best for April! Apr volume goalz?

The questionable reaction was from her uncle asking her about when it was going to happen the day before and her thinking we would be waiting for a bit of time. Definitely caught her off guard.

The April volume goals....I really want to put in anywhere from 170 to 200 hours. There is a promotion going on two of the four weeks where you get paid money based on volume, with a 40 hour cap. There is a tournament series at the end of the month as well. And in May I may be lucky to get 100 hours in with vacation.

Hah true, GL widdit! 170-200 is a lot!

Hey man, a brother is getting hitched in 5 months! I need all the hours I can get!

Ain't that the truth!

Congrats on the engagement, get yourself back to 2/5 and crush asap!

Thanks man, that's the goal!

This week has been a roller coaster, to be sure. I had almost a grand losing day at 1/2 in 4 hours on Tuesday. I ran terrible and made a couple of bad calls in spots where I should just fold. Really a C game type of day, and when you combine that with run bad, you get disaster.

Anyways, I got the 40 required hours in for $500 Monday thru Thursday. Did not have a single winning session either of those 4 days. I have to wait until early next week to be able to add the $500 to my BR. I was down about 10% of my roll after the first 4 days.

The last two days, Friday and Saturday, I profited enough to make a very small profit for the week once the $500 is added.

There weren't really any hands that I got stuck on this week. I'm finding that I'm getting more and more comfortable gradually thinking through hands at the table. And when I do make a mistake, I can typically pinpoint where I made the mistake at and learn from it.

There was a hand where, against a very sticky opponent, I opened JJ against a button straddle and checked flop on a T hi paired board. I wound up getting into a rough spot and had to fold, but I realized that I shouldn't try to use JJ as a balanced check back on a board like that. Little things like that where I'm learning on the fly from mistakes.

Overall, I played almost 50 hours for the week. This puts us on pace for 200 hours for the month (and over half the volume of February).

One of the more disappointing moments I've had in the last few months occurred this weekend.

Our roommate's niece was in town, and I helped her with her math homework. Both my roommate and her mom raved at how good I was at it, almost a natural. Then they asked why I wasn't a teacher.

Well, ****. Look at the news. The teacher protests going on in West Virginia and Oklahoma. The bi-weekly school shootings. The standardized test your freaking 8 year old is stressing about. I would love to be a teacher! I get so much joy and fulfillment from seeing those lightbulbs click.

But I can't do it. The salary. The treatment of teachers. Having your fate as a teacher rest in the hands of anxiety ridden school aged kids taking a single test. Having to potentially fear for your life every single day. I feel safer in a casino than I would in a school.

It's disappointing, really. I would love to do it. I'd leave poker in a heartbeat, pretty much exclusively for that. But I can't.

Being in the midst of the public school turmoil, I know exactly where you are coming from. My mom, sister, and countless other friends and family are first hand getting raked over the coals with the attack on public education tat we are experiencing in this country. I was a substituted teacher for just short of a month, right before I started the job that I left in my thread, and it was bar none the most challenging thing that I have ever undertaken. How people have the nerve to go in, day in and day out, humping it in a public school, I have no idea, but I admire the hell out of them. Public education is probably the most emblematic, and improtant hallmark of democracy in this country, imo.