Poker

Was hoping to extend the big Sunday streak to 3 today but all good things must come to an end, especially when it comes to upswinging in tournament poker. Lost a little under $1500 today. Very happy with the lack of frustration and calmness I had through the session. I made the money of the $215 $40K on Party after a really long bubble and only had 8BBs (a ton of people were under 15bbs). Jammed T9o otb with 19K at 1500/3000 and got called by QJ; board ran J7248 to get me back to 43K. 3b jam KQ the next hand and lose to 88 and slammed my chips down on my table. That's about the only negative emotion I showed throughout the session and it came when it was over so I feel pretty good about that. The nature of tournament poker and the feelings that come from it are pretty funny though; if I win that flip I'm back to 90-100K at 3Kbb, and if I go on to final table I'll be up on the day with a win giving me a massive start to the month. If I won I probably wouldn't think twice about the flip I won with 30 people left to get it started and I'd feel amazing that I'd succeeded on another Sunday. It just goes to show how ridiculous it is to get upset about running bad in tournament poker. It also shows how silly it is to get amped up about winning, but since I think those emotions can lead to more confidence and better play I don't mind letting them sink in.

The 2 other cashes I had came in the Stars Sunday Warmup ($50 $10K guarantee) where I flatted an open from EP with AA and 20bbs and BB squeezed for like 9BBs with TT and called my shove; got a pretty dumb 9559T runout to bust that one. Also cashed a $100 hyper satty to a $500 tourney on Stars when I finished one off the seat for $300+. Had some potential in the other 2 majors as well where I had almost 3 starting stacks on WSOP where I lost a standard flip to bust short of the money, and over 3 starting stacks on Stars before I chipped down to 20K at 500/1000. MP opened to 2200 and had active enough numbers that shoving ATs on the button felt fine. In my mind I said "this isn't getting through, he's gonna call with AK, but you're gonna double anyway so it's all good." He called with AK and board ran T724K lol. Almost right!

Anyway I really like this system of cashing out whenever I'm above $25K for my bankroll. It allows me to have money to spend outside of poker which lets me feel more comfortable when I'm losing at the game. It also keeps me hungry to not let the roll drop below $25K. I almost consider it like I'm in makeup to myself. So after today I'm something like $1750 in "makeup" and I'll now need to continue to make sure I'm playing 5 days a week and really in the right state of mind for each session to give myself the best chance of getting out of the hole. But since I've withdrawn money and have enough to last for at least 2 months worth of bills and rent and food and all that stuff, I won't feel as much pressure if I hit a downswing. I still have aspirations of eventually building the bankroll up more so that I can own dime bigger tournaments using the 1% rule but for now I'm content with what I'm doing.

Running

After drinking a bit and staying up til around 2:00-3:00 last night I woke up at 7:30 so I could leave by 8 to get to a park around 9:00 to run with some guys in the Garden State Track Club. I have a few friends on the team from college and am seriously considering joining. They all met up to do a long run, and I wasn't sure just how long that was going to be for everyone. Since I normally do long runs on Mondays, I'm only a week away from the half marathon, and Sundays are the big poker day, I was conflicted as to how far I wanted to go and figured I'd play it by ear once I got there.

Everyone was obviously really friendly and cool because the running community is awesome. There was something like 12 guys and 5 girls, and my old coach and friend along with an old teammate and friend were both there, so it was nice to catch up with them. A lot of the guys there are in unbelievable running shape so when they talked about going 16 miles I realized I would not be going the whole way with them. However my old teammate, who is an athletic freak in his own right, seemed to have had a similar night to mine and said he'd run whatever I was going.

So we headed off down this trail in Long Valley, NJ and I figured I might just stay with the group as long as I could and then turn around. I'd make 10 miles be the maximum I wanted to run so if I made it all the way to 5 miles out I'd turn around there no matter how I felt. I should mention that it was 14 degrees (that's -10 Celcius for my non-American friends) outside when I left my house at 8:00 and I don't think it was above 20 yet when we started running. We hit 6:59 at the mile mark which is perfect for me, but I had a feeling they were all just getting warmed up (literally and figuratively) as I had heard rumblings of them wanting to go 6:00 pace for a bunch of this run. We come through mile 2 at 6:44 and now there is a core group of 8 of us who seem like they will all stick together for a while. I'm still talking at this point and feel pretty good.

We come through mile 3 and I know we've been going fast but again, still no problem talking and I feel relaxed. I check my watch to see we just hit 6:23 for mile 3! I also don't expect it to slow down at all, so I decide I'll get to mile 4 with them and then turn around and probably slow it back to 7:00 pace. I'm feeling pretty tired as we approach mile 4 but still talking since it provides a pretty good distraction. My watch beeps and I look to see our 4th mile is at 6:18. It actually would have been amazing if there was a way for me to get a ride back to my car at any point I wanted because I think it would have been great for me to test my legs and see if I could comfortably get to 6 miles knowing 5 and 6 were going to creep even closer to 6:00. But I told the group I was heading back and my old teammate Kyle turned around with me. We hit mile 5 at 7:02 and then slowed to 7:20--7:17--7:22 for 6, 7, and 8. It was nice to catch up with him and I was glad he was doing most of the talking because I was starting to feel exhausted. It's funny that in some ways I think if I had maintained the faster pace I might have felt better during the run but I'd be hurting a lot more now. This run also makes me feel like I should be able to go pretty fast during the half marathon if I can just randomly rip off a 20:10 5K (according to Strava) in the middle of an 8 mile run after a night of drinking and eating a pint of ice cream. I was wondering why I was cramping at the beginning of the run and it took me to the drive home to remember that I had a pint of Cherry Garcia at like 2:30 in the morning before I went to sleep. So some good sleep and proper eating before the race on Sunday should clear up any of that!

Today completed week 8 of the challenge. I got the kid who was clearly walking some of his runs to admit to it and the guy running the competition called him out. Instead of acting embarrassed when the head guy said "this is a running competition, you can't walk in a running competition" the kid said "well maybe you should rephrase the rules then." He'd really should take up poker and become a notorious live game angle shooter. But he did log what was clearly a run today so that's a good sign. I still don't care much if I win or not but I don't want someone deliberately exploiting the rules to get the win.

I've ran a total of 308 miles in those 8 weeks now and have pretty much been right at 7:00 pace consistently. I bought a new watch on Thursday so I don't have to run with my phone anymore and I didn't realize how much that was affecting me until I ran without it. It really feels like swinging a bat on its own after taking a few swings with the weight on the end. I'll take it somewhat easy this week in preparation for the half marathon. My mom and I got tickets to the Big East semifinals at Madison Square Garden for my dad's birthday so that's gonna be a lot of fun. First game starts 6:30 on Friday and we get to stay for that and the 2nd game immediately after. He went to Villanova, the heavy favorite in the tournament, so I'd be surprised to see them lose before the championship game, but it's college basketball so you never know. Either way it'll be a great experience to go. They do need to be a very weak team on Thursday in order to make the semis so knock on wood that nothing crazy happens and we don't get to see Nova in the first place! After the games Friday I'll head home and spend some time with the family Saturday before the race Sunday, after which I'll come back to Bergen to put in a session. Looking forward to this week!

Poker

Pretty interesting session yesterday given it was a normally uneventful Monday. Found a way to fire 5 bullets into the Stars 10K despite staying within the guideline of not re-entering with less than 20BBs. Got 18BBs in bvb with A5s vs KJo on bullet 4; board ran AT54Q. Then got JJ in vs 77 on bullet 5 and lost that one and was really relieved to see we were at 300/600 so I could stop the torture

I ended up in for $1250 or so on the day and despite not really binking anything I more or less broke even (lost something like $70). Cashed a $100 mtt on WSOP, took 3rd in a $50 turbo on Stars, and had a chance to have a big day in the Party 10K but after running quite good near the bubble (AQ>AK and AQ>JJ to go from short stack with 15 left and 12 paying to being near the top), I ran pretty bad at the final table. Button shoved 75K at 5Kbb and I woke up with JJ in BB and held vs QJ to chip up to 190K and near the chip lead with 8 left. Next orbit button shoves 85K and I again wake up in the BB, this time with TT; he has A5s and rivers a flush to knock me down to 85K at 6Kbb. It folds to my SB next hand and I shove 97s for the BB's 9bb stack; he is the only one I cover now. He's the nittiest reg across every site in NJ and after tanking for over 30 seconds he calls with A9 and holds lol.

I get a bunch of shoves through after with my 5BBs and then it folds to SB who limps while I have 9BBs in the BB. I shove Q9s since randoms are almost never ever balanced here and I've been getting a ton of folds shoving very very wide in this spot (I'd go way wider than Q9s) and he calls pretty quickly with KJs. Very strange hand to trap with, seems like about as standard as a shove as you can get (I think I would have called with my hand anyway). He holds and I bust 7th. 1st was $2400 more than 7th so some nice rungood at final table would have had me out of my own personal makeup. I guess it's silly to look at it this way but it keeps me encouraged that I'm playing well and just little things happening differently are the difference between massive days and losing days. Excited to grind tonight.

Running

Really great last 2 days of running. I did a workout on Monday, running 1.5 miles to the high school track as a warmup and then doing 3 x mile on the track. The goal was to run under 6:00 on each mile with only a lap of jogging as rest between each. I took the first half mile out at 2:52, going faster than I wanted to unintentionally. Finished the first mile at 5:49 and jogged the lap in 2:15 before getting going again. Mile 2 was closer to the proper splits as I came through at 5:57 and then jogged another lap. Mile 3 finished at 5:56 and I felt really good through it. I certainly felt fatigued but my form was good, I wasn't gasping for air, everything was in control. I jogged the 1.5 miles home and called it a good run.

Today I set out to run the 6 mile loop I really like and it went very well. My right calf has really been feeling tight but I don't think it's anything to be concerned about so I just ran through it. After splitting 6:56 and 7:01 for the first 2 miles I hit 6:38 on the very downhill 3rd mile. Feeling good I decided to run very fast up the hill through downtown Ridgewood that is part of a segment on Strava. The hill is about 0.4 miles long with 54ft of elevation. I covered it in 2:24, which equates to 6:06 per mile and puts me 2nd of the 106 people who have completed that segment. At that point I still felt good so I decided I'd try to split the fastest 10K (6.2 miles) I've ever done on Strava. Finished mile 4 at 6:45, mile 5 at 6:35, mile 6 at 6:35, and the last quarter mile at 6:09 pace to split 41:52 for my fastest 10K yet during the streak (6:44/pace). The beautiful 50 degree weather helped a lot, and I'm very excited for the half marathon on Sunday.

Poker

It's been a long time since I've ran as bad throughout an entire session as I did today. Was in for $1300ish, once in the $250 and the rest were $100 MTTs and under. I came 5th with 7 paying in the $55 turbo and did not even come close to cashing anything else. No point in even running through the hands, there were so many spots where I was good on flop and out by river. Stayed positive and optimistic throughout session, even continued telling myself I was going to win when I got it in and it just really did not happen very often today.

Read this quote on the NBA subreddit while I was one tabling the $55 FT:

"You think of Kobe [Bryant], you think of LeBron [James], you think of Michael [Jordan], and you think of all these guys that had to do that. They got to the point where they realized the shot wasn't going to go down all the time, or they might even turn it over. But they come right back. They don't shy away the next time. They want it again."

It really made me think of an important quality in a good poker tournament player. No matter how many times you get smacked down for running an unsuccessful bluff, or gambling in the right spot but losing, or even just making a bad play that you thought was good at the time, you have to just get right back up and make the right play again. It's so easy to shy away from putting the money in after you've lost hand after hand after hand. It's easy to just turn to being risk averse when it feels like there's no way you can win at showdown. But you have to fight that feeling and thrive to continue to put the money in good and put pressure on opponents who are folding too often and bluff it off when it's a good spot. You can't be afraid to keep taking the shot; in fact, you have to always WANT the ball in crunch time. I feel like I've been getting better at that lately.

Just went to my spreadsheet to check the damage. Lost $1100 even on the day, meaning I'm down over $2900 in the last 7 days. It's frustrating and it's easy to just start thinking that I was just lucky to run good last week and now it's all coming back to me. But that's a ridiculous sentiment given how long I've been playing this game and it's amazing it's taken me this long to be able to just shrug off these stretches. I do think I'm just about at that point now though. Tomorrow is a new day and I'll be ready to come right back. I won't shy away. I want the ball again!

nice way to end feb broski, gl in march

I'm sure you will do well in the half marathon! I just finished listening to this audiobook called Eat & Run by Scott Jurek. Dude is an absolute badass, he's won multiple 100+ mile races and set the speed record for running the entire 2200 mile Appalachian Trial in 42 days. Super inspiring, highly recommend it!

I met a friend that I known for years at borgata. He used to crash all those small buy in tournaments in borgata and got couple nice score included he took second for 25k which is very nice return for the investment. So now I saw him begging around for money to buy in some of the 300 dollar tournaments. And this kind of thing not only happening to him, me as long time grinder at AC, I saw the same thing happen multiple times.
So as a friend of him, he ask me if I have extra money to let him buy in, instead of give him the money, I decide have a long conversation with him, I know his problem, also I know exactly the leak of his game, if he is not able to adjusted or find out, he will be continuing bleeding his money away. But the whole conversation I didn't even mention once on any poker strategy, I told him that he need to wake up, he got lost in the game, he once had very good result and he only remembers those good old day, and continues keep buyin hundred and hundred of dollar with negative ROI, he already life broke so something need to stop, if he want to continue playing poker, he need to stop playing for while, look what exactly happen, instead of begging money to get a chance to win all the money back, that's gambling not poker. I am sharing the story here and hope people can look at the real fact at the real life tournaments grinder, these kind of problem not only happen to my friend, I saw much more last couple year in AC
BTW, good luck in your journey Dan


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Thanks Josh! How's the hyper grind going?

2200 miles in 42 days. WHAT, THE, ****!!! That is INSANE! I'll definitely have to check that out.

grinder, you are not the first person in my life to imply I am going to go broke. Of course there are degenerates who have played a few dozen tournaments, hit a hot streak, and then gotten in over their heads. I have hundreds of posts in this thread, thousands of logged tournaments online, and literally millions of hands played over the course of my life to prove I am not one of those people. Thank you for your concern.

Being optimistic should be having the mindset of "I don't mind if I lose" rather than " I feel that I'm going to win." I've found that the secret to tilt control is to have low expectations. If you never expect to win any flips, then any outcome will be a good outcome.

Another good strategy is to plan for bad events in advance and negate it with good incentives. I.e. "I can only go watch movies/eat out/party on days that I lose >$1,000." Then once you train your mind to look forward to bad days then you could remove those incentives.

Dan never imply you will go broke, and my input didn't mean that, I just find it interesting to share some of the fact around AC live tournaments


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For my own personal situation I disagree, though I don't doubt that that outlook is good for a lot of other people. I feel like if I accept the fact that losing is okay, I don't play my best, because I don't feel it's really all that important to win. In a game like poker, you're going to lose quite often, so what you're saying really does make a ton of sense, but I don't think I can personally have low expectations and expect to perform at my best. I need some sort of pressure to drive me to try my hardest to excel. For me, if I don't expect to win flips, I start trying to find ways to win pots without accepting that variance is a part of the game, and I therefore miss out on equity by folding too much or not keeping my foot on the gas or whatever it may be.

Two issues for me with the second paragraph. First, if I have a set number that allows me to gain a reward, I might stop caring about tournaments late in a session in which I know I'm going to book a loss anyway. It's easy to say screw it when you know you're down $1100 on the day with 1 tourney left that only has, say, $600 up top. But gaining $600 is gaining $600 and trying less hard because, "hey, when I bust this out of the money I can go do something else that's more fun," would really not be good for me. Also, due to the nature of the NJ online scene, my sessions almost always wrap up after midnight and there isn't really anything to do at that point anyway since I'm almost always playing Sunday-Thursday and anyone I'd hang out with is going to bed since they have work in the morning.

I know I sound like I'm ****ting on your ideas lol but I really don't mean to. For my personal situation I don't think they'd work well, but for many other players I can see the ideas being very good suggestions.

No offense taken. It seems you already have a successful routine set up which is awesome.

I've been thinking about your post throughout my session and I might have to take back my reply. I will get back to you lol. I think there is a chance that my form of optimism is best when I'm upswinging and yours is best for me when I'm downswinging. If that makes any sense. Like I'd rather expect to win while I'm winning and build off that momentum, but when I'm downswinging and it seems like I can't win a hand (-$3K last 7 days) it's better if I can find a way to practice indifference. Definitely something good to think about so thanks again for your post!

gl

Personally I don't know a ton about the nj online tournament scene other than occasionally playing there/my couple friends who live there. Has anyone gone through stuff now that it's been around awhile and broken down what kinda ROI's people are putting up and what kinda hourly is reasonably possible? It seems like it's a weird market where you are pretty much forced to grind a bunch of $100-$200 buyins to make a reasonable hourly otherwise you'd be stuck grinding a bunch of $10 tourneys as there's not much in between?

I could probably go back to my data from last year and break down my overall ROI and see what I ended up at. There are some midstakes stuff but not a ton, and they don't put big guarantees on any of them so the fields are almost always under 100 players, making 1st place 3 figures.

A rare exception to that rule happened last night, mainly due to the fact that neither the Stars nor Party $100 $10K guarantees started due to not having enough players in them at start time. So the Party $55, a $3K guarantee that starts a half hour after the $10K and normally just barely reaches the 60 player threshhold to cover the guarantee, had 115 runners or something last night with 1st place being $1500.

My session yesterday was pretty funny since I only had the $30r $10K on WSOP as a main tournament. I played that, a $100 $2500 guarantee (lol) on WSOP, the Party $55 $3K, a $20 $1500 on Stars, a $20 turbo on Stars, and a $25 on WSOP that gets about 40 people. I was in for $300 and elected not to keep registering as I was really tired and decided to make it a short night to get some sleep once I busted the only $10K on the schedule. I actually had potential to have a relatively big day but had to settle for a +$600 day after finishing 6th in the $100/$2500, 6th in the $20/$1500, and 4th in the $55/$3K. About $1K more each up top in the $100 and $55 but no dice. You really can see a massive difference in the play between these midstakes tournaments and the "higher" stakes stuff. People have a lot of leaks in the higher stuff but in the midstakes they are just giving it away a lot of the time.

But anyway back to your question...I'd say yes, if you aren't playing the $100s and up you don't really have a chance of making a decent living playing tournaments online in NJ. There just isn't enough money to be made without the potential to bink something each night. The Party $55 having $1500 up top was an exception yesterday simply because people wanting to play the $10K must have hopped in that instead. Normally there's somewhere around $900-$1000 up top in that tournament and that and the Stars $50 turbo at 10PM, which gets about $800 up top, are the only 2 weekday $50 tourneys I can think of. There are no MTTs with buy ins between $50 and $100.

Playing the only tournament over a $10 buy in that runs during the day right now. For perspective on some of the things you see in the midstakes on a pretty regular basis:

#Game No : 484581259
***** WSOP.com Hand History for Game 484581259 *****
$125/$250 Blinds No Limit Holdem - ***
Tournament #962679 $27.50 + $2.50 - Table #2 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 1: Metropack22 ( $370 )
Seat 2: JNP09123 ( $3,180 )
Seat 3: jayxxx6 ( $2,580 )
Seat 4: RedsoxNets5 ( $4,520 )
Seat 5: phatdaddy ( $10,628 )
Seat 6: BadCo ( $4,750 )
Seat 9: JudgeBen ( $6,597 )
Seat 10: jjamony ( $18,762 )
jayxxx6 posts ante [$25]
phatdaddy posts ante [$25]
JudgeBen posts ante [$25]
jjamony posts ante [$25]
Metropack22 posts ante [$25]
RedsoxNets5 posts ante [$25]
JNP09123 posts ante [$25]
BadCo posts ante [$25]
jayxxx6 posts small blind [$125]
RedsoxNets5 posts big blind [$250]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to RedsoxNets5 [ Ah, Jc ]
phatdaddy raises [$600]
BadCo calls [$600]
JudgeBen folds
jjamony folds
Metropack22 folds
JNP09123 folds
jayxxx6 folds
RedsoxNets5 calls [$350]
** Dealing flop ** [ As, 2d, 8d ]
RedsoxNets5 checks
phatdaddy checks
BadCo bets [$2,125]
RedsoxNets5 raises [$3,895]
phatdaddy folds
BadCo calls [$1,770]
** Dealing turn ** [ 7d ]
** Dealing river ** [ 9d ]
** Summary **
RedsoxNets5 shows [ Ah, Jc ]
BadCo shows [ 4s, 4c ]
RedsoxNets5 collected [ $9,915 ]

Lol nice. Honestly I knew the field sizes were small but I didn't realize they were that small. Variance shouldn't actually be too bad considering that. I'm guessing you never took the staking deal? Probably a smart move considering the tournaments available. I don't think you should skip that $500 or whatever tourney though. Just sell with markup in the marketplace.

Yes our Sunday Majors rarely get over 300 people entries haha. Didn't take the staking deal, still think it was a great offer but just too expensive for me basically when I'm rolled to play the games I want to play so I'd effectively just be paying half of what I make for coaching. I've played the $500s before but I'm just not super comfortable ripping a bunch of them at once, and if I play I'm gonna wanna fire more than 1 bullet, etc etc. They are most likely good value but I think I wanna continue to build my liferoll/bankroll before going after them on own dime. Selling is certainly something I should probably consider though and will do in the future, I've just never really thought to do much of it online. I actually did sell for 2 bullets each of 4 events in the Harrah's AC WSOPc series coming up and sold 50% quite quickly at markup. It's nice to know that that always seems to be an option as people are interested in buying. The first event I'll be playing starts Monday and it'll be nice to get out of the house and back on the live grind a little bit.

Several days ago you said you got frustrated and the only emotion you showed was you slammed your chips down on the table? Do you keep casino chips on your desk?

yeah I just shuffle chips from a set I got a while back, sounds douchey but it's therapeutic in some way haha

I love doing the same if I ever play online.


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Quick Update

Been a pretty tough few days. Gonna get some sleep soon but figured I'd outline it all.

--I was running much faster than expected in the half marathon and felt really good and in shape. I got to the 5 mile mark at 32:30 (6:30 pace), and had the added benefit of the fact that my brother decided to (unofficially) run it with me and we also found a 3rd guy while running who was clearly just training. So the 3 of us were talking and I was really enjoying myself. My calf started to hurt more and more as the run went on and by the time I hit the 7 mile mark I had to stop since I was pretty much limping. I did not finish the race and the kid I was running with finished 12th overall (going into the race I did not expect to finish top 50 based on previous years' results).

--I got crushed in the Sunday session I played, which I started late since I was exhausted from the morning.

--I woke up Monday with a ton of pain in my leg, tried to run the minimum and almost fell down after a few steps. My streak ended at 63 days.

--Got to Harrah's AC later that afternoon, sold for 2 bullets each of 4 events Monday-Thursday. Busted the 1st bullet of the Monday $580 with KQ on JT94 vs TT and things didn't get better from there. Busted 2nd bullet later and then 2 bullets of the $365 6 max today. I'm down over $4k on the month and have got that "can't win" feeling inside me. Don't have the option to run either as an outlet and I'm limping around the casino. Going to take a week off from running and hope for the best after that. Losing the ability to just go and run and feel good is pretty awful.

--All of this being said, I think I'm handling it well. It's just another standard part of life, always gonna be negative variance, etc, I've said it all before on here. I'm going to always continue to work hard on controlling what I can and not worrying about the rest. I can't control my injury. I can't control running bad at poker. I can control icing my leg and stretching it. I can control playing my best and reacting properly when I lose. And I can control my volume and effort level. So tomorrow I'll play the $365 turbo to the best of my ability. Thursday I'll play the standard $365 as best I can, and then Friday I will play the $1675 main! I sold 60% of 2 bullets at 1.2 to that and it always feels good to know you can sell to events when you need to. As someone who often struggles with confidence, people buying up action to an event I want to play in a really short amount of time is a great confidence booster. I think one of my goals going forward will be to simply have more confidence. To stop acting like I've never hit a downswing before, and that it must mean I'm washed up. As Joel Embiid would say, I just gotta trust the process! Maybe tomorrow I'll luckbox a ring in the turbo

It appears that just about every WSOP circuit stop is a wonderland. The way people play in these things is astounding and it's amazing. While I've been working hard at trying to stay balanced and making sure I'm bluffing at proper frequencies and developing what hands to be shoving at what stack depths from which positions against which players, it was really nice to get back to my roots of "oh, these cards are good, I will raise and keep betting until villain gives me all of his chips." It is really simple here at Harrah's. Early on, make a hand and get paid. Later in the tournaments, open a lot and most people are going to let you get away with murder.

Today was the $365 turbo, 20 minute levels and 10K starting stack. Had a good start to get to around 20K at 400/800 and then the all in parade began. KQ<A5 to drop to 8K, QTs>AK back to 18K, JJ>KT to get to 32K. Then they moved Dan Buzgon, a very solid player that I play a decent amount with online, to my table. It was sort of funny having a table full of droolers and then seeing Dan sit down. When I play online I worry that the top NJ players are exploiting me and work hard to remain balanced and all that stuff (Dan has 7 figures in live earnings and plays quite well imo). But then watching Dan play against a table where everyone is just clueless was pretty entertaining. I watched him shove 3 times in a row or something, all pretty standard spots with stacks behind him all under 15bbs, and then watched as people got flustered with what was going on. It's fun to watch the demeanor of someone who is used to all of these reactions and stuff as well. While I'm not going to change how I play just because people are reacting, I don't always know how to respond to people when they ask me why I keep going all in or whatever they might be saying to me. I typically try to keep it friendly but sometimes people are really offended!

Anyway, Dan was opening a ton so while I would have rather just ran over the rest of the table I didn't really have an option but to play hands with him. He opens to 6500 UTG at 3Kbb, I shove 31K in MP w KQs and hold vs his JTs to get to 70K or so. Without 5K chips on the table 70K looks like heaps but as the blinds go up this mound of chips I have represent 17 bigs. We drop down to maybe 30 players with 21 paying and Dan opens either HJ or CO to 8500 at 4Kbb and I defend BB with J9dd. Flop comes Q73dd, I check, he bets 10.5K, I elect to shove, and he calls with KQ. Pretty quickly we have a 150K pot on our hands in a tourney that has less than 2M in play with 30 left! Turn is a nice sweat with an offsuit T, but unfortunately I only pair my 9 on the river to bust a handful of players off the money. I'm glad that I'm taking that spot though and not trying to convince myself that calling and potentially folding a later street is the best play. While I think I have an edge on the field, Dan will certainly be c-betting some hands that he will not call a shove with, and this edge I have on the field is not all that great when I have under 15BBs, especially when Dan is at the table opening a ton of hands. So hey, if I bink turn or river I've got heaps in a creampuff field, if not, I go back to my room and get ready for the next day. Dan went on to win the tourney for $15k and the ring. Grats to him!

I got back to my room, got some dinner, relaxed and watched some basketball while playing 4 NJ MTTs online. I finished 7 off the money in the Stars 10K, 3rd in the WSOP $100 for $400ish, 4th in the WSOP 10K for $700ish and 4th in the Party 10K for $950. Total profit of $1700 on the night. Obviously ran awesome to go that deep in that many games when only playing 4, obviously tilted to not move up on 4th in either 10K with 2K more up top in each, blah blah blah, same old story. The hole I was in in March was almost at 5K, so this knocks it down to 3K, which makes not closing anything a little extra painful, but I find myself really enjoying the grind of live poker and I somehow felt more relaxed when playing online tonight. Gonna do my best to save the package tomorrow in the $365 ring event, and I'm excited for the main on Friday. I felt way more relaxed today than I did even on Monday and am glad to see I'm having fun playing these live tournaments. It's definitely good to take a break from online to play live once in a while and I think I really needed it with this injury that's preventing me from running. It gives me something to think about during the day instead of just withering away at home by myself.

GL in the Main!

Poker

Sorta wild last 2 days, disappointing results but I feel pretty good about it all. Played the $365 yesterday, had 7K in chips at the end of late reg going to 600bb, had 150K starting 600/1200. With 164 players and 10K SS I had 9% of the chips in play when we went to dinner with 4 tables left. When we got down to 11 or 12 players left I had 250K after swinging a ton and playing a lot of hands. Kid opens button at 4Kbb I defend K9hh in BB, c/c K84cc flop, c/c 7x turn, check 3x river and he bets 60K into like 130K or so. I think live people check back too much good but not nutted value so I thought there was a chance he'd be checking back better Kx and even AA. I'd also seen him just barrel almost every time he'd shown any aggression pre and post. I blocked KK which only left 1 combo of it along with 6 combos of 88 and 44. I supposed he could also have some 77 and 65 but based on how he'd been playing I thought he could have a lot of club combos (even though it's not really GTO to be bluffing those since you block my missed flushes). Anyway I made the call and I think it was probably a mistake and that he just probably isn't bluffing as often as I need him to be. idk. In any case he just had KK and I was down to 80 while we remained on the 11 player FT bubble with an average stack of around 150K. Folds to my button and I shove 80K at 5Kbb with KJo, BB tanks a while and then calls off most of his stack with 22, which is obviously a fold, and I lose the flip to bubble the FT.

Played the main today, 20K SS, folded a ton of hands early to drop to 16K and then lost AK to AQ for 10K apiece. Dropped to 5K, got a 3b shove through at 500bb, doubled with 88>A9 to 15K and moved tables. Doubled pretty quickly there QQ>JT on J843 to 30K then dropped to 20K at dinner. Had to fold to below 10K at 1Kbb then doubled AQ>KJ and AQ>AJ back to back hands back to 40K. Probably peaked at just under 50K before jamming 23K at 1600bb bvb w A6o and running into AQ. Eventually shoved 17K at 2kbb in HJ w QTo and doubled vs AQ, then 3b shoved 18bbs with AT against someone I thought was opening a lot who just had AQ to bust. All in all I felt okay with how I played, it's annoying to win a lot of all ins and feel like you didn't do anything with them but I don't think there was a whole lot else I could do. I tried to make chips whenever I could and don't think I was folding too much but really was incredibly tight early on; I think it was just a function of a lot of very poor holdings. So tomorrow I will fire again and try to finish the weak strong. The day ends after 2400bb so we almost got there but I'm feeling big things for tomorrow.