I think I call, but I'm a recfish, so what do I know? Feels like he has QJ here.

Wait... I know I call. I flopped trips and filled up. I'm not good enough to fold a full house.

Thanks for feedback. Whilst JJ isn't likely due to flop and turn action, had seen villain limp AK in cutoff earlier that night. 3 sessions ago also got villain to fold with AK on K884 board after 5 betting him pre and then flatting flop and raise jamming turn. Did play it like I had aces or something but we were super deep and I didn't really know him that well then haha or wouldn't have done what I did, because I had air haha.

Yeah, look, it was a tough little spot but sick part is as mentioned above possible that AA, KK are in range, I don't know, if limping AK in late position maybe same with other premiums...

I folded for what it's worth, no show but best part is guy is from out of town and dealer had a look at the cards and said if he doesn't tell you what he had I will hahahaha, stay tuned!

Cheers Mac

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Hey...

JT hand... As played looks good to me. Snap call OTR. (I raise pre my CO and BU pretty wide though, so I'd be raising here.)

Had it confirmed from the dealer that the player had K10 and flopped the full house. This fold was hugely player dependant and with the history I have with him, it was the right fold, very tough one to make though.

Cheers Mac

Gaaaahhh, huge day for me, been working on longer sessions after I was called a mental game fish in here for hitting and running :P

Punched out a 10 hour session where my game fluctuated between B+ and A for strategy and around the same for mental game. It was a long day which in hindsight, had a lot go against me. I could write all the bad beats and unlucky stuff but you know how it rolls so waste of time. I didn't make too many moves or plays, was one, went with a read which turned out to be wrong, cost me 75bb, but that's ok, will store that information for next time.

Lost two buy-ins in the end, so the start of November hasn't been the kindest too me, overall for November now 17 days in I'm down $129. If that's the worst this game can do to me, break even after 70 hours of play it's weak, will have to do a lot more than that to break me, I can tell you that much haha.

Might be back down there tonight, although Monday's aren't great, see how I'm feeling after boxing technique training this evening at 5.30pm. My calves are so freaking sore after doing 20mins of stairs running up and down at Currumbin on Saturday morning. This training is tough, but I will be fit as a fiddle when it's done in 12 weeks time!

GAME: $2/3 Live Full Ring
BANKROLL: $10,744
HOURLY RATE: $16.39 p/h
HOURS LOGGED: 45h 32min

Cheers Mac

Hey all,

Sorry, haven't posted for a little while, had a good night last night after a couple of rough nights of variance. In fact the first 21 days of this month have been rather tough I must admit. It has sent me to Jared Tendler's audiobook. I had once read this book, but the audiobook is much better, seem to be taking it in more.

I was also given a mental game book by a friend which smashed some thoughts in my mind, seems to be working. Still need to work hard on the mental game while I work on technical with my new coach. Will be confirming my coach on Monday but hoping to get one guy then.

Last night I made a nice call on the river which was the big hand of the night, really was a pivotal time of the night.

Hero KQo made it $13 pre and got 4 callers ($52).

Q108 flop, checks to hero, bet $20, 1 caller who has position on me ($92)

2 turn, hero leads $40, villain tanks counting out chips in a crying call ($172)

3 river, hero leads $55 for value, villain turbo ships for $185 more, hero calls, villain shows Q6o.

Cheers Mac

GAME: $2/3 Live Full Ring
BANKROLL: $10,988
HOURLY RATE: $15.32 p/h
HOURS LOGGED: 64h 29min

Gee this game can turn around quickly, after a really rough time to the start of November, I have stacked up 5 winning sessions back to back. The tough trot seems like a distant memory now. I'm really glad I read that book from my poker friend which is called 'The Poker Mindset' by Ian Taylor & Matthew Hilger for anyone playing along at home. It challenged the way I was thinking and has helped me immensely.

My sessions haven't been outrageously large wins, but it really is the sum of all the parts, they stack up to a healthy month without being huge and the best part there is still 6 days in the month left (taking tonight and tomorrow off). If I could run this month up to $3k profit, I'll be stoked, considering the rough patch I had at the start of it.

Still no confirmation on the coach yet, but chasing one guy in particular, will be connecting with him in the coming days as he will be back from China then.

Cheers Mac

GAME: $2/3 Live Full Ring
BANKROLL: $12,312
HOURLY RATE: $29.49 p/h
HOURS LOGGED: 78h 24min

Glad to hear things have turned around.

'The Poker Mindset' also played a large part in changing the way I looked at the game and how I approached it. Although, it has taken me a year's to realize my biggest leaks were away from the tables.

'The Mental Game of Poker' by Jared Tendler and 'Elements of Poker' by Tommy Angelo were also instrumental. Have you read those?

@dannynolls

Hey mate, yes, The Poker Mindset is brilliant, really easy to read, challenges a lot of your thinking and allows you to understand variance more and more. I have the audiobook of Jared's, which I loved too. Not finished it at the moment but working through it.

Only one I haven't got my hands on is Tommy's book. Might give that a look after I finish the audiobook from Jared, but I agree, it's had a profound effect on my game since "getting my head around" it all.

Cheers Mac

Hey all,

I have been wanting to set some goals, would like to do them annually, but they are so important to me, I want to get them written down here and then I can update them at the end of the year or next if I so wish.

I don't want to put monetary goals, particularly "win $'x'", because I think that's just setting yourself up for failure in this game. Money is going to play a roll in some of these goals, without it, I won't be able to do them, but I have some other irons in the fire that make me money too, so just need to save and should be able to get there comfortably.

2014/15 GOALS

• Secure coach and have one lesson per fortnight
• Increase my win rate & hourly rate
• Save $50k in my offset home loan account
• Renovate my new apartment
• Win my first amateur boxing match on 31st January
• Miss no more than 5 boxing training sessions for next 9 weeks (training 6 days per week)
• Play 12 live tournaments (1 per month)
• Play 35 hours of cash games per week
• Play local 5/5 game when the game is good and bankroll permits
• Get engaged (hope she doesn't see this haha)
• Go on a road trip to Sydney, Melbourne & maybe Perth to play some cards
• Move to Vegas/USA for 3-6 months

If I am able to achieve these here, I will be so over the moon. It should be able to be done, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do all of these, just having them somewhere will help me to keep my eye on the prize and also give some accountability.

Cheers Mac

.

Keep up the good work bruz, I'll be droppin my Ep this Friday called dikka dikka dert. g

Another good couple of sessions over the past few days, $585, $257, $321. Been working hard on my game still, watching lots of video's, listening to podcasts. Haven't had to many sticky situations of late, was one hand I was keen to get some opinions on though.

Hero JJ (BB) ($650 eff. stack) - Young full time grinder, with hoodie, often seen at this game, very active player, talkative, othr players know he's on the table.

Action limps around to Hero (5 limpers including SB), Hero raises to $22. 3 callers (pot $94).

V1 (mp) Old rock, very fit or fold type ($350 eff. stack)
V2 (cut-off) Brazilian, young, active, LP style, will blow up, losing player ($200 eff. stack)
V3 (button) Brazilian, young, loves to bluff, very active, losing LAG ($250 eff. stack)

Flop Q, 2, 3

Hero???

GAME: $2/3 Live Full Ring
BANKROLL: $13,475
HOURLY RATE: $39.96 p/h
HOURS LOGGED:86h 58min

Another solid session, really running it up towards the back end of November which is great considering I get the keys to the new apartment in around 2 weeks.

Played for around 8 hours for $800+, did make a poor call with KQd on QJ74 board. I have a quite strong rule about stacking off with one pair type hands but if I was ever going to make the call it was against this lunatic Chinese business man type who I have a lot of hand history with. He is a maniac and I thought I might be in front. He had Q7 off in the end and the bet of $415 on the turn was way to much to make a lightish call with.

Other than that I played and ran well, would love to have played today but went straight from the tables at 4.00am to a mate's place who loves NFL and we watched the 3 Thanks Giving games back to back. Had two beers, ate some turkey, was great fun, except I haven't slept. Need some sleep and gear myself up for 20 minutes of running stairs in the park for boxing training at 5.30am tomorrow (Saturday) morning.

Cheers Mac

GAME: $2/3 Live Full Ring
BANKROLL: $14,289
HOURLY RATE: $44.75 p/h
HOURS LOGGED:95h 50min

Starting to roll on now!

Had two sessions since my last post for a total of $1000+. Finished off the month of November in roaring fashion. It's 11 straight winning sessions for me now and I am having little to no doubts about my decision to now dissolve my share in the business and take up the game full time.

I took tonight off as Monday nights are traditionally slow at the local grind house. Spent a night at home working hard on the game though with CLP videos and podcasts. Really enjoy Bart and Abe's content, enjoyable to listen too and highly knowledgable dudes.

I'm three weeks into the fightlikeapro.com.au training now. I got weighed this morning and I'm down to 77.2kg which is a whopping loss of 2.9kg in just 3 weeks of training already. I have also been eating super well, cut all the extra sugar out of the diet, high protein, heaps of fish, meat, eggs, protein shakes, bit of pasta, but will be cutting out the carbohydrates when 4 weeks out from the fight.

My life roll is up over $20k now, I'm saving, I'm grinding and I want to get to around $40k and then start looking at the 5/5 game in my local a lot more. I'm making a commitment to play it when the game is good, I mean really good, minimal good reg's and mass fish, will be mainly Friday and Saturday night I'm guessing.

Thinking about heading down to Sydney or Melbourne for a few nights in the next few weeks. Just going to head down to where the games are running all day and night and play some players that don't know me. Should be enjoyable to get away from here for a little and experience something else, bit of variety shouldn't hurt.

GAME: $2/3 Live Full Ring
BANKROLL: $15,464
HOURLY RATE: $49.99 p/h
HOURS LOGGED:109h 18min

After listening more and more to Abe Limon, Bart Hanson and the team at Crush Live Poker I have resided to the fact that I need to be playing in the 5/5 game when it is good. I had initially thought I would build my roll and "take shots" at the bigger game. The problem with this theory though is I sit in the casino 35-40 hours per week. Of those hours at least 10-15 the bigger game is incredibly soft. Rather than playing where the stacks are smaller, rake is larger, I should really be playing in the big game.

I have now made a commitment to play in the bigger game ONLY when it is soft and there is many targets. I have no ego or issue with alternating between the two level games, the players are hardly better and when I get a hand I'm more likely to get really paid as everyone has bigger, deeper stacks.

Last night was awesome, I played about 1.5 hours on $2/$3 for profit of just under $300. Then I jumped over to $5/$5 for 6 hours and booked in a win of $780.

GAME: $2/3 Live Full Ring
OVERALL BANKROLL: $15,758
OVERALL HOURLY RATE: $52.41 p/h
OVERALL HOURS LOGGED:110h 40min

GAME: $5/5 Live Full Ring
OVERALL BANKROLL: $16,544
OVERALL HOURLY RATE: $56.32 p/h
OVERALL HOURS LOGGED:116h 11min

Sub'd gl!

Cheers man! Hope you enjoy/get something out of the thread!

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Hey all,

I have posted some details on reactions to this whole sea change, mostly, the important people have backed me or respected my decision after a bit of time to process it. Mostly everyone, except for one person that is, my girlfriend's, fathers, father (her grandfather). He is an 83 year old Greek Egyptian man who can not fathom what I am doing. I sat down with him on Monday to try and resolve the differences, unfortunately it didn't end well.

Whilst I do understand that his past has shaped his future (his father was a degenerate horse gambler, lost everything one time), I tried to explain that I am not your father and this is a different time and form of gambling but he wasn't having it. The conversation went a lot longer than this but these are some of the typical dialog from it (imagine him with an old Greek voice haha):

Him: Do you know what you are dealing with down there?
Me: Yes, drunks most of the time.
Him: Have you ever heard of the Yugoslav Mafia?
Me: Yeah, I guess??
Him: They stand behind you look at your cards and then do hand signals to each other.
Me: You have been watching too much James Bond, I deal with drunk tourists and locals that want to gamble and know not much about the game, very few mafia types.

Him: Why don't you go and work in a job for 38 hours a week and earn $1,000?
Me: Because I don't want to do that and $1,000 is not enough for the life I would like to lead.
Him: You are an idiot.
Me: Sweet, really nice to have that feeling from you.

Him: Just remember you have only known Rebecca for 3 years and I have a special bond with her that can't be broken that lasts since she was born.
Me: (In my head thinking: This isn't a competition about who know's your granddaughter better)

Worst part about all this is he said he will never accept it, as a Greek family, they are close knit and this is going to cause some divide. Rebecca is upset at him now and really didn't want that :/

Strange part out of it all is if gambling is such a taboo thing for him with his past experiences, how he finds the ability to gamble EVERY Saturday on the horses. I mean every Saturday, he does not miss a Saturday at the TAB on the punt, talk about double standards!

Cheers Mac

What a mammoth but enjoyable 10+ hour session last night. First three buy-ins weren't much fun, two big draws in big pots, the turned flush to be rivered by a bigger club by a four card board flush. So bought in again for $300, last bullet, in for $1,050 total at that point.

I managed to flop a set and river quads while getting paid to run the stack up to $700 and be back in the game. I then floundered around for around 3 hours with that stack before getting in front for the first time in the night with 107 on the button. Flop came 1076. Myself and villain got it in for $450 each. Villain ended up showing A8............... WTF

Whites = $1
Reds = $5
Green = $25
Black = $100

Man those Greek grandfather's... Just work though it man, they are their own thing and there is no way to ever impress them.

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Got banned for a few days from here for a post on a thread (booooo). Since then I have had 3 sessions for a total of around 18 hours. The sessions have gone +7, -255, +367.

In some non poker related news my unit that I bought settles in one week today, soon I'll be moving in there, super exciting to own my own pad. Keen to get in there and start planning my renovations, going to be awesome.

Been doing a lot of work with CLP, really enjoying the podcasts and training videos from Bart and Abe, good stuff.

Cheers Mac

GAME: $2/3 Live Full Ring
OVERALL BANKROLL: $16,975
OVERALL HOURLY RATE: $48.13 p/h
OVERALL HOURS LOGGED:144h 56min

Property that you live in is not an asset , unless it brings in cash flow property tax kills the capital apprieciation

Yeah, you are technically correct, but for me, it's an asset as it has opened up my ability to get finance through the bank which is great. Previous to this, I couldn't get a loan anywhere.

Also, I plan I renting out this place out once I have completed the renovations and have $50k in the offset account. At that point I'll be likely getting another place. For now, I'm happy to just move in there and renovate and pay off as much of the loan as I can.

Cheers Mac

After two days off I'm itching to get back on the felt. Spending time away from poker is super refreshing. Must remember that for next time!

Cheers Mac

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