I can play this game!

Villain is a wealthy looking dude who seems pissed that 5/5 isn't running. He's one ahead of me on the list and I rail the game when he's called. He's not too protective of his cards and I notice some of the trash he's been opening/continuing with as he torches his first 100bb before reloading from his roll of crisp hundos in his pocket. Seat to his left, por favor.

Second orbit after I get sat, a seat opens up in position of villain and I immediately snap it up.

First chance I get - which sets the tone for our ultimate battle - happens when I make it $47 otb after V opens to 15 in LP. SB colds as does V and I gii and double through the SB AdTx > QdQx on T46ddd flop.

Very next hand, V opens again after topping off. I look down at AdKh and decide to make it bigger, since he's seen me 3! as wide as ATo and since he's obv never folding, so $56 it is.

Shock horror - V calls. HU to the flop, 300 effective to start the hand and I cover.

Flop ($117) : K9Qddx

V checks. I check it back.

Given reads and this being a bloated pot, I decided to disguise the strength of my hand and let him barrel off. Being a bloated pot, I shouldn't need all three streets to get stacks in anyway.

(Not positive my line on this particular flop is optimal, but that's not the point of this HH)

Turn ($117) : K9Qddx 3d

V takes no more than a microsecond and pushes forward a stack of redbirds. H thinks for ~10 seconds and calls.

I have the Ad in my hands, but I was pretty sure my hand was good regardless. His lack of consideration before betting almost pot lead me to believe he was FOS or semibluffing with some equity. When i called I made the decision to call any bet on a blank river.

River ($317) : K9Qddx 3d 4s

V shoves after maybe 2.5 seconds of deliberation. Portraying all the strong-means-weak lollivetells. I verbalised that my decision was made on the turn and flipped a single redbird over the line.

V turns over Td8h and pulls three more bills from his pocket before I've even finished turning my hand over.

Sunday PLO ran for a while. Broke down to 3 players at around midnight. But there was some crazy action before that. Couple of $1000-1500 pots taken down by players that had absolutely ZERO idea what they were doing.

One thing that I noticed playing $1/2 downtown was that the games were noticeably juicier near the beginning of the month. By the end of the month people were out of money. Maybe the $2/5 game is the same way.

5/T
V is rec player, 35ish white guy, overvalues TPTK. Also agro with big draws. Probably reasonable otherwise. Late night (2am-ish on a Monday!!). Table is becoming passive/sleepy.

Two limps. Hero raise to 40 (standard) with QQ.
V in BB calls. Should be sooted big cards, any pair (discount <66 ???), sooted AX? AQ?, AJ? One other caller.

Flop (120) Q87ds bingo.

Stacks are about 1200 with 500 max bet, so to gii on three streets, I must bet, bet, bet. So I do/plan to.

Checks to H. H bets 100
V c/r to 400.
H could call, but Raise to 900 (500 max raise).
V tank calls. (Almost got him to fold. Scary. Not sure if I should have called the C/R.)

Turn 2020 A ds turn now.
V bets 500 (40 behind).
H calls (like to be nice to fish, let him keep his 40 - any more and I'd have bet).

River (3020) 7 (H boats up unnecessarily)
V ships last 40 (so much for letting him keep it.)
H calls. V says two pair. I show. Certain he had AQ, though didn't see it. I think he 3bets pre with KK.
Ship the 3100, of which 1500ish is profit.

I think definitely just call the flop c/r. You can get it in on the turn if he bets. If he checks, you can bet a committing amount anyway.

Prolly right, but was thinking JT9 are action coolers. Maybe even K or A. Also, the flush draw, both get value from his flush draws and to get the value now if he doesn't have the draw and the flush comes in.

I think in position, I like to call the raise. It allows him to make huge mistakes on the turn trying to barrel you off your hand with a draw. There aren't a lot of made value hands he can have. Sets are getting it in just about every time no matter what. You block just about every Qx. What does that leave? Slow played overpairs and flush draws. I'd like to know if you had Q. If he won't call a raise with his flush draws then calling is clearly best. He has to keep pushing money in on the turn and possibly river when most of the time it doesn't come in and that's a pretty good situation for you.

I'm still torn. Rec player at this level knows it's better to gii otf with a draw. So he's more likely to call now than ott with a draw. Then again, maybe he doesn't C/R his big draws. OK, I think I'm convinced, because I don't think he plays draws this way, but it's really hard to tell.

I don't remember what Q's I had.

OOP I'm more happy to gii now. IP what's he going to do when the turn bricks? You really set him up or huge spew by calling. If the draw comes in you will get a good chance to draw yourself a lot of the time. If it misses, he's now chasing nonexistent FE and getting committed when you raise.

IP and blocking almost all of his Q combos I also like flatting the c/r and letting him barrel away OTT. With a set of 8's I expect raising his c/r would be a little better with his tendencies to overplay TPgk.

Played a series of losing sessions and didn't manage to felt anyone other than myself over the past week or so. Play was pretty good actually. Two under-sets and an overpair losing to two FD's in a $1200 all-in OTF pot hurt. Until last night.

Table wasn't what I thought would be a good bunch before sitting down, but it turned out that a few of the more normally tight/predictible players were drinking and spewing bad bluffs


Normally tight old guy with a beard and an awful nearly faux-hawk haircut (you know him, always talking really bad strategy and reads too) has been the primary target since I sat down.

3-4 limps to me on OTB and I raise to $15 with ATo as I expect to get either HU or 3 way with some dead money against worse ranges with all the limps. 3 callers including target to the flop.

A83r board and it checks to me. No-one seems too interested in the pot but they've been calling c-bets so far tonight. Bet $35.

One fold to target, who sits and thinks for a good 30 seconds playing with his chips and giving me the stink-eye before popping it to $100. Guy in-between folds and it's on me. He's got about another $100 or so behind and I've got him well covered.

This was a bit of a weird spot. Working through his ranges on each street I don't see many/any bigger A's limping *and* flatting preflop. A8 and A3 maybe. Even when bluffy like this he's a trappy bastard with sets. His body language and actions made it seem like this was one of those "you don't have an A, so I'm going to bet you off the hand" plays.

So I ship on him and he calls. (Could have flatted IP and let him shove OTT too.) Board runs out J Xlittle and I hold. Claims he had an A.


The most interesting part is that he started talking **** with one of the other regs (barbershop game host) about how his play was so great because I never have anything when I raise OTB and how he *knew* I didn't have an A. Other guy was basically telling him that I wouldn't take that line with less ( table talk). In the middle of this discussion he's re-loaded and I'm dealt KK in the CO so I pop it to $15 again and he of course calls again (along with 2 others). 763 board and he leads out $45, while talking about how I never have anything. So I raise his ass all in. Snaps with 76o. :/ Turn 3 River 6 Somehow I think the dealer mis-counted his stack because he finished the hand with about $360, :shrug: I'll take it.


Of course he spewed it all back by the end of the night and I only got about $50-60 more off him in the process.

Well at least you Sklansky felted him.

A couple of nights ago I got out of work at 11P and decided to stop by one of the local 1/2 games for a bit since I hadn't played in a few days. WHen I arrived, they had a full table and i was first on the list. I asked them to go 10 handed since it was unlikely that anyone else was coming in that night. Surprisingly, they said no, and I had to wait 30 minutes. So, I stood and watched. It wasn't a very good game. I started thinking about how I would proceed once I had a seat. I decided that bull in a china shop would probably work real well since it was a super passive game and nothing was going to showdown. As I studied the players, I started thinking about how this player pool has evolved in the past five years. 5 years ago this game would have never happened. Even the bad players were bleeding chips slowly. I realized that every single one of them had been playing poker for a number of years. There were no beginners at the table. None of them were very good, but all of them knew up from down. What a difference 5 years makes. It got me thinking about the first time I ever won in a cash game.


I had played a couple dozen tournaments and had even managed to cash in a few of them. I attributed all my losses to unavoidable bad luck, and my modest successes to brilliant play that just didn't quite close the deal. I sat in a few cash games and made classic donkey mistakes for stacks. KQ in EP barreling 3 streets all in on a Q high board and running into AQ that just kept calling. AJ on a J high board in EP that got called on the flop then CRAI on the turn by QQ (I called). I knew I should be winning but I wasn't.

Then one night I hit aces a couple times and held up. I flopped a set and got a stack. I still somehow only managed to win $230, but it seemed like a fortune. I remember I went home and laid out the $500 I had started with on my bed. Then I put the $230 profit next to it and just stared at it for like 30 minutes. I couldn't even sleep that night I was so excited. What if I just kept doing that? I had just made $230 playing poker! Visions of bracelets and television endorsements ran through my head. Maybe I was good enough and I was just then discovering it.

The sheer exhilaration of actually MAKING money to have fun instead of paying it was something I'd only experienced on those rare occasions I was able to line up a paying gig for my band. I'd made money in tourneys before but I'd had to work sooo hard to get anything and it always came with some luck. This was different. In one night I had made $230 and it was all off of just a couple hands. The players were so bad!

Many hours, many sessions, many wins, and many losses later I kind of miss that feeling. I still love to play. I still love walking out with more than I started, but nothing will ever match that first score. I remember standing in line to cash out. I must have looked ridiculous. It felt like I had so much money in my arms. I assumed everyone was looking at me because I had TWO racks of chips. These days it's not quite as exciting. That's a moment I always try to keep close in my heart because it's really hard to replicate it. There's a few moments that come close, but I think that's the best moment in a poker player's career. The first win.

I'm going to post a few other notable firsts in my now 5 year journey from zero to infinity in the next few days. For now, tell me about your first win. Even if it was just $10. Tell me about the first time you made a profit and thought, "Damn! I'm really good!"


As for the session the other night, I actually just left without playing. After 35 minutes they had disrespected me enough by not even trying to get me in the game that I said F it and took off. It wasn't a big money game anyway and I can use the time more wisely by studying or sleeping. That was a good important decision for me as one of my 2015 goals is better game selection. That was not a good game.


I may get a chance to play some tonight. I'm not sure. I don't work tomorrow until the afternoon and I might have kid duties taken over in a bit here. I'll either play in a super busy charity room or go downtown depending on game and weather conditions. We'll see.



I heard the best poker quote I think I've ever heard yesterday by Danzamack from Deuces Cracked.

"Doing what you know is right is just as important at the table as knowing what to do."

It kind of captures what I've been taking about these last few months. Consistent mental and emotional discipline is tough. You can be the best player at the table for 99% of the night but one meltdown can make you the worst player at the table at the only time it matters: when the chips are going in the middle. You do work off the table so you'll know what to do when the moment arises. You have to find it within yourself to actually go through with it when it goes against what you WANT to do.


No HH's tonight. I haven't played. Just working on my game at home. Just as important. Can't wait to hear your stories!

Wish I could remember mine. It would have been around 2002. 1/2 NLHE. Casino game. I remember the best player at the table saying, "so you bet your draws," like he was surprised and impressed. I had bet a nut flush draw all the way, getting there otr, and getting paid by his two pair, or set?. I had just read HoH. Bummer that I didn't play more after that. Played like 4 times per year from then until about 2010, when I started playing about once a month. Started playing twice a week about 6 months ago, though the transition is more gradual than that.

I guess a big moment was winning my first $75 club tourney in 2010, with 30ish runners. First time I played that game too. Took home 800ish.

Also remember a big win on a Vegas trip before I played a lot, maybe 2011. I had Q9s. V had A9. I don't remember positions, or preflop action, but I'm assuming I was LP and he was blinds. I raise, he calls.

Flop 99T.
V C/R my cbet.
H calls.

Turn 8. V bets big, pot, like 500 with 1000 back. (This was 3/5 or 2/5 at the V.)
H calls.

River J
V bets like 500
H AI
V tank calls and throws his cards hard at the table, so hard they skip off the table and fly right by me, gets warning from floor who happened to be watching.

I don't know if I played that hand well, but it gave me that, holy **** feeling, I just won a ton of money playing a game I love. Prolly motivated me to study a ton more and try to get good.

So, my $1/2 session was ultimately frustrating. I only had one or two good value spots. Got sucked out on one and the other one he miraculously folded.

There was one drunk guy playing pretty wildly and I managed to get myself seated to his left. I then went card dead as he and the other players passed chips back and forth.

There was one spot where he 3 bet someone and I had KQo. Had to fold it since he hadn't 3 bet all night. Was shown AKss.

The other one I min 3 bet him with ATo and another awful player decided to go all in and he flatted in front of me. He asked if I could raise before he put the money in and we were $450 deep. I decided that if he was sober enough to think about that then he was sober enough to try to goad me into it. Turns out he and the other guy were just being drunk and terrible as Q high took it down. Oh well. -$12 for the night. No sweat. I didn't do anything wild or stupid.


Last night I got out of work at 945P and made a beeline for the casino. I showed up and this happened...

Hand#0: I sit at the must move table and watch the end of a hand where one guy obviously gets sticky with an inferior hand before folding the river. Noted.

Hand#1: Trash in LP. Fold. No raises. Limped pot played passively. Nothing of note.

Hand #2: Two limps and I make it $25 with A7o. This is pretty questionable, but I like to put my foot on the gas right away at perceived weak passive tables. I have an A blocker, position, and a neutral image. It also gives me an immediate idea of how the table will react to raises. I get my answer when 3 people call. Flop is middling and coordinated. Flop checks to me and I check. I'm no fool. Turn is a blank and two players start fighting over the pot and I'm gone. It doesn't go to showdown. I reach into my pocket and top up with a green chip.

Hand #3: Two limps to me in MP with A8. I've learned my lesson and limp. Several limps later, and we're 6 ways to the flop.

Flop: A63 ($30).
BB bets$15. Folds to me and I call. Everyone else folds.

I could have folded there for sure, but I had some back door stuff. It was relatively cheap, he's full stacked, and I'm in position.

Turn: 8 ($60)
BB bets $25. I raise to $80. He calls.

perfect. He almost certainly has 2P in the BB. A set would get it in on the turn.

River: 5 ($220)
Check. I bet $160. He tanks and eventually calls with I'm assuming is 63 for a ruined BB special. The player next to me complimented my river bet and I graciously accepted the praise saying I was pretty sure i knew what he had.

Hand#4: Straddled pot. UTG+2 is a spazzy irritating middle aged guy who is always bitching at the staff and berating other players for bad play. Never mind that he's constantly raisingand shoving a $300 short stack with utter garbage and getting angry when people call because they're supposed tofold everything but KK+. I happily bluff to $40 with AA. Loser from the last hand deliberates and calls. Folds to spazzy and he shoves $300. I call, and loser resignedly puts in his remaining $190. Three ways all in and I hold up. Spazzy says I got lucky with Aces.

So, 10 minutes in and my stack looks like this:



I finished the evening up $1.2K. Not bad at all.


It was a pretty stellar month. I didn't have one losing $2/5 session. My only losing sessions were $1/2. Funny.






I hit my volume goals and can't complain about my results. $133/hr is respectable. '



I made another bad value cut against a loose donkish player with top set. I need to knock that off. He raised the turn and I decided to get cute and just flat because it was a limped pot and there was a weird straight out there. I could have made a ton more money than I did. I'm giving these guys too much credit in big pots. Waaaay too much credit.


I haven't made a bad river call in some time. Honestly though, I haven't faced one in a while. I'm not really playing with anyone who's giving me a lot of problems right now. I'm playing well and running my tables with impunity. let's hope it continues for a while, because the downswings are never fun to explain to the fiance haha.

I wanted to play last night, but it turns out I had to come home to be with the fam. That's not really a bad thing since I happen to like them. Anyway, today is the first day I've had off after 8 in a row at work. So, not much time for card playing other than online.

ONLINE
One interesting thing I've learned about the online game. I've been playing NL5 Zoom and while I was winning, it wasn't nearly as much as I thought I should. Since they're anonymous tables, I figured the only difference would be more hands/hr. As it turns out, these games are mostly infested with nitty types and fish who aren't putting anything in after the flop without a hand. That sucks. I randomly opened a regular table the other day and wouldn't you know it. There were the whales with 200bb dumping chips back and forth. I've pretty much abandoned zoom now and my roll has quickly jumped up. I'm glad I figured it out.

PLO
I'm wrestling right now with PLO5. One thing I'm really trying to get figured out is good stack off spots, especially in 3 bet pots. I've been 3 betting premiums then getting all in when stacks are pretty short only to find that I'm getting out flopped by some total garbage. It could be some variance, but I think I also need to reassess what I'm willing to get all in with. Even at the lowest levels. I think this may be somewhat different from the crazy live PLO I've played. The stack off requirements are going to be lower in those games, but I'd rather learn online where the games will be tougher. That will make the transition to live easier and a little less volatile.

Life Advice
Since I have no hands to post today, I'll give you all a cautionary tale.


Raheem is not from America. He grew up somewhere in the Middle East, and immigrated (legally) to the US. Raheem has done quite well for himself. He owns a business that makes more than enough money. One day he wanders into a bar and discovers that they have a whole room dedicated to poker. Fascinated, and with no shortage of cash Raheem buys in for the maximum amount and wouldn't you know it, he wins. Raheem is instantly hooked. HE travels back to that game every day for two straight months. He loses some, but quite often wins. The other players can't figure out why he's winning and they tell him every time he wins a pot that he's terrible. Since he's winning, he figures they don't know what they're talking about. Eventually Raheem gets invited to home games with many of the same players. Playing every night is pretty fun. After a while though, he stops winning quite so much. And then not at all. Those nights where everything hit are becoming fewer and farther between. It's still fun though and he's still hooked. The other players now tell Raheem that he sucks at poker all the time. not just when he wins, but also when he loses. They berate him as they pull his hundreds in when that straight draw didn't quite get there. He starts to argue with them that he isn't stupid. This just drives them to be more persistent and extravagant with their explanations of how and just how much Raheem sucks at poker.

Then one day some of Raheem's customers at work start to complain that things aren't getting done the way they should. It seems Raheem has been slacking on the job because he's been playing so much poker. Raheem keeps playing anyway, and now every night he's losing huge and those players are just crushing his ego. Every time he loses. "You suck so bad Raheem!" I can't believe you called that Raheem. You're terrible!"

Then Raheem gets another call. Things are starting to really fall off at work. Raheem thinks about it. He thinks about how business is suffering because he's playing so much. Then he thinks about how much he's lost. Then he thinks about all those *******s telling him how much he sucks all the time. Raheem decides it's not worth it, and no one in the poker room ever sees him again.

So what's the moral? Is it just that donks will be donks and go busto so get the money while you can? Is it that Raheem was just an idiot who was destined to flame out? Or is it that the window licking regs in the poker room tapped the tank too many times and much too hard. Was it really worth losing ALLLL that money that Raheem brought to the room EVERY night? What did they really gain? A few moments of feeling like the **** because they stacked a terrible player in a $1/2 game? If they had just been even a little bit gracious as winners and losers alike, Raheem might have decided that while he had to cut back on the hours, it was still an enjoyable game and he'd still come in to play a few times a week.

DON'T TAP THE GLASS!!
DON"T EDUCATE THE FISH!!
HAVE CLASS!! IT NOT ONLY MAKES YOU MONEY, IT MAKES ME MONEY.



If you haven't already guessed, Raheem is a real person and this story was 100% real life. It makes me sick.



Now that my rant is complete, I will go back to cleaning my hole of an apartment. I work too much.

Good story about Raheem. Ego is an incredible part of poker that continues to fascinate me, and I think that's the explanation for why regs feel compelled to tap the glass so much even though it's ridiculously bad for the game. I've literally had to toss a bad reg a red chip before and quietly ask him to please stop berating a whale at the table.

I think it's DGAF and Limon who have written/spoken about how modern poker is going downhill exactly because of what you described above. The game being overrun with egotistical / robotic / boring regs who are driving away fish by making the game so much less enjoyable than it used to be.

That said I do think it just takes one person at a table to keep things lively, fun, and lighthearted. Part of it is so the rec player can find enough entertainment value to keep pulling out $100s, but an even bigger part of it is just being a decent human being imo.

Good job quitting the zoom. Feels like the nittiness, combined with the rake, really kills your wr.

As for the PLO I have encountered the same issues about stacking off vs. live. The thing is, you're rarely going to be trying to get 100bb+ in live pre because of how the games play, you're almost always better off flatting a single raise and then playing post because people will make massive mistakes. Not sure if you've read it, or anything, but Jeff Hwang's PLO Poker does some good work going into ranges to stack off pre and where it's beneficial to try and get it in.

I hated FT's Rush for the same reason. Only played it when I needed to rack up some Iron Man points in a hurry for basically $0.

If Raheem is the guy that I think it is, it's a god damn shame that he's gone. I miss the player of the month. He was so good for the game and had such a high loss rate it was insane.

I really don't understand why anyone would tell him he was bad, especially so repeatedly and loudly as the one loudmouth ex-dealer. It was obvious enough when people started drooling when he walked in, and were always offering to go 10 handed for him immediately.

That's part of why I yell at the dealer after a bad beat or a cooler. A quick yell clears my head a bit, and by focusing that on the dealer I it prevents me from berating a fish about bad play or otherwise tapping on the glass, while re-enforcing in their fishy heads that the game is all about luck and that the dealer matters. (And at this point it's become a bit of a joke, I'd probably yell at that one dealer on TV at the WSOP final table at this point.)

Well, let's see. Last night I played a $1/2 session and it went fine. I'd say I only played B game. I estimate I gave away a full $200 BI on river calls and frivolity.

Two river calls were not "stupid," but I definitely could have gotten away from them if I had just stopped and thought about it for a minute. If I'm playing A game, I save about $90 that way. It was bad luck that I caught bad river cards, but that's not an excuse for not having the discipline to evaluate and fold.

For the most part, it was a pretty ho hum night. All my money came from bad players. None from a few decent players. So, pretty much typical night at $1/2.

+$400


Tonight, I'll head downtown and play i the $2/5 weekend droolfests. Let's hope all goes well. Onward and upward.

Started recording SB results again to try to quell a stupid debate in LLSNL. It just can't be profitable to complete the SB. It's going to take hard data to convince me of it.

Alright, it's taken me all week but I'm finally caught up after starting this thread from the beginning. Great job running it up spikeraw!

I really like how you went into such depth in identifying (and correcting!) your most significant leaks. I think very few people are willing to take that kind of hard, honest look at their own game -- when they win it's because they're already great at poker, and when they lose it's just variance, so why bother looking for stuff they're doing wrong? But the fact is that even when we're winning, and even if we're playing well, we all still have room to improve, so really it's crazy not to want to identify where your weak points are and then try to work on fixing them.

I'm obviously way late to the party, but after reading the really good discussion on here I wound up giving a lot of thought to what I think my biggest leaks are. What I came up with:

1. Staying too long in bad games, especially when stuck.

2. Bet sizing, especially as relates to stack sizes and SPR on future streets.

3. Autopiloting.

4. Bluffing without having a good reason to do so.

5. Slowplaying nutted hands instead of going for value.

I have some thoughts on what I can do to start correcting these leaks, but rather than hijack this thread I think I'll save that for my own PG&C. Good luck at the tables this weekend!

Welcome FT. Reflection is welcome in this thread. I have no idea how many lurker a I have but there's about a half dozen hi post here regularly. I try to keep it from being just a HH blog. Everyone's doing that. Instead it's more interactive. Kind of like a study group and anyone is welcome to participate.


Welcome to working on your game. It's a lot more work than most people are willing to do. Don't be fooled. It's completely necessary if you want to crush.

Your five leaks are both common and sconolwtely accurate. If you can learn to fix even one or two youll see a massive win rate increase. If you have anything to bounce off us feel free to post! GL.

Awesome that you're being honest with yourself. As spikeraw said, it's essential to getting better.

I see the following three leaks as beginner leaks. Kill them immediately. If I may, here's some advice.

Re #2, always bet relative to the pot size. Always calculate the pot for every hand you're in. Then bet between 25% and 100% of the pot, every time, for a beginner. I don't think I can identify the rare times I should bet less than 25%. Maybe I should bet more than 100% more often, but I think that's an advanced skill I don't have. So what I should say, is always bet in the range I gave, until you know why to go lower or higher.

#4, stop it. Just don't do it unless you have identified a person with a fold button and know why you're bluffing them. These should be only the better players at a llsnl table. Also look for capped ranges. Actually, there are plenty of times to bluff, but I'd just say that if you've identified it as a leak, you should probably experiment with drastically reducing your bluffing frequency. The number one mistake at llsnl is calling too much, not folding to bluffs. A suggestion, allow yourself only one bluff per night (aside from cbets) and see if you have a great night or two. Likely you will.

#5, definitely costing you lots of money if you say you do this a lot. The two main mistakes llsnl players make are (1) calling to much and (2) not betting/raising enough. The first mistake means you should not bluff them much. Think about the second mistake. It means they are not betting for value. So when you check a set to them, they might check back TPMK. They would absolutely call that. Just one example, but you must bet your own value when playing a passive player or table, most of the llsnl field.

Thanks for posting. I'm going to follow my own advice above and probably have a great night because of it. I can get board and bluff too much for fun.

2/5 report:

Oh man did I play badly. Have not played like that in some time. There's not much explanation really. Maybe lots of things added up. Not a catostrophic loss or anything just very disappointing for me to make that many bad decisions.

I did learn that even the regs at $2/5 are payoff wizards. I just never had value hands haha.

I was to the direct right of a maniac. I decided to use the relative position tactic in him and table. It was unfamiliar. I also screwed it up. Bah, I just have to shake it off. There's not much worth analyzing because I just made so many mistakes. Live and learn. You can't always be on top of your game.

U still need to analyse. That's just ego talking. Replay every hand, even if it was a simple dumb mistake, and see if u can find root cause and what you should have done.

Basically no different than online guy saying he had a bad session, played bad, so no need to look at HH bc "I'll never play that bad again". That's just your brain/ego trying to avoid a negative experience. Don't cheat yourself. Make yourself face your mistakes, feel those bad feelings all over, and learn.

You are doing yourself a disservice if u sweep it under the rug and don't "look in the mirror" and face those bad decisions.

I know what I did wrong. None of it is stuff I didn't already know. It's not good to dwell on a bad session when the simple answer is that you just didn't execute fundamentals. There's no "leaks" per se aside from just playing poorly. It happens. Best to just take a break and start fresh. And now to clean my second bathroom.

Thanks for the comments though. You're right it is easy to shrug off a bad session as just bad luck or one bad move. This isn't that. It was a collective fail.

New update:

My fiancé has historically hated poker and been borderline resentful of the time I play ( no complaints about the thousands of dollars of bling its provided). She recently stumbled on a ****ty computer tourney game against CPU opponents and loved it.

Today she surprised me with a weekend at MCC where I am to teach her how to play for real. Aaaaand go: