I always take those kind of comments in stride, especially when they are light-hearted and not meant to be negative. Last night it was from this reg who always gives me sh*t for my playing style. (It's OK though, from what I overheard I've made a lot more than him this year anyway. )

Yeah peddlers may suck for the game, but there are plenty of other action players around to make up for it. (And btw, peddlers are probably some of the winning-est players...!) Also, I've tended to notice that the people who berate peddlers tend to be peddlers themselves. They just want to divert attention to someone else while they themselves scoop with top boat and aces AI pre etc. Classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Tonight has been going pretty lukewarm. Started well flopping quads and getting bet into twice. Unfortunately he folded to my tiny river jam over his bet. Must have been bluffing. Later GII with KKTT3cc against a wrap on K-9-4cc and of course he hits it and later donks it off to a lock box. Then got AA a couple times, 3! multi-way and whiffed. Stuck $200.

1. I agree, playing with extremely low vpip players isnt much fun.

2. It's often more profitable longterm to keep games fun, even making slightly - EV plays to keep the action good.

3. Oh boy, caring about how a bunch of miserable casino grinders feel is lol. Throw them a bar of soap and call it even.

I'm mostly a private game player now (trips to MGM NH when I feel like a mental break), so I personally couldn't get away with a nitty style in fear I'm either not invited back or put at the bottom of the wait list. You are mostly a casino player, f them. You can play your game, drag down the chips and politely offer them either of your coconuts if their feelings are hurt. They sad because you don't play the way they want. Awwww, how cute.

I think not experimenting more will hurt your velocity to jump to tougher games, however, we all have different reasons why we play the game. 6max study at Upswing helped loosen my game if thats the direction you want to head.

Best of luck!

This post is very serendipitous because tonight I was invited by a regular in Dennis’ home game to what sounds like a juicy 5/10 private game run by this wealthy businessman. Lots of money. Will see where this goes....

Made $27 today at MGM. +$375 PLO -$300 1/3 (AK $150 pre, v. AJ called, JT flop), -$50 2/5.

nope you are running top 5% i can see from the hand histories.
You are just clueless about variance. Everyone is at the beginning.

I have seen your story maybe 15 times at the local casino over the years. A certain % of guys who give poker a shot are not very good but begin to run hot, figure poker is easy money and put their life on hold. Then over next 6-18 months all of a sudden they seem to be at the casino every day for 8+ hours.
Eventually after a while they discover what this game is really like and they are sitting there with this long stare in their eyes. A short time later they quit and are never seen again.

"Never seen again"? I suppose they all jumped off a cliff, became hermits, or Buddhist monks.

I have logged over 2,600 hours in a year and a half. I'm not exactly at "the beginning" anymore. Maybe relative to a lifetime of poker I am - but clueless about variance? At this point I am not. Have I ever entered "the abyss"? Probably not, although I had a three-month stretch a while back when I could never seem to win and went on a tilt a bunch. Maybe that was my taste of it. I certainly was NOT enjoying poker back then.

Looking back, I would certainly consider myself "not very good" when I started playing 1/3. I've plugged a lot of leaks since then, so I consider myself a winning player at this point. Exactly how winning is anyone's guess. Currently the overall bb/hr. winrate is 5.56 with std. dev. 68, with 9.5 at 2/5 over 500 hours and 3 at 1/3 over 1,200. 1/2 PLO just entered the green for the first time too.

You know, this post reminds me of someone who complained at the poker table after Tom Brady won his last Super Bowl title that Brady was "too successful." Looks, beautiful wife and kids, extremely wealthy, the best at what he does. This lowly 1/3 rec player thought no one person should possess all those attributes. To him, it seemed unfair that someone should have so much when he presumably had so little.

Sometimes, people (for whatever reason - envy, spite, self-esteem issues) can't stand it when other people succeed. Heck, I feel a touch of envy myself when another player is running well at the table while I keep being dealt trash hands and getting rivered in 85/15 situations by the table donk. Seems unfair.

But on the whole, for every winning poker player I have seen at the table, I always make an effort to pay attention to their game to figure out how they win in order to improve my own game. I don't chalk up their success to rungood or luck. But that's just me.

Some might say to ignore the haters. Sorry, I'm not going to do that. I'm no doormat. Ever since my run in with psychosis, poker has grown into something I have, not put my life on hold for, but built my life around. It has become part of my identity, a source of confidence, a social network, a reliable source of income, potentially even a path to financial independence. For someone to attribute such a central part of my self-esteem to dumb luck is just "not cool, bro."

So people can continue to hate on this thread, but it won't be influencing my game. I'll keep doing what I do and hopefully the rungood will follow.

Just made a mistake at PLO. I think I was tilted after losing a freeroll with AJT67 on 66JJ for $600, money went in ott and he binked his three outter with J6TK, K on river. Then I got a coffee to relax but when I got back I guess I was still steaming because I made the mistake of calling utg pro’s open with KJJ96 and GII for $250 on KJ6r against KK plus wrap and wrap and they chopped my money. Now not feeling too great, but gonna just try to play my best and make as few mistakes as possible.

So I didn't make mistakes for the last hour or so, lost around $100 with sets getting turned or rivered. One guy commented on how he admired my discipline for playing so few hands, which was nice. Left to meet friends for dinner, some much-needed social time away from the tables and a nice way to cap off the day after a tough session. Gonna sign up for Jnandez' PLO masterclass for a month or two, see how it goes.

So you've played around 70,000 hands, depending on dealer speed and some other factors (whether your hours include breaks, and so on). If you've not entered the abyss, you're still fairly clueless about variance.

I forgot who it was, but somebody who I remember respecting a lot regarding strategy posted on these forums about an extremely long breakeven stretch, like I think two-ish years, about 8-9 years ago. Back then people thought winrate tended to converge fairly rapidly, around say 20K hands, and that 100K hands was plenty of sample to say your winrate was X +/- say 3bb/100.

This was totally incorrect and extremely naive. The real thing about winrate is that if you're playing in soft games, your winrate may be so high that you won't notice the variance because your winrate will stay positive. So if you're in soft games, stay in soft games! Keep avoiding the nit-infested lineups! But just be aware that if you move up to bigger stakes and can't avoid the grinders, your winrate may go down to the point where running bad is actually in the red, and maybe deep in the red.

Finally, do be careful to maintain your invite to that home game if you think it's valuable. Straddle, make loose preflop calls and try to make it up post, and so on -- and tell jokes (wheelhouse?), be friendly, etc. Getting to move up to bigger stakes where it's as soft as you're currently playing is a great deal for you, don't screw it up!

I will never understand posts like these. DT puts in a lot of effort to keep this thread going and I guess these comments are unavoidable after a certain level of popularity/visibility.

I appreciate the consistency DT and glad you don't engage with the purely negative posts.

Marsh

Edit: Lol, just saw you did respond. Either way, good for you.

Thanks. Yeah, I just couldn't help myself with that one. Just want people to understand that their trolling is misguided. It's pretty counterproductive to put someone down for trying to improve their well-being (whether through poker or any other interest). At the end of the day, I'm just trying to live a better life. No need to rain on my parade.

FWIW, no rain intended from me -- variance is a gross thing, and just want you to be forewarned, you've likely not experienced the worst you ever will. TBH, most people have not experienced the worst they ever will if they plan to gamble for years to come.

In that way, I'm certainly trying to improve your well-being! Stay rolled, stay in good games, and don't burn out -- you're putting in great volume.

I play in good games, which undoubtedly has an impact on my winrate. And who knows? Maybe the biggest winners in my games are crushing at 15-20 bb/hr. Anyway, I'm happy with where I've gotten up to this point.

If I get into this private game it will be an interesting development to say the least. Apparently the host has paid dealers, masseuses, an ATM, and a swanky poker room in his mansion. Line up of hard core pros and business types. I'm a little nervous since it is 5/10 and it's pretty action. But I'm getting ahead of myself - I haven't even heard whether I'm on the list yet.

Just saw your last post: I didn't think you were putting me down; from the tone alone I understood your post to be constructive. Thanks.

Gonna take a little break from PLO for a day or two while I study Jnandez' mastermind course. Already diving into some good content. Will stick with 2/5 in the meantime.

2/5 was uneventful. Got mid PPs a few times a whiffed, got a light 3! through when OMC UTG $15 (sizing tell), MP OMC 2 call, me $60 A5cc, folds through. Lost $180. Then succumbed and played plo, lost $75 but didn’t do anything stupid. Raised QJJ98ds and essentially whiffed, raised AAK95ds and whiffed on K74r and someone flopped top two. Would have rivered aces and deuces and scooped but can’t be results oriented. It was a good check fold. Some might say jam any flop but in 5 card with six other players I think that’s lightning money on fire.

Another loss today but not too bad. Can’t say I did anything terribly wrong so I consider it a win. Now late dinner with roommate to catch up.

Booked a much-needed win yesterday to come out of my recent downswing. Warmed up at 2/5 where I got the double with AA v. AK AI pre. One of the best parts of short-stacking is that in the minds of my opponents, stack-off thresholds are lower pre for "only" 60 BB, leading to some pretty big mistakes on their end when I am at the top of my range as I often am.

Got called for PLO, got stacked early on limp/calling a reg's raise with ATT98ds and GII OTT on K-T-7-3cc v. KKxxxcc and bricking. Chalked up this one to being a noob. The min-buy really softens the blow when I make mistakes like these though. Unfortunately, the reg to my left who stacked me was not being very nice to me. In fact, he was extremely condescending, saying at one point that I didn't know what was going on (I folded out of turn once) and later, "I know it must be a lot to process" when the brush came over to offer me a table change in the middle of the action and I was distracted and action was on me. After this second comment I thought it was time to lay down the hammer on this brat and I asked him very sternly what was with the condescending comments, who he thought he was for talking to me like that, and whether he had a problem with me. I also told him I requested a table change because of his attitude. He was visibly speechless and shut his goddamn mouth. I may be new and fishy, but I don't deserve to be disrespected. As a reg, he should have known better than to make a new player to the game feel uncomfortable. Hello, customer service?

Reg left the table voluntarily for a while after this. Talked to brush and apparently this player is "an acquired taste." Ah, one of those gems....

GII AAQ72ds against two gomboolers and made the nut flush. Then bled down a lot to about even but ran it up at the new table, 3! AAQJTss in BB in good squeeze spot, GII on 983cc against an open-ender against my wrap, OP, and nfb and I got there. Based on Jnandez' course, I would not 3! this particular AA in EP. The suits were not to the ace so it was a lot less valuable and less playable. But being OOP and in a squeeze spot where SPR would be 1 it was a perfect candidate.

Booked a good win at PLO and played more 2/5 where I ran it up another $250 or so just hitting flops in unmentionable ways, playing small ball, that sort of thing. Up $997.

I think starting at 2/5 as a warm up before PLO will work well moving forward. It gets me into the groove/my comfort zone. (I can't believe I am saying 2/5 is my "comfort zone" now when just a few months ago I was taking shots and scared out of my mind. Lol!)

How are you at the top of your range more often than any other part of your range? And how is it a mistake to run into the top of someones range?

Stack-off thresholds are lower for only 60bb. I'm not sure what you mean by any of this. Are you saying you still play too tight at 60bb and they mistakenly adjust as if you aren't?

Maybe I didn’t articulate my thought well. What I meant to say was my 3! range is really tight. My 3! GII range even for $300 is nutted and people think because I am short I may be GII with lesser holdings when in fact I generally stack off at 100bb+ thresholds. I’ve seen people GII against me with TT, JJ, AQ, A2s, etc.

Up $250 tonight, down at 2/5 and up at PLO. PLO won an AA v. KK AI, lost a couple other AAs AI pre, got there against AA with KQJT8ds wrap+bdfd, made boat against nut flush. 2/5, very few good hands, missed a big draw. Pretty uneventful 10 hours to be honest. Thankfully MGM was playing the ME so I watched that while I mostly folded my junk hands.

Dumbo, you leave some old food waste out in your thread or something? You're attracting some really ugly rats.

GgottalovetheinterwebzG

Hehehe. We all have learned through life that success breeds envy. It takes strong character not to fall into this trap.

Didn't get my normal amount of sleep after playing later then I have as of late, a bit tired, so taking a much-needed day off - my first in a long time. Will play free poker and see friends at the bar league instead.

I found propokertools' equity calculator for 5-card. A savior. Ordered the 2+2 PLO book too. Exciting progress!

Last day with my psych team today. Certainly bittersweet. A big step forward for me, and will always remember them for all their help along the way. Gave them the peace lily. Have a matching one in my room, so we'll remember each other. Hopefully will see them again.

Wynn/Encore Boston trip is on. I am leaving for Everette Saturday for a few days to get a taste of NE poker. Will be posting trip reports as usual.

Good luck going forward from work with your team. Best wishes! Looking forward to your Boston TR. I live in RI and haven't been up to the new Wynn yet.

Thanks! I’ll still have a support network (dr., therapy, etc.), just not with the same good folks who I’ve been seeing. Looking forward to the trip myself.

Started driving home from bar poker, but then felt kinda sad for various reasons and thought a little rungood would help distract me, so turned around and drove to MGMNH.

Played a $100 short stack at 1/3 (lol!), no good spots, AKo limped twice for the l/rr, no takers and x/f on whiffed flops. Lost $40 there, then jumped into PLO where I ran very hot in the two hands I played. UTG open, two callers, I squeeze KKQT9ds $80 CO, UTG jams, EP and MP fold, I call for $200 total, think I probably outflopped AA with top set.

Then open KKJTTds UTG (good kings were my hand tonight), earlier UTG player min-3! in CO, fish calls BTN, I call. Flop T-9-3ss (I have no spades). I check, CO $75, BTN re-pots, I jam $400, we're all AI and I hold. The game broke about 45 minutes later after the fish busted and left. (So no, I did not leave to play 2/5 right after winning. :P)

Up $950 today. I guess I'm glad I didn't completely take the night off, although I only put in 3.5 hours so it *kinda* was a break....