So like a lot of players, I feel that I am capable of playing some excellent poker but I don't always have my, "A," game. I've made some regrettable mistakes over the past couple of months - mostly from pushing myself to play when I was way too tired or stressed out. From September 2014 through February 2015 I was playing excellent and running noticeably above expectation, good for a ~$26k upswing. But over the past couple of months it's been the exact opposite, resulting in an ~$11k downswing. I was originally hoping to head to Vegas this year, but given that downswing I decided to make other less stressful plans for the month of June instead, including a trip to Colorado. So unless I satellite into the main event online or win the BBJ, I'm setting my sights on 2016.

I will have more free time than I've had in quite a while over the summer, and will be able to concentrate more on my game and developing better playing habits. I was kind of inspired to start this by dgiharris's, "Not Afraid of the Nosebleeds," thread - and I wanna do something similar to that and post some in depth thoughts from my sessions. I'm hoping that doing this will keep me motivated and help me keep a clear head and a clear focus on what I need to be doing to succeed in the games. In addition, getting some thoughts and feedback from the community here would be pretty cool and I will try to be as responsive as I can be to everyone who participates here.

As for my poker history - I've been playing part time for around 4 few years now, mostly playing live cash games. My first year was a loser, but I've been winning consistently since then. The aforementioned $26k upswing was the best run I ever went on. Over the past year and a half or so I started taking shots at some live MTTs, some live omaha cash games, and online omaha now that it's legal here in NJ. I still have a lot to learn, especially with the MTTs. But I'd like to get really good at everything

I'm planning to keep the focus of this thread on my live sessions. My idea is to post the following per session:

• - Brief summary of the session
  • - How I felt
  • - How long I played
  • - Profit
  • - Some nondescript hand history
• - What I believe to be was my best played hand
• - What I believe to be was my worst played hand
• - What I believe to be was my most interesting hand aside from those

And we'll see how it goes. Thanks for reading

I'll start with my session from last night.

Session 1: 5/24/15 -$258 7 Hours

Fairly ordinary session filled with mostly weak/tight players and a couple pretty awful fish/rec players. Overall I felt ok, but was getting very tired towards the last hour or two. I made a miss-click at one point which turned out to me moot but still... not happy about that. Didn't take a break over the 7 hours which was dumb. Unfortunately, we had a hard time hitting flops and making hands. Also - twice in this session I was 3bet very small pre while holding AQo or AKo vs. very very tight players who had $200-$300 stacks. These spots are really annoying and I'm not entirely sure what the optimal play is. I wound up calling and folding to their shove on low flops both times.

Best Played Hand

4 limps
Hero is in the SB w/ JJ and raises to $35
1 MP caller
I have quite a bit of history with this v, he is very weak/tight but somewhat sticky post flop and I pretty much know for a fact that this specific v's range in this spot is exclusively lower pocket pairs.

Flop ($90): Q65
Hero bets $50
Villain calls

Turn ($190): 3
Hero bets $115
Villain thinks and calls

River ($420): 4
Hero checks
Villain checks
Hero shows & wins, v looks to have mucked 99

Feels good to know where I was at the whole way despite a really bad board for our hand in general. Kind of unfortunate that 77-22 beats us on that river, I could have gotten an extra street of value on a lot of other cards.

Worst Played Hand

This hand took place during the brief time there were 2 very bad players in the game - one on my direct right who was raising pre with everything. And one 2 seats to my left who was basically never folding. Both are involved here.

Folds to V1 in CO who raises to $25
Hero has T9 OTB and calls.
V2 calls in the BB

Flop ($77): K33
V2 checks
V1 bets $45
Hero calls
I picked up that this villain was cbetting 100% of flops but would not double barrel unless he actually had a hand. He has a very wide range here and more often than not misses this board, so I thought I could easily take this pot down on the turn.
V2 calls Now this screws up my plan a bit...

Turn ($212): 6
V2 checks
V1 checks
Hero bets $115
V2 calls
V1 folds
I decided to follow through given V2 has a really wide range as well and could fold ace high and perhaps other weak pairs here or fold river if he has a flush draw and misses

River ($442): 2
V2 checks
Hero bets $165
V2 calls and shows K2

Annoying that he had a king here - thinking about it now though I'm not sure if we would fold any pair there, so this might have been a very bad play. Frustrating to give it away in this spot. If he's only folding flush draws I can bet less otr or just give up and check the turn and bluff the river if checked to again and save money.

Most Interesting Hand

This happened late in the session, terrible villains are gone and we're back to a very weak/tight table.

4 limpers.
Hero has AJ OTB and raises to $30
SB calls
All limpers call

Flop ($185): 933
Checks to hero
Hero bets $90
I normally don't make a play like this in this kind of spot, but my image was very good - I had been check/folding a decent number of pots after raising pre due to missing lots of flops. The checkers also looked pretty disinterested, so I thought it was worth a go on this board.
Folds to CO who tank calls (he has about $370 more behind, newer player with no history who seemed a little more active than the others)

Turn ($365): K
Check/Check

River ($365): 6
Villain checks
Hero bets $160
Villain thinks for a minute and folds

Happy that this worked out, we were very fortunate to spike - to pick up this excellent bluffing spot and fade 9-x. Obvious range for villain on the flop was either a 9 or a flush draw so I would have barreled any non 9 or ott. It would have been very interesting to see what he would have done had a red under-card hit the turn. He looked agonized when he tank/called the flop, so I'm hoping I could have taken it but who knows.


Overall, I feel like I played ok. In another hand, the super fish 2-outted me otr which caused a $400 swing. Without that suck-out or my messed up bluff w/ T9, I would have turned in a profitable session. Feeling fine and looking forward to the next game.