Solid analysis; thanks!

Another poker update:

SATURDAY
After my nice Friday afternoon session at the Commerce, I was feeling very confident in my game and was thrilled to be almost +$15k for the month with another ten days to go. Despite losing ~$900 at the Bike that evening at a good table (discussed above), I still felt very confident.

Saturday, my day at the Commerce started off well enough. First, a really nice floorman greeted me by name and immediately offered to put me on the 5-10 list; I was thrilled by this level of customer service. Then, when I went to get chips at the cage, I hadn't said more than twenty words when the cashier told me I was the most polite patron she had ever served, saying that most people barely treat her as a human being and she really appreciated my attitude. Hearing that made me feel great.

However, that's where the positives for the day ended. I realized about two orbits into the session that I was in an awful seat, with four older extremely tight players to my right, and the three youngest players at the table (including two well-known pros, each with a lot of six figure cashes and one with a couple bracelets) all to my direct left and all very active.

Here are some of the hands from that table:

Second hand at table, older Middle Eastern guy limps utg. I raise to $50 utg+1 with AsKs. Aggro tourney pro next to act makes it $160. Folded to utg player who reraises to $400, leaving only $500 behind. I fold, tourney pro folds. Later I was talking to the pro about the hand and he said he had AKo. We both agreed the utg player's range was 90+% QQ+. If the limper had folded, I was planning to raise/call with my covered $1200 stack.

A few hands later, it's folded to me on my button and I open to $30 with A9o. Same tourney pro flats SB, other young player who seems decent flats. Flop AQ5. Checked around. Turn Jx (rainbow). Tourney pro leads $55, BB folds, I flat aware that a lot of his range is ahead of me. River 6x. He bets $115. I sigh call. He has A10o for the notch.

A couple orbits later, I played my weirdest hand of the trip so far. Folded to me in MP, I raise to $35 with A10dd. Young player two to my left flats, bad older Asian player flats button, blinds fold. Flop 553ssh. I bet $45 (the same bet I'd make with AA), young player folds, Asian player instantly raises to $125. In my experience, this is almost never a strong hand from this player type after I've made a small cbet on such a dry board. Going off that read, I decided if I wanted to win the pot it would be better to raise than flat; I can credibly represent a big hand and believe I can get him to fold a bunch of pairs..I also protect my equity in the event I have the best hand and the guy is simply making a play with air based on a perceived weakness in my small bet sizing. I reraise to $230 (very small, on the grounds that just about any raise is sufficient to execute my plan). He looks a bit flustered but calls quickly. Turn Qx. I check, he checks. River 6x (I hated this card as it hit his drawing range pretty hard). I check, he checks and turns over 23s for a pair of threes. I had the right read, but my 3bet on the flop failed to yield the desired result.

Shortly after that hand, I finally had a good value spot arise. Tourney pro raises to $35 utg, five players flat. I have KK on the BB, with a $950 stack. I raise to $175 hoping it looks like I'm squeezing (at this point I had a great image for it, having been quite active, having shown A10 the one hand, and having been caught firing a big triple barrell bluff earlier in the session...which would have worked had villain not rivered a runner runner flush!). Folded to older very tight player on the button who tank calls; SB folds. Headsup to a flop 963hh. I bet $235. Button tanks a good two minutes then folds. Immediately, I regretted my bet size. In this situation, I think a bet around $175-200 would have been optimal, as I'm way ahead/way behind and my main priority is keeping in the hands I'm way ahead of; once called on the flop, I expect my turn shove to get called.

Not long after that hand, I had had enough of my lousy seat and switched tables. I won a bunch of small pots right away and built an aggressive image, but then landed in a bunch of marginal spots, losing two decent sized pots with JJ and then having to b/f trip kings on a Jh5h2dKdKh runout to a river check-raise in a spot where the guy can never be bluffing (he mentioned later w/o solicitation he had a full house and loved the river).

The session finally ended when I lost yet again with JJ. Preflop, I raise to $35 utg and get 3bet to $110 by the player next to act, a tight 30 something Asian player, folded to me and I just call, aware there is no value to be had reraising against this tight a player but having too strong a hand to fold. Flop I c/c a $165 bet planning on either c/f or c/shoving the turn (I only had another $700 behind). Turn check check. River 10x. I bet $200, villain raises to $530, I immediately announce "This is never a bluff and I think you have tens full, but whatever" and eventually stick in calling chips. He turns over tens full. Fun times. My bet was mostly designed to get value from 99 (admittedly he was unlikely to be 3betting this hand), be a blocking bet against QQ-AA since otherwise I would risk c/c a larger bet and I don't think this player type would raise with these hands (note I already thought it was quite unlikely he had KK or AA as this player type didn't seem creative enough to check behind the turn with those hands), and (admittedly optimistically) get value from AK, which might call because the club draw missed and he's seen me lose every pot for the last hour and half and may think I'm steaming. I think under different circumstances I would have been content to fold the river, but after having lost a zillion hands in dumb spots over the course of the day I decided to make a crying call (not defending ever making a crying call...sadly just stating a fact).

I left the Commerce stuck $2300 over 3.5 hours of play. One of those brutal sessions where I repeatedly ran into marginal spots. I took some weird lines, but I'm not sure any of them were a mistake. More than anything, I'm upset about my bet sizing with the one good spot I had (KK). Nevertheless, I left with my confidence having taken a decent-sized hit, as silly as this might sound having only played 3.5 hours and simply having run into some significant negative variance.

SUNDAY
Pretty uneventful 20-40 OE session at the Bike. At a mediocre table, I started stuck big right away, mostly from losing two huge pots in O8, A2nfd on a J54cc flop and A288 on a 1085ss flop. However, I was able to turn a $900 deficit into a more palatable $260 loss over 4.5 hours of play.

If you put him on a small pair i think that J-K on the turn is a mandatory second barrel if you already spewed otf lol.

I dont think he can really call you with much worse on the turn when you raise. i think this is a perfect bluff catching spot ott and otr. Plus you can get value otr from a lot of hands when he checks

FYI, I'll be playing on Live at the Bike tomorrow. Pretty excited, albeit I wish I was riding the momentum of a few days ago from a confidence standpoint. About to play a few hours in the Commerce 5-10, lg.

Plzd, I can't quote your analysis because I'm typing this on my phone, but here are my thoughts in response:

H1: You could very well be correct. I take this kind of 3b flop line often in hu sngs on dry textures and the % of time I double barrell and get a fold is very high. I was reluctant to fire turn against this particular player as he had recently lost a big pot (which is also why I thought he might be bluffraising flop) and I thought if he called flop he would almost certainly call turn. Knowing his hand now, he very likely would have folded, but he did show up at the very bottom of his range.

H2: I disagree strongly with you here. There are a ton of hands we get value from on the turn, especially with us being so under-repped. He's bet/calling hands that include the Kd, a million pair plus big diamond combinations, possibly gutter + big diamond, dry pair of aces, etc. The river bet is intended to get value from a pair of aces, which seemed like his most likely type of hand. Also possible he had a hand like 109 with a diamond we get value from.

I'll tune in - what first name should I root for?

Awesome, thank you; I'm DJ.

Meanwhile, Commerce session is a disaster hour in, just got 3 outed for $1500 pot. Get A8o to call my 3bet then call down for his stack on A5578 runout (on river he only had $200 left). Just so ridiculous; running absolutely horrid here over my last 15 hours or so of play.

But the good thing is they'll still be putting the money in with 3 outs when they don't get there. As long as you have the bankroll to withstand this kind of ish just another day, right?

Oh, for sure, I'm more annoyed than I should be because this is all feeding into my irrational belief that I run worse away from Ohio than in Ohio. Psychologically I'm viewing my luck from that framework when it should be totally irrelevant.

Meanwhile, I just lost the minimum with QQ against KK in this session.

Just finished yet another wild session of 5-10 nl. As described above, it started terribly. Despite the fact I was at what was by far the best table I've sat at this trip, I couldn't make the best hand my first two hours in the game, getting 3 outed with AK with one card to come for a $1500 pot, running QQ into KK (but losing only $220 due to a third party check-shover on a bad flop), etc., until another bad beat arrived in the form of me getting moved from my awesome must move to to a main game that looked much worse. At my worst point, I was stuck a little over $1500.

The turnaround started when I was dealt QQ on the button. Folded to me, I open to $35, both blinds call, with the SB being an older very loose player who was playing very sticky postflop, frequently calling at least two streets. Flop J88hh. Checked to me, I bet $75. SB calls, BB folds. Turn 4x. SB checks, I bet $165, SB calls quickly. River 4x. SB checks, I bet $500, SB deliberates for a little under a minute then calls. SB sees my QQ and mucks.

After that, I won a few more decent sized pots and eventually built a $450 profit for a nice +$2k uptick in an hour. Funny enough, I was about to leave when a cute girl took the seat next to me. I decided to play another couple orbits and chat with her a bit. Ended up losing $800 after that but then making back another $400. Ultimately finished +$8 lol.

Looks like there's a slight possibility tonight's latb show will be a 5-10 NL/PLO mix, which would be amazing. Crossing my fingers.

Looks like I'm in the 3 seat tonight and it's going to be straight 5-10 nl.

How much longer will you be in LA? If you are still around for a while, PM me if you would like to meet up for sushi in nearby Orange County.

You look a lot younger than I expected.

You were pretty much card dead during the televised portion - and that's really too bad since you had the god seat on the two Harry's. Did you ever pick up any hands?

that was fun to watch, even though you weren't too involved. Lil Harry's shove with 9T was a great wtf moment, any insight?

LATB
Yesterday I played on Live at the Bike in a 5-10 nl uncapped game. In reality, the game was more like a 5-10-20 b/c Lil Harry straddled every hand that he could (you can straddle from any position except for the blinds). I finished +$1051 over 3.5 total hours of play, 2 hours of which were aired on the show.

Unfortunately, almost all of my profit came from hands that occurred immediately prior to when the cameras started rolling, and I didn't have any interesting or especially profitable spots arise on air. The most notable hand pre-airing was referenced by Tuch at the beginning of the show--here's the HH:

Playing 7 handed pretty shortly after we had moved from a 5-10 rxr nl/plo to the LATB 5-10 nl table, Lil Harry straddles his button for $20. I raise in the SB to $85 with QhQx. Big Harry flats the CO, Lil Harry flats BTN. Flop AhQx3h. I bet $230, Big Harry flats, Lil Harry folds. Turn Kx. I bet $510, Big Harry flats. River Kx. I shove $1105. Big Harry tanks for a good two minutes (he didn't snap fold as was relayed on the show), turns over a 3, claims he has A3 and thinks he's no good, and then finally mucks. Later, I learned he showed his hand to JCW and in fact had a set of threes, and then heard the same info relayed on the broadcast. Pretty impressive fold by Big Harry. He asked me at least half a dozen times to tell him what I had, and I promised I'd let him know before I took off for the night, which I did.

Admittedly, I wasn't in seat 3 by accident, taking advantage of an opportunity to get position on the two Harrys, but had I known you could straddle from any position and Lil Harry straddles every hand, I probably would have sat elsewhere. Lil Harry's straddle effectively made me utg most hands at the table. Between that factor and not being too familiar with the players at the table apart from some limited history over the last week with JCW and Danconia (and a past LATB experience with Doc, 1-24 show last year), I decided a tight/conservative approach was optimal.

I'm generally pleased with how I played, especially given that I felt pretty crappy/sleep deprived heading into the session and, also because, as detailed above, I've had some runbad turbulence over the last few days that's been frustrating and affected my confidence a bit. Nevertheless, I can't help but be a little disappointed not having done much on the show after having a lot of friends tune in; I also felt like I crushed my first time on the show and was hoping to experience the same this time around, although with the game as big and crazy as it was this time around it would have been very difficult for me to replicate that.

Some additional notes:
-It was very flattering to start watching the show last night after I got home and hear Tuch speaking favorably about me and my game based on our experience playing with each other last week. I wish I'd been able to speak to him more last night; I had to leave right after the show to take the dog out. He had a lot of interesting things to say the other night about his commentating experience, and poker in general, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to have met him.
-The two Harrys were a lot of fun to play with and I enjoyed talking to both of them quite a bit. I talked to Big Harry for a few minutes right after the show and he was pleased to learn he has a lot of fans out there.
-There was a hand where I played 68hh on the button that the graphics/commentators got wrong. In reality, Lil Harry straddled for $20 in the CO, I flatted the button, some other players flatted, and then Lil Harry raised to $95 total, not $185 (or maybe $165?) as presented by the show. My flat was criticized by Melanie but I think had they got the action right she'd find that it was standard. I'm never folding my hand in that spot when I can reasonably expect to go to a flop 4 ways on the button in a deep-stacked game where Lil Harry is the preflop aggressor.
-JCW approached me afterwards and let me know he's been reading and enjoying the thread, which made me feel great. (hi JCW! ) Very nice guy with a great, friendly table presence and I'll probably play PLO with him tomorrow at the Bike.
-I cringed multiple times watching myself on the show; the main angle they showed me at I looked pretty disheveled and I lacked good posture. Wish I had put a little more effort into maintaining a better appearance.
-According to the commentators, someone attacked me in the chatbox for tweeting that I would welcome friends relaying info to me from the show about previous hands while playing. Fortunately, the commentators defended me (and, yes, phones now can be used at the table). I don't understand how anyone could have a problem with taking advantage of information that, as the commentators say, is freely available after a 15 min delay. If it's considered fair game for televised tournaments, it's absolutely fair game for televised cash games.

Good to hear from you; just sent you a PM. I'm in town until next Tuesday morning.

Ha, thanks. It's funny, I still get ID'd every now and then at my local casino even though they see me nearly every day and I'm 31. My appearance seems to have a weird effect on people where 21-40 year olds tend to assume I'm +/- two years age of them. Have had 21 year olds guess I'm their age and have had people in their late thirties guess that I'm 38. I chalk it up to my ability to relate well to a wide variety of people, which I think translates into them thinking I'm more similar to them in a number of respects than I might actually be.

Well I think it's the lawyer thing, I just assumed you were in school forever and worked at a firm for a few years would place you at mid 30s. I would guess you'd be in your mid 20s based on your appearance. I saw the broadcast and you were pretty card dead for most of the night.

Quick update: After having previously decided to take the day off, I ended up playing tonight at the Commerce after all upon realizing I felt better from a sleep deprivation perspective than I have since arriving here. I'm glad I did, as I ended up having a pretty good day. I started off playing 5-10 nl but left once a 5-5 PLO game off the ground. Finished +$567 in nl over 45 minutes and +$887 in 2 hours of PLO to finish +$1454 for the day over just under 3 hours of play (can't wait until I no longer have to play these short sessions). Both games were quite good, especially PLO.

how did get on the live at the bike show?

Anyone can play on the show. They suggest you book a seat in advance by texting a phone #.

Quick update: Had another day where I found myself driving towards one casino (Commerce) then felt compelled halfway through the drive to head to another one (the Bike). Took a seat at 20-40 OE and the session started off terribly: After capping it on third street in stud8 with (66)6 (an absolute monster..imagine getting dealt a set in nl if the flop was only one card) and building a huge pot, I ended up losing to a guy who got stubborn with two pair (deuces and fours) and ended up hitting a boat on seventh street against my unimproved trips. Irritated by that hand, I snap left the OE game once my 5-10 nl seat opened, losing $195 total in OE over 30 mins of play (I made some of my $ back after the rolled up sixes hand).

The 5-10 nl game was one of the best games I've sat in during this trip and I ended up booking a nice win of +$1340 over 2.5 hours of play before the game broke. I felt very comfortable mentally this session, and I think it's because I finally got some quality rest over the last couple of nights plus I had been building some positive momentum over the last couple days.

I'm going to start veering away from these session-by-session updates since I want the thread to be something different than that, but I might as well continue them through the end of this trip. I'm most likely playing my last poker here on Saturday, when my sister returns.

Now that you had a taste of the LA scene, you gonna move here?

Maybe. The truth is, no small part of my motivation for taking this trip was to gather information to figure out whether it makes sense for me to move to LA.

I was born and raised in Ohio and there are a lot of things I love about living there, among others: a) my parents, most of my family, and most of my friends are in Ohio, b) the cost of living is fantastic and an absolute bargain; I can live very comfortably with my current income, c) I am licensed to practice law in Ohio and almost all of my business contacts reside there, d) I am very much a Midwesterner in my temperament and I really like Midwestern culture; I'm very comfortable in Ohio, e) the poker action here is limited in quantity but the quality has been more than adequate to support a living as a poker professional, f) I have such a huge level of poker experience here with the game dynamics and individual players that the time investment gives me a built-in edge that it would be difficult (and at the very least take a long time) to obtain in a poker market like Los Angeles, g) the poker community where I play is tight-knit and I legitimately enjoy spending so much time playing with the same players from a social perspective.

All that being said, Ohio also has some drawbacks: a) the weather sucks a large % of the year, and I tend to get depressed in the winter and may legitimately have SAD (seasonal affective disorder), b) I'm a 31 year old single, straight male and I'm finding that the singles market in my city sucks, with a large % of the good prospects my age already snatched up, c) my income ceiling as a poker player is limited here b/c of stakes availability and I think I'm already sniffing it, d) I feel like if I move now is the time in my life to do it and if I don't I may wonder "what if?," e) if I do go an entrepeneurial route I'm not sure Ohio is the best place to do it.

Here's what I like about Los Angeles: a) the weather, b) women are much more attractive on average and the prospects for me are much greater in quantity and better in quality, c) poker action here is plentiful, there's a ton of $ here, and my ceiling as a player is much higher with big games running around the clock; it's also nice to have the proximity to San Diego and Las Vegas, d) the dealers here are infinitely better than Ohio dealers (some of the worst trained in the country) and the rooms tend to be much better managed, e) I've always been fascinated by California and feel drawn to the Pacific Ocean, f) LA is much more diverse than Ohio in just about every respect, g) the cultural offerings here and the opportunities to do neat things are much better than in Ohio.

What I don't like: a) the traffic, b) the traffic, c) the traffic, d) players seem much less friendly and less talkative here compared to Ohio, although I've met plenty of really cool people, e) there's a lot more competition for the dead $ here and even the fish tend to be better on average; I'm not totally sure if I moved here right now I would make more $ than I can in Ohio, f) nl game dynamics are much different here and it would take me awhile to adjust, g) the amount of table and seat changing here by both pros and rec players seems pretty absurd and tilts me; I think I would miss the closeness of the Ohio poker community and the emphasis on fun over profit, h) beyond my sister and brother-in-law, I don't know many people here nor do I know the city very well, i) the cost of living would be a difficult transition after (relatively speaking) I've been able to live like a king in Ohio, j) I think I ultimately prefer Midwestern culture over LA culture.

So, with this end of this trip looming, I'm still no closer to making a decision. If I knew to a certainty my plan was to continue playing full-time poker for another couple years, I'd probably move here, but as of right now I'm planning on branching out sooner than that. I do know that I would move here before moving anywhere else, even with Florida seeming like a poker gold mine with a more attractive cost of living. My hope for this thread is that it helps me in this process of figuring things out.

Have you tried Maryland Live? Those are pretty good games, and a lot closer to friends and family.

Out of curiosity, what part of Ohio? My wife is from Columbus.

Yes, I love the action at Maryland Live and I also like the DC Metro Area a lot, having lived there the best summer of my life in college. That'd probably be my second choice for a new location. Re: which part of Ohio, I'll continue dancing around it in this thread for reasons previously identified, but shouldn't be hard to figure out if you do some detective work.