Hello everybody, thank you for taking the time to read what I felt was important to put into words. I don’t think this thread will be much poker strategy, although I will put certain hands I think are interesting and worthy of discussion.

I fell in love with poker in high school, which was around 2008. Online was still going strong in the states and after weeks of pleading with my mother and waiting for the perfect time to strike (that is, waiting for her to get tipsy enough to agree to me trading her $50 cash for a $50 deposit on her credit card) I was off and running. I read a ton of 2p2 back then, I’m not even sure a giant site like Reddit was a thing at the time? One thread that was on here was the iconic Matt thread. I’m sorry I don’t want to look for the title at the moment. It was all about this guy named Matt taking his last shot in poker, I believe he was an online guy. Taking his whole bankroll and going to Vegas to play live. He was a great player and an incredible writer. I remember being 16 and feeling like I was on the felt with him. If you have the time to read this, you should look for that thread first, I can’t recommend it enough.

Back to my story, I had a very good idea about bankroll management thanks to this very site, so even though I was a losing player, I stretched that $50 for months and months. I can’t remember the exact details (12 years is a long time for a guy with a memory as short as mine) but I eventually found a pushbot type spreadsheet on here. I tinkered with it for a few hours and hand wrote ranges for every position. Even with my small amount of experience I intuitively knew that the cash game players were much better than the sit n go players so I studied the spreadsheet a bunch and decided to make a run in sit n gos.

In real life I was a junior in high school, hated everything about school other than the fact that I got to see my friends everyday and had unlimited access to girls. Once you’re out of high school/college you slowly realize just how hard it is to meet not only women but solid male friends as well. Through what I thought was nothing more than a happy coincidence, my new best friend Chris lived with his single father. I had been living with my mother who had just divorced my father for a SECOND time a few years prior. After either a sleepover or just a daytime gaming session at his house (Halo 3), my mother came to pick me up. Chris’ father opened the door and I later found out he was shirtless and covered in paint while doing so.

My mom took me home and I was just happy to have a new friend that I felt extremely close with. I’ve never had problems making friends, at least when I was younger, but this friend felt different. It was exciting to be around him. I had a ton of fun even doing nothing but talking to each other. It felt like I was in the right place at the right time. I can’t stress enough how sure I am that he felt the same about me. Like we were linked in a way but we didn’t really know how.

Going Tarantino style and flipping back to the present, I am sitting in Bellagio in a 1/3 game. I’ve spent a good amount of hours in recent years here but it’s the only the second time in 2 years I’ve been here. I’m not the sicko you dream about being. If you ARE a sicko, I’m nowhere close to you in terms of poker skills and most likely life skills in general. Im a low stakes grinder, have been for 7 years now. For someone without a college degree, it’s a decent living. I’ve temporarily worked in general labor but never for very long. As I’m sure is the case with anyone reading this, that’s not the existence I prefer. I will write more but I feel a pull to post what I have here at the moment.

I’m currently stuck in my first day of a 3 day weekend session. One of the main culprits was this hand. First in I raise $12 in LP with 910ss. Bb min clicks to 25. His Vpip is 58/4 over 95 hands (thank you to the app Donkey Tracker). I call and flop is Jh 2s 4s. He bets 30 and I call. Turn Qc. He leads 60 with 150 behind. Now for years I would just call in this spot and try to hit and get paid. In the last year or so though I’ve been trying to study a bit and I really do mean a bit, a tiny amount of GTO. It doesn’t really relate to these small stakes I play but it makes the game interesting again. So for balance I jam even though I’m sure he will call 99%+ of the time. I guess that’s the price you pay for entertainment.

I have nothing against these people and something I’m embarrassed to admit is I’ve only recently started viewing them as people instead of ATMs. Most of them are very smart and capable in the field they chose, a thought that’s been echoed on this site many times but only after much inner work I’ve been able to accept as truth.

Anyway he predictably calls because these type of players do not 3bet and double barrel without the strongest type of hands, and scoops with red AA after I wiff river.

To get back to the “beginning” of my so called journey, I started having immediate success with my pushbot strategy. Even in simple single table sit n goes I was finding good results. I know there was a lot of study of ICM even back then, but the people I played with in these low stake tournaments had no idea of the concept. Kind of like how people in low stakes live poker generally have no idea of higher level strategy/balance. Isn’t it funny how most of our life is just a reflection of our past?

I’ve essentially been doing the same thing off and on for years. Pitting my slightly larger knowledge base against the public’s confusion. Sure the appearances have changed, the environments have been different. The monetary rewards increasing, yet nevertheless increasing at too small of a rate to be content with. I hope that the same isn’t true for you. I hope that you have accomplished more in your life than I have with mine. Not to say I haven’t had an interesting life. My story will be more than just about poker. But I hope your progress hasn’t felt as sluggish as mine has. Then again, maybe that’s been the perfect path for you. If you’re happy and excited about your life, I’d say you’re playing your life optimally.

So crushing the tournament scene, and by crushing I mean barely squeaking $15 an hour playing 10 games at once. But $15 an hour is a lot for a kid in high school, especially when you’re doing it all on your own. No parents, no teachers, no boss. I would stay up late into the night, most nights only go to sleep around 4am then turn around and get up for school at 7:30. My mother started dating my friend Chris’ dad. Before they were official I can recall one morning me, my mom, and my baby sister going over to Chris’ house for breakfast. I think Chris and I were more excited about the prospect of the relationship more so than the people who would actually be in it. After all, doesn’t this kind of thing only happen in movies?

After a very small amount of time I found myself and my family actually living at Chris’ house. My best friend had become my stepbrother and not in the adult website way. We would love to go to the high school football games together. For some reason it was easier to talk to girls at night than during the day at school. It felt like there was a different energy in the air. After getting pumped up full of Red Bulls (tradition) we started walking through the bottom of the stands just as we always did. We never actually watched the game and I’m convinced no one besides parents of the people playing ever did.

And then I saw her.

Ok so that was pretty overdramatic and cliche, forgive me I’ve been hitting drinks somewhat hard today. Feeling the nostalgia helps me write. Snap back to the present or to be more accurate 9 days ago. I’m at my mother in laws house. Been staying here with my wife and son for a few months now. It doesn’t have anything to do with the virus but I can’t act like it hasn’t affected me financially just as I’m sure it’s affected many of you.

Out of nowhere I get the impulse to go to Vegas for the weekend. I haven’t worked since the California shut down which I believe is at least 4 months up to this point. Im strapped for cash and tired of mooching off my wife who luckily has a job that’s Covid proof. I also have been spending much of the lockdown reading beginner level spiritual books such as The Alchemist and Illusions. Highly recommend those books even though the internet seems pretty split in terms of likability with the first one. I haven’t read much of anything negative when it comes to Illusions. Another text that has changed the way I look at things is Masters Of Limitation by Darryl Anka (who is a channel for the entity known as Bashar).

Either way I’m telling you this because all these books (especially The Alchemist) stress the point of following your instincts, following your passion. The idea that keeps presenting itself to me throughout every book I choose to read is: If you follow each thread of excitement, no matter how big or small, you will be met with all the things you need to continue down the road of living the way you truly want to.

I refuse to ignore impulses now. So off to Vegas I went.

In terms of poker, nothing really out of the ordinary happened last weekend. I won $1500 the first night, dumped back $1200 the middle night, and scrounged up $300 on the final night. $600 isn’t a ton of money, but to a guy who hasn’t made a cent in close to half a year, I felt like a millionaire. But the most meaningful part about the weekend had nothing to do with poker or money.

You see I’m lucky (guided perhaps?) in that one of my very good friends Patrick now lives in Nevada. I can come and stay with him for free. He previously lived in LA which is relevant later on in the story. Or I guess earlier on? Flipping back and forth between time can be confusing at first.

Either way Patrick is living here in Nevada with his 38 year old brother Danny. Patrick had an impulse of his own around 10 months ago to move here and help expand his father’s business. He even bought a slightly used car! He had always just used the well-worn beaters his dad gave him to make deliveries with. Pat told me that at least twice a month he’d be stuck on some Los Angeles freeway, car broken down and tapped out. Each and every incident his father would tell him that THIS time, he would get him a dependable car. But that was never true. His dad was running a small business, in California no less. He had to do what he could to make ends meet.

Even before the virus changed everything, Pat was just sitting out here, waiting for word from his dad. Slowly using up the $4,000 he painstakingly saved up over the years working. Then everything that came to be happened, and now I’m bleeding this text more into his story than my own.

Pat has been bugging me for years to write music with him. After all we’ve done it before. Well I’ve done it before and showed him what to play. The thing that links Chris, Patrick, and I together is that we used to have a band together.

Slipping back to the present I play the following hand. Button opens to 10, SB flats, I flat out of BB with red 75o. Probably a fold in theory but I can win more than my fair share just on my small knowledge of textures. Flop 8s 6s 3c. SB leads 17, I make it 50. He will have 170 left if he calls my raise and I plan to jam any turn other than an 8. In the wise words of Bart Hanson, “How much heat can this guy really take on a board like this?”. He sheepishly folds after a mini tank, score one for the good guys.

Why are we more inclined to follow our negative impulses than our positive ones? I woke up in a poor state of mind after tossing and turning over the prospect of what people would write in this thread I made. I woke up between nightmares of unrelated content (I’m a big nightmare guy, rarely ever getting a full night of sleep) with the gigantic urge to check my phone and see some negative comment about how unnecessary it is for me to share my story on a poker forum, without presenting much poker content at all.

Before I went to sleep this thread had 160 views. That is not a large number in the grand scope of things but it did frighten me to think that over 100 people read at least part of what I wrote down while inebriated and under challenged mentally in a live small stakes no limit hold em game. After a sigh of relief that there were no replies in the thread other than myself, I scrambled for the delete thread button. I’m nowhere near anything you’d call technologically savvy and struggled to find a process I’m virtually sure exists. Maybe it’s a good thing. I enjoy writing, even though I’ve never really written words like this before.

Dont delete. I like your writing style. And now I'm interested to see how all the multiple plot points play out. I read the alchemist once during one of my "episodes." It's a beautiful story.

I had a much different start than most in that I was adopted. That’s already rare enough but tack on the fact that I was adopted at 9 years old and you’re talking about a very small percentage of people who can relate with what my story began as. I don’t really remember much of my life before I went into foster care at around 7 and a half. What I do remember is I was alone a lot. I spent a lot of time to myself as my biological father was in prison, and my mother was out drinking and doing harder drugs. I wasn’t truly alone, as I lived in the same house as my grandmother. But she suffered from MS, and the only memory I can conjure of her is a sweet older woman completely confined to her bed.

As an only child I spent much of my time in my room, watching television, playing GameBoy, and sorting pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I had a big collection of legos, but rather than build things, I enjoyed shuffling them all up and then sorting them by part and color. I was enamored by game shows, I guess a sign of what was to come in terms of my competition wired mind.

I would sometimes spend the weekend with my uncle Jerry, who was also a very kind to me but had muscular dystrophy. I can recall him walking in a strange manner. I think it was half his disease and half the fact he spent every waking moment with alcohol in his system.

Thank you for the encouragement friend. I’m glad you pulled value from that book, I agree with your words.

I’m sure some of you have seen the somewhat recent YouTube sensation Dad, how do I? It’s a channel made by a man who FELT THE IMPULSE to make videos showing common skills that one might learn from their own father. He has said that his inspiration came from not having a father himself. The last I checked he had over 1 million subscribers and still had not enabled monetization on his channel. Not that I’m against monetization at all, I just think that makes his already powerful and original message a small amount stronger in a way? He truly wanted to help other people who found themselves in a similar situation as himself. His original impulse has found itself growing much larger than he ever could have imagined.

The reason I bring him up, not only to promote his wonderful channel and message, is to share a bit of his own words with you. (Paraphrasing) He said in one of his videos, “Think of the word courage. Think of how that word makes you feel. Now think about you having the ability to give that feeling to someone else! Amazing right? Well that’s simply ENCOURAGEMENT! You can literally GIVE the feeling of courage to someone else!” He goes on to talk about the other side of the coin which of course is DISCOURAGEMENT. How you have the ability to also take away someone’s courage, if they choose to LET you.

Anyway I felt like that was some important wisdom to share. Please check out his channel if you’re interested, he seems like a man we could all look up to and learn from.

Slaloming back to 2008, I’m at a high school football game with my best friend Chris. We’re walking through the bottom of the stands when we notice a mutual friend who is a girl. Maybe the reason we noticed her is because she called out to us. Or maybe the reason we noticed her is because she’s sitting next to a beautiful, slightly longer than shoulder length brunette. I can’t pretend to remember what I said to them, but even I could realize I was doing well. All my jokes were landing (maybe the girls were merely acting kind enough to make me think so). Eventually Chris realized the futility of the situation and ran off with another mutual friend who passed by a while later. I got the brunette‘s number that night, Meaghan was her name.

Back here in the “present” we have some action. Two limps, button has 500 and I cover. He raises to 13 and he’s 53/21 over 230 hands. (Again I cant recommend the app Donkey Tracker enough if you’re like me and not into watching every single hand) I 3 bet from SB to 40 with A3ss. UTG limper jams for 70 total, button folds and I call. Board runs out blank for us and UTG jammer has 84dd for a straight. He takes the win well and seems like a kind man. It’s easy to lose against these type of players, especially when the cost is only that of a new video game.

Following

I wanted to put a few things that I’ve picked up over years of grinding these small stakes games before we get back into the story. I’ve mostly only played 2 rooms and stakes in the last 5 years. The 1/3 at Bellagio and the 5/5 at Commerce Casino. Everything I share has been profitable for me in both games, but more so in the 1/3 games. They are still +EV strategies in the 5/5 at Commerce, they just succeed at a lower clip therefore bringing more short term variance. Nothing we’re not used to.

I know I’m not sharing anything new here, but these are things I’m proud to say I figured out on my own through experience and help from Flopzilla. I figure its bound to help at least one person reading this. I have a few psychological tips I’ll add in as well.

Cbets

You open 4x with XX. Literally any player besides the nowadays ever harder to find whale calls. Whether you are first or last to act you will bet 8 BBs on these type of boards

A K 2
A 9 9
A 5 4
K J 3
K 10 6
K 2 2

You get the picture. Anything that’s an Ahi or Khi board that’s not broadway. I also do not choose to fire monotone boards.

These are our one bet boards. We do not double barrel A or K high boards against this weak opponent field. This bet shows immediate profit and you can track this for yourself if you don’t fully believe me. Of course I’m only talking about when you miss the board, which as we all know will be most of the time. Opponents do not defend enough whether in or out of position on these boards against a pot sized bet.

I’ve had much more murky success in floating out 3/4 pot, half pot, and 1/3 pot bets in these spots. Surely the full pot bet size needs to succeed more often to be profitable, but do not worry. It will. You will not get rich doing this but it will help sustain you.

Double Barrels

These are bread and butter spots for us in these small games. Main reason is (as many better players than I have written in actual books) poor players will float flop with a ton of junk [MUCH MORE OFTEN WHEN THE BOARD IS NOT A HIGH OR K HIGH] and dump everything but the strongest hands on the turn to a sizeable bet. Again they do not defend enough whether in or out of position.

You open 4x with XX. Literally any player besides the nowadays ever harder to find whale calls. Whether you are first or last to act you will bet 5-8 BBs on these boards. The smaller you size flop, the more junk your opponent will continue with to turn. In theory.

Q 10 4
Q 7 6
J 5 3
10 9 9
9 8 2
7 7 4

You will pot sized or even slightly over bet turns.

Now we will not fire on EVERY single turn, but the important thing to notice is bets on these boards are NOT profitable when only firing once. This is a generality, I’m sure you could write up several boards that are fine as a one bet but just as a simple rule of thumb, if it’s not an A or a K high board, you will need to bet two streets to turn a profit long term. I tend to not fire the turn if front door flush comes through (this is not a hard and fast rule), or a card comes that fits with the flop cards (this IS a hard and fast rule) and especially if that card fits with flop cards AND is an undercard to top pair. You will never find me barreling a J 10 5 when a 9 or an 8 turns.

As a general rule you should barrel less the more the board is connected. For example I have not found monetary success in flop betting a 10 8 3 board and then firing a 7, 9, or J turn. I tend not to bet again if top pair pairs on the turn such as a Q 8 3 Q board. Other than that we fire away ESPECIALLY if turn is an overcard to top pair. These are massively profitable bets and again if you do not believe me it is simple to track.

Now an extra wrinkle to throw in your game that is very profitable as well is using what I wrote above but in 3 bet pots. We will only use these above rules when WE are the 3 bettor, and better yet, we no longer have to fire full pot sized bets since the monetary amount will be much more.

I tend to 85-90% in 1/3 and move down to about 75% at 2/5. Example: Guy opens 12 in 1/3, we raise to 40, he calls. We bet 70 and pick it up AT LEAST 60% of the time. (Whereas we only need to win 47% of time to show profit) Compared to 2/5 where guy opens 20, we raise to 65, he calls and we bet flop for 100. (This bet only needs to win 44% of time to show profit.) These are not difficult numbers to overachieve against opponents who have no idea about Min Defense Frequency.

These above numbers are in regard to one bet boards. As with double barrel type boards you can bet size smaller on flop (encourage opponent to continue with more) and ram turn large. I do want to put a disclaimer on that I have not seen immediate profit at the 5/5 commerce game when I double barrel with air using the aforementioned rules. But I have not been a huge loser in these situations either and I have to wonder when I chalk up times that I get lucky and suck out river, or even having to show my junky air double barrel hand it encourages others to have a tougher time playing me therefore making the play profitable in the long run. Maybe that’s just a live poker reg misconception.

One of the psychological tips I can’t recommend enough is tracking your simple bluffs in this manner. Live poker is very slow and it is an easy process to keep a note in your phone. This is how I did it for multiple years:

Cbet
Won:
Lost:
Attempts:

Double Barrel
Won:
Lost:
Attempts:

3 Bet Lite Win Pre
Won:
Lost:
Attempts:

3 Bet Lite Cbet
Won:
Lost:
Attempts:

Squeeze Win Pre Etc…

Quick example would look like this.

You’re playing 1/3. You open 4x with XX. Literally any player besides the nowadays ever harder to find whale calls. Whether you are first or last to act you bet $24. Player folds.

You open up your notes and adjust your Cbet column to look like this:

Won: 12
Lost: 0
Attempts: 1

This could be one place where you and I differ. Perhaps you say that whatever is in the middle is dead money, so you should get to mark your column down such as

Won: 24
Lost: 0
Attempts: 1

I prefer to not count my own bets in any of these bluff situations but of course you’re free to do whatever you think is right. No matter what system you use you will find these rules to be profitable. If they are not profitable for you, which I would be very surprised to hear, please realize you STILL will have gotten value from them! In that you know that your particular player pool REALLY hates to fold. And you should only pound value. I encourage you to at least give yourself 200 or so hours to see what happens. The results may surprise you.

You can also do this for any type of play you’re curious about. Run scenarios through Flopzilla, I know PIO is the joint now but don’t discount the value of Flopzilla especially if you are a low stakes grinder such as myself. The conclusions you draw through that program combined with your own personal tracking will give you the confidence to continue to make +EV moves (even when you keep running into the top of peoples ranges) and find yourself with an even bigger edge against the public.

The last thing I will say about this is if you do decide to track your bluffs in this manner is you will quickly find your 3 bet bluffs will never be profitable outright preflop. Its the same idea we talked about earlier where some boards are massively profitable to fire twice but will kill your win rate if you consistently only bet flop and give up on favorable turns for us. I would always find my 3 bet lite situation to look something similar to this

3 bet lite win pre
Lost: 190
Attempts: 22

3 bet lite win cbet
Won: 540
Attempts: 10

These numbers are completely fabricated yet similar to what you will find yourself over time. It’s still a net win to make these plays. Don’t forget there will be times you 3 bet light and find a board you do not want to fire such as the A Q J. In that case you simply mark down your 3 bet size preflop into the 3 bet lite category in the loss column and continue along your way.

You 3 bet $70 and choose to either not bet flop or get donked into and fold your whiffed hand. You mark:

3 bet lite win pre
Lost: 70
Attempts: 1

I will always fold to a lead bet if I whiff completely (no backdoor flush, no overs). In these situations you don’t even have to mark anything as long as you didn’t 3 bet pre. At least that’s how I choose to do things.

One last psychological tip that has helped me more that I can explain is tracking my All In EV. I realize that All In EV is only a small part of how you’re truly running but with a game as slow as live poker, it is nice to have number to look on for morale purposes. For example if after 200 hours you’re break even yet you look to your notes and see you’ve ran 10 buyins under ev, you would be less quick to change what you’re doing as compared to if you went off of pure memory alone. It helps me because as I said before, I don’t have a great memory to begin with.

One of the benefits of playing in these small games is you will almost always see the opponent’s hands in all in pots against you. You will ALWAYS see hands you lose, and I estimate to see 75% of hands even when I’m the winner and forced to show first. People just like to show their hands for some reason. When I’m not shown someone’s hand and I win, I put them in as an underdog but I try to be reasonable. For instance I’ve never assumed someone had 2 outs to win when we get it in on the turn, I win, and I don’t get to see their hand. I always try to give them a reasonable amount of equity. (Roughly 30-35% if we get in on flop, 20-25% if we get in on turn. All depending on texture.) I argue that if someone loses an all in at these stakes and doesn’t show you their hand they were almost positively behind, because people LOVE to show that they were a victim of a bad beat. Maybe that’s too large of an assumption.

For reasons of curiousity in the 5 years I've tracked All In EV, the most I ran OVER was just over 10 buyins. The most I've ran UNDER was just over 11 buyins. Perhaps I've been very lucky but I always find price *ERR* results to revert to the mean.

Anyway enough of this very light strategy, I hope it helps at least one of you.

With yet another time warp we are in the winter of 2011. I’m 19 and I have something like $1500 saved up and get the bright idea to go play $1/$3 at a local Indian Casino about 40 minutes away. It was and still is called Tachi. Shoutout to my fellow Central California degens. I show up after a few weeks of browsing the low limit live sub forum and decide to semi short stack. At the time I had never played poker inside a casino, and was able to self assess that I did NOT have the ability to fold top pair. I told myself I’d grind my 50bbs to the dot. If the blinds went by and nothing happened for me, I would top up that 1 measly big blind. Once I get to 100bbs, I’m out. Doesn’t matter if I’m in for 300bbs, I leave at $300.

You can imagine my sharpness for the game back then. Sharpness is the wrong word actually. I OBSERVED much more then. Looking for every single error from opposition, even seeing someone limp J9o in MP would build confidence in what I was doing. That’s a recurring theme throughout my life and most likely your life too. Attempting to scrounge up and add to your pile of self confidence. You’re doing fine no matter what you think! Try to be as kind and forgiving to yourself as I know you are to others.

One moment that stands out in my mind very clearly is me about 3 minutes from walking into the casino. I knew that this could be the start of a different road for myself. I imagined myself playing the highest limits against faceless fish in Vegas. I didn’t really believe it, I’m sure the very reason I never actually achieved it. No big deal to me, I was just a kid daydreaming…

I’m sorry to say that other than one particular hand, I don’t remember any hand histories from nearly 10 years ago (even though I did write my bad beats in my poker journal back then, again another confidence building move). I do remember running “badly” in that I lost 100bbs in each of first 3 sessions. Even after that driving 40 minutes with $600 in my wallet didn’t seem risky at all. After all, that’s 4 bullets when you short buy. Didn’t matter that I was wrong about that idea, I started ripping off wins. Session after session I come in, hit $300 total and drive home happy. Soon I start recognizing the regs (yeah it was everyone, everyone were regs.) With my bankroll growing I start buying in for $200. Living like a true bigshot now, I begin tipping the shuttle that picks up people from the parking lot $2 instead of $1. I start to realize no one else can fold top pair either, and push my sessions longer and longer. I lament the fact that the games only run on the weekends and that most of the time there’s only one game that I have to sit around and wait to get into. I had no idea you could call ahead and get put on the list.

One night a player I had been hearing others talk about named Del finally showed up. He was a short, somewhat sloppy man who I overheard practiced law for a living, and an extremely tough player to handle as I was essentially a beginner. Played so wild and I’m sure he was a giant fish looking back on it. But at the time he was a crusher in my mind. He was completely unpredictable! I was absolutely terrified to be in any hand with him. Not much happened during that first session but the next day I came back, he was there as well. I hear the floor announce over the mic *BRAND NEW 1/3 FOR THE FOLLOWING PLAYERS…….BRAND NEW 1/3 GET YOUR SEAT NOW.* Seemed redundant as the room is nowhere near large. He could’ve just as easily said that all in a speaking voice and probably still been too loud.

Del put his player card in the 5 seat and I immediately put my card in the 6 seat. No way I was letting this maniac have position on me. “What a good player I am”, I thought, understanding position and how critical it was to my success.

To my immediate disappointment he moved his card to 7, so I pushed mine to 9, then he moves to 1. So on and so forth. It’s so funny thinking back on it and how I completely forgot about this whole scenario before I started writing. I can’t say for sure but I’m almost positive he acquiesced and let me have somewhat good position on him, we were something like 3 seats apart at the end of the altercation. I end up running well and pushing my initial $200 up to $450, (insert dead meme of “Slow down we got a badass here”). I know I must have been telling myself to get up, that this is not the game to push it. This guy can really punish you, this guy can really force you into making big mistakes. But I had just got here! It’s only been an hour! It takes me almost that long just to drive here! Also it was exciting to play with someone like Del. It felt like a different game. My blood and adrenaline could not stop pumping, even on hands I wasn’t involved in! Finally the two heroes face off.

Del opens to $12, just as he always did. Seemed like Del had no problem opening every hand. I look down at JJ in LP. Del covers me easily by $1k. Slam dunk call I thought, why 3 bet when Del could easily 4 bet and make my life hell? (I thought this with no real information on how Del reacts to 3 bets). Sure I spent EVERY hand looking for information against Del but sadly I had no idea what to do with the information I was gathering. It takes time to learn anything and poker is no different.

We go to flop 3 way and its J 7 2r.

BINGO!! He’s dead, he’s so completely dead, he’s so dead and I DARE HIM TO TRY TO BARREL OFF AND PLAY BULLY NOW! He chucks out $25 and I cooly call. Can’t give away too much. It has nothing to do with texture, I have no idea what texture is. I just know I need to trap this dude, let him hang himself. 3rd man folds and we go to turn.

Turn makes the board read J 7 2 2r.

He’s done! The hand is a lock and now all I have to do is collect. Life is good even though Del looks as confident as I’ve ever seen him. He now bets $50 and again I call. I will save the hammer for the river, let me squeak another bet out of my ATM or should I say my DEL? He’s just trying to bully me after all, might as well get as much as I can.

River reads J 7 2 2 3. Again he bets $50. What a half hearted bluff! I’ve seen him bet huge with air after all! Why is he playing so coy with me? I decide to click back to $100 on the off chance he has AJ and can’t fold. To my surprise he jams. THAT’S the big bad man I was looking for thank you very much, I snap call and table my hand. I HAVE to show how great I am, how I goaded him into bet/3bet bluffing river! I imagine the table to be in awe at how perfectly I played this man like a fiddle. He shakes his head and shows 77 for middle full house.

LOL I was convinced Del was going to show up with quads. Glad you got the win. Keep em coming! Btw, where do you play most of your volume atm?

Good **** man. I am enjoying the stories and honesty

Yes you have a great writing style. Really enjoying this

Just found this thread. Loved every word of it.

Thought Del was going to show 22 and destroy your dreams and self confidence, glad you got that pot!

I want more!

Something that I never noticed until recently is that Meaghan only showed up in my life AFTER I followed an impulse. A few months prior to meeting her, Chris and I were hanging out with a friend who was a Blink-182 fanatic. He was showing us one of their DVDs that contained all of their music videos. After watching the “Josie” video along with the video to “First Date” I was beyond amped. I wanted to do that. No you know what? I HAD to do that!

I was already a pretty decent guitarist after becoming obsessed with the instrument a few years prior, and that automatically made me qualified (scratch that) OVER-qualified to write Pop Punk music. Chris had been playing for a few years as well but only as a here and there type activity. We figured if he slapped bass, that’d be one less member we’d have to find instead of us both playing guitar. We really wanted our Blink fanatic friend to play drums even though he had absolutely no experience. We gave up on that idea pretty quickly. Our beginning plan was simply this: We would both attempt to write songs while Chris posted ads on Craigslist for a drummer. That way by the time we find one, we’ll have actual material to show him and we’d all be off and running.

Something like a week later we grab Taco Bell (The biggest part of Chris’ food pyramid even to this day) and I build up enough courage to show him what I have. He bobbed his head and smiled at my intro riff. Halfway through my verse and his scrunched up nose said it all. To his credit he tried to hide his disapproval as fast as humanly possible, but it was no use. I agreed with his assessment. My lyrics were horrendous, my melody unimaginative. My voice was unpracticed but that could in theory improve over time. The worst part was my complete lack of confidence (something that has been reflected to me many different times and in many different ways). If I couldn’t sing in front of my own bandmate/bestfriend, how could I ever expect to sing with bravado in front of strangers?

I’m not sure how to multi quote but I wanted to extend thanks to each of you who took the time to write those kind words. They really do mean a lot to me. And to BobbyPeru, I’m just playing Bellagio 1/3 on the weekends, Friday to Sunday.

My biological mother Angie came from money so to speak, but as far as I understand it, her (my) family earned it. Her grandparents were German immigrants who were the epitome of the American Dream, coming to this country with absolutely nothing other than, yeah you guessed it, an IMPULSE. My great grandpa Gerard worked his way up from the bottom, learning the language but never dropping the German accent. He ended up owning his own restaurant and along with making some very smart investments, he found the rewards of his original impulse had grown much larger than he ever could have imagined.

My earliest memories are from the house that we all lived in. My great grandparents, my grandmother, Angie and me. It was more like a castle, and I’m not just saying that because things seem bigger as a child. This place was massive. Great grandpa Gerard was a little bit of an eccentric and a great bit more of an alcoholic. Him and my great grandma Anna loved to entertain guests. They had a full on bar room at the back of the house, complete with a grand piano Gerard would pluck beautifully to his guest’s awe and delight. They even had a running infinity river installed that took up a quarter of the large room, complete with fake (but VERY real looking) alligators, birds, and plant life.

To this day when I have nightmares about alligators, which is a common one for me, I can’t help but smile and know that it stems from those very faint, very early memories of myself playing in the bar room alone.

As I said a little bit earlier, Gerard loved to drink. My whole family loved to drink. You don’t convert a giant room into a bar if you don’t enjoy the sauce. Angie was encouraged as a teen to drink at the house with them. I’m sure it was something like the phrase “I’d rather you do it here where we can keep an eye on you.” She was 16 when she started bringing her new boyfriend Tim around the bar. Tim became fast friends with Gerard and felt like he really belonged for once. And although at this moment in time Tim is just a boy trying to work through his OWN strange family dynamic (not to mention balance this unusual environment with his new girlfriend) he would soon grow into a man. And that man would be known to me as my biological father.

Your posts are long man, more like a short book.

Seriously though i have enjoyed reading it, keep them coming.

Can a person change if they really and truly want to? The answer of course is yes and it all lies in your intention. Not attempting to take credit, many books have been written with this either being a core idea or at least something said in passing. Even my adoptive father John seems to be softening up in his old age. Not as soft as I’d personally prefer but that’s not really any of my business. I applaud him for changing after so much momentum has been built in the opposite direction. You can be, do, or have anything you desire. Again not my words. I know that sounds pie in the sky but if a part of you resonates with what I say, even just out of a shallow curiosity, I invite you to look further into the matter. You surely will find whatever it is you’re looking for.

So where were we? Oh that’s right! We just won a 300bb pot from the toughest S.O.B. Tachi Palace has and will ever see, Del. I snap quit which is much to my embarrassment to write here, grab my buffet voucher from the floor, and have a free meal on Tachi themselves. I play at Tachi for about a year and a half longer and my app reads a statistic of a little over $17/hr. Not bad for a kid who can’t fold top pair and is all too happy to hit and run. I am 21 at this point and decide to take my spoils from Tachi, which ended up being $4k total, (yes I spent a lot of my winnings over time but I was content in that I had almost triple what I started this live grind with) and go to a poker room slightly farther away called 500 Club. This room is located in Fresno and as far as I can tell is still going strong to this day. Or WAS going strong before the whole virus situation. My main motivation for switching rooms was that 500 Club had at least one 1/3 running every single day up until the 2am close time.

A major difference between the poker room at Tachi compared to 500 Club is that 500 Club employed “prop players”. I know 99.9% of people who read this will already know but just in case, a “prop player” is a person who plays off of their own bankroll like you and I, but they actually receive an hourly rate from the casino to fill up games and keep them running. It’s not an envious life but these guys were absolutely miserable. I can think of one in particular who always had the demeanor of his dog dying the night before. He was so negative, so cynical, so unfulfilled in what he was doing. I’ve been there myself. I truly hope he’s found a more joyful way of existing.

Around my 3rd session in I find myself sitting at 200bbs but with a pretty large thorn in my side. The guy to my immediate left is good. You don’t run into many “good” players at this level, even in 2020. So imagine my surprise in 2013. He played tough, but didn’t spew. He would 3bet much more than the average opponent, and I witnessed him barreling with air but in a selective manner. Naturally I was afraid of him in every sense of the word but I talked myself up. “You’re a good player. Folding top pair is no longer an impossible task for you.” The other side of the coin kicked in. “You’re always too eager to fold now. If this guy decides to barrel off and you’re not nutted, you’re toast. He possesses a gigantic edge against you.”

I would breathe in my own encouragement and within the same breath pattern, exhale my own discouragement. Back and forth, over and over. Naturally we get into a hand or else I wouldn’t even be bringing this up. Long story short he flops top set against my middle set in a 3 bet pot. I now know what it feels like to be the cool-ee instead of the cool-er. He takes the pot very humbly and we begin a conversation afterwards. I begin to like him even though I just lost 2 full buyins to the guy. His name was Josh and he became the first of the very few friends I made through poker.