My first $5/$10 session this year

I was getting a bit bored of low stakes poker. The environment is depressing at best and tilt-inducing at worst. You're surrounding yourself with degenerate gamblers who genuinely believe that everything you do is spewy and you're just an awful player that runs good, and they voice their opinions loudly and angrily. The same player that limp-calls A3o preflop will act as if he's incredibly unlucky when the runout is A32JK and he loses to AK.

Whilst I understand that part of being a smart poker player is to pick these degenerate games over the friendly reg games, there comes a point when you just need a break from that environment. When you notice your passion for poker beginning to slowly fade away and you want to re-ignite the flame, you need a somewhat challenging poker game. And you need respectable people too that aren't bitter and rude.

That was my main motivation for taking a shot at the $5/$5/$10 cash game. It's not that I'm a degenerate gambler that simply wants to punt off my roll; it's that I needed a change in environment. It was killing me to sit on a table with the bitter OMC's and the scruffy, dirty gambling addicts at $1/$3.

The environment at 5/10 is so vastly different to the environment at 1/2, 1/3 and 2/5. Everyone looked so casual, relaxed, friendly and welcoming. We had a nice conversation about travelling, about foods, about the cafe culture of Melbourne, etc. Not once did anyone berate another player or show signs of bitterness when they lost a pot. And this really sparked my interest in poker back again. It gave me hope that poker doesn't have to be that depressing of a career. People can be civil, respectable, friendly and interesting.

I only took $700 to the 5/5/10 game and lost it after a couple of hours, but I had a lot of fun - probably more fun than I've had in any live game this year. I'm glad I took that shot. It wasn't great for my financials but it was great for my mentality.

The game was a lot softer than I expected, but definitely tougher than your average 1/3 table. It was 7-handed and more than half the table were drinking. Some people were double straddling to $20 which bloated the pots a bit. Some guys were calling raises with hands like 84s and then pulling crazy bluffs postflop. It was a really fun table, both in action and in atmosphere/conversation. But alas, I couldn't capitalise on it. I would 3bet squeeze to $140 after a $30 raise and a caller with a hand like AJo or KQs but then I'd always miss the flop and have to either Cbet then give up or just give up immediately.

After losing $700 at 5/10, I lost another $200 at 1/3 then spent the next few hours playing 2/5 where I won $700. So overall I lost $200 but had a lot of fun.

Overall I'm now 7k up at live poker and 850 down online, as of 21st April.

Biggest bluff I've pulled in my life

If we exclude semi-bluffs and only look at the $$$ amount of the bluff, then this is the biggest bluff I've pulled in my entire life. It happened just a few hours ago at 2/5.

Villain is a middle aged Indian guy that has been playing fairly loose passive preflop but a bit tight postflop. He has pulled a few bluffs here and there too. I've got a $900 stack and he covers.

2 limpers
Hero raises $30 CO with A6dd
V calls $30 HJ

Flop ($65) is Qc 5c 2h

V checks
H bets $40
V calls $40

Turn ($137) is 7h

V checks and stares at me (I interpret this as weakness)
H bets $100
V calls $100

River ($337) is 4s

V checks and stares at me again
H jams $730

Now here's the worst part... I'm sitting there for 2 mins trying not to move and villain is constantly saying "this would be the sickest call, I so want to call this". He asks me questions like "will you show if I fold?" And he asks the dealer if he's allowed to show me his hand (but thankfully he isn't allowed). And I'm just sitting here dead silent, trying not to fall for any of his angles.

Eventually he folds and shows 85s... he was going to hero me with third pair.

I show him the bluff and can finally breathe easy again.

No history. He just sat down 10 mins prior to this and had been pretty quiet during that time.

Yeah immediately afterwards I was thinking "damn I wish I either checked or Cbet small"

Neeme flopped sets at the most opportune times for months and months so not surprising if that’s occurring. If your worst downswing is 10k at 5/10 you’ve simply run far above expectation for a very long time and are due for a mean reversion.

There are very few poker players in your local geography that will be there 5 years from now. There’s a reason for that and it begins with a massive capital V.

Oh god, the one day I decide to bum hunt at the club instead of at the casino.

Holy sh*t I just got owned hard

$1/$3, 9-handed, $460 effective.

Villain (MP) - Early 20s Asian guy. Seems like one of those wannabe pro regs. He's quite passive though, like he'll raise preflop but never 3bet without nutted hands and he does too much limp-calling.

Hero (BTN) - Mid 20s WG. LAGtard image. Has been 3bet squeezing a lot with hands like ATs and showing lots of bluffs.

Hero is dealt Q9o

V limps $3
CO limps $3
H raises $21
V calls $21

Flop ($45) is J43r

V checks
H bets $15
V raises $35
H 3bets $90
V calls $90

Turn ($214) makes it J43A now with club draw

V checks
H bets $130
V tank calls $130

River ($474) is a brick

V jams $219
H folds
V shows Q7cc

I've talked about this often. At 1/2 someone will lose their "entire" $56 stack and go on some massive tirade berating the dealer and slamming the table etc etc.

At 5/10 I've seen people lose mid 4 figure pots and laugh.

There really is a big difference, tho you get good low stakes games sometimes and bad high stakes games too.

As an aside, it appears you are still trying to force things in a game where people dont fold. Stop.

Not too proud of this win...

Hero (BTN) - LAGtard image. $410 effective.

Villain (MP) - Mate of previous villain. Early 20s WG. Has a very similar style of play to his mate. Covers.

Hero is dealt 65hh
V raises $13
H 3bets $40
V 4bets $100
H flats $100

Flop ($189) is Kd 5d 3c

V bets $200 and stares at me
H tanks then jams $310
V calls and shows ATdd

I was the slight underdog here but the turn and river bricked out and I managed to win a nice ~$800 pot.

I cashed out shortly after this because I realised I was playing spewy and getting into too many stupid ego wars.

Profit for session: +$352
Yearly profit at live poker: +$7342

Do you mostly play at home games?

I played at a few home games all within 10kms of the CBD and they all seem to be full of nit regs.

Maybe I just don't have access to the secret private juicy home games lol. How do you find they compare to Crown?

It happens even at non-poker games too. Like someone can lose 10k at baccarat and just laugh it off, whereas if someone loses $20 at blackjack, they'll start swearing about how the dealer hits a 21 every single f**king time.

I do really like that 5/10 atmosphere. I used to play a lot of chess and I miss that friendly environment where you compete against someone, say "good game", shake their hand, etc. Maybe I'm just a romantic but I believe that poker should be a game where gentlemen play, gamble and laugh. It should be a game where people show respect and admiration for another man's (or woman's) play, not a game where degenerates throw their whole paycheck on the table and get extremely emotional about results because that's their child support money on the line.

On the last paragraph: I wouldn't say that players at 1/3 and 2/5 are incapable of making laydowns. There are plenty of non-stationy TAGfish regs out there that will fold a 1pr hand to a big raise. But I need to be selective about which hands I choose to bluff with, particularly preflop, and pick hands which have the right blockers and ideally some equity when called, rather than just bluffing for the sake of bluffing with a zero-equity hand and no blockers. The A6 bluff may have been unnecessary, same with the Q9 bluff and the 65s 3bet.

Lol he meant bum hunting in the literal sense fam. i.e. King Street/Rats/Cloud Nine

But phuck me that 65hh is spewy hahahaha. Call 4bet is losing as ****! Disappointed in you for that one.

Random question, but is your girlfriend cool with you blowing $200 at a strip club and then asking her for advice the next day about how to save money and be more responsible?


not that my opinion matters but I was going to leave my honest advice for another budding pg&c'er here.

But after reading through the highlights of this thread it sounds like you may have to find out the hard way, potentially by hitting rock bottom, before learning how to make proper and responsible life decisions.

Hopefully that doesn't happen though and you find your way to the top in poker eventually. best of luck

Drunk girlfriend: "let's go to strip club"

She is literally the one to suggest it. We go together.

alright thats fair. If I remember Ill post something up on the poker related stuff that may or may not help you, only because Ive been through the process and you might get some use out of my thoughts

Played some 1/3 PLO with a mate and won around $850 then played what started out 2/5 NL and later turned into 5/5/10 NL with the same players. I lost $200 there (which is nothing), so +$650 tonight. Grand total of $8071 up at live poker for the year now. More than 80% of the way there!

Also I just witnessed the sickest hand of my life. I'll make a separate thread about it in the high stakes NL forum because a single post here really wouldn't do justice to it.

Looks like you are doing a great job sticking to your goals and are right on track.

Nice sarcasm lol.

I am on track in terms of progressing towards my goal of making 10k profit live and 10k profit online this year.

I understand that I haven't necessarily been making the best decisions in terms of bankroll management, but boredom comes into play too. The $2/$5 and the $5/$5 games are just so much more entertaining than the $1/$3 games.

Besides, don't we all do irresponsible things from time to time? Who here hasn't pulled a sickie at work because they wanted to go to the beach instead? Who hasn't skipped a class at uni because they were too hungover and wanted to sleep in? Who hasn't said that they plan to clean up their room tonight but ended up lying on the couch watching TV instead?

Sometimes we don't always follow our plans. We don't always do everything right. But it's still important to have a plan regardless, even if we don't always stick to it.

If your goal was simply to earn 10k, then congratulations, you're almost there. I hope your heater lasts for another 2k.

If your goal was to learn to be a disciplined player and develop a skill set to sustainably earn as supplimental income, then all you've done is showcase your complete lack of focus and discipline.

Good luck Icarus.

Sent from my LGMS631 using Tapatalk

When you reach the 10k goal, that might be a good moment to just take the money and enjoy it.

Don't level yourself

$2/$5, 9-handed

Villain (CO) - Mid 20s Indian guy. Loose-passive preflop but bluff happy postflop. Plays like an aggro fish. $440.

Hero (BTN) - Mid 20s WG. Halfway between TAG and LAG image. Has been 3betting and squeezing quite a lot with medium strength hands like ATs and KQo. $1300.

1 limper $5
V raises $25
H 3bets $80 with A9o
V 4bets $280
H 5bet jams $440
V snap calls with AA and holds

Levelling point 1: Villain is capable of bluffing.
Reality point 1: Villain can bluff postflop but he's incapable of 4betting light. This is his first 4bet all night.

Levelling point 2: Villain's sizing is inconsistent with a strong hand. It looks like a bluff 4bet. He'd have surely 4bet either small like $170 or large like a $440 jam if he had a monster.
Reality point 2: Villain is an aggro fish that is just excited with a monster hand and isn't putting too much thought into it.

Levelling point 3: Villain has seen me 3bet frequently, so it makes sense for him to adjust by bluff 4betting me.
Reality point 3: Villain is fishy and incapable of properly adjusting. When fish see you 3bet at a high frequency, their adjustment is to start flatting your 3bets wider; not to start 4betting you lighter.

Levelling point 4: I created this mess when I decided to 3bet a junk hand, so the only way out of it is to shovel more money into the pot.
Reality point 4: Sunk cost fallacy. Just because you've made a prior mistake and gotten yourself into a tough spot, doesn't mean you need to compound your mistakes by making a bad situation worse. Every decision is independent of its last. The $80 has already been sunk now. Don't try to chase it back.

Villains are not playing back at you quite nearly as often as you might think. Do not level yourself into making spazzy plays like this one.

Today I walked past a sketchy casino and saw some gamblers with miserable faces playing on the slotmachines.

Thinking about gambling and people messing up their lifes in general, I couldn't help to think about OP here and I was wondering how he was holding up, since I didn't check the thread for some time.

While reading the updates, I couldnt help but to start laughing again at OPs poker and life decisions and almost slapstick-like behaviour, going against every single piece of advice.

However, I soon realised that it's not so funny at all. This isn't going to end well. Kelvis knows, Katokrazy knows and everyone else who has been serious about poker before knows.

Eventhough OP is very transparent in his stories and writing and feels little to no shame posting about his 5/10 adventures, as well as providing priceless justification for his behaviour - Nobody is 100% honest. My point is that OP in reality is an even bigger degen that he writes about here.

Right now, OP is bound for destruction of his own life. In the beginning, the stage of 'Willing to change' was good and it functioned as an idea to hold on too. He specified the change, set out goals and seemed determined.
Ofcourse, there will be setbacks and it won't be smooth, but this is the part where the true colors come out. This is why OP has proven that he will destroy everything he has, as he put an extremely little amount of effort into realising the change.

He hopped straight into the 5/10 game, because people were not 'nice' at 1/3. He thinks he will be the exception that won't be wrecked by variance. That he will be the happy-ending story, eventhough he made some risky decisions in the beginning.

He has shown now, through his actions, that he disregards all help and advice. This is exactly why this story is doomed to fail. His subconsious is getting used more and more to ignoring advice and making bad decisions.
He didn't even bother to try and implement the change but just completely skipped that part.

At the end of this year when OP is broke, this thread should be pinned to warn all pokerplayers and function as an example of how not to approach poker and life. How not to deal with advice and warnings of people who have been through the cycle multiple times.

Therefore I hope OP keeps posting updates until he hands over his last chip to a 'wannabe pro reg' and feels a sharp stinging feeling through his body.

The feeling of knowing how his family and friends are going to tell him: See?

The feeling of knowing how his girlfriend is going to leave him after a few weeks when emotions have stabilized again.

The feeling of knowing how he would have to work a mind-killing job countless hours again in order to barely get around.

The feeling of knowing how he ignored all advice and he is the only one responsible for his situation.

The feeling that nothing in the future will be able to satisfy him like the glorious upswing he once had, which has now come to an end.

The realisation that all along he was a lucky, degenerate fish on a heater.

+1

Couldn't agree more with Crown. There's so much good advice in this thread from people who have done exactly the same as what you are doing and I can assure you 99% of the time it ends up in them going broke (I can speak from personal experience multiple times). You write up how you want to do XYZ but do none of it, you play games you shouldn't play and then try and justify it, you've been lucky that you're on a heater but it will end, the 65hh hand is bad at best, you're a slight underdog against the bottom of his range. The A9o shove when you have no fold equity is terrible.

I'm not here to berate you but you're the one that wanted to prove to family and friends you can do it. You've got lucky so now take your $8k and go back to the 1/3 games, sit next to horrible degens for months if you have to, you're the one that wants to do this for a career. Start putting some money away that you only have access to if you run bad at 1/3. There are so many things you can do now you have a roll for the stakes you were initially playing but I fear you will end up going broke in some 5/10/25 game.

Beginning to downswing. Played badly too.

I had a couple of bad sessions at 1/3. It was a mix of running bad and playing suboptimally. I wouldn't say I did anything overly "spewy", but I did get myself into spots that I should have been able to avoid and I made some high variance plays that didn't end well.

Here are some examples which I'll summarise quickly:

1. Called a 3bet OOP with AQo against bad reg. Called large flop Cbet and turn jam on Axxx board with TP+FD. Opponent showed AKo and held. I could've folded pre.

2. Posted in CO then called a 7x raise with Q8s after 2 other callers. I justified it at the time that it can't be too awful playing a 4way pot here but it was a bit bad. Then x/jammed the 2nd NFD against a guy that couldn't fold TPGK and he held.

3. Opened 87s in Lojack in a tourney with a 30bb stack. Should've folded pre cause we're not deep enough to profitably play this hand. Then ended up making a dumb river call on an AQ667 board because I convinced myself that he might have a busted FD or busted straight draw.

4. Called a tiny 3bet IP against OMC with 98cc. Jammed flop over his PSB on a Tc 9d 6c board but he called with ATdd and held.

About the tourney: I played the $550 CPC NLHE 6max tourney at Crown Melbourne. I sold 30% of my action so only lost $385 of my own money there (I refused to risk the full $550 myself cause of BRM). It ended in me jamming 11bbs in CO with KJo, running into AQs and losing. Standard. But the 87s hand I played earlier in the tourney could've been avoided.

Now I'm about to sit down at a 2/5 table. Lots of action tonight with the tourney underway and people from interstate and overseas here. I promise to leave if I bust $500. That would bring my yearly profit down to 5.8k if I were to bust this buyin.

Will update later tonight.

^ amazing how you're still not listening to any advice.

Given that you think he's on a heater which won't last - perhaps you could tell him how he would know if he's beating these games? And how he would know if it's just a heater?