AC is not what it was decades ago. It's an outdated POS aside from the Borgata. BTW, do not walk around the immediate casino area with money on you if you are near the boardwalk. I assume you'll be at the Borgata which is nowhere near there so you should be fine. But if you go to the boardwalk be very careful. You walk 50 feet from a lot of the casinos and you are in a very bad neighborhood.

Great high-end food at the Knife and Fork Inn. There's an awesome sushi/Japanese all you can eat place like 20 minutes from the Borgata called Ginza. It's an actual restaurant but for like $25 you can order as much as you want. It's not a buffet.

GL in NJ. You can grind some legal poker too if you wanna check out the games.

Been an interesting couple days. I did NOT heed bm's wise advice proffered above and ended up staying at a seedy motel over by the boardwalk. Harrah's rooms were going for a lot because of some events and probably the poker stuff going on so I thought I'd save some money and go elsewhere. Poor decision. Didn't realize AC was such a giant *******. I checked out the boardwalk for all of 5 mins just to get the experience but wouldn't find myself spending time over there.

Poker-wise I'm down a bit on the trip so far, busted the 1k 6max earlyish with some annoying hands vs. some giant whales at my table. The structure of the tournament was crap with 40 min levels until day 2 so I wasn't too sad about it. EV is higher playing cash anyway. I'm down $500 in cash after playing maybe 6 hours over 2 days. The games are pretty meh, 5/10 is the highest that seems to run and it's not great, some fish here and there but nothing too amazing, usually 3 to a flop but not 5+ like you get in really good live poker games.

Played the first day 1 of the $2700 Main yesterday and made it to day 2 with 2x starting. Had Matt Affleck (best known for a bad beat he suffered vs. Duhamel in WSOP ME the year Duhamel won it) at my table. Later in the afternoon the table became amazing with a complete monkey whale showing up and creating some splashy dynamics with some other guys.

Some of the outfits you see in live poker are just so lol. Had a 60 y/o guy at my table wearing a tight under armour shirt, one of those big flashy watches, sunglasses and a fedora hahahahaha.

Couple funny hands:

MW otf youngish asian guy playing very loose xr 665ss BBvMP vs. fedora, fedora peel, BB continues turn Kx large, fedora peel, 6x otr BB shove and fedora tank call and BB show K6 lol sick life. Fedora claims QQ after mucking. (This same asian kid busted affleck early on by bet flop/xr turn/jam riv QQ on Q9922 EPvMP).

Anyway the very next hand after fedora lost his lunch we see MP1 open, CO peel, Hero sqz BTN Q9s 3.5x, asian guy cold call SB, call, call. 754r check to CO who stab v small like 3.3k, Hero fold, SB xr small to 10k, MP1 fold, CO shoves like 30k, SB call, CO shows 64s, SB AA, runs out a straight and AA complains for a while about how bad he runs lol. Hilarious because 64s has like 50% equity there or close to it. Also hilarious that he played AA like that, just godawful pretty much every decision.

Day 2 tomorrow, we should make the money by the end of the day, so we'll see what happens. GL me.

Forgot to mention, since I had today off I made a trip to Philadelphia, which I realized is only 1 hour from AC. Had a great time, saw the liberty bell/national monuments, took some pics of horse buggies, and met up with an old friend for lunch. Then I went sightseeing at an old prison called Eastern State Penitentiary, which is considered the first true penitentiary in the world in the sense of prisoners being sent there to do/feel penance for their crimes and be rehabilitated. Their model was to have each prisoner alone in their cell and to not have access to the other inmates. Being alone and practicing silence were promoted as means of reflecting on what you'd done as a criminal and how you would change in the future. At some point these methods began to be criticized because (obviously) people go insane when they can't talk to each other or interact with others.

Anyway it was pretty interesting to poke around. Here's a pic of a mock up of Al Capone's cell while he was held there:




Because of his stature as a person he managed to get pretty nice digs while in prison. Apparently he liked to listen to waltzes in his cell.

That is crazy. His cell seriously looks like my room. I have a very similar desk, chair, rug, endtable, and everything. I also have an old record player with a bunch of old blues, and waltz 78's. Really the only thing different is (same size old skinny bed) but I have no bed frame. I prefer no windows.

My old room in Berkeley. So the walls look the same too. Stuff is old there and the inside of a lot of the little apartment/houses look just like that. The desk is almost exactly the same. I guess a lot of old desks were that size and shape with fold down table. Exactly same curves with upper part identical. Bottom 3 drawers too.

Haha pretty interesting. Yeah my parents actually have a desk thing that looks very very similar as well that we had in our house that was built in 1760 (this is in New England). It has same design with the drawers and fold down table and upper portion but it doesn't have that fancy molding/heading at the top.

Why do you like no windows man??

I concentrate better in a cave like environment. I kinda like them now. The room is not my current setup. It was when I lived in Nor Cal and was going to school.
I think the design desk design is super common for that time frame. Now my place is quite opposite. It is super open and I have a view of a golf course. I don't even play golf. Maybe I should start.

Cool thread by the way. I have been reading it. Good Luck too.
You have one crazy graph in here.

Man, no sunlight is bad for you. There are well documented health ramifications of not having windows in your living or work space. But sounds like that's not your situation .

Busted the main AK<T8s aipf bvb on 15bbs. Villain is Mike Dentale a well known Brooklyn born loudmouth who goes nuts over small beats. I can now confirm firsthand that the clips of him that are on Youtube of him flipping out over **** are not an anomaly.

There really weren't too many interesting spots. I bet/bet/jammed an old guy COvBB on 765hh7xTx w/K9hh and got it through. He had donked flop several times in past hands so I thought he might play his 7x "fast" in some sort of way whether it was donking flop or donking turn or xrai turn. It's very tough for him to call down 6x so thought it was a good spot to just go for it. After I busted he tried to engage me in conversation about some hands I played with him, this being one of them, but he has permanently lost his voice (maybe from smoking idk) so it was hard to understand him. But he said he folded 72???? in that hand. WTF?

Played a couple hours of cash afterwards and made back $700 so basically broke even in cash on the trip and dropped the tourney buyins. I can't complain too much about that.

Been bad about updating. Thanksgiving and whatnot. May as well update now as can't sleep.

AC trip ended up being quite the bust as I also dropped 2.7k on NJ Stars after depositing there my last night and playing some 500 and 1k. I ran a little bad in some high equity allins and I probably played a bit too aggro pre vs. some of the regs.

Got back from Thanksgiving festivities eager to grind and picked up right where I left off, tearing up 2k. Just on a sick heater right now pretty much everywhere.


Nov Ignition:



Nov Merge:





I also shipped the ACR Cage on Wednesday for near 8k so it was a nice month even with the AC losses (half of which were MTT buyins).



And December is off to a decent start:




LOL. Run better, man .

The cool thing is at this point I'm basically rolled for whatever runs in the U.S. which is up to 2k, but I'm still playing a good amount of volume at 500 and 1knl, which is a pretty nice situation from a live EV standpoint. I mean, things can and will still get stressful when I hit a downturn at 2k, but even on a DS I'll still be rolled to play really high EV games.


There are so many hands I could post...


iPoker - $20 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

P1_155208LB (UTG): $1,491.00 (VPIP: 34.48, PFR: 6.90, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 29)
P2_188246IV (MP): $1,988.00 (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)
P3_281830MW (CO): $1,910.00 (VPIP: 12.50, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
Hero (BTN): $3,538.00
P5_172530DN (SB): $2,194.00 (VPIP: 57.14, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 7)
P6_774175BX (BB): $2,033.75 (VPIP: 46.67, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 16)

P5_172530DN posts SB $10.00, P6_774175BX posts BB $20.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $30.00) Hero has K T

P1_155208LB calls $20.00, fold, fold, Hero raises to $80.00, P5_172530DN raises to $280.00, fold, fold, Hero raises to $660.00, P5_172530DN calls $380.00

Flop: ($1,360.00, 2 players) 8 J 8
P5_172530DN checks, Hero bets $380.00, P5_172530DN calls $380.00

Turn: ($2,120.00, 2 players) Q
P5_172530DN checks, Hero bets $2,120.00, P5_172530DN calls $1,154.00

River: ($4,428.00, 2 players) 6

Hero shows K T (One Pair, Eights)
(Pre 9%, Flop 5%, Turn 18%)
P5_172530DN shows K K (Two Pair, Kings and Eights)
(Pre 91%, Flop 95%, Turn 82%)
Hero wins $966.00
P5_172530DN wins $4,425.00


He was quite aggro over a small sample and thought he would be light here a lot pre.

Don't expect him to flat JJ, QQ pre much at all, definitely would have AA sometimes, but showing up with KK is really strange. I like my turn play, I think he's mostly on AJs at that point or 99-TT, maybe some AQ, but he's gonna have a hard time stationing this and we have good equity against a calling range (assuming he never has JJ-QQ).


iPoker - $20 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

P3_148345WB (SB): $3,611.00 (VPIP: 22.12, PFR: 16.35, 3Bet Preflop: 6.98, Hands: 108)
Hero (BB): $4,033.50
P6_571489NV (BTN): $3,502.00 (VPIP: 36.79, PFR: 22.64, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 108)

P3_148345WB posts SB $10.00, Hero posts BB $20.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $30.00) Hero has T 5

P6_571489NV raises to $40.00, fold, Hero calls $20.00

Flop: ($90.00, 2 players) 9 2 6
Hero checks, P6_571489NV bets $125.00, Hero calls $125.00

Turn: ($340.00, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, P6_571489NV bets $660.00, Hero raises to $3,868.50, fold


Interesting spot, one of those hands that come up once in a while where you've actually never seen this spot before and have to figure it out on the fly.

This guy was playing VERY aggro so far and I thought he'd do this a lot with JJ+ going for three big streets, as opposed to some ppl who would restrict their turn OB to mostly nutted type hands. Overpairs are never ever b/c turn in an anon environment. I don't even think a hand like KQhh b/c turn. We run into sets sometimes and 54s maybe but I still think his b/f range is huge. Running into A4hh A3hh is a concern (blocking 5h is nice). Sometimes he'll have 87hh and we're clearly pretty happy to gii vs. this.



iPoker - $20 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

P1_600559NO (SB): $1,617.90 (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 17.86, 3Bet Preflop: 18.18, Hands: 28)
P2_392317QW (BB): $1,980.00 (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)
P3_956733QS (UTG): $2,300.10 (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 22)
P4_530042DW (MP): $3,934.00 (VPIP: 37.50, PFR: 29.17, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 26)
P5_117806EU (CO): $1,960.00 (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)
Hero (BTN): $4,600.00

P1_600559NO posts SB $10.00, P2_392317QW posts BB $20.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $30.00) Hero has A K

fold, fold, P5_117806EU raises to $60.00, Hero raises to $200.00, fold, fold, P5_117806EU raises to $1,960.00, Hero calls $1,760.00

Flop: ($3,950.00, 2 players) 4 T 6

Turn: ($3,950.00, 2 players) 5

River: ($3,950.00, 2 players) 8

P5_117806EU shows T J (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 35%, Flop 77%, Turn 86%)
Hero mucks A K (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 65%, Flop 23%, Turn 14%)
P5_117806EU wins $3,947.00



AK neverwin

Crushing 💪🏽 congrats

Very nice results, keep it up

Thanks guys. I feel as motivated now as I've ever been to improve at poker. Which is an awesome feeling.

Do you own a solver? If so which one do you use?

I own PioSolver. I have not looked at it in months. Partly it's that I'm technologically challenged and when I start to get into these things they tend to confuse me so much so as to not be useful/efficient. I don't even know how to do node locking or anything. I really should take some time to look into it or even just hire a Pio "coach"/guide.

Watch this one first for motivation:
Things to do when you know how to node lock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4q3GiE2OKw

How to node lock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbx6OLxFxek

Enjoy!!!

Thanks for the links outfit. Those look really good actually.


I've had a pretty demoralizing week dating back to last weekend. There was some 5k running on ACR for several days with a Vietnamese whale (he appears to be gone now) so I decided to shot a bit and it didn't go so great for me. I lost maybe 1.5 BIs so it wasn't that bad but wasn't so happy with how I played either (esp. vs. the whale himself).

During the same period I dropped like 20k on Ignition, so that's great. Also feel like my play wasn't that great during that period bc of being distracted by the excitement of 5k and waiting for the games to run etc. I had to set up and use a seat script for the first time in my life for 5k so that was a bit annoying for my screen organization and focus.





Wrong direction

It's mid month and the games have been great so just looking to shed that subtle tilt that accompanies coming off downswings and put in a solid midstakes/1k grind for the rest of the month. I'm still essentially rolled to play all U.S. games, it's just a bit of a frustrating note to end the year on especially since I'll probably finish about 30k under EV for the year (partly due to losing a 14k pot at 5k AK<QQ). What are you gonna do. Regroup and keep at it.

cool, awesome

Sweet