Thx for the comments. I'm doing well overall. Pokerwise, I just had my biggest losing day (since Riot), followed by my biggest winning day... followed by my new biggest losing day. What a rollercoaster of emotions!

I mean, I don't disagree that cold-calling after a bet/jam on a A87r flop with T864 is not good poker, but I'm not gonna announce it to the table

Wrap tho

Alright lets do this:

1. 5-handed 5/5/10 rock game. Straddle in CO, hero completes SB with K755, villain in HJ raises to $45, hero calls. Villain is a tight/straightforward rec player.

Flop T86, pot $100
Checks through.

Turn K, pot $100
Check, V bets $100, call.

River 2, pot $300
Check, V bets $300, call. V shows AA82.

I would fold vs. a smaller sizing, but she had played a similar hand that occurred a few hours ago against someone else where she bet 2/3 pot when she made 3rd nut flush on the turn and checked behind river. Very simple hand but felt satisfying to use attentiveness + recall/pattern recognition- skills that are tougher to quantify- to allow me to call river very confidently.

~~

2. Hard to say what the worst hand I played was, made a pretty big mistake in a bloated preflop PLO pot heads up where I check/folded KK96 to a recreational villain's jam with SPR 1 on QJTddd. In retrospect I think he jams all 2 pair so this should be a call even though sometimes we're just dead.

One that isn't too bad but could be better. 5/10 NLHE. UTG+2 limp, LJ limp, villain in CO raises to $40, Hero calls in BB with A7, limpers call. Limpers are both fish and villain is euro pro. Hero has solid image.

Flop 552, pot $160
Checked around.

Turn 2, pot $165
Checked to CO who bets $60, only hero calls.

River $8, pot $285
Checked to CO who bets $85, hero calls and chops against A7.

I think a checkraise here on river is good vs. population tendencies. As always there are many possibilities but the two main ones that must be weighed vs. each other is how often villain takes flop/turn/river line with an overpair (unlikely) vs. how often he folds a chop (likely). Also I think villain's line with his hand is really bad as it's likely to get looked up by any pocket pair at that sizing.

~~

3. Biggest pot is kinda boring, I don't remember the details crystal clear but basically I open at 5/5/10, 2 calls, pro 3-bets to ~$200, i 4-bet to ~$600, 1 fold, loose rec flats, pro 5-bet jams for ~$2800 (we're all pretty close, I have the least). Rec wins with K875ss but more interesting is the pro's 5-bet jam (I didn't see but almost certainly AA). Assuming he even knew/considered at the time that getting AIPF with AA 3 ways with another AA is bad (sometimes we give pros too much credit!), I actually don't know if I have enough non-AA hands that jamming is his is best option here (not sure at all what is. Perhaps I'll do the math later, but I generally haven't been interested in solving these spots recently like I used to be.) Of course it'd be useful but I'm still struggling to convince myself that it's totally OK to be slightly worse at poker in exchange for loving life more.

~~

4. I wasn't involved, but playing 1/2 PLO. Swaggy looking guy walking by the table near the 8 seat (his positioning is relevant) offers the classic bet: $100 even money, he wins if there is a K, 9, or 7 on the flop otherwise he loses. Seat 2 is down to gamble but only wants to do $20 "at first to see how well he does". Guy standing up agrees. Seat 9 and seat 5 are in the hand. Flop has a 9 on it so seat 2 tosses $20 across the table towards the guy standing up. It lands near the 9 seat who adds it to his chip stack. Guy standing up smacks 9 seat gently on the head and I realize they are friends. seat 9 then goes all in for about $60 total including the $20 he just added on mid-hand, seat 5 calls and seat 9 doubles up.

~~

5. 5/5/10 PLO. 8 way limped pot. Flop KT4ddh, 5 people check to me, I bet $75 into $80 with 5544hh, tight euro pro checkraises from small blind to $215 with $300 behind. Wasn't sure what to do here! I folded but felt like I should have probably called as I assume he could c/r KT and draws, although the sizing is pretty weird and I would expect bigger with those hands. Also I probably should raise this preflop.

~~

6. Hero raise to $30 with T8, only villain in SB calls. Only had been playing about an hour but V has been very loose-passive (no aggression and calls wide on all streets). Have not seen him face a river decision yet. Hero has won a few showdowns with good starting hands so I think my image as solid.

Flop AT7, pot $65
Check, H bets $40, V calls.

Turn 3, pot $145
Check, H bets $100, V calls.

River 2, pot $345
Check, H bets $300, V snapcalls and MHIG.

I'm happy betting flop/turn here especially with position. However this was a bad bluff on the river since I already beat a good chunk of his range with a check and thus I'm really only targetting top pair hands which I don't know how he responds with (now I know- he calls).

LOL @ story number 4.

I take partial credit for dragging Don back to the poker world. Sorry Don.

I have to say though hand 6 should be your worst payed hand by far. The ace high call wasn't even that bad!

Really confused by hand #6. You have second pair, bet river, V snap calls and your hand is good, yet your "really only targetting top pair hands which I don't know how he responds with (now I know- he calls)" WTF???

His river call with any sdv in hand 6 is inadvertently genius since you were prob bluffing close to 100% of your range that gets here

This.

Don probably bets smaller for value, since he thought that villain would fold very high frequency against this sizing. Therefore villain was probably facing a range that consists only of bluffs.

Villain only lost because he ran into top of his bluffing range. UL. Sick beat.

bet is intended to be a bluff (I'm assuming that's the confusing part)

Evidence you should never bluff in LA when your bluffs are actually considered value hands there?

No, the confusing part is that you imply he called with TP, yet YHIG, which it would not be against TP. If he didn't have TP, you really don't know that he calls if he has TP. I mean he prob does given that he apparently called with something worse, but hell, he might raise it.

Well Aesah could’ve just said “he doesn’t fold” and I think it’d be a generally reasonable assessment.

Don't think he's implying he had tp. If he calls with worse than middle pair, he's calling top pair. Don't think you can draw any other conclusion like a river xr range.

Aesah was targeting top pair hands to fold. Aesah was trying to bluff out top pair hands. That failed. V called with something worse than T8. We don't know what it was, but it was worse than T8.

Nothing like a sick value bluff to pay your cell phone bill for a few months.

Me, 1st day in Borgata: damn everyone is really deepstacked

Also me, 10 minutes later: oh white chips aren't $100

Deep stack PLO by chance? Any interesting hands?

If this is one of those Aesah poker road trips from the early days, we'd love to follow along

Hahaha

Ha

#cultureshock

Still writing a lot, but mostly not poker-related and sorry I just haven't had as much motivation to post recently even though I want to get back into it

Here's an unusual one at 2/5 NLHE. Hero had bought in recently with $100 chips and raised 3 hands in the first orbit with folds around the first two times so image could be loose/gambly. No reads on villains, main one is younger serious looking white guy. ~$520 effective.

Hero $15 from UTG+1 with 99, 3 calls.

Flop TTT, pot $60
Hero $25, folds to last villain who raises to $85, hero calls.

Turn 9, pot $230
I check, villain $115, I call.

River T, pot $460
I check with $300 behind, villain $150, I considered min-jamming river here expecting to fold all non-nuts hand but folded. Villain's range is either small pairs or Ax, calling really sucks to chop and jamming also sucks risking extra chips.

I find that people are less inclined to check behind river here when they feel some entitlement to win the pot (i.e., if he has a small pair he probably thinks he has the best hand on the turn). I don't mind the fold but think it's close, probably calling JJ/QQ/KK here.

Anxiety- this thread used to be a place where I offered my candid perspectives, and honestly I've always liked the thread better that way. I know I've talked about this several times recently but I'm still failing to get over it.

My lack of sharing- which I hate- primarily stems from a combination of 2 things:

1) significantly increased self-awareness of my "bad" characteristics and behaviors
2) being really hard on myself/holding myself to unrealistic standards

This basically makes me feel like people won't like me even though if I stop to think about it for just a few seconds, I know it isn't true. It's a frequent occurrence where I'll type up a post similar to this one then just delete the entire thing because even right now I fear that this looks like I'm fishing for compliments, which I've been conditioned to believe is a "bad" behavior even though I genuinely believe that there is nothing wrong with doing so

Seeking praise is also not my intent anyway, which is something I wasn't sure if I should even clarify because it may detract from my point of "there's nothing wrong with doing X" if I say "btw I wasn't doing X" right after. But you know what who cares, I'm just gonna say it because it's true. And what else is true is I genuinely don't care right now if no one responds to this, letting it out is great for me and I feel (uncharacteristically???) great right now. **** anxiety man. I'm working hard on being the Aesah I love being, the Aesah who just says whatever the **** he is thinking without fear of making the inevitable mistake or sounding depressed. ITS OK TO MAKE MISTAKES

Sounding depressed leads me to my next point, which is that I actually have been depressed for awhile now. It's been so hard to admit it, especially for me after I've prided myself on how happy I've been throughout this thread. Being on a 20k downswing immediately right after quitting Riot doesn't help, which is another thing I would just post in the past but these days I fear people will think I'm washed up, no good at poker anymore, and I SWEAR TO GOD IF SOMEONE SAYS "I told you so" that poker makes me unhappy, **** off you are WRONG and I'm not going to get into this again right now (for me specifically. Obviously for many people a normal job is preferable). Alright yeah I'll admit I'm gonna be PISSED if someone brings that up again here but tbh whatever, conflicting opinions is part of the fun, and tbh I have similar feelings of feeling pissed as I do about fishing for compliments- everyone thinks it's a bad thing but it's not!

Regarding sucking at poker, I suppose it's also part of my anxiety that has made me afraid that admitting to having won negative dollars since quitting my job would make people think I'm not a winning player but honestly just taking a deep breath I know it's all in my head and no one really thinks that except myself on occasion (and honestly, who cares if someone else does). At the same time though I've got a lot to learn and would definitely benefit from studying like, I dunno, probably like 10x as much as I have been over the past couple months. And if I ever manage to defeat my current archenemy of ANXIETY I'll try my best to share some of the results of said studying here, of course!

So when I was saying anxiety was my archenemy, I was also thinking it was only one of two, the other being variance. But honestly despite running bad*** at poker I cannot help but feel guilty that I even entertained the thought of variance being an enemy of mine. Variance has blessed me tenfold beyond what I would entreat in the audience of God if I were an unborn soul seeking a human life to be granted the privilege of living.

***it's OK Aesah, you can say REALLY BAD not just bad. You've had no problems admitting to running REALLY GOOD when it happens, you're just nervous to say it because you know that 90% of people who make this claim are losing players and full of **** (and 90% here is not an exaggeration- it's my legitimate estimate). On a more serious note Aesah, if you can't handle losing a standard amount over a couple hundred hours, then GTFO of my industry kid.

I CAN handle it though, and that's why I'm staying (at least for now). Anyway, I better hit that submit button while I've temporarily subdued my archenemy- and hopefully permanently wounded- before it regains the upper hand and I ALT-F4 away this post like so many that have come before it.

Real to anyone who made it this far, and real to the ones who have checked in throughout the years. It's been real (usually)

That's cool that you started working for Riot. I was a level designer for about 3 years and a tester off and on for about 4 years. I worked for Illfonic, a really small company based out of Denver. I got laid off a couple of years back and I played poker every day after, yet at that time, you started at Riot while I was ending my career.

While I was working I was always thinking of poker. I definitely loved my job, but there were many things about it that I didn't love. If I were some creative director or rich guy with an idea, I think I would enjoy game development a lot more. Growing up as a gamer glamorized working in game development but when I got deep into it, the romance ended.

How did you end up feeling working for such a big company that has made one of the most successful competitive video games ever? In the result of everything, did you realize that working behind the curtain isn't inspiring? Would you work for another company? How did you mentally cope with crunch-time? After being a professional poker player and working as a game dev, I think the game dev life is less appealing due to the limitations on the lifestyle.

Don’t worry Aesah! Me and some very good players right now have had year long + ruts, playing wise, and depression for much longer, and we still made it work for us again! Bad timing on run bad, but it’s not bad as a trial. It reminds you to work on your technical and mental game, and proves to yourself you can do it.

Should still see a therapist though