Happy birthday. And unlike a lot of people I was rooting for you since your first post. If you want to be something all you got to do is be it. And you're doing just that!

Good luck.

Good luck to you hopefully it works out well.

Happy birthday and good luck to you! Wish I had the balls to change my whole career around for something I love.

I would do exactly the same as you if your financial position was mine also. You may get eaten by the bear in the end, but you will not regret the hunt. You seem justly proud of what you have done, but are aware that there are pitfalls ahead. Hope you miss at least most of them. GL

Hopefully I am you someday, except that I have to finish at least my Associates' first and I'll be 40. Sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders and are down to earth. Plus you're a SC2 fan which is always a good thing. lol

It's not a grind if you love it, I've played 60 hours a week and was happy. Don't do anything stupid, be ready for the inevitable downswings, and hopefully you'll be fine overall. Will be watching!

@Hicham009, kman, LeftyGunner, Bene Gesserit, silversurfer

Thank you all for the words of encouragement.

Man, I would have so much money if only I were as good at poker as I was at SC2 :P

I've been lurking since the beginning of the thread as well. Breaking the silence to wish you a happy bday and gl.

this. good luck man, chase down the dream that's pretty cool.

GL mate !!! Always good to have the guts to do what makes u happy. Its a sort life and we should go for it!!!

Ps : check my thread if u like

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...grind-1171801/

@GFG, effrum, Grammen1985:

Thanks for the comments! Good luck to you too Grammen!

yea except u can't proxy port people in poker

Played at St. Louis Harrahs today, where a WSOP-C event is in town. My stack went on a roller coaster today, started up $600, then was down $400 like 30 minutes before I left, finally ended up $51 after a total of 7 hours. Early on in the session, sat down at 1/2, I raised pre with JJ, HU on the flop, caller from the blind leads into me 987. I call, turn is a 3, he leads again and I folded. In retrospect this is probably a call here, but it was an older guy and meh. Next hand I get versus the same guy, raise 98, he calls from the blinds. Flop K42 two tone, he leads again. I'm thinking damn, twice in a row? I float it with zero equity. He checks an A turn bringing a second flush draw and I bet rather large. To my surprise, he calls. I'm thinking he has a king at this point. I bomb river on a T, he tanks and tanks and tanks... and folds. I show the bluff (I usually show these since I bluff extremely rarely).

Shortly after this we both move to 2/5 (I had played about 1 hour at 1/2). Some guy opens to 20, two callers including the same from previous hands, I squeeze to 100 with 99. He calls and check shoves a 653 flop. The shove is like 300 into 550 to me, I feel like this villain is capable of doing it with just the A. Anyway, I call and hold up against AK, so my read was good here.

Most questionable hand I want to review today:

Folds to very good player on button who opens (I think he opens pretty much any two here), I 3 bet from BB with J8. We're very deep, maybe 250BB. He calls.

Flop AK5
I cbet 2/3, he called.

Turn 7
I bet 2/3 pot. He raises 2.5x my bet. I fold...

Thoughts? I will need to review this hand more later.

Anyway, I took notes on a lot more hands but I don't feel like writing too much right now. Another questionable hand, some old guy who recently sat down raised my 5x open with QQ to 25bb after a couple callers, with 50bb behind. I tank for awhile... finally just say **** it and shove. He has Aces. Oops? Bad play or bad luck? Don't really know what people are 3 betting with in St. Louis... I actually won this hand, which is the first time I won an all-in as the underdog ever since I started this blog

Anyway yea. I suppose I'll keep a seperate tally for St. Louis- players were SIGNIFICANTLY better at my table than in Oaklawn. I guess I was mostly playing 2/5 instead of 1/2, but DAMN. Perhaps in the future I'll want to split 1/2 and 2/5 as well, but meh for now.

Debating whether I want to play even more poker tonight after dinner, or play Valkyria Chronicles with my buddy I'm staying with!

St. Louis total: +$51, 7 hours.
Everything total: +$3828, 73 hours.

Called a 1/2 pot bet from a passive player in position with 98s on a As 8x 5x. He checked the turn and I hit 2 pair on the river. He slammed his AK into the muck in disgust. !

Edit: I dislike how the j8s hand was played. Why are you 3betting? Your deep, oop vs a good player. Are you trying to fold better? value from worse? To me, it seems like your building a big pot oop vs a competent player with a medium strength hand. You have no blockers, get called by dominated hands, and can't call a 4b or 5b bluff. This is spewwy.

After you cbet, I would shut down. Once you 3b, his flatting range should look something like 76s-89s, suited broadways, 22-QQ, discounted AK/KK/AA. You have 0 equity on this flop and there is a tiny range of hands that are calling a 2/3PSB on the flop and folding the turn. Maybe KQss/hh, KJss, JTss/hh, QJss discounted ATs/ATo. Alternatively, AJo, AQo, discounted AK/KK/AA, and 55 are never folding. That's like 7-8 combos folding to a second barrel, and 25-30 calling/raising the second barrel. You need him to be folding 35-45% of the time for a successful second barrel.

Yea definitely should have shut down on turn for sure if not earlier.

I think the preflop 3 bet is OK if I'm not calling (top of my folding range, blockers would be better though), I should have given more details but it was the 2nd time I 3bet all session after a few hours (first one was the 99 on monotone flop hand I posted earlier), so I figured he would give me credit for a big hand and like I said he's been opening any two there so I thought he would fold much more than 2/3 times there preflop- folding out hands as strong as KJ. However I was obviously wrong (or maybe I just ran into a monster, dunno. In that case I shouldn't have cbet. It seems like he had AK, KK, or AA?)

Postflop I was kind of lost, the table in general including this guy has not been folding to many flop bets at all- I thought he might have called flop with something like 88, then fold turn; however this contradicts my preflop read. But yea, as I mentioned earlier I have super little experience playing 3 bet pots, and I agree that that double barreling here is unnecessary ESPECIALLY considering it's a 3 bet pot.

Anyway thanks for the analysis! I will try to do better thinking about ranges today

Rly love this thread and I think that tou need to live dreams like that for sure.

Keep it up !

Played 6 hours at Harrah's, mostly at 2/5, down $449. On the 1/2 Omaha tables, people were shipping 200BB literally every 3rd hand. I am now like, extremely inspired to learn Omaha.

Main hand that's been bothering me: I raise TT from SB over like 5 limpers to 55$, very good player in BB calls. Everyone else folds.

Flop 933

I cbet $95, BB calls. Pot is now roughly $300.

Turn 4, check check.

River 7, I check/call a $125 bet. He has QQ.

Cooler or is river a fold?

Another hand that blew my mind, 3 limpers, I raise 6x with AA. Everyone folds, last guy folds QQ faceup. FUUUUUUUUUUUUU god that tilted me. wtf. aoidfmoidjoktwnoraijasfd. REALLY.

Anyway, I think I will play more tonight like a true workaholic!

St. Louis total: -$398, 13 hours.
Everything total: +$3379, 79 hours.

Saw that hand online all the time. Little more info about villain and his ranges/style might help too. What is his assessment of your image?
Where he is a known good making what seems to be a value bet and I have hindsight because you gave the answer, I say fold. I've called before in that situation though.

Not sure why Mr. QQ threw you off so much - were people constantly flatting large raises pf? Was it because he acted Hollywood? Gotta have thicker skin than that my friend

Wouldn't worry about the QQ hand.

Someone folded KK to me last week. He folded it faceup (I 4bet AKs 90BBs effective). I showed a king and he started tilting.

Thanks for the comments, guys!

It wasn't a large raise, it was a single standard 6x raise over 3 limpers, no 3 bet or anything, and he folds QQ. He is obliterating my range there... soul read I guess? Ah well.

In the hand where I had TT, villain probably views me as a decent LAG. I'm fairly certain villain is a pro. I'm not gonna worry about it too much, seems kind of standard although it's true that in hindsight I think he's never bluffing for 1/3 pot there (I thought maybe he put me on AK... lol). It was also my second losing session ever so that hand bothered me more than otherwise.

HOWEVER- I just played 4 hours at 1/3 at the Lumiere and was up $603. So, if I cheat and count the whole of today as an entire session, I didn't actually lose, right?

Nothing too interesting at the Lumiere, biggest pot I won was against some guy who paid off my somewhat-poorly played flush for his entire stack with AA after he leveled himself. Only play I really regretted was bombing a 3 bet pot with AA on AQJ instead of betting a bit lighter, SPR of ~2. Villain claims to have TT and probably wouldn't have called anything reasonable anyway if she's telling the truth, but I still felt terrible for like 30 minutes after that hand.

St. Louis total: $205, 17 hours.
Everything total: $3982, 83 hours.

Also, I'm considering playing in the WSOP circuit main event at 1600 buy-in. Anyone want to buy a $100 share (no markup/markdown)?

Cool thread, keep it up!

The day that you stop running is the day that you arrive.

This song really speaks out to me. I "worked" 23 hours in the past two days and I feel GREAT. Hell I put worked in quotes because it's actually play, except you also get money. Cool! In comparison, if I had to do 23 hours of bioinformatics in two days, I would be in a "kill me now god" mood.

I was at extremely fishy tables today (I watched 2 guys split a $300 pot with ten high... one had T6 the other had T9, all in preflop for 50+ bb each, what), but ran pretty card dead. Played 9 hours of 1/3 for a grand total of.... $21! 2bb/100 isn't a bad winrate if you look at it with the right perspective, right? Interestingly, I seem to be really good at barely dodging losing days at least, still only at one of those despite being really close a couple times now.

I was up like $500 but then I ran top pair, trips, and two pair into 3 different sets within a 30 minute span However, I lost minimum on pretty much every hand, checking behind on the river possibly thanks to recently listening to Bart Hanson's Why So Much. All the hands I can think of from today are just stupid sick hands like the one at the top of the previous paragraph where I folded 73o preflop. I started to write about some but they're really just dumb. Anyway yea needless to say I am disappointed I could not capitalize at a freaking seafood buffet today, but you can't run good forever.

I also played in a $120 buyin 16 man tournament (practice for WSOP-C main event if I do choose to play that), I played well the whole way through IMO but busted in 6th.

So... I'm just going to track my STL total because adding is hard, then calculate the everywhere total after each city. I'm gonna exclude tournament from this for now, but for the record I am -$120 in tournaments.

St Louis total: $226, 26 hours.

@slowking: thanks!

I think maybe it can negatively affect your play to think of dodging losing days because you might play unwisely when you are down near the end of a session trying to make it back, or playing too timidly when you are slightly up at the end of a session jmo

the 1010 hand, river is either a check and a fold or a bet and fold to a raise. If you do bet the river, i'd bet it for around 135$.

Vs a tight reg i'd c/f the river, vs bad players i'd bet/f the river. Majority of the time im going to bet the river as we should get called by all 9's, 66/88/AK.

hihi garcia!

I was checking to induce on that hand, I snapcalled there but then it bothered me for awhile afterwards. Thanks for the comments.

Today I played 7 hours and was up $1252! Some big hands: 1) Lost a $600 pot all in on the flop on a K53 board with two spades with AK vs T9. 2) I raised on the button with 55 and stacked Q8 on a Q85 board for a $900 pot (I bet/3bet on the flop, he called leaving a bit behind on the turn). 3) Hit 77 on a 752 board in a limped pot, some guy leads for 10, 3 people call, I make it 50 (MAYBE too small?). One caller, he calls my PSB on the turn T basically all in. He didn't show but I'm guessing he had like A7 or like KK or something based on his reaction.

To make good on my promise to improve on ranging, here was one interesting hand I won for a $900 pot. I straddle on button for $9 with 58, 3 callers. Flop comes 567, I bet $30 after it's checked to me. 1 caller (old retired guy, but a gambler type). Turn is a 9. I bet $70 into $105, villain checkraises to $150. I flat. River is 9, villain leads out for $250. So, I think 5 years ago I may have said "I haz straight" and call, 2 years ago I might have said no old guy is bluffing this river and snapfolded, but his line made zero sense. A set isn't smooth calling that flop then raising the turn. Leading the river there I suppose COULD be someone overvaluing a straight (which I don't think he does), but I'm almost certain he has air. I call and he shows K2.

Interestingly enough, as I mentioned on my birthday post that you can actually play on the Oaklawn tables for 100% free by dodging the blinds, you can also choose to dodge the blinds in STL and instead of posting dead money and missing the button like you would online, you can come back in as a button straddle. Fairly certain this is +EV given how passive games are preflop, but obviously I won't abuse it because that would be silly.

Also another funny story about the straddle in STL. You can do it from anywhere, and action starts to your left- near the end of my session the guy to my right straddled every single hand, effectively making me preflop UTG every hand. I knew I was leaving soon so I didn't care but damn, this seems very -EV for me!

Hm some other amusing stories at the tables, another guy played with 1 out of his two cards revealed (showed preflop!) for like 30 hands in a row, was hilarious. He also tried to make a chip tower after he won the $600 pot from me with T9, of all reds so 100+ chips. It stayed up for a few minutes before falling over.

St Louis total: $1478, 33 hours.

How is this even legal? And btw is your table WITH live straddle or do people just straddle because they want to? Where I play we got 2 tables, 1 where straddling is allowed and 1 where you can also straddle but only if every person on the table agrees with it.

With this being said, being able to straddle from anywhere I would say something about this because it seems super unrealistic and completely ruins the aspect of position doesn't it?