Yesterday was a wild one. I got this VIP challenge from draftkings, giving me different games and different bonus options, but I had to choose only one. The one I chose was Spanish 21, get $10DK for every $500 bet. That games has a very player friendly house edge, even better than blackjack, at a mere 0.34%. The max bonus earnings is $5000. So that means I'd have to play through $250K to get the full $5K, but the expected loss on the $250K is $850, so over $4K in EV there.

It plays similar to blackjack, although all the tens have been removed from the shoe (J, Q, and K are all still there). To counteract the loss of the tens, several player friendly rules have been added in. My favorite being that you can double down at any point in the hand. So if you start off with 34 vs. a 6, and hit another 4, you can double from there. Also, if you double and get a crap card, you can rescue your double by surrendering your hand and getting your extra bet back. Player 21s are auto-wins, and there are some other bigger payouts for things like making 21 with a 678 or 777. Overall the basic strategy is a bit more complex, and I did make a few mistakes here and there, but it was probably still better than regular blackjack.

However the game can be tilting as hell at times too. The dealer definitely pulls a lot more magic 20s and 21s out if its virtual ass. Also all the additional doubling you do creates a lot of volatility. I definitely doubled against a lot of 6s, got a crap card, and basic strategy says to just let it ride and only surrender a bad double vs. a dealer 8-A (you double an 11 vs A in this game). Then of course the dealer always seems to draw whatever card they need to beat me in that case.

It was the swingiest day of gambling I've ever had in my life. I started out at $25/hand to get my feet wet. I quickly jumped up to $50/hand to move things along, and I got hot. I was up about $1.5K. Still too slow though. $100/hand it is. At one point I was up $4K. Then the downswing. It was brutal. Every double went wrong. The dealer never busted. If I stood on 18 or 19 it was never holding up. The dealer was hitting blackjacks against me like no ones business. I got tilted. Next thing I know I'm down $1.5K, a $5.5K swing in the wrong direction. Ouch, that hurts just to think about. I ended up going a $2.5K run to close out the day. Apparently I only had until last night to play through it, and only made it through halfway. EV says I should be up about $2K, and I'm up $1K. It's hard to complain about that. Although being off $3K from my peak is a tough pill to swallow. Blah blah blah I guess that's why the call it gambling. All my wife needs to know is that I made $1K yesterday. I'm keeping the swings to myself.

Pokerstars just put in a nice $500 deposit bonus. Thank you sir for the free money, don't mind if I do. I actually have a snowballs chance of clearing the full $500 now playing mostly 200NL. Last time I was grinding mostly 30/50 and only cleared less than $400.

Where do you find these casino bonuses for Michigan?

DraftKings. I'm not sure if they are global or they target them at certain players. That one was on my promotions page this weekend. Some only come through e-mail.

Draftkings has totally hooked it up this year. I may be on their naughty list though. They got a bit pissy with me when I withdrew too quick after a promo a couple weeks ago. My emails have been silent since...

FYI - I'll let you in on my next big thing. Headed down to Indiana to turn promos. Doesn't work for DK, FD or William Hill I think.

Next week or 2 - I'm headed down to Indiana to churn sportsbets in Indiana.

Step 1) Create BetMGM Indiana account in Michigan.
Step 2) Wait a few days for 100% deposit match promo (can couple this w/ 1st time $600 Risk free bet promo)
Step 3) Deposit $1000 in BetMGM Indiana account in Michigan
Step 4) Drive down to Indiana and place sports bets
Step 5) Return to Michigan
Step 6) Withdraw funds (or return to Indiana to churn freebet from riskfree promo if lost first wager).

Can also do BetRivers / Wynnbet / Parx whatever else is available.

Hmmm... I have an Indiana camping trip planned for Labor Day weekend, that might be an option.

I do try to keep my DK withdrawals sporadic and random. After my first one, they immediately offered a deposit bonus which I happily took. Not so much this time. I'm sure there are some algorithms to detect advantage play and restrict the promos offered. I'm not sure how they haven't caught me yet, but I do play some occasional blackjack for grins, maybe that's it.

Here I am minding my own business playing 3 handed against 2 fish, then this guy hops in, posts UTG, and plays this doozy of a hand.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 39.93 BB
Hero (BB): 126.01 BB
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 35.25 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB, CO posts penalty blind 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has T T

CO checks, BTN calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 5 BB, CO calls 4 BB, fold

Flop: (11.5 BB, 2 players) 3 2 2
Hero bets 4.91 BB, CO raises to 9.82 BB, Hero calls 4.91 BB

Turn: (31.14 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero checks, CO bets 29.64 BB, Hero calls 29.64 BB

River: (90.42 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero checks, CO bets 55.54 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 55.54 BB

CO shows 7 6 (Two Pair, Sixes and Twos)
(Pre 20%, Flop 2%, Turn 5%)
Hero shows T T (Two Pair, Tens and Twos)
(Pre 80%, Flop 98%, Turn 95%)
Hero wins 200 BB

Looking before signing up I can't see any decent DK promotions. I think it's all targeted based on your action and probably whether you're a net winner/loser. If you're getting good offers as a net winner you can expect that to end soon. The deposit bonusses ended at the end of July and I missed out but hopefully they add something else nice or reinstate it.

With DraftKings I think their promos can be split into 2 groups. There are almost daily profit boosts on sports bets, and small casino games. For the sports bets, you know they're +EV because they can be arbitraged at another book for a couple bucks profit, but I just prefer to let it ride. Then there's daily stuff like play $10 on this slot for $5 credit, stuff like that. Just between these types of promos alone, which I am pretty sure everyone gets, there's probably like 5 or 10 dollars per day in EV to be had on average. I was honestly happy as hell when it was just this, because even an extra few grand a year is a pretty nice deal.

Then there are the bigger challenges that seem to be more random, and sometimes emailed exclusively to you. I appear to have made their VIP tier, as I've gotten a couple VIP challenges lately. These require a lot more betting volume, and the EV can be hit or miss.

It feels like draftkings is trying to martingale me out of my money, lol. They keep offering me challenges for less and less EV requiring more and more risk on my part. So far so good, and I will use stop losses to keep things from getting out of hand. But even if I have to go back to making $25 & $50 sports bets and $2/hand on blackjack for less than $10 of EV, I'm good with that. It's better than what most other places are offering.

I'll be back with a real post shortly, so skip this one unless you want to see some BBV venting.

It's been this kind of night:

PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 119.76 BB
SB: 131.98 BB
BB: 112.17 BB
UTG: 131.24 BB
MP: 176.89 BB
CO: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K K

UTG raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 7.5 BB, fold, fold, UTG raises to 21 BB, Hero raises to 119.76 BB and is all-in, UTG calls 98.76 BB

Flop: (241.02 BB, 2 players) 3 T 2

Turn: (241.02 BB, 2 players) 5

River: (241.02 BB, 2 players) Q

UTG shows A A (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 82%, Flop 92%, Turn 95%)
Hero shows K K (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 18%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)
UTG wins 239.52 BB

Whatever, it happens. This one got to me though.

PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BB): 113.45 BB
UTG: 239.41 BB
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 220.03 BB
SB: 169.15 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 5 A

fold, fold, fold, SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 3 BB, SB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 2 4 9
SB bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Turn: (10 BB, 2 players) 3
SB bets 9.5 BB, Hero raises to 28.31 BB, SB raises to 47.12 BB, Hero raises to 108.45 BB and is all-in, SB calls 61.33 BB

River: (226.9 BB, 2 players) 7

SB shows 6 5 (Straight, Seven High)
(Pre 30%, Flop 32%, Turn 97%)
Hero shows 5 A (Straight, Five High)
(Pre 70%, Flop 68%, Turn 3%)
SB wins 225.4 BB

I pretty much never put him on 56 with that donk out, not that I could really ever consider folding my hand at this depth.

Played a nice up & down session but ended up winning alright enough. I figured I would check in with some results. Here's my results to date. Basically it went like this:

Got my feet wet at 5NL. Crushed 10 & 30NL. Ran like crap at 50NL. Ran sort of hot at 100NL but am mostly a BE player there, and am doing well at 200NL. I know it's a small sample size, but so far I'm pretty happy where I'm at. I might even do something crazy like hop into a 500NL table soon.



Other gambling has been mostly BE lately, but DK is running a nice VIP promo the next few days, and Tuesdays are dingers and blackjack at FD, so hopefully it's a good week.

$0.05 NL versus $2 NL results confirm "move up to where they respect your raises"?

Ghello,mynameisGGandithasbeen520dayssinceI'velastp layedahandofpokerG

Welcome back GG. Sucks you haven't played a hand. My only live play in the last probably same amount of time is when I ended up in Vegas this year for work. Otherwise I have avoided my home casino.

You're in Canada right? You haven't tried dipping into the online game yet? It takes a bit to adjust because people do things online that you just don't see at live low stakes, but as you can see the profitability is there. And what you're seeing is just my straight poker winnings. I've made close to that same amount just with rakeback and deposit bonuses. I'll be honest, I don't see myself being a live player ever again. The online games would have to become so tough that the only way I can find an edge is to play live. Otherwise, you can't beat the convenience of playing at home.

As for my 5NL vs 200NL results, my time at 5NL was mostly spent unlearning some habits I had picked up in my years of live play that don't translate as well to the online games. But I started mixing in some 10NL tables and I took off quickly there.

At 200NL I game select fairly aggressively. Right now I will play a mix of 50, 100, and 200NL. I've learned that 4 tabling is sort of where my poker brain likes to be. So first I will look for 4 good 200NL tables, and if I can't find 4, I will fill it out with 100NL, and if I can't fill 4 there, I will jump into any 50NL. Sometimes I will play a few orbits of 50NL while I'm waitlisted at the good bigger games. I'm hoping to get back into the full green at 100NL.

I will admit to peeking at the 500NL games, and I've seen some players there that I have pegged as less than optimal from 200NL. I'm at a point now where if I see a game there that looks good, I'm jumping in. Yeehaw.

Gg probably doesn’t have access to sites as soft as the new MI sites.

I’ll probably start trying to mix in some live again soon. There just aren’t any good options near me. Might need to find a home game. Online might be more profitable but it’s boring to me.

Saw 5kNL running with a pretty big fish. This guy is the tightest player in my database with a 6max VPIP of 12 IIRC (and a lot of my sample on him is shorthanded). Not traditionally what you would think of as a fish but makes me wish I could have sat. No idea what he was doing there as I usually see him at 50NL/100NL. You might know who I’m talking about.

Yeah, I'm 99% sure I know who you are talking about, as there is a 12/5 not who normally buys in 40 to 60bb deep and multitables 50 and 100. Last night was the first time I saw him at 200nl. I don't seek him out but I'm definitely ok with him being at my table. Maybe he hit a slot jackpot and started playing bigger.

Must be someone different unless his strategy has been changing. Guy I'm referring to auto topoffs to 100BB and almost never calls pre. (12.76/12.48 VPIP/PFR in my 735 hand sample, 10/10 if I filter for 5-6 players). He doesn't even have a calling range in BB vs. min-raises. You can literally 2x SB and he will 3-bet or fold, at least from what I've seen.

I don't typically "seek" players out/bumhunt but I would play stakes above what I typically consider myself rolled for because it's such extremely low variance winnings and very little effort.

Weird, must be a different guy. There are very few nits on the site overall, so maybe it's someone I haven't played with a whole lot. I agree nits are nice for low variance blind stealing. Although you still can still trade 100BB all-in coolers.

Have played zero hands on-line and have no desire to. I sit at my computer all day at work, so it's the last thing I want to do when I get home. I play live poker for the enjoyable overall experience (not for the money, which is relatively small and I don't need a second job).

GcluelesswhyIplaypokernoobG

Fair enough. You do seem to spend a lot of time on a poker strategy site for a social player, but I know plenty of players who like that aspect of the game as much if not more than playing. I've always enjoyed the competition part of it myself. There's not many things I can say I'm better than a significant portion of people at, so it's nice to have this one thing.

We have done it. First table session of 500NL. It was a bit more excitement than I wanted for my first time at the stake, but the cards dictated that. I stuck to my game and things went all right.

My first ever 1K pot. I held on both boards. Nice.

PokerStars - $5 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 142.46 BB
BTN: 338.55 BB
SB: 100 BB
BB: 105.24 BB
Hero (UTG): 100.58 BB
MP: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K K

Hero raises to 2.5 BB, MP raises to 8 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 23 BB, MP calls 15 BB

Flop: (47.5 BB, 2 players) 6 4 9
Hero bets 21.11 BB, MP raises to 77 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 55.89 BB

Turn: (201.5 BB, 2 players) 9

River: (201.5 BB, 2 players) 8
Players agreed to run it twice.

Turn #2: (201.5 BB, 2 players) T

River #2: (201.5 BB, 2 players) 9

Hero shows K K (Two Pair, Kings and Nines)
Board #1 (Pre 68%, Flop 57%, Turn 75%)
(Two Pair, Kings and Nines)
Board #2 (Pre 67%, Flop 56%, Turn 74%)

MP shows Q A (One Pair, Nines)
Board #1 (Pre 32%, Flop 43%, Turn 25%)
(One Pair, Nines)
Board #2 (Pre 33%, Flop 44%, Turn 26%)

Hero wins 100.45 BB
Hero wins 100.45 BB

TT can be a tricky hand in BTN vs. blind raising wars. I'm not 100% sure it's a good call or not. This one was a range of emotions. First I was glad I got it in good. Then I saw the flop and though whelp, this was short lived. Then when I saw the river I thought I won til I saw the straight. Then I thought I lost the whole pot. Then the second board started to deal out and I realized I was still alive. Then all that for a push.

PokerStars - $5 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 124.9 BB
MP: 336.83 BB
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 100 BB
Hero (SB): 103.88 BB
BB: 109.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T T

UTG calls 1 BB, fold, fold, BTN raises to 4 BB, Hero raises to 15 BB, fold, fold, BTN raises to 100 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 85 BB

Flop: (202 BB, 2 players) K 8 Q

Turn: (202 BB, 2 players) A

River: (202 BB, 2 players) T
Players agreed to run it twice.

Flop #2: (202 BB, 2 players) 2 5 4

Turn #2: (202 BB, 2 players) 5

River #2: (202 BB, 2 players) 9

Hero shows T T (Three of a Kind, Tens)
Board #1 (Pre 57%, Flop 14%, Turn 25%)
(Two Pair, Tens and Fives)
Board #2 (Pre 56%, Flop 77%, Turn 87%)

BTN shows J K (Straight, Ace High)
Board #1 (Pre 43%, Flop 86%, Turn 75%)
(One Pair, Fives)
Board #2 (Pre 44%, Flop 23%, Turn 13%)

BTN wins 100.7 BB
Hero wins 100.7 BB

Then this hand was sort of weirdly played by V, but I also may have botched every street postflop.

PokerStars - $5 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 169.33 BB
UTG: 346.95 BB
MP: 102.5 BB
CO: 100 BB
Hero (BTN): 201.68 BB
SB: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q A

UTG raises to 2.2 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 7.6 BB, fold, fold, UTG calls 5.4 BB

Flop: (16.7 BB, 2 players) K 6 7
UTG checks, Hero bets 4.83 BB, UTG calls 4.83 BB

Turn: (26.36 BB, 2 players) A
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: (26.36 BB, 2 players) T
UTG checks, Hero bets 11.59 BB, UTG calls 11.59 BB

Hero shows Q A (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 45%, Flop 5%, Turn 0%)
UTG shows 6 6 (Three of a Kind, Sixes)
(Pre 55%, Flop 95%, Turn 100%)
UTG wins 48.94 BB

Nh on the KK. I was the villain and honestly almost just folded pre since I knew you were shot taking and probably didn’t have many bluffs there. Was almost hoping to flop nothing and instead I got that flop lol.

Villain in the 66 hand likes to win way less than he’s supposed to when he’s OOP. Surprised he’s lasted this long at 500 tbh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Cool. Thanks for the tips. Sorry for the cooler. Not much you can do there other than fold pre or actually hit one of the 2 run-outs. I didn't deviate from my normal game, I just stuck to what I knew. I told myself I wasn't going to play scared. I called off a 4bet jam with TT somehow. My 4bet bluff range is pretty small when it's UTG vs HJ, but i do have one and would have pulled the trigger had the situation arose.

I chose that table because I recognized the weak player, and there was another player who I didn't have any history with I wanted to scout. Oftentimes unknowns end up being fishy just because I know all the regs. It turns out that unknown was you. I doubt I'll become a reg at this stake anytime soon, but will throw my name on the wait-list if I see a good table.

Ya exactly and folding AQs there pre is borderline laughable which is why I didnt do it. That call off with TT hand was a weird spot. That was a pretty good reg who did that, which surprised me a little. Player dependent but I didn't hate call at the time.

Definitely didn't pick a bad table. All of them were pretty good tonight, none of the guys who I consider to be the tougher or top regs were on tonight. Was nice to kind of have all the fish and weaker regs to myself for once. Not surprised I was an unknown to you since I barely play 200nl anymore.

Yeah I sort of figured that unknowns at 500NL are more likely to be the regs that only play that high than they are to be casual fish playing their once a week session. One of the regs at that table (you probably know who) I have pegged on the weak tight side. Not egregiously so, and he's still a decent player, but he seems to play every table from 100NL on up, so I wasn't too disappointed to see him there. There definitely weren't any LAGs who were going to make my life especially hard.

The TT hand was weird. The 4-bet shove was a bit too much, which I sometimes read as a hand like AK pushing for max fold equity. I'm not sure if he has those sizing tells, and I wasn't making the call on that alone, but still to shove 100BB when 35BB would have been more than reasonable was suspicious. I was expecting there could have been some KQs/AQ/AJs/88/99/A2-5s type stuff in the range, and less AA/KK. Definitely did not expect to see KJo. It's also hard to know how the limper affects the possible opening/4-bet ranges there. I'm not sure if there's a level where he thinks I'm 3-betting wider because I know he's attacking a limper so he needs to 4-bet harder. But TT is usually in my GII range in reg on reg BTN vs Blind 100BB deep anyways, there's just always something that sucks a little bit when you GII with the bottom of your range. You know you have to do it, but you also know it's the scenario where you are stacked the most frequently.

It sounds like you have pretty solid reads on the regs. Exploiting the postflop frequencies of the regs is one thing I need to get better at. As well as improving my own GTO frequencies. It's probably not a requirement for having a positive winrate, but would definitely up it, that's for sure. For now I'll just assume 40BB/100 is sustainable and keep hopping in when I see a good table.

I would not consider BTN with KJo a good reg ever again after that hand.

Yes, my post count is embarrassingly high.

Every single post is made while I'm at work though (can't have my nose to the grindstone every minute, I would have burned out long ago). All strat posts are just an attempt to keep me somewhat sharp between my once-a-week sessions. Lol, didn't think I'd ever go ~75 weeks (and counting) between sessions (having never gone more than 2 weeks in the ~14 years previously), but here we are.

GcluelessstayingsharpnoobG