LLSNL players don't snap-jam combo draws, because a lot of them don't even understand semibluffing. They snap-jam made hands that feel vulnerable. So his range is basically 2p, sets, baby flushes, and discounted combo draws.

Once you bet the turn, I think you're obligated to make the crying call. You would have put in > 40% eff stack with a $45 bet.

Given SPR, checking may be better. Call / fold / raise depending on the action of the other two players.

I also think the combo/draw should be discounted with 1 to go. On the flop, more likely.

Nice catch!

Against a tougher player i could check this turn but there is just too much value in a turn bet against this guy. He had a vpip north of 50 and was sticky postflop.

I think Aleksei is right. The snap shove isnt a bluff because they would probably pause to consider that option if they even had it in them to do it.

Good session last night. Played 1.5 hours and left up $156. Nothing fancy, just value betting big hands and not getting drawn out on. Made a good fold on a river when I considered hero calling a bluffy opponents river bet with 2nd pair, but decided his sizing was a little too valueish so I chucked it, and he shows a rivered backdoor flush.

Witnessed two funny back to back hands between two V's.

V1 is a loose, sort of agro "small ball" player. Makes a lot of $5-$6 preflop raises with smallish hands, plays probably 75-80% of pots and is always making small stabs.

V2 is a loose fishy player. Horrible bet sizing, even smaller than V1. He's generally less aggressive, but almost as loose.

I don't remember the first few streets of action, but V1 is small blind, V2 was UTG.

On the river the board is A8734 rainbow. Pot is like $40, I think V1 took a stab at some point. V1 checks, V2 bets $15, V1 raises to $45. V2 tanks for like a minute and calls. They both have the stone nuts, 56. I think this might have been the first heads up call on the river with the nuts I've seen yet.

Very next hand, V1 makes it $7 from the button, V2 calls from the BB.

Flop T93

V2 donks $10, V1 calls.

Turn T938

V2 bets $5, V1 calls.

River T9382

check/check.

V2 shows KK, V1 has AJ

Two hands, back to back, where both stacks should have hit the middle of the table, and end up two tiny ass little pots.

Another good one was a board of QQ884. River goes check/check, and the second player says "I got counterfeited" and tables 55 for 5 high. Frist player thinks for a second and mucks face down.

I think I do well at tables like this. It was a bit tighter than your average 1/2 table, but we spent a lot of time playing 5/6 handed with reduced rake. I salivate whenever tables get short since 75% of my lifetime volume is online 6-max and I know how much more profitable it can be. I could run the table over a bit, but also get some good value when I wanted to.

My hourly rate is creeping back up, but I've got a ways to go in order to get back to even after the downswing.

Played 3 hours last night at a $35 loss. As of now, I've played 145 hours, and won $2495, putting me at $17.21/hr. Not what I would want to make for a living, but not too shabby as a profitable hobby.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the downswings. I know one thing that is going to be a big challenge in my recreational play is dealing with these damn things. From early September to mid-October I had a -$1033 40 hour stretch. Probably pretty standard for live play, but at a month and a half long it kind of sucks. I play 8 hours per week and it's tough hearing how pros go on 500 hour breakeven stretches. That's over a year for me, ouch.

Also, I was a bit surprised what the downswing looked like. It wasn't like there were a lot of strange rivered 2 outers in there or anything. In fact, the only rivered 2 outer I remember was a suckout in my favor. It was a whole lot of AK flopping TPTK vs. a set. Every flush draw hitting against me, and mine never hitting. C-Bets whiffing left and right. The most annoying part of it, every time I hit a set, 0 action. Family pot with 55, flop comes 35Kr, I bet $10, everyone folds. Lots of that.

In contrast with my first 100 or so hours where I was up almost $3300, my sets were getting paid, draws seemed to hit at about their natural frequency in both directions, but when the big money went in I was often ahead and held up. The one thing I miss about playing online is that this swing was about 1000 hands or so, and online I played roughly 500 hands an hour, so about 2 hours of play? Whoop-de-doo.

However I generally like live play more. I feel like I have a better read on people (despite the lack of a HUD). I like to take advantage of live tells. I have a pretty high success rate in running multiple street bluffs, because I can often tell what a guy is going to do on the next street based on how he responded to my bet on the previous one. But, I think I'm going to save that for the topic of my next post.

Another swingy 2 hours, but up $13. Dropped about $70 missing flops despite good starting hands. I hate those nights. Then this one comes ups.

2 limps to me and I've got KJ OTB. The limpers aren't likely to fold once they've limped, but I'm ahead of their range and in position, so $14 it is. One of the blinds and both limpers call.

Flop($43)QQ2

I was really debating on whether or not to c-bet this bad boy. I'm pretty sure I'm going to since it's so unlikely they've got something, but 3 players is more than I normally like to barrel into. 2 checks and somewhat Laggy Asian on my left makes it $23. We're about $200 deep. I could just fold now, but his bet doesn't seem that strong to me, and he's active enough that I know he could be betting with a wide range here. Calling is out of the question, but I have had good success raising these flop donk bets as it's often an attempt to "see where they're at" and will believe you when you raise. I make it $75. First two guys go away, and I make it $75. I figure even if he has a weak Q and calls he'll often check the turn and I might get a free look at hitting runner-runner. He tanks for about 30 seconds and calls.

Turn($192)QQ22

Worst card in the deck. He jams. Misread on that one.

But then this gem.

3 limps to me in MP and I have 88. Two of three limpers are the guys from the hand before that will call any reasonable raise. Some of the guys on my left are loose too. I decide to set-mine. We end up 8 ways to the flop.

Flop($14)863r.

Nice. Not often will 88 flop the absolute nuts 8 handed. Checks to me and I bet $10. Tight player on my left pops to $30. Folds back to me. I've got about $160 left after my failed bluff. Now I've got a few options to consider. Given this guys tightness I'm like 95% sure we're in a set-over-set situation and the money is going in. But could he fold 33 if I re-pop here? If he has 99/TT will he fold? I consider a click-back, but I figure my shorter stack is enough that makes a turn check/jam callable with most of his range, and just flat.

Turn($70)8635r. Not really a scary card. There aren't really any straight combos in his range and I doubt he raises them into the field like that. I check. Unfortunately he only bets $35. I forgot to account for the fact that he tends to undersize his bets a tad. This makes a jam a bit awkward, but at this point I don't think he's ever folding a set, and now if he has one of the few overpairs in his range just about every river card will slow him down. I jam, he calls, A on the river and I get paid. He didn't show but said it wasn't a set.

Two hands later I'm UTG+1 with QQ. UTG limps, I make it $15, one call, UTG makes it $45, and I fold.

On the same day the Lions make a comeback from down big to eek out a win, I do it to.

I do want to write a little piece on bluffing in LLSNL soon, but maybe later. I wanted to get those hands out of my head first.

New goal: Don't always make the standard play, go with your read.

I think I could have probably saved a few hundred bucks the last 150 hours if I had done this better. I have occasionally stacked off, or felt committed to pots in spots where I don't think that was the case.

Hand from last night where I didn't go with my read, and it cost me.

Hero limps along in LP with A3. 6 ways to the flop. Effective stacks around $200.

Fairly new to the table, but V is a calling station. Made a hero call against another players bluff, when he called a big river bet with TPNK on a sopping wet board.

Flop ($10) A89. V Bets $7. Not the board I was hoping for, but I've seen V stab at some pots kind of light then give up. I call, everyone else folds.

Turn ($23) A894

V fires $15. OK, maybe he's got something here. But If so, I picked up a lot more outs. I think my implied odds justify the call, but it's close.

River($50) A894A

V cuts out $30 and plays with it for a while. Then goes back for $20 more, plays with that for a while and fires off $50.

It seems so strong. I ended up making the call, because I rationalized that he's a "bad" player, and therefore could show up with a lot of hands I beat or chop with. Of course I was wrong, he had A9. I think if I can plug this leak it should add some $$ to my winrate.

Just found this, subbed. Nice meeting you last night after I wussed out and gave in to that lady's chop request lol.

Definitely stick to cash. Only play those if you want to mix it up. The structure for the tourney I played last night was LOL bad and it seemed like the best one that isnt a sunday tourney. If you are gonna play any tourneys regularly at Keepers the bi-monthly sunday one is the only one I would recommend as it has a ok-ish structure and in the winter will get 120 runners or so which makes first place around 7k. The field in that tourney is always super soft even though I feel like I have gotten some "bad" table draws (bad in the sense that I had a couple guys who final tabled the 2nd MSPT event there who think they are really good, but really arent).

Nice meeting you too. You have the distinction of being the first 2p2er I have met irl. Not a lot of 2p2ers play at firekeepers, not that its a bad thing.

I definitely plan on sticking to cash. It fits my tight schedule better. I also feel the tourney itch every once in a while though, and I dont want to feel too out of place if I find myself in an MSPT event.

I tend to grind weekday nights, usually 9-11ish. Late enough that the booze may be flowing, but not so late that im a zombie at work the next day. I find the weekend crowd to be younger and taggier, so aside from the occasional spewy table, I feel like weekdays are a tad softer. See you at the tables!

Got comped a free room at Blue Chip Casino last night.

I had to get out of my 1/2 comfort zone and enter the nose bleed stakes of 1/3. Table was insanely soft. 10 handed, with many pots going 5+ to the flop, even when raised. My raises were getting a decent amount of respect though, and I was only getting 1 or 2 callers, and was making the best hand quite regularly. Ended the session up $205.

One fun hand:

Hero is in CO with 88. UTG LAG raises to $12. 4 calls in front, hero calls, btn calls, blinds call, 8 to the flop.

Flop($90) AT5

Checks around.

Turn ($90) AT5T

BB bets out $10 (I had seen him stab small once before as a bluff). EVERYONE in front calls, I call, btn calls. I think the SB might have folded. I can't remember the last time I was getting damn near direct odds to river a set in LLSNL.

River($160)AT5T7:c lub:
BB bets $20. EP starts cutting out a massive raise, I figure he maybe slowplayed aces full here. The card protector is off and I'm getting ready to muck in turn. Then he mucks. Everyone in front of me folds. I can't turn down the price and call. Btn folds.

V tables Q4 for the busted draw. Wow. Big win there.

Current Update:

Hours (Since 3/2/14): 156.5
Profit: $2557
Hourly: $16.34
Sessions: 73
Winning Sessions: 46
Losing Sessions: 27

Still stuck in a long breakeven/downswing, but at least it's not getting any worse for now.

Maybe It was the fact that I ran well, or the game was soft, or that I was drunk, but I really think the 1/3 structure is superior to 1/2. It's possible the differences are too minor to notice, but I think the absolute value of a half pot bet being about 1.5X larger on the flop gives you more fold equity with your c-bet bluffs for a smaller relative investment. Seems like a good.

Unfortunately the room I play in doesn't really have 1/3. They advertise a 1/3 deepstacked game with a $500 initial buy-in, but it's a "match the stack" game where you can add on to the size of the largest stack at any time. I imagine this would be a lot of fun if I was properly rolled, but this game has run ONCE in the last 8 months, back in May when the MSPT brought in a lot of out of towners.

Dang. I followed up my decent showing at $1/$3 with my biggest loss yet, $327 in 2 hours at $1/$2, most of it in a top set vs. flush hand that I misplayed, even though the loss was inevitable. I think each session I'm finding a few new leaks in my game and working on them. At least I hope so. I always worry that my "leak fixing" is making adjustments in the wrong direction. I'm posting more hands in LLSNL, and I think that's helping. I still have dreams of buying in deeper, taking shots at $2/$5NL, and learning PLO to take shots at that game. I'm probably a ways out now I guess.

Current results:
160.5 hrs.
$2300
$14.33/hr.

I'm necroing my 3.5 year old blog thread. Maybe I keep it going, maybe I don't, I promise nothing. It looks like I made about $2300 back in 2014 part-time grinding. Not bad, I hope my wife enjoyed spending it, because I know I sure as hell didn't. Fast forward to today, I've been promoted at work, making way more money, had twins, then demoted myself because work sucks and I don't feel like dedicating every ounce of free time to a job. Just because I'm good at what I do doesn't mean I want to do it 70 hours a week. I'll give a company 50, with more for extreme circumstances only.

As for poker, I've played probably an average of a session a month since the last update. Sometimes win, sometimes lose, but never really keeping track. For whatever reason my wife green lights me going to play a couple weeks ago, and now is on board with me having a couple poker nights per week. Most of our nights after 8pm once the kids are in bed are her watching some crappy TV and me playing video games. I'll trade in the PS4 for poker money any day. I've been on a nice heater to start this hobby back up again. 17 hours, 7 sessions, all winners, and I'm up $900.

The poker room is still going strong, with roughly the same level of action. It seems the PLO fad may have died off a bit, as I don't see that game running much, but there's usually 3-4 tables of 1-2NL going on a weekday evening. So far it looks like the regs have almost completely turned over, with me noticing only a few of the weekday regs from back in 2014. The tables are still pretty soft, and I find it's like riding a bike. I settled right back in to my old comfort zone. If anything this time sort of feels different. Maybe it's the heater, but I feel like I've tightened up my game a bit and am not making some of the silly mistakes I used to.

So far there's been almost no worthwhile hands to post. I did put in a session last night. I got to the room right after the bad beat jackpot hit for $80k. It took me a while to get a seat, and they put me at the table that had hit it. There were a few big stacks, and a couple guys at the table who were gambling it up with their $2800 table share decided to see any flop for any price, which I took solid advantage of.

OK fine, one hand I'm posting. I'd say my biggest weakness is when my head and instinct collide and I listen to the wrong one. In the past I used to go a bit too often on instinct, usually calling too much because I felt any unorthodox line was a bluff.

It's a straddle pot, there's some limps, and I limp with A4s. Flop comes 246r, and I bet something like $25. I get looked up by the guy playing any two cards and calling any draw for any price. He's got a stack of $2k from running in god mode. Turn comes an 8, he checks, I bet $40ish, he calls again. River is another 6. He fires $90. My gut was this was a stone bluff. He was trying to rep a 6, but to do that would mean he would have had to check a flopped top pair, something he hadn't done all night. He would have made it this far with a gutshot straight draw. My gut said it's a bluff and it's time to hero call. My brain said you don't call an over pot sized bet OTR with A4 on a 86642 board. I convinced myself he had something like 65/67/straight. I listed to my brain and folded. He showed T3o for the bluff.

So far so good. I put in a couple more sessions since this post and both were good sized wins. My big hands are holding up at an eerie rate. In 17 hours I've encountered almost no tricky or fancy spots. A big hand from the other night that I feel I played pretty well and got lucky on:

7-handed and about $300 or so deep, and a $4 UTG straddle, I make it $16 UTG+1 with AQo. Decent player on my left looks like he was about to raise, but when he saw mine, pulled it back and flatted. Folds around and we go to the flop. AT5r. I bet it $25 and he calls. I'm obviously worried about AK but I think I still have the best hand a lot. Turn is a blank, I check, he leads $55. Sort of a big bet into a $80 pot, but I'm not ready to give up on TP2K just yet and flat. River is another blank, and I check with a plan to evaluate. He checks back and MHIG. He doesn't show but later told me it was JJ. I think JJ needs to find a fold on that flop given that an EP raiser is barreling, and definitely should be checking back the turn, but the weaker players at the table don't always play their hands correctly, so I think I made the right adjustment.

The table also had one of the biggest "poker douches" I've ever seen. I need to run, but I'll probably post about it later.

Another good session last night and the heater continues. I booked my biggest win of this run yet, at $435 over 2.75 hours. Still no crazy wild hands, just more crushing flops and getting paid. First hand of the night and I'm in a buy the button spot, and decide to take it. I get dealt 77 in the BB, it's a 7ish way family pot and I check. Flop is 79T with a heart flush draw. I bet 10 and get about 5 calls. Turn is a 9, I bet 30, and get one call. River is a beautiful 6h, I bet 100, and he hems and haws and pays off my boat.

Back to the poker douche from the night before. The best way I can describe him as a table coach strat talker on tilt. He got in one hand with a guy, started berating him on the river after the guy made a huge bet, made a comment like "I can see your heart beating out of your shirt" or some bullcrap. I don't even remember how the hand ended, just that he lost, and stormed off for about 20 minutes, and came back with his face all wet like he was running it under the sink. He's two seats to my right and is doing a lot of LP raising, so I'm looking to 3-bet him pretty strong at some point. He eventually raises a few limpers to 17 from the CO, and repop to 45 with 35cc from the SB. He gives me a speech, comments on how I'm a tight player, and face up folds AKcc. I of course show because F this guy. His logic was even better. "I'm a feel player, and I just didn't feel that I was going to win that hand."

Later on he's in another big pot with the guy before, and asks him how much he's got in his stack. Another player at the table made a comment of "you don't have to count it for him, just show it" and he lost his **** over someone else "talking who's not in a hand." He took another 20 minute break after that pot.

I've definitely seen similar behavior before, I'm sure we all have. Hopefully this guy can get his tilt under control.

I'll try to keep my results up to date.
Sessions: 9
Record: 9-0
Hours: 22
Winnings: $1384

Another record setting session! This time for biggest pot I've ever played, most money lost in a single hand, and the earliest in a session I've been felted.

One leak in my game I need to work on is bet sizing in huge pots. It's just too small. I think I can stand by playing this hand aggressively (but am curious as to what others think).

Hero just bought in for $400, as did Villain, and it's both of our first hands at the table. Usually a full buy-in is a sign of a decent player. V is in MP, and I'm on the button. V opens to $7. CO calls, and I call with QJ. The SB 3-bets to $22, V calls, CO calls, and I call.

Flop ($80). T72

SB checks, V bets $50. My initial read is this is probably some mid pair, maybe some sort of top pair. The $50 bet definitely smells like a good but vulnerable hand. I feel I can win this spot with a flop raise and a turn bet a lot, and if not, I have outs.

The CO folds. I made it $125, SB, whose hand is almost face up as whiffed big cards folds, and V calls.

Turn ($330) T725 V checks, and I bet $150. With only $253 left, I should just jam here. He jams over top of me, and it's a trivial call. He shows 56 for a smaller flush draw that paired the turn, and I'm surprised my pair outs are good. But the river bricks and I head back to the cage as quickly as I sat down.

I think I can get behind playing this hand strong, although I can see a case for taking the free card on that turn. It's not a scary card for any of his value holdings, and it doesn't help my hand. Maybe I should be checking back unless the turn is a 9, K, Q, J, or spade. It's just that V's at this level will so often peel the flop and fold to a big turn bet, so I thought I could make that move a bit wider and pick up the pot on the turn.

I ended up re-buying, getting back about $130 of it, and in my short 2 hour session I get to watch V from that hand piss away his $800 stack over a mix of coolers and him being a station, and he busts out and walks away angry shortly before I got up.

I had another up and down session yesterday, ending down a bit after this hand in my last orbit:

The table is overall not great. There's a couple shortstackers and it's playing a bit on the tight side, but a loose wild gambler recently sat down. He's the SB in this hand. Button straddles for $6, gambler in the SB calls, and I raise to $24 from MP with KQ. HJ, CO, BTN and SB all call, so we have a 5-way pot going to the flop. I have about $500 and cover everyone, but the CO and BTN are about 200bb deep as well. At this point I'm thinking there's not a whole lot of flops I'm going to want to continue on with KQ here. Of course I get one of those flops

Flop: Q33 ($116).

SB checks, and I decide to bet $60. HJ can't even cover the $60, and goes all-in with his last $35. CO and BTN fold and now the SB jams. He's sitting on $152 so it's $92 back to me. Pot is now $363 and it's $92 back to me. If there's not a flush draw on the board maybe I can find a fold here, but I can't pass up that price and call. SB of course has 36:diamond, I don't catch, and he scoops claiming he never folds a "bad beat" hand, and I have to rack up despite wanting to continue playing with this suddenly deep stacked fish.

Another minor annoyance in the session was getting into a dream spot where I flopped bottom set with 44 vs. top 2 pair with A8 on A84 flop. I got all $47 of his money in on the flop and held. I'm not sure what was up last night. For some reason a lot of the low buy-in tourney players shifted to 1/2 and kept buying in for $50 and nitting it up. It's probably the worst table I've played at in 12 sessions this run. On average the room is still pretty good. There's a lot of regs that play far too loose, chase draws in unprofitable spots, and at least half the table is usually 200bb+ deep, so I'm not worried about my ability to be a winner in these games.

Finally booked another win. The session was a bit of a downer when I played a couple draws that were razor thin and missed, then this awesome hand comes up. It starts with me open limping 44 UTG. Open limping in EP is a controversial topic at low stakes, but I'll give my thoughts on the matter. At deepish stacked low stakes games against average 1/2 players, I think it's fine. Small to mid pairs are my entire open limping range here. I will fold all suited connectors/Axs and open all others, but these hands I will limp. Sets make strong hands that we are usually willing to stack off 100-200bb with, so our positional disadvantage isn't as severe. Unlike suited connectors or other speculative Axs hands where we usually flop a draw or weak made hand that will be very difficult to play OOP, sets can be played OOP pretty well. In position is always better, but I rarely have trouble extracting money. Generally speaking, if it's a wet board I'll bet hard and pummel draws, and on a dry board I'll look to trap. At a tough table (which is like 1/50 sessions at LLSNL) I will still fold these from EP.

I limp 44, maybe one other limper comes along, and a sticky TAG in late position raises to $12. I call, one limper does, and we're 3-ways on to the flop. Flop comes J94r (very dry board against her range), it checks to the TAG who bets 20, I flat, and we're heads up. Turn is the case 4, and I check again. She bets $40. At this point she has a shade under $200 left, I cover, and I want the rest of it. The good news is I don't think this woman understand the concept of pot control and just barrels when she thinks she has the best hand. I pop to $50 more and she calls. I didn't even look at the river while thinking for about 15 seconds and jamming. She eventually called with what I can only assume is an overpair, and my quads ends up high hand on the board for a $250 high hand bonus.

I never did see her hand, but let's assume AA. I think that turn bet is pretty bad if you have a read someone is a decent player. I've never played with her before and was only 2 hours into the session, but she should only bet that turn there against someone she thinks is a station. Assuming I have Jx which is the hand you're trying to extract value from, the 4 is a great card, as it takes away 3 of my outs, and her equity against Jx goes way up, reducing the cost of a free card. However if you bet the turn big, most decent players are going to fold top pair to a $40 turn bet. There's simply not enough draws in my range to justify the barrel, and there aren't many worse hands that are going to call. This is pot control 101, and in this case, it cost her stack. Even without the quads the hand plays out the same way. Failure to recognize spots when betting is high risk low reward is a common mistake of the "TAG Fish" player. There are a lot of regs that have learned not to call raises with J4s, but there is still far too much bad post flop play and failure to adjust to players out there. These games are still highly profitable.


Sessions: 13
Record: 10-3
Hours: 30.75
Winnings: $1228

Got lucky with probably a nice suckout last night which turned what would have been a huge loss into a nice win. I raise QQ on the button to $16, get 3 callers, one of whom is a LAG who makes a comment about wanting to bust me. flop comes 589, checks to me, and I bet $40. He pops to $100. I am 99% sure he does not have a set because he would have opened a PP. There are some combo draws out there, as well as all 2-pair combos are in his range. I elect to call and see a turn, likely calling down safe runouts. Turn is the T, giving me a gutshot to go with my overpair. He jams. I've got about $230 behind at this point, and there's $260 in the pot. I have 12 outs against 2-pair. I also might have the best hand. It may have been a fishy call, but with my 12 outs and the chance he's getting out of line with a draw flipped this into a thin call for me. J on the river and I scoop a nice one. He didn't show, but claimed 89. I might spend some time with stove on this one, because if his hand is weighted towards 2-pairs and strong draws this is a close one, but I think I am have good odds on a call.

Binked another winning session. It wasn't a great table, with a few shortstacking nits. There were a few deeper players but they were either decent or at best not terrible and unpredictable. There was really only one hand of note that I think I played well. It was against one of the shortstackers who binked a few pots, but suddenly found himself at close to $150, and here's where his night went wrong.

UTG opens to $5 which basically means "I have a hand I want to play so why not." I 3! to $25 from LP with KK. The V in the SB cold calls, UTG folds, and we're heads up to the flop: T55:spade. V bets $30 right into me. This feels like a weird probing bet. I feel like raising any amount would tip my hand strength and let him play perfectly, and elect to call. Turn comes J He bets $45. Not a great card, but not horrible either. His AQ/AK range picks up some equity. JJ is in his range and got there. But now I decide that he's put enough of his stack in that he can't get away from the hand and jam over top. He looks disgusted, and makes the crying call. River whiffs, he doesn't show (someone said they saw an A in his hand when he folded) and I take down a nice one.

I started this mini-journey with $300 and am sitting on $2k now. Not bad. If I can avoid a downswing I should have a decent roll for my Vegas work/vacation combo trip in June. My goal for the trip is to play one session of 2/5.

Some nights it's better to be lucky than good, and last night was that night. It was another big winning session, mostly due to some pretty sweet runouts for my hands.

The first big one was when I had AA in MP. I raise it up and end up heads up with a decent player in the blinds. Flop comes QT9 with a flush draw. He checks, I bet, he calls. Turn is a K. check/bet/call River is a J, no flush. He checks, and I downbet the river hoping to get a dumb crying call, which he makes, and flashes 99. My turn bet was questionable but the board was too wet to let him draw for free. In hindsight I'm in such bad shape there I should probably just check it back and fold to most river bets unimproved, but I kept up the aggression and it sort of paid off in the end.

Second hand I have KJ UTG 7 handed, and raise it to 10, getting 4 calls. Flop comes KTT with a flush draw. I elect to check it and see what develops. A tighter conservative player bets 10, one other call, and I call. Turn is a brick, now he bets 22. It's tough to fold here, even though I think Tx is now a large part of his range, and I don't like my kicker as much. I level myself into thinking he could be trying to price in a flush draw and call. Rive is a K, and I put him all in for his last $85. He hems and haws and pays me off.

Sessions: 16
Record: 13-3
Hours: 38
Winnings: $2051

Nice blog. Missed it the first time. Welcome back.

Thanks for reading. It's good to be back. Like most hobbies I've had (golf, video games, poker... that's about it) I enjoy them most when I can dedicate a decent amount of my free time to them rather than just be very sporadic and casual. I like going back and reading my old thought processes to see how I've evolved.

I played a late friday session last night. It's not my usual time, but it was fun to see faces other than the typical weekday regs. The play was a tad fishier than normal, but I couldn't hit jack squat and dropped about $200, which wasn't terrible. I think I played about my B- game. I was a bit tired and kept finding myself in some marginal spots I couldn't maneuver through well. I whiffed a lot of boards and just couldn't get much going. I know I was a bit too tired to be at my best, but it's tough to turn down an opportunity to play when one comes up. Maybe that's a leak I'll work on some day.

I got thumped again last night. Most of it on one hand. I felt pretty in the zone, but it was a weird session where I had several monster hands that got no action, and then made a couple good but 2nd best hands. One was a 7 way limped pot where the flop checked around and I found myself in the CO with J9o on a Q8xTr board. I bet 15 and got zero callers. Really? No one has a piece of that board they want to continue with? bleh.

One of my favorite things about playing on weekdays is the opportunity to play a lot of 5 to 7 handed poker, which is my comfort zone where I can LAG it up a bit. I played about an hour this way last night and absolutely loved it. It took me back to my old 6-max online days. Another favorite monster with no action came when it was 5 handed, UTG limped, I made it 12 with A9o, BB called, UTG back min-raised to 25, I called and BB called. Flop came 992r, checks to me, I bet 25, 2 folds, with UTG showing AJo. I really considered checking back that flop but just couldn't do it.

Now the hand that kicked my ass. I feel like maybe I'm watching too many Doug Polk videos on youtube or something, because I think I focused on playing this hand the unexploitable way rather than the optimal way.

Villain in this hand is a younger solid player. I've played with him a few times over the years and he knows what he's doing. He's probably a bit more aggressive than optimal, but he doesn't just barrel blindly. I have about 400 and he covers by a lot.

I raise with KQ to $12 over 1-limper in MP. I get 4 calls including V out of the blinds.

Flop($50)KT9

Checks to me and I bet $30. Only V calls.

Turn($110)KT9T

V donks out $75. This is an incredibly polarizing bet. His value hands are a T or better, up to QJ. Boats probably trap again, or would have c/r the flop. I don't think he calls the flop, or even preflop, with many AT/KT combos. I also don't think he plays KTs this way. I feel this is JTs/QTs/QJ or a club or straight draw he's now bluffing with. I feel that having a Q in my hand, and not the Q blocks enough of his value hands while keeping a lot of bluffs in his range. I elect to call and see what gifts the river brings.

River($260) KT9T6

River bricks out and V fires out $200. I puke a bit. If I'm ever calling down top pair, this is the hand I'm doing it with and the villain I'm doing it against. It's a leveling war. He knows I'm sitting on a hand like AK, and almost never have a T. He knows I'm capable of folding it. I have just the right card removal in my opinion. I can fold AK here, but KQ w/o a club just seems so right. KJ is maybe a bit better here now that I think about it because JTs is likely a big part of his value range and i would rather block the J than the Q. Either way, I make the fishy call and get shown JTs. Expensive lesson I guess. The stars aligned to stack me on this one.

One really sick thought that crossed my mind was if I had another $100 or $200 behind if I could jam the river and get him to fold trips or a straight. I don't think he ever has a boat here, and couldn't like his hand too much if he had to call a big bet.

I had a clear cut opportunity to get away from this hand on the turn, but leveled myself into thinking this guy had enough bluffs in his range to call down. Maybe I'm being too results oriented, but I know making a habit of stacking off in these spots is not the way to beat 1/2.

I'm still up $1500 this run, so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad.