loldonkaments indeed. I went back to my comfort zone tonight. Just because it's Vegas, I popped an edible, pounded the free Embassy whiskey hard, then made my way to MGM for some 1/2 action. I was down $100 early on, but soon I had a stack of almost $800. In my inebriated state I decide an $800 stack is reason to move to 2/5. I'm getting crushed by the deck and build it up to $1700, for my biggest cash out ever and biggest single session win ever at $1300. I'm now well rolled for the rest of my time in Vegas. There's hardly any interesting hands from the session either, just standard getting crushed by the deck stuff.

Here's my two favorite hands from last night, both during the first part when I was playing 1/2.

1 Limp, I raise to $12 with AJ A solid player in the BB calls. He's an older guy but seems to be playing pretty well. The limper calls.

Flop ($30)T87

Checks around.

Turn ($30)T877

Checks around

River

Turn ($30)T877J

V bets $30. Normally this is a fold as your average 1/2 donk would easily play any 9x this way. But this bet from this player is too polarizing. I don't see any 9's in his range that don't bet the turn here. If he had any other piece of this board I would expect him to check it again. I call, and he had 54 for the stone bluff. I wish I had AK here, as I still would have called, and it would have looked much cooler.

Second hand was just more fun. I forget exactly the preflop and flop action. I think I maybe I raised pre and bet flop. Either way, on the turn the pot is $100. I have A8. The pot is $100. The board is 6792. We're heads up and I'm OOP. I overbet jam $150 and this tilted older guy calls with TT. I hit the 5 on the river and get told "nice ****ing hand."

H1 : Nice call. I give them credit 99/100 though.

H2 : Poor guy. I feel bad.

Instead of Caesars, I ended up going to Planet Hollywood last night. The shuttle from the Embassy Suites drops you off there, and it was just easier to go there with a coworker who wanted to play with me. I decided to ride my high from the previous night and put my name in for 2/5, which I ended up playing for over 6 hours, probably 3 too long, and leaving when the game broke. \

I wasn’t entirely card dead during the session, but I wasn’t really flopping many hands. I ended up down about $400. I had a few bluffs get through, and a couple others that didn’t go as well. I was probably losing tonight no matter what happened.
I’ll get to some neat hands in later posts. First I just wanted to share some reflections on my first 2/5 sessions. The games played very similar to the 25 and 50NL games I used to play online, except they were a bit deeper, usually being 200-300BB deep instead of the 100BB buyins. They were tighter, more aggressive, and the mistakes the weak players made were much smaller and less frequent than the glaring stupidity you see at 1/2. I’m pretty sure I am a winning player at both tables I played at, but I was often competing with several other good players for my share of the weaker players money. I’m not really well rolled for 2/5 and it rarely runs during my home grinding hours, so it’s not like I’ll get these opportunities often. It was well worth it, and I am thankful that I didn’t get a bankroll decimating run of bad cards, as I knew the fire I was playing with.

I also found the people at the 2/5 table to be much more enjoyable. Just about everyone at the table was chill, no one got steamed or titled over bad beats, and no one berated anyone else’s play. The table atmosphere was more friendly, but also more competitive, than back home. While the games are no way near as profitable in terms of BB/hr as 1/2, If I ended up spending most of live poker career eeking out a modest winrate at tables like this, I would be happy. I have more fun playing in competitive games than I do just bum hunting 1/2 fish.

I think I am for sure going to play the $365 at the WSOP tonight. It may be my last poker opportunity of this trip. I’m tired, and will be even more zombie like tomorrow if I run deep and miss more sleep, but I think I can make it. It’s as close as I’ll get to playing a bracelet event until my kids are older, so I at least want to say I was part of the WSOP.

Congrats on getting on to the 2/5. It's very fun to get used to that, and I agree that it's much more mentally stimulating.

Eh, I'll occasionally root for my opponents and then feel bad if I stack them if they've been cool and have just been running bad, but this was not that guy. He was a crotchety old fart and miserable to have at the table.

It definitely was. I still enjoy 1/2, and even some of the regs where I play with are fun to have at the table, the 2/5 game just had a whole different feel to it.

My favorite hand of the night at 2/5 was when I defended my BB with JT of spades, and then check/called flop of AQ8 with two hearts, then check/called the turn 6. I had told myself that if either the flush or my straight gets there I was leading the river big. I felt that my straight would be more disguised and might earn a call from the stronger parts of his range, where the more obvious flush likely gets some decent folds. The 6 comes off on the river and I bet about 4/5 pot and got a sigh fold from AQ.

That's one aspect I miss at 1/2. I feel like you just can't get as sticky postflop because you have to make hands to win, where as in online or bigger live games you can count on bluff equity coming from certain turn & river cards that don't help your hand. I don't think I can get many 1/2 villains off any A on that river, let alone getting folds from top 2.

As for the $365 WSOP deepstack, I lasted until the end of the rebuy period and then was quickly knocked out when I had to shove in MP with 44 when I had like 8BB left and got called in 3 spots. I did not get there. At no point in the tourney did I get anything that even looked like a premium hand. I lost about a 3rd of my starting stack when I had flopped a flush in the BB but by the river the board was double paired and I was facing a huge bet.

It was fun to experience it and just say that I played there. For being such a massive room with so much going on it was a pretty easy to get in, register, find my seat, and keep up with what was going on. My only main complaint was the ridiculously few chips of each denomination they gave us. The dealers were spending half their time trying to figure out how to make change.

The level of play in that tourney was hilariously bad. I think if I could play 1/2 with these guys all the time I could quit my day job. I know you need to loosen up in tournies when the antes come in to play, but my god the crap these guys were playing was pretty laughable. People with 5BB were limp/folding. The monster stack was calling everyone's shoves with any two and then getting there every time. There's definitely some decent money to be made in live tournies.

The 365s are great value, but pretty high variance.

For sure. I'm definitely a bit rusty when it comes to medium and short stack strategies, but bad poker, at any level, is still pretty easy to spot, and I spotted a lot of it. It was better structured than the typical turbos played at my home casino, but despite the name, it's only deep for about the first hour. I don't think I ever had more than my starting stack the whole time, but still survived into level 10.

I think at this point I'm lifetime 0 for 7 in live tournaments. Back in my pre-married online poker days I played a lot of online tournies and did pretty well. One of these days I'll run good in a live one. I think I'm going to start trying to play some of the bigger tournaments back home when I can. Given my schedule and availability playing in the daily tournies isn't an option for me, and cash is still really profitable, but I think there's good money in these tournaments and they are fun as a change of pace.

I'm finally back at home after 13 days on the road of work and play. I got in one final session of poker, about an hour and a half at the Flamingo while my wife was getting ready to head out for the evening. I played some 2/4 limit waiting for a 1/2 seat to open up. I've heard 2/4 isn't beatable with the rake, and that's probably right, but my god I have rarely seen a softer limit game. 6 ways to every flop, 3 to every river. It was still miserable though. I finally got my 1/2 seat and only got involved in a couple spots. I ended up down $100 overall, mostly when my AA got cracked by a flush. I made a good fold though.

My session breakdown in Colorado/Vegas, as best as my recollection was:

Night 1: $140 tourney at Golden Gates in CO. Fired 2 buy-ins, and didn't cash. -$280.

Night 2: 1/2 & 2/5 mix at MGM. Cashed out up $1324.

Night 3: 2/5 at Planet Hollywood. -$405.

Night 4: $365 tourney at WSOP, didn't cash. -$365.

Night 5: -$100 at 2/4 limit and 1/2 at Flamingo.

A grand total of +$174 playing poker this trip. Not bad. Especially since my cash sessions were mostly played while drunk, something I never really do back home. I'll probably take it easy for a week at home then try to get back on the grind.

As for the non-poker LV trip report:

First night was a drunken blur, as my wife and a co-worker and I wandered the strip and were beyond ****ed up. We ended up hanging out at a few bars, talking to some people, then passing out around 1am.

The next day she barely felt like drinking. We hung by the pool for a couple hours, then wandered around. She remembered there were some good souvenir shops at the Excalibur, so we bought a 2-day monorail pass and made our way there. We got to MGM grand and while making our way outside she felt a Wheel of Fortune slot calling to her. She put in $20, and couldn't miss. Next thing we knew she was cashing out $600, for a fantastic start to the trip. With a few extra dollars in our pocket we made it to Excalibur, got gifts for the kids, and decided to look into shows for the night. I talked her into Absinthe. Before the show we hit up the Caesars Palace highly rated buffet. I was unimpressed. For $135 for the two of us, it was hardly worth it. I found it barely better than some of the buffets almost half that price.

Then it was on to Absinthe. While I haven't see a whole lot of shows in Vegas, this one was by far the best. I'd give it a 4.5 out of 5. There were only a couple things keeping it from being perfect. First, the seats were far too crammed in, so I hope you don't sit next to someone gross. Luckily my seat neighbor on the other side was a normal person. Unfortunately I ended up with a really weird seat that left me with a stinging lower back the whole show, and almost ruined the experience. The show itself was phenomenal, with some pretty amazing circus acts and comedy in a close setting. My only complaint about the actual show was some of the jokes were nothing more than the hosts just saying dirty words for shock value, but that's getting a bit nitty. They were pretty good, and the show was far from scripted, as they were working the crowd pretty well. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The final day was pretty similar. Most of the morning was drinking by the pool, then a quick nap, and then off to the strip to wander some more. She wanted to see a comedy show. We had been to Brad Garret's at MGM a couple times. Both times Brad was funny but his other acts were pretty bleh. Brad also recycled a lot of his act, so I wasn't too down for seeing it a 3rd time. I was psyched when I found out Bill Maher was in town and his show was actually a bit cheaper, so I talked her into it. We ate at the Planet Hollywood Buffet, which wasn't spectacular, but was a much better value than Caesars. After that I played some Poker at the Flamingo while she got ready. We got to the Mirage a few hours early, and decided to do some gambling. She hit $60 on the slots, and I made $100 between craps and blackjack. Bill Maher was his usual hilarious self, and his opening act was Geechy Guy who I had heard on Bob & Tom before but was way funnier in person. It was one of my favorite comedy shows.

Now I'm back home for some rest and detox. It might be a bit before my next post.

I finally got back to the tables at home. It was a typical Monday night, with 4 1/2 tables going, and a couple interest lists for PLO and 2/5 that were going nowhere. I booked a solid $147 win for 3 hours play, despite not making any of the typical big money hands. In fact, the best hand I had all night was a loss.

It was early in the session, and I surprisingly only recognized two players at the table. Usually I have at least played with 4 or 5 people. I pick up J8s OTB and limp along with the table. We go to the flop 5 handed.

Flop($10): K77r. checks around.
Turn($10): K77Tr checks around.
River($10): K77T9. An EP limper leads out $10. Another limper in MP calls. I raise to $50. The bettor folds, but the limper calls with QJ saying he was worried I had KK?!? I don't think my raise was too big of an overplay on this board given the lack of interest shown in the pot, and I am pretty comfortable folding to a 3-bet.

Most of my wins on the night were a couple sopping wet boards where I had TPTK and was forced to make some huge bets that got called but my hand miraculously held up. Otherwise I would call it a fairly card dead session.

Here's my latest results. I'm not going to count my Vegas sessions in there, because I honestly have no idea how long I played, and a lot of it was 2/5, which I probably won't play again for a while. Since February:

Hours: 82
Profit: $1761
Hourly Rate: $21.47

I know it's a laughably small sample size but I'm pretty happy with the hourly. My lifetime 1/2 rate is about $16.50/hr. Even though I've been playing for a long time, I feel like I am still learning some new concepts, and maybe those are helping bump up my hourly a bit. The first thing is I am definitely buying in for the full $400 every time I play. There's been a handful of pots, most of them archived in this thread, where that full buyin made a pretty significant difference. I've also made some subtle bet sizing differences based on board texture that I think are helping get a bit more value, rather than just the ABC 1/2 pot to 2/3 pot bets. I've incorporated some more small bets on dry boards, and really sized up my bets on wet ones. While it occasionally leads to a big loss when someone does hit that big draw, the value I've gained more than makes up for it.

I got my Sunday night grind on again. It was pretty dead, with only 3 tables running, but I got seated right away.

Here's one hand from the session, but I'll start out by describing the villain in this hand. He's a reg I've played several sessions with. He owns his own business, and always keeps his stack topped off to the max, and will sometimes play higher, but seems to prefer 1/2. He plays way too loose, but can get pretty tricky postflop. He's not afraid to run a big bluff, and is capable of folding a big hand if he thinks he's behind. I try to play a bit more balanced against him, and will hero call and bluff against him with some frequency. We've already 3-bet each other this session, and he bluffed me off KQ on an AQJ5 board with a big turn bet where he showed 32o.

OTTH ($425 effective):

He limps UTG, a few weak players limp, and I call in the CO with T8 and we see a 7 way pot.

Flop ($12): 69J He leads $10, folds to me, I flat, and we go heads up to the turn.

Turn($30): 69J:9 I like this card. I can credibly rep a 9, and I block some of the T9/98 hands he might play. I can also rep a flush if the club comes. At this point I'm thinking that I'm going to turn my hand into a bluff at some point if I brick out. He bets $22, and I call.

River($72) 69J:98 Interesting card. That has to look scary to his Jx range, which probably makes up most of his range. He fires $43. He could absolutely be triple barreling a Jack here. He could also be on a stone bluff. He is also capable of folding a 9 if he somehow does have one. I could certainly hero call and beat his bluffs, but I am just so sure his range is very Jack heavy here. I make it $130. He asks me how much I have back and if I want to play for it all (he's a big s*** talker who loves to speech play). I tell him it wouldn't be on the table if I wasn't ready to play for it all. He shoves. ****. I snap fold and he about falls backwards out of his chair. He shows me 96o for the boat.

I'm not sure how much of a mistake my play in this hand was. Maybe he was a bit more polarized than I thought, but I've seen him triple barrel TPTK before. There are so few V's I'm willing to throw in a huge river raise with air against, so when I am in a spot where I can do it, I like to jump on it. At least I play with this guy often enough that this whiffed bluff will at least help me get paid later. If I were to write a poker book at this point, I think the title could be "How to bluff into the nuts."

I ended up down $130 for the session, so go figure that bluff was the difference. The fact that I was even break even outside this hand was nothing short of a miracle given how bad I was bricking flops.

Whelp, I'm back. I bought a new house, sold my old one, so the last few months have been somewhat hectic. July was all about getting my current house ready to sell, and August was all about moving and getting settled in the new one. Things are settling down, so it's time to hit the felt. I'm not really playing out of a roll right now, I just grab $400 and go.

I was a little worried about what to expect because a competing casino just opened a new poker room that I knew was going to draw a lot of players, but there's still 4 1/2 tables running with the usual cast of characters. Sometimes when I only bring one buy-in, I'll half buy just so I don't get felted, but I've been more comfortable playing deep stacked, so nah. I throw my $400 on the table. There's a handful of deepstacks, including one guy sitting on close to $2k who is trying to steamroll but has been generally bleeding chips since I've sat down.

A couple limps to me, and I feel like it's a good overlimp spot with 33. V1 is the wild man on $2k, who has been raising and barreling a very high frequency. After another limp he throws $20 on top of his small blind. A typical fish limper calls, I know another fish is going to call behind, and I've got the LAG who will be first to act, so I'm not going anywhere. We go 4 ways to the flop.

Flop ($80) K43

Gin. LAG leads $50, and V2 fish calls quickly. I feel like 3 handed flatting is out of the question. The only question is how much to raise. I feel like the LAG is going to fold a lot here, so I can make it $180 to bleed V2. I think a jam just gets too many folds. Both LAG and V2 call.

$620 in the pot as we head to the turn, which comes the Q because of course it does. LAG lead $150 and V2 jams for $220. There's pretty much no chance my hand is good, but I can't fold now. LAG actually folds 25 face up, but V2 tables the nut flush, the board doesn't pair, and I'm out. It's the first time in a really long time that I've had to leave early because I'm tapped out.

The good news is I'm planning on selling a car here soon for about $14k, so that should get me back in the action. There's still plenty of work to be done around the new house, so that should keep me busy until my next post. I plan on getting back to it though!

Congrats on the new house! I'm in the same boat. Between new house and back to Grad School, I haven't played in quite a while.

Bump for old times sake! I've been playing a bit less, and going to the gym more often. We shelled out a ton of cash to join a club with a daycare that will watch our kids. It's been nice. I've still been playing about once a week. My bankroll has taken a hit, and my risk of ruin is in bad shape right now, but I'm still playing. I'm hoping to pick up some OT in November/December to replenish the bank account and roll.

I've gone several sessions in a row now without seeing any pair above JJ. It's made it tough to win. I remember a common theme of online players, and one that was definitely true for me. You winrate with AA = your winrate. Literally every other hand other than AA is just keeping pace with the blinds. I'm not sure if 1/2 works that way, and I was really surprised to see it, but it's something that has stuck with me over the years. When you don't see AA for a while, it's tough to win.

I lost a bigger pot than I probably should have last night when I had KQs vs. JJ on KJx flop, but the A on the river made sure I didn't pay him off.

One leak I think I have is that I tend to play well against fish, but I tend to give perceived solid players too much credit for having big bluffs, and sometimes call them down too light. The reality is they are likely just decent TAG regs and when they bet big they have it. I'm going to try to be more conscious of this, and not deviate too much against other tough regs.

I can massively relate to the last paragraph. People just massively underbluff in live poker and those capable of recognising it's a good spot to bluff aren't always capable of pulling the trigger.

I'm definitely one of those players that's capable of firing the big bluff, but at the end of the day I just don't do it unless I know they have a fold button. It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Underbluffing is actually the correct adjustment against the larger population at 1/2, so calling down with a balanced range is sub-optimal, even against a good reg.

Wow, I haven't posted in a while. I guess I just don't have all that much to say about my poker goals. Things have settled down a bit lately and I'm back to playing regularly. I've had some pretty fun sessions lately, with some pretty wild swings.

Here's one recent hand:

A wild LAGGY player button straddles to $15. I open the HJ with QJo to $45. He flats. Flop comes Q97 two diamonds. I check, he bets $60, I shove, and he snap calls. ****. He's been lagging it up and betting too often, and of course he shows up with AQ here. I spike a J on the turn and my luck has changed!

At this point my goal for the year is to make a couple grand by June to fund sending my wife out to Vegas to join me for my work trip. I'm off to a decent start on the year. I'll try to keep my progress up to date. Tonight was a nice $350 win at $1/$2.

One interesting aspect of the mental game I've never thought about, is the desire to change things up when you are losing. I've learned it's one thing to avoid tilting after suffering a bad beat. It's a whole other thing to stay the course despite getting your soul crushed session after session. I've been on the losing side of several sessions in a row now, and I feel like after a couple I find myself wanting to change something up to stop the losing. I know it will happen again, and when it does, I will try to stay on my game and avoid the temptation to mix it up in a bad way.

Ditto on 2/5 being a much more professional vibe and therefore more enjoyable. The dozen or so times I've played I only witnessed someone tilt out loud once, and he wasn't a regular.

Just went through big downswing, couldn't win a session so help me god. But kept playing tight, now back on winning streak.

Last time I was on a losing streak I definitely started straying from sound strategy. It's so important to stick to your fundamentals when times get tough, continue to play tight, and not to loosen up trying to force the action. It'll cost you otherwise! GL.

Just noticed this thread on the first page; I'm trying to subscribe to more LLSNL rec reg threads.

On this hand, imo:

- dude bet into 6 opponents OOP on the flop; unless he likes setting money on fire, I'm not looking to get him off anything at any point unless a scare card comes that he finds scary and checks
- I would fold the turn (chasing draws on a paired board is very meh)
- on the river, everything got there and he doesn't care; so he mostly either had it all along, made it on the river, or at the very least made a showdownable hand that doesn't need to bet (very few airballs here methinks); goes back to your next post regarding not paying off tough regs cuz a lot of the time they simply just have it

Ggogogo!G

Oh man that hand was pure spew. I was getting way too FPS vs. a villain I thought I could outplay. Something you will find far too often in this thread, and I'm trying to work on that.

Welcome to the thread. I'm hopefully going to be updating more now that I'm playing a bit more regularly again. I mostly just try to post some interesting hands.

I played a short session Saturday where I doubled up nicely when I got my money in bad vs. a LAG who nailed the flop but I sucked out. Then I lost about half of it back on Monday, in a session where I felt like I mostly played OK. I ran a straight into a flush. I may have gone too big on that river when the flush hit, but I was destined to lose a decent chunk on that hand.

The biggest losing hand of the night was this one. 7 handed with a Button straddle of 5, and I have AQ in the BB, and make it 20. MP player calls and button calls. Button is a legit maniac seeing almost every flop from his button straddle. He has about $125 behind.

Flop ($60) KJ7. I c-bet $30, MP folds, and BTN calls. Turn is the 4, and I jam for his last $75. He agonizes for a while before finally calling with KQo. I need an A, T, or diamond, but don't get one. He had been calling a lot of flops but giving up to big bets on the turn, so I felt like I could get him off a lot of his range on the turn.

Here's one hand I misplayed a bit, and has maybe added a slight wrinkle to the game I need to consider.

I raise ATo preflop to $12. A woman in the SB who is playing pretty loose calls. Flop comes something like KK6r. She checks, I c-bet $10, figuring I still have the best hand a lot. She calls. Turn comes a T. She checks. I bet $20. In hindsight, I don't like this bet. This feels like a WA/WB spot, and she has just about every K in her range. She calls. River is a blank, and she jams for her last $25. I paid off her K8.

The room I play in recently changed from a high hand every 4 hours promo to a full house pyramid. Every Monday they draw 3 cards, and the first person to hit a full house using that card full of something wins a bonus, with the prizes increasing until the last combo hits. That means there are 36 combos of full houses to hit. This week we have 3's full, 8's full, and K's full. What this seems to do is entice people to play loose when they have one of those cards in their hand (and the other card combo of the FH hasn't been hit yet). So I now have to be at least a little more worried when I see the board pair one of those cards. Also, I can't just assume that I will hear about trips on the flop & turn. The bonus incentivizes players to see the river to chase the full house. It appears that was going on here.

I try not to adjust my play much to chase bonuses, because I know I can play winning poker without doing this, but when I start passively playing stronger hands to chase a bonus, I don't know it's the right adjustment. But I do have to be a bit more cautious of how other people might be playing strong hands in order to chase these full houses.

I just played what was probably one of the most fun 1/2 sessions I've ever played. It helped that I won about $300, but this was just an all around good table. It was mostly full with the whole range of villains from borderline maniacs to solid regs. I feel like a lot of the games I play in tend to be pretty loose passive with some nits mixed in. Usually when hands go to the river and big money starts going into the pot, big hands are involved. This was not that night. Bets were rarely less than half pot, and streets weren't checking through all that often. If you were the type of player who likes getting to showdown for less than $100, you were going to have a bad time.

There were two hands I think I played pretty well.

The first was against a solid reg I've been playing with for years. He can switch gears from TAG to LAG, and he's possibly playing a bit on the loose side tonight. He's opening pretty wide, and isn't afraid to make big bluffs. He opens to $12 in MP. I call with 55 in the SB, as it's a virtual lock the BB, who is the main fish at the table, is going to come along as well. Flop comes A24r, and it checks around. While I try not to out level good regs, this was a spot where I felt I could exploit him. With the BB fish in the hand, there is a 0% chance he is ever checking an A through here. That means I either have the best hand or can barrel him off a mid-pair. Turn comes another 2. I lead out for $20. BB quickly gets out the way, and the reg thinks for a second then calls. While it's not impossible for him to have a weak A, it's most likely any pair up to KK. River comes another A. It's not a great card for my range, but I know to tell a consistent story I need to bet, and a bit on the larger side. I decide to go $50 on the river, figuring that will get him off just about everything that's not a boat, and he doesn't take too long to fold.

The main hand of the night was a straddle pot. I've grown to love the high variance/big pot nature of these hands. I start the hand with $250, and V covers. Btn straddles to $5, I raise to $20 in the BB with red AA. A fishier but aggressive V in MP calls, and we're heads up to the flop. Flop comes 975r. I bet $25 and he snap calls. Turn is a 4 and puts a club draw out there. I bet $65, and he jams. Against an unknown V I will usually make the standard Baluga theorem fold here. However this guy has been making some aggressive plays like this all night, and has been getting away with a bit too much for my liking. He's either on an insane heater, or he's getting out of line. After agonizing for a while, I make the call. He asks "How big is your pair?" When I tell him aces, I hear what I was hoping to, which was "oh ****". River comes a 6 and he whips his cards face down across the board towards the muck. Almost as soon as he does this, he about dives across the table trying to rip them from the dealer who is about to muck them. Oh crap, this guy is about to flip 88 or something, isn't he? After a somewhat tense moment where both the V and the dealer weren't quite sure what to do, he decides to relent. It turns out he just had QQ, but hadn't actually seen the AA yet, and didn't want to release his hand in case I mis-declared. I don't blame him, but I wasn't lying, and I get a nice double up.

There were a few other fun hands too. One where I hero-called a triple barrel with AJs on a QT9AT runout and chopped. I bombed the river with TT on a 5789J board and got called by 89 who completely missed the one card straight possibility. I also b/3b all-in with a flopped flush draw and got a fold, which isn't a move I use too often. I made a good fold with AQs. The guy min-raised me on a A89 flop. Checked back a 7 OTT, then bombed the river 9 when I checked. I thought for a minute and mucked, and he showed A9.

I like these aggressive games, and feel they play more to my strengths as a player. When your opponents are more aggressive it can open up the types of lines you can take, as well as increase profitability if you can out play them. It's more engaging than just deciding if I'm going for 2 or 3 streets of value with my top pair + hands.

2018 is in the books, lets take a look at how I did:

Hours: 102
Sessions: 44
Winnings: $2241
Winrate: $21.82/hr.

Overall a nicely profitable year given my hilariously low volume, but incredibly swingy. About half those winnings came in one session where the guy gifted me $600 jamming KQ into my 88 on the K83 flop. I will be happy if I put up similar numbers in 2019, with maybe a few more hours. I don't think 200 hours is doable, but maybe 150 if I can stay the course. I didn't count my Vegas/Colorado results in here, as those were mostly for fun, with some donkament action. Going from memory, I think I was up about $700 in the cash games, but down $600 in 3 donkament buyins, so it wouldn't affect much.

But 2019 got off to a craptacular start. 30 minutes into the first session, I pick up 22 OTB. An EP fish limps, an MP TAG raises to $10, I flat the button, blinds fold, but limper comes along. I'm $360 effective with the limper. Flops comes A52, limper donks $8, and I start salivating, thinking about how I'm getting his whole stack. TAG folds, and I make it $35, he snap calls. Turn is an offsuit 8, he checks, I bet $75 to set up a river shove. He about snap calls again. River comes a 4. He can't have a 3 here can he? This has to be a big A or 2-pair. If I'm set over set, so be it. He checks. I jam, he snap calls with A3o. I don't think this was an overplay, and given his fishy stationy nature I stand by this river jam with bottom set, even on this board, but am open to opinion. He proceeded to station his way up to about $1500 stack, when I bled off another $300.

$1K downswings are nothing new to me, but it was a pretty nasty gut punch of a session. I worked some overtime over the holiday break, so once that check comes, it will help replenish my budget for some more action. Let's go!

I don't even know what was going through my head in this hand. Typing it out it doesn't seem that bad.

I'm in a good action game with a couple whales. One of them has bled his stack down to $180. He's a maniac playing probably 60/40, and has been caught bluffing a couple times, but mostly no one is standing up to him. He's in the UTG straddle on this hand, for $5. I'm in the SB with J9

4 limps to me. Normally this is an easy complete. But I have to pay $4, and the straddle is going to raise nearly 100% of his range. Probably a fold pre. BB limps, and right on queue, maniac straddler bumps it 10 more to $15. Calls around to me, and I call along, as does the BB. We're 7 ways to the flop, $105 in the pot.

Flop: J67 checks to the maniac who bets $10. Calls around to me. $150 in the pot, no way can I fold here. BB calls, and we're 7 ways to the turn with $170 in the pot.

Turn: J674 checks to maniac again who fires $30 this time. Only one other bad fish calls this time. My read is that the 4 helped the maniac in some way, but it could have just been him picking up any of the obvious draws. BB folds, 3 ways to the river, $260 in the pot.

River: J674A I check. Maniac jams for $125. Fish shakes his head and folds. I make the hero call and get shown 44. I'm not sure if I can fold 2nd pair for a 1/2 pot river bet vs. a maniac. I'm actually not sure what the hell to even do in this hand, it was so bizarre. Folding at any point seems sort of nitty. Raising seems like a punt. All I can think is fold pre and get away, but J9s with good relative position on a maniac? I just don't know.

Ha, yeah, stupid spot all the way thru, not exactly sure where we're supposed to exit. I exit initially preflop cause we know this is going to get raised, but I can't see us folding to the lol flop/turn bets. I guess river can be a fold, but against a maniac and a scary looking card with lots of FE...

GsucksinstupidspotssoItrytoavoidthemG

After a brief hiatus I am back and playing. First session back I was down a bit. Second session I booked a solid win. After trading a pair of 100BB coolers, I went on a nice run winning a lot of medium sized pots. I got to play a lot of 6 handed which thanks to my time grinding 6-max online almost doesn't feel fair. This was the hand of the night:

Fishy player on my right limps, I bump to $12 OTB with QJ:heart. A nit in the blinds calls, as does the fish.

Flop ($30) 9TK. Bink!

Checks to me, I bet $25. I get 2 calls. Nice.

Turn($105) 9TK8 Not so nice.

Nit checks. Fish bets $35. Actually, he tried to bet $40, but the last chip fell awkwardly out of his hand, and the nit threw a fit that it shouldn't count. Floor is called, and rules the last 5 doesn't count and it's a bet of $35. I call. Nit folds (lol).

River ($175) 9TK85

Fish checks. Crunch time. I was actually planning on nit folding to a large bet here. Now it's value time. I decide to go with a modest $60 bet. He anguishes for quite a while before calling with 2 pair.

Hopefully I can get back to playing more weekly now, and grind up the bankroll in time for my Vegas trip, which is looking like June 23-27 this year, possibly longer if I extend it. One year I will see if I can get our work trip scheduled around the LLSNL meetup.