I'd look forward to that. Haven't seen a good post on this subject in a long time. My fave was FlatTireSuited's guide to live for online players and I think a lot of it still applies, but it is over eight years old now, so it's getting a bit dated.

As you probably know, limp/reraise is pretty much all I do preflop (as I have a pretty much 0% raising range in EP/MP). Anyhoo, last session out I play a 13 hour session. Literally every limp/reraise attempt failed (which is fairly extraordinary given the amount of pots that are typically raised preflop in my game), except for the very last hand on my 13th hour, where I limp KK UTG with chips in a rack, and I get to shove over a shorty open and a call, cutting a $185 loss down to a $69 one. Lol.

I was going to post "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't", until I realized that ending up in a multiway limped high SPR pot with a big overpair / TP type hand is still a perfectly fine result (imo).

Gsometimesitworks,sometimesitworks,imoG

I played another Friday night session this week. I think my wife is opening up to the idea. There are some shows on she likes to watch on Fridays (we still have cable & DVR. I haven't quite come around to the idea of dropping it quite yet). Overall I think the games are a bit better than the typical Mondays I had been playing. The Monday games are soft but there tend to be a lot of passive short stacks. While the competition isn't necessarily tougher Monday vs. Friday, there's a lot more money on the table on Fridays, which can lead to sessions like this one, which was my 2nd biggest bink at 1/2, walking away with a little over $900 in profit for 3 1/2 hours of play.

There were a couple deep stacked maniacs at the table, which always makes for a fun roller coaster ride. I was on the right side of just about every pot. My favorite hand of the night was making second pair with 89s. Flop checks thru. Maniac overbets turn (obvious buff). Folds to me and I call. River blanks, he overbets again, and I snap it off. Felt great.

One hand that was definitely not against a maniac was one of the more stressful spots I've found myself in. I'm sure I screwed it up at a few spots, and made a PAHWM about it.

My results over the last 4 sessions account for my biggest upswing yet. 13 hours and $1800 in profit. My tracked winrate jumped from $14.50/hr to $19/hr. Usually around the holidays the budget gets tight, but this time around I'm in much better shape from a cash standpoint. If I can play a few more Fridays, I can get back into the match the stack 1/3 game that plays a lot more like 2/5 given the deep stacks and straddles. It attracts the better players, but also some of the deep pocketed gamblers that like to splash around. I'm pretty confident I can be a winner in that game. I'll probably have to think about BRM and buyin strategy a bit more than I do currently, since the match the stack nature means I could put my whole roll on the table if I wanted to (I don't). More to come from those games hopefully.

That post does a pretty good job of describing the types of players, but I'm thinking more details on how to exploit them.

I'm not really sure how dated advice at 1/2 can really get. I've been playing live 1/2 on and off since 2004. By far the biggest change I've noticed is that the bigger games are drying up, pushing some of the better players down to the smallest game, usually 1/2. But the bad players are still as bad as they were 15 years ago.

The basic strategy of play a TAG style and make disciplined folds is still a recipe for success at 1/2. Basically level 1 type stuff. Level 2 gets more into exploiting specific opponents. I still see some of the better 1/2 players screw this up a lot. They over fold to maniacs and go for thin value vs. nits. I feel like I make more adjustments against outlier players than my fellow 1/2 TAGs. It leads me to occasionally taking some really outside the box lines that have raised some eyebrows. I'll see if I can get some ideas on paper, and maybe get some feedback in the forum. I'll have some free time over the holidays. Whether I spend it writing/thinking about poker or just vegging out into netflix is yet to be seen though!

I was down in the session most of last night. I was ready for the heater to end, and then I pick up AKs in the BB against a $17 UTG straddle. Button calls. I'm $400 deep with both the straddler and button caller. I know this straddler. He's going to raise his straddle a lot. I queue up for the limp-reraise. Not only does he oblige, but he throws $60 on top of his straddle. The button calls. Now I'm in a neat spot. There's $170 in the pot. It's $60 to me, and I've got almost $400 behind. A pot sized raise would be almost $300 at this point. Just rip it in? That's what I did. The V in the straddle SNAP called. Button folded, and I got there against 88.

Later that orbit I raise with 77, flop a set, and get it in vs. a $250 stack and hold vs. his flush draw. I'm now on a record heater. 5 straight winning sessions and a $2365 profit. I'm hoping my wife is good with me playing on some more Fridays now that I am comfortable sitting in some bigger games, either 2/5 or a match the stack 1/3.

Some financials, since the start of this thread:

Hours: 367.5
Profit: $7489
Hourly Rate: $20.38/hr.

Love the BB limp/reraise in this spot, very nice, imo.

Ggogogo!,imoG

I figured the limp re/raise might be GG approved. Usually my games aren't aggressive enough to get it to pay off, but against the right villains, I will probably use it a lot more.

The heater finally ended the other night. I feel like I played OK, just caught a couple really unlucky spots. Both of them against a guy that always annoys me at the table. He talks about how he used to play Matusow heads up for $50K online or some nonsense, yet he's a limp/calls crap all day.

Hero raises AA to $11 and gets 3 callers

Flop($40)K73 Hero bets 30, and only V calls.

Turn($100)K73T Hero check/calls an $80 bet.

River($260)K73T7 I check/call $100 and lose to a flush. I might have gotten away if not for the board pairing on the river. I was deep enough I could have turned my hand in to a bluff and it would have been pretty baller. Maybe it's a move I'll think of next time.

Another hand played out similar except I had AK, the flush came OTR, and I check/folded to his river overbet, and he showed turning Ax into a bluff.

I can't complain, that was a pretty epic run I was one for a while.

I decided to take a $1K shot at a bigger game. They usually don't run on my typical days, but being the holidays some of the bigger players in the room were there. It's only 1/3, but the max buy-in is $500 on the first hand, match the stack after that, and it typically gets $2k+ deep. Lots of straddles as well, with at least 3 players going $10 OTB at every chance. It's pretty much replaced 2/5 as the bigger game of choice. I've played this game a few times in the past, but never jumped in this deep before.

Despite just about everything possible going wrong that could, I only lost $620. I got bluffed out of one big pot where my KQ on an AQJ flop got bluffed out by the preflop raiser on a blank/blank runout where he had 98. Then when I whiffed on an OESD but decided to rep the flush when it came in, I got looked up by a weak top pair.

Besides that, I picked up no big hands all night, but I think I had JTs like 4 times and whiffed every flop. That combination of events results in some fairly big losses.

It was a fun learning experience. The game was still pretty fishy. There was lots of limping and 4+ multiway raised pots. The level of aggression was definitely higher than 1/2, especially postflop. I'm pretty sure I can beat that lineup for a sizeable clip long term. There are probably some adjustments I need to make to optimize in it, and it's going to be much higher variance, but it had all the hallmarks of a good game.

The other thing I learned is how many a-holes there are that play this game. The floor was called over a few times due to the arguing going on. Security had to get involved. Something was said to someones girlfriend at one point. There were 2 or 3 people probably close to getting the boot. Lots of speculation and table talk regarding hands in progress. The dealers are getting frustrated trying to corral it all. There was a big blowup over a string-bet (that wasn't IMO).

The string-bet hand went like this: EP raises to $20. CO calls. BTN cuts out $20. The $20 was placed next to his stack, but maybe like one chip diameter 'forward' of his stack, but IMO there was no clear forward motion, nor did it cross the betting line, which I'm told isn't a true betting line, but sometimes gets interpreted as such. Now the blinds fold. While they are folding, BTN cuts out another $100, and pushes the $120 forward. Now the EP raiser and CO start throwing a massive fit. Floor is called over. Lots of noise and yelling. Dealer didn't see it. Floor rules since chips never crossed the line, that's all he has to go on other than opinion, and rules it a valid raise. EP raiser folds. CO backraises to $320. BTN tells him he's FOS and jams around $800 effective. CO tank/calls. Board runs out two pair and they chop it up CO's A2o vs. BTN AJo. Wow.

Not a bad 2019, despite ending on a $1200 downswing with half of it coming from taking a $1K shot at a deep stacked 1/3 game with lots of $10 straddles.

113 hours. Most 1/2, with a few hours of 1/3 sprinkled in, as 2/5 has now been completely replaced by a 1/3 match the stack game.
+$1825
20 winning sessions, 16 losing sessions.

I didn't track my Vegas results, but from memory, it was about +900ish over about 13 hours or so.

My goal for 2020 is to get in 200 hours, and hopefully take 1 or 2 more shots at the bigger game. My biggest hindrance is I can usually only play during the week and the game tends to be more of a Friday/Saturday thing. I'd also like to try and play the $1100 MSPT event when it comes to town, either in May or October, or if I'm lucky both. In the last 15 years I think I've played at most 10 live tournaments, and have yet to cash, so it would be nice to pop that cherry.

2020 got off to a good start with a $640 win, wiping out a good chunk of the recent downswing. Most of it came when I got into a 3-way AIPF with KK and held, and then woke up with 65s on a 2345 board where someone had the A and paid me pretty well, despite folding on the river when the flush came in.

My wife and I planned out some finances for 2020, and it looks like it's going to be a slightly more expensive year for us. My daughter is taking a dance class that costs a few bucks, we want to get the twins into an extra day of pre-school this fall, and my oldest son wants to start competing in gymnastics which is surprisingly expensive. On top of that the lease is up on our car here soon. I sold my truck/camper-hauler, so our next lease will be a truck that my wife can use as a daily driver, plus for our camping trips, and will be a bit more expensive than our car. I haven't got a raise in like 3 years, and I doubt I will anytime soon. What all that means is that she's open to me playing some more hours to try and bring in some extra dough.

Good luck in 2020 Koss!

The only thing I would be a *little* wary of is the last sentence idea of "playing more to bring in some extra dough". Even with more hours you'll still get in a fairly relative lol sample size for 2020 where variance can swing pretty big (either way), so I would be wary of approaching it from a play-more-therefore-make-more-money perspective. I would still treat poker as simply a fun hobby that you get the appropriate hours at (which fits into you and your family's schedule appropriately), and whatever happens $$$-results-wise happens (good or bad).

Ggogogo,imoG

Oh yeah, I'm well aware of the harsh mistress that is variance in this game, as well as the gambling karma that hits you when you need one good score to keep your head above water. In fact, 2019 was nearly a breakeven year if not for my 3 week $2500 heater in late November/early December.

I saw you hit the $100K milestone in the winrates thread, even if it is that Northern Monopoly money. Congrats, and don't tell me you haven't at least had some fun spending it!

I'm quite financially viable without poker income, but our expenses seem to be growing faster than my income (which is shrinking due to OT cutbacks). Although we have less than 2 years now before the twins are in school full time and my wife can go back to work, which is a mixed blessing, as I suspect that may mean less poker for me.

But with 2020 looking to be a more expensive year, plus some big ticket expenses that are coming up on our house, a few good heaters could take the edge off.

Honestly, I don't even notice it. It works out to only be about $10K tax-free a year (gambling winnings ain't taxed up here) but that's a fairly small percentage of what I make at my full time job. I don't allocate my poker winnings in any way, it just goes onto the pile of money I already have. Better than losing obviously, and it helps justify the hours I spend on this hobby, but I still don't look at it in a "oh, I could by a car" / "remodel the kitchen" sorta way.

Git'sreallyjustallabouttheresultinggraph,lolG

I've had a couple up & down sessions since I last posted. I finished a winner yesterday, but it was definitely a grind to get back to even after quickly finding myself in a $300 hole after a series of combo draws all whiffed. On one of them I did consider making a pretty massive hero call. I might have the sizing a bit wrong here, but I definitely faced an oversized polarizing bet on the river.

7-handed. Decent younger player who will play bigger when it's available opens in EP to $14. He had been opening large all session. I'm not sure if it's his standard open size or if he is adjusting to the play any 2 for almost any amount fish at the table. I flat next to act with KQ. A couple other calls and we take a flop.

Flop($50)QT6

V bets $25, and only I call.

Turn($100)QT6J

V bets $40, I call.

River($180) QT6J5

V jams about $270. All I can think of is why so much. From a theory standpoint this seems like a call. I may not be at the top of my range, but this villain has just made a polarizing bet and I have what feels like the best bluffcatcher. I block just about every value hand he's repping. I leveled myself into a fold, which I think may still have been right, but this wasthe most tempted I've been to stack off this deep with 1-pair on a scary board.

The rest of the session I was doing a lot of bluffcatching against that aforementioned play any 2 fish. He was pretty transparent in all his plays, and I was soul reading him well all night.

One way in which my game has maybe evolved recently is I've been looking for spots where if I put together the combination of reads I have, I can make the good exploit. It seems pretty ABC, but can get you in some trouble at 1/2 when people don't always make rational or consistent plays. But I know a lot of the regs, and am starting to find holes in their bet sizing strategy. The general idea is I just decide what it looks like my opponent wants me to do, and try to do the opposite. But it's easier said than done, because there are just as many villains that scale up their betsizes with hand strength than there are those who milk with the nuts and bomb their bluffs. But I've recently made a combination of some pretty good decisions by piecing together everything available to me. By combining past behavior, bet size, board texture, preflop ranges, and a sprinkling of physical tells, I've won/saved a few stacks these past few months. Those traits are largely in order too. I still try to stick to ABC against an unknown, but once I've seen a few showdowns, I really try to adjust to exploit quickly.

Regarding making the good exploit based on reads, it's a large reason why I utilize my limp/reraise preflop strategy (and otherwise fairly passive LP strategy in mostly overlimping speculative hands that a lot of more aggressive players would raise) as it creates a great spot for me either way. If I get to 3bet my monsters to create trivial postflop stack off spots, great. But if I see a multiway high SPR spot limped pot, that's great too, all due to attempting to make exploitive plays postflop thanks to all the information I'm being given over multiple streets. And meanwhile not being handcuffed by small SPR multiway pots (which single preflop raises often produce) where commitment decisions will arise before I'm given enough great postflop information as to whether I really want to be committed.

GcluelessexploitingnoobG

Only value he really is repping with the sizings he took on the flop and turn are AdXd, which to me makes your Kd blocker not as relevant. Only combos you block that make any sense are KJdd and K9dd.

To be fair I’m not sure his sizings are very good being how wet the board is and that it should be fairly neutral in terms of who has the range advantage. Flop should be a spot where he should be more polar and therefore betting bigger, and the turn is definitely is a spot where he should be sizing up with his value hands.

I probably just shrug fold because very few players are sick enough to bluff jam 1.5x pot enough to balance out the value hands they’ll have there. I’m guessing you’ll have a few flushes in your range here that you can defend with so it’s not like he’s printing here but jamming 1.5x pot and making you fold everything.


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Good point about my K blocker not being all that relevant. This is pretty much what I landed on. At $1/$2 I'm not all that worried about putting myself in spots where I'm folding everything with no defend range. People are usually so unbalanced and unable to capitalize on these spots.

I do find myself sometimes lost in these reg vs. reg spots. When I'm heads up against another good player, do I stick to my normal exploitative game or try to be more balanced? How sure can I even by that they are solid and not just an ABC player? I usually find myself sticking to exploitative folds and being unbalanced towards value. Fortunately I don't find myself in too many of these spots since the games are usually pretty soft. How often are you at Firekeepers these days?

I definitely am on board with the limp/rr plan from EP in the right games. Most of my games are insanely passive, and will limp around if I don't raise, so I rarely try to pull this off. But if there is a habitual raiser in the hand (especially in a straddle) I'll go for it. I agree that raising AA UTG, getting 3 callers, and looking down at a KJ9 flop is a really crappy spot. Awkward SPR's are a much bigger problem OOP than they are IP. Although these spots just don't seem to happen quite often enough to forgo all the extra value to be had by just building up the pot preflop. And with the aggressive image I've usually crafted, I find myself up against a lot of non-believers.

As for over-limping speculative hand in late position, there's a lot of "it depends" here. Against more than 2 limpers, I'll limp along a lot. But against 1 or 2, I'm looking to really abuse position and do some damage. These are just such bread & butter spots. Raising JTs OTB after 1 or 2 limps is just printing money. Being able to isolate a limper or two and then having all available options postflop is suck a powerful spot that I can't imagine not taking it. Generally against 1 limper, I don't have an overlimp OTB button range. I'm already going to have position in the hand, I might as well try to knock the blinds out, play heads up, and give myself more postflop options. If you haven't been doing this, give it a shot for a few sessions and see how it feels.

It's funny, this used to be my go to move in LP; after 0/1 limpers and often 2 limpers, raise anything I'm playing (but typically toning this way down after 3+ limpers). But I've kinda abandoned this method since moving to my Super Nit method, especially since my Super Nit method often has me sitting on a 66bb stack (where I really question whether I should ever be getting remotely out-of-line). My Super Nit results have showed a vast improvement over the "recent" results leading up to it (which were poor enough for me to decide a tweak in my strategy was necessary), so I'm ok with it.

But I do go back and forth on it. Even my session last night I questioned if I was being far too passive (in one case overlimping KQs in the CO with my 66bb stack and winning a small pot postflop). And I find I'm rarely in flop cbet spots HU in position with initiative (at least a *lot* less often than I was before). But overall I've concluded it can't be that bad if my results have actually improved; although that might be too results oriented over lol live sample sizes.

For the record, the "recent" results leading up to my strategy tweak saw me go thru a 1307 hour stretch @ 3.97 bb/hr (which came after my initial 2000 hours @ 9.44 bb/hr) whereas my Super Nit strategy has me @ 6.37 bb/hr over 1565 hours (which looks even better once you get past my tied-for-first biggest ever downswing in the early goings of the new method, @ 7.10 bb/hr over 1232 hours).

Definitely pros and cons both ways and I certainly do second guess my method at times. My guess is that its probably closer than we think.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Interesting. Did you notice a big dropoff in game quality when you went from 9bb/hr to 4? I know people in the winrates thread speculated that the regs in your room were starting to catch on to your overly conservative style. There's one regular nit in my room and everyone sort of knows him and his style at this point. He still gets paid off by the bad players and tourists coming through, so I suspect he's a winner, but my guess would be closer to the 4bb/hr rate you're at.

As for your new style, it reminds me of the Just Hands podcast I was listening to recently. The host was mentioning that we don't really know what optimal 9-handed NL hold'em looks like. We have a lot of evidence that the conventional TAG/SLAG style tends to win, and solvers, while imperfect, back that up a bit. But there is no reason that other styles of play can't also win, and possibly be even better. Although what I expect has happened in your case, is that you are still playing fundamentally sound poker, but in a way that the regs in your room don't know how to adjust to, which accounts for your spike in winrate.

Most TAGs know what to do with ATo from an EP raise, but what is the right play when he limps UTG with his whole range? Raise? Limp along? Fold? I imagine the main advantage to your style is that the regs make a lot of unforced errors because they don't know the proper adjustments to make against your style. My gut tells me your style would likely lose against good thinking opponents or HUD players online. But live games tend to have a lot of TAG fish, who have sort of memorized the classic TAG playbook, but keep making mistakes against styles they don't know how to play against. They get run over by maniacs, or in your case, pay off the nits.

It's neat watching someone who has flipped the traditional playbook on its head and has the results to back up that it works just as well. My results have been just as good if not better with what I'm doing though, so I'm not looking to make any major changes to my style, but I think your results highlight the fact that there are other approaches to the game than what's taught in the books that can work well too.

That’s the thing, even thinking players aren’t getting out of line too much. Even I find myself sometimes looking back on spots where I could have bluffed but didn’t pull the trigger. Really tho when playing against a decent player (I say decent because who really is that sick in a keepers/ Detroit 1/2 game) I just try to stick a slightly more balanced strategy, where I maybe call slightly lighter, don’t thin value bet quite as much, and bluff slightly more. These spots might come up once every few sessions.

Not too much anymore. I’m 40 minutes from Detroit vs 75 minutes from keepers so i generally stick to Detroit. Might be up there sometime next week as I’ll be back home in Lansing for a few days. Seems like the games are still decent based on this thread.


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There's been a huge change in game conditions over the years and I think that has been the number one hardship in attempting to maintain the same winrate that I came out of the gate with for the first 2000 hours. The rake has increased from $5 to $8. There are fewer hands dealt per hour due to more dealer responsibility in exchanging chips for cash (which used to be handled by chip runners). There is now only a single game available, whereas back in the day there were multiple daily tourneys, different stakes, and both Limit and No Limit; ain't no one cluelessly and accidentally sitting in this game anymore waiting for something else. And yeah, the overall crowd just isn't as clueless in general as it once was; I'm not fooling anyone but either is anyone else.

So I'm really happy with the rebound my tweaked style has provided.

But I'm always concerned with my lol sample sizes and hoping I'm not judging the success of various methods too soon based on just lol results.

It's funny, I literally just watched the latest YouTube installment of Poker Simply with Tommy Angelo and Lee Jones. They broke down the player categories into 4 categories, kinda joking about the OMCs in the Tight Passive category while praising the TAGs in the Tight Aggressive category. I'm definitely straddling the line between these categories, but I think I'm more in the OMC category (can I really be considered a TAG if I don't raise preflop < CO?). And yet my results seem pretty good to me, so whatever I guess.

GaworkinprogressG

What a frustrating session. In 3.5 hours I dragged 2 small pots. One was a preflop win where I raised over two whale limpers in a straddle pot, and they found their fold buttons for the first time in the session. I was down a quick $100 thanks to raising pre, and whiffing the flop a few times. One of the gems was this hand.

I raise in EP with KQ to $10. BTN Calls.

Flop($20)A62

I bet $10, V calls.

Turn ($40) A625
xx
River ($40) A6253
xx

I decided to give up because I think when called on this flop, even for $10, V has an Ace a lot and I didn't feel like barreling him off it. On these boards I'll typically stab once then give up against fishier players unless I improve. He showed J5. Wow. I'm not sure I played the hand right but I can at least take some solace in the fact that every street money went in I was ahead.

Only big hand of the session was this one.

Whale 1 ($200) raises in EP to $10. Whale 2 ($150) calls. I 3-bet QQ (covering) to $50 from the blinds. Both whales calls.

Flop($150)357

Whale 1 had been making some of the most WTF calls I had ever seen, so I decide to just rip it in. He thinks for a minute then calls, but Whale 2 snaps it off with 77. Can't do much about that. At least I got the side pot.

It was probably the most card dead I've been in a long time. My VPIP may have been below 5%. The whales at the tables were pretty much forcing you to have a hand to drag the pot, and I never did. Some of my least favorite sessions have been at tables where there are players just trying to give away their money, and I can't get my hands on it. This one qualified.

Lol, similarly my least favourite session is when I simply continually hand money to the one mega fish at the table who then redistributes my stack to everyone else at the table. That was my last session out.

Gturnsoutpokerisfunnerwhenyou'rewinningG

In a weird way I actually enjoy losing sessions where I'm playing well than I do card dead sessions or ones where I know I made a big mistake. I'm not like a huge action junky or anything, but I did come to play and being card dead puts a damper on those plans.

Luckily last night was neither of those things. I picked up a nice $545 in 3 hours of play. I still have another $400 to go to get out of the downswing that started mid-December, but that was a good start.

I really don't have any hands to post of interest. It was probably the most ABC poker I've played in a long time. Just run good, get paid. Well OK, sort of one hand.

1 or 2 limps and I limp along in MP with A7. CO raises to a lol $5, and we go to the flop like 6 ways.

Flop ($30)A78

I'm winding up a check/raise but it checks through.

Turn ($30)A78T

SB leads $6. Limper calls. I make it $35. BTN calls, as does the SB.

River($110)A78T2:heart :

SB checks, I go $50, BTN tank calls, SB folds, and MHIG. Not that interesting of a hand. I wish I know what he had. My guess is Ax or a lesser 2-pair. I was trying to go with exploitative sizing here to make sure I got called, and it looked like it paid off, based on the tank call.

Hopefully I can keep up the slight increase in volume. I've been enjoying it so far. I think I adjust to other players better than they adjust to me, so the more volume/stronger reads I develop, the more profitable the game.

I put in rare back to back sessions Monday/Tuesday. Operation "play more poker" has been successful so far. I've put in 7 3 hour sessions so far this month, and am up almost a grand. Night 1 was +$355, and night 2 down $125.

Night 1 was mostly run good at a below average table. It was fairly nitty/reg infested, but I was flopping well and fading bad cards like no ones business. I actually made 4 sets that night, although 2 got no action, and 1 I didn't need, getting it in with QQ vs. TT preflop. Fav hand of that night:

I open to $12 with T9 in MP. Only a splashy reg in the BB calls.

Flop ($21) 984

BB bets $20, I call.

Turn($58)9842

BB bets $40, I call again. I actually considered popping to $100 here as a weird trick play to slow him down if he's on a draw, and possibly fold out a better, but figured I would let him go hog wild with his air.

River($138)9842 I honestly forget what the card was because he said "I am checking because I have no idea what you have (good to hear!)" I checked back, he said 1-pair, but I knew I was good so I just flipped and he mucked.

Night 2 I maybe got a bit splashy in some spots, but I kept finding myself up against good boards to barrel against, but someone always woke up with a hand.

I think this is a good c-bet, right?

$5 BTN straddle, 1 limp to hero, I make it $30 in the CO with QJ. BTN & limper call. I'm deep with BTN but limper only has about $80 back.

Flop ($90) AKK

This is a spot a small bet will get it done a lot. Limper checks, I go $30, btn folds, but limper calls. Barring a good runout I'm done.

Turn ($150) AKKA
x/x

River ($150) AKKAK

Neat. V jams his last 50. I figure he's got an A/K about 98% of the time. I fold, he shows AQ. This was mostly how my night went. There was lots of straddling, and I probably raised 7 or 8 of the straddles, only winning a couple of the pots, so that's what ultimately got me. I was mostly card dead for the night.

I still have $150 to go to get out of the mid-December downswing, but so far so good. I live on small sample sizes, but my last 240 hours have been $21/hr, up from the $15/hr. I used to run. I've cut down some of the bad calls and punty bluffs I used to run, so maybe that's all it is.