Hey Everyone,

I have been playing professionally since November of 2018. I started this thread about my most recent trip to Vegas and wanted to continue adding content and updates so here we go!

In! Good TR. I took it from that thread that you mainly grind (deep) 2/5, but that you're in an area that sometimes only has 1/2?

In. Glgl

Yeah we have 1 or maybe 2 2/5 tables during the week but weekends are busy. And it’s $1k buy in or you can match the biggest stack. I usually take $2500 with me and buy in for $1000 and top up as needed or maybe match the big stack if it’s a known donk.

Taking a quick cigar break after a barf session. Down 500 on normal crap. Then get in a big hand:

Raise J10hh UTG to $25. Tight rec player calls and flop is Jd10h6x. I bet 35 he raises to 100. I call. Turn 8x. I check he bets $250. I call. River Qx. I check and he bets 700. I’m too high in my range with busted draws out there and call. He had 67dd and I win.

Few orbits later super fish rec raises to 20 in CO. I 3 bet with AQo in SB. He calls.

Flop A73r. I bet 100 he calls. Turn Q. I bet 275 he calls.

I think I’ve hit gin vs AK. River 9x. I bet 330 and he jams for 1000. Puke call and he has 77. GG.

Down 500 to up 900 to down 600 or something so far today.

Might be spew but he has AK and worse 2 pair there. Bleh. Maybe it’s spew as I type it out.

And last night aces put me on tilt. I can explain:

1 seat is full time reg maniac and drinking. He’s super deep and plays 52 vs this old man who is also super deep. Flops 2 pair on 526. Turn 7? Fires big every street. River 6 and he jams like a maniac. Guy has 6x and doubles up. Over a $6k pot.

Maniac goes on monkey tilt and either opens for all in (rebought to 3k, I’m $2k effective) or 200 or something.

I finally see AA and just as he’s about to act (on my direct right) the next dealer taps in and he yells oh no!! I’m not letting you deal to me and mucks and storms off. I raise to $25 and get one caller. Cbet and I win.

It’s late and I sigh/tilt/rack up.

Aaannnnnnnnd KK vs AA all in preflop for another $400. Down 1200 or something tonight. Super frustrating.

Also frustrating that this guy next to me literally hit 6 sets in this session and quads once.

Whelp we got ourselves a barn burner today. 2/5 game opened at 4pm and there is already over $14k on the table.




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Jeez, 9 or 10-handed?

9 handed. This seems to happen fairly often, but for no specific reason if that makes sense.

- Blockers Are Made Up, RIO Is Real -
Brand new 2/5 table and this is hand number two. MABG on my left and it turns out it's his birthday and he will start drinking and engage God Mode for a few hours. He raises to 15 UTG ($500 effective) and there are maaaayyyybe 6 other callers. I look down at Q2 in BB. I almost muck but flick in a $10 call.

Flop ($90) Q27
I check, UTG bets $75, MP calls, LP call, I raise to $325. Only UTG calls with $150 behind. Turn 9 and I put him all in for the rest. He calls and doesn't show. I announce 2 pair. River 9 and I groan. He shows QQ! This engages a run to $3k+ like no other. Runner runner gutterballs and the like. He of course loses it all back and then some, but man I love the call anything run ups.

I top off to $1500 and 4 hands later maniac reg straddles. One limper and I raise to $50 with 77 in MP. Both call. Flop 874r. He bets out $80, and I raise to $300. He jams and I snap call. He doesn't show but claims he wasn't drawing totally dead. Just mostly.

Crazy money flying around all night and some huge pots.

MP raises to $20 (Old guy who keeps complaining that we are all 'crazy' and 'has no idea how to play against insane opponents') and I call on the button with J9. BB calls with $2500+ effective. (BB is a 50 year old, newly retired and just hanging around for the last few weeks. Always buys in as deep as possible and we've been involved in a few big hands with each other. Once he had a combo draw brick and tried to bluff the river on me.)

Flop ($60) Q106

BB checks, Old Guy bets $45, I call, BB calls.

Turn ($195) K

BB checks, old guy bets $115, I raise to $415. BB goes into the tank and cold calls. Old guy goes into the tank and folds. I recheck to make sure I don't have the J and pray for a black deuce.

River ($1140) 4.
I dance inside. BB bets out $750. This can't be a good sign because this is usually a value heavy player. I snap call and he shows AJ. GG.

So I went down $500 to up $1000 to down $600. Somehow chipped back up and ended the night up $530. The table dynamic really started to change around 9:30 when the drinking birthday guy went broke and the maniac (who got back up btw. Was in for $5000 I think) left. Racked up around 11pm.

I usually take Tuesdays off so it's going to be family time and grilling out with friends this evening.

Marsh

Taking a break and had to vent some. I thing overly terrible has happened but just one of those nights where I can’t win. All small pots. But lots of them. I’m going to try and balance my well played hands with losses, but because I only noted a few of the losses this is going to be a whiney post.

Playing with the same guy in an earlier post who is still in God mode. He Limps in EP, folds to me on the button and I make it $25 with A5cc. Flop 522. He checks I bet 35 and he raises to 115. I call. I know he’s not that strong here and I’m uncapped so I peel one to bet him off any menial overpair.
Turn 8. He checks I bet 125 he calls. River Q and he bets out 250. This is such a nutted line but I can figure out exactly why. I groan and fold and he shows 88. Of course.

Another hand with a classic fishy player:

Folds to MP who limps. Folds to me in BB with J9dd. I make it 25 he calls. Flop Qs9x5s. I bet 30 he calls. Turn 10x. I bet 50 and he raises to 125. Sort of strange but I have some good equity so I call. River Ax. I check he checks and shows KK. WTF??

And lastly: (I have this titles in my notes as Gaaaahhhhhh!!!)
I Raise KQdd UTG + 2 to 25. Bad Asian player calls in the button and god mode guy calls in SB. Flop 910Jsss. God Mode donks 50. I almost raise but the Asian behind me makes me a hair nervous. I call and Asian calls. I plan on bombing any blank turn. Turn Qs. Check I check Asian shoves 200 God Mode calls with KsJc to beat A5ss.

I’m towards the end of my session but hopefully can get something going on the last hour or two.



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I think I hate both of these somewhere.

The A5 I probably just b/f the flop if you think you're behind, floating against people with overpairs is not where the money is at in LLSNL, just wait until you have QQ-AA here and GII.

The J9 I really don't like the raise OOP, and the turn barrel is meh -- he's got *something*, the T probably didn't hurt him any, and most LLSNL players will set a dumb price so you can just c/c here. The pot on the turn is $120. If it went check/$125 you'd fold, right? So putting yourself in a spot where you're letting $125 go in on the turn seems poor to me.

The A5 hand:
I understand your point, and there is a lot of merit to waiting for when my hand is better than his and I win. This particular player is obviously capped at a pocket pair and he would never stack off when I have JJ+ here (we were $1500+ effective to boot). I know where he's at and I have position, an uncapped line, and good table image. If the turn is anything other than his bingo card my bet takes it down. I obviously can't win without betting him off so I'm going to give it a try based on the above. A flop reraise also achieves my goals as well, but for some reason didn't consider it. Or went into some sort of autopilot mode before I thought of it.

The J9 hand:
I don't raise here all the time and certainly not if there was another caller. This player is particularly fishy and I wanted more in the pot since we were heads up, even OOP. I'm trying to get better at double barreling with good equity. Also with the spade draw out there his hand looks super weak and I thought it was a good value bet and had some considerable fold equity if nothing else. His raise usually means nutted hands so even if we give him Q10 and sets we are looking at:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

572 games 0.000 secs 114,400 games/sec

Board: Qs 5c 9s Th
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 21.329% 21.33% 00.00% 122 0.00 { Jd9d }
Hand 1: 78.671% 78.67% 00.00% 450 0.00 { 99, 55, QTs, QTo }

Which is almost exact direct odds to call ($75/$285 = 26%). And based on what he turned over I had more than my nutted outs some of the time.

My standard is to play tight/nit and only win with the best hand. I'm trying to open my game up some more and increase my fold equity when I have range advantages. That's my thought process at least. I really do appreciate an encourage anyone picking my game apart. I need to kick my game up another notch and this is how I'm experimenting.

Marsh

I don't understand the raise on the turn with A5 there, could you explain why?

No raise on the turn. You mean why did I bet? He limped and check raised a 5 high flop. My read was he has a pocket pair from 33 to 99ish (I assume this player opens 1010+) and he check raised the flop to 'see where I was at'. I called and he checked to me so my story is still 'I have a bigger pair than you' so I bet. I could have also reraised the flop to tell the same story.

yes, meant bet

in my experience, checking after a check raise means nuts or air - either way, I don't think betting into it without a monster accomplishes much because he folds where you'd win anyway or you're just donating

But I want him to fold. So here is my range vs range thinking: He limped and I raised on the button and he called. Flop 522 and he checks and I bet. Let's assume I happen to be on the value side of my range and so is he. (So we can throw out all the broadway cards for us both and any SCs or complete air. The flop action confirms this.)

That means my current value range is A2/A5/22-AA. I'm at the lower end of my value range where I have some showdown value, but no real strength (A5/33/44/66). Villain check raises the flop and I think he is on the weaker side of his value range (33/44/66-99) and wants to see where he's at. He wants to end the hand here so no scare cards come on the turn that I could barrel. If I reraise here it's only with air or my low value range because I definitely want him to fold. I'd never reraise KK on this flop because I would fold out all hands I want him to call with, but taking it down with 44 or A5 is a fist pump win.

Turn is an 8 and he checks. I have shown some good strength here and he is now presumably worried that his PP is behind. I absolutely want to bet here with my full range. My read is that I'm currently behind with this specific hand. But 99-AA is ahead. I want him to fold out for this hand, but even if I had JJ+ I will bet sometimes for value.

River Q. He bets out. This is now SUPER nutted for him. I'd fold everything but 55 and A2 at this point. He happened to hit his 2 outter, but pretend he had 77 here. He folds on the turn and if he wants to get real sticky he check/folds to my bet on the river. Most of my range is ahead of him here. And I have yet to show any weakness.

I could be absolutely wrong, and if so I would love to know why. But that's my thinking vs this player. And btw he is super splashy and suffers from FPS and tries to buy pots here and there. I've seen him 3 bet bluff with air so no matter what I'm going to be sticky in position with this player.

Thoughts on my reasoning?

So I do understand and agree with this portion of the reasoning -- when you call the flop and he checks the turn, betting is definitely the right play to go with your float. I just don't think you're getting direct odds and I find people tend to be sticky, so I mean, if he had 99 instead and c/c turn, are you blasting off on the river if he checks again? On a brick? On an AKQ? I just think you're creating a spot where V will realize he's face up and go into calldown mode some of the time, but maybe this is flavored by my experience of basically always getting called so I exploit by rarely/never bluffing.

I just strongly disagree with this. If they're fishy, they'll do things like call $20/60/200 post when you flop T87 or whatever (or even better, flop bottom two and go berserk with you and get your $1500 deep in there).

So my point here is not that you don't have direct odds when you get to calling the raise -- I agree you should call having gotten there, and hope to bang off a K/8, maybe even a 9.

My point is the T is actually a fine card for V's range -- their spades may have picked up additional equity or even be ahead of you now (Tx of spades is ahead, KJ of spades obviously has the joint+redraw, Jx of spades you're chopping your straight outs). JT of spades has you absolutely crushed now, for instance.

Anyways my point is their equity is probably good on this card no matter their holding, and you cannot make the nuts from here, so check/evaluate.

Finding more spots to two barrel is a good idea, but I feel pretty strongly this is not it.

Grunched this post since I was typing at the same time as you:

So I think in terms of maximizing your bluff, you may just want to 3-bet the flop to like $255 and call it a day. You end up bluffing the same dollars as you would on the turn, but if you'd never reraise KK on this flop because it's knocking out everything, and A5 is your bluff combo here, bombs away, you know?

I was with you right up until you said this guy is super splashy and FPS and 3-bet bluff and so on. I would argue against this sort you want to find more hand and give him more rope. Against this sort of player I might even check behind flop and call a bet on one of turn/river to give them an opportunity to bet and to play a pot that's more proportional to the (small) size of our hand.

Yeah, I can get behind this reasoning.

Yeah, I hear ya. I'd just hate for him to have 66-77 here and it checks down on the turn and river and I lose. I feel like that would be a mistake as well.

Thanks for the input though!

Headed to work. Here is a pic of my watch in ‘daily driver’ form. A little less in your face.



I’m trying to find a good alligator band but just haven’t pulled the trigger on anything yet.


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What is he realistically folding here to a standard sized bet that beats A5 on a 2258 board? I think he's still continuing. He obviously likes it enough to c-raise you. You don't c-raise with value if you think they are folding. If he has a good hand, he's going to assume you do too.

I've never interpreted a check after a check raise to mean anything other than the nuts where he has so much of it he can't possibly see what you could have here or that he was bluffing and now shutting it down.

It seems like you are the one who wants to "see where he's at" rather than him. After all, you just bet less than half the pot. This reeks of an information bet. This just seems like a dump to me. I can't possibly imagine him folding a PP to a less than pot sized bet there.

I don't see him folding 77 on the turn, I certainly won't. I don't think the Q is that scary either, nothing about this board is scary for him IMO if he has 77. I don't think he'd lead river, but I imagine he check calls.

So turn your hand into a bluff catcher then. I much more prefer a check back on the turn and a call of a bet on the river as a bluff catcher.

Just my thoughts, I don't think you misplayed it or anything, I could have very well done the same in your spot. I'm a former live pro myself and often times in the moment one play is obvious but when translated to paper it seems like the other play would be obvious. I know all too well the feeling of people who weren't there telling you they disagreed with your read

Just being physically separated from it, I don't see how betting turn helps there is how I feel. It's just a sick spot though, honestly, it makes me feel uncomfortable thinking about what I'd do in the moment there if I were you. It's spots like this which are a huge reason I decided I didn't want to deal witht the stress anymore.

Good luck and keep on grinding.

Poker is currently my only source of income and to help facilitate the question of ‘How did I get here?’ I figured I’d start at the beginning. I’m not big on social media (never had a FB or instagram) but while I was living in Africa I decided to join Twitter. There was a cool question trending about what were your first 7 jobs. I think for my first job I was 14/15 years old because I remember my mom dropping me off. Here they are in order.

Paintball Referee
Golf cart attendant
Car wash attendant
Deli meat slicer at McAlister's
CAD monkey intern
Valet
Poker dealer



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Blockers aren’t real:
Afternoon drunk guy just won a huge pot limp/rr with QQ. Holds vs JJ and J10. Very next hand he raises to 15 utg (on my left). Tight button calls. I complete for 10 more. With K8 and 1200 effective. Flop K8Jr. I check, check, button bets 20 I raise to 65 and drunk guy smooths and button calls. Turn J. Checks through. River 8. Check, 175, button folds. I tank call. KK good


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Rowdy Session

Roller coaster session last night. Had so many hands to note in a row that I couldn't get all the details. Also had a good mix of variance and got pissed a few times because people don't freaking bet their hands.

First Big Hand:
Limp, limp and fishy guy makes it $20 in MP. I call with 66 in BB about $1100 effective with original raiser.

Flop ($60) 965
I check, Asian guy donks $50, original raiser makes it $225 back to me. It's a weird spot because I want the fishy guy to call but not the Asian guy. Flatting seems terrible because it gives great odds for draws, but stack sizes are weird right now. I just jam. Asian guy looks surprised and folds. Fishy guy contemplates calling with what he says is an overpair (lol) but eventually folds. I think either way I'm not getting too much more and I can't risk combo draws coming along. Not the most money won, but the safest play.
______________
Limper and I raise with 78 in LP. Button calls and limper calls.
Flop ($60) 810A
Check, and I bet $35. Button raises to $75. I call.
Turn ($210) 6
I check and button bets $100 with $220 behind. I almost rip it in but just call.
River ($410) 3
I check and he checks behind. Shows 108o for 2 pair.

_____________
I don't know what poker religion you subscribe to, but I'm a blocker atheist. I've played too much and have seen too much to believe that it makes even a fraction of a difference. Another example:
CO limps and I make it $20 on the button with 77. BB and limper call.
Flop ($60) 8106
Checks through.
Turn 9
BB bets out, limper calls, and I raise to $150. BB thinks about it and ships $400 and limper folds. I call and he shows 97o and we chop. Lady said she folded 78 and thought she might have been getting free rolled...


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How about this for a puke spot:
I'm on the button and as the dealer is pitching the last card it comes off kind of wonky/high. It hits my finger and pops over the A. Everyone groans and I look down at my hole card and it's the A. She pitches me a new card and it's a K. Folds to me in the button and I raise to $30. BB open shoves for $250. I laugh and say I don't have enough outs to call and he flips over KK. I would've had AA vs KK and the burn card was a K!

____________
Dodging the Deck:
One limper and I raise to $25 in LP with QQ
BB calls and limper calls.
Flop ($75) J97
Check, check and I bet $60. BB jams for $350 and limper folds. This is always a combo draw so I groan call. Turn 7, river 2. His 68 bricks. Can't say that 'they always get there and I never do'.

Bonus Question: What does V have here?
This V is a 40's WG wearing a Bellagio jacket. Bought in for $1000 and never bets his made hands. Appears tight and passive. We had one hand earlier where I raised with 77 and got a few callers. He called in BB. Flop 10 6 8r. It checks through. Turn 7. He checks and I bet and he's the only caller. River A. He checks and I bet again. He just calls with 99. WTF?

OTTH. $1000 effective. I straddle $10 and drunk guy to my left blind raises to $20. Folds to V in SB who makes it $70. This is his first sizable raise that I've seen. I have JJ. I consider a 3bet, but feel like he's pretty nutted here. I call. Drunk guy folds.

Flop ($160)
1063
He down bets $60. I call.
Turn ($280) 10
He checks and I bet $175. He calls.
I'm slightly confused at this point. If he had AA/KK with a diamond he should be trying to shovel money in. However, he has only played his big hands passive so I can't tell if he's weak or not. I feel like he has two black kings or something and a diamond or J on the river is my gin card.
River ($630) 9
He checks. Hero?