2024 Week 9

Back from DC for the first full day on Monday 2/26, I elected to mostly take it off and hang out with Amy. We talked about some things that really put my mind at ease and made me feel a lot better about the non-poker side of my life. Stone bubbling the 3k felt bad, but the biggest takeaway I had from it was that it was vital I work out important things away from the table. Live poker is gonna end in disappointment a high percentage of the time, so if there's any guilt or negative feelings towards having traveled to play in the first place, all the losses are going to feel worse than they should. We had a great conversation and I think we both aired some things out and cleared some things up for each other that will lead to better feelings for both of us when I travel in the future.

I spent Tuesday 2/27 planning a weeklong trip to Vegas for the Wynn Millions. I was really enjoying hanging out with Amy so I didn't start playing poker until 9:30. Four tourney bullets down the drain in 2 hours and I decided to wrap it up and come back fresh the next day.

With only 6 hours worked the first 2 days of the week I knew I'd have a tough time getting to 40. Add in the fact that I'd already agreed to hang out with my buddy and watch some basketball Friday night, and I'd already planned on taking Saturday off to go to the city for brunch and shenanigans afterwards, I'd basically have 3.5 days to get in 34 hours. I was determined to give it a shot though! I played 1400 hands in 4 hours in the afternoon of Wednesday 2/28. Over 1300 of these hands were at 2/5 and 1/2, but I lost $2k in one hand of 10/20 when a reg sat my table. I'm not one to battle regs, especially those who used to be heads up specialists, but I didn't manage to sit out in time so was forced to play 2 hands. I 4b AKhh, bet T64dds, shoved Qs, went broke to AQo. Later me.

This probably would've derailed some of my sessions in the past but I'm vastly improving from a mental toughness standpoint lately. I kept grinding, won 5 buy ins at 2/5, stacked a rec for $1200 at 10/20, and ended the session with a small win. Another 2 hours that night and I won 2 2/5 buy ins and a 5/10 buy in for a nice day overall. 8 hours worked most importantly to hit the number I was looking for.

Another nice afternoon session to start 2/29, nearly 1k hands and up about 2k, before losing most of that back in a 500 hand nighttime session. Also lost about 1k in MTTs. One step forwards two steps back as far as results have gone for about 5 weeks now! But the mindset to keep going and keep fighting is gonna get me out of the hole way quicker than I have in the past. Nearly 10 hours worked this day and now if I can put a bunch of daytime hours in Friday and have a long Sunday session, 40 is an outside possibility.

Friday 3/1 I'm on the computer from noon to 6:30 with a 20 minute break in between. After a hot start where I was up around 2k, I found myself at -5k 800 hands into the session. Losing 7k in 300 hands does not feel good! The first hand came against the guy who got me heads up two days earlier. I 4b AdQs MP vs CO, bet small on 532hhd (maybe should go closer to half pot here), turned the 2d and decided to bet again and go for it if river was a diamond. You do need to be really careful about how often you're bluffing these narrow range spots, but given AdQx is only 3 combos it felt like the clearest natural bluff on a diamond river, which is what I got in the 7d. I shove for about 85% pot and as my opponent is tanking I had a pretty peaceful moment thinking about poker variance. "The pot is $3600 after I shove. If he calls I get 0 of it, if he folds I get it all. This 3.6k swing I'll look back on in my records in a few days comes down to potentially what kind of mood this guy is in right now with a bluff catcher. If he calls with a pocket pair I lose the whole pot. If he folds I get the whole pot. If he calls with a pair but I have KK this time, I win a 5.3k pot. If he folds when I have KK I miss out on an extra $1500 in value...and for that matter, this is all true about that AK hand a couple days ago! If the turn's a J I shove and win and have 2.6k more. If the turn's an ace I win more than that. On bricks I'm not sure. And I also river a K and a J sometimes! All I can do is make sure this bluff is reasonable and understand that the swings are going to be huge against a top notch player who presumably is gonna call the right amount." The perspective of how much variance and how big the swings are gonna be in cash became so much clearer to me in that moment.

It was really freeing to be honest. After a while he called with JhJc to stack me. This both unblocks flushes and blocks potential Jxhh hands I might blast off with here...I think I'd give up most heart draws so maybe that's irrelevant. But I think in his shoes I'd want the Jd and not want the Jh if I was trying to pick specific combos to call with, and he had the opposite, so I'll have to remember to be extra careful with bluff combos in the future! Two more failed bluff attempts later and a big ol -4.8k through 800 hands was staring me in the face. I played another 800 hands of 2/5 and won $700 back to finish the 1600 hand session at -4.1k. I'm pretty proud of those 800 hands. I 4b KsKh pre bvb vs a rec and got the rest in on J53ss vs QTss. He rivered a spade for the 1.1k pot, so I was that close to bringing the loss all the way back down to -3k. My mental toughness is at an all time high, which is important given how frequently I've been getting smacked lately! I finished working at 6:30, watched Jeopardy at 7 (a daily event for me at this point), went to dinner with Amy and my buddy and his girlfriend, then had some drinks and watched some basketball for the first time in a while.

I liked Dallas +8.5 vs Boston, Sacramento +6.5 vs Minnesota, and Milwaukee -4 vs Chicago. My friend and I bet all 3 then put a little on a parlay for all 3 as well. Dallas got crushed but Sacramento had the lead down the stretch (made it a sweat by going to OT!) then won outright, and Milwaukee crushed Chicago to get me to 2-1 on the day. A few days later I looked in my account and had $100 more than I expected to, only to see I entered the parlay wrong and accidentally bet Boston instead of Dallas, turning a +595 loss into a win. My subconscious must have not liked me betting against Boston and plugged them in. That's some run good at least!

Saturday 3/2 I was out all day, first at brunch, then a bar in Manhattan, and finally to my friends' place to visit with them and their baby. At 11:45pm my very drunk brain alerted me that my watch hadn't beeped yet for my steps. I look to see I'm at 4300 and need 700 in the next 15 minutes. I run into their hallway in my socks and start frantically pacing around and manage to beat the midnight clock with 5029 steps to keep the streak alive .

Sunday 3/3 and I'll need 10 hours to hit 40 on the week. It's doable but I am EXHAUSTED from the all day drinking before. The shots I was ripping at night every time I lost specific minigames in Mario Party did not help either. My body battery reading on my watch has me at 8/100 when I wake up despite sleeping 8 hours. It's normally in the 80s or 90s after an 8 hour sleep. I have to choose though; I'm either gonna quit drinking or accept that I have to toughen up and play through this if I choose to do this the day before. I get on the computer at 6:00 and hop in some MTTs, including regging the 4pm $215 on WSOP pretty late. I get AJ in vs AQ and lose on the JxxxQ runout. I re-enter then lose a flip to bust, re-enter then lose a flip to bust, and finally re-enter and lose a flip to bust as late reg closes. "Do not let your mental game get off the rails this early!"

I put 4 into the Stars 100, no luck, 3 into the Stars 250, no luck. As the table count is winding down it becomes clear one of these 3 MTTs are gonna have to be the one if I'm gonna salvage the day. I'm below average but alive in the BetMGM 1k 100k with about 20bb and 20 left with 14 paying and 30k up top. After cruising with a chip lead for a long time in the BetMGM 215 then dropping to below average, I'm back to right around average with 14 left. And I've got about 30k from 10k starting in a $320 6 max on WSOP.

First tourney I get it in on is the 215. I raise AJdd in the CO off 18bb. BTN is a whale who has a MASSIVE chip lead. He's been running 74/32 for 40 hands. I'll be happy to call off if he shoves but he flats and we get the J77hhd flop. I could see going either way here but I think it's really unlikely he folds to a small cbet so I throw it out there. He quickly raises and since I think there's a high chance he has nonsense, I call. Turn 6d I check, he shoves for half pot, I call, he has 33. 95% of the time I'll move to 3rd or 4th in the MTT with 14 left and 8k up top, but I'm just not living in that 95% world these days. River is a 3 and I finish 14th for $435.

I 3b shove 44 sb vs an active co for my 19bb with 21 left in the 1k and run into his 99 to bust 7 off the money there (30k up top). A few minutes later I'm all in with QQ vs 88 for 6 starting stacks in the $320 as late reg is coming to a close. Flop T97 and I tell myself "you're winning this one!" Turn 3 "it is NOT coming." River 6 and my MTT day is over. It's funny how different my mindset is after that flop during different stretches. When I'm on a heater I really do believe there's no shot it's coming. When I'm on a downer but have a good mindset I do what I did there. And when I have a bad mindset I'm hovering over the "close table" button ready to get on with things. The only thing I can control in all of this is how I react. I always react well when I lose a tough one live so I'm trying to channel that version of myself online. I've been pretending other people can see me and I don't want them to know I'm upset by results. It's working to some extent.

I max late regged some of the really late WSOP stuff to no avail. Then I played cash from 12:50am to 2:40am. I won $600 in 700 hands. These little bounce backs that I never would've played are going to add up when the MTT drought breaks. When that random 30k score hits and I'm completely out of the hole again, all these little $500 wins I picked up in a situation where I'd normally have quit my session are all going to be profit. It's coming.

Tomorrow I'll fly to Las Vegas for the Wynn Millions. I'll definitely get in the $2200 6 max and the $3500 main but I'll have to look more closely at the rest of the schedule (and potentially other properties' MTTs) to see what else I'll do out there. I've already booked my flight home for next Tuesday so I'll be there for exactly a week (unless I make day 4+ of the main). I think this sort of planning will make it a lot easier for Amy when I need to travel. I wasn't being transparent enough about when I was coming home in the past so that will be an improvement.

I don't know if it's gonna happen in Vegas, but the breakthrough is coming soon. I've been playing full time for so long that I feel like I should be used to all the swings. But I've reframed things in the recent past. I'm NOT used to the swings of these higher stakes cash games and live MTTs. The more I expose myself to them the easier it'll be to handle any negative variance. I improved quickly when I was younger because even when I lost, I took positives away by viewing it all as a learning experience. I'm going to put myself in that mindset more often going forward. I recently learned exactly how it feels to stone bubble a live $3k buy in after 90 mins of hand for hand. I'm hopeful I'll learn what it feels like to have a 6 figure score soon enough. All of it is progress.

Weekly Results

Meditation 7, Stretch 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 11.25, Played 27.25, Coached 0, Total 38.5

My late night Sunday grind got me really close to getting to 40 hours. Given how much time I needed to take off to be with the people close to me, this 38.5 is probably one of my best efforts of the year. Most of this week will be spent in Vegas so I'll try to get in a routine of getting the meditation and stretching out of the way early, then walking around casinos on break to ensure I get the steps in.

2024 Week 10 (Part One)

Two days late on this update but for good reason. Did a lot in Vegas on Monday then flew home yesterday, leaving no time for an update until today.

On Monday 3/4 I made sure I was ready to go for my flight the next day and got about 5 hours of poker in. In the span of 4 minutes I played 4 tricky hands and lost them all. First one I shove Q9dd in a 3b pot on A86ssdTd and get tank called by A7hh to get stacked. At the same time I r/c KQcc, call cbet on ATTssc, bet 5c turn (maybe should check?) and give up on Tx river and lose to AK. A minute later I open K6s btn, bet/call J62r, call 75% on Kx turn, and call 200% shove on Ax river vs capable reg? Lose to 22. And a minute later I 3b/c AKo btn vs ep, call small bet on 944r, and check down the Qx2x runout and lose to AQo lol. 2.5 buy ins down the drain in 18 hands dealt. Feel like I played all of them okay, but took something away about betting less often on double flush draw boards on turns. Whatever, time to go to Vegas and get outta the theory weeds and into the live MTT streets!

Tuesday 3/5 I'm out the door at 9am, on a plane at 11:10, in Vegas at 4:30ET, move the clock back to 1:30PT, and at the hotel at 2:30. I got settled in, did my meditation and stretches, got some food, and had to pick between late regging 1A of the $2200 6 max at the Wynn or 1C of the Venetian $600. My goal for this day was to avoid getting sick during all the traveling and moving around. I've been sick in Vegas twice in the last few trips and I was determined to avoid that this trip. I hydrated a ton before, during, and after the flight, and ate a lot to make sure I felt the best I could. With the 6 max having a 1B the next day and a $600 tourney sounding like a much less stressful, more relaxing time, I went with the max late reg on that at 5:55pm. Still got 40k at 1500bb.

After playing a few orbits I open AA utg1 and get 3 calls, including a player 2 to my left who criticized a girl for peeling his 1/3 turn cbet with AK on 3225 (she got there vs his TT, a hand she's getting the price to peel against given how small he's gone). I cbet 962r and only he calls, I bet the 5x turn and shove for my last chips on Kx river. He throws his hands up in the air, makes a mini speech "guess I can't fold but ugh, I mean, ugh..." and calls. I turn my hand over and he quickly turns over 52 and I'm out. Again, this is the guy who criticized someone for peeling AK vs 1/3 on 3225, calling 52s LJ vs utg1. Nice hand man. Seems like every time I play something live under a 1k buy in I'm reminded of the creatures who live in these streets . Nothing wrong with being a fish who wants to gamble, but ya can't be ripping on other players at the same time if you're gonna do that.

Wednesday 3/6 and it's time for the 6 max. I take my seat and see a friendly face in Nick Palma. Always nice to know there'll be some banter at the table. English pro on my right who I later learn is Jack Hardcastle, who's friends with my English buddy Max. American pro named Patrick Truong on my left who was also nice to talk to. The days always go by quicker when there's some chatter so even though I'd rather seats be filled by complete fish, this isn't an awful alternative.

Tried to bluff Jack but went way too small with my 3b SB vs BTN and allowed him to peel A8o and win a pretty big pot early. I'm still working out the technical side of MTTs with sizings and whatnot so I'm gonna make mistakes like that sometimes. The only fish at the table (who claimed he used to play cash for a living) opens to 1200 utg at 600bb. He'd 3 and 4x'ed his opens earlier so I felt pretty confident this was gonna be a weaker open. I'm happy to find KTs in the SB and shove my last 12k (30k starting), he tanks a while then calls A5s. The sizing read was right but that didn't deter him from calling off! Board comes QJx9x and I double.

A little later I call J9hh in the SB vs same player's UTG open then x/r/get it in on T98hh. He quickly calls off and instead of seeing which hand I'll need to improve against, I'm shown A6hh to see I'm only fading 5 hearts (Q and 7 give me straight flush) and 3 aces. Board bricks out and I double again. I knock Jack out with TT vs AJs for 15k each at 1kbb. Patrick, Nick, and the fish all bust as well. Their seats are filled by Andrew Ostapchenko, Dan Sepiol, and Tony Dunst. Great tourney! About 7 hours into the day our table finally breaks and I have 42k at 2kbb. I move to my next table and at first glance it looks like it's going to be really good. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to build a pretty big stack here if I can get a little help from the deck. Literal first hand I'm dealt, UTG makes it 4k, next seat makes it 15k, I find KK and shove 42k, HJ makes a big show of being sad that UTG folded bc now he has to call off in this "awful spot." He then calls AKs lol. Ace in the window and I'm walking back to my room.

On the walk back I reflected on the meditation I did that day. It talked about being content with change and understanding that change is a certainty in life. The more we can expect change and be at peace with it, the easier things will be and the calmer we'll feel. I think that meditation goes hand in hand with the one that talks about feeling content with uncertainty. I probably woulda thought a year ago this all sounds like nonsense and that it's nice to say these things but hard to actually feel them. But something about sitting quietly while trying to keep my mind relaxed for 10 minutes a day each day this year has these ideas really resonating with me.

As the dealer got ready to put out the flop my mind went through 3 stages. "Ace is coming obviously" to "no, don't think like that, you're gonna win this one!" to a 3rd state of mind I haven't had during runouts before. There's always been one of those two ways of thinking for me. The first is clearly not good, the "I know it's coming because I'm running bad and can just feel it." The second I always thought was good, or at least a better alternative, "I'm a lucky guy, I'm gonna win this one!" But this third state of mind is clearly the one that will lead to me being the most relaxed, the most prepared to battle on after doubling up, and the most ready to deal with a bad beat. As the flop was dealt my mind went to "Accept this uncertainty. Accept that your stack is about to change. Accept that you don't know what the board will be and you have no control over it. There's no need to prepare yourself for a win or a loss. Just let whatever happens happen and accept it."

On my walk home I thought about all of these things and realized that my brain had started to go through it's normal post bust out live MTT routine. I felt disappointed and frustrated and sad and whatever other negative emotions seem to naturally arise in me after a loss. But on that walk back I realized I could choose to break that habit. I could choose to be happy. It felt amazing. I've always felt like my emotions had a hold on me and I was kind of powerless to choose. As I was walking down the Vegas strip past the Venetian I started smiling like a lunatic. I could just choose to be happy. I didn't even have to justify it with "well sure I lost but look at this I'm in Vegas and I'm healthy and blah blah blah." I could just be happy and feel good if I decided I wanted to do that.

As I walked past Flamingo I realized Brock Wilson was right in front of me and I caught up with him. It's probably been a few years since we've had a real conversation so it was nice to hear how he was doing and tell him what I was up to. He reminded me I get 4 free drinks per day at the Vegas properties with Diamond Plus so we each grabbed a few waters from the Planet Hollywood Starbucks before I turned back around to go to my room at the Horseshoe. I got back to my room and realized that despite busting the $2200 6 max in disappointing fashion, I'd had a great day. No matter how many tournaments or how much money I lose each day, I can choose to be happy despite it. These meditations are really paying off as far as mental game goes and it'll be important to keep up with them when I inevitably start winning a lot again. It's 4:30pm now so I'm gonna do my daily one now then hang out with Amy til she heads out at 5:15. I'll get to the second half of this recap later tonight or tomorrow.

2024 Week 10 (Part Two)

Thursday 3/7 means it's time for the $3500 Wynn Millions Main. 40k starting stack with hour levels and I get there for level 2 and 200/300 blinds. The table was amazing to start and I fell into the routine and rhythm I found myself in during day 1 of the $3k in Maryland. Simply relaxing and following the action of each hand, trying to get any specific reads on players at the table who are undoubtedly going to be making big mistakes with stacks this deep. The guy on my left, for example, is VPIPing an extremely high percent. At one point he r/c's 32s CO vs SB and doubles a guy's 99 on 9522. This didn't stop him though, as he won nearly all of the other hands he entered, eventually bagging the chip lead of 1A.

My day was quite different, as I VPIPed VERY few hands and stayed patient through the dryspell. This is kinda necessary when someone's VPIPing as much as this guy on your direct left and there's a reg 2 to his left licking his lips every time this set up occurs! The only hand of note I played for probably the first 4 levels came when I opened Qc8d on button, cbet K42dd, b75 on Kd turn, and decided to roll on the Jx river. I'm not sure how often I should actually be barreling turn in a spot like this given I'll have sooo many one diamond hands to choose from. I'm also not sure how often I should barrel this exact combo on river. So I decided to bluff it 50%. I really don't wanna overbluff rivers live, where people are so inclined to hero call to A) give themselves a chance to win the pot and B) "look cool" in front of everyone else by making a "sick call." I rolled a bet though and bet 9k into 11k. I definitely want to bluff here some given I think he'll have a decent amount of pocket pairs with a diamond, 4x with a diamond, 2x with a diamond, and even ace high with a diamond. He tanks for quite some time before folding to get me back to the 40k starting stack.

I end up losing a decent one later where I 3b JJ and a passive player in SB cold calls then donk shoves about 60% pot on QT4. I should probably just find a fold here but I felt he'd have Tx some amount of the time and random hands some amount as well (I thought back to the guy donk shoving 33 on K64 vs me at FT of the $600 I chopped!) I call and lose to AA.

A middle aged guy who was clearly a fan of the game moved to our table and then a slew of weaker players were eliminated and each time their seats were filled by a known pro. Every time the pro sat down this guy would go "ohhhhhhhh oh nooooo!!" which got a laugh out of me. First it's Anthony Spinella, then it's Alex Foxen, then it's Bin Weng, then it's Adam Hendrix, then it's John Riordan, and my nice soft table has turned to probably the toughest in the room. Fortunately I am down to 23k at 1k/2k at this point so it's not like I've got much room to run over fish anyway. I am gonna need some heat to survive this last level of the day. Alex opens CO, I shove JJ from SB, he folds. The rec UTG opens, I shove AA for 23k in CO, he calls JJ and I double. John opens UTG, I shove TT for 45k from btn, John tank calls 88 and I double again.

I realize how much better my mindset is now compared to even just a year or two ago when Alex opens CO and I debate between 3b and call with K8s in the SB with only a few hands remaining in the day. Old me is avoiding close spots vs tough opponents, especially as the day winds down and especially as I'm excited about turning half a starting stack into two so recently. New me is just playing his ranges. I call and xf the J53r flop vs small bet, though I think maybe I'm supposed to do something with my bdfd? I r/f to the guy on my left who shows me AK, r/f to the guy 2 to my left who shows me TT, and end up bagging 70k going to 2500bb for day 2 on Sunday. I was really proud of my grind that day given just how card dead I was the first 8 hours of play. There were so many spots I could hero call a river or 4b bluff pre or make a loose open, and I didn't take any of them because they weren't as profitable as the other option. Years ago I was naturally a nit and would pass on those spots out of fear. In recent years I'd be proud of not being a nit and take those spots to try to flex my muscle. Recently I've found a good balance of being fearless without being reckless.

A quick look at the schedule showed there really weren't any live MTTs I could play that'd make sense given how the schedule worked. I thought about playing live cash on Friday 3/8 but after watching a show online with Amy for 90 minutes in the middle of the day, I decided to deposit on WSOP NV and play the ring event they had going on. I registered the $215 turbo and, in the words I wrote in my notes that day, "Got in the ring event at 5pm and won it before the 7:55 break (turbo). Feels great! Must continue to focus on the process and putting hours in, win or lose. At nearly 33 hours (on the week) now, I'm not sure what the plan for tomorrow is." Clearly my focus is in the right spot based on that entry. I'm acknowledging that winning feels great while keeping the focus on what's important. I picked up $15.7k, my 2nd ring, and another entry to the WSOP ToC with the win.

I woke up Saturday 3/9 realizing I hadn't hung out with anyone all week. This is the first time I'd travelled to Vegas without specifically knowing someone I was friendly with was going too. I've been around long enough that I'm always going to know at least someone at a poker stop, so I looked at the list of players who'd bagged the main from the first two flights and started messaging people. Adam was busy but Drew and Jake were down to grab a late lunch and hang out so around 2:00 I headed over to Harrah's to meet them. We got food (and I got some frozen drink) at a Mexican place in Caesars. Then we went to a cigar bar next to the Fashion Show Mall where they had cigars and I just continued to drink. From there we went to Harrahs sports book and played the $100 online circuit event. I remembered my 4 free drinks and got coronas instead of waters this time. I spun 20k up to 50k before calling an ENORMOUS shove on J423 after flop checked through with my KJ. He had A4, rivered a 5, and I say good night to the guys and head home around 8pm. I hydrated like crazy to make sure I wasn't hungover at all and prepared for day 2 in the morning.

Sunday 3/10 and I see my table draw has Mitch Halverson, overall chip leader of the tourney, on my direct right, with over 600k. David ODB Baker and a British pro are also at my table but it looks like a pretty good draw overall. I get to 4b shove KK over Mitch's 3b early in the day and get it through to chip up and settle into the table easily. I never was able to get much higher than 100k though and our table breaks with me still around that mark. My new table is another good looking one, especially compared to my last day 1 table. The bubble is approaching with about 200 players left and 151 paying when Matt Affleck opens UTG to 8k off about 70k at 4kbb and I have ATs UTG1 with maybe 80k. I decide to go 20k and fold to shove. I hate flatting EP vs EP given my cash background (MP vs EP doesn't really do any flatting in that format). Maybe it should be a thing but I decided this line made the most sense. Action gets back to him and he begrudgingly folds. Later at 3k/5k it folds to his SB and he walks me which is so massive as we continue to approach the bubble.

Another table breaks and the clock now reads 176 while I have 90k at 3k/5k. Matt's busted and another player just took his seat. It folds to him in the SB and he shoves for my 85k stack off his 300k. I look down at KJo and my initial instinct is to fold and preserve my 17bb, but the longer I think the more I feel I might just need to stick it in. There's only about 20 mins left at 5kbb and this bubble will slow way down as we get closer. Clearly this should be making chips in theory. But the two factors that could lead to folding are the fact that A) we are 25 off the money and B) live players tend not to shove this sort of stack size as wide as they should. However, factor A makes me think he *should* be shoving even *wider* to put that sort of bubble pressure on me. Hands like weak Kx offsuit should probably start sneaking into shove in any strategy. And surely even a weaker player will induce AJ+ and JJ+, right?

The longer I think the more I feel like folding isn't correct. In my mind in the moment, the idea that "we need to be ICM-aware!" is a copout that weaker players use who are afraid of bubbling a big buy in and I can't shake it out of my head. Very good players are also ICM aware in this spot so this is not great logic. But after maybe 60-90 seconds of shuffling chips and recounting my stack and thinking things through, I decide I can't pass up on a spot where my opponent can so often turn over a dominated hand that I'm 70+% to double up against. I call and he shows AQo, which completely destroys any logic I had earlier about what his range could or should look like. It was pretty disheartening to see this hand (although quite nice to see it instead of AJo!) since it meant my call is probably atrocious against whatever his actual range is. But I'll just need the 37% to come through this time for the 175k pot and a very good chance of cashing! I believe the board runs something like T329 (hope!) 6 to knock me out around 175th with 151 paying.

I was frustrated but again, in such a better headspace than I ever would've been. I grabbed something to eat to get some energy and relax a little then headed to Venetian for 1C of their $800 tourney. I doubled to 80k from 40k early on then proceeded to lose a lot of hands. Flatted T9s SB vs UTG, xxx KJJr, I bet the 8x turn, bb folds but UTG calls, I pot the 3x river and UTG tanks a long time then shoves, later me. He shows KJ after I fold. I open JsJc and get 2 calls, flop comes 965ddd I check, MP checks, CO bets and I decide to raise to run it with the shorter stacked CO and probably fold if MP puts more in. MP folds, CO is all in, I call and he has...pocket jacks?? That's not good! Turn is a diamond and I double him up. I put my last 24k in with AQs at 2kbb, the KJ guy calls 99 and board bricks out to eliminate me.

Some of my notes from when I got back to my room: "Playing online now. Doesn't matter how frustrated I feel I'm never going to give up." I bust 7 bullets of online tourneys for $1600 and felt really deflated after them. Lots of complaining in the notes after the online session lol. I woke up the next day and did a meditation that led to me doing an hour of research that yet again changed my mindset in an extremely positive way. But that's part of week 11, which I'll update on Monday. That'll include my last live tourney of the trip, the $1100+$500 KO at the Wynn, where I finally had some luck building a stack. I'll also talk about flying home Tuesday and the rest of this week.

2024 Week 10 Weekly Results

Meditation 7, Stretch 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 8.25, Played 35.25, Coached 0, Total 43.5

Forgot to end the last post with these. I did well to make sure I got the meditation in each day despite not being in my normal environment; it's easy to let that slip when the routine isn't there. Walking was quite easy to get in. The 5k minimum was doubled nearly every day with me walking from Horseshoe to Wynn and back unless I was really pressed for time. Live tournaments make getting the "hours played" number up high pretty easy. While my results so far this year haven't been exactly what I was hoping for, I have had some decent scores (1st in an online 1k for 19k, 37th in a live 5k for 14k, 1st in an online 215 for 16k and a ring). But most importantly, I've done extremely well controlling what I can control, namely meditating, stretching, and walking each day, and working 40+ hours per week.

2024 Week 11

As I touched on last post, Monday 3/11 was my last day in Vegas. There was a $1100+$500 knockout tourney at the Wynn that started at noon, so I did my meditation at 10:30, ready to go get lunch after then get into the tourney on time. The meditation talked about self doubt and suggested doing a self doubt test. This involves looking back on times when you've faced similar adversity to whatever you're going through now and examining what you did to get through it. The hope is that when you really dive into it you'll realize you've already gotten through whatever you're going through now in the past. This resonated with me and I spent a full hour going through my entire poker career, looking at stats and results and thinking back to where I was mentally at each stage. This led me to a few realiziations:

1) I'm way more accomplished than I ever give myself credit for. I'm constantly comparing myself to where I want to be, rather than where I've been. I've never had a 6 figure score in poker, and with many of the guys I came up with having tons of 6 and even 7 figure scores, I often feel inadequate and amateurish. But it wasn't so long ago that I complained of never having a 5 figure score. I opened up my P5s page and sorted by amount won only to see that the entirety of the first page (25 results) was 5 figure scores. I've been in the top 1000 in the world on P5s for many years now, including stretches where my focus was mainly on cash. I made day 6 of the main twice in an 8 month stretch. I chopped a live $600 for $54k and felt completely relaxed throughout the entire tournament. And every single time I've hit a rough patch in my nearly 9 year professional poker career, I've come out stronger and better than I was before it.

2) While I've looked at my 2023 results as the most disappointing I've had in a while, they might actually be the most impressive when framed correctly. I lost $13k in live tourneys the first 5 days of January and didn't play live again until May (and still finished January with profit). I took way too much time off in April and May and found myself up a small amount on the year going into the summer. I got WRECKED in the summer in Vegas and came back home at the end of July down money on the year. I grinded hard in August with modest results, telling myself that the big stuff was on the horizon. Then I got called for Jury Duty in September and was PUT ON THE JURY!! Three weeks committed to that with no time/energy left for poker. I could've been dissuaded after losing $13k at Borgata. I could've been dissuaded after a heartbreaking summer. I could've assumed the universe was against me after I was called to a jury in the middle of my poker comeback. But I didn't assume that. I came back stronger and on the first day of October I won a $2500 online for $46k. On 11/12 I won a $100 tourney for $11k. On 11/19 I took 3rd in a $1k for $12.5k. And in the week between those last 2 scores I calmly marched through a 700+ player field in a live $600 to chop 3 ways for $54k. I had a very tough 9 month stretch to start the year, losing money those 9 months, and I proceeded to make 6 figures in the 2 months after. 2023 was the worst year I've had results-wise in the last few, but I probably showed the most perseverance and heart of any of my professional years throughout it.

Anyway this is all a long winded way of saying the meditation really got my head right. I felt so much better after going through all of that and realized that I've been frustrated about a rough 5 week stretch for no reason. I always get out of these. I've gotten out of these so much more recently than I'd realized. I got to the live tourney 90 minutes late but I think it was completely worth it in order to come to the realizations I had. So I'm in the tourney at 200/400 with a 30k starting stack, and the first hand I'm dealt Bill Klein opens to 1k in CO, BTN flats, SB is all in for 6k, and I have KJo in BB. Gotta hunt these bounties! I'm all in, Bill folds, BTN tanks forever and eventually calls 44 covering me. SB has AK, board runs A high with no Ks or Js and I'm off to re-enter.

Second hand of second bullet, I open TT UTG2 to 1100 at 500bb, next seat calls, MP makes it 6200 off 18k. Here we go again, I'm all in, MP has AQ, board runs A high and I'm at 12k without much hope of bounties now. Next hand I open AQ UTG, UTG1 calls, same guy from last hand makes it 6200 again. I really felt like AQ was probably the bottom of his big squeeze range last hand, so I'm not very happy now. I obviously have no fold equity so the question is just whether I want to stack off or not. I decide not to, other guy gets it in and the squeezer has KQs vs flatter's TT and the board runs out Q high. This is not a good start!

After the break I'm moved to a new table. I end up shoving KQo, get called by two players, and have unbelievable equity when they show KJo and QJo. Board runs 86286 and getting half the pot doesn't feel as bad as it normally would with how poorly the week has gone in the live arena. The KJ guy knocks out the QJ guy but insists we chop the bounty, not understanding the rules of the bounty tournament. "Look man you wanna give me $250 outta your pocket, I'll take it, but that chip is yours."

HJ opens to 1500, co calls, I'm all in for 15k with AJo, HJ isos and I beat his QJo to double. People REALLY hunting these bounties. HJ limps, CO limps, SB completes, I check JT in BB. Flop J32cc, SB leads 2k into 3k, I fold, SB eventually shows down AJ. ELITE.

I open HJ to 2700 at 1200bb with KTo, Ankush Mandavia all in for 25.5k in CO, after getting a count and counting my stack I see I have him covered by 500 chips. I fold(??)

I 3b shove AQ for about 30k vs Brian Hastings' UTG open at 1500bb, he snaps KK, flop comes A high and I double!

I open QsTc BTN, BB defends, flop AT8ss he checks I bet 3k into 10k he raises to 11k I call. Turn 3s he bets 20k into 30k I call. River 6x he asks to see my stack, tanks a long time, then checks. I check and beat 97 and now have over 100k.

New table, MP opens to 4k at 2kbb, I call 42cc. 842sss I check he bets 4500 into 11k I call. We're like 80k deep and this is a spot I used to raise to try to deny equity but I think calling is definitely the play. When stacks are shallower it makes more sense to raise and just take your equity, but you can't FORCE someone to fold in these spots, and so many runouts leave you with a pretty weak hand. Turn is an 8 and goes check check, river is an offsuit ace I check he bets 7k into 20k I make it 35k. Think I should probably just fold but if I'm gonna raise I prob just gotta send the whole thing in to get most people to fold. He calls AT no spade.

I move tables again and have 88k at 4kbb as dinner break is approaching with 36 left and 23 paying. I open 66 UTG1 to 9k, MP with lots of chips calls, flop comes QT6r. I do very little cbetting OOP in cash but I think I should do way more of it in MTTs. In theory there's more cbetting and I think in practice a lot of players flat too wide which would lead to even more cbetting from us. So for now my strategy is to cbet strong value hands (not as many as if I were IP though) and strong bluffs. As I study more I might include more hands. In this instance though I felt like I wanted to check this hand some of the time. Villain had a ton of chips and seemed recreational so I wouldn't have been shocked if he started blasting with some very random stuff. I roll a check and he bets 12k into 28k. Once again this felt very close so I rolled again and landed on raise, making it 28k. In general I really don't like to roll against recs but I didn't have any specific reads on this guy and you can't really go wrong with a hand this strong at a low SPR so I decided to just make sure I had it in each range. He calls the xr, turn is an offsuit 9, I shove 51k into 84k, he tanks. And tanks and tanks and tanks, after 3-4 minutes he says "I don't have anything but I just don't believe you" and says this over and over again before finally calling after about 5 minutes. While he was tanking Brock Wilson was moved to the table and immediately starts talking about how he "doesn't ever flop sets at the Wynn" which was kinda eerie . I turn my hand over and give Brock a look, at which point villain turns over T8 and says "damn, well guess I need a 7." River is a J and I'm eliminated.

I got some food, went back to my room, played 2 MTTs online, taking 6th in a $250 for $1500 to recoup some of the losses on the day. This is simply going to be a common theme this year; things don't go the way I want them to, but rather than giving up on the day like in the past, I plow through and either make money back or at least gain some EV. The breakthrough is going to come soon; I simply can't run as poorly as I have at the higher stakes forever. My confidence is really high and my game, which I do think is very good right now, is only going to continue to improve as I continue to put my 40 hours in each week.

Tuesday 3/12 I flew home at 11am PT, got back to my apartment at 5pm PT/8pm ET, went out to dinner with Amy, hung out with her til she went to bed then played some WSOP MTTs since I was still on Vegas time and willing to stay up late.

Wednesday 3/13 and I was tired from my Vegas trip so I took the day off. Just kidding, I put 10 hours in, 4.5 study and 5.5 playing. A lot of the study was actually non-study, poker related things like organizing tax documents and writing in this thread. I took 9th/153 in the BetMGM 100, 13th/268 in the Stars 100 PKO, and cashed the WSOP $500 in 17th/96 (field bigger than 96 since they count their re-entries as rebuys and don't put it in total field lol). 18 paid in the $500 and as we got close to the money I actually enjoyed the challenge of trying to sneak in even though I had a ton of chips earlier. I'm accepting things more and more each day instead of feeling resistant to the things that happened that I didn't want to. I had 9bb when we made the money, got KJ in vs A7, and accepted the fact that sometimes I'd be back in the game and sometimes I'd be out. This time I was out and I got ready for bed.

Thursday 3/14 I got some good study in then got smoked in tourneys. 15th/132 in the BetMGM 100 but busted many bullets in a 250, 320, and 777, leading to a loss of around 4k on the day.

Friday 3/15 and while it was tempting to take off, I really wanted to continue grinding tournaments so I decided to take the entirety of Saturday off and play the Friday night session. I bricked a bunch of bullets before finally catching some traction in the BetMGM 250. They've been running a small series where the winner of the big tourney each day gets a custom jersey? Not sure what that means but I'm gonna find out as I managed to win it for 4k (just a 43 player field). With 8 left and 6 paying me and 2nd place were very far ahead of 3rd, and I was dealt AA vs his KK to get it all. Honestly I played it pretty poorly, 5b'ing small instead of just shoving to the point that he tanked vs my shove on turn of a very dry board. Funny enough I ended up heads up against his brother, starting with around a 2:1 lead, eventually losing the lead before coming back to win it. We were very deep to start. The big hand came when I opened J5ss and checked back 643ss. I think there's a tendency these days by regs to really attack "capped" ranges, so I felt like this hand was kinda sweet to check and potentially win a big pot if I hit either of my draws. Turn is the Ks and despite SPR being 12 at this point, I got the full double. He bets 93k into 372k, I make it 360k, he makes it 760k, I call, river 6x, he shoves 3.8m into 1.9m and I call and beat As5h.

Saturday 3/16 I got up early and went to Jersey City with Amy to pick up some cookies she ordered off Instagram at a "secret location." We had to get there at a certain time and sure enough, we stroll up to the side of a business and a man wearing all red comes out of a side door with a wagon full of cookies and starts speaking in an English accent giving Amy instructions on how to take care of the cookies when she's not eating them. Felt like a fever dream. We got some lunch at the mall then relaxed at our place before heading to Manhattan for my friend's bday party in a private room at the Skinny Bar. Afterwards me and my friends went to the Belfry, a bar we used to frequent when we were younger. It was a fun trip down memory lane and Amy liked their Bently shot so much she got two of them. She normally hates whiskey but the pickle juice/hot sauce combo chaser they give you was too appealing for her to pass up! Great night overall.

Sunday 3/17 I was pretty hungover when I woke up but did all I could to be ready to play that night. I eventually got on at 7:30 and was 4 tabling at 9:00 when BetMGM crashed and I could not get it back up. This led to me 2 tabling on my PC and 2 tabling on my ipad which was quite a distraction. By the 11:00 break BetMGM was working on my PC again but at that point I decided I'd just finish up the tourneys I had and call it a night. They had 2 custom jersey tourneys for their last day of the series and I finished 14th/125 in the $500 for a mincash and 4th/94 in the $250 PKO for $1.6k. That left me with the Stars $500, which I'd max late regged and quickly spun up a stack. With 7 left there were 3 stacks over 2m, then basically a 3 way tie for 4th-6th at 1.2m, and 7th at 600k. Chip leader mins CO to 120k at 60kbb and I go with the shove from BB with A9o for my 1.1m. He'd been extremely active with his opens, going 7/7 opening CO and later, and 5/11 opening MP. I think a lot of people like to "reduce variance" and "adhere to ICM" in this spot by calling, but I think that actually does the exact opposite. Shoving gets a fold so often and never leads to any fluctuations in your stack when something happens postflop. Sure, sometimes you get called and bust, but a very high % of the time he has some air that has to fold, and some sliver of the time you get called and double. After a little time in the tank he does indeed call and I find one of the few hands I'm actually a favorite against, KQo. Board runs Q high and I'm out in 7th/120 for $2.3k.

I'm locked in right now, no other way to say it. There have been very few times in my poker career, if any, that I've felt this focused and relaxed at the same time. The big heater is undoubtedly coming soon so long as I continue doing what I've been doing.

2024 Week 10 Weekly Results

Meditation 7, Stretch 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 13.25, Played 30.5, Coached 1.5, Total 45.25

The last time I missed any of my daily goals was January 27. I've hit 40+ hours in 7 of the 11 weeks, with 3 of the misses coming in January and the 4th being a 38.5 hour week. I'm doing the work and I'm very confident the results will follow.

Well done on being in such a good flow. Can't remember if you've talked about this before but what do you think about when deciding whether to take some of these live trips. Is it mostly for fun/to mix it up and keep things interesting as opposed to the EV of playing the tourneys? I'd imagine after expenses/time spent traveling you probably make similar or more just staying home and playing online. Or am I underestimating just how high the available ROI is in a lot of these live tourneys?

I've been thinking the exact same thing Tyman and would love to see your answer! You've got to have a higher hourly online I'd assume.

I think the ROI is very high once you get to a certain level in a lot of these live tourneys. Only one way for me to find out! Also let's assume ROI is exactly the same for a second. Then travelling is often gonna win out for me because A) It's fun, B) I often feel sharper online after playing a bunch live, and C) The upside is much higher. In regards to point B, something about being forced to one table and think through spots has always led to me being more on point after coming home. It also helps me from getting in a rut of monotony which has happened to me before over the course of a few months of doing the same thing again and again. For point C, if the EV is the same, there's only one arena in which I might rip off 500k over the course of a few days. And if that ever happens, there's potential future earnings in investing that money and whatnot.

I'm not totally sure I'm actually making more by travelling, and clearly the variance is much higher, but I'm guessing I do, and even if I don't I'm having a good time while I do it.

How have I never opened this thread!

Top stuff enjoy all the detail and hand histories, best of luck in the coming months !

Thanks, that means a lot!

2024 Week 12

This week started pretty well but as it went on I realized I probably wasn't going to hit the 40 hour goal. I'd scheduled a lunch Thursday with some buddies, really wanted to watch the early rounds of March Madness Thursday/Friday, had committed to a party with Amy's friends Friday night, and had committed to hanging out with buddies to watch basketball Saturday. There simply wasn't enough time to do all these things!

I'm still committed to attempting to work 40 hours per week but I'm starting to realize that the quality of my hours is going to be more important than the quantity. Two hours of half assed studying are worth way less than an hour of focused A game. And even a lunch with other poker players that I don't count as work can have a ton of value in hearing different perspectives and ways of thinking about things.

So Monday 3/18 I got 2 hours of study and 5 hours of play in, ending the night with a 4th/269 in a Stars $100 PKO. My bust hand was frustrating, where button opens covering both blinds, SB shoves 11bb with 55, I reshove 19bb with A7o hunting the bounty, and btn calls AKo to have us both at risk. Flop comes A44r and I'm resigned to finishing 3rd while holding on to a glimmer of hope for a chop or a 7. Instead I finish 4th when the board completes 2x3x, 55 makes a wheel, and I'm the only one to bust. Oh well gg.

I played the WSOP 2k circuit event on Tuesday 3/19 and kept my table count low to focus and take notes. I felt slightly overwhelmed by the aggression I was facing. There were no clear fish at the table and none of the regs there were all that passive. After busting I studied for nearly 2.5 hours. I came to some realizations. I was going through a similar feeling I had all summer last year when things were not going well. When I played at tables where there wasn't anyone I could somewhat easily run over with aggression, I began to feel like I was the fish, especially when I was card dead. How do you beat a player who does very little folding when you're card dead. Well, the short answer is, you don't!

When someone is playing too many hands and underfolding, you can come up with an exploitative strategy that beats them. This often involves slowplaying more often against overly aggressive players and betting thinner for value against overly passive players. But one thing that is generally true against players who don't fold is that you don't make much of your equity from your weak hands and bluffs. Don't get me wrong, bluffing is still important when opponents are getting to certain streets with weak ranges. But in the extreme examples where guys are going to float with weak hands against your checkraises and consistently look for the creative bluff, you're really going to struggle to "outbluff" them. They are effectively going to win more when you both have a weak hand, but with a good counter strategy you'll make that up and then some when you have strong hands vs all parts of their range.

I think this concept is one I'm uncomfortable with in MTTs, especially in those where I don't have stats to fall back on. So it makes sense that I'd feel this way playing live and I'd feel this way playing on WSOP online. On the tracked sites if I think someone is underfolding to checkraise, I'll look it up! If I think they're 3b'ing too often or specifically 3b'ing a lot vs me, I'll look it up. And in cash, even without stats, I've studied enough and played enough to feel confident in my own strategy to the point that I'm relatively comfortable against any amount of aggression. But the doubling down of playing without stats and in MTTs, where I'm less studied in theory, leads to this lack of confidence.

I finished that tournament resolved to learn how to better deal with this kind of thing. The only way to do that is to study harder and think more about how to respond to aggressive opponents. In the past when playing on NJ sites I'd more or less just run over players who were too passive and win so much in equity by capitalizing on players who overfold. As I'm exposed to markets and buy in levels against competition who are all willing to get in there and battle, I need to find better ways to push equity. I need to be more comfortable pushing smaller edges than I'm used to and accepting that my overall ROI (percentage-wise anyway) is going to be lower in a WSOP 2k than it was in a Stars $100 daily 6 years ago. That's just how it is! Rather than being disappointed in feeling uncomfortable in that tournament, I chose to be excited to realize that I still have a lot of room to grow and improve.

On Wednesday 3/20 I got in the $320 6 max circuit ready to look for opportunities to apply what I'd been thinking about. I found a good example of a hand I think exemplifies this. I open Q9ss EP off 40bb. Rec calls MP, randomly aggressive pseudo reg calls bb, both cover. Flop 765ss checks through. I have a flush draw, 2 overs, and a gutter, but this is a pretty clear check on a board that just is not good at all for my range compared to BB's and even MP's ranges. Turn is the 3s, BB bets 75% I call, river 6x and with SPR at 1.8, he bets 50%, I call and beat 5c4h.

I think his turn size shows the level that he's thinking on and is something I need to make sure to stay aware of in the future. "I have a straight. My opponents checked and they wouldn't check a flush draw. I'm going to bet big to stop them from drawing out with one spade on my straight." He gets called, the river pairs the board. "My opponent would have bet flop with 2p+ or a flush draw. Therefore he does not have a full house, a flush, or a better straight, and I have the best hand. I will bet small and hope he calls with a worse hand."

I think that's it! I think that's the whole thought process. And sometimes I give too much credit to players and assume they're finding some line I haven't studied before. I plugged this into GTOwiz out of curiosity. I had him check range on flop (theory donks nearly half the time when HU vs EP here) then had myself check range on turn since I didn't plan on betting anything with a player behind. Assuming we go to turn with those ranges, theory uses 25% as its size as him, and only bets 32% of the time. And it STILL only bets 54o when it has a spade! BB's pot share is 49.23% with this size. If I change the size to 75%, pot share only drops to 49.01%, but now BB can only bet 8% of the time! If we force the BB to bet more often with the 75% size then BB's pot share drops pretty dramatically. Just making him bet 1/3 of his range leads to pot share falling to 47.14%. Even letting his range bet 1/3 of the time still doesn't have 54 no spade betting very often at all. And as I've seen with playing with AI a bit like this in the past, our response to our opponent betting too big and too often is quite often to click it back with a lot of hands. Solver's response to this chunky bet with 1/3 of range is to minraise 24% of the time (and somehow only fold 21%!) Now part of all of this comes down to the fact that solver is finding bluffs with that 75% bet at the proper frequency. After I go through and change that 33% bet range by taking out a lot of the low equity bluffs, so that now BB is betting 17% of range for the 75% size but has lots of value and strong bluffs, our fold percent is back up to 55%.

So what exactly am I trying to say with all this? The main idea I've pulled is that combining theory and exploit is as important as ever. Not only do you want to know what is GTO, you want to know what is theoretically good against someone making somewhat large mistakes. How do I properly punish someone who bets a 4 with no backup on this turn? Well I think a good first step is to simply raise a hand like mine! Maybe calling Q9ss is good and raising A and K high flushes is better, but in any case I want to be aware that raising is an option. I'm excited to keep diving deeper into this stuff in the future.

I made the money of this one and as tournaments often go, was coolered 77<QQ for my last 19bb vs the 54 guy. I felt way more in control this tourney and felt excited to continue practicing with higher stakes MTTs.

Going into Thursday 3/21 it became apparent I was going to struggle to get to 40 hours. I had a nice lunch and hung out with a buddy afterwards before going home and playing some poker. I managed to win a small field $320 PKO on BetMGM for 3k (28 entries) where I thought I played very well at the FT that was mostly regs. I had a very frustrating 9th/132 in a Stars $250 PKO earlier in the night so it felt great to stick with it and get a win.

I had a coaching session scheduled for Friday but my student cancelled last minute which is extremely frustrating. I did some studying while waiting to hear from him on whether he'd show up or not and when I eventually got told 45 mins before that he wouldn't, I let it throw my day off more than it should've. Instead of getting another couple hours in before heading to the city for a party, I laid around the house watching TV.

It stormed Saturday and when I went to leave for my buddy's place I saw it was flooding in front of my apartment. I was hungover and tired and the thought of trekking through that to watch basketball that I had access to at my house was too much so I stayed home and watched movies with Amy all day. We watched Poor Things and Anatomy of a Fall and I liked them both. I got to bed early to prepare for a Sunday session.

Sunday around noon I headed to my buddy's place to watch the 2nd day of round 2 of the NCAA tournament. I didn't drink at all and left at 4:15 like I'd planned to get on my computer by 5:00 for my session. Progress! I've decided to start tracking WSOP tourneys by total entries instead of by the number they post (unique entries, with re-entries being listed as rebuys. The software is ancient). I finished 14th/142 in the early $215 before eventually losing a flip with 63 left in the $525 circuit main from 540 entries to cash for $999. I shoved 16bb with 44 from HJ and CO pretty quickly iso'ed. I knew I'd often be dead but instead he had AK and I survived on the JT32 board before the river A ended the tourney.

It's tough to keep losing these high equity all ins in the big spots this year. With over 60k up top it would've been a nice little sweat to have 35bb with 60 left but once again, it wasn't meant to be. This is very often going to be the case in MTT poker, as I know, but I have a tough time staying patient when that bubble won't seem to pop for me to get that heater started. There's been quite a few of them over the course of the last several weeks. The fiasco leading to the Maryland $3k stone bubble with 46 left / $250k up top, the Wynn $3500 soft bubble with 175 left / $600k up top, the Wynn $1600 disaster bust near the money with 37 left / $40k up top. I can't really seem to make a big run in a big tourney lately. And I lose confidence when I think about how I got into those spots in the first place. I won AKo>AKo and AQ>AK in the Maryland $3k. I won AQ>KK in the Wynn $1600. I think I won AJs>KK before the money in circuit main yesterday. But in tournament poker you need all of the luck to come in one glorious stretch in one specific tournament or it doesn't really add up to a lucky run. All you can do is focus on your decisions, but as I get older and think more about my future, I get ever so slightly more desperate to prove that I can provide for myself and a potential family with results. So that leads to me needing to simply work harder, or at least continue working as hard as I have been, both on my poker ability and on my mental game. It's vital that I stay calm during tough stretches and continue to play well; if I don't, it's that much less likely the results will come!

I'll be gone Friday-Sunday, back for a week, then gone again for a week, all non-poker related. There aren't any tournament series this upcoming week so I think I'll try to get my brain thinking about cash again. I will certainly not get 40 hours in this week as I take a long weekend with Amy's family, and I'll miss the week of April 8 as well, so it's important I get some hours in the next 4 days and next week.

Weekly Results

Meditation 7, Stretch 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 14.25, Played 20, Coached 0, Total 34.25

First time missing 40 hours in quite a while but I'm not gonna beat myself up over it. It's been over 50 straight days of 5k+ steps, meditate, stretch, and that keeps me very grounded and feeling in control of things, so that's most important. The hours are going to fall way off this week with 3 straight days of being unable to play. Maybe I'll bring a laptop and try to do some light studying while there? In any case, the week after this one will be really important in setting a precedent. I want to try to get 40 hours in that week since it'll be in between these two getaways.

This feels like the bane of my existence deep in some tournaments and is far and away the spot I get the most easily frustrated.

Appreciate the thoughts after this and the write up as always.

Something else I struggle with in a similar fashion on WSOP is no note taking ability vs the ability on MGM (not sure if they have that in NJ). Have you found a good way to take notes on other players on WSOP with no way to do it through the site?

Yeah I think there's two ways going about dealing with someone who doesn't fold much. The first is what I described, tightening up and letting things come to you. The other is going after someone you think has a weaker range and trying to be the first one to go all in in those spots. I'm so used to fields being soft and the best strategy being the first one since there are lots of other low variance ways to chip up in a tournament than going after the one guy who won't fold. But as MTTs get tougher, I play bigger buy ins, etc, I might need to experiment with playing that game of chicken. Galfond sent out a newsletter today, I don't always read them but this one was good and touched on this exact topic. When two players with equal stacks are all in deep in a tournament with ICM considerations at play, it's often bad for both those players and good for everyone else in the field. However, if you can convince your opponent that you'll be the last to blink and you're ready to go down with the ship, even if that means torching both yours and his equity, he may begin to fold earlier in hands, which leads to a TON of EV for you. Interesting idea to at least consider.

On WSOP NJ/NV you can take notes! Does PA really not have that capability? That's pretty brutal. All NJ sites I play on do at least allow you to take notes on opponents.

You can take notes on wsop.pa just need to double click on the player avatar and a box will pop up for color tags and to write notes.

I swear I've tried taking notes multiple times, Now i feel dumb hahaha

2024 Week 13

Monday 3/25 I spent a ton of time finishing my taxes to send in to my accountant. Ended up with 5.5 hours of study on the day and 0 of actual play. Last 2.5 I was on call with a friend talking poker and I felt it was improving the way I think about the game so I was happy to count that towards work time.

Tuesday 3/26 I had my first session of physical therapy. After 7 years of dealing with on and off leg pain from running I finally got an appointment set up to figure out what's wrong with me. It appears that the basic answer is "you're weak bro." After explaining everything to the therapist she suggested that I simply do not have enough muscle to support the type of mileage I've been trying to do if I'm doing literally zero work in the gym. After an hour of what I'd call more "glorified stretching" than "lifting," I headed home and realized I felt sore on the walk back. Was it really this simple this whole time??

I played some cash that night and got in the 535 BetMGM tourney at the last second. Got AA in vs a flush draw and did not win to bust that pretty quickly before losing in high stakes cash. I was happy with my thought process throughout and felt like I was finding the right balance of fearlessness in going for it and restraint in not blasting off if it didn't make sense. I've had a few sessions in a row now where there are so many more "should I bluff here" decisions than there are "should I value bet here" spots. I feel like I really infrequently have had made hands for a decent stretch now and you're simply going to lose during those sessions. Key is to lose the least and I'm hopeful that I am doing that.

Wednesday 3/27 I did a long review of some of my hands and felt like I had a much clearer picture of my strategy afterwards. It always amazes me that this far into my career I still have some study sessions where it seems like something clicks that wasn't before the session. That night there were 2 tables of the highest stake in NJ running for a bit at the same time which is pretty rare. One broke and I one tabled the 2nd table for a few hours before ending at 1:15am feeling way too tired to continue to grind it out. I'd resisted the urge to look at my results all day and after playing for 3 hours with 150 hands of 5k and 475 hands of 500, I'd made $11. Nice.

My parents came over the morning of Thursday 3/28 and we hung up some pictures they'd bought me. We went to lunch after and from there I headed to PT again. Afterwards I met them back at my place, we walked around Hoboken for a while and then they headed home. I managed to play a couple hours of poker and made about tree fiddy before heading to 8pm trivia. Heading to the last question, in which you wager 1-30 points after hearing the question, we were in 10th place or so with 82 points and 1st at 92 points. "What is the tallest manmade monument in the US?" The instinct was the Washington Monument, but I argued that if that was the right answer we were going to lose anyway. I remembered hearing the height of the St. Louis Arch once and thinking it was way taller than I would've ever thought. So I explained the logic to my group, if we're right on Washington Monument we lose; if we're right on the Arch we win. Let's go for it. They were down so we wrote it and bet 30 points. "And the right answer is...the Jefferson Memorial, otherwise known as the Gateway Arch!" Now it was time to hold our breath and see if they accepted my wrong name for the right monument. "In 3rd, with 90 points..." *some team* "...in 2nd with 105 points..." *some other team* "...and in 1st, with 112 points" *has to be us!* "...some other team!" Dammit! I was happy enough with logic-ing it out that I decided not to argue with the guy and make things awkward.

From Friday 3/29-Sunday 3/31 I was in Connecticut with Amy and her family. Her parents rented an Airbnb for us all near Mohegan Sun and we had a great time. It's always fun spending time with Amy's family and they're all a lot of fun to be around which was a really lucky break for me. I'd love Amy regardless of what her family was like but they're all genuinely easy to get along with! We went to Mohegan Sun Saturday night for dinner then everyone went their separate ways to gamble for 2 hours. Me and my (not actually but might as well be at this point) brother in law went off to play blackjack because he loves it . Lowest min we could find on a Saturday night was $25 and after a couple shoes and a couple beers we were each up $300 and the rest of the family had made their way over to us. He did not want to leave but I told him it was time to hang out with them and book a win! The next day we headed home and after walking through the door around 6:30 I didn't have the energy to put a session in. With no series events running and no shot at hitting 40 hours on the week I didn't feel too guilty taking it easy to hang out with Amy. I studied a bit from 11:30-1am to get my brain thinking poker again before going to bed and wrapping up the week.

Weekly Results

Meditation 7, Stretch 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 14, Played 9.25, Coached 0, Total 23.25

I managed to get the meditation in each day even when away from home in a full house which isn't always an easy task. I think going forward I'll be less concerned about stretching and more focused on doing any drills I learn from PT. If I can get my legs healthy again and have an outlet to run I feel like I'll unlock my brain somehow. I've always noticed in the past that when I'm in a funk, a run always helps me feel better. Part of me feels like I've been in a funk for a pretty long time now without fully realizing it. PT is the start of potentially getting out of it.

2024 Week 14

No update last week since I left for Zion National Park at 4:30am Monday morning. More on that in the next post!

Monday 4/1 I had a nice meditation which suggested finding the humor in things more. I've been too serious about everything lately, feeling like that's what it means to be an adult. My friends all seem to be getting married, buying houses, getting new high paying jobs, and while I'm really happy for them I've found myself putting unnecessary pressure on myself to succeed. It's tough to play poker well to begin with. When you hit a downswing it's important to remember that your job is very different than other people's jobs. My friends have all worked really hard to get where they are, and their careers for the most part have been on a steady upward trajectory for a long time because they're doing what they need to do to get to where they want to be. That isn't how poker works. It's extremely rare to have any sort of consistent climb upwards. There's so many more ups and downs, so comparing myself to others is unhelpful and overwhelming.

That night I lost a bit in cash and felt very frustrated, but remembered the meditation. It helped me to see the big picture more clearly. An extremely high percentage of players, especially compared to just 3-5 years ago, take EVERY spot and are willing to deal with a ton of variance for the slightest bit of perceived EV gain these days. At one 2/5 table the player on my left 3b me I think my first 5 opens at a new table. I folded all 5, then opened A3dd MP and was 3b again. I probably should've just folded again but I put the 4b in almost just as an experiment. His 3b number in my sample is extremely high so while it's probably not a winning 4b, I don't think it's a huge burn. He calls, I b50 775dd, he shoves, I call and lose to 98hh. For some reason this hand really got to me, but because I meditated earlier and tried to find the humor in things, I was able to see more clearly what was going on. I think I've somehow had this subconscious thought that players who are blindly aggressive somehow "deserve" to win more than others? It's hard to describe exactly what I was thinking, but I often feel overwhelmed facing constant and borderline blind aggression. I want to be the one putting *you* in these spots, not vice versa! But over the last few weeks I've been doing a better job of understanding how to adjust to these guys and how to think about the game more clearly. The way to beat a guy like this isn't to 4b A3s (though I still don't mind that I did it). It's to open way tighter! Let him 3b 13% overall from all positions, who cares! I used to do this really well; pay attention to what most of the table is doing and do the opposite. In this case, if all the regs wanna go nuts with their 3b's, just open tighter and let them go bonkers and win redline and all that. They can win all the pots, I'll win all the money, everyone will be happy. For some reason my gut reaction has often been "well, it appears he's going to fold close to literally nothing in these spots (solvers don't really 3b this at all pre in these positions, they DEFINITELY don't shove flop) and I still can't beat him, it's hopeless." But clearly my gut reaction needs to be "I just got one of the weakest hands I can show up with in on flop in a 4b pot in a tight position setup and had 75% equity, what a dream!"

Small win Tuesday 4/2 in 1400 hands, did well to get a good grind in. Got 1k hands in Wednesday 4/3 and while I was playing my clients kept crashing. There was a storm that day and I think it messed with the geolocation software. Here we are 12 days later and the clients are still crashing mid session sometimes. Part of me wanted to wrap my session up early because it felt like it was a sign, but I'm tired of thinking like that. No matter what **** gets thrown at me I'm going to get my volume in and keep fighting.

I had the biggest losing day of my career Thursday 4/4. It was probably one of the best days of poker I've ever played. I wrapped up at 4:40am and had no idea of how to feel. The day had started well as a whale sat the biggest stake that runs online and immediately 3b 72o vs me. We checked to river where he potted 7 high and I called to get off to a good start. Nothing went well at that stake the rest of the day. An orbit later I peeled his small 3b again, this time with QJo off about 50bb. The plan was to flop a pair and go with it, so when it came Q72 I had no intentions of folding. We got it in and he had 77. An orbit later he limp/raised ep off 100bb and I decided to go with QQ and lost to KK. A few orbits later btn reg opens, sb reg 3b's, I cold 4b QQ, sb calls, 984r I go 1/3 he calls, turn 6 I shove 2/3 and lose to 66. The whale leaves 25 hands later and I'm down 5 figures at 6pm.

I was tempted to quit but decided not to. I played another 2 hours and made back half of what I'd lost without the highest stake even running. I stayed locked in and battled and was really proud of how mentally sharp I played despite the big hole I was in. I eventually took a break at 8pm and came back at 11:45 to get back in there. The big boy stake ran on WSOP this time and the whale was 2 tabling. A friend of mine sent me the guy's most recent mtt scores and it revealed that after winning a $50 blast (WSOP's version of spin n go) jackpot for 3k earlier that day, he'd played another one and won again, this time for $30k. Guy was up $33k in the span of like 10 $50 blasts. The heat was far from finished for him! After playing for about an hour and being down a little, I finally played a big pot with him. He goes 3.5x btn, I defend A9o, flop comes AQ9dd and there's a chance this is the spot I've been waiting for. I x, he bets 75%, I raise, and he shoves for a lot. He bet 5.5bb, I raised to 19.5bb, he's all in for 103bb. I call and am ahead of AK, turn 3, river Q, pot is shipped to him. I lose a little more then open KK in ep to 2bb before insane 3betty reg 3b's mp to 8bb. Solid reg on button makes it 19bb and while I wouldn't be thrilled with QQ, we've got a pretty standard get in here. I shove and lose to button's AA and am down 5 figures for the 2nd session in the day! I've got no more ways of getting money on the site at this point and didn't have it in me to keep going anyway with it being nearly 5 in the morning, so I hop off and live to fight another day.

I wrote this in my notes to start the next day: "The most important thing to remember going forward is that you played so well yesterday and played so many hours at the highest stakes despite so many excuses to quit or play poorly. You never let anything stop you from playing your A game. If you continue to do that, you will thrive...I feel pretty good starting out today. I think I've hit this point before, the point where you're so buried that there's no point in thinking about the money anymore. I can clearly focus on playing my best and working on the process. I'd rather not be buried, but it's nice to take a positive from it. I also don't feel guilt about being buried. I'm not sure if there's much else I could do. If I wasn't going through the toughest variance stretch in my life leading up to yesterday, it seems pretty clear I am now. But it's not going to last long because I'm going to battle through it every day and not waste any time." If this isn't the clearest sign of mental game growth I don't know what is. Despite having my toughest session ever end at 4:40am that morning, I was on the computer at noon and booked an 800 hand win before taking a planned night off.

Something I realized through all of this is that I need to stop talking about results with Amy. Or at least stop talking about the negative results. Part of me feels like it's dishonest to tell her about the good times but leave out the bad times. But it's very hard for non poker players to fully grasp the idea of variance. I can tell sometimes that she's concerned that the losing is a pattern that isn't ever going to stop, which is a reasonable line of logic if you haven't been around the game for years. So going forward I've vowed to steer clear of going into any detail on a big losing session like this with her. I think it'll leave her feeling more at ease and it'll make me feel less pressure about wanting to win to "prove" to her that this is just a downswing, not a sign of things being like this forever. "Man, I got it in with 76% equity against this whale and he rivered a Q for an 11k pot, I swear it's gonna turn around soon!" needs to be replaced with "ah I had a tough day, glad you're home, let's go get some dinner." It isn't dishonest, it's just a more healthy way of communicating what's going on in a stressful job.

Saturday 4/6 was the first night of USCOOP for me and I played a bunch of the low stakes stuff they had running and relaxed. I tried to focus on enjoying myself. I joined a SCOOP competition so trying to cash the small stuff still had some value to me and it was nice to not think about the money at all. I played $765 in buy ins over 17 bullets of MTTs which has to be the lowest ABI I've played in a day in years.

Sunday 4/7 I played 2.2k in buy ins and barely cashed anything. I put the hours I needed to in and got outta there, ready to go to Zion National Park in Utah for a week with Amy. In the past I might have felt guilt over leaving while in a pretty big hole. But this time I decided to focus on what actually matters. I put a ton of time and effort into my craft. I haven't been getting the results I want but that doesn't take away from work I'm putting in. Just because I've been losing doesn't mean I don't "deserve" a vacation. I decided I'd let myself have a great time where I thought very little about poker then come back refreshed and ready to go. It appears to have worked! We had an amazing trip and the first Sunday back went very well. I'll go over all of that next post.

Weekly Results

Meditation 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 8.25, Played 33.5, Coached 0, Total 41.75

Got my 40 hours in and that's always going to be the focus over profit/loss. One thing I've thought about a lot in the last couple weeks is that it's important I start to play more. It's great to study but I think my ratio has been off. I need more hours actually playing the game. The more hours I'm able to play (assuming I'm able to play my A game or B game) the quicker I'll flush through all the variance. I've always gotten too bogged down by whatever number is staring me in the face at the end of the day. My goal is to play so much that I don't have time to think about the number; my focus will be on playing well the next day. I think the best players in the world don't think much about downswings because their mental game is such that they're right back to playing before any frustration could possibly set in. I think I'm at the point where I can do that and I want to focus on that going forward.

2024 Week 15

Monday 4/8 I was up at 4:30am ready to get on a plane around 7:10 and fly to Las Vegas. Amy and I were going to Zion National Park for the week. We landed, shuttled over to the car rental place, and grabbed our eclipse glasses out of my bag to see the max eclipse in Vegas, which was around 50% coverage. We got the car, got some lunch, and made the 2.5 hour drive to Springdale where Amy had rented a room at a beautiful hotel in the canyon. View from the hotel balcony:



We grabbed some dinner and walked around the town of Springdale, which is basically in the park without technically being part of the park. The next day we got up and did some good hiking, eventually logging 30k steps on the day. We went to each of the 3 Emerald Pools in the morning, walked another 1.5 miles or so to get back to the nearest shuttle stop (one was inaccessible due to a bridge being out), then took the shuttle back to where we'd started. I wanted to hike up to where the Angel's Landing permit area began but Amy isn't thrilled with heights, so I suggested she go as far as she felt comfortable. She toughed it out and did the entire hike until we got to the base of Angel's Landing, where the chains begin and a permit is required (which we didn't have). I knew there was no way Amy was going up there and I wanted to respect the rules of the park so I vowed to do it next time. Here's me at Scout's Lookout, in front of the start of the chained section of Angel's Landing, watching a squirrel eat a snack outta someone who left their bag under that sign. That thing had a FEAST.



Wednesday 4/10 we drove through the park, weaving around some switchbacks you can see in the background of the next picture, before going through a tunnel carved right through the mountain. We parked in a small lot on the other side of the tunnel, did a cool hike to the Canyon Overlook, then headed back to our car to head over to Bryce Canyon National Park. The dropoff on the rocks behind us was VERTICAL, at least 1000 feet straight down, pretty cool to look over:



Two hours later we were at Bryce Canyon National Park. The next day I learned that the husband of the Florida Senate President had died a week earlier at Bryce Canyon, the first recorded death in over 20 years there. These places are so cool and beautiful but it's important to remember that accidents do happen and wrong one step literally can be your last! Here I am ****ing around on a hoodoo:



The next day we were set to hike The Narrows, a long stretch of the canyon where it's mostly just river. We rented our gear the night before but when we woke up we saw that the river conditions were unsafe to the point that no one would be allowed to hike it. So we returned the gear and did the mile hike that leads to the point where the canyon narrows to just the width of the river:



We did The Watchman trail that night after getting back to the Visitor Center and waited for the sun to set. I took a timelapse of it setting below the mountain but I'm not sure how to upload that here so I'll just post a pic:



That night we went out to a trail to best see the stars, but after going about 50 feet down the trail we realized the totality of the darkness was just a bit too unsettling so we looked up for a few minutes then headed back to the car. It was pretty spectacular to see the stars so bright, especially since we've gotten used to the lack of a view you get in NYC.

Friday 4/12 we drove back to Vegas, got some food, then spent some time in the city before our 11pm red eye home. We were back in our apartment around 8am ET, I slept til 1pm then headed out for my friend's bday party in Morristown. I got home from that around 2am then got some sleep to get ready for my first session in a week.

I played $3760 in buy ins and cashed for $31,389 + a day 2 sweat in the $200 USCOOP PKO, finishing 20/34 with 40bb out of a starting field of 628. I went into the session with the goal of relaxing and enjoying myself. When I come back from an extended break there's always an opportunity to create new habits and I really wanted to try to have fun while playing poker again! I got JJ in vs KK for 27bb each on the stone bubble of the BetMGM 1k with 15 left and 14 paying. A minute or two later I got KK in vs AA in the $200 PKO on Stars. First board ran xxxJx, second board ran 56789, and I went on to win the 1k for $29.5k.

I feel like I've been doing everything right for a while now. There will always be strategic adjustments that can be made in poker so it's always possible you're not playing your absolute best. But I was showing up, over and over again, studying hard, meditating to stay calm, exercising to feel good, planning my days. The amount of losing I'd been doing was frustrating, but the usual uneasy feeling that accompanies downswings wasn't as present as it often is. In poker tournaments, when you run JJ into KK over and over again in big spots, it feels absolutely impossible to win. But 20% of the time you hit the J, and if you stay focused and play well you might just go ahead and bink the tourney to get out of the rut. Most of the time I'd lose that hand and lose 2k on the day, but this time I won it, so it's a 27k win instead.

I don't feel particularly different about myself after this win and I think that's a massive sign of growth. I don't feel some overwhelming relief like I usually do. I'm a professional high stakes poker player and a 17k losing day or a 27k winning day might start to become more commonplace than I'd ever have imagined it could. I want to continue doing what I've been doing all year. I'll stay patient and gracious while losing, and I'll be grateful and humble while winning. And I'll continue getting my 40 hours in every week that I'm home. The success will continue to come so long as I stick to this formula. I cashed both 1k's I played yesterday as well, but that report will have to wait until next week.

Weekly Results

Meditation 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 0, Played 8.75, Coached 0, Total 8.75

It was pretty tough to get the meditations in some days at Zion since I didn't have a regular routine established, but I managed to do it each day. One day I did it while sitting by the pool in 70+ degree weather which was absolutely amazing. The walks I DEFINITELY got in, recording 114k steps for a total of 62.6 miles in those 7 days, with 30k of those steps coming Tuesday alone! I didn't put any hours into poker from Monday-Saturday as planned, then played just under 9 hours Sunday. A really great week overall!

My advice is don't talk poker results with non-poker people other than the occasional live tournament experience. One off live tournaments are OK because the buy-in and range of results is pretty easy to understand for a non-poker person (i.e. ok this is a $3.5k buy-in and there is a chance of 1m for first etc), and the downside is capped / justifiable as an "experience" / "lottery ticket".

Cash games on the other hand there is only downside to talking about mostly - my brother plays high stakes cash and its not very productive to talk to your normal person significant other when you are winning/losing their yearly salary any given night/week.

Yeah I can definitely get behind that!

2024 Week 16

First full week back from Zion and it was time to play some tournaments. I'd joined a US SCOOP competition and had missed 6 of the first 9 days so I'd need to catch up to properly help my team. Luckily they'd been doing great and we were just off the lead.

Monday 4/15 was day 2 of the $200 PKO I'd started the day before. I lost a big pot getting A8dd in vs AQhh on Q96ddh7h and didn't get there. Grinded a long time after that, chipping up a bit before eventually busting 20th/628 for $425+$306 in bounties.

Tuesday 4/16 went quite well as I found myself building stacks in both the SCOOP 1k and the WSOP circuit 1k. I'd eventually finish 14th/160 in the WSOP 1k for 2.9k and 4th/77 in the Stars 1k for 8.5k. While playing these I finished 3rd/290 in a Stars $30 tourney for $850 and more importantly, a good amount of points for the contest. A 36th/273 for a mincash in a Stars 250 capped off the cashes that night.

Not much to speak of Wednesday 4/17 except the 5th/169 (not that that matters) in the total PKO event on Stars, where your entire buy in goes on your head. I cashed for $985 in the $100 event, again for a decent chunk of points.

I played 9 unique MTTs Thursday 4/18 and cashed 3. Coincidentally all 3 of those were SCOOP event #32. I finished 21st/645 in the $50 low version for $291, 10th/265 in the $200 mid version for $825, and 17th/118 in the $500 high version for $802. Buncha close calls but no big results.

Mincash in a $250 PKO SCOOP, 15th/307 in a $100 SCOOP event, and 6th/386 in a WSOP circuit $215 for a little over 3k on Friday 4/19.

Saturday the 20th I was out all day, doing a brunch in the early afternoon, drinking at Pier 13 later, getting some Ramen at night, then hanging with Amy til we went to bed. Nice off day after 6 straight days of grinding.

Sunday the 21st and it was time for one of the biggest Sundays in NJ MTT history. BetMGM $2500, SCOOP $2500, SCOOP $300 300k main, WSOP $525 circuit main with a big guarantee (their lovely client is not listing this event anymore for me to check the exact guarantee). I ended up putting 3 total bullets into the $2500s en route to being in for $10.5k on the day. After busting the BetMGM $2500, I found myself all in on bullet 2 of the SCOOP $2500 with KQ vs AK. I flopped a Q to chip up to 3.3m at 120kbb from 1m starting. With 11 left and 9 paying I shoved AK for 3.8m over a LJ open to 420k at 200kbb. He snapped off AQo and a Q once again hit the flop, flipping the script on last time and knocking me out on the bubble.

That was pretty painful with a 5.3k 9th place mincash and a $45k 1st place prize, but it was easier to swallow given how well I'd ran all week. It was just 7 days earlier that I'd gotten in JJ vs KK on the stone bubble of the BetMGM 1k, only to hit a J and go on to win the tourney for nearly 30k. KK guy bubbled a few hands later and that probably stung as well. All you can do is keep registering and keep playing well. Which is what he did, going on to win this $2500 for $45k and finishing 3rd/900+ in the $300 main for another $26k the next day. My heat came last Sunday, his came this Sunday, and we both end the series up a good amount. The more you can tune out all the noise when you're running poorly and continue to play well and put in volume, the more likely it is you'll bounce back as quickly as possible. Shout out to Jake!

I finished day 1 of the $300 main with a pretty big stack but it wasn't meant to be on day 2 (Monday, the next day) as I eventually busted 22nd/932 for 2k. After finishing day 1 on Sunday I found myself 1 tabling a $100 PKO. A win in that event would take my 10k losing day and turn it into a 6.5k losing day (not counting any result in the $300 main yet). I'd finished 10th/203 in a $200 turbo for $700 but otherwise bricked my other 26 bullets of MTTs this day. It can be very difficult to buckle down when a win won't really change your outcome of "big losing day." But a combination of my mindset being the best it's ever been and a desire to thrive in this SCOOP contest after being drafted for sliiiiiightly less than I thought I should have been led to me being laser focused on this tournament. It was a fast structure and a PKO so there was lots of gambling to be done, but I really thought deeply through every decision despite the daily situation. Ended up winning it for $3500 and a pretty huge result for the SCOOP competition. Our team took a 6286 to 5897 lead into the final day (none of the other 3 teams had over 4300) and that win was worth 380 points. If I'd punted that MTT without cashing we'd have had just a 9 point lead!

I'd realized that the scoring formula for the competition was awarding too many points to small field events, so the final day of the series I got into the $100 HORSE event and took 5th in it for $771 and 151 points. We won the contest 6605-5937 so those 2 results proved to be pretty vital in the end. These contests always bring out the competitor in me and get me to focus on volume and finding ways to win. I ran very hot the last 7-8 days but I kept putting myself in good spots and sometimes that leads to good results. Of the 25 players in the contest, 5 scored more than 1300 (and 3 of those were my teammates!), with 6th-10th all scoring between 1236 and 1214 points (I was officially 7th). Not bad for being in Utah 6 of the 18 days!

Weekly Results

Meditation 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 6.75, Played 31.25, Coached 2, Total 40

Lots of hours played this week. For maybe the first time this year I got a feeling back that I haven't felt in a long time. "I can't possibly win ANOTHER all in...welp, guess I can!" It's been a very long time since I've run as hot as I did this week. A 4th in Stars 1k, 14th in WSOP 1k, 11th in Stars 2500, 22nd in Stars 300 300k, just a little more run good could have led to an astounding week, but it was still very profitable.

With this newfound rungood I felt another old feeling: guilt. There's this weird feeling I get after sucking out for the 3rd time in 20 minutes, I don't know if other people get this the same way or not. I feel like I don't deserve it. But because of all the work I've done this year away from poker I was well equipped to deal with it. "Stop focusing on what you can't control, take some deep breaths, and accept reality." When you run really hot, the reality is that right now you have a lot of chips, and you need to do your best to play well. All year it's been about accepting the reality that I lost this big pot or had another brutal session. This time it was about accepting the reality that everything was going my way and that's also part of poker. It was also much easier to accept the rungood after handling some tough stretches the past couple months.

From a monetary perspective, my year has still been very meh. But it's much better than it was before I went to Zion. And the numbers are irrelevant. The focus will continue to be on doing the right things. Meditate, exercise, work 40 hours. I'm about 4 weeks into physical therapy and I'm hopeful I'll be able to run again when it's all over. I don't think it's a huge coincidence that the results weren't there before PT when I wasn't getting any running in, and now that I'm doing some minor lifting and getting myself into better shape they're coming back.

Really great thread. Thanks for sharing everything so openly, it makes it a lot of fun to follow along.

I play MTTs online professionally and I've been working on processing my emotions in a more healthy manner to unlock higher performance. I think it's normal to feel this guilt but I think it's even more important to have a way to process/let go of the emotion by leaning into it and feeling it fully and not just using the mind's logic to bypass it. Injecting logic doesn't rid yourself of the emotion, it just stuffs it into the background where it will continue to make you feel bad and potentially lead to an unconscious decrease in your performance. The same can be said for emotions like anger, fear/anxiety, sadness, etc. I also believe that our beliefs (both conscious and unconscious) is a huge determinant in the reality we experience so if you're believing you're not deserving of extreme run good/success then that can really put a cap on your upside.

As an autist who spent most of my life entirely disconnected from my body/emotions and prioritizing logic above all else, this was a real game changer for me. Anyways - just my take, if it doesn't resonate then that's all good. And if you want to talk more about this type of thing, my DMs are open. Best of luck!

Thanks for writing this all out. When I'm away from the table I think I'm capable of thinking clearly about everything. No reason to feel guilty about running hot, no reason to feel depressed about running cold, it's all part of the game.

When I'm in the middle of a big session and it's harder to process everything with a clear mind, that's when that guilt hits the hardest. That's when the meditation is so valuable to me. I'm able to take a few deep breaths, quickly accept reality (I have a lot of chips), and move on to the next hand without that lingering icky feeling of undeserved-ness while I play. From a poker perspective, that's when it's most important that I'm able to block out the noise and just play.

Away from the table, at least in the last several months, I believe I've had a great mindset. You're absolutely right that it's vital to believe you're deserving of rungood sometimes, just as it's vital you're able to understand you're not above runbad. I completely agree that trying to "out-logic" your feelings can lead to some unresolved issues that you might not even realize you have. Appreciate you writing out response!