Quick Update

Went home to visit my parents and stopped sun running! To be fair I didn't put much volume in and bricked the $215 turbo twice so -$1K isn't really much of a "downswing" as it is just a losing session. I took Friday and Saturday off and am ready to grind tonight. I late regged the $200 on WSOP as late as possible and lost QQ to AA pretty quickly to bust--gonna happen sometimes when you reg with 25BBs! I'm still not feeling 100% but am trying to make it better by eating better, taking Claritin, and just focusing on not letting my mind tell me I feel bad! My running has been pretty non-existent, but the one run I did was with Kelsey where we just ran 2 miles at her pace. She suggested I wear sweatpants and that my recent stopping of running was because I was worried about how bad it was making me feel because of the cold weather. I always shied away from wearing more than shorts on my legs because I felt it would really impede my stride and I would overheat. Well running with sweatpants was super comfortable and didn't bother me at all! I'll have to do that in the future.

I didn't run yesterday though because it dumped 20 inches of snow on us, and that was about the lowest total anywhere in NJ got! It was a wild blizzard and my parents' house definitely got more snow than that. I got a decent workout trying to shovel out the driveway but a lot of the side roads still have a bunch of snow on them so if I do try to run tomorrow I'll have to be very careful. I'm considering taking a huge chunk of the money I have online and putting it into a bank account. I'd still consider it my bankroll but would probably feel safer with it offline. I also don't need the amount of money I have online right now to be there, so I think that will be the best decision. I saw our utility bill today and was worried (but thought it could be normal for a house during the winter) to see it was in the $450 range. However, about $270 of that was for a deposit that will be returned at the end of the year, so $180, or $60 per guy, seems pretty damn sweet! That was encouraging. Combine that with the $44 or so we pay for cable and that's only an additional $100 or so for that stuff, and when added to the $800 for rent, I'm paying <$1000 for all that extra stuff per month. It's a relief to see that these extra bills aren't piling as high as I thought they might.

That's all for now, time to put this session in!

Mental Game

My mental game, while it's certainly way better than it was in the past, is still not where I want it to be. I find that I start doubting myself whenever I lose a pot to a reg where I had to make a close decision. It's like my brain is waiting for me to mess up and then when it happens, or even when I don't mess up but I just happen to lose a pot, I decide that I must not be as good as I think I am or as my results suggest I am. I think this is something that all pros who are legitimately good at the game go through. Once you really start to grasp how much variance in involved in the game, and you really start to realize how much money one decision can make or lose for you late in a tournament, you realize how vital it is to always continue to hone your skills and make as few errors as possible. Even if you are better than everyone you are playing against, you can always improve yourself, which can lead to better results and more earnings. So even if you're outplaying everyone at your table, making one error will still cost you money, which can lead to a lot of stress and self doubt.

Yesterday in the middle of my session I started feeling that stress and self doubt after running my 10K stack up to 40K in the Party major. I won AQ>KK, rivering a 3 outter, and then got lucky again to get 40K, before losing a bunch of pots to bump right back down to 10K. I started to feel inadequate. I've never won a Sunday major, never even finished top 3 in one. Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe I just don't step up in these bigger events. Maybe the guys who have won several times really just are that much better than me and I don't have the mental fortitude to stick with these tourneys all the way through. Maybe I...STOP. At that point I stopped myself. While I still had 10K in this tourney I said wtf Dan, you've been winning everything you play this month. You know you're playing amazing. You're also good enough to recognize how lucky you've been, but these results just aren't going to happen to someone who is incapable of winning a Sunday tourney. You've been making money playing poker since you were in high school. IT'S OKAY TO MAKE MISTAKES.

This weight sort of fell from my shoulders at that moment. It's okay to make mistakes. Not playing perfectly is not the end of the world. Strive for that perfection but don't feel that anxiety and sadness when you make a play you're unsure of and it doesn't work out. I knew that at the end of my session I was going to feel okay no matter what. I was going to focus the way I have been, putting all of my energy and attention into playing every game the best I could, and never letting up on any of the tourneys due to mental fatigue or some sort of satisfaction from winning a tourney in the past. I've noticed I do some of these things subconsciously, letting up at the end of an MTT when I've already guaranteed a win for the day from a different MTT. A lot of my success this month has been because I try to win every tourney I'm in, no matter how small, regardless of how the other tourneys I'm playing in have gone. It sounds so simple and obvious but getting to that next level of attention and focus is not as easy as it sounds, but I've been locked in this entire month. I eventually busted the 50K and prepared to grind out the rest of the session.

The Rest of the Session

After busting the majors I still had plenty of tourneys to take care of. I settled down and prepared to grind out every tourney. I think a good goal to have on days where you put a lot of volume in is to take the last MTT you're in just as seriously whether you have busted every tournament that day or won every tournament that day. Theoretically you should be focused and trying to win that last tournament no matter how good it's gone on the day, but it's hard to do in practice. If you bust every tourney you play, it's easy to get discouraged and play bad. If you've had a huge day and now this tourney's win dwarfs in comparison to the rest of your day, it's easy to treat it like a freeroll and lose focus in that sense. And if you've broken even on the day and this tourney will represent your entire profit for the day, it's easier to try your hardest to show that your whole day wasn't just a waste. A goal I have on these days is to be just as focused on this last tourney and working as hard as I can on it no matter which of those above scenarios are true.

I was able to win the $100 high roller on WSOP for $1500 to immediately lock up a Sunday win. With $1100 in buy ins I would be +$400 regardless of how the rest of the tourneys went. But daily results are unimportant and maximizing profits for every tournament is key. I eventually busted 13th of 140 in the $55 5K on Party for $130 and was left with the 2 $100 buy ins that each started at 7PM, the Party 10K and the WSOP weekly 10K. By 1AM I was at the final table of both and had a lot of chips in each. With about 4K up top in each it would be crucial to play my best, but I was determined not to get down on myself if I made some mistakes. I eventually found myself facing a 4b shove after I 3b 99 from the SB vs a very aggro player's CO open. There were 6 left, and the jam was for my stack, which was over 30BBs to start the hand. If I were to call and win I'd have about 180K of the 640K in play and be in a virtual tie for 1st. I decided to call it off, despite other short stacks at the table, because against this player raise/folding a hand as strong as 2 9s would just be awful. I could have flatted pre to reduce variance but I think I liked my line best. I REALLY liked it when he turned over 66, and had to just shrug it off when I was eliminated in 6th for $730 when a 6 hit the flop. I remember winning 77>TT with 6 left in one of the 10Ks I won earlier this month, so while whining is never okay, it really would be laughable for me to complain about this spot with the month I've been having.

That left me with the Party 10K. With 6 left in that I triple barreled KQ on a T63J7 run out after opening UTG and facing a BB defend. He called flop and turn before tanking a bit on river and calling with 63dd. I think I like my play, as if he has less than 2 pair it's going to be really really difficult to call down. I think I'd triple barrel QQ+ for value on this board, so with 63 he beats a small chunk of value hands and then my total bluffs. I thought his range was weighted heavily toward Tx, and him having 63 is just a bit unlucky. Before the hand I would have thought he had no 2 pair combos in his range on that flop, and that really only sets and some weird 98 sorta stuff would be able to call here, which makes me think my bluff has to be profitable longterm. After that hand he had about 600K and amazingly all of the other 5 of us had between 200K and 300K. I eventually dipped to 6/6 but was able to hang around and watch all the other short stacks run bad. I certainly had a chance to come back when it was 3 handed. I was way behind but still had 20BBs, but eventually 3b jammed A3 into AK to bust 3rd of 192 for $1900.

Results

All told I ended up winning about $3300 on the day yesterday. The mental toughness I've shown when running into bad beats has been a big part of my success. I didn't let the bad beat on the WSOP 10K lead to bad play in the Party 10K. Had I busted 6th in the Party 10K I would have made over $1000 less than I did for moving up to 3rd. This stuff adds up after a while. I'm approaching 20K in profits on the month/year and a big month like this could not have possibly come at a better time. The stress I've felt about making sure I can maintain a good sized bankroll while simultaneously paying all my bills has been replaced with asking roommates what they think the best way for me to handle my money is (savings account vs stocks vs other options, etc). The results yesterday should help me secure a top 5 spot in NJ when the rankings update on Wednesday. It might be close though since I did see one sicko finally added his Borgata screenname (and he has a ton of big results) so he might end up jumping ahead of me. I'm still in the #1 spot on the WSOP leaderboard but they really don't seem to update it often and I wouldn't be surprised if I fall a few spots when they do update since I didn't put in a ton of volume last week due to visiting my parents.

Tonight will be a poker day as will tomorrow. Wednesday I'm taking Kelsey somewhere special but I can't say where in case she reads this before then . Thursday is poker, Friday I'm going to a friend's birthday party, and I'll have to decide what to do Saturday. Since I've already committed to Wednesday and Friday, I'd have to play Saturday to lock up a 5 day workweek. However, I've been having a really tough time with making sure I feel like I'm spending enough time with everyone that I want to. That's just a balancing act I will have to perfect as time goes on. If I could put sessions in during the day, that problem would go away, but since MTTs only run at night, I have to work the same time that the people I care about have off from work. I'm confident though that I will eventually find the best balance for all of this and that worry will slowly start to go away. I want to start running again but with all the snow and ice on the ground in a town I'm still not super familiar with I'm a bit scared to get out there. I haven't read the book that was helping me, Buddha's Brain, in a while so I want to get back to that as well. I need to keep my mental game as strong as possible so those temporary lapses in confidence happen less and less in the future.

Over $20K Profit on the Month!!

Bricked everything tonight except for the Party 10K where I was able to finish 3rd for the 2nd consecutive night. Another big field of 168 runners led to 3rd being good for a shade over $1700 which gave me another 4 figure winning session, my 7th of the month in 17 sessions. Pretty absurd. I'm only a little over 20K though so a losing end of the month could still see that total drop below that milestone. Either way, this will be the biggest month I've ever had by a long shot and I am very pleased with that. I felt some frustration and fatigue setting in today as I was losing each tournament I played one by one but managed to stay focused enough to let the rungood come back. I won 99 vs KQ all in on 9TJ and eventually won 88>KK to knock out a good opponent in 10th for a big pot. I didn't run great at the final table but didn't run awfully either, losing a few flips before winning one vs the chip leader with 4 left to stay alive. With 3 left the leader was way ahead and 2nd and I were very close. I ended up shoving 11BBs from SB with 86s and ran into his A8 to bust 3rd.

The chip leader was Gags, who streams his sessions on Twitch these days, so we had a fun dynamic going where he started open limping his SB's vs my BB with a pretty wide range, and after 5 minutes I got to see which hands he was limping, which allowed me to adjust my strategy. BUT Gags knew I was watching so he had the option to adjust based on that info. For the first time in a while I felt relaxed despite playing against an opponent I know is better than me. I think I played well (it helped to have him on my direct right) and just didn't win the pots I needed to to win the tournament. All in all I'm very happy with tonight's session.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Lost a little under $800 yesterday, totally fine with it think I played okay. Hopped in the $535 MTT that they're running every Tuesday on Party now and busted that so that accounts for a big chunk of the losses. Ran good to make the final table of the WSOP high roller before running bad at the final table to bust 5th for $300ish with 4 figures up top. Finished 3rd in a $55 on 888 for $300 with $750 up top after open limping 99 in SB, c/c'ing 983 flop, c/c'ing Q turn, and c/c'ing off my stack on T river only to be shown J4o lol. Based on stack sizes and who my opponent was in the BB, a solid player that I'm starting to build some history with since he's grinding about as hard as I am right now, I like my line. Seeing his actual hand actually makes me like my line even more since he had just about zero equity the whole hand which means letting him bluff off is optimal. He went almost full pot on flop and then made a decent sized bet on turn as well. The only downside of the slowplay is that sometimes that 3% dog is gonna get there.

I lost a flip to bust the $215 turbo, took 11th in both $25 and $35 tourneys that had $500 and $700 up top respectively, and bubbled the WSOP 5K. So, in short, I ran bad for one of the first times this month! It was almost a relief to have a little heat check like that and to see how I reacted to it. It's a little frustrating in the middle of it but I can confidently say my mindset was very good yesterday. I made the plays I felt were correct and if they didn't work I didn't let it bother me. Some good news though, I'm top 5 in NJ now!! Last week 4th-10th were all in a real cluster as far as leaderboard points go, and after a 1st and 2nd in the WSOP 10K and 2 3rds in the Party 10K, along with some WSOP high roller successes were added, I'm in 4th with a decent gap on 5th! I'm also 12th in USA but idk how much that really means given the state of online poker here.



I don't personally know donnysack but he plays well. I've known ykwon for about 5 years now. We went to the same college and played in the same home game at Ramapo. And JohnnnnyDrama is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and is really one of the few people I still talk to on Skype. Those are the only people in NJ ranked higher than me right now! I also looked ahead to see which scores will be losing points next week (scores older than 3 months are only worth 75% of their base values so scores from Oct 27 - Nov 3 will lose points next week). I'm really not going to be losing any points since I had limited success that week so any more good results are going to lead to my point total getting higher. It would be pretty cool to snag that #1 spot from my buddy Mike

Today is an off day as I take Kelsey somewhere fun. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll put a session in again tomorrow and then will head south for a friend's birthday party on Friday. Laser tag and beer what could be better. Saturday I do not know whether I will play or not. I feel motivated to put volume in but I also like spending the weekends with the people I care about who only have those off. Since Sunday is a must play day I'm always gonna feel a little guilty playing Saturday. But taking Saturday off would be day #3 this week. I will have to decide as it gets closer. Sunday will be the last day of the month and will be a big one, with Party's 50K being a 100K instead, and WSOP trying out a $500 buy in for their major instead of a $200. The guarantee is still only 30K which is a bummer but hopefully it gets a good number of players and that goes up in the future (they're running it the last Sunday of every month). I don't have 100 buy ins yet for $500 MTTs but since they only run once a week now on Party and once a month on WSOP, I think I'll just be playing them in the future. Now that I'm throwing the $215 turbo in each night and that $535 each week, I can expect the negative swings to be bigger than I've ever experienced them. I've got a bankroll number in my head that if it drops below that number I'll chop out the $500s, but until then, bombs away! I think I'm profitable in those fields so I'll have to just keep firing at them and hoping the variance stays positive.

I'll leave you with my 2016 graph for WSOP. It's been a fun start to the year:

Intermission of The Lion King on Broadway right now with Kelsey. Pretty sweet way to spend a night off!!

Great work dude, straight up killing it!

Sick month so far congrats!

Thanks guys appreciate it!

The money I've made this month has obviously been big in furthering my pursuit of this game, but I think there are two more important things I'm going to take from this run.

1) I'm good at poker. A pretty simple point here but I've noticed my confidence is often way lower than it ought to be. In the past, when I've won a tournament or had success, I always focus on the spots where I got lucky and convince myself that anyone could have had that success if they were dealt the same cards as me. When I've had downswings I convince myself that I am simply not good enough to beat the game anymore. This upswing has obviously contained a ton of luck, but I don't think there's any way that a less skilled player could have capitalized on all of the opportunities that I've had. It's great to run good but there are countless spots where one mistake will prevent you from even being given the opportunity to run good later. I also think I am perceiving all of these things accurately; while I'm now giving myself credit for being good, I also realize there are players that are still WAY better than me and I need to continue to try to get better in order to maximize my success. In the future when I hit downswings I'll be able to look back on this stretch and realize that I am still good and am just facing adversity.

2) The second thing I'll take from this is the amount of experience I'm gaining late in tournaments. When I final tabled a 10K in the past my heart rate would go up, I'd feel the pressure, and while I still might play okay I probably passed up on close spots for fear of making a mistake. Last February I made it to day 3 of the $550 Parx Big Stax tournament. There were 23 players left out of about 1000 and the winner would get a shade over $100K. I came back to day 3 with about 25BBs and disappointingly busted 20th. I sold off about half of myself before the tournament started and one person who had action in that MTT was Asher Conniff. I referenced a hand I was unsure about on Twitter and he DM'ed me and asked out of curiosity what happened during the hand. We discussed it a bit, and at some point I told him I was disappointed in the result and wish I had been able to finish off that run. For whatever reason, the thing he said to me in reply has always stuck in my head since that conversation. It was along the lines of "Don't undervalue how important the experience of a deep run is." I thought about that for a while and realized just how important it is to feel comfortable when you get down to the end of those tournaments.

At the time Asher and I had that conversation his biggest score was for about $40K. Two months later he won the opening event at the Borgata Spring Open for $200K, and 2 weeks after that I watched him live at the final table of the WPT World Championship, where he started the final table of 6 with Carlos Mortensen, Tony Dunst, Brian Yoon, and 2 other players who had already won a WPT. Asher ended up winning it in one of the most dominant performances ever at a WPT final table for about a million dollars. I'd have to imagine the experiences he had at other final tables that didn't pan out for him were huge in helping the way he approached playing that final table.

Anyway, point of it all is that the experience I've had at these online final tables has made me feel incredibly relaxed when making them again in the future. It's at the point where I feel almost no anxiety at all, instead just a relaxed focus where I do everything in my power to maximize profit. The experience I'm getting at these FTs will be huge for future online tournaments and, hopefully at some point, some big live MTTs. I'll be playing at the very least the opening $330 event at Parx in this upcoming series and with a bankroll that can now support pretty much as many bullets as I'd like to fire, I'm excited to see how it all goes.

The Rage Returned!

Not good!! Yesterday I felt very frustrated in the middle of my session. When trying to figure out why I wasn't feeling right I realized that I hadn't slept great the night before and I really didn't eat enough. Those two things combined to leave me feeling fuzzy and not concentrating hard enough. I did realize this mid session though and tried to remember that as I felt crappy. I got into that phase where I wanted the session just to be over so I could go to bed, but I snapped out of it to focus enough on the rest of my late night tournaments. I think what I might do in the future on this blog is give a very quick recap of each notable tournament that I can remember, so that my thoughts are more organized.

Yesterday's Session

19:00 (7PM): Party $109 10K--I was short for a very long time in this tourney and never really got it off the ground. I survived on that first bullet until after late reg was over though so only spent $109 on it (no re-entry).

19:00 WSOP $30r 10K--I ran KK into AA right after the add on period. I ran the initial $30 buy in for 4000 chips up to about 13K before the add on so was only in for $57.30, but was down to 2K chips after the KK hand. Somehow I spun it back up and got 25th place (with 25 paying) of 141 for $128.09.

19:20 WSOP $100 high roller--Made the final table with a slightly below average stack; however, only 6 were paying. We played with 8 players for a very long time before I got A8s in vs AK. We got a frustrating 9869K runout to bust 2 from the money.

19:30 Party $55 5K--I had a ton of chips as we hit the bubble of this one, I think I actually had the chip lead with about 50K at 800BB or something like that. This ended up being my last tournament to finish on the day and I one tabled it for the better part of an hour. I stalled out a bit at the final table, eventually falling to one of the shorter stacks and making a lot of ICM-based decisions. With 4 left one player had 12K at 2400BB, I had 48K, another player had 60K and the final player had the rest, maybe 160K. It folded to my SB and I had AKo with the big stack in the BB and the short stack to be the big blind next hand. I decided shoving would be the best play here, potentially folding out small pairs and also preventing him from 3b shoving hands I beat but have equity against me, such as the QJ and under suited connectors and stuff like that. Busting before the 12K stack would be very bad ICM-wise so I shoved rather than trying to extract value with this very strong hand. He had JJ so the money was going in regardless, and I lost the flip to bust 4th of 111 for $485.62

19:40 WSOP $25--Think my frustration might have showed in this one. I had a pretty good stack with 7 left and ended up getting T9 in on a JT7x sort of board against a reg who'd seemed to be going out of his way to play pots against me. I opened OTB, he 3b the SB, I flatted and called a flop bet and turn shove. He had JTs and I busted 7th of 51 for $71.55. I'm not sure if I should have played this hand differently but the frustration I was feeling led to me not really thinking as hard as I should have about each decision, so if there was a better decision to be made, I would have not made it anyway.

20:00 WSOP $10r 5K--This is the MTT that will be your last MTT of the night if you make a run in it since it goes til 2:30-3:00AM or something ridiculous like that, but I did not have to worry about that last night.

20:30 Party $75 6 max 2K--I don't usually play this one but decided to rip it. It's one of the 2 tourneys I played on Party yesterday that REALLY frustrated me based on the amount of players they paid out. 25 played this and the top 3 paid. It's a 2K guarantee and did not cover so 1st got $1000, 2nd got $600, and 3rd got $400. Playing 4 handed with 4th getting 0 and 3rd getting over 5 buy ins is pretty annoying. I ended up heads up with a weaker opponent and I did not play well. He did run very hot but if my head had been on straight I might have ended up winning that one. 2nd of 25 for $600.

21:00 WSOP $10r super turbo--Standard bust.

21:30 Party $215 turbo 4K--The other Party MTT that drove me nuts. 27 entrants and they paid the top 3!! Winner gets HALF the prize pool, or $2700, 2nd gets $1620, 3rd gets $1080. This one the guarantee was met and STILL 4th got 0 and 3rd got 5 buy ins. It's just an unreasonable payout structure that can be fixed so easily. Stars 27 man sngs used to pay 5 and that was perfect. Just looked up 27 man sng on Stars: 1st--37.04%, 2nd--26.67%, 3rd--17.78%, 4th--10.37%, 5th--8.14%. For this tournament with a $5400 prize pool, that would equate to 1st--$2000.16, 2nd--$1440.18, 3rd--$960.12, 4th--$559.98, 5th--$439.56. You're still >doubling you're money for the mincash but now the ridiculous dynamic of having an average stack with 25% of the chips in play and STILL not being in the money would not exist. In the past we've asked Party to make the higher stakes tourneys more top heavy, and with the 10K I think they made a very good change. But this $215 turbo is just out of control. You can't give half the prize pool to 1st with 27 players in there. 9 man games pay 3; 27 paying 3 is ludicrous. Whether 3 or 5 paid yesterday though I wouldn't have cashed either way. With 6 left at 300/600 (3K SS) MP opened to 1200 and I defended BB with KcTs. We both had 12K to start the hand. 81K chips in play so the average at this point is 13.5K, and one player has heaps, so me and villain are either 2nd and 3rd or 3rd and 4th. Flop comes Tc9s4c and I c/c a bet. If I didn't have the Kc I'd probably just c/r, but with that as backup a club on the turn isn't the worst thing in the world. Turn comes the interesting Jc and when I check he bets half pot, which is like half of our remaining stacks. Not really sure what's best here. I think he can have the Ac with a random kicker pretty often here. He can obv just have overpairs, and he can have hands that improved with the jack. I end up deciding that it's just too exploitable to be folding a T here; he can def have whatever and just be trying to fold out the 9x and 22-88 sorts of hands (not including 44 obv). I shove and he has KQ which REALLY irritated me. The Jc is a pretty scammy turn card in that spot. I bricked the river and the 4 figure cash was not achieved. At the time I felt miserable and unlucky but obviously the best way to approach these is to decide whether or not you played it correctly. I didn't have to defend shallow stacks on a fragile bubble like this. I could have c/r'ed the flop. And I guess I could have c/f'ed turn. All interesting decisions.

21:45 WSOP $35 $1.5K, 22:00 WSOP 10r turbo, 22:35 WSOP $100 high roller (2)--All busto pretty uneventfully.

So all told yesterday, $874.10 in buy ins, $1285.26 in returns, $411.16 profit. Gets my monthly profit back over 20K (but not over 20.1K!). Tonight I will go to my buddy's bday party (laser tag and bar leggo) and be back tomorrow to decide whether to just relax Saturday or whether to put a session in on both weekend days this week. I'm pretty excited to play the $500 on WSOP on Sunday. I feel like I have less fear of the bigger losing days after seeing how I can upswing as well. So I'll play tough in these bigger buy in MTTs rather than being afraid to lose. It all feels like it's progression for me in my career.

Last note, I ran 4 miles today! Verrrry long time since I've ran. I have a bad habit of getting out of running when I hit an upswing in poker. The blizzard this past weekend was just a further excuse to not run. It was a bit tough today with some of the sidewalks covered in snow and the relentless dangerous aggressive drivers who would rather run you over than slow down and risk missing a light, but I'll continue to search for nice neighborhoods where that traffic is a bit lighter. I definitely need to continue running to balance myself out.

You might be the actual GOAT of NJ (all trolls aside). No, seriously though....

lol thanks Brad.

Last Sunday of the Month

Being up 20.1K on the month had me tempted to skip the day to lock up that 20K month but professionals just play! Short term results mean nothing! So I really went at it yesterday. By the end of the day I'd played over 2K in buy ins and was not able to maintain that 20K profit for the month, but I'm happy with how I handled myself throughout the day. The session started around 5:30 where I hopped into the $500 30K on WSOP, which they will be running in lieu of the $200 30K on the last Sunday of every month. I also hopped into the $215 100K guarantee on Party, which is normally a 50K but I believe it's the last Sunday of the month for them too where they double the prize pool. Things started about as bad as they could in this session but no matter how many nasty spots I took, I kept my head on straight and continued to play optimally. It was very encouraging to see myself react to adversity like this. I also found myself 3 betting a lot more than I have in the past. I think mixing in 3 bets with broadway combos and medium PPs is important for keeping a balanced 3b range and it's something I haven't been doing enough in the past. I felt comfortable throwing those in from time to time and with people simply NEVER 4 betting light (unless it's one of the select few who I know are capable) it's pretty easy to play against any resistance.

The Sunday Session

I'll only mention notable tournaments individually, and list the ones I bricked in standard fashion at the bottom.

16:00 WSOP $500 30K--10K SS, I go up and down a bit before getting 8K in at 400BB with AQ vs AK. Board runs xxxxQ and I double to 16K. Later, CO opens and I flat QdJs. I considered 3 betting but had been doing it a bunch to him and he seemed solid so a light 4b was possible, so I decided to take a flop in position. I called the Qs9d4d flop, called the Kd turn, and then faced a 60% pot bet for about 60% of my chips on the 2d river. Only the Ad beats me, which is def in his range, and folding the 2nd nuts just seems not good here. He had Ad8c and I was knocked down to 4400 at 400BB. I shoved A7o from the CO next hand and button tank called with A8 to bust me.

17:00 Party $215 50K--Not fun. I flatted a 4b with AJs because the 4 bettor made it super small. I was pretty sure his 4b was never light but I was getting an amazing price. The flop came ace high and we got it in, he had KK and the river was a king. I rebought and wasn't able to find any traction on bullet 2 either. I'm now stuck $930 on the day before it's even really started.

17:30 WSOP $20r--This got a good turnout and had 4 figures up top. With 11 left and 10 paying I got AJ in vs A4 bvb to double to over 20 bigs. The bubble burst and with 10 left I end up facing a shove after raising SB pre with KJ and BB defending, betting JT9, and betting 2 turn. Villain is aggro so I call and lose to his Q8. $90 for 10th of 80

19:00 WSOP $100 10K--With 31 left and 30 paying I am short. I've just gone through the blinds though and have 8BBs and will be patient to allow shorties on other tables to bust before me. I get AQ in vs KQ and the board runs K42KA and I stone bubble.

19:20 WSOP $100--A reg I know is on my direct left as there are about 15 people left and I believe 8 paying. He's on the tight side but I've noticed he beats me into pots with marginal holdings when I try to take advantage of it. I think it might stem back to when I triple barreled vs him bvb in a live tournament a few months ago and showed my air. I jam K6 bvb for my 9BBs and he snaps with A5 and I river a 6 to get back into it. With about 12 left I limp J7cc he checks BB, I lead 345ccc flop he calls, I lead 3x turn he jams I call, he has 73 and the river is a 4 to knock me out in a big pot about 4 from the money.

19:30 Party $55 5K--I'm a medium stack with 22 left and 21 paying in this one at 300/600. It folds to SB who shoves 6600 and I call with JJ. He has 85o and makes a straight. There were several stacks shorter than him so this is ICM suicide but give him the money. I'm left with about 10BBs and end up mincashing in 20th of 161 for $100.

20:00 888 $55--I win KJ>JJ with 7 left and 5 paying in this one, and quickly after lose JJ<44 for the chip lead. This is a good example of why worrying about variance is stupid. I "should" have been eliminated, but then I "should" have had the chip lead. At the end of the day worrying about it is dumb and you don't deserve to win or lose and you should just worry about what you can control. I eventually bust 5th of 28 for $225.

20:00 WSOP $10r 5K--The one shining tourney of this otherwise dark day. At one point I have 240K and 2nd has 110K with 70 left in a tourney that started with 237. I keep my foot on the gas but am never able to totally run away with it and eventually finish in 5th for $430, which was my last tourney of the night since it ended around 2:30AM.

21:00 888 $55 4K--This one was pretty obnoxious. With a good stack with 15 left, 9 paying, and $1100 up top, I get TT in vs CO's KK AND BB's KK. I flop and T and am eliminated anyway when the board runs TJQA4.

22:35 WSOP $100--The other MTT along with the WSOP 5K I was playing late into the night. I laddered well and grinded for a long time with 4 left and 10BBs before finally busting 4th of 47 for $470.

Bricked: 10:30 WSOP $30, 18:06 888 $30, 19:00 Party $109 10K, 19:40 WSOP $25, 21:00 WSOP $10r, 21:15 888 $15, 21:30 Party $215 4K, 21:45 WSOP $35, 22:00 WSOP $10r

Sunday's Results

$2123.80 in buy ins, $1317.51 in returns, $806.29 total loss. I think I would have punted the 5K and the late $100 on WSOP in the past out of frustration and booked a $1700 losing day instead. The final result wasn't good yesterday but I'm very happy with my effort.

January's Results

$17145 in buy ins, $36510.94 in returns, $19365.94 profit for my biggest month ever, almost doubling my previous best month. January was a great way to kick off the year but now I must look forward to what the rest of this year holds in store. I'll be playing the Parx $330 starting February 10 and am excited to be able to launch as many bullets into that as I want since my bankroll has ballooned to >100 buy ins. I've got some money in the bank now and am going to be smart over how I handle it, only using it for the necessities like rent and bills and food. The goal for the year is to just continue shoveling as much money into savings as I can. You never know when a downswing will hit but when it does it's so much easier to deal with it if you know you'll be fine financially no matter what. Today I will go open a savings account since the one I currently use only operates near my old house. I went grocery shopping yesterday and was pleasantly surprised when it came out to $39.75 and I was only handing the teller 2 $20s for what I thought was a ton of food. I want to start eating healthier and having food in the house is the best way to stop me from wanting to go grab some crap fast food. Time to get ready for the day and start the February grind tonight.

Monday's Session

Pretty awful session in terms of results. I was getting 3b every time I was light and opening AA was getting through very frequently. When the chips went in I did not win. I busted one tournament after another and after a decent start in the $215 turbo I lost a showdown to drop to 300 chips at 200/400. With $725 in buy ins today things were not looking good.

Then I caught fire in the $215 turbo! Spun that big blind up to 75% of the chips heads up vs a fish. When I had this 3:1 chip lead he told me that we should do an even chop because he won the Sunday freeroll yesterday. I told him I'd take 2000 to his 1380 (payouts were 2100 for 1st and 1280 for 2nd) and he told me we should split 50/50. I told him we'd play, so he jammed 5h3c in for like 3x pot on 8h7h6d flop. I called with TT and the board ran heart heart to give him the double. We played for a while and eventually he had the 3:1 lead and I had about 10BBs at which point he offered a 50/50 chop. I accepted and told him that it'd have to be 1680 each or we'd play on. He agreed and then typed 1700 for him and 1660 for me in the deal box and clicked agree. **** like that pisses me off; it's only $20 but he deliberately tried to deceive me. When I asked him why he did that he said because he had more chips. While it pissed me off there's just no way I can let $20 and principle stand in the way of making way more than I should have got for ICM, and despite being against a bad player it was definitely the right move to take the deal when I'm 10BBs deep.

I busted every other tournament I played but ended up with that $1660 cash on $725 of buy ins for a +$935 day. Good start to February!

Tuesday's Session

Back to back night's now where everything's gone wrong except for 1 tournament which saved the session. Monday's session had me make a run in the $215 turbo while I had a bunch of tournaments still going. Yesterday's session saw me bust everything and staring at a 4 figure loss with just the $55 5K left on Party. I only had about 10BBs on the bubble with 20 left and 18 paying, so it was really looking like the day was going to end with a big loss. About an hour later and we were on the final table bubble and I was in the middle of the pack. With 7 left I got into a standard flip with 88 vs overs; he flopped a pair, I didn't turn any extra equity, and then I rivered the 2 outer to stay alive. With 4 left I cold 4b jammed 27BBs with 66 over a reg's open and another reg's 3b. The 3 bettor tanked for about 2 minutes, exhausting his entire time bank before calling with AQ. I won the flip. With 3 left I flatted button's open with A9s, BB 3b squeezed (which he'd done a few times previously) and I elected to flat since we were very deep. Flop comes K93 and I c/c, turn is a brick I check he shoves. I tanked for a long time before calling to see he just had KJ. My thought was that his 3b squeeze was often either going to be a very strong hand or somewhat bluffy, so when he bet flop and shoved turn I thought he had either a hand like AA, AK, a set, or I was good. I wouldn't expect him to play postflop like this with TT-QQ. I expected him to flat his KQ/KJ pre so I was wrong there and that led to what would probably be a bad decision if I had factored those hands in. The river was a 9 and I doubled up and crippled him!

I ended up heads up about even with another reg who has been top 5 in NJ for a long time. The big hand came when I opened button with T7s, he 3b and I flatted. We were something like 70BBs deep because of the very deep structure. I called a bet on the 972 flop, called a bet on the 5 turn, and faced a big bet on the 3 river. We have some history and based on a few things I've seen I thought he was capable here of not having it. He'd recently sized a river bet very similarly with a value hand, and I thought it was possible he was doing this now as a bluff to confuse me. I also think I rarely have any huge hands here, which make it an appealing triple barrel spot. The turn was a 2nd heart so I thought he had some Axhh combos in here that were good triple barrel combos. If he just had a big pocket pair I was going to feel sort of silly for just paying him over and over, but after I made the call he instead showed me A4o for a runner runner wheel. I lost another pot after that and then r/c'ed off about 18BBs with KJo. He had 33 and won the flip to finish it off. I finished 2nd of 129 for $1100.

So yesterday ends with $1386 in buy ins and $1218 in returns (I got 4th in a $30 MTT on 888 for a little over $100) for a small loss. I was really looking at a 4 figure loss for a long time but managed to one table that 5K for about 2 hours to bring it back. I found myself getting very frustrated during the session but I don't think I played bad with the exception of getting in an 8 high flush draw with no fold equity in the $10r 5K on WSOP when it and the Party 5K were the only 2 I had left going. It's interesting to see the subtle variance; c-bets aren't getting through, premiums aren't getting action, river calls are wrong several times in a row even though you're confident they'll often be correct. I mean if you are confident you beat 70% of a guy's range when you call river, there are going to be stretches where you run into a better hand 5 times in a row. That's just another subtle form of running bad and those are the times you can really start to lose confidence. That's when it's really important to keep your confidence level high because it's so easy to assume you're playing bad when you keep calling and getting shown better. Those are some of the things I really need to continue working on.

Updated Rankings

I stayed about as stagnant as you possibly can on the P5s leaderboard this week; went from 1138 to 1140 in the world, 12th to 13th in the U.S, and remained in 4th in NJ. The plan for the upcoming week is to play online today and tomorrow, go home to Trenton with Kelsey to visit my family Friday and Saturday, play poker on (Superbowl ) Sunday, online Monday and Tuesday, and then home again Wednesday to begin playing the Parx $330. Day 2 of that is that Sunday which is Valentine's Day, so it'd be really cool to bag Wednesday and just come back to Bergen County Thursday so I could take Kelsey out on Saturday or whenever for Valentine's. Otherwise I will have to continue trying to bag on the subsequent day 1s on Thursday Friday and Saturday. I'll end this post with a picture of the current NJ top 5. My buddy JohnnyDrama went down in little in points this week (probably just due to a big score coming 3 months ago) so a big week for me could put me up top. Gags right behind me now and he's almost definitely the best NJ reg (just doesn't put as much volume in as some others) so it'd be nice to reach that top spot sooner rather than later!

Think there is something wrong with your big hand (66), flop must not have been K93 if he had KJ.

Very inspiring thread and impressive start to your professional career, couldn't have timed your best month any better.

I was a bit quick to list hands in this post so they look a bit jumbled, but with the 66 I cold 4b jammed and got tank called by AQ and won the flip. Then, with A9s I called twice pre before eventually calling off on the K93x board and getting shown KJ...the river was a 9 though so I doubled!

Thanks a lot for the kind words. I agree and I'm so grateful to have had that stretch occur when it did. Thanks for reading about it all and feel free to correct me whenever you see me make an error because I get sloppy with these posts sometimes and don't want them ever coming off as confusing.

I'll also be firing Parx day 1A so GL there and good luck going for that p5 top spot, this could be the month!

I read it again and it all makes sense now, not sure if you made an update but it was probably me not paying attention.

Awesome let me know you're seating assignment when you get there and I'll say hi!

Nah had it like that the whole time, it's all good though I should probably use more paragraphs so it isn't so bunched up lol

Tourney session is rolling along tonight, ran pretty bad to start and then ran good in the big buy in turbo which is always nice. Finished 2nd of 23 for $1380 to lock up a win on the day and then snuck into a mincash in the $55 5K on Party. I've got the WSOP $10r 5K, (busted losing a flip in WSOP $35), and the WSOP $100 2K late night high roller still going. Wanted to post a link to the article write up about the top spots in NJ on P5s going into February. Will O'Connor,the best poker blogger in the business right now, did the write up and managed to make me look really good . Thanks Will!

Link to NJ Top 10 Article:

http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/...ll-top-591972/

Quick Update Since Last Post

First sort of lack of motivation to play of the year hit this week, but I'm not beating myself up over it. On the 4th I played about $1200 worth of buy ins and cashed for about $1800, mainly from a 2nd place finish in the $215 turbo for $1380. The 5th and 6th I took off to go home to visit my parents with my girlfriend, which ended up being a lot of fun. Sunday was the Super Bowl and I had every intention of putting a session in until I started hanging out with my friends. At the end of the day I played no poker but had a great time with them. If I didn't feel comfortable with my current financial situation I probably would have played, but decided to take the day off for the unofficial national holiday. I do worry that doing something like that could turn into a bad habit, but I do love grinding on Sunday and I don't think I'll be tempted to skip that day very often.

Monday came around and I didn't feel all that motivated, and when the session started off bad I lost focus and drive to play. I ended the session 2 tabling while laying in my (new!) bed, almost trying to punt the WSOP 5K since I knew a deep run in it would lead to me having to play another 4 or 5 hours. Eventually I did bust it and min cashed the Party 10K. It's the first time I've punted a session like that this year and I'm determined to make it the last. I need to make sure I'm in the right state of mind before I start my sessions from now on. Enough food in my stomach, good temperature in the room, mind clear, etc. And if those things aren't right, I need to fix them before I start. In the past when I wasn't playing professionally if those things weren't right I just wouldn't play. But now it will be key to make sure that if I'm not ready, I GET ready, rather than just skipping the session. So Monday's damage came at $730 in buy ins and $230 in returns for a $500 loss.

Side note: Bought a new bed. It's a queen size and it's really comfortable. The extra large twin size bed I had before was good quality and a nice bed but I just needed the extra space. With the new year upswing I just decided to go for it and I'm glad I did. Maybe pics of the bed and room will come later.

Tonight's Session

So that leads us to Tuesday night's grind. I lost with KK to Ax A LOT of times today. It got to the point where I get the chips in with KK, see Ax, and start preparing for the worst. I did notice though that I did a lot better job at laughing it off and not sweating it. One thing that helped was I thought to myself, "Imagine people who read your blog seeing you get upset about losing a few hands just a couple weeks after your biggest upswing of your life. And you're not even downswinging right now!" I cringed just thinking about how irritated I feel when people who go on a good run fall right back into the habit of complaining when things don't go their way. It helped me to stay level headed. But the truth is I really was not running good to start the day and the results were showing it.

But I did start off good in the Party Tuesday $500+$35 "high roller!" Before I get into that, a funny thought process I had before the session started. I'm going to Parx early-ish tomorrow to play the Big Stax $330. It'll be a 90 minute or so drive and I want to at least get some rest to prepare for that plus a full day of poker. So my thoughts went something like, "I might want to ease up a little on the schedule tonight to get ready for the big tourney. One online session isn't that important compared to a live tournament." I continued thinking about why I wanted to make sure I was ready for tomorrow and I slowly started realizing that this $535 I was starting to get comfortable playing is almost 2x the buy in of the live tourney I'm going to!! So if anything I should be focusing WAY harder on the online session!

I don't quite have 100 buy ins for the $500s yet, but there are quite a few things that are going to have me continue playing them as regularly as I can:

1) The experience is more valuable than the immediate money. Getting used to playing in these will make bigger buy ins seem less intimidating. I'll be playing against tougher competition than usual so the next time I face a live table with Matt Glantz, Kyle Bowker, and Aaron Mermelstein, I won't feel so intimidated and out of my league because I just played an online bird with Darren Elias, Gags, Tom Cannuli, Josh Beckley, etc. That scared feeling of "oh no they're running me over" will be replaced with a sound strategy of how to avoid getting ran over while simultaneously not just punting the tourney in an effort to come off as "fearless." Even if I'm not +EV in these things, I can't be WAY below EV, and the experience I gain will probably be worth those few extra bucks. Which brings me to my 2nd point...

2) I think I am +EV in these things. There are enough weaker players in them to make me really confident about that statement, but if I want to be a longtime professional I have to start feeling like I can outplay the other regs on a consistent basis. I do feel like I can outplay most NJ regs, but I started this 535 with the 3 people on my left being Tom Cannuli, 6th in 2015 WSOP Main Event and 25/50 reg on Party, guy to his left also 25/50 reg on Party, and guy to his left being Josh Beckley who outlasted Cannuli in that 6th place run! Now, I know 1 tournament shouldn't have me fearing players, but their resume's are just so much more distinguished than mine from that result alone. Add in the experience factor and I start to wonder if I can compete. But I am pretty confident that my game has been improving by leaps and bounds and I can indeed compete at these stakes.

3) They're once a week on Party, once a month on WSOP. I'm not grinding the $500s on a regular basis, so this "shot taking" seems more appropriate.

In any case, I feel I played well tonight. There were 32 total entries and I flirted with the chip lead throughout the lead up to the final table. Party is driving me nuts with their payout structures and this one was no different. 32 entries, 4 paid with the mincash at $2240!! Over 4 times greater than the $535 buy in. Make 5th 1K, 4th $1700, and bump 3rd back from 3K to $2500. You can still make the tournament top heavy but at least spread the money at the bottom out A LITTLE.

Anyway, I flopped set over set with AA vs 77 to get a full double to 100K (12K SS) to take the chip lead with about 7 left. Later I r/c'ed T8s (we were quite deep) on the button vs 2nd place's 3b from BB. We were both near 100K while 3rd had 50K. Flop AT8 goes bet call. I get a pretty nasty Jx on the turn and he fires half pot again, which is now pretty large, 17K maybe. My roommate came up to watch at the start of this hand and I start talking out loud; I can still beat AK and AQ but even those hands now have pretty good equity. I beat total bluffs but I don't think this guy just had air when he 3b pre. I can beat smaller pocket pairs that are just spazzing but there aren't a ton of those either. However, folding T8 on AT8J just seems crazy button vs blind and I'm confident I'll make a good river decision so I call.

The river comes Kx. The board now reads AT8JK. "I don't beat anything anymore," I tell my roommate as he kinda sighs at the river. I think he understood my logic on the turn and realized that the king was really bad as soon as it hit. Villain takes some time and then checks. I start to tank. "Now THIS would legitimately be a sick bluff spot," I tell Kyle as my timebank runs down. There's about 68K in the pot and we're around 55K deep. With a bubble this big, 7 left, and a 2nd place stack if he were to fold, can I make him fold better 2 pairs now? If I jam here I think AJ and AK are essentially bluff catchers; it'd be pretty suicidal to jam worse 2 pairs for value, and I actually have 2 pair here and thinking I CAN'T have the best hand. What a wild spot. I eventually pussy out and check back and he turns over AA!! To be clear, T8 vs AA flop AT8 and at the end of the hand I'm still in 2nd place. What a great runout!! lol it is just wild the variance that many people don't take into account. After a really unlucky flop I got a **** runout that turned out to essentially save my tournament. Turn is a T or 8 I'm 100% busto, turn is a 2 I might consider raising, there's just so much that could have gone wrong.

We grind for a while until we eventually are down to 5 with the AA guy now having an overwhelming lead. The other 4 of us are all around 50K and he has about 180K. We all check the make a deal box and chip chop has him getting $1300 more than 1st gets in original payouts lol, not happening. I plug in ICM and let him know that he'd get $4900 for it; he asks for $6K so we play on. Everyone seems pretty ICM aware though there is one guy who jams flop on me for 40K into about 10K twice. Eventually I play a hand where I open J8s, he defends BB, we go chk chk on 833, chk chk on A turn, and he checks 4h river, which brings backdoor flush. I checked flop and turn to avoid his crazy spaz all in, but I feel I must bet for value on this river. I bet 3K and he jams 40K. Prettttttty irritating. Eventually someone's TT gets in vs chip leader's AQ. Board runs Q82 (hooray!) 9 (not bad) T (NOOOOOO) and the bubble continues.

The chip leader has been knocked down to about 130K but we play on until another player get 50K in with AK vs the guy who just doubled's AQ. AK holds and now I am in about a 3 way tie for last. With a great 15 minute structure we played for quite some time before eventually the blinds are at 1500/3000 with 3 of us between 40K and 50K. We play a few orbits and then agree to look at ICM again. This time, CL seems fine with 5K, and everyone else agrees to their numbers. I've fallen into last with 42K (17BBs) and am pretty fine with taking $2400 at this point; a stone bubble would be pretty debilitating. I think my talk in the earlier deals though has led CL to realize he's not going to be able to pull anything on me; I'd made it very clear that if I didn't get ICM I would not take it (at that time it was $2900 so a bummer to miss out on $500 extra but what can you do). After some drama with the software not allowing him to submit a deal, we figure out the issue and I officially finish 5th for $2429. It would have been nice to battle for the win, the glory, and the P5s points, but the BRUTAL brutal payout structure Party has come up with led me to feel this was the right deal to make.

I cashed for about $3000 on the day (won the $25 MTT on WSOP for $350 woot woot) on $1500 of buy ins for a nice $1500 win before the startup of the Parx series. I will be firing as many bullets as it takes, probably rebuying up until dinner each day (last level before dinner is 500/1000 with 30K SS, so waiting 75 minutes for 25BBs is something I'd prefer not to do). I'll be there for 1A tomorrow, 1B Thursday if I don't bag, and 1C Friday if both days don't fly. Saturday I'll be taking Kelsey out for Valentine's Day so I'll be back in Bergen either way, and if I make day 2 then I'll be back to Parx Sunday. Busy week ahead, better get to bed!

Bagged 343,500 on 2 bullets in the Parx $330. Record turnout for day 1A could lead to a 2000+ player field. Got to meet up with bbissick, good dude and good poker player. He ended up with the chip lead at dinner break and rode that into bagging just under 300K; both of us will go into day 2 on Sunday well above average. Tomorrow I'll go get my car fixed up and then might just drive back to Bergen County that night to try to put an online session in Thursday. Friday and Saturday will be off days before I drive back to Philly for day 2. Today was fun!

Here's a link to the hand I played that got bullet 2 rolling:

http://parxpokerbigstax.blogspot.com...s-to-stay.html

Action went me 2500 w QQ UTG at 500/1000, 4 flats, flop QJ6cc I cbet 6K into 13K and get 3 flats lol, turn Kx I shove about 30K into about 38K and get called by the AT (no clubs). Just prevailed on the river 5.

My face when I river the winner:

nice

Got 176K on break going to 4K/8K. Lost KT<66 first hand of the day for 50K each, AQ<AJ a little later for 50K each, and really not much else has happened. That's just how tournament poker works though and I'm so much more comfortable with it all than I've been in the past. Got Asher on my direct right winning every pot, but if I do dip below 20BBs in this upcoming level that's probably just gonna give me some good 3b jam spots. Should be fun! Board says 270 left and 242 pay but with $113K up top the mincash shouldn't be a big concern. Time to chip up!

Busto for the mincash of $689, officially 207th of 2416. In the past I would have definitely called this a frustrating day but for whatever reason I just felt so much more mellow throughout this entire tournament. I used to get anxious in live tournaments, probably because I don't get to play them that often, but with the amount of volume I get to play online now I think I just understand the variance so much better and realize that there really is only so much you can do. I also think I'm doing everything I can and doing it better than I have in the past. We hit 8K BB and I ended up flatting an open with AA. I had 130K back and the opener was a middle aged woman who'd been playing pretty tight. I felt a jam wouldn't get called enough and opted to take the higher variance line of flatting and trying to win more. BB defended, flop came 775, BB donked 16K, she flatted, and I decided to just rip the last 110K or so. This is one of those spots that I think that play is good online but live where people aren't aware of stack dynamics and just play poorer overall, a raise to 45K or so to get it in on the turn would be better. I thought there was a decent chance the opener would have an overpair to the board and call but she shook her head and mucked which leads me to believe she just floated the small donk with ace high. Meh maybe my shove is okay. As that hand was playing out they announced we were on the bubble, and with the massive field it turned out that we didn't need to play any hands after, we were in the money.

As time winded down on 4K/8K I found myself with a shade over 20BBs again and it folds to Asher's button. Asher's been playing a lot of hands and winning all of them. I play against him a lot online so we have some history and while I think he may have perceived me as a nit in the past, the HUD is probably telling him differently at this point. He opens the button to 17K and with 175K to start the hand I have 22BBs, which is a bit more than I'd like to 3b shove but there are definitely some hands where it will be very standard. I find one of those hands, 55, and jam it in. BB folds and Asher asks for a count which forces me to push all 60 or so of my orange 1K chips forward lol. I think he's looking for physical tells or whatever at this point but I wasn't too worried about it, instead just repeating "standard" in my head since this shove was just about as standard as it gets. I obviously don't want a call but I think 66+ would have been more or less a snap call so if I get called I expect to flip. Eventually he puts some chips across the line, I show him my hand and he sorta sags his head as he turns over A2o! I was pretty surprised by the call since so many of the hands I would choose to rip in here crush A2 (A3-AJ/AQo, 22-99) and he just gets to flip with the remaining broadway combos and even 76s sorts of hands. Board runs 987A4 and I am eliminated.

Pretty proud of how I played this one and conducted myself on a pretty dumb day 2. I felt in a zone and very relaxed, even as my chip stack began to dwindle. I drove home right after to get ready for the Sunday online grind, which I will begin now. Good luck me (and anyone else playing today)!

is there a way to get bovada hands into PT4 that you know of?

Not sure I don't play on Bovada or use PT4