Sunday Session

Another frustrating Sunday. Lost AJ to QT for a 3rd place stack with 20 left in the WSOP 30K guarantee, lost AK to AJ for a vital pot with 7 left in the WSOP 10K and lost QQ to A7 to bust in a pretty big pot near the bubble of the Party 10K. Just pretty annoying high equity spots to be running bad in. Ended up with $1176 in MTT buy ins and $1177 in returns lol. Also played $1025 in sng buy ins and had $1056 in returns, so an all around break even kinda day. I cashed 5 times in those sngs, winning a $50 and taking 2nd in a $50, 2 $100s, and a $200. Tons of money left on the table by not winning those with 1st getting 65% and 2nd getting 35%. It's all good though; any day you don't lose money you can't have ran THAT bad, but it did feel like the I ran quite poorly in the spots you need to win to have a big day.

Apartment Search

I was at my buddy's place for most of the weekend while we tried to figure out what we were doing in terms of finding a place to live. We actually ended up finding a few houses for rent that looked good. We messaged them on Thursday night and when the few we reached out to hadn't responded by Saturday morning we called the numbers they left there. None of them responded either which is pretty annoying but might be standard over the weekend. So I will probably need to go back this weekend. I could see myself getting stressed about not being able to put in a proper session while I was there. I did end up playing a bunch of sngs sort of sporadically on my laptop, including a bunch of $50 hyper heads ups on Party. Those are pretty fun but I found myself bum hunting at one point, trying to avoid the guys who seemed like regs while seeking out the 2 or 3 fish that were hopping in now and again. After winning 1 of my first 6 I won 8 of my last 10 to finish with 9 wins and 7 losses for a $64 profit ($2 rake each game). Played a bunch of WSOP sngs as well and currently find myself 7th on the high leaderboard and 12th on the mid leaderboard. I find that I feel like I should be committing all my time to either sngs or MTTs, but it might just be fine to throw those sngs in while I'm waiting for the good MTTs to start up.

Mental Game

The mental game was pretty good yesterday for most of the session but near the end I started getting frustrated. I lost preflop all ins to the same kid in 3 different MTTs in the span of about 10 minutes. On the 3rd one I lost a flip for a really big stack with 8 left in a tourney with $1500 up top and I chucked a couple of the poker chips I was shuffling across the room. I found myself in a bad mood for the rest of the session and ended up 1 tabling the $100 10K on WSOP that started at 8PM for the rest of the night while simultaneously playing some Mario Golf on the Wii U (originally N64 game). That kept me up until 2AM, when the AK<AJ prevented me from finishing higher than 7th. Won $400 for that, AJ guy shipped it for $2800, pretty annoying but that sort of stuff doesn't bother me nearly as much as it used to. Given the volume I was playing I was pretty happy with my lack of frustration for almost the whole day. I think I was exhausted by the end of the day and that had a little bit to do with the mental lapse. Saturday night I didn't fall asleep until 5 after my friends and I went to a small party with a bunch of other college friends. So hopping up on Sunday and playing a session until 2AM had me feeling like a zombie.

It wasn't all bad; I of course had to run good in some spots to finish break even on the day. I do remember winning K8 vs Asher's K9 in the $200 sng I finished 2nd in...that's $394 I wouldn't have had if I lost that pot. I put another beat on Asher early in the Party 10K; I ended up bubbling that but if I hadn't won that hand I wouldn't have had that equity in that MTT. I'm sure there was lots of other run good I'm not remembering right now. I think wanting to vent about bad luck is a perfectly rational and normal human response to dealing with losing. But I'm not sure exactly how I feel about it anymore. I almost never vent to my friends anymore because I know that that is a pointless exercise; they've all been through it before and don't wanna hear my whining. I try to avoid venting on Twitter and I've done pretty well with that recently imo. I know that I don't want to physically react to adversity (throwing chips, punching tables) but clearly I am still working on that. It has gotten much better than in the past though. So that leaves me with this blog. I'm not sure if I even want to write the bad beats down here. On one hand, it's nice for me to get my thoughts down and it helps me come to terms with everything that happened in previous sessions. On the other hand though I wonder if acknowledging bad luck as I did at the beginning of this post is simply going to hurt me long term and make me more likely to get upset when I do have to deal with it. I'll have to keep an eye on this and if I feel like even that sort of venting is hurting my mental game then I will be done with it too.

I've felt that bringing up bad beats in any capacity is just overall -EV. I think it's ok to vent after a frustrating session, but bringing up hands that you had an equity edge but lost is a fruitless exercise. Like AJ<QT is about 60/40 so you're going to lose that a decent portion of the time.

Also, what are your studying habits? How do you study? Theory work? Sweating? Constant discussion with other good players? Just curious, since you obviously have had good results.

Hey there, I'm an NJ guy myself. The SNGs definitely are reg heavy, but the couple fish in each tournament make it worth it. I have a 6.72 ROI in 2500 games playing from the $5s-$50s, and that's even with running a little iffy. Adding on the leaderboard value, and it's quite profitable. (I had to withdraw, but you can find me playing the $5s and the $10s, and probably $25s soon!)

I'd like to get into tournaments more myself, I had success with them when my bankroll was fat enough to play them. In the meanwhile, I'll root for you crushing 'em! I won't be able to play that many SNGs until graduation this December, so I guess good luck in them too

Take down the 100k coming up this Sunday!

Yeah you're certainly right that bringing them up doesn't help, but I do wonder what a better alternative would be to dealing with that stress. I think at the end of the day I'm just going to have to get tougher with it all and find the way that I personally will best be able to shrug off any result. I think I focus way too much on that what-ifs..."if I were to win that tournament I'd feel so much more financially stable!" "If I ran well deep in tournaments I'd be making just as much as so and so" etc. The problem is that dwelling on the things that DON'T happen isn't helping at all. I think my biggest leak in the mental game that causes my frustration is thinking too much about what the money would mean to me if I were to win. If I can continue to focus on just what is in my control and focus less on what would happen IF I were to win whatever tournament, my mental game will get stronger.

To be honest my study habits are probably not as strong as they should be. I've done a few tournament reviews with friends in the past couple weeks (start from hand 1 of an MTT and go through the whole thing start to finish and discuss all of the interesting spots). Some mornings I'll look at some hands that bothered me from the night before to see if losing that hand was a result of bad play, bad luck, or a mixture of the two. Since I'm a math major I also think I should be nailing down some of the spots I encounter somewhat frequently that have to do strictly with probability. Last week there were 2 limps to me and I had 18BBs and 88 on the button. It's an awkward spot that I often don't know what the best decision is, so I started to try to mathematically break down how much money I'd win or lose if I jammed and got called by the top 5% of hands, 10% of hands, etc. In that specific hand I jammed and one of the limpers had AA and I felt like I'd fallen into one of the more basic traps rec players like to use. But after running the numbers I was having a tough time assigning a range of hands to anyone in which my shove would NOT be profitable. It made me feel good about the play.

In the future I think I'll probably try to up my study sessions and make them more formal and planned. My issue right now is that I really don't have a routine since I travel a lot and my schedule gets planned around others' schedules which changes what I'm doing from week to week. I'm hoping that when I move into the new apartment I'll be able to settle down a little bit and get on a more consistent basis with all of this.

Got any tips for studying?

Yeah the interesting thing about the sngs is if they didn't have bballwiz and phatdaddy regging each one, I don't know if I'd get even close to the volume I've been getting in them. Those two drive the traffic by filling everything. But even at the highest of stakes you'll get the occasional weak player or two that makes them profitable, and as you alluded to the sng leaderboards help.

6.72% over 2500 seems pretty good man well done. Do you play as freakinbird or something else? Also congrats on being close to graduation. It was such a relief for me when I graduated in May. Where do you go to school?

Thanks for the kind words and good luck at the tables!

I play as basedgod ! I've seen you at the tables. I go to Rutgers! I'm from PA but I just might end up staying here since the job market is good and I enjoy the regulated poker. Actually I'm going to Jersey City for an interview this Wednesday, so hoping for some serious run good there! (need it more than rungood against wiz and phatdaddy)

Good luck man I hope that interview goes great! Checked your stats on my HUD and only got 200 or so hands on you but the numbers look pretty good so stay away from my sngs

A Good Monday!

Think I played pretty well today and kept my head on straight. The patterns I'm starting to see with mindset and mood based on how I'm running are pretty amazing. I feel like I'm starting to realize what is happening as far as how I think about the game based on so many different factors, and I think I'm starting to really think about it in a way that most people don't ever get to. I'm not sure if any of that is making sense so I'll explain.

Some people who have played a lot of poker are certainly familiar with that feeling of invincibility when they are running good. There are times when it feels like there's just no way you're going to lose. Every decision you make is going to be a good one, and if you ever happen to get it in bad you almost feel like you're going to get there, like it's a foregone conclusion, and if you don't get there that's okay, you'll probably win the tourney anyway. When that feeling comes around it feels like you could keep playing poker for way more hours than you're used to because you're in a zone and really enjoying it all.

There are also those times when it feels like there's just no way you can win. The standard plays you are making keep leading to you getting coolered or sucked out on. It might even cause you to start forcing the issue a little bit and after a while you're in the frame of mind that you're just going to lose anyway so what's the point. There's a feeling of inevitable despair where no matter how hard you buckle down something is going to happen that will lead to your demise. These are the times you feel like not playing poker for the next day, or week, or even month.

Since becoming a professional I've gone through each of these feelings multiple times now for prolonged periods. There have been one to two week long stretches where I feel like I'm going to win every tournament I play, and equally long stretches where I feel like I'm gonna go try to play my best but the outcome probably isn't going to be good. However, what I have noticed is that every time I go through one of these stretches my feelings about each one goes ever so slightly more towards the middle of the spectrum, more towards being neutral rather than feeling elated or depressed. I'm starting to recognize familiar feelings while in the middle of sessions and am slowly developing strategies for how to best deal with these feelings. Feeling happy about a good session? Great! BUT make sure that if you start to run bad you don't get down about it and simply be aware that this good stretch will not last forever. Feeling down about a bad session? Who cares! Your life is good and you don't need to win today to be happy! Also make sure that you don't give up on the session because every dollar spent and earned is important in the grand scheme of things. Even if there's no way to salvage a profit today, a -$300 day is much better than a -$900 day.

Today I did a pretty good job at thinking about all of those feelings while playing the session. I played a bunch of sngs and mixed in my usual tournaments. I busted the $109 10K on Party (twice), and tournaments on WSOP with buy ins of $30, $100, and $25. However, the sngs were going decent and then I won the only $200 that went off so I was feeling good about that. I was aware though that had that sng not gone my way I probably wouldn't have felt as good about the session as I did after winning. I was determined to make sure my mindset stayed good throughout the session. Whenever something was bothering me or didn't go my way I'd repeat something in my head along the lines of "you're a good player, you will succeed, whether it's today, next week, next month, or next year, good things are going to happen to you." It's incredibly cheesy but it really did help and allowed me to continue to focus.

The WSOP 10K is what tested my resolve with it all. I was annoyed but fine when I got top pair in vs a pair + flush draw and gutshot draw on the turn and lost to a rivered flush for a huge pot. It knocked me down to 6K which was very short at that point. I eventually got lucky to find a triple with 88 vs KK/QQ when an 8 flopped and started crushing after that, eventually peaking at 80K. I then played a weird pot with a reg who really does some strange stuff where he opened 11BBs then c-bet the 655r flop. I've known this guy to try to get fancy with stacks that are too shallow to get fancy with so I floated with KQ thinking I could make him fold whatever overs he had on the turn. We were near the bubble so I didn't think it was crazy to think he'd c/f turn. (It's sort of funny I'm criticizing him for getting fancy and here I am floating flop 11BBs deep ) The turn was a J, he checked, I shoved, he snapped with A5. I was really irritated that he was opening A5o from the HJ for a minraise and then was just gifted the 655 flop. It really bothered me, and then I eventually ran 77 into AK in a standard spot on the stone bubble to bust.

After finishing 26th where 25th gets $130 and 1st get 3K I was really frustrated! But I was determined to show that my mindset is getting stronger, so I told myself that success would come and I needed to make the most of what I had left. Three hours later I had won both the other tourneys I had going with a 1st of 82 in the WSOP 10r for $548 and a heads up chop (officially 1st of 123) in the Party 5K for $1408. The guy I was heads up with in the 5K was nice enough to give me an even chop even though he had a slight chip lead. I would only take it if I officially got 1st though because I'm all about those P5s points these days so he was cool and gave me an extra penny lol. It was really nice to close a couple of tournaments out after a pretty blah month thus far. It is also literally the 1st day this month where I have been up money in November. That being said I am determined to not worry about results within a given time period. I'll of course still record each day's wins and losses but I am not going to make too much out of any of those results. For entertainment purposes though I will make note of today's session

Today's Results

MTT Buy Ins: $540.80------MTT Cashes: $1957.11------MTT Profit: $1416.31
SNG Buy Ins: $970---------SNG Cashes: $1549.29------SNG Profit: $579.29

Total Profit: $1995.60

I played in 25 sngs and cashed 13 of them (with 1/3 the field cashing in each that is absurdly high and definitely above EV), finished 1st 6 times and 2nd 7 times. The win in the only $200 sng that ran accounted for $532 of the profit. I've been getting a ton of volume in on WSOP with these sngs and if they do indeed give me 1 point towards my Total Rewards card for every APP I earn on WSOP, I'll definitely have a diamond card by the end of the year.

Some Non-Poker Stuff

I ran 4 miles today in the 40 degree weather. While it doesn't exactly feel good to run when it's this cold, it definitely makes for faster times and less fatigue. You almost get numb when running in this and you obviously don't sweat as much so as far as distance running goes, the colder the better. I was at 7:03 at the 1st mile and really didn't realize I was running that fast until I looked at the watch at that point. It only got faster from there and I finished the 4 mile loop in 27:43 (6:56/mile).

After the run I went and got a haircut. I always feel so much better after chopping off the long curly hair I inevitably end up with when I get too lazy to go get it cut when I should. I've known this barber since I was a really little kid. He does it out of his house now and while he always does my mom's hair, it's been a few years since I've gone to him since I usually just go get it buzzed at a local place. I had a really interesting discussion with him about playing poker for a living (apparently my mom has been telling him all of her worries about it lol). It was interesting because I could tell that he thought I might be hurting myself long term and had some of the standard concerns most people have when they know you do this for a living, but he also seemed open to hearing what I had to say about it and changing his opinion.

He asked how long I'd realistically do this before I realized whether I was making enough money and might need to make a career change. He asked if I was addicted and seemed not only satisfied when I told him there are times when I don't want to play and would rather be doing something else, but impressed with my work ethic. By the end of the cut he basically said he thought it was cool and wished me good luck. It was nice to have a discussion like that with someone again; it forces me to evaluate why I'm doing what I'm doing, and I can say with confidence that I want to continue trying to make this work for the foreseeable future. If there comes a time when I decide I just am not making enough to make it a realistic job then I will be honest with myself and make the change to something else. But for now it makes me happy and I can support myself with what I earn. Hopefully I will continue to improve to the point that I will be good enough to not only support myself but any family I might have.

I've been playing for years and it sounds like you already passed me. I hope I can become a pro and I hope you do as well. GL

I think structure with what I'm trying to improve on is most effective. For example, since I play mostly cash, if I feel I'm struggling with Cbetting OOP I will focus on that concept for my entire week with whatever tools I can. In addition, during my sessions it gives me more focus on these holes in my game.

Sent you a PM for a bit more detail I suppose.

Good luck as always. I'm in a similiar spot so I definitely have a lot of the same feelings you do.

GL man is the NJ player field still super soft (WSOP & 888)??

I remember when i was 17 i ran 0 bucks to like 1.1k but lost it all haha and all i knew how to do was cbet dry flops and only continued on turn or river if i hit a pair lol. Good ol days in high school haha .

I've been playing for quite a few years myself too! Thanks for the kind words.

Thanks again really nice of you to go out of your way to help me out, I'll definitely try using some sort of spreadsheet to plan out study sessions and whatnot.

Yes the NJ player pool is in this weird limbo where people sort of stopped taking the game seriously after Black Friday. Those who were very serious about the game left the country or grinded live so we now have the best of those not in that camp playing. It leads to a very interesting mix of individuals to say the least . It's not as easy as I feel like it used to be where if you had ANY clue you'd win, but it's still not overly difficult to beat. You just sort of need different tricks in your bag than in the past.

Thanksgiving

Today I went to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving...I really love seeing my family there. My mom was 1 of 10 children so there's tons of aunts and uncles to visit with and I really like all of my cousins and think I click pretty well with them. I decided to stay a little later to spend some more time with them and eventually got home at 8:45. I wasn't really planning on putting in a session but decided to fire up the 10K on WSOP and the 10K on Party on my laptop while watching TV with my parents. I busted the WSOP tourney and busted the Party tourney but was able to re-enter. I just finished that up in 2nd of 109 for $1992. So a day where I didn't really stress or put in any sort of volume, I ended up profiting about $1700. Seems like something to be thankful for!!

End of the Month

So the month is just about over and it looks like I will not be putting a session in tonight (more on that later). Yesterday's buy ins totaled $1915 ($1065 MTTs, $850 sngs). By the end of the day I was feeling pretty amazed and fortunate to have somehow booked a win (almost $50 up!). I busted the WSOP major early, had a frustrating start, great middle, and really dumb end to the Party major (which was a 100K guarantee this week), and bubbled the only $200 sng that went off. I went from 10K to 5K to 60K in the Party major before losing a big pot with the best of it and then finding a way to get KJ in vs QJ and AJ on a J82r flop lol. So we busted around 130th in that with 81 paying...it got over 500 entrants which was really cool. I did get to play in a pretty sweet freeroll for qualifying for the finals of the BANJO (Best of All New Jersey Online) series which was set up by Brilliant27 here on 2p2--shoutout to him. In the end 12 qualified for a $2500 freeroll. $200+ in equity pretty sweet prize. I finished 6th for $177.50.

By around 10PM I only had the Party 10K left but somehow spun a short stack up in that to eventually bust 15th for about $300. While I was playing that I fired up the WSOP $100 "high roller" so that was the only thing I had left going around midnight and I decided I would stop after that was over. If I had busted that I would've booked around a $750 loss but was fortunate to finish 2nd for about $800. At one point before the money I got AJ in vs JJ and got ready to go to bed but spiked an ace on the turn and was able to ride that to the 2nd place finish. I earned a bunch of APPs on WSOP as well and it is looking like I will need to earn 1300 APPs next month to reach Diamond Status for the Total Rewards properties. Given I earned over 1900 this month, AND the sng leaderboard promo is continuing in December for added incentive, that should be no problem reaching.

The Last Two Months

For the second month in a row I finished the 2nd week down over $1500, finished the 3rd week down over $600, and finished the month up over $3000. It's really encouraging to look back at these trends because I feel more confidence about dealing with downswings. In the past, whenever I've downswung (is that a word?) I've gotten anxious that maybe I just am not as good as I think I am. But the more I go through those and the more often I pop right out of them, the less anxious I feel myself getting when I start losing. It's becoming easier and easier to look at this all from the long term perspective and shrug off the losses. There was really no point yesterday where I felt frustrated or worried; I was a bit annoyed because I wanted to succeed in the 100K since it only occurs once a month or whatever, but busting it really didn't bother me because at the end of the day it's just another tournament and I only have so much control over those things. I'm feeling really good about my mindset at this point, so it will be interesting to see how I deal with it all once I add another $1000 or so to my expenses per month...

Apartment Hunt Materializing

Tonight I will be heading up to Paramus to check out the house my friends and I are interested in. I get the vibe that we will get it; I vaguely know the area and I think it will be really nice. I'm more concerned about location than how fancy or whatever the interior of the house is, so I'm feeling good about this one. It's 15 minutes from my girlfriend's place which is also exciting. But now all of my bills and expenses are going to be on me, no more help from mommy and daddy, so it'll be a great test run to see if I have what it takes to do this as a living completely on my own. It's a little nervewracking but I'm more excited than anything to really give this a go.

Some December Goals

--Run 100 miles. Saturday I ran 5 and yesterday I ran 3. I really have not been running with any sort of consistency though and I'm going to try to change that. With this 100 mile goal I'll need to run an average of 4 miles per day for 25 days. That means if I decide to take 2 days off in a week fine, but I'll have to make up for it with some longer runs. I think getting into shape, especially when it's cold and dark outside longer which often leads to me feeling depressed, will be great for my mental game.

--November saw me play $10.2K in MTT buy ins and $10.5K in sng buy ins. I didn't plan on playing the same dollar amount of buy ins for each format but it looks like it played out that way. I suppose the goal for December will be to make sure those don't drop, so 5 figures in buy ins for both tournaments and sngs. I used to try to put goals in about profit, that seems ridiculous now since that often cannot be controlled. What can be controlled is volume, so I will strive to put that effort in and grind through the tough times, assuming my mental state is where it needs to be to play as close to optimally as possible.

--More studying. I'm not sure exactly how I want to go about this but after I hammer out the details I'll post here. I'm going to have a lot of free time during the day so I want to make sure I use it wisely instead of just messing around doing nothing. Using that time to improve my craft seems to be the thing to do.

November Results

MTT Buy Ins: $10.2K.....MTT Returns: $13.7K........MTT Profit: $3500
SNG Buy Ins: $10,480...SNG Returns: $10,459.41..SNG Profit: -$21.59

Add in about $475 in bonuses, take away about $600 from a cash game loss from early in the month, and total numbers got me around $3200 profit for November. Aside from July when I lost $3600, this was actually my worst month results wise as a pro (I started in May). I'm not sure if this is me running above expectation or if I really should expect to be making more than this per month. In any case, it has to be a good sign that of the 7 months I've been playing full time, the 2nd worst result was +$3200. On to bigger and better things in December!

November Results (Revised)

Made $1700 last night so November ended up being +$5K! We got back to my buddy's apartment after taking a look at the place we were interested in around 8:45, so like this past Thursday I decided to just fire up the 2 10Ks. On Thursday I took 2nd of 109 in the Party 10K, yesterday I took 3rd of 158. It was actually pretty disappointing at the time; it was the blastiest I've ever seen a final table with a buy in as big as $109. One guy was legitimately open jamming 50BBs somewhat often. Another was open jamming his 30BBs pretty often, and another got 50BBs in with 55. Eventually guy #2 open jammed 22BBs from UTG with 76s and busted to TT, guy #1 actually had AQs with his crazy spaz out but I had KK for the double, and guy #3, after winning a few big ones, dusted it off quickly. When we got down to 4, myself and the 2 other solid players that started the FT were still alive, along with guy #1. Now that he was down to 20BBs he tightened up and played somewhat alright (go figure).

I ran JJ into the QQ of my solid but very aggro buddy and spiked a jack to take the chip lead. Crazy guy #1 busted soon after and I was 1/3 to start 3 handed. I offered a deal, everyone checked the box, I offered chip chop which would have gotten me $3100, and my buddy took a while before declining. I then made a really bad call off vs the other player. I had hero folded a big hand to him earlier on the river at the FT and couldn't find another fold. I felt like **** about the spot at the time, and it still doesn't feel great, but I'm getting better at forgiving myself for making bad plays. My friend and I were then tied for 2nd while the other guy had 5x each of our stacks, but I wasn't able to ladder up to 2nd after running my AT into big stack's AJ. I was pretty upset since 3rd was $1800, 2nd was $2800, and 1st was $3900, but a +$1600 day to end the month when I didn't even plan on playing yesterday is something I am very happy about now in the morning with a clear head.

So with that result from yesterday, my +$4900 month moves into 5th place out of the 7 months I've been playing full time. It's slightly below average for those 7 months which is a pretty exciting fact since it means that I'd make 60K next year at that pace, AND I've had 0 5 figure scores this year. One big bink can mold an entire year for a professional tournament player so I want to make sure I take advantage of playing the good live tournaments that are offered. The Parx Big Stax $330 starts tomorrow so you better believe I'll be there!

Quick Update

Made about $600 last night, ran unbelievably hot early in my MTTs and pretty bad at the final tables. 77<55 to bust 5th of 44 in the $100 high roller on WSOP for $343 (~$1300 up top) for 2nd place stack, KK<AK to bust 8th of 145 in the $55 5K on Party for $228 (~$1800 up top) for 2nd place stack, and then 3b jammed 19BBs from CO w AJs vs good player's HJ open right into his AQ to bust 9th of 147 in the $109 10K on Party for $367 (~$4K up top). So a lot of money left on the table, but I think I played pretty well and am not too worried about it. Today I'll be headed to Parx for the $330 Big Stax MTT, but first I must go on a run...

Running

I will be adding this running segment to the end of most of my posts here from now on just to give a little feel for what I'm doing to stay in shape and keep my mental health as strong as possible while playing poker for a living. The goal this month is just to run 100 miles. It might sound like a lot but it is a pretty modest goal given I've done 60 mile weeks in the past. My brother also once did a 100 mile week a summer or two ago! Yesterday I ran 5 miles in 35:35 and felt pretty relaxed the whole way. Today I feel tired and have to be out all day playing poker, so I'm gonna drop the distance to 3 (which I'll be going to run as soon as I submit this post). In the past I've just taken days off when I feel tired; from now on I will have to just get some short distance in to ensure I stay on pace to run 100 this month. Hopefully this goal will allow me to really get in shape and start running some road races again (and potentially start winning the smaller ones again). Time will tell!

Total Distance Ran in December: 5 miles

Parx

Ended up firing 2 bullets to the $330. Had a good start on bullet 1, up to 50K from 30K SS, and ended up getting 45K in each with AhTd on a J32hhh flop. Thought I might have some fold equity on the flop so I raised his c-bet after he 3b pre, and he just jammed over me. I was getting almost exactly 2:1 and with the fact that I might have 3 aces as outs as well had me getting it in. He had 2 black kings which was a great hand for me to see but I bricked.

Bullet 2 had me up to 45K pretty early as well before I lost a flip for 20K each to a guy I thought was spewing...I ended up calling a 25BB 3b jam with AT (I opened CO he jammed button)...he had 99 so I wasn't in awful shape but I thought he would have a lot of random Ax in his range based on how he was playing. Will never know if that assessment was right but in any case I lost the flip and was down to 18K. Luckily, he decided to 3b/call off vs me a little while later with 88 (seemed very standard to flat my open based on stack sizes) and my KK got a double. I then won a couple big pots from a tough player named Ray Ross to get it up to around 100K before our table broke.

The next table I played at was likely the softest table in the room. I feel like many solid players would have ran it over but I wasn't really able to do so. I think I might need to talk to some live players and see how they deal with this sort of dynamic because I think there has to be a more profitable way to approach it. There were tons of limps and occasionally an open to like 18K at 3K BB lol. At one at 3K BB it went limp, limp, SB complete, BB makes it 30K, fold fold, SB back shoves like 75K total, BB tank folds. For ****s sake what is anyone doing??

The way I approach these tables is often to just wait for huge hands and then know I'm going to often get a lot of chips in with good equity. But those big hands don't always come, so should I be doing something differently? I feel like I don't have fold equity vs people so I don't want to make any wild moves when good spots could very likely come. But if they don't come then I'm just left wondering if there was a more profitable way to go about it. I'm really not sure.

Luckily I found KK in the last level of the day with about 75K to start the hand, made it 9K, 3 flats (I'd been playing SO tight so it was kinda funny how fast people called my open...it's not even like I have a ton of chips where the argument could be made you'll make a ton of chips if you crack my presumably strong hand). Flop comes QT2hh, I c-bet 18K guy on my left snap calls other 2 fold. Turn Jx I jam 48K into the 75Kish pot, he thinks forever then calls with A4hh and I somehow fade! Ended up bagging 151.5K and day 2 is on Sunday.

Running

Got 3 miles in today in 21:19. The first mile felt fast but was only 7:21 which was a little concerning since I felt like I put in a lot more effort on the 1st mile than I did yesterday, but the 2nd (7:00) and 3rd (6:58) were good without me feeling too awful. I'm really glad I bagged chips at Parx because now I can really take it easy in the daytime tomorrow before/after running. I'll probably play the 10:30 $30 MTT on WSOP (and probably late reg it at 11:59) while relaxing, getting lunch, etc, then go for the run after. I'll be going anywhere between 4 and 6 depending on how I feel. I probably would have just done 3 again if I needed to go back to Parx tomorrow to play, so fading the 10 outs the A4hh guy had has somehow actually helped me with my running goals! Variance is weird.

Total Distance Ran in December: 8 miles

Poker

Bricked everything yesterday, was tired going into the session but think I played alright. Definitely took a lot of higher variance lines than I often do but I don't think any of them were awful. I got KK in vs TT on JT4 in the WSOP 10K and turned a king to get it up to 35K and then triple barreled it all off to a reg I've played with a ton. Raise/called a 3b w J8cc from HJ, c/r'ed the 943cc flop, bet the Qx turn and bombed the 8x river. He thought for a long time before calling with KK. I think I probably should've checked the river; I weighted his range heavily towards AA/KK but thought even JJ/TT were possible, along with the occasional AKcc sort of stuff. My line obviously looks very strong and I don't think AA/KK beats much other than missed flush draws, but it's probably a bit too ambitious to hope players are going to be thinking that deeply about it.

It's also possible he did think about it and just came to the conclusion he was good often enough. Who knows. In any case, if the play had worked I would have continued on about my session feeling really good about myself. So from a mental game standpoint, it's time for me to stop getting all upset with myself when those plays don't work. It feels like spew when it's wrong but I can't stop trying in those spots just because I'm wrong once in a while. The other nice small consideration is this possibly sets up some meta game for later where anyone who saw that hand might be more inclined to pay off my nutted hands in the future. All in all I lost about $500 on the day. I do think I was too ambitious in a few spots but I need to stop feeling bad about these losing days and start shrugging them off and being confident that I played alright and the day simply didn't work out.

Running

I got 5 in yesterday at 35:09 which is pretty quick for me right now (7:02/mile). I cramped about 1.5 miles in but rather than dwelling on it I focused even harder on keeping my form good and chose not to pay attention to it; it went away after another mile or so. The mental game is super important in running as well! The last 2 miles were into the wind which was a pain in the ass but again, mind over matter. The splits were something like 7:11-6:56-6:54-6:59-7:08. Today I'm going to Kelsey's house and won't be leaving until Sunday so we'll do some running there. I'm not gonna play any poker while I'm there (it's been a while since I've taken days off) so hopefully I will be fresh for day 2 of Parx on Sunday!

Total Distance Ran in December: 13 miles

Quick Running Update

Having a nice time at my girlfriend's...it's nice to take some time away from poker once in a while. I feel like my batteries will be recharged to try to make a run in the MTT tomorrow. They are approaching 1500 entrants and it seems like somewhere between 15% and 20% of the field will be making day 2, so I'd expect there to be about 275 there for day 2 tomorrow with about 150 paying.

Both today and yesterday I ran 4 miles, the first 2 with Kelsey and the last 2 on my own. We did our 4 today on the track and my last mile ended up being 6:07, with the last half mile at 2:52. I decided to have fun with it since I won't be running tomorrow...I've got to drive almost 2 hours to get to Parx so I'll have to leave around 10AM, so running beforehand seems like it would just exhaust me for the rest of the day. But with those added 8 miles from the past 2 runs I'm still doing a pretty good job of staying on pace. I also think I'll be able to start upping the mileage soon. Running is making me very tired but based on experience I know the more you run, the less that tired feeling seems to stick with you.

Total Distance Ran In December: 21 miles

Four Days Since an Update

I've got a lot to get to so I'll throw a TLDR down at the bottom in case this post drags out a bit. Stuff to talk about this post:
--Parx Day 2
--The House Hunt
--December Goals Update
--Running

Parx Day 2

I took a look at my table draw going into the day and didn't recognize anyone. When I sat down one guy looked vaguely familiar and then someone walked by, tapped him on the shoulder and said "you the man Billy!" That's when I realized it was November 9er Billy Pappas! His official name is William *insert long Greek name here* so I didn't recognize it. I came into the day with 151.5K at 2500/5000 and played a few fun hands en route to a very swingy day. I was up to about 200K when Pappas opened UTG for 12K. UTG2 jammed for 70K and I iso'ed all in from MP with JJ. Pappas tanked and then folded. He sighed a bit after he saw our hands (UTG2 had TT), and then revealed he folded AK after the board ran out ace high, giving me the pot. When our table broke I was over 300K at 6KBB and feeling good.

Things didn't go great at the next table. I defended my BB with AdTc after MP opened to 15K and SB flatted. Flop came T62cc and I c/c'ed MP's c-bet. The turn was a very interesting Ac, giving me top 2 pair and a medium flush draw. I again c/c'ed and the river came the 3c, giving me the 4th nut flush. Villain was older guy with an accent and he instantly grabs his chips then looks up saying, "oh is it your turn?" I replied, "Yeah and you know it is." Damn anglers. I'm pretty confident now he has a medium strength hand that doesn't want to face a bet, but I kinda have the same hand so I'm not really sure what to do. I decide to check and now he bets like 1/5 pot. It was still a decent chunk of chips but getting that price I think I have to look him up. He turns over black QJ and at the time I thought they were both clubs (I saw the Jc so I just mucked) but later someone told me he had QsJc which is a bit tilting and is one of the few hands that c/r'ing the turn might be better against. Overall I think my play was fine though.

I ended up down to about 140K at 8K BB and open QQ UTG to 18K. Villain from last hand flats MP, and BB flats as well. Flop comes A42dd and BB checks. I decide to bet 26K since I don't like the thought of just c/f'ing here and with how short my stack is I think this looks really strong. People are playing somewhat straight forward so I don't think I'm gonna get blasted off my hand by worse unless *possibly* someone puts the c/r in with a flush draw. I have the Qd so that's even less likely. I bet 26K, MP folds quickly and I'm confident I'm gonna win the pot until BB puts a stack out that covers me! We'd been friendly so I peel the queens way back for him to be able to see it and then muck and he says "good fold." I'm still not sure until he actually flips over the Ah to confirm he did hit the flop, then saying "I had one of those too" referring to my queens. Meh.

I end up with about 65K at 8K BB hand for hand which is a bit frustrating because I kind of have to just sit there and fold...if I picked up a premium it was going in but the close spots would have to be folds. It took about 5 hands but someone eventually busted to leave us with 143 players having locked up the $715 mincash. Shortly after I jam 65K at 10KBB with K9ss OTB, SB iso's with Ad9h, flop comes T87ddd, turn 2c, river Kc! Back to 140K or so...next hand I find JdJh and open CO, button shoves his remaining 35K or so with 77, and flop comes 976ddd! We laughed at how similar these runouts were...turn is Tx to give me additional outs but river is a brick and I'm back down to 100K. I got quite a few shoves through (with 77, 88, and 3b squeezed all in with AA without getting a call) to get it back to 170K. I then 3b jammed 77 for my 170K over UTG's full 3x to 30K. UTG had been tight leading up to the bubble and had a lot of chips (maybe 500K). After the bubble burst though he'd opened 3 or 4 hands and 3b squeezed my UTG open and MP flat once. He made the size so big over my UTG open that I elected to fold TT because I was really confident he'd be flatting 99 and smaller pairs there based on how he'd been playing. After he'd gotten so aggro though I decided my read was off and maybe he'd simply decided that post bubble was time to be aggro and go after the MTT. I was wrong as he snap called with KK and I busted 132nd for the mincash. I think my shove is a mistake and sometimes you have to just remember that people are allowed to have it multiple times in a row. I think this was an example of that. Live and learn.

The House Hunt

We found a nice place in Ridgewood on Monday night and went there with the realtor to take a look. It seemed to be just what we were looking for and we agreed that we were interested. The realtor seemed very eager to get us in the next night (last night) to sign a bunch of stuff, telling us multiple times that a different group was going to be meeting with the guy on Thursday if we didn't want it, so we needed to act fast! I was a little put off by this but my two roommates seemed like they were okay with it so I went to Ridgewood last night ready to sign, even though a few things were on my mind that were making me hesitant. To my relief my roommates called me an hour before to tell me they weren't going to sign the lease tonight because they'd talked to a few people who also seemed to think it was sketchy how fast this realtor wanted us to sign. We call her 15 minutes before we're supposed to meet.

For perspective, the realtor wanted us to bring checks for the $3975 security deposit, $2650 for 1st month's rent, and $2650 for her cut (WE would have to pay her cut even though she was helping the landlord with this way more than us. Apparently this is standard in the North Jersey / NYC metro area but it seemed insane to us). So she wants us to write her over $9000 worth of checks the night after we saw this house. We call her and tell her we want to look over the lease and we're still interested in the house but it's a big investment for us so we want to take a couple days to make sure this is right. We also tell her if the "group from Thursday" (who I had some slight doubts even existed) really likes it and takes it right away, then so be it, but we can't act this quickly. She gets highly offended and tells us she feels like we are "jerking her around." I think we really dodged a bullet because her reaction to all of this really gives me the vibe that she was hiding something from us. It felt like she wanted us to sign ASAP so that we'd be locked in before we figured out what it was. Whatever the case was, one of my roommates called his mom's friend, who is a realtor, and told her that we'd go through her now. Now that we were aware that we have to pay the realtor's commission, we figured we might as well use a family friend and have her actually work for us. In any case, no house yet, still looking on that front.

December Goals Update

Because of all the house hunting and travelling around (the areas we've been looking at are a 75 minute drive from my house) I've put very low volume in online in December. All the time taken for the Parx tournament added to that too. So trying to get 10K in buy ins for both MTTs and SNGs is going to be tough after this slow start. Add in the fact that I'll still have to be travelling around to look at more houses and it's going to be very difficult to get that volume in. However, I checked my Total Rewards Statement this morning and they finally credited my account with the points I earned last month online. I now have 13.7K points for the month, meaning I'll need 1300 in December to attain Diamond Status. I think this is worth going after, so the new goal is just to earn 1300APPs on WSOP's site. So I will still have to grind those sng's when I get the time. The running goal however has been going quite well...

Running

I took off from running on Sunday since I played Parx that day and had to travel far to get there. Monday I did my longest run in a long time, getting in 6 miles. A combination of the weather being great, me eating and drinking healthily beforehand, and me being in better shape because of last week's running led to me putting that 6 miles in at 41:40, which is about 6:57 per mile. I took the first mile easy at 7:28, so the last 5 were actually at 6:50/mile. I wasn't really even trying to put them in fast, I just felt good enough to do that. It's cool to see myself getting back into shape.

Yesterday I ran 4 miles with my girlfriend. We set some goals for her, one of which was to run 5 miles at sub 9:00 pace. I was thinking of this as a long term goal, but sure enough the next 2 days she ran both of her 4 mile runs under 36:00! She hadn't even done many 4 mile runs since trying to get back into shape with me, but just ripped both of those off with really great times. So yesterday's run was 4 miles with Kelsey in 35:37. I'm at her place now and we're going to go to the track near her house in order to keep working on hitting this consistent 9:00/mile pace. Running becomes so much easier when you know exactly how fast you should be going and how that feels. So she might drop to 3 miles today and then I'll run one on my own after to stretch it to 4. Running's going well though and I think I'll hit the 100 mile goal without much of an issue if I continue to keep my head on straight.

Total Distance Ran In December: 31 miles



TLDR:
--I mincashed Parx, 132nd of 1553 for $715.
--We thought we might be signing a lease for a house last night but it didn't happen.
--My poker volume has gone way down with the time needed for Parx and because I've been away from home so much looking for a house. While I'll still try to get some decent volume in, the main goal is to make sure I earn a Diamond Card for the Total Rewards casinos.
--Running is going well and is great for my mental state. I'm on pace for my 100 mile month with 31 miles down after 8 days.

Regarding the house hunt:

I feel like a lot of realtors do the same thing. I was looking with two of my friends for a place in the Montclair/bloomfield area. We say we had INTEREST and realtor said there were 3 groups chomping at the bit (and it really wasn't that nice of a place) and pressured us to sign immediately and put $7,000 down.

So sketchy for sure, I think you did the right thing going to a family friend and not rushing into anything.

Yeah it was wild she was really nice to us the whole time, seemed pretty cool, and as soon as we said we wanted to take a little extra time she just flipped a switch and got nasty. Reminded me of a lot of poker players lol...super friendly and as soon as you win a pot from them or whatever they just snap and show a different side. It was pretty surprising to hear her reaction because even if she felt like we were "jerking her around," you'd think she'd just hold out for an extra day or two given all of our credit scores were very good and my two roommates both have very good jobs. If there really was another family, the realtor said that the guy who owned the house definitely wanted us over them based on our financial situation. Like you said though, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a common thing for realtors to do: Make you feel like you have to act fast so that you don't back out after really thinking about it for a while.

A Real Session!

I'd played 17 tournaments and 8 sit and gos for the entirety of the month before yesterday! My roommates texted and told me there's a viewing for another house 12:30 tomorrow...there's just no way I can do it. I've got to start looking at poker more like a job. When I'm playing I take it quite seriously, but I almost "feel bad" when I tell people I can't hang out on a Monday night or can't chill on a Saturday afternoon. But if this is my job, then those times often are technically work times. It is nice to have the freedom to be flexible with my schedule, but I do have to start making sure I play 5 days a week. That being said, I knew this month was going to be hectic with the house search (and eventually the moving in process) so I'll give myself a pass with all of it.

Yesterday I played 7 tourneys and 18 sngs, doubling my total MTT/SNG count from this month . I was staring at a -$750 day with just the $55 5K on Party left, where I had 10BBs and 20 were left with 12 paying (and the mincash being <$100). I ran AK into AA and got the JTxQx runout which was pretty sweet, and managed to run that up to a 4th place finish for $556, turning a bad day into a small loss. I felt frustrated at the end of the session (before spinning it up in that MTT) and started playing very aggressively in my last 2 tourneys. I say "playing aggressively" rather than "punting" because I don't think I was really losing my mind. Instead, whenever there was a close spot that I'd often shy away from in hopes of finding a better spot due to typically soft fields, I'd just take the spot and take the high variance line. In the WSOP 10K I busted, and in the Party 5K, after the fortunate AK>AA spot, I felt like I was running the table over. It helped that with 14 players left the other 4 or 5 regs were ALL at the other table, which is a very lucky situation.

When I'd often fold a marginal hand since I'd opened the last 2 or 3 pots and expected to get played back at, I'd just open anyway and not be afraid of playing big pots or busting. It was a very freeing feeling, though I don't know if it was any more profitable than usual. It's definitely something I should experiment with in the future though; shifting gears can really keep even the regs on their toes when at one point I'm running 8/6 over 50 hands and the next I'm opening every other pot. All of this can be affected by which specific hands you're being dealt though so obviously a strategy like that can't just be "employed at will."

Running

Two days ago I ran 4 on the track at my own pace while my girlfriend ran 3 at hers. Finished in 27:44 for a 6:56/mile average. Interestingly my watch told me I'd ran 4.14, so I'm not sure if my watch is slightly off or if you actually are running slightly more mileage on the track due to the 400 meters being measured as precisely the inside line (which you are of course not running directly on).

Yesterday I ran 5 in 34:30 for a 6:54/mile average, and today I ran 6 in 41:48, a 6:58/mile pace. It's really cool to see myself getting in shape like this. I was feeling pretty tired in the middle of the run today so I did what I often do and stopped worrying about the specific pace and only focused on the effort level. I didn't want to push myself to the point of exhaustion that would leave me not wanting to run tomorrow, but I also didn't want to ease up to the point that there wasn't enough effort. My 1st 3 miles ended up at 7:07-6:55-6:50. After that 3rd mile I started feeling tired and let myself turn over to cruise control. Miles 4, 5, and 6 came through at 7:01-6:59-6:56. So when I don't think about pace but just concentrate on effort, my body pretty much has 7:00 pace down to a science. Eleven days into the month and I'm almost halfway to the 100 mile goal. Tomorrow I'm going to go play the $550 at Parx and I'll probably try to get 4 in beforehand in order to have myself at that halfway point.

Total Distance Ran in December: 46 miles

A Good, Losing Session

So played about $850 in buy ins yesterday and lost about $400 but was pretty happy about it all! This seems to be a good sign for my prospects as a pro. I won a $100 sng for most of my returns (bout tree fiddy for that win) but busted all my tourneys, including 22nd in the Party 10K where 15 paid and 34th in the WSOP 10K where 30 paid. As I was busting the WSOP 10K I lost 2 flips to bubble the other $100 sng that went off ($190 for 2nd $350 for 1st). So that sucked but I was pretty positive about it all! I feel like I've allowed myself to open up and the creative juices are flowing again. I think I was trying too hard to not make mistakes, and the last couple days I've been trying hard to accumulate chips. The logic I've had in the past has been that the fields are soft enough that I ought to just be waiting for spots and not making mistakes since someone else will most likely dump their chips off to me eventually anyway.

The last couple days I realized it's actually simply more fun to be aggressive and push every edge, and I'll keep on deciding whether or not I think it's more profitable. It's interesting because it's more of a game theory debate than a strictly EV one. I think pushing the edges AND waiting for spots are both profitable ways to play, but I'm not sure which one is better based on the strength of the average player in these fields. It's nice too because yesterday I realized I can't be results oriented when it doesn't work and just run back into my shell where I'll be playing tight again. I 3b jammed KJ from the button for 14BBs vs a CO open from the big chip leader with 34 left and 30 paying in the WSOP 10K last night. She snapped with KQ and I busted. I think in the past I'd beat myself up and think I should have just folded that spot and waited for more of a slam dunk spot to ensure I at least find the mincash, but these are the types of spots I think I need to start pushing. It's definitely +chip EV to shove there since she should be opening waaaay wide, but in the past I'd convince myself ICM might dictate I should fold or the fact that I'll get open shoves through way more than I should since people play too tight around the bubble means I should wait for one of those spots. However, I was fine with that bustout hand last night, so maybe the RO mindset I sometimes have is slowly fading away.

Today's Plan

Just got a nice 4 miler in and now will go get some food and then play the Parx $550. I'll be firing 2 bullets (if necessary) and have sold 25% off to a buddy of mine. I felt a lot better about my live game during the $330 and even during the Almighty Stack at Borgata, so I'm more excited than nervous going into this one. "Patience" is the word I have to really repeat to myself for these live birds; you're sitting there for soooo long on day 1 and you simply cannot win the tournament at any point that day. I think I was trying to do too much last series early on and while I won't be passing spots up today, I'm gonna try to limit my senseless triple barrel bluffs in level 5 or whatever. I felt really good about thinking through all of my decisions and coming up with the best option during the $330 and I hope to do that again today.

Running

Four miles in the books this morning to get me exactly halfway to the goal, only 39% of the way through the month. First mile 7:10, second mile 6:47, 3 and 4 both in the 6:50-7:00 range for a total time of 27:45 (6:56/mile). The effort level on these runs feels a shade different each time but the splits I'm hitting each run are almost exactly the same for each mile. It's like regardless of what my brain is thinking my body is just doing it's thing. I've had a little bit of soreness in my foot the last couple days but unless the damn thing breaks I'm not gonna let it stop me from reaching this 100 mile month.

Total Distance Ran in December: 50 miles