Well I had an abbreviated 13 hour session today (lol) and ended up winning about $1500 CAD which is pretty sweet. The last month or so has been frustrating since I've been making so many FTs and never getting the top 3 results where all the money is. Thankful to have a couple runner-ups today even tho I would still love to bink a tourney soon. The power was out from when I woke up (5:20) right up until 7:30. I didn't warm up with poker strategy but I did bust out my first workout in a while. So you could say that was my warmup lol. As you can see I made my first Stars F2T in a legit tourney today but I was unfortunately super card dead from final 50 in and really had no shot which sucks lol. My $22 PKO runner-up was a gongshow because I was super super short from ITM all the way to FT but just managed to stick around. Everyone at FT was just absolutely brutal, the softest FT I've ever played. When I got heads up I unfortunately went card dead. Sometimes skill can only get you so far My Party runner up was so random, I honestly had so many tables going and it was such a low priority that it was just like "hey, I'm F2T" and I was able to get second. There were three really interesting ICM spots I saved but I probably won't look at them until Monday, I'm zonked right now. Need my beauty sleep SO I CAN GO TO WORK TOMORROW!!! Forty bucks at work or twenty more tournaments on the grind? I think I know which one is making me more money

Also, I hate to say it but I ghosted my last $22 FT to a pro I live with so that hopefully he could bink it. Bastard only got 6th. What a joke

No FTs to report. Today was an absolute joke on the felt, ended up down a couple hundred. I didn’t play great and I didn’t play bad but the cards were just not in my favour for the first half+ of my session. I only cashed a handful of tourneys but one of them was a $22 turbo bounty F3T on Party that helped recoup a good portion of my losses. Too bad I ran AKs<QJ aipf for the chiplead lol I’m just glad today wasn’t the unmitigated disaster it was shaping up to be.

Taking tomorrow off for sure, probably Tuesday as well but I guess we’ll see how work goes. I’ll be grinding all day Wednesday. I’m getting it off for the second week in a row since I worked a four-hour shift this morning. Only had three orders to put together which I managed in two hours after really streeetching it out. I really want to make another grand or two and once I manage that I think I’ll ask to get my hours restricted to probably just four days a week. I’d still be scheduled for at least 20 hours which still almost covers the bills and I’ll have three full days to grind plus the inspired session or two after work during the week. I think I’ve already surpassed the point where I’m making a bigger hourly with poker than at my job so I just want enough money saved up before I make that move just incase I hit a sick downswing lol. Another solid run or two and I’ll make my move tho

My MTT volume has been down the last couple of sessions. I think this has a lot to do with Party cutting late reg times down significantly in a lot of their tourneys meaning I’m firing a couple less bullets every day lol. I’ve still managed 187 MTTs through four sessions so I’m still getting in solid volume despite it. Considering making a deposit on GG and grinding there but no rush. Also I have more than enough buy-ins to play regular speed $22s again. In addition to that I’ll probably play turbo PKOs and also soft $27 and $33 bounty tourneys on Party

My parents are back at the lake this weekend but I still have a key to their Stoon house and their projector screen TV. Definitely going to try sneaking in for a quick movie before bed tonight I hate watching movies with my fam because they keep talking talking talking, drives me absolutely insane. I’ve been watching movies in the basement at our house since bro went to Regina for the summer but there’s no door so I can hear my sister and future bro-in-law upstairs all the time which absolutely SUCKS. I just want to watch movies alone in a quiet dark place where I can ruminate in peace. Good luck on the felt everyone!

Yah... people talking during a movie... WTF!?!?! My partner's kids do this and I'm thinking "WTF are they thinking? Aren't they watching the fk'n movie? Nobody cares about who they think do this or that... or what's going to happen. And no.. we don't know wtf happens next... that's part of why we are 'trying' to watch it." I will typically grab the remote, pause the movie and ask them if they'd like to talk for a few mins. and we will give them the floor while they do so... but once I start the movie up again they need to stfu!.

Pretty sure I was on the same table a few times with that 'Pro' at your place. Yah... quite a few hands today where I was like "WTF? Are they even thinking?"

Just gonna run some quick ICM calculations from my $5.50 turbo FT the other day. This is all from the same table and in chronological order order. Payouts are the same for all and I think first hand was played with five people cuz it was first of FT although there were six of us still left. I just put the afk guy's stack in as UTG for first calculation

First hand I open 77 and get jammed on by a BU shortstack. I called it off pretty quick, may have had a read this guy was a little loose with all ins but I can't quite remember. I'm a big stack and this is for a decent chiplead so I think I can call reasonably loose here. I think my calling range will be 66+ A9s+ ATo+ KQs





So my thoughts were pretty close, thought I gave BU a fair rejam range. in reality I think his rejam was a lot worse than this, might have been weak offsuit Ax which I was surprised by

Second hand against same villain with the read that he's rejamming too wide. I snap call 88 although I think this spot is closer. If I lose I'll be a shortstack and rejamming into an open and a flat should theoretically be stronger (even tho I thought I was way ahead). With ICM considerations I think my call rejam range will be 99+ AQs+ AK





So this is actually pretty close. I gave myself 50% flatting for QQ+ and AK and gave BU a pretty wide rejam range. His flatting range might be a little wider so I'd actually expect the correct call to be my original prediction. It all depends on how wide BU is and I think this rejam was also pretty loose so 88 probably bottom of profitable calling range

Last hand with ATs. Villain was okay, maybe not great ICM but not horrible punts either. I was kind of skeptical about whether this was good or not but I think ATs is a slam dunk in this spot. Interested to see how wide I can call. My prediction is 55+ A9s+ ATo+ KQs





Pretty much on the money with that one! I think I should be doing a lot more of these calculations as I still feel pretty rusty and I think I tend towards being too nitty when calling. If I try doing like three a day I'll be automatic at these in no time (hopefully )

To be fair he was a pro when anyone with basic poker knowledge could crush, an absolute dinosaur in today's games

My first ever double bink! First dubs at the $16.50 and $22 stakes as well. The run of early FT exits seems to have come to an end. The great thing about both of these runs is that I was 9/9 at the start of FT both times. Talk about some run good

Messaged Mom and said I'd be cool with rent going up from $300 to $500 starting next month. Tomorrow I will talk to my boss about getting my days restricted to four a week or whatever arrangement we end up coming to. I think I'd be an idiot not to devote more time to grinding haha. Since rejoining the poker journey I'd imagine I've maybe made like $3.5k at work and I am currently up over $6k playing poker. Last thing I need to do is quit my job but I want to make some ****in moolah Will probably withdraw like a grand or so from today's winnings and I will be super happy with my liferoll and my BR is gonna be good to go

money money money money

I had a couple interesting KO ICM spots yesterday that were trouble spots for me. One of them I already ran, fudging some of the numbers to my closest estimate. Basically F3T with 19 people left (6 at my table) I got dealt AQo UTG with around 28bb. I openraised and 26bb BU (who had a small bounty) rejammed all in. I immediately recognized it was a close spot and decided to moan call when I figured that AA-QQ would probably three bet as opposed to just jam which would make AQ slightly more profitable. In the end I ran the calcs and my calling range was TT+ AKo AQs+. That was villain with what I thought was a reasonable value heavy rejam range. If he was going all in loose (which I had no read for) AQo would have been a good call but I think it was a marginal but ultimately negative EV call. Lucky for me I ended up rivering a four-card flush

Other hand I screenshotted was on FT...



I open raise 77 and get jammed on by SB shortstack with a small bounty. To me this seems like a clear fold. With no bounty to speak of we're basically playing close to ICM and the pressure on me as a midstack should be insane. If I call and lose I'll go from third to last and not be able to win any bounties. I think my profitable call rejam range will be 99+ AJs+ AQo+. Let's run the calcs...

my open raise range...


villain rejam range...


my profitable call rejam range...


So by these calculations 77 is a close but very profitable call. This is all completely dependent on how much SB is rejamming all in. The range HRC gave him seemed way too wide to me so I tightened it a bit but I still think it might be too loose. Is he really jamming 44, 55 KJs, A9s, etc? If he jams close to this range it's a call but if he's a nit (like me) I think 77 is a fold. If you guys have any thoughts on the ranges let me know! Also my personal open range was a little wide because I felt that I could apply ICM pressure and also covered bounty of everyone left to act. On a normal FT I should probably lose some of the suited connectors/worse pockets but I thought this was okay!

Alright, that's that. Today I cut down my hours at work to four days a week. I should have every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday to grind in full probably starting two weeks from now. Wednesday is the GTO third day off because I can take Mondays off (after the weekend I'm usually fried ) and can mix a session probably on Tuesdays to go with Fridays so that I can space out my playing days into manageable, non-burnout inducing windows. One would hope anyways

I've also withdrawn $1500 CAD from 888 for a boost to the liferoll. Once the money hits my account I'll be sitting pretty at almost $5k in the bank. I am more than happy to coast on that for the foreseeable future and everything else will be happy grinding. I'm basically rolled for the same level stakes as yesterday (soft $33 and $27 PKOs, $22 turbo PKOs, everything reg speed $22 and under, and **** it whatever I want on Sunday ). Hopefully the next time I withdraw for the liferoll it's because I binked like $10k lol. I feel like I'm crushing everything $22 and under and even though I haven't had results I feel like I'm probably still a solid winner at $33s. What's next, $55s? Still a long way off but I'm excited for the challenge

Also I've made plans to go the grandparent's farm in Manitoba again for August long with my brother and maybe the parents, we'll see. They've been stuck at home for months now with nowhere to go and no one coming to see them. I need to be a good grandson!!! Last year around this time I actually went with them to visit my two uncles out in Nova Scotia. It was a pretty great trip. Life is cheaper there and with +3ish hour time difference my full slate MTT schedule would be much closer to a normal work schedule if I ever wanted to move out there... I didn't take a ton of pictures but here's a gooder! Back at it tomorrow, see ya

I like your AQo analysis/AQs threshold (and would of folded AQo). The 77 I snap-call and yes, I do believe he is/and should be jamming 44+, KJs, A9s (I would snap-shove those).

I believe that you are a net winner @ 33 and 55 BIs, at least from what I have seen thus far ; keep crushing friend

Well today was my shortest session in a couple of weeks. Truth be told I'm exhausted from lack of sleep the past few nights. Wednesday I only got a few hours sleep because I was so jacked after I binked the $16.50 I couldn't fall asleep till after midnight lol. Was planning to get a good sleep in yesterday but UBC friend got in touch with me like an hour before bed and I ended up hanging out with him until 10:30ish, up until 11:30. Not good!

Anyways, I was pretty fried and I played horrible today. I was just making some really brutal mistakes and it was ugly. I stopped registering tournaments maybe an hour or so before I usually do. My last few sessions have been marathons because I was making deep runs in my very last tourneys of the day. So I didn't defend my $16.50 title lol. Was worried I might have to drop stakes (lol ) before I made two F2Ts ($27.50 and $5.50 PKOs on Party) and a few other late runs to recoup a good portion of my losses. Still down but it wasn't horrible. Plan is to get a good sleep now and crush the weekend. Hopefully I can pull it off

With UBC friend back in town it feels as though I've been eating out more than I have in months. It's hard to control the urge to splurge when you bink a couple nice scores but I fell into temptation yesterday. Ordered Pizza Hut which made me feel absolutely disgusting (still early but July weight goal is already in doubt ) and then went to Wal-Mart and bought My Neighbor Totoro. Now THAT I can live with I'm expecting a refund on my latest movie order soon so a couple hundred more will be flowing to the liferoll soon. I just gotta make sure not to overdo it because I'm definitely not set for life at the moment lol. It's good to treat yourself, I just can't make a habit of it (yet, anyways )

That being said, there are a few things I'd really like to buy in the nearish future if/when I make the money. First thing is a copy of The Breath of the Wild which I STILL haven't played. Second thing is a new set of golf clubs, mine are a decade old and have scuffs galore. Third thing is a plane ticket to see my creative writing friend in San Francisco. Now even if I bink $20k tomorrow I might have to wait on covid to die down before I see her again


Nice to hear the vote of confidence lol. My CFP classmate who's playing $109s said that there's a ton of fish all the way up to $55s so I'd have to imagine I'd do okay for myself. Gotta build the roll and do it right first On the calculations I definitely find that I'm struggling a bit putting people on ranges. I'm not horrible, always in the ballpark, but I think I definitely need to run more calculations daily just to sharpen up. Today on FT bubble of $5.50 turbo Gladiator I ended up calling off 77 for 16bb and an average bounty. Lost the hand, became a shorty and busted soon after. Ran the calcs and my calling range was probably closer to 99+ AQs+ AQo+. Honestly I think yesterday's 77 calculation skewed me towards calling haha. Just gotta keep putting in the work and I'll get better quick (hopefully )

Had a few decent looking runs but this was my only FT in a slightly losing day. Unfortunately I committed ICM suicide in this one calling off AJs from HJ vs a fish SB 28bb rejam. I don't have to run the calcs to know it was horrible. I think I made the call because I'd watched this guy rejam A9s for 30bb against a shorter stack earlier in the FT which made me think he was going all-in too wide. Even if that was the case taking into account ICM considerations where I actually had a serviceable stack I really threw away a great run for no good reason. I guess I ran alright overall today but got dealt two brutal beats in F3T situations where I lost a lot of money. At least I'm getting to high value spots in the first place lol. Back at it tomorrow! I know I've been doing really well for myself but it's mostly felt like morsel sized sustenance of a grand here, a few hundred there. I'd love to get a $3k+ score, hopefully soon

After yesterday's session I actually spent the last three hours or so finishing my first leisure book since last year. Now I get to rewatch Audition to see if it is a 4.5 or 5/5 movie once and for all. I saw it for the first time in January and have been diving into Takashi Miike's work for the past few months. Since the libraries reopened this will be my fourth Miike movie. The dude delivers on ****ed up ****, I'll give him that. I was interested to see how the book compared to the movie, always interesting to see how the material is adapted. I guess you can say the movie is pretty faithful to the source material lol. Good luck tomorrow everyone

How many tournaments per day do you register in that have 3k+ as first place? I fathom that you get in some 33 and 55, you will have several more opportunities...

Well! Today was not good haha. I only lost like $150ish but I really didn't play that well so it's not like I deserved better. A few bonehead plays stick out including on F3T of a hyper turbo with $1.2k up top where I just got it in so f'ing bad. It was against a fish, it's always against a fish! Because I think they aren't good I then believe that they don't have a good hand which just isn't always the case. The important thing is that I'm aware of it but it's something I'll have to keep working on to eventually eradicate. Played what felt like my highest ABI session with several $33s and not too many tourneys under $11. I am properly rolled for everything but I still think I'm teetering on the edge of irresponsibility sometimes. If I ever hit that downswing I can lose a significant chunk of my bankroll in a heartbeat. Or maybe I'm just overthinking things lol. My results have been solid so maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself To pass the time when my tables were dropping like flies I watched the last hour of the 2013 Open Championship on Youtube. Golf is pretty much the only live sport we have rn and I can't even watch it because I'm always grinding Sunday Fundays haha

I keep getting my currencies confused so I guess I'm talking $3k CAD. I'd say I'm usually playing a double digit amount of tournaments that have that prize for first although usually massive fields to overcome. Would love to bink it in a bigger buy-in which I feel like I've been in the ballpark of a few times but still haven't nailed a score. I've been reading my CFP classmate's blog lately and to see all the tournaments he's won with a juicy prize has been making me jealous for my own glory lol. I think part of me just wants everything to happen overnight but I guess that's not how it works. I mean it was only 3 months ago I deposited $1700 CAD and I've already made a profit of over $6k so obvs I'm still doing well, I just want to crush I guess

To that end I think I might take it relatively easy this week. I'm going back to Swift this weekend to hang with friends/golf so there won't be any Friday or Saturday sessions. I want to play Sunday so I might actually end up grinding at the lakehouse and then driving two hours back to Stoon that night to make my shift on Monday. That leaves during the week to grind. I'm taking tomorrow off and I honestly feel like I should dedicate time to studying. I'm enjoying the grind and I love winning money but at some point I need to put in work off the felt to keep improving so that might be my focus for the next few days. We'll see, I might squeeze in a session or two during the week but I'd like to make a dent in my cash game course instead tbh

Also, Audition??? 5/5, absolute banger of a movie. I know I said it was faithful to the source material, which it is, but the movie tinkers a lot with the overall structure of the film where flashbacks and dream sequences are used perfectly whereas the book was basically straight chronological all the way. And I know I just read the book which had me freaking out but I was still caught off guard by how ****ed this movie was hahaha, it really sneaks up on you. Audition has my highest recommendation, check it out if you're into horror movies for sure

Heyo. No session today and no studying, just catching up on some poker groups/forums. Reading my CFP classmate's blog he actually mentioned something interesting about Sunday volume. Basically just play absolutely ****ing everything, up to 20 tables he said haha. I start playing at 6am and usually get to 12 tables by 7am which I grind on both screens until probably 2-3ish and begin busting out of the day. Apparently the strategy he wrote about is that Sunday fields are so soft you can just be automatic with your decisions and make money so getting more buy-ins is beneficial for you. This is interesting to hear since I feel like my volume has been down more recently. I've been missing registration windows because my screens are full up at 12 and then when I find myself in a deep run midday I usually stop registering to focus in temporarily. The FT strat is something I should keep up but I also think increasing Sunday volume wouldn't be a bad idea either, maybe not to 20-tables but 16 should be manageable??? I don't know. My laptop screen is actually frustratingly small. I didn't mention this earlier but buying an actual desktop is a high priority for me. It's not urgent as my laptop is still fully functional but I feel it would be way more efficient for me and I would be able to set up a better grind space as a result. Things to think about anyways...

Tomorrow looks like it will be light at work. I'm scheduled until 12 but I'm pretty sure I could get off at 10 if I want to. Was considering hitting the grind but I DO need to study. I honestly might just play Thursday (if I'm up to it) and write off the rest of the week up to Sunday for relaxation and study.

For my Monday cooldown entertainment I rewatched Love Exposure. I saw it earlier this year which was a pretty hardcore intro to Sion Sono. For those that don't know this movie is just four hours of insanity involving religion, cults, teen angst, love, and of course martial arts-style upskirt photography. Big recommend from me if you can block off half a day. It took me seven hours to finish because I took a two+ hour nap in the middle. The grind was long this weekend, what can I say? High on my rewatch priority list is the other Sono masterpiece I've seen called Himizu. Absolute 5/5 banger. Super bleak and went deep into depression/suicidal thoughts which obviously hit me where I live lol, might wait a few more weeks but I'll be revisiting it sooner than later for sure

Heyooo. Stayed overnight in Swift at a friend’s house, thankfully sparing me wasting an hour’s worth of gas driving to the lake and back for golf later this morning. No poker sessions this week and although I got some studying done on Monday and Tuesday I mostly just did nothing this week. On the one hand you need to mellow out but on the other hand I really want to study and not doing it with all this time off is kind of a bummer. I really need to get better with my study habits. Might need to create some kind of schedule I need to stick to with study hours explicitly laid out. I wish I could just do things of my own volition but it’s really not that easy for me. Without structure I’ll pretty much resort to doing nothing. Got a book on habit forming from the library which I definitely want to grind through here

I guess I’ll say that I have been feeling pretty down the last few weeks for the first time in a while. Unfortunately my fitness has been pretty garbage lately and my diet has been horrendous, especially the last week. A good number to see on the scale at the end of July would be the same one as the end of last month. The lower mood mostly stems from the argument I had with my dad from a few weeks ago. It’s hung over my head like a raincloud and although it hasn’t derailed anything it has really not been great for me. I find that my heart almost feels calcified from all of the rejection, neglect, and slights (perceived or otherwise) I’ve experienced throughout the last few years. Maybe I’m crazy but it feels like I’ve been running disproportionately bad in the personal relationship department for a while now. It’s hard for me to care about it too much anymore but I feel like people are supposed to reach that point when they’re like 50 or something? Truly ahead of the curve

Got to sleep in today for the first time in a couple months. Instead of waking up at 5:15 I woke up at 6:15 Golfing at 11 and then I have a two and a half hour drive back to Saskatoon tonight where I will be back in time for Sunday Funday and get back on the grind. My new work schedule appears to be 6-11 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, the same as before covid started. With that sched I could play post work poker sessions every day if I wanted to. Just to maximize my work paycheques I might stop asking to get off early. Obviously a 10am start is better than 11 but I want to make sure I have a good enough baseline salary as possible and hopefully I can continue to run it up online. See you on the felt tomorrow

Set a new PB for most money lost in a session, somewhere in the neighbourhood of -$800 CAD. Sunday Funday indeed

Despite the horrific results I can say with no BS that I was actually happy with how I played. I thought I ran into the top of people's range an absolutely insane amount and I didn't do too well in flips. I didn't cash very many tourneys and they were mostly min-cashes (like, burst the bubble and out the very next hand kind of min cash ). I also legit bubbled three or four tournaments which hurts as well but they were spots I couldn't really pass up, being aware of the ICM pressure of the bubble I still think I made the right plays. One tourney that really hurt was the $16.50 Big Fish because I lost half my stack approaching the money getting in like 20bb pre multiway with J3o. I guess I must have misclicked the CALL button and not the FOLD button. I had no idea it even happened until I saw my stack was way smaller a minute or so later. Sucks to lose in that spot but boy it would have been sweet if I got a triple knockout instead haha

Taking tomorrow off as per usual and I'll need to reassess the stakes I can play. I think it will be back to pretty much everything $16.50 and under and then $22 PKOs again. Today was just so so so so so ugly, you have to be lucky to do as bad as I did. Hopefully I don't have another day like that for a long time

On the golf front I shot a 77 (5-over) yesterday at the course in Swift with five birds so basically the worst 77 of my life. The driver has been my biggest asset this year but for whatever reason I couldn't get it to work until the back nine. It was probably the three weeks off tbh It was really great to play with my golf buddy again, I missed him as I do most of my friends haha. He's getting married this fall (COVID pending) but I left an open invitation for him to invite me down to play the other course in town before. Sounded like he was game so I might make a day trip to Swift in the next month or two. On the horizon I'm going to the grandparent's for August long so will have a good stretch of days off there. Also future bro-in-law's bachelor party thing is Saturday Aug 22, another golf excursion where I might be able to bum the green fee off of someone lol. Other than those days I can hopefully keep up the grind for the foreseeable future. Probably back Tuesday and will try to grind all of my days off moving forward starting on Wednesday. Hopefully I can get back on track pretty quick lol

Well I had my b*tch post written up three hours ago but was able to make an FT at the end to only lose $200ish. I picked up right where I left off on Sunday and ran like absolute cancer for most of the day, finally getting a couple not min-cashes at the end. Still bricked all of my bigger tourneys and overall had a sucky day. It sucks to run (play?) this bad immediately after restricting my hours in the hope of continued poker success. It’s only two sessions but it’s put a significant dent in the BR that I could be chipping away at for a while. Oh well, I guess that’s poker

I have my Wednesday off tomorrow so will be getting in a full day of grind. Even after a full week off if I hit the rest of the days I want to hit for July I will have a month of really great volume which is promising even if the results of the last couple of sessions haven’t been. I’ve always been living in fear of the downswing to end all downswings I’ve heard so much about but haven’t experienced. Hopefully this isn’t it lol

I will say that staying tough and fighting through is the biggest reason I made an FT. I made my FT in the last tourney I registered today. Telling my coworker about losing a ton on Sunday, he asked if I would just quit playing part way through if I was doing bad again. Tried explaining how with MTTs you're just stuck there until you're finished (impossible concept to teach someone with no poker knowledge lol) but that I try to play through the adversity because you never know when the good runs will happen. Yes, before I would stop registering early when getting pumped. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've done that in the last three months though. The determination is there anyways

Made my first REAL Stars FT since rejoining the grind and followed it up with a cup of coffee on the $16.50 Bounty FT on Party. The consistency, the sheer concentration of will to finish ninth, it's truly awesome

So I lost a couple hundo on the day. GG in the Party tourney JJ<88 and I actually had a big stack on F2T in the Stars PKO but I ended up calling off top pair on a paired board versus a fish with a big bounty for most of my stack. I actually had a very interesting final hand in the tournament from a KO ICM perspective which I'll run quick here

Situation is BU is what I tagged as a fish. He goes all in for not that many chips on the FT bubble. He has a $27 bounty which is maybe just below average but I think with my Ax I'm doing really well to just isojam and go bounty/FT hunting. Payouts for the next few spots are still super flat so ICM shouldn't be insane here. Only thing is I get called off by BB lol. Curious to see if this is a winning play or not...


PokerStars - 5000/10000 Ante 1250 NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 8.4 BB
Hero (SB): 25.37 BB
BB: 89.4 BB
UTG: 40.25 BB
CO: 28.75 BB

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.12 BB) Hero has A 2

fold, fold, BTN raises to 8.27 BB and is all-in, Hero raises to 25.24 BB and is all-in, BB calls 24.24 BB

Flop: (59.39 BB, 3 players) A 4 T

Turn: (59.39 BB, 3 players) J

River: (59.39 BB, 3 players) 6




If only I could have held the suckout

So for this hand I gave small stack BU an openjam range of 32.1%. I ran the calculations and got some interesting results. The first picture is my profitable rejam range if BB villain is calling the HRC suggested range of 24.3% which I think is too loose. The second picture is my profitable rejam range if BB calls a 12.5% range (44+ A8s+ ATo+ KTs+ KQo+ QJs). I still think this trends toward generous on FT bubble but you never know! I had an average bounty or so which could skew things a bit since he's going for two





Very very interesting. So depending on how wide BB would overcall affects whether or not that was a profitable rejam with my A2o or not. In a marginal spot I might have been better off folding but I don't hate it. No gamble no future

Day off tomorrow and then full weekend grind starting Friday. PLEASE VARIANCE BE A G AND STOP F'ING ME

Lost about seven hundie CAD this Sunday Funday. The funny thing is that it feels like I really didn't play that bad but I guess I had zero results and I bricked absolutely all of my $22s and $16.50s. I don't know. It was a weird day. damn

Motivation has continued to be low in case you didn't notice I made no posts the last few days. I skipped both Friday and Saturday. Friday I had an invitation to grab supper with my mom so I just did that (free food ). While at supper with mom I began bemoaning how I hadn't had a true day off in like three months. If I haven't been playing poker I was either working or travelling or seeing friends or whatever. To me the ideal day off is a day of nothing. So that's what I did. Slept in until 8 (but I was up until 3 ) and crushed three movies and just chilled. It was so refreshing. I guess I'm conflicted because poker isn't my full-time gig but now with my hours cut I really need poker income to continue affording life. A day here or there doesn't hurt but it adds up in the end to missed income and I'm not really at the liferoll where I can coast if I really want to. Kind of a bummer

While I haven't been grinding poker much lately I have been big into the movie grind. Got the first of two items from my recent Criterion order in the mail late last week...



If you watch Woman in the Dunes you'll feel like you have sand stuck up your ******* for the next week. Truly amazing movie. Like I said I've been on an unreal Japanese cinema bender the past few months haha. Some quick movie recommendations that I saw the last few days include Princess Mononoke (classic Ghibli), Ringu (scary as sh**), and Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise. I've been trying to watch as many Criterion Channel movies as possible since there's a big online sale right now and I want to find a new movie that will be worth dropping a couple bucks on ASAP. Unfortunately I think I'm set and truth be told I don't really have the disposable income to buy and feel good anyways haha. So the sale will probably come and go by the end of the week without me dropping another couple hundo down the drain

So these last several sessions basically since my double bink have been absolutely horrible. I really truly believe it has less to do with my play and more to do with variance but I've never been slammed this hard before and it definitely sucks. I think I'll be dropping stakes again, no more $22s until further notice. Going to Manitoba this weekend so I might try to grind Tuesday-Thursday before I leave, I guess we'll see how I'm feeling. Might be able to get in a few rounds of golf while we're out there and it won't be on my own dime which is always a plus Hopefully I can turn the poker fortunes soon

Good luck man. Downswing end

And July is finished! In case you can't tell I haven't played since Sunday. I took Tuesday off because I was really tired at work with the full intention of grinding my day-off Wednesday. Then my UBC friend messaged me about the Oilers game on TV (HOCKEY IS BACK BABY!!!) and I spent another late night hanging out with him. Took Wednesday off and then just said **** it for Thursday. Oh well. Let's see how this last month went...

And here are my MTT numbers for the month...

MTT STATS FOR MAY

• MTTs Played: 645
• Hours Played: 142.25
• Monthly Profit (CAD): +$2397.89
• Monthly Profit (USD) -$1147.54

So I still achieved my monthly MTT goal but the huge caveat with that is that I only played four sessions in the last two and a half weeks of the month. Not good. Still finished in profit overall but my last four sessions knocked me down a couple grand which SUCKED. Not fun at all. Unfortunately I've been feeling pretty down the last few weeks. I let my convo with dad a month ago really ruin the forward momentum I had going in life. Maybe the antidepressants did actually do something

Sadly I also finished the month at 221 lbs which is just not good at all. It feels like as far as it goes for my life I have an on-switch and an off-switch. When it's on I can crush and when it's off like it has been most of July I just really struggle. Food is a comfort for me when I'm feeling down, helps me feel full and it definitely gets the endorphins going. Better than getting wasted but still pretty horrible haha. I will have to make a serious effort to reign in my diet and get back to the exercise routine (which I didn't even come close to accomplishing in July lol). Truth be told I think my true weight is probably less than what the scale says. I find that when I've eaten a lot my weight will drop a couple pounds pretty fast once I get back into the swing of things for a week or so. Lets hope that holds true.

I failed in both finishing my cash game course and having one dedicated day of study. I DID however have a warmup for almost all of my sessions excluding a few of the mid-week sessions. In that case prior to leaving work I tried to think about strategy topics in my head as a substitute. I think that was one very positive thing I was able to accomplish this month and definitely +EV for poker. I fully intend to keep some kind of warmup (usually ICM practice) as part of my routine moving forward.

Okay, August goals time!

GOALS FOR AUGUST

• Play 500+ MTTs
• Finish The Power of Habit book
• Spend less than $300 on food (groceries + eating out)
• Reach 212 lbs by September

This month is shaping up to be busy for me as well off the felt. Boss is on vacay next week and my co-worker the week after that. I'm kicking off the month by going on my August long trip to the grandparent's farm as well as having bachelor party golf on a Saturday coming up. So I'll be busy but I still hope to have a productive month in terms of volume and hopefully with much more consistency.

The Power of Habit is a book I got from the library after seeing it mentioned in another thread on 2p2. I'm only a chapter in but I like what I'm seeing so far. So many of my shortcomings are built upon bad habits and if I can gain the ability to identify and adjust/eliminate them I think it will serve me well in poker and life in general.

For the food thing I have been keeping track of all of my income/expenses on an app for the first time this month. My UBC friend talked me into it and it was definitely an eye opener for how much money I spend and how much money I need to make to stay afloat. I spent $450+ on food this month with $200 of that being eating out. Lots of my grocery bills were chips/frozen pizza purchases that really juices the number. My UBC friend/my parents got me into eating out again and I've fallen back into old habits. Goal for this month is to cook a lot more. Junk food is no problem as long as I DO NOT BUY ANY so I just need to not give into depression impulses in August as much as I can. Overall I think $1500 will be my breakeven budget point (factoring in a doubling of my rent and if I behave myself ). With work I can expect an income of $800+ a month, so I basically need $700+ playing poker to make the math work. I'm definitely good enough and have put in the volume to make that much with consistency but I need to get back in the swing of things quick. The job will not cover my ass completely

Finally with the weight I pretty much mentioned the game plan of limiting junk food purchases and cooking more at home. It should be something I can get back into but it might be tough in the early going. With my reduced hours at work I'm probably getting 25-30% less steps which hurts my weightloss goals as well. May need to use my parent's treadmill to help cover those losses. I wish we had something at this house but oh well


So that is that! July sucked but hopefully I can get things cooking again. Just as a note during the past week of blowing off poker I've been on an insane Studio Ghibli grind. I had only seen six Ghibli movies prior to this year but now I'm up to sixteen and have rewatched the rest with the OG japanese tracks and they have pretty much all been a million times better across the board. Some quick recommendations from the last week include The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (I bawled my eyes out it was honestly embarrassing), Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (sick old school JRPG vibes), Only Yesterday, Whisper of the Heart (probably the best movie about writing/creative craftmanship ever?) and Kiki's Delivery Service (my ex's fave Ghibli and a million times better than I remember from the English dub). Movies are definitely counter-productive for poker but they enrich my life and I still have long-shot aspirations of doing something movie related in the future so I don't view it as wasted time at all. Check out Ghibli, they're amazing

And thank you man, next week 10k heater coming up

Heyo! No poker sessions to report but this past weekend in Manitoba I was able to finish The Power of Habit including the last 200 pages on the drive home. Very interesting read and a productive start to my month even if I probably put on a few pounds and did no poker studying in the process lol. Main takeaway is the existence of a feedback loop. There is a cue, a routine, and at the end a reward. The cues and the rewards are more or less unchangeable but the routine (the HABIT) can be changed. Quick photo: a person craving emotional relief at first gets it from alcohol (alcoholism) and replaces it on the right with AA meetings (person-to-person support). The cue is the same (craving for relief) and the reward is the same (relief), but the routine (habit) used to achieve the end goal changed from something potentially destructive to something much healthier...



There are a lot (SO MANY) habits I've been meaning to work on and overhaul for a long long time that I will be analyzing in the future using some of the tools from this book. A quick list of habits I think I'd benefit from reflecting on:

• overeating
• exercise
• sleep
• drinking pop
• porn
• studying
• poker playing
• writing
• watching movies
• watching youtube/surfing internet (wasting time)
• eating out
• cooking
• cleaning
• reading

Some of these obviously overlap, some are things I struggle with, and some are things I'd like to implement. Will definitely be something for me to strive towards identifying and changing to create some great habits for myself moving forward in life. Scheduled for 8 hours at work tomorrow so back on the poker grind Wednesday, downswing has to end some day, preferably the day I start playing poker again lol. See ya

Stop me if you've heard this one before but I lost a couple hundred dollars today. I only cashed a few tournaments and they were only min cashes. I just ran so so bad for the first few hours. It was enough for me to quit registering maybe an hour before I usually do. With my remaining tournaments I was able to get a few cashes which was a nice confidence boost and then I just ran into KK three times in three minutes and busted my last two deep runs. GG lol

I'm sure my play could be better but I am really at variance's mercy lately, I'm pretty sure of that. Either that or I was just running insanely hot for three-ish months. I only played a few $16.50s and other than that it was all smaller tourneys. Sucks to feel like I'm sinking back into the depths of the micros, hopefully this doesn't last forever.

Next session back will be Saturday. Finally got asked to golf again by the Saskatoon crew so I'll be playing a round on Friday, maybe I can make up for the poker losses with golf winnings lol. Oilers game 3 tonight against Chicago as well. I wasn't expecting to be so into hockey once it came back but I'm honestly pretty jacked. Might watch it with UBC friend but my sister says she has a really bad cough today, my days might be numbered soon. Stay safe y'all

Today started out with some more hilarious run bad but variance balanced out towards the end. Put together a few runs but lost another $200 or so. Picture above is my only FT of the day. Ten handed I got 99<KQ to get crippled with 1bb left so had a quick hello before I peaced out on FT. Stone cold bubbled a small Stars FT AJ<55 and 88 for a big bounty and massive stack. Pretty sure I made another small Stars F2T and had a couple other runs. Nice to make a lot of cashes but it sucks to lose more money. The BR is still hurting, for Sunday Funday I'll fire reg speed $16.50s but if I lose anymore I'll need to drop stakes again, yayyyyy

Got out for a round of golf yesterday with the Saskatoon crew. Just to let you know where I was at coming in on the year...



This round the wind was 40-60kmh the entire time out on the course. We just ended up playing greenies with a lefty-righty scramble. Basically the two people furthest left and the two furthest right play a scramble each hole together. If you win the hole with your partner you each get a point, and then you do it all over again the next hole. The stakes was bottom two had to buy the top two a beer after the round (or two Diet Pepsi's for me ). Since it was a scramble the greenie was automatically won by whoever was closest to the pin on the green, no two-putt needed

I drove the ball pretty great and had some good iron shots but my putting was just atrocious. The wind was impossible to figure out in relation to putting, sometimes the ball would break a mile and sometimes the wind would do nothing. It was hard enough just trying to keep my balance in my stance too

I fell behind early in points but won a couple holes to get within striking distance. Me and the guy tied with me for third were partners for hole #17 and needed to win it to catchthe guy in second. Of course we both missed a five-foot par putt to lose the game For greenies I got a double greenie for twelve bucks on hole #11 and then lost the other three. So all of that adds up to...


LAST ROUND: +$6 and minus a beer
YEARLY PROFIT: +$43 and minus a beer


Of course the clubhouse was closed after the round so I'll have to get my guy his drink the next time we get out on the course. His kid works at one of the private courses in town and he was saying he'll get me a round there for free either this month or September. Pays to have connections I guess

Both today and Wednesday I slept in, basically adding up to an hour less time spent playing to start the day. I miss out on a few tourneys but I think being well-rested was +EV for sure. If I really need a good sleep that will be something I'll do in the future, better than my brain going numb waking up at 5:15 every day. On the fitness front I have been treating my body a lot better and feel pretty good again. No pizza/chips/chocolate what have you this week and I got in a lot of miles walking so hopefully I can hit my weight goal this month to get back on track. Back at it tomorrow, please please pretty please hopefully I don't go broke! Might need to look for a new gig if I do haha, see ya

I WON MONEY TODAY!!!... about $20, but a win is a win! That ends a streak of seven losing sessions by my count. Pretty easy to lose a couple grand that way. In this tournament I actually had a big stack going into the FT and was chiplead for most of it. Unfortunately I lost AJ<A9 for commanding chiplead and a virtual lock on the tourney. Hurts to lose that one for a couple hundred bucks in equity. I had a few other cashes but nothing really substantial. It's nice to get a few more cashes during the round, I just need a big run in a big tournament to get turned around. My BRM today was great, I played a lot of tourneys $5 and less which helps a lot. Once I get my roll back I'll try to be a little more conservative with my approach. Marginally, anyways.

With that I'm off again until probably Wednesday. One of the girls in my department at work is on vacation this week and another one quit while my boss was on vacay so he'll find out about that tomorrow morning lol. I could be in for more hours than I'm scheduled for so we'll see how the week shapes up. I got invited out for another round at Dakota on Tuesday. The golf itch is still there for me, usually I'll lose it around this time every year but I want to get in as much action as I can before the courses close up in another two months or so, budget be damned. Today I was able to watch the last round of the PGA Championship which was pretty exciting. Haven't really been able to watch much golf the past few years, it sure is nice when they have majors on the west coast because then the final round doesn't interfere with poker primetime too too bad.

A quick movie recommend, you guys should check out Ponyo. Classic Ghibli, some of the best animation I've ever seen and way way better than I was expecting it to be. I thought it would just be some dumb kids movie which I should be punished for thinking of that for Ghibli in the first place. My Ghibli-athon has two movies left, Pompoko and Grave of the Fireflies. I've been able to watch the rest of them the past few weeks on Netflix but I might actually need to pay for a Fireflies rental. Oh well! They deserve five bucks from me anyways! See ya

I guess I had a good day? As you can see I made a lot of FTs and won a couple hundo for the first time in like a month which really is fantastic. That being said all of my scores were pretty small and I think I ran pretty bad in the high equity all-in spots worth hundreds of dollars. So I’m glad I won and it was a good day but I’m also a little sour, oh well haha. It’s nice to be building up momentum again and know that I’m not the shite scrub the last month has made me feel like. Gameplan is to probably come back to playing Saturday, maybe Friday. It all depends because I might be golfing Friday at Dakota but no one has texted me a tee time yet so maybe nothing is happening???

On Dakota I did get out for another round yesterday with the crew. This time there were only three of us playing the games so Greenies were only worth four bucks ($2 from two people) as opposed to six for the full group. It was abnormally beautiful, absolutely no wind and not insanely hot. The greens were soft and holding approach shots so you could chuck darts too as opposed to landing the ball and having it roll another twenty feet. So the course was basically unrecognizable lol. I feel like I played pretty bad. My driver was lights out but my irons, short game, and putting were all trashy. Despite that I still scraped together a 78, won a greenie on #17, and miraculously avoided a three-putt for the entire round so no snake for me. For where I was on the year...



After paying out the $8 in greenies I owed and getting my greenies and snake money...

LAST ROUND: +$1
YEARLY PROFIT: +$44 minus a beer

My first instinct when the guys asked me if I wanted to play Friday was to turn them down because I am trying to scrape by here still, golf aint cheap especially this year haha. I gave in to the peer pressure though so if they do text me I'll be playing another round Friday. If not I'll probably be back here grinding I'm still doing great for my fitness goals in August. Still haven't had pizza or an egregious amount of snacks. Actually there was this Christian personal financing radio show that has clips on Youtube I was watching for some reason a couple of years ago. When the poor saps called in buried hundreds of thousands in debt with absolutely no job prospects he would tell them to start eating rice and beans immediately and learn to love it. Yesterday I cooked rice and beans for the very first time and it actually wasn't bad! Even though I'm blowing my budget on golf the food spending goal I set myself for August also looks to be within reach which is awesome as well

FINALLY I finished my Ghibli-athon. Looks like I got the greatest hits at the start of the run, here’s my ranked list. Check them all out for sure, the only ones I hated were My Neighbors the Yamadas and Pom Poko but that was more subjective than anything actually inferior about them lol. I hear that Hayao Miyazaki is coming out of retirement to make another movie, so hopefully covid doesn't take him or completely nuke the film industry beyond repair before he finishes