Hello guys! Im off Los Angeles for two months to play some live poker and enjoy the favorable weather that LA offers. It's my first time in LA and I'm here solo so I'd gladly accept any kind of advice of pretty much anything! Meeting up with other poker pros/players would obv be cool as well!

I've had two pg&c threads before if you wanna check them out. In this one I'll be posting everything from poker hands and results to random discussions regarding both poker or w/e random stuff.

Since this place is about goals within poker I'll put up some goals for my grind over in LA but first I'll give you a brief idea of my past.

I've been playing live full time for about two years between 2013-14. The past year I've been in school and not played as much. Before 2013 I played online and poker has been my full time occupation since late 2009/2010 with a few months off here and there traveling/exploring the world. My regular game here in Stockholm is sek 25/25 but when higher games run I've played anything from that up till the highest games running which has been 100/100/200 NLH. I've also recently been trying out some PLO were I've been playing anything from 10/10 to 50/50/100 but I'm still new to PLO so I'm basically just nut paddling those games when they look extremely juicy..

In LA I'm more or less just gonna try to sit in the best game I can find (obv). So I'm looking to play anything from 5/5 nlh- 10/20 and probably similar in PLO if they look too good to pass on! To get a feel for the games and the player pool I'm probably gonna put more weight on 5/5 and 5/10 to begin with.

Except poker I also enjoy playing golf and pool, although on a very recreational level. I just started playing golf this year and Im bringing my gear so don't hesitate to hit me up if you need a golf buddy! My pool game is slightly better then my golf game but not by too much. I am a true pool junkie though so I'm certainly up for a 8h session! ;D

Goals:
* 180 hours of play
* >$80/h (hourly is kind of pointless for such a small sample but what the hell its fun and motivating!)
* road trip to Vegas!
* Have a good time while earning $EV and getting better at golf

Cheers for now and let me know if you're in town grinding!

I actually wrote this before I left. Now Im here and I've played a couple of sessions. Ended up stuck about 2,5 BI at the 5/10 last night after running really cold and didn't feel that I was in my A-game. I'm still a bit jet lagged so was kind of tired and my mind wasn't 100%. The game seemed good though!

See you at the tables!

Off to a bad start unfortunately! Had another bad one yesterday, just getting completely crushed whether I do. Also lost the key pot of the night on about $3k with set vs top two all in on the turn and he binks the 4 outer.

The good news though is that the 5/10 is softer then what I had expected! It's been very soft the few times I tried it at least. So hopefully it will all turn around soon..

One thing though, I can't buy chips in the cashier with my credit card?! I was gonna get chips yesterday and all they could du was something that took me like 20 minutes and they charged a ridiculous fee for it. Why can't I just put my freaking card in a card reader and enter my pin code and get chips? That's so weird and that might be really bad too since my bank has a fairly low cap on ATM withdrawals. Like $2k at each card (only have two) over 15 days or something like that. Hope that wont be a problem! :/

So far:
+521 in 4h50m
-448 in 6h46m
-4061 in 8h03m
-1720 in 4h50m

Where in La are you staying and planning on playing mostly? Do you play tournaments at all?

A couple of hands from yesterday. Nothing to exciting but at least some hand rewinding if someone is interested in that

pre:
Folds around to me OTB w/79 I make it 30, sb calls bb folds

Flop (70) 764
Check, I cbet 45 he calls

Turn: (160) 9
Check, I bet 90, he raise 265, I think for a bit and call

- here is were it starts to get a little interesting. When you break down his range I don't think he's gonna have any sets here unless it's the one combo of 9's since I expect a x/r on that flop texture like 95% of the times from a rec player. Same with two pairs, so only made hand I really beat is 96s which he isn't very likely to even have called pre. In terms of draws I would expect him to raise the flop if he was gonna play it aggressively. So the draws He's likely to have are either something that picked up additional equity ott like 9xdd, 8xdd etc. made straight with T8dd/T8ss (possibly 85) and obv an occasional a draw he waited to raise until the turn.

Note that the hands I beat are reduced (possibly highly reduced), since he is often choosing a different line with them. So although he's nut combos are few I'm doing really bad here against an avg rec player imo. Its close if I should give up already. It's gonna be exploitable but it isn't that relevant when playing this game against this opponent. Obv the hands that I do beat have a ton of equity agains my hand too... I dod decided to peel one of in game though. I can bet like pot here if I make my 4 out boat otr and I might win sometimes against busted draw/A9/96 sometimes.

River: blanks and he bets 375 I fold.

Hand 2:
Pre: rec opens 35, reg calls mp, (very) recreational player calls otb, I call 44 from bb

Flop (145) 489

I lead 100, opener calls, very rec calls

Turn (445) T
I bet 300, opener jams ~1100, fold to me, I call and he has 89o

River (2645) 9

Good luck!

Im up in hollywood so a bit of a drive from commerce/the bike but it's a nice spot. Commerce and the bike is were I think I will be playing (unless there is something better?). There was no game above 5/5 at the bike when I went there though so I guess I'm gonna play mostly at commerce.

I might play the "live at the bike" on Tuesday, unless I get completely ****ed in terms of getting out cash... Which would be sick if I wont be able to sit in games I'm over rolled for...

I do occasionally, I'm actually a tournament player originally online. But live I'd mostly play to to get a little change from the regular cash games. The tournaments are highly profitable but you wont be able to get in any volume live obviously and the variance would be life long in live tournies.

Ya I'm from around the Hollywood area. Great spot to be located in. I'd def say you should consider playing some of the tournies in La and potentially heading to Vegas for some of the wsopc and venetian series events in the next few weeks. LMK if you ever sell to any of your tourney action or if you want recommendations for places to go.

BTW- this is by far the best breakfast spot in LA if you like pancakes or french toast: http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-griddle-cafe-hollywood

Thanks man! I'll check that out for my next breakfast for sure! Obv I am completely unfamiliar with all of LA so I def appreciate that!

Yeah I might well be going to vegas, I was thinking like 4-5 day road trip. I'll definitely let you know if I sell any action! You planning on playing any of that yourself?

No. I live in the east coast now. Feel free to message me on twitter if you want any more recommendation @jasbral.

Okey this is getting F*cking anoying! I have a 6 fig bank accont and I cant get out a fkn buy in for my regular game!

Anybody have any experiance in how to get out money here? As I said I can make a purchase for any amount, just now withdraw. Obv the casino nor the bank uses that method here as they do at the casino in Sweden... So I don't really know what to do now

Okey so I'm gonna take a day off from poker tomorrow and just enjoy! I'm going golfing at noon with my neighbor so that's gonna be a good start!

I'm gonna try and see if I can get in touch with any well known reg in the area and see if someone might wanna trade some bank money in exchange for chips. The good thing is that most live regs have the opposite problem - too much irl cash and trouble getting it in to the bank. So hopefully I can find someone and we can both make a good deal out if it!

Think this would be my best option. If it's someone well known I can transfer $5k, wait for it to turn up and once they've got it I will just collect it in chips.

I also decided to register for the tournament on Thursday ($570, $150k guaranteed). That's probably gonna be a really good tournament and it's gonna suit the situation quite perfectly for now!

Subbed! I've not heard of being able to buy chips with a credit card - certainly wouldn't be allowed here in Aus as we have some pretty tight gambling regulations, although I have paid tourney entry fee with card before. Good luck getting cash and at the tables!

Thank you! Yeah worst case I seem to be able to do some "cash in advance
" thing at the commerce for a $97(!) fee for a 2k cash out.

Anyway I realize this isn't too interesting for anyone to read about. I do appreciate any advice though because there has to be a simple way to solve this that I don't know of.

Tomorrow I'm playing the $150k gar at 1pm. So will be coming back with an update on that!

Were you the guy with the Swedish ice hockey shirt in the commerce?

As for tips doing money withdrawals as a foreigner. I ran into the same problem (I'm from the Netherlands) and what I did was go to the nearest Wells Fargo and open a bank account. Fairly easy progress and it only takes about half an hour to get it done. From there you can easily wire money into your account and do large withdrawals at the teller. I tried opening an account at chase before I went to Wells Fargo but they wouldn't let me.

Nope! I was wearing an adidas jumper when I was there the other day. I usually wear similar clothes when grinding so you will probably recognize me as the guy with adidas clothes in the future too

Really? Thank you I will definitely look that up. Just like you I went to the nearest bank office but I wasn't able to open an account there. I'll go check out Wells Fargo then!

I transfered money to someone back home who could thennsend it to me through western union. It wasnt free but still cheaper then at commerce. So now I'm able to grind and hopefully I won't have to do this process over again.

Busted the tournament yesterday, wasn't very much interesting going on to be honest. I do have a few hands from today's session I'll go ahead and post;

I sat the the emidiate right to a very good and well known reg. My image was sort of tight and straight forward at this point after not picking up many hands pre and not really being able to do much post flop once I was involved in a hand. I sat with about $3k after stacking off a fish with the nuts.

Hand 1
I open JT OTB, the reg (lets call him B) 3b 85 from sb, bb folds, I call

Flop: (180) 238
He bets 105, I call

Turn: (390) A
He checks, I bet 210' he folds

- Note that my intention is to bet between 400-550 here on most rivers to get him of of AJ+ or 99+ with a diamond.

I'm not really gonna be perceived to make a move here given my image and I know for a fact that B is capable of makeing big folds. Even value betting very thin and making exploitative folds (correctly so as a general rule of thumb in this game). Therefore I thought this was a good situation for me

Hand 2
I open QxT in HJ 35, btn calls, bb calls

Flop: (110) T38
I cbet 65, co folds, bb calls

Turn: (240) 3
Check, I bet 105, he raise 410, I think for 40s-1m and call

River: (1060) 4
He starts putting out chips for a bet, thinks for it maybe 30s, adds another 250 to what he held, then bet 850. I thought about it for a minute and made the call. MHIG vs J9

- again not a very standard hand but he had shown tendencies to be able to bluff and pull moves out of nowhere. Also they way he acted just gave me the gut feeling he was up to something. It's hard to describe that but I guess thats some patterns that people tend to do when they make a big bluff that you sort of learn by experience. Timing tells, how confidently he puts out the chips etc

- Purely in fundamental terms, the only value hands that he would have here are 88,33,TT and a Potential A3s combo that he might fold the flop with. As you can see I block T's so there's only 1 combo of that, 33 is one combo and 88 is another 3 combos... All sorts of gut shot w/diamond hands are potential bluff hands plus all the 79s/J9s and occasionally something super random. Due to my T blocker here I much prefer calling QT instead of AA.

That's what went through my mind and given that reasoning I made the call having to be good about 30%

Hand 3
Utg+1 open 45, I call mp w/99, btn and bb calls.

Flop: (185) 853
UTG1 bets 140, I fold

- Not a very big deal but it's worth noting that I think it would have been slightly spewy to call here for a few reasons. 1: He makes a slightly bigger open then normal pre (std being 30-35) 2: I have two players behind who has got undefined ranges, 3: if I do beat him it might get very tough to get to showdown anyway. 4: The hands I do beat have a ton of equity agains my hand anyway

Hand 3

If you aren't at least calling this flop what sort of board are you hoping for? You're just set mining?

I'm not the OP but...

Much of the value of 99 is derived from hitting sets but to assume he is only set mining simply because he folded this flop of undercards is faulty. That would assume that we expect villain to fire 3/4 pot on every flop, which I don't expect. When he bets 3/4 pot into 3 other players he is repping a very strong range (mostly overpairs and flush draws).

Please don't leave LA

Hi "B"

Neverloses pretty much answered the question. But yeah, the fact that I fold this texture here doesn't necessarily mean I'm folding all flops were I don't flop a set. Sometimes it goes HU or 3 ways on 824r, sometimes I face a check etc etc.