Cool thread.

Why no c/r range on 8x6s2s? Is it just because of the limper presumably being weak or is it a general thing on this flop?

DISCLAIMER: post is almost completely devoid of strat. Just a stroll down memory lane for me. There may be a bad beat story or two in here, so feel free to skip if that's not your cup of tea.

Fall 2012. With a phoenix-like rise, I had resurrected my poker bankroll, brinking on 4 figures at its depths, to the deep five figures. Pokerstars ZOOM had launched in April 2012 and I do recall easy five figure months for at least a year following that. Riding the totally-rational exuberance of my circumstances, I decided it high time I start gambooling it up! And where better to shoot for the moon than the land of saunas and baccarat: MACAU, where the streets are paved with gold. Word on nvg was that noted scrubby bumhunters good2cu, peachy_keen and traheho were printing millions there. How hard could it be? Flight and hotel instabooked and I was there within a day of my decision to give the macau dream a shot.

Upon arrival, I skipped checking in at the hotel and headed straight to the Wynn. Trading the cash I brought, I got about 75k HKD in return, 750bb for the 50/100hkd that ran across multiple tables. A shorthanded 1k/2k game with 2p2 hero raptor and several asian whales ran in the roped-off high stakes section. I knew all that separated me from those games and those easy Macau millions was a couple thousand hours of grind. And so, on no sleep for 30 hours, starving, but even hungrier for the dream, I waitlisted. And waited. And waited. And waited. The list was 10 deep so I figured the staff would fire up a new table, but no such luck. With the list inching ahead as the hours passed at some point I figured my time would be better spent in bed so I trudged out to the hotel. I don't recall my exact dreams, but I imagine I was fantasising about being at that table, Ivey to my left, durrr and the rest of the fishes to my right, high stakes NLHE all night at the Wynn.

I returned fresh the next day and sat 10k deep in a 50/100 that was just starting up. No western regs to be found, so I was ready to get this gravy train running! I pumped out a 12+ hour session on my first day with no real luck. No need to be worried I thought, it was likely just a couple hundred hands. Things like this happen all the time! Slept some, got in another monster session, slept, another session, slept, another. losing. session. After about five days of this I wan't just second guessing myself. I was second guessing the nature of my reality: Is time a flat circle? Do aliens exist? Is Hell real and if so, am I in it? I understood it was such a small sample and nearly anything could happen, but playing in the easiest games on the planet and constantly getting destroyed does something to a man.

Live bankroll running on empty, I pursued a few cash acquiring options. I paid a 5% vig at the cage to purchase some chips. I capped out my cards daily on the ATM machines. I stood in the face of the runbad gods and slugged 'em right on the chin. And eventually it happened. One morning I showed up at that table and people just kept giving me money. 50 bb here, 150bb there, bluff got through, couple of Indian guys appear on my right: things were just going my way. By early afternoon I had 100k in front of me and the whole plan just felt imminent. You know, if you put in the time, at some point, it will all come together. Funny thing about those variance gods, though. They absolutely despise hubris.

I open 55 in EP, about 300bb eff with most of the table at 50/100. Whales call behind, BTN squeezes, I call and we go to the flop 3-4 way. 345r Checks to PFR who bombs. I call and go hu to turn and its innocuous enough. 9. x/c. River T offsuit. X/SNIPPITY SNAP SPEED OF LIGHT CALL. 76o is good.

I go on to get redlined for a few hundred BB, including this cute one. I open AQo in MP. 50vpip aggro grandpa calls in SB and we go heads up. I've seen him doing some weird stuff, lots of limp reraising and showing down dumb stuff and x/r on various streets with derpy stuff. KJ2fd flop. I have AQx. I cbet and call 2.5x x/r. Turn is something like 4. He bets and I call. River is a blank like 8. Grandpa pots it all in and I go into the tank. I know this dude is way too aggro and could definitely have stuff like Q9 but the queen blocks some of those and I have A so he doesn't have the nut flush draw. That all being said, this guy was really out of line so i was seriously still considering flicking it in. After a few minutes I pitch my hand and grandpa tables A2o like a champ. Great value bet or terrible bluff? You decide.

And then this hand happened.

I don't recall the exact action on this one but I've got the gist. 500bb eff with 90vpip super whale. SW open limps EP, a few limp behind, I look down to the holy grail, AA. Raise nice and big and action folds to whale who goes for the limp reraise We get that nice sized 4ball in and go heads up to the flop. Something like J64 SW x/c. Turn a brick like 2 or whatever. SW x/c. River, 9 SW checks and we happily stick the rest in for like 60% pot on the river. He tanks for about two minutes before he sighs, rolls his eyes and flicks in that call. Table that AA like I just won the lottery and the dealer starts counting stacks to make sure I cover. Like I said we were really deep so this took a minute or two, possibly longer since the dealers are generally inexperienced. Just as the dealer starts pushing the pot over to me, this mother ****er tables 8 5 with the nastiest ****-eating grin I've seen in my life.

Just totally gutted. Livid. Nearly deranged. How. Why. Broken, I took my flight home later that night. Some months later I took another shot at Macau with no real success.

In total I'm stuck about 150k HKD in about 200hours of play in that 50/100 game. Surely I could have dug in and pushed on in those games, but the whole place just stank to me after my first two trips. No cabby, I don't want nice Chinese girls. No I don't want the peking duck. And no, I sure as hell never want to go to the macau wynn again.

Everyone and their mom who stayed made a killing there. The aussie kids I met out there made it up to those nosebleed games within a year or two. I just couldn't do it. At least I had my 4bb/100 500zoom winrate. At least for then.

Ehh I probably should have x/r range there unless its a particularly huge whale. Most whales these days aren't overcalling like A2o there and a strat where I'm raising my strong hands and folding out some equity from whale and reg is likely better. I don't like this particular hand for it though. I'd prefer bigger FDs and some hands like 54 that can barrel off on blanks and get all those ez folds from his bricked draws

subb

Cool, makes sense, cheers!

Explo fold against fairly nitty reg. In order to call I'm pretty sure we need to give him some pairs-turned-into-bluffs. And I really just don't this particular guy is capable. riv playability sucks as well, so decided to just pitch





All the blockers in the world but no good here




Against fairly spazzy reg. The turn is so poor for our range that I would absolutely be checking 100% (and he's seen me x/c a flush in a similar spot a few days ago.) The guy does love to randomly bluff, but you really don't come across people who bluff like this in these sort of spots too often. Being liberal I could call AKx but honestly I think I should just be stationing just nutflush (AQ AJ AT, fractions of lower Ax spades since I'll be flatting it in SB some %) KK, 99, is ~13 combos, and I can fold AK (12) QJss JTss, partial combos of QTss 76ss. With this strat we'd be overfolding a bit as he's laid himself just slightly better than 1:2 and we need to include some bluff combos for us that would be bet/folding.

I'll be regging a few donkaments tomorrow so we can change it up with some donkament strat. I'm not the sharpest in all the tourney stuff but I'm definitely way better than 90% of the regs haha

Besides poker, it does seem you have a talent for writing. I shall frequent this thread in the future. GL, sir.

+1 for the writing. Really enjoyed the macau post.

hey op, in for more macau stories
gl

cheers!

np

thanks guys! I gave storytelling another go. Posted below.



Fall 2007.

"So are you gonna strike it rich this time?" A pensioner asked me aboard a shuttle bus to my local casino. It was at that moment that I knew, with terrifying and depressing certainty, that I was a degenerate.

~

Freshers week had been sorely uneventful for me. I spent most of the time playing Wii bowling against fellow nerd hallmates. At a point I ducked out, in an effort to mingle and meet some new friends, to our hall's casino night. A student ID got you chips and with the chips you could choose to play blackjack, roulette, or poker. Now, poker had always been an interest of mine, ever since gazing upon the whale incarnate, Moneymaker, ship the main event on TV. I'd read Super System and a few dis-informative Lou Krieger books, so how could I not be a favorite at poker night? Top 3 chip finishers in the night won an ipod nano! And guess who ended up scooping the Ipod nano? YA BOI SETZERG!

Totally elated, I decided poker was The Way. Phil Hellmuth's 'Play Poker Like the Pros' was on sale at my uni bookstore so I snatched that up. In mentioning poker to classmates, one tipped me off to a free shuttle bus that could ferry you out to the closest casino for free, about a 45 minute drive out of town. So me and a few of my Wii bowling-brahs caught the bus out to the casino one day. And so it started.

I was on that bus at least a few times a week. It was the very beginning of classes and my attendance was already sub 50%. My Wii bowling hallmates were always asking me where I was and my minuscule bank account balance was quickly evaporating. These 1/2 donkeys! They don't even know how to fold a hand. I'd better move up to where they respect my raises. And so with a ~€1000 bank balance, I took my first shots at 2/5.

40bb eff. Doyle mentioned how he likes to limp AK, KK, AA UTG because when there is the inevitable action behind, we can put in the limp reraise and trap in a ton of money. So here I was UTG with AK and I casually limp. There were a few limpers behind and some guy with a hoodie, sunglasses and a beard raises on the button. Bingo. I mini-tank and jam it in, which in turn sends sunglasses into the tank. He calls it off with AQ and we get a Q doorcard, the rest blanks.

40bb eff again. Fold to bald man in MP who raises to 3x. I make it 6x with AK. He jams with QQ. I flop the A, but river Q.

40bb eff. Folds to me MP, maybe HJ. I 3x T9. Balding pakistani calls in bb, hu to flop. I don't recall exact flop, but I had a sort of Mike McD moment, fueled by the runbad. I just wanted to win a hand. So I tripled off on a monotone board, turn 4flush. I had 0equity at any point and jammed 20bb into 40bb on the river and the guy sigh/called it off with top pair, no flush. As I was walking away the dealer told me I covered, that I had a few chips left. I didn't even want it. I told him to toss it in the charity jar.

It may have been the day I decided to step up to 2/5, or it may have been one of the many other times I was neglecting responsibilities to head out to the casino. Regardless, those words the old man squawked away in passing stick with me to this day. "So are you gonna strike it rich this time?" As much as I liked to think of myself as a skill-gamer, I was just one of them. I was just like those pensioners headed out to blast away their savings on pokies. And it was at that moment that I knew I needed to be more.

Trudging down the corridor back to my room, a hallmate had his door open. On his TV screen: him sitting with $70 at a 100nl full ring game on party poker. For whatever reason, online poker had never really crossed my mind. I sat on his floor and sweated him run it up to $200 and then I knew the way forward.

Blood, sweat, tears and a few months later and I was a winning online poker player. But that story is for another time.

Man I started reading this thread in the beginning and thought this could be great. But with these stories this is pure gold. Keep em coming!

Man reading that Macau story along with the other hands you've posted makes me seriously wonder: who the hell actually makes money playing cash NLHE?

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+1 interesting read man, keep it up

Subbed. Has the makings of a good one here. Rooting for you already


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in for the ride. great read so far man

subberino

VeniVidiVici from the 5knl party games 10 years ago?

I railed those games every night whilst playing play money tournaments when I was 15/16.

You and dit_ma_may (sp?) were my favourites ahahahahaha

Subbed, gl.

Why are you betting so small in such a wet texture? Do you have different sizes for this kind of texture?

Once villain called your bet rather than raise, he probably has way less FHs here, with the K blocking a lot of the fullhouses possible(and the chance of him 4-betting KK pre), he has way less.

He has only 9 combos of FHs(counting the 68hh, which he also will raise the flop a lot), going to the flushes now, he is raising the flop most of the time with monster draws, so he can't have 6s/97/9T. His possible flushes are:
JTss, JKss, KQss, A2-A5ss, ATss/AQss/AJss, QJss QTss KTss= 13

You lose to 22 combos, considering that:
A: he wouldn't raise OTF
B: would check behind OTT

Some spazzy regs play trappy with their good hands, but if they're doing so, their barrelling range is just crap, the better spazzy regs use most of their value range to get value, it depends on which type of spazz you're dealing with there.

Another point to add is that by not having As or Ks it isn't as bad as you think because it increases the chance of them having the Ks or As, which they would bluff a lot(because we haz blockers). Villain could play his Ks/As here in that way(fearing a check-jam form you OTT and putting him out off his equity, which is a common strat to deal with frequent floaters). Since your bet is really small OTF, he could float a lot here with those hands.

He has AJ, AQ, AT, KJ, KQ, KT, making it 24 combos of Ks/As, if you think he only does it with As, then 12, but if he's a spazz, he may be doing it even with Qs

I think it's an exploitative call here, we need to be right roughly 30% of the time, if you discount how many sets he raises OTF and how many flushes he bets OTT and add those hands he could easily bluff with, then it's a profitable call.

BTW, subbed, gl

gl boss

Subbed, love the strat

+2 it should be therapeutic to re-tell that tale as inspiration for your current grind in poker and life. The difference between u and the Aussies - no diamond on their river. Poker and gambling in a nutshell. I can relate. gl

ran this through pio so we can lay this to rest!


While pio likes using a larger bet size with some frequency, it looks like the smaller size is preferred. AK specifically is bet for the smaller size quite a bit more often than the larger size.


We lose a ton of pot equity with this turn and we're actually behind now. Despite this pio was still betting its nutflushes almost always as well more often than not betting AK. Looks like my specific combo was mixed 40/60 betting and checking


For riv I gave pio a block bet size and a bigger bet size (30% and 75%.) The AK combos we checked on the turn used the bigger size more often than not, but just slightly. Once we bet and get raised, the AsKx combos were preferred for stationing, but even those were mixed calling/folding. Funny quirk, AsKs that gets to the river this way bet/folds .01% of the time.

Got the flop a little wrong but it should be close enough to get the general idea of whats going on. Hope that helps.


Thanks guys! Working on a new history post. Should be done in the next few days.

nah, not me. I was playing $2SNGs at the time haha

Yes, has been strangely therapeutic and almost validating to get the story written down. Reconstructing my life narrative in my mind has also helped with will-to-grind and some other stuff as well.

Macau just wasn't meant to be for me I suppose. But its ok.

Nice analysis, but I was talking about using an exploitative adjustment.
that's where you take the extra money from a bad reg.

March Recap

The good:
1) I'm fixing tons of leaks I had in some counterintuitive 6max spots. As a result, my 6max winrate has improved quite a bit over the past month.

2) While its nowhere near what I need it to be, my volume improved over February's volume. Hopefully I can keep improving in small increments.

The bad:
1) Neglecting health. I just had chicken tikka masala with a massive portion of garlic naan yesterday. I've also lost the drive for the gym. I was nearly in the habit of going every day, but I just fell off the boat mid-month for whatever reason. My sleep schedule has been completely out of whack and my ability to focus and be productive suffers as a consequence.

2) Poor time management. I'm still wasting dozens of hours between netflix, oot, steam that could be better spent elsewhere. I understand the importance of downtime, but I think there are much more fulfilling and productive hobbies I could be pursuing (gym for example )

Strategy going forward:
1) Regulate sleep schedule. Ideally I'll be waking up around noon and sleeping around 4am.
2) Get in the habit of making it to the gym first thing in the morning. Make it routine and it doesn't have to be a conscious choice.
3) 70k hands in total for April. I won't set a specific goal for off-the-table work, as I've got into the habit of checking up on close spots immediately post session.

Results:



+5k on other computer in 25k hands, +10k tourneys. Looking forward to seeing what April brings!

Sub