These are the bad times. Stuck $1.1k in the first couple days of the month, and nothing's working. I feel like a pitcher who usually throws gas but is now having trouble cracking 90. Going through one of those stretches where it feels like every time I raise with marginal I'm getting 3!, and every time I have top of range everyone folds. We've all been there, just gotta work through it and turn it around.

Still playing bad. A couple hands from last night that I majorly f'd up.


HAND 1: If there were a class on how to play KK badly, I'd be the teacher

PREFLOP: 1/2nl (3-handed)
BTN folds, HERO ($400) limps KK in the SB, BB ($275) raises to $6, HERO re-raises to $20, BB re-raises to $60, HERO calls $60

There are definitely times to flat Kings. Usually it's when you think the villain is over-bluffing and over-aggressive, and you want to keep their bluffs in play. Also, it's best done in position (if it's a really low SPR this isn't as important) because you can manipulate the size of the pot more effectively.

None of that is in play here. The BB is aggressive (why I limp-reraised pre), but I don't know that he's a ridic over-bluffer. I'm out of position, and by calling I leave an SPR of about 2.5 which isn't ideal. All in all, a bad spot to call instead of just jamming it in pre imo.

FLOP ($121): AJ7
HERO checks, BB bets $60.50, HERO folds

I'm sure a solver would say this is a mandatory continue, but I decided to just fold when he bets almost 30% of his stack here. I feel like if he has hands like QQ or TT, he just checks back here. But a lot of his 4! range beats me now; AK, AQ, even AJs, Axs as bluffs, and JJ.

So really, I think he either has me crushed or he's just stone bluffing with a hand like T9s, which I don't think is happening that often. So I fold.

Overall I managed to lose with KK in a 3-handed game in a BvB battle without even getting to showdown, which is just fully egregious. Not getting it in pre is just a complete disaster here and I feel bad for being bad.

----------------------------

HAND 2: Congrats, I played myself

PREFLOP: 1/2nl (5-handed)
Strong, very aggressive player UTG ($500) raises to $6, HERO ($360) flats $6 in the CO with A6

FLOP ($15): T87
UTG c-bets $10, HERO calls $10

UTG c-bets large, which I think is good since he shouldn't be c-betting this board all that often. I have a bad gutter, a backdoor flush draw, and an overcard, and even though I don't hit this board all that hard, I think my hand's equity qualities combined with a very dynamic board - which favors the in-position player - makes it a mandatory continue; if I'm folding this hand to this very aggressive player, I'm over-folding.

I'm looking to take this pot away on scary runouts, or secondarily maybe make a hand.

TURN ($35): 5
UTG bets $48, HERO raises to $139, UTG jams for $344, HERO calls

I turn relative gin, giving me an open-ender and a nut flush draw. Then villain over-bets, and I decide to raise him and give him a dose. But in reality, I think this is bad; the 5 isn't really that scary of a card for him - it didn't give me a straight unless I have like 64ss or 64hh, and really the only 2pair it could give me is the 2 combos of 75s left. So I don't think I get him to fold his overpairs here.

And from his perspective, if I'd flopped a monster like a set or a straight, I'm often raising the flop on this board, not waiting until the turn. So I just don't think this bluff is credible.

Of course, he comes back over the top all-in, and now I'm pot-stuck.



Ho boy, this is a disaster. If I just flat the turn like I should have, I probably get to stack the guy when I runner the flush. Instead, I lose like $110 instead of profiting $360, so basically a 200bb gaff.

Not going to have a winning December making those kinds of mistakes.

------------------------------

It's been 3 straight losing weeks for me and I'm working on a 4th. I don't think I'm running particularly well (even in these two hands, if an Ace doesn't flop on the first hand, or the villain in Hand 2 doesn't offer to run it multi-times) things still could have gone better. But I'm also not playing very well, and that's the thing that's in my control, and what I need to get straightened out.

I think I'm going to drop down to 2 tables (I've been playing 3-4 trying to play more hands since my overall time available to play has decreased), and I think it's hurt the quality of my play. So I'm gonna start there and hope it has a positive effect. Wish me luck!

Finally had a good night last night after a gut-punch on Fri night.

Fri night I had this hand where I overlimped in MP after an UTG limper with 55, and the BB raised to $8 when it got back to him. UTG called and I called.

The flop came K54 and BB and UTG checked. I bet $11.50 into $25, BB folded and UTG check-called.

Turn came the K and UTG checked. I bet $48 into $48, and he check-jammed for $230 total. I snapped with my full house, he shows AK

I offer to run it twice, he declines ... and river immediately binks the A, dust to dust.

We all deal with bad beats, but losing a 250bb+ pot when you flop a 93% smash is a square kick in the nards when you're already stuck on the month, and that pot would be a big chunk back towards even.

-----------

Last night, I basically just ran well: Won KK vs TT pre when some dude decided to 5! me all-in for 170 BBs, and also flopped top set of 999 vs KK and stacked a dude for 100 BBs.

All in all I profited about $630 last night, which is my biggest winning session on God-knows-how-long - and considering my main game is 400nl, that's pretty f'ing sad lol

Fun little bluff from last night:

PREFLOP: .50/1 NL (6-max)
Folds to HERO ($175) in the SB, who completes with A3
Agrressive player in BB ($415) raises to $3, HERO calls $3

FLOP ($6): 852
HERO checks, BB bets $4, HERO check-raises to $13, BB calls $13

I think this is a good spot for a check-raise, with an ace, a gutter, and the nut backdoor FD. Even though my ace-high has some SD value, I usually never get to realize it because BB can just barrel me off it unless I take the initiative. Of course, I don't like it when he calls my x/r.

TURN ($32): 8
HERO bets $32, BB calls $32

The turn pairs the top card and I barrel for pot; 8x is a very reasonable hand for me to rep here; I should have way more 8s in my range than he does and it would be a reasonable hand for me to have x/r'd the flop with.

He calls again, which is not great news, since he mostly has to have an overpair or a big FD to hang on here. Of course, I have the A so he should be weighted more towards pairs. And sometimes, he has 8x himself and I'm jobbed.

RIVER ($96): J
HERO jams for $127, BB folds

Perfect card for me, because if he has an overpair he kinda has to fold now since both 8x and the flush beat him, and 8x and FDs are the most likely hands for me to be x/r'ing the flop and barreling turn (and then shoving river) with. So I pull the trigger and he gets out of the way.

Really good runout for me and I was able to take advantage.

So, dropped it down to 2-tables and it's been going much better. I actually just crossed into the black, but then this hand happened:


PREFLOP: 1/2 (full ring)
Snug reg ($400) limps UTG, HERO ($400) raises to $8 on the BUTTON with AJ, folds back to UTG who limp-calls $8

FLOP ($19): Q43
UTG checks, HERO bets $6, UTG check-raises to $24, HERO calls $24

I think both flatting and 3-betting are viable plays here. The case for 3! is that UTG rarely has a hand he'll fold here; bc I hold the A, he's usually weighted toward small sets and smaller flushes, vs both of which it's most beneficial to get money in now.

The case for flatting is that 3!ing here polarizes me so much that he'll sometimes be able to fold sets that don't improve by the river, and basically just leaves my range wider.

I think both plays are good so I lean toward 3!ing OOP and flatting in position, where I can still control the size of the pot well moving forward.

TURN ($67): 4
UTG bets $41, HERO calls $41

Obv this isn't the best card, not just because it means I don't have the nuts anymore, but because if he has a smaller flush it can slow down the action.

I'd be raising here on a blank, but on this card I think calling is better.

RIVER ($149): 6
UTG bets $101, HERO raises all-in for $327, UTG tanks ...

So this was a really close spot between call and raise. Obviously I don't have the nuts any more, but the 4 pairing is quite a bit better than the Queen, because I never expect him to limp-call QQ UTG. He's also solid, so I don't think 43s is in his range here - which means that really the only way he's full is with 33 (3 combos) or 44 (one combo).

The important question now is, does he have at least 4 combos that he'll call off with?

After thinking more about it, I'm not very sure than he does. Certainly KT, but then the next-highest flushes he'd have here are T9, 98, and 87

And he's a decent, snug player, so I don't know that he'd call off with all of those; in fact I feel fairly confident saying he wouldn't. Like when I jam, they're all really just bluff-catchers.

From his perspective, could I be bluffing? I do think the answer is yes; I have several Ax hands that I could be doing this. Of course in reality; AQx is probably the only one I'd be using on a paired board like this.

Even so, I don't think it gets him to 4 flush combos he'd be calling off with, so I think this isn't a good river shove for value.



Judging by the time it took him to call off with this hand, it was definitely a bad shove by me.

Pretty good week capped off by sucking out on a guy with AQ vs his KK on a QT5 flop, we got it all in for $180 apiece and got the beautiful river Q. Profited about $750 on the week and with just 10 days left in the year, just gonna try to finish it off as best I can.

Played a really fun, cut-thoat 2/4 (600nl) session last night. I've mostly been playing 1/2, but there was a VIP sitting at the bigger game, so I jumped in, with the spot directly on my right.

Right away, I started taking chunks out of his stack, and worked my stack up to about $750.

Then, a hand came up where he limped for $4 and I iso'd to $20 with AA

He called and the flop came K63

I bet 66% pot and he called.

The turn came the 4

He checked, I bet 75% pot, and he check-jammed. I snapped and he showed K4 and he held on the river for a $400ish pot. Extreme sadness, esp because he would have called down to the felt if he hadn't have hit his sidecard on the turn.

Following this hand the VIP left soon after, and I was a bit stuck and a bit tilted. A LAG took his place on my right, and when the game was 5-handed, we got into this pot:

PRELFOP:
HERO ($400) opens UTG to $10 with AJ, LAG in the BB (covers) 3-bets to $48, HERO calls $48

AJo is not a hand I love calling big 3!s with, since it's easily dominated by the value portion of villains' 3! range.

But in a 5-handed game against a LAG, I can't be folding the hand. I think this hand is usually best served as a 4! in this configuration, but the problem here was that any reasonable 4! would be 1/3rd of my stack, and I'm basically committed vs a shove which isn't where I want to be with this hand. Maybe I could go really small, to like $105, but in the moment I didn't consider that.

FLOP ($97): KTT
BB bets $30, HERO calls $30

Thought this was a pretty standard call

TURN ($157): 5
BB checks, HERO bets $75, BB tank-calls $75

Villain checks turn, and I decide to go for it bc I don't think I can win often without bluffing at it. I already know it's probably going to take multiple barrels, since hands like QQ/JJ/AQ/AJ are probably not folding the turn.

He does call after using a timebank.

RIVER ($307): 6
BB checks, HERO jams for $247, BB goes into the tank ...

I don't think I should be doing anything but stuffing here. When he check-calls turn, I really do think he's pared down to that QQ/JJ/AQ/AJ range. Sure he could be playing AK like this, but I block the A and there's a King on board, so that hand is less likely than it would otherwise be.

And from his POV, I can't really have too many bluffs here. Really the only draws he I can have are AJ, AQ, and QJ. And if he's got QQ (which I think is his most likely holding bc of his play and I unblock it) or AQ, he's blocking almost all the bluffs I could have.



Felted if he calls, but now we're back in business!

The table breaks but one of the fish stays behind to play heads up. I take several chunks out of him before he swims off, and I end up booking a $250 win

LMAO this hand I just played

PREFLOP: .50/1 NL (6-max)
LAG ($200) UTG opens to $4.50, HERO ($180) calls in BB with 33

FLOP ($9.50): 553
HERO checks, UTG c-bets $9, HERO check-raises to $36, UTG calls $36

TURN ($81.50): 9
HERO bets $37.75, UTG calls $37.75

RIVER ($157): 9
HERO jams for $101.75, UTG calls all-in



Aye, the old "flop a boat and somehow get stacked for 180 BBs to a 92s flush draw"

Yikes. That's a yucky one.

Just checked for a thread for the first time in a while. Happy to see you're still playing and posting, man!

Btw I think that AJo hand you opened in HJ is a fold versus such a big 3bet out of the big blind. I know you said he's a lag but AJo including is pretty wide flat IMHO.

Haha yeah we did not like it

Thanks man! And you're probably right, it felt like a bad spot and tbh I was very fortunate to get out of that hand alive; I think long-term it's -EV

Just a quick update with the end of the year drawing close. Haven't updated in a minute bc of the holidays and all, but been playing quite a bit (at least one session 14 straight days). I've pulled a little into the positives for the month despite running fairly poor in all-in pots, hopefully can keep playing well for the last couple days of the month/year here

Just had the most solid session I've had in awhile, +700. Decided to put it on the line and play two 600nl tables and a 400nl table since they were all good games, and it turned out well.

I have something to do tomorrow night so don't know how much I'll play if at all, and not I'm planning on playing on NYE. So as of now it's looking like I'll finish the year with a winning month in every month of 2020, something I never thought would be possible. Pretty cool.

If I do play either of the next two nights I'll write it up, otherwise my next post will be a year-end wrap up to put a bow on this thread.

2020 YEAR-END WRAP-UP:

Well my friends, 2020 is in the books and it's time to reflect on the year that was.

When 2020 started, my daughter was just 5 days old and I'd recently been laid off from my job. Suffice it to say, life was in big flux - and we had no idea how much more turmoil was just around the corner.

My old job had given me severance that would keep me paid until the end of January, so I decided I would play live poker to sustain my family until I could find a new job. I'd beaten the 2/3 game for $44.45 per hour (14.8 bb/hr) in 2018 and the 3/5 game for $58.73 per hour (11.8 bb/hr) in 2019, so I felt confident that I could at least make enough to stay afloat in the interim, esp because I could also collect unemployment until I found a new gig.

As it turned out, this ended up being a solid financial boon to me; I won $9800 in January in just 55 hours, capped by my biggest session of the year on the final day of the month, +$3,266 at the Oaks Card Club:



I started February in a $3.3k downswing, but still managed to grind back and book a solid +$3k profit by the end of the month, and things were going well. I was also interviewing for jobs in February, and near the end of the month I ended up getting a job offer that would end up being extremely pivotal.

See, I had another job lined up for June under a manager from a previous job I'd had. It wasn't a 100% stone lock, but I def had the inside track for the position. The compensation was really strong as well, so my decision was either A) Take this job I was currently being offered, or B) Wait a couple months for the better job and continue to play poker full-time in the interim.

This was a really tough decision, because I was really happy with the way things were going; I was making plenty of money on the tables, plus getting unemployment, plus I could be super flexible with my schedule so that I could spend a lot of time with my new baby and my wife. Things were good, and I was extremely happy. And my wife wasn't me pushing me in either direction; she said she trusted me to make the best choice.

In the end though, I decided to take the current offer. My reasoning was that the June job was not a stone lock, and I needed to make the most solid decision for my family - especially now that I was responsible for a baby. I could always switch jobs in the future, but I couldn't risk waiting for this other job and having it not pan out. And what if I started running bad while that was happening? There was a lot of downside to not taking the current offer, even though my heart wanted to keep playing cards.

So I accepted the offer, and it turned out to be such a crazy piece of run-good that I did: Just weeks after I accepted, the pandemic hit. The June job put a hold on their hiring, and live poker disappeared. I would have been BIGLY f'ed if I hadn't accepted the offer ... especially when my wife then got laid off bc of the pandemic.

Back to poker - I didn't play a single hand of poker for a full month, from the end of Feb to the end of March, while the pandemic washed over the country and I trained virtually for my new job. I did play some ACR cash games and a home game tourney on Pokerstars in the last 3 days of March, netting a little $640 profit.

Then a buddy got me into a club game on King's Club, and the games were LIT. It was like playing at a casino, only online. There were only a handful of tables going on at any time, but the players were terrible and loved action. I won $1.1k in April and then had a complete smash in May, netting $11.8k - my biggest winning month since I started playing poker again in mid-2018.

Things were going great ... right up until the club shortly disbanded out of nowhere at the end of May, and I moved to Pokerbros, where I've been playing ever since.

Bros has not been especially kind to me; since I started playing there in June, the games have become worse and worse as the recs have been weeded out; the mini online poker-boom we saw at the beginning of the pandemic was too short-lived. I've been profitable there, but my win-rate has been a magnitude lower than it was in the first half of the year, and there's been a lot of struggles and it's def felt like a grind at times.

In October, my wife and I bought our first house and were able to put the down payment on it through poker winnings I'd been saving up. To be able to turn a passion into something that tangibly benefitted my family means a lot to me, and I'm lucky to have a wife who's always supported me in my endeavors. To be able to give back to her in this way makes me feel really good about all the time and effort I've put into poker over the years.

Let's get to the graphs:


2020 GIRAFFE:



Happy with the overall trajectory, but obv you can see it flatten out in a big way towards the end.

MONTH-BY-MONTH:



So this is the accomplishment in poker that I'm the most proud of - having a winning month in every month of 2020. Overall, I've had 14 winning months in a row and in 20 of the past 21 months.

I know that months are just arbitrary endpoints, and I'm quite sure I've had losing 30-day stretches that were like the last 2 weeks of one month and the first 2 weeks of the next month. And in several months I just barely made it; like in November I only profited $107, and it was only rakeback that got me there.

So it's really not especially meaningful except in that it tells me that I'm playing well consistently. And that's something I take pride in; a lot of players are great when they're on their A-game, but have trouble playing at that level consistently. I def don't always play my A-game, but I feel like I'm able to play at a B+ level most of the time, and am rarely playing that C-minus game.

I'm also proud I was able to do this while transitioning from being a live player into the online streets, which is definitely an adjustment. I've had my struggles, and I know Bros cash games aren't the toughness level of ACR or PS games, but it's still been a challenge that I'm happy I met. All in all, I out-did my 2019 total profit by the smallest of margins ($81 lol), but it's still cool to be able to say I had a better year this year than I did the year before.

So what's next? Well, 2021 is up in the air for all sorts of reasons, esp with the pandemic still raging and all. So I don't know what kind of goals I'll make, but I do know that I want to be more active in my improvement as a player.

What I mean is, I currently do a ton of passive learning: Reading books, listening to podcasts, watching videos, etc. This year, I want to do more active learning on my own - using programs like Flopzilla to analyze spots, and maybe even get into solver work. I feel like I've kinda maxed out my game with passive learning, so it's going to take more than that to take my game further.

So that's it. I have no idea how many people even read this thread, but if you've tuned in at all, I appreciate you coming along for the ride and wish you the best of luck in 2021. And with that, this thread is a wrap. Be well and may the run-good be with you

Happy new year. Thanks for taking the time to post the blog. I enjoyed reading it. Good luck for 2021.

12 winnings months in 2020? 20 of 21 winning months?

Are you a God?

lol just a fish on a heater

Thanks man, appreciate you saying that. GL GL to you too in 2021

Is the thread dead?