LOL but I have to ask.....Just what is (is in) a "poker bag"?

Headphones. Hand sanitizer. Clif bars. Nalgene with water. Player cards. Notepad and pen. Stuff like that.

Don't you have a gun in your bag also?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh....php?t=1456475

Besides the challenge of taking on a smart predator, the fur can be nice in the winter.

would be more impressed if you successfully stalked/tracked and killed a mountain lion :P

No that's on my hip. I didn't mention it because that's not in my poker bag per-se. The Glock 23 comes with me everywhere, it's not poker specific

It's unlikely they guy wants to hunt just to impress you. But there's nothing particularly awesome about hunting mountain lions, people do that too.

Not gonna lie, I'm a n00b to hunting. So I'm starting with Coyote because there's less restrictive laws around them and they are a nuisance in many areas. Getting into hunting is a little of learning something new as well as getting outdoors more. Maybe I'll like it, maybe I won't, but it will still be interesting to try it. If I do like it, I could see myself getting into hunting other animals, but I'll cross that bridge then . . .

i used to hunt turkey/boar/whitetail when i lived in the south ...mostly comp bow though, never owned my own rifle so would have to use friends if any

The rungood continues . . . report to come Sunday after some sleep.

looking good, now no bounce down

Trust me, I'm certainly trying to avoid that!

But if it happens, that's ok. Again, I'm looking for the "higher-highs and lower-lows". In other words, the variance is acceptable to me as long as the overall trend remains upward. So maybe I'll bounce down, maybe I won't, but as long as the bounces become shorter and "lower" I should be ok. At least I hope that theory makes sense!

TL;DR I broke my Saturday curse and made a nice score; puts me at +$1,000 for the week.

Poker Income helps me track all of my cash sessions (I don't use it for tournaments). And one of the interesting things about it is it showed me that Saturday is my worst day to play. If I had just sat out on Saturdays, I would be up a lot more money right now.

But, since I believe in statistics, I decided to put that aside and go out at prime-time on Saturday night. I rarely do that, I usually hate The Strip at that hour - but, what the heck, let's try something new.

Consulting with @Natamus, PHO seemed to make sense and I've always heard that the games are soft there. I took an afternoon by the pool at home and then took a nap (that was much longer than I usually sleep) and woke up at 9:30PM on Saturday - pretty much perfect for going out!

I make it to my seat at PHO around 11PM. I can see why people like playing that room, it does seem soft. But those conditions are just not for me. I tried to like it, and there's some decent eye-candy, but for focused poker, it's just not great. I even tried using my headphones and my classical music but I just couldn't dial in my comfort the way I want to play (my ADD was going crazy!). So, I didn't really stay very long. I made a tiny score, like $40, and moved on.

I toyed with the idea of going to Mandalay Bay because I know conditions there are good. But I'm also playing in their tournament on Sunday morning so I decided to go to the Venetian instead. Easy drive over and I was seated right away.

My table was great, seated with at least 2 maniacs and loose players overall. I mean, these people were doing straddles, button straddles, blind call & raises (UTG) - and, in some cases, they were doing all of them in the same orbit! One of the maniacs told me that he prefers to do a blind raise UTG in addition to the straddle because of the "silly" 1-raise cap on straddles and wants to raise more blind. God Bless America

I was reminded of something I read in a poker article a long time ago - I think it was Mike Caro: "when its a tight table, play loose; when it's a loose table, play tight". So that's what I decided to do. I folded a ton of hands - even things like suited connectors - because I just needed to wait for that ONE spot. Seriously, I think I folded everything for like an hour, hour-and-a-half, maybe longer. I kept on telling myself "the action will be there when you're ready, they will pay you off". And that's basically what happened.

I woke up with KK UTG. Just as I had hoped for, I only called because I knew they would build the pot for me; I basically just went along for the ride. I don't remember all of the action, because there was raising and calling along the way from the maniacs. But the board was very dry on 4th street. It was late, so my memory is slightly hazy, but I think the board was Q74T rainbow with something like $100 in the middle. So I decided to shove at this point, I just felt like the overcards were good here, the money in the middle was just the maniacs doing their thing pre-flop. Sure enough, one of them came along for the ride - he had fallen in love with AQ, river came a blank and I took it down. He had me covered so I got total value for my shove.

That single pot was over $500, so it made the wait worthwhile. I didn't stay long after that because 1 of the maniacs left and I had already debilitated the other one. I had planned to play all night, but decided to keep my energy in reserve and at least sleep a couple of hours at home before the Sunday tourney. I closed shop with about $400 in profits.

This variance is just so fascinating to me. One week ago today I wrote about being stacked twice and down. Now, I've basically made around $1,000 this week alone. So, I'm trying to not be swayed by the results, I just find the "ebb & flow" of it all very interesting.

Thanks for reading.

Consider the conditions: time of day, day of the week, location, villains and your own personal "100% ness" in the week you were getting felted vs. this week. Perhaps you have put yourself in better positions to be profitable and if so those tweaks should be repeated. Nice work, Jim

Thanks man. I've definitely put some thought today and tried to quantify the good parts of the week:

1 - I didn't pay anyone off this week. I didn't donk off chips paying a made hand for any low-outs on my part. Not that I feel like I did this at the Bellagio - I'm talking about chasing gut-shots and things like that.

2 - If I didn't feel well, I just didn't play. I can think of at least 2 sessions I didn't do because I wasn't feeling well (documented here too, I believe). If I wasn't at 100% I just didn't play.

3 - I didn't stand for bad conditions. Both Mirage and PHO had bad conditions this week (documented here too), so I didn't stay long. There are always games to be found in Vegas. There's no need to put up with a game you don't like, there's always another game down the street.

4 - Everything else in life was copacetic. Clients were good. I had a good time shooting on Wednesday. I had a great time at my class on Sunday. Dishes are washed, car is running well, I said all my morning prayers this week. So it's really been pretty good all around, this leads to a clear mind for poker.

So I'm hoping this will continue into the weeks to come and keep my chart headed in the right direction. I have a large tuition bill coming up for Penn State (I'm not using loans for my Masters) so it would be nice to be able to handle that with poker, but no big deal if I have to pay for it with other funds.

Since you have started this challenge do you feel like you are any better at picking up tells and/or giving off less tells?

Since Saturday is currently your worse day have you considered picking and playing a tournament on that day?

Good luck!

Sent from my SGH-T999L using 2+2 Forums

That's a great question. If anything, I focus a lot less on tells than I used to. I did a lot of my WSOP activities with my landlord and his friends. He and his best friend are near world-class bridge players and they have made the move into poker. So talking with them really put an emphasis on the strategy of bets and hand reading from bets and things along those lines. I really admire their play and they do very, very little with physical tells. It's all about betting patterns and strategy.

Having said all that (1) they did teach me the value of pausing before bets, just a little bit of hollywood, and the image that it gives off when you're trying to induce action and (2) the more hours I put in, the more I see that some tells are more reliable than others. Right now I'm sticking with 2-3 tells that are relatively solid. But I don't do much beyond that with tells.

To be fair, the tournament I binked for $5,000 was on a Saturday I'm talking strictly about results for cash games. I think I need a few more hours in my logs before I really start mixing things up around the days of the week.

I like where I'm headed in terms of playing when everything feels 100% right. If that happens to be on a Tuesday morning - great, I'll play then. If it happens to be on a Saturday - great, I'll play then. For this past Saturday, I had a great day at the pool, I was rested from a long nap, I was freshly showered and shaved, smelled good with my Cartier cologne and just felt good to play. So I think it's more about aligning my mind right to play and be prepared to win. Again, I hate to sound so "zen" about it because that's not my intent, it's just what's working for me right now.

Two hours at Wynn and then this happened:



That's 4 bills on the right BTW.

A board of 853 made a guy shove with his over pair, my QQ was bigger. God is good :-)

Sweet. I'm thinking he had jacks.

PS I think we need a winnings update lol

Nice TR,

I agree with you completely about not playing when you do not feel good. I have put myself in some bad spots at times forcing myself to play when I was not in the mood. Also, recognizing betting pattern and betting strategy is something that took me a while to incorporate into my mind versus reading physical tells, and has payed off in dividends. Good luck to you sir.

Thank you for saying that. I really am putting a lot of stock into the "100% ready to win" aspect of poker. I'm at a good point in my life, no kids, no woman drama (I stopped fawking married women, NEVER dating a cocktail waitress again), everything is aligned. My grad studies are really the only source of stress right now, but it's a good stress because I enjoy the classes.

It also helps A LOT to live here. I think its very hard to visit Vegas and play good poker at that particular time in your life. So, knowing that there is a game at any time you want helps calm my mind - I don't need to force any sessions, the games will always be there. I mean, you can check Bravo Poker at 4AM on a Tuesday and there's like 500 people citywide playing poker. Why force a session when there's always people playing?

He had pocket 10s. He looked so dejected when I turned over my QQ. When I shoved, he snap-called too! I thought maybe I ran into AA. But my QQ had him dominated the whole way.

I can't tell if this is a level. If anything, I thought I was posting too many updates. Someone sent me a PM about providing more hands, more details, so I'm trying to do that. I mean, I just posted a chart the other morning. Today's session puts me at over $1150 net winnings for about 85 hours; it's a new high-point for my roll since I started this.

By my count, those last few days push you from losing/break-even to a $13+/hr winner during your time. That's a nice run! Hopefully it's more than just a heater and you keep it going. Not forcing it is a great mindset to be in.

Sometimes when I am on a good run, ego and entitlement start kicking in, I open up my range, and make plays I shouldn't. Make sure you maintain your discipline and stick to the principles that helped you to go on this run. Especially waiting for the correct spots against the maniacs at the V. GLGLGL!!

The sesh at the V was an exercise in discipline and it paid off nicely

Thanks man! Yes, $13 is what it comes out to. My understanding is that this is a respectable rate for a mix of 1/2 & 1/3. That's also not too bad considering that I could still do some work on lowering my tips - need to cut them further.

Good points it's appreciated. I'm sure poker will humble me again in the future :-). Right now I feel pretty dialed in with my big hands, suited connectors and set mining. My pot odds calculations at the table are getting faster/improving, so I'm feeling pretty strong. I could still be just a little more aggressive - I still find myself limping instead of raising in spots.

I appreciate all your feedback.