On Monday night, I hung out with 2p2er FWWM, aka Fire. We played a $125 one-table satty at the WSOP. I went out on either the first or the second hand, I think the latter.

Details are fuzzy on this one; I can't remember if it was 3 or 4 to the flop, and I can't remember the exact low card on the flop, other than it was a medium club. I usually jot down notes on my phone on key hands, but I didn't do that for this hand because--well, I thought it played itself, but I could be wrong, so here it is.

The low-limit one table satties are kind of super-turbos, with 20bb starting stacks and 15 minute blinds.

Level 1 - Effective stacks $1000, blinds $25/$50

MP limps, BTN limps, SB completes and I have A6 in the BB.

At deeper effective stacks this is a raise for me, somewhat big to try to take it down pre or get heads up. But stacks are awkward and I have no reads. Someone could easily come along with A7-AT. If called, I want two high cards or a high pocket pair. Making TPTK or TPGK and committing is a very profitable play with 20bbs. My 6 kicker then, in this spot, is more of a con than my suitedness is a pro. I check my option.

(Pot $200) - 4 players

Flop KT7

SB checks, I check, MP bets $75, BTN raises to $325, SB folds.

(Pot $600) - 3 players

Am I going to fold here? Not on your life. BTN could be making a move with plenty worse, lower flush draws, QJ, 89, maybe with a club, maybe two clubs (in which case they're ahead, but dat ace showdown value).

Or should I call off 1/3 of my stack in a super-turbo and fold to a blank on the turn? Eww.

I shove.



Fire did a lot better. When they got down to 3 players, I thought he played a great LAG strategy vs a very verbal tellbox and a nit. The nit, by the way, was the villain from my hand--if only I knew.

He got a decent payout from a 3-way chop and we allegedly stepped out on the patio to smoke a fatty. I decided not to be a life nit and didn't mention that it's illegal to smoke in public in Nevada, with penalties similar to having an open container of alcohol, a statute with which I am sadly familiar.

In any case, Fire probably knew that and still didn't GAF, as he is a boss in a number of respects.

I hit a state of mind that I like to call "Shrek High." That's me being so high that I typically post this video over on BBV. I'm sure that they're pretty sick of it by now, though I skipped it this time around. I think I was too high to remember to post it.

That’s ****ing hilarious. Lifenit activated

Some pretty solid updates.

Friends:

Last week, friends of mine from the last time I lived in Las Vegas (1998-2006) found out that I was living here again and invited me to their son's birthday party. Other old Las Vegas friends of mine were there as well. I had started blowing off the old group when my former meth habit was...not exactly spiraling out of control, but nevertheless taking a casual but determined stroll into the deeper parts of the canyon.

My old friends here are great people: fun, down to earth, and wrapped up in very little drama. At the time I left the group because I didn't want to involve them in my growing drug drama, or maybe I left so I could do meth to my crashing heart's content and not have to face any pushback on it. Why not both?

When I returned to Las Vegas, I couldn't pull the trigger on getting back in touch with them; the longer I waited the harder it became to face the prospect of telling them that I'd been living back here for x number of months without a phone call or a text to them, for an increasing value of x.

They broke the ice because they're great people, and I'm very glad that they did. They got a wayward friend back because they were willing to reach out and to be friends, in the action verb usage of 'be'. I guess that's the lesson. We're going to be hanging out more in the future.

So for their son's birthday: what did I get an unknown 9 year-old on short notice?


So, 2p2er DalTXColtsFan was in town to play some cash during the Series. We had previously sent a few PMs back and forth regarding Japanese hardcore heavy metal female-fronted groups, as you do. A little while back, he sent me a PM mentioning that he was a huge KISS fan, and that the Rio has a KISS monster mini-golf course.

I'm indifferent to KISS, but I know for sure that almost no one wants to play mini-golf by themselves. So I took the hint and invited him--along with AlwaysFolding and AlwaysFolding's friend--for a round of KISS mini-golf. We did that yesterday and had a blast. And that was the action verb 'be' in to be a friend; simple stuff for most people, but it's an opportunity that I've passed on too many times.

Orleans: 1.5 hours:
+$60

I did Kiss Mini Golf with my brother a couple years ago and it was a highlight of the trip. It’s just a really fun course to play and the staff are into it and don’t care if you’re stoned out of your mind. Good times

"Shrek high" is just hilarious. lol

I played the Kiss mini golf earlier this year.

I won ldo.

Knowing of your existence and thus being able to read your posts is a privilege, Suited. I will try to keep the KISS minigolf in mind for next time I visit Vegas (hopefully before 2022).

Thanks guys! Sheep86. We may have enough interest for a KISS mini-golf tourney next year.

Heading to the Orleans for a late session. It feels good to be back in business.

GLGL take maney make maney. I'm in for the tourney.

Thanks brother! LMK if you're selling shares.

Last night I was torched for about $350, mostly on two hands.

On the first I check/raised a good pair and draw combo multiway on the flop, then bet the turn, then I cry called a 1/3 pot bet on the river with KJ on a K9649 board vs KQ

On the second hand I stationed down on a serial bluffer with A6 on a A5K23 board. He showed KK. I should have been more suspicious; on earlier hands he had been bombing 3 streets culminating in oversized river shoves, but on this hand he checked back the turn and made a small bet on the river, and I was fished in.

Online, I've been messing around with the ACR step satellites to their big $5M gtd Venom tourney, and today I won a $630 seat to Step 6, the final step. I'll try to play that tomorrow, as it's an on-demand satty and likely to go off at some point in the afternoon.

Possibly the best option for satelliting into the $2650, 5M gtd. Venom will be the $630 50-seat gtd satty running tomorrow at 1PM Pacific Time. The minimum value of that satty is $132,500, so they'll need 211 horses at $630 each to make their nut.

So here I am again hoping for an overlay. The last time I did this, I predicted in this thread that the Big 50 would never get their required 10,000 horses, only to watch them break the world record for a live tournament with 28,371. I was just a bit off base...we'll have to see what happens next.

With one hour of late reg remaining, 186 runners have already bought in, so it looks like there won't be an overlay. Early on I made one of the biggest misclicks that I've made in 10 years online. I punched in 6100 for a c-bet with complete air when I meant to punch in 610. That constituted 80% of my stack. Villain shoved and I had just about zero equity, so I folded with 10bb remaining.

I was back up to 20bb but the upcoming level will put me down to 15. So yeah, this wasn't my shining hour.

I'm out, and deservedly so for that misclick. Hopefully WPN makes their nut on this Venom tournament and runs subsequent versions in the future.

I've been punished pretty hard online for mis-clicks before. I feel that pain.

Fortunately, my friend, the pain was greatly lessened thanks to a full hog AYCE sushi feast at Umiya on Flamingo with 2p2er Da_Nit. We ate enough to clean out the shallows and the deeps of all wriggling things from Sendai down to Tokyo.

I thought I took a picture of our tabletop brimming with raw slaughter but it didn't come out

Da_Nit is on a hardcore promo grinding mission throughout a huge chunk of Clark County and I heartily approve. He's a great guy and we had an excellent time shooting the ****.

Some of you may recall a few weeks ago when I came out of a blackout to find that I'd designed a new Fallout 4 character to closely resemble one of my ex-girlfriends, and that I'd named her Subby.

Two days ago I received an email from IRL Subby. She was replying to an email that I had sent to her more than 7 years ago, which was the last time that we were in contact.

The email was nothing special: she was just catching up. She sent a current picture of her and her good looking family (the husband was behind the camera), and she told me that she and her husband and their kids were living out on the East Coast, and all were happy and healthy. Well, all of them were not exactly healthy...

"I fell and hit my head in early May, and am still recovering from a concussion. I am hopeful that I can continue with my educational goals as anticipated, though it may hold me back an academic year..."

"My executive functioning and memory are screwy. For example, I finally remembered I needed to return this email, but I forgot all my appointments yesterday."

So both of us found ourselves thinking of each other for the first time in years at around the same time and while both of our conscious functions were impaired in some way; I was blackout drunk and she was concussed.

When I was younger and I smoked a lot more pot and dropped a lot more acid and whatnot, I used to be much more of a believer in spiritual and psychic phenomena, and in the hypothesis that there are few or no coincidences. As I've gotten older I've sided more with science and rational explanations for the Universe, particularly when it comes to coincidences.

Think about this: if we're awake 16 hours in a given day then we're awake for 57,600 seconds every day. I think that it's reasonable to assume that we experience at least 10,000 discrete thoughts and actions within a given waking day. If one or more of these items is a one in a million long shot, then we will experience that type of crazy coincidence around once every 100 days on average, as 10,000x100 is a million. That works out to crazy coincidences happening around 3 1/2 times per year. And that puts some things into perspective.

I’ll help with the pics. Thanks for meeting, to me you’re a BBV legend, great discussion.

mmm sushi. Also stealing your hypothetical crazy coincidence math for a good cause. Thread delivers!

Thanks Da_Nit! awesome pics, great meal, excellent times.

Da_Nit is killing it over in LVL with his TR.

I played the Orleans yesterday for 2 hours and I booked a $40 win. I am rusty and I made mistakes. One of my favorite poker coaches--I can't remember which one--put out the analogy of the poker journey as driving a car with bad brakes up a hill: if you don't keep your foot on the gas through regular study and play, you're going to slide back down.

People have lost a lot of money adhering to the bicycle riding analogy: that you can pick up the game after a long absence and find yourself to be just as good relative to the player pool as you were before. Sorry, but in that case it's likely that you've lost a step.

My absence from a regular poker schedule has become more noteworthy than my play. So let's address this: why have I been goofing off?

Burnout and a long downswing are the first two--and most apparent--factors. The third was a little surprising, and it took me a while to suss it out: I miss the freerolls. Most of those promos were cancelled thanks to the lucrative crowds piling in for the WSOP. For me, they provided structure, along with an incentive to get in a certain number of hours every week, even if I didn't feel like playing any more hours on a given day, which happens even when you're doing something that you like.

That's the paradox that I'm regularly running into: I want to be entirely free in my life, yet I need structure or I can't pull it off.

On the other hand, here I am trying to pass off my actions as someone else's, as if I had no control over them, and as if couldn't easily change them on my own volition. I'm heading to the Orleans again today, and I will do my best to salvage July in terms of playing hours. In August, the promos will likely begin again.

Orleans: 2 hours:
+$40

Another 3 hours today at the Orleans. My first consecutive day sessions in a while. Baby steps.

Here's a fun preflop spot: There were 3 limps and I picked up QQ on the button and made it $15 to go. A tight player in the SB 3-bet it to $60.

I thought that the SB was the best player at the table beside me. Though he was generally tight, this was his 4th 3-bet in an hour, which is a lot for $1/$3 live. The other 3 had been for $25-$30, so his $60 sizing was interesting. Also he had shown down a pretty light KT on one of the 3-bets.

I had $318 behind and he covered. Folds back to me and I rip it all in.

10 times more loose than the game I just got out of at thePeppermill. No wonder you left Reno.