Enjoy the break SJ.

You're a solid citizen helping out!

I love it too.

excellent meming itt

Perfect use of the boardroom meeting

Things to post in Denver when you're drunk.


From what I've seen of your play, there's nothing but call and raise devils on your shoulders. NTTAWWT.

No break. The job sucks. But I'll do it as well as I can.

If anything, the memeing makes this thread worth it.

:smirks:

i can keep throwing my two cents in if you want to strat.

Good deal on the guaranteed paycheck and the recent uptick

This is a strat-friendly thread. Input and civil debate on hands and playing styles are encouraged.

I'll be trying to stay away from spots where I'm patting myself on the back and instead be posting hands where I thought I could have won more or lost less given the information that I had at the time, along with hands where I've been completely lost.

I'll break the rules if there's a good story or coincidence associated with a hand.

Ugh. Back to the office today--relearning passwords and stumbling over all the changes they made in the last few months that they forgot they've made and will neglect to inform me of.

Yesterday I had a dinner date with friends down in Norwich, CT. Beforehand, I swung by the Mohegan Sun for a quick cash game session.

Mohegan has a Michael Jordan steakhouse. Back when I was studying how to play the game, I used to make a deliberate detour past Jordan's inspirational signs outside his restaurant, on my way to the poker room .

It's more than a bit corny, but those signs used to get me pumped up for the game, and they still do.








JFC, the table was softer than anything I've yet to run across in Las Vegas. Seven passive superstations and one bad bluffer. Any one of the players would have been a mark on their own at a Las Vegas $1/$2 table.

I was mostly card dead and had to leave early for dinner. The few playable hands I picked up were all low and medium pairs, all of which had to be dumped unimproved on high boards to multiway action from players who would never think to fold their top pair meh kicker for any amount.

Mohegan Sun (CT): 2 hours:
(-$79)

I was able to secure tomorrow off from my temporary office gig to check out the new MGM Grand in Springfield, MA. I'll then be going back to the office desk for the Wed-Fri run, then out to Las Vegas and my fledgling poker career back there on Tuesday Sept. 4th.

The MGM opened last Friday, and I have high expectations for the poker room, having worked at a few convenience stores in the state when I was a young man, and recalling that I spent the better part of my shifts there selling ream after ream of lottery tickets to the local degens.

Massachusetts residents spend $738 per year for every man, woman and child on the lottery. This is by far the highest gambling bill in the nation. The next closest state is Rhode Island, with $514 per capita. With so many locals being so bad at--or at least careless about--math, I'm expecting some soft tables at the new poker room.

sj, with southern New England becoming the new poker and gambling mecca, how could you ever leave us bro.
from Boston, it's less than a 2 hour drive to 4 poker rooms and soon to be 5.
Vegas has nothing on us baby!

Except for the 2 hour drive each way through New England (in the woods sometimes I assume)

lauderdale is an hour drive from 10 rooms bruh

Vegas is a ten minute walk to 10 rooms bruh.

I am excited to see chip porn of the MGM chips

The poker scene here in SNE is definitely getting better. I'm happy to see it growing, in the event that I ever decide to come back.

The problem with Southern New England driving is that it sucks. Everywhere you go it's city traffic rolling over country roads. There's too much old stuff here that can't be torn down easily to put up better roads. The population grows and the roads largely stay the same.

The other reason I picked LV has to do with wanting to throw myself fully into the pool. I was afraid that if I had stayed here, I'd try to half-ass it and work part time at the office and play part time. I know myself, and I know that it wouldn't have worked out. I'd be too burnt out from work to play often enough, and I'd just end up going back to work full time. Now I have to put in the hours at the tables, or I'll go broke.

Unfortunately I was card dead af, AF, so for the most part I was MostlyFolding. When I did play, it made me wish I was AF. I could not hit the board with a medicine ball, with the exception of three hands where I made a good second best. Nice hand everybody.

The new MGM Poker room was nice. A good number of games were going on there for a weekday afternoon. Seats are comfortable, and tables are spread out well. There are a lot of wide pillars in the middle of the room, though, which tend to block the view of the TVs--not a great setup if you're a sports fan.

They also have a coffee station and a soda machine: the new touch screen type with a lot of flavors; always a plus. Hard drinks are free and served from 8AM-4AM.

In fact, the entire casino has free coffee and soda stations set up. I guess we'll see what happens to that when the bums move in on it.

Springfield center is by no means fully gentrified. It's one of the more dangerous areas in New England, which isn't saying much. But it's definitely not a paradise.

MGM has odd straddle rules, which I predict won't last very long. At the $1/$2 game, you can straddle for $5 from any non-blind position, and preflop action then starts on the next position to the left of the straddle.

Seems ripe for exploitation.

Example: if you're in the cutoff with a LAG on the button, you can straddle the cutoff every time and force the button into always either becoming the effective UTG pre, or make it so that he has to intercept you and straddle the button himself (closest to the button gets first dibs on straddling.)

Another gambit would be to seat yourself to the right of a frequent straddler, giving yourself the cutoff in relative position every time he straddles, from any position.

Now for the game. I was expecting soft, but I got none of that. For the first hour or so, we had three players who were waiting for the $2/$5 game to start up. This is often fine, as a lot of $2/$5 players will splash their way around a $1/$2 game, not taking it too seriously. These guys were pretty good, though, and played solid.

The rest of the table was decent as well. I have to say that I was surprised. My theory from yesterday did not hold water. I bounced after two hours for lunch.

I wanted to try the new Wahlburgers, the burger joint owned by the Wahlberg brothers, whom you may recognize for their high variance acting and singing gigs. I thought I had seen one of the brothers--Donnie or Marky, on TV declaring the new joint open, but currently the restaurant is far from open. There's not even a building up yet.

I spotted a place across the street called Raices Puerto Rican Cuisine and went over to there for lunch because **** it, I've never tried PR food before.

Lunch there was filling, and tasty as hell, and cheap.

For an appetizer I ordered a fried plantain (sort of a banana cousin) with taco meat and melted cheese for about $3.50.




and I topped it off with a beef jibarito sandwich for $10. Good stuff.



Returning from lunch, I found a much better table, but I found myself doubling up the station to my right in three spots, all boards over which I value owned myself with second best hands.

So that was where all the chips went. Ah well, New England wins again.

MGM Grand (MA): 4 hours
(-$398)

I appreciate the trip report immensely. I also can relate to taking myself to Value Town on a regular basis! It's a city I know all too well.

MostlyFolding is honestly a good gimmick name. Maybe I should think about that.

'Value' is the advertiser's tell for "our ****'s kinda expensive yo." I don't know how that equates to poker, but I'll think about it.

Here's a hand from Mohegan a few days ago where I think I'm indifferent to folding or calling on the river.

Thoughts? If I'm villain here and holding a K, I'm definitely taking a bet/check/bet line against a standard-ish tag like me and a stationy BB. Villain was all right, but is he thinking like me?

EP opens for $11. I'm in the cutoff with TT. I call and BB calls.

(Pot $34) Three players.

Flop: KK7

EP bets $20. I call. BB folds.

(Pot $74) Heads up.

Turn: 7

EP checks. I check.

(Pot $74) Heads up.

River : 9

EP bets $35.

This is a standard call against a reg, fold against a fish/uncreative fun player IMO, fold against any OMC, etc. Curious as to what villain had, but I'd imagine if it's not KJ-ish it would be something like AQ/A9

I'm calling.

I probably call that with Ace high

If you're villain, are you taking the same line with AQ and Kxs ?

Would it be b/c/b like him or something different?

How about 99? Lol then if he rivered the boat and I folded for $35. Would you size bigger on the river with 99, assuming that if I called $35, I'd probably call $55, or would you be scared of me having the K?

Should I have bet/folded turn or do you think he was lying in wait with the checkraise?

What's the deal with airline food?

The above is why I'm clearly still fish

I would just call. Calling is clearly better than folding or raising. Trying to get inside the head of these players is likely futile. Making a river call decision versus the population is likely the most straightforward abc decision you will get. Deciding when to bet and how much will depend much more on your reads.