gl with your challenge sj!

gl with your challenge!

[QUOTE]
Years before I started playing live, I skimmed through Caro's Book of Poker Tells, as well as Joe Navarro's Read em and Weep. It's likely that I'll pick them up again at some point, as I remember next to nothing from them. [QUOTE]

SJ -

If you are planning to get back into tells study I suggest you look at Zachary Elwood's material - he has a trilogy of books ("Reading Poker Tells", "Verbal Poker Tells" and "Exploiting Poker Tells") that are much more useful imo than Caro or Navarro. He also has released videos covering these subjects, and moderates the 2+2 sub-forum "Poker Tells/Behavior" which has interesting threads you can take part in.

GL with your poker endeavor in Vegas.

He showed J9 and was surprised when the pot was pushed over to my aces up, so he hadn't caught the counterfeit on the river.

He left the table in a huff. Two hours later, I saw him leaving a $2/$4 limit holdem table without a chip rack and in a huff

Thanks Morph!

Thanks Morph! fid!

Thanks jrr63! I signed up for his free email course on verbal tells. Seems like a good place to start.

Played the overnight last night. I found a good game and I ran bad. Overnight again tonight, then the afternoon/evening football bettors shift for Sunday per Natamus' suggestion.

There was definitely more action at the tables starting Thursday, so football season might be a boon.

I've decided that Wednesdays will be the challenge days. Every other work day will just be a regular poker day and won't count towards the challenge.

Harrahs: 9.5 hours
(-$332)

What do you think about your 9th place finish in the BBV LC/NC post count?

I just posted my take in the stats thread.

The LC/NC thread was always a bit of solace from the office grind. On bad days, I'd jump in there every 20 minutes or so.

Now, I have a rule that I can only play on the phone once per hour, for two minutes tops, while I'm at the table.

Yesss to the J9

Where you heading for your overnight sesh?

Harrahs. The promo nits start clearing out around 11. I'll show up sometime between 11-1.

Appears that I'm the promo nit tonight. One hour, one hand, zero flops.

Three hours in, I've won my first hand of the night, after owning myself for 300 with top two Vs a huge station.

Sundays in Las Vegas now bring the benefit of the return of sports bettors for the football season. On paper, it's an ideal day to spend 8 hours on the poker tables with the football guys. I simply can't do it.

The mind is willing, but the old meat bag surrounding it is not able. After two days of poor sleep had from transiting to the overnight shift, and 3-4 hours of sleep on Sunday morning/early afternoon, I cannot muster 8 more hours of A game awareness for the day, as much as I'd like to make it so by merely thinking about it.

I will have to take Sunday-Monday off, purely from physical constraints. Tuesday will be the challenge day back.

Harrah's: 8 Hours
(-$121)

In some ways doing consistent overnights is much much easier on the body than trying to transition for a couple of days per week. Spoken by someone who has done both.

His body needed more prep, but his mind was ready!

I’m not worth **** without at least 6 good hrs of normalsleep either. I would faceplant into the table, lol.

Poker is extremely tiring also. I think people who don't play totally underestimate how tiring and mentally draining it can be. Definitely need good sleep.

beers help.

I had a full time third shift convenience store gig when I was a lad. I get very depressed and weird(er) without a light to moderate amount of sun in my life.

I think the schedule just needs some tuning, then my body will be ready!

It's been Johnny Walker Black lately. One generous free shot mid-session and one at the end. I don't bring any booze home, as it has put me in physical peril here before.

Tuesdays are simply too slow and nit infested to remain as a viable part of the work schedule. I have to find a way to push them into the day off category, and to get back to work on Sundays.

Here is work plan 3.0: Fridays will remain as overnights, 11PM-7AM. Saturdays will be dialed back a few hours into a hybrid 2.5th shift. Bally's has a new freeroll once every two weeks on Saturdays at 5pm. So 5PM-1AM Saturdays on freeroll weeks and say 6PM-2AM or 7PM-3AM on non-freeroll weeks. Then I might be arsed to get to work on Sundays from 2PM-10PM. Then Mondays and Tuesdays off.

Challenge day today. There was one hand of note today, of interest because of the smaller stack size that I'm using for the challenge. As usual, I'll post it tomorrow.

Flamingo: 7 hours. Bally's 1 hour: (I timed a free buffet promo wrong and it tilted me, so I left.)
+$67

Challenge:$1/$2 Level:

Starting bankroll: $600
Current bankroll: $814
Bankroll needed for $1/$3: $1125

Totally understand the need for some sun.

I woke up late, so I don't have a lot of time for this hand. It doesn't require much time, though, as it's just a quick illustration of the power of stack depth in both directions.

There's a limp from EP, a young guy in MP bumps it to $7, and I 3-bet on the button to $20 with QQ. Normally I would have $250 or more on the table, but I'm doing the challenge so I have $160.

EP folds and MP, who covers me, flat calls.

(Pot $45) Two Players

Flop 956

MP checks. I bet $25. MP raises to $50. I call.

Given the small sizing of the checkraise, and the fact that it's been executed on the flop, it doesn't provide much information. If I reraise, it'll have to be a shove given the effective stacks, and MP will fold out too much of the air and draws that I'm beating and call with mostly hands that have me crushed.

(Pot $145) Two players

Turn T

MP puts me all in for my remaining $85.

(Pot $225) Two Players

This is a fist pump snap call on nearly every turn card, and this card is no exception. If he was getting sticky pre with 87, 99 or TT, then nice hand sir. Given the effective stacks pre, he should not have stayed in with the first two, but nice hand anyway. I call.

(Pot $310) Two Players, one all in.

River: 6



The stack to pot ratio (SPR) on the flop was 140/45 (my stack size just after the flop hit divided by the pot size just after the flop hit) or 3.1.

With an overpair and an SPR under 3.5, there is very little thought involved, other than how best to get all the money in by showdown. MP here was cooperative enough to put me all in on the turn.

Now, reset the stacks and give us both about $350.

SPR on the flop would then be 330/45, or 7.3, and that is a lot more awkward. SPR is a snapshot of the beginning of the flop, and it never changes once it's measured. So, regardless of the betting that happens from there, the rest of the hand will be awkward and require more thought to navigate.

This is the crux of why tournament players stack off so badly in cash games. Because it's often a correct decision for the stack sizes they're usually playing in tourneys.

And this is why I think that the smaller stack size will work for me at the higher stakes in the challenge. It's going to be harder for the better players to put me to a tough decision when I'm at 0-100bbs. Of course, I'm not going to be hopping off the table every time I double up, but I will be spending more time with smaller stacks during the challenge.

I need to stop bluffing and barreling so much at this level. I have the value betting part down fine and I'm getting full value on a lot of hands, but I'm pissing chips away trying to steal pots on the long stretches between picking up hands.

Today I'll play the first of 3 freeroll tournaments in 3 days. I'm thinking about having a tee shirt printed that says.

[front]
CAESAR's LAS VEGAS
PROMO NIT FREEROLL TOUR 2018

[back]
HARRAHS - Thursdays 10AM
FLAMINGO - Fridays 10AM
BALLY'S - Saturdays 5 PM
PLANET HOLLYWOOD - (tbd)

I would do it except that advertising them even as a joke gets more people in and brings down the EV of the tourneys, since they're all capped at a specific guarantee. I don't think there's much harm in bringing them up here in the blog, as I've only run into one reader, so far, who is playing on the same circuit.

Bally's and Flamingo: 8 hours:
(-$150)

TILT

Every time someone brings up PLO at the table, I feel a compelling need to explain unprompted that I'm a fish at PLO, that it insta-tilts me, and that, unlike PLO, I rarely tilt at NLHE. It's probably a species of humblebrag and I should knock it off.

I tilted yesterday. Before that, I'd cashed for $300 in the Harrahs freeroll, then I'd bled some of that away playing cash at the Flamingo, then I'd pissed the rest of it and more away at Bally's in less than an hour. Then I ragequit.

It wasn't the beats. The beats were standard and I've taken them a hundred times without feeling much. It wasn't my play. My play was fine. It was, this time, the idea that I was going to be stuck at Bally's for another three hours that day, in order to make the nut for their freeroll, and their free buffet, and their points and their whatnot.

I took this job because I thought it would be the most liberating profession for which I could qualify. I chose it as an experiment in exploring and defining the boundaries of human freedom, assuming that the human in question hasn't already started out with **** you money.

It's both fascinating and infuriating to find and feel the chains imposed on me by myself, as well as those sought after by me from the casinos. Do we really need to be chattel in our work life, even to a small extent, or is that just me?

So anyways, having to be there after getting my head bashed in early pissed me off, and I tilted.

I leave when I tilt. I'm done for the day. The cost is my potential hourly win rate, times the number of hours missed. Compare this to however long I would tilt if I stayed, times a hypothetical negative hourly rate from playing bad, then add in the rest of the otherwise missed hours at the usual win rate, or possibly a reduced win rate from the aftereffects of tilting. The latter part of this equation is still a complete unknown to me.

I ragequit early in the day around once a month on average, so it's not a major factor.

Yet.

I'm wondering, though, if I should just go for a walk for 20 minutes or a half hour, then try to sit down and play again. To date, though, I haven't yet managed to get past picking up my chips and stomping off like a thwarted toddler, so that solution will remain hypothetical until I can get past that.

Flamingo and Bally's: 3 hours (Harrah's freeroll +$295):
(-$26)

PS: Thanks to everyone for 20k views! Everyone has been more kind than I deserve. If you keep reading, I'll keep writing. That's a promise.