Just found the blog SJ and truly enjoying it. I frequent some of the same spots that you do and find your description of the some of the players and games very enjoyable and quite spot on.

Stick with it and look forward to seeing your continued success

Thanks GolfBaller70! Looking forward to seeing you around.

hi sj, you will crush in no time, Im sending you franko vibes.

Very sexy.

On Saturday and Sunday I punted off around (-$700). Here are two representative hands.

Straddle: There are a lot of $5 straddles in the Las Vegas $1/$2 game. Prior to this, I hadn't read anything at all on how to handle this, so I'll admit to just calling the $5 a few times with small pair/suited connector type hands, then getting burned for my nickel when the straddler or someone else bumped it up to $20-$30.

I eventually became the "someone else," adopting a raise or fold policy on the straddle and choosing hands with top pair/overpair potential for the raise, due to the small SPR that it creates.

The most common (and least foolhardy) version of the straddle is done from the button. In some rooms, the SB is the first to act pre on a button straddle. This was the case for this hand. I was UTG and therefore acted third pre.

$5 straddle on the button, called by BB, I pick up AT and bump it to $30, as the button was an action player and was straddle/calliing quite a bit.

I get 4 calls, including the straddler and the BB.

(Pot $151) I have about $230 behind.

Flop: K72

BB checks and I'm next. What am I going to do here, check/call or check/shove with a naked flush draw and not much behind? Half pot bet would be $75. Am I going to bet that or something smaller, then fold?

I shove.

Folds around to the BB, who had AK, had just called/called with it pre, and had checked it on the flop. He held. Nice hand, sir.

Second hand:

UTG opens for $8. I'm in MP with KJ and call. MP to my left shoves for her remaining $24. Folds around to UTG, who calls and I call.

(Pot $75, three players: one player all-in)

Flop AQT

It's a dry pot, but I have a straight and I want some more money. and I also want to charge any flush draw or set or two pair at least a little something. I bet $15 and get a call.

(Pot $105, three players: one player all-in)

Turn K

I bet $25 and villain raises to $100. I shove for around $300 effective and he calls.

River 9

Villain shows QJ for the flush. Nice hand sir.

These hands are splashy but not representative of my true problems and why I'm currently a losing player.

I have two days off. I'm going to write off July as my rookie month, pull out my books and videos, and get to work studying.

My working hypothesis is that I'm not ranging well, particularly on the river, which we know to be the most expensive street, and the street where I need to put my range work together and to have a concrete subset of what hands are left in the villain's arsenal, now that we're here at the river and the bets are big.

Again it comes back to my being an old tournament player, where we don't get to the river with substantial chips behind nearly as often as cash game players do.

So, if you have some links to good articles or videos on developing ranges on later streets, I would appreciate it if you posted them here.

The ranges you are facing are likely different than the ranges found in videos or books.

I think that one of the best resources available for live low stakes players is the Live Low Stakes No Limit forum. Every hand so far might be super standard versus live casino players, or a total punt.

If you post hands or just read the threads there and Venice says “do xyz here” then trying xyz for 100 hours is likely going to win the monies.

I screwed up the straddle hand description. Villain must've been UTG and I was UTG+1 given that he acted first postflop. I'm not quick enough to note hands on my phone on the fly, so these are done later from memory

SJ,

Hands as played are OK. You’re on the bad side of variance on some coin flippy hands. Studying is always good I would check out what Robert suggested.

I like that you didn’t give villain too much credit in either hand and you were strong getting your chips in the middle. One flush card falls on the first and and misses the second and the whole weekend, conversation etc etc are different to the positive.

That second hand you got all the money w/ the nuts and charged his draw the max you could, so there's definitely no problem there.

FranFran you are right, as usual. I will work towards crushing in August and hopefully I will be thanking you towards the end of the month ofc.

Thanks guys! I've made a point of never posting beats in BVB and should probably follow through on that here as well, but I feel a sort of fiduciary responsibility to explain in part why I'm posting the red numbers so often. In any case, I still have a lot to learn and there's no getting around that.

On it. LLSNL is now a part of my daily Internet checkup.

Day off today. I did some laundry, then quickly became bored. I signed up for Planet Hollywood's $80 $1.5k gtd. Given the 20 minute blinds, it's not a terrible structure for a small buy-in tournament. I intended to order at least 3 drinks during it (it being my day off) and I achieved my goal.

We got down to 4 runners out of 35, and I was a distant 3/4 in chips. Everyone stopped the game and decided that they wanted an even chop. I brought up the idea of an ICM chop.

Narrator:That wasn't very smart of him.

That idea was shot down and I quickly agreed to an even four-way chop. We chopped $387 each and I tipped the floor $20.

Planet Hollywood $80 tournament:
+$287

Lol even chop ftw!

Nice day off Mr. Suitedjustice.

It's all a big learning curve really SJ. We're all rooting for you

Late sub, worthy thread is worthy of all posts being read

Thanks robert! I had fun playing and I'll probably do some more tournies outside of the 40 hour cash work week.

Thanks Rexx! Fortunately, poker does grade on a curve if you give it long enough. Hopefully, I'll make the cut.

So many s for AlwaysFolding. More s than I could ever post.

Three hands in, I started the day and the new month $250 in the hole, shipping the nicks with bottom set on a wet board multiway, and not boating up over the straight.

I topped up on chips and sulked for a while until I felt that I needed another talking-to.

Look man, playing that hand over and over in your head is not going to make that money come back. You have to play this hand if you want to do that.

Sure enough, right afterwards I picked up 44, opened, got callers and went to a 347ss flop. Nicks were shipped and this time I boated up and got everything back plus $50.

Planet Hollywood, Flamingo and Caesars Palace: 8 hours:
+$189

Good start of the month, Suited.

Hear, hear.

Thanks Sheep! I hope to post lots of green this month.

Let's address the (pink) elephant in the room: I'm drinking again.

Thanks to my op in this thread, I haven't forgotten the endgame in all of this. It's me choking to death on my own vomit alone in the middle of the night.

Things are under control at the moment--I have one drink only at the end of any session that's 3 hours or longer, and I have one or two when the work day is over--but every addict's moderation control plan suffers from an unavoidable mission creep. My own is slow but no less inexorable. Despite efforts to the contrary, I'm adding approximately one drink to my average daily intake every 4 days.

My biggest obstacle here is that I'm just as interested and entertained as you are in watching this slow motion train wreck play out. And that's a terrible thing, as I'm supposed to be the one who's driving the train.

Enough of that for now: I'll report on it again once it reaches its next predictable inflection point.

Flamingo and Ballys: 8 hours:
$+307

I'm usually all for train wrecks but I think I would prefer the redemption story for this thread.

Thanks Rexx. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's pulling up on the throttle just before the crash.

Yesterday I picked up and acted on my first live read. To rip off an expression from the Brits, I was right chuffed with it.

A Live One opens to $10 in EP and a shortish stack ($83) in MP calls. I 3-bet to $35 with AKo from the button and both call.

(Pot $108) Three players.

Flop Q83r.

Live One checks and the shorty shoves for $48. Now...

If I knew that the Live One--who covers me for about $350 effective--was going to fold, I would just call MP here, every time. There's plenty of air in MP's shove on this dry flop, after the Live One checked. And $48 looks like a big bet in $1/$2, even though it's really only less than half the pot. If it's not air that MP is shoving, then I still think that my 6 outs are mostly clean.

But I still had the Live One to contend with. I'd been watching him for two full hours, and had seen all the times that he had opened with ATC and repeatedly kicked the asses of two good regs postflop, to the point where both of them had hopped over to other tables.

We'll back up a tick to the time before the flop fell. Some old poker book that I've since donated had told me not to look at the flop, but to look at the player as he looked at the flop. Facial expressions come and go, while the flop remains the same.

Sure enough, the Live One clearly did not like the flop. It could have been acting, but it seemed to be too immediate and genuine. I called and the Live One folded.

(Pot $204) Two players, one all in.

Turn: Q

River: 8

MP had shoved with 66 and I had counterfeited him with my A kicker.

Flamingo, Planet Hollywood and Caesar's Palace: 8 hours:
+$64