SJ and me. Repeatedly.

I'd do it more often, but I seldom hit two sets in one session.

Exactly

SJ could probably write a bad beat post of these ridiculous outliers. Please confirm.

Part of it was my fault. I flopped all three sets with low pairs in limped pots. That means a lot of players and thus a lot of suited junk seeing the flop, greatly increasing the likelihood of someone making a flush. If I'd bumped the hands up pre with a raise instead of just completing or checking in the blinds, some of the suited junk may have folded out.

Now, I'll probably go 7 or 8 sessions without flopping a set. That's how it works.

That's how it works if the Poker Gods love you. Otherwise it will be 50 or 60 sessions. Flopped sets are the Poker Gods' gift to their chilrun. They don't like to see them ****ed up and tossed aside.

^Aw don't say that. I need them sets to put bread on the table.

Here's a reg war hand from the ACR $50k gtd. Villain is a very good SLAG, one of the better players I've run across on the site. We have a few hundred hands on each other. This is a good example of polarized betting on the river.

Yatahay Network - 2500/5000 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP: 341,584
MP+1: 153,400
MP+2: 160,831
CO: 187,250
BTN: 105,985
Hero (SB): 142,785
BB: 208,511
UTG: 47,800
UTG+1: 62,586

9 players post ante of 625, Hero posts SB 2,500, BB posts BB 5,000

Pre Flop: (pot: 13,125) Hero has 4 A

fold, fold, MP raises to 11,000, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 8,500, BB calls 6,000

Flop: (38,625, 3 players) 2 5 J
Hero checks, BB checks, MP checks

Turn: (38,625, 3 players) A
Hero checks, BB checks, MP bets 19,313, Hero calls 19,313, fold

River: (77,251, 2 players) 6
Hero checks, MP bets 310,646 and is all-in, Hero calls 111,847 and is all-in

Today I continued with yesterday's trend of picking up small pairs in the blinds, but in this session I bumped them all up with a raise instead of checking or completing. I did this quite a few times, and it generated some resentment amongst my fellow players, who as usual wanted only to smash a cheap flop with their speculative junk hands.

In 3 1/2 hours, I was limp/shoved upon four (4) times. I was also 7.5x 3-bet shoved on once.

None of the villains' stacks were over $120, but all of them still amounted to high multiples of my preflop raise. Of the five instances, I folded three times, and I called/reshoved twice. Three of my hands were AQ and two of them were pocket pairs.

Let's review...and keep in mind that these shenanigans started up after I'd been bumping it up a lot from the blinds. This is the sort of spew you can engender by having an aggressive image.

Hand 1: EP limps, MP limps, BTN limps, I make it $15 to go in the SB with AQ, BB cold calls, EP folds, MP folds, BTN shoves for $100.

(Pot: $134) - Three players, two left to act.

I fold. BB tank calls with KQ. BTN shows AA and holds.

Hand 2: I open AQ from EP for $10, MP calls, HJ shoves for $75.

(Pot $98) - Three players, two left to act.

I fold, and MP folds. I hear HJ tell his neighbor something to the effect of "He thinks he's the table captain."

Hand 3: directly after hand 2, same villain. EP limps, MP (villain from last hand) limps, I make it $15 to go in the BB with AQ, EP cold calls, MP shoves for $97.

(Pot $128) - Three players, two left to act. This time I feel that I have enough information to make an exploitative reshove. EP is an extreme loose passive with a $150 stack who likes to call in position when I raise, or call anytime; really, but who has gotten out of the way when the big money went in. From what I gleaned from MP's table talk, he seems to have it in for me because I've raised so many of his limped pots.

I reshove my $300 stack. EP folds, MP shows ATo and I hold.

Hand 4: It's a few orbits after hand 3. Villain is the previous villain's neighbor to his left. EP limps, MP limps, CU limps, I make it $15 to go in the BB with 33 EP calls, MP shoves $85. CU folds.

(Pot: $118) - Three Players, two left to act. I fold and EP folds. MP Flashes KQ

Hand 5: directly after hand 4. Same villain from the last hand. EP limps, MP limps, I make it $12 to go in the SB with JJ, EP calls, MP shoves for $117. I reshove for around $400. EP folds. MP shows TT and I hold.

I wanted to play a 6 hour session, but after 3 1/2 hours I started to lose focus, though part of it was really wanting to book a decent win--which is counterproductive--we make money by playing hands. The more hands we play, the more money we make. Cutting a session short is cutting off EV. I'm going to try to play longer sessions going forward.

Red Rock Station: 3.5 hours:
+$303

Also, I did flop one set. I opened 66 from EP for $10 and got 3 calls. The flop came 456r and I thought...oh boy, here we go. But everyone folded to my flop bet.

No. We make money by playing when we are sharp, and then not spewing it away when we are tired.

No no no. Unless we are playing a simple limit game, or multi online games, or anything we can play simply by rote, this is completely wrong.

No. The only thing you are cutting off is spew.

Stop being so obstinate. Stop reading poker books written in the 80s and meant for idiotic limit games with 2 betting rounds. Try to make your next session 3 hours.

See? What did I tell you? Good quit! If the protestant work ethic compels you to play more, go to a completely different room and play a completely different game. Walk there. Or better yet, run.

Wow very nice looks you found a way to exploit these games, lots good size opens seems exploitive. Keep it up!

As far as the session length goes if you’re still feeling sharp and are at a table where you feel you have an advantage why not play more?

^For the most part, I'm following the action over the various streets more closely than I used to, and this expends energy from a limited reserve; however, if I keep up with it, following the action should become easier and burn through fewer resources, as is the case with most practice, and I'll be able to play longer sessions without tapping out.

^yes. Attention is like any other muscle--it gets stronger with exercise.

Miscellaneous and Sundry:

-I tend to look at my cards as soon as they're dealt to me. I don't like to hold up the action by ignoring my cards until it gets to me, and as there aren't very many tell expert villains at $1/$2, I believe that the small number of extra hands per hour I get from looking at my cards early provides more of an EV boost for me than avoiding anything I might give away by doing so.

Having said that, though, I have picked up a related tell on myself: When I peel up a junk hand, I am more prone to let it slap down audibly. If instead the hand is playable, I'm more likely to ease the cards back down to the felt. I've caught myself doing this a fair number of times, and then I've fixed it for a little while, until the time came when I caught myself doing it again.

This tell allows a moderately observant villain to mack on my blind if it's folded to him or her in late position, so I ought to stop doing it.

-On my way home on Sunday, a gentleman at the bus stop was coughing and hocking up phlegm in a blood-curdling manner, sounding in every way like a Captain Trips victim extra from the Stand miniseries. I let him get on the bus and then waited another 30 minutes for the next one.

-Speaking of Sunday, I was pretty impressed again with Cam Newton, and not at all impressed with the Patriot's defense. Putting up 30 points should be enough to win a game most of the time.

-I've started Henry David Thoreau's Walden, and I will be doing a half-read review on it at some point. It's been a good 25 years since I last read the book, but I remember a few things about Thoreau: he was in his late 20's when he wrote it, and like everything else he wrote, it was a dismal failure in terms of sales. It was long after his death at the age of 44 that the book became recognized as one of the masterpieces of the 19th century.

-I don't like to post bad beats, so suffice it to say that on Sunday I found two spots in which to get a lot of my money in very good, but I was not able to hold in either case. The good news is that I'm happy with the way my play has been improving, and I'll be back at tomorrow.

Red Rock Station: 4 hours:
(-$400)

Um thanks for not posting the bad bears on your -$400 loss.

I call this Card Snap. If it's any consolation, in a 1-2 game, I always interpret it as aces. You can bet me off of anything simply by snapping your cards.

Except that he's doing the opposite.

Russel Wilson is the best quarterback to never win MVP. Some of those butterfly passes were insane. So I chalk it up like a win for the Pats!
Remember, no bad beat stories.

Pretty solid game for the Pats, still think it’s there division. Let’s see what happens this weekend. Bills are slight favorites against the Rams but I give the Rams the slight advantage. Anyone have a bookie?

Incredible what an offseason and injuries can do!
The 49ers, a quarter away from a SB title in February, are now possibly the weak link of their division.

I've been shirking my live duties lately, but I have been running okay in tournaments on ACR, and I'm up around $1000 in the last week.

I have $2500 on the site now, which is a little too much given the history of unlicensed poker sites, so I'll probably cash out $1000.

This can be a problematic process, but thankfully Jonathan Little has a video on it. I'll take a look at it...later, as I'll probably play $100 or so in buyins today.

Well if your grinding out $1000 weeks online I can why you’re neglecting live games. Especially in the current environment. Playing with a mask surrounded by plexiglas six handed with locals, with two walking doesn’t seem like fun.

Unfortunately $1000 weeks are not sustainable on a site where I can't get myself to buy in for more than $300 in tournaments per week.

I played live yesterday and I think I tamped down on my card snapping tell, only to discover that I have a different tell: when I have a marginal preflop hand that may be playable depending on my position, I doublecheck the location of the button after I look at my cards. When I have a hand that's playable (or unplayable) in any position, then I don't peek at the button.

I'll have to remind myself of my position before I look at my cards, which will likely involve peeking at the button every time, then looking at my cards.

Red Rock Station: 3.5 hours:
(-$67)

I want some coronavirus, I'm coming to Vegas right MEOW.

Hit me up if you're serious, though I doubt you are. Covid cases are up 21% in the last week in Nevada. Here in Las Vegas I see people being pretty good about wearing masks. I'm guessing that the rural towns are not following suit, as that seems to be the pattern across the country.

As far as the Strip goes, I haven't been down there since mid-March. All I know is what I hear from other poker players talking about various rooms reopening--some of them just recently.

Red Rock Station: 4 hours
+$31