I played in a home game for the first time in over a month last night. Between holidays and the water pipe bursting in my friend's apartment, there wasn't much playing going on outside of disastrous trips to Cherokee (-500BB) and Ebro (-300BB). The game last night was sparked out of the Ingress community here and a number of folks wanting to do a cross-faction poker game (Ingress is an augmented reality game with two faction, Enlightened and Resistance). It ended up me, four guys from the other faction, and then 3 of my regulars. I managed to book a 120BB win, which was a nice feeling. Because of the difference in player pool as the seed for the game, it was NLHE only at .25/.50 with a max initial buy-in of 100BB. We did allow people to rebuy/top off up to the biggest stack at the table after initial BIs.

The early part of this year is going to be a trial of a balancing act as I've gone back to school to get my Masters degree, and both of my classes on Tuesday nights (the standard night of my poker game). Combine this with work, normal family stuff, and my son moving up in little league this year to two practices and two games a week, this is going to be an interesting semester.

On another note, I have the wife convinced to move to Florida (likely the Tampa area) after she gets her Paramedic certification and works her 18 months at her employer to pay back their paying for it. So it's still about 3-4 years away, but it means a possibility of being able to crash Schmendr1ck's game more often. ;-)

I can't recall being this jazzed up for a football game. I have had Patriots season tickets since Bledsoe and Parcells debuts in 1993. I don't get to many games now; but I went to the divisional playoff game, one of the best games I have ever attended, and since then I have a renewed interest.

That sucks to hear, man. Maybe I should move back.

Would love it! Other than poker games running semi infrequent life is pretty good. A bit upset I don't have a snow day tomorrow seeing as I can't get my cars out, but that's about it. Little guy + dissertation work is keeping me busy. How life and the new job?

I heard about the blizzard warning. You should probably just take a snow day anyway. Glad things are going well! Things out here are good. Haven't found any games, which has been lame, but I'm a grown up who works with candy for a living, so how bad can things be? Mrs. Drummin and I miss Chicago a lot though, so we might truly be headed back within the next year or two.

Bring it, sir! I'll be glad to have you, even though it's a ways down the road. There are also a few chippers from CT/PCF in the area who play regularly, I'm sure they wouldn't mind having a new player around.

Also GL with the Masters. I started mine many years ago as a full-time student, but got a job offer I couldn't refuse and ended up doing the last half as a part-timer taking one class at a time while working 40-60 hours. You'll be busy, but it's very doable.

Happy Groundhog Day!!! 6 more weeks of winter!!!!

I played at Daytona on Friday night, and it was one of my longest sessions in quite a while. It was one of those nights where I went into the hole right off the bat getting AA cracked, then just couldn't get a foothold to dig myself out.

I got down to about 50bb, flopped the nut straight multiway with black SCs, and made a fold that I'm still not sure about when a third diamond hit the turn and there was action before me. Down to 30bb, the next hand I 3-bet 1/3 of my stack with AQ from BTN, get one call, and he donks small on a Q98r flop. I shove, he snaps with JTo. NH GG rebuy 100bb.

I start to get my feet under me on BI #2, winning a few pots and getting up to 140bb. Then I lose a big one with 8T multiway: flop 67x one heart, checks to me, I try to steal and get a call from a shorter stack. Turn completes my GS with 9, I overbet the pot and shorty snaps. River 10, shorty shoves for less than half pot and I call, expecting to chop with another eight. He tables 8J and I'm down to 50bb.

As the night went on, the table got shorter and everyone started getting tired, suffering decision fatigue and tilt. I was tired too, but I've gotten a lot better at adjusting in these situations. Over the last three hours I tightened up, got full value out of two big hands (flopped set and flopped nut flush), took a few smaller pots with one pair hands and a few more with air and selective aggression, and managed to finally pull myself out of the hole.

The table broke at 7:30am Saturday. I'd played for twelve hours at the same table, was stuck for the first ten hours, and cashed out +46bb. I then went home and slept until 1pm - gotta love Mrs. S and the Schmenderlings for letting me get by with that one.

I plotted profit/loss over my 12 hour session based on my session notes, where I typically capture time, stack size, and notes about big/interesting hands. I don't know how useful this might be as a tool to learn and improve, but at the least I found it interesting to look at:

I only watched Groundhog Day once today. Marathon on AMC.

Where I'm from, Ground Hog day happens in February

Maybe I can catch a late showing tonight before the marathon ends - this movie is one of my all time favorites.

(Of course, I've got it on DVD around here somewhere too...)

I see what you did there.

Man, the mods of this forum SUCK. Three damn days to get the Feburary open thread up.

Needles from luckduck and abby 100% deserved.

Maybe we should just do what LLSNL does and have a never-ending LC thread. That sucker is nearing 16k posts IIRC.

What, no credit to me? I was wondering how long to would take someone to notice Groundhogs Day is in February? Good job luckduck.

Oops, my mistake, 1000 points to you. Just remember that this is the internet. Everything is made up, and...

It sure would make it easier to find things. Sometimes if looking for things it takes like me looking at a few months depending on the search to find what I'm looking for.

After a few mildly profitable trips to Indiana Casinos + one very nice one. I headed up to Hollywood Lawrenceburg Saturday to play some cash while their "Big" Tournament 10K Guarantee was running. The card room is very limited much of the time, but usually is decent during these larger Tournaments.

I ended up putting in eleven straight hours at this table (1-2 NLH) which is about twice my normal. Stayed close to break even till I got hit pretty hard on my two pair vs a set of 7s. Thought about racking up, but instead I reloaded back to the $200 max and played on. About 1/2 hour later I looked down at AA and 3bet ($30) his $10 open. He shoves, I call, he shows KK. Classic. AA hold up and I am back even (or a bit ahead).

The next several hours are up and down never more than $50 ahead or $ 50 down. Finally I hold QT on a board that is QT6x . Then this guy rivers a second 6 to make KK 66 which beats my QQ TT. I listen to the poker gods laughing at me and get up and head back to Kentucky down 75bb or $150. I had a ball. I wish I was a better player, but I just love this game win or lose. I love winning a little bit better LOL

I think that is a good idea. The separate threads were probably never necessary, but now that there are fewer posts, I see no reason to have one thread.

Anyone would be interested in seeing their graph go up at the end like that.

Done and done. No more slacker mods missing the new month, no more having to hunt through a dozen threads to find what you said last year. As of now, this will be the permanent HP low content/open thread.

Obviously, though my reason for posting was to see if there is anything that can be gained from looking at a session this way.

One thing I do seem to be reasonably good at is turning a losing session into a winner (or at least a smaller loser) in the wee hours of the morning, if I avoid tilt myself and focus on solid poker. After 3am, many at the table are tired and shifting gears, often stuck and playing way too loose. It also helps to catch some cards during this period; It's a near-guaranteed trip to valuetown when I pick up a hand against these folks.

That's a great asset, no doubt about it. It's easy to play worse when you are down.

Yes it is, and that's no different for me. It cost me a good bit of time, money and effort to work through that type of tilt: being tired and stuck, staying too late, and chasing losses. The hardest part was just learning to recognize when it was happening. After that, adjusting became much easier.

Now I find that when it's 5am and I'm on my second or third buy-in, I can still play a reasonably solid game without chasing or tilting. While it's not always my A-game, it's usually good enough to take down some pots from the other tired players at the table.