That actually sounds like fun! Thanks for the tip. It's been the stairmaster and elliptical for cardio lately. No idea where I'm going to find enough belly-button-high water in Dallas to walk in. I love walks along the beach when I'm on vacation though.

Back to poker, last night I was very close to breaking my records for most money won in a single poker session (previously $500) and most money won in a single LHE session ($400). At one point I was up $460. I was up $430 and had already announced it was my last hand of the night. I'm UTG with two black kings and raise. Folds around to the BB, a young Indian fish with only about $40 behind. He 3-bets me. I say to myself, "If he has aces he's getting my $40 and I'm not losing a second of sleep over it" and cap it. The board ran out fairly innocuously and he did indeed have AA, so I finished at $390 instead of $430. Still a good night though! And had fun.

I am now a lifetime winner at LHE over a 262-hour sample.

Yes!!! I love it.

Played O8 for the first time this year a couple weeks ago. It was a 5/10 game with a full kill. Bought in for $300 got up with $530. The Limit Omaha Hi-Lo chapter in Jeff Hwang's book is awesome. Planning a trip to the Orleans this summer where there are always multiple O8 tables running including 8/16 which I'll probably take at least one shot at. I wish the O8 game at my local casino (Winstar) ran it more often because I'm hooked.

your honesty is pretty amazing considering most poker players are full of sht or not self aware in their inabilities concerning poker. For starters your playing way too high for your bankroll but more importantly, as a person that had to start competitive chess and poker from scratch at a late age and slowly build up to being fairly good at both, i can tell you its simply a love of the game and hard work. If you dont have the discipline or time to deconstruct your game and fix your leaks then you have to play free online until you can improve and have a more objective approach to the game. From your recent posts it looks like your starting to figure it out though, GL on the tables bro

Full disclosure time.

I got PISSED OFF at the table last night. I slammed down my chips, slammed the cards down so hard that one of them flew all the way to the next table, uttered a few profanities and left.

I definitely felt embarrassed. I'm going to see several of those players again in the future and I'm sure they thought I looked really stupid. I felt guilty for affecting their enjoyment of their session (they were all nice, fun people to play poker with) for a brief moment but quickly realized they probably thought it was funny, and I did leave immediately, so that passed quickly.

Last night my emotions were like a roaring freight train, but I've had a chance to sleep on it and sort them out a bit.

I'm certain I went on entitlement tilt. Probably a lot of overconfidence in there too (which often goes hand in hand with entitlement). I studied hard last week, reviewed some old threads about hands I'd struggled with in the past and felt more truly prepared for a poker session than ever before.

I recently upped my daily stoploss from $200 to $400, partially because I'm now far better rolled than I have been in years past, and partially because I wanted to start playing O8 (Winstar runs 5/10 O8 with a full kill - to ride out the swings in a game like that one needs more than $200 on the table). I am also guessing that I didn't fully prepare myself for the possibility of actually losing the whole $400 in one day (jdr0317 even warned me that he's lost over 100BB in 12 hours before, and I "only" lost about 32BB in 9.5 hours, so maybe I'm nowhere near mentally prepared for the swings).

Early last month was my first 4/8 session with the new $400 stoploss. Within 30 minutes I was down $210, but there was no way I was going to get up from a table that was so juicy, and over the next 3 hours I ended up $100 ahead. Had I not increased my stoploss, I'd have been DONE and heading home after 30 minutes (which would have been the fastest I'd ever lost 25BB at a 4/8 table). The table last night was even juicier than that one, and I'm sure there's a part of me that EXPECTED to make it back up. The pots that were getting pushed all over the table were HUGE - "All I need is to win 1 or 2 pots and I'm right back in it!" I kept telling myself, but the pots I built kept going to villains.

One other thing I remember thinking last night is, this is a HUGE problem. Poker is supposed to be FUN. It's a HOBBY. When I sit at a table for 9 and a half hours and end up so pissed off I make a jerk of myself, that's not fun. That's neither a productive nor relaxing use of my time.

The last thing I'll say is, the timing of this event is a bit unfortunate. I'm leaving for Vegas today for a week's vacation and, naturally, was planning to play a TON of poker there (especially O8 which I rarely get the chance to play at Winstar).

I will welcome and appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks as always
DTXCF

This is standard wifing IME.

Why not ask your wife to come with you? Maybe she is just mad that you spending hours gambling while she is having to stay in cook and clean while you go out and enjoy yourself?

Take her out somewhere instead of saying you enjoy sitting for hours with strangers gambling. If she went out and gambling for hours while you were left at home it would also pi ss you of were you would moan.

This is probably your best all time post. Very well said.

I, too, learned chess in my 30's and even started dabbling in tournament play online and otb but I had to give it up. Poker is so vast and challenging that it requires 100% of my focus and attention. Chess sitting there was starting to become an excuse to break away from poker after a few bad sessions so I closed the Chess.com account, didn't renew my USCF, and I just work on my poker game now.

You're totally right, though and this is why so few adults make legit chess progress: It requires an insatiable desire to play chess. Studying, playing long games, going to tournaments - this has to be a true passion of yours or chess turns into a terrible grind with no upside.

Hope nobody minds my re-opening an old thread. In as few words as possible, the poker part of the vacation to Vegas that I took in July 2019 went so badly that by the end of the week I ended up changing hobbies. I was a magician for 4 years (not joking, look up TheMetalMagician on YouTube - that's me!). A few months ago my magic hobby fizzled and I started getting back into poker. I dusted off my old copy of Malmuth/Miller/Sklansky's SSHE bible and read it from cover to cover about 5 times. The casino near me runs $4/$8LHE fairly reliably on Saturdays so I get out there when I can. The LHE tables there are usually full of very nice people - when there's a jerk at any of those tables it's so rare it's a surprise. Very enjoyable games.

I plan to continue going to the LHE games on Saturdays as often as possible. As to whether or not I'll ever get back into playing online (i.e. GlobalPoker), or getting back into PLO, FLO8 or NLHE (shortstacking for sure), I strongly doubt it. LHE is my "jam". But you never know what the future holds.