The Bat Cave

Welp, if I don’t post this in the next hour or so then it’s probably never going to happen since my WSOP technically kicks off in 2.5 hours. I just figured I’d post something about how my 2023 has gone leading up to the World Series.

I think the most notable change for me so far this year is that I have transitioned back to Limit Hold’em. In 2022, 74% of my live cash hours were in NL and only 15% in LHE. In 2023, I’m at 42% NL and 49.5% LHE – but that split is even more drastic over the last few months with 67% of my live hours being in LHE since April 1st.

It makes sense though. NL has been going poorly and LHE has been going, uh, spectacularly. The results have certainly been part of it, but also the 3/5 games at Palace have largely dried up during the week. Sure, it still gets off the ground pretty much every day, but it gets really weak in the evening and frequently breaks long before I’m ready to quit playing for the day. This has led to me thinking I’m better off just going to Fortune and playing 20/40 there. Interestingly, when I was driving down to Vegas last Friday, Palace somehow had three 3/5 games going. That blows my mind. 3/5 is actually pretty steady on Fridays and Saturdays – and I was playing there on Fridays every week at first, but my doom switch is fully activated – I won on my first 3/5 Friday session of the year and I haven’t won again since. I’ve only played three Friday sessions at Palace since the end of January though but they have all gone miserably: -$1499, -$1356, -$1542. All told, I’m down over $5500 on Fridays at Palace this year – on what is supposed to be my best day of the week there. Granted, this is a 44.5 hour sample size we are talking about here – barely a week’s worth of full-time play – so this is all just noise, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some accumulated tilt going on and I have found myself preferring to play 20/40 at Fortune on Fridays the last few months. So yes, the sample size is tiny, but when I get back from Vegas in late July, I’ll be able to say I haven’t won at Palace on a Friday in almost seven months and that sounds pretty fun and dramatic, right?

Also, this one pot I’m about to share is the difference between me being breakeven at Palace in 2023 and me being a solid winner:

I feel like things at Palace have gone poorly overall, but when I filter Fridays out of the equation, my results actually look pretty reasonable: $72/hour @ 3/5 and $20/hour @ 1/3. The problem is the 3/5 tends to be fragile on other days of the week and I really don’t want to play a ton of 1/3 but smaller games have accounted for almost half my hours when I do show up to Palace Monday through Thursday. It’s just become increasingly hard for me to walk into Palace these days. I think 1/3 would be far more tolerable if they increased the maximum buy-in to at least $500, but still, I’d much rather play 20/40.

Yes, my love of Limit Hold’em has returned. I mean, it never really left. I’ve always enjoyed playing 20/40 over playing 1/3 or 3/5 whenever I go to Fortune. I just enjoy the pace of the game so much more. Yes, NL is far more complex and mistakes from opponents are far more costly, but I just love the bang bang bang pace of playing limit games.

I knew I was having a really good year at Fortune, but I didn’t know exactly how good until I strung together four +$2k sessions in a row and lost that streak by booking a +$549 and wondered how long it had been since I actually had a losing 20/40 session. I was astonished to discover I was at 15 winning sessions in a row! I’ve played a ton of Limit Hold’em in my life and I’ve never come close to that kind of winning streak before. I was shocked. I’d guess that the absolute best streak I’ve ever gone on is probably like 9 or 10 wins in a row but certainly nothing like this. Variance is just so high in Limit Hold’em. Looking at my lifetime results and filtering out sessions of less than 5 hours, I lose about 4 out of every 10 sessions I play. That’s losing nearly half the time I show up to play so stringing together 15 consecutive wins is unheard of. I haven’t lost at Fortune in over four months! It’s crazy!

There was some luck involved here. I didn’t know this was happening so there were a couple times during the streak when the game broke after 2 or 3 hours and I happened to be winning at the time. At least one other time, I was summoned home early and happened to be winning. Since I’ve become aware of this streak, I’ve had three more wins, putting my streak at 18 wins in a row heading to WSOP. Now that I am aware of the streak, I do feel like I’d consider it still in tact if the game broke after two hours and I was losing. That would be a shitty way to “lose” it. Likewise, I don’t feel like I can quit after three hours when I’m winning just to keep the streak alive. I’d say six hours is probably the minimum number of hours I’d like to play for qualification. Also, this streak is specific to Fortune 20/40. I lost at Last Frontier in La Center earlier this month and I’ll certainly be playing some 20/40 in Vegas during the WSOP.

Overall, I’m somehow running at 3.64 big bets per hour in 20/40 at Fortune in 2023 and 4.32 big bets per hour during the streak. So yeah, kind of hard to talk myself into playing at Palace when I’ve been making almost $150 an hour at Fortune this year. It’s been awesome, but this isn’t real life. My LHE win rates always level out between 1.25 and 1.5 big bets per hour annually, so I’ll eventually come back down to earth, but I’ve also never had a streak like this before so my 2023 20/40 win rate will almost certainly be bigger than it ever has been before.

Pretty insane stuff. Note: I know it says 19 of 19 there, but one of those sessions was split up because the feeder game broke and I jumped in something else while I waited for the main game. Streak is at 18.

Pre-WSOP, tournaments have gone well for me so far. I’ve only played eight tourneys across parts of four different series that I mostly didn’t partake in. I have 3 cashes with my best one coming in the Main Event of the Little Creek series in March, finishing 2nd of 77 for a nearly $13k score, which actually cracks my top 5 of all time. I thought I was pretty much a lock to win it when I got heads up with an older woman that looked like a doppelgänger of my own mom, but she pretty much owned me heads up… by having the best hand every time. She played better than I thought she was going to, but I don’t think I lose very often if the cards are even remotely cooperative.

Anyways, that finish has me sitting on a sexy ROI of 191% for the year as I head into a WSOP that is going to drastically change that number one way or the other.

One last thing, someone posted a brutal / hilarious comment on my last music post. Here it is:

Love your blog man. But the music/movie lists are kinda brutal. Maybe you should make a second blog? A list of your top 20 most watched actors for the year?? Lol come on man. Give us that poker/life content. No one cares what you’re listening to, sorry.

Poogs

I mean… ouch. But also, message received. I don’t think it’s necessarily true that NO ONE cares about that stuff, but it is true that very few people seem to. I still think it’s fun to track for my own personal amusement though, so if you’re ever curious about my music stats and what I’m listening to, I’ve created a page I will update every month or two with that information, but the only posts I make on music from now on will either be album reviews (which I seem to be done with) or a year end write up. Check out my music stats here: Music Stats.

Crazy. I was looking for my 2021 results post for reference and I couldn’t find it. Did I never post one? Sheesh. Just my 2021 WSOP results? I’ll be damned. I could spend some time talking about how 2022 was a transition year for me, but ya’ll already know that by now. Let’s just get into the numbers.

Live Cash Games

I played 1101.5 hours of live cash in 2022. My primary game was 3/5 no limit Hold’em, with roughly 55% of my live hours coming in that exact game. I played 15.6% of my hours in 1/3 NL games and 9.5% in 20/40 limit Hold’em. No other specific game accounted for even 4% of my live cash hours. Pre-pandemic – and for as long as I’ve been playing poker pretty much – I probably played 95% of my live hours in limit Hold’em games. In 2022, limit Hold’em accounted for 15% of my total cash game hours and no limit Hold’em took up 74% of my volume. It has been quite the shift. I’ve enjoyed the transition – especially financially – but I actually want to play more limit Hold’em in 2023.

Win Rates

3/5 NL: 16 big blinds per hour (7.52 bb/hr in 2021)
1/3 NL: -5.33 big blinds per hour (18.7 bb/hr in 2021)
20/40 LHE: 2.97 big bets per hour (1.45 BB/hr in 2021)

All no limit Hold’em: 9.86 big blinds per hour (14.81 bb/hr in 2021)
All limit Hold’em: 2.89 big bets per hour (1.3 BB/hr in 2021)
Non-Hold’em cash games: -$21.21 per hour** ($11.19/hr in 2021)

**Mixed games made up only 10% of my live cash hours and I’m not sure how to best express how well or bad I did. Overall, I lost money – and a decent amount. Some of the games had no limit or pot limit mixed in, so expressing my win rate in big bets isn’t super accurate. Basically, my year in live mix games can be summed up like this: I did well in home games; I did well in the 10/20 HORSE game when Little Creek was running that; I did poorly the few times I played 10/20 O8 at Palace; I got crushed over two sessions in a 30/60 mix game in Houston.

Top 5 Sessions

+$5808 at Fortune in 20/40 LHE
+$4390 at Bellagio in 40/80 LHE
+$2921 at Palace in 3/5 NL
+$2870 at Palace in 3/5 NL
+$2742 at Palace in 3/5 NL

Bottom 5 Sessions

-$3900 at private game in 5/10 NL
-$3329 at Palace in 3/5 NL
-$2675 at private game in 5/10 NL
-$2400 at Prime Social in 30/60 Mix
-$2324 at Palace in 3/5 NL
-$2215 at private game in 5/10 NL
-$2084 at Palace in 3/5 NL

Notes:

-That 20/40 session at Fortune was not only my best session of the year, but it was also my second best cash game session of all-time.
-My pain threshold found new levels this year. I’d never lost more than $2300 in a single session before 2022 and then I went it did it five times just last year.
-I included more than 5 sessions for my bottom because three of those results were in private cash games that I’m staked in. While they technically count when looking at my overall performance, they don’t affect my bottom line nearly as much as sessions where I have 100% of myself.
-Ignoring the private game results, the -$2400 in the 30/60 Mix was a record worst loss for me at the time – and then I demolished that mark with the -$3329 in 3/5 @ Palace. Good times!

Live Tournaments

I played 330+ hours across 47 entries in live tournaments in 2022. I managed a mere 7 cashes for a paltry 14% rate of finishing in the money. I made trips to Houston, Vegas, Lincoln City, Sacramento, and Pendleton – and I only had one winning trip the whole year. But it was a big one. I took 1st of 388 entrants in the Lincoln City Main Event for around $52,000 – a career high tournament score. Thanks to that win I finished the year with over $66k in cashes versus $46k in entry fees and a 44% ROI for 2022. After never having a losing year of tournament poker in my life, I booked losses for 2019, 2020, and 2021, but managed to snap that cold streak this year. Sort of. Without my big win, I would have had BY FAR my worst year of tournament poker ever. Tournament poker is funny that way – one score can change EVERYTHING. Also, even though I ended up regretting it, not playing the $10K Main Event helped my end of year numbers, as bricking a tournament that is over 10x my average buy-in has a huge effect on my final numbers and is largely why I had a losing 2019 and 2021 in poker tournaments.

Top 5 Cashes

$50,174 1st of 388 at Chinook Winds in $600+$200 NLH Main Event
$4440 19th of 471 at WSOP in $1500 Stud 8 or Better
$3900 28th of 522 at WSOP in $1500 Limit Hold’em
$3700 8th of 269 at Wynn in $600 Omaha 8 or Better
$1525 30th of 407 at Wynn in $600 PLO Turbo

Career Numbers (since summer of 2013)

ROI: 55%
ROI (excluding WSOP Main Event): 83%
ROI at WSOP: 57%
ROI at WSOP (excluding Main Event): 122%
ROI in NLH: 100%
ROI in HORSE: 93%
ROI in O8: 38%
ROI in all other games: -33%
ROI in entries of $2500+: -63% (2 cashes/9 entries)

WSOP cashes: 20
Current GPI Ranking: 3526th
Washington All-Time Money List Ranking: 72nd

The Hand That Won Me $50k

It’s been over three months since I won the Main Event in Lincoln City, so this hand history might be a little fuzzy. But it was something like this: we were already pretty deep in the tournament – in the money already with maybe 3 to 5 tables left. I had heaps. Both my opponents in this hand had heaps. I think I started with something like 900k and they both had me covered. We were all well above average chip stacks. I think the blinds were 5k/10k with a 10k big blind ante and I was in the big blind with 77. Under the gun opened to 20k, the very next player called, and it folded to me and I defended the big blind.

The flop was 987 with two diamonds. Pretty nice. I check, the preflop raiser checks, and I believe the next guy bet 40k. This is obviously an extremely wet board. Our first instinct is to raise and be willing to put all the money in the pot. However, this board also absolutely smacks this player’s range as well. 99, 88, and JT suited are all hands I can see him flatting an under the gun open with from early position. He can also have some overpairs – like TT-QQ – some big diamond draws, and some straight draws. I end up deciding to check-call to keep things under control and see what develops on the turn. The preflop opener folds.

The turn card is perfect for our hand. It’s an offsuit four. None of the draws get there, but it also doesn’t really change the dynamic we had on the flop. I check and he bets 100k. I think about raising here also, but again elect to go with check-call.

The river pairs the four. What else could we want? Quads? I strongly consider leading out, but after giving it a lot of thought, I end up checking again. He bets 200k. It seems like I have an automatic jam here but the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t come up with hands that he was likely to call with that I could beat. JT was about the only one. I thought my opponent was a sharp dude, so I didn’t think he would call a jam with hands like TT+. If he was blasting off with a busted draw he obviously wasn’t calling with those hands (and he probably wouldn’t bet this sizing on the river either). So if he’s only calling with JT suited, 99 and 88, that’s six combos of full houses and four combos of straights. I shouldn’t have to do that math for anyone to know that jamming would be bad in this scenario. I didn’t see the merit in going all in and finally said, “this is probably a mega nit roll but…” and put out the calling chips. He turned over 99 for the nut full house and I continued on with a stack that was still well above average.

I’ve talked about this hand a lot with my friends and I still can’t explain exactly why I played it the way I did. Sometimes your instincts are going off for a reason. I’ve learned that not trusting my instincts is usually to my own detriment and trusting them in this exact spot absolutely saved my tournament life and allowed me to go on to make the biggest tourney score of my life.

From 8-1 Underdog to Champion

Sometimes when I go really deep in tournaments, I start fantasizing about winning the whole thing, particularly in bracelet events, but during this Chinook Winds Main Event run, the thought never really crossed my mind until the first big pot I won during heads up (although I did have a brief moment after that 77 vs 99 hand where I wondered if destiny was calling). The guy I was playing against was applying tons of pressure at the final table and doing most of the heavy lifting. I was basically just sitting there watching everyone else get bullied and knocked out by him, so when I did make it to heads up play, he had a MASSIVE chip lead and I was rather content that I was probably going to finish 2nd.

And then he opened his button and I defended with the 98 offsuit. The flop was 822 and I checked it to him. I can’t remember blinds or stack sizes but he made a c-bet and I decided to jam on him since a pair of 8s wasn’t exactly the kind of hand I was looking to check-call down with on the majority of runouts. He snap-called and I figured I was drawing to two outs. I rolled my hand and he was immediately disappointed because he thought I had him outkicked. But then he turned over his hand and was even more disappointed: he had 75 offsuit. In a stunning development, he turned zero equity and I quickly had a full double with a mediocre pair with a mediocre kicker and absolutely no sweat.

A few hands later, he raised his button and I defended with the 86 offsuit. The flop was pretty solid: T97. I checked, he bet 200k, and I raised it to 650k, he called. The turn was an unfortunate 6 and I decided to check it over to my guy since he had shown a tendency to attack weakness and overbluff. He obliged with a bet and I merely called. The river was a blank and I again checked it over to him and he didn’t disappoint by jamming for several times the size of the pot. I didn’t play my hand this way to fold to this kind of player, so I snap called and all he could produce was K3. We were pretty close in chip count at his point, but when the dust settled, we realized I had him covered and that was it. My biggest tournament win of all-time.

A Note About Volume

Altogether I played 1432 hours of live poker in 2022. That number is up from 1206 hours in 2021, but I only played 13 hours outside home games during the first three months of 2021. The rest of that year, I played an average of 123 hours a month. In 2022, I only averaged 119 hours a month. Somehow I went from being married to not being married and played less poker. Huh.

I addressed this problem of mine in a previous blog and I made a bet with a couple friends that I could play 320 hours of live poker over the last two months of 2022. It was a lock. I had trips to Pendleton and Vegas planned. And I still fell almost 30 hours short. Amazing. Granted, we didn’t bet enough for me to care about losing, but damn! That’s embarrassing! I think a reasonable goal for 2023 is to play 1600+ hours. That’s about 30 hours a week and since I plan on studying WAY more in 2023 and that number still represents a 15% increase in volume, it feels like a fair challenge.

2023 Goals

-Play more limit Hold’em at 20/40+ stakes

-Maintain my win rate at 3/5 locally

-Get out of makeup with my cash game backer

-Show a profit at 5/10+ NL

-Travel somewhere I’ve never been before

-Play more live mix games

-Play more live NLH tournaments

-Play WSOP Main Event

-Play 1600+ hours on the live felt

-Study at least 2 hours a week

-Teach my girlfriend how to play and get her in 4/8 games by spring

-Have my best year ever in poker

Overall, I’m pretty happy with my results in 2022. I wish I would have played more. I wish I played the Main Event. My cash game results were great and my tourney win added some nice cushion to my bankroll. After three mediocre years, I’m back to the level of success I enjoyed from 2016 to 2018. I fully expect 2023 to be my best year yet.

I’ll be headed to Los Angeles for the LAPC next week so here’s a look at the events I’ll be targeting:

Wednesday, 1/29 – $400 Limit Hold’em
Thursday, 1/30 – $400 H.O.R.S.E. (Hold’em, Omaha 8/B, Razz, Stud, Stud 8/B)
Friday, 1/31 – $400 T.O.E. (2-7 Triple Draw, Omaha 8/B, Stud 8/B)
Saturday, 2/1 – Cash Games (or $400 No Limit H.O.R.S.E.)
Sunday, 2/2 – Cash Games (or hunt down a Jojo Rabbit showing)
Monday, 2/3 – $600 Omaha 8/B
Tuesday, 2/4 – $600 Stud (or Cash Games)
Wednesday, 2/5 – $600 2-7 Triple Draw
Thursday, 2/6 – $600 H.O.R.S.E.
Friday, 2/7 – $600 Draw Mix (2-7 Triple Draw, A-5 Triple Draw, Badugi)

I’m really excited about this series because I feel like my mix game play has come a long way… even since I played this same series last year. I’ve never played a 2-7 Triple Draw tournament, or a Stud Hi tournament, and I’ve only played one tournament each of T.O.E. and Draw Mix. But I’ve played all these games a ton over the past year. The No Limit H.O.R.S.E. tourney is intriguing, but I think it’s important to prioritize a cash game day over a tournament I didn’t plan to play. Commerce does award bonus money to the Mix Game Player of the Series so if I happen to bink one of my first few events, I’ll have to consider playing as many as I can and that would also require return trips later in the month. Also, I’m not a lock to play the $600 Stud tourney. If I skip any event I have in ink right now, that’ll be the one. Matt Savage (the Tournament Director) didn’t schedule any events for Sunday because of the Super Bowl, so I’ll be playing cash games that day, but I kind of like the idea of starting a tradition of going to the movie theater during the Big Game I don’t give a shit about, so if Jojo Rabbit is playing anywhere nearby, that’s what I’ll be doing.

Joker, Radio Mike, and Ducky will be joining me for the first 4-5 days of this trip and I think all of them are planning to play the LHE event, so that will be a fun day to sweat. I’ll probably post some blogs with stack updates, but I won’t be doing any in-depth writing while I’m on the road.

My last trip to Commerce was just profitable enough to nudge it below Aria on my list of worst locations ever. It is still one of three locations I’ve lost over $2k at (Tulalip and Aria being the others) and the only casino in the world where I’ve played 200+ hours and have lost money overall.

So… let’s change that and get 2020 off to a nice start!

Click here for the full LAPC schedule.

I only played two poker sessions during the week of the 14th through the 20th (so much for putting in huge volume this month) so I didn’t feel like it made a ton of sense to make a progress post last week.

Since things have been going pretty miserably for me, I’ve made more of an effort to focus on my mental game during my time off and find a system to help me keep things in a more logical perspective (i.e. noting my mistakes and how much variance is affecting my results) and hold myself emotionally accountable while making sure I take breaks at regular intervals to decompress.

I didn’t have too many interesting hands during my 15/30 session two Fridays ago, but it was notable because I peaked at +$1200 and it looked like I might actually book a good win but it wasn’t meant to be and I ended up finishing the day at -$369 somehow. The Buffet was in the game and on my immediate left, making life difficult for me. When you have a maniac right behind you playing every hand and you’re having a tough time connecting with the board, it can be really hard to navigate postflop. I found myself in a lot of heads up spots where I just had ace high against someone that is bluffing way too much. It feels pretty gross to just check-call down whenever I miss – especially since we are playing 25/50 Overs – so some of the time I would take aggressive lines and that didn’t work out well for me. For instance, I open AQ and we cap it preflop (which I usually never do out of position in heads up pots). I c-bet on K98 with two spades (none in my hand) and then bet-fold on a 5x turn only for him to show me A4 of spades. Fortunately, he did help bloat some pots that I did win, so it wasn’t all bad.

The biggest reason my session cratered is because of two sets I flopped from the big blind in raised pots.

The first hand was a multi-way raised pot that I defended from the big blind with 33. Master Splinter bet the flop, there was a call, and I check-raised on a board of T73 with two hearts. One of the original limpers cold-called my flop bet and I think four of us saw the turn. It was a 9 of hearts and that’s a pretty miserable card for me. I decided to lead into the field anyway and I was pretty happy when no one raised me. The river was a brick and since no one showed strength on the turn, I fired again and got called by the flop cold caller and Splinter. Before I turned my hand over, I said, “I’m not sure I can beat his hand” while referencing the flop cold caller and sure enough he had the 54 of hearts. That’s when Master Splinter showed a set of 7s and seemed to be criticizing me a little because he “knew” the other guy had a flush… like he was going to save a bet somehow if I checked at some point?

A short while later, I found myself defending the big blind in another raised pot, again with the 33. This time the flop was T73 with two clubs and a diamond and Taz decided to lead into the field after cold-calling from the small blind preflop. I deviated from my standard play in this spot and just called (a mistake) and I think only one player called behind me. The turn was a 6 and the three of us got four bets in. Taz is notorious for overplaying hands so I think 4-betting this turn makes sense and it seems like the other player probably has clubs. When the river is the jack of diamonds, bringing in a backdoor flush, and Taz still fires, I don’t see value in a raise, so I call and he ends up showing me the 98 for a straight.

Yeah, poker can be pretty hard when your sets don’t win.

Oh, we also played a 15/30 Mix session at Scarecrow Station the night before and I won $230 but it looks like I kept zero notes.

I went with Ducky to Red Dragon on Tuesday for some 20/40 Mix and started my session out with a pat T72A Badugi against three one card draws and everyone missed so I had about $250 of sugar for a potential coasting session.

A few hands later I opened from the cutoff with A444 and two diamonds in my hand and thoughts of using this as a bluffing candidate if nothing developed for me and I got 3-bet by the button. I drew a Q and a 7d so no improvement, but another relevant diamond blocker and check-called. I drew two again and caught an offsuit 7 and another small diamond so I went with my plan and check-raised and pat to snow after he called me. He drew one and then folded when I bet after the last draw. More sugar for coasting.

I had a weird Stud 8 hand where I had 88-4QAK against an opponent that started with a 9 up and looked like he had a modest two pair, at best. I called his bet on 6th street and he fired dark on 7th. I thought that was pretty strange since from his perspective I could still be drawing to a wheel, so when I made aces up on the river I figured to be scooping a lot of the time and it felt like an obvious raising spot. I’m not sure why, but my instincts were giving me pause and I ended up just calling and this guy showed me three tens. I wish I could look at the hand replayer for this one because I don’t recall a ten on his board, although he might have caught one on 6th street. I wish I could recall exactly because whether or not he smoked with it with a pair of tens or three tens makes a pretty big difference in how I should perceive this player. Unfortunately, this hand also ended my chances at coasting for the session.

During an A-5 Triple Draw round I managed to find losses with 6542A (#4) and 6532A (#3) in back-to-back hands and I have to admit that stung quite a bit.

Variance decided to make up for that little run of misfortune by giving me a dealt pat 6 in Badugi in a 5-way pot that was capped predraw and 3-bets 3-ways after the first draw and still good at showdown.

I went about two hours without really playing any hands before getting dealt 76532 (#3) in 2-7 Triple Draw and watching the action go raise, call, and 3-bets before the action got to me. I capped from the small blind and everybody called. Everyone else drew 1 or 2 cards and the button ended up raising me after drawing one. I 3-bet to charge the others or get them out and they folded but he capped it. We both stayed pat and I lead out again but when he still raised me on the big bet street, I could just immediately sense that I was beat and called down the rest of the way. I just feel that at this point I’ve told him that I have a really, really good hand at multiple points and he’s saying, “so what?” Does he play a smooth 8 this way? I’m not sure, but I’m guessing not. He probably plays #3 or #4 this way, but in the moment, I just knew I was beat by this point. I called down and, sure enough, he had a wheel. So I have now lost with #3 and #4 in A-5 and #3 in 2-7 and I have to admit I was pretty frustrated about it, but I also must note that these things don’t just happen in online mix games only! It’s possible to run horrible everywhere I play!

I can also steam everywhere! Double Board Omaha on the very next hand and I raise it up with AA87 with a suit and both blinds call. The flops are KJT and 543 and I bet when it checks to me (probably bad) and the small blind check-raises. The big blind cold calls and it says in my notes that I 3-bet hoping to get the pot heads up somehow (seems weird and optimistic) and the small blind did cap and the big blind did fold, so I guess it worked, but my logic here sucks as I don’t have a good hand on either board and people generally don’t fold after cold-calling two bets. I was probably dead on the KJT board and I had a gutshot and backdoor flush draw (and aces) on the 543 board. Fortunately, I drilled both turns and I raised his bet on boards of KJTA and 5436, so I had the nuts on the bottom and a big redraw on top. The river bricked though and I ended up chopping with AQ44. He flopped the nuts on top and a set on bottom and I somehow luckboxed my way to half of this pot and avoided getting scooped on the river.

I lost some funky Razz pots after that and had to settle for a -$551 day at the office.

Something else worth noting: when we left around 1:30 AM, Red Dragon had 9 games running. Meanwhile, Fortune had four games going and Palace had a single 4/8 table running. That’s pretty awesome for Red Dragon and depressing as hell for anyone that lives south of Renton… like I do. It seems like the good poker action in the Pacific Northwest is always gravitating further and further away from where we live.

On Thursday we put together a 15/30 Mix game at Billy Dubz’ Battlefield with some new faces, but those new faces didn’t seem interested in playing a long session as all three players new to me left before 10pm despite a 5pm game start. As such, we were all done playing by 11:30.

I only took a couple of notes for this entire session, but they are pretty interesting.

In a 2-7 NL Single Draw hand, with blinds of $10 and $15 (plus $15 dead from the button) and a $300 cap, it folds to Billy Dubz on the button and he opens for… $300. One of the blinds called him and the blind announced he was drawing one and Billy Dubz was obviously pa- uh… drawing two! They ran it once and Billy Dubz somehow managed to turn over a made 8 in what has to be the sickest NL 2-7 hand I’ve personally seen so far.

Another 2-7 NL Single Draw hand, one of the new guys opens for $60 and I cap it at $300 with K8652. He calls. He’s pat and I announce I’m drawing one and we agree to run it twice. He turns over a pat… ace? We’ve already played multiple hands of this game, so I’m perplexed at how this has happened, but here we are. As soon as we turn our hands up and everyone reacts to his holding, I can tell he genuinely forgot that aces are bad, so I’m preparing to give him $150 back if I happen to bink both draws. But what happens if I pair twice? Who knows. Perhaps I’m setting myself up to get freerolled with this mindset, but taking advantage of someone that doesn’t fully understand the rules of the game is not how I’m looking to make money… especially in a home game. Fortunately, I nail the first draw and don’t have to worry about it and then I pair on the second one and it’s a moot point anyway.

Last hand is a Big O hand played pot limit with the $10 and $15 blinds stripped to $5 and $5 with $15 dead in the middle and a $300 cap. I limp along with KQJT7 double suited and see a flop of AJ3 with two spades and a diamond. The first limper leads $30. I have the nut flush draw and an inside Broadway wrap, but the two low cards on board are not ideal. As such, I don’t think I want to bloat the pot here, but I do want to see a turn card for cheap if I can. I call and so does one other player. The turn is a king so I now have the nut straight, the nut flush draw, and two pair. The flop bettor leads for $105 and I cap it for $265 total. The third player clears out and the other guy calls. He has KQT32 for the same straight as me, as well as a worse flush draw and a worse two pair. He also has no low draw. The first board is a brick but the second board is a 3, one of the two outs he had to quarter me here. Because that’s just how I’ve been running lately.

I ended up finishing -$620 for that session, which is actually my biggest loss in our mixed home games since my first time we played with red chips all the way back in January 2018. So I guess I can’t complain about everything.

I was happy to see 15/30 on Friday start with Flea, FBI Guy, and Animal in the game as the starting lineups have been less than ideal lately. A reminder of my current cold stretch in this exact game: I’ve lost 8 of my last 10 sessions for just over $5k and I’ve been running at -1.9 BB/hr during this stretch. My biggest win is $622 and I’ve had three losses of at least $1379 since late July. It’s basically been pure misery for 2+ months now and I can feel the added pressure to break the snide with each passing week. There is a lot of accumulated emotion associated with the Palace 15/30 right now and I’ve taken steps to combat it, mostly in the form of breaks every 90 minutes to reflect on the session so far and recollect myself if necessary.

I’d start this session off with multiple mistakes. First, I opened with black queens and Fanboy was my only caller from the big blind. He check-called a bet on an A43 all club flop so when the turn was a king, I didn’t see much reason to continue betting. I don’t think he’s folding an ace and if he had the nut flush draw, he has me beat now. Also, the hands I’m beating don’t have much equity against me so my hand doesn’t really need any protecting and the last thing I want to do is put two big bets in on the turn. So I check back and he leads out when the river pairs the ace. Fanboy is a tight player and I can hardly remember a time when I saw him bet the river as a bluff and get called, so this is just a fold, but I called and he showed me the A5 and immediately I’m annoyed at myself for paying him off.

Next, there’s a raise and call in front of me and I call with the A6 of spades. I’m not really a fan of this call. I’d prefer to see more players involved before I call two bets cold with a hand like this. The pot does go off 5-ways and I end up having position, so that’s not too bad. The board comes AJ9 with one spade and I try to limit the field and possibly take a free card by raising the flop continuation bet, but it totally backfires and comes back to me capped and still 5-ways. I hate my hand so my plan is to fold on the turn unless it’s a spade or maybe an ace or six, depending on the action. Huey was the PFR, initial flop bettor and the capper and Ducky 3-bet the flop from the big blind. It’s pretty standard for Huey to cap the flop with hands that don’t warrant it and then take a free card on the turn, so when he checks on a blank turn, I’m able to check back as well. Unfortunately, this means that when Ducky bets on a blank river and everyone folds to me, I now only have to call $30 to get to showdown with top pair in this rather monstrous pot, so I pay it off knowing I’m never good and he shows a set of jacks.

I get to my first break and I’m already down $600 and super annoyed at the outcome of both of those hands. Not just with the runouts and the circumstances, but also with my decision-making. The second hand I should have just folded preflop and instead I lost $200+ with it.

My second round of action was a lot better. I played a 3-bet pot with 66 from the big blind and held on strong on a runout of 543ccT7 against 55 and what was probably an overpair. That pot got me close to even. Then I flopped flushes in back-to-back orbits in hands I raised from under the gun. Unfortunately, both times, I didn’t get a single call after the flop. Still, by the the time I went on my second break, I was back in the black.

Here’s a hand Ducky is probably wondering about, so I’ll include it. He opens under the gun + 1 and I think I’m the only caller with AK in the big blind. The flop is A55 and I check-raise him. The turn is a brick and he raises. I’m certain I have the best hand here and I’ve seen Ducky raise the turn and check back rivers enough that I don’t want to let that happen here, so I make it three bets and he tanks for a while and eventually folds.

Some people just want to make the blog. There is a limper or two and I raise the big blind with AK. The flop is T42 with one spade (uh, it’s relevant to say this) and I continuation bet. I check most of the time I whiff completely in multi-way pots, but there are certain board textures that are better to bet on than others and I think this spot qualifies. Joker is my only caller from the small blind. The turn is the queen of spades, a great card to continue barrelling, as it gives me more equity and improves a number of hands in my range. Joker calls again. The river is a 5 and I decided to give up and when he shows me the J5 of spades I immediately regret it. I think he check-raises most of his tens and it’s unlikely he has a queen (although if he can have J5 here, he can have anything really), but most of his straight draws have a 5 in them. It just doesn’t seem like I’m winning many showdowns if I check back and since I think his range is weak here I want to put pressure on all his weak pair hands as we have enough history that he knows I’m not triple barrel bluffing very often.

I ran AA into J9 on 873TK and AK into JT on K958Q (a hand that probably warrants more discussion) and my inability to find upward momentum in this game continues. I did manage to hold on for a +$77 finish so that’s something, but hardly the results I’m looking for.

On Saturday, I headed up to Red Dragon. I got locked out of the mix game on some bullshit and played PLO for a bit. I ran my $300 stack up to $600+ before getting moved to the main game in a must move situation and I strongly considered just cashing out and watching the World Series. The main table looked a lot tougher and all the stacks were quite deep. I just wasn’t feeling it. But of course I sat down. Then I made it $20 with AAT2 with spades and got give callers. Action was on me on a flop of K93 with two spades and Dewey was next to act behind me and bet the pot out of turn. It folded back to me and I decided to go with it and made it $420 and we got my whole stack in. He says he only runs it once and he had top set, but I turned a flush and then the board paired on the river and I got stacked. I had three black chips in my pocket, but I didn’t go there to play PLO so I just got up and watched the World Series game until my Mix seat came open.

I was in a pretty foul mood by the time I got in the mix game. Because of shenanigans with the group chat and wait list, I had to wait almost three hours to get into the game when I should have started it. Not only did they not tell me the game was starting when I let them know I was right down the street, but they also bumped two ahead of me after I got there because of, well, whatever bullshit they told me. Anyways, I didn’t keep any notes for the session, but I can tell you that after about 2.5 hours of little of note, I went on a tear right before we were planning to leave. I think I was up about $300 and after seven hands of 2-7 Triple Draw and seven hands of Stud 8, I cashed out +$1140 for a much needed overall day of +$840.

The reason I played a short session at Red Dragon is because my buddy and I were staying the night in Marysville to play the last (ever?) Sunday tournament at Tulalip before they close their poker room forever on November 1st. The $345 no limit Hold’em tourney started at 11 AM with 12k starting stacks and blinds of 25/50. I did a good job of chipping up during the first level and had about 16k when these two hands came up:

Three players limped in and I called on the button with 76o. Six of us saw a flop of Q65 and a player that I have already pegged as a horrible spewer leads out for 200 and it folds to me. I called and so did the big blind. The turn was a 7 and I was happy and then the spewer jammed his remaining 5700 into a pot of 1200 and I wasn’t nearly as thrilled about the situation. This guy has made it clear that he wants to punt and I’d hate to not oblige him by folding here, but that’s a substantial bet and I’ve seen enough to know that he can have hands like Q7 or Q5 suited here. But still, that’s an insane bet with a good hand, but you never really know how scared people are of being drawn out on. I don’t love it, but I don’t see how I can fold here against this particular player. I make the call… and then the small blind jams for around 12k and I immediately fold because I never have that hand beat. He turns up the 98 for a straight and the punter had 64 so my read was accurate there, but suddenly I am down to 10k in chips.

Very active player raises to 325 from the cutoff and I make it 1150 to go with AA from one of the blinds. He calls. Flop is K63 rainbow. I bet 800 and he calls. The turn is a 9 and he calls 2000. Pot size is now somewhere around 8000 and I have around 6000 left and my opponent looks like he has a king that he’s never folding, so I shove it in and he snap calls and turns over 66 before I can even table my hand… and I’m out.

SWEET. Glad I came all the way out to Tulalip to play for an hour. They had about 60 names on the alternate list so I wasn’t about to re-enter and made my way over to the outlet stores and my buddy showed me mercy by busting out around 3 PM and I was able to make it home before first pitch of Game 5 of the World Series.

I was going to wrap this post up here, but then I realized that I’m not going to play anymore poker for the rest of the month so I might as well make this my October wrap up post.

Well, after that tourney bust out, I was looking at a pathetic month of +$22 with four days to go. I clutched up a bit on Monday by heading into Palace to put in a final 8/16 session and managed to have a +$624 day and likely lock myself up a profitable month.

Tuesday and Wednesday my priorities were centered around making sure I hit the gym and making sure I was somewhere I could watch Games 6 and 7 of the World Series.

Speaking of the World Series, I’m set to make decent money on that too. I have a side bet league that I do annually with some friends and at the end of the season we draft playoff teams to pick a World Series winner and I found myself with the #1 pick and took the Houston Astros. I also have a lifetime World Series bet with two of my friends (we drafted ten teams each) and I only managed to get one team into the postseason and it was, again, the Houston Astros. These two bets are worth $900 if the Astros win the Series.

But wait! All year long I thought the Washington Nationals were way better than their performance so when they finally looked like they might sneak into the postseason, I bet them to win the World Series at 32-1 in early August. I only bet $30 on that, so if they pull this off that bet is going to pay $960.

Pretty cool that my two best teams managed to face off in the World Series and I let that Nats bet ride all postseason without hedging it. As it stood yesterday, I would net $870 if the Astros won and $660 if the Nationals won… but I didn’t want the fucking Astros to win. Not really. I was looking at series prices every day and when I saw that Scherzer was good to pitch a potential Game 7 and the series price didn’t change, I fired another $50 on the Nats at +500. I just thought they were going to get it done. Now I make $910 on a Nats win and $820 on an Astros win and I can root for the team I’d rather see ship it. And since I include all forms of gambling when I reference my totals for the month, I’ll be able to include that in my final tally for October as well and it looks like I’m going to finish the month somewhere around +$1550 (the Nats are three outs away from winning Game 7 right now). Sigh. I guess I’ll take it. It’s another lackluster month, but I woke up on the 26th having a losing October, so I guess I’m happy with yet another clutch finish to yet another difficult month. I guess that’s the 2019 theme for me.

On Deck in November:

*L.A. Poker Open: $400 Omaha 8, $400 Stud 8, $400 HORSE next week at Commerce

And that’s about it. See you then.