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Posts Tagged ‘no limit hold em’

An Update! And Status of the Blog

May 7, 2019

I’ve been giving serious thought to discontinuing the poker blog. Obviously, my volume of posts has been way down from when I was doing this very regularly and there are a number of reasons for this. First off, I started a bad trend when I came up with the idea of live blogging my sessions. It drastically increased traffic to my blog, but it also put pressure on me to keep providing consistent content and sometimes that can be very hard to do because not every poker session is all that interesting. Sometimes you get killed and sometimes you run super hot, but that doesn’t mean you play a bunch of pots worth writing about. “And here I had pocket aces and they held up.” Cool. Also, I have found that PLO doesn’t work as a live blog. I just need to take notes and talk about the hands later. And actually, I think that’s the point I’m at with limit Hold’em as well. I feel like I’ve done a fine job of coming up with good content while I’m playing, but sometimes I feel like I’m really forcing it.

And that’s the thing… I’m writing all this shit while I’m playing. That is just dumb. And for what? I don’t benefit from this in any way other than providing free entertainment to whoever wants to read it. I guess there’s some satisfaction in that, but not enough to shift my entire focus while I’m doing what is supposed to be my job. With that said, going forward, I won’t be doing live blogs of my cash game sessions because my focus needs to be on the game and playing as well as I can. Maybe once in a while, I’ll do a throwback live blog, but don’t expect them going forward. However, I will still provide live updates of my progress in any tournaments I play. I plan to take notes and post hands after my sessions, but I’m not really sure how I’m going to implement that yet. Maybe as a once a week post with how all my sessions went? I dunno.

Another reason I’ve kind of lost some interest in this is because a number of my opponents read my blog and some of them are making adjustments before my eyes and implementing my own strategies against me. This is probably a dilemma for any poker writer, but those people are at least making money selling books or writing articles. I’m sure that helps offset the annoyance of making your opposition better. So what’s a better use of my time? Writing free strategy advice that people that play with me can use to help their games or doing my own studying away from the tables and improving my game instead?

When I started doing regular poker content, my goal was to give insight on what it’s like to play mid-stakes poker for a living. I feel like I’ve done a decent job of doing that and that will be my focus going forward as far as my writing goes.

So yeah… sorry about all that. I’m sure some of you will be upset by this news, but devoting so much time to this just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I will still provide regular poker content, it just won’t be nearly as consistent as it has been the last 18 months or so.

I did wind up finishing April with my second losing month of 2019. It’s been a pretty middling year so far, mostly because I haven’t had a meaningful cash in a tournament yet. My cash game numbers have actually been really good so far.

This past week, my wife actually lit me up about my lack of volume recently and this wasn’t news to me, but I decided to dig into it anyway, just to see how I’ve been slacking. Here are some volume comparisons over the first four months of the last two years.

2018 live cash game volume (January through April): 632.75 hours
2019 live cash game volume (January through April): 412.75 hours
2018 Global Poker volume (Jan thru Apr): 270.25 hours
2019 Global Poker volume (Jan thru Apr): 188.5 hours
2018 live tournament volume (Jan thru Apr): 97.5 hours
2019 live tournament volume (Jan thru Apr): 111.25 hours

I don’t need to do any calculations here. I can eyeball those numbers and see that my volume is down almost 33% across the board. That’s insane. No. It’s pathetic. I know the biggest reasons are because the 15/30 game is going once a week and PLO has dried up, but that’s no excuse to just quit doing my job. I need to be in there playing 8/16 if I have to. My $22/hour lifetime win rate in that game isn’t anything to sneeze at. I can pay plenty of bills with that kind of income. And if I don’t want to play 8/16, I just need to head up to Fortune and play in that 20/40 game no matter how bad I think it is because here’s the thing: what one person thinks is a bad lineup, someone else out there thinks is a gold mine. I’ve heard people say the Palace 15/30 game isn’t that good and I look around the table and wonder wtf they are talking about. It’s an amazing game and I’ll make Fortune my next amazing game if I have to. I have a $33.62/hour lifetime win rate in that 20/40 game there and I’m sure I can do much better than that if I played regularly. I had planned to increase my volume there this year and so far I have logged a total of 9 hours at Fortune in 2019. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be making at least one appearance a week… so you know what? I’m going to start doing that.

I have felt inspired in May so far. Granted, I’ve already taken 3 of 7 days off, but I played 17+ hours of 15/30 this weekend and won $1200+ over two sessions and I forced myself to go play a full 8/16 session last night and booked a decent win. I took today off to go to the movies and make dinner, but I imagine I’ll put in 40+ hours over the next four days before celebrating Mother’s Day with my parents on Sunday.

My WSOP schedule is mostly finalized. I’m not exactly sure what day I will be headed down there, but I’m pretty much a lock to play the $1500 8-Game Mix, the Milly Maker or $1500 7 Card Stud, the $600 PLO Deep Stack or the $1500 Stud 8/Better, the $1500 Monster Stack, the $1500 Limit Hold’em, the $10k Main Event, and the $3k H.O.R.S.E. I’ve sold out the tournament package I came up with and I’ve also sold out my action for the Main Event – all amongst my close friends – but I still have another 15-20% I’d be willing to sell for the $3k H.O.R.S.E. if anyone wants a piece. Hit me up on Facebook or email at maccent17@gmail.com. My markup is 12%. Also, I will be playing some events on the fly if I don’t advance deep in the events I know I’m playing, so if you want me to hit you up for random pieces, let me know.

I will keep notes on my sessions this week and hopefully play enough fun hands to have something to talk about next week.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | 2 Comments »

First Red Dragon Trip & 15/30 Live Blog

April 26, 2019

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been feeling a serious lack of motivation while I’ve been slumping through my second losing month of the year. It’s April? The fourth month of the year? I’m sitting here with less than 20% of the winnings I had by this point last year. Granted, I had an epic February in 2018 and followed that up with a $25k+ series in the Muckleshoot Spring Classic. Winning one of those tournaments can’t be expected to happen every year.

It’s not really even the losing that has gotten me down. The local game selection has been depressing. Even though we moved in late 2018, Palace is still the closest poker room to my house and where I prefer to play, but the games I’ve relied on for my bottom line have dried up substantially. The 15/30 was running almost every day in April of last year and now Friday nights are the only day I know it’s going to go and even then it’s started to feel shaky lately. PLO was running twice a week and used to be mind-boggling good action. That game has gotten progressively worse, to the point where it’s almost all regulars (and multiple pros) and last week it was dead before 9 PM. I couldn’t even jump in an 8/16 game to get a full day of work because that game was dead already too. PLO has basically zero chance to survive the summer when a number of the players keeping it alive disappear to Vegas for the WSOP. I didn’t even bother showing up this past week and I might shift my priorities elsewhere on future Wednesdays. I mean… I want to do my part to keep it alive, but I don’t have much interest in locking horns with some of the best players in the area for a couple hours every week, hoping some live ones will sit down with us.

Last Thursday I did something I’ve been wanting to do and checked out the Red Dragon poker room in Mountlake Terrace, a few exits north of Shoreline. I was extremely impressed. It’s a nice, cozy room and they were super busy. The real reason I went out there is because I heard they had a 20/40 Mix Game that spreads quite regularly. Ducky and I made the trip and pretty much as soon as we walked in they fired up the 20 Mix game. We started off with a mix of Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw, Omaha Hi, Razz, Badugi, Omaha 8, Stud 8, and Double Board Omaha. Later, we added Big O and Ace-to-Five Triple Draw and removed some of the other Omaha games.

I don’t consider myself a mixed games wizard, but I was astonished at how soft that starting lineup was. I knew I was the best player in the game and I couldn’t even find a variant I thought someone might be better than me at. That might sound arrogant, but I like to think I make honest assessments. Part of the reason I’ve lost interest in the PLO game at Palace is because I know there are always multiple players better than me in it now. Anyways, almost the whole table in this mix game was playing exceptionally loose and the one guy I thought might be competent before the game started seemed like he was going out of his way to play horribly, particularly against me – like he wanted to put a gross one on me. I’m talking cold calling raises and drawing four cards kinds of gross. Fortunately, that bad beat never happened and I basically had that guy’s number the entire session.

I raced out to a +$2500 start and that wasn’t hurting my confidence any, but while I knew I was running good, I could also see the plethora of horrendous mistakes everyone else was making that helped get me to that lofty cushion. My heater extinguished, however, and I eventually got ice cold and the game got progressively worse throughout the night. It seemed like every time someone left or busted out, they were replaced by a better player and by the end of the night, I was looking around the table and thought everyone was mostly competent. So Ducky and I took off and I had to settle for a +$997 day.

I am looking forward to going back and plan to make a trip to Red Dragon at least once a week as part of my regular routine – even though it’s an absolutely brutal commute.

Last Friday I booked a -$1236 in a good 15/30 game and then I finished 16th in the Main Event of the Little Creek spring series on Saturday. That was yet another deep run that didn’t amount to a cash. Maximum amount of time wasted. Goodness that’s getting old.

I’ve come to the realization that I have a mental game weakness when it comes to busting out of tournaments. If I played 11 hours of 15/30 and lost $560, I wouldn’t be happy about it, but most of the time, I can just chalk it up to a poor day at the office and shake it off. But when I spend 11 hours playing a tournament and don’t cash… well, I find that EXTREMELY upsetting.

Or maybe it’s just because I haven’t been having any good results.

I have now fired 22 bullets in 17 tournaments this year and I have two cashes to show for it. Sort of. One of those cashes was in a tournament I fired two bullets at and I ended up with a net loss. The other cash was in a daily tournament… at a bowling alley… and I have to include that because if I don’t, then I haven’t cashed for a profit in a single tournament in 2019. I am currently down almost $7300 in tournaments this year for a sexy ROI of -91%.

Could this be the year that I finally lose money in tournament poker?

That reminds me… who wants to buy my World Series of Poker action?

Seriously. I’ll be selling a package here shortly when I get a better idea of what my schedule will look like. Uhm… I’m due?

Saturday was my last day playing poker in a casino, so that’s pretty much it for poker updates.

I posted some movie reviews yesterday. I’ve also been updating my TV Show Ratings and 2019 Album Ratings. It seems like most people have no idea what new music to listen to, so check that out if you want to stay up to date on good new content. ScHoolboy Q released a new album last night, so that’s what I’ll be listening to today.

I saw Avengers: Endgame last night. I’m going to see it again on Tuesday before writing about it, so here’s my quick, no spoilers thoughts: it was fucking awesome.

I will be live blogging my 15/30 session tonight, but it will also be the MLB debut of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., so I’ll be watching the Blue Jays game on my iPad while I’m playing for the first 3+ hours of my session.

Starting Lineup: Megaphone, Chief Wiggum, Part-Time, Ducky, and four non-regs

4:23 PM: I’m on tilt already. First off, Palace’s WiFi connection is fucking worthless. I can’t even watch Vlad Jr.’s debut on my iPad because it won’t connect so I’m watching it on my phone… which means I can’t type at the same time.

Also, first hand of the session, Wiggum straddles on the button, I 3-bet AK of spades from the big blind and somehow six of us wind up putting in five bets each before the flop.

The board runs out A76sTsT and I wind up losing to someone’s T8 offsuit after flopping top top and turning the nut flush draw. That same player CRUSHED me last week and hit and ran the game for around $1500+ in less than 90 minutes. She’s well on her way to doing same shit today. Pretty cool.

So… instead of winning a $700+ pot on the first hand of the day and having a nice cushion for my first Coast-to-Coast performance, I lost this monster pot to someone that is probably going to jet before 6 PM.

Sigh.

4:40 PM: And I just lost to her again: flop top pair with JTdd, turn a flush draw, and lose to bottom pair. I have literally lost ten pots in a row to her, dating back to last week, and I don’t think she outflopped me in a single one of them. Wtf.

5:23 PM: Ducky opens, the lady crushing me 3-bets, I call from the small blind with two jacks, and it’s 4-way action.

Flop is 982 and it checks around.

Great start.

Turn is a king and I think that’s a card I should send around and it checks to my boss and she bets. I’m content to show this down with passive action so I call and that leaves us heads up.

The river is a jack! I check. She checks. And shows ace fucking king. Holy shit. How is that a thing? It’s not like she’s giving me air. She bet heads up in the last pot, so… wtf? It’s just the Poker Gods randomly messing with me? “Even when you win… you lose.”

5:49 PM: Raise some limpers with KJ of hearts and then c-bet 4-handed pot on T93 rainbow.

The turn is a queen and I’m pretty stoked when Megaphone check-raises me since we are in Overs now and I get to make it $150. He calls.

The river is another ten and that’s not cool, but when he checks it over, I go for value and he just calls and then mumbles about how “gut shot was his only out,” which could only be true if he had, uh, 93?

Anyways, after spotting them a rack immediately, I’ve been given a reprieve on my session after these last couple hands and get to start fresh.

6:31 PM: This game is flimsy already. We already have an open seat and no list and half this lineup could up and leave at any moment.

On the bright side, Flea finally decided to make a return to red chip games.

7:45 PM: Here’s a list of hands that its impossible to win a pot with: AK, AQ, AJ.

Megaphone is at his Megaphoniest. He’s been running extremely good and garbage hasn’t stopped spilling out of his mouth for hours now. One time, he was rambling and I looked up to see that not one player was listening to him and then I caught the dealer looking off into space like “lawd, save me” and I burst into laughter.

Nothing exciting to report. I’m getting a decent amount of big aces and losing with all of them. That sums up my first four hours so far. Currently sitting near -$500 again.

7:54 PM: In related news, my phone is almost dead, I don’t have a portable charger, and the USB ports at my table aren’t working.

8:53 PM: Here’s how good I’ve been running the last three months:

I come back from a break talking to my wife on the phone and see like $600 in chips sitting between me and seat 9 and then Taz comes over and says “these are going here” motioning to me and I’m wondering if someone thinks I won a High Hand or something… and then he says, “I should just leave them here” and I respond, “I don’t get it” and finally it dawns on me that those are his chips and he’s making a joke that I’m going to win them from him anyway so why waste time and I’m like “bro, you haven’t been around here for a while, huh?”

9:49 PM: Someone limps, I raise KK, there’s a call, button 3-bets and I cap this 4-way pot.

I bet flop and turn on QT53 and still have three opponents when another queen hits the river. I don’t think any of them have one, so I go for value and get called in two spots! My hand is good and I have sugar for the first time today.

Not bad. I was -$800 less than two hours ago.

10:12 PM: Heater alert! I followed that KK hand up by flopping top set with AA in a multi-way 3-bet pot and then flopping a full house with 82 suited from the small blind in a limped pot and getting way too much action when my hand seemed pretty face up.

Suddenly I am up $700.

11 PM: Welp, this game is on the ropes. We are now 5-handed. Nice surprise from that aces full hand from earlier. It went up for High Hand with 19 minutes to go so I forgot all about it and it held up! Send an extra $400 my way.

I’m not going to try and blog and play short-handed so I’ll post a final tally when we wrap things up here.

Final Score: +$2085

Short-handed was good to me, even with Ducky getting a J32 flop with JJ vs my 33 in a blind vs blind hand when we were 4-handed.

Feels good though. Good enough to put my month back in the black.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, mixed games, no limit hold em, palace poker room, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, pot limit omaha, professional gambling, professional poker, Red Dragon casino, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

The Return of The Legend: $230 No Limit Hold’em and $340 No Limit Hold’em

April 12, 2019

So yesterday I wasn’t planning to blog during the tournament (and obviously I didn’t) but then my starting table broke and I found myself moved to a new table where I got to play with The Legend himself, and witness firsthand one of the most highly anticipated returns to the felt the poker community has ever seen and I knew I owed it to fans across the world to document this historic event.

But first, let’s have a look at how cash games went for me the last couple days after my last bust out on Tuesday:

It just goes to show how much more consistent cash games are than tournaments. I would have had to finish in 3rd place of the HORSE tournament to top my earnings in the cash games the last two days. I ran pretty good in the games (just look at those o8 numbers), but still, I find it much easier to make 100+ big bets in cash than to finish 3rd in a reasonably sized tournament.

Back to yesterday’s tournament.

I made notes on most of my key pots and this first one was at my extremely favorable starting table:

Blinds are 100/200 and someone min-raises from early position and I call from the small blind with T8 of diamonds and the big comes along as well.

The flop is Q95 rainbow but with no diamond and the big blind donks out 600 right as the PFR is about to bet 600 himself. He ends up just calling and I’m getting 4 to 1 with my gutter and dreams of stacking fools if I hit my straight, so I call also. I think this spot is probably a little light and a diamond on the flop would swing it to a no doubt call, but I don’t mind reaching a little bit when I’m positive my opponents are capable of huge mistakes. Plus, who knows, maybe other good things can happen.

The turn is a king and the big bets 600 again and the PFR folds. Well, this is a slam dunk bluff-raising spot. You can tell by his sizing that his hand is probably weak and he most likely has a weak queen. I’m not exactly sure how I’d approach this if the PFR called, but when he folds, this spot is ripe for a takeaway. I make it 2200 and win the pot right there.

With blinds at 200/400, someone opens to 800 and it folds to me in the small blind with TT. You know what I would hate? If I 3-bet this hand and then my opponent 4-bet me. I’m not getting all in with TT pre here, so I decide to make sure I don’t have to face that obnoxious spot and just call.

We go heads up to the 965 flop and my opponent bets 3000 into a pot of 1900. It’s not often that I tank to a single flop bet, but this is pretty weird. It’s an absolutely insane sizing and ultimately I just decide I can accumulate chips just fine in spots that aren’t so murky and make a painful and annoying fold.

Same blinds, someone opens to 800 and I call with 98 of spades on the button and we go heads up to Q97 with two clubs. He bets 1200 and I call.

The turn pairs the queen and he bets 1500. I actually like that card and make another call.

The river is a blank and he fires another 2200. It’s worth noting his bet size hasn’t increased very much and that’s a sign of weakness, plus I’m doing some noninvasive studying of him (meaning I’m not trying to stare into his soul) and he doesn’t look comfortable at all. I make the call and he says I’m good and I don’t make him show his hand.

And then the Poker God’s intervene and break my highly favorable table and move me to The Legend’s table. I already know he doubled early in the tournament and as I sit down he’s playing a massive 3-way pot on 774 and one of his opponents basically has a starting stack in the middle before folding and his other one stacks off with Q7. The Legend has A7 and it holds and before I even take a hand, he’s sitting on a stack of over 100k with the blinds at 200/400 like a true legend should be.

ChowMein is also at the table and I lost a reasonably sized pot to him by flatting his raise with KK and hoping to keep his range wide postflop or induce a squeeze behind me, but instead I found myself playing a 5-way pot and seeing an all heart flop with no heart in my hand. I called a bet from ChowMein and we went heads up to another heart turn and both checked. He bet the river and I folded and he flashed me the king of hearts.

I must have chipped down in some other pots because when this next hand comes up I have about 13k with blinds still at 200/400.

Someone opens to 1200 from the cutoff and ChowMein makes it 3400 on the button. Like I said, I have 13k here and I pick up TT in the small blind. It’s pretty gross. I don’t love jamming 30+ bigs here with tens against a raise and a reraise when I probably have zero fold equity, but I also don’t love my table draw and this seems like a good spot to gamble and hope to double up or start fresh somewhere else.

I jam and ChowMein ends up calling with AK of clubs and I hold.

That cripples ChowMein and he busts a short while later, making the table quite a bit easier.

I open to 1000 with KJ of clubs and The Legend calls on the button and so does the big blind.

The flop is JT4 with two clubs. We smashed it. There are a lot of hands I would check here and I think this is a reasonable good hand to balance my checks with, as there aren’t many bad free cards for us. The Legend checks back.

The turn is the six of clubs, giving me a flush and I bet 1500 and The Legend calls.

We are heads up to a board-paring six of spades on the river. Obviously, my first instinct is to bet, but then I start wondering what I can get value from and there doesn’t seem to be many hands. I thought he could have a busted one card flush draw though and maybe he would bluff with it. I thought he was more likely to fire a bluff than call a value bet, so I sent it over to him and he obliged me with a 3500 bet and I called. He shows KT and my hand is obviously good.

I kind of wished I’d given some serious consideration to raising there. I never expected him to bet a hand like KT, so I figured if he bet, he’d mostly have bluffs in his range and it seems somewhat possible he could still have some ace high flushes in there as well. But after seeing the KT, I feel like I absolutely need to punish him with a raise. We have lots of history without having any actual history and the way I played this hand, I could easily see him calling a check-raise on the river. Maybe he gets away from it but I wouldn’t fault him for calling either.

Two players limp at 300/600 and I make it 2500 on the button with AK and both players call. Yay!

Flop is KJ4 and I bet 4500 when they check to me. If I’m beat here, I’m going broke. The stacks aren’t deep enough to find any folds. One player calls my bet.

The turn is a 7 and I put him all in for 15k or so and he thinks a bit before folding.

That puts my stack in the 40k region with blinds at 300/600, so I’m sitting on 65+ bigs at this point.

Meanwhile, we are situated right by the podium where late arrivals and re-entries check in to find their seats and Cobra comes by for the second time and says, “Hey what’s up guys, I just woke up,” a line he already used the first time he re-entered and had to walk by us. 😂

Two players limp at 300/600 and I limp along on the button with 96 of hearts and we go four ways to a flop of QT4 with two clubs and one heart. They all check to me so I try to pick the pot up with a bet of 1500 and two players call.

I’m not going to barrel unless I pick up equity and the queen of hearts is a pretty great card for me to keep telling this story. I bet 4500 and only one player calls this time.

The river is yet another queen. That’s a bad card, but when he checks, I don’t want to check behind and let him win with his KJ or J9 straight draws, so I bet 5000 with designs on trying to fold out those hands only. If he has a pair, he’s calling. He does call and I just pitch my hand into the muck.

That hand sent me just below 30k.

With blinds at 500/1000 I call a middle position raise with AThh on the button and a blind comes along also.

The flop is KQJ with two clubs and they both check to me. I bet 4000, sizing with intents on jamming the turn, and both players call.

The turn is an ugly 4 of clubs and they both check to me. It’s pretty gross, but I can’t check back here and possibly let another club or broadway card come off for free. When they both call, I have less than a pot-sized bet left, so if someone happens to have a flush here, I guess I’m just busting out. I jam. They both fold.

I’m back over 40k now and when registration closes after level 6, I’m sitting on 46.5k. Meanwhile, The Legend has over 120k and I tell him that a true legend would forfeit that stack and start fresh just to prove he can do it again. He doesn’t oblige.

I’m inactive until the 800/1600 blind level and find myself defending a middle position min-raise with QTo in the big blind.

The flop comes down 875 with two diamonds and a spade. I expect this flop to whiff his opening range pretty hard and favor mine, plus I expect this player to react truthfully to a flop bet here, so I lead out 4500 and he calls. Well, that’s the last thing I expected. I figured he would fold most of the time and jam if he actually had something.

I think with the stack sizes being what they are, I’m not going to try to bluff my way through this one after getting called on this board texture, but then I turn a queen (a second spade) and suddenly I feel like I probably have the best hand. The pot is almost 18k and he only has about 20k left, so I put him all in and he snap calls with… I’m not sure… it looks like A8… maybe it’s A9? The river is the 4 of spades and I win a very ni-

Wait, what? He won? Apparently he had the A9 of spades and rivered a flush. It’s always a great feeling to not get a good look at your opponent’s hand before the river comes and not realize you lost the pot.

That pot sends me back down to the 20bb range and on the very next hand it folds to a competent player on the button and he jams ~16bb. I look down at 33. I think this is a very close spot. I’ve looked it up since and if my opponent is shoving an unexploitable range (~34.5%) on the button with his stack size, then 33 is actually the worst pair I should call with.

For him to be jamming 34.5% though, he needs to be shoving hands like K4s, J7s, T7s, T9o, and other suited hands down to 65. I think he’s shoving wide, but maybe not that wide so maybe 33 is a hand I should remove since it is at the bottom of my calling range. If I had 40-60 bigs here I certainly would have folded to maintain my stack size rather than engage in a coin flip situation. But with 20 bigs, I wanted to double up now and took the gamble. I called and held against his A8o.

That puts me back at 40k when this next hand comes up.

Dude playing really tight-solid in a small sample opens to 4000 under the gun with blinds still at 800/1600 and I look down at 99 in middle position. I’m sitting on about 25 bigs and this seems like a weird spot. Do I really want to get it in here against this dude that has opened two pots since he’s been at my table? No, sir. But 99 also feels too good to fold. I think I can flat here and re-evaluate postflop without necessarily putting myself in a set-mining only situation. I call.

We go heads up to KK5 with two hearts and I call 4000 again.

The turn is another king and he checks it over to me. It seems like I should be betting but I have a feeling this player is capable of checking better hands to me, so I check back, planning to re-evaluate on the river.

The river is another king! That puts quads on the board. He checks it again. Ugh. I ended up checking here and letting him win with JJ. It’s interesting to note that I checked back the turn because I still thought he could check better pairs to me, but on the river I decided not to try to bluff him off those same hands that now lose to any ace. I thought if he had a hand like AQ, he would check this river, figuring he was unlikely to get value by betting but could by setting me up to bluff at it.

At the time, I didn’t think it would be very credible for me to bluff the river since AQ was my only likely hand I could play this way and have the nuts on the river.

In retrospect, I think I have to bet. How many pairs am I flatting with pre? Maybe JJ through 88? There are 6 combos each of TT-88 and one combo of JJ left. So that is 20 pair combos I could turn into river bluffs. There are 16 combos of AQ alone. If I’m ever flatting with hands like AJ suited or AT suited here, that gives me an extremely balanced range on the river to bluff and value bet with and since I’m probably never winning the pot when I check back 9 high, I think I had to bet here and I don’t think it would have required a large sizing since if I did have an ace, I probably wouldn’t go for a polarized sizing.

Oh well. You live and you learn.

I was back down to 20 bigs or so when it folded to the button and he opened. I had 66 in the big and decided to reshove, but this prick asked for my stack to be counted down before calling with QQ and I failed to improve and busted out.

The Legend had about 160k when I busted and played extremely well from my observation. He was very calculated and took his time with every decision. He ended up finishing in 25th place for a small cash and after winning a Main Event seat in a satellite, that makes him 2 for 2 on the trip so far.

After the tourney, Cobra and I had a nice little candlelight dinner together and some amazing steaks.

I didn’t play any cash because I felt exhausted so I went and saw Pet Sematary and tried to rest up as much as possible for a new day.

I feel good!

This is a $340 no limit Hold’em event with 25k stacks, blinds at 100/200 to start, and 40 minute levels.

Stack updates here on break.

An Observation: We are at 200/400 and three players limp in… the big blind jams for like 10k. How is it possible that every single limper has something to think about? You thought your hand was only worth a one big blind limp and now suddenly it might be worth 25 bigs? Fuck outta here and fold your damn hands already.

First Break: Sitting on just over 40k after three levels of play and that is pretty amazing considering I’ve whiffed with AQ four times, AK once and AJ once in raised pots. My table is playing loose, aggressive, and sticky, so I haven’t wasted any chips c-betting bricked flops when my opponents haven’t shown much tendency to fold.

So maybe this hand wasn’t the greatest idea. Loose, sticky player limps at 200/400 and I make it 1500 with K4 of diamonds on the button.

We go heads up to AQ4 with two diamonds and he check-calls 1500.

The turn is a jack and I bet 4000 when he checks to me. I’m going to be pretty sick if he check-raises here but I don’t think it’s likely since I have an obvious range advantage and he probably needs like KT exactly to raise here. Mostly, I want the pot to be bigger if I get there on the river. He calls.

The river is the 9 of diamonds and I don’t have to punt my stack. Yay! I bet 10k out of my 16k remaining rather than cramming because my polarized sizing haven’t been getting called… and he calls!

That’s basically where all my chips have come from so far.

Observation: Somehow the standard open size at my table has become 3.8x at the 500/1000 blind level. I’ve seen three different players do it in the last 15 minutes.

Wtf.

Second Break: 25.1k

Geez. What does it take to get to 40k and keep building? I had a flurry of good hands in level 4 – TT multiple times, QQ, 99, and 77 – and managed to turn those hands into less chips than I started with. And then I just went two full levels without playing a hand.

On the bright side, that 25 big blind stack I’ve been nursing the last twenty or so minutes was itching to get in the middle right as registration was about to close, so at least I managed to stay on a single bullet.

Dinner break is at 5 PM, so we are only going to play a half hour so longer before then. I’ll be looking for good reshove spots with my stack size, like, you know, jamming 66 when someone has QQ.

😁

Dinner break is at 5:10 actually. One more full level.

5:04 PM: And I’m out. Jam 15bb with 88 and run into AK and AA. Had a bit of a sweat when the board started T639 but no love on the river.

I’m not going to lie. I feel a little discouraged. I just checked my ledger and I’ve now gone 18 tournaments in a row without a single cash. That’s pretty frustrating.

Obviously, I am not running good, but I can’t pretend like I’m bossing these tournaments. I am simply not good at accumulating chips. I rely way too much on luck and there just aren’t many spots where you have a really good hand and someone else has a pretty good hand and you get paid off for heaps.

I have done pretty well overall as a survivor in tournament poker, but I think it’s time to figure out how to level up.

I’m going to take a break and decompress for an hour or two. I checked out the cash games and didn’t see anything appetizing. I’m sure the NL games are good and I should probably push myself to play them, but I feel like relaxing for a bit first. I haven’t hit the hottub up since I’ve been here so I might do that for an hour or so.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, gambling for a living, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

Muckleshoot Classic $750 No Limit Hold’em Main Event (Stack Updates)

April 6, 2019

Last Sunday, I ended up skipping the $200 no limit Hold’em event in the Muckleshoot series, mostly because they are no longer rewarding extra cash for Player of the Series. I actually did pop into Palace for a few hours to take my shot at the $2000 Happy Hour Hand while I watched the Mariners game and ate a free meal, but I just played 4/8. I didn’t hit the Happy Hour Hand, but I did hit a jackpot and ended up winning +$366 in less than two hours. I left after the M’s game because someone hit the big jackpot.

That session closed out my March and I ended up having a decent, but slightly below average month. After a disastrous February, I’ll take it though, especially after dumping over $1700 in my first session.

Monday was a hiking day. We checked out the Twin Falls Trail near Olallie State Park in North Bend.

On Tuesday, I popped into Palace for a late night 8/16 session and ran super hot, picking up JJ-AA about ten times in less than five hours. Unfortunately, I won only one of those hands and that led to a solid -$485 to start my April.

I tried a bit of a different tactic after watching an online PLO video and decided to buy in short for my session, starting with $280.

My first notable pot came up when a wild and drunk player opened for $15 after two limpers and I decided to defend with KJ86 single suited. The flop was J54 with one of my suit and it checked to the wild player and he bet $60. He only had $40 behind, so I min-raised and that got it heads up. I turned a king and that was good enough to scoop the pot.

I open to $15 with AK64 single suited, the small blind calls, and the wild player makes it $60. Not folding against him, so I call and so does the small blind. The flop is A22 with two spades and one of my suit. The wild guy leads out $120 and I call. The turn is the 7 of hearts, giving me the nut flush draw, and he bets $200. I put him all in for his remaining $120 and he calls with AK86 and no flush draw. I take a look at his hand and have just enough time to say, “so I’m dodging two eights only?” before the dealer brings the 8d on the river. Ugh.

That hand crippled me, so I reloaded small again.

I open AQT6 single suited on the button and both blinds call. The flop is T65 with two hearts and one diamond and I wind up getting all-in with Part-Time for a couple hundred here. The turn is an offsuit ace, but the river is the 7 of hearts, which almost surely beats me and it does, as he turns over 764x with two hearts.

I defend with AJJ5 single suited and bet the pot and wind up getting it in on J65 rainbow against the wild player’s QJ86… so he’s pretty much drawing dead… but the turn is the queen of spades and suddenly he has two queens and spades to beat me. The river is the ten of spades and I get stacked by the drunk player again.

Multiple limpers and I make a pot sweetening raise to $20 from the big blind with AAK5 single suited and everyone calls. Flop is KK6 rainbow and Joker calls my $50 bet. The turn is another 6 and this time he calls $110. I have like $300 behind and I decide to check the 2 on the river. In retrospect, I should definitely be betting here. I have a case of the MUBS going on at this point in the session, so I have a feeling I’m beat here, but I’m never folding, so since I only have $300 left, I should be going for value for those times Joker shows up with worse kings here. If he happens to have K6, K2 or 66 somehow, well, I guess I just get to lose $300. But when I let him check behind with hands like KQJ9 and all those sorts of combos, it’s pretty terrible. He does check back, but he also has AK and we split the pot.

By this point, the wild drunk player has felted like 5-6 times and has lost somewhere around $2000 total… but he felted me twice and I got none of it back.

Joker makes it $20, I make it $70 with AAK7 and he calls. Flop is QT5 and I have around $500 behind, so I decided to check back the flop because I don’t want to get all in here when my Stack-to-Pot Ratio is over 3. The turn is a 7 and there is no flush draw available. Joker leads out with a pot-sized bet of $150. This could be a fold here, but I do have a gutter and a paired dangler to go with my overpair, so I decide to call and see if he fires again on the river. I feel like he probably knows I have AA in my hand, but I also feel like he’d have to think I’ll call $300 on the river if I call $150 on the turn. The river is a king, which is pretty interesting, as it improves my hand to kings and sevens, plus drastically increases the chances of my AAxx hand making a straight. I expect this card to get me a free showdown a lot of the time, but Joker comes out firing for the max bet of $300. Since I expected him to check a lot, it feels a little weird, but I highly doubt he’s bluffing in this spot and I make the fold.

We ended up playing 4-handed for a long time and I stopped taking notes. Every time I battled back a little bit, something stupid would happen and I’d be right back to a few hundred dollars in front of me.

For instance, I potted twice with 99xx on T9327 and got calls from both Wolverine and Joker on both streets and then Wolverine fired into both of us on the river. Shouldn’t ever be a bluff, so I made the reluctant fold.

Another example: I end up in a 3-way 3-bet pot with JJ32 double suited and wind up potting the 732 rainbow flop and getting called in two spots. The turn is a 9, completing the rainbow, and I potted again, this time getting one caller. The river is a 6, completing the only draw he can have on the flop, and he still checks it to me even though I have like $120 behind. I check back and he tables the A45x. Yawn.

Finally, I had JT98 double suited in a 3-bet pot and ended up getting my stack in vs Joker on J98 rainbow flop. I had two backdoor flush draws and three pair, plus a straight draw, but I was pretty sure Joker flopped a straight. We ran it twice and his QT held up on both boards.

That finished a -$1200 PLO session for me and looking back over these hand histories, it’s pretty hard to believe I lost that much. Super unlucky.

I took Thursday and Friday off to rest up and be as fresh as possible for Muck’s Main Event today.

10:22 AM: Standing in registration line. I will not be posting hand histories while I’m playing, so check back here for stack updates every few hours and maybe I will have some notable hands to talk about on breaks, but I intend to focus on the action at my table as much as possible.

10:43 AM: 20k starting stacks and blinds at 25/50 with 45 minute levels.

LOL @ the dealer calling me a “professional” when I sit down. That seems wildly inappropriate and unnecessary, whether it is true or not.

Only one player I know at my starting table and I recognize another one as probably solid. First glance my table doesn’t seem all that great, but we shall see.

11:13 AM: Sigh. Max Young, the most successful tournament player in the Pacific Northwest the last few years, just sat at my table, so…. that sucks. On the bright side, I get a close up look at how he’s transformed himself into an absolute tourney crusher.

1:09 PM: Played a big 3-bet pot with AA vs 99 and got two streets of value before checking back river on J33hhJTh. I wasn’t planning to check river because I thought she was pair heavy but with both the flush draw and TT getting there, I decided to check back thinking I’m only targeting KK and QQ for value.

A short while later, I got about 2600 in pre with AKss vs same player and her T9ss didn’t hit the board.

Then I had a player open to 500 at 100/200 and I 3-bet AA to 1500 and knew as soon as he started thinking that he was 4-betting and willing to stack off. He makes it 4400 and I put him all in for just north of 13k (65bb!) and he calls it off with AK.

93425

Sigh.

I’m over 30k, but I’ll have to get an exact count when I get back to the table.

33.6k

3:36 PM: 54k after eight levels and coming back to 300/600 blinds. Looks like roughly 155 left of 282 starting and average stack is somewhere around 36k. 42 of us will cash and come back tomorrow.

6:11 PM: Very last hand before the dinner break I open to 2500 from under the gun at 500/1000 with QQ and the very next player makes it 7500. Folds back around to me and we are both 40+ bigs deep and he’s a tight player 3-betting an under the gun raise from early position also, so definitely not looking to get stacks in here pre. I call.

Flop is KK6 and I check-call 6k.

Turn is a blank and he puts me all in. My opponent is Green River Gary and he is just never fucking around here. I am pretty confident if he had a hand like JJ he would check back this turn. So… I’m pretty annoyed about it, but I fold.

He gives me a courtesy show of the AK of clubs.

Sigh.

It was a pretty card dead two levels for me and I somehow managed to lose almost half my stack in the last orbit.

My table is unbelievably amazing though. Green River Gary is my toughest opponent and he is basically a straight-forward abc Reg. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to take advantage of the situation so far.

I’ll be coming back to 28.1k and this is what things look like right now:

edit: I had QQ on the hand before break

7:27 PM: Taking a selfie with the winner of yesterday’s $400 event: The Riddler!

Congrats dude!

7:46 PM: Second orbit after the break, I’m in the big blind with Q4 of clubs and there’s a min-raise and caller in front of me, so I defend.

Flop is QT4 with two hearts and one club. I end up getting it all in against the PFR and he has… QT.

Good fucking game.

God. So frustrating to get such a gift of a table and instead of steadily chipping up the rest of the night, I’m going home with another brick in my backpack.

Cobra and I are heading to Pendleton, Oregon for the Spring Round Up tomorrow, so that should be pretty cool. I haven’t been there since spring of 2016 and I’m looking forward to it. My first event will be the $150 O8 on Monday.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, gambling for a living, muckleshoot, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

$400 No Limit Hold’em – Muckleshoot Spring Classic (Stack Updates)

March 30, 2019

15k starting stacks, 30 minute levels, blinds at 50/100 now. Board says 196 players have entered already.

Megaphone is at my table but I don’t recognize anyone else. Superficial read: it looks pretty good.

Leggo.

10:59 AM: Well, I’ve been active.

Cutoff opens to 300 and I call small blind with KJo and the big blind MIA.

Flop is T93 with two diamonds and a heart. I have the Kd in my hand. I check it over to him and he bets 400. I think check-raising as a bluff is better than check-calling or folding here, so I make it 1150 and… he calls.

I’m not committed to this story, but when the turn pairs the ten, I feel like I have to bet that card and make it 1800. He calls again.

Well, now I’m done with it unless I make a straight.

The river is a king. Hmm… or that. I think a lot of people would check here and hope to win a showdown, but his hand seems like an overpair and there are more combos of QQ and JJ than AA and KK, so… I think I have to go for value here. I have a pretty easy fold if he decides to raise and he will just call if he has AA here, so I bet 2500 and he calls and my hand is good.

That’s pretty cool, but it does make this very next hand more difficult to play.

Someone opens to 400, there’s a call, and I make 1500 with AK on the button. The small blind takes that large raise to the face and now the original opener makes it 7600!

The original caller folds and now I’m sitting there wondering if this might be happening because I showed (what started as) a bluff the previous hand. It’s a serious consideration, but I can’t call here, so I’m either shoving 175bb or folding here and the former option seems pretty gross, plus the dude doesn’t seem nervous at all, so… I fold?

The small blind then goes into a super tank and eventually folds QQ face up!

Our friend doesn’t show his hand.

I open KK for 400 under the gun and three players call me in position.

I hate it already.

Flop is T82 with two hearts. I have the king of hearts and decide to send it around to see what happens. There’s a bet of 800 (into 1600+) and a call. I call also and three of ya proceed to the turn.

It’s the queen of hearts and this time it checks to the button and he bets 1500 (into 4000+). With the king of hearts in my hand here, I make the call. The other player also calls.

The river pairs the deuce, I check and now the flop bettor donks out with a nearly pot-sized bet. That seems strange since he’s repping QQ, TT, or 88 and most players are 3-betting with two of those holdings before the flop. I’m not really sure what I would do if the other player folds, but he jams giving me an easy exit and the other guys snap calls. The button shows quad deuces and the other guy had the nut flush.

Goodness.

I’m not done yet!

I open AA to 400 under the gun and get three callers again, with two of them having position on me.

The flop is 953 rainbow and this is a board I’m happy to c-bet 600 and a tight, straight-forward player is my only caller. She was at my table yesterday and I feel like if I get raised by her on the turn, AA is probably in bad shape.

But… the turn is an ace and I don’t have to worry about that. Now I’m hoping she flopped big. I bet 1200 and she makes it 3400. Yum yum!

We are still pretty deep and I don’t want to give her any reason to consider folding and she is 100% betting the river, so I just call.

River pairs the 3, giving me a boat and I check it over to her. She jams, I snap, and I’m pretty shocked to see that she had AK.

Sitting on 31k now.

12:30 PM: 27.4k coming back to 100/200 and 200 big blind ante.

Notables I’ve seen in the field: Solomon Grundy, Tormund, Cobra, Chief Wiggum, Minh Cash, Megaphone

2:30 PM: That was a pretty brutal four levels. I went the first hour and 45 minutes completely card dead. I 3-bet a hijack open from the cutoff with A8dd and got it through and that’s the only pot I can remember playing.

Then, with about 15 minutes to go in level 8, I had a three-hand stretch where I had KK, 99, and AA back-to-back-to-back.

I ended with less chips than I started with.

I 3-bet the KK after an open and call in front of me and they both folded. I sized up a bit because the weakest, stickiest player at the table was the opener and he shook off the hook.

With the 99, the hijack opened and I 3-bet his 1500 to 4000. The flop was Q54 with two hearts. He check-called 5000 pretty quickly.

The turn was a medium heart. I think I should just be done here. I check back.

River puts a four card straight on board and he leads 5000.

My mind was going pretty blank when I was facing this bet. I could think of plenty of hands I couldn’t beat and I couldn’t come up with too many I could beat, so obviously… I called.

What.

He turns over KQo.

I mean… I played that hand like shit. Nothing else to say about it.

Then I get AA at the perfect time – when it looks like I might be steaming – but all I get is a big blind defender that check-folds the flop.

13.3k coming back to 400/800 blinds giving me a 16bb stack.

3:17 PM: Open 2.3x with AJ of spades and get a big blind defender.

Flop is J87 two hearts and a club. I bet 3500 and I’m never folding with my stack size. He just calls though.

Turn pairs my jack and puts a second club on board. He puts me all in, I snap, he shows 86 of clubs and bricks off and I get a double up.

3:49 PM: Back to 16bb again. We are down to 90 players now with 40 of us cashing.

I still see Tormund, Classy Chris (fka FanBoy), Chief Wiggum, Minh Cash, and Cobra.

4:43 PM: I’m sitting on around 16bb and have AQhh under the gun. Don’t really love shoving this chips here but I’m never folding and things could get awkward if I have to take a flop. I stuff and get called by JJ.

Whiff flop, turn a flush draw, brick the river.

GG.

Back to back days busting 30 minutes before dinner.

👍🏻

I’m beat. Not even going to try to play a session tonight. Also probably not playing the $200 event tomorrow since there is no longer a Player of the Series bonus.

$300 No Limit Hold’em – Muckleshoot Spring Classic (Live Updates)

March 29, 2019

I haven’t played much poker this past week leading up to the Spring Classic series.

On Sunday, we went hiking in Astoria, Oregon and that took up our entire day basically.

On Monday, I went to a home game and played $1/$2 no limit Hold’em and played some of the worst poker I’m capable of playing. I really can’t say otherwise. Everyone was there having a good time and drinking a ton and I was cold stone sober playing way too many hands, trying to win every pot, and bully my way through a lineup that wasn’t thinking much about folding. So I basically punted $600.

Marlo, one of the all-time maniacs, was in the game and we played a hand where I had raised preflop with QJ and he raised me on a J53 two spade flop and I called. The turn was a ten and I check-called again. The river was a spade and that got me a free showdown against… JT.

Then we played a 3-bet pot where I flopped top pair when he had AA and I lost all my chips because I’m just never folding top pair against this guy in a pot that is already bloated.

Those two pots accounted for over half my losses for the night, so there was some bad luck sprinkled in with what was mostly just bad play.

On Tuesday, I saw Jordan Peele’s Us for the second time and then had my final fantasy baseball draft of the year.

On Wednesday, I got most of our taxes done, we finished rewatching Game of Thrones and I stayed home to play poker online for one final tune up before this series.

It was another gruesome online session. I led off by stone bubbling the first tournament I played. With 28 left and 27 players cashing, it folded to the button who had been super active. He opened to 2.2x and I jammed with AT from the small blind and he snapped with AJ and held to bust me.

In the second tournament, with 38 players left and 27 cashing, it folds to the small blind and he ships 9.5 bigs and I call from the big with KTo. He shows J2o and that monster spikes a 2 on the turn to win the pot and leave me with 4.5 big blinds. I busted in 35th a short while later.

In my third tournament, with 18 players left and 9 cashing, a player opens to 2.5x and I jam 12bb with 99 and he calls with QQ and I bust again.

In the $5 rebuy, on the last hand of the rebuy period, I get about 11bb in with KK against two opponent I have barely covered and they have AK and A4 – for a combined two outs – and find an ace. That leaves me with 305 chips and one of the smallest stacks I can possibly add on to. Obviously, I’d rather bust and rebuy for a full stack before I add on, but nope.

The first hand after the break, I jam my 11bb stack in with 55 and get called by AQ. Pretty standard stuff, but considering the day I’m already having, watching the board come out 643-J-Q just seems crueler than usual.

I did make a run in one tournament, dominating when the stacks were deep, and I was 1st in chips with 23 left. By the time we were down to the bubble – 16 left with 15 cashing – I was 7th in chips.

I did make the final table in that one, but I called an 8bb shove with JJ and lost to A9 and jammed my remaining 7bb in with 66 and lost to AK to fizzle out in 7th place after starting the table 3rd in chips.

I did not meet my goal to play 100 tournaments before the Muck series started, but here’s how I did for the month:

47 tournaments
10 cashes (21%)
5 final tables (10.6%)
2 1st place finishes

Those numbers seem decent, but my total ROI was 2%. I felt like I ran insanely bad overall during this stretch, so I guess turning a profit – even if it was basically nothing – is a bright side? Most of my cashes were pretty meaningful, so that helped, but I only cashed in the smaller buy in tournaments.

Yesterday was the real Opening Day for Major League Baseball and my wife and I kept up tradition by attending the Mariners home opener for the 7th season in a row! And someone we played Home Run Derby against one of the best pitchers in baseball (Chris Sale).

10:39 AM: Sitting down about 6 minutes into Level 2 with blinds at 50-100. Starting stacks are 12k, levels are 30 minutes, and the board is claiming 205 people have entered so far.

I somehow don’t know anyone at my table by name. I do recognize a couple faces but I don’t know anything about their games.

Keep checking back here for stack updates and some hand histories.

11:48 AM: Blinds are 100/200, under the gun opens to 550, I call with 77, and a blind also calls.

Flop is 532 with two spades and the PFR leads 900. Not folding here obviously. I call and so does the blind.

Turn pairs the 5 and the PFR bets 2900. Pretty tough spot. That’s a pretty meaty 2/3 pot bet. I debate it quite a while and strongly considering folding but ultimately decide I can call here and re-evaluate on the river. The blind folds.

I watch him cut out a river bet that is like 75% of his stack before looking at the last card and seeing that I rivered a full house.

Well that makes things easy. I shove and can’t help but starting smiling when he tanks. When I see that he’s about to fold, I say, “wow you must have had a really big hand,” trying to maybe induce a very light call but he still folds.

So I’m up to over 20k when this next hand comes up. Let me preface this by saying that the opener in this hand is running insane hot. He kept raising the same player so much that the other guy eventually punted 60+ bigs pre with 52 suited and ran into AA. He’s just had it every time.

He min-raises in early position, someone calls, and I call with TT from the small blind. I’m not scared of the “run good” here, I’m just calling because I want to play a lower variance spot. The big also calls.

So four of us see the KT3 rainbow flop and it ends up checking around. Groan.

Turn pairs the 3, giving me a full house and opening up a club draw. I bet 800 and the PFR and first caller both come along.

We are rooting for a river club and there it is! 2 of clubs! I bet 1800 and now the PFR makes it 4000. Bingo. Other guy folds and I think for a while and make it 11.8k. He shoves. Wtf. I think I have like 6-7k behind and maybe I should at least think for two seconds before saying “call,” but I snapped it off and he showed me KK.

And I’m out.

I re-entered but I’m third alternate right now with the 100/200 and 200 big blind ante starting in about two minutes.

12:21 PM: Eek. First glance at my new table and it is substantially tougher than my first one.

12:29 PM: I open to 500 early with AK and get two callers.

Flop is QJ5 with two hearts. I decide not to c-bet this flop and the in position player bets 1100 into 1700 and the other guy folds. As played, I think I’m fine check-folding here against this bet size. But I have the king of hearts in my hand and decide to peel.

Hey, the turn is a ten! Let’s check it over to him so he can check behind. Done and done.

River is the 9 of hearts. I give some serious consideration to checking here. My opponent is quite the nit, so it’s hard to find hands I get value from. All the KQ, KJ, and KT combos, I guess? It is probably worth noting I am blocking those hands a bit. I don’t think he’s the kind of player that would hero call with two pair here.

I have the king of hearts so I’m blocking some flushes, but he can have all the ace high flush combos except AKhh, AJhh, A5hh, and A9hh. Interestingly, all the reasonable queen high flushes are blocked except AQhh and QThh and both of those hands would have had to make a pretty sick check back on the turn. Plus, he can probably show up with some other, smaller flushes here.

All in all, I think it’s a close spot and I’m not sure this player would bluff the river very often if I checked to him.

Ultimately, I decide to bet 1700 and he makes it 3700, which is basically a min-raise. I don’t think he’s trying to bluff me off straights and he’s never raising a straight on the river here, so I just go ahead and fold it even though it is quite painful.

12:59 PM: Insane. My table broke and I got moved back to my starting table just in time to see the dude that stacked me get heaps in the middle pre with AA again – this time against QQ – and stack another player. He now has well over 100k and looks to have about 10x the starting stack!

So sick.

I’m sitting on 24bb currently.

1:43 PM: Back over 40bb after stacking A3 with AQ when we both turned an ace in a raised pot and then I rivered a one card flush against TT when I opened QdT, c-bet A66dd, checked back 7d and called 1700 on 8d.

Scratch that… blinds went up and my stack is now 30bb.

2:27 PM: 8 levels down. 131 remaining of 274 runners. I have 20k coming back to 400/800 and average stack is 25k.

Top 40 cash.

2:49 PM: Middle position min-raises, small blind calls and I look down at QQ in the big. I make it 5000 to go. The opener folds but the small blind calls.

Flop is A87 rainbow and he donks out 3500. Pretty weird. I can’t really fold here but this bet is like 20% of my remaining stack. I call.

Turn is a jack and we both check.

River is a total blank and he leads out 4500. This is another pretty weak-looking bet, but it does represent over 40% of my stack. I think about it for a bit, but ultimately, I’ve faced two weak bets and one check, so… I have to put the call in, right? I call and he shows 55 and my hand is good.

Stack size is peaking and I’m back over 40 bigs.

3:20 PM: Player shoves 7.6bb and another player calls, leaving herself with like 20bb behind. I look down at 99 and I have her covered. I don’t think she’s calling with a huge hand, hoping to trap someone behind her so I go ahead and stuff it, expecting her to fold most of the time and leave around 11bb of dead blinds in the middle.

Everyone else folds and so does she.

Perfect. I’m heads up against A6dd playing for a 25bb pot, but the door card is an ace and there is no magic nine for me.

I have 25bb after that unfortunate hand.

3:44 PM: Blinds went up and then I had T6o on 654ccAcT in a blind vs blind hand that we checked until the river when he came out with a meaty 80% pot bet. Fold? No. I call and he has K5 of clubs.

15bb now.

4:09 PM: Open 2.5x under the gun with QQ, a player calls, and the big blind jams for a little over 10bb. I reshove and the other player folds.

It’s a race against AKdd. I flop a queen, but he flops a flush draw and rivers a diamond and the board didn’t pair.

That left me crippled after posting the big blind and the big blind ante and I got all in with K7 on that hand and busted out.

Heading to Palace now for some 15/30, but might have to fight through some brutal traffic to get there.

5:53 PM: Just now sitting down in 8/16 and I’m second up for 15/30 with a flake ahead of me.

6:24 PM: A classic 8/16 hand: I open AJo, a dealer here 3-bets me for the third time in less than half an hour, and the big blind caps it. We call.

Flop is A65 with two diamonds. We all check.

Turn is a jack. The big blind leads, I raise and he calls.

River is the 7 of diamonds and he donks. Huh? The ace of diamonds is on the board. The jack of diamonds is in my hand. So… I’m losing to KQdd and QTdd only? Or random big blind capping spazz?

I think my hand is too good to call here and the range of hands I’m losing to way too narrow, so I raise and he snap 3-bets me. I call and he shows…

98 offsuit.

😱👀🤯

6:39 PM: Sitting in 15/30 now.

Lineup: Radio Mike, Ducky, FBI Guy, and four randoms

7:50 PM: I open JJ, Mighty Mouse defends his post, and both blinds call.

Flop is 952 rainbow. I bet, Mighty Mouse raises, both blinds call, I 3-bet and everyone calls.

Turn is a 4 and this is one of those weird spots where I expect to get raised on the turn a lot. I’m not really sure why, but when both blinds cold call the flop and the turn card improves the texture of the flop board a little, I just think I’m losing now more often than usual.

Still, I don’t really see how I can check here, so I bet, Mighty Mouse calls, Ducky check-raises, and the big blind folds. I don’t have to be drawing dead here, so I call and so does MM.

River is a 6 and I fold to a bet, but Mighty Mouse pays it off and Ducky shows A3.

10:03 PM: There is a straddle, Ducky calls big blind and it folds to me in the hijack with The Invisible Man in the cutoff, so I 3-bet with the A8 of hearts. They both call.

Flop is AKJ rainbow but no heart. I bet and they both call in Overs.

Turn is a 6, putting a second club on board and Ducky check-raises me. I don’t love it, but it’s a bit weird so I’m not folding my hand. His range is notably weak when he just calls from the big blind with the straddle on and this board smacks my range, so he really shouldn’t be check-raising me very often. Even if he has a hand like K6 suited he won’t be doing that great against my range here. All that considered, I’m a bit taken aback to get check-raised here. I call.

The river is an offsuit 2 and he checks. Say what? I highly doubt he’s trying to check-raise me here, so what is going on? I think he turned a flush draw to go with a flopped pair. That’s what I think is going on and I’m not about to let him off the hook by checking behind. I think my read is on point and I want to punish him. He check/calls and my hand is good.

I open KQo a while later from the cut and Mighty Mouse 3-bets from the small blind. I call.

Flop is 876 with two hearts. I think it favors my range, so I go ahead and peel with the king of hearts in my hand as backup, but I’m seeing the turn with nefarious plans here.

It’s a ten. He bets, I raise, he folds.

Easy game.

I’m tired so I will be leaving after the Mariners game is over.

Check back for a final score and I will have a stack update thread for the $400 event tomorrow.

Final Scores

8/16: -$139

15/30: +$12

Crushing faces.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, gambling for a living, muckleshoot, muckleshoot spring classic, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

15/30 Live Blog: It’s Almost Tournament Season

March 23, 2019

First off, I’m a little skeptical about today’s session. It’s 75 minutes before game start and there are only six names on the list and Palace has all ten tables in action. That’s a lot of players in the building not wanting to play 15/30, plus the list for bigger games is almost always at least 33% bullshit. I doubt they are going to break a full game to start a weak short-handed 15 game, but we shall see.

My priorities shifted to baseball this past week. I wrapped up an online draft via Discord in my super deep 23 keeper dynasty league last weekend before having two drafts on Sunday – one for an AL Only auction league and one for the 5 keeper dynasty league that I run.

On Tuesday, I had another draft and in this one a group of six draft four teams each for most wins and then write in one of the last six team in for our final team, giving us a total of five teams each. Then we draft four players each for most homeruns (top 2 only) and four pitchers for most wins (also top 2).

I won’t bore you with my fantasy rosters, but I will share the results of that last draft since it’s a bit easier to digest.

Here are my picks with the draft pick at which I took each in parentheses:

Indians (5)
Phillies (8)
Reds (17)
Padres (20)
Rangers (write in)

I’m not too thrilled about those results. I took the Indians over the Dodgers and the Phillies over the Nationals and Braves, mostly because those picks align with my win total bets. The Reds, Padres, and Rangers were all last place squads that topped out at 67 wins last year, so that’s pretty frightening. The Pads and Reds are both projected to finish around 80 wins though, so they are supposed to see big improvement. The Twins and Mets both got sniped right before I took the Reds so I basically got the first team off the board not really capable of making the playoffs. I thought the Rangers were the only team in the leftovers (Marlins, Giants, Tigers, Royals, Orioles) with enough MLB-ready talent to exceed projections but unfortunately that was a popular theory as four out of six of us took Texas with our last pick.

Aaron Judge (2)
Nelson Cruz (11)
Matt Olson (14)
Max Muncy (23)

I liked this draft. I think I’m the only person that got four guys capable of hitting 40+ and Judge is one of maybe 2-3 players that can put up insane totals in the 50+ region. Muncy hit 35 homers in less than 400 ABs last year, so I like that upside even if he’s unproven. Unfortunately, I am also the first person to get dinged with a major injury as Olson just hit the shelf until June.

Chris Sale (3)
Aaron Nola (10)
David Price (15)
Rick Porcello (22)

Uhm. Go Red Sox? I expect Boston to win a lot of games and a good portion of those games are going to be lopsided wins. In addition, all three of these Red Sox starters have long leashes – they are going to routinely pitch into the 7th inning. Wins are pretty volatile and kind of a stupid stat, but I can envision each one of these guys winning 20 games and not even having to be spectacular to do so. With that said, I expect Sale and Nola to be strong Cy Young contenders if they stay healthy.

Last Saturday I booked a +$1455 in 12 hours of 15/30, wrapping a second straight weekend of +$2000+.

Tuesday I went +$123 in 2 hours of 4/8 killing time before a draft at All Star Lanes and then I went to bed early so I could wake up in the middle of the night to watch the Mariners open the MLB season in Japan against the Athletics at 2:35 AM PST. I played 8/16 while watching the game and finished at +$450 in 6 hours.

I took Wednesday off from PLO and set my alarm to watch Ichiro Suzuki’s farewell game and Yusei Kikuchi’s MLB debut, but this time I stayed home and slipped in and out of sleep after about 7 innings before being wide awake for the extra inning finale (but not Ichiro’s exit 😢).

Thursday I played 2.5 hours of 20/40 at Fortune and lost $150 before checking out Jordan Peele’s Us in IMAX (review next week after I see it again).

Last night I played 10+ hours of 15/30 and won a whopping $145.

That puts my month at about +$4300 which is pretty cool considering I led off with a -$1700 session.

Like I said… it’s tournament season starting next week. I’ll post my upcoming schedule when I get to Palace and have some time.

4:14 PM: Welp. This is pretty dumb. The list was 9 deep when I got here but four players were call-ins (myself included) and three of them are still not here. Plus, as soon as they tried to start the game two players that were here took their names off.

That left a list of 7 with three call-ins and one person not wanting to start short-handed. A table actually broke and the other guys wanted to start 3-handed so that’s what I’m doing right now, which makes it virtually impossible to blog until we fill up a little bit.

There’s more bad news on the horizon as well. I think two of the three names up as call-ins are pretty unlikely to sit down and play short long enough for this game to fill up.

4:27 PM: Flea makes us 4-handed and he was one of the names I thought might not play, so that’s a nice start. He’s sitting down with $1000, but I’ve started a super short game with him before and he bailed after winning $800 in 20 minutes, so we’ll see what happens this time.

4:43 PM: And the other call-in I thought might not play just made us 5-handed, which is still going to make it hard to blog while I’m playing, but at least I won’t be on the button or in the blind every hand now.

This game is very reliant on Flea and the other player winning if it’s going to have real legs. I’m off to a bad start, so that’s promising. I just had QQ vs A8 and K8 and somehow the board came out 88AKA.

What.

(I check-called flop and check-folded turn)

Upcoming Tournament Schedule

Friday, March 29th: Muckleshoot Classic $300 No Limit Hold’em

Saturday, March 30th: Muck Classic $400 No Limit Hold’em

Sunday, March 31st: Muck Classic $200 No Limit Hold’em

Friday, April 5th: Muck Classic $400 No Limit Hold’em

Saturday, April 6th: Muck Classic $750 No Limit Hold’em Main Event

Monday, April 8th: Spring Round Up $220 Omaha 8 or Better

Tuesday, April 9th: Spring Round Up $165 H.O.R.S.E.

Thursday, April 11th: Spring Round Up $220 No Limit Hold’em

Friday, April 12th: Spring Round Up $330 No Limit Hold’em

Saturday, April 13th: Spring Round Up $550 No Limit Hold’em Main Event

Saturday, April 20th: South Sound Classic $560 No Limit Hold’em Main Event

That’s a lot of no limit Hold’em on the horizon (puke) and the mix game events are super small buy ins, but it should be a fun three week stretch anyway. I haven’t been to Pendleton, Oregon for the Round Up since spring of 2016, back when my biggest tournament score was still less than $6000, so it will be my first time making the trip with a sizable bankroll.

5:25 PM: Holy shit. Super Dave – the #1 all-time Palace maniac – with a shocking Saturday night appearance, makes us 7-handed just as Flea was threatening to quit. Unfortunately, he is only sitting down with $200 and says he can play for less than an hour.

He could literally be busted in two hands. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.

5:32 PM: I’m not sure how many hands it was, but Super Dave is busted… and gone.

5:34 PM: Back to 6-handed… the nut low number of players. At 5-handed we can play without the PSJ drop and just a $1 rake, but 6-handed the PSJ is $4 and rake is $2, which is a HUGE, disgusting, almost unbearable difference. I hate chopping 6-handed but with that kind of price you have to and, honestly, we shouldn’t even be playing at all, in protest.

5:44 PM: Flea just quit, cashing out around $1500, but then a new player walked in the door and said he’d sit down if Flea sat back down… so Flea sits back down… with $1000, going south in the most in-your-face fashion I’ve ever seen. It’s pretty scummy, but I’m happy to see him sitting back down with $1000, even if it’s $500 less than he had literally five minutes ago.

6:22 PM: I haven’t really been able to post any hands, so here’s a couple:

Cobra opens button (back when we are 4-handed), I 3-bet J8 of hearts, which is bottom of the range stuff here and not an auto 3-bet spot for me. Part-Time calls from the big and Cobra also calls.

Flop is T95 with two hearts and one spade. I bet and only only Part-Time calls.

Turn pairs the ten and brings another spade. Part-Time likes to bet weak, made hands or draws when he gets checked to in spots like this, so I play this like I will an overpair some of the time and check it over to him with the intentions of raising and betting the river if he calls. He does bet and calls my raise.

The river is an 8 and since I might have the best hand and he’s probably not folding a nine, I check it, planning to bluff catch his missed draws. He checks back and tables 86 of spades and I win the pot with a jack kicker.

7-handed now, Flea opens mid position, I 3-bet KQo from the small blind, and he caps it.

Flop is J53 rainbow. I check and he bets. Flea is generally wide and just because he capped pre, he doesn’t need to have a strong hand here and this board is pretty dry. I don’t like check-calling and trying to make something with king high, so I check-raise and plan to barrel off. I think it’s a reasonable line as kings, queens, tens, and nines are all good cards for me. Plus, taking the betting lead gives me a chance to win without improving.

And that’s what happens… the board runs out ten and jack and he folds to my river bet.

The game is full for the first time now!

6:53 PM: I guess my only interesting hands are bluffs today. Someone limps under the gun, a posting player raises his option, and I defend Q9o.

Flop is 653. Seems like a whiff, but this board texture favors my range and bricks theirs. Also, I saw this dude that raised his post 3-bet with KJo from the small blind and then lead into three opponents on a 765 flop, so he’s obviously over c-betting and in terrible spots. I raise and the under the gun player calls (yikes) and so does he.

I might give up here if the turn bricks, but when it comes a 7, I have to keep telling the story and they both fold when I bet.

First Overs pot of the day:

One player limps, I raise 98 of hearts, Part-Time defends, and the limper calls.

Flop is 873 and I get check-raised by PT. I call, planning to call this one down.

Turn is a 4. I call $50.

River is a 5. It completes 96 (plus 65 turned a straight) and gives 86 and 76 a straight also, but I think Part-Time is good enough to know that if he has something like JT or T9, he has to bluff here. I don’t think he would turn his 8s or 7s into bluffs here so maybe this is a folding spot, but I pay it off and get to look at pocket sixes.

7:10 PM: It’s the return of FBI Guy! If you haven’t checked out my Blog Nicknames entry for him, you should. He’s already acted out of turn multiple times and he’s been playing for less than an orbit. He says to Part-Time, whose cards are plainly visible in front of him that he didn’t see his hand and Part-Time snaps back, “I thought you were a policeman. You’re supposed to see everything. You see nothing.”

7:17 PM: A big clash: Flea opens, two call, and I defend with 54o.

Flop is AK3 with two clubs. Flea bets, the other call, and I call closing the action and getting 11 to 1.

The turn is a 2 and fireworks start. We check to Flea, he bets, the cutoff raises and the small blind calls $60 cold! Uhm, yes please. I 3-bet and Flea caps it! The cutoff folds! 😮. The two of us in the blinds call and I go to the river, praying to dodge clubs and board pairs.

It’s a jack! I’m only losing to QT of clubs now. The small blind power folds like a jack ass and I bet because I don’t want the river to check behind and, well, maybe something cool will happen. He raises! I re-raise and he finally slows down with pocket aces and calls.

Monstah pot!

I was working on -$1k before that hand and now I’m only down a few hundred.

Lineup Update: random old man, Part-Time, Joker, FBI Guy, random, Cobra, Flea, and one open seat.

8:11 PM: Random opens and I 3-bet AJo and he caps.

Flop is A86. He bets, I call.

Turn is another ace. He bets. I’m up against a strong range here it seems, but my hand is too good to just call. I raise, he raises, I call. Sigh. Nice little cooler unless he’s spazzing.

River brick. I call and he shows 88.

And then doesn’t take another hand and leaves us 7-handed. FBI Guy is not one to play short-handed and Flea is on fumes, so this game is in the Danger Zone again.

And I’m back to -$800.

Blah.

I don’t get how there can be two full games with a list on Friday and this game has been struggling all night on a Saturday.

9:06 PM: We are down to 6-handed and that includes FBI Guy and Flea, so Joker and I just set an over/under of 40 minutes for the game breaking. The over is probably a good bet. It seems like every time I worry the game could break it picks up again… but we shall see.

9:09 PM: And just like that, we pick up a player! Oh wait, it’s The Invisible Man… we are still pretty much 6-handed.

9:39 PM: Down to 5-handed and one of them is The Invisible Man. On the bright side, we are back to $1 rake with no PSJ drop.

First hand of 5-handed play, I lose $200 in a blind vs blind hand where I have A4 on AJ562 and Flea has J6o.

11:08 PM: And we’re down. Flea quit. Cobra quit. Invisible Man quit. Yawn.

I finished at -$91 and I’m happy with that since I was down almost $1k, made a comeback, and was down almost $1k again.

I think I’ve settled into a groove of blogging about once a week. It’s hard (and kind of brutal) to write during every session I play and lately I’ve only been playing three days a week, so the opportunity hasn’t really been there anyway.

I’ll be posting stack updates and some hand histories during the slew of tournaments coming up though, so expect a lot of content over the next three weeks starting next weekend.

March 2019 Goals

March 1, 2019

But first, let me talk about February 2019 real quick.

It was the worst month of poker in my career.

I basically look at my poker career as starting in June of 2011. By that point, I was almost a year sober and I had just spent almost all of May 2011 sitting in a jail cell for a probation violation, preparing myself for success when I got out.

I had been playing poker for nearly seven years before that and while I had a good amount of success, I was also a raging alcoholic during that period and totally incapable of keeping a bankroll together. I could have been one of those poker boom success stories you hear about nowadays, but I blew my chance. I had a massive leak (drinking) and no concept of bankroll management, plus I wasn’t nearly as good as I thought I was.

At one point, in the spring of 2005, I had turned $300 into something like $25k in a few months, at a time when I was basically living check to check. So that was a massive amount of money to me. Enough, that I was sitting in class at UW, weeks shy of graduating from a good college, and “realized” that I was wasting my time there when I could be making $100/hour playing poker online. So I dropped out. And quit my job.

By spring of 2006, I was unemployed with -$700 in my bank account, an eviction notice on my apartment door, and my Jeep Grand Cherokee on loan to a fellow player expecting him to make my monthly payments (he didn’t).

I suppose that was my absolute worst rock bottom, but I would bottom out at least two more times in the next half decade.

So yeah, maybe I’ve had a worse losing month in my life. I’m not sure. Like most long term losing players, I stopped keeping track back then and have no trace of these dark times records now.

However, I am sure that February 2019 is the worst month I’ve had since I quit drinking over eight years ago.It was my first month losing over $5000. And I started the month with a $5000 cushion. Crazy. I’m pretty sure that 10k slide is the worst cash game downswing I’ve ever had.

Yesterday I decided to put in a marathon 8/16 session in the hopes that I could crack the Top 40 in hours and get $15 meal comps for the month of March (got ’em!), even though I was out of town for over a third of the month.

I had a chance to avoid a record-setting losing month, but I posted a -$490 to set a new bar after finding ways to lose with AA on A33, JJ to 52 on 833 rainbow, and 99 to JT on 963 rainbow, just to name some of the more memorable uppercuts to my chin.

On the bright side, we sold a house and got some much appreciated padding to the bankroll.

So I guess, in a sense, February was a really good month for us.

But goodness am I glad to see March.

My goals for March are going to be a bit different than normal. Palace basically has three must play days for me (PLO on Wednesdays and 15/30 on Fri/Sat) and that leaves me with four days a week to occupy my time elsewhere.

With the Muckleshoot Spring Classic coming up at the end of March, my focus is going to shift towards setting myself up for success in what is probably going to be an all no limit Hold’em schedule.

My top poker objective for the month of March is to play 100 NLHE tournaments before the Muckleshoot Spring Classic starts.

In addition, I will be focusing all my study on no limit Hold’em tournaments for the next six weeks or so (also looking ahead to the Spring Round Up in Pendleton, Oregon next month).

Almost all of the tournament volume will be accomplished online at Global Poker, but I am also aiming to play 3-4 of the Muckleshoot weekly tournaments as well.

My other goals for the month are health related. I have been lifting, meditating, hiking, and doing yoga since 2019 started, but it hasn’t been as consistent as I’d like. I’m pretty good at going to the gym twice a week, but I really need to be in there four times a week. And meditating on a daily basis.

Also, here’s a look at the first draft of my desired WSOP schedule. My must play events are highlighted in purple. Also, I have not looked at schedules for anywhere else yet, but I will definitely be playing some non-WSOP events.

Once I get a better grasp on what I’ll be playing, I’ll offer some series packages and pieces of various tournaments. Anyone that wants action in the Main Event can hit me up now and I’ll start making a list.

Seeing as how I’ve lost four consecutive 15/30 sessions in painful fashion, I will not be live blogging my tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

Last year, March was my best month thanks to the Spring Classic and I’m looking forward to trying my best to repeat as Player of the Series.

Leggo.

No Limit H.O.R.S.E. at the LAPC – Say What?

February 2, 2019

Honestly, I was skipping this event. I love HORSE. It’s my favorite game. But I don’t love no limit. I prefer limit structures, for all sorts of reasons, but mostly because I’m way better at them. Also, this tournament starts at 4 PM on a Saturday. Considering what I can make in a cash game on a weekend night (more on that later), why would I want to fire in a $350 tournament that starts late and might even last two days?

I wouldn’t. I would not want to do that.

But then I was at The Bike yesterday and someone recognized me from the LAPC and lured me into his conversation and asked me about the NL HORSE. I said something along the lines of “I’ve never played no limit for most of these games” and his friend that he was talking to (that was playing in the huge NL game on Live at The Bike) said, “yeah, that’s a good reason not to play it. I’ll take the under on 5% of the field having played a hand of no limit Razz.”

That basically translates to: don’t be such a pussy.

Okay, fine. I’ll be there.

The more I thought about it, the more excited and intrigued I got. It seemed like people would be flying out of this tournament because they’d be going all in in terrible spots or just because they are totally lost and I thought it would be a good idea to have unlimited rebuys until registration closed. Sure enough, there are unlimited rebuys.

Good. Now if I do something really stupid, I can just buy back in. I’m not going to be looking to punt my stack around and hope to get lucky, but I am willing to fire up to four bullets in this thing if I’m enjoying myself.

I also got to thinking about all the ways the big bet structure could change how the various games are played.

Let’s imagine a Razz hand. Someone opens with a 5 up and you look down at A2-3. For simplicity sake, let’s assume all cards are live. Pretend your opponent has 34-5. How big of a favorite do you think you are?

Here’s the answer:

You have the nut starting hand and you’re basically coin flipping.

Even against a rougher hand you’re not a huge favorite:

I’m not really sure how this should affect my strategy in a big bet structure, but against a large field of inexperienced and unpredictable players, I don’t think pushing small edges is going to be ideal. If someone opens and you 3-bet, they are unlikely to fold and look how big of an impact 4th street has on the equities:

Just like that, you go from a slight favorite to a sizable dog – even when your opponent catches a mediocre card like a 9. Unlike in limit, where you should usually still call here, they can bet enough to make your continuing decisions much tougher.

So the question is… when the stacks are deep, do we want to be bloating the pot on third street?

I don’t know. I think I’m going to be playing cautiously, mostly because I expect my opponents to have no clue what they are doing and that unpredictability is drastically going to increase everyone’s variance.

I feel like Hold’em, Omaha 8, and Stud Hi should come somewhat naturally to me in the big bet structure. Big pairs are going to be boss in Stud Hi.

Stud 8? No clue. I have a hard enough time trying to play that game well with a fixed betting structure. Honestly, my goal in this variant will just be to avoid losing heaps of chips. I’m just going to fold all the hands (not really)(but seriously, maybe).

I’m going to spend the next hour or so continuing to run sims in the various games to get a better grasp on my equities in certain spots.

But first, let me tell you about yesterday.

I checked in to The Bike just after 4 PM and immediately got a seat in a $40/$80 limit Hold’em game. Kiddie gloves are off. With a good amount of equity coming our way from the sell of our previous house, I don’t feel like I’m taking a shot at this level. I can play in it. I mean, shit, I haven’t even really gotten used to the swings at $20/$40 yet, but whatever.

Before I had chips, I was down $250. I played another pot in my first orbit and flopped a pair against an underpair but they turned a set… in a 3-bet kill pot.

Before I posted my first blind I was stuck $850.

Before I posted my second blind I was stuck $1400.

Before I won my first pot, I folded 44 to a raise and then watched the action go off multi-way and get 3-bet only to see this flop roll off:

That’s a pretty sick feeling when you’re stuck a rack and a half already, still looking for Pot A.

I started having flashbacks to my first $40/$80 session ever when I lost almost $2300 in less than two hours and rage quit because my body was literally shaking from tilt.

The good news was… I didn’t feel anything like that. I mean… I wasn’t thrilled about being stuck a mortgage payment in my first 15 minutes of play, but I was thinking about reloading, not bolting for the door and spending the next day walking around Disneyland by myself.

I didn’t buy more chips and I started winning a pot here and there but I was still stuck about $1500 three and a half hours into my session when momentum started to swing my way.

I picked up AA in a kill pot and it got raised in front of me. I jacked it up and the killer and raiser both called.

Flop was 992 with two spades and they both check-call a bet.

The turn is the 5 of spades and the killer leads out. The other guy folds. I’ve already established that the killer is the loosest (and probably worst) player at the table, however I did see him check-call flop in a similar spot earlier and then donk the turn with flopped trips. So I know he’s capable of having trips here (and probably flushes) with this line, but I also know he’s not be trusted. I call.

The river is a very unfortunate 4 of spades, putting four spades on the board and none in my hand, and he bets again. But I’m not folding AA in huge pots for one bet to a wild player, so I pay it off and he can only show a 53 with no spades and I drag a big one.

Then I get moved to the main game and one of my first hands I pick up AJ of clubs in a 6-way raised pot and flop the nut flush draw on a T76 board. I get three bets in on the flop and five of us see a turn that gives me the nuts. That clears the field down to three and my hand stays nutty on the river and I get one caller.

Just like that, I go from -$1500 to +$1200 in about 15 minutes!

Sick swings in this game.

I lost some dumb hands every now and then after that, but it was mostly smooth sailing for me the rest of the night.

My final score? +$5035 in 11.5 hours!

That’s good for my second best cash game session ever.

What a great start to my trip and a great first day of February, right on the heels of a +$10k month of January.

Feels good man.

Alright, it’s 2:15 PM right now, so I’m going to study up for the next hour or so and then get ready to head to Commerce.

Check back here after 4 PM for stack updates in the NL HORSE tournament and I’m sure I’ll also have some hands to write about.

4:11 PM: Might be hard to blog this. My table is 4-handed. There are 8 players in the tournament total. 😂

I can say I won 6 of the first 8 hands, all in Stud Hi, and two of them were pretty sizable.

Starting stacks are 12.5k but blinds are 25/50 with a 25 ante and 25 bring in with 20 minute levels.

A third table just got cards in the air. Looks like we are up to 15 entrants!

5:25 PM: Steadily building. I feel very comfortable with the format and my table draw. There are six levels before the first break so I’m just going to type up the most interesting hand I’ve played real quick.

Stud Hi, 25 ante, 75 bring in… I start with K6ss-9s and someone limps in front of me with a ten up. There’s a king and six up, but all the spades are live. I make it 300. The king and ten up call.

On 4th street, the king catches a 5 of spades and leads out for 600. Ten catches a blank and I get the four of spades. I like it. I like it a lot. The ten folds and I decide to just flat. Maybe I can raise to get it in here, but we feel too deep still.

On 5th, I catch the ace of clubs and he gets another small spade. That’s annoying. I check to him and he bets 2000, leaving himself with around 8-9k behind. I think this is a pretty silly bet when I catch an ace because… I stuff it in his face.

How much do you like a pair of kings here? Shoot, how much do you like kings up?

He tanks for a while and says “kings up no good” and mucks it.

Sims coming…

Interesting. I would have thought I’m a bigger favorite on 4th street. When I get it in on 5th, I certainly don’t think I have an equity advantage, but the ace is such a good card to bluff with. He said he had two pair, and maybe he did, but it’s worth noting that my equity on 5th jumps up to around 41% if he just has a pair of kings.

First Break: 16.9k

Coming back to 75 ante (in all the games!), 200 bring and 250/500 blinds for the flop games.

Registration is closed and I’m healthy on bullet #1! Leggo.

Second Break: 6800

I’m pretty sure I didn’t win a hand for the entirety of those four levels.

Oh wait. That’s not true. I was all in for my tourney life in Razz with 92-4J7T against a board of xx-J78J and I had bet somewhere around 2.5x the size of the pot. I have a board lock, but it’s pretty obvious he’s drawing to an 87 here and you know what? I don’t want to be called. If I make a normal sized bet and he calls, I could find myself in a really weird spot on 7th street. He doesn’t know I have a 9 buried, so that’s nice, but still… I don’t want to face any pressure or lose this pot with another card.

It’s probably a good thing I jammed because he tanked for like two minutes with his junky board facing a huge oversized bet.

Of course I got short just in time for Stud 8. It seems like I should be jamming my whole range, but it’s weird because the starting pot size is smaller in the Stud games.

I’m basically trying to survive until Hold’em unless I find a super obvious spot to get it in.

I folded K3-K under the gun with only one small card out, but it was an ace. I’m probably supposed to get it in here but I don’t know, so I fold.

Then a 5d opens and a 5h calls. I have Qh2h-Ad and I don’t know what to do, so I fold.

There are two hands of Stud 8 left after the break and then I will have the small blind in Hold’em with approximately 4-5 bigs (unless I bust or double first).

67 entrants, 35 left, 9 cash, with $6250 for 1st.

I have about 25% of the average stack so…

Let’s run it up?

8:00 PM: I make it to Hold’em and I have 4.5 bigs after posting my small blind. Someone opens to 2.5 bigs, I jam with 66 and he calls wi-

Wait. He’s tanking. Wtf? Am I really going to win this pot without running the cards? What does he have to think about here? Nothing. He has nothing to think about. It’s a snap-call.

But he folds and I double up without a showdown. Holy shit.

Very next hand he opens again and the cutoff jams for slightly more than what I have. I look down at AK of spades and with my 10 big blind stack there is nothing to think about here. I put all my chips in. Opener folds and I’m in a race against…

AA.

Goddammit.

I don’t know why, but I feel pretty good about it and then I flop a flush draw and feel like I doubled up already.

But then… I brick out? How is that even possible?

Sigh.

Flipper convinced me to make a road trip to Vegas for Super Bowl Sunday and lured me with MLB Futures betting possibilities and, I mean, I’m not capable of saying no to that, so that’s what I’m doing tomorrow.

Which means I’m done playing poker today. We are probably going to be leaving pretty early, so I’m going to take it easy and go catch The Green Book at the theater and then head back to my spot.

No idea what my poker plans are tomorrow but I’ll be back in LAPC action on Monday for the $570 Omaha 8 or Better tournament.

Bricking is so fun!

Posted in poker | Tagged 2019 LAPC, Commerce casino, gambling, gambling for a living, horse, LAPC, limit hold em, no limit hold em, no limit horse, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em, The bicycle casino | Leave a Comment »

2018 Results

January 7, 2019

Volume Goals

play 1800 live hours

1800 is 150 live hours a month. Technically, I should be striving to play 160 hours a month, but considering how much time I spent playing online poker and studying poker, 1800 live hours is plenty. I met this goal by playing just shy of 1818 live hours of poker last year.

play less than 33% of live cash game hours at $8/$16 or lower

The gist of this goal is to put my days of playing lower stakes limit hold’em behind me. I spent way too much time at the $4/$8 level and I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake. Fortunately, $15/$30 was going regularly during the first half of 2018 and PLO has become a twice a week game. The $15/$30 sort of fizzled for a bit late in the summer, but seems to be making a comeback. I spent less than 25% of my live cash games hours at $8/$16 and lower. To be exact, 20% of my hours were in $8/$16 and 3.9% were in $6/$12 and lower. That means almost 75% of my cash game volume was at $15/$30 or higher (and I consider the PLO games to be in this category). That’s a good place to be.

play 500 hours of PLO (online and live)

Altogether I played 620 hours of PLO in 2018, with 377 hours in online cash games, 180 in live cash games, and just over 60 hours in tournaments. In addition, I played 17.5 hours of Big O and 121 hours of limit Omaha 8 or Better.

play one mixed game session a month

I wanted to play in more mixed games last year and I suppose I did, so I guess I achieved my goal, but I find myself a bit unsatisfied. I played 270 hours of poker in games that were non-Hold’em and non-Omaha. However, I only played 36 hours in home mixed games and that’s really where I wanted to increase my volume. In fact, I haven’t played in a home game since May of 2018 when I’d ideally like to do so at least once a month. I also played 55 mixed game hours in casinos, plus another 114 hours in tournaments. Lastly, in December I was introduced to an online training site that specializes in mixed games and logged an additional 64 hours of mixed game training in the last month alone. All in all, I put in substantially more hours here than my goal, but I’d like to play in more home games.

take more shots

I am notably nitty with my bankroll and my goal here was to step outside of my comfort zone a little bit more in 2018. I can’t really say I did that too much. I played just over 48 hours in $30/$60 or higher, but only 8 of those hours were at the $40/$80 level. $30/$60 is still in my wheelhouse, so really it’s just the 8 hours where I was legitimately shot-taking and my one Hold’em session was cut very short on account of all the pain from losing so much money so fast. I did play first tournament buy-in of more than $1500 though and it was the $10k Main Event!

play at least one online tournament a week

My goal was 52 online tournaments and I wound up playing 234 of them.

play a bigger WSOP schedule

Previously, the most events I played in a series was five tournaments in the 2017 WSOP. This past year I played in 10 WSOP events, plus 2 daily deep stacks at the Rio and another 10 non-WSOP events for 22 tournaments total during the summer.

play 100 hours of NLHE cash (online and live)

I played 61 hours in NL cash games with 41 of them coming online and only 20 live. Maybe some day I’ll round out my rather diverse repertoire by including the most popular form of poker in the world, but no limit Hold’em is still the last game I’m looking to play when I walk into a casino.

Win Rate Goals

1.25 big bets per hour at $15/$30 limit Hold’em

I remember when I started writing my 2018 Poker Goals, I thought I might be reaching to hit 1.25 BB/HR because I started the year off so poorly at this limit. Well, I sure turned that around, finishing at an absurd 1.96 BB/HR in the game I put by far the most volume in. It’s probably worth noting that I play with an Overs button basically 100% of the time they are in action, so a decent amount of these hours were played with multiple opponents playing $25/$50 with me and a handful of times the whole table had buttons.

1 BB/HR at $20/$40 (and higher) LHE

My struggles in bigger games were pretty well documented last year, but my volume was also way down. The presence of a regular $15/$30 game locally meant that I rarely made the trip to Renton in 2018 and I wound up playing a mere 93 hours of $20/$40 LHE and only 61 of them were at Fortune. Altogether I played only 127 hours at $20/$40, $30/$60 and $40/$80. Compare that to 2017 when I played almost 200 hours just at Fortune. I finished at -1.1 BB/HR at $20/$40 and up (for limit Hold’em) and I didn’t book my first win at Fortune until early September. Gross.

1.25 BB/HR at $8/$16 (and lower) LHE

I thought this number could see a lot of variance due to low volume, but I actually finished pretty close to my goal at 1.05 BB/HR.

$50/HR at $1/$3/$5 PLO

This was basically a goal just for the PLO game at Palace because of the weird blind structure with a $3 big blind but it’s $5 to see the flop. My goal for the year was to run half as good as I did in 2017 ($100/HR) because I thought my previous results were probably unsustainable. Well, I finished 2018 at $86/HR in the same game, so who knows… maybe it isn’t unreasonable to be winning this much.

10 bb/HR in live PLO

My goal was to make 10 big blinds per hour in live PLO games outside of Palace but I ended up playing only 4 hours in such games and lost a grand total of $1!

1 bb/HR in online $0.25/$0.50 6-max PLO

I got crushed in this exact game in 2017 (to the tune of -26 big blinds per hour!) so I really just wanted to finish 2018 in the green. I did! I put in the second most hours at this PLO limit and finished at 3 bb/HR. I still don’t think that’s particularly good but compared to 2017, it’s a massive step forward.

5 bb/HR in online PLO

I barely met this goal, finishing at 5.37 bb/HR for all my online PLO volume. While I met my goal at the $50 6-max level, I put most of my volume in at the $100 6-max and finished at -7.7 bb/HR there. I put in my third most hours at $50 full ring and that’s where my overall number got a boost by posting a rate of 36 bb/HR.

10 bb/HR in any no limit Hold’em cash game

I finished at a measly 1.5 bb/HR here over a low amount of volume. I did post a 5.6 bb/HR rate online in the bulk of my hours, so that’s something.

50% ROI in live tournaments

2018 felt like a borderline disaster in tournament poker, mostly because I cashed just 3 of 22 tournaments over a long, brutal summer and went 0 for 10 in WSOP events, including a $10,000 brick in the Main. Plus, my three cashes were all small, with my biggest cash being just slightly bigger than my average buy in for the entire summer. Ugh. It was just all pain. I did, however, finally have a breakthrough year in the Muckleshoot Classic series, finishing 1st for $20k in a $300 no limit Hold’em tournament, cashing five times total, and winning Player of the Series in the spring for an additional $6k. I also finished 1st in my first ever Big O tournament for $4900 at Chinook Winds in Oregon. Those three scores basically saved my year and I managed to avoid my first losing year of tournament poker ever by posting an 11% ROI in 2018.

30% ROI in online tournaments

I finished 2018 with a 70% ROI in online tournaments. Some other notable stats: I cashed in 49 of 234 total tournaments (20%) with 9 1st place finishes and 5 runner-ups – that means I finished 1st or 2nd almost 29% of the time I cashed. That’s pretty sick. My biggest score was a 1st of 166 in a
$100 Rattlesnake Open event on Global Poker for $3600. That win got me a cool write up in PokerNews.

Mixed Games

I didn’t make a win rate goal for mixed games, but I played enough hours in them that it’s worth noting: I finished at 0.47 BB/HR overall but 1.17 BB/HR in live games.

Life Goals

-reach a new bankroll peak
-clear credit card debt
-pay off final student loan
-visit a new MLB stadium
-play poker in a new part of the U.S.
-meditate every day
-do yoga twice a week
-run/jog more
-lift twice a week
-drink more water, drink less soda
-eat better and smarter, less fast food
-bring my average blood sugar below 150
-bring my A1C below 7
-less distractions
-no toxic chatting/arguing/debating
-keep blogging about poker
-read Jared Tendler’s books
-study mix games
-watch at least two vlogs a week
-read about mindfulness/meditation

I’m not going to go through these one by one. I think I did get healthier in 2018, but not as much as I would like. I went to the gym more than in years past, but not consistently and while I was doing yoga and meditation pretty consistently in the first half of the year, I was done with both by the end of summer. I played poker in Oklahoma and Mississippi for the first time. We went to MLB games at Minute Maid Park in Houston and Globe Life Park in Arlington, both in Texas. My studying was pretty good in 2018, but I could be more consistent and organized. I never picked Tendler’s mental game books back up and I clearly need to. I also did not reach a new bankroll peak despite having another very good year of playing poker. Lots of room for improvement in just about everything here. I did keep up a consistent blog though. Yay!

Top 5 Sessions of 2018
1. +$6754 in 16 hours of $15/$30 at Palace
2. +$3690 in 6.5 hours of PLO at Palace
3. +$3429 in 4 hours of $30/$60 7 Card Stud at Bellagio
4. +$2820 in 8 hours of $15/$30 at Palace
5. +$2795 in 10.5 hours of $15/$30 at Palace

Worst 5 Sessions of 2018
1. -$2253 in 2 hours of $40/$80 at Commerce
2. -$2226 in 6.25 hours of $20/$40 at Fortune
3. -$2135 in 5 hours of $20/$40 at Fortune
4. -$1976 in 9.5 hours of $20/$40 Omaha 8/B at Muckleshoot
5. -$1714 in 11.5 hours of $10/$20 (with button straddles) at Palace

The Bat Cave

Posts Tagged ‘no limit hold em’

An Update! And Status of the Blog

First Red Dragon Trip & 15/30 Live Blog

The Return of The Legend: $230 No Limit Hold’em and $340 No Limit Hold’em

Muckleshoot Classic $750 No Limit Hold’em Main Event (Stack Updates)

$400 No Limit Hold’em – Muckleshoot Spring Classic (Stack Updates)

$300 No Limit Hold’em – Muckleshoot Spring Classic (Live Updates)

15/30 Live Blog: It’s Almost Tournament Season

March 2019 Goals

No Limit H.O.R.S.E. at the LAPC – Say What?

2018 Results

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