1/3 Grinding and Bankroll

I have a hangover from my 12-hour workday plus hearing yesterday, so today I am taking it easy. Happy to answer any questions about poker or law.

Poker has been relatively slow lately, few hours, and not really profitable, definitely some runbad, plus when you are not able to put in high volume it is harder to win. Full-time pros have time on their hands, quite a big advantage.

This was too cute not to share…love me some Kirby!

As far as poker, did well at 5/T/25 last night AQs > AJo 3! pot on Q5254 tanked call pot river jam because live players are nits.

Was going well at plo until AKJTTdd lost to KQJ84dd T95dd, his fd was better.

Did really well at 5/5 last night, it was all recs except me (the other pros were late to the partyÂ…). By the time the regs got in the game I was up $6,500. Then I left. Biggest pot was QTT87ds ss JT47ss, scooped versus AK77 with a turn check raise all in.

Nice. Glad you are getting to play some while having a job you enjoy. Nice balance.

How can you call anyone else a nit?

Having played several hours against you everyone in the room knows you to be the biggest nit at MGMNH.

Tanking with top top on that board… seems like a slam dunk, snap call.

Wait you’ve played the legendary Dumbo??? All
this time I thought he was a high stakes end boss based on his post history but you’re telling me he’s just a huge nit? Say it ain’t so…….

I won my second consecutive hearing! The judge even found the testifying psychiatrist to be not credible and praised me throughout her ruling. Blessed!

I am so happy for my client.

Sure, so delusional

This made me laugh. Thank you.

A few weeks into the new job and everything is going well so far. I spoke with a student and friend last night and he said poker is easier when you have a job because less is riding on it and your identity is not as tied to the game. Maybe it’s just variance or a combination of the above but this month has been going really well. I am playing very short sessions playing aggressively and booking wins. In and out quick. Low stress and enjoyable.

We had a lawyer meeting to discuss recent victories and I got to share details of my cross examination, so that felt good. Seems like a very committed bunch of people there for similar reasons so I am in good company. And I got my first paycheck. It was nice to get paid for doing something I enjoy and gives me fulfillment. Could not say that about all the work I’ve done in my life, including periods of poker.

I realized the other day that all my time playing poker actually had some benefits to practicing law. There really are important transferable skills. I am really quick and adaptable in making split second decisions during cross examination, what the next question to ask is based on the previous answer or whether not to ask that next question. Just like changing plans mid-hand depending on the betting in front of you. Also my work ethic. I am accustomed to working every day of the week and our docket is very front loaded to Mondays and Tuesdays right now so I have to do some weekend prep, which is fine by me since I used to play weekends anyway.

I also relate to my clients, I have interacted with people from all over during my poker career and my clients are as diverse as the players. I’m used to smack talk so if a client says something unpleasant I can brush it off.

I understand why some jobs use poker as a credential, and why one hedge fund requires a certain number of hours of poker play before starting to trade.

Well it seems my work paid off the past couple weeks, the hospital discharged all the patients we thought might go to a hearing yesterday, my supervisor said they don’t want to face us in hearings after getting beat up lately, woohoo!

One month in to the job and I don’t think I’ve screwed up majorly, I should have made a very good impression with my early wins, some learning curve stumbles but nothing serious, and my supervisor says I’m doing great. Mondays and Tuesdays are real bears, 12+ hours on average, and I have to put in some hours over the weekend because of how front-loaded the work is the beginning of the week. So I like to take it easy on Wednesdays to recharge.

Funny my office is close to MD Live so I may end up playing there occasionally instead of MGM even though the games are better at MGM on average, but will see.

This month although relatively low volume has been going great in terms of poker, I’m up around $25,000. Just playing well and running well. I am getting close to completing my $100,000 challenge finally too. $18,858 left.

Waking up early to drive an hour into the office…not exactly a highlight of the job. How do I still find the motivation despite this very negative drawback? Our division has been remote for years even before the pandemic. What a bother! It’s easier when I get a good nights sleep which I managed to do last night, around 8 hours. But last Monday was horrendous, low sleep due to a lot of nighttime ambient noise and lots of prep for Tuesday hearings.

My attitude towards work seems so mercurial, one day I am enjoying and the next I am dreading, obviously some aspects I enjoy and others I do not. For example the tremendous time pressure and quick turn over in the weekly hearings is brutal.

Traffic was terrible on the way home so I popped over to MDL for a change to play until the roads got better. Played decently and won $900 in a couple hours which was nice supplemental income. Incredible how passive all these players are. My favorite hand was 75o otb four ways co $35 into $60 on A76ss. Turn J, $70, raise to $190, call. River 7! He shoves I call he was bluffing.

I am bringing some plants (fake) to my new office, and some art eventually too. It’s too yellow and stale. And the walls are not soundproof. Lots of my coworkers have complaints.

Love passive tables. I almost feel guilty sometimes playing in them…almost. Best indoor plant is a Peace Lily. Doesn’t need much water or sun, keeps the air clean, and best of all brings good luck. 🍀

Played Saturday a longer session than normal, was a pretty slow day mostly, I ran bad with JJ at 5/10/25 versus 35 his oesd got there, lost a couple 3! pots with KQs, then played a pot with KQJT7ds at 10/10/50/100 towards the end of the night where I took a shot since I’ve been running well this month, I raised to $400, a 3! to $1500, an all in for slightly less and I call with around $4k behind. K76r it all goes in, I lose to AAJJ9 on 6A runout. :/ Then win with AKT76ds blind on blind for $1,000 and I’m too tired so I call it a night after chopping a $400 waterfall three ways. Can’t be messing up my schedule with work coming up. At least I caught up on sleep, 12 hours Friday night and around 9-10 last night.

I have a hearing coming up Tuesday that I am almost certainly going to lose so we’ll see how I react when that happens. There’s not much I can do to get them out unfortunately.

I have one at home, unfortunately we are not allowed real plants in the office due to bugs and allergens. Oh well.

I had a wild day, I had a hearing in a case where the hospital did some really inhumane things to the patient under the guise of treating her with her guardian’s “consent” but really it just amounted to torture, the patient did not want the treatment - think one flew over the cookoo’s nest. We got the worst judge imaginable and our fate was sealed. If we had any sliver of hope it was extinguished by the judge we got. (Not that we had much to begin with, the client was very ill.)

Then I played a little poker to forget about all the misery and suffering I had seen and repeated for hours and this annoying angry reg who always table hops to play with me (despite my protestations and expression that I don’t enjoy playing with him) sat to my immediate left at 5/T. He once called out my integrity with no basis in front of the entire table and ever since I have really disliked him. I picked up instantly and whispered curses under my breath and I walked away. To my surprise he got up and walked up to me and kicked me in the shin with full force with his boot and then got up in my face. Security and police were involved and he got trespassed indefinitely and I got a day for cursing him under my breath. Apparently this is not his first trespass from a casino, he had another fight before where he may have choked the person. At least I only got kicked, but it did leave a mark.

Wild! At least he didn’t kick your balls. Why does this reg follow you around? I thought you were a feared high stakes end boss (or a mega nit according to what someone posted here). He’s probably bumhunting the same games you are cuz why would he want to play with a mega crusher or a mega nit??!

Maybe I’m not as nitty or crusher as we thought? Or maybe he just gets a kick out of bothering me by table changing to be at my table when he found out I disliked it.

Wild that a reg would go out of his way to follow you to different tables! Why do you think you’re that special? More likely than not you guys are chasing the same fish so naturally yall hate each other. Two fishermen fighting all day for the best fishing spots and you just threw the other one overboard. Well done Dumbo

I'm actually 2/3rds though One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the moment. It's astonishing to think the novel was published in 1962 (film was 1975). I just read a scene the other night where McMurphy (the Jack Nicholson character) is told that the majority of his fellow "inmates" are voluntary---largely because they believe they won't be able to cope/be safe in non-asylum life. It's been a revelation reading the Ken Kesey novel, given how pervasive the movie was in our culture when I was growing up in the late 70s/early 80s --- people still shiver a little in their voice when talking about it. Back then, when the movie was contemporary, the tone of response was of horror about how mentally-ill people were treated (especially the impact of EST). Reading Kesey makes me realise how much harm is caused by the social stigmatisation of mental illness, as well.

Well, it's not like severe mentally ill people treat people ych better than they're treated. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire

I dunno know, I believe in such a thing as a fair fight. And while I'm not someone who's worked in this area I'm wary of Nurse Ratched becoming a reality.