Digging out of a downswing at live $1/$2

A little bit late on my weekly post. Had a super busy weekend with family stuff, but I did get up to the casino on Monday for the holiday. This post will be on the shorter side I think.

Live Poker:

I played one short session of live poker this week, on Monday afternoon at Mohegan Sun. I played 2 hours of $2/$5 (+$259) and 2 hours of $1/$2 (+$81). I started at a really good $2/$5 table where I had one great spot early in the session:

87dd: nitty reg limps EP (he limps and raises pre), fish overlimps, I raise BTN $25, BB (MAWW, unknown to me) cold calls, both limpers call. Flop: 9d8h5d ($100). BB donk $75, EP tanks for a while and calls $75. 2nd limper folds. I am playing short after losing a pot the hand before and jam $425. BB shrugs and folds. EP tanks again and eventually calls. Runout is 2d Ah and I win vs JcJs. BB said she also had JJ.

I was surprised to see my opponent had JJ here that limp-called pre. I thought BB was pretty strong donking out here, but obviously I have tons of equity and I thought I had a lot of fold equity jamming here multi-way. I also wouldn't mind folding out a better flush draw if possible. Being able to jam these spots is one of the benefits of playing short-stacked.

I continued to play $2/$5 for a while and bled down. My table had a lot of fish, but they were tricky and aggressive fish. Several of the players were unknown to me too, which always make things harder. My table got worse and I started feeling a bit frustrated so I racked up to get lunch.

I returned to play $1/$2 and ended up at a pretty dusty game filled with nitty older players. I played one strange hand at this table that allowed me to book a solid win in this game:

A2cc - I open UTG short-handed and two players call IP. Flop: AsJc2s ($30). I check, EP check, BTN (loose, chatty older guy) bets $11. I raise to $40. EP fold. BTN 3bet to $80. I call. Turn Kd ($190). I check. BTN bets $30. I call. River 7h. I check, he counts out a bet and checks back. I beat A9o.

The flop 3bet in this hand scared me. I wish I had raised turn, but I was thrown off by the flop action. The bet is insanely small though, and looks a lot like JXss, KXss, or some random AX hand that is clicking buttons. I think check-raising to charge these hands is best. We had about $200 back on the river so I guess the turn would be a check/jam. It feels like an overplay, but I don't see how BTN can have a better hand here. Maybe AJ? Not sure. I could also lead river maybe?

I ended my session a little early because I got frustrated after losing another hand to this same player. My mental game was not particularly strong on this day, I guess. In my defense, I was feeling very tired and hadn't slept well. Either way, happy to be able to play and to book a win at both stakes.

Online Poker:

I had a good week playing online, both in terms of results and in terms of volume. In total, I won $423. I found a couple more good spots to shot-take 200NL this week and I think I lost small at this stake. It is a bit stressful for me to play this big online (similar to playing $2/$5 live) but I am happy that I am challenging myself. I think I have made several costly mistakes at 200NL this year. In some ways, I think these mistakes have come from being uncomfortable at this stake. It's not so much that I am scared and over-folding - if anything, it is the opposite. I don't envision myself playing 200NL as my main game at any point in the near future, but I do think I will continue to play when I find good opportunities.

This week I will be putting in extra volume on Clubs Poker to finish up a monthly "rakeback challenge" there. I have been enjoying playing on this site a lot and might venture to say it is my favorite site that I've ever played on. I have been continuing to dabble in mixed games on there. Last week I played in a tiny TORSE freeroll tournament. The games in TORSE are 2-7 Triple Draw, FLO8, Razz, Stud, and Stud 8. I've played a little bit of 2-7 (only micro stakes on Clubs, mostly heads up) and one short session of PLO8 live - outside of that, I was a complete beginner at all of the games. It was a really fun challenge though, and I would like to try it again soon.

Other Gambling:

I put in a lot of volume playing promotions on Mohegan Sun's online casino, playing almost every night this week. I had a breakeven week (-$1.65), which means I ran pretty bad overall. I was stuck about $200 at one point and made a nice comeback though.

I did some AP slot play at the casino Monday afternoon. It was a Triple Status day so the casino floor was pretty full. I found one nice play that I won small on but then I experimented with some bigger spins on a machine I don't understand as well. I ended up losing about $90 overall, which isn't bad. I got a good amount of coin-in on my player's card, and the triple status points sweeten the deal a bit.

--

I am not sure what my volume will look like next week. I have more family stuff going on (all good stuff, don't worry) so I may not play as much. I do have some gambling trips planned for the future though, so I will make up the hours at some point.

Welp, just got the dreaded e-mail that Clubs Poker will be banned in CT as of June 12. Pretty disappointing. I had hoped that this site was small enough that I would be able to play on it for a while, but I know it got banned in NY recently. So I guess it was only a matter of time.

I think I will continue to play up until the week of June 12. As of right now, I am up $1500 on Clubs lifetime. Hopefully I can run it up a little more before then. After that, I will have to get my **** together to start multi-tabling on ClubWPT Gold. I assume ClubWPT will leave CT at some point too, but it has already lasted longer than I thought.

What are you doing to.improve yourself or your game?

Short week this time around. I am not going to be playing live this weekend, and I think I will be too busy to play online. Next week is likely to be my biggest week of the year for live poker though, so stay tuned.

Live Poker:

None! A rare week for me without a trip to the casino.

Online Poker:

I put in solid volume this week, playing an hour or two each on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I finished the week up $231. I played a little bit of 200NL this morning but mostly I played 100NL with some 50NL sprinkled in.

I had one pretty sick cooler at the start of the week, when I got KK in for two full buy-ins at 100NL against AQo and AA that played in a bizarre trappy fashion. Fortunately, I was able to grind it back. I played most of my volume on Clubs Poker this week. As I mentioned earlier this week, Clubs will be leaving CT in about two weeks. Part of me wants to withdraw my balance early and take a break from online poker, but I don't think I will do this.

Either way, I had an eventful week on the site, as I cleared $30 of rakeback money (I raked just over $400 this month on Clubs for $60 total rakeback) and I also won a tournament! I mentioned last week that I was messing around in a TORSE freeroll. Well, this week, I played TORSE for the second time ever, and I won the freeroll! Obviously I ran really hot, but I was actually pretty proud of this result, considering I didn't even know the rules to razz last week and I had never played any stud variant previously. It seemed like my opponents were playing way too passively and I was able to capitalize on this in several spots. I was also the recipient of some clueless donations, such as when a player stacked off against me with a dealt full house in 2-7 triple draw. The field was about 200 players which I think is the biggest tournament I've ever won, although the prize pool was tiny.

Next week I will not be playing much online poker but I am planning on playing a lot live to make up for this.

Other gambling:

This was a big week for me hustling on the online casinos. I won $821 total which is probably my biggest week in this category all year. A friend who is also interested in AP slot play and bonus hustling alerted me to a potentially big play that is available on our state's online casinos. I took a pretty conservative approach to the game and did really well, winning $750 overall. I am planning on continuing to play this game next week for higher stakes which could result in some big swings. My friend also did really well, but unfortunately my brother lost a bunch. Hopefully I can avoid that fate next week.

Sucks about Clubs dude. Hopefully something regulated comes your way shortly. I’m impressed how well you blend online and live play. I have trouble playing both at once regularly. Might actually check clubs out soon.

Thanks for the kind words. I actually think it has helped me to be playing both at the same time. Being able to put in consistent volume on a regular schedule has been really nice. I have felt pretty locked in recently. I also think it helps me tilt less and be more accepting of losing sessions.

I definitely understand why it would be difficult for you to mix the two games though, as they are pretty different. The reality for me is that I have been running about expectation both online and at live $2/$5 which just makes everything easier. I have noticed that I am less hungry to play live since I have been playing so much online which has resulted in decreased live volume (shorter sessions, occasionally skipping a casino trip).

I would highly recommend Clubs to anyone on here. I prefer the software to all of the other sweepstakes sites and you can find great games. The rakeback is good which encourages nitreg grinders, especially in the full ring 50NL games in the evenings, but the games are usually awesome when I play in the morning (although there isn’t tons of volume available). I’ve also had good luck game selecting at night. You should get about $100 worth of easy to clear deposit bonuses spread out over several weeks when you first sign up too, which really makes it worth it to at least try the site. Also there will be one less winning player on there as of June 12 lol.

This is supposed to say “above expectation” but it’s too late to edit!

Big volume week and I had some huge swings. The end result was that I lost $875 which could have been a lot worse, considering I had my biggest single losing live poker session ever and my biggest online casino loss ever this week.

Live Poker:

As I mentioned last week, this was a big volume week for me. I took a 3 day trip to Mohegan Sun with my family Monday through Wednesday of this week. It was fun to be up there with my wife and daughter, and I spent each night playing poker. I played 13 hours total: 7.5 hours of $1/$2 (+$781) and 5.5 hours of $2/$5 (-$1103). For the trip, I set myself a goal of 12-15 hours played, and I am happy that I met this goal. I was also happy that I didn’t sacrifice time with my family to play, as I waited each night until my daughter went to bed before I started playing. I also played one 5 hour session of $1/$1 at a friend’s home game where I lost $300 in 5 hours.

Instead of re-capping each individual session from my Mohegan Sun trip, I’m just going to share some hand histories. First up is a $1/$2 hand. This was maybe my second orbit at the table, but I knew the player to my left was a total maniac. He was raising blind to $20 almost every hand.

AKo - UTG raise $5 EP calls MP calls I call CO, BTN maniac blind raises $20 (I had been watching his cards like a hawk and saw that he hadn’t even touched them), blinds folds, UTG EP and MP call, I back jam $350 total. BTN maniac checks his hand and moans “I actually have a hand” before tank calling. Others fold. I fast roll my hand, maniac doesn’t show. Flop J96 Turn A (maniac swears loudly) River 4 he mucks 22 face up.

I think I played this hand correctly given the circumstances. Would have been tilting to lose the flip here but I think the jam gets through incredibly often and I mostly win $80 uncontested. I would expect the maniac to occasionally call with worse hands like AQ and KQs too. MP player said he had AJo and would have called it off for $100 if the maniac folded.

-

Here is the biggest hand I lost from my disastrous $2/$5 session. Villain in this hand is a 30s/40s guy I don’t know well. Every hand prior to this one, he had opened $15. We played a big pot earlier where I flopped top two pair with Q9s but the board ran out four to a flush. I check-raised flop but had to check-fold to a river bet.

AhAd - Villain opens UTG $20 folds to me on BTN I 3bet $75 and Villain calls. Flop: 942cc ($150) x I $75 he call. Turn 3c ($300) he check I jam $400 he snap calls AKcc.

I thought Villain in this hand had an extremely narrow range from pre-flop, most of which would be overpairs. I figured I could bet bigger on flop and jam turn to target hands like QQ/JJ with a club. I think I rep AcKx well with this line. I don’t know that this is the best way to play this spot, but I felt OK about it. In game I thought it was extremely unlikely that Villain had me beat. Even after the fact, I am pretty surprised he played AKs so passively pre-flop and on this flop. Even if I bet turn small, I think I would just always get stacked in this spot unless the river was a 4th club.

-

Here is a final hand history. This was from my last session of the trip, from a pretty good $1/$2 game. Villain in this hand is a reg, probably a decent player but way too loose/passive pre-flop.

AA - UTG straddles. Hero opens CO $15, Villain calls BTN. Flop: QJ6r ($30) I bet $15 Villain raises $35 I call. Turn: 5 ($100) I check Villain bets $55 I call. River A ($210) I check Villain bets $125 I jam for about $250 more and he snap folds showing 66.

Credit to Villain in this hand for snap folding bottom set here. I think I get paid off in this spot by a fish, but maybe this jam is too thin in this particular spot? In game I did think Villain could have JJ here which I think would pay off. I don’t think KT often plays in this manner but it is possible I could value-cut myself against that hand. My plan was to check/fold river unimproved. I called the turn thinking I could potentially be good against a QX hand since Villain took such a small sizing.

-

I did play several other interesting spots on this trip, but I am not going to type up any additional hand histories. Last night, I played in the home game. This is the same home game I have played in previously, but the stakes were about twice as high and there were some new players who were more difficult to play against than the typical crowd at this game. I wasn’t really happy with my play on this night, and I ended up being a pretty big loser in the game. I made a huge river bluff in one spot where I ran into the nuts in a 600bb pot. I think this was an unnecessary risk. If I had played better this night, I definitely had enough good spots that I could have booked a win. I felt pretty frustrated after this session, more so than in any other recent live session.

Online Poker:

Because I was out of town for much of the week, I had a very low volume week playing poker online. I played a handful of sessions though, including a few shots at 200NL. I ended up winning $382 this week.

I did end up withdrawing my money from Clubs Poker. I re-read the e-mail that they sent me and it turns out my account will be totally deactivated on June 12, so I needed to make sure that my money was off the site by that date. When Global and Stake left CT, I had several months to get my money off, but I was only given two weeks in this case. I decided I didn’t want to take any chances with playing too close to the deadline. I withdrew over $1000. In the end, I won a total of $2008 on Clubs Poker which I’m really happy about. I started playing on the site in early March of this year, so this was over the course of about three months. I played mostly one table at a time (while simultaneously playing on ClubWPT Gold) and usually at 50NL. I probably played 5-10 hours a week. It was a good experience overall.

Other Gambling:

Super high volume week in this category. As I alluded to earlier, I lost huge hustling promotions on online casinos this week. I continued with the new slot play that I mentioned last week, and my luck completely flipped. This is a very high variance game and I played for higher stakes this week compared to last week. I had one disastrous session where I lost $750, which is my worst loss playing online casino games. Fortunately, I was playing with 15% lossback, so I did recoup some of the money. I didn’t feel tilted afterwards and I was under control while playing. Overall, I still feel good about taking a shot at this play. I also signed up for a new online casino while I was travelling in Rhode Island and I ran really poorly playing through their introductory promotion. In total I lost $1080 this week playing online casino games. Next week will likely be just as swingy, although hopefully I will experience some positive variance.

Fortunately, I ran a lot better advantage playing slots at Mohegan Sun on my trip there. I ended up winning $450 playing slots over the course of the 3 days, which I’m very happy about. I spent an hour or so each day playing and checking machines. I have access to some new resources/guides to AP slots and at times the process of checking machines using this new information felt overwhelming. When I first started doing this, there were only a couple machines that I knew how to check. Now, I feel like I can’t even keep track of all the different games and it is impossible for me to check them all in one short trip around the casino. Poker is still a priority for me over slot play as well, of course. I do really enjoy slots though, and I am happy to have branched off into other forms of advantage gambling.

–

This next week should be a bit slower. I expect to play some live poker, but my online volume will be diminished without Clubs. It is finally starting to feel like summer outside though, so spending less time in a casino and/or on my laptop is hardly a bad thing.

Really interested in your online casino bonus hunting and plus ev slots. How often do you get bonuses and plus ev spots in online casinos? How much time and hourly do you think is worth it vs just using that time to play more poker?

Do you do sports arbitrage as well? Lifetime loser here in sports betting so I think my accounts might be perfect to try.

Really looking to make some money passively but don’t want to fall into being a degen sports bettor again.

The online casino that I typically play (Mohegan Sun online casino, only available in CT) has playable promotions most nights of the week. The promotions are often not worth that much (typical value might be something like $12 per promotion) but they hardly take any time to play through, so my hourly is pretty high. I've never calculated the specific hourly winrate but I would imagine it is higher than my online poker hourly. Last year I made more money playing online casino than playing online poker, and the year before I made more money playing online casino than both live poker and online poker combined. Also unlike poker, the online casino stuff doesn't require any active thought, so it is much more relaxing and I can do it while drinking a beer and/or watching sports (I don't do either of those things when I play online poker). +EV slot spots are mostly a live casino thing (although apparently there are some spots available online - I am experimenting with this now). I haven't had too much success with AP slots (no big wins, couple outsized losses) but it's fun and I am getting better at it. My hourly at live poker is much higher than my hourly playing slots but taking occasional breaks to check slot machines breaks up the monotony of live poker. It has helped me get better comps from my local casinos as well.

The only serious sports betting that I've done has been to take advantage of introductory promos from local online sportsbooks. I would estimate I've won a few thousand dollars doing this. I have some understanding of how to win at sports, but I think it is pretty difficult and time-consuming. Plus, the sportsbooks will often limit you quickly. My state only has 3 regulated sportsbooks (FanDuel, DraftKings, Fanatics) so the opportunities for arbitrage are tough to come by.

Interesting change made at MGM Springfield. I had been playing 2/5 there a bit recently. It wasn’t as good a game as Boston or CT and the biggest problem was 5/10 rarely ran so it could be a mix of players who wanted to play way bigger than 2/5. the match the stack kills the normal 2/5 flow and I bet it rarely runs now but the 1/3 should be decent especially is the minbuyin is $200. Curious why they made the changes and what the rook and regulars were seeing and wanting from the change. You hear anything or heard anything at the table?

MGM is way too promo and reg filled often to make the games solid IMO. Big take trap but a beatable room if you can work around that.

I am enjoying Coin Poker a lot (code RDP for our fellow degen friend). I am back to MTTs on there and ACR which I think are way more beatable than cash. The sweeps sites being US facing were such an advantage especially with cash. If my short time on a coin even the 25NL were very reg filled most times of the day so you are playing four tables with the same four grinders. Strategy definitely shifts too. Way tougher than the sweeps sites. Have you ever played MTTs? Curious your thoughts on adjusting the the euros, ROW crowd, and the bots

Weirdly the $1/$3 wasn't really running when I was there. There was one table but it was short-handed and broke early. They tried to call the game twice more and it didn't go. I actually recognized a Mohegan Sun $2/$5 reg (younger guy, winning player) playing the $1/$3 game even though there were open seats at $2/$5.

A dealer told me that they introduced the $1/$3 game as an option for players who wanted to play bigger than $1/$2 but who weren't comfortable with the uncapped match-the-stack nature of the $2/$5 game. I am guessing the $2/$5 regs petitioned to make the game uncapped and that the casino decided starting $1/$3 would be a good compromise for players who did not want the $2/$5 to be changed.

As I mentioned, I thought the $2/$5 game looked like the worst table in the room. Personally it's hard for me to imagine ever playing a bad $2/$5 game over game-selecting for a good $1/$2 table with frequent straddles and deeper stacks. But then again I am kind of a nit when it comes to playing bigger.

I imagine I will join you on Coin Poker at some point. I'll certainly let you know when I do. It will definitely be a big adjustment, but I wouldn't mind battling a bit if I am getting rakeback and have a deposit bonus to work through. I might go with Gazzy B's promo code though lol. Have been enjoying his content lately and he seems generous with promotions. I made Ryan DePaulo a lot of affiliate rakeback when I played on Stake US under Code RDP. We had a good run together on that site.

I have played very few MTTs. I played some SNGs on Bovada when I was learning to play, and I occasionally jump in a small MTT when I am feeling it. I haven't studied much. I have still never played a live tournament but that will happen at some point

following

Very impressive results overall, definitely huge to hit that 1k hours so congrats on that as well.

I see what you mean with the second HH going 3 streets to target hands like AQ but his tank on the river makes me think that you may have gotten the max.

On the AA hand it’s annoying that this MP guys is going to play flat/4b, such a strange line. I feel that if he wants to trap vs. and EP open is not the time

Even though I don’t know much about advantage slot play in general it’s always pretty cool to see the plays you make there too. Interesting world of gambling that poker opens up

Thank you!

Yeah I think you have a good point on the AK/AQ hand. If I go for 3 streets there and he folds AQ it is pretty bad because then I am only getting called by better hands. I was surprised at his tank because I would value bet AQ myself in that line (and maybe even AJs). But it was a pretty tight game where $100 was a big bet so I guess I understand.

Really it is an unfortunate turn card for me because it is a lot easier to stack AQ if the flush doesn’t complete.

Interesting stuff from Springfield. I’d be surprised if the 1-3 game survives. I checked Bravo and they say for this month all 2/5+ is match the stack. Looks like they testing

Problem is they don’t have the player pool like CT or Boston to support a 1/2, 2/5, and 5/10. The big winners, gamblers and action players want the big stakes but the problem is a lot of the 2/5 winners generally aren’t bankrolled for the match the stack game so a handful will go back to 1/2 which does suck cause game selection can be horrible there outside prime time.

As far as coin, you might not crush like WPT but you can win. Just gotta be a bit more aware of the thin edges to be won and lost amongst the regs.

Looking forward to the next update

Ending my “week” a little early since I have time to type out an update right now and I already got a live poker session in. I had a good week and won about $770.

Live Poker:

I played one short session of live poker on Thursday at Mohegan Sun. I won $103 in 1 hour of $1/$2 and $198 in 2.5 hours of $2/$5. It was a holiday and the casino was running a $1000 high hand promo, so the room was packed with five $2/$5 games running mid-day. Unfortunately I didn’t have any sweats at the high hand, but it was a fun session for me.

I got called for $2/$5 pretty quickly and ended up at an OK table. My opponents were mostly non-threatening, with a couple of the less competent nitregs and then several loose passives. There was also one more LAG-type fish who I played several big 3bet pots against, including this one:

KdKc - EP raise $15, V call $15, I 3bet BTN $60, BB (loose passive) call $60, EP fold, V call. Flop: 8d5c2d ($190). BB check, V donk $85, I call, BB fold. Turn: 8d5c2d 8s ($360) V bet $140, I call. River 9x ($640) V check, I jam $320, V fold.

I think flop and turn are somewhat interesting in this one. I thought about raising flop (I have an aggro image and I don’t think V will believe I have a good hand) but I wanted to keep in BB who I felt might have an overpair. On the turn when the top card pairs, I think V has a few more hands that beat mine and will be less inclined to continue with flush draws if I jam. I am somewhat surprised that he ended up checking river, but maybe he just bricked a draw or gave up with BS. He did tank when I jammed though, so I guess something like 77 is also possible. I do think this is a pretty clear river jam after he bets twice and checks.

The above villain ended up busting and my table progressively got worse. Then I ended up losing a pretty big pot here:

QTo - EP (older guy, splits range, plays faceup) limps, CO posted and checks, I ISO BTN $30, SB (tighter rec) cold calls, EP calls, CO folds. Flop: K96r ($95) checks to me, I bet $30, SB calls, EP folds. Turn: K ($125) xx. River: J ($125) BB leads $50, I raise $175, BB tanks and plays with chips before 3betting to $400 or so. I snap fold and he shows KJdd

I think this is a standard cbet spot and a standard raise/fold spot on the river. I think just calling $50 on the river would be way too tight. I didn’t need to see V’s hand in this spot to feel good about my fold, but I was happy to see it anyway. I am also happy I executed on this fold.

I ended up booking the win at $2/$5 shortly after this hand. I checked machines for a while (see “Other Gambling”😉 and then played an hour of $1/$2 where I was at a typically soft/passive table. I won one big straddled pot turning TPTK with AKs to book a solid win there.

I am planning on playing live again on Sunday which I’m looking forward to.

Online Poker:

Despite a short week where I played live poker on a weekday, I still put in a good amount of volume playing on ClubWPT Gold. I won $580 total this week. I ran really hot and won the vast majority of the sessions I played, although I did have one session where I took a pretty sick beat and booked a big loss. I think I have been doing a really good job with game selection and with playing consistent winning poker. I have been proud of my discipline at times, since one-tabling against whales while card dead can be pretty brutal.

I played two MTTs this week, which is a big rarity for me. In both cases, I late-regged an $11 tournament on ClubWPT Gold at 9:30pm ET. Both times, I won a couple all-ins, made the money shortly after 10pm, and then busted after a couple small pay jumps. I think the quality of play in these small MTTs is as low as I’ve ever seen, just dreadful stuff. I think I will continue to try and mix in more MTTs, especially at night when I don’t really feel like grinding cash and swinging hundreds of dollars. I will try and mix in some MTT study too, although to be honest I have been really slacking with dedicated poker study time.

I also made another nice withdrawal from ClubWPT Gold which always feels good. Hopefully next week I can keep it up. I’ve been punting on the decision to join a new site and/or upgrade my computer situation so I can multi-table WPT. We’ll see if I get there next week or not.

Other Gambling:

I had a low stress week grinding promotions on Mohegan Sun’s online casino. I ran bad on the “Slot of the Week” though, so I booked a small loss of $15. I do have some additional lossback credits coming on Monday. I am planning on a quick trip to NJ or PA soon which will see me firing pretty big on online casinos again.

At Mohegan Sun yesterday I found a bunch of nice AP slot plays. I think I got lucky that there wasn’t too much competition because I found several obvious plays on popular machines. Unfortunately, I had only small wins and then one big loss, so I ended up down about $95 on slots. It was an encouraging session overall though, just because I found so much stuff that I felt really confident was +EV.

–

Should be more of the same next week. Mohegan Sun is running some nice promotions this Summer, including triple status points in the Poker Room every Thursday. I think this promotion is worth driving up for on its own so I may start playing twice a week again for a little while. We’ll see though, life is going to get pretty busy for me in July!

Giant week for me: I finished up $3600, which is the biggest winning week of my gambling career thus far.

Live Poker:

I put in two short live poker sessions this week which constitutes good volume for me. In total I played 5 hours of $2/$5 (+$1012) and 3 hours of $1/$2 (+$26). I’m happy I played a majority of my time at $2/$5. I think this should be my goal moving forward. As of right now, 45% of my volume this year has been at $2/$5, up from 27% last year. I am also making it a point to buy-in a bit deeper.

On Sunday, I started out at a good $1/$2 table with my brother. Stacks were deep and players were straddling and splashing around. This is typically the type of $1/$2 game that will cause me to not move up to $2/$5, but I saw a good must move game opening so I made the jump. When it’s a close decision which game to play, I think it is correct for me to play the bigger one.

My $2/$5 table was good but not spectacular. There was one younger player that I didn’t recognize who seemed good and then one of the better older regulars was playing as well. I ran really hot against a couple of the fish though, which resulted in a nice win for me. In particular, I kept making big hands against the same younger fish. In my experience it is really hard for fish to deal with one opponent continually winning against them. They think they are being targeted/attacked when usually it’s just that the other player is getting good hands repeatedly. I try to make gameflow-based adjustments in these situations. After I won two substantial non-showdown pots in a row against this player with KK and QQ, I got this incredible spot:

99 - Villain open $20 from EP (I saw him open to $15 multiple times earlier, so this is a red flag), I call BTN. Flop: Q95dd ($45) V check I bet $25, he XR $75, I click to $175, he jam for $600 total with KK and I hold.

Happy with how I played this hand. I think the flop 3bet turns my hand pretty face-up, but it doesn’t matter in this situation and it is best to get the money in before a scare card comes. Pre-flop can be a 3bet too, but I am happy I recognized the sizing tell.

I continued to play at this table for a while which meant playing $1500 deep against the aforementioned good young reg. I am somewhat uncomfortable in these situations so it is good to get reps in. In total, I think I made really good decisions on this day.

My second session of the week was on Thursday, during Mohegan Sun’s Triple Status promotion. Because of this promotion, if I play 4 hours of poker, I get $25 worth of comps, which pays for gas and a meal. There is also value in accruing status points, so it is a good deal for me. The poker room was very full but it was more of a reg-y crowd. I played a couple hours of $2/$5 but didn’t have any interesting spots, including a long stretch where I didn’t play a single flop. I ended up getting moved to a really tight main game, so I dropped down to $1/$2.

My $1/$2 table was pretty good and I finally had some nice spots. I flopped top set in a multi-way SRP with TT and top trips in a 3bet pot with AQo. I didn’t get a ton of action in either spot though, and ended up losing over my last hour. The last hand I played was kind of a tough spot:

TT - I open UTG $10, MP, BTN, and SB call. Flop 665r ($40) SB check I check MP check BTN (younger guy, semi-competent but loose passive) bets $15 SB (very loose fish) calls $15. I call? MP fold. Turn 2hh ($85) SB check I check BTN $30 SB jam $100. I fold? BTN snap calls. River 2 BTN shows 86dd and wins.

I think flop is really close between raise and call, and maybe raise is better. On the turn, I think I am ahead of SB here a lot but he can definitely have a 6 or even 34s. I do think BTN has some hands I am ahead of too (combo draws, 77 - 99). I do think I like my fold here though, and obviously it worked out well.

In total, my Thursday session was pretty boring. I ended up basically breakeven for the day, but I did play the volume I needed for the promotion. I think leaving when you are dead even is also a good exercise in discipline. When I was new to poker, I would sometimes try to force the action at the end of a breakeven session. Obviously I’m glad to no longer be making this mistake.

Online Poker:

This was a low volume week for me playing online, but I still played for around 5 hours at 100NL on ClubWPT Gold. I won small, +$81. I had a couple coolers and some standard runbad that impacted my results. I was happy to be able to overcome this though. Most of the money I won was from hopeless fish which is pretty standard.

I fired two more MTT bullets this week, late regging the nightly $11 tournament on WPT. I busted instantly both times which was a good reminder that I don’t really enjoy playing MTTs.

Other Gambling:

Huge results playing online casino games this week: +$2,412. I returned to an extremely high variance online slot play that I had discussed in previous weeks. I fired really big on this game and finally came out ahead, winning about $2000. Playing this big felt a little degenerate and it might have been outside of proper bankroll management, but whatever. It’s nice to shot-take and win. I hit the two biggest slot bonuses of my life this week (+$1800; +$3200) but then gave some back in my biggest losing online casino session ever (-$1200). So it was a really swingy week! I am all done playing this game for right now, though I do hope to have more opportunities to play at some point down the line. I also had a nice win playing during Mohegan Sun Online Casino’s weekly lossback promotion.

Over the course of my two trips to Mohegan Sun, I found a few nice AP slot plays. I came out ahead very small with most of my wins coming on Ultimate X. Last night, I spent about an hour checking machines and didn’t find anything worth playing, so I decided to leave the casino around 11pm. On my way out, I saw a man playing a machine that was in a +EV state. I noticed he only had $11 left in the machine which is a good sign for me. I used the bathroom and, by the time I was done, he had left the machine. This ended up being a pretty valuable play that just fell into my lap. Unfortunately, I ended up losing a small amount of money on the play. Kind of funny that I spent a bunch of time looking for plays without finding anything, only to find a quality spot when I least expected it.

Last night I also received $25 in free play from my “Achievement Award” that I earned during the Triple Status Point promotion. I used this to play video poker and was able to cash out $40 thanks to making a straight flush. In total this week, I won $52 playing machines.

–

I expect to play live poker twice again next week, although I do not expect to win anywhere near as much money as I did this week. I have been staying pretty busy lately which feels good. Feeling a bit tired today from being out late last night, but I’m happy I was able to put up a big week.

Congrats @ 1K hours and your results, gogogo!

GlaughingallthewaytothecleanersG

I had another really nice week. Been running hot lately.

Live Poker:

Similar to last week, I played two short sessions of live poker this week. In total I won $1,114. I played a total of 1.5 hours of $2/$5 (+$674) and 5.5 hours of $1/$2 (+$437).

My first session of the week was Saturday afternoon. I put in poor volume on this day, but I still booked a nice win. Mohegan Sun was running a big multi-day tournament so the room was packed and waitlists were pretty long. I got lucky that a new $2/$5 game was called right as I got settled in. The table was pretty good at first, with the majority of the players being splashy fish types. I ran hot for an hour (rivered second pair with A9s and picked off a sad bluff attempt; picked up AKo in a perfect squeeze spot and took it down pre; somehow won with AA in multi-way 3bet pot on JT95Kccc) and won $363. After this first hour, two of the bigger fish at the table were replaced with good $5/$10 regs, so I decided to get up and move down to $1/$2. I think this was a good quitting decision. At this point it would be reasonable to estimate that I was the 4th or 5th best player at the table which is not where I am looking to be.

Unfortunately there was a huge wait for a new $1/$2 table, but I did manage to get a quick lunch and find several slot plays (see: Other gambling) while I waited. Eventually, I ended up at a newly formed $1/$2 table which was pretty good, with deeper stacks and several very weak players. At this table, I won a series of small pots but didn’t get into any particularly interesting spots. A few of the players were pretty tilting, particularly the woman next to me, who was watching a nature video on her phone (complete with YouTube ads) at full volume. I try really hard not to use headphones when I play live but I did in this situation. I ended up playing 2 hours before booking a win of $73.

My second session was last night, on Thursday. Mohegan Sun’s Triple Status points promo was running again, so the poker room was packed. The casino in general was very full too, I think because of the 4th of July holiday tomorrow. I started my session off much later than normal (see: Other gambling) at a pretty good 1/2 table. I ran hot at this table, winning a big pot flopping two pair with KQo and then another big one with QQ. The QQ hand I felt like I made a pretty significant mistake, so I might end up doing a thread on the strategy subforum about that one.

After an hour, I noticed that the 2/5 must move game was short-handed with a bunch of weaker players, so I jumped in. Unfortunately the game broke after about a half hour, but I still was able to book a nice win of just over $300 (mostly due to flopping a set in a 3bet pot). After that, I moved back down to 1/2 where I ended up on a pretty good table with a bunch of younger players with deeper stacks. I feel like I played pretty well at this table, although I wasn’t involved very much due to card distribution. I won a flip with AQo against an aggressive young short-stacked player which allowed me to book a $120 win at this table.

In general, I think I played OK during the second session of the week. I do think I made a couple significant mistakes which is unfortunate, but I ran super hot overall which is always nice.

Online Poker:

This was another low volume week for me playing online. I played only 5.5 hours of mostly 100NL on ClubWPT Gold but still managed to win a total of $363. This number includes another two bullets lost max late-regging the 11SC nightly tournament. I played a little bit of 200NL as well. I continue to run well on this site, but I am also game-selecting religiously. At one point this week I was playing on a full 8-handed table where the average VPIP (including myself) was 49. I think it makes sense to do this given that I can’t multi-table at this point.

Other Gambling:

On my first trip to Mohegan Sun, I found a bunch of solid AP slot plays. One of the plays I found was really rare/valuable - the type of play that feels almost impossible to lose on. Outside of that one play, I ran pretty bad and ended up losing a total of $180. I was really happy with the volume I got in though, which is good because I only ended up playing 3 hours of poker on this trip.

On my second trip, I did not have very much time to check slot machines but I did still find a few quality plays nearby to the poker room. I also had $75 in free play (two “Achievement Awards” and one “Choice Credits” exchange) which I used on an AP machine. In total, including the free play, I won $200 on slots which is a great session for me. This brought my total for slots this week up to +$44.

For online casino stuff, I ran pretty bad at the start of the week but had a nice comeback later on through a combination of lossback credits and rungood. Also last night I made a quick trip to the Rhode Island/Connecticut border before my trip to Mohegan Sun. I had gotten an e-mail alerting me to the fact that the Rhode Island online casino (Bally Bet) had credited my account with $63. I don’t really know why this happened, but it felt worth it to make the ~40 minute detour to play through this money. I ended up having a total of $85 in my account and I won $100 playing. I drove right over the border to Westerly, RI and played live dealer “speed baccarat” at a dive bar there. It was a pretty fun experience but it took a little longer than I expected so I got to Mohegan Sun later than I had hoped. It turns out my wife also has $55 on her Bally Bet account so I think I will be making another trip out there next week. My total result for online casino this week was -$38.

–

Pretty great week for me overall. I expect to have a similar schedule this next week. Playing twice a week has been nice, but being out late on Thursdays (I got home at 1am last night) is messing with my sleep schedule a bit. Feels worth it for now though.

Quick update this time around. My son was actually born this week, early in the morning on Wendesday. He was a few weeks early so it's been a bit hectic but everyone is healthy and happy. Going to be super brief here, and I probably will stop updating this thread regularly until I get back to playing live again. Not sure when that will be, maybe a couple months?

Live Poker:

I played one very short session of live $1/$2 at Foxwoods. This was my first time at Foxwoods in a while. I would have liked to play $2/$5 on this day, but I didn't have very much time. My $1/$2 game was soft but the majority of the players were very tight. I ended up losing $21 in two hours.

Online Poker:

I put in a few sessions of 100NL on ClubWPT Gold this week, including a couple hours of play while I had downtime at the hospital. Unfortunately, the new baby rungood has not reached me yet. I lost $81 in 4 hours of play this week.

I plan to play more online the next few months. There is a lot of forced downtime with a newborn. When my daughter was born 3 years ago I played a lot of microstakes on Bovada when I was up late with her. The games at 4am on that site were the best I had ever played at the time. Curious what ClubWPT Gold will be like at that time of night.

Other gambling:

I did a second trip out to RI to clear another bonus on the online casino out there. I won $109 which made the trip worth it. Foxwoods is super close to the RI border which is why I stopped there to play live. I lost several hundred dollars playing promotions on Mohegan Sun's online casino though and I finished this week down $226 playing online casino games. I will get a good amount of lossback money on Monday though.

At Foxwoods I did a long walk through the casino, which is massive and very spread out, checking slots. There are a lot more AP games at Foxwoods than Mohegan Sun but I did not find many plays. I did encounter some competition and I wasn't looking at a great time of day so it makes sense. I did win something like $118 on live slots though, which is my only winning category of the week.

--

So yeah, a small loss this week with minimal volume. The rest of the events of the week more than made up for losing $200 gambling though.

I invite you to visit my website:

againstbookmakers.com

Since Thursday’s MLB trivia was such a hit, I’m bringing it back this Saturday! The first 30 people to answer correctly will get the chance to purchase a full-year subscription and 50 fixes for just $500 (normally $3,000)

What MLB team plays at Fenway Park?
Send correct answer to my email.
Unlock 12 months of VIP Zone access and 50 fixes
You have 12 hours to complete the payment (after that, the offer becomes inactive)*

Oh, and today only – a 100% guaranteed free super fix! Trust me, go BIG on this one – it’s free money!

*If payment isn’t made within the given time, the offer will expire and the spot will go to the next person on the waiting list (i.e., the next correct entries — 31st, 32nd, etc.). Those on the list will be notified right away when a spot opens and will have 12 hours to complete their payment.

Good luck with the little homie and the new baby run good! See you on the late night tables soon!

I actually had an interesting week that is worth posting about. No live poker of course (due to the presence of my newborn son), but I had a big winning week gambling online. New baby run good, maybe?

Live Poker:

None

Online Poker:

I played 11.5 hours of 100NL on ClubWPT Gold this week. I only won $58, which is unfortunate, but I am happy to have won at all. At times this week I ran really poorly. I got coolered in a couple big spots and also lost a bunch of all-ins. Can't run hot all the time though!

The big news is that I finally managed to get multi-tabling to work on ClubWPT. This involved me clearing a ton of space on my outdated MacBook Air in order to upgrade my OS so that ClubWPT's clunky app would be supported. I am really happy that the app is working for me, as I have heard that the app causes geolocation issues for a lot of people.

Playing multiples tables on this site has been a great experience so far. There are so many bad players out there, most of whom play one table at a time, so having more opportunities to get involved with these donators is huge. Personally I sometimes struggle with tilt and lack of patience when I just play one table at a time too. I am happy that I will be able to get real volume in now too. This site is so high variance and it takes forever to get to "the long run" when you play one table at a time. I am extremely lucky that I ran really hot for about 10k hands earlier in my tenure on this site because I don't know that I could have handled a downswing while single-tabling.

I have been in a good groove with playing a couple hours each day since downloading the app. I expect this to continue for a while. As I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of forced downtime with a newborn baby, and playing online poker is a great way to pass the time while baby naps nearby. It feels good that I am able to help support my family doing this as well. Every little bit helps!

Other gambling:

No live casino slots this week, but I had a huge week playing online casino games. Mohegan Sun's online casino ran its $100 deposit bonus promo this week, and I ran pretty hot clearing that. There was some weird bug with the promo funds where I didn't get paid out correctly on a couple bets that I placed with the bonus money. I contacted support and they ended up giving me an additional $100 in promo money which is pretty awesome customer service. It still baffles me that I have access to these bonuses, as I have now won something like $20,000 off this site lifetime.

I also got to return to the high variance online slot advantage play that I have alluded to in previous weeks. Things went super well this time around, and I won about $1000.

In total, I won $1843 this week playing online casino games.

--

I expect I will probably update this thread again next week with more online results. See ya then.