**** TJ's Summer 2025 Quest for Poker Glory ****

Get ‘em tomorrow! Im hanging in w 218k vs 261 avg 750 people left.

only semi joking when I say that questionable decisions are also how people win tournies and maybe how big stacks get run up in the first place!

Bagged 91k coming back to 12k BB. 36 off the money. Button one time!

Sorry I missed you in the Salute, TJ. It was head down, all business, all day.

With the stack depths being what they are, fair chance tomorrow is a quick session and I have more leisure time for the remainder of the day.

I like that you are reflecting on your session and thinking forward.

C'mon, brian, run it back up.

Sorry about the rough finish TJ.

Slept great last night, got up and had a shower and shave, then I headed over to the Nugget for the $400 PLO event.

First I had breakfast at Claim Jumper’s, which is a pretty legit breakfast/lunch/dinner place the Golden Nugget has.

I got the country fried steak and eggs, scrambled with cheese. Plus OJ and coffee, it came to $42.

Now I’ll head over to the tourney room, and wait for it to start!

Let's see how home fries work!

Interestingly, this will be the first ever live PLO tournament I’ve ever played. Logged hundreds of hours in live cash PLO, but never played it in a tournament format.

What better time to play my first one during WSOP!

I think PLO as a game format really lends itself to huge multiway pots. That means I might run up a stack early, or run bad in a key spot and bust early.

I’m okay with either outcome. As long as it’s a good spot.

30k starting stack, let’s gooooo!!

Humorous moment: a guy walks up to check in, and asks the dealer, “What do you need from me?”

Dealer says ID and dealer copy, then jokingly trails off and adds, “and your keys, your credit cards…”

I add, “social security number…”

Guy says, “Last time I did that, I got married!”

LOL. GL in the PLO!!! Can't wait to ride along.

GL TJ! I’m headed back for a much-needed day off after holding on for a min cash. Depending on how much sleep I can get I may come back and max late reg a srs bullet.

Busto bullet number 1. I played two big pots, and was fine with both of the spots, just didn’t run well enough to win.

I raised pre with AQT9 with nut hearts, and got a flop of A-J-4, with two hearts. Pot flop, a shortstack check calls flop, then shoves the offsuit 6 turn. I get it in, he has AKJx with no hearts, and I brick the river.

That got me short, to down around 11k, then I took a raised, multiway flop with KQT4 with a suit, and I flop all 3 pairs, K-T-4 rainbow. I check, PFR bets, one call, I shove, PFR reshoves, 3rd guy calls. PFR had a wrap, AKQJ, other guy had AA and backdoor hearts, so I’m all in ahead and in a pretty good spot.

Turn is a J, giving PFR broadway, and I couldn’t find the board pair on the river.

Bullet number two, back at the same table so I have a few reads, let’s go!

Gogogo

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Busto bullet number 2, set over set… to the same guy who won the big one on my first buyin. So he’s sitting pretty well off, right now, headed to the first break.

Only 61 entries at the end of level three (two of which were mine) and only 15k guaranteed in the prize pool, so no 3rd bullet for me in this one.

On my way to the WSOP to play 1/2 PLO cash, and try to recoup some of these tourney buyins.

although i cry each time i see those prices, i appreciate you including the prices immensely

TJ, you could try an interesting thought exercise in a poker MTT during major decisions:

Try and emulate a great poker player. With each major decision that you face, ask yourself quizzically, "How would All-inMcLovin play this hand now?"

Then look to break down the situation presented before you, while staying flexible with your thoughts.

It would be a way to force yourself to be more open with your overall thought process, and have an internal dialogue which should hopefully minimize the type of mistakes you've been making so far this trip.

Also Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that: The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there.

I can find a corollary with poker: The only Zen you find at a poker table, is the Zen that you bring there.

Patience is not only a virtue but IMHO the lifeblood of poker play. Without patience, one simply cannot win at poker.

Bobby Fischer famously said about chess (which has quite the number of similarities with poker): "Chess is a matter of delicate judgment, knowing when to punch and how to duck."
In poker, if you're not punching, you should be "ducking" by mucking, and striving for what I like to call "The Theory of Infinite Patience". Wait for your next moment to punch and be at one with the poker universe.

GL!

I know lots of people reading these trip reports are in the planning stages between Vegas trips, so I’m sure the price breakdowns can be very helpful.

And yeah, Vegas can be a pretty expensive place to eat. Not as easy to find great deals as it used to be. I’m still basically on track for the budget I’ve set for food… haven’t really splurged on any fine dining.

Totally agree, AIM, this is great advice.

The first, and most reliable indicator that someone is a fish at PLO is if they play too many hands. If they’re taking flops with any 4, with no regard to position or preflop action, then them losing is an inevitability.

Likewise, you’ll see some people get tilted, or down, then they play too many hands to try to get back involved, and make something happen.

Folding doesn’t mean you’re not playing. Folding bad cards is a requirement for good play.

I always try to keep that front of mind, especially when I’m going through spells of cold cards.

Another losing session at 1/2 PLO today. To focus on the positive, I quit before hitting my stop loss. But to think critically, I stayed too long in a not-great game, where it got to the point that I could top up and keep playing, or rack up while down.

I chose the latter today, so it felt like a win that I didn’t go bust.

And to be objective, I did run alternately pretty bad, AND cold. Definitely a below average frequency of coordinated, playable hands, and got bad runouts in the two gamble-y preflop all ins I played, as a slight favorite.

Good runs AND bad runs are unavoidable in this game, if you play any significant sample. The key is not to let the most recent results affect how you make decisions going forward. That goes for good, AND bad.

I’ve got the $800 HORSE tournament at Aria tomorrow. The 8-game mix tournament I played last year at the Nugget was my favorite event of my trip last summer, so I’m looking forward to this.

It’ll be a refreshing change of pace to break up the routine of just tournament NL and PLO.

My recommendation for tomorrow is to centralize your HORSE and go for checkmate.

Congrats to Moby (and TJ, I guess :p) for making it into the 2+2 newsletter!

I think this is a fold preflop. A 3bet might be okay as well.

re: AiM's advice

We were there last night dunc chopped 3 ways in the triple draw

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Knights on the rim are dim!

Gotta centralize those knights, and work then over the middle of the field like UGA standout Brock Bowers