**** TJ’s Sundry Poker Adventures! 2025-26 ****

yes indeed, but is this not the last bullet opportunity?
and by no means am i suggesting TJ play scared

First break, once again I swung up to about 50k early, but finished the level to swing back down, to a little over 32k.

I picked off a bluff in a medium sized pot early, that felt good. I led flop with top pair as PFR, then check called twice to induce, and he obliged.

Then I ran AK into AA, so lost a bit there. I got away from it on the turn, glad I didn’t go crazy with it pre.

Then played a hand I’m kinda mad about, in a late position spot with wide ranges. I open 55 first in from the button, both blinds call. It comes 9-8-6 two hearts, my cbet to 2300 gets checkraised to 5300. For that price, I call.

He dark checks the turn over to me, saying, “I thought it was for sale!” I think on it a moment, and check back.

River is the 3rd heart 9, which puts two pair on the board, and counterfeits my 5’s, neutering my showdown value. He checks to me. I can’t win if I check, so I try betting, and he shrugs and calls with QhTh.

Then I won a nice one on the last hand of the level, making a hero call with ace high. It was entirely based on a live read… he was staring at me furiously and intently after he bet. He was very distraught that I called him with that, and won.

So still feeling good. The big stacks are all to my left, which isn’t ideal, but they’re playing fast and loose. The 25 minute levels really force the action, but I’m going to pick the best spots I can find.

Crazy session. Played for over 8 hours, was up as high as +3k at one point, and ended… exactly even. A bit disappointing, since I was up so much at one point. I would have picked up and booked the win, but I had the Jesus seat on the mega-spot. He ran his last 500 into a stack over 5k, partially at my expense.

There were lots of big hands, but it’s all kind of a blur at this point.

I had the button with QJTT, it was a 5way raised flop, which came A-T-6 with two diamonds. There was a shove and two reshoves by the time it got to me. I stuck it in and prayed, and the runout came 8, A. The shortest stack had AT, everybody else had wraps or diamonds, so I actually made money on the side pot.

A little later, the spot leads for pot when I had 88xx on a J-8-4 rainbow flop. I re-pot to 1300, we get it in for about a 3k pot. There were straightening cards on the runout, but he mucked when I showed.

A big one I lost was 4betting AAQ7 with hearts preflop, and it came K-J-3 with two hearts. I continued, then the spot check/shoves on me. I get it in, he had a set of kings, and I couldn’t hit any of my 14 outs, in what was about a 3.5k pot.

Another big pot I lost was when I saw a 4way raised flop with KKJJ. I had the button, and it was shove, re-shove to me on a J-T-6 flop with two hearts. Again, nothing I can do but stick it in and pray. I completely unnecessarily caught a 3rd king on the turn, so top TWO sets, but the river was an 8, and 987x won, in what was about a 4k pot.

Sooooo crazy. We played until the spot racked up over 5k and left, at 3:45 am, with me very unsatisfyingly being just even. Well, it’s better than being down.

There are a few specific situations where I made mistakes, but on balance, I kept piling it in good with the best of it, or being way live in monster pots. I can live with that. Just gotta run better in the big ones.

Gonna get a good night’s sleep, and a shave before we head back to the cash games tomorrow.

Sounds like a fun game especially if you want action, good luck tomorrow!

Although I don't hate the bet on the flop since we are HU (should get folds fairly often against wide BB-range), I still think structuring should be important when we essentially are bluffing. So we can probably save the continues for the flops when we have a heart, although I would have been tempted to bet here as well.

For the second hand, this might be stylistic differences, but I think we are way to deep here to just open-rip. Although it would certainly suck having to raise 2x and get jammed on, and not knowing what to do.

Maybe a spot for the unusual open-limp? Apparently some good players have started to implement this from similar stack sizes as well. We can call a raise in position if it comes in, and in a limped pot we have a hand that should dominate a lot of the complete & check ranges.

I think that’s a cbet range spot in hand one and a standard shove in hand 2. They always have it on the river in hand 1 though, a lesson I seem to find myself taking a long time to learn as well.

Hand 2 floptimal 15bb:

Spoiler

Show

Hand 1 GTO wiz @ 50bb chip EV (can adjust to reflect any new info) - FWIW 0% checks on that flop:

Spoiler

Show

Slept as late as I felt like it, got a shower and a shave, then headed to the Italian place, Brio, for lunch.

Got the shrimp and crispy eggplant app, which is really good.

Then for my entree I got the pasta allá vodka with chicken. It’s ricotta-stuffed pasta in a spicy (not that spicy) tomato cream sauce.

They were BOTH good. The bill came to $53, which I was somewhat surprisingly able to cover with my comp balance. I’m used to getting just like $19 taken off, or whatever.

Next stop, poker room. I’m well-rested, fed, and clean shaven. Wearing the cash game run-pure shirt I saved for Championship Sunday, don’t let me down!

no update on moby's meals, he must be hungry for chips.

Moby is ALWAYS hungry to gobble up chips, that’s what all his extra arms are for.

well i guess this month he best just go on and git to proving it

or else be read as the eyes of another sucker fish octopiing eighth street

My cash games run-pure shirt officially regressed to the mean, today.

Sat in, and started losing right from the jump. Just one of those days, where nothing works. I got dealt an unusual frequency of big pairs, that flopped overpairs, but had to fold to heavy aggression.

The one big spot of the day was getting it in with A953ds with a nut club draw (plus backdoor spades) on T-7-4. I turned the ace, picking up a double gutter, but made two pair on the river, and lost to top set. Yet another spot where I had big, very real nut equity, but came up short on the runout.

Hit my stop loss for the day, so I’m done for this trip. I had already asked off from work, to come back next weekend and play the $1700 Main Event, but that was contingent on this week going well, or at least not-awfully. So I can’t in good conscience justify it.

So we’re gonna book this Cherokee trip as a loss. Despite how bad it’s gone this weekend, I’m really excited, because I’m closing on my FIRST home at the end of this month! This trip didn’t mess with my down payment funds, but as I joked, it may affect the size of the new tv I’m buying.

I’m gonna go home tomorrow, and close on this house and get moved. I’ll probably play some live games around town back home, but no more trips for me, until the WSOP returns to Cherokee after Thanksgiving.

Sorry for the disappointing trip.

IMO hold off on the new TV purchase until you can get the bigger one. Size does matter!

Sorry for the run bad. Thanks for letting us ride along nonetheless.

Congrats/good luck on the house closing. I hope you are able to fill your new home with happiness and great memories!

Congrats on the house bro - my week cleared up so Im going to head up Saturday for the Main - if you change your mind and come back let me know.

Closing on your own home > any poker tournament

Congrats

Rough trips happen. I think it's wise to rack up and cut your losses when you're not feeling it, so skipping the $1700 seems prudent.

Congrats on the move and better luck next time.

Good old Raleigh (went to Sanderson High School and NC State). I wish I had so many great games near me. Sounds amazing. Sorry about the run-bad at Cherokee. We plan to make it after Thanksgiving, so hope to see you there -- waiting for the schedule to be posted. Hope to play in the PLO tourneys, and I would like to cash again 😉

(FWIW, that "man cave" sounds awesome to me! Was having a discussion recently of how difficult it is being a "tomboy" as an adult. I don't like hanging out with most women, but most men don't want a woman around, even if she is more fun than they are 😉 )

Had a nice Friday night at G, for +4k in an almost 8 hour session. I needed to book a good win, to reset the mood after that rough Cherokee trip.

I don’t often play there on Friday nights, as I’m frequently working early Saturday mornings. The game was pretty amazing, with lots of players drinking (not me), and reloading deep. I’ll have to come back more often.

One guy went in for 6k, then turned it all the way around to out for 8k. I would characterize his style as “high variance,” both as he was losing, AND winning. Another player reloaded for 200 at a time, would stack off bad, reload 200 again, and got in as deep as 3k until he rage-quit. And finally, a pretty big well known whale for this game dropped 12k. Definitely an amazing game.

I started with 800, then ran it up to almost 3k. Then I bricked a few big draws, and got down to like 700. Added on for 200 more, in for 1k, then I got scooped for my stack in a bomb pot.

It was a pretty interesting spot, where I had a strong hand, debatably strong enough to stack off… but in truth may have been bad. I had AA92 with nut clubs, the top was 2-2-J, and the bottom was 3-3-4 with two clubs. So trips on top, a steel wheel draw on bottom, and a presumably live nut overpair.

In a vacuum, I think that may be enough compared to some of the hands I see getting stacks in in this game, but it was ship, call to me, then a player who had me covered re-shipped out of turn behind me. I’m not sure it actually IS enough, knowing 4 people are going in.

One player had JJ, both of the 3x’s showed up on the bottom, and I never did hit that A or 5c.

Reload another 1k, and played very patiently. I had to fold a lot, which is fine, and I eventually ran that back up to 6k.

I didn’t make perfect decisions in every spot, but I’m happy with how I played. I made several disciplined post flop folds, and didn’t speculate too widely in gamble-y preflop spots, when people wanted to play big pots. Especially when I was out of position.

A nice boost for the new-furniture-and-TV fund, to be sure.

hen it dozen matter if high or low
please keep tickling us tj eggleburg12 with your words of omaha highjinks

It’s definitely true that people play PLO bomb pots poorly.

I opt out of hold’em bomb pots as chopping happens a lot and double rake sucks. But PLO is a lot of fun.

It's the end of the month, so it's time to recap August.

When I was an online grinder before Black Friday, I kept a blog. The monthly recap posts were always my favorite. It was enough of a sample to mean something, and it was like checking in with my readers to update semi-regularly on how I'm doing. The numbers for this month look rough, however.

August Cherokee trip:

3 empty bullets in the mini-Main, -1200
4 cash sessions, 15.7 hours, -4800
-6k total, plus food/gas/hotel expenses

(Non-Cherokee) Live Cash Results

6 sessions, 28.9 hours, -965

So Cherokee was a bust, and my non-Cherokee cash results were within about any given session of being even, so I'm not too fixated on the bottom line number. Which is ugly, to be clear.

When I was an online grinder, I never went into a month with a monetary goal in mind, because in the short (and even medium) term, results are out of my control. I always thought of my goals in terms of volume. Hands played for online, and for live, I'm focused on hours. If I play enough hours, I'll be observing, adjusting to my opponents effectively, and making +EV decisions. I might run good or I might run bad, but if I play enough hours, while making good decisions, the results will take care of themselves.

I played 28.9 hours of live cash games in August, plus another 15.7 cash hours on my Cherokee trip, which falls right within my stated goal of 30-60 hours of live poker a month.

I can be happy with that.

I don’t have any entries in my live poker book after the 19th, because for the end of this month, I’ve been focused on closing and moving into my FIRST HOME!

It’s a gorgeous 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath townhome in a fantastic community, in a great suburb of Raleigh.

Owning my own home has always been a dream for me that’s been just out of reach. Through a combination of diligently working at my job, and my recent poker results, I was finally in a position to make this dream a reality.

When I hit my big poker score back in February, I splurged a little, but put most of the money into the market, and in savings, knowing my lease was up in September. And then I set about finding a new place, and making a big change.

In the interim it’s been fun, but ultimately meaningless, to root for my account balances to move from low 5 figures, to slightly greater 5 figures.

But now, as I sit in my new office, on my new desktop computer, with football on my awesome tv, it’s finally become real, for what it’s all been for.

I had to be careful with my money, while I was under contract. I didn’t want the lender asking me too many questions about my online payment transactions that were poker-related. I raised the salesman’s eyebrow when I bought my $4400 new living room sectional with straight CASH, homey, because I didn’t want to put it on credit before closing and mess up my ratios.

But now I’m closed, and moved, and absolutely FIRED UP, to approach my job, and my poker, with renewed vigor.

Here’s looking forward to a BIG September!

Congratulations on the closing, TJ! Just another 360 easy payments, and it's all yours! 😉