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

The online gambling sunrun continues. No live poker again. Maybe soon though? Things going very well with the family.

Live Poker:

None

Online Poker:

Since my last update I won $1,133 playing mostly 100NL on ClubWPT Gold. I played 12.5 hours total this week, which is pretty much where I want to be right now. Multi-tabling has been going very well for me. I have actually been pleasantly surprised with how well the software has been working. There was an update this week that made the layout of the tables a bit worse but it didn't bother me too much. I have been mostly playing three tables at a time. This is a comfortable amount for me, especially given that I usually have other stuff going on around me. The software is pretty clunky too, so I would worry about additional misclicks (I have already suffered a few costly ones) with an extra table.

It is nice to be getting in consistent volume and many more hands. Next week I anticipate that I will hit 20k hands played on ClubWPT. I will share my updated results then. Right now I am very close to eclipsing my total net won playing online poker from last year which is exciting.

I haven't felt too motivated to play 200NL lately, although I did play a little this week. I don't have much appetite for swinging that big playing online. I also don't feel particularly comfortable with keeping thousands of dollars on ClubWPT Gold. I just saw this week that the site will no longer be operating in NY. I am curious when the hammer will drop for CT. When Clubs Poker banned NY, CT was banned a few weeks later. I don't expect it will be that quick on this site, but we'll see.

Other Gambling:

I had another big week playing online casino promotions. I won $737 this week. Not much to say about that, I just ran super hot playing high variance games during a lossback promotion.

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Needless to say, this is a great timing to be running hot. Hopefully I can keep it going.

Midweek update as I have hit 20k hands on ClubWPT Gold, about 6k of which have come since I got access to multi-tabling. Unfortunately, I am in the midst of a nasty downswing on that site, having lost 11 buy-ins at 100NL over my last 6 hours of play. I think a lot of it has been standard negative variance, but I haven't been playing my best either. I also know that downswings can get a lot worse and last a lot longer, so hopefully I can turn things around.

I think it helps to zoom out and look at the big picture, so it's nice to be able to share my results from 20k hands played on here.

In total, I've won $4637 over 20k hands. My average stake is pretty close to 100NL, although I have played a few thousand hands at 40NL and 1k or less at 200NL. My winrate works out to ~23BB/100. That is probably unsustainable for me, although I do believe that crazy high winrates are possible because these games are so soft. I do think there is a higher level of variance than most poker games though, because of the game structure and the wild players. I have definitely run good overall, although this last stretch has been brutal.

I won an additional $2008 on Clubs Poker earlier this year, so I am up $6.6k overall playing online. I am really happy with that. Part of me regrets not playing bigger when the games on ClubWPT Gold were at their softest, but I know I wouldn't be able to deal with a 10 buy-in downswing at 400NL or whatever. So it's for the best that I kept the stakes pretty small.

So yeah, the downswing sucks but it's nice that I still have great results overall. I am also over-rolled for 100NL when you include the money I have set aside for live poker so I can easily handle the swings. I might take a break from playing for a little while. I need to make sure that I am continuing to try and improve at poker as well.

I’m With you in the downswings there being a lot. Given the nature of the game you are in decent amount of spots where you have to leverage your big stack. Dead money in pots plays a huge part in this on this site and you just don’t see that elsewhere. On global which I’ve played a bit it’s the standard stuff not WPT.

Have you done any GTOwizard work? I did a month with the ante and straddle and got some good insight into playing certain parts of your range.

Congrats on those results! You are clearly winning in the games you play and that’s the biggest part of poker. I also admire your dedication to this thread. It gives good insight into my own game and keeps me in check!

Man, you must have read my mind. I was re-reading my post from last night just now and was wondering if I should shell out for a paid month of GTOW to drill their WPT Global ranges. I refreshed the page and your comment was there! I think there are a lot of pre-flop spots that I am misplaying (too loose and aggressive in some spots; maybe too tight in a few others) so I think that would definitely help.

It is really hard for me to resist the urge to squeeze with marginal hands when there is always so much dead money in the pot. I have ended up in some crazy spots as a result. Sometimes I stack off light and kick myself when I run into the nuts, but then other times you see people get it in pre for tons of money with absolute trash (KQo, QTs, K7s, 22, 77). It's tough to know what the correct play is. Having the GTO ranges down would certainly help.

Interesting week this time around. Still no live poker, but I did take a quick trip to the casino earlier tonight. I am hoping to get back up there next week too.

Live Poker:

None

Online Poker:

As alluded to in my last update, I have had an eventful week playing on ClubWPT Gold. Things have been going well since my last post. At that point, I was in the midst of a pretty sick downswing at 100NL. I ended up taking a day off from playing and since then I have won six sessions in a row. I guess you can have some pretty big swings multi-tabling on this site. In total, I have recouped $700 of the $1100 I lost. I feel really good about that. I think I handled this downswing pretty well. Last year when I was putting a lot of volume in online, downswings would completely wreck me. I would tilt while playing and punt more than usual. Losing would also affect my mood at home. As a result, I would have to take long breaks to reset. I don’t think any of that happened this time around. Glad to be making progress on my mental game.

I didn’t end up playing at all today and I am looking forward to getting back to the grind. The net result of this week was -$425 over 12.5 hours of play.

Other Gambling:

I put in a lot of volume hustling on the online casinos this week. I had some pretty big swings here as well, but the net result was only a $25 loss. My offers were worse than usual this week. Hopefully this won’t be a continuing trend.

I also took a very brief trip up to Mohegan Sun this evening. The Player’s Club was giving away $50 casino gift cards, so I figured it was worth it to drive up. I only had about an hour to gamble so I chose to check slot machines, as an hour really isn’t enough time for a live poker session. I had $25 of free play and converted this by vulturing Ultimate X machines (which also netted me a free beer). Outside of that, I found a couple small plays. One of the plays was a premium: a must-hit-by progressive jackpot that was 98.5% of the way to hitting. The jackpot was only $40 but this is the sort of play that you can’t really lose at. I encountered a lot of competition with other slot hustlers on this night, so I’m surprised I was able to get this play. My net result on slots was a $55 win. It was nice to get in a quick trip to the casino (and to win a bit of money) but afterwards I did regret not being able to play live poker.

Looking forward to getting back to it next week.

Was able to play a little live poker this week for the first time since my son was born. Had nice win of about $500 this week too.

Live Poker:

I actually played two very short sessions this week. I played 2.5 hours of $1/$2 (+$205) and 1.5 hours of $2/$5 (-$398). My first session was 90 minutes of 1/2 on Sunday afternoon. This was an extremely smooth welcome back to live poker, as I basically didn't lose a single hand. Most of the hands were small-ish pots that were won without showdown, but they added up to a nice win. My table was soft but unremarkable.

And then earlier today I played a slightly longer 2.5 hour session where I mostly played $2/$5. While I did book another win at $1/$2 to start the day, my $2/$5 session was pretty rough. I don't think I made any big mistakes though - just lost a couple medium sized pots with AKo and couldn't get much going.

AKo - EP MAWG open $20 folds to me in SB I $75 he call. Flop: T54r ($150) I check he $75 I call. Turn 3 ($300) I check he $225 I fold

AKo - I open UTG $15 four players call. Flop AQ3r ($75) Checks around. Turn 6hh ($75) SB (tight older player) lead $45 I call others fold. River 2 ($165) he $80 I call he has AQo

I played both of these hands pretty passively. I don't think this is bad necessarily, especially out of position, but this table was not particularly aggressive or sticky so maybe should be ramping up the aggression. Nice to lose the absolute minimum to a nit with top two pair.

Online Poker:

I had a great week playing 100NL on ClubWPT Gold. I played only 7 hours, but I won $466. This means I am officially out of the hole for last week's 11 buy-in downswing. I am proud I was able to bounce back so quickly from this. In my experience, the games on this site continue to be excellent. I may try some more 200NL next week.

I did play a little bit of 400NL this week under special circumstances. Doug Polk did a stream where he was trying to win a pot with every single starting hand. I happened to be watching the beginning of the stream and saw he was playing at a short-handed 400NL table with a bunch of fish so I jumped in. I bought in short and instantly got stacked by Doug AIPF my 99 vs his JJ on a J94X4 runout. Kind of a silly thing to do but it was fun to make the stream and I actually do think it was a good spot for me. The table was soft and Doug was playing wildly trying to win with hands like T2o J3s etc.

Nice to still book a solid win this week playing online despite the failed shot-take.

Other Gambling:

Everything returned to normal with the promotions on Mohegan Sun's online casino. I had a smooth week winning $113 despite starting out in a $200 hole. I have been getting some playable stuff from DraftKings recently too and I had a nice hit on that site which helped.

I put in a good amount of volume on advantage slots at Mohegan Sun's brick & mortar casino. I found four nice plays on Sunday where I got some good coin-in and won $70. At one point I was up about $300 on a "Phoenix Link" play but I lost most of that back finishing out the play which is always frustrating. I am not a big fan of this game but it is everywhere at Mohegan Sun right now. I turned down a larger denomination play on this game because it is so volatile. Earlier today I struggled to find anything to play but I ran hot on a couple Ultimate X spins (hit a straight on an 11x multiplier on a 25c denomination spin) and was able to book a $35 win.

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Looking forward to putting in more volume next week. I should be able to play live a bit more in the coming weeks although I don't know how consistent I will be. I continue to be excited about online poker though, so I'll definitely be getting hands in either way.

Another solid week with good volume and a nice win. I already wrote this post out once and accidentally deleted it which is annoying. The second version of the post might be a bit shorter as a result.

Live Poker:

I played one very short session of $2/$5 this week at Mohegan Sun. I didn't get into very many spots but I did have one interesting hand which warranted a quick post on the strategy subforum. In total, I lost $137 which is fine. It's nice to be playing regularly again, even if it is not very many hours.

Mohegan Sun recently raised their rake cap to $7 which is pretty unfortunate. I think this will be the catalyst to get me to shift most of my volume to $2/$5. The new rake cap is not any higher than most of the rooms in New England, and Mohegan Sun is a nice property with good comps. Still, if it wasn't the most convenient room for my purposes, I would probably try to play more at MGM Springfield and Foxwoods (provided they haven't already increased their rake).

Online Poker:

I put in above average volume at 100NL on ClubWPT Gold. I played 14 hours and won $578. Unfortunately I had a bad session last night where I made several mistakes and lost $300. This soured the week, but it was still a successful one.

As of this week, I have now won more money playing online in 2025 than in all of 2024. I'm extremely happy about this, especially considering how great my 2024 results were compared with the rest of my online career. I believe ClubWPT Gold will cease operating in CT in October, as Governor Lamont recently signed a bill outlawing Sweepstakes casinos in our state as of October 1. This isn't surprising at all. If anything, I'm surprised ClubWPT Gold has lasted this long. Hopefully I can win some more money between now and then.

ClubWPT Gold also introduced a new feature where you can pay 0.5-1.5bb of extra rake to reveal the hole cards of your opponents at the end of a hand. I think this feature is silly but I will probably use it a few times. I expect it will confirm that many of the regs on this site do not bluff rivers very often. At a low point in my session last night, I used the feature to confirm I made a correct river fold against a whale. This was a nice confidence boost. Of course, if it had shown I got bluffed, I would have had to quit the session out of tilt lol.

Other Gambling:

At Mohegan Sun I found three high quality AP slot plays. One of the plays, a Buffalo Link machine at 1675 buffalos at $5/spin, was one of the highest EV plays I've found recently. Unfortunately, I ran really badly and booked a loss of $82. Still, it was nice to find some good stuff.

I finally put together a spreadsheet of my AP slot results. I started playing almost a year and a half ago. At first, I didn't track my results at all because I was just messing around. Now that I am playing more seriously, I am glad to have more serious records. For 2025, I am up $507. This represents a small percentage of my net gambling winnings, but I know that I have been getting better and it is nice to be winning in the process. There is a lot of variance involved with slots and so much of the EV is tied up in huge jackpot type wins. I haven't had any big scores yet, but I know I will hit one eventually.

On the online casinos, I got a lot of volume in playing promotions. I booked a nice win of $166 overall thanks mostly to today's deposit bonus on Mohegan Sun's online casino. I ran below EV overall, but that's OK. I will have some lossback money to play on Monday as well.

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I expect to play a few hours of live poker again this weekend and I will keep up with the online grind as well. I feel like I have been working pretty hard lately but it feels good.

Challenging week this time around. I booked a modest loss of $313 but the swings of the week weighed heavily on me.

Live Poker:

I did manage to get back to the casino for a short session this week. I played 2.5 hours of $2/$5 this week and lost $252. This is not a big loss at all but for some reason it was a frustrating one. This was my 3rd small loss in a row in this game. Over those three short sessions, I’ve been pretty card dead. I often feel some pressure to try and make something happen when I play such a short session. This feeling used to cause me to punt at the end of my sessions, but I’ve gotten much better at that. Still, it isn’t easy.

The table that I played at was not particularly good with several players that I would assume are better than I am. Normally I would leave such a table in favor of $1/$2 but I stuck it out. I did this partially because I am trying to play less $1/$2, and partially because table changing during a very short session doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Ultimately, I’m happy I got the chance to play live again and I’m happy I got some more hours in at $2/$5. On the way home from the casino, I was lamenting having to play such a short session. I was fantasizing about taking a trip to another part of the country to grind out some longer sessions. This is not possible for me at this current point in my life though, and I should feel grateful I’m able to play any live poker at all. I plan on playing a few more hours this weekend and I will try to focus on being grateful to play.

Online Poker:

I played 14 hours on ClubWPT Gold this week, mostly at 100NL. This was a difficult week for me. The net result was only a $29 loss but I had some brutal swings. Almost every session I played this week was a two or three buy-in swing, often alternating between wins and losses. The feeling of winning $300 one session only to lose it all back the next session was pretty distressing, especially after it happened three or four times in a row.

This week I felt tilted several times, which hasn’t been happening to me very much lately. Worse than that, I continued to play while tilted and made some spewy plays. A lot of my success online recently has been a result of me either conquering tilt or at least learning to quit after I start to feel tilted. This week’s setbacks on this front are a sign to me that I need to take a break from playing to re-set. Since my son was born last month, I’ve played almost every single day. I’ve done really well (winning about $2000 at a rate of $30/hr) but I think I could use a few days off from playing online. I will focus on some mental game study during this time.

Other gambling:

I found two longer AP slot plays at Mohegan Sun on Saturday. Both plays were pretty mediocre (high variance, low EV) but I have been taking these sorts of plays consistently. Unfortunately, I won on the lower denomination play and lost on the higher one. This resulted in a net loss of $125. I encountered some competition while checking slots in the form of a team of older Asian players (this is a common phenomenon with AP slots), but I did manage to learn something new while I was watching them check a certain machine.

I had a high volume week on the online casinos. I had some heavy losses playing lossback promotions to start the week. Fortunately, I was able to win this money back on a new AP opportunity on one of the online casinos. This was a new version of the same highly volatile game I have referenced several times before on this blog. I finished the week up small in this category: +$93. This was my only winning category of the week.

The other night I tried something new which involved me playing an online slot machine late at night to chase a progressive jackpot that hits before 11pm each night. I know this play was +EV because I was playing with 40% lossback, as well as a slim (but higher than normal) chance at hitting an $8k jackpot. Unfortunately the play resulted in me losing $175. Worse than that, I wasn’t able to sleep afterwards. I don’t have a very long window for sleep (toddler plus newborn) so not being able to sleep when I need to is a bit of a disaster. I won’t be making this play again and I will prioritize sleep for the rest of the week. And at least I will have an additional $70 of lossback credits coming in.

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Not a good week overall, but not a huge loss either. Between work, parenthood, household responsibilities, and moonlighting as a professional gambler, I think I have been going a bit too hard lately. I’ve been listening to a podcast called Rigged Game at the recommendation of another poster on this board. This podcast is basically just the daily blog of a successful advantage player. He also balances being a father, having a day job, and being a professional gambler. His work ethic is really inspiring, but there are aspects of his lifestyle (driving huge distances daily, staying out all night) that are just brutal. Still, it is an enjoyable listen and it has given me some ideas about how I want to conduct my business moving forward.

Up and down week again. Lots to write about this week.

Live Poker:

I played one session of live poker this week. I played one hour of $1/$2 (-$22) and two hours of $2/$5 (+$170). This is still below my average session length, but it’s the longest I’ve played since my son was born. It was nice to be able to play a little bit longer. I played at three different tables over three hours because of the $2/$5 must move game. This is a bit challenging, particularly when you are playing against mostly unknown players. It does make the time go by quickly though. I think I did a better job staying focused on the game when I wasn’t involved in hands. This is something I struggle with at times, even though I know it is important.

My $1/$2 game was really dull, but both $2/$5 tables were above average with a good amount of action. I got stuck early after semi-bluffing two streets in a pretty standard spot, albeit with the straddle on so it was bigger than normal. I had two big value hands this session and I think I made mistakes in both hands, which was a bit frustrating. I think I suffered a bit from FPS in both spots, which has been an issue of mine. That said, I did get paid on the river in both spots and I don’t think either play was a massive EV blunder, so it’s not a big deal.

Overall, I am grateful I got to play and I’m happy I played more $2/$5. Nice to book a win too, ending a small losing streak at live poker.

Online Poker:

Woof, this was a depressing week of 100NL on ClubWPT Gold. Last week, I was dealing with some big swings and breaking even. This week, the doomswitch flipped on fully, and I just lost relentlessly for a three day period. I lost every single all-in basically, including multiple three-way all-in pots where I was the equity favorite. I lost flips, I got sucked out on in ridiculous fashion, and I ran AKo into AA twice, both times in automatic spots against wild punters. And then, to top it off, I blew up in a couple spots, making the sort of tilted punts I’ve largely avoided this year.

The end result was -$748 in 10 hours of play. This caps a $1084 downswing over a 31.5 hour period. This downswing immediately followed a $2016 upswing over a 20 hour period. I think this perfectly illustrates the insane variance of ClubWPT Gold. There are going to be wild swings when you’re playing against spazzy fish in a straddle/ante format that incentivizes action and reduces effective stack sizes.

Unfortunately, I think I may be done playing on the site for now. I tilt withdrew what remained of my balance tonight (after I lost AIPF AQo vs the 65o of a maniac playing 80/30 stats). With sweepstakes casinos due to be illegal in CT as of 10/1, it doesn’t seem likely that I will return to grinding regularly. Anything is possible though.

I finished ahead $5568 on ClubWPT Gold. I played just under 30k hands, mostly at 100NL with a few thousand hands at 40NL and maybe 1k or so at 200NL. Add that to the $2008 I won on Clubs Poker, and I won $7576 this year playing online. I am really pleased with that. Not sure what the future holds for now.

Other gambling:

I had an interesting session vulturing slots at Mohegan Sun. I encountered a lot of competition again. This time, it was several nondescript white guys that I didn’t recognize. A lot of the people I see checking machines are regulars but I don’t know about these guys. I didn’t find much at first, only a few very small plays. I ended up taking two plays that might have been a bit early but I won on both which is always nice. Finally, I ended up finding a premium play at $7.50/spin which is about as big as I’ll go. I hit a “Jackpot Bonus” on the machine. $7.50 is the max bet on this particular machine and the top jackpot was $20k. For this bonus, you spin a wheel and get the prize it lands on. I usually try not to get my hopes up in these spots, but I will admit that I was dreaming of Vegas and the bleeping Mirage here. The prize I won? $15. Just two bets! I lost about $60 on that play but still booked a $10 win on slots.

As a result of my uptick in slot play, I am now getting better offers from Mohegan Sun. I get a “Free Bet” most trips up there, and they have upped my bet amount from $10 to $15 or even $20. I have also been invited to partake in a free-to-enter slot tournament, which I might do for the lolz. I am going to have to gamble pretty hard in September to maintain my status in the Player’s Club. Not going to be easy with my current schedule but I am optimistic.

I did really well playing promotions on CT’s online casinos. I won $389, mostly thanks to a single big win playing online roulette with 25% lossback.

With the start of football season, I have gotten a lot of promo offers from the local sportsbooks that are worthwhile. I placed a bunch of small wagers with odds boosts and whatnot that are worth a small amount of money. I will report on how I do next week.

More interestingly, CT’s third sportsbook, Fanatics, ran a pretty great deposit bonus this week. Fanatics, which partners with the CT Lottery, is the ugly stepchild to FanDuel (partnered with Mohegan Sun) and DraftKings (partnered with Foxwoods). I typically don’t even log in to check the promotions on Fanatics but I did this week and found an offer for a 100% deposit bonus up to $100. The only catch is that the deposit must be done in person at one of Fanatics’ retail sportsbooks. So I took a trip to “Sports Haven” which is a massive, ancient racebook off of I-95 on the outskirts of New Haven. Sports Haven started offering legal sports betting a few years ago. I originally thought this would be a big boost for that location, but the place was as depressing and empty as I have ever seen today. I think it is closing soon too. Still, I got my $100 deposited easily enough and I instantly received $100 worth of bonus bets.

Unfortunately, I quickly found out that I have been “limited” on the Fanatics Sportsbook. This means I couldn’t place any large wagers using my bonus funds. I was able to make ten $10 bets though, so I guess it’s all good. I guess I probably got limited for abusing bonuses, because I am in no way a sharp sportsbettor otherwise. Kind of weird that they would offer me this deposit bonus in that case, but I’m not complaining.

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End result of the week was a loss of $200, which is not very much. I am pretty disappointed with how things went with ClubWPT Gold, but I had a good week otherwise. I feel optimistic about the next few months too.

Had a really solid winning week, up about $800. I won at everything basically. I didn’t put in as much volume as I had been hoping for, but plenty of stuff to write about.

Live Poker:

I played one short session of live poker this week: 2.5 hours of $2/$5 on Saturday afternoon (+$75). The poker room at Mohegan Sun was pretty busy on this day because of a $1000 high hand promotion, so there were already three 2/5 tables running by 1:30pm. The table I was at had a high turnover but it was a good table in general. There were a couple tougher winning players, but there were a lot of fish too.

I played a couple interesting hands this session. I had one spot where it felt like I made a pretty big mistake against a $5/$10 reg. This hand stuck with me for a long time afterwards. In general, I don’t think I played my best this session. It felt like I was off my game and not thinking clearly. I am playing less poker than usual right now, so that might play into it. Either way, I got extremely lucky in a big spot early in the session:

KK - UTG (40s reg) limps short-handed, I raise $25, one cold call, blinds fold, UTG just jams for my $400. I obviously call and the other guy folds. UTG has AA (lol) but I turn a King and double-up.

I actually thought the UTG player in this hand was a pretty good player, so this showdown was shocking. I made a tilted comment to him before the runout (“Good thing you limp-raised”😉 so I felt a little bad after I ended up getting there. In my live poker career, I think I’ve won more hands with KK against AA than I’ve lost which is obviously insane. Goes to show how small of a sample size 1000 hours of live poker really is. After this double up, I slowly bled off chips for a while before this interesting spot:

99 - I open UTG, UTG2 call, LJ (friendly Asian reg) 3bet $65, CO fish cold call, BB fish cold call, Hero?

LJ in this hand is on the looser and more gamble-y side of winning players and we have played many hours together at $1/$2. He has 3bet/folded to me recently and I know he views me as a solid player. I thought this might be a good spot to 4bet jam for $700 given all the dead money and this player’s wide-ish range. I decided to just call though, because I think calling is never a mistake here. I didn’t really feel like taking such a high variance spot too. CO ended up winning the hand with AJs against the BB’s ATs on an Ace-high board. LJ seemed annoyed at the showdown and bemoaned the Ace on the flop. I asked if he had Kings and he said no, so I guess it was QQ or JJ and I probably saved some money.

I lost a few more pots after that hand and racked up after the biggest fish at the table busted. I only won a very small amount of money despite getting super lucky AIPF but this was still a good session. I had fun and it’s always nice to win.

Online Poker:

My plan was to not play any online poker this week; however, I won a free $55 tournament ticket on ClubWPT Gold in a giveaway on Brad Owen’s Twitter page. I was looking forward to playing as this was going to be the biggest buy-in poker tournament I’ve ever played. Unfortunately, I only lasted for less than a single orbit. I registered about 30 minutes late (not the best decision in a turbo PKO) but still started with 65bb. In my first orbit, I played 3 all-in pots in a row: TT < A5s AIPF for 35bb; AQo > KJo AIPF for 10bb with a lot of dead money; and then finally AA < K8s all-in on 985tt in a 3bet pot. Nice to get it in good three times, but unfortunately I couldn’t hold in the bigger pots. The end result of the tournament was a bit frustrating. This was a good reminder that I don’t really like tournaments. It was also a nice reminder that I am extremely lucky to run good in the biggest game I play ($2/$5 live).

Other gambling:

I had a fun session vulturing slot machines at Mohegan Sun. I found an extremely rare and valuable play on my way to the poker room - the sort of play that is almost impossible to lose on. This particular play was at $3.75 a spin which is great. There was also a $3.50 ticket sticking out of the machine. I guess someone ran out of money chasing this play and just decided to leave the ticket in the machine. I actually didn’t feel comfortable taking the ticket. This is something I’ve done a lot in the past but I know the casino doesn’t like it and that you can get in trouble for doing it. If the ticket was smaller, I might have taken it. I won about $80 on the play so I was happy either way.

After I wrapped up playing poker, I spent about an hour checking machines. The casino was packed and I saw a lot of other hustlers checking machines. I found a few small plays but lost on most of them. I had a lot of luck finding good Ultimate X plays but I ran poorly. Finally, I decided to venture into the High Limit room to check the Ultimate X machines there, inspired by an exchange I had with the poster suitedjustice in his blog thread. I’ve never done this in High Limit before, but I figured the room was busy enough that I wouldn’t be noticed. I found one great play at $50/spin on Deuces Wild which is one of my biggest slot plays ever. Fortunately, I hit a full house on a 7x multiplier and ended up profiting $100. In total, I won $133 this slot session.

The highlight of the week was that I ran like God playing promotions on Mohegan Sun’s online casino. I finished the week up $447 despite some lackluster promo offerings. I basically just won every session and went on a massive heater clearing bonuses playing $5/hand blackjack. I also had a nice hit playing some promo free spins on BetOnline. I played a few thousand hands of 10NL on that site years ago and now I only log on when they e-mail me free stuff.

This week I also improved my blackjack game, as I unfortunately learned that the basic strategy chart that I have committed to memory is for H17 when the game that I play is S17. There are only a few subtle differences between the strategies but I have played over $100k worth of hands with the wrong strategy. I think I have it all down now though.

As I mentioned last week, I have been doing a good amount of sports betting lately with all of the promos being offered by the local books for the start of football season. I won about $140 this week, most of which I have bet on games for this weekend. I don’t really enjoy betting on sports and I mostly picked my bets at random this week. It’s nice to take advantage of some free EV though.

–

Really nice week overall. Super glad to be back to winning after a couple lackluster weeks. Looking forward to playing live again this weekend too.

Thought of you when I saw this…might be worth seeing if you were affected…

http://https://www.reddit.com/r/sportsbo...

Wow interesting, thanks for sharing! Unfortunately it seems I was not affected by this as I haven't received any funds. I got into bonus hustling in mid 2022, so I was a bit late to the game. I play a lot more on FanDuel too.

This is at least the second DraftKings Casino scandal from CT. This happened a couple years ago:

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/03/draft-kings-fined-connecticut-slot-machine-payout-glitch.html

CNBC

DraftKings fined in Connecticut for online slot machines that paid zero wins for a week

Pretty sketchy. Good reminder to always be on your toes when you're gambling online, even on regulated sites.

I didn’t play my best this week and didn’t put in a ton of volume, but still had a nice win.

Live Poker:

I played one very short session of live poker this week. I only played 1.5 hours of $1/$2 but I won $414. I got to the casino very late (see: other gambling) and I was feeling a bit out-of-sorts. I got called for $2/$5 but the table looked below average and my $1/$2 table was good so I passed. I’m not sure if this was a good decision, but it ended up working out in my favor.

My table had a couple really big fish but the stacks weren’t deep at all. Fortunately, I ended up running incredibly hot and sucking out in two big all-in pots.

QQ - UTG straddle EP limp I raise $25 (live misclick, meant to make it $20), folds to SB fish who jams $150 folds I call and show. He has KK but I win on Q9365

33 - two EP limps CO (LAG fish) posted and checks I call BTN blinds complete. Flop: A73r ($10) checks to me I bet $10, folds, first limper calls, CO calls. Turn 6ss ($40) checks I bet $30 EP calls CO raises $100. At this point, EP had less than $100 back and CO had $75 behind. I jam, EP folds, CO snap calls. I ask if he has 45, he says yes. I show and the river is an A. CO shows 45o and mucks in disgust.

These hands happened within a few orbits of each other. I can’t recall the last time I sucked out in back-to-back hands like this playing live. The fact that I won KK vs AA just last week makes it even crazier. It’s nice to run hot I guess. I would rather win by playing well, but all 3 of these hands were coolers so I’m not going to sweat it.

I played a few more hands but nothing too interesting. I didn’t have very long to play on this day, and my table got a lot worse after I busted the fish. I racked up a half hour earlier than I had planned to check slots on a busy Saturday evening.

Online Poker:

Earlier this week I got the long-expected notification that ClubWPT Gold will no longer be operating in CT. I got the text on September 8th notifying me that I would no longer be able to deposit after September 9th and that I would no longer be able to play after September 23rd. I made the decision to deposit a small amount of money on the site to preserve my ability to play for a little while longer.

Later in the week, I put in a couple sessions playing 20NL on ClubWPT Gold. I decided to play that stake, which is the lowest available, due to my low remaining balance. Predictably, the games at 20NL are incredible. The structure (two blinds, deep stacks, large ante) is pretty refreshing compared with the short-stack three-blind play of 100NL. I think it will require some adjustments by me.

In total, I don’t think I played very well this week, but I still managed to win $97. I ran hot in some huge spots. I also punted several times and felt impatient and prone to tilt. Hopefully I can get that under control next week. If I keep winning, I will likely move up to 40NL soon to try and run up a balance on this site one more time before it becomes unavailable to me.

Other gambling:

I took another trip out to Rhode Island this week, prior to my Mohegan Sun trip. Between my account and my wife’s account, I had $60 of free play available on RI’s online casino. The trek to Westerly, RI on the CT border is about an hour out of way but I thought it was worth it for $60. There also appeared to be a new version of a beatable game on the site that I wanted to play. Unfortunately, that game wasn’t actually available. This soured the trip for me a bit. I also struggled to connect to the online casino (I guess I was too close to the CT border at first) and then ran poorly playing through my freeplay. I ended up winning only $28 and the whole detour took almost 90 minutes.

When I got to Mohegan Sun, I took a quick lap around the casino checking slots. I found two decent plays and some other small stuff and ended up losing $60 which was a bit annoying. After my poker session though, I ended up finding a bunch of good stuff to play. I hit two back-to-back bonuses including a “Mini Jackpot” for a big win on a game I’ve been losing a lot on recently. Then I went back to the high limit area and found a single Ultimate X spin that resulted in an additional $50. At the end of the session, I went from being down $60 on slots to being up $130. This felt great and was a fun way to finish out my evening. I wish I could have stayed longer to play an additional session of poker or to continue checking machines. At some point I will get back to playing for longer.

I continue to get quality sportsbetting promos as well. These promotions (most are a 50% odds boost on a $10 bet) aren’t worth that much money, but I’ve still been taking advantage. I won something like $35 this week and I have $140 in bets made for this weekend.

For online casino promotions, I had a small loss of 155.48. I didn’t get a ton of volume in but I ran poorly on the more high variance plays I made.

–

Total net result this week was +$521 which is nice. Looking forward to hopefully putting more volume in next week.

It's been about a week and a half since my last post in here. Kind of a crazy week! I haven't really played any poker since my last post. I played a single session of 40NL on ClubWPT Gold where I took a nasty beat and then quit the session in disgust. I haven't played any live poker at all the last two weekends which is unfortunate. Last weekend, I had family stuff to do instead which I felt really good about. And then this weekend, I took a day trip to NJ to grind online casinos there. I went really hard with the online slot play that I've been battling since the end of May. This was my first time playing it in NJ, where there are two dozen online casinos. My session on that game lasted 10 hours with huge swings but I finished ahead over $3,000 which I'm excited about. I will return to NJ soon to continue that mission. At some point I expect I will be able to share some more details about the game I'm playing.

Hoping to get back to live poker ASAP but I feel good about prioritizing my family as well as traveling for this high EV online casino grind. Gonna finish out 2025 strong.

Live Poker: N/A
Online Poker: +$7
Other Gambling: $3083.51

Another big week with very little poker. I did take a drive up to Mohegan Sun on Thursday, but it was a brief trip and I only played slots. Mohegan Sun was running its "Status Mayhem" promotion and I needed to earn 60 status points to maintain my tier level in the player's club. I only earned about 50, and lost $200 for my trouble. I gambled really hard and took a bunch of super marginal plays. At the end, I probably needed to degen some true -EV stuff to get the rest of the way to my goal, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I am going to try to make it back up there this week. Hopefully I will be able to play some live poker this time around.

For online poker, I played another short session of 40NL this week and I won $63 which was nice. There was a big freeroll on ClubWPT Gold last weekend that I had intended to play but then I missed registration. Connecticut residents can no longer play on that site, so I withdrew the small balance I had left on there early this week. Maybe we will gain access again due to the changes that the site is making? I won't be too upset if this is not the case. I've resigned myself to this being the end of the sweepstakes poker era for me. Between Stake US and Global last year, and ClubWPT and Clubs this year, I won over $16k playing low/micro stakes on sweepstakes sites. Pretty happy about that.

I also forgot to report last week that I won $86 betting sports using some decent promotions. These promos have mostly dried up, so I don't expect to bet that much more this year. You never know though. College basketball is my favorite sport and that will be starting up pretty soon.

Finally, the big story of the week is that I returned to NJ for another short session grinding the online casinos down there. I ran incredibly hot and won another $5.7k, making this the best week of my gambling career. I'm not done yet either, as I will be returning to NJ later this week and am in the process of planning some additional trips this Fall.

Another nice win this week. I have been going pretty hard lately, so it feels good to be winning.

I took two short trips up to Mohegan Sun this week and was finally able to play a couple hours of live poker. I played two hours in an awesome $1/$2 game and lost $92. I had the opportunity to play $2/$5 but this table was really good and I was pretty rusty so I’m happy with what I did. One of my opponents was a huge whale who was blind raising to $12-$15 often. I was straddling and even doing some $6 blind raises myself, mostly to set up the whale (who was on my direct left) to put even more money in blind. I think I got three different pre-flop shoves through this session, but I didn’t get much going post-flop. After a while, several solid players transferred to the table and the whale tightened up a bit. This was right around the time I needed to leave, so it worked out well. It felt good to play poker again. I had fun despite losing.

I played a lot of slots at the casino as well. The first day, I won $133 to erase the poker losses and book a small win. The second trip I was with my family so I didn’t gamble much, but I did find an excellent slot play and won $85. I earned enough status points to maintain where I am at in the Mohegan Sun Player’s Club too which I’m happy about.

I had a really nice week playing promotions on CT’s online casinos. I had two nice sized hits and a few other small wins. In total, I won about $400. Then, I took another trip down to NJ to grind the online casinos there. I had almost $600 in lossback money to play down there, as well as this same online slot play that I’ve been working on for a while. The net result of my NJ trip was “only” a $565 win. This was considerably less than I had hoped for, but at least I didn’t lose.

In total, I won $1075 this week which I’m happy about. Should be able to put in a lot more volume next week too. Hopefully will be able to play some more poker, but I’m not sure.

No poker in this update, but lots more success with the online casino grind. Gonna keep it brief as I feel compelled to keep this thread updated but I don't actually have much to share.

I had a really nice week grinding promotions on CT's online casinos. I won $288 doing that, mostly thanks to one big win on slots playing with 40% lossback. I also grinded out a small win on a blackjack promotion on DraftKings. This was a high volume play and the DraftKings app was malfunctioning which caused me to have to play even longer. I went back-and-forth with a customer service rep in a Kafkaesque exchange where he repeatedly insisted that nothing was wrong with the app via e-mail. This was annoying but I still won, so whatever.

I also took two trips for the big online slot play I've been working on. First I spent a couple hours in New Jersey and won $615. Then, I took a long weekend trip to Pennsylvania where I played on 16 online casinos total for the biggest win of my life to date. I was able to take my family on this trip too, which felt good. It was fun to get some family time in and it broke up the grind of spinning online slots for hours on end. My only regret of this trip was that I did not have the chance to take a trip to one of PA's many real casinos. I've never played poker in any of these rooms, and it would have been nice to make that happen. Next time!

That's all for now! No out-of-state trips planned for next week so hopefully I can get back to playing poker.

That’s awesome how much your winning at slots the play must been huge ev. It’s also surprising how big you’re willing to play and swing at slots but still able to grind relatively small stakes at poker.

Is it like a mental thing or do you actually think your edge in these slot plays are alot bigger than your edge in poker?

Yeah I am naturally risk-averse and something of a bankroll nit. Probably could have made a bunch more money at poker if I had moved up in stakes earlier, particularly last year playing on Stake US when the games were impossibly good. The edge would be smaller at a stake like 200NL compared to 50NL and I would have had to deal with bigger swings, but I think my hourly would have been higher. I devoted a lot of thought to that question this year playing on ClubWPT too.

With poker it can be hard to know how big your edge is (or if it even exists). And if you aren’t in the right mindset and are playing poorly, your edge can go away. With the online stuff I’ve been doing, I am really certain of the edge. This recent play is a really big and unique opportunity so I have forced myself to throw caution to the wind a bit. I don’t know how long this opportunity will last either, so I feel like I have to make sure I take advantage now. Feels good to have taken a shot and had it work out.

The edge is usually bigger accounting for rake tho if your winning at a stake like 40nl your edge would be bigger at 200nl just due to the rake effect alone imo.

https://www.pokernews.com/strategy/the-impact-of-rake-in-low-stakes-cash-games-33298.htm

pokernews

The Impact of Rake in Low-Stakes Cash Games

Hustle hard! Hope the young family is doing well. I love Wind Creek and Bethlehem. Spent some time in that area and it’s great for family fin(Crayola museum in Easton) and cash games and people were legit.

by KeepGLOBALfair m

The edge is usually bigger accounting for rake tho if your winning at a stake like 40nl your edge would be bigger at 200nl just due to the rake effect alone imo.

https://www.pokernews.com/strategy/the-impact-of-rake-in-low-stakes-cash-games-33298.htm

pokernews

The Impact of Rake in Low-Stakes Cash Games

Yeah that is a good point, I definitely am not considering the impacts of rake enough when deciding what stakes to play. I will keep that in mind in the future.

Yeah the family is doing good! I really wanted to make it to Wind Creek this trip but it didn't work out. I've spent a good amount of time in Bethlehem in the past and it is super nice. We did hit the Crayola Experience though and my daughter had a great time there. Just need my son to start sleeping through the night lol. Been running on a sleep deficit for 3 months now and it just makes everything a little harder.

Yup. My son has been doing good overall but it’s tough to grind. Early morning quiet is some of the only good. You’ll have some good stories to tell him for sure when he reads this thread one day.

You should title it : how dad paid for college lol

Oh yeah glad to hear your son is doing well too! Early morning is definitely a good time.

I actually was thinking about changing the title of this thread or starting a new one, but I do think it's nice to have the original title still. Helps to show how far I've come in the 2.5 years since I started this thread.