Gray-haired poker TRs: Living the WSOP dream

Very good advice.

Yes, I agree that getting it in good as often as possible is the goal regardless of the runout of cards that follows. That said, there are some immediate internal feelings when it doesn't work out. I don't think the goal is to feel nothing when suffering a bad beat. I'm not trying to be an unemotional robot. That sounds boring. I do think the goal is when suffering the beat, feel bad for a moment and then put it behind me and play good poker as close to right away as possible. And when playing live, the goal is to show nothing externally when suffering a bad beat, which I do think I am really good at. Online I am more likely to throw my hands up in frustration and disbelief when someone hits a two-outer to knock me out of a tournament. I don't feel the need to hide my feelings online when no one can see my reaction.

When I describe what I feel in the immediate aftermath of a bad runout it is an attempt to 1) be honest, and 2) write in a way that is interesting. I could portray myself as always reacting perfectly, but that would be a lie and really wouldn't be particularly interesting. I think part of the reason this thread has as many views as it does is the fact that I write truthfully about my journey. That includes the good, the bad and the ugly.

Perfect is an impossibility. Improvement is attainable, but that likely takes place over time with peaks and valleys.

So yes, your advice is spot on. And yes, I try to follow that advice. But no, if I'm writing honestly, I don't always succeed in following that advice. Thanks for taking the time to offer a suggestion for how I can get better.

Knock, knock, knock, pot control is knocking on my door

A quick hand from an online tournament.

I have done nothing but fold unplayable cards for maybe four levels. I am not in the danger zone, but it doesn't feel good.

UTG+2, I look down at Kd-10d. By a wide margin, this is the best hand I've been dealt the entire tournament. I get called by two players.

The flop is Kc-4h-2s.

I lead out with a bet. I get one caller.

The turn is the 7d. I bet and villain calls.

The river is the 9h. I go all-in and get called.

Villain turns over Kh-Jh. My kicker is no good.

I was behind at every step of the way this hand. Villain's Jack kicker did not do me in. My impatience did me in. My frustration at a lack of cards did me in.

I am fine with my pre-flop open. I am fine with my post-flop bet. But after that I needed to slow down. I needed to be thinking pot control. Instead I acted like I had flopped a set. What I had was top pair with a potentially problematic kicker. I had a good hand. I did not have a great hand. There was no need to play for my entire stack.

This is a leak on my part. I know this is a leak on my part. I don't always recognize this leak on my part in game.

Some hands you play for stacks, but other hands are only worth trying to win a small or medium sized pot. I need to work on this.

I don't love your thinking here, both in your reason for betting and in thinking it's only all-in or check. You're very good at taking notes on your hands, and I'd encourage you to also note on the flop: How much was in your stack and how much was in the pot? Even if the pot is say 10bbs and you only have 5bb behind, you could still get away with betting 1bb in this spot.

But more importantly, you say here that he's going to jam if you check. If that's true, then you should check here! By jamming, you are letting him fold weak hands that will bluff if you check but SHOULD get away vs your bet (like, say Q5o...that call is very bad...). It feels like you're betting here to avoid facing a tough decision, instead of betting because it's the highest EV play.

In this case though, it's not a tough decision at all because you have a monster, even on a drawy board.

Now I do think betting is best here -- but you should be betting for value because he can call with worse, not betting because you're worried about having to call off vs a jam. (I hope that bit of constructive feedback is helpful. I am invested in helping you be a crusher by next summer.)

On another note ... I also yell at the computer over bad beats and react very calmly live. It's definitely a social thing but I also think it can be helpful to let off steam — as long as it's briefly and it doesn't affect your play going forward. Just remember...you're only supposed to cash roughly 20% of tournaments you play. The bad beats, lost flips and suckouts worse than you can imagine are just part of what you signed up for.

First, let me say that your feedback is constructive and appreciated. Thank you.

Second, your read on me is absolutely dead on. I definitely prefer putting the pressure on the other guy to make a hard decision. Conversely, I hate having to make a tough call. Someone wrote elsewhere in this thread that I have a tendency to believe that when an opponent bets into me, he has the nuts. I am very uncomfortable putting someone on a medium holding and making a difficult call when I have a good but not nutted hand. Not saying I never do it, but it is a challenge for me to do so.

I'm not sure how I practice getting better at this. I suspect that it is something that comes with a lot of experience. I am a long way from having a lot of experience. Also, I so thoroughly enjoy playing in a tournament that I find it difficult to call a bit light for fear if I am wrong my tournament could be over (or crippled). I have to get over my desire to stay in a tournament for as long as possible since that has the effect of making me fold too much when facing aggression, and/or betting to avoid a decision instead of betting for value. I have to stop overvaluing the experience of playing/lasting and instead make a decision for the right reason. Over and over when I bet aggressively, my thought process is, "I hope I am right" rather than "I am doing this because my read is I am good and I want to get value." Too many times when I am certain I am good, I go all-in (when size appropriate) rather than something smaller to increase the chances I get called that nonetheless creates a situation where an unlikely but devastating card may hit on the turn or river.

The answer, I suppose, is volume and experience. The more I play, the more I suspect I will get comfortable making the type of decisions you bring up. Thanks for your comment. It was very helpful.

The benefits and detriments of taking good notes during online tourneys

I am putting in a lot of volume online. Well, a lot of volume for me. Not a lot of volume for a professional poker player who puts in way more hours playing online and studying than I can. Still, I have way more poker muscle memory now than I did when I played in WSOP 2025.

This should be beneficial when I play in WSOP 2026 next summer. This doesn’t mean my results will be substantially better in 2026 than they were in 2024 (one cash) and 2025 (one cash), but the work I am putting in certainly doesn’t hurt my chances.

There is one aspect of online tournament play that may hurt me a little bit when I play live at WSOP 2026. As I play in more and more online tournaments, my notes on players are becoming somewhat robust. It is not uncommon for me to be at a table where I have notes on 3-5 opponents. Usually, these notes are on the best players at the table and the worst players at the table, and both ends of the spectrum are good to have a scouting report on.

It is really helpful to start hand #1 of a tournament and already had a read on a decent amount of my table. For example, one opponent I had in my notes that he bets really, really tiny when he is strong, and he bets more traditional when he is weak. So, when he bet really tiny against me and another player, I folded and he won a huge pot with the nuts against the other player. A few hands later, this same opponent bet a traditional amount after the flop. I had nothing but air, but I raised and villain folded.

The problem at WSOP 2026 will be that I will not have notes on the players I will be up against. In most cases, I won’t know a single player at the live table. True, I am playing in some live tournaments (MSPT and WSOP-Circuit events) during the rest of the year, but not a ton. Still, I will have some opportunity to practice playing against unfamiliar foes live.

It's not the end of the world that my WSOP tables will contain strangers. I’ve dealt with that in the past. The key is to watch every hand I’m not in and create a base of knowledge as to how everyone plays. I thoroughly enjoy watching every hand I’m not in at the live felt, so I feel like I create solid internal scouting reports about the players at my table. But it takes some time. It’s not like you can have a perfect read just from the first two levels. A guy I think is LAG may just be getting hit by the deck. A guy I think is TAG may simply me completely card dead. I hate when I feel I have a great read on everyone at my table, and then our table breaks and I have to start from scratch at my new location. Of course, my new table can’t be certain how I play, but they only need to adjust to one new player while I have to get up to speed on everyone else. Just part of the game. Plus, just look at me. They will see Old Man Coffee and categorize me accordingly.

All of that said, the notes I have on my online opponents is a big weapon to wield. It is also a crutch. And that’s a crutch I won’t be able to lean on at WSOP 2026.

Kind of weird that something that is making me a better poker player also has the potential to be a slight detriment in a different environment. Overwhelmingly, the benefits still outweigh the negatives. Just food for thought on how playing online can make a player very dependent on past notes that don’t exist in a live, huge entries tournament at the WSOP.

You cannot be serious!!!!

A new night, new tournaments.

The first hand I play is when I am in the small blind. One player limps. I have 6-4 suited. OK, I’ll see a flop. The big blind does not raise. The flop is 2-3-5 rainbow. I have the nuts. I check, the original limper bets, the big blind folds, I min raise, original limper calls. The turn is a blank. I check, he bets, I raise, he calls. He doesn’t seem to be getting the memo. The river brings a third heart. I decide that this is a situation where pot control is warranted. I check, he bets fairly big, and I call. He was bluffing with K-3o. I’m off to a promising start. I think to myself that it’s time for some run good for me.

Not much later, I am dealt K-K. Run good has been activated. One player limps, I raise 4x and get three calls. No one seems to be taking my raises seriously. The flop is 3-7-9. It checks to me, and I raise 50% pot. I get raised by a player my notes say overplays good but not great hands. I put him all-in. He calls with 10-9, no flush draw. I am a 4-to-1 favorite. The turn is a blank. I am almost a 9-to-1 favorite with one card to come. The river is a 10. Villain has two pairs. My pocket kinds have been cracked. I make a sound of exasperation. Mrs. rppoker is sitting next to me tapping away on her iPhone. She hears the sound I have just made, looks concerned for a moment, sees that I am playing poker, and she leaves me be. What is it with me and K-K? Same thing happened yesterday when my K-K lost to Q-5.

A while back I couldn’t win with A-A. Now I can’t win with K-K. Why can’t I have nice things?

I know, I know, golddog just posted the following on this thread less than 24 hours ago: “Not particular to this post, but I feel as if you’re at a point where you need the advice my old friend DaveB gave me years ago: Embrace the chase. If you get it in good, and give your opponents the wrong odds to call with whatever they have, that’s what you can do.”

Intellectually, I understand this to be true. Psychologically, I think it sucks. I am consistently getting it in good, yet my monsters keep getting cracked by inferior hands. I know that over time it has to even out (Right? RIGHT?), but waiting for it to even out is exhausting. I am cashing at a very high rate, but I can’t help but wonder just how much of a rocket to the moon I’d be riding if I weren’t running so bad. I am running so far below expectation on crucial hands where I am way ahead, and I keep getting punished by the deck. For some time, I have been telling myself it’s a small sample size. But the sample size keeps getting bigger (but still small I guess) and the bad beats keep coming. I’m not asking to get lucky and dole out bad beats of my own. I’d just like my big hands to hold up to the level of expectation. I guess it’s like TJ wrote in this thread (or maybe it was BigWhale) that was something along the lines of run bad eventually goes away, but you’d be surprised how long it takes for “eventually” to take place.

Soon thereafter, I have Ks-10c. Six players limp, I go all in for my 650 remaining chips (blinds are like 20/40). This is not me on tilt. This is me seeing a lot of passive chips in the middle, and I go for it. I will probably get called by someone, but even if that happens I think it could either be a coin flip or it’s very possible I’ll be ahead. I need to embrace some variance to get back to a playable stack. Variance may not even be the right word, because based upon how passive everyone has been so far this hand, I don’t think I am getting it in bad. I get two callers. I’m ahead of both of them before the flop. On the river I make a flush to beat an inferior flush. I’m back to 2,018 chips (starting stack 3,000).

I fold 5-5 UTG at 75/150. UTG, there are too many players left that could have me crushed. I don’t have enough chips to set mine, and the hand is not good enough to go all-in from UTG. This does not strike me as a good spot. I decide to wait for a better opportunity.

Unfortunately, I go card dead and a better opportunity does not present itself. I have something like 7 or 8 big blinds (I didn’t write it down) and the blinds are about to hit me again starting with the next hand, so UTG I go for it all with 2-2 and hope to get called by two over cards. I get what I wished for. I’m up against K-Qo. I am still good on the flop, but villain hits a Queen on the turn. There is no river miracle for me, and I’m out.

I write up the above results, and then I register for another tourney.

………..

New tourney. Think positive thoughts. This could be the tournament that I have run good.

I immediately find myself at the most aggro table I’ve ever played at. Four mega, mega, mega aggressive players. They are LAG on steroids, but it is working for them as they build big chip stacks. They don’t slow down until they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar and lose an unnecessarily large pot. The problem is, there are so many of them that at all times at least one of them, and frequently two of them, are going Mach 5 with their hair on fire. Talk about an action table.

So, I do the only logical thing, and I tighten up, wait for a quality hand and then I’ll punish them with it. That’s the game plan. I fold for a few levels. I get dealt Q-Q and I play my first hand of the tournament. Two players limp, I raise 4x, there is an all-in, then someone calls, someone else goes all-in, and I call all in, and one of the earlier players calls. I’m not sure if that is exactly right since chaos, anarchy and insanity all broke out at the same time and it was difficult to keep up from a note taking perspective. I hold versus -- you’re not going to believe it -- 22, AJ, A9. Just like that, I have somewhere between 8,000-9,000 chips. I wrote down 8,130 chips in my notes, but that doesn’t seem enough. Q-Q consistently is winning for me lately. K-K not so much.

So of course, the next playable hand I get dealt is K-K. Maybe I should just fold. Kidding. I open the betting and get called by the massively aggressive table captain, who just joined the table a level ago and has proceeded to take the aggression up a level even by this table’s standards. Even the other aggro players at the table back down from the jungle hot heat TableCaptain is unleashing on the table. I am certain that if there is no Ace on the flop, I am going to get paid and I am going to get paid well. Given the dynamic in play, I forget to be worried about my kings getting cracked yet again. Not only is there no Ace on the flop, but there is a King giving me a set. I get three barrels of value and all my chips are in the middle after the river. It was the dream scenario. When I checked, he bet. When I bet, he raised. When I re-raised he called. I’m not sure what he had since his cards either got mucked when my cards were turned over, or maybe his cards got shown and I didn’t notice because I was too busy watching heaps of chips being sent my way. I have 15,750 chips. I am 3rd out of 35 remaining players (15 get paid). And I’ve only played in two hands.

K-K held. K-K held!!!!!!!! Given recent events, it feels like a miracle.

I then go card dead, and given the never-ending aggression of my tablemates who have actually taken their insanity to a new level, I just stay out of the way. I am dying to get a premium and get involved against them, but I don’t get anything close to playable.

The money bubble bursts. Fifteen players remain. I have still played only two hands.

We get down to 12 players remaining. Places 10-15 all make the same money, so now is a time to get a bit aggressive to try to acquire enough chips to make the upcoming pay jumps. I think this because a couple of the CrazyTown players at my table have busted, so the aggression has calmed down a bit.

My chip stack is interesting. I am far from low on chips, but I have the least chips at my table. Virtually all of the chips are at my table due to the fact that it has been such an action, wildly aggressive group of players. The other table has a mere fraction of the chips that are in play at my table. It seems like the web site’s algorithm is off given the total lack of balance at the two tables.

But again, only two of the action players remain, so things have slowed to merely an aggressive level of play.

Miracle of miracles, I am in the big blind and two players before me just limp. Three free cards. I have 8-7o. The flop is 6-7-9 rainbow. I have middle pair and an open-ended straight draw. I decide to try to take down the hand right here, right now. I go all-in. My rationale is the flop hits my range more than their range, I may very well be ahead given they just limped, and worst-case scenario is I have a ton of outs if I get called. Both villains fold, and I am up to 9th in chips.

The very next hand I get dealt Big Slick. The blinds are 700/1,400 plus everyone antes. I open to 4,200. I will go for it all if I get raised. A player I have covered calls, Table Captain puts me all-in (naturally, because that’s what he does). I call, and to my surprise the other player calls as well (I guess he felt priced in, although when you learn his cards you’ll see his line was very strange).

Our cards get turned over.

Me: Ac-Kh (56% equity)
StrangeLineGuy: Qh-5h (24% equity)
Table lunatic/table captain/tourney chip leader; Ad-Qs (14% equity)

The flop is gorgeous. Ks-9d-4d. I am a 92.36% favorite to win the hand.

The turn is the annoying 7d. There are now three diamonds on the board and TableCaptain has the Ad. Why can’t it ever be easy. I am still more than a 3-to-1 favorite to win the hand, and yet I know what is coming. I shouldn’t feel this way since the odds are still pretty heavily in my favor, but I can just feel the diamond coming. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my soul. I am resigned to my fate.

The river is …

… another diamond.

Runner-runner diamonds have annihilated what was my 92.36% favorite after the flop. I’m not even angry when the final diamond appears. I am simply numb to the never-ending parade of bad beats.

OK, fine, I’m a little bit angry.

You can’t be serious, man. You cannot be serious!!!!!!

I would have been second in chips if my hand held. Instead I’m out in 11th place. I cashed, I won several bounties, but if I held then I’m playing for the win. Instead, I just win a little bit.

I have been crushed by an avalanche of diamonds.

A good lesson to remember when I play in WSOP 2026

Long day.

A full day of work mostly spent reading monthly management reports from the property management companies who manage four strip centers of ours. The reports are long and tedious, but reading them closely is important.

When work ended, Mrs. rppoker and I visited friends of ours who are baby-sitting their first grandchild while the baby’s parents are out of town for five days.

Eventually we get home, and our dog Astro is desperate to play with us and his favorite ball. Astro lasts way longer than usual before he gets tired. Well, actually, Astro doesn’t get tired. Mrs. rppoker and I get tired. We tell Astro we are done. He does not approve of this decision.

By 11:00 pm I am tired. I’m never tired this early. Not so tired that I will go to sleep before my usual 2:00 a.m. But I decide I am too tired to play well in a poker tournament. I do feel like playing a little bit, so I opt to play in a freeroll tourney. This way if I play badly due to fatigue, no harm to the online poker bankroll.

There are 633 runners, 50 get paid.

Let the awful play begin.

Third hand of the tournament. In the first two hands I have seen players go all-in pre and get called. I have KQ suited. I don’t want to play for it all, but I’m not folding pre from UTG+1. UTG limps 20. I raise to 80. Surprisingly, there are just two callers. The flop is A-A-4. This hits my perceived range more than the other two players. I bet and take it. Given the way players lose their minds early in freerolls, I am surprised I got away with my bluff.

The next hand I play I have Ad-10d. I almost don’t play these cards, because I don’t want to play for it all, and players are continuing to lose their minds so far at my table. Nonetheless, I bet 3x, and I get four callers. The flop has three diamonds. I have the Ad. I go all in, and I get called by two players with Kd-Jc and Ah-5s. I do not hit a diamond on the turn or river, but amazingly I win the hand. I have 5,924 chips. Not how I’d normally play this, but in a large field freeroll you need to accumulate chips in a big way.

People are refusing to fold. I just have to be patient and wait for a hand to go with.

I fold some, and I’m down to 5,224 chips. I am 138th out of 345 remaining players.

I’m not very focused. Just clicking buttons. This is the equivalent of playing solitaire on your laptop. Mindless entertainment to pass the time. I have the Golden State-Denver NBA basketball game on, although I am really only listening and not watching. My favorite NBA player Steff Curry is erupting down the stretch. He hits a long-distance bomb to tie it up with 21.4 seconds left. Curry has scored Golden State’s last 13 points. We go to overtime.

I’m now intently watching the NBA game. I’m barely paying attention to the freeroll poker tournament.

I have A-5 suited. I’ve lost interest in the freeroll poker tournament. I go all in due to my utter lack of interest and get called by two players. I don’t improve and lose to someone’s two pairs.

Good. I’m more interested in watching my man Steph Curry. Curry hits a bomb to start OT. His shooting range is other worldly. He has scored Golden State’s last 16 points. Finally, Steph gets some help from his teammates. This is only Game 2 of the season, yet it has postseason intensity. Curry goes coast-to-coast and scores on a layup to put Golden State up 135-127 with 23.9 seconds remaining. Final score: Golden State 137, Denver 131. Just an awesome game down the stretch. Curry finishes with 42 points. Steff is the most unique, creative and artistic player I’ve seen since Pistol Pete Maravich was playing his college ball at LSU where he averaged 44.2 points a game for his CAREER (he was also a sight to see in the NBA, but injuries kept him from reaching his full pro potential – he still was a five-time All-Star).

As a Chicagoan, Michael Jordan is obviously my favorite NBA player ever. Curry is my next favorite player. Given that I root for Curry, I am not a fan of LeBron James. I respect what LeBron has accomplished as a player. He seems like a good human being off the court. But whereas Curry plays the game with sheer joy and his teams reflect that, LeBron is just too much drama throughout his career for my tastes and his teams too often seem on the edge of turmoil. Curry has changed the way the game is played as his three-point shooting prowess and volume has opened up the floodgates for every other sharp shooter and every other team in the league to become three-point shooting fiends. Jordan didn’t change the way the game is played for the simple reason that no one else could play the way that MJ did. MJ was a basketball killing machine with more will to win than anyone I’ve ever seen. And as for the MJ-LeBron debate? In my mind there is no debate. It’s MJ in a landslide. Not even close. I’m not even sure LeBron is #2. I’ll take the careers of Bill Russell (the greatest winner of all time) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (the most unstoppable shot – the sky hook – of all time) over the career of LeBron. I think LeBron is the most successful player/pseudo GM in the way he managed to create super teams at multiple spots. I think LeBron plays with world class intensity, basketball IQ and astonishing durability and longevity. But he’s not close to the leader Steff is, and he’s not the championship winner MJ, Kareem and Bill Russell were.

Oh, yeah, this is a poker thread. It just goes to show that I was right in recognizing that I was unlikely to play focused poker tonight. I was right to play in a freeroll rather than an entry fee, Sweeps Coin tournament. And I wasted my time playing in the freeroll, but no harm no foul.

This makes tonight a rousing success. I have succeeded in the key step toward proper bankroll management, which is don’t play if you know you will not be focused at the table. I think I have done a good job of this at past WSOP trips in Las Vegas. I need to remain diligent in recognizing any hints of this in future WSOP trips. There’s no shame in taking a day off when you aren’t feeling it.

I finally land on the right side of a bad beat … I take this gift and run with it all the way to a Final Table

We had family dinner tonight at a new restaurant one town over that just opened a few days ago. This week is their soft open, and it’s clear they aren’t quite ready for prime time. Service is slow. One of the dinners at our table is massively undercooked. None of our meals is very good. We won’t be back.

When we get home, Mrs. rppoker and I play with Astro (his favorite chase-the-ball game of monkey in the middle).

Once we are done, I turn on the TV. Game 1 of the World Series is on. I’m not a fan of baseball, but I can tolerate watching the World Series. Mrs. rppoker sees I have baseball on and she says, “Since when do you watch baseball?”

“It’s the World Series,” I explain.

In addition to the World Series, the California-Virginia Tech college football game is also on. Cal-Virginia Tech is not exactly must-see TV for me. It’s a backup plan if the baseball game becomes uncompetitive (which is what happens).

Given that neither TV sports option is terribly exciting for me, I contemplate playing some online poker while sports is on TV. I remind myself that I have a rule against playing entry-fee tournaments when I am distracted by sports.

I nonetheless log on to Global Poker, and I see that there are two freerolls that start something like 25 minutes apart. I decide to take another stab at multi-tabling. Min multi-tabling since we’re only talking two tournaments at the same time. Whenever I have played two tournaments at the same time in the past it hasn’t gone well for me. I have found that playing two tournaments simultaneously in the past leads to far too many mistakes on my part, as well as an inability to remain focused on either table. Add in the fact that these are both freerolls in which early-stage play is confounding, and bad players frequently get it in horribly bad only to flop two pairs with their 8-6 off suit and crack aces. Put it all together, and what could possibly go wrong?

I start with a freeroll that ends up having 741 entrants. I actually start out pretty well and keep chipping up. A nice, steady climb upward. The other freeroll begins (1,630 entrants) and it’s the same story, as my chip stack keeps growing. Then I catch fire in both tournaments. My bluffs get thru. My value bets get called. Although everything is going well, it’s not because I have mastered multi-table play. I am really struggling to keep up. In all honesty, I am playing my cards and not my opponents. Somehow this is working. In one instance, I am in the big blind while in a big hand in the other tournament. In the big blind hand, I am not paying attention, there are a couple of limpers and when I miss the fact that the option is on me, I must have timed out, so it was considered a call. I end up flopping the world. Not that I realize it, since I’m still in the big hand in the other tourney. I hear a ding and look over to the big blind hand and see that I have flopped an extremely unlikely full house. Now this hand has my full attention. I win big pots on both tables. I have large chip stacks in both tournaments.

Of the two tournaments, I am doing better in the tournament that started with 741 entrants. The 1,630 entrants tourney seems to be a much, much faster structure, and my once very large stack is starting to feel some heat from the blinds. I decide I either need to double up to make this tourney worth my while or be done with it so I can better focus on the other tournament in which my stack is much healthier in relation to the blinds. I play for it all with a hand that I shouldn’t be pushing this hard with, and I get called. It’s a coin flip. I’m good after the flop, but villain gets there on the turn and I’m out.

Good. Now I can focus on the tournament that I am doing especially well in. My chip stack is large. I’m picking my spots well. Eventually, the blinds start to become a little bit of an issue. Then, I overplay a hand. UTG limps. I have A-10 suited and I raise. UTG calls. The flop is A-5-4 rainbow. Given that UTG limped pre flop, and then he only called my pre-flop raise, I figure I have the range advantage on this flop. To my surprise, UTG puts some chips in the middle. I don’t believe him, and I go all-in. He calls and shows me the bad news … A-J.

I am out kicked. I have gotten it in bad.

The turn is a blank. I need a 10 and only a 10 to survive. Only a three-outer can save me.

And then it happens …

… 10

I have sucked out on my opponent. I have been on the wrong end of these bad beats over and over and over and over again for quite some time. Finally, I have given someone else a bad beat.

I’m not going to say I had this coming to me. Every hand has its own odds/percentages with no memory of how bad I’ve been running. But, if there has to be a bad beat, it’s a whole lot better to be the beneficiary of a bad beat than it is to be the victim of a bad beat. I had 6.82% equity with one card to come, but as I have been experiencing on the other end of variance, sometimes 6.82% gets there.

I tell myself to take advantage of this gift. I am 10th in chips with 65 players remaining. Fifty get paid. I’m not there yet.

I don’t get anything playable for just a bit and pretty quickly we are on the money bubble. I am in the small blind with Q-10. There is one limper, I come along, and the big blind checks. The flop is J-9-4. I have an open-ended straight draw. I fearlessly put chips in the middle, and both villains fold. When this hand ends, I notice that the money bubble just burst. I have 86,740 chips. I am in fourth place out of 48 remaining.

The next hand I play is when I am in the big blind. I am 6th in chips with 31 players remaining. There are three limpers, so I just check with ordinary holdings (I forgot to write down what I had). Just like the last hand I played, I have flopped an open-ended straight draw. This time, however, the table big stack bets 70% of my chip stack from the small blind. I don’t think I have the pot odds to make this call, and I have no desire to put most of my tournament life at risk with just a draw. I fold.

I am 10th in chips with 27 players remaining.

I am 11th in chips with 23 left. Then I win a small hand, and I am 9th in chips with 23 remaining.
The blinds are 5,000/10,000 (1000). I have 64,740 chips. No one is especially deep at this point.

I am 14th of 19, and there is a pay jump at 18. I don’t get much that is playable for a bit. We get past the little money jump when we get down to 18. I have 46,540 chips. The next hand I play needs to be a winner, or else. I have 46,540 chips. There is no pay jump from 10th to 18th.

I am 12th of 15 remaining.

I am 12th of 13 remaining.

The blinds go up to 6,000/12,000 (plus antes)

I really need to get a hand.

I get a hand. I get …

K-K. Now that’s what I’m talking about. K-K has not been good to me of late, but this is no time for negative thoughts. One player goes all-in, a big stack bets enough to put me all-in, and of course I call. My Kings hold, and I am up to 144,000 chips. I’m in eighth place with 13 players remaining.

The blinds go up to 10,000/20,000 (plus antes). The cost to play poker is expensive. I have 109,000 chips, and I’m in 7th place with 12 remaining.

I’m in eighth place with 10 players remaining, as we are now on the Final Table bubble.

I make the Final Table with 85,220 chips, which puts me in 7th place with 9 players remaining. A player busts. Eight players left.

With less than 5 big blinds, I am dealt A-Q suited, and as I see it the only choice is to go all-in. Two players call. I don’t improve while a player with 7-6 off suit makes trips on the turn, and I’m out in 8th place. I probably could have folded my way to sixth place, but that is no way to think. A-Q suited gave me a chance to have a top 4 stack, which would have given me an opportunity to play for the win.

The good news is this result takes my online poker bankroll to its high-water mark since I started playing online a few months ago.

Lucky 10 on the river

Now this is what run good looks like

After I got knocked out of the tournament I just wrote about, I stuck around and watched the final table play out. The eventual winner got absolutely smashed by the deck once it got down to the final four players. On the final hand of the tournament he had 8-6, put his opponent all-in and got called. The run out of cards was ...

Some work on the mental game with an eye on WSOP 2026, Part 1 of 2
Let’s talk about luck and poker

I just read an article on Poker.org about Daniel Lowery winning his 19th WSOP Circuit ring.

(https://www.poker.org/latest-news/it-was...)

The headline of the story was, “'It was the lucky jelly bean' - WSOP ring race reignites as Lowery wins #19”

An excerpt:

“It was definitely the lucky jelly bean,” Lowery said. “I went on break, and my nine-year old, Gus, asked me if I’d busted, and I said no. I said I had to go back and play, and he said ‘wait, wait, wait!’ So, I came back and he dug into his jelly beans and he said, ‘This is going to be your lucky jelly bean.’

“It was kind of a joke, but I was rubbing it every hand and just ran like God for a while.”

So, let’s talk about luck and poker. Let me start by saying none of this is meant as a criticism of Lowery. I know he was just having fun with the lucky jelly bean and wasn’t counting on it to win.

Topic #1: Do I have a lucky card protector that I use during my live tournament play? I did once. I don’t anymore. When my youngest daughter was four years old, she handed me a rock and said, “This is a lucky rock, you should keep it.” And I did. For a long time, I kept it in my pocket every day. I didn’t actually believe it was lucky, but if I was having a difficult or stressful day, I would rub the rock and it would bring me peace of mind and help me to relax. I brought the lucky rock as my card protector to my first WSOP in 2019 where I suffered bad beats over and over and over. The Lucky Rock’s powers obviously did not translate to poker. I did not bring the Lucky Rock to the WSOP the next time. Ever since, I do not use any lucky card protector. I just use a chip to protect my cards when in a hand.

Topic #2: Do I believe in luck in general in life? I do not. More specifically, I do not believe in bad luck. When I was a freshman at the University, there was an urban myth related to the very center of campus where sidewalks form an X. Where the sidewalks converge, there is a block ‘M” at the intersection. According to campus legend, if a freshman steps on the block ‘M’ before their very first test as a freshman at the university, they will fail that test. Almost all freshmen avoid the block ‘M’ like the plague before their first test. I once saw two guys attempt to carry a female freshman toward the block ‘M’ and she reacted with the fight or flight fury of someone being kidnapped. In any event, I thought the legend was silly. From Day 1 on campus, I went out of my way to step on the block “M.” I got 100% on my first test.

Topic #3: Do I believe in luck in poker? More specifically, do I believe in lucky starting hands? The answer is no. Well, I believe A-A or K-K (despite my recent bad run outs with those hands) are luckier than 2-7, but that’s not luck so much as hand strength. There are hands I have gotten lucky with. In a tournament I came in third place in at Talking Stick Casino in Scottsdale, Arizona I won two critical hands with Q-5. The first time, I believe I was in the big blind and people limped, allowing me to see a free flop. If my memory is correct, I flopped two pair and turned a full house. All my chips ended up in the middle and called by two players who found themselves drawing dead heading into the river card. At WSOP 2025 I was in the money and playing Day 2 of a tournament. I was low on chips and in "any Ace" territory. I had A-4 and got it all in versus another player. The Ace I needed came, and I won the hand. Some time passed, I was again low on chips and again in "any Ace" territory. I once again found myself with A-4 and went all-in. I got called again. I watched the flop, willing an Ace to arrive. There was no Ace. There were, however, two fours on the flop giving me trips. A player I sort of knew, from being at the same table the day before at the Venetian, commented that surely A-4 was my new most favorite hand. The point of this is, Q-5 and A-4 bring back great memories for me. But I don’t play them in spots where I should fold them. Yes, my history with those hands is fantastic. No, they are not lucky holdings highly likely to out flop A-A. When I get dealt Q-5 or A-4, I feel joy internally, but I fold these -EV holdings all the same. If I get dealt Q-5 or A-4 UTG in the first hand of a WSOP 2026 tournament, I will not see it as a hand I should play with an eye on an immediate double up. If I get dealt Q-5 or A-4 UTG in the first hand of a WSOP 2026 tournament, I will think to myself, “Hello old friends. Nice to see you again. Unfortunately, I have to fold you. Be well, and thanks for the memories.”

Some work on the mental game with an eye on WSOP 2026, Part 2 of 2
Self-efficacy, belief and avoiding maladaptive responses

I just read an article by High Performance Psychologist Alan Longo on poker.org, which leads me to read a couple of other articles by him.

My take away from what he writes has to do with two areas of my game:

1) My play on the money bubble (I tend to play my cards and for the most part avoid getting myself in trouble even with a big stack)

2) How I react to bad beats online versus live

The link to the first article by Longo can be found at https://www.poker.org/poker-strategy/bey...

Let’s start with my play on the money bubble.

Longo writes about self-efficacy, which he defines as, “It’s not a general feeling of ‘being confidant.’ It is your specific belief in your ability to execute a specific task in a specific situation. This distinction is the key to systematically building a stronger mental game.”

This applies to my play on the money bubble when I have a big stack. I see other players with big stacks terrorize the table with relentless aggression on the money bubble. This is not something I have done enough when I have a big stack. I think that Longo is speaking to me when he writes the following:

“The most common mistake players make is confusing self-efficacy with technical skill. Self-efficacy is not just about having the skills; it’s about your skill in what you can accomplish with them.

“You can spend hundreds of hours studying GTO pre-flop charts (the skill), but do you have the self-efficacy to 3-bet bluff against an aggressive regular on a final table bubble (the belief)?

“That gap between knowing what to do and believing you can do it under pressure is where performance often breaks down. Two players can have the exact same technical knowledge, but the one with the higher, well-calibrated self-efficacy is far more likely to apply that knowledge consistently.”

I think this puts into focus my failure when I have a big stack. I think I lack the self-efficacy (the belief) that I can push the table around and continue to build my stack. Rather than see the opportunity to manufacture chips with aggression as the bully on the block and grow my big stack, I tend to think, “If this doesn’t work, I will go from a big stack to a medium stack, and I don’t want that to happen.”

I suspect the only way to achieve self-efficacy, to achieve belief, is to practice it. And initially it may not go well. But I’ll never get there if I don’t work at it. Yes, I may punt some min cashes at first by doing this, but if I want to give myself the ability to get to final tables with bigger chip stacks than I usually do, if I want to build my belief, then I have to step outside my comfort zone.

Longo writes about this when he writes that athletes with high self-efficacy display a few crucial patterns:

“They choose demanding tasks. In poker they don’t just avoid tough spots. They are more willing to engage in challenging (but profitable) situations, like bluff catching or running a multi-street bluff.”

It’s like he is speaking directly to me with this paragraph.

Longo continues:

“They invest more effort. They put in the work, both on and off the felt, because they believe that work will lead to improved performance.

“They persist in the face of failure. This is perhaps the most critical factor for a poker player. High self-efficacy is what allows a player to maintain their A-game and trust their process during a long and painful downswing, rather than spiraling into doubt and radically changing their strategy.”

I take this to mean if I pursue this path, I have to be OK with failure and I need to stay the course when it doesn’t work perfectly.

Next up is how I react to bad beats. In live tournament poker settings, I show no emotion when bad beats strike. But when playing online, when a bad beat is administered to me, I temporarily get upset. Nothing terrible. I don’t throw things. But I express frustration internally (thoughts running through my head) and externally (I throw my hands up in frustration). My frustration does not last long at all, but I wonder why I can’t be emotionless and stone-faced when playing online like I do when playing live.

The article by Longo referenced earlier in this post does not address what I am feeling. But the article references another Longo article, which does speak to what I have been feeling.

The link to this article is https://www.poker.org/poker-strategy/und...

In it, Longo writes, “No emotion is inherently ‘bad.’ “

He then goes on to add, “The problem arises not from the emotion itself, but from the maladaptive response it can trigger. When frustration from a lost pot leads to three consecutive poorly played hands, the response has become maladaptive. It is no longer serving a useful purpose and is actively harming performance. The goal of regulation is to encourage adaptive responses and reduces maladaptive ones.”

Longo later writes about the lens that shapes an emotional response, “A player with a ‘results mindset’ often has a maladaptive response to a bad beat, viewing it as a personal failure. Conversely, a player with a ‘performance mindset’ interprets the same event as a neutral outcome, making an adaptive response like refocusing much easier to achieve.”

Hmm, I’ve been doing it right all along. Having a momentary moment of frustration to an online bad beat is OK. And I have not let the bad beat impact my play the rest of the tournament. I am really good at shaking off the feelings of frustration in like 15-20 seconds and putting it behind me. It turns out, I have been entirely too hard on myself. I’ve had it under control the entire time.

A first step

Once I was done watching college football for the day (most notably Michigan 31, Michigan State 20 -- yay me), I decided to try to play some poker and see if I could find a spot where I could try to employ a strategy like I wrote about in my mindset post, part 2 above.

There were no online tournaments starting anytime soon, so I jumped into a 9-person sit'n'go (3 get paid). Early on I played ABC poker while I tried to get reads on my opponents. Plus, I wasn't getting anything too exciting cards wise. Then I won a decent sized pot and I maintained a top 3 or 4 stack for awhile. When we got down to 5-handed, I was still the middle stack. I was getting decent but not monster hands, and I bluffed enough to stay ahead of the blinds. Then I lost a medium sized hand and was now the short stack, although I still had enough chips to have fold equity.

Then I won a couple of hands against the two big stacks, and now I was even with the two big stacks. I won a couple more hands, and now I was the biggest stack.

This was the spot I was looking for. This was the time to leave my comfort zone.

Now was the time too employ self-efficacy from the article above. I decided to employ the belief that I could play the role of table bully and not worry about the fact that if I got aggressive and failed I might not cash. I played "as if." I played as if I had "it." Up until now I had a mostly TAG persona at the table. Now I started to push the envelope. I wasn't betting with 2-7, but hands like J-10o, A-4, K-9, 8-9 suited were good enough to open the betting. I kept betting, the table kept folding. I was running over the table. By the time we got to head's up, I had more than a 2-to-1 chip lead. I stayed aggressive and ground down my opponent. Then I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar and doubled him up. I did not let this deter me like I might have in the past. I stayed aggressive (within reason). I was winning far more pots than I was losing.

Finally, I got my opponent all-in, and I was way ahead. My hand held, and I won the sit'n'go.

Obviously, winning a 9-person sit'n'go is no great accomplishment (I checked, Pokernews did not cover my win). But what mattered was how I won it. I won it fearlessly, playing medium-strength starting hands, pushing small edges successfully without fear of what losing some hands would mean to my hopes of cashing/winning. I played hands I normally would not have. I effectively played the role of table bully as chip leader.

It's a sample size of one. I can't read too much into it. Actually, I should read very little into it. But I went outside my comfort zone with the belief that I could do it. Call it the first step in a new approach. You can't get where you want to go without taking that first step. Tonight was that first step. That is what I can read into it. I'm sure missteps await, but that's just a part of the process.

By the way, TonySoprano9, javanewt and all of you 4-card players out there, you may find it interesting to know that when I use AI to create the drawings I have been using of late in this thread, it almost always creates drawings of players holding four cards. At times I have to push back very hard, very specific and very insistent that a new drawing have only two cards in the players' hands. And even then it sometimes refuses to comply. It's as if AI is all-in on Omaha. It's as if AI is anti-NLHE. I'm not sure what it means, but it seems as though AI sees the future, and that future emphasizes players holding four, not two, cards.

Scouting the opposition ... An unlikely, deep run in a tournament I shouldn't have entered … I get tons of great cards, but it’s in the wrong tournament … I flop the world, no make that the universe, no make that the entire solar system … I’m in the money, in the wrong tournament

It’s the end of the football weekend. My Michigan Wolverines won yesterday. Today I have watched the NFL when family commitments (i.e. taking my mom out driving – she drove, not me -- for the first time since she got out of the hospital several weeks ago, family Sunday dinner at a restaurant) didn’t take me away from the TV.

After dinner, I drive my mom home and get back in time to watch the second half of the Packers-Steelers Sunday night game. It’s a good game, but I’m not invested all that much in the outcome so I go to Global Poker and find a couple of players I go up against a bunch who I don’t have great notes on, and I watch them play and enter notes on what I see them do. I’m scouting the opposition. The football game is background noise for me, while I take poker notes.

The Packers-Steelers game ends, so I register for a Sweep Coins (money) tournament. I notice that a freeroll is starting five minutes before the real entry fee tournament begins.

The freeroll will begin in five minutes. I have no intention in registering for the shove fest that is the freeroll.

Four minutes before the start of the freeroll I have a brilliant idea. I’ll enter the freeroll with the understanding that I have to get all my chips in the middle during the five-minute span before the real entry fee tournament begins. Either I bust or I have a big stack.

Three minutes before the freeroll begins I tell myself this is a stupid idea. I am terrible at playing two tables at one time. Don’t do it! Don’t do it!! Don’t do it!!!!!!!!!!

Two minutes before the freeroll begins, I do it.

On the first hand of the freeroll I am UTG, and I am dealt A-9 suited. Good enough. Just like I have seen others do repeatedly in past freerolls, I go all-in. That’s 2,000 chips with the blinds at 10/20. It’s a stupid bet, of course, but the deal I made with myself is I had to get all my chips in the middle in the five minutes prior to the start of the tournament I care about. Go big or go home! I get called by two people who have, wait for it, 9-7 suited and J-10 off suit. I’m ahead? I’m ahead!

Not for long. The flop has a Jack and a 7. The turn is no help. I bink an Ace on the River and triple up. From 2,000 to 6,000. What have I done? I guess I am multi tabling.

The real entry fee tournament begins, and I see that my table has two very strong players that I have played against a lot.

In the freeroll, I am dealt 9-9 UTG. I have a big stack and I see no reason to play for it all with a medium+ pair, so I limp and hope to set mine on the cheap. Five other players come along. I miss and the flop is Ace high. With five other players in the hand, surely someone else has an Ace. I check and there is a bet and a call. I fold. No harm done.

Still in the freeroll, I am dealt Q-Q. No reason to get cute. I go all-in, certain someone will call. In fact, I do get called by A-Q. I evade an Ace and I double up to 11,820 chips

I’m not getting anything in the entry fee tourney, so there I am folding.

In the freeroll, it folds to me in the small blind. I have K-10 suited. The big blind has a few thousand chips, so I put him all-in simply trying to take down the blinds. To my surprise he calls with, wait for it, 8-6 off suit. Villain flops a 6, I never improve and I’m down to a still strong 8,642 chips which is currently in 80th place with 370 players remaining out of the original 677 players. Fifty players will cash.

Meanwhile, in the entry fee tournament I actually care about, I have not been dealt a single playable hand. I am in 42nd place out of the remaining 54 players. Fifteen players will cash.

In the freeroll, I am dealt A-A in the small blind. This is the first time I have been dealt A-A in forever. Everyone folds to me. Now people decide to stop blasting off their freeroll chips? That’s OK, I have a read on the big blind who has me covered. Every time he only has someone who has bet small ahead of him when he is in the blinds, he goes all-in. Recognizing this, rather than go all-in I just min raise. He, of course, wastes no time going all-in with A-5 off suit. I double up to 18,564 chips. I am in 29th place out of 296 players remaining.

I sure do wish I was getting all of these huge hands in the entry fee tournament, which is a bounty tournament. With the hands I’m getting in the freeroll, if I could get them in the bounty tournament, I would be collecting bounties like crazy.

Finally, I finally get a playable hand in the entry fee tournament. I open with K-Q suited and get called by one player. After folding, folding, folding in this tournament, I really need to connect with the flop and win this hand.

I catch a very big piece of the flop which is K-J-10 rainbow. I have top pair very strong (but not nutted) kicker, and I have an open-ended straight draw. All of the chips end up in the middle, and villain has J-10 unsuited for bottom two pair. I am behind, yet the odds favor me ever so slightly with two cards to come. I have a ton of outs. I don’t turn or river any of those outs and I am bounced from this tourney. Played one hand, got eliminated.

OK, I’m all-in on the freeroll.

I get dealt Q-Q and I get all my opponent’s chips committed pre-flop (his chip stack is about half of mine) and he has A-Q off suit. I remain ahead after the flop and the turn, but he spikes an Ace on the River, and I’m down to 8,491 chips, which puts me in 84th place out of 206 remaining players. Still not especially close to the money. I tell myself I need to look for an opportunity to get all my chips in the middle since the blinds are a bit of a problem given my current chip stack.

My A-10 is all-in versus A-4. My hand holds, and I have 16,003 chips.

Soon after that, I am in the small blind with A-2s, Someone limps, and I call. The big blind bets big. The limper calls. I can’t possibly be good, and I fold. The big blind has A-K. I didn’t write down what the limper had. The point is, I made a good lay down. The flop is 2-2-9. I made a bad laydown (being results oriented). I would have won heaps. Sigh. I get over it immediately.

The player whose A-Q beat my Q-Q when he rivered an Ace, goes all-in huge with 7-7 and gets called by two players. The flop has a 7. The turn has another 7. Quads. Must be nice. I wonder what it feels like (foreshadowing).

I get dealt 10-10 UTG. I’m not sure what to do. Limping and trying to set mine seems wrong. I decide I want to discourage random paint from calling a normal sized bet. I have 14,153 chips. This freeroll tournament requires bold, fearless play, so I go all-in. I get called by two shorties, which is nice. I can’t get too hurt if I lose. Instead, my hand holds. I now have 23,020 chips, good for 28th place out of the remaining 102 players. Still not that close to the money (50 get paid in case you forgot).

The somewhat new guy to my left is a calling station, meaning I can’t bluff. I need to make a hand and then relieve him of his chips. I go card dead for a bit, so I show restraint and stay out of the way. I can’t complain. I have been dealt a ton of premium hands so far.

We go on break. I have 19,870 chips, which is good for 35th place out of 67 remaining players. After the break the blinds will be 1,500/3,000, and I will only have 6.6 big blinds. Pretty much everyone is relatively short stacked.

Early after the break is over, it folds to me when I am the button. I have 9-6 off suit. Do I go for it and try to steal the blinds? I decide my hand is way too weak, and I fold. The small blind goes all-in with 7-7 and gets called by 9-8 suited. The sevens lose. I would have lost as well. Glad I folded. I’m not sure if folding was correct, but being results-oriented I am glad I’m still alive and kicking in the tourney.

I get moved to a new table, and I am seated on the button. Nice, I’m far away from being in the blinds. I am in 39th place out of 63.

I am in 37th out of 60. Still 10 spots from the money.

The blinds increase to 2,000/4,000.

The blinds increase to 2,500/5,000.

I am in 36th place out of 57, when I am dealt K-8 suited. I decide to fold. Not sure if this was prudent or gutless, but it turns out I would have lost had I played the hand.

I again get moved to a new table. Again, I am seated on the button. These table changes to the button are saving the day for me since I have avoided the blinds as a result.

The blinds increase to 3,000/6,000. I am 34th in chips, and only 52 players remain. Two spots from the money.

The money bubble bursts. I am in 34th place with 49 players remaining.

The very next hand after the money bubble burst, I am UTG+1 and get dealt K-K. I go all-in and get called by A-Q. The flop is K-K-7. So that what quads feels like. It feels fantastic. I have 45,140 chips, which is good for 21st place with 46 players remaining. With the blinds at 3,000/6,000, I am still pretty short stacked.

The next hand I am dealt A-Q suited. I have less than eight big blinds, so I go all-in. I get called by A-K. I lose. I am down to scraps (not even a small blind).

The very next hand, I have no choice but to play my 10-2 suited. I’m up against A-K. Somehow, I win. I have 6,488 chips, which is on life support but still alive. I’m in 34th place, 38 players remaining.

The next hand there is an UTG limp, I put in what is left of my not intimidating stack and we go three-way to a flop. The flop is King high, which is promising. It turns out I was ahead before the flop, I was ahead after the flop, but the turn gave one of my opponents (Q-9) two pair, and I was eliminated in 35th place.

I don’t think I really learned anything. Correction, I know I didn’t learn anything. You have to really run crazy good to make the money in these freerolls given the erratic play of so many of the players. I played the go all-in huge style that is everywhere in these freerolls, but that is not a style that can be played in real, live, serious tourneys like the WSOP, MSPT, WSOP-Circuit, etc.

Still, for a tournament I had no intention of playing, the freeroll certainly made for an entertaining bit of play, and I got paid (nominally). I just wish I could bottle the avalanche of premium hands I was dealt in this freeroll and find a way to use it during the 2026 WSOP.

I really do need to stop playing in the freerolls. Although they give me the opportunity to add to my online bankroll without any actual cost to me to enter, it is encouraging/rewarding some really, really bad habits.

I just noticed that in my post two posts before this post, I did not say what I had in my bust out hand, third paragraph from the bottom. I had K-rag.

I've got a really fun write up of a deep tournament run, but the World Series game is heading into the 18th inning with no end in sight, so I'm not going to have time to edit my first draft tonight (this morning?). I'll get it done and post it some time tomorrow. I'm not a baseball fan, but even I think this game is amazing to watch. That said, it's getting really late even for me (and I usually go to bed at 2:00 a.m.). At this point I'm committed to watching it to the bitter end, so tomorrow I may need to take a nap on the couch in my office at work.

Playing online poker during an unusual time of day for me against opponents I do not recognize … Totally focused and distraction free … My initial tablemates think it’s a sprint and not a marathon … K-K wins me a nice-sized pot

It’s mid-afternoon, and I’m totally caught up at work. I call it a day and decide to play some online poker. Did you think I’d choose to do anything else?

This will be an interesting exercise. Normally I play late at night after a full day of work, after time spent with Mrs. rppoker and our dog Astro. I wonder if my play will be more masterful, more focused, more everything at a time of day when I am more awake, more energized, more at the height of my powers. One disadvantage is that I recognize very few players at my tables in this rare window of time for me.

No freeroll, no multi tabling. I pay my entry fee and focus solely on the tournament at hand. There are 83 entrants, 15 will get paid.

Immediately, some of the players at my table completely lose their minds. In the second hand of the tournament, a player busts out of the tournament. In the third hand, three players get it all in, and the triple up guy wins with a hand that is not worthy of getting it all in. A player who has not played a hand writes in the chat, “Fish.”

Mr. Triple Up then goes hog wild like a grizzled military grunt on long due weekend leave who goes on a drunken bender. Mr. Triple up has 9,400 chips (starting stack is 3,000). The blinds are 10/20. In his next hand that he plays soon thereafter, he is first to put chips in the pot. And by chips in the pot, I mean he goes all-in for 9,400. Everyone folds. Two hands later he is again first to act, and again he goes all-in. He stops going all-in after that, but he is betting/raising bigger than solver approved every hand for a while. For the moment, he is running over the table. I write down in my notes, “He’ll never last.”

A new player is added to the table, and he is seated to the immediate right of Mr. Triple Up. I have notes on the new player from a past tourney in which we shared a table. My notes say he was the table lunatic. This should be explosive, incendiary, insane.

Mr. Triple Up overplays 10-10 and gives up one-third of his chips to a player who has K-K.

A few levels in I get dealt K-K. Someone limps, I bet 4x and get two callers. I win a pretty sizable pot. I have 4,752 chips, which has me in 16th place with 66 players remaining.

Mr. Triple Up overplays A-10 and loses half his chips. He is back down to a just barely above starting stack of 3,230. The blinds are only 30/60. He is hell bent on playing for stacks.

Three to a flush has been the flop in four of the last six flops. Kind of weird.

A-Q, I flop the world, and an opponent picks a bad time to bluff off all his chips … I’m near the tournament chip lead … I have A-Q again, but this time I choose to fold pre flop

A little time passes and the blinds are 100/200. I am dealt A-Q. Two players limp. I pop it to 800. Three players call. The flop is Q-Q-7 rainbow. It’s a beautiful sight. I just check. A player who has A-8 bets 1,000. I see no reason to scare off my customer, so I just call. The turn is a harmless 2. My opponent wastes no time and insta jams all-in. So many choices. What should I do? Of course, I snap call. I have 10,802 chips, which is good for third place out of 56 remaining players.

I write down in my notes that people at this table are really overplaying hands, and I should just wait for hands and I’ll get paid.

The player to the immediate right of Mr. Triple Up who I wrote earlier that my notes say is a table lunatic keeps donking off his chips. I write down that he is not long for this tournament.

Next comes a hand that I could have gotten myself into trouble in, but I didn’t. I am UTG and I open the betting with A-Q. Mr. Triple Up goes all-in. A new player to the table who has the tournament chip lead (twice as big as my hefty chip stack) also goes all-in. My A-Q suddenly doesn’t look so good. I am certain I am not good. I fold. Mr. Triple Up turns over A-K. The tournament chip leader has a surprisingly weak A-10 suited.

Table change which is really, really, really unfortunate … My disappointment is quickly forgotten when I’m dealt A-A … Still on the verge of becoming tournament chip leader … Putting my recent mindset study into action

I get changed to a new table. This is hugely disappointing. The table I just left was the best, most exploitable table I’ve ever been at. People were just handing their chips to me. Plus, I have zero notes on the players at my new table. A table of unknowns. I am in 3rd place with 54 players remaining. Still a long way from the money. An even longer way from the final table. I assume that my new table mates will not be so eager to give me their chips. I guess if I want to make the final table, I will have to earn it.

I sit down at my new table and am immediately dealt A-A. Maybe my new table mates will be eager to give me their chips after all. I open 3x and get two calls. The flop is J-4-2 rainbow. I check. One player goes all-in. The other player folds. So many choices. What should I do? Of course, I snap call. Villain turns over J-7. My aces hold. I have 13,304 chips, which is good for 2nd place with 52 players remaining.

I go card dead for a bit and just fold. As I am folding, I think about the recent mindset article I read and posted in this thread about self-efficacy and belief. The point being that when you have a big stack, have the belief that you can use it to pressure others. Normally I would be happy I have such a big stack and not want to donk it off. But I’ve been folding for a bit. Plus, I have gotten to showdown with pocket aces at this table. If I start leaning on the table light, they are going to see my huge stack and be afraid (unless they have a monster, of course). But short of having a huge hand, they are not going to want to tangle with me. I just have to have the belief that I can chip up with aggression and not catastrophize about what might happen to my chip stack if I get caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

Soon after I give myself this internal mindset pep talk, I am the button, and it folds to me. I have Jd-3d. The old me would just fold. The new me decides to get aggressive. I open 3x. The small blind folds. The big blind calls. Well, that didn’t work. No, no, no, that’s not the way to think. I am repping a big hand. I need to continue if I get the right flop. The flop is 9-7-4 rainbow. I have a big hand, I have a big hand, I have a big hand. I don’t really have a big hand, but I act as if I do, and I bet half pot. Villain insta folds. This is progress. It’s just one hand, so no reason to plan a parade, for me, but it’s a good first step. I am my table’s biggest stack. I have 13,629 chips, which puts me in 6th place with 33 players remaining.

Potential trouble shows up to my immediate left … I put my plans to try to run over the table on hold … A-Q again but I do not connect with the flop … I have a read on Mr. Giant Stack … I get aggressive with A-2 suited

Immediately after this last hand, a new player with a stack twice as big as mine joins my table and is seated to my immediate left. The table’s third biggest stack is two to my left. So much for trying to run over the table. At least initially, until I get a read on Mr. Giant Stack.

It doesn’t take long for us to get into a hand against one another. I am UTG and have A-Q. Blinds are 200/400. I open to 1,200. Mr. Giant Stack calls. Another player with half my chip stack calls. The flop is 10-6-6. I check. Mr. Giant Stack checks. The other player goes all in. I fold. Mr. Giant Stack folds. I have 12,279 chips, which has me 10th out of 25 remaining players.

By now I have a read on Mr. Giant Stack. He does not like to fold pre flop and he is very aggressive post flop. He gets to showdown in a massive pot in which there has been action on every street. The board is K-K-6-rag-6. Mr. Giant Stack has 6-4 and wins. He was bluffing pre flop. He was bluffing after the turn. He (sort of) got there on the river, although he was dead to a King. I have no idea what the other player had or was thinking.

I am the button when I get into my next hand. I have A-2 suited. It folds to me and I bet 3x. Mr. Giant Stack calls from the small blind. The flop is A-7-4 rainbow, which hits my betting range much more than his calling range. He checks, which surprises me. Even though I have a kicker problem, I still bet 2,000, and he folds. I have 13,749 chips, which has me in fourth place out of 23 remaining players.

Feeling handcuffed by Mr. Giant Stack and his huge chip sack to my immediate left … A-10 wins me another bounty, but only after a sweat … A-J does me no good … we reach the money bubble

We go on break. I have 13,649 chips, which has me in 6th place with 22 players remaining. Fifteen will cash. The blinds will be 300/600 when we return from break. Mr. Giant Stack, to my immediate left, is 2nd overall in chips with 34,156. Given his chip stack, him having position on me, and his aggression makes me feel hand-cuffed for the moment. I think the right game plan is to wait for a hand and use his aggression against him.

My first hand that I play after the break, I have A-10. A short stack goes all-in, and I call. He has A-6. The flop is 9-8-7. Always a sweat. The turn is a 2, and the river is a 4, and I’ve won another bounty. I have 14,926 chips (6th place, 19 remaining).

The very next hand I am dealt A-J. There are two limpers. I bet 3,000. Mr. Big Stack calls as do the two limpers. The flop is 10-3-3. I have none of it. Limper 1 (the tournament chip leader with A-10) bets 3,600. Limper 2 (a really tight player who has a badly played A-K goes all-in). I fold, Mr. Giant Stack folds, and Limper 1 calls and holds on the turn and river). I have 11,866 chips (7th place, 16 remaining). We are on the money bubble.

In the money ... There are two tables remaining, and almost all of the chips are at my table … Full house versus a straight … I go on a mini heater for maximum chips … The Final Table bubble bursts

The money bubble bursts quickly. I have 11,646 chips (7th place, 15 remaining). The blinds are 400/800.

I fold a few hands and then notice something. There are eight players at my table. I am 8th in chips overall, but I am 6th in chips at my table, which appears to have almost all of the chips.

Next comes a crucial hand. I have 10h-9h. My notes are impossible to read and incomplete because immediately after this hand I get into another huge hand. The end result of my 10h-9h hand is that I make a full house against a player who has a straight. I have 24,312 chips (3rd place, 13 remaining).

In the very next hand, I am the button and it folds to me. I have A-7. I open the betting, and Mr. Giant Stack calls from the small blind. The flop is A-K-8. Mr. Giant Stack bets, and I just call. I doubt he has an Ace, because if he did, I think he would have raised pre flop. If I raise his post flop bet, I think he might fold. I decide I will let him do the betting for me. The turn is another Ace. This really blocks him having an Ace. If he has it (and a better kicker) then he has it. I decide I am going all the way with this hand. As I expected, Mr. Giant Stack goes all-in. I snap call. He has K-Q. I have knocked out Mr. Giant Stack and win a big bounty. I have 47,900 chips (2nd place, 12 remaining).

My table is now 6-handed. I have K-10 UTG. I bet 2.5x and everyone folds. I have 50,079 chips.

The next hand I play, I have K-Q. I open the betting and everyone folds. I have 52,479 chips (2nd place, 12 remaining).

Three players get knocked out and I have made The Final Table. I have 50,199 chips (2nd place). The chip leader is three to my left. I am the button to start The Final Table, which is nice since I won’t have to feed the blinds any time soon.

Mr. Triple Up didn’t donk off all his chips after all … I bust Mr. Triple Up when I win a coin flip … I’m chip leader … I continuation bet/bluff, villain goes all-in with an absolute monster and fortunately I fold

By the way, Mr. Triple Up who seemed hell bent on giving away his huge very early chip stack has somehow managed to make The Final Table. One player gets knocked out, and then Mr. Triple Up and I go to war. He goes all-in for 11,505. I have 10-10. I raise to 22,000 to isolate. Everyone else folds. Mr. Triple Up has A-K. My pocket 10s hold. I’ve won a crucial coin flip. I have 64,524 chips. I am the chip leader with seven players remaining.

I slip to second in chips. Then I get a walk in the big blind (get used to reading this). I am back to being chip leader.

The player who started The Final Table as chip leader, we’ll call him Mr. Big, loses a decently sized hand and is down to a still healthy 43,219 chips. The player who won that hand has 53,000 chips and is now in 2nd place. I have created a little distance with 65,000+ chips.

I get a walk in the big blind again.

I go card dead (even accounting for the fact that we are now 6-handed) for a little bit of time.

Finally, I get a hand -- Ah-Kh. The blinds are 1,000/2,000. I bet 6,000 and get one call. The flop is 8c-6c-5c. It’s certainly not my flop, but it’s believable that I could have the Ac, so I decide to wield my big stack and continuation bet 6,000. Villain goes all-in. He hasn’t been playing many hands. I fold. For some reason he shows. He had Qc-Jc for the flopped flush. I don’t know why he’d want me to feel good about my fold, but thanks. I am down to 47,164 chips, which is still plenty.

I keep getting walks from the big blind … I win another coin flip and bust Mr. Big … I’m piling up the bounties … I’m back to being chip leader

I get another walk in the big blind. The player to my right clearly wants no part of me in unopened pots when he is small blind and I am big blind. He is definitely the tightest player remaining. I have 48,964 chips (3rd place, 6 remaining).

When I am the button I have A-J and 3x bet to 6,000. Mr Big goes all-in. I call. He has 8-8. I flop an Ace and win another significant coin flip. That’s another big bounty for me. I have won a lot of bounties in this tournament. I have 71,000 chips and am again the chip leader with five players remaining.

A player who has quietly remained under the radar suddenly hits the accelerator pedal … A-A wins me yet another bounty … I’m still chip leader but everyone left still has a healthy, potentially problematic chip stack

The blinds increase to 1,250/2,500.

One player who has not been especially active at The Final Table up until now all of a sudden starts playing like his hair is on fire. He is two to my left and starts going all-in over and over and over.

From UTG I have 8-8 and bet 7,500. HairOnFire calls. The flop is K-3-2. I continuation bet, and HairOnFire folds. OK, he does know where the fold button is. I have 77,643 chips and remain the chip leader.

I get dealt A-A. A really, really short stack goes all-in. I just call hoping to induce HairOnFire to do something stupid, but all he does is call. The flop is 9-6-5. I don’t want to get too cute and allow HairOnFire to pass me by, so I bet and HairOnFire folds. I win another bounty.

I have 84,000 chips. The other three players remaining have 46,000, 50,000 and 66,000 chips. It’s still anybody’s ballgame.

HairOnFire keeps putting me to the test with all-in bets … I get a bluff through … I exercise caution and pot control on a hand

The next hand I play, I open the betting with A-5. HairOnFire goes all-in. I fold. I have 68,474 chips.

When I am in the big blind, I call a min bet with A-2 suited. The flop is 9-6-3. We both check. The turn is a 5. There are 14,700 chips in the middle, and I stab at it with a bet of 7,350 chips. Villain folds. I have 75,074 chips.

I get dealt Q-J and open the betting. HairOnFire goes all-in huge. As often as he has been going all-in I consider calling, but Q-J seems light to do so. Maybe if we were head’s up. But at this point I think I can find a better spot, and I fold. I still have 67,574 chips and am in 2nd place out of 4 remaining.

I have J-9 in the big blind. There is a min bet, which I call. The flop is 10-9-3. I bet and get called. The turn and river are rags and we both check it down the rest of the way. I felt like this was cause for pot control. Villain has J-8 and had an open-ended straight draw after the flop that did not get there. I have 78,874 chips.

I get yet another big blind walk as the small blind has shown no willingness to bluff at it … Almost everyone has an Ace in a hand … Down to three players

The blinds increase to 1,750/3,500.

I’m the button and have Kh-9h. I open to 8,000. It gets thru. I have 85,000 chips and once again I am chip leader.

I get yet another big blind walk. The player to my immediate right has not once raised my big blind when it folds to him in the small blind. I don’t know what he is waiting for. If he were to raise with 2-7o I’d surely fold given how many walks he has given me. He seems to be trying to fold to the highest finish possible.

There is a raise, a re-raise and a re-re-raise. I look down at A-9 and can’t fold fast enough. Turns out one player has A-J and the super tight player to my immediate right, who has given me so many walks, has A-K. SuperTight knocks out the other player.

This brings us to three-handed. To my right is SuperTight. I’m not at all worried about him. To my left is HairOnFire. He worries me a lot. He is the kind of aggressive player who I have a difficult time against. Short-handed play clearly favors his playing style more than it does mine. I know I have to really open up my play and widen my range.

I have 78,174 chips, which has me in third place, but we are all pretty even in chips.

Stop me if you’ve heard this, but I get more big blind walks … J-J wins me a pot ,,, SuperTight is barely playing any hands while HairOnFire and I do battle … K-K returns me to the chip lead

I get another big blind walk. SuperTight does not have it in him to bluff light. HairOnFire has bet plenty from the button into my big blind and I have consistently been bottom of range and had to fold a lot to his aggression.

I get dealt J-J. SuperTight folds, and I bet 10,500 into HairOnFire’s big blind. He folds. I have 85,000 chips and am now second in chips. All three of us are almost identical in chips.

I get a walk in the big blind.

I get another walk in the big blind. The action has mostly been between me and HairOnFire. SuperTight’s strategy seems to be to hope HairOnFire and I go to war in a hand, knocking out the loser and allowing SuperTight to take the pay jump.

The blinds go up to 2,000/4,000.

I get dealt K-K. I bet 8,000. HairOnFire calls. SuperTight folds. The flop is J-8-7. I can’t tell from my notes what if anything the action was. The turn is a Queen. I bet three-quarter pot and HairOnFire folds. I have 103,924 chips, and I’m once again chip leader.

5-5 loses me a bunch of chips to HairOnFire … It’s easy to forget that SuperTight is still playing … I go all-in post flop with nothing more than Ace high

I have 5-5. I bet 12,000 chips. HairOnFire calls. The flop is Q-J-8. I bet 50% pot. HairOnFire calls. The turn is harmless, but I know I’m done with this hand. HairOnFire goes all-in, and I fold. Either he totally read my soul or the flop really hit him hard, because he wasn’t the least bit concerned with my aggression in the hand. I am down to 55,724 chips, but still in second place ahead of SuperTight.

I get dealt K-8. I bet into HairOnFire (I barely notice SuperTight is still playing), and he folds.

I have A-3. I bet, HairOnFire calls, and SuperTight folds. The flop is K-9-4. I decide to go for it and ignore the fact that my aggression may lose me the pay jump that SuperTight seems intent on trying to fold his way into. I go all-in with nothing more than Ace high. HairOnFire folds. I have 76,424 chips.

I get yet another big blind walk. I feel at this point that I should send SuperTight a thank you note in the small blind.

Break time … Chip count update … I get another big blind walk … and another … and another ... I get a bluff thru with just Queen high against HairOnFire ... I get put to the test by HairOnFire when I have A-2, and I’m not sure what to do

We go on break. The chip stacks are as follows:

HairOnFire 130,092
Me: 80,424
SuperTight 38,484

The blinds will be 3,000/6,000 when we start back up

I get a walk in the big blind.

The next hand that I can play is when I limp from the small blind with Q-10. HairOnFire checks. The flop is K-5-2 rainbow. I bet, HairOnFire calls. The turn is an 8. I bet 10,000 and HairOnFire folds. I have 91,000 chips.

I get another walk from the big blind.

The next hand I put chips in the middle is when I have A-2. I open 15,000 chips. HairOnFire goes all-in. Should I call? I mean, A-2 three-handed is a pretty good hand. On the other hand, what am I really ahead of? If he has an Ace, I’m crushed. If he has a pair, I’m a 2-to-1 dog. If he has suited-connectors it’s a coin flip. If he has garbage Like Q-5o, I’m only a 3-to-2 favorite. I think it was fine to open the betting in hopes of taking down the blinds, and if called maybe I can bluff post flop. But given the powerful all-in response I think I have to fold. I did fold. I’m not sure if I was right to fold. I’m curious what LVL thinks about this fold. I am down to 70,000 chips, which is still very playable.

I stay aggressive and get it all-in with J-10 ... I’m out of the tournament ... I make an honest assessment of my play three-handed ... HairOnFire was a handful for be to try to deal with ... I nonetheless improve my online bankroll significantly, getting me to my high-water mark

I get junk in the blinds, and now I’m down to 60,924 chips. SuperTight has quite a bit less. I get dealt J-10. I’m not interested in trying to outwait SuperTight for a pay jump. I’m playing for first place, not second place. I need to accumulate chips. I go all-in. HairOnFire calls with Q-10. Well, that’s unfortunate. He is one tick better than me, which means I’m dominated. Making matters worse, he flops a Queen.

I’m out of the tournament in third place.

I stick around and watch, and HairOnFire makes short work of SuperTight.

Although I came in third place, I won the second most money since I won eight bounties, while SuperTight hardly won any.

If I am honest about it, HairOnFire was a handful for me to deal with. It’s not apparent from the writeup, but he pounded my big blind pretty good once we were three-handed. I pretty consistently had bottom of range when faced with his raises of my big blind so I wasn’t able to play back at him enough. If he raised and I folded, I didn’t mark it down in my notes (it was difficult enough to play and take notes of hands when I willingly put chips into the middle), but this was a significant factor. I did play back at him, but he had me on the defensive much more than I put him on the defensive.

Maybe he just had it more than I did, which is impossible to know, but if I look in the mirror and am honest with myself, I think he was the superior player. The type of aggressive player that I struggle against. It was good experience. Something for me to improve upon in future tournaments when I am in this position again.

The results were nonetheless very positive. This brings me to a new high-water mark since I started online play. When I signed up to play on Global Poker I received 5 Sweep Coins as an introductory inducement. I am now up to 84.29 Sweep Coins (1 Sweep Coin equals $1). This is almost 17x the starting amount. It’s not a lot of money. It’s more about the measuring stick, the accomplishment. Plus, I had a significant amount of run bad for quite a stretch, yet I have still managed to keep building this online bankroll.

I suppose I should be considering moving up in stakes, but I think that is a bit premature. I’m cashing consistently, but it’s not like I am dominating the competition. I think I’ll stay put for the time being.

It was an enjoyable tournament. Running deep is both fun and great experience.

Higher stakes, baffling decisions

I decide to observe the play in a much bigger buy-in than I play. The idea is to see if I can learn anything from what I presume are higher level players than what I see at my low online stakes. I find an online tournament in which the buy-in is 22 times more than the tourneys I play in.

It’s a small sample size, but rather than see high-level play, I instead see some really baffling decisions.

I go to the table containing the current tournament chip leader. I see two players who I have color-coded as weak players. Strange that I would have encountered them at my low buy-in tournaments. My notes prove to be spot on.

Weak player #1 goes all-in from UTG for all 5,000 of his chips with Ks-Qs even though the blinds are only 75/150. Why so much? It seems to me that he is only going to win a small pot or lose a big pot. Sure enough, he runs into A-K and is eliminated.

Weak player #2 is facing a big all-in bet on a board that is A-A-8-8-rag. Weak player #2 calls and is eliminated when his opponent shows an Ace. Again, why call off so many chips when your opponent clearly is repping an Ace, which Weak player #2 does not have. If Weak Player #2 were first to act after the river and decided to run a bluff, OK maybe a case can be made for doing so if he has a read on his opponent or if the opponent has shown to be spewy. But for Weak Player #2 to call it all off when faced with a decision for his tournament life when he does not have an Ace does not make sense to me in this instance.

After a while I go to a different table, which has the new current tournament chip leader. I watch for a while, and when ChipLeader wins a hand without going to showdown, he frequently and voluntarily shows his cards. I see this done by some players at my lower-level tournaments, and every time I see it, I think they are making a big mistake doing so. Why give free information about how you are playing? I am surprised to see this done at these higher stakes.

At the final table, the same chip leader from the previous paragraph loses his mind six-handed. On a flop of 2c-5c-7c, the player who is second in chips bets 10,000 chips, which I believe was 25% of his remaining chips. Chip leader makes a massive all-in bet for show. SecondInChips snap calls and shows Qc-Qh. ChipLeader shows 3s-2d. What???????

Soon thereafter with the blinds at 1,250/2,500 four-handed, SecondInChips goes all-in for 95,000 chips. I can’t think of any hand he could have that would make sense for him to go all-in this massive. If he has A-A the bet makes no sense. If he has 9-9 the bet makes no sense. If he has J-10 suited the bet makes no sense. If he has 7-2o the bet makes no sense. I can’t think of any hand where this massive shove would make sense.

I guess questionable decisions get made at all levels of poker play.

I have a slightly new direction for the thread to describe (nothing earth shattering, but a very slight off ramp). It's around 11:30 p.m. when I open up my laptop and ... I fall asleep on the couch.

I wake up and it's 1:00 a.m.

No problem, I normally call it a night at 2:00 a.m. I can write something quick and ... I fall back asleep on the couch.

I wake up. It's 3:00 a.m. I'm not ready to throw in the towel. I can write something really, really quick and ... I fall back asleep on the couch.

I wake up. It's 4:00 a.m. and ... I admit defeat. I'm throwing in the towel. I'll continue my story sometime tomorrow (well, actually, later today given the late hour). I'm too tired to create the usual A.I. drawing.

Night, night (which brings to mind the Steph Curry signature "night, night" declaration of victory, but I'm too tired to provide a link, too tired to declare victory).

So, I'll see you when I see you (Ocean's Thirteen reference, but again, too tired to provide a link).

Snoring sound (too tired to provide a meme) ...

It's time to do some poker studying

OK, let’s get back to where we were last night before the thread was interrupted by my pesky need to sleep. I’m wide awake now.

So, let’s discuss my road map for the foreseeable future. To do that, a brief recap of where I’ve been.

After a long stretch of poker study, I started playing online five nights a week a couple of months ago. Other than a little bit of live poker play, that was it. No studying done during this period of time.

Now I think it’s time for a burst of greater balance between play and study. I will continue to play online. I will continue to have a little bit of live tournament action. But I will add study to my agenda.

I’m not talking about studying as intensely as I did in the past when I was working my way through a ton of tournament content inside the for pay web site of pokercoaching.com. My subscription to pokercoaching.com recently auto renewed for the year. I considered letting it lapse since I previously finished most of the heavy lifting master classes and other lengthy series of videos, but I decided to keep it for one more year just in case I want to use it on occasion. Then I’ll decide in a year if I still want to keep it.

Unlike before when I let pokercoaching.com guide my study direction step-by-step in its master classes and multi-part series subjects on tournaments, right now I am going to self-direct myself as to what I want to work on. The curriculum will be the subjects I have been coming up against most often and/or the subjects which have been most challenging to me during my online play.

I’m not planning on the studying being massive (akin to buying a new car and selling off the old one). My studying will be more like making a three-month visit to the auto dealership repair center for an oil change, tire rotation, tune up, etc., or if you want to put it in a race car context ...

The following are subject matters on which I intend to do a poker tune up:

-- How to play against limpers.
-- How to play on the bubble.
-- Playing K-K on an Ace-high flop.
-- Playing Q-Q when an over card hits on the flop.
-- How to play top pair, bad kicker.
-- Bluffing.
-- How to play the flop as the preflop caller to a 3-bet.

I may add to the list, but this is the current syllabus.

As I work my way through this subject matter, I will share the articles, videos, etc. that I use to study. I’m not sure if I will go into great depth as to what I take away from the studying of each subject since I didn’t get the sense that LVL was overly interested in that in the past. Maybe I’ll go into a little detail. I’m curious to know what the readers of this thread think/want. If you have an opinion, please share it.

In any event, that’s my return to study for the upcoming near future. A combination of play and study. But certainly, more study than I have done the last two months.

Consider the WINDR principle as a tool in your arsenal.

When in doubt, raise.

On the first point, I'd say playing against limpers needs a little more detail. I deal and play in a bar-poker league. Tons of limping. Mostly, it's about making hands and getting value.

However, if you have the type of players who will limp-fold, then it's time to look for dead money spots and raise. If nothing else, hopefully you thin the field.

An entire night of unplayable cards during three tournaments ... one creative hand (Qc-Jc) I’m really proud of ... angry Miami Dolphins fans ... I waste run good on the one freeroll I play ... Patience unrewarded at the very end of my night

Gonna break a rule of mine which is to not play when I’m watching a game, but Baltimore Ravens-Miami Dolphins isn’t really moving the needle all that much for me. It seems like the hometown Dolphin fans have come out for the sole purpose of booing their team after almost every play. Why show up if you are that unhappy with your team? I’ve got it on my TV, but it’s really more of a radio than a TV to me since I am mostly listening, barely watching.

I may not be any good at multi tabling, but I am very good at multitasking in life, so let’s give it a whirl. I register to play.

103 runners, 15 get paid.

I have no notes on anyone at my table. I usually start playing later than this 8:10 pm start, so maybe that’s why I don’t know anyone.

I fold for a while with unplayable cards.

Finally, in the small blind, I look down at Qc-Jc. There are two limpers, I call and the big blind comes along. The flop is A-J-7 rainbow. I have second pair, somewhat adequate kicker. It’s not like the flop hit me hard. More like it gave me a decent bump. I check, as do the big blind and the first limper. Last to act, the button bets 60. I figure there is a really good chance he is simply bluffing given no one else has shown any interest in the flop. I then make a play I usually don’t consider. I raise to 180 with second-best pair, and the button calls. The turn is a harmless 6, and it goes check-check. My plan was to check raise if the button bet, and, if he calls, I will consider a pot-sized bet depending on what the river brings. The river is a 3. I just don’t believe the story villain is telling. There are no flushes, I don't believe he has an Ace, and the only straight is if the button has 6-5, which I consider highly unlikely. I bet pot, get called and I win without seeing the button’s cards. I am pleased with myself. This was creative and yet logical in a manner in which I rarely consider. I am 4th in chips out of 103. Obviously, a long way to go.

Soon thereafter, I have A-10 suited in the small blind. There are four limpers ahead of me. I consider a big raise, but it feels just a smidge light to do so. A-J suited and I pull the trigger. This seems close to me. I opt for low variance, and I just limp like everyone else. The flop is K-J-7. My A-10 suited has no flush draw and is only definitively good if a Queen comes on the turn or river. If an Ace comes, I might be good. Emphasis on might. There is a bet and a raise, so I get out of the way.

Next hand, it folds to me on the button. I consider a raise with 7-3. Key word being “consider,” It would probably get through, but I decide against it, because the blinds are only 40/80 and aren’t worth pursuing this early with a hand like 7-3. Turns out the small blind and big blind go to war, and the big blind has K-K. Being results oriented, it is good that I did not get out of line. That said, I like the fact that I am searching for opportunities to steal chips.

There are a lot of chips at my table. I have 3,492 chips which places me 34th out of 79 remaining (I’m in the top 43%) but I am only 7th out of 9 at my table.

I have yet to get dealt much. Blinds are only 75/150. Patience.

I am dealt 10-10 on the button. Ugh, 10-10 is so difficult to play. There are two limpers. There are 525 chips in the middle begging me to take them. I go all-in. Everyone folds. I have 3,902 chips (31st out of 68). I suppose betting somewhere around 23-25 big blinds might be considered spewy, but 10-10 is not a hand I want to play multiway after the flop. The structure is somewhat fast in these tournaments, so I decided to try to take down the chips already in the pot. In a deeper structure like the WSOP, I don’t go hog wild like this with 10-10.

Strange dynamic at my table. There is a lot of OMC limping going on, but then people lose their minds bluffing really light with some frequency post flop.

The players 2nd and 3rd to my left are 1st and 2nd in chips overall in the entire tourney. Shark-infested waters, or perhaps these are players who will splash around and pay me off if I get a premium hand. I never get a chance to find out as I get moved to a new table.

Blinds are 100/200.

At my new table, I have notes on the player to my immediate left. My notes say this player gets it in for tons of chips really light. Sure enough, he bets 40 bbs from UTG with 6-6 and loses to A-A. I was ready to pounce if I ever had something versus him, but I never got a chance.

I am 33rd out of 53 players remaining.

I keep getting bad cards, but I am staying patient and simply folding. I am 32nd out of 48 with 3,747 chips.

I get a walk in the big blinds. I have 4,077 chips.

Blinds go up to 150/300.

More unplayable cards. Patience. Card dead is boring. Patience is boring but necessary when the cards are this ugly.

The blinds go up to 200/400. I have 3,757 chips.

I get dealt 7-7 in the small blind. It’s not a premium hand but my 7-7, when so far there has been an early position limp and another limper, has me seeing badly needed free chips in the middle if I’m willing to reach out and grab them. I decide this is not the time to exercise patience. I go all in. The early position limper calls with Q-Q. Yep, he trapped me. The other limper folds. I flop a set of sevens and win a very nice pot I have 7,094 chips, which puts me in 18th place with 42 players remaining. After running bad for so long the past few weeks, I’m starting to run good lately. I prefer running good.

The blinds go up to 250/500.

I am dealt 8-8 UTG+1. UTG limps I raise to 2,000 and get two callers. The flop is Q-9-4 rainbow. UTG, who has almost no chips left after calling my pre flop bet, checks (he has nothing). I go all-in very light, but I do so because of a read on the player still to act after me who is the overwhelming tournament chip leader. He has been splashing around light. A lot. The way he has been playing, I think it is extremely likely that he doesn’t have good cards. This is why I made my move with only third pair to the board. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I’ll live with it. But I don’t think I’m wrong. I get called by TourneyChipLeader who loves to chase bounties and has A-4. My read was right. He made the call even lighter than my hand. The turn is harmless, but he rivers an Ace. I’m out. Run good over. I’m disappointed since, if I held, I would have had a sizable chip stack, but I’m pleased that I got it in good much thinner than I thought I was capable of doing.

I didn’t get a ton to work with in this tournament -- 10-10, 8-8, 7-7, the best Ace I was dealt was A-6o UTG. Never a decent suited connector. Was I over aggressive on my bust-out hand? I was certainly aggressive. Very aggressive. But I had a read, the read was right, I got it in really good and the deck did not cooperate. I’m fine with my play.

........

The second half of Ravens-Dolphins starts. I think I’d like to watch it. That leaves one course of action. I register for a freeroll. Yep, I’ve done it again, voluntarily choosing to enter the Land of Spewy Play. But if I’m going to play distracted I’ll do it in a freeroll where I don’t care what the results are.

There are 698 who enter, 50 get paid.

I’m not going to play normal poker. I’ll wait for a premium and go all-in. No one folds in these things, and you need to build a stack fairly quickly since you don’t get a lot of chips to start with, and the blinds increase really fast. The only way to survive these things is to get a somewhat early double up.

The Ravens start to pull away and are up 21-6. The hometown Dolphins fans continue to boo their team at every opportunity. This is one angry, frustrated fan base.

I get nothing playable early. The player to my immediate left keeps going all in, losing and rebuying. I just don’t understand paying to rebuy in a freeroll. I really, really, really want to get a hand versus this player.

Dolphins fans continue to boo.

Dolphins fans boo even louder, and TV announcer Al Michaels says, “The crowd has just about had it.”

I’m still card dead. The Dolphins fans boo the dealer on my behalf.

I’m 271/592 with 1,830 chips. Blinds 50/100.

The blinds are 75/150. I have 1,795 chips.

I get dealt KQ-o There are three limpers. I go all-in. There is one call, and I’m surprised to see that he limped with A-K. I river a straight. Run good is being wasted on a freeroll. I have 3,572 chips, and I’m 134/492.

Dolphins fan are still booing

The Ravens score again, and Dolphins fans are in full throat booing. Ravens go up 28-6. So, my options are watching this awful, uncompetitive football game or a freeroll where I’m card dead. Slim pickins’

Blinds are 100/200

From UTG, I get dealt Ks-Js. It’s hardly a monster UTG. Still, I 3x to 600. Everyone folds. I have 3,952 chips.

We go on break.

On the TV, they show a crowd shot of four Dolphins fans wearing brown paper bags on their heads.

The Dolphins complete a pass for a first down. Their fans boo anyways.

Blinds are 150/300. I am 189/424

A Dolphins player drops a pass, and the crowd boos. Announcer Al Michaels says: “Everything they do gets the same response from the crowd now.”

Nothing playable. Patience. I have 3,282 chips. Blinds are 200/400.

I am in the big blind with 6-4o. Three players limp pre flop and I just check. It then proceeds to check all the way down to the end, and I make a winning flush with 4d. Run good is being wasted on a stupid freeroll. I have 4,262 chips.

I am dealt Ah-8h on the button. Both the small blind and big blind are all-in from posting their blinds. One player limps, it folds to me and I go all-in. The limper has 6-6. The blinds have nothing. I don’t improve and I’m out far, far, far, far away from the money.

The Dolphins fans boo.

....

OK, time for one last real entry fee tourney.

There are 81 players, 15 get paid. I have no notes on anyone at my first table.

Fourth hand of the tourney. Blinds are 10/20. I get dealt 10-7 in the small blind. I continue for 10 more to match the big blind. The big blind raises to 40. I call. I flop second pair on K-10-6. I just check to see what he will do. He bets 20. With second pair, poor kicker on a blind versus blind battle for crumbs so far, I’m not going to fold to that. He keeps betting 20 chips each round, same as he did two hands ago with A-A when he only won the minimum. This time around he has Q-Q and once again wins the minimum. The King on the flop (an over card to his queens) probably saved me from losing more chips than I did

A good, tricky player I’ve faced a bunch joins the table with a doubled-up chip stack.

The most aggressive player at the table, who we’ll call RaiseRaise&RaiseSomeMore, raises pre with 8-7 off, flops an open ender, turns the straight and busts the good player I wrote about. RaiseRaise&RaiseSomeMore is two to my left. I just need to get a premium hand against him, and he’ll do the betting for me. Of course, besides raising like crazy, he keeps getting there, but I can’t concern myself with that.

A player who my notes say “plays power poker” joins the table. Once she is in a hand, she doesn’t slow down. She is another player I’d like to get a premium against.

The blinds are 30/60. I have 2,748 chips, and I’m in 45th out of 60 remaining.

I remain card dead, as I’ve been all night. Patience.

By not playing a hand I have now moved up six places to 39th out of 54. Kind of weird.

The blinds are now 75/150. I have 2,438 chips. I am 40/52. I’ve gotten really good at folding. Still card dead. Patience.

RaiseRaise&RaiseSomeMore keeps nailing flops and has 10,889 chips.

I can’t get dealt anything and I have a player two to my left who doesn’t fold and who has a mountain of chips. This is a growing problem.

I’m in the big blind. This would be a good time to get dealt a monster. I look down at ... 3-2o. Is this a monster? Surprisingly, it folds to the small blind who has an enormous thanks to RaiseRaise&RaiseSomeMore donking off heaps to him one hand earlier. JohnnyBigStack just completes his small blind. I find this surprising. I thought with pretty much any two cards, JohnnyBigStack would have raised my big blind. He either has a monster, or he has garbage. The flop, turn and river don’t really matter to the story since it goes check-check post flop, check-check after the turn, and after the river JohnnyBigStack checks yet again. OK, if he has a monster, then good for him for being so patient. With 3-2o, there is no way I can win at showdown since I never improved. I have to take a stab at it. I bet. JohhnyBigStack calls with King high (he had K-Q). I’m down to 1,350 chips.

It folds to me, and I have K-2o. Hey, at least I have paint, which is way better than just about everything I’ve been dealt in this tournament. I go all in and everyone folds. I’m up to 1,733 chips. Somehow, I’m not in last place as I am 33/36.

I am dealt A-7 from UTG. The blinds are 100/200. I think if I have to fold this hand and fold my blinds, I will have enough chips that if I double up during the next orbit I can be OK. I think it’s close to “any Ace” time but I just think with the entire table still to act I am likely to get called and find myself in bad shape. If it had folded to me in late or even middle position, I think I go with it. Given all of the players still to act, I fold. I would have run into A-K.

Next hand, I’m in the big blind. I have 10-5o and fold to the action ahead of me.

Hand after that, I am in the small blind. I have A-4. OK, this is my spot. An early position player opens. A middle position player goes all-in for a substantial amount of chips. OK, maybe this isn’t my spot. I think long and hard about it. I fold. Both players had me crushed.

The very next hand I’m the button. I have A-K suited. This is my spot. No matter what. Surprisingly, it folds to me. I have only one play with a mere 1,063 chips. All-in. The big blind is a big stack, takes one look at my pittance of chips and calls light. Mega light. As in 8-5o light. I have been patient beyond believe, and SURELY I am about to be rewarded. MegaLight flops an 8, I don’t improve and I’m out. I don’t get rewarded, and in the recesses of my brain I am admonished, “And don’t call me Shirley.”

The chat at my table feels my pain.

Player A: “Basically how I get bounced every tourney.”

Player B: “AK vs. 72.”

Player A: Yup, something similar.”

Do I enter another tournament? I do not. I’ve been card dead all night. In two real tournaments, and one nonsensical freeroll, the only premiums I have been dealt have been 10-10 (bottom end of premium range) and A-K when I had mere scraps to bet with. I decide to take the hint. I am not meant to get decent cards tonight.

How Ravens players felt tonight/how my poker opponents felt looking at their cards all night

How the Dolphins head coach felt tonight/how I felt looking at my cards all night

Watching The Shining while reading this...just a tad creepy. And on Halloween, no less! All work and no play makes rppoker a dull boy!