Fuck micro stakes

0 votes

Comments (9)

Forget my audience. I'll just continue with the fail blogs for your amusement

0 votes

Comments (3)

Well, at least it's profit. But honestly most of this month felt like a repeat of january. Just massive amounts of entitlement tilt losing with big hands. Some honest to god runbad mixed in there as well, preflop allin's with AA or sets getting cracked, that kind of thing. I did have my biggest session ever winning a 6k pot.

Hero MP $3000
BTN $1000
SB $3000
BB $700

Hero dealt 77 raises $20
BTN 3bets $100
SB call
BB call
Hero call

Flop 722dd
SB insta jams allin for 2900 lmao and shows QQ. I hold, praise be.


So even with that fat payday I manage to basically just lose it back 1k per day. Thing is I can hardly be proud of it because I only ran up the 3k sucking out. BB was on tilt just repeatedly jamming flops and getting called showing any two cards at times. I hit him 4 times in the span of an hour getting it in bad, but obviously I thought I was good. Stuff like calling it off with 88 on a 34T flop and he has KK. Or getting it in with bottom straight vs his turned top straight but hitting runner runner flush by the river. I dunno maybe I shouldnt dismiss these spots since with the way he was playing it seemed like easy calls.

I started watching some solver discussion videos from UpSwing and found the analysis to be rather interesting. I tried to apply some of it to my game but probably dont really know what im doing. The topics that really stuck with me though were range vs nut advantage and some overbetting. Got into some fun spots frustrating opponents.

Lastly I sort of gave up on any sort of poker schedule. I just play every day now whenever I feel like it. 3pm, 7pm, 2am, fuckin whenever. If I'm awake then I'll play. Probably not a very +EV strat but clearly it doesnt really matter with all the losses im suffering in general.

0 votes

Comments (6)

Shame....shame....shame! Not bad, not terrible... but actually horrible. It's hard to reflect on sessions of live play since you have no way to track hands, however I think I have found a few leaks in my play. Ignore the PLO stuff since that is literally just like 3 sessions and I have no idea what im doing.

#1 - Playing WAY too loose against the wrong players. I've been playing pretty robotically and not adjusting for who's at the table. I'll try to iso with A4o with reckless abandon and then own myself trying to bluff a reg off some connected board. This might work against passive fish who only came to play with 1 bullet but the guy with a fanny pack full of chips isnt calling to try and bink top pair on the river.

#2 - Bad game selection. There are plenty of regs in my cardroom but I'm not sure how many of them are actual pros. The problem is they are willing to at least try and play like one. I've been getting 3bet in & out of position a lot lately and when I'm raising all PP's, SC's and any 2 face cards I just turn into a huge preflop station donating $80 per call and then check/folding when I miss. I honestly need to just get off of these tables asap and stick to the easiest one's I can find.

#3 - Mild tilt. Not from bad beats but just opponents surprising me. Back to the aforementioned regs, several times they've shown me 1 card that was basically the nuts after I fold I guess to earn credit or 'be nice' to me, I dunno. Thing is they'll show a single 5 on a 55J flop. Great, you made trips, but you 3bet me with a five in your hand? Whats that all about, A5s? 55? 56s? It was jarring, so now that I recognize I'm being 3bet light (which I suspected) I dont really know what to do. I guess the appropriate strat is to either 4bet light or tighten up and trap? Either way I have not made any adjustments and just take my lashings and move on the next hand.

The tilt part is more like 'entitlement tilt'. I dont mind being exploited for playing in an exploitative manner, if my opponents recognize I just call 3bets OOP and check/fold then they are playing perfectly. But when I keep missing and they keep smashing the board with their random 3bets I start to get annoyed, not at them but just the fact that I'm completely whiffing flop after flop. Again, I imagine the best option for me here is to just find another table without any 3betting, and at a minimum just play tight and hope for the best.

0 votes

Comments (14)

So I finally done did it. I rolled up a stake, quit my job and went back to playing professionally. I came here with about 40k annnnnnnnnnnnd it's gone. Ok not that bad, but I'm down about 10k in my first couple of weeks, losing at a nice steady $200/hr.

It's been a combination of things

- Playing while sick
- Not enough recovery
- Actually got a little rusty
- Scared money
- Bad play
- Entitlement tilt
- Actual runbad

It's a strange emotional complex when you deliberately do something you know you shouldnt do. There have been so many times where I tried to bluff a river or hero call where I 100% knew the board favored my opponents range, but it's like I just "had to see" to make sure I was right so I paid it off. I was often surprised by their holdings, but I was still certainly beat. It got so bad I actually wrote some notes down in my phone to prep before and during each session saying to specifically STOP DOING THAT.

What's really weird though is I almost feel that I'm a little too comfortable with my roll, despite the fact it's down to 25k. It's almost like I need a little bit of pressure/risk aversion to stop playing like this. I am being way too cavalier with my 3bets because I can just reload too easily. You'd think playing 2/5 with a 25k life roll and losing $5k/week which basically means I have 1-2 months to live would be enough to keep me in line but NOPE. I still have this illusion that my bankroll is unlimited and I can just rebuy and adjust. Good news is I only bring 500BB's to the cardroom so thats my stoploss, I never hit the ATM.

In fact the only thing really keeping me going is I'm cordial with a couple of crushers who often have 500BB+ on the table and sometimes hear them lament how they're still stuck for the day. One of them even commented being down 10k in his 1st week of the year having done nothing wrong, just always running into the top end of opponent holdings. Thats the only thing giving me hope, that these guys have bigger swings than me so maybe im not doing all that bad.

In other news I have taken a small liking to PLO. I dont know anything about this game other than it's a drawing game, so make sure all of your cards are connected in some way. I slipped a few times trying to play for '2 types of hands', i.e. getting aggressive with something like AJ77 suited to the ace, with the idea being "i can make a set OR nfd!". From what I gather it doesnt really work that way, it's all about making big combo draws on the flop, so this game requires a remarkable amount of patience to get those suited rundown type setups. I think when you finally do land a semi-wrap with backdoor flush draw you're really supposed to go for it and ride the variance train because often your opponents are just completely dominated with their garbage 2 pair bottom straight draws. I've been watching players get it allin post with nothing more than a single overpair like KK and zero backdoor draws.

If anything the game is almost relaxing because it feels like you're really just playing your hand instead of being exploited in NLHE by players playing ranges. At the holdem tables I've been owned a few times with relentless 3betting and 4betting where I just felt completely targeted and had no idea what to do and decided to leave the table.

Anyway I'll see how long it takes for me to start listening to my own advice and stop trying to 3 barrel when the flush or ace gets there, and stop hero calling with 2nd pair because "how am I beat?" because you just are, you're always beat when they bet.

0 votes

Comments (10)

So about 3 years ago I took one last shot at poker prior to accepting a full time job after entering a very dark phase of my life being borderline homeless, uber driving, etc. In that time I won enough to make me reconsider going back to the office life, but after so much suffering I had become risk averse and did the obviously 'smart' thing; be miserable for 3 years working in the safety of a cubicle. In fact during that time I probably had more suicidal thoughts than I did while homeless. All this while fully furnishing my unit, getting an insanely hot girlfriend I did not expect to be able to pull off (she ended up going back to her ex) and getting a promotion. Still, it just wasnt enough. My life continued to feel devoid of something.

Meanwhile my poker ambitions just went on the backburner. I took a weekend trip here and there and would usually break even or maybe win 1k, not entirely sure what my objective was other than dipping my toes in the water to see how it felt again. Well that time finally came, I decided to use up all my PTO and take a nice long extended trip to just purely grind and nothing else. No socializing, no dates, no sight seeing, just eat/sleep/grind and literally nothing else.

Behold



Kinda fascinating how the results nearly mirror my last full shot which you can see in a previous blog titled "February results". So what now? I mean honestly I feel like I'm done just replicating my results and then backing out at the last second. My roll is certainly much more healthy now, about 35k instead of the 10k I started with all those years ago. I guess the scary part is that if I'm still deluded by unsustainable winrates then I might not survive this time if I fail. Like it'll just be too much to handle you know? I cant go back to the darkness of failure. This has to be my one last shot, at everything. But what else is there left for me if I stay the course and just keep working an office job? I certainly have not been happy doing that. In fact if anything I've never felt more unhealthy and exhausted.

0 votes

Comments (7)

I YOLO'd about a year ago when I thought I was soon to be jobless and it worked out. Sun run for 7k in 3 weeks and was ready to stick with it, but my boss offered me a real salary so I tucked tail and took the safe route. Job's been great, but I've been planning my return this entire time. Part of this plan involved me buying a new car with autopilot capability so I could make the 500 mile round trip every single weekend with ease. Problem with this strat is that it's still a bit of a life grind hitting the highway after work at 7pm for 4 hours just so I can grind for 2 nights before I have to head back home and do it all over again the next week.

I also quickly realized that playing 2 nights on 5 nights off is really disruptive to your learning. I think I probably shoulda kept my old car and just taken a week off from work here or there to get in some solid sessions rather than sprinkling my time around like I have been. So I'm stuck wondering if I should sell the car and just go on a poker safari with all my vacation time and hope for the best, or if keeping an effective commute strategy is still +EV so that I can drive cross country to the card room whenever I want.

Thoughts?

Or ya know, lets learn PLO and play online. Truthfully I'm just really gunshy of NLHE online play. Never won at it, the action is too fast and the players are too good. I need that AK money when someone calls me with K6.

0 votes

Comments (12)

Wait wat?



Why do I have this image on my phone? How did I come to acquire it? How did I find time to put in this many sessions while working full time and make more than double my income in less than a month?

Easy. Get lied and manipulated to by your own company to the point you have to let them call your bluff and just walk out the fucking door. Yeah thats right. Remember that offer of 52k I supposedly had? It was bullshit. It never materialized. Week after week I kept getting the run around on my actual start date with excuse after excuse about budgetary delays, finance department being slack, director of HR being on vacation, and on and on and on. I got sick of it, it was clear they were just trying to get a technician at a discount stringing me along for as long as I was willing to tolerate it, so I walked.

Yeah baby thats right, I told my boss I would be taking some time off and to get back to me when that offer is put in writing. I took my last 3k in my checking account and went to run it up, and run it up I did. Clearly my hourly is absurd, although funny thing is it didnt really feel like a heater. It wasnt like I was making boats and flushes nonstop. I just did what I always did, played a lot of TPTK type hands and iso'd with draws that hoped to build equity postflop. I mean when people are floating every cbet with ace high or bottom pair it's not like you have to do anything special to beat them, just hope your hands hold by the river.

So I ran up a 10k roll and then the inevitable happened. My company FINALLY fucking put an offer in writing. Thats right they let me go for 3 weeks without a peep before begging me to come back, but only because someone else quit. Is this really the kind of company I want to work for? The kind that would just ball faced lie to me to exploit me and only when they are pushed to the brink do they finally do the right thing?

To top it all off they REDUCED their initial offer! They said the best they could do was 50. I mean honestly how slimy do you have to be to offer someone 52 as a lie just to string them along for months and then when they tell you to fuck off you come back with an even lower offer bUt iT's Fo rEaLz tHiS TiMe Yo!

Siiiiiigggggghhhhhhh.... So I took it, because $130/hr is not sustainable at 2/5 and last time I tried to make a go at poker on a 10k roll I went busto. Or did I? I didnt lose my money, I just spent it. I upgraded every standard of my lifestyle so that I was living "paycheck to paycheck" as a poker player, only able to put in enough time to pay the bills. So I did the smart thing and took my 10k plus this job and moved back right? Well thats what I did. I write this from my own apartment that is embarrassingly devoid of any furnishings besides a King mattress I just bought, but I'm working on that. And now the grind is back on Monday-Friday.

I guess I'll just ignite the rest of my roll and get a couch and TV and stuff so I feel normal and can at least bring a girl home or something.

Feeling very conflicted.....I was back, back in the game. I was ready, and I just walked away.

0 votes

Comments (14)

After pissing away what Eminem might describe as "You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo!" I never recovered. From borderline homelessness to dead end jobs to uber shenanigans I was practically just waiting for an excuse to end it all. I had it all planned out, and we're talking some scary grizzly details involving the bullet train out of town if you know what I mean. Moved back home up north, finally landed an interview for a position paying barely over minimum wage and figured I'd treat it like an internship and hopefully prove my worth; if not well I'll have a few thousand saved up so I can take one last shot at poker.

But the job gamble paid off. They loved me, thanks in no small part to being wildly overqualified for the position thus making it appear as though I'm the best employee they've ever had in that role. And then something magical happened, they decided to make me a full time offer, and a rather decent one at that. They came in at 52k and I snap accepted (only a sucker takes the first offer so probably could have got like 55 out of it). But 52k, I mean... thats damn close to where I used to be honestly. I know the standard of living a 52k income brings you. It's comfortable. You basically have everything you need and then some. Nice apartment, nice car, nice clothes, plenty of food, insurance, bills paid, and some spending cash on the side for the ladies or hobbies or whatever.

It's almost a little depressing because it just means there's no way I can go back to poker, I'd be be set with this job. There's no way I should go back to poker, I mean wtf why bother? 52k is probably average income for a mediocre 2/5 grinder. A friend of mine popped 100k at this limit and was averaging 75k thereafter for 3 years, but he was definitely better than me and took it way more seriously studying all the time and always reading new books. Me? Pfft self-taught and whatever I learned from you guys here. But it goes beyond that. I'm really not too sad about it because I actually freaking love my job. It's a great trendy modern company, lots of perks, people bring their dogs to work, free fountain drinks, you can drink beer at your desk, etc. My coworkers are meme fanatics and my boss lives by the 7 dirty words so our office is a complete shitshow of language and misogyny. It's great and it's fun. The campus is so big there are bikes and golf carts laying around everywhere to hop into to get to the other side, so it has a kind of Google'esque feel to it. There's like 10 apartment communities within walking distance to a 15 minute bike ride to work, so the quality of work/life is just so money it feels good to be there.

I did take a trip to Jax over the weekend to play poker for the first time in a year and took home $1200. It felt great, it's gonna be hard letting this go. And maybe it wont be gone forever. Maybe my job will just be a stop gap to get back into the game, but this time properly rolled (as in 20-30k instead of the 10k I started with which was far too risky). Maybe poker will just be a hobby and I'll take the occasional trip to vegas or whatever and win a few K some months and lose a few K others and I'll just be that random tourist thats surprisingly good (for a tourist) but never takes the plunge. Or maybe I just lock it up at my current gig and take over my boss's job when he retires in 10 years, because honestly I'm a shoe in for his management position once he's done. I guess in a way all options are on the table. Job is great, poker is great.

I will say the lifestyle of a poker player came with certain complications, the most of which was maintaining healthy relationships with people. Sleeping in all day and living in the shadows of society is a pretty sub-optimal schedule for hanging out with people. Taking nights off to go clubbing always just makes you resent the loss of EV from sitting out at the tables! Every time I was on a Tinder date I would be thinking in the back of my head "screw getting laid, I could be grinding $40/hr right now". Not to mention the general societal implications; "hey mom and dad, this is my boyfriend he uh... he's an investment and equities analyst!" I actually had a cutie at a starbucks once walk away after a 30 minute chat she initiated when I finally revealed I played poker for a living lol. You could just see the disappointment in her eyes.

Anyway, it's going to be so fucking nice to finally have some normalcy in my life after what feels like an eternity of pure chaos. Till that day.....

0 votes

Comments (22)

So it's time. Looking to relocate to a new poker spot. Quick recap, moved in with that girl, things were ok in the beginning but it has run its course. I actually feel kinda bad now because she's madly in love with me and I dont really feel anything for her at all. Then again I think she may be confusing love with loneliness and she's just looking for someone to settle down with, frequently commenting on how she doesnt want to die alone etc. Believe me I can appreciate that, but I just dont feel anything for her anymore.

Anyway the online poker thing failed, I lost my 3k as quickly as I won it, in no small part due to playing zoom poker. It was great getting paid off by anonymous donks on ignition with inexplicably bad hands, but it's also easy to run KK into AA and get felted by every slowplayed set 10 times in a row. I've been driving for Uber/Lyft in the meantime to make ends meet. Back to live it is, but not in jax!

One of the biggest gripes I ever had about playing in jacksonville FL, in fact the only gripe I had, was the shortstackers. This is pretty common for live but goddamn it's so frustrating, especially when you show up for the waiting list just to get put on a new table with nothing but $100 minbuys at a 2/5 game. And then when they win a big pot they take their $300 and sit in the 5/10 PLO game upstairs. It became such an issue the card room finally bumped the minimum buyin up to 40BB, which helps I suppose, but still a far cry from playing the more enjoyable full stacked poker. The game selection was also always a tiny bit limited, usually 5 tables of 2/5 running, mix of regs, recs, and a few tourists. But lets get real, jax is not a tourist town so you're never really getting these out of towner whales unless there's a huge BBJ running or tournament in town.

So doing my due diligence it seems as though a few new spots opened up for consideration; Tampa, Washington DC, and Houston. So lets do a little pros & cons breakdown.

************************************************************
Tampa pros: best weather, best city, best social life, best quality of living, best women, casino opened 24/7

Tampa cons: single casino, 40BB buyins, possibly reg infested, semi-touristy town.

************************************************************

DC pros: 2 casinos, Maryland Live which is renowned among the region with very juicy games, brand new MGM right next to airport/city center attracting all of the fancy businessmen, tons of tourism.

DC cons: terrible weather, terrible social life, terrible standard of living, very expensive, major female:male defecit.

************************************************************

Houston pros: legal homegames, numerous recently established card rooms that operate on the home game principal, all play extremely deep, TIME RAKE TIME RAKE TIME RAKE TIME RAKE!!!, decent female population, good standard of living

Houston cons: meh weather, meh social life (???), games might run too big, possibly nothing but regs/locals

************************************************************

Now before we go any further lets take a look at that big fat bold in the houston category. Because gambling is illegal in texas no game can take a rake. However homegames for real money are completely legal so long as the house doesnt get a cut, and you can literally find dozens of nightly games running all over the city from a simple google search. I've been there and done it and they are legit. Some enterprising minds decided to take the next step and open up full fledged card rooms under the homegame principle. This has drew the ire of city officials and nobody knows if it's all going to get shut down or not, but for now these rooms look like mini casinos. They are lavish, well apointed, fully staffed, professional dealers, hot waitresses, full bar, full menu, real food, lounge, tv's, very nice seating, etc. A couple of the rooms themselves look absolutely stunning. They circumvent the system via standard time rake/membership deal. $15 door fee + $15/hr seat.

Everything I have read about the houston games says that while they advertise them as 1/3 games, the max buyin is 300BB's or up to the big stack. 10-15k on the table is very common and with opening raises between $20-$50 and even legendary $100 opens from tilted whales late at night the games have been rumored to be this hidden hush hush poker oasis. Saw a pic of Sammy Farha one night and some instagram pros winning 14k pots with their bragworthy "2.5k buyin 22k cashout" chip porn posts. The time tokens cannot be paid from your stack, so all the money stays on the table! They have memberships to ease the daily door fee's but the $15/hr stays. Considering almost any casino is usually taking $7 per hand in rake then the time structure seems like an obvious win.

Concerns? Well, these games may be a bit *too* deep for me. Some of them turn into 1/3/5/10/25 degen fests and if they all entirely revolve around the local elites then I'll just never be able to get in. However I wont really know until I go there since nobody is expressly talking about it. You can even call the rooms and the hostess will brag over the phone about how their 1/3 game is playing like a 5/10 to entice you to come over.

Thoughts?

0 votes

Comments (31)