Resurrection

Hey Gang,

Long time no post! Since my last post a lot has gone down. I was doing pretty well up until April, playing mostly 200NL and 400NL. Then Black Friday hit and everyone just got shitted on. I have to admit that this was pretty depressing and I took the next few weeks off to try and just figure out what to do next. Along with poker, I do financial planning on the side that I could always fall back on. Just last week though I decided I would try to do the live grind for a month to see how I would do and re-access at the end of the month.

This blog is going to mainly talk about my live sessions and just a way for me to record keep for myself. There are a couple casinos within 30-40 minutes of me that I have to choose from but I have decided to grind mostly at Tulalip Casino. The reason I chose Tulalip over Snoqualmie is because of the $500 max buy at the 3/5 game as opposed to only $300 max at Sno. The poker room is also better IMO because of the spaciousness of Tulalip. The Sno poker room is like a sardine can where every table is squished right next to each other and it is cold as hell in there.

I had my first session of the month last night and found out that Tulalip has a hourly high hand promotion worth $200. This was the cherry on top of everything I mentioned previously about Tulalip. I took a look at the waitlists and decided to hop on the 3/5 game to shake the rust off my live game before diving into 5/10. I usually play a little tighter when I first get to the table just to get a feel for my opponents. I quickly found that there were 2 solid players at my table and the rest were pretty big fish. The first hand of note happened about 5 minutes after I sat down. I iso'd a UTG+1 and MP limp with J8cc on BTN to 25. Flop came Ax7s2s; I got c/c by UTG+1 for 40. Turn was another Ace. UTG+1 c/c again for 95. I cbet here because he might dump his FD with the board pairing and even if he has an ace, I don't think he has a very strong kicker. The river came a 9x. I bet 185 this time thinking he was going to fold all his small aces but he actually tank called after about 5 minutes with A8ss. I guess I'm just a fish and I shouldn't try to bluff so much. This helped me build an aggro image though because it seemed as though I was the only person at the table willing to bluff. After this hand I topped off to 500 again.

No other hands of note really came up for the next few hours but I slowly chipped up to even with about a $800 stack. The next hand of interest began when it got limped around to me in the SB and I woke up with KK. I raise it up to 35 and got 1 call by a nit reg. Flop came down Q99r and I elected to check because I think his hand consists of a lot of pocket pairs and I only really get value from some Q's and JT. Nitreg checked back and the turn was a 3x. I cb 45 and got called. River is a 7x which I wasn't entirely happy about but I bet 80 and was prepared to fold to a raise but he just flatted and mucked.

The game ran pretty shorthanded for a while, having usually 4-5 players until the end of the night where they combined another table with ours. It was just playing as many hands as possible against the fish and value betting as best I could. There was one guy that would never bet his strong hands and would c/c his mid set vs TP. It made it a lot easier for me to play against him because he played so passively. I was able to pick my spots carefully and ended the night with about a $1250 stack. After my total buyin of $800, I was up about $450 after about 5 hours of grinding.

Overall I'm happy with how I played because the table wasn't exactly the best since there were actually a few good players at the table. I plan on playing Sunday-Thursday between 11pm-5am. I'm hoping the games will be running during those times as its the only time I can really go.

Session 1 Recap-
Time: 5 hours
Buyin: $800
Cashout: $1250
Profit: +450

Hopefully we can get some rungood and crush this month.

Cheers,

mazzler