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

Ah nice. I am desperate for the legal/regulated sites to enter the CT market somehow. If that ever happens, I think I will try to get serious about online poker. It would be cool to join the compact with other states, but I would also love if we could get our own segregated pool. I watched a lot of the streamer David Kaye when he was grinding 200NL and 500NL in the segregated Michigan pool and it looked like the games were awesome prior to the NJ merge. I have heard good things about the PA pool as well, though I'm sure the games aren't as good now as they used to be.

I listened to this on Saturday before playing live! Enjoyable listen and I think it got me in the right headspace for the Mohegan Sun grind. I like listening to Tommy Angelo talk. Not so sure about the other guy though...

Another weekly update! Modest win this week, although I am still being abused by the whales in the 40NL ClubWPT pool...

Live poker:

I played one session this week, on Saturday at Mohegan Sun. I played 2 hours of $1/$2 (+$47) and 2 hours of $2/$5 (+$393).

At 1/2, I was at a table with my brother, which is always fun. My table was actually full of young players, which is exciting. The other players were loose and splashy, even though at least one of them was clearly trying to win. The stacks were deeper than they usually are at MS daytime 1/2 and chips were flying. I played pretty tight and passed on a few borderline pre-flop spots (AJo facing a 5x raise from EP, KTo facing EP limps with aggressive players behind) but I think I played well. I won 1 big pot:

KJdd - I open UTG to $10. SB and BB (young guys, both friends with each other and both fish) call. Flop AdQd6d ($30). SB donk $10. BB call $10. I raise $35. Call. Fold. Turn: AdQd6d Tc ($110) SB check. I bet $40. He calls. River AdQd6d Tc 3s ($190). He checks. I jam for his last $100. He folds.

Pretty straightforward and beautiful spot for me. Maybe betting bigger on the turn is good, but I'm pretty sure he was dead with a single pair AX hand so I probably got close to the maximum. If he hits two pair or trips or a flush on the river, I probably get the rest.

I waited for good spot to jump into 2/5 and got one - a brand new table with only 2 players I recognized, both of whom immediately got called to the main game. My first hand I got into another straightforward and beautiful spot:

99 - Unknown limps. EP (middle aged Latino, seemed like grumpy rec) raises to $25 off $300. Folds to me on BTN and I call. SB cold call and limper fold. Flop: Jc9s7s ($80). SB check. EP $60. I call. SB fold. Turn: Jc9s7s 7d ($200). EP $80. I call. River Jc9s7s 7d 5c ($360). EP jams for the rest of his short stack and I snap. He shows KK after I fast roll.

Think pre-flop is close between 3bet and call but I got the sense this guy wasn't me`ssing around. Maybe calling isn't good when he is short but whatever. I am more disciplined pre-flop now than I ever have been, but I don't drive an hour to the casino to fold 99 on the BTN to a single pre-flop raise. Rest of the hand plays itself, although there is an argument for raising flop to get the money in before a scare card comes.

After that, I had a couple other smaller wins and a few spots where I was able to make prudent folds. I did flop another set, HU with QQ against a limp-caller on AhQsJs7s8c where I got two streets of value before Villain folded to a river bet. In general, I continue to run really well at $2/$5 which is awesome.

Online poker:

I lost another $100 bullet at 40NL on ClubWPT Gold this week, as I alluded to earlier. I had 1 winning session after depositing but then ran into it a bunch later in the week. The most memorable pots where when I lost with KK in a 4bet pot to JTs that flopped 2 pair and when I lost with AA in a 3bet pot against a fish who cold-called my 3bet with Q6s and also flopped two pair.

I will reload again this week at some point. I am down $500 on this site now. I am not having a great time playing on it, but obviously there is a lot of value to be had. The UI has improved since the site launched (it still sucks though) and the player pool seems huge now after opening to the public.

Other gambling:

I won about $75 playing promotions on Mohegan Sun's online casino this week. Unfortunately, I think my wife's account (which I may or may not have been playing on in violation of the site's TOS) was banned. "She" managed to win about $4k in a year though, so tough to complain about that. My account is still going strong, despite having won over $12k.

I also found a ton of Ultimate X plays after I booked my win at live poker on Saturday. Every machine I checked had multiple left-over multipliers, including this ridiculously juiced up one:

My understanding (please, correct me if I am wrong) is that this spin is worth about $30 in EV, betting 5 quarters per hand. This is definitely the best Ultimate X play I've found, but I don't really look that hard. You have to be pretty foolish to leave these multipliers behind, but we all know that the average casino gambler is a pretty foolish individual. I ended up winning $55 on slots and VP.

Also, Mohegan Sun Online once again had their "Play to Win" wheel set up in the mall area of the casino. I once again got on stage to spin the wheel and won $50 of free play on the App, which is really fun. Even better, I played a $25 hand of blackjack to qualify. My hand was 66 against the dealer's 5. I split, got a 16 and a 9, and then doubled the 9. The "dealer" busted, and I netted $75 for the opportunity to spin the prize wheel.

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Good week overall, and I should be able to get in more volume next week. Will report back.

Had a really swingy week where I ended up slightly positive. I did get a lot of volume in though, which I’m happy about.

Live Poker:

I played 3 sessions this week. I stayed over at Mohegan Sun on Thursday, so I played Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. Then I returned to Mohegan Sun on Sunday and played my typical 5 hour afternoon session.

Thursday afternoon was a big win for me. Mohegan Sun was running a high hand promotion ($500 every half hour) and the room was packed. I got called for $2/$5 first, which was not really my preference, but the table looked great. Almost instantly, I stacked the biggest spot at the table in this hand:

QcTh - I open CO $20 V defends BB. Flop: QT7cc ($40) BB donk $30 I raise $100 he call. Turn: QT7cc 2x ($240). BB check I bet $150 BB call. River K ($540) BB check I jam for his last $200 he sigh call K9cc.

Obviously a fortunate result for me. I kind of wish I had sized up on flop to jam the turn, but I think I played it OK overall.

Eventually I got called for the $2/$5 main game. Instead, I opted for $1/$2 where I ended up at a really great table. I started out playing well and had a couple good spots to make money. There was a pretty big fish at the table who was spewing hard and winning a lot of pots. I had a spot against him where we both made a flush in a limped pot, but the board was paired and I had to fold after a younger nitreg raised in front of me with a full house. It was a standard spot to fold a medium strength flush, but I felt good about it nonetheless.

Later, I ended up making Quads with KK on AKK6Q in a SRP pot where I ISO’d some limps. I won a medium sized pot and, more importantly, hit the High Hand for $500! This is my second High Hand at Mohegan Sun. I’ve won $1500 from the promo fund which I think is probably slightly higher than what I’ve paid into it.

Unfortunately, I think I finished the day by playing pretty poorly. Eventually, I recognized that I was a bit wiped out after playing a longer session and having the adrenaline rush of hitting the High Hand. I did lose a few pots that were probably pretty avoidable. My Friday session was only 2 hours (had to be at work at Noon) and there were no remarkable spots, playing at a table of mostly tight regs. In total for this trip, I won $453 at $2/$5 and won $377 at $1/$2 (including the promo) and I played 8 hours in total.

On Sunday, I moved up to $2/$5 pretty quickly. The table was pretty average, with a few fishier players and a few good ones. I couldn’t really get anything going on this day. I lost a 3bet pot with TT, lost AQo vs A5o on AJ552 where I check/folded river, and had AA cracked by J6s on JT4J9. I thought I was playing reasonably well. Finally, I got it All-in pre-flop for about $475 with 99 against a loose and aggressive player who appeared to be tilting after accidentally mucking the winning hand at showdown. Unfortunately, Villain had TT and I did not improve. This resulted in a $900 loss in about 2.5 hours of play. I think I handled this loss pretty well. This is the third biggest loss that I’ve had at $2/$5 and it did not bother me nearly as much as the other two did.

I took a break to re-gather myself and then played some $1/$2 for a while. My table was really good and had a maniac type and a couple younger button-clickers. Again though, I couldn’t really get anything going and ended up booking a $20 loss.

In total, I played 12.5 hours of live poker this week which is good volume for me. I lost $81 total (this includes the $500 high hand [which is really a $480 high hand, after a tip to one of the better dealers at MS]).

Online Poker:

Man, playing on ClubWPT Gold is a wild experience. I put in good volume this week and ended up netting ~$50 in profit but it was a wildly swingy week. I lost about 3 buy-ins at 40NL this morning alone, in what was a disaster session that saw me getting coolered left and right by 60% VPIP whales.

I haven’t had a good time playing on this site so far and my results have been bad (these two things are of course connected). Part of me wants to quit for a while, but I also feel very compelled to grind my way out of the hole. Unfortunately, the software really does not make it easy.

In general, playing on this site has been a humbling experience. I’ve now played almost 3000 hands, which is pretty similar to my sample at live $2/$5 (132 hours played, so maybe 4000 hands). Over this sample I am down 6.5 buy-ins at 40NL where I feel like I have an unquantifiably large edge. At live 2/5, I am up over 19 buy-ins in a pool where my edge feels significantly smaller.

Just have to remind myself how incredibly fortunate I have been to be sun-running in the biggest game I play. I need to be patient as everything evens out. This will include some losses at $2/$5 and many wins at 40NL.

Other gambling:

I won about $250 playing through promotions on Mohegan Sun’s online casino. This included playing through the $50 of in-app credit I won in a previous promotion, as well as today’s $100 deposit bonus, and this weekend’s lossback promo.

I had a small win grinding AP slots over the course of my two visits to Mohegan Sun. I took some really marginal spots in an effort to increase my status with the casino, so the fact that I still managed to win is very fortunate.

Somewhat disappointingly, I partook in what I believe is my first true -EV gambling of the year: a short session of Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em on Thursday night at Mohegan Sun. The conditions for playing were good (the dealer was not very competent and the table was full and moving slowly) and I had really been wanting to try playing this game live (this was my first time, though I have studied the strategy a bit) so it isn’t really a big deal. The EV loss of my session was very small as I only played 5 hands or so, but the actual result was that I lost $150 which is kind of annoying. It wasn’t particularly fun either!

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In general, this was a frustrating week. I think getting through some adversity is good for me. I was proud of my resilience playing live on Sunday, but I definitely exhibited poor mental game after my big loss at 40NL this morning. While playing live on Sunday I was really impressed by one of my opponents, who is a good winning $2/$5 reg that plays a ton. I watched him lose two $1k buy-ins in about an hour, both times getting it in ahead on the turn and getting rivered by a flush draw. He didn’t whine at all and just calmly reloaded and returned to playing well and being a good table presence. This is ultimately what I aspire to, but, unfortunately, I think I am a ways away at this point.

Ha, when I started out playing Ultimate X I actually didn't understand how significant the strategy differences between JOB and the other games were, so I just applied JOB strategy to all of them (except Joker Poker and Deuces Wild for obvious reasons). So I definitely sacrificed quite a bit of EV at first, but it's only ever 1 spin per play and I think the edge is usually pretty high with leftover multipliers. I also don't really have JOB strategy down 100% , so I still have to consult the chart for some of the more rare situations. I guess the strategy for JOB differs depending on the machine's payouts too. It is wild how nuanced VP can be. How did you get into playing JOB at age 8??

I really enjoy VP in general. At some point, I would like to get more serious about it, beyond vulturing a couple Ultimate X machines a week. Mohegan Sun actually has a lot of high payback machines, including two machines that are set to 100.09% payback. Unfortunately, you need to have a pretty massive bankroll to play these ones. My understanding is that MS doesn't give Momentum dollars for the high payback machines, but they still gave Status points. So playing these machines on Status multiplier days can be +EV with all of the free play and Achievement Awards that you can earn. https://www.vpfree2.com/casino/mohegan-s...

This week I completed a heroic comeback on ClubWPT Gold. Since January, I have deposited $100 six separate times. At the start of this week, my balance was 150SC, so I was stuck $450 on the site (1 single $200 bullet at 200NL; the rest at 40NL). At times, this stretch felt like the worst runbad I've ever experienced, although I don't think that is completely true.

Either way, my balance is currently 623SC, so I'm unstuck! Up almost $500 this week alone which feels awesome. Two days ago I had a huge day where I won 5 buy-ins at 40NL (mostly just making value hands against whales) and then today I completed the job with a 3 buy-in win. I knew I would get unstuck eventually, but I wasn't sure how long it would take. The software (particularly the inability to multi-table) made me feel a little hopeless about it. Right now I am feeling extremely satisfied, and also motivated to keep going. I finally feel like I am in the zone playing online again so there is no reason to stop now.

Planning on taking some shots in the newly-available 100NL games on ClubWPT. These games seem to be as soft as 40NL, and now I have a bit more of a bankroll on the site. I am eager to move up as quickly as possible while the games are extremely soft, but I'm also not really looking to deposit tons of money on the site. These games seem extremely high variance too, given the looseness of the player pool and the game structures (3 blinds, huge ante). I'm not really looking to swing thousands of dollars at 200NL right away. Happy to be working my way up though.

In total, I've played 3600 hands on the site. Over this time I've had a 10 buy-in downswing and now a 10 buy-in upswing. My VPIP/PFR has settled in at 27/19, although it feels like I've played a lot tighter than that lately.

I will provide another update next week when I make my weekly results post. Hopefully another positive one!

I think I know those machines and I didn't know they gave status points, very cool! I was marveling at their ancient graphics with my wife the other day.

My grams had a handheld jacks or better game and a couple strategy cards from AC casinos. I also was an early AP on Sega Genesis Caesars Palace 😃

awesome! i'm with you about those games and varience. I'm adjusting alot to the games and player pools. tables play way different when a few whales mix in. lots of upside there right now. the games are so much different than global and hopefully will be a good option for a while.

i'm got some wild hand histories so far! i like your strategy about grinding up. I'm settling in at 40nl but agree about 100nl being better. i'd rather not dump 2k on the site but i might once i get in a groove. good luck out there!

Booked a modest loss this week. Had a hot start and finished off pretty rough.

Live Poker:

I played one session of live poker this week, 5 hours on Sunday at Mohegan Sun. I played mostly $2/$5 which I was happy about. I also had a nice win at $1/$2 (+$150 in about a half hour) which was also great. The bad news is that I had another chunky loss at 2/5, losing about $750 in 4.5 hours of play.

My 2/5 table was really good at times today. For most of the day, it was three regs that I know well (only one of which I would classify as a good player) and then a bunch of fish. Because the table was playing really loose and passive, I probably made some pre-flop errors playing too loose and passive myself. On this day, I got punished pretty hard for making those mistakes.

The table got worse at the end of the day, with a very young and aggressive player I hadn’t played with before moving over from the must-move. Based on his dialogue with the other players, I gathered that he is a night-time 2/5 reg. He seemed to play well and moved over to my direct left which was unfortunate.

Here are a couple hand histories:

QJss - Fish limps EP, I raise to $20, SB cold calls, fish limper calls. Flop: Qh8s2c ($60). SB check. Fish donk $20. I call. SB call. Turn: Qh8s2c 6h ($120). SB check. Fish $55. Call call. River: Qh8s2c 6h 3c ($285). SB check. Fish $130. I call? SB fold. I beat 42hh.

SB seemed upset after this hand, so maybe he folded KQ or QJ himself? This was not the only hand I played where I was in a really uncomfortable spot in the middle of a fish monkey-betting and another player. Calling the river really didn’t feel good here (who bluffs this spot after getting called twice on the turn??) but this donker is a loose action player and the price is really good. The flop donk felt weak too, and he never really sized up at any point which I would expect a strong hand to do.

88 - Two limps. BTN (tighter older regular) raises to $30. I call SB. Both limpers call. Flop 9h8h2c ($120). I donk $50. First limper folds. Second limper calls. BTN folds. Turn 9h8h2c Qh ($220). I check. V bets $125. I call. River: 9h8h2c Qh 7s ($470). I check. V bets $165. I call and he has 43hh

I think pre-flop I can probably 3bet this spot. My thinking with calling is that it’s better to play with the fishy limpers than play a 3bet pot OOP to the tighter reg. I think this justifies a call but maybe it’s bad. Donking the flop is an exploit that I picked up from Marc Goone/Hungry Horse. Check/raising this spot sucks because I have to shut out the two fish (we check to BTN who bets, I raise, fish are forced to fold low equity trash like 9X or 43hh). Also the flop just checks through a lot.

I think the turn makes sense to check on the worst card in the deck. Obviously I can’t fold here. River is probably a spot that I can fold. But I figured my hand is somewhat under-repped and it’s possible Villain has a worse hand for value like 22 or Q9 with this small sizing? Maybe not though, and I’m just always getting milked by a flush. I probably would have folded to a big bet, so credit to my opponent for winning the max.

In total, I would say that I did not play particularly well this session. But I also ran poorly. Tough to complain about how things have gone for me at $2/$5 but these back-to-back losses have been challenging. This is now the biggest downswing I’ve gone through at 2/5 (-$1650) which speaks to how well I’ve run overall.

Online Poker:

I updated the thread earlier this week that I had climbed back into the black on ClubWPT Gold, grinding my balance up to 675SC or so at 40NL. I can’t understate how good this felt. Unfortunately, things did not go well when I shot-took 100NL. I lost about 2.5 buy-ins pretty quickly, which included a pretty bad beat when I got in as a 75/25 favorite in a big pot (multi-way 3bet pot where I squeezed with AJdd got it in vs KThh on 789ddh).

For now, the plan is to grind it back at 40NL, but I do think I will continue to sit at 100NL if a table looks particularly good. Right now my balance is 390SC, which means I won about $240 this week. I don’t intend on re-depositing at any point, but obviously I have plenty of money in my live bankroll so it’s still reasonable for me to be aggressive with my shot-taking. At this point I am up quite a bit at 40NL too, and I think it’s clear I have a big edge in this player pool.

Other Gambling:

Very slow week. I played through a couple promotions on the online casino and won about $15. Then on Sunday I found a couple small slot plays and lost about $15. Let’s call it even.

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I plan on putting in a similar amount of volume this week. I am under a bit of pressure to make sure I play enough at Mohegan Sun because I need to maintain my Player’s Club status. The Status period ends on March 31. I need 400 “Status Points” to maintain my “Ignite” status (this is the second tier in the Player’s Club). Right now, I have 362, which means I need to earn 38 more. You earn about 2 Status Points per hour playing poker, so that means I need 19 hours. I play about 5 hours in a normal week, so that leaves me a bit short. I think I will find a weeknight to take a trip up there at some point. If I can find a Status Multiplier day to play, that will make it easier. Also finding a big AP slot play would help too. Being in the “Ignite” tier of the Player’s Club is worth somewhere in the $150 - $200 range for me, so I definitely don’t want to drop out if it can be avoided.

tough one getting it in good when shot taking online but those are the spots we hope for. Glad to see you seem to be crushing 1/2 and finding good games at 2/5. Excited to hear about how the last 19 hours go this month at Mohegan Sun, definitely a place I'd like to check out in the near future.

Yeah for sure! Thanks for the words of encouragement. Let me know if you're ever in CT!

In general, I do think the CT casinos (Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods) are nice places to travel to from elsewhere. The games aren't particularly good, but the casinos are massive and really nice. Mohegan Sun in particular is one of the nicer casinos I've been to. The casinos are in the middle of nowhere, which is unfortunate, but there is some nice nature stuff nearby. It is also really easy to get comped rooms, even if most of what you do is play poker.

Also the welcome bonus on Mohegan Sun's online casino is exceptional. Anyone who travels here and doesn't already have an account can probably pay for their entire trip in EV just from that one promo alone.

Had a nice win this week. Probably the biggest news of this week is that I started playing on a new online platform.

Live Poker:

Similar to last week, I only played one session live this week, on Sunday at Mohegan Sun. I played 2.5 hours at $2/$5 (+$828) and 2 hours at $1/$2 (-$239) for a $589 profit.

As soon as I got to the poker room, I saw a seat open at what looked like a great 2/5 table, so I hopped right in. The table was really good with several loose recreational players that I didn’t recognize and only 1 serious reg. I won a lot of small pots (including one where I made a straight flush with J5o after checking back BB) and then won one big pot in hilarious fashion. This hand is played against an older whale-type regular that I am very familiar with.

J9hh - Loose fish limp EP. I ISO CO $25. Whale calls BTN, BB calls, Limper calls. Flop AKThhd ($100). Checks to me, I bet $50, Whale calls, others fold. Turn: 5dd ($200). I overbet jam $415, Whale snap calls with one chip. River is an Ace. I say “That’s you I guess” and table my hand. He says “No it isn’t” and shows 23hh.

I think this is a pretty standard flop c-bet spot. On the turn, my thinking was that this player is incredibly wide pre-flop and on the flop. He has a lot of weak draws and 1 pair hands (he probably has every offsuit AX and KX hand) that can’t call against a huge jam. It’s pretty conceivable that I would play any number of value hands this way, targeting pair plus flush draw hands that will never fold. If he calls here with A7o, so be it I guess - I still have a lot of outs. I don’t really have that many hands that want to bluff here either, since I don’t think I would cbet a low flush draw. The result of the hand speaks to how bad players overvalue weak combo draws. I’ve seen DooDooPoker advocate for overbet jamming huge for value on a lot of flush draw spots with the reasoning that fish can’t fold combo draws and this is a great example of that.

I played for a while longer at 2/5 before my table got a lot worse. The whale, who was to my direct left, table-changed and a tough reg seat-changed for position on me, which kinda sucks. I decided to book the win and dropped down to 1/2. Unfortunately, I think I played pretty poorly at the smaller game. I made a pretty punt-y bluff against a super loose player and got called down by middle pair. And then I got coolered a couple times, including full house over full house, full house over flush, and trips over trips. It was kind of a sour end to what was a pretty good session overall. I have to remember to stay disciplined when I move down in stakes. If I’m not going to play well, it’s better to not play at all.

Online Poker:

As I alluded to earlier, I joined a new site this week - Clubs Poker. I did it early in the week after another tough session on ClubWPT Gold. I figured if I joined Clubs (a site I’ve seen advertised on Hustler Casino Live and on Facebook), I could multi-table by playing Clubs on one screen and ClubWPT Gold on the other. This ended up working out really well for me, and I continued to do it throughout the week. Clubs also has a small but easy-to-clear deposit bonus which is nice.

On ClubWPT Gold, I finished the week with a balance of 535SC, so I won $145 this week playing almost exclusively at 40NL. On Clubs, I deposited $50 total and I finished the week with a balance of 345SC, so I won $295 including the deposit bonuses. I ran really hot and quickly moved up from 10NL and 20NL to 50NL on that site. The games seem pretty soft right now, although I did recognize a few regs that used to play on Stake.us.

After winning a total of $440 this week, I am now in the black for the year on Online Poker, up about $235 total. Looking forward to continuing to add on to that. Feels great to be able to multi-table again.

Other Gambling:

I had a pretty significant loss playing a slot promotion on Mohegan Sun Online this week, losing about $200 early in the week. I bounced back a bit though, playing through my lossback credits and also winning small on another promotion. In total, I lost about $85.

At Mohegan Sun yesterday, I found two small slot plays and won $13.

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I expect I will put in similar volume this week, hopefully with a similar result. I am still in roughly the same shape as last week with regards to maintaining my status in the Mohegan Sun Player’s Club. So I will need to find a weeknight to make the trip up to the casino at some point soon.

Got it! It looks like you had a solid week overall. The live poker session at Mohegan Sun seemed to go well, especially with that huge overbet jam against the whale. Nice work staying disciplined when the table got worse and moving down to 1/2.

Your online poker progress is also solid, with a nice profit on both ClubWPT Gold and Clubs. Multi-tabling seems to be working out for you, and it’s great that you’re in the black for the year.

The slot losses were a bit of a downer, but it’s good that you were able to recover and end up just slightly in the red. Looks like you're managing things well across the board.

Do you plan on sticking to the same volume this week, or mixing things up a bit?

And taking your time with moving up in stakes is smart. You'll get there when the time is right. Stick with the process and keep putting in the work — it’ll pay off. You’ve got this!

I had another big week, thanks mostly to a long-awaited upswing on ClubWPT Gold.

Live Poker:

I played one session this week, on Saturday at Mohegan Sun. I split my time at $1/$2, where I played 2 hours and lost $158, and $2/$5, where I played 3 hours and won $435.

I played briefly at a mediocre $1/$2 table before getting called for $2/$5. My table at 2/5 was really good. There were several really loose fish and a few tighter non-threatening regs. In 3 hours, I played 4 meaningful hands: I ISO BTN KQo flop TP and get 3 streets of value; I 3bet AA and got cold-called from BB fish who called 2 streets on low board and folded river; I open 78s and win medium pot against A2s on 886A9; I open KJo and incorrectly hero call river against loose fish that was bluffing river with a better hand. Besides those, it was a lot of small pots where I either won with c-bets or check-folded after opening. After a while, a couple tougher young regs got moved to my table and I decided to book the win and drop down to 1/2. At some point I have to stop doing this, but I was OK with it today. On Saturday afternoon the $1/$2 tables are usually really good so there is no reason for me to play at a mediocre $2/$5 table, especially when I am playing a little bit deeper than I am used to.

The $1/$2 table I moved to was exceptionally good. I instantly recognized an aggressive whale-type player I had played with last week. This was my first hand dealt:

AA - I open UTG1 $10, MP unknown cold call, BTN 3bet $30, folds to me, I 4bet $75, MP unknown back-jam $300, BTN call for $250, I snap call. I fast-roll my hand and the BTN shows KK. MP doesn't want to show but insinuates he has a bad hand. The board is QJ6T and the river is an 8. The MP player stands up and screams when the 8 hits and shows 88.

I think I took this beat pretty well. Obviously it means I am at an awesome table. The MP player with 88 proceeded to VPIP around 75%, frequently battling the whale I was already familiar with. It was fun to watch and I was able to win some of my money back, flopping TPGK in a bloated pot and against both players. In general, I was happy with how disciplined I played. I had to leave the table much earlier than I would have liked. Still, I was happy to leave up $275 or so on the day.

Online Poker:

As I mentioned earlier, I had a giant week playing on ClubWPT Gold. I started the week with a balance of 539SC and finished it with 1579SC, so I won $1040. I mostly played at 100NL. I think I played well, but the reality is that I was just running super well. I had two different spots where I got it All-in 4 ways and scooped (once with AKo, and once with JJ). I did lose another big multi-way all-in where I got it in way ahead, so it balanced out somewhat.

It feels great to be ahead about $1000 on this site after really struggling playing on there at first. I am trying to decide now whether to withdraw some money and continue to play small stakes, or try to grow the balance and shot-take 200NL at some point. Probably I will default to the more conservative approach since that seems to be my gambling style.

On Clubs Poker, I had a small loss of about $50. I continued to multi-table on this site while simultaneously playing ClubWPT which worked out well.

Other Gambling:

The biggest news this week is that I have access to my second account on Mohegan Sun's Online Casino again, which is worth a significant amount of money to me. I still ended up booking a loss this week, somewhere in the $200 range. Mostly this was playing a highly volatile online slot machine with a double loss-back promotion. I will get some of the lossback money tomorrow which will be nice.

At the casino yesterday, I found one exceptionally good slot play (+$81) but then lost some of the money back on marginal plays. I mistakenly thought it was a Triple Status day (which inspired the marginal plays), but I guess it wasn't. Either way, I finished up $25 and got some decent "Coin In" on my Player's Card, which I'm happy about.

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I expect to put in similar volume again next week. I have 14 Status Points to go on my quest to maintain my Player's Club status at Mohegan Sun. This means I need to play ~7 hours of poker or find some other way to generate Status Points at the casino. I'm pretty sure I can get this done in 1 visit, especially since next weekend is actually Triple Status.

Looks like I mis-remembered my results for the week. It was last week that I lost $200 lol. This week I lost about $50.

I’m sure no one except me really cares about this, but felt like I needed to update the record either way.

Gl OP hope you turn it around. Last hand with AK I like it up until the turn call…like I’m snap folding breaking my wrist throwing those cards into the muck type **** (but acting like I have a decision lol). Downswings suck but I’ve gone on many at live poker there isn’t nearly as many hands per hour as you seem well aware of so $900 swings somewhat common for me as well…and math variance says you can play pretty damn well and still go on 10-20 BI downswings. If I lost $900 in a session of live $1/$3 though I’d criticize my play too so it’s normal. But AK turn call no bueno just avoid guessing and extract value and time your aggression. Like you could have been right so it’s not bad bad bad but why choose to take that marginal of a spot when there’s better spots so I’ve just learned to snap avoid those spots. A decent amount of the time I may even just give up there on flop but the Cbet way less bad than the call turn. But you got this shrug off the loss just try and be patient wait for made hands study a bit and you’ll be back up in no time. I lost a **** ton of money before ever turning profitable but the love for the game always brought me back, and I eventually realized well **** I’m not ever going to stop playing poker so I should probably try and make money at this ****ing thing ❤️

Hey thank you for the words of encouragement! I started this thread two years ago so those hand histories are very old. This thread’s titular downswing lasted about 8 months and ended in Fall 2023. I’ve since put a lot of work into my game and have put in a lot more volume. I had awesome results in 2024 both live and online and am off to a really good start in 2025.

To illustrate, this is my lifetime $1/$2 graph, which I don’t think I’ve shared ITT in a while.

I started this thread about 1/3 of the way into the graph, where you start to see some really sharp downturns.

Oh yes lol sorry I thought it was a 1/1 post. That is epic. You really did turn it around congrats on that and staying with it.

Sick results for 1/2

Do you mind sharing what you focused on to work on your game like you mentioned?

Sure! The main thing that helped me for playing live was focusing on studying multi-way spots. I had a breakthrough a year and a half ago where I realized I was spewing in multi-way pots and just playing too loose in general. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of great resources for studying multi-way play, but I do think that Crush Live Poker helped me. I also think actively participating in the Live Strategy subforum on this board has been helpful (although a lot of what gets posted in there is not of much value). Just the act of reading, writing, and discussing hand histories is really helpful for live play.

In general, my poker study has been all over the place. I have used a lot of different tools and content to try and get better. The best thing for me has been just watching good players play and explain their thought processes. For playing online, a few different cash game streamers were pretty influential for me - just watching solid players grind out the same simple spots over and over.

A couple other things that have helped me:

- Getting volume in. I don't play live very much (averaged 6 hours a week last year) but there is no substitute for playing regularly (while staying engaged away from the table) and getting reps in. The same is true for playing online as well. It is really hard to play well if you aren't playing often. It helps with mental game as well IMO.

- Playing against bad players (and really trying to understand what they are doing). My main focus right now is playing against fish and getting better at beating up on them. I am not trying to be the best player in the world (or even in the room) and I'm not letting my ego get in the way against other regs. I game select at $2/$5 pretty hard and have no problems about moving down to $1/$2 if it isn't a good spot for me. And online, I exclusively play in the weakest player pool in the world (US-based sweepstakes model sites) and even there I game select to the best of my abilities.

And of course the most helpful thing of all:

- I ran like God at live poker for all of 2024. It is so much easier to play well when you are running above expectation.

Just sat with you on WPTGold for a few mintues this morning. Like the above advice and its great for many players. Most are listening to the wrong stuff at our level or at the least get lots of bad advice mixed in.

I read some stuff about CT potentially joining the multi state pool. WOuld be sick if so! I'd write your congressperson or state rep!

Thanks Dan, this is a great perspective. CrushLivePoker is the best, I recently subscribed to the site after watching their youtube forever. It seems like one of the only places where there is truly a lot of multiway content and actual theory of these spots. Are you on the discord?

Running good always has to help but still it sounds like you have a great approach to the game. Thanks for sharing, definitely have some great takeaways

Haha yeah I saw you! You replaced a fish at our table and then when the other big fish busted, I decided to try and find a better table. I didn’t end up playing for very long this morning.

That would be awesome! I’ll look into that for sure.

I was on the discord when I was a member but I gave up my membership a while ago. I’ve actually been thinking about rejoining though. I’ll let you know if I do!

Booked a loss this week. Bound to happen sometimes!

Live Poker:

I played one session this week, about 5 hours split evenly between $2/$5 (-$589) and $1/$2 (-$65). Unfortunately I didn't play particularly well and didn't have any good spots.

I started out at a really bad short-handed $2/$5 table. I stuck it out for a little while hoping the table would get better, but the opposite happened. There was one extremely fishy short stack who busted after about 45 minutes and did not rebuy. After he left, I decided I would move down to $1/$2. Instead, I ended up getting stacked by a reg with flopped two pair vs a flopped flush. It was a frustrating hand where I felt like I should have been able to fold afterwards. The most frustrating part of the hand was that I didn't think through the spot clearly in game, acting way too quickly facing a big bet on a board with very few bluffs or worse value hands available.

After that, I joined a very good $1/$2 table with a maniac type player who was blasting off. Unfortunately, he donated about $600 to the other players at the table before deciding to table change, leaving me with mostly nitregs. I grinded out a pretty boring couple hours in this game before moving back to a softer $2/$5 game where I also failed to get anything going.

Online Poker:

I put in a good amount of volume this week and booked a small win. On ClubWPT Gold, I finished with a balance of 1790SC, so I won about $200. I played exclusively at 100NL, so up only 2 buy-ins. The games are definitely still good on this site. I am interested to see how things change when multi-tabling is available. I am also planning on withdrawing a bit at some point this week.

On Clubs, I got off to an awful start to the week and suffered a couple memorable coolers (straight over straight, 2nd nut flush vs nut flush). I was able to win some back later in the week though, and also replenished my balance with a deposit bonus (deposit $100 to receive 120SC). My balance on this site is 380SC, so I believe I lost about $20 this week.

I am going to try and keep better records of my online play going forward. It is getting a little confusing now playing on two sites and having multiple deposits on both.

Other Gambling:

I booked a small loss playing through an online slot promotion on Mohegan Sun's online casino. I put in a lot of volume this week since the site has been doing nightly lossback promotions. I think my total loss was less than $100.

At the IRL Mohegan Sun, I took a couple marginal spots doing AP slots. Sunday was my last day of the Status Point period and I was a little behind where I needed to be. It was also a "Triple Status" day, so it made sense to fire. I lost $25 total on slots, but then I cashed in 50 "Choice Credits" for $25 in free slot play and won most of my money back.

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I gambled enough on Sunday to maintain my status in the Mohegan Sun Player's Club, which I'm happy about. I am also going to be filing my taxes this week. For the first time, I will be filing as a "Professional Gambler," which means filing a Schedule C. It's necessary to do this because the State of CT has insane laws about gambling where you can't write off your losses as a recreational gambler. I put it in so much volume playing online last year (where my results are easily tracked by looking at my bank statements) that it felt necessary to be honest reporting my results. Usually I file taxes myself on TurboTax, but this year I am using a CPA. As a Professional Gambler, I can write off a lot of expenses related to my gambling, which helped lower my tax bill by several thousand dollars. I also think this incentivizes me to invest more into my gambling in the future: I should travel more, buy myself a better computer with a bigger monitor, pay for training materials, etc. I'm not sure how much of that I will actually do this year, but I'll keep this thread updated.

Playing some 100nl is no small feat! Despite what sounds like an annoying session live being up 2 BIs at this stake is definitely impressive. AP slot play is pretty fascinating. I have only been introduced to this once I got into poker and specifically started poking around this website but it's pretty cool you know what you are doing there.

Filing as a professional gambler sounds like a great opportunity, where are you thinking of traveling to?

Also, you should post some more HHs from your $1/$2 or $2/$5 sessions. Based on the feedback you've given me on my own hands I'm sure you have some interesting spots as a knowledgeable player. Thanks for sharing your progress and results the other day, certainly interesting to see the progression within the context of the past few years of playing.