Daniel's Poker Shenanigans

Patience -->Stress-->Relief/Pain-->Patience.   ...this loop pretty much sums up my experience over the weekend.  For me, that is full-ring poker in a nutshell. That is:  1) Wait patiently for what I assess to be "a profitable situation."  2) Wager as much money as necessary in a way so as to maximize said "profitable situation." This is usually the most stressful part of poker.  3) Win or lose depending on how accurate my assessment of the situation was, how skillfully I acted on it, and how lucky or unlucky I got. Winning is typically met with feelings of relief, while losing is met with feelings of brief pain. 4) Go back to waiting patiently.  …it's not exactly the most glamorous or alluring thing, tbh. Why bother?  A small part of me still doesn't believe it's actually possible to win at poker in any reliable sense. There are, without a doubt, thousands of actual  people who have made very good money playing poker. A lot more have lost. A lot

 A lot has happened since my last update. I will get to all that in another blog soon-ish.  ...but for now, I'm presenting a challenge to myself publicly, both because I need some outside motivation and also to hold myself accountable.  The challenge is simple: start with a $10,000 bankroll and either double it by playing poker every weekend or lose it trying. For people who actually play professionally, this could hardly be considered a challenge, but for a recreational plebe like me -- it's going to be a real test of resolve.  Quick recap of my "recent" poker endeavors: - Played a decent amount of volume after quitting my job (summer 2019) up until I went back to Japan last year (right about when the pandemic hit). Won approximately $20,000 during that time.  - Returned to the USA last summer with intentions of continuing to play (and finish a college program) in Vegas. Instead, went to Vegas and played very little. I did, however, complete my certificate in editing

Definitely went into the weekend looking to put in some volume and mostly "succeeded," although I cut play short today. Cash games went well. Since "wiping the slate clean," I have totaled 17 hours and haven't booked a loss yet. I've definitely run well insofar as dodging outs when big money went into the middle.  I played quick 4-hour sesh on Friday at Clearwater and was mostly stagnant. It looked like I was set to book a small loss, until this hand came up (1-3nl): Player in MP opens to 10, folds around to me in the small blind and I look down at AcKd. I 3-bet it to 35. Everyone else folded and villain called.  Flop comes 9c3c7d giving me two overs and a backdoor club draw. I underbet to 30 and villain calls. Underbetting is something I've been trying to implement into my game. It makes sense in a variety of contexts, although it can be argued that it may induce opponents to having a bluffing range when they normally wouldn't agains

When I first started playing poker, I kept meticulous records of my results. This was before smart phones were really a thing, so I used an Excel spreadsheet. Eventually, I switched to using poker-tracking apps. And then, for some reason, I convinced myself that tracking my results was a waste of time as doing so wouldn't *improve* my results.  Regardless of whether or not that is true, it was a shortsighted thought and I really regret my decision. There is a gaping hole in my stats from about 2016 until now-ish.  It feels gross.  BUT, seeing as there is nothing I can do about it now - I have decided to wipe the slate clean and start over as of this weekend. I will not miss logging any poker from now on, regardless of format or place (casino, online, house game, whatever). Also, while my feelings hold true about cash games from my previous post, I've recently felt pretty motivated about studying and improving in this realm. I won't be sticking to just to

...Yep. An increasingly fleeting part of me wants to be. I'm not. I strongly believe I have the technical "know-how" and work ethic to become one. However, as life's other priorities have taken up the vast amount of my time, and, given a handful of other circumstantial reasons... "syouganai." That is - "It cannot be helped." I should mention I have taken up learning Japanese. Ganbarimasu. I just got back home from working in San Diego for a couple months. That makes two work trips this year (including Japan from Jan - May) for a total of approximately six months. Outside of my WSOP stint and the couple of tournaments from January - I have not played any poker. This year is, by far, the least amount of poker I have played since picking the game up in 2007. I opted not to blog my WSOP experience. Mostly because it felt burdensome. I bricked every tournament (I think 6 total?) for a net loss of about $4k. The good news is I felt pretty

This one left a bad taste in my mouth. A quick rant on structures: I've become spoiled playing at Muckleshoot for most of my tournaments. They really do an excellent job catering their poker tournament structures to be player friendly. They now only deal 9-handed (as opposed to 10) and generally have very good structures as far as starting stacks and blind levels go, which means more time playing with deeper stacks. As stacks get shorter, play becomes much less creative and much more robotic. This is not to say there are not skill edges to be had playing with short stacks, but I think most poker players (amateurs included) would agree that playing deeper is preferable. Generally, the higher the buy in for a poker tournament, the "better" the structure becomes in terms of level length, starting stacks and blind levels. While decent, the structures at Tulalip have not been impressive as a function of buy-in cost. By level 6, it seemed like the average stack had fallen