No Bad Beat "button image"

Back when I was starting out on my Bad Beat Opt Out experiment last year, a good friend of mine mentioned that he would have done it himself, but when he found out that he'd have to have a "No" Button, he immediately changed his mind as he didn't want to draw attention to the fact that he was opting out/thinking more about the game than most players/etcetera. Many other players point this out as a negative, though I didn't really see it as that big of a deal. In my opinion, the vast majority of players that would have identified a variety of subjective connotations to me from seeing that visual cue, would have probably come to a very similar conclusion in an orbit or two's worth of play. The other night, it definitely worked out in my favor...

So I'm playing in my "Vacation Poker Room" just outside of the city. I've been there for a few hours, immediately before transferring to the main table I had just chipped up nicely to around $1,150 or so (this $1-$2 plays as $2-$5). After taking my seat on the main, another player joins from a different feeder table that I had come from. This player had won the deepstack afternoon tournament that plays once a month. He plays super aggressive & fearlessly, and during the tournament at least he had been running hotter than anyone (the hand he won the tournament, last man, and a bonus high hand all at once). Someone asked the question "What's On Bad Beat mean?", the dealer explains it, I say something akin to "it's me saying I don't want to buy a lottery ticket". "The Champ" and I talk briefly about opting out, and it's clear that he fully understood the idea before seeing me applying it in the game, as well as some of the Vegas casinos not having cash play anymore.

"The Champ" continues to run super hot, takes down several big pots including a boat over boat vs the table's most gambly player, and has continued to find success in leveraging his large chip stack into pushing players out before the river (this room is a VERY open poker game, top pair is seldom not willing to put their whole stack in). I lose one hand to the gambly guy, he showed I didn't. and maybe less than two orbits in I pickup 66 vs "The Champ" when it's his button.

$1-$2 NLHE $800~ to start the hand
66 from the BB, Button straddle to $5, SB straddle to $10, I open to $35, folded round to "The Champ" he calls (larger stack than me), SB folds. Heads up to the flop @ $80.

228 rainbow, I open to $70, he calls... $220 in the middle.

2289, I think this is a brick, and I'm expecting him to pressure hard on this street. If I make a reasonable bet here, the pot's screaming to him to go all in and I should have to fold. I check he bets $170, decision time right on schedule... Most of the time I'm expecting him to be holding some kind of face card combo with his pre & post calls. so long as the river isn't AKQ I think I can call my stack off pretty safely (J or T is a mindfuck though). I'll still have over $500 remaining if I have to let it go, so lets take a chance - Call. $560 in the middle...

22894, I expect this is a brick too. I check, he ships pretty quickly. I take a brief moment to be sure just in case I missed something. In this pause I recall our initial interaction and his understanding about opting out "but it's just a dollar", and coupled with his massive momentum on the day up until this point of course he's going to try and send the "No Bad Beat guy" back to wherever he came from, "how can he call?". He's definitely looking pretty uncomfortable, so I call. He tables KQ, and looks pretty disgusted that I have 66.

Maybe I'm crazy for thinking that this little button just chipped me up $800+$1, but I'm pretty sure that's just what happened.

July was unsurprisingly a lightly played month. Between being back on a five day work week schedule (not my choice, but I get pretty much everything I ask for so I understand) post-Stampede exhaustion, I only clocked two thirds of my monthly quota. Couple that with a horrific run bad session in DC & falling victim to running bad in holde'em followed by playing bad a little longer I needed a bit of time to reset.

August I've been back on track mostly having cleared my targeted hours with the final weekend remaining before me now. I'm pretty happy overall with some of the leeks I've been able to plug up, but I still need to get more (and more, and more, and more) hands in. I've been exercising a lot, and often sandwiching trips to the fitness center between poker sessions and/or work. I have definitely been feeling the expense of spending this much time actively engaged outside of work, when I'm at work longer than I was hoping/expecting that day.

Looking forward to finally being back on a four day work week schedule, so that I can start fine tuning my own little metro poker tour, and hopefully even start scheduling some high low games.

In my last session, a recently "banned from my work casino" player seemingly got it into his weirdo mind that I was his enemy on the table. I actually had never had any issues with the guy when I had dealt to him in the past. Although when he finally had his incident where he got himself banned, I had just relieved the dealer that was present during the cartoonishly hilarious situation, so maybe he associates me with the aftermath of his atrocious decision making.

I had played with him (briefly) earlier in the week, and both times I certainly saw a different side of him than when I had dealt to him, but nothing like this... Apart from the absurdly consistent bad runouts I was experiencing, if he had the opportunity to gamble with me he never backed down. Just between he and I we were all-in with; JJ vs Q9, 77 vs Q8, TT vs 33 vs KQ, all pre-flop... plus ATo vs A3ss (chasing a flush), and a few other flop all-in's that I'm missing the explicit details with my recoleccion (it was a 17 hour session in a 29 hour day). All of those went to him (or the third party), and whenever I'd get run down otherwise, he'd be celebrating my opponent for their good work.

Last week during a shorter handed overnight game there was another player threatening to beat me up outside. His threats were veiled as him being a bit drunk and probably just him joking around, and even if he was entirely serious it didn't concern me since there's no probable opportunity for someone to fight with me. He was a very spewey player, and he had chips left to spew so I was just being unresponsive to his attempts to generate an emotional reaction from me.

I don't ever want to discourage these kinds of morons from spraying money in my direction, though I'd like to be able to identify what I am doing well, what I'm doing wrong(?), and what I should or shouldn't be doing that's likely to have an impact on the other people in/observing the game.

I've always been conscious about having a positive image when playing poker. Obviously you're going to run into people who you're not going to want to be friends with, as well as people who are simply unpleasant to share an environment with. Beyond wanting to have people generally prefer to have me around, I believe that my working in the industry in this city brings a pretty significant responsibility to how I conduct myself to other players whom I might initially have a more competitive response.

Disc-ipline!

I have no significant plans of ditching holding down a job to just grind playing all the time, but I have dispensed the frame of mind of "my bankroll can be smaller because I have a job." Now this monkey isn't going to be over committing my roll no matter how much of an edge I've got on a table. I will always be able to play.

It's been a week or so since adjusting my perspective and initial strategy. It's been pretty straightforward so far. No straddles, no speculative hands.

I was super frustrated the other day after a bad run-out set me back a few buys after several hours of very solid play, though today I'm already in my second session and I ran up ten buy ins in one hot-hour and I'm riding the happy wave!

Ravenous

I've been repeatedly redlined over the last six weeks every time I've set chips on the felts. Yesterday was exceptionally frustrating as I hadn't played in close to three weeks, I can't even remember the last time I took that long a break... But that doesn't matter. Math is the language of nature, and nature doesn't give the slightest shred of a fuck about your story. I'm not playing the short game, I'm committed to the long one.

In reflection, I regret nothing. I will not look for further validation, and I will not look for someone to hear another sad story so that I may feel better. I have never been a better poker player than I am currently, and my competitive drive is as hungry as it's ever been. I will make sacrifices away from the game, so that I can later enjoy the rewards that come with commitment to discipline.

Whale Watching

Crushed the game at Eagle earlier for a much needed win after a grueling downswing of almost half my bankroll in my previous two sessions.

One of my Top 5 (City) Whales shows up. This guy doesn't look like he really has money, but he's got enough to keep short stacking himself into a game and more than enough crazy to frequently run a 1k stack on the regular. I don't know this guy's name, though the second result on my google search of famous whale names was the 1970 Exploding Whale incident, and considering that's right about his age range and what's going to happen to his chip stack we've got a clear winner!

Eagle 1-2 NLHE I'm in the cutoff sidelining this hand, UTG (very tight player, but deserves far more credit than he's ever really given) raises to 5 lunatic raises to 15, Exploding Whale calls 15, UTG raises to 75, lunatic insta-ships for 350~, EWhale calls with zero hesitation (having maybe 230 remaining behind), UTG takes a minute plus and lays down KK. EWhale's got AA vs the lunatic's TT, 4T4 brick brick GG on the no lose scenario. Second time I've seen this tight guy (UTG) fold KK pre, but the other time was in a AA vs KK vs QQ hand where he was in the SB vs good players, this has got to be the most impressive KK pre-fold I've ever seen.

Later on I've chipped up pretty decently, been picking up some big hands and holding. My stack's the better part of a thousand in front of me, EWhale's on my immediate right and he's got a little less than me. I haven't really started abusing him yet, but I've been looking forward to opportunities to for at least an hour.

CO a few people limp and EWhale raises to 5, I look at TT and lol minraise to 8 immediately looking at the guy on my left who appreciates my sense of humor to re-click to 11 so I can pop it to 14 if it does. He folds, SB calls, BB folds, UTG calls, +1 calls, EWhale JUST CALLS to my LOL WEAKNESS declaration.

K4Kss, check's round to me with nothing to raise my suspicion that I shouldn't continue here. I know pretty much everyone here and SB + UTG are set mining virtually all the time here. UTG is crazy but he's not checking trips, and probably not checking a strong flush draw. EWhale is almost always limping the 95% of his range that's pure shit right now. The pot's like $45-50 MAYBE, no problem I bet $65, fold-fold-fold-EWhale calls *ERK* he's the only one capable of reliably showing up with a King here, let's hope it's a good looking turn.

K4KT *MOTHERFUCKING-DING!!!!! FUCK YEAH!* EWhale checks, and in sizing him up I don't think he's at all upset with where he's standing. I bet $175, guy doesn't even sweat it and calls. I'm trying not to count his stack already since now I've bloated the pot up to $550~ and he's sitting on under $450. In my experience with this guy he's never capable of not paying me off for the rest of his stack unless he's got absolutely nothing in his hand.

K4KT4 rainbow Fuck-Me there's not much worse than that for river cards. EWhale seems upset too and checks, I try to come up with a reason to bet and immediately dismiss that notion, check. EWhale flips over AA WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? Wow he plays bad at nearly every opportunity to do so, shame about that river card. But it's a funny story at least.

Man it's a huge relief to pick up today's win after my last two sessions. Here's hoping I can play as good or better tonight and build some momentum!

I didn't play a lot during the first half of the week, planning on hitting things hard for the latter half and weekend. So far it's been a rough start, had a very rough session at Deerfoot two days ago, a lot of just rough variance scenarios. Tried to reset and put in a good showing today before wrapping up work for the week but the fish ate me again.

My roll is down to about half after these two sessions. Hopefully I can find some games over the next few days where I can just take it easy vs go head to head with lunatics for stacks.

I hit the Bad Beat the other day as well... With my opt-out button right out front. I've taken a little needling over it since then, although it was a small prize pool ($2750~ total) so it hasn't been too much grief. I haven't really been at all upset about being in that position, but I have been sweating the overall downswing.