Fans of The Wire know that a "1 and 1" is a hit of coke and a hit of heroin, so I'll give you my version of a 1 and 1.

Coke: The other night I made a read using nothing but physical tells. This happens much less than you'd think. I'm talking, just sat down, first significant action, type of read. OTTH:

1/2, eff stacks 300. AQo in SB. Six limpers, I kid you not, god live poker is great. I pop it to 20, one caller, Indian guy, early 30s probably. Prob has a bit of money, looks like he's there to gambool. Flop $44, QJ8 two-tone. I lead 30. Turn is a blank, I lead 40 (prob coulda gone higher). River is a 7, I figure c/c is the line. Pot is about 185, I check, he bets $85. But do I really want to donk almost 2/3 of my stack on my second hand? So I do what I've seen done but never bothered with. I cut out the chips to call, 3 stacks of 5 reds with a couple on top, then I stare at him while playing with the chips. Sure enough, he's chewing gum, and he starts chewing a whole lot slower, and he's barely moving otherwise. So it's an easy call, and he nods, says nice hand and mucks without tabling his cards. Aaah, raw uncut Colombian straight to the brain.

Heroin: Thank effing god May is over. Down 700 for the month, 12 sessions including Vegas. One 3 decent wins, 6 losing sessions when I hadn't lost 6 sessions total in all of 2016. It was poker heroin but I couldn't find a vein. I know that 350 BB is hardly a big deal, but poker was a lot more fun when the chips just kept falling in my lap. Online propped me up, but I keep separate BR so I'm not really looking at that.

Lessons: Don't chew gum at the poker table! And drugs are bad, kids...except the ones that aren't, of course. Though since my drugs of choice these days are antibiotics, well, that helps explain why poker is the most exciting thing in my life atm.

I like how live hands are described as ' I pop it up to $xx" instead of "I raise to $xxx".

What made you think him slowing down chewing was a bluff? How many people have you told this story too? Whenever I spot an online tell or live tell I need to tell as many people as I know, guess it's just one of them things.

Prob Mike Caro's Book of Tells, which is considered Bible even though there is no empirical studies proving anything in the book. I be nerd. But the idea is that a person FOS wants to be as invisible as possible, so a bluff is held breath, slowed gum chewing in this spot, etc, so that they subconsciously are making themselves invisible. At least in this spot, story checked out.

Yeah the "pop it up" is standard live talk, prob cuz there are so few 3bets at 1/2 or 1/3 that it seems outrageous, or PFR sizing is lol for anyone who plays online, but if they'll call, why not? 2/5 and up is different, from what I've read.

6 hours each Fri and Sat nights, +700, finally back to my BR peak from April (pre-Vegas). Then in less than 3 hours tonight gave 3 bills back. Missed every flop, got no cbets through. Like pfr, flop is at2 two tone, dude called with 66 no backdoors. FML. And no cold beer in fridge. Hard way to make an easy living. 😭

Would love to play a good deepstacked cash game right now!

Overhead outside casino, woman showing photos on her phone to some guy: "this is Maria, she's really great. i met her in jail..."

Then you shoulda been with me last night, buddy. Game was 1/2, max BI 300, 10 handed. My name is called, 2 seats are open, floor says take table 8, I glance around, and I'm like "can I have 7 instead?" Couple of faces I didn't recognize, but the table didn't look that much different tbh.

As per the norm, Cycle knows nothing. Table turned out to be the wildest table I've ever played.

One shortie, maybe $35 or so, jams 3 straight hands. Wins with 65o, chops the next one with T8o, 3rd time a reg otb who hasn't been here in a few weeks ("I needed a break," he told the dealer) decides to call the now $80-ish shove...with J7o.

Across the room one of the Omaha tables hits the bad beat. It takes about an hour apparently for the payout to all get settled, and that table has to go on break until it's sorted. The table share was about a grand, they get paid in quarters ($25 chips), and one of the players, I'm gonna call him TiltMonkey moves over to our table. Button-down shirt from work, sunglasses hanging off his collar, the type of guy who looks like he's a jerk to waitresses and old people. Over the next 4 hours he proceeds to piss away Every. Last. Chip. . He dumped his first BI, very next hand he opens to lol 25 over one limper. Btn calls, I call in BB with AK cuz I want him to catch a piece and gii. Sure enough, Kxx 2 spades, I c/r, he shoves and tables 63s for a FD, which naturally he hits.

So Cycle tops up, into the game for 5 bills but down to 225 and no more quids in me pocket and I hate playing short. With pfr this large, 110 BB definitely feels short. Anyway, AQs, flop top 2, two FD on turn, let the J7o guy fire the river when one FD gets there, but he had 99 and I'm back over 400. Stuck a wee bit but now I have a stack that I can play. Cuz by this point, my $400 stack was just the 5th largest at the table. There's an 800, a 550, and 2 stacks over 2 grand...at a max BI 300 table. One of the big stacks is an action player, so this table is bumpin'. Everyone has a stack over 100BB, there are no shorties, which never happens in live low-stakes. I kid you not, a new dealer comes over to push into the box (replace the old dealer), and actually asked if this was Omaha or HE, he'd never seen so much money on a 1/2 table. The dealer's bank has $100 in it, and twice we re-bought him out of chips, chiprunners couldn't even come close to keeping up.

Soon I'm back at it with TiltMonkey. He makes it 10 from MP, reg otb (d-bag bro type, earbuds, berates other players for bad play) raises to 26, I've got AJ spades in BB, pop it to 76, a 38x pf raise! TM calls, d-bag folds, flop is Kxx all clubs. People stack their chips (usually) in stacks of 20, so I peel 2 chips off a stack, push it forward and announce to dealer "$90", all totally transparent reverse tell shit. TiltMonkey get snarky, "oooh he took 2 chips off the stack, I'm so scared,"...and folded anyway. Turned over T7 hearts and said he only called pre cuz it's a bad beat hand.

Over the next hour there's about 5 hands that feature pfr's over $75, most of the showdowns feature garbage. One reg got 3bet out of a pot by a $75 3!. Heads up, pot almost $200, and a non-scary board gets checked down, where a guy wins it with pocket 3s.

Drunk old guy sits next to me, really nice guy actually. we have a couple of good laughs. He dropped $600 in less than 20 min. Wandered off into the night.

At this point half the regs in the room are on the waitlist for our table. One of the 2-3 nittiest regs gets the call, reg next to me is like, "Why would he want to move to our table, it's way too aggressive for him." Nit plays 3 hands, wins 2, took down a $500 pot when they gii on a 9-high flop with JJ. That's why!

Cycle's got pocket rockets, makes it 15 over 2 limpers, 6 to the flop. Six! Board ended up 742tt42, I fired 3 streets and was called down by Q7. God I am such a schmuck for not betting bigger on the turn.

Deep waters, bro.

lol what a night! Not often you can find action like that for such a long period of time also!

Sounds like you made the most of it!

Hey @Gus Fring, here's where I've posted random happenings from my live sessions, though I see I haven't regaled y'all with tales from the live side in a while. Man, the night I got a table share, got shoved on by a guy with 84o (I had TT, and I kid you not, we chopped), and called a cunt...yes this was all in one session. Good times! Will have to write that one up.

Gus what sounds awesome about your games is the high cap, how much you can buy in for. Usually low stakes games cap at 100BB, and most of the table plays shorter. Any time you can get the clown show to play deep, you'll print money. But you'll find that if most of the table is short, given the nature of larger pfr sizes and the rake, all your fun hands like SCs are not worth playing. Tight is right. Boring, but right.

Here's how I take notes at the table. After a hand, everyone's on their phone anyway so it just looks like you're texting your buddy to complain.

example: A6s CO c12 4tf Kxx ftcb (pre call 12, 4 to the flop, board K with 2 rags, rainbow if I didn't list suits, fold to cbet). Hands that get to a river, esp when FD is involved, the notation looks messy to someone else, but you'll get used to it.

AKo MP 15 o2 3tf A73cc8Tc f30 HU t65 rch ng vs 33 translates as AK in MP, 15 over 2 limpers, 3 to the flop. Type out the whole board, then go with the action: I cebt 30, one caller, cbet turn for 65, fucker doesn't fold, river I ch, no good (vs mhig my hand is good) vs his set.

Only other things I can think that I do that would be useful is c12+1, meaning that there was a caller after OR and I overcalled; l/15 means I limped then called a raise to 15; 45 o12+1 would be a 3! to 45 over pfr12 plus a caller; cstr is call straddle, and lol is limp over limper (as well as a statement on my play), or lo4 meaning limp over 4 limpers. Something I had way too much of back in the day would be c12/f or c12/35, obv means I called a raise and then folded or called a second time to a 3!.

For a few months I tracked every VPIP hand. It's a PITA but eventually I built up enough data that I made a few tweaks to my game. Mostly quit l/c and cold calling. When I was forced to stare at 6 months worth of hands where I kept losing 5BB and rarely won more than 20BB with something like A6s, I finally could accept the advice we all get but don't always listen to.

I love this thread. It's a damn shame I can't really play live cash in (or anywhere close to) my town, plus given how I'm slowly becoming more and more of a diehard home bird the idea of a few hour drive to catch some weekend casino action is far less attractive than it used to be. Oh well, I'll just live vicariously through the threads like that so keep posting as often as you can @CycleVancouver.

Here's a spot that comes up exactly never times out of 100 online, happens often enough live that I'm ready for it.

Friday night, and I'm sandwiched between two friends drinking double vodka sours. Guy on my right is very LAG but probably decent (for low stakes live), guy on my left is bad by any definition. Across the table is a reg who also is LAG but good postflop, though tonight he's playing any 2 vs these guys. (He showed up with 62o once.) Reg is EP and makes it 15 (game is 1/3, 15 is standard). Decent drunk in CO flats, I flat with 88 on BTN, bad drunk in SB makes it 30. He'd also shown some serious betsizing tells, so capped range. Reg just flats, so also capped, which is my cue. CO flats as well, 108 in the middle, 15 to call. I pretend to give it a think, then shove for 350. Naturally everyone is puzzled, then naturally everyone folds. Bad drunk on my left said he had AJs, reg keeps saying how strange my play was, made no sense.

There's always the temptation to explain yourself, plus it's fun to talk strategy, but it is massively -EV. So I simply shrugged and stacked my chips, a 31BB profit without seeing a flop.

Here's the TT hand from a few weeks back:

Guy on my left is a semi-reg, known degenerate gambler. Since 1/3 is the only NLHE in the room, some of the bigger action junkies constantly get up and play some baccarat or something for 20 min before coming back for an orbit or two. The rule is 3 missed BB and you're picked up, cuz there's always a wait list for the game. But we are actually telling the dealers not to give him the missed BB button cuz he's so good for the game. Eventually he comes back, shows me a screenshot on his cell, he just won about 3500 at roulette. A couple hands later, I've got TT and make it 20 over a couple of limps, he looks at his cards, grabs a random amount of his chips, about half of his 180 stack. Turns out to be a 3 bet to 80. Folded back to me, I shrug and have that "whaddaya gonna do" look on my face, announce all in. He gets the rest of his chips in the middle. I show him TT, he makes a hilarious groan. Flop is AQJ. Worst. Flop. Ever. I have to be behind. Turn is another ace, river is another queen, board is AQJAQ. I'm playing the freaking board...and he turns over 84o for a chop. Funniest thing I have seen in weeks, everyone gets a huge laugh (including hero, cuz whaddaya gonna do).

Was you just running really good that year, or can you expect to win most of your sessions?.

IIRC I won about 2/3 of my sessions. I also did a distribution curve breakdown, to see if my results were skewed by outliers, and they weren't. I had just 2 sessions with a swing over 3 BI, one in each direction. I had a few more sessions of +2BI than -2BI, and many more sessions of +0-1 BI than -0-1 BI.

Your question is actually a great reminder for me, cuz the dream is to walk out of the casino with buckets of money every time, but that almost never happens, and it can be a wee bit disappointing. I'd be very happy with $25/hr (8BB/hour) since thi isn't my primary source of income, but that means than an "average" session would look like 6-7 hours and less than 200 profit. When I say $25/hour I'm giddy, when I say "sat on my ass all night and earned less than 2 bills", it doesn't sound like such a sexy life.

Do you use some software/app to record your sessions in?.



Hahaha yeh that would be awesome. You play 1/2 right, if so how are you getting $25 an hour with that win rate?.

Live winrates are much higher (and also more variable), and we generally think in per hour, since BB/100 is a pretty meaningless stat when you are on one table and getting 25-30 hands/hour.

Last year I made 15/hr, which is why I said I would be very happy with 25. There are people who can sustain 10BB/hr, but the city you play in has a lot to do with it. Los Angeles seems to have a bunch of whales with money to spend at 5/10, in my town it is almost all 1/3, with a couple of 2/5 tables sprinkled around but not good action on them. Rake and stack depth (max BI at my local s 100BB) at 1/3 are limiting factors. Your place that has deep stacks should be a great place to make money, noobs have no idea that TP sucks when 200BB go in the middle.

The more you play live, the more you can get tuned into private games, where action is often pretty nuts. Though so is rake at underground games, and ofc you have to worry about mechanics, safety, etc. (A mechanic is someone who cheats.) I have been invited to a couple, but I know the fun aspect of live poker will be greatly reduced if I need to worry about those other things, so I've never bothered.

No software, any spreadsheet can do the job. Taking notes at the table, I just use a memo app. There are a bunch of apps out there for tracking your sessions, but tbh none of them really do anything special. A friend and I discussed a way to take HH at the table, then be able to sort them a la HEM/PT, but it didn't go anywhere. AFAIK there is nothing like that on the market.

Sorry mate, after years of seeing BB/100 or now bb/100, didn't even register that you put hr next to that figure




Yeh I been reading around and seen a few people saying about game selecting, how do people find out where the best places are to play?, even then I imagine your limited because you cant choose which table to play at you just get stuck on a waiting list for the first available table.



Yeh I dont think I would ever play out of a casino, because that would be my worry to, and whether I would be able to work out if I was being cheated.



How would that of worked?.

Well for most of us, there isn't really much in the way of selecting where to play. I am theoretically lucky in that there are 4-5 poker rooms with an hour's drive, but only 1/3 is spread, and one place has 1/2/5 uncapped PLO which plays way too deep for me. Largest room is about 6 tables of NLHE, so even when there's interest in a 2/5 game, they usually don't have a table or a dealer for it. There are wee differences from place to place; you just have to go and see what works for you.

But once you're in the casino, you can get on the waitlist for a specific table (or just to get off yours if it's terrible). My room is more than half regs, so if I see a table with new faces, once I get a seat I usually get on the list to move there. Or any table with deep stacks.

In N America LosAngeles is poker Mecca, with lots of easy money (as well as lots of pros trying to take it). Vegas and Florida are soft games as well. But I'm not spending my vacation time traveling to Bumfuck, Florida, just to play some poker.

One underground game here, I have it on very good authority that the host/dealer is a mechanic. That was enough to turn me off of non-casino raked games.

There's lots of different ways to protect your cards, and there's lots of ways to signal "check" as well. Bless this guy for combining the following techniques:

KQs otb. Whale EP limps, TAG young asian kid raises to 15. Obv I can raise but I want the whale to stick around so I flat, blinds fold, whale comes along. Flop QT9 2 hearts. Whale checks, kid bets, I call, whale calls. Turn is a 7. Whale is protecting his cards by holding them in his hand (fine), but checking with elaborate motions, lifting his cards high in the air, and I am pretty sure I see the 7h.So pair plus FD? I bet close to pot, he calls, kid folds. River is another ten, and whale shoves. No f'ing way he has a boat, so I shrug call, and all he's got is the pair of 7s. Big pot, come to papa.

Next week, new casino, though I know one of the players at the table from my local. He's a rich guy, retired early, throws chips around. Thinks I'm a nit, an idea I see no need to dispel. Anyway, he and I and a rec woman are keeping up a good conversation. I have the gift of gab, which I find to be a major asset, as people are pretty willing to play 'friendly' (non-aggressive) with someone they perceive as nice. (Which I am!) Anyway, I raise in LP KJss over two fit-or-fold recs including friendly lady. Board is Txx all hearts. They check to the raiser, naturally. This is a spot where if they have any heart Q+ they will call one bet, so I'll have to double barrel after not getting c/r'ed otf. But if no heart ott, they'll check to me again with anything less than TP, and I can take it down there. So I give it a think, then check. Turn is a blank, and all goes according to plan. They don't want to believe me, but they both fold. I generously do the "pick one card" BS, flip the J, and the guy who knows me makes sure the whole world knows my other card was Jh. I give the "Yeah I know I'm so easy to play aginst but whaddya gonna do?" shrug-smile. We then discuss what I 'did' with JJ vs what I would have done with AhJx.

Later on I raise over a world of limpers 97cc, everyone calls, and 8xx all clubs. Tragically I get no callers, yet none of the old men believe me when I say I had 2 clubs. Well then fucking raise me you goddamn nits!

All this fun, but I kid you not, this weekend is the first time this year I am in the black. I ran like ice for 2 months, then took a month off. April has seen the universe right itself.

Saturday night, 1/3 $400 cap. I'm not at all on my A game. Took fishy lines twice, tried to make a joke with a snobby rich lady who happens to be the only player at the table who's game I respect. Anyway she completely missed the joke, thinks I was mocking her play, now she's in "play back at the guy I don't like" mode, so I'm nitting it up a wee bit when she's in LP. (For the record she l/c OOP with 96s, so if I had been mocking her I wouldn't have been wrong. ) My physical problems are acting up, and I went from a very modest up $80 to down about 60. This should have zero effect on my play, but all the little things are adding up, and I'm thinking I should call it early. But there's one massive whale at the table, and I generally make it a habit to stick it out when someone clearly wants to donate a grand. Friendly kid, 20s, pfr about 80%, cbet 95%, often blind. Drops his first 300, reloads, doubles up when his (I kid you not) 94o gii on a K9x flop vs AK, and he spikes a 9. All vs the nasty lady, yay! It was actually the 2nd time he'd played 94, he says it's his favourite hand. Bless this mess.

So he's into the game for 900 at this point, but his stack was once over 1400. He's at over 900 now. I've chipped up meself to about 750, only the 4th largest at the table. Kid's name is called for the only 2/5 game, but me and another reg talk him into staying with us, "Our table is more fun, chatty, etc." That was actually all true, the 2/5 here is a headphones wearing nitfest, anyway we get the kid to stay. And we are all having a good time, him making it 15 almost every hand, blind betting before the flop is even dealt, and dumbasses folding somewhere along the way. He's showing down K2o, T3, literally ATC. He lost a big pot vs a weaktight guy who played 63s and tanked before finally calling with 2p. But Kid's got a stack now. I've been card dead for 2 hours but doing my job to keep the atmostphere fun.

OTTH. Slightly after midnight. I'm on the btn with QJ, he's in BB. Two limps, I limp, he makes it 15 (surprise!), everyone calls. Flop $60 is 1098. Da NUTS! He leads $30, weaktight older lady shoves for $85 (lol). I decide to just call. Kid obliges me by 3! to $200. Nothing to do but announce all-in (for $650), kid snap calls. I am a fast roller (meaning whenever we're all-in or action is done on the river, I announce my hand and turn it over right away. None of this I want to see the other guy's hand BS, recs hate that stuff, and they LOVE seeing what people had. I'm all about entertaining...for a fee, of course.

Anyway, total pot is $1570, by far the largest pot I've ever played in my wee life. I say a quick prayer to the poker gods to fade diamonds, and then the turn is...4. Then the river is...Q. My heart sank about 50 feet beneath the floor. I mean, I am a fucking sweetheart to old ladies and I eat lots of vegetables, how the fuck can the poker gods do me like this? I know in the larger context, $750 isn't too much of a hit to my bankroll, and that even though I flopped the nuts, my actual equity in the pot was prob only 60-70%, so I didn't lose $1500 per se. That's what I can say now, away from the table. In the moment, I was kinda crushed. A piece of me died inside.

Anyway, nice old lady shakes her head and mucks. All eyes turn to the kid, who is holding his cards, looks back at them, looks at the board, looks back at his hand...this is going to be the worst fucking slowroll in history, and I honestly am not sure if I will handle it with class. Kid looks at his hand again, and it suddenly becomes clear to everyone that he doesn't have it. He finally, FINALLY, slides his two cards over the line and into the muck. BAM! I keep my face passive, but my hands are a complete mess and I knock one of my stacks over as I try to slide my chips over the line so dealer can count them. Then PAY ME.

Lady says she had two pair. Suddenly quiet kid said he had a set, and since he obv didn't have a diamond or even a J for OESD/chop, I actually believe him. We try and keep the atmostphere light, kid still has 200 in front of him, but he's shellshocked, quickly donks off the rest of his stack, and fades into the night.

Within the next 4 hands, 3 of us get up and go home. Our work here is done.