i need to remember what the most important thing is. (not to go broke). its not to get even for the day, or to win a certain amount. or to stay enough hours or to not go home too early. Or to tell the wild tales i like to tell at the table. (had a few black players in my PLO table convinced i was in prison for Jan 6th, and got a pardon from Trump the other day). or convinced a different group of players the next day a famous well known household Phil offered to blow me if i could teach him how to play poker as well as me.
and with less than 23k left im the closest ive been to going broke in many years. remember that 22k has the purchasing power that $3000 had back in the 1990s so ive got practically nothing to my name. just another 40 days of $500 buyins at the cage bought and lost. i always buy 500 in red at the cage right before i take a seat or even get called for a seat.
and then buyin similar to the pattern of $100, 100, 100 and 200.
i need to make sure i dont lose over 1% a day instead of thinking its too early to go back to my room once im stuck $230 and since its not too much of a loss i keep playing, but as broke as i am, it is a huge loss.
Before i left South Bend, where i was when i wrote my last blog and where i had a room for only $1310 for a month good thru Aug 27, and still havent ever told them ive checked out yet, (left when Ray came back into town and drove us up to wind creek, rivers, and american place) the games there were way too nitty and tight and i could only win because of hitting a couple of high hand promotions a hot seat drawing, and knowing how to judge when the sun/moon bingo machine was playable. (look for rows that can bingo with the maxi in it).
there are very few hustlerable machines of any kind at the IL casinos around here. so im not having that as any type of income here. i might visit Potawattamie the Indian casino in downtown Milwaukee and a big poker room someday because i heard that just like the American place casino they do NOT allow the button straddle which is so bad for the game and kills the action. (blinds just fold around to the button which has too much power). But i dont want to pay the $20 per hour time fee there either in the PLO.
Im about to need to pay a months hotel somewhere then ill likely be under 20k. i paid $654 for a week where im at now, which ends sunday. the only way i can keep from going broke is to quit playing online BJ, but that alone isnt enough. ive got to find a game i can actually win 200 a day or more in.
and its hard to win in games where everyone straddles the button because theyre too dumb to understand why its bad for the game and for them personally. and i tend to play my worst when i dont really want to play but only playing because im still down or not up enough. the other week, about 2 or 3 weeks back i finally bought another $2000 in bitcoin and had it all the way up to $3500 before i knocked it back down to the $900 it is today.
it wasnt today that i lost it it was the lost the same night i lost $673 in the PLO the night before.
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ok, now we all know what the problem is (me going broke fast) but what is the best solution to resolve it? just so u all know, this blog wouldnt exist anymore if i ran out of money, but imagine how great it would be if i could live anywhere in the US, play in big games and buyin deep. so everyone friend or foe should want me to start winning again.
I actually won at poker tonight, because i played in a casino id never been in before. (Hard rock casino Rockford). i was only in the game for $100 ($1-3 NL). and i eventually cashed out $574. i thought the PLO would go because there was a big list, but the players slowly disappeared and by the time the tourny ended, there wasnt enough players because they got tired of waiting for it to go. the game had so much action it wasnt even funny. it was one of the LOOSEST NL games ive played in in a long time. every pot was several hundred dollars, certainly no chops here or $10 pots. and i didnt know this until after i was already playing in the game for 20 minutes, but they also allow the MS straddle from any position.
of course the Uber fee there was quite a bit, and i had a hard time finding one back into Chicago. so a bunch of the winnings went to Uber, and then i only played at Rivers a short while because i felt like i was not playing my best in the PLO there because i folded a couple winners. so i went home with only $39 profit there, but still up a lot overall even with the Uber fees. also id been away from my hotel for several hours by then and wanted to go home and eat again.
now for the bad news. all the money i won all got lost on online VBJ. as much as the price of BTC and XRP went up in the last 24 hours, ive got only $593 worth of it left between xrp and btc combined. had i not lost the 2800 online a few days back, that 2800 would be worth about 10 percent more today.
i wish there was a way to ban myself from playing online BJ, but i cant block myself from having a way to buy and sell XRP because it would also affect playing online poker. same for BTC. also i cant throw away my phone and laptop either.
before i played VBJ tonight, i still had slightly over $1000 left of the $3600 i had the other day. (that all was off $2000 in BTC purchased a couple weeks or so back.)
yeah its impossible to grow a roll and keep from going broke if i cant quit playing BJ online. but even when i do, then i just have big poker losses every day. i dont think ive won hardly anything in live poker in the last 2 months. it wasnt more than 2 months ago i still had about 35k
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so every day i play in some pretty tight NL games and also some PLO games which arent quite as tight as the NL games. NL games for some reason are absolutely horrible most poker rooms and keep getting worse, primarily because most rooms allow the button straddle, and way too many playing are doing it because theyre way too stupid to realize how dumb it is. and the poker room managers are way too stupid to realize why its bad for the game and kills the action. and it creates a ton of folds all the way around to the button. its really hard to find good action in a NL game which is why i was shocked at the action in tonights Hardrock Rockford game. i used to think, and many still do, including Bill Potts that a good player can make a ton of money shortstacking with correct push fold strategy, though that works out way better in PLO than in NL. ill tell u why, its because in PLO its far easier to get it allin preflop than it is in NL. in NL, especially if u are forced to act first a lot u would have to overbet too much to get it allin.
in PLO, u can very easily limp reraise all your monster hands much easier than u can in NL. in NL, u would worry those monsters are against even bigger monsters. u dont worry about this in PLO so much.
its hard to respect the other players at the table. most of whom are assholes and unfriendly. very few actually play well including the grinders there every night who think they do simply because they have way more money than u and love to carry around a ton of black chips in their gay little purse bags. and who have these annoying ear things in their ears all the time which i would never wear. almost all of them would prefer i shut up at the table, even though most people say a good game is where a lot of people are talking loudly and often instead of a silent and sullen game. if they cared about the money, they would do what i do and wait for the button to pass whenever it allowed to save money. or they would not sit with the max when first sitting down and wait and see how the others play first and how your cards are running. and then once they get down a little then addon but not before. None of the other players at the table actually have worked for the money, earned it or deserve it the way i have because theyre for the most part way too young to have put in the 40 yrs experience of daily playing the way i have. having a regular job is not hard work like grinding at poker everyday is, because when u grind poker u have constant stress u might not get paid that day, or even that week or month. so the ONLY Player at the table who actually deserves to have a big stack is ME and yet i cant because i lost all my money outside of poker, and paying 1500 or so every month on Uber since i couldnt learn how to drive. i should not even have to play poker at my age, i should be allowed to retire, and just take peoples money by force or by panhandling since they dont really deserve it people play so dumb and then they get mad at me when i point it out, but i cant help doing so as unfair as it i play so much better and tighter yet dont have their rolls simply because they got rich outside of poker from other means of income.