Jackpot Lounge

Author: nath

  • I wrote something + Keeping up motivation

    First, to the first point of that headline: I wrote today’s Sunday Special for Sam Greenwood’s Punt of the Day blog, and you can read it now here.

    Anyway, it’s Sunday, and while I’m getting back on the horse soon for some tournaments, I wanted to quickly write up something both for my POTD guest article and to review my own play of late. It’s been a mess.

    My horrible session that I wrote about last weekend was followed with an equally bad session on Sunday in terms of results, but even worse, it really got to my mindset. I started playing pretty badly and desperately forcing the action in a few spots. I ran into one of the worst feelings you can have as a tournament player, the belief that, actually, I couldn’t win any of these tournaments. I believe I can win any time I play, or I don’t play, but I was playing so badly that I lost that belief.

    So I quit and took a few days off to reset my mindset.

    Then when I played again Friday, I didn’t lose as much but ran just horrifically bad once again. Probably the emblematic hand here:

    An $11 bounty, early on. A bad loose-player open limps from the hijack off 75BB. I (47BB) am in the cutoff with AcTc and raise to 3bb. The small blind (27BB) 3-bets to 10.5bb. The hijack cold calls. That’s a worrying size from the SB, but I decide my hand’s nut potential, plus the bounty potential from the small stack, plus the change that I double through HJ, who is certainly much too wide here, make this worth taking the variance of calling and going to the flop.

    Flop (33.5BB): As 5s 5d. It checks to me, I bet 15% pot (5BB). SB folds, HJ calls.

    Turn (43.5BB): Td. HJ checks. I decide that I now beat all the other Ax hands (except A5) and might get called by them drawing to three outs (or none), plus the two fives to chop, make it a good spot to shove for value. I shove for my last 31.5BB, about 72% pot. HJ tanks and calls with… QcJs.

    River (106.5BB): Kd. HJ wins with a straight.

    Villain makes the wrong decision at every decision point, I get in a 100BB pot with him drawing to four outs with one to come, and he wins. That kind of day.

    So I find myself torn. On the one hand, one of the best ways to not let a bad beat affect you is to just get back on the horse. On the other hand, if I’m losing my mental focus and control and starting to tilt, then I don’t want to play under those conditions. But more importantly, if I want to put in the volume I want to put in, I’m not gonna do it if I have to take long breaks every time I hit a downswing.

    So I’m continuing to work on both keeping my mental game strong and making more time to actually put in the grind at the tables. Both of these will require some changes of habit and adjustments to mindset. My schedule isn’t allowing me for enough time to get things done in the morning before playing and I want to change that. Especially since some kind of physical activity, even on the lighter side like walking, before playing helps me a lot mentally. Getting up earlier will also give me more time to work on other things, like this website and the podcast, before playing.

    So, the journey continues. It’s been a tough month, but I’m not giving up yet. And I’m hoping this week I can nail down some of the scheduling for the podcast and actually get that up and running, and hopefully with your support turn it into something high-quality and meaningful that’s worth watching or listening to.

    ‘Til next time.

  • Hilariously bad day

    As per my last post, it’s been a rough 2026 so far. Today, however, I was able to get back to therapy (my therapist had taken a few weeks off for a personal matter) and talk about the when-it-rains-it-pours last two weeks, I was feeling a lot better, and I decided, after doing some of my physical therapy exercises1, to go ahead and put in a session today. And I was even doing much better at keeping my emotions under control while I played.

    And then I had the worst full session I can remember. I ended up calling it early, but I’d already played 19 tournaments… and finished with a -97% ROI. That’s pretty damn hard to do!

    I don’t think I played badly, although I’m sure I made some mistakes, and my first hour or two I was much better focused than the latter half. I usually measure when I have my A-game going by three little things that show up: Finding more bluffs (and more 3-bets preflop), sniffing out bluffs, and finding extra value bets or unexpected lines to make more than expectation. I had some of that going in the early going, but I may have been settling into a more default mode after all that losing (which might have been another good reason to bow out). “Default mode” is my B-game; it’s standard and can win marginally, but it means I’m not listening to my instincts and intuition when it comes to spots where I can win more chips with hands or bluffs, or save chips when I’m beat.

    The biggest spots, though, were just bad luck. Losing 90BB flips AKo CO vs. QQ SB. Jamming 99 over an MP raise, getting called by 77, losing. 3-betting AQo from the SB vs. a 20BB CO open, calling the shove, being against KcQc, the flop is king-high two clubs, the turn is a club (and then the river is an ace, just to rub it in my face)— losing 3/4 of my stack in that hand and the rest K7s < K5s. Making big hands (two pair, sets) and getting outdrawn or coolered. Shoving AQo and 66 on 10BB and running into AKs and 77 respectively. Just one of those days where, if it could go wrong for me in a big pot or all-in, it did.

    Anyway, worst day of the year so far. The year got off to a good start for… I dunno, two weeks? But it’s been kinda crummy since. Still… I’m looking at my long-term ROI and my average buyin, and I’m trying to remind myself that, as long as I put in the volume and play well, the results will come.

    On the bright side, I did a good job recording hands for review later, and I’m gonna do that with some people I know at some point. One of the odd things for me is that there’s a lot of fishy play where I play, and so there are a lot of times where I’m playing exploitatively instead of theoretically optimal, and it can be tough to measure when that’s the right line. I guess that’s something else to consider for study.

    Most fun hand I had today was with 5s3s in the big blind facing a limper, where I flopped an open-ended straight flush draw, turned a flush, and rivered a straight flush, and bet/bet/shoved. I got called by two pair (with one of them being a board pair— IIRC the runout was Ad4s6s As 7s and I got called by I think K4.)

    I’m trying to remember spots like that, not just focus on the beats, but remember the good hands, the thrilling victories, the elements that make poker fun to play.

    ‘Til next time.

    1. Yes, I’m in both kinds of therapy. Everything is broken. At this rate, spiritual therapy may be coming soon as well. ↩︎

  • Getting Close

    So… I’ve been saying for a while that we were getting close to getting set up, but personal things kept getting in the way. Well, that was partially true for a while: I probably could have gotten the ball rolling sooner, but everyday responsibilities took some time, but I was also thwarted by my own fear and anxiety about whether I could even get this project off the ground or if it would fail to launch.

    Mental health can be a bitch, huh?

    Now that I’ve said that… I’ve made some strides to actually get closer to getting the project underway. I’ve even started lining up some guests for Cards Speak (and if you know poker, they will be some good ones you will recognize). Unfortunately, this week and next, I actually have (and have had) some serious personal and family matters to attend to. I’ve had a couple of deaths in the family recently, and, well, to be starkly honest, the grief from that has exacerbated some of my existing mental health problems, and that’s caused or perhaps brought to light some problems at home I needed to address… and unfortunately, again, while I’ve been trying to better address my mental health, it can be a bit of trial and error, and at the moment I’m not dealing with things very well.

    But, having said all that, it is true that I’m underway getting the show set up. Hopefully once this dark fuckin’ period passes, I will be able to announce something definite about when Cards Speak will premiere.

    And, as always, sign up to the Patreon, please, to support the project and to be able to participate with features like audience questions and offer feedback about what you want to see.

  • Update

    I have been delayed again for the last couple of weeks by some unplanned issues in my home life – a health issue I was dealing with and some repairs that needed to be made. So I haven’t gotten to play poker much or write much or work on this website much.

    So I’m behind schedule, not least in part because I’m nervous about the time/effort commitment and whether this will come together the way I want it to. But you never know until you try, right?

    So I plan to start reaching out to guests soon and start setting up the early episodes of the podcast. Also part of this plan: Actually designing this website to look more like I want it to and less like the default.

    And I gotta get back on the poker grind because I gotta make a living, too. Maybe if this takes off I can spend more time on it, but we’re certainly not there yet.

    Don’t forget to sign up for the Patreon if you want some say in what I’m doing here or just want to support it. The more support I get, the more content I can make.

  • Coming Soon

    I’ll start writing some posts about what’s going on once I finish setting up the site. Hopefully I’ll be able to report regularly on what’s going on with me, where I feel like my game is, and any interesting hands or other happenings.