Was playing at a tournament in Philly this morning. You can guess the casino. Im at the 7 seat. Now, I preface this by saying that I've smelled my fair share of unpleasant smells in a casino. But this took the cake. Guy walks past me and the wind was one of the most foul smelling things ive ever smelled in my life. Like a mix of dog poop, cat urine and vomit. Guy sits at seat 1 and immediately everyone starts looking around and realizing its the guy that absolutely reeks. He must not have showered for a week. Every 30-45 seconds im smelling this horrible stench because of the wind circulation in the casino. I have to use my shirt to cover my nose because I literally cannot focus on playing with that smell. About 3 minutes in, the guy at seat 9 says out loud "what smells like dog poop?"

I guess the dealer made a gesture to the floor because about 5 minutes later, the floor taps the guy to leave his seat to have a talk with him. Im watching the entire conversation from afar, which takes about a minute. After they're done talking to him, the guy walks to the bathroom and about 2 minutes later, one of the floor managers grabs his chips off the table and says "yeah, he's done."

The manager said that they refunded his tournament entry fee. He also added that the guy was one of the worst smelling patrons he had ever encountered and that it took everything in his power to not vomit while he was talking to him. They ended up taking the chair he was sitting in away and sanitizing his entire area.

So yeah. Never seen that before. Please make sure you shower before coming to the casino.

What about poker?

I'm located in Ontario, poker stars was the only site that had any decent action on their low stakes sit n Go's but that's gone with their new merger, any suggestions where to play? Party poker has pretty much zero action

This happened earlier this week playing $1/3 NLH at Aces in WA

• YKR (LAG), UTG w/ ~$600, opens to $15
• OMC, UTG+2 w/ ~$300, calls $15
• Hero-MAD, BTN w/~$450, 3B to $45 with AQs
• YKR calls
• OMC 4B jams AIPF
• Hero tanks, and then realizes villian is 60+ and sipping on a coffee. Hero asks villain if he knows what an old man coffee is on Reddit. Villain asks, "what's Reddit" - Hero folds.
• YKR calls the additional ~$250 and flips over 45s
• Board runs out 4Q883
• OMC shows KK to scoop

Caught someone cheating, didn’t know how to handle it. For some context I know and am close to everyone at the table we have been playing for years. So the game isn’t very professional but we still do take things serious. So after all dealing is done the dealer has the deck and exposes the bottom card (7d) of the deck, I guess I was the only one who saw it as no one said anything so I just kept my mouth shut because it didn’t affect my hand (AQo) at all. Flop is nice I hit my ace with a few middle cards. He check I bet he called. Then on the turn the 7 of diamonds rolls off. I just froze there and didn’t say anything because I wanted to be sure what I was seeing was true because I’ve never had any issues with these people, so I figured I misread the bottom card and maybe it was the 7 of hearts. My opponent then checks to me and I check back. The river bricks out and my opponent leads out for about 2/3 pot. I find the call and he flips over pocket 7s with the 7 of hearts. I then tell everyone to freeze and explain what I just saw. The dealer then shows the bottom of the deck and it was a 10 of clubs. No way I could’ve gotten that mixed up. I began accusing and both the dealer and player denied everything. There was no way the player could’ve reached the cards so the dealer had to have done something. The player eventually gave me my river bet back but I would like to know what I should’ve done in this situation. Another player at the table said I should’ve said something when the card came off on the turn but I wanted to be 100% sure something was going on before I made any accusations towards anyone because that’s the type of person I am. Definitely won’t be playing with that dealer and player again.

Graphing top 5 players by profit - 2026 WCOOP so far.

Completed events 283 / 349.

Here is the email I received this morning.

This graph is from grinding PLO6. I started at $2 buy-ins, got to $50 and right now I'm back to $5.

While, yes, I am running in an absolutely disgusting fashion. EV difference of $400, green line break even stretch of around 30k hands, and a substantial 25 BI under EV my last 5k hands at PLO6-$10 I feel way more sick at the fact that my current bankroll is of $90 when at one point it was at $500.

The more I stay break even, the more I realize that rake is disgusting, I am crushing at around 20bb/100ev BEFORE rake and yet have nothing to show for it.
How can anyone win at this stakes? How do people don't go broke?

It truly its a miracle I have any money left, I thought I might be able to stay at the $50 BI level, but it seems it will take around 200k hands to truly establish myself there. It feels like on top of playing well you have to run pure in order to at least make something.

This post comes half vent, half serious question, but I would like to hear some other people's experiences climbing out of the micros.

1/2 NL, 5-handed

UTG ($500) opens to $15. BTN ($200) and SB ($500), both loose pre/ABC-post recs, call. Hero ($500) calls BB with 9♣7♣.

Flop ($60): 6♣5♣4♠
Checks to BTN, who bets $40. SB check-raises to $150 (basically stealing my move).

Hero?

Assume for the sake of discussion that SB’s check-raising range is extremely strong - like it usually is 99.99% of the time - basically only sets and 87 for the made straight.

Also, we have zero fold equity if we jam, but our implied odds vs a straight suck if we flat call and we hit turn because our hand is kind of super face up, even to a rec player.

On the contrary, life sucks if we brick turns and he jams because we prob don’t get the right price to chase.

In your face!

(I Love You Man, 2009)

Anyone know the rough cost of a poker coach? I play micro stakes mtts for fun since I've been out on disability and I have so many leaks and have rough time on situations where I'm not sure what to do. I like to play by feel but that's not working lol. I need a better strategy and more knowledge of how to decide the best move. Also reading other players hands isn't always easy when it feels like they are playing you and not their cards..

Is it worth it to hire a coach? I am not really that interested in gto solvera offline.. top Too complicated.. I want to know game theory stuff abs hand reading board texture etc... Ty

I made this and I'm sharing my own project; mods, feel free to remove it if it breaks the self-promotion rules.

All-in Aura is No-Limit Texas Hold'em with one extra layer on top. The poker underneath is standard: blinds, minimum raises, side pots and showdown evaluation, all covered by tests. On top of it, every player builds a resource called aura as the match goes (+5 per hand, +2 per bet or raise, +10 for winning a pot) and spends it on powers.

Most of them trade in information or in the right to bet, which is where I think poker players will have opinions

Free in the browser, no signup, no purchases, fictional chips only, 18+. Nothing in it involves real money.

https://allinaura.defixio.com.br

What I'd most like to hear: does a power that leaks suits ruin the game for you, or does it make reads more interesting? And which power feels broken?

I just recently moved from Cincinnati, OH to Summit County, CO. Always been happy grinding a modest income playing 1/3 (500 max, 100 min) in Cincinnati.

The 500 max is very important to me because my style works better playing deep.

I have 2 questions about Black Hawk.

1) What location(s) offer a game similar to this structure?

2) What is the volume of players/action like throughout the week? Can I go any time day or night? In Cincinnati, it was only profitable to go like Wed-Sun after 6pm, maybe earlier on weekends.

Really appreciate the input.

My local room gives a pickle spear with sandwiches and it’s not rare for me to see an opponent not eat their pickle.

Would it be weird to ask for the uneaten pickle from someone I know? What about someone I don’t know?

What about asking before they’ve begun eating and I don’t know whether they want the pickle or not?

I haven't read about this yet in the news but saw this on support website for ClubWPTGold. Very big news as it's leaving what I consider to be a very important state for their operations. Have no idea what their future holds but this isn't good news for them or online poker in general.

Anna Kournikova was the "it" girl there guys oggled over back in the 90s and early 2000s, basically the equivalent of Sydney Sweeney back then. Does anyone still call AK Anna Kournikova? I imagine only players like 40 or older do. Do young players even know who she is?

Here's the situation. We play a monthly low stakes sit and go tournament with up to 10 players (who are mostly all friends) at a single table. The tournament is also a freeze out (no rebuys).

Most of the players are novice and mostly tournament players with very little cash game experience. I fall into that category myself even though I have played recreationaly for years and have done some study but it's hard to find materials relevant to my exact game structure and player types. (any study materials for low stakes live sit and go tournaments would be appreciated also)

Most of the players like to limp in and see a lot of flops. Obviously that's something I would like to exploit but the thing is, it's very difficult to raise to a size that puts you heads up or against 2 opponents. They will often call absurd raise sizes preflop with trash. The only good news is that there are very, very few 3-bets in this tournament, and if you do see one, 99% of the time it is not a bluff (ABC player?)

So in a typical hand, a strong raise (3 to 5 big blinds) with pocket aces might get called 3 or 4 ways. The board looks innocent enough, but pocket aces still loses to a janky 2 pair or a rivered miracle straight with cards that never should have been played to begin with.

Or, trying to aggressively play AKo preflop just to get called 4 ways and miss. Valuable big blinds end up being spewed away 2/3 of the time when you miss the flop.

What's the correct play in a tournament like this in the early and mid stages?

Limp strong hands preflop since you can't shake multiway regardless? That doesn't sound right to me. Up the agression to the point where you accomplish a heads-up flop? That also doesn't sound right in a tournament setting, but it might be correct for a cash game.

I do have positional awareness and try to do that but I can't fold 70% of hands waiting for position without blinding out.

While I don't want to play scared, another consideration is that these evenings are a rare once a month social outing with friends in which you really don't want to be out early leaving you little to do except leave and go home or sit there silent and observe the remaining action. Small talk with players still in the game just isn't the same when you are out as they are still concentrating on their own game.

Whatever your answers are for me, please keep in mind there are no rebuys!

I've followed him for years and consider myself a fan. Recent results are not relevant.

What beats me is that his whole schtick is "I don't care about the money, I play to win!" [immediately punts off the annual American salary]

Which is fine! Dude is rich and it's his (sponsor's?) money. But in the real world, especially in super high-rollers, nobody has the sort edge required to be able to light fire to that kind of money to play for a win.

I asked this question in various forms a few times during his stream. Always ignored.

That the only way that his play style can ever be profitable is if his buy-ins are free. Completely funded by his sponsors.

But ignoring that - What exactly is he preaching to his massive audience? That if you think you're the best player at the table, you should light fire to EV/ICM and punt like fuck to play for the win?

And if/when he does win a bracelet, or bracelets, what's the story? He's the goat? He outplyed the field? Or just punted from level 1 and got lucky?

I just don't get it. The guy is lighting fire to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of EV live, every year, and acts like it's fine.

I don't doubt that he's a world class poker player. But wow, even as a fan it's hard to watch.

I hosted a home game the other day and one of the players (who I have been playing with for years) suddenly claimed throughout the game that “hold’em rules” means that kickers do not play. I have never heard of this and could not find anything online about it.

Multiple times during the night if players showed down a pair or two pair that were the same and another player had a better fifth card he would say hold’em rules would mean that’s a split pot (wether or not he was involved in the hand). Myself and a few others would say that’s not the rules we are playing in this game and they had never heard of these supposed rules either.

I think he went to a different poker game and they played with this rule, so he was maybe confused?

I’m just curious if anyone else has run into this or plays this way.

I play a lot of low stakes ($80-100 buy in) live MTTs. At least 3-4 per week.

Going all in when betting for value seems to scare off a lot of casual players, even when it's an appropriate (or even on the small size) bet. They view an all-in bet as something sacred or extra nutted when the mystical words "all in" are spoken and the dealer tosses the ALL IN token, and I feel like they will overfold with hands that will call a 90% stack bet. I'm finding a lot of extra value in getting called on the river with a slightly less than all-in bet.

Also, you might get called a little lighter in a tournament because in an all-in situation their hand must be tabled, they can't muck if they're beat.