Advertise on podcast: Dead Money w/ Dan Arfin

With the Bellagio offering double comp rates between 2 and 10 AM, thus putting me just a few hours away from having enough comp dollars to go get the brunch buffet in the morning, I showed up just to fulfill the time I needed at 1/3. Never particularly shockingly during these ungodly hours, when I showed up, it was slow moving, chaotic, and drunken. But the young woman on my right appeared coherent. And then I thought maybe she liked me. Then I figured out she probably doesn't. But I still chose to proceed as if she did...since...just in case...well, either way it's a story. Some interesting hands to talk about from this session. Including me FINALLY giving in and playing a few double board PLO bomb pots.

Since I haven't played a lot since the end of June, this current downswing feels a hell of a lot longer than it's actually been. For example, playing 200 hours over 6 months will not feel anywhere close to the same if it was only 2 months. Of course, losing is part of why I'm playing so little of late anyway. It's dejecting, and who the hell wants to play poker when you're just down on how things have been running? I've always been the type who plays a lot when he's winning. There's water in the well, so I keep going back. But when the well dries up, it tends to take me longer to get through it all because I start playing less. Which obviously means there are more days where you wake up and remember that poker isn't so much fun at present. So it's a bit of a double edged sword. But I prefer to take my time when poker is being unkind. Trying to rush yourself out of a losing spell leaves you highly susceptible to compounding how poorly things are already going, and that type of risk just isn't worth it to me. Here are the hand history highlights from the previous week...

The Wynn was the last major strip poker room to fall and has recently implemented the double board PLO bomb pots on every dealer change. Most people are down to play, but I am not. Much to the chagrin of one obnoxious reg. And then there was that dealer taking not getting tipped quite personally by short pitching the cards on the next hand...beautiful... Recap this week's hand history highlights as well as touching on some spiritual concepts....

This a special edition podcast of Dead Money. No poker this time, strictly about baseball. As a bloodhound fan for decades, I have been screaming my head off for years praying for the day that Major League Baseball EVER wakes up and stops letting fans sit right on top of both the outfield fences, and along the rails going down the left and right field lines. They are in a prime position to interfere with the game, and that has no place in any sporting event no matter what level it's being played at. There's a rule called Fan Interference....except the question is not, "What is Fan Interference?" The question is, why do we need a rule for fans interfering with the game in the first place????

It's a rare golden opportunity when you get to play with a guy that doesn't fold pre flop ever. You start to get spoiled by it and want to start demanding someone do this every day. But nothing is free. And nothing is ever easy in poker. Adjusting to someone playing this way is also going to be a bit difficult just by virtue of the fact you're so rarely in this situation. And if you don't do it properly, you can end up playing just as badly as the whale. Highlights from other recent 2/5 sessions as well...

Bizarre sleep patterns led to an early morning arrival at the Wynn, followed by an all morning disaster requiring swift resilience to try and fight out of the hole all afternoon. All sorts of argumentative characters were on hand. And they were all fellow New Yorkers...

In the midst of what has been a recent brutal run, I decide to close out year 6 since my return to poker with a mere few hours of 1/3. I was met with one of the most vicious roller coasters of a session I've ever had in terms of big blinds. But that wasn't enough. Along the way, I had to listen to Forrest Gump level analysis of hands, and was even questioned by a spectator as to what I was doing with my phone...god oh mighty...

Played an impulsive session Monday afternoon when the Wynn 2/5 was surprisingly busy. These are the hand history highlights as the struggle continues. That doesn't necessarily mean I lost money...but my goodness...no matter how many years you've been playing, you really wonder sometimes just what the hell does it take to go a couple days, or god forbid even a couple HOURS without the deck completely violating you?

I'm really running out of steam here. I wanna be out there, but f**k me if I'm simply not feeling like I've just had enough. This has happened before. Who knows if I will have to sit out for a long time or not. I don't want to. But I can barely even get out of the house right now. So I hit on that for a bit, and jump around to a few old stories along with attending a GA meeting...but not for a traditional reason...

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It's not 9/11 anymore, but I share a little bit about what it was like for me, when I was 16. Then I think some more about how good it is to be a poker player since you can take hours off whenever you want. And then we hit some hand histories from a late Saturday afternoon into the evening. Was a short session with a lot of uncomfortable spots, but quite a bit of faith was restored as well. You see a ton of nitty regs these days in Las Vegas. Some are better than others, but altogether, these guys cannot play. So apart from the times it's all setup on a tee for them, there's a lot of advantages to be gained over them.

Been running bad for what feels like a hell of a lot longer than it's actually been. And my play has been not helping one bit in far too many spots. I'm getting depressed and burnt out again. And go figure that the saddest sappiest sounding episode I've ever record comes when I finally hit the century mark milestone. I'm searching for a solution. I can't stand the f*****g DB PLO bomb pots they run every 30 minutes now at every goddam room now except the Wynn. The games have been torturously boring so I've been thinking about switching to a night schedule. But that seems a longshot because I never stick to a schedule to begin with, since who the hell wants to do that? And an overnight schedule is the hardest one to keep on top of it. So I'm tilted, bored, aggravated, and worst of all sick with my play that appears to be suffering from all of this. I'm feeling damned if I do and damned if I don't. When I'm not playing I get FOMO. And when I show up I want to shoot myself. And I've barely even lost anything! That's the sickest part. That tells you just how worn out poker has left me feeling again. And it's been on and off for a while now. This game is very demanding and I think every 4-6 years or so I just start to lose interest completely from wear and tear. And especially when you consider how things went the final 6 months of last year. OMFG. That was the type run that alters both a person's mindset AND what type of role they want poker to play in their life. The type of run that heavily influences their entire career trajectory. But things change constantly and things change fast. So who knows? Maybe one or two big winning days happen and I feel good as new again. But that could also be a long way off. And even if does happen, it may only provide temporarily relief before I want to jump in front of a train again a week later. But the good news is I can take as long as I need to sort this out. Still, I always feel productive about a day when I play poker no matter how I feel before, during, or after the session. And I suppose that's the most important thing of all...maybe.

I've been trying to get myself back from a long break post WSOP, except getting hours in are proving to be quite difficult because the games are either terrible or I have been getting murdered left and right in the sickest ways when they're great. And on top of it, I also seem to be f*****g up at a way higher frequency than I can ever remember. So I am just the nut low of all nut lows every which way. I either get it wrong in a million small medium spots, or when THEY get it DEAD WRONG in just about EVERY big spot like they've been doing for decades, they win. So like I say, I just might be the worst. But you know something, it's actually quite liberating when you simply accept that because now at least you can't go any lower and all expectations of yourself because you already know you're a completely utterly helpless and useless piece of shit.

Firstly, go check out my interview on The Poker Zoo Persuadeo Dean Martin podcast. I spoke with Chris Murray for close to an hour and had a blast talking to him. He is a great host. Secondly, I'm back in at the Wynn 2/5 and picking up right where I left off from my most recent session which was running like total dogshit. I also can't tell if I'm playing pretty good or if I am playing absolutely horrible these days. Mistakes happen just about every session. That of course is fine. But I'm feeling like whatever I do is wrong. When I bet big I should bet small. When I bet small I should bet big. When I'm passive I should be aggressive. When I'm aggressive I should be passive. There's variance built in just to the decisions you make, but I don't know...I feel like something is wrong with me. Either way, here are the hand history highlights from the last couple of sessions.

Still on something of a rehab assignment, I played another session of 1/3. Usually I play only an hour or two of it at the most. This time I went for close to 4 and a half hours split between two casinos, and actually came across some pretty tough spots. But the highlight of it all was the rage I felt towards a table that felt like a slow moving Internet game.