Oopsie in Biloxi

Before I left for Biloxi I came up with some 2026 performance goals for myself. Some topics I want to study. Some results I want to achieve. Mostly focused on plugging my biggest leaks.

In a nutshell that means impulsivity guardrails and putting myself in the most +EV situations. Trying to avoid the mistakes that seem obvious after the fact. Minimizing my gambling outside of poker. Playing in the most profitable tournaments.

I created a nice color-coded spreadsheet. Then I flew to Mississippi and immediately broke every rule.

Rule 1: Limit Sports Betting to Small Stakes

I asked at the Beau Rivage sports book if I could get an alternate line Packers -9.5 over the Bears in the wildcard round of the NFL playoffs. They were only offering an alternate line of -3.5 with bad odds. So I just put $400 on the Packers -2.5 and a $200 on a parlay - Packers and Rams moneyline.

Right before the Packers game I tried to get more money on the Packers with the Ceasars Sportsbook app but I was having trouble with it verifying my location. So I gave up and went back to poker.

The Packers were winning 21-3 at the half and I was regretting not getting those alternate line bets placed. The Bears had been staging miraculous comebacks all season but surely this one was a bridge too far.

Nope.

Rule 2: Be Disciplined. Don't Max Fire When I'm Tilted

The second tournament on the schedule for this series was the $400 Double Bag Bonus. It had a $1.5 million guarantee which is pretty ludicrous for a $400 tournament. If you bagged more than one flight you could sell your smaller bag for $1000 or a $1200 main event seat.

There were 6 starting flights - a morning flight and an evening flight for 3 straight days. I played every flight.

The first 2 days I fired 9 bullets total. About 2 per flight. No bags.

On the third day I was in 2 bullets in the morning flight but had a decent stack approaching the money bubble. Then I found a way to get it all in with 6 high on the turn:

This one stung a bit. Rather than take a break to collect myself I immediately went to the cage and bought into the final flight.

A hand or two into this one I was in the BB with QJo facing a middle position open and SB call. I jammed 40bb. One of them called with 87s and won. I went straight to the cage and rebought.

This time I was holding the sexy 69s facing a squeeze with a dead 7.3k from a fish call already in the middle. I jammed. The squeezer had QQ and held. Back to the cage.

54o SB overcall by me. An A96 flop checked through. A 3 turn gave me the dummy end of an open-ender. I bet out and called a click raise. The river completed some flush with a ten and I bravely jammed. The guy with the set of 6s called. Back to the cage.

A fairly reasonable 30bb 3b squeeze jam with 88 and I got looked up by AJo which apparently made a pair. To the cage.

A river bluff jam with A7 on JJ982 and I got snapped off by the A5s rivered nut flush. To the cage.

Raised and called a jam with 87s vs an aggro guy. Lost to AQo. The cage.

ISOed TT vs an early position limper. Called the 20bb back-jam. Lost to KK. The cage.

Got it in with 86s on a flop of 976 and lost to 98o. Cage.

At the end of late reg in the final flight I was on bullet 22 and had exactly a starting stack. At which point I calmed the fuck down and started playing some good poker. I even ran QQ into AA close to the money bubble but hung on with my short stack and finally bagged this cursed tournament.

Just a min cash in this one though.

Rule 3: Stay Out Of The Pit

During the evening flight of the Double Bag Bonus tourney I started drinking beers. And cabernet sauvignons. And a greyhound or two. After busting I decided that it would be a good idea to play some $100 minimum bet blackjack. And promptly lost $1000.

I had already lost $800 on video poker at my hotel. And I was well on my way to 22 bullets in Event 2. Prospects at this point were grim.

I did rein myself in after this and stay out of the pit the rest of the trip. Until my friend Uri showed up a week later and we both bagged the first flight of the $1200 Main Event. We were done at like 9:30pm so decided to get drinks and gamble.

I ended up losing another $1400 on a variety of pit games. Let's blame Baccarat.

Hanging out with Uri was a highlight of the trip though. He took me out for a fancy dinner at One Thirty One on Lameuse that was delicious. I took him out for eggs and burgers at Waffle House on a dinner break. It was nice having a friend around after a week of not really knowing anyone in town.

Rule 4: Control Your Impulses

Day 1A of the $1200 Main Event I quickly blew through 3 bullets and kept getting sent back to the same table. I didn't mind at all though because it was an extremely soft table. One of the guys at the table - Gerard - was a retired horse jockey who used to race horses at Canterbury Downs (now Canterbury Park) in Minnesota. He was charming and telling stories all day.

As a youth he found his way to a Shakopee jail once after pulling a shotgun on someone who wouldn't let him pass them on the highway. He said this incident and other episodes of drugs and violence were the reason he never got to run the Kentucky Derby. But he did run 4,000 other races in his career.

At some point during the day Gerard started talking about the "paid protesters" in Minneapolis.

Rene Good was killed by ICE as I was on the plane to Biloxi. So the entire week and a half I'd been there I had been doom scrolling news from my Minneapolis friends on the breaks.

It sounded horrific. ICE "agents" who had been offered total immunity from the highest level of the US government were waging a terror campaign all across Minnesota. Ramming people's vehicles, smashing their windows and dragging them off to detention centers. Entering homes without warrants. Abducting children from schools. Spraying chemicals directly into the eyes of people they had already detained. Dropping people off in the woods in sub-zero temperatures and making them walk back to the city.

When the guys at my table started nonchalantly disparaging the Minneapolis protesters I completely lost my shit. I started yelling. I was not particularly coherent. Mostly just defensive.

You honestly think the people in Minneapolis are getting paid to protest? That's bullshit!

Gerard said "oh I haven't talked to a liberal in a while" and that just made me angrier. These are normal-ass people defending their neighbors!

I don't really know how to discuss the ICE occupation of Minnesota at the poker table. Losing my cool and yelling at everybody is probably not GTO. I don't think I convinced anyone of anything. But I was so wound up about it I guess I just snapped.

On the next break I apologized to Gerard for getting heated. He wasn't really mad at all. We got along great the rest of the series. He started calling me "Minnesota".

When we came back after break I had calmed down and returned to my A game. I played a really nice hand to get a big double and move among the 1A chip leaders:

I bagged an above average stack on Day 1 and thought I had a decent chance to make a deep run in this one. Unfortunately I couldn't get anything going on Day 2. I did make the money along with Uri and Gerard the jockey but none of us came particularly close to the final table.

Rule 5: Focus On Sleep. Don't Be Hungover

After busting out of the Double Bag Bonus tournament I got something to eat and then bought into the $2k High Roller. I got off to a rought start in that one. I made a good fold with top pair top kicker on the river. Then I 3b and called off vs a back-jam with AQs and lost to KK to bust before the first break.

Bullet 2 didn't start off too hot either. I got seated at the same table, which I liked, because it had a whale with a huge stack of chips. Unfortunately he punted it all off to someone else at the table.

I lost a few small pots and was down to 30k off a 50k starting stack. The guy to my right who had stacked the whale and now had all the chips was drinking wine. So I decided to join him.

He had his wife buy me a glass of fancy wine from the bar. As soon as I started drinking I caught fire in the tournament.

I spun my 30k up to 100k in short order. Then my wine drinking buddy made a big mistake:

After that I dominated my table all night long. Got some nice bluffs through. Made some tough folds. Hero called correctly with king high. I also switched to beer at some point.

Towards the end of the night when I already had a massive chip lead I won a big flip JJ > AKs to go from massive chip leader to ridiculously massive chip leader. There were only 8.6 million chips in play and I bagged up almost 1 million with 36 players left!

The problem with drinking alchohol isn't just that it makes you less aware in the moment (although it does that too). It also messes with your sleep. I did not sleep well heading into Day 2 of the high roller.

Thankfully I had almost 200bb to start the day so I wasn't in any danger of an early exit. My stack fluctuated throughout the day - lots of interesting hands. Here's one that I played horribly when we were down to 2 tables:

Some time after that hand I got a full double AK > QQ and by the time we reached the final table I was back in the chip lead with 1.9 million. I made plenty of mistakes in this one but I had my moments too.

We took a dinner break with 8 left and I walked across the street to Waffle House which had become my "go to" dining option. At this point I had a pretty decent chip lead with 2.7m.

When I won my bracelet over the summer, our entire streamed final table lasted under 2 hours. This Biloxi final table went another 5 hours after dinner break. It was quite a battle.

I ended up making it to heads up and at that point I had about identical stacks with the other player. He was in my opinion the weakest of all the players who had made the final table. We discussed making a deal to lower the amount we were playing for heads up for but the casino wouldn't allow any deals that didn't end the tournament. So I rejected an even chop and decided to play for the remaining $36k.

The heads up went on quite a while. At one point I had a 4:1 chip lead. When my lead slipped to 2:1 I offered my opponent an ICM chop. He rejected it.

Eventually we played this critical hand where I had a chance to ship the tournament:

When we came back from break my opponent offered me an ICM chop that would have given me a few thousand dollars more than 2nd place money and this time I rejected it. Shortly afterward I got it in with AKs vs his 33 and bricked out to exit in 2nd place for $49,000.

The harsh reality of tournament poker is that even 2nd place can feel shitty sometimes. I felt like I had made a mistake in the heads up that was probably worth $10k or so in equity. I also could have accepted a chop when we got down to heads up initially and made $18k more.

Still this result locked up a winning trip for me. Despite making every mistake in the book I somehow left Mississippi a winner. That made me 2 for 2 on winning poker trips since quitting my job.

I think the way tournament poker is supposed to work is you mostly lose and then occasionally you win big. That sounds like kind of a drag though. I think I will just keep winning instead.