I am feeling really burnt out after all the live poker the last two weeks.

Going deep in the 6-max was super fun and stimulating, but really exhausting.

The last couple of days were the first days in Vegas so far that I've felt 'over it'.

I couldn't be bothered playing today and I don't think I'm playing tomorrow either, the 10K Headsup would be fun to indulge in but I think I'll leave it to the experts and I really don't have the energy to grind a $1500.

I played some online cash today though, to try and get myself back into it.

Ran pretty good too, won a buyin each at 10/20 PLO 10/20 NLHE 5/10 NLHE and 2/4 NLHE for a 7k day - turns out cashgames are easy!

Jokes aside though, I've been feeling very uninspired when it comes to poker for quite a while now.

I really hit a wall when I won the $750k Guaranteed in March.

A part of me died, winning that.

I was so driven, for so long, to get as good as I could at MTTs, and to play every big tournament until I won one.

On some level after winning that I felt like I had clocked MTTs, and the game was over, so poker went back to being very boring again because I had essentially accomplished everything I aspired to and didn't have any goals anymore.

Getting to Vegas and playing the $40k was the kick I needed, to get back into the zone and care about poker.

I started dreaming of winning a live tournament, and more importantly, aspiring to get better at live play.

I started thinking about hands again after I played them, thinking about my own weaknesses and how to improve, how to adjust to the fields, and so on.

For the first time in a few months, I felt the fire to compete, and to improve.

But all I can feel right now after all the grinding the past few weeks is exhaustion.

I think I'll get it back though, I'm quite interested in live poker at the moment - both live cash and live tournaments.

Anyway, in the theme of putting some actual poker content in this blog I'll post a couple of hands from the 6-max.

First one took place vs James Sudsworth, a tough and aggressive British player that plays 25/50 on euro sites, who I had been battling throughout the day and who had been getting the better of me a little bit situationally but still probably respected my play.

He raised utg to 29k at 6k/12k with 400k to start the hand.

It folded around to me in BB and I took a flop with 64cc.

His opening range was very wide even utg, and I had been flatting his button raises on an earlier table from the BB with hands like KQ, KJ, KT, QJ, QT, JT - he had seen me do so 3-4 times.

The flop came T99 with two diamonds one club.

I checked and he quickly checked behind.

The turn came the 2 of clubs, I bet 39k and he raised to 110k leaving ~250k behind.

I felt like he would think I had a draw quite often, but that I would quite often shove over his raise with my draws.

I also felt like he was good enough to make this play with a ten for value, and snapcall my shove.

Was a tough spot but I decided to fold (turned out he had 33 and said he would have folded to my shove).

Another hand: I got moved to a new table when we redrew for seats with two tables left and 20 minutes left in the day.

A player I hadn't played with yet in the event who looked like a fish (middle aged Mexican-American) opened to 29k utg.

He got flatcalled from MP by another weak player, who I had been playing with and getting the better of on the other table.

They each had around 400k to start the hand, and as it is folding around they started having a friendly non poker conversation with a complete absence of any kind of nerves or seriousness from either side (implying neither of them really had anything).

It folded around to me in the BB and I looked down at A9o, and decided to squeeze.

I made it 117k, but surprisingly after a few seconds the original raiser flatcalled (for close to 1/3 his stack).

Other guy folded, and we were headsup to the flop.

I decided to give up unless I flopped a monster, putting him on a range of roughly AQ, AA-TT, weighted towards AA AQ and JJ.

The flop came 643 rainbow.

I checked, and he checked behind.

The turn came a 9.

I checked, and he strangely bet 65k into 280k.

I called.

The river came a 7.

I checked, and he went allin for 220k into 410k.

I thought for a long, long time (the longest I've ever thought about one street before).

It felt like he could be bluffing postflop but I just couldn't put him on enough hands preflop for 1/3 his stack that he could have turned into a bluff, was he really sitting there with AQ trying to get me off AK?

The bet was for half my stack, and if I folded I would still be in quite decent shape.

Eventually I folded; he SLAMMED down JTs and yelled 'THATS WHY IVE ALREADY CASHED FOUR TIMES THIS SERIES!'

If I got either of those right I would have been 3/11 going into Day 3 instead of 8/11.