2/23 in the grand as well

Time for me to be more accountable and stick to my goals and prepare each day until I'm responsible enough for it to be natural


12pm - Wake up / Shower
12:30 - Walk with gf+dogs
1:30 - Order home gym equipment
2:00 - Research local gyms/sports clubs
3:00- Clean office, have lunch
4-8pm - bitB investors meeting
9pm - Walk with gf + dogs
10pm - Light food/fruits, relax
11pm- Read
1am - Sleep
Wake up 10am next day.

Heck, why not..

I would prob take this line (x flop/b turn), because I don't expect people to x/fold often if at all on this texture after 3betting, and the hands they do x/fold we have a ton of equity against (well, we basically have a ton of equity vs everything) and may even be ahead against. I also imagine that we have a ton of worse flushdraws that have more merit bluffing, although it's pretty gross to get x/raised with those as opposed to A4ss which we can just comfortably gii with. When he checks turns I think it's close but most villains will probably be significantly more capped after checking twice so we don't have to worry about getting x/raised as often (even though it's not a big worry on the flop). We probably don't fold out much better but we get some money in there for when we hit and give ourselves a chance to fold out better on some rivers.

Keep in mind this is coming from a low-midstakes reg who has a lot of work to do so what I say about lines to take in an online 5k should probably be taken with a boulder of salt

bet 15% of the pot on flop, turn and river.. if he has AK, AQ, he will give up at some point. if he has overpair or flopped-set, he will re-raise.. and if we get 3, we can value-bet.


- microstakes player, microstakes strategy

Is it just me or is $5m not particularly impressive/noteworthy?

It sounds like a big number but we are talking about a very large stable too. Also, it seems to show a bit of a sorry state for poker in general. MTTs being the softest variant left and the best in the business have a majority of players on close to slave labour wages.

For example:

5 mill divided by 70 players is $71.4k each. Then split that 50/50 equals $35.7k for a full-time job with no benefits and long hours. Or put another way $17.8 an hour (slightly less than the expected hours of a normal full-time job)

Given that pads wants to have the team growing throughout the year and get to 130 players.

Let’s say the team hits an avg. of 100 players for the year.

$50k split 50/50
$25k for the player
$12.5 an hour

One last theoretical, say the stable has 5 tier 1 guys with a $300k expectation for the year. Then you are left with $3.5m for 95 players. $18k a year take home with some big swings along the way.

Thoughts from anyone? Did I make some basic errors in the math?

prob not deep enough/necessary to start a three street bluff here, so check flop and bet 78% of turns and shove 90% of rivers

Not in the math but you assumed that these players are from the 1st world.
I'm hungarian (Pads lived here too) if you make that much money here you belong to the top 1% (or maybe even top 0.5%).
and I'm guessing the 5 million could be a safety number. It's better to have 5 million as a goal and make 8 than have 10 mill as a goal and "only" making 8.

So Lena ended up:

1/1682 Big 109 for $25.4K
1/310 Sunday Grand for $58.3K
10/1080 Supersonic for $2K

isn't calling pre a little bit loose mp3 vs sb?

anyway, give me 2cents.
I think with our hand that has so much equity, we definitely should start betting ip, we have been combo to check back like A7/A8/A9 type if you have those.

also it would depends how villain construct his checking range sb vs mp oop, (% of him c/c 88-JJ,like is he ever check raising, that would also contribute in our decision making of our betting frequency.
obv we have to be clear abt our range too, how it interact with this flop, (ie are we calling all the 22-55). I assume we should stab our pairs hands on the flop at decent % for obv reason. mixing those with like some 98s type though checking back those at a higher frequency.

so with spr of just under 3, I prefer a bet on the flop around 40-60%. and probably checking on some J+ turns and continue to bet on some 6-9 turns

Lena shipped b109 and Sunday grand 😂😂😂😂

Rule #1 of high stakes MTTs: Never fold, EVER.

Bet flop decide turn, sizing doesn't matter all that much, anything from 25% to pot is good for different reasosns

Weird that villain checked tho. In low stakes that will be top set about 80% of the time I m happier with betting this in a 5k than a 22fo

Blocking the As is pretty important here, as it pretty significantly narrows the range of hands that villain will be x/f turns and rivers unimproved (assume this is a flop that gets x/f by a regular at close to 0% frequency.)

We've got a high density of 1 street value/protection bets that want to bet 30-50% pot and get to showdown on this texture (66-99, Tx). If we assume that the above is true (V never x/f flop) then I prefer betting turns facing double check to flop check with our single street bluffs/value and don't think it's close at all. We can overbet certain rivers with this line using rivered sets/2p/trips to balance.

We also have a narrow density of multi street value hands (22, 55, TT, AA), though the broadness of this range depends a lot on whether we raise/call all pairs pre. We want to put some of our high equity bluffs in this range for obvious reasons, and can go like 42% geometric all in over 3 streets.

In short; flop stab is pretty bad imo as a single street bluff. This exact combo works pretty well in both the above ranges (x flop, stab turn or 3 street AI) and I doubt the EVs are hugely different as our raw equity is so so high.

Pads said he wants the best players from England, Germany and plenty of other first world countries. He wants to take people that have 6 figure life rolls.

I'm also going to have to disagree on your second point. Pads has mentioned that the goals he sets are often on the higher end of the scales, not safety goals.

Should post the bad days too right?

This is yesterdays bloodbath



Could have been worse I guess!

I retract my statement and go with what kangal said

Do we know the villain in 5k or he is unknown, was he active or not???
What is the blind lvl is he 3 beting size large, small, or kinda standard ok (i didnt see 5 k structure but asume is 700/1400 - 1/2k and he 3 bet to ~12k)????

Depending on this info we can decide do we check or bet ( and which sizing ranging from 1/5 pot to 1,5xpot), also i think if we start beting ( flop or turn) we should emty the clip on most rundowns

Sorry to hear that you got crushed on huge sunday

sub, gl!!

Did an interview with a Romanian site. Will post English in here.

01. Hey Patrick, how’s it going?

Pretty bad! Terrible Sunday! I lost around $30k myself and horses dropped around $40k. When will it end!


02. First of all, how did you get into poker?

Just through friends at school. I went to a different school to all my friends at 16 to focus on sport. We were a little too young and broke to go clubbing at 16, a little bit too mature to hang around parks, so we ended up meeting at different friends houses to gamble. Really mature and a great choice for broke kids...

03. Tell me a bit about your progress through the stakes. At what point did you say: “hei, i can make a living out of this”?

I was always pretty good at poker but didn’t have the bankroll. I never really grinded properly for a long time, because without a bankroll its kinda tough to grind. I was always super envious of guys who were backed or that had the opportunity to register a lot of games. I remember the first 4 figure score I made when I was probably 17ish and though wow this is easy. I was working for like $5-$10/hour so this was huge. I “ran bad” depositing through student loans, but by the time I was around 19-20 I kinda knew that I was going to make it. I just loved the game so much that if I wasn’t successful with all the time and energy I put into it, then I wouldn’t be successful at anything else in my life either.

04. When did you get into staking? How was your first experience with staking - were you staked or did you stake someone?

I was first staked at around 17 on ipoker to play $30nl, I remember very vividly that I felt so fortunate to be able to play properly. There was a baller grind house from the backer (Jon Lundy) and I remember he had like 50 vitamin water in the fridge and I was like OMG WHAT A ****ING BALLER! After the bootcamp finished I went home and was grinding on my laptop, so so tired, but I just didn’t want this to stop, I eventually fell asleep, waking up from the alert sounds. My parents came in and were like wtf are you doing. In terms of staking others, I just bought pieces of people in tournaments. I would have a bankroll of $3000 and buy pieces if $100ish trying to just get lucky and have a sweat

05. Regarding both “being staked” and “staking” - did you have any bad experiences?

I was staked by some lazy backers previously who didn’t keep a tight leash on me and just didn’t keep motivated. In terms of the guys I’ve staked, I’ve been scammed a couple of times now, most recently by a well known guy in the UK community which was kinda sad. Degens gonna degen I guess.

06. How important is the communication between the backer and the one being backed.

The most important thing. If a horse has any problem at all, they should say it ASAP, theres nothing more destructive to a relationship than one side being silently unhappy, its impossible for the other side to improve and the relationship just deteriorates.


07. How did bitB staking start, why bitB and who did the logo, it’s pretty sick!

The brand bitB has always been mine since around 2009. I wanted to be the best in the business when it came to poker, I was playing $5 husngs with less than $200 to my name, but one day wanted to be ranked number 1 in the world. In 2014 I finally got there on pocket fives and it fit the staking name pretty great. We want to be the best staking company in the world, I used the name before, people recognise it with me etc so it just works well.

08. On the website you have listed 3 investors - you, Samuel Vousden (€urop€an) and Tomi Brouk (elmerixx). Are you guys opened to any other investors?

Nope! We’re greedy bastards. Well, if somebody invested who would make a positive impact then sure, why not, but in general we’re happy to pay just by the hour!

09. Why is bitB different from the other staking companies?

We care a lot. A lot of the guys have become some of my good friends, when I go on holiday, its usually with the guys, we see the world together, have huge ups together, huge downs together. We speak all day, every day for 2 years now. When they win I don’t think even 1% about how much money I’ve made from the win, I just feel great and relieved for them. We treat things properly as a business, we invest 80+ hours/month to ensure everything is set up perfectly for the horses and they never have a problem.

10. What are the requirements to get accepted at bitB?

A proven record of winning, generally being pretty young, open to improving. Being able to hit good volume requirements and most importantly wanting to join us to improve rather than get a bigger bankroll to deign with.

11. bitB has a stellar line-up of coaches, Daniel Dvoress, Ben Heath and Dietrich Fast, just to name a few. Let’s say i apply to get into bitB and i get accepted. Do i pick the coach that i like or how does it work?

We have 10+ public coachings/month, 5+ streams/month and then each guy gets a private 1on1. We find out the horses weakness and partner them with a coach who is strong in that area. For example, if somebody is going to WSOP then we will give them a guy who is more suited to live play, like Ben Heath.

12. Tell me a bit about the players that you are currently working with - can you give me an example of a player that joined your stable and made a remarkable improvement?

We’re so lucky. Our guys are great, they are generally smart/hard working/young. We took in a guy called Zolta who previously played $30 HUSNGS, he started at low/micro stakes MTT’s and quickly moved through mid stakes and then to high stakes, playing EPT main events, all high rollers online and now coaches a bunch of our smaller stake guys.

13. bitB had a huge success during last years WCOOP. Do you guys have a special training schedule for the major online series?

We do pretty intensive coaching just before WCOOP. Sam/Tomi/I do sessions with all three of us being there, going over previous final tables. We go through dozens of regs, finding their weaknesses, looking at ways to exploit them etc.

14. What is your experience with romanian players when it comes to staking? Do you have any in bitB at the moment?

Romanian players aren’t easy because of regulation issues. We currently stake a few guys, one in particular has been doing really well. I’m not sure I can say who he is though unfortunately.

15. Last year you joined partypoker as an ambasador. How’s life as a sponsored pro. Do you feel more pressure in getting results?

I enjoy it. It’s a lot easier because Party are so chill and so helpful. I’m currently in negotiations about joining for an extra year, I 100% wouldn’t join with another team right now, its not really my thing, but I think with Party I’m more willing to continue because of their effort of popularising poker.

16. Do you travel more since you’ve joined partypoker? What was your favourite stop from last year?

I travelled a lot last year, but I’m kinda over it. This year I want to maximise self development and the live poker tour isn’t a healthy place to improve yourself mentally or physically.

17. What can you tell us about partypoker Live? At what upcoming partypoker tournaments will people find you.

The tournaments are fun, very easy to qualify online, usually huge overlays and the events are pretty soft. A lot of guys (myself included!) like ti have a few beers, so its laid back and fun to be. I’ll be at the Millions event in Nottingham and Sochi (Russia)

18. You live right across the border from us. When did you make the move and how do you find life in Budapest?

I actually live in London now, I moved to Budapest with my girlfriend (she’s hungarian) after Spain made poker regulated 4 years ago.

19. How do you find Eastern Europe? Did you get to see any other countries?

People are actually not very welcoming. Guys in particular in Hungary were very cold a lot of the time. Customer service wasn’t great at all, the weather was cold. I really liked being somewhere where I could just be by myself, I’m a pretty big loner that doesn’t want to walk down the street and talk to 10 different people, or worry about looking around incase I see somebody I know. I like walking by myself, being by myself and being in a foreign city is nice for that.

20. What are your plans for 2017?

$5m profit for bitB players at the tables
Maximise personal self development


21. Any last words for our readers?

Balance is key for any ordinary person for success. The elite people in any industry give 100% in the thing they excel at and make sacrifices for balance. Don’t let people tell you that you MUST do x/y/z go with your gut feeling inside.


22. What can you tell me about bets with the swedes around WCOOP and TCOOP? I heard about bets around 100k.

We bet pretty big in WCOOP, we crushed them really hard, this time round they got max revenge. Lena900 absolutely crushed, yesterday for example he won both the big109 and Sunday Grand! We’re about even now, tiebreaker in SCOOP!

23. Do you think partypoker has what it takes to become bigger than Pokerstars?

Of course! Its a matter of when, not if.

Dunno if too shallow preflop, otherwise 4bet pre vs a linear strategy SB vs MP w/ blockers and good playability + domination of his T9s, suited Broadway stuff which makes always the lower flush/draw) Sure enough we get into som spots of own domination vs AJ/AQ type hands but i'll just assume hero is smart enough to not go broke too often on dry Axx structures
If too shallow peel seems fine most of the time.
As played betting flop pretty big around 18k to pressure his AceHighs and bomb them out to have vbets on Ax turns or rivers. Also pressuring potential underpairs and some Tx in case V decides not to cbet them.
Would bet Tx and for example JJ as well with that sizing, because of huge protection needed and we need to have a good amount of valuehands betting this size if we want to have bluffs with A4ss or smth like QJcc. Both hands have a very high interest in not getting floated too wide and making 2nd best pair on turns an rivers.

More personal read/guess: MTT-Playerpool often has some struggles with big sizings in 3bet+ pots, cause they always know what to do against the "typical" 25% or 33% sizing but are quite wtf when it comes to bombs.

good thread pads and nice to get it through 2+2. will follow

Ok, so this hand is kind of the way you can think tournament vs cash game theory.

This exact hand exploitatively works super well as bet flop/jam turn in MTT's because

- MTT population checking range is less likely to be JJ/QQ/KK
- MTT population ott will think of hand in vacuum OTT

Betting flop/shoving turn will likely get called by AA/TT/KK
Betting flop/shoving turn will likely get folds from hands such as A2/A5s, the other A4s, AK/AQ/99

My assumptions are that population will likely bet QQ/JJ at super high frequency, x/r KK at some kind of frequency vs a large sizing. We do block AK/AQ, but they have all combos with these positions, we also block one of the hands that calls/calls, AA.

In tournament poker especially, I think its massively important to exploit spots where villains will be calling flop/folding turn with high frequencies, or the opposite, never folding turns after they x/c flop.

In terms of actually theory about how to think about the hand, Kangal made really good post:

"Blocking the As is pretty important here, as it pretty significantly narrows the range of hands that villain will be x/f turns and rivers unimproved (assume this is a flop that gets x/f by a regular at close to 0% frequency.)

We've got a high density of 1 street value/protection bets that want to bet 30-50% pot and get to showdown on this texture (66-99, Tx). If we assume that the above is true (V never x/f flop) then I prefer betting turns facing double check to flop check with our single street bluffs/value and don't think it's close at all. We can overbet certain rivers with this line using rivered sets/2p/trips to balance.

We also have a narrow density of multi street value hands (22, 55, TT, AA), though the broadness of this range depends a lot on whether we raise/call all pairs pre. We want to put some of our high equity bluffs in this range for obvious reasons, and can go like 42% geometric all in over 3 streets.

In short; flop stab is pretty bad imo as a single street bluff. This exact combo works pretty well in both the above ranges (x flop, stab turn or 3 street AI) and I doubt the EVs are hugely different as our raw equity is so so high."


I'm going to leave one last potential opinion about the hand..

What do you think about open shoving the flop? If villain calls KK we have 55%, if he has a hand like T9s god knows if he actually calls, if he does we have 55%, he for sure folds all the AK/AQ, suited broadways bdfds, a5, a2, a4.

I'm not saying this is the best line, but when we play against the MTT population, we should always think of all different lines and think outside the box vs how we expect them to be playing potentially poorly (in this case we're assuming checking range is going to be relatively weakfish.

Hey, nice to see you here, remember some fun pots we've played recently |

I actually had exact same thoughts as you, bet flop 16.5k and shoved turn for a slight overbet, which I expected to be extremely effective due to all the reasons you posted.

Wow this v interesting would like to hear answer Paddy? GL NICE THREAD!

He's trying to sell employing people, ofc he's doesn't want to address this post, but it's the sad reality of being backed for tournament's. You also have to factor in how make up affect's the player. For example, let's say a player goes on a 10k downswing, then on a 15k upswing over the course of 3 month's. He ends up making $2.5k in this time span on a standard 50/50 deal, if he has a 60/40 deal it's closer to $3k. This is for probably 50 hours playing weeks with around 10 hours devoted to study i would guess. The player has to worry about and pay for all his living expenses in this time span. All in all being backed for tournament is not a good career choice, unless you live a county where jobs are very low paying or all you know is grinding poker, if it's the latter get out asap once you've learned enough and made enough dollars to grind up your own roll from small.

Pretty sure Pads would agree here....but you have worked it all out as an average. Which is totally wrong!

Pads has a great set up, but because of the nature of the game (MTTs) and people (not robots) he will have players that won't even have a winning year.

But he will also have some players that have a 250k+ year. Also as stated by someone else $30,000 a year in some countries is like 150k a year in my country.

In saying that you are right the game has got a lot tougher and the guy making 250k-500k+ a year whilst clicking buttons and watching movies now will be making 25k-50k a year.

Is 250k+ a year still possible? Of course it is, but now you have to really work for it. On the table, off the table, mind/body etc etc. Everything you do in life/poker needs to be max EV.

Pad's stable 10 years ago would have probably made that 5 million goal in a few months (btw that is not a joke!)

The new era for poker players is just more like the real world. The more you put in the more you get out. So many players that crushed in the past, now can't even beat low to midstakes. Because the game has changed but they haven't, they are still doing what made them big money 5-10 years ago. It does not work any more.

But bad/new backers will take them on, they will sell on 2+2 and sites like stake kings with MU of 1.2 -2.0+. Just scope these players over the last 2-3 years, use filters and you will see so many are not even winning any more. They are just clicking buttons on the hope they run good in a big one.

(sorry to say the new fish in poker are bad regs, not as profitable as the old fish, but still plenty to be made from them)

Tough times for backers to for all the above reasons. So many stables are under rolled and don't get over time worse case scenarios will happen. e.g I have seen a stable with 50 ish poker players with avg buy in $30 and there bankroll is around 300k. They should basically have $20k-30k for each player backed. Which is around 1.2 million, they are not even close.

Over my 8 year period of backing, over 300 poker players backed you have times when EVERYONE can go close to 1,000+ buy ins down. It might not happen much, but at one point it will!

Just my 2 pence worth anyway.