As many of you know, I haven't played online in a long time. Cash games have their own reason, but I've been getting a lot of messages and comments from people saying they haven't seen me playing anything, even sundays, in a long time. The last time I played a big mtt session online was during WCOOP, and even then it was greatly reduced from what I used to do.

When I turned 21 I knew that online was going to take a huge backseat to live poker because I enjoyed it more and because it was new and exciting and the games were great. The WSOP was a hell of a time and I did pretty well. Anytime I played HSMTTs online, I would lose. I honestly can't remember the last time I final tabled something online. Probably sometime last year.

I have a lot of friends who play MTTs for a living online. Almost all of them are struggling and it makes me wonder actually how much money you can possibly expect to make playing mtts online anymore. Aside from a few sickos who seem to put up results time after time (shaundeeb, djk, menlo, sorel, just to name a few), I really don't see people consistently winning and since pretty much everyone is backed for all the big mtts I constantly hear people saying 'yeah I just shipped the warmup but I was in 80k worth of makeup so I got 5k out of it.'

To all of you guys out there who are just now getting into play mtts seriously and hoping to play the higher stakes online mtts, for god's sake, start playing live and look into playing cash instead. The highest stakes mtts are getting so tough that the rake is becoming a serious factor and they're only going to get tougher. People are becoming so good at playing shorter stacks that your edge deep in the tournament, though definitely big, is so incredibly high variance that I don't know if it's worth it. Play 2/4 NL and play sundays on the side, but running 40 tournaments on a sunday seems to be more and more a losing proposition for a lot of people.

I know I'm probably going to get flamed a bunch for this post and a lot of you are going to say I'm crazy but this is all what I've seen over the past year or so and I would like to think I'm not going crazy yet. It's tough to see a lot of my close friends who are extremely good mtt players go crazy because they can't seem to close out something huge, and every time I see someone final table bubble the biggest tournament they played for the evening I just think to myself 'god damn, there just has to be something better they could be doing.'

I don't know exactly where I wanted to go with this, but I guess I'll just end it with "keep your options open." Poker is a big wide world and there's no reason you can't keep trying things. But since online poker is getting more and more difficult, it seems much more important to play live every day

Thanks for ruining my hopes and dreams

i'm one of those who just started, sigh

i think mtt's still have a lot of soft players in them still though, besides like 200rs and 1ks and weekdays in the 100r on stars.

no doubt games have gotten tougher with more good players, but i think a lot of these guys as well play pretty similar and have some nitty/polarized ranges, especially ones who like play 20+ tables, i mean other than shaundeeb, most of these grinders and regs playing tons of tables are usually not contesting too many pots. And relatively face up players.

I dont know gobbo, Ive been a non backed (until 2 months ago, but I had to cash out my roll for personal reasons not poker reaons) player for a few years playing every mtt from 5r to 100r w/o ever winning a major or a "huge"(over 30k) score and still managed to make more than my mom who was a moderately successful car dealership owner (albeit in small town north idaho). Sure, there are many frustrating moments and people know what ranges mean now and how to call/reship/4bet light... but I dont think we have quite reached the panic button stage you seem to be implying. Huge edges still exist in end game of all the tournies I play.

I dont want to target people or make assumptions about your friends but there are many high stakes mtt regulars that just dont seem to believe in game selection anymore as far as online mtts go. There are just some that even the best players have a pretty small edge and end up putting themselves in extraordinairly high variance situations. Many of the high stakes regulars pound their heads into the wall playing some of the small field high buyin fields where 70% or so of the field are good to exceptional players.

Playing live is awesome and is definetly more fun than online tournaments, but I cant see how this is a solution to higher variance. You are putting your eggs in 1 basket.. instead of spending 6k on a sunday on 15 tournies your spending it on 1 where 1 even small variance situation can ruin 12-45 hours of work w/o realizing any gain. Not to mention the fact that you can almost never reach your "true earn" or what have you because the volume available to you is so low.

I agree with your general message I guess that diversification of skills in poker is a great asset, but mtts are still a very lucrative field to be in whilest using online play as your main money earner.

I know many people that go crazy based on their online results and the big scores they feel they have earned but never achieved (hell Ive been this guy too). The flaw here is that they are basing their happiness and general sanity on comparing their results in a few very large field events vs other peoples results that they feel play as good/better or even worse than them. Worrying about your results vs other peoples is a quick path to insanity in mtts imo..

Shoot I may ahve just gone on a random rant too... lol oh well.

This thread is exactly what I did not want to see, because I have been toying with the thought of tackling mtt's in the way I have taken on mid-high stakes cash in the last 12 months (NL50 breakeven to 25/50NL 5bb/100 winnar in the last 12-18 months).
I can see exactly what gobbo is talking about, but after grinding so many million hands in the last few years mtt's sound like so much more fun right now.

I think as gobbo mentioned a happy medium is the best option, something like online cash games & mix it with sunday tourneys + live tourneys.

mehhhhh

brain is farting all over the keyboard right now.

I guess in my position through my cash game play I have myself in a spot to bankroll myself 100% for series like the Aussie Millions (even though I sold 30% of my ME action and have been out of state so have now missed 2/3rd of the series) rather than have to be 50-100% backed is the difference. There has to be a huge mindset difference for someone like me who is playing tourneys for 100% of the profit to myself than someone who is stuck in 100k of makeup or is only getting 20% of the profits to themselves - which I think is the angle gobbo is exploring

interested to see how this thread develops

100r on stars is one of the highest value tournies online... play is attrocious

You raise some good points and I definitely encourage other people to tell me why they may not agree with me here too. I just got back from the bellagio and was reading a few posts and thinking about it, and maybe I'm just trying to rationalize my own path and why my success has com live and not online. I guess we can chalk it up to, what else, variance.

hey lucksac, didn't know u posted here! good 2 see you.

Some people drunk dial, I drunk post lol usually an avowed lurker, cant let yall inside my head

How many live tournaments would you say you have played? I guess my aim is have you played enough to say your not running above expectation even for a very skilled player such as yourself?
Say you didnt churn out a big score during your first year or so playing live, would you still be playing more live than online?

also gobbo, i would play live, but i'm 18 and never played live in my life, and my backer says its a very different game, and i guess thinks i'm +ev online but wouldn't be +ev live =\

There's a skillset involved in grinding MTTs which does not end, in fact hardly even begins, with being good at short stack poker.

I think I have a large enough sample now to conclude that I am profitable enough to play MTTs for a fairly good living, especially as it's tax-free winnings. This despite the fact that I am not that good at poker, have tilt issues, table select and BR manage horribly, play at the wrong times, put in low volume, play high or drunk etc. etc.

As ImaLucSac says, the fields are still very soft, one still has a very significant edge. However, to play for a living means that you need to address and feel that you manage these more important issues, particularly, IMO:

1. Don't get backed
2. Game select and BR manage as profitably as possible and stick to it
3. Look after yourself as you would if you were doing a 9-5

Personally, I'd rather not choose to spend 50 hours+ a week playing MTTs, but I'm totally sure that I could live off it. I don't think I'd ever be good enough, or perhaps motivated enough, to play cash games for a living.

I think a lot of it is to do with this. I'm definitely not a high stakes reg yet, only playing up to 30 rebuys/50r+a and up to $150 fos weekdays, as well as only the $200 sunday majors (unless there's a series/big special event on) and I just grind a bunch. If you're only playing the 150s, 100 rebuys, 1ks and sundays then it just seems like you're going to have crazy variance and downswings.
As for the whole live thing I'm only 19 and live in Australia, as well as still going to uni full time so my options are sort of limited! But what I don't get are people saying live is more fun than online (ImaLucSac). Am I doing it wrong?

I think this is the key today.

Ive been playing the noon tourneys for the game selection sake. The same for my room, FTP. At FTP, youll find as many buyin levels as you want, from a $26 tournament, where the field is not much better than a 4/180 man on stars, to a 50r, $163, 100r, all with a good prize pool and a very nice field.

The fields are also another extremely good point when selecting your game. Although you are not gonna be paid 5 figures very often, on the long run you will do much better overall than if you keep playing the much larger fields IMO. Firstly because there are less players and secondly because these fewer players are also worse players.

All your friends just suck at poker.

/thread.