I'm guessing you misunderstood something (maybe he was talking about cash games?), otherwise you were told a pretty braindead take. Offpeak games are great if you play low or mid stakes mtts because you're the only competent person in most fields. I switched to offpeak a couple years ago because it fit better with my life and since then I've made a little over $12/game. Maybe on ROW sites there are secret 11am crushers, but on US-facing sites it's pretty much an ATM.

I haven't found that much difference between my winrate in peak and off-peak times. I only have a limited sample in the off-peak games but my evbb/100 is slightly higher off-peak

Really enjoying the thread my friend! Thanks for sharing your journey

Back on US soil and back in action! September was a great month. Got to relax a lot back home in Ireland and catch up with family. Didn't work out as much as I wanted and drank a little bit too much guinness over the 4 weeks. But it is what it is. Wouldn't change a thing. Didn't get any money onto stars for WCOOP but I didn't really play much poker anyways. Now that i'm back in the US, i'm gearing up to put in a lot of hours running up to xmas.

Today was a very good session. Only played 5 hours or so because I had to go to the dentist and get one tooth extracted and another prepped for a crown. Sore and expensive....Anyways still managed to put in a few mtt's and ran hot.

3rd in a $22 mystery on global for $311.26
2nd in the $33 2.5k on global for $462.50. Lost with AA HU vs 63o in a srp on 339x9... Prob could have folded river as I think river jam is heavily underbluffed by almost everyone.

Back at it tomorrow

Marathon Sunday session. 12 hours and 22 mins. Most amount of mtt's I have ever played in a session. Really good volume. Slowly getting better at multitabling. Still feel i'm missing some spots compared to when I only have a few tables in front of me but overall very happy with how things are going. Intuitive tables is a great table manager and a must for grinding a lot of tables.

Yesterdays Session:

Started the day with winning a $109 satty ticket on global to 'The Teaser.' 3x pot jammed the river vs a $4 abi reg who I thought would find the fold....bad idea. Anyways that was the last of the Pads power jams for the day.

$55 25k on chico finished 52/693 for $128

$33 2.5k global 2nd for $560. First time in this Apt in 6 months where my internet decides to go down. Took me a min to get the wifi hotspot running on my phone and I comeback to having 2:1 chiplead to now being in a 2:1 chip deficit.

Won the $11 1r 1a on global for $325

2nd in the $11 turbo on ACR for $298.50

8th in the $33 3k on global for $91

7th in the $11 5k gtd on chico for $150

12th in the $55 6k gtd on global for $113.75

~20th/611 entrants in the $22 Sunday Spotzz on global

2nd in the $33 1.5k gtd turbo on global for $338

Solid day overall with a bunch of deep runs. + ~$950


Studying some BBZ content now/review some hands and then will fire up an evening session.

how come you dont play the daily boski's?

Hey Belthazorrr. The Boskis don't finish till around 2am where i'm currently situated and I don't like grinding too late into the night. Really screws up my ryhthm. I prefer the morning - evening schedule. Will play some nights but really would rather not. Last night I played till after 2am and I was feeling it today. No energy and just felt weird. I know it's costing me some ev but i'd rather work a 9-5 job than have to play during the graveyard shift.

Just finished up a session.

Cashes:

6th in the $11 1.5k gtd for $75
4th in the $22 1.5k gtd mystery for $75 (no bounites even though I was 1/9 at one stage yuck)
3rd in a $3.30 rebuy and addon for $97.50


Just finished up the $33 3k gtd mini blitz. Came into the FT 1/9 with $750 up top . Made a nice light 4b versus 2nd in chips 2nd hand of the ft w AQo. I battle with this guy a lot. He plays well I think and his results show. That gave me some momentum and I had a pretty decent chip lead. But after that I barely won a hand. Laddered to 4th and was 2/4 when I opened A2s in the co . BB chipleader defended and I c bet small on k65 bdfd. They call and turn is a 9. I went geometric on the turn betting 75% pot leaving the same behind. I think A2s is a good combo to barrel here. Want to have enough bluffs to balance in this spot. Anyways once villain called turn I decided to shut down on J river. In theory I think it's likely a jam. But I think the reg in question here will overfold to the turn barrel. So when he calls his range becomes too strong and weighted towards Kx + imo. I checked back and he had KJo for rivered top 2 so happy with the check back. I think it mostly comes down to how the villain plays turn with the middling part of his range. Like Pair + gutter type hands. I think most of the good regs overfold these spots versus population bc it is so heavily underbluffed. That's just the meta of these games. Anyways I busted shortly after 66<AQo for 2nd in chips stack. 4th for $370.

+398 on the day

Enjoying the thread! How did you find euro sites compared to US sites?

Hey there. I really only ended up playing on ipoker for the euro sites. Didn't end up playing WCOOP bc I couldn't get money onto the site. I also heard there's some crazy restrictions like 1k deposit limits per month for pokerstars...dunno how true this is. Ipoker is great though. Very soft imo. Not as good as some of the US sites but still lots of EV to be had there.

Having a decent month so far. Up $1,671 with biggest cash being $563... Just lots of ft's in small field mtt's on global. A lot of 10th-18th place finishes in some 400+ entry fields. Can't complain though running fairly decent.

Have definitely picked up the volume. Am now able to play 8-9 tables for the first few hours of the session. Defo not finding every spot yet but much more comfortable at a higher table count. I know I need to be cranking out much higher volume than I have been in the past if I wanna achieve the EV from poker that I can get from my old 9 to 5. It's going to involve both increasing volume and also increasing $won/game by studying a ton and just beating the games for a higher roi.

Back on the BBZ seminar subscription list. It really is great value at $75 per month. Works out at about $2 per seminar plus you get access to all previous seminars also. I would sub just to see all Jordan's stuff in itself(BBZ owner). I have no affiliation with them by the way I just really like their stuff. Also doing some work with HRC and GTOw AI.

What i'm looking to improve upon most in the coming months is developing a solid framework for my playing sessions and for my study sessions. Right now I barely even know what days i'm going to play every week. Just regging random tournaments when I feel like it isn't going to work. I need a solid schedule so that all I have to do is show up and focus on the decisions at the tables. I want to know the $$ amount in buyins I am going to average in each session by day. I have been pretty much just regging while playing and never pre regging anything lol. Last few sessions I have pre regged ~15 mtt's that I think have good value(and not crazy 5 hour late reg). This works well, especially with intuitive tables as a table manager. That thing makes my life much easier. If my table count is maxxing out, I will not reg some mtt's and just set a timer to max late reg them. At this stage I usually have some room for table space and have busted an mtt or two. If anyone has any advice on this matter please do share. I guess I can only get better at multitabling through practice. Any tips on how to focus on your most high equity spot in a session while 8 other tables need attention also? Like if I am on an ft of a bigger field event at the higher end of my buyin range, do I just stop regging altogether until that mtt finishes? Or am I passing up too much EV on missing out on those other mtt's? It's hard to put a number on it

I reg on breaks. Gives me enough time to analyze how much screen space I have open and plan out the next hour. You'll either be pre-regging games that are about to start, or late regging games that are running so there's no headache about random tables popping up which you're in the middle of a hand.




Imo, the equity hit I'd take from regging a game 30-60 minutes late, or from passing on a lower buyin game, is far lower than the equity hit I'd lose from ****ing up an ICM spot on a FT, so I'm fine passing on those.

Great to hear you think about it this way. I have the same thought process as this. Passing up a $10 ev game to me seems like the thing to do when you're on an ft with couple hundred bucks in payjumps.I was beginning to worry that I'm passing up too much ev in these spots but it's likely the other way around if you force yourself to keep a high table count in those specific spots

How many tables are you playing atm? How your layout looks like?

Hey Belthazorrr. I have 2 monitors setup. One for my tables and one for the clients. Have my HM3/google/sharkscope on the laptop. Have 3x3 table setup on the playing monitor. Intuitive tables with hotkeys

Month To Date:




Had a winning Sunday yesterday. Had some really nice spots with a bunch of money up top but couldn't reel the big prize in. Still happy with the day though with the highlight being a 5th place finish in the $55 12.k gtd mini scrimmage on global for $725.

18th place finished in the $110 Sunday Teaser for $275. Was $5,100 up top in this one

3rd in a $5 rebuy and addon on global for $149

7th in a $5 rebuy and addon on chico for $107.60. Had a sick spot 8 handed for the chiplead. I opened CO with JJ and BB whale defends. They lead pot on jh9h4d 35bb eff. I called and turn came Ad bringing in backdoor diamonds. They check called vs bet and donk jammed on a 5 diamonds river. I had Jd in my hand fwiw. Pretty much snap called bc folding a set here is out of the question i think vs a whale. They can be turning hearts or QT/T8 into bluffs here imo. Some random t7/kt also. Or just freak out with 2 pair hands and donk jam. Vs a nittier player here I would contemplate folding but never vs this player type. Anyways I called and villain had 69dd for the flush.

27th in the $44 30k on ACR for $119. Was $6,044 up top in this one. I think I made a pretty bad punt in this spot to bust. Thoughts on the bust out hand?

CO above avg stack(recreational) opens 2.3x . Only 14 hands on villain as tables had recently balanced. They were running 43/36/20 over the tiny sample.

SB flats the co open. Top 3 stack with 27 left. Again only 14 hands on villain but they were vpiping quite bit even though sample is lol small.

I'm in BB with 10bb and A5o and went with call. Thoughts on jamming pre? FWIW I think both opponents are very splashy. The couple of sims I have looked at this morning clearly like to just flat pre. Versus just the CO open and sb fold and we basically jam all the offsuit Ax with the exception of A5o and A6o. Although EV's run very close between flat and jam here. I assume gtow doing this to have some offsuit Ax combos in flatting range so we aren't screwed on A high boards? I can prob just simplify to jamming all the Ax here vs CO big stack for 10bb.

Flop is 762r. Checked through. I think the CO rec player is completely capping themselves for the most part. I don't think they will have a balanced check back range at all in this spot. Vast majority of players will fast play all their value in this spot.

Turn is 3h bringing bd hearts. SB leads 1/4 pot. I have just a gutter here. Now there is 10bb in the middle and I have 8bb in my stack. I believed in game I had quite a bit of fold equity. I am ahead of most of the FD's. My thoughts in game is that they will never use this sizing with a set( they have all the sets in their range pre). The bet size really makes no sense with value IMO. I just thouhgt the line was full of **** and that by jamming I can fold out all the CO A highs that beat me. Anyways I went with my gut and punted it off into the abyss. CO snap folded and SB called and about 5 seconds with 56ss. This hand ofc makes sense in hindsight. Players usually tell you their hand by their bet size. they are never betting their range in this spot. It's just a weird spot. Is just calling the turn the play? We are getting 5:1 on the turn with A high and a gutter. If I call then CO gets 6:1 and are they even folding Aj-AK? Weird hand imo. Would like to hear your thoughts.

I talked out the above hand with some others and they liked the jam. One detail I missed was that I had the Ah in my hand. This is very important bc sb now cannot have A high flush draws that destroy my equity when called. Even if we get called here I think we have like 35-40% vs the calling range. FWIW sb should not have 56s 67s in their flatting range pre here in an icm spot. I thought it was a big punt but most of the people I talked to about it actually like it which is encouraging.

6th of 502 entries in the $55 20k gtd on ACR for $1,120. Was a lot fun spots on the FT vs some very aggro regs who piled on the pressure. Only one rec on the FT and all the others played higher than me.

This spot happened early on on the FT 8 handed. Big chipleader opens utg. I'm utg+1 with AQo and 20bb sitting 5/8. Really was unsure how we are supposed to play our range here. Ran the sim for an hour and was very surprised with the output. We play mostly jam when we do vpip...very little 3b non all in. Zero flats. Only AA in our 3b non all in value range. This is ofc based on a calling range behind which is very tight... With the exception of the chipleader opener, everyone else only calls QQ+ AKo+. I haven't node locked a slightly wider calling range yet. But i'm expecting that that may change my response. KQs is a pure jam here for 20bb utg1 8 handed vs utg open which is mind boggling for me. The EV/$$ is not even close between the options. It's just a pure jam.

In game I elected to 3b non all in to 4.5bb. Folded to utg and they ripped it in very very quickly. I folded bc I think they will take more time with the A5s KJs type hands. I thought they would also tank a little longer with AA and KK so really thought it woul dbe weighted towards AK and TT-QQ. I got to see in the replayer that villain had JJ. Thoughts on the hand?

Hey man - been following your thread for a while, really respect your game and decision making. Congrats on the 3rd place last night in the $33 on Global.

I know you play a fair amount of small field MBs on Global so I was wondering what your take on this spot would be (img below). FT of the nightly $11 $750 MB, FT is ITM + when bounties are eligible. I don't want to clog your thread up with this but am pretty curious as in the moment I thought it was an easy decision but in hindsight I'm not so sure. Thanks, keep up the grind.

Hi Monkiki,

This is a pretty gross spot to be honest. Do you have any reads on the villain who flat calls the 3b jam here? Once the mystery bounties come into play, the general rule is if you cover you just hunt the bounty. Lets say this is $750 prizepool. $375 to the main pool and $375 to the bounty pool. The EV of each bounty is 375/9= $41.6667 . The payjump from 9th to 8th is going to be <$5. You're gonna want to gamble a lot. It's like there's an extra 50bb in the middle lol. People play these mtt's really bad imo. Especially if it's a like 100 places paid MB. Then you wanna go ape**** for the bounties. There is a little more icm involved here bc there's only 9 players left so the chips have more value bc of the higher prized up top . Haven't done the exact math on these type of MBounties but I chase quite hard.

This spot is quite sick though. If you fold you will still cover basically everyone else at the table and have many chances at picking up a bounty. So there is some future game stuff going on here. If you jam and lose vs SB it's a nightmare. If you jam and win you will likely win >50% of the entire prizepool. You can basically vpip 100% bc you have odds to call off every jam .... TBH I would have preferred this spot if sb had jammed. i would snap it off. But this call looks super nutted... Really dunno what's the play here. If it's 27 players left, it's slam dunk jam imo. Really not sure. What did you do?

October:




By Month( Challenge started in March)



Challenge Total so far:




8 months into the challenge and the results have been decent. I really only played 6 out out of those 8 months in reality when I take September in Ireland into account(barely played) and some live stops. The volume has been less than impressive but i'm getting more and more used to playing more tables and felt very comfortable this month with 6-8 tables which is a huge improvement. When I factor in another ~100 entries on an untracked site, October has been my highest volume month yet breaking 600 mtt's in a month. 600 is a good target volume wise imo for a pro player. I will continue to keep up the volume for November.

This month has also been my best month with regards to studying. I have joined a new group of players who play in a lot of the same games I do and we do some study sessions ~2-3x per week which is great for accountability. My main focus right now is on shoring up some leaks from my DB. I'm also really enjoying doing some aggregate report work in gtow. I'm starting to make notes on different spots and finding good heuristics to better understand how each spot plays. Screenshotting the ranges and then saving the results in different folders. It's a nice project and hopefully will be able to compile a bunch of material over the coming months.

As always, ICM study is a big priority also. Can never get good enough at these spots. Playing in smaller avg field sizes, I am at ft's pretty much everyday and so am always looking to improve that part of the game. Shoutout to Dean Gilbert (Really good coach I found on this site) who really got me into ICM play. There is a mountain of work to be done in this area of the game.

One thing I have to admit to myself (and have known all along anyways) is that living in NYC as a poker player is not going to work out. Expenses are too high here for a $25abi player... I have ended up taking out some of my bankroll to pay for expenses which is less than ideal and is stalling my move up in stakes. I do have money outside of poker but really dont want to dip into it for now. I just know this would be much more feasible if my monthly expenses were 1-2k less per month. Getting the wife on board with moving is going to be a difficult task I'm not too worried about that though as this initial challenge was to see if poker will become a more full time thing. After 8 months I am now very confident that I can make this work as a career.

I'm very much looking forward to the coming months and the challenges/fun times it brings. GL to all

Some scores from October:

Thanks for the response - unfortunately I don't have much on villain as I only started playing on Global recently (lack of hud hurting a bit). I agree completely with you that most people greatly misplay mystery bounties still. The biggest consideration for me was two opposing ideas around future game:

- If I fold I still cover everyone, can vpip a ton and will have many opportunities to knock shorties out
- If I call and win I prob take home at least 1/2 if not more of the prize pool

In my mind I thought there could be some dead money here as villain could maybe flat with flips to my hand or worse, thinking I am going to be vpiping a lot and trying to get heads up with the short stack without confronting me but not sure that's the level of thought going on in this mtt. I'm also in a bit of a rough spot because my hand is a good one but shrinks in value on a lot of boards. Fwiw I jammed, villain had KK, busted in 8th shortly after.

Really enjoy reading your posts, I don't really have a lot of resources for study and am kind of just making it up as I go along, so it's helpful to see someone else figure it out (and do as well as you have been doing). I'm in a bit of a similar spot as you, after sinking some cash finding the right BI level for me I've been playing full time and studying for the last two months trying to improve and work my way up the ladder.

Yea sucks villain had KK in this spot. TT sucks blocker wise. I think AK and AQ are much better jams here blocking the nuts but still I don't blame you at all for finding the jam with TT. It's not a spot that's gonna come up often tbh so I wouldn't worry too much about it. I think it's very close and still don't know what i'd do in game. If it was a reg who I knew I would fold. If's it's a tight rec I would fold but if I thought there was any room for some splashy stuff I would happily jam. Thing is SB never has AK AQ here imo. They will 4b jam pre. I think KQs should be a 100% jam also in theory. So sb flatting range is gonna be super nutted or else some call folds with weaker holdings. Saying that, i'm finding it hard to think of hands that want to call/fold here pre in sb shoes. Maybe some ATo, AJo? Tough one

Good start to November: