GF hates lamb and we often share dishes, so I don't get to eat it that often. If you ask her, she'll tell you she doesn't mind if I get the lamb. Really, it's fiiiiiiiine. Go for it.



Should have some more food pics coming in the next few days!

Not many people were able to go from 9-mans to Spins and be profitable. The vast majority of solid Spin grinders came from HU/6-Max formats and that made sense since both groups had much more experience with postflop play short-handed and heads-up. For whatever reason, 9-max regulars still played the majority of HU as push/fold which is profitable but certainly nowhere near optimal. So if you were one of the chosen few who made a successful transition from 9-max to Spins, should feel proud of that -- regardless of stakes.

First two months of 2019 are in the rear view mirror, time for a proper update.



Games: 1055
Profit: $31,400

Not a terrible start to the year. Binking the $530 Builder (Almost binking, if we're more accurate) accounts for nearly all of the profit as I've went on a ~$10k downer the past couple of weeks. Mildly annoying for sure.

I do think the profit total is near my true expectation -- if anything, I think my EV is higher -- but I don't want to sound like a crazy person. If/when my results match my projections, I'll quote this part and say "told you so" but for now, well, let's move on. Obviously it's difficult to determine true winrate/equity in MTTs, and it's part of why I continue to pay arguably too much attention to EV BB/100.

PokerStars


Above chart is only for Stars, for non PS sites I'm at ~11 albeit in a much smaller sample (~30k hands). Seems like a fairly strong winrate given my ABI, but truth be told I'm not privy to the databases of elite regs. Maybe it's good, maybe it's great, maybe it sucks. Regardless, I'm going to keep working at it and in the short-term, try to push the EV BB to double digits.

So you don’t play full time/ as your primary income? Solid for a side hustle.

I’ve been subbed for a while btw. Enjoy the blog.

Thanks!

I also hate lamb meat,hate that smell
But I wanted to say IMO best and most inspiring 2+2 PG&C thread
Epic Results,great volume and also love to read about your life in Chiang May.
Good luck at tables and lots of $$$$$

The part about Spins might have been confusing, but I haven't played them regularly since late 2017 so MTTs are my 'full-time hustle.' Of course, I have a ~20 player MTT stable which at times also feels like full-time hustle.

GF says the same thing, that she can 'smell' the gaminess of the lamb and finds it repulsive. I don't get it. I do agree that lamb has a different smell/flavor than other meats, but I quite enjoy it.

When I lived in Croatia, I had an epic meal with two of my horses and we shared this massive platter of roasted lamb and potatoes. It was incredible. Posted the pics originally in my 2016 thread, but I'll repost them here in case people didn't read that one.

The lamb:


The oven:


Us:


I'm the one in the cat shirt, which incidentally, could be the title of my autobiography.

Thanks for the support!

Would love to go back to CM, unfortunately I don't think it will be until late 2020 at the earliest. Already have tentative travel plans through that point and the time-zone was very difficult for my own grind/properly running the stable. But poker stuff aside, I loved the pace of life there; slow, easy, chill. Certainly miss that, along with all the amazing Thai food, and riding a motorbike up and down the city streets. No joke, the experience of living in Thailand changed my life. Highly recommend that if anyone out there is giving some consideration to moving to Thailand, that they do it ASAP.

Didn't make a ton of $$ on Sunday, but I made a little. The day started off abysmally, was in for three bullets in the $215 Builder within an hour of my grind and didn't even make it to T160. Managed to build some stacks elsewhere, and turned one of the deep runs into a 3rd place/$4k score.



Also have a Day 2 tomorrow, so I'm switching up my schedule by taking today off and grinding tomorrow instead.

Almost worked out perfectly. Min cashed the Day 2 but FT'd the $11 Builder and the table was insanely soft. Unfortunately when I got HU, it was against guy I had tagged as the best player in that field. Traded some small pots, then I hero called it off for all the marbles.



https://www.boomplayer.com/30247791_6A4577BC50

Humblerone still mixing in 11$ buyins :P

Showed the AQ hand to a few players and got similar responses, in that people are surprised I would play the $11 Builder.



I'm trying to be very diligent when it comes to game selection. Not enough people are, IMO. A handful of players are good enough to overcome poor game selection, but for the majority of grinders it eats into their bottom line and throws them into the fiery pit of high variance. Not saying you need to avoid higher stakes, in fact the buy-in doesn't always reflect the level difficulty. I often find myself passing on 'flagship' games because of the reggier fields. For example, I haven't played the Big $109 or Hot $55 all year.

It seems like a significant % of regulars are more interested in massaging their own egos rather than playing the most optimal schedule. Some of them should clearly move down (Or away from the tougher games) but refuse to because of ignorance; perhaps they used to beat those stakes, binked a score in that specific game once, or think they're just unlucky.

I don't know what goes through their minds, but I do know that it's extremely difficult to look in the mirror and say "I might not be good enough to beat these games."

I've thought that at several points in the past and each time, I end up making some type of adjustment: More review, different schedule, another format, etc.

Do I think I'm +EV in the B109 or H55? I do. But I imagine my edge is fairly thin, and there are other/better games being offered so why not play those instead? I think I've found more than a handful of games in the $100+ buy-in range that fit that description, but I also still mix in the softer lower stakes stuff when I've got table space. For me, there's no shame in playing a low/micro buy-in if I think it's profitable enough/worth my time.

And about that $11 Builder -- It might have been the softest F2T I've ever played. I'd much rather have my high equity spots be against weaker competition. All that does is give me a better chance to chip up and avoid negative variance and realize my equity. Who wouldn't want that?

I guess it depends on what your goals are in this industry. I'm likely not as ambitious as other grinders; some guys want to be the best, grind the highest stakes and/or turn their poker ability into e-fame. Mad props to the guys who put in the work to achieve those goals, it's just I never wanted any of that. Instead of enduring massive swings, pushing super thin edges, and searching for reprieve via infrequent life-altering scores, I'd much rather print at a more consistent rate -- even if that means slightly less profit.

Big fan of that approach/attitude and think most would be better off approaching that way. Although I can understand people's temptations to do dumb stuff. Think a fair bit of it is monkey see, monkey do and not thinking that deeply into it.

It's all about the narrative of your own poker story. like, multiple different tournament selection approaches will work different w different people, but that many (most of the) people are overestimating their edges/being driven by their egos and underestimating variance in the same time was never been clearer than in todays MTT world. Those 2 answers ''jeez bb11'' are speaking volumes about people being driven by egos rather than by what's more profitabile.

I mean your ROI in BB11 will be like 200+ most likely and there are plenty 55+ comps in which roi 20 will be your upper roof and you're gonna be fighting very good regs too. I personally hate BB11 since it has 2 zillion runners but wouldn't ever scoff at some good reg playing it.

---

Btw damn, I've ate same lamb at the same place and one of the guys from the picture was there too

hmm werent you saying that hot 11 doesnt worth your time and now saying 11$ is worth it??
i think you have bigger edge in hot 11 then in 11 pko where people calling wide for bounties, btw i think that final AQ hand is way too optimistic Cbet/call off on that flop

he's gonna be making 1.5-2$ on h11 on avg and 15-20 on bb11. if people are calling wide u can adjust

this is just plain wrong

Agreed 100% with both of these posts. Playing higher is "sexy" and certainly gets more validation from both in and out of the poker community. Nomalice is absolutely right about overestimating edge/underestimating variance; I'd argue that the majority of profitable MTT regs fit are guilty of both. And I don't mean this as a cheeky "Oh snap shots fired" sort of thing, I'm both baffled and saddened by the approach that most people have in this industry/format.

This underscores my point about how many regs approach game selection, putting too much emphasis on the buy-in and not enough on format/structure/composition of the field.

My edge in the Hot $11 is significantly lower, the main reason being because stacks are shallower. Against weaker players, you want the stacks be as deep as possible, as it allows you to get more value both pre and post. Preflop edges are easy to spot. Let's imagine a fish open rips 30 BBs with KQo. Obviously that's not optimal but it's far worse of a play when he's doing it with a 100 BB stack. As for postflop edges, they're far bigger than the preflop counterpart. There's a massive amount of 'punt equity' when playing pots vs fish, whether that means they decide to never fold AA on any board ever, or if they run weird bluffs on the worst textures. And while these players load both the $11 Builder and Hot $11, one of those formats has a slower, deeper structure which allows me more opportunities to win their chips.

Could be. Would contend that all hero calls have a fair amount of optimism. Didn't expect him to shove the strongest hands in his range (Sets, 2p, most Jx). Against the range I'm left with, it's a fist-pump call but if he starts ripping in tons of bluffcatchers then it gets pretty meh.

That shows a sever lack of understanding where edges come from. It is almost impossible to have higher roi in a turbo vs regspeed of the same buyin.

@Blackman & @mepsol
I was talking about $/hourly for hero considering stars payout ( super top heavy) and hero backround in sng/spins


@acbarone Yea obv to hero call off you need optimsam but i think blocking his natural bluffs with Q and Ad and 40bb stack left i think you will find way bettet spot to gii vs random 11$ player in pko, and btw i do think that randoms will fast play all his strong hands on that drawy board inlculding Jx/2 pais sets ( although tbh they might just raise your cbet gii instead of jam) basicly u hope he has some kqdd/ktdd/t8dd/t7dd/QTss type of hand but even those have ton of eq vs our hand so not a fan of call off

Loved the food porn tho

Would totally agree with that if he was a random. He actually seemed to play rather decently, had reggish stats/results so I think that decreases his Jx/2p+ range and increases likelihood of draws.

After altering last week's schedule a bit to accommodate the Day 2, I ended up playing Tuesday through Sunday. And while six days in a row is certainly doable, it's not something I want to do again any time soon. Those off days are clutch. In the past that sort of thing wasn't important to me, I could grind six, even seven days a week and be mostly fine. Perhaps I'm just an old curmudgeon now and variance gets to me more than it used to? I don't think that's the case, but it's possible. Or perhaps the Spin/SNG formats were less taxing because most days were profitable, which isn't true of MTTs.

Didn't grind Monday or Tuesday of this week and since my Sunday grind ended a bit early, it almost felt like a three day break. Was quite nice. By last night, I was ready to get back to work. Texted a friend of mine that after looking at a an upcoming series schedule and a bit of hand review, I couldn't wait to load tables the next morning.

Made a few deeps today, four FTs across various sites, but by far the most exciting one was the $215 Battle Royale. The table banter was a lot of fun; it's rare that the chat is legitimately friendly and want to give a shoutout to ShipTheFliip for doing his part. One other odd thing about this FT is that we didn't lose our first player for nearly 100 hands. I came in as the chipleader and had the same stack (1.5M) at the beginning of the FT and immediately before the first player busted, but my total big blinds had shrunk from 100+ to 38.

And then I went on a KO spree, taking out six of the seven remaining players before reaching HU with a massive CL. A few short hands later, got in AQ vs KQ and held for all the monies.



With bounties, total profit is $30,082 -- the 2nd biggest score of my life after last months' 3rd place finish in the $530. Obv #feelsgoodman. I definitely recognize I had some well-timed heat, as I ran 5M chips above EV on the day. Biggest luckbox spot was when I got in 77 vs JJ for ~2.5M chips 6-handed and binked that beautiful two outer. Still several million chips under for the month, but hey, if we can continue use our run good in the higher end of my buy-in range, that would be great.



Won't be at the tables tomorrow, instead I'm going to use the day to catch up on HH reviews and get ready for the big weekend grind.

Congrats on the score man !

Sick thing to win well done!

congratssssssssssss

bang bang good stuff bruh

Nice update.

Serious issue here though. What kind of fish writes a statement like that would be great and then posts a GIF with the same message duplicated?!

nice bink!

Gracias amigos!



I haven't seen Office Space in a while, but I thought part of the running joke of Bill Lumberg was his repetitiveness. I looked it up and it turns out he just said "That would be great" lot, so he's not repeating himself immediately (Which is what I did) but over the course of time. I guess I my meme game needs some work, unless of course you found it mildly annoying, in which case I totally nailed it.

Got back on the grind today, had a few small scores in addition to binking the $215 PKO on 888.

lol please tell me the ehbarone68 is making fun of the whole canadians saying eh thing and not just because abarone was taken?!