Not completely sure, but I think it's this:

Dell XPS 15.6" Touchscreen Laptop - Silver (Intel Core i7 8750H/1TB SSD/32GB RAM/Windows 10)

Good point, I don't think I've tested 6-7 hours of multi-site MTT grinding because once I find myself in a power/internet outage situation, I stop loading games. I do know that when I leave my laptop around the house, it can last for several hours unplugged. Can test it today to see exactly how long, the 6-7 hours was more of an estimate.

Will play 2020, I dunno what sort of mark up is fair given that my entire sample is online/lower stakes, I'll start looking into that once the time gets closer.

So, let me start with some positives, in hopes that it balances out the mountain of negativity I'll be spewing out later in this post.

Last weekend I was in Colorado for a friend's Bachelor Party, and had a great time. Had been in the midst of a downer and being able to get away from all of it while hanging out with old friends was just what I needed.

Unfortunately, I came back to the grind and the negative variance hasn't let up. I've had only a handful of profitable days, the EV BB is mediocre for non Stars sites, and in total I'm down $10k.



Losing money is never fun, but the consistency in which I've been losing has sapped my energy/optimism. I'm doing my best to remain logical about the variance and diligent when it comes to studying, but so far I'm just digging myself a deeper hole each day I load up tables. The mental strain is real and it's only been a month -- I shudder to think how I'd be reacting if this stretch continues on through September.

One of my horses said something to the equivalent of "Down $10k isn't bad for a bad month," and I suppose that's true for my ABI/MTTs. But that comment got me thinking about how so many others must be going through the same thing, albeit at different frequencies. Seems that the bulk of PGC updates are about binks and the threads that wither and die are by struggling posters who don't have the desire to share those negative feelings with the community. I totally get that. Even though I'm squarely convinced it's bad luck, at some level having negative results brings up the question of "Am I playing badly? Did I make a mistake? Did I *deserve* this downswing?" The phrase soul crushing is thrown around a bit too often, but here I think it's perfectly applicable. Downswings are soul crushing. Aside from hurting the pocketbook, it can/does often lead to so many negative feelings: anger, sadness, despair, incredulousness, emptiness.

The logical side of my brain reminds me that I'm confident in my abilities and over a larger sample, I'll be able to turn this around. But obviously we're all human, and being aware of the logic doesn't make me exempt from feeling emotions. Countless times during this month's grinds I've felt despondent, arguably more so when the session ends and I'm looking at another losing day. It sucks. But I'm going to do what I do, continue putting in the hours on/off the felt, control what I can control, and do my best to not go completely insane if the downer persists. Big thanks to the 2+2ers out there who actually read all of this, and hopefully my next update is more positive.

Hey man thanks for the response. I just googled the specs of that computer and it seems you have the xps 9570 as i thought it was. Is your computer 4k screen as well? I saw touchscreen and that seem to be the details of the computer you have.



Yea thats what i thought... i dont think you can get 6 hours while grinding on any laptop especially if you use holdem manager or pokertracker. But yea can you let me know how many hours your laptop can be on while you don't do anything on it? Also when you are on your laptop but not playing, i assume its always plugged in right? Im curious how many hours you can get on your machine when doing not poker things on it say if you don't have it plugged in or at coffeeshop.



You are playing only mtt now right? I saw an account on 888 that was like ehbarone... i thought that was hilarious is that you? Im curious but is there a reason you play on 888? I mostly play low stakes mtt and i dont know why anyone would play on 888.... there are so little players there and it seems very reg infested? I find 888 to be tougher than stars at the low to medium stakes. The thing i dislike about 888 on mtt is you start out so deep stack, takes way too long to be itm... then once its near bubble or once everyone is itm, the blinds feel like turbo.



I wanted to ask you this. But you use pokertracker right? I use holdem manager 2 and in threads people say that in order to see if you are a winning or losing mtt player, you go on holdem manager and check what your overall EV bb/100 is. Does that give you the best idea if someone is a winning player or not? I thought it was bb/100 which holdem manager shows but people said... no you look at EV bb/100. I read an article that said if your bb/100... which i assume is EV bb/100 is like 2-3, you are slight winner but not much. 5-6 is pretty good. Anything from 7-9 is very good. If its 10+, you are a crusher at your stakes and probably play too low.



Can you confirm if this is true or not? Back when i played sngs a long time ago, i recall we look at the red line and it shows how much you should be up or down and thus how much above or below EV you are and that is accurate. Thus they had that for cash games as well. But if you play mtt or say mtt sng, is the EV bb/100 still the only thing you can really look at to see if you are profitable player? For example if someone has 500k hands and his EV bb/100 is say 10... that means he could be down lot of money due to running bad right? But that EV bb/100 basically summarizes if someone is a winning player or not? Also you can include progressive tournaments into it? I heard some mixed opinions on this such as it would make your numbers a bit bias. But how do you see if you are a winning tournament player or not?



Thanks and excuse me if i ask so much. Because I didn't know how you find out if you are a winning or losing player at mtt. But if someone's EV bb/100 is say 12 but their bb/100 is like 3 only ... that means they are running extremely bad right? I did read they say the more hands you play, the closer your EV bb/100 and bb/100 should be but have you heard of anyone that has it off a lot? Like a 12 and say 3? Or is that way too far of a range? What about like 5 EV bb/100 but -3 bb/100 over a huge sample?

Keep grinding and doing your best man Those graph are just a start for big binks

If you decide on a mu for wsop let us know. I and k suppose many others will want some piece

Will let you know once I perform the test, probably on Monday or Tuesday.

Yup, almost exclusively MTTs although I did start flicking Spins again. Helps me clear some liquidity during this downer and I imagine (hope?) I'm still good enough to beat $60s.

I'm the ehbarone68 account on 888. Used to be a one site guy back when Stars was worth repping, but now I'm more willing to venture to smaller/other sites in hopes of finding value and I think that's the case for 888. In general I find the regulars on non Stars sites to be less skilled, which should help my edge. Makes up for the ugly software.

EV BB/100 is undoubtedly better than BB/100. In comparison to SNGs, it's red line vs green line, where red is closer indicator of true winrate. The larger the gap between EV BB and BB, the better (or worse) a player is running.

I spend a lot of time talking about EV BB in this thread as I think it's the premier indicator of accumulation skills. Some regulars agree with me, others don't seem to pay much attention to it at all. There are certainly other important factors that go into beating the games, but I've always put a lot of stock into advanced stats/metrics (aside from simply looking at results) that can better measure my success.

I've heard the same things in regards to the numbers you mentioned but can't say for sure how accurate that is. If anything, I'd guess that the numbers for slight winner/decent reg/crusher should be higher. The poker community is notorious for underestimating possible edges, i.e. when Spins came out everyone (myself included) believed the games were unbeatable when in fact they had incredibly high potential winrates.

Haven't seen any massive gaps in EV BB/BB that I can recall, the biggest differences comes from EV chips won/chips won and that can be skewed by a handful of deep spots where the blinds are higher. Certainly possible to have a big difference though. Variance, in addition to possible edges, is something that community also vastly underestimates.

Thank you, for whatever reason this post actually meant a lot. Appreciate all the encouragement during these dark periods.

Do you have some experience in this and can give me an idea/baseline of what I should be looking for? I suppose telling me could hurt your edge/offer, so feel free to ignore my question.

On a bad day/month take a look of the overall year graph.. that usually helps a lot!

Why no trips ever to Brazil/South America?
GL in september and let us know how the "return" to spins goes!

not sure if anyone asked you this before

thoughts on GGpoker MTTs, ACR, Ignition? Do you play any of these?

are you still residing in Thailand? I am from Vancouver and for some reason, every American who lived here after blackfriday said its 1000x better than their own city in the US lol.



edit: saw your thread on psyduck staking that was archived. The last poster who applied for your stake in late 2018 seemed to be a scammer. So many ****ing scums in this world, utterly disgusting

https://twitter.com/dipthrong/status...84869818867712

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...67/index2.html

someone making a website about him scamming, probably might be dipthrong but who knows

https://jaretheastscam.wordpress.com/

Had one tentatively planned last year for Buenos Aires, but GF and I decided to spend an extra week in Japan instead. South America is definitely on my bucket list, but Brazil isn't -- Mostly because I can get by with Spanish, not so much with Portuguese.

Spins return was short-lived, got in like ~500 games with 60 cEV, hit a downer for two days, and then went back to MTTs.

True.

Was grinding GG quite a bit and then games got super reggy, so I moved most of my $$ off there. Still some value to be had, just a lot less than before. Flick an occasional ACR special, but never done anything on Ignition.

Haven't lived in Thailand for quite a while now (2 years, I think) and was in Vancouver as recently as last month. Now I'm in Mexico, which is a long story...

Obviously I hadn't updated this thread in a while, and admittedly the downswing sapped my posting energy a bit. But more so than that, I'd been dealing with some personal stuff the past month or so.

Long story short -- After my GF and I went to Portland (Oregon, USA) for my birthday, the Canadian border officials didn't allow me back into the country (Canada). GF and I were in shock, as there had never been any issues before.

Despite our rattled emotional states and pure exhaustion, we handled it well IMO. We drove to a nearby hotel, sat in the parking lot while we discussed potential options, and agreed on Mexico. Within 30 minutes of that conversation, I had booked a flight to Puerto Vallarta and an apartment for the month. She and I spent the next day in Seattle buying random stuff that I needed, as all of my clothes/computer accessories were back in Vancouver. We were given a tough situation and I'm proud of how we responded to it.

Took a red eye, and was all set up in by the morning of the 29th. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to join me. So while it's certainly nice to see more sunshine, I obviously wish she could be here as well. Our plan is to meet up in New Zealand in early November, but that's only a temporary (6 month solution). In that time, we've got to make a huge decision on our future. Do we get married or do we break up? There's no middle ground and it sucks to have arbitrary external pressure put on our relationship.

I'm usually an open book when it comes to day-to-day thoughts/feelings, but something I've learned about myself in the past few years is that when there's REAL stress, I close off. I don't really see the point in talking about it with people, as it's an issue that I need to figure out on my own, and I don't want to burden others with my problems. Instead, I'd much rather put my head down, try to block out the noise, and be productive.

So that's what I've been doing the past ~3 weeks; eating well, grinding lots, and hitting the gym. Results on all fronts have been solid. Even though I've been bricking the majority of my deeps, I was still up ~$14k on the month. before today's grind. Annnnnnnnd then I finished 3rd in the $530 Bounty Builder for $28k.



Happy about that score, but there's no time to celebrate. Have 2 weeks left in Mexico and I want to use all of that time efficiently, which means I'll be back at it tomorrow -- after a morning workout and a protein shake.

Missed out on the gym today, but had a good reason -- ran deep in the $55 6-Max Bounty Builder Series Event, ultimately winning 4th place for $8500. And earlier in the day, I shipped the $44 Builder for $7600. Had a pretty epic spin-up in the $44, as I got boat over boated on 7662 (for the CL with 24 left). Was down to 2.5 BBs but somehow, 32 hands later, I had regained the chiplead. Just insane.



If the month ended today, it'd be my most profitable one as a MTTer. Normally I'd think that was pretty cool -- I usually like milestones and such -- but right now I'm not in the state of mind that can appreciate it. I have little interest in records/accomplishments, my interest is in getting back on the grind tomorrow morning and adding to the total. Should be a big weekend, the culmination of the Bounty Builder Series and my last one in Mexico. Lego.

Told you

WP sir.

Past few days have sucked; dropped $2500 Sunday and another $2500 today. Yesterday's losses were understandable, I had four bullets in the two $530s and a handful of $200s+. Today, I had zero bullets in anything $250+ and ran at -90% ROI and 800 BBs under EV. Annoying, but thems the breaks.



Yes, it's arguably too early to complain about 'runbad' given this month's profit totals and the fact that I'm less than 72 hours removed from a $15k day. Still, it's amazing how quickly the positive feelings associated with binks/profit go away, and how long the negative ones stick with you. It's nothing that some horchata and tacos won't fix, which is where I'm headed after this post.

Oh, but Brazil is great!... I mean, is better with no fascist president, but still! If you ever want to see the Rio area and you trust an anonymous follower, I'm your tour guide hahahaha

Horchata sounds like a wild animal...thing. Hope it fix things and you get a nice run at the end of the month.

I'm originally from the US, so I have some familiarity with a fascist president. And if I ever head to Brazil, I'm taking you up on that offer!

Haha. Yeah, there was a time in my life where I would have went the alcohol route.

When I first moved to Chiang Mai (in 2012?), I went out almost every night. We'd start drinking around 10-11, split a bottle at some club, go to another club/split another bottle, hit up the late night clubs/split more bottles, and stay out until 4 AM.

At some point, it lost its luster. Could be that I never liked alcohol that much, or I got older and couldn't handle the wear and tear on my body. These days, I barely drink. Would much rather have a few good bites of food and just chill out. I'm old, I guess.

Finished today's grind and I think I'll barely miss out on a $50k month. Boo urns. Had a few sick sweats today that could have pushed me over the $70k mark, but no dice. Whatevvvvvvvvvs. 'Twas a good month, will try to do it again in November.

Flying to California tomorrow to see my parents and hoping to be settled in New Zealand by the 8th. Will certainly post pics of the new place/set up once I'm there.

lol facist president. aka best president ever.. lol these puss california boys. so fkn soft man.

D

Arrived in Auckland last week, and it's pretty neat. People are super friendly and I find the accents to be adorable. Given the title of this thread, it shouldn't come as a shock that food is very important to me -- and I was pleasantly surprised by the ample authentic offerings of Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian and Malaysian cuisine. At first glance everything appears super expensive, but it's not too bad once I do the conversion to USD in my head. Prob would pay about the same price for a meal if I was in Vancouver.

Took us a week to find an apartment because many of the rental companies here actively engage in false advertising. We saw 3-4 apartments that were completely different than the photos showed, and the real estate agents just shrugged when we brought it to their attention. Annoying, but ultimately we found a place we liked and signed the lease today. It's a brand new 2 BR/1 BA in the central business district that's within walking distance to coffee shops, restaurants, gyms, parks, etc. Unfortunately the furniture won't arrive until the 22nd, so we're going to spend the next week traveling around New Zealand. It's not a total vacation tho as I've earmarked Sunday and Monday (Saturday and Sunday for the rest of the world) as grind days. Still getting used to the earlier schedule and "living in the future" thing. Definitely miss my old time zone, but I'm here now/for six months so I'll have to adjust. That means starting my grind suuuuuuuuuuper early, with the $109 Builder @ 7:30 AM. Still recovering from jetlag so waking up in the morning hasn't been a problem so far, but at some point I'll need to rely more on actual discipline.



Originally planned on playing thru the $162 Builder (2:30 PM) but haven't been able to make it to there yet. Feel myself fading in the afternoon and the GF hasn't started her job yet, so there's some social pressure to finish up/explore the area with her -- Not that I need any convincing, I'm just as eager because everything is so new, exciting, and similar yet bizzaro-world different.

Taking the next two days off; we drive to Hamilton tomorrow and will be checking out Hobbiton and Mount Manuganui in the coming week as well. Apologies for the lack of pictures in this post, I should have many to share once I get back!

Hey Acbarone, did you do the test to see how long your laptop last on battery only? Also did you ever play spins while on the same laptop unplugged to see how many hours you could get on it? Obviously spins you can do that since these last pretty short etc. Also you mentioned you find 888 softer than stars.


I noticed you played in one of those $215 progressive tournaments that is rake or break few times a while back. Those tournaments have like 30 players usually. You say you find 888 a bit softer than stars... but how is it profitable to play in a tournament like that with 30 runners when like 5 get paid only? Its like a higher roller so to speak. I can't imagine there are more than a few not good regs on tournaments like that with 30 players total?

Nah, never got around to it. Probably because I abruptly stopped playing Spins after a fifty game downswing. :P

Can't say for sure that 888 is softer than PS, however:

1) My EV BB is higher on 888 and that's with a higher ABI
2) I believe the quality of regular is worse
3) You'll get nosebleed regs on PS dropping down to play 109s/215s, but that doesn't happen as much on 888 because they don't offer nosebleed stakes


For starters, playing what amounts to be a rake-free tournament is always nice. It's more of a SNG than a MTT, but that doesn't mean it's less profitable, just means there's less variance which is also a plus.

The word "good" is relative though. A player struggling to beat the micros might identify several others at the table as "good," but those same opponents would get absolutely hosed vs better competition. And of course there are some incredible players who made their bankrolls crushing freezeouts but seem to struggle in PKOs. I guess what I'm saying is between the EV BB and the "eye test" I'm confident I've got an edge in these games, otherwise I'd cut them out.

Hi acbarone thanks for the responses.



Yes i know 888 does not have nosebleeds mtt except when its like some big series etc.
But you are saying... you rather play a $215 30 man mtt rake or break on 888poker where like 5 players get paid vs say a 215 bounty builder on stars which has at least 300 players minimum and like 35 players get paid etc? The thing is my logic would be... its hard to make money in a high buyin tournament with such a small field... so my logic is incorrect here? I only play small to medium stakes mtt up to 33 and was always curious about this.



My thought is if its like 30-50 player field on 888poker, its basically all regs. I mean... i cant imagine a recreational player going hey im going to play this 215 rake or break tourney on stars... with 30-50 players total versus compared to say a 215 bb on stars with like 300 players and a 50k gtd prize pool minimum.



Also wouldn't you agree because of the bigger field, well much more weaker players? Are you saying a 215 progressive rake or break tournament is softer than a 215 bounty builder on stars? I always thought for some weird reason those players who play like the 109 and 215 on 888 was at least on the players level who play on stars level but don't play on stars because they no longer like how the site is like now with payout changes and everything. I mean... i cant imagine high stakes regs that play the big 215 or bb 215 on stars going... okay im going to add this 215 rake or break on 888poker.



Do you think if lot of stars high stakes mtt players who play like those 109s, 215s and 530s go on 888poker and play some of those 109s and 215s, they only have a daily 109 10k gtd and that 215 rake or break though... they would destroy those 888 regs who play 109s and 215s?

@PaulyJames200x
If he plays 215 pko on 888, it does not mean he will skip 215 builder on stars. There are limited number of higher stakes tournament at any given time running so if he would play only on stars he would have to add very low stakes tournaments in order to keep his table count.

Also number of players and a buy in of a tournament are not the only factors that will make tournament profitable. There are 55$ tournaments on stars with bigger fields that are less profitable (in terms of roi) than 109$ smaller field tournament on stars etc. Having 6 fish in 30 people field is the same as having 180 fish in 900 people field in terms of % of fish.
Also someone like acbarone is experienced in playing against the same opponents over big samples because of his hssng/spins background and that means he will be better at finding leaks and changing his strategy to exploit. Meanwhile high field mtt players basically never have huge samples on anyone and not used to deviating from their standard strategy that much.

-----

Have been following your blog for a long time Aaron since I used to also play spins and now also transfered to mtts. For me it was mindblowing to see you crush 6-8 tables of spins and now the same with mtts. Playing so many tables at high abi and having huge winrates.

If I am correct you were not a "solver guy" during spins era. How about now? Is PIO your main studying tool? Do you try to play theory based style against regs or do you see so much room to exploit that you just go hand vs range (while thinking about your perceived ranged)?

Also you mention progressive tournaments compared to freezeouts. I want to ask a general rule question.



I asked this question on the forum and I seem to get mixed answers on this from many posters and I thought it was simple answer.. I know you play mid and high stakes mtt. I want to use a $11 bounty builder as an example when you get $2.50 when you bust someone if they did not collect any bounty yet.



So when you start with 5000 starting stack chips and buyin is 11 dollars and 2.50 bounty for a bounty builder to make it simple, when a player jams all in and everyone folds to you in the BB... let say you both have equal stacks or you have them covered. That player has $2.50 bounty. So do you add 5000 chips into the pot preflop to calculate pot odds? Or is it 1/2 starting stack which is 2500? Os it 1/3rd which is 1667 chips? In another thread, someone said you only add 1100 chips because 2.50 is about 1/5 of a 11 dollar buyin. Someone else agreed with this. This goes against the article from upswing poker though which is the entire starting stack. Someone else says its 1/3rd starting stack because they read about it on one of those training sites.



I always thought if their bounty is 2.50 for a 11 dollar tournament, you add whatever is starting stack so 5k here for bounty builder. But if its not 5k... its 2500 then right? In the upswing article, they seem to say you add the whole starting stack... not half the starting stack.



So for example if someone has a 10 dollar bounty on their head in a 11 dollar BB, and they jam to you... do you add 5000x4 = 20000 chips for pot odds calculation? Or is it 2500x4 = 10000 chips? Or is it 1667x4 = 6668 chips? The thing that confuses me is i play low and medium stakes and i see lot of regs get very aggressive with bounties... to the point where i thought... if a starting bounty is worth only 1/3rd the starting stack, aren't players playing way too aggressive?



Thanks acbarone.

audrius, you are telling me a tournament like the big 55 might be tougher than a 55 on 888poker? I always thought... the smaller the field... the more reggy and tougher it was. So that doesn't hold true? I get what you mean... 6 fish of 30 players is still 20% and same as 180 fish in 900 players. But when i look at those numbers, i always think the bigger field has to be softer because players bust much more quickly. So that is incorrect thinking?


Well for some reason, i thought a 888 tournament has to be tougher than a stars tournament in same buyin level mainly because there seems to be lot of regs on those sites. Someone in the 888 thread mentioned how a 5 dollar progressive tournament with like 500 runners had like 7 out of 9 regs in it. That would almost never happen at a stars table with that buyin level...

I am not saying that every tournament in 888 of similar buy in will be better than stars. Every tournament is different there are very good 55$ on 888, bad 55$ too. Same with stars, some 55$ are great, some not.
And you are right, usually massive field tournaments are softer, but it doesnt mean that there are no small field mtts with great value. You just have to do your own research to find which ones are the soft and which ones are not.

I always enjoy reading your new posts. Thanks for sharing !
Hope you will have a great time in NZ. It's a nice place and on my list for sure

Solid grind as usual! Maybe it's a good ideea to not get used to these results, because variance is so huge in mtts you can easly get a 5-10k games of bad run, or like me have a 50k+ games sample and run under EV over a decade :P

Regarding the protein shake , what are your gym goals ?
How much protein a day do you take ?
How many workouts a week ? how intense ? :P
I'm quite curious about this

GLGL !