It's impossible to asses were you running under EV in tournaments by looking bb/100 or basically whatever statistic. You can see if you're making EV chips or running under EV in all-ins but that's about it, and if you're running under EV in allins that doesn't necceseraly mean you are running under $EV

Pauly, iAudrius did a fantastic job of answering the majority of your questions (in addition to complimenting me) but I'll add a few things.

It's less about the tournament size/buy-in, and more about the composition of the field. When I first started taking applications for my group, I noticed in regards to stakes played that most people would say something along the lines of "$109s and below." There seemed to be little or no regard for how games of the same buy-in can have significantly different field compositions and therefore, difficulty levels. Take the Big $109 and Bounty Builder $109 for example. One of those tournaments has a much higher % of regulars and therefore has smaller edges than the other. Hint: It's the one I never play.

Still trying to figure out optimal KO strat, so the honest answer is I'm not sure what the right answer is to your question. But truth be told, if I did know the right answer, I'd probably deflect or ignore the question.

Might be true at one table, but I highly doubt the $5 games on 888 have 77% regulars. There probably aren't even ~350 MTT regs on 888 at that level. And by regs I mean people who play consistently and have won in the past two years.

Thanks!

The gym goals are fairly straight forward; go consistently (4 days+ per week) and have a six pack by the end of my time in New Zealand. Was probably a month, maybe 6 weeks away from that at the end of October but I've spent November on an eating spree. Oops.

Haven't spent much time/energy on my macros. I know I can't adhere to a diet that rigorous because of the social pressure of eating/relationship life, so it's more about watching my general calorie intake and trying to avoid garbage when possible.

Agreed that it's not nearly as exact as other formats (Cash, HU SNGs) but still has a lot of value IMO. Even if you disregarded it entirely for ICM heavy situations, just determining your ability to build stacks in all other situations (where cEV is king) seems like an important thing.

Almost forgot to respond to this part.

Welcome to MTTs! You'll find the games much easier here; hardest adjustments have to do with duration of the grind and late-game variance.

Still not a solver guy, I've actually never opened PIO but I've been told that quite a few of my lines/concepts mirror their outputs. Seems surprising given my style is much more exploitative than GTO, but I guess it's the whole blind squirrel thing. I do try to play closer to GTO vs the upper echelon regulars, but the frequency of playing pots with them in my games is lower than it used to be in Spins.

Hey Acbarone. Well obviously the big 109 vs bounty builder 109... i would say most ppl would know which one is more reg infested.



Okay so for progressive tournaments and the calculation, there is no correct answer on this? You mean you don't know the answer for this? The thing is i thought this was nothing but a general rule? Such as okay to calculate how many outs you have on turn and river, you 2x and 4x it. I thought it was something as simple as asking a rule question. Someone mentioned that someone in one of those training sites said the starting bounty is worth 1/3rd the starting stack.



For example in a $109 bounty builder tournament. you start with 5000 chips and $25 bounty. Let say someone has 15bb and jams to you in the BB. Let say you have that player covered with 50bb to make it simple. Let that player has $50 bounty showing on him.



In the upswing article i read a while back by someone, say bounty is $25 in $109BB. That player has $50 bounty on him. If that player jams and action is on you, when you calculate pot odds, that article says you add 10000 chips to the pot and then you calculate pot odds? Because its 5000 chips for every $25 in bounty that opponent has. So for every $25 a player has on their county, its 5000 chips added. Thus if a player has $250 in bounties on his head, you would take 5000x10 = 50000 chips added to it so you can calculate pot odds now before calling. Someone said that article is wrong and said the $25 bounty is only worth 1/3rd starting stack which would be 1667 chips for every $25. Someone else said its 1/2 starting stack so 2500 chips for every $25. Then someone else mentioned the $25 bounty is only worth 1/4th the stack or 1250 chips.



So im not even sure how much each starting bounty is worth from the starting stack because article says full stack, others 1/2, others 1/3rd etc. I can't imagine it being 1/4 the stack because that would seem way too little.

There is a way. You just pay attention on the biggest deep runs of all time, and if you get top 9-20 on a sample of 22 out of 25 biggest runs you ever had, and you just played as best as you could at the time, and then as times goes by and you learn more, you realize it's not your fault and you actually played good and it wasn't just ego/excuses then you are on to a good point.

Then you start looking back and seeing every time you tried to Move up in Stakes, you started with a big downswing at the highest buyins lasting from 1-2 years usually untill better run catches up. And every single time you try to break the higher stake it's really hard to get a sample as bad run happens, and you play on your own dime.
So you can also make assumptions based on that.

Then it happens to have picked up really good systems over the years and track everything and you can check the database and use filters when the sample gets bigger and you see that the run was pretty bad at the start.
After 5-7 years you can see the differences quite clearly. (always good to look back after you improved drastically to check if you really played bad or was the run really that bad)

In hindsight tho going trough this kind of stuff is a learning experience on a whole different level than what most people get to experience most of the time
Not saying I didn't win good, It's been quite good as eventually variance evened out at the lowest stakes and the the next lowest as I moved up and so on, but the rng was tough on me and I am still under EV wating for those really fortunate years to come and even out the RNG.
Nevertheless it can happen and I am living proof of that. Variance is just incredible in mtt poker, it's just that it's a field dominated by the suvivorship bias.

Imagine being an abi 30$ reg and trying to reach 80 abi running bad at 100-200$ and loosing 250-300 buyins in the higher games would be really tough on a abi 30$ yearly winrate. Same if you are abi 60$ trying to reach those 200/250/320 stakes , same with abi 120$ trying to reach the 500/1000 buyins etc

most people probably quit halfway when things go bad for a longer while

Why spend too many resources like willpower and energy at the workout for a reward, when the reward that comes later is way more rewarding(cough delicious cough cough), eeeeeh ?

Well then I wish you really smexy rounded up abs

How do they know though? Would contend that most people "know" because other regulars have said it, very few have actually went through lobbies and looked at things like the number of regs, the quality of those regs, or even something as simple as Sharkscope ability rating. My point is, most people only "know" stuff that they've been spoonfed and aren't willing to put in the tiny amount of effort required to find the answer.

There's a correct answer, in the end this game is all math/numbers. Just not sure the strategy that I'm implementing is that correct answer. Can guarantee it's not perfect, which is why I'm constantly adjusting/fiddling with it on my never ending quest on the road to optimal town.



Left Auckland for Mount Maunganui on Friday and during the drive my GF and I agreed to a deal: Instead of a week long holiday, I would get a minimum of three grind days. Played on Saturday/Sunday/Monday and because of how early I'm starting in the morning, we've still been able to explore in the afternoon/at night.



Our AirBnB is right near the beach, this is literally a handful of steps from the backdoor. Shocked how inexpensive it is to have 'beach front property' in NZ, we're paying like $60/night and in California the place would go for $400 minimum.

My favorite spot so far this trip was Hot Water Beach, a beach that has hot springs under the sand. We got there somewhat late in the day, but that didn't deter me from digging a huge hole (More accurately, adding on to someone else's previous hole) to get to the warm ish spring water below. Want to go back with some friends, shovels, and beers -- and spend early morning/afternoon digging, drinking, and chilling.



The food outside of Auckland hasn't been epic, but we did manage to find a really solid Fish and Chips place along with the best Indian food I've had in quite a while.



Bobby's Fish Market: Located on the harbor, it's actually a fish market so all of the fish is super fresh. We went with Snapper. Hard to tell you whether the batter or the fish itself was better; both were superb. Headed back there tonight to get the Snapper again, along with some well done chips and an order of their specialty, 'Mussel fritters.'



Talk of India: We'd went to a different Indian place on our first night, and it was meh. But last night my GF wanted Indian food again, and the weather was cold/rainy so I was down to have some warm curry. Flavors at Talk of India were awesome, the service was fantastic, and it rekindled my love for Indian food. The Beef Madras was the winner; tender chunks of beef in a spicy curry, slightly sweetened by being cooked in fresh coconut.

I don't play MTTs at all but your thread is still one of my favourite reads on 2p2 (it even slightly tempts me to go over to the dark side) as you always have great travel/food updates and an impressive work ethic/results and are quite literally living the dream imo.

Have you ever done a recap of your favourite travel destinations/places you've lived? If not I'd love to see it if it's not too time consuming.

interesting

This is the part that resonated with me the most, and I will be repeating it to people to sound intelligent.

Thanks for that and for this.



Guess I should rephrase; when I said GTO, I was referring to a more general approach of using balanced ranges/sizings/lines and less exploitative play. I obviously can't know for certain if they're PIO approved without taking a deep dive into the program.

Thanks!

The MTT grind isn't super interesting, it's clear that the travel/food updates are what carries this thread. I posted a while back about winning $35k and no one seemed to care, but as soon as I show a few pictures of Indian curry, I'm Mr. Popular.

Wanted to highlight this part because I truly don't think I'm "special" in regards to genius level intellect or specialized poker ability. I'm just willing to admit my mistakes and do my best to learn from them. I'm less bullish on the "anyone can do this for a living" idea than I used to be, but I'd still contend that you don't have to be a 'natural' to make a living at this game -- You just have to be honest with yourself and put in the work.

Wrote about it earlier in this thread, dug up the post.

That was written a year ago and to be fair, I've never stepped foot in Australia and my sample size in Spain/England/Italy is rather small. Willing to expand on this/revise my list if there's interest, but I should probably build my sample in NZ first.

Spain, Portugal and Italy might have been awesome for poker in the past.

Now that they are regulated and mostly seperated you will have a hard time there grinding fulltime MTTs.

So should I write the list as a full-time MTT grinder?

Do you only play ko's now? Sharkscope said you do. Or is just that every game is now KO on fascistStars?

Mostly KOs on Stars, simply because the non KO offerings are slim and super reggy. Even something like a $16.50 8-Max has a surprisingly low % of recreational players.

Today I learned: curry > 35k scores

Welp, looks like 888 removed that (and the $109 PKO). Sad. If that sticks, it means I'm down to only a handful of games on 888, which in theory is bad for them, but uhhh I wasn't exactly paying much thanks to the 'Rake or Break' offer.



Guess I've got some room to add games, perhaps I'll add ACR back into the mix.

Can't eat $35k.

Can you tell me how is possible to multitable so many rooms without issues? I tried to add 1-2 tables from ggpoker and i am timing out everywhere or using bank on every hand. I use bb conversion on stars which makes everything easier but on ggpoker i use excel or calculator to convert stacks. On top adding calculating betting sizes etc it is a pain to grind even two rooms i dont know how you can play in 3-4. Do you use any all around software or it is just experience from having similar stacks in mtts over the years? Thanks

I'm sure the years I spent mass-tabling helps, as usually I don't find it much of an issue to mix sites. However, GG is the glaring exception. All of the bells and whistles are undoubtedly gorgeous fish magnets, but they do a number on my computer's processing power/speed. Can't seem to handle more than three of their tables at a time (along with my other ones) without lagging and freezing.

Currently not using any sort of additional software to help with bet sizings, table positioning, or anything similar, just a whole lot of typing and clicking. I'm a freak.

Yea GGpoker is a nightmare for processing - never seen anything like it tbh.

Yup, it's insane. Arguably worth the headache, although the signing of DN made me go



Month is over in the New Zealand time zone, so it's recap time.

Took a little while, but I finally feel 'settled' here in Auckland. While I enjoy spontaneity in my off time, I'm a big fan of routines when it comes to productivity. Usual workday looks something like this:

5:30 AM-6:30 AM: Wake up
6:30 AM-2:30 PM: Grind
3:00 PM-4:00 PM: Gym
5:30 PM-7:00 PM: Dinner
7:30 PM til bed: Hang out with GF

Knew before I moved here that I'd have to be up much earlier to play the same schedule and I honestly thought it'd be a fairly significant obstacle. It hasn't been. Most mornings I'm able to catch the beginning stages of the $44 Builder and tomorrow I'll get up even earlier to play the $215. Def requires some extra discipline on my part, but I'll keep doing it on days where I think the late schedule has significantly less EV (Friday-Tuesday for most of the world). Going to use those days as 'rest' days if needed, and either play the late schedule, cash at the nearby casino, or get away from the tables entirely.

In previous posts I referenced a few of the touristy excursions we've done so far, but I forgot to mention two others.

Hamilton Gardens
Gardens aren't really my thing, but for whatever reason I thoroughly enjoyed these ones. Perhaps it was because each was unique, picturesque, and the weather was perfect for a leisurely stroll. Included some pics of my favorites:

Chinese Scholar's Garden


Italian Renaissance


Indian Char Bagh


Tudor Garden


Middle Earth
Admittedly, I'm not a huge LOTR fan. I've seen the films and am vaguely aware of the plot (One ring to rule them all, hobbits/fantastical creatures, war, physical/mental journey, etc) but I'm not someone who can quote the films or name more than 2-3 characters. Neither is my GF, and she was the one pushing for this tour. Why? Oh, right. Because it's so pretty.









The tour was great. Guide was friendly/super informative, GF got lots of pics in front of various hobbit holes and for two hours I got to feel like slightly less of a nerd because of the dorky virgins on our tour.



November
Games: 581 (523 MTTs)
Profit: $17,500



Didn't match last month's volume, but that was a near impossible task given the differences in my living situations.

In October, I was living alone/in Mexico and had nothing to do except grind
In November, I spent a week in the US, another week in New Zealand without permanent accommodation, and had my GF with me

So given all of that, I'm reasonably happy with the volume. Effort was certainly there. EV BB took a bit of a dive over the final few days.

Stars: 9.22/100 ($60 ABI)
Non Stars: 12.01/100 ($146 ABI)

It's closer to 13 on PS if I remove the few hundred hands with 200+ BB eff stacks. Still, I don't want to be cherry picking stats to make myself feel better, but do recognize that I'm def not supposed to run at -30 EV BB/100 with deep stacks. It's a small sample, but certainly something that I'll pay attention to. Unfortunately that'll be harder going forward, since I'm replacing 888's volume with untracked sites. That'll make leak-finding a more arduous task, and I haven't come up with a game plan yet how to properly handle it. Thoughts/suggestions?

Ultimately I think it's a good thing that I nearly ripped off a $20k month despite the biggest bink being ~$5k. Certainly had some opportunities for larger scores, most notably Sunday's $215 Mega Deep on 888 with $20k ut. Came into the FT 4/9 and finished 9th for $1700. Can't win 'em all.

Chilling for the rest of the day, then will be up bright and early tomorrow to start December off right.

The past 36 hours have been annoying; dropped like $5k and that's never a good feeling right before the big Sunday grind. But month is still in the black and my volume is sick (300+ games @ $90 ABI). Haven't had an off day yet in December and I'm not about to, unless the GF requests one.

When I haven't been grinding, I'm either eating or working out. Discovered a website in NZ that offers 50% off deals for early patrons at local restaurants, and given my crack-of-dawn MTT schedule, it works perfectly for us. Was initially concerned that the restaraunts would be poor quality, but have been pleasantly surprised. The two most recent meals we had were from:

1) Harbour Society: Upscale, fine dining restaraunt on the 15th floor of some snazzy hotel, overlooking the -- you guessed it -- harbor.





I had the Ribeye, GF had the duck. Both were solid, albeit not specatcular. My favorite dish from this place was the Smoked Crayfish Tail appetizer, but unfortunately we didn't get a picture of that so here's a stock photo. Was easily the best bite of food I've had in this country.



2) Hugo's Bistro: More relaxed/casual atmosphere but similar priced cuisine. We shared three entrees: Duck Leg Confit, Ricotta Gnocchi, and Wagyu Bavette.







I know this is an odd take, but the sides were probably my favorite parts. The fries were arguably perfect: hot, crispy, salty, and tasted enough like potato but not too much, if that makes any sense. The 'greens' with the duck were incredible, it was listed as a 'Summer Vegetable Ragu' served in a herbacious duck fat reduction sauce. The meats in the dishes were fine, if I had to pick a favorite entree overall tho it's the Ricotta Gnocchi which had a lot lemon/pepper/herb flavor.


Got a great deal on a 6 month membership ($45 per month, first two months free) and have been using it often. Gym has something called 'CrowdDJ' which is effectively a jukebox where members can walk over/pick the next song. There's also an app that allows you to access all of the features from your phone. Naturally, I downloaded it and currently am the only active user at that location.



Unfortunately the library isn't as extensive as I'd like, it's missing a ton of rap songs and all of them are (obviously) edited. Not sure if Auckland locals are familiar with old school Busta Rhymes, but they'll learn.

You guys got any suggestions of other songs I should play? It's my first time being a DJ. Only rule is I conclude my workout/DJ set with the same song. A classic, if you ask me...

I recall you mentioned there was like a sharkscope rating or something like that where you could check on the softness/reginness with a specific tournament? How do you find this? I recalled it was like a number where higher it is, the more tougher field it is.

That' easy. Search a player that played that MTT, next to Graph, there is tournaments. In that list just click on that MTT, and it will show the runners it had, and they're average ability rating, Then you can do that per specific days, track it. Or if there's a big difference on a Sunday compared to a Tuesday for example.

Remember tho, it won't calculate the blocked/Opt-out ones, so it's still biased.

https://ibb.co/k0N79V9

https://ibb.co/pfg1Wzd

Not only is there bias, but the ability rating itself isn't perfect as it tends to put too much weight on ABI. Some hopelessly losing players at $100+ ABI have higher ability ratings than winners at low stakes. Still, while imperfect, it can at least help give a general idea of the field composition.

Past few days have sucked. After starting the month up $10k, I've lost most of that back and can feel the 'accumulated tilt' in my veins. This morning I was muttering stuff to myself mid-grind, about how bad I run, how good others run, why did I wake up early for this -- You know, all of those healthy thoughts.



Surely the 'run good' was part of why it's been easier for me to acclimate to the earlier NZ schedule. Before this recent stretch, I had been straight printing in this time zone. Life was so simple back then: wake up, drink coffee, click buttons, make hands, get paid, hold big spots, profit. But now that I've hit a downer, we'll see if I'm able to continue to drag myself out of bed and put in the early morning grinds. Shouldn't be a problem. It's not even that bad of a downer. If I'm going to go all 'fetal position' after dropping 80 buy-ins, I might as well cash-out and save myself the heartache, right? Although in terms of post-poker careers, I'm not sure if I'm qualified to do other things unless there's a market for locating old but still entertaining cat videos.





On an unrelated note, I am taking tomorrow off. I'm itching to grind, but GF wants to do some normal human stuff and I gave her the choice of Friday or Saturday. She tentatively chose Friday. I'm hoping she changes her mind but won't know until later tonight.

what does your girlfriend do with all of her free time? (Or does she work remotely or anything).

Pretty awesome that your girl is just willing to move around the world with you and allows you to grind long hours most days.

She's a nurse, and NZ (along with many other countries) has a shortage so they happily let her work in their country. We've briefly discussed the idea of Britain/Ireland/Scotland as well.

In a perfect world, she'd get only morning shifts (7-3) so we'd be done around the same time. Unfortunately, as a 'fill in' nurse, she has to take what she can get and is often saddled with afternoons/nights. A few days this week, I'm headed to bed as she's off to work and vice versa. Two ships passing in the night, etc. That part is shitty because we'd like to spend more time with each other, especially while we're on semi-vacation, but both of us have really strong work ethics. It's hard to pry me away from the grind, and she feels antsy if there isn't a paycheck coming in from her side.