I'm not going to moan etc, I am so lucky to be born with the family I have, to have the support group of amazing friends I had at school, to meet people like imfromsweden, european and others etc, completely and utterly blessed more than 99.9999999% of people but regarding poker yes ran bad.

I don't really care that much though, I used to randomly be a huge nit, I would play $10k 6max and sell 70%, 10k high roller and sell 80% etc, now I fire basically everything 100% for myself. I think that I didn't have as much confidence in myself at previous times though.

I used to have really a lot of jealously towards people, even very close friends when they did better than I. If I played a £50 tourney with £300 roll and friend won for £700 I would be super, super jealous and almost not want him to win those crucial flips. Not sure why it is what it is now, but when European and Elmerixx are on FT's I really want them to win just as much as I want myself to win. Obviously they're super close friends, but just as much as the guys previously. If I was 4 years younger I would really struggle to put past the success that European has had in high stakes for example

Here are our 0-800$ graphs.

Pads



European



Here are our 800-10k graphs

Pads



European



In the past looking at these 4 graphs, the self entitlement from the first graph and the entitlement tilt from the second would just really make me so weak mentally and I would really struggle to root for somebody even if they were my really good friend. I spoke about it on Joe Ingrams podcast, I was very self conscious about this as I thought it meant I was a completely bad guy and an awful friend and I was very ashamed about it, but when I opened up about it, I had dozens of people write to me that they had the same feeling.

As I have said in dozens and dozens of articles and interviews, variance is amazing in poker as it increases our roi substantially because good regs quit or go broke because of it and if we stay on course its amazing for us.

The fact like I said, isn't that I've run disgustingly bad or whatever, because the variance is like this, this is supposed to happen.

Lets say I have 15% roi in those games, here are how the stats look like.

I am on one of the worst runs possible in the samples, but still, I am around 50% chance to be losing over this sample, which when you cannot play a sample size of your highest stake games its really a **** show. This is what I've been thinking about, live mtt regs, or guys who only play sundays etc, god knows who is good and who isn't, in reality you just have guys who run good and guys who run bad, nobody really knows who is good and who isn't.

Buyins + fees $559,130
EV $83,870
Average net profit (simulated) $52,286
Average ROI (simulated) 9%
Standard deviation $497,837
Skew 0.9
Kurtosis 0.8
Probability of loss (simulated) 56% (562 out of 1000 samples)
70% confidence interval (simulated) $-559,130 - $480,870 (700 out of 1000 samples)
-100% - 86% ROI
95% confidence interval (simulated) $-559,130 - $1,208,870 (950 out of 1000 samples)
-100% - 216% ROI
99.7% confidence interval (simulated) $-559,130 - $1,936,870 (997 out of 1000 samples)
-100% - 346% ROI


Poker in general is the best game and the stupidest game in the world.

BUT

I mean, compared to euro, everyone has run bad lol

Hey,

I've experienced some kinda same story over the past years. Therfore this post looks very familiar to my thoughts back then.
While I'm one of those guys who doesn't grind as much MTT's on weekdays and being the weak ***** who is there on tuesdays/thursdays/sundays, I wanna try to share my thoughts very briefly without making it tl;dr:
I was very lucky too to get into the german community and eventually get to learn from and grind with them. (e.g. Fresh, ssick_one, WATnlos...)
No surprise these guys were killing it most of the time while I found myself not being able to bink a big one ever. Sure thing I had mixed feelings. Rooting for them and being happy for them was totally standard as well as being jealous and having the feeling of unfairness.
I wouldn't consider myself as good as them but how could I have a 6month+ downswing 10tabling super focused while fresh is playing 20tables MTT's, Highstakes 8-Game, PLO sattys, 1k Hypers and 2k Turbos on his fricking laptop using touchpad and printing moneys?
Often times ppl inside the skypegroup were posting sunday results and moaning about the "rungood-regs" like the swedes nowadays for example and that it can't be true that some of them FT'd a major AGAIN.

Some time ago I figured that it's simply not worth it. I don't care anymore who is binking majors and who isn't. There is just no benefit in it to get into a bad mood/mindset and wasting nerves on people who you'd consider worse (skillwise) than you but are winning more. I think we're getting ourselves into a loose/loose situation by getting into a bad mindset with no real reason, question ourselves and not being as confident anymore as before.
That's like a positive freeroll for every single player out there and I'm not willing to give anything away which I don't have to.

Last point: You can't change the way things have happened anyway. Where is the point of trying? Just focus on yourself first and then everyone else. Use those bad results to develop even more pangs of hunger to crush these stakes and keep getting in there playing your best. There is not much more you can do, right?

Hope this wasn't too long and not too much babbling around.

gl @ WSOP

P.S. I'm very jealous bc i can't go. But that kinda jealousy should be okay?

I hope things turn around for you soon. #MoanItIn

Btw had one of the funniest days ever today. Was literally creasing laughing the whole day lol. So much funny stuff that I can't write publically but morale very high, not feeling bad/tilted or wte and hoping we get the lucky lottery ticket for tomorrow.

$10k 6max, will own dime it completely and can't wait to play! Really looking forward.

Do you pay taxes on WSOP winnings?

This thread is a prime example of the hedonic treadmill running at orbital velocity.

Makes you think how the pursuit of contentment via material achievement is nothing but chasing rainbows.

Your honesty and detail in this blog make it one of the best online.

It's refreshing to see a poker player completely open up about a few mental leaks during tough times. I also had a feeling of jealousy towards guys that won big stuff but tried to change and just feel happy for people and grateful that we all get a chance to compete for big money in these mtts.

GL for the rest of the series!

Lol this wtf.

Good post. I can't even remember the last time I looked through the lobbies or on P5s etc to see who won tournaments on a Sunday or duing SCOOP or w/e.

Pretty much jump on, grind my hours, log off. Study a bit, run some hands by a cpl buddies and get back to enjoying my life. The people who continuously own me in game are the guys I pay attention to, the guys I'll look through hands on, and so on.

Pads, you have these ridiculous speeches you post in your stable chat about staying strong etc during like COOP grinds for example. Why is it so often, after some minuscule sample of games, you just want to 'quit and go home' or 'what's the point?' when you're preaching away to your stable..doesn't seem like you're leading by the greatest example at time. There is obviously something to be said that you feel like you never play worse due to w/e 'tilt' you experience (I felt/feel the same in the past/present) and it is ofc important to be self aware and the fact you realize all of this is great. As you said, it seems like you've come a very long way from the Pads of years ago (I too in my own regard ofc) and are continuing to improve, all good things.

Also I realize you use this thread to post your feelings and thoughts. Just saying a lot of said feelings and thoughts don't seem to be healthy/positive.

Gl rest of WSOP season, hope the stable is doing well, as well!

Whenever I start feeling jealous of others it helps to remind myself what the alternative would be like and how that would be worse. Meaning if poker didn't give us anyone to be jealous of. If no one ever binked and then immediately binked again and then binked again, if that scenario was impossible, then what hope is there for me? 3 years ago it was look at that bad reg who shipped big109 last week and look how now he's final table at the Sunday million, what a luckbox! But if no one today made a million dollars in a year from live tournaments or 400k from online tournaments in a year it'd be depressing. And whether these things happen to friends or undeserving regs or deserving regs, to me it means if I can stay in this game long enough eventually very good things will happen to me. But again if it were statistically impossible for these things to never happen to anyone it'd be worse. And I'd be remiss to not mention that good things have already happened to me, maybe not on the serious ****you money level, but on the level where I'm still very fortunate.

I think esp last part of your post is spot on af norfair. Its so easy to compare yourself with someone who has been more fortunate, but people tend to forget that realizing your ev for example is not bad/unlucky at all. Because in that case 50% has been less fortunate than you, and even to the extent where the bottom 10% for example have much more reason to moan.

wat makes you believe your roi in 1k+s is 15%, not 5%, not 25%, not (-10%)?

i don't think the worst possible run in a 350 tournaments sample can include multiple ~30-50k scores, it's far from the worst runs in a samplesize this meaningless.

late to the party but i'll dissent

One Drop:
I'm not convinced that shoving Q8o is correct. It wins chips (maybe the most chips) as a one-off play. Ends up doing rather poorly once dario starts calling correctly. Some people here seem to think that hero is getting called less than 20% of the time in aggregate - I find that hard to believe.

10k HU:
Pre is alright. You lost me on your argument for the flop raise. I kind of doubt that raising has much value as a strategic option. Some things hinge a bit on both of your pre-flop strategies and I'm not sure how you two are approaching 19bb HUNL.

$1500 WSOP:
There's 3 to a flush on the turn so how about you tell us what suits your cards are Might be OK either way. I would be interested in hearing what you think the best off suit bluffs are on the turn and maybe to what extent your turn betting range can incorporate them...

Yeh the government will be loving my contribution this year.

Wait Ure a Brit wtf?

Doubt he has to pay taxes on losses now innit.

Always good to get a whine in though for maximum rungood after.

Not trying to rub it in, was talking in general. Do you pay taxes over individual tournaments and can you deduct losses etc?

Just wondering because these things might be totally unbeatable.

Pads is from the UK. No tax on poker winnings there.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

(And hence no deductions from losses)

(God save the queen)

Played, and busted the $10k 6max on day 2 today.

Was an amazing tournament, really, really, really love this one.

Check my fb for epic pic:

Probably my favourite picture I've ever taken (asides for anything with any of my dogs in obv) $10k 6max, traditionally the toughest tournament of the World Series. My opponent was completely blind, but managed to make it through the day with his best friend whispering every single hand to him. The hero drank white wine all day and played amazing and his friend wore a hoody and sunglasses and focused super hard so we couldn't get any reads
😍💯 #friendshipgoals #whatsyourexcuse #hero

Day 1 table was pretty great I thought, couple regs etc, but all in all was pretty good.

First interesting hand.

I raise KK utg, Koray defends bb.

I check K62
He c/call K625
He c/r K6253

Kind of a weird spot on the river, I contemplated checking the river since the only really hands I get value from are 53, 63, 23 and some stubborn bluff catcher swell as a sprinkle of kx, when I bet, its mandatory call vs the raise. But think the bet is actually pretty thin, potentially too thin?

Lost a couple more pots to Koray, checked back AA on KK8r and his 99 hit full house on turn and called two streets.

Managed to get to 120ish pretty easy and felt very comfortable then played pretty strange hand.

Ben86 opens 2800 utg, he has been pretty aggressive as you'd imagine, I imagine a little too aggressive. I 3bet button with AKo to 8300, he calls.

AJ2r, he has 36k, pot is 19kish, so kind of awkward, I have 2 street kind of hand, so I can bet flop/jam turn and just hope he has AQ and calls it off, I'm not really sure that he would call/call AQ though, maybe I'm wrong.

AJ26, he checks, and normal would be to bet turn jam river. I don't have that many hands that are incentivised to play that way though, since KQo etc I just call pre flop. I guess something like 97s could just delay bet and jam river, but I think 97s plays better as a double delay generally. I decided to check, especially as he's capable of jamming the river as a bluff etc when I check twice and in his eyes will likely be pretty capped, I think its pretty good to have some really strong hands in my double delay range too, outside of AA, although not sure if its really mandatory, but for my game/play style, think its good.

AJ267, he checks, I um and argh and tank and count stack and jam 36 into 20. I think he doesn't fold any ace and will have a bunch of Ax at this point. He had AJ though and that was not nice

Lost a flip KTo vs 86s for 15bbs each co vs sb, kinda close, but this guy is jamming a little bit too wide so call.

Few more interesting hands and finish the day with 70k coming back to 2kbb. Felt really good about the days play though.

Day 2 table was Klodniki, UK reg, fish, Berkey, Kristen.

My plan was to just rip on Berkey a lot. I had seen him cold calling super wide in some tv stuff so I just assumed he would be way too wide.

He opens first hand with bb sitting out, I rejam 35bbs in sb with ATo and he folds.

Uk reg opens, Berkey flats btn, I flat bb with 97hh.

765ccc Berkey bets, I call
765Acccx Berkey bets half my stack, pretty close, but think fold is ok, I would slowly every hand on flop vs him etc, so should be ok folding this.

UK reg opens mp, Berkey flats button, I defend bb J9o, really should have probably jammed here with 28bbs but wte.

J88hhx, check, check, he stabs again, I call
J882hhxh, check check
J8825hhxhx, check, he bets 1/3 pot.

Was really strange sizing from him, wasn't really sure what part of his range he would choose this sizing with? Overpairs? Some Jx, I felt he is just so wide pre that he gets there with a bunch of nsd and I probably have to call.

He had k5hh, for a turned flush, but if he has this hand pre flop he just has infinite random combos and folding would have been pretty bad, but I was pretty close to it.

I open AQs from 38k to 4k, fish on button makes it 8200, sigh lol. I call.
986sxx, i c/f to 7000.

Last hand, folds to Kristen, she jams 12bbs or so in SB, I have QTs and fkn loving life. She has QJo though and no sweats.

Had lots and lots and lots of fun playing this tournament. Wasn't tilted at all really after busting. Felt very happy with the whole thing.

GG vegas, back in 10 days or so for the main.

That's so ****ing cool - sounds weird but I actually think about this scenario a lot. Blindness was one of the only disabilities that I thought would put you out of playing poker. The fact this guy is firing a $10k and mixing it with the best in the world without one of the most key aspects of the game is pretty god damn amazing.

UL on busto - what's up next?

Do you know the blind gentleman's name? Is he still in?

steven iglesias

if you look on pokernews there is a picture of him and his friend. (steven is the one in the red hat)

played on that table (with pads) for a short while. was a pretty interesting scenario and had a lot of respect/admiration for the whole situation.