Hello

JTs ded an open UTG at any stack size in MTTs

Only exception we have immediate icm pressure on ourselves.

Read: there is one or preferably multiple capable big stacks left to act behind us that have proven capable of exerting pressure on us by expanding their vpip vs anybody on a shorter stack than them, PLUS there is a significant payjump imminent.

The second part is not a given. Yes people are not as tight as they would have been before but people are still tight and JTs is anything but a speculative hand (65s and 67s and 78s is and it is indeed a fold now but an open in other circumstances)

Once you start folding JTs in early position from 60bbs the only thing you do is cost yourself ev in many more ways than you may think

can confirm JTs is an open even if multiple reshoving stacks behind... and it could be fold if ppl start jammin A8o type of stuff into your UTG open... which is not gonna happen

Everybody is ok to be run over in the TT hand to insure the min cash ?

TT is sort of a tough spot, calling turn isnt even high chipsEV wise, although its prob a defend I can see how folding would be okay with ICM pressure, we have a bunch of better hands to defend with, we’re not getting obliterated there

if we fold TT then lmao yes we are getting obliterated

villain isn't exactly a combinatrics master either as far as I can tell, should be a fairly high EV call

villain covers doesnt he?

He did.

I told Gaz I thought it was fine as played, is TT a fold there? No, but calling off on the bubble in a marginal spot when you still have 50bbs if you fold doesn’t seem horrible to me either

icecream is a lie

think it's much closer than mayo makes it seem like

Some very interesting comments, firstly the JTs hand! To be clear, the bubble had burst several hours ago, and approximately 300 people had busted since that point. 1286 got paid, and there was well under 1k left. I point that out because it wasn't as if we had JUST made the money and wanted to let that surge of bustouts pass; it had already happened. Another important factor is that there were no stacks <20bb on our table (I'm almost certain I'm right in saying that). And laaaaastly, the pay jumps were insignificant to me personally. If the flop had come down 982hhx we were happy to pull our pants down and stick it in because laddering didn't mean very much to us! So I'm happy enough with the JTs hand, and not gonna lie, it was pretty devastating to see him turn over QJs

The TT hand. Really interesting spot. I have no shame in saying the following: I think that because I had other people's money at stake I was reluctant to bust. The guys who bought pieces are of course comfortable financially and their pieces aren't life changing or anything like that, but it was more the fact that I didn't wanna have to report back saying I had busted just before itm and lost their money in such a high variance spot that could easily be avoided. I am aware that that should not dictate how we play hands, but I'm just being honest with what was going through my mind at the time. Secondly, and I think this is really important, Lena is of course an extreeeeeemely accomplished MTT player, but he hadn't been aggressive at all during the 6 or 7 hours we had played together. There were a few spots he x/b otf etc (defo not saying they were right/wrong/whatever) and he hadn't gone ballistic on anyone, even during the bubble period. So I was actually super suprised when he showed me a bluff. Another really important factor is a complete inexperience in this specific situation. I would like to think that if I'd been in a similar spot a few times in my life prior to it happening this time, I coulda called turn and called river. But I hadn't been, and thus I folded!

One last thing I'm gonna talk about is my overall approach to live MTTs. I am genuinely planning a big MTT schedule next WSOP, and working on my MTT game up until then, and I'm really excited about it. One thing that absolutely needs to improve is my stack preservation during MTTs. There were one or two river calls I made on day 4 where I could've folded river vs aggression. At the time I thought it was no big deal but the more I think about it, the more I realise that if we save chips in those spots and preserve our stack, when the JTs hand occurs we are left with more than just 22bb, and our whole tournament pans out differently. Again that comes down to lack of experience!

TL;DR - I'm not bad at poker, but I lack experience in big MTTs, and I'm going balls to the wall to win a bracelet next year!

***

I haven't played any poker since getting back to UK! Gonna try do a stream tomorrow. I can't pay anyone back until I deposit and pay some rake on Stars, so hopefully get that done this week, before heading down to Ldn this weekend for a friend's birthday. Gonna be wiiiiiild

Mad respect for the honesty in regards to how you felt in certain hands during the main. Not everyone is capable of that.

Glgl next year if you play a massive sched, I’m semi considering doing the same thing next summer in Vegas (and largely playing only cash outside of series, I do feel like I’ll need to do some studying too for it).

Will get these sent out in the next 24 hours, promise!!

***

Had a great weekend away in London for whatalife333's bday, viewed a couple of flats in London, saw one that I really like and hopefully will get it. If not I'm gonna go down next week with all my **** and rent an airbnb for a week and just view as many flats as possible and sort something out. Keen to get back to the big smoke.

Played my first session back on Stars tonight. The 500z pool looked pretty fun so flicked it in. I ran insanely well for 30 mins and booked a sexy dubya.



Make a boat, get paid.



Make a boat, get paid.



I did butcher a couple of hands



And again



500z regs are on the roids fkn 24/7



Absolute roids man wtf is this flop xc



Snapped his dick off lol



Rekt



Great to be back in the Stars streets!

*** I am certain everyone is paid now, if anyone has any queries please let me know asap! ***



Swingy couple of days. I am jumping into the 500z pool when it's rly good, but if I'm gonna do that I absolutely must show more discipline and gtfo when it turns bad, regardless of results. Was battling with ppl who are far more experienced/have run mmmmmmmmany more sims than me yesterday for a while purely coz I was stuck! Some hands...

zzz



Same guy, bit thin mate



Abbbbbbbsolute roid rage from this guy lmao



https://youtu.be/9s4hGw6E734?t=67 - "pants down, stick it in" is my new motto.



I've also played a buuuuunch of PLO lately but my HM2 doesn't track it for whatever reason. I'm up a little after a lil heat there last night...

https://gyazo.com/4a7d83997bd2ab0ae8305320c99d953e

I very much need a day off to make me realise that I need to stop rofling around and get some form of structure/self discipline/restraint/common ****ing sense into my life and get back to grinding a certain game/stake/site consistently, but...



Edit - I'd really like some advice actually, can anyone recommend a good book for improving one's self discipline? I would imagine something like this would help me a lot in every aspect of life!

Atomic Habits - and I would advise against the random 500nl upgrade

There are some good Ted Talks on building discipline. The power of habit and the battle between present and future you are particularly good.

Definitely saw you in some of the tougher 500 pools yesterday. Seems like people are spicing it off to you though from some of these HHs!

One thing that really helps me is to have a spreadsheet tracking each session, with columns for stake (just fill these out in advance so you don’t have any leeway), time played (start and end time, down to the minute), result, and a note column for how you played, etc. I fill the result with either green or red for +/-, too, for easy visual reference

Then I would just share it with someone who will help keep you responsible. I’m so thankful to my friend who showed me this, in just a short amount of time, it became a habit for me and it helped me in a myriad of ways, mainly in that it keeps me honest with myself and I don’t get stuck telling myself white lies as excuses for poor results, poor play, or irresponsible decisions

This, it's hard to not look like a douche while saying that you should be careful with 500z, but if you can't quit the session when it's tough, you are better off not playing it. But it's the reality, those guys are insane and shouldn't be underestimated ever.

Fold KQo pre and A5o is never a defend vs MP, you gotta have at least a plan when playing 500z and a good advice would be to play at least slightly tighter than monker. You want to get involved with the fish as much as possible and avoid those crushers as much as you can (specially in wide range vs wide range spots) and those 2 hands are just too loose: monker folds 100% A5o vs MP, so you are overdefending a hand that is a fold in theory vs someone who is likely a far stronger player.

Some tips for you to play better (lose less) vs stronger opponents:

-tighten up pre vs tough lineups, just fold all mixed frequency opens/3-bets
-simplify as much as possible (1 sizing per spot, range cbet as much as possible, range check as much as possible)
-don't try to outguess the good regs ever
-learn the spots where you overcall/overfold and force some folds/calls that you wouldn't do otherwise, even if you think that some calls might be +EV(because you could be wrong and it's very likely that you will be if they see that you are defending all your bluffcatchers or overfolding), force some folds if you think you are overcalling just to not make their bluffs always super -EV, give them reasons to have bluffing/give up ranges and punishment for valuebetting too thin.
-when in doubt in spots that you have a lot of bluff candidates, underbluff.
-avoid using any sort of fish logic like "inducing", "trapping", "pot control","smaller for value", "protecting my checking range", stick to what your combos like doing and what you learned from pio.

If you apply all your knowledge of pio and don't go greedy with exploits that should limit how much you will lose vs the regs and you might be +EV in there if there is enough fish.

Gl,man!
Vaaaaamooo

Gotta love rapidesh giving advise on how to crush 500z ez pz

My advice is not about crushing 500z, but to avoid getting raped in there

https://mises.org/sites/default/file...%20Power_3.pdf

Good post!

what a surprise. Rapidesh makes another solid, helpful post with good advice and the zynga poker bosses come and berate him

Ive seen you in a pretty tough field couple days ago, so dont think theres much pool selection going on on your part (fwiw I was dumb enough to join it too so not trying to berate!)

can you elaborate on why "protecting my checking range" is fish logic? personally I'm also skeptical about this concept but I have seen it thrown around by the good regs eg. doug polk.