Fun one to win, congrats!

Grats on the win, and great write up!

Thanks guys!

Let's Talk About Bumhunting

Bumhunting is a term the poker community has taken up to describe the behavior of regs in cash games. It appears people have differing opinions on exactly what it means so I want to get my thoughts out there in this post. Two days ago I was playing cash and a game broke down to just me and a reg. For several different reasons, which I'll outline shortly, I don't play regs heads up online, so I left the table. A few minutes later a fish sat a new table, and I joined that game. I got a tweet shortly after from said reg telling me to "just sit and play." I ignored it but it kinda annoyed me in the moment. About 30 minutes later I stacked a fish. Oftentimes when a fish gets stacked he'll remain at the table. They might be reloading, depositing more money on the site, taking a break, or have simply walked away and are done playing. My policy when this happens is I'll continue playing given I think it's not a great look to immediately leave or sit out right after a fish busts. Once it gets back to his big blind, the guy who tweeted at me sits out and leaves the table. I was floored. Coincidentally I was recording my entire session that afternoon with commentary, so I have video evidence of my frustration of this incident! He's publicly messaging me to keep playing but can't play his BB even once after this guy leaves?? Granted, it did appear he quit his session entirely at that point, which I'd normally have no problem with. But surely someone who feels this passionate about playing every reg heads up all the time would need to play a few orbits to satisfy his own set of morals?

So why don't I play regs heads up? There are several reasons, the first of which being I do not study heads up. The best heads up guys are for sure beating me. I imagine I'd hold my own against most regs, but I doubt I'd be beating them at any reasonable rate, and if we're breaking even against each other then we're losing rake. Why not play each other with play money and settle later to avoid paying the site for the privilege of playing each other? Even if I am winning at a small clip, it's not worth it to have that table distracting me while I have a bunch of other games running, which is my second reason for not playing heads up. It's a serious distraction when I'm multi tabling. I've even had 3 handed games with a fish before that, while they were clearly profitable, I've quit in order to focus on 6 other games that I considered very good. Playing short handed is difficult and in a game where I'm probably breakeven if my full attention is on it, I'm clearly losing when I'm distracted. Now one could make the argument that losing a little bit to keep a game going is worth it in the long run. This is why I'm willing to continue a full ring game against just regs if a fish remains sitting out at the table. But once the fish leaves I struggle to see why I'm obligated to continue playing at that point, or how there's anything ethically wrong with quitting.

Any of the arguments I've seen about needing to start games vs other regs to get games going have pretty easy counterpoints. "Fish won't play if games aren't running." This simply isn't true. Fish constantly sit regs heads up and the game fill shortly after. I think saying they won't play implies that fish are total idiots with feelings that can be hurt easier than a 5 year old's. Fish aren't necessarily stupid people. They might not be good at poker, but a lot of them are smarter than me in real life. I imagine most of them realize that regs want to play with them because these regs think they aren't good at poker. Some want to battle anyway to show that their style can be a winning one. Some want to test themselves even though they know they're losing. And some simply want to gamble and don't care that they're losing; this is like blackjack or craps to them in some ways. I also don't think a fish cries himself to sleep after realizing that games fill up around him. There's this underlying sentiment that filling a game around a fish is an awful look and makes people feel bad. I think this is disrespectful to fish! I give them enough credit in that I think they know the deal and don't mind playing anyway, but maybe I'm just a big mean bully who isn't looking out enough for people's feelings. There are certainly a small number of fish who don't like that games fill around them, and I respect their decision not to play. If they don't like the way it works they shouldn't play. They could also move down in stakes where they won't be sat as quickly. But if you're playing 2/5+ online I think it's a reasonable assumption that good players will want to play with you. I know there are some regs who will try to get games started when action is dead, and I have no issue with that. But I personally will either play lower stakes, stop playing and study, or end my session if higher stakes are dead. I don't really see how it can be argued that this is unethical or lacks integrity, which is what a small handful of regs seem to be spouting off to the poker world any time they have a platform.

Are there other reasons for needing to start games? Is the feeling among the poker community that I need to prove to the world that I think I'm better than every other reg online and I'll take on all comers? I play cash games to make money. I'm a professional poker player. Asking me to play regs for any reason to me is akin to asking a lawyer to take on pro bono cases to show the world how good of a lawyer they are. It's asking a marathon runner to take on 400 meter specialists if he thinks he's such a good runner. It doesn't make much sense to me and the fact that a handful of regs describe my behavior as "bumhunting" and imply I'm unethical for doing it is extremely out of line imo. I don't button regs. I don't snap sit out when a fish gets stacked. I've had plenty of 10/20 games where a fish gets stacked and I continue playing until he leaves or reloads. I don't understand the argument that I need to continue playing in that game afterwards or I'm a "bumhunter." Theoretically regs could play against each other 24 hours a day, which no one is doing. So clearly everyone has their own personal idea of what is acceptable and what isn't. I really can't stand when a reg whose line is that he'll play 12 hands of heads up before quitting a game gets up on his soapbox to tell me what I'm doing is wrong. I personally can't stand when someone immediately sits out while a fish is still at the table, but I understand that that's my personal line, so I don't call these guys out publicly.

So in conclusion I have my own line and I get frustrated when certain regs don't reach that line, but if they aren't breaking TOS then I won't say anything publicly. I'm curious what those reading this think. Where is your ethical line? Do you even agree on the premise that everyone has a line and there's no "correct" answer to this issue? Let me know.

You aren't in the wrong at all imo. As long as someone isn't buttoning/sitting out before fish leaves/etc they are fine. Every reg has people they wouldn't play if they sat them. Just because one reg has a shorter list of people they won't play than another reg doesn't allow them to get on a soapbox. I do think there are positives to being willing to play a small chunk of hands hu vs other regs to see if a table can get going, but no one should be forced to do so. Being a professional poker player is already stressful enough without adding in needless variance from hu battling vs other good players.

It's funny how every time this conversation comes up it's always centered around American midstakes regs. The EU regs never argue about this **** because they have a modicum of decorum when it comes to starting and keeping tables running. They even work together to sit in certain seats to form a diamond so they each have an equal opportunity to get the jesus.




I find it odd that regs still argue about this **** and that we don't adhere to a set of unspoken rules when we are playing in games getting raked 2-5bb/100. I've railed the high stakes GG games on twitch a few times and you know how a game gets started? Because a rec sat down. And you know what happens when the rec busts and leaves the table? THE GAME SNAP BREAKS! It doesn't matter if it's nl20k or nl200. If you are getting raked >1bb/100 then you really need to be diligent about what games you sit and play in.

I do believe we should stick to a certain code of ethics such as: don't snap sit out when the rec busts, don't seat hop to get jesus, don't leave a table because you thought it was going to break only to see a new rec sat down and hop back on the table, don't btn regs, don't hit and run a reg HU after the table died, DO keep the game running while the rec is sitting out and wait a few minutes or so until they leave or it's obvious they are not coming back. Don't open a new table if a reg is already sitting HU at the same stake.

As long as these rules are met then every reg is free to play how they see fit and should not be shamed because they don't feel like battling at high raked mid stake games.

That reg owes you an apology.

Great post.

Everyone thinks their's doesn't stink, but when it comes down to it, no one wants to take a -EV spot. Everyone's "ethics" are subjective and change based on mood, who they like or dislike. The only objectivity is the rules.

I had a pretty decent friendship ruined years ago because someone did not like my table ethics and he let that turn ugly and personal. Very disappointing at the time.

There's definitely shades of grey as you and Bobby aptly point to. But as long as it's not against TOS there is no amount of bitching in the world that can change what others do. And yet every year, people waste their breath and energy complaining about it. For example, if a major seat hop is +EV, I don't fault anyone (myself included) for going after it. Is it ugly if the rec notices? Sure. It also sucks when people iso and re-iso the rec don't let them see flop etc, it's all part of the game. I'm sure the rec doesn't enjoy that either, but it's done because it's profitable. And btw on seat hopping, one site employed a major change to randomize seat selection, so it's no longer possible. That's totally cool too.

Wrt to what you wrote Bobby I don't completely disagree. However, I've been grinding 40 hrs a week for almost a decade now. I have no idea how much rake I've saved taking a break when the fish takes a break, but it's probably a pretty nice chunk. More than that, I've saved mental energy and tilt which allows me to focus on my 9+ other tables and extend my session length. That second amount probably sums up to a much larger number. I've also missed plenty of opportunities to sit back in on time and miss hands or get booted from the table completely, so it's not like it's a free lunch either.

Dan, you absolutely don't owe anyone anything other than to play honestly within the terms of service set forth by the site. If the sites want to prevent certain behaviors, it is absolutely trivial for them to write it and enforce it in TOS. As you said, you're a pro and here to make money.

That reg might have done you dirty, but he probably doesn't think so. You can't change his behavior anymore than he can change yours. So don't sweat it and keep grinding.

Pokerarb, it's clear you have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about these issues. You take your job as a professional poker player seriously, and you've done it successfully for a long time. For that, I commend you and appreciate your post. However, I hold a pretty strong oppositional stance to you on these issues, to the point that I think it's important they are addressed publicly. I truly believe that your line of thinking here is not just damaging to the poker community at large, but is symbolic of a selfish attitude that prevails throughout society. And even if I can't change your mind or the decisions you make, hopefully I can influence others reading this to take my point of view into consideration.

The main sticking point in your argument simply boils down to the following: So long as I'm not breaking the law (TOS), then anything is fair game. "Ethics" (your quotations, not mine) are totally subjective, and therefore worthless.

Surely (I hope), you don't believe this to be true outside the game of poker. You don't steal from your neighbor because it's illegal; you don't steal from them because you don't want to harm them. You know, through your own moral compass, that it's wrong. The law protects your neighbor and their property from immoral actors, sociopaths and the like. But for the most part, people don't steal because they want to "do the right thing."

And yet, when it comes to poker in your eyes, there is no such thing as doing the right thing. You referenced multiple times this idea that a professional poker player's primary goal is to make money. But you use that as a basis to justify any and all behavior that is outside the scope of the written law. So long as it's within the rules, nobody should be criticized or condemned.

However let's get back to this idea of stealing from your neighbor. In poker, a clear example of this is sitting out while the fish sits out. A simple toy game demonstrates this: In a 6-max game with 5 pros and 1 fish, if all the pros are of equal skill level, then the 5 pros are now -EV (due to rake) while the fish sits out. However, they keep playing in the hopes the fish will sit back in. The pros are paying an EV price now for an EV payoff later. The pro who sits out, on the other hand, retains the benefit of the future EV gained (the game continues to run) while his fellow pros pay his rake for him. He is, in effect, stealing from his fellow pros. We can easily see the logical conclusion of what happens if every pro sat out while the fish sits out -- the game breaks, and thus no future EV is created. This behavior is therefore "bad for poker" in the most literal way possible.

Now, you might argue, what if you admit that you are actually at a steeper disadvantage to the other pros in this new 5-pro, 0-fish setup? Your skill level simply isn't as good as the other pros, and you are not just paying rake; you are losing in this game, even in a non-rake environment. You shouldn't have to subject yourself to playing in these types of lineups, right? Yes, I'd argue that is correct. However the clear ethical answer here is to simply leave the table and allow for a willing professional to join. By sitting out and not leaving, you are stealing EV from that player as well, as they no longer have access to the future EV.

I'm not going to address other specific issues such as seat hopping, grimming, or anything else in this post, but having been in and around poker (both live and online) for 20 years now, it's clear there are many gray areas in this game that are worth debating if you are at all interested in doing the right thing. A poker game has its own set of rules set forth by the operator of the game. But those are far from the only guidelines worth considering when we, as professionals, look to behave at the table.

The elephant in the room here is something you addressed in your post:

Yes, there will always be bad actors in poker. Sociopaths who will never change their behavior because they have no interest in doing the right thing. (Looking at you angrygilmore, you despicable loser). They will continue to steal from all of us and will never face any consequences, and their behavior is certainly tempting to highlight and use as justification for acting the same way. Poker is a cutthroat game, after all.

But we owe it to ourselves, and our fellow professionals, to do better than that. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Set a good example. Create future EV. Be "good for the game."

Hi Franklin,

I want to thank you for your thoughtful, calm, and balanced post. I too respect your work-ethic and success as a pro. More importantly, I have only heard excellent things through our mutual friends and acquaintances about your character outside of poker, which only strengthens that respect and extends it off the tables. Your point of view does not fall on deaf ears.

However, I'm sure it is no surprise to you that I still do not agree with your point of view and find fallacy in the specific analogy you gave wrt stealing from neighbor being equated to sitting out when the fish does. I do not think it constructive or the right forum to debate that example or this topic further, but I completely respect and appreciate your opinions and candor.

I suspect if we sat down and talked philosophy of human nature or politics we would find ourselves at different points of view as well. Which is inherently driving our disagreements on this specific topic within poker. Putting this issue aside, I wish you well and continued good fortune in and out of poker.

Thanks to everyone who gave their input on the cash game debate. My own personal code is pretty spot on to what BobbyPeru described here:

"I do believe we should stick to a certain code of ethics such as: don't snap sit out when the rec busts, don't seat hop to get jesus, don't leave a table because you thought it was going to break only to see a new rec sat down and hop back on the table, don't btn regs, don't hit and run a reg HU after the table died, DO keep the game running while the rec is sitting out and wait a few minutes or so until they leave or it's obvious they are not coming back. Don't open a new table if a reg is already sitting HU at the same stake."

I completely agree with Franklin's Dad's post and think he represented the situation very well. The question I always ask myself is "if every reg behaved the way I am right now would this cause a problem in the future?" To me, even if regs aren't battling heads up or short handed, games will still run, so I don't see an issue with not battling. However, if I started to seat jump, or button regs heads up, or sit out as soon as the fish sits out (and is still at the table...if I have a ton of games running I tend to leave shortly after), or never open sit on Stars but always open sit on Party given the inherent advantages of doing that, then I'd have an issue with myself, because things would become a mess if every reg was attempting this. There would be chaos with people scrambling to change seats all the time and it would become very very clear the fish was being targeted. Every reg would be open sitting every stake on Party and it'd be nearly impossible to observe every table to see when a new game starts. Franklin's Dad did a great job of pointing out how sitting out while the fish is still at the table while the other regs continue to play really is stealing EV from those regs given they're paying rake while you don't, not to mention the bad look when you sit back in immediately after fish does. He also made a great point that staying in that seat takes away EV from the reg watching the game who would sit in and play just in hopes of the fish coming back. I thought that was very well explained and it's led to me being more cognizant in those situations to either keep playing or leave the table.

At the end of the day it's incredible how high a percentage of regs adhere to these unwritten rules. In tournaments this doesn't happen. Regs perpetually take too much time with every decision, stall on bubbles, stall near payjumps, stall to piss people off. My question of "what would happen if everyone did this" really rings true because everyone did indeed do this in MTTs. Now bubbles are agonizing, clocks have to be called consistently, venues attempt to add shot clocks, it's a miserable experience. If everyone played at a normal rate none of these issues would exist, but instead of shaming the few bad apples, MTT regs decided to join the madness because it's "+EV." It would suck if that kind of thing became prevalent in cash as well.

Tournaments!

I'm gonna do a short rundown here of the last few days and probably do a longer post at a later date when I have more time. The cliffnotes are that I chopped a 713 player $100 tourney on Stars Sunday heads up for a little more than ICM, then drove to Borgata and chopped a 726 player $600 live tourney 3 ways for a little more than ICM.

I wrote this as part of my post on September 27: "I desperately did not want to be picked to be on this jury on September 5th, but today I'm really happy I was. I'm out of rhythm with my job but I feel very in rhythm in a lot of different ways, the greatest of which is feeling like I'm part of society again in some way. Getting on the train every day and seeing just how many people are out there grinding on a daily basis was refreshing. Being part of that, even if only for a couple weeks, felt good in a way that's hard to describe. Doing my duty as an American felt good. If I was born in a different era I could have been drafted and serving my country would've meant years in the military, whether I wanted to or not. Now it means 3 weeks of sitting on a jury. When I put that perspective on this process it seems like the least I could do."

Since writing that post I'm up about $100k in tournaments on about $35k in buy ins. I'm also up 5 figures in cash in nearly 30k hands played. I felt it in my bones that something woke up in me throughout that 3 week process of serving on a jury. I still don't know exactly what it was but it undoubtedly helped me during this live tournament when it came to dealing with people and needing to put in longer hours. When I got back to my room each night during my Main Event runs, I'd have this 10 minute burst of adrenaline where I felt so hyped up and was walking around my room talking to myself about how excited I was. When I got back to my room last night after chopping the Borgata $600 for $54k, that wasn't there. This is becoming more routine for me and my focus on sticking to a schedule and putting in the hours always gets my mind back to the right place regardless of outcome. In a strange way this might somehow be more important for me after the wins then it is after the extended losses. My motivation always seems to be there these days when I'm losing: "I'm not gonna let results keep me down." But winning still gives me some feeling of justifying a break in routine. I can stay up late and eat some **** that'll make me feel bad in the morning because I earned it! Last night the focus was completely on being prepared to play the $2500 today. I didn't sleep great, but I did my best and now I'm ready to head over, get some food, and get going. I'll do more of an update later outlining the win in greater detail. I'm excited about the results but more focused on the future!

Borgata Fall Mini Series

I put in an online MTT session on Sunday where I managed to chop the Stars $100 75k heads up for $9800. Down 4m to 3m I said I'd need more than ICM, he offered an even chop and I accepted it to wrap the tourney up around 2:30am. The next day I took the train home to my parents house in Hamilton and spent the night with them before using my mom's car to drive to Borgata for the week. I got into event 1, a $600 event with 50k starting stack, around 1pm.

Sitting down to play my first bullet it felt like live poker was back at Borgata. There were already over 400 entries and my table was as soft a table I can remember playing at in a long time. While losing a ton of tourneys in Vegas wasn't fun mentally or financially, I started to realize one benefit of it I hadn't thought of. Given I received a bunch of tough table draws throughout the summer, it was very clear to me how soft this table in AC was now. It was also clear to me *why* it was soft and what my adjustments should be to make money. A player opens UTG and I have KK UTG2. As I'm 3betting I think to myself "I'd literally never 3b bluff here because I feel like this gets through well under 10% of the time. If anyone picked up on that then I'd need to throw bluffs in, but it'd be really bad to bluff here given the way people play early in these things." I get 3 quick folds and start to worry, before two players cold call and the opener quickly shoves all in for over 60bbs. I iso, one of the cold callers goes into the tank, and I think to myself "okay cool, everything I thought earlier makes sense!" Eventually the tanker folds and the guy who opened UTG only to face a 3b and two cold calls shows that he's shoved 77. The board runs out with no 7s, the dealer pushes me the pot and mucks my opponent's hand and I prepare to move on to the next hand...

That is until the other side of the table starts saying something about the other guy having a flush! I look down to see there are indeed 4 clubs on the board and my red KK is still exposed. I look at the most competent of the people saying this and ask him "are you positive he had the 7 of clubs?" He says yes and points to the 2 cards he seems sure are my opponent's hand. I tell the dealer to flip them up, they are 77 with a club, and I tell the dealer to give the guy the pot! This dealer is pretty lucky he found one of the probably 20 people in the room who'd accept this without putting up any sort of a fight, and I move on to bullet 2.

I find myself down to 24k at 1k/2k on bullet 2 and am dealt QQ in MP. I'm about to shove then I shake myself awake and realize I need to open in these fields! Almost no one is aware of stack sizes and I'm confident no one is going to be suspicious of me opening off 12bb. The bb, the only reg I've recognized at either of my tables so far, defends. Flop comes 864, she checks I bet she shoves I call and am ahead of T8. Turn brick and she calls for a T but does not get her wish as the river is an 8. I think I deserve half the pot or something since she called for the wrong card but that's apparently not how it works because I am eliminated.

At this point there's 45 minutes until dinner and I'm tempted to go check into my hotel, get some food, and come back at the end of dinner break to max late reg my 3rd bullet. I go back and forth before finally deciding I should try to spin a stack up in this last 45 mins and maybe give myself a chance to fire the 4th bullet if bullet 3 doesn't go well. I sit down and win a few small pots to chip up to 75k before defending 54o vs an open and getting the J54 flop. I xr flop, bet turn, shove river and get called by AJ to double to 150k. An orbit later I 3b QQ and bet JT9 before shoving a brick turn. Guy calls 88 and I hold to get near 300k on dinner. Glad I played that 45 mins!

The rest of the day goes amazingly, I win a lot of small uncontested pots while also winning the all ins. If I was flipping I was winning. I bag 860k coming back to 10k/20k with 78 of the 726 original players remaining. Somehow we're not in the money as they're only paying 72.

I come back the next day to see 2 guys I'm very familiar/friendly with from NJ online are at my table. It's not particularly surprising to start seeing at least *some* tougher players showing up as we get deeper into the tournament. The bubble doesn't last a long time but I'm able to chip up to around 1.1m by the end of it. Then I hit a few snags in the road. UTG is all in for not a lot, I iso ATs from HJ, CO snap shoves for more than UTG and I lose to his AQ. I lose another hand and find myself down to about 300k at 40kbb. I shove AK from EP, MP isos and shows a pretty wide A9o and I hold to double. I find myself at 975k on break coming back to 25k/50k with 38 left.

A very aggressive guy I've played with before named Dhaval moves to my table and has a lot of chips. He appears to be VPIPing a ton but is 2 to my right so with 20bb it's a really nice spot to 3b shove somewhat wide. I open AsTc and he defends, we both check the JT4hhh flop before he bets the Ax turn. I call and the river is the 5h and he bets like 30% pot. Rough spot as I think he'd probably bet a lot bigger if he was bluffing as backwards as that sounds. This feels like a non nut heart going for value, but I think he's just a bit too nuts for me to fold here so I call and lose to KhJc. Somewhat surprising he bets that turn but he does have a bunch of equity so I guess it's alright? Bin Weng moves into the seat between Dhaval and I but before we play any hands our table breaks and I move, once again under 10bb.

I proceed to GRIND for the next 2 hours. At one point I have exactly 300k at 30k/60k, which is not a great feeling when you started the day with a lot of chips. However my mindset was really good. I was going to take it seriously and grind it out but I was also accepting of the fact that I was very likely to bust soon. I'd be cashing for around 2k so it'd be a nice free warmup for the $2500 main that I was really there to play. I'm dealt J9o UTG1 and I'm kinda agonizing over whether to shove or not. If I fold I get one more free hand (which I'll often have to fold) then 1 of my 5 big blinds will disappear into the ante and I'll post 1 of my remaining 4 as the big blind. In the end I decide to fold but I was pretty unsure about it. UTG2 wakes up with QQ so fortunately I avoid busting but it looks like it's coming soon either way.

I do end up folding next hand and am now posting the BB/ante. I have 300k all in blue 5k chips so I need to take one of my 3 full stacks plus a little extra and put them in the middle before being dealt a hand. It folds to the SB who looks at my stack and says, "damn, you're gonna have to call with any 2 I guess, alright." He then looks at his hand and limps. I see A7o and shove and he snap folds! What a massive pickup. I have to fold another orbit before I'm in the BB again and the same situation plays out. He shoves this time and I'm excited to see QJs. I call and beat Q8o to move to 660k.

A few hands play out where the guy on my right shoves and I have a clear fold to the shove, but I had a hand that would've open shoved on its own. Finally he shoves HJ at 40k/80k off about 880k and I have KQs with my 660k in CO. For perspective on how soft this tournament was and how much fold equity I thought I had with my 8bb, a small part of me wanted to fold. KQs just too strong here and he'd shoved enough hands to make me feel confident my hand has plenty of equity to run it here. I call and beat his 55 after flop comes QQx. Up to 1.5m.

We combine down to 2 tables and go on break where I'm at 1.7m coming back to 50k/100k. Early in the level UTG is all in for 1.2m and I have AA in CO. I shove and see he has 99. Board runs A6392 and I'm over 3m. Funny enough, since I moved to this table I've had an online cash reg from NJ 2 to my left. He also plays a good amount of MTTs so I've seen a lot of him in both formats online and now get to play with him live. I was kinda surprised by how uninvolved he'd been given how many chips he had when I got to his table. Now that I had chips and I didn't think he was gonna give me a ton of resistance it was time to start thinking about winning this tournament. 15 left and I've chipped up to over 4m at 120kbb with 37m in play. There are tons of situations where you can tell most of your table wants to make the FT and you can start to really work on those guys. With 300k to be won in blinds and antes, stealing pots is going to be worth an immense amount. It's at this point that I realize it's been 4 years to the day since I was at Borgata making a run in a $2700 tourney. With 11 players left in that tournament the leader had 4m, I had 3m, and 3rd place had 1.2m. I was dealt KK against the big stack's AA and finished 11th for $16k with $300k up top. It was the most devastating moment of my poker career. It would've hurt now, but back then it was absolutely crushing. I was hoping this wouldn't end up being a repeat of that but I knew I'd handle it well even if it was, so nothing to get too worked up about.

I've chipped up to over 5m now at 160kbb and with 11 players left my table is 5 handed. First to act limps, I make it 550k with JJ in the SB, and the NJ reg shoves 2.5m from the BB. Limper folds, I call and we're off to the races vs AQs. Q in the window and I drop to 2.5m. This was the first time I lost a flip possibly the entire tournament. I really expected to win it when the chips got in! I don't find any spots and we find ourselves with 9 left as the dinner break starts. I have 1.8m going to 100k/200k and will have to begin the grind again! My friend who was at my starting table is still in so that was exciting; 1/3 of the FT consists of online NJ guys.

The FT payouts were as follows, from 1st-9th: $88k...$51k...$31k...$26k...$21k...$17k...$14k...$ 10k...$7k. This is VERY top heavy. When 1st place is 150 buy ins, it's probably not all that important to pay attention to 5 buy in pay jumps early on at the FT! Sure enough, we start the FT with a player at 1.5bb, and after he folds, a big stack minraises the button and I have A9o in the BB. I only have 1.6m now since 200k is in the middle for the ante. I think virtually everyone these days would defend this hand in order to reduce variance and make it more likely they'd get the payjump. I am not one of those people! It's not so much that I'm trying to be some big shot going for the win. It's more a combo of 2 factors. First, I've already explained that these early jumps just aren't that big. The idea of chipping up and having a real chance at the win outweighs the downside of cashing for $7k instead of $10k. Secondly, I think I have fold equity here! I think live players understand they can put pressure on here but don't understand they have to shrug and call off with some weak hands now that they've opened them. On top of that I think they're likely to assume I'm very strong here since there's a player with a very short stack set to be in the BB soon. I shove and the button tanks forever before folding. If I defend and fold flop I'd have 1.4m at 200k with 100k of that going into the SB next hand. I also might get coolered post by a hand that would fold to shove. Instead I pick up the pot and have 2.3m and an orbit with 11bb to find my spots.

The final table was a blur, in part because they skipped 250kbb and went right from 200k to 300k. The entire table seemed to either really want to play 250k or didn't care one way or another, so we pleaded with the TD. The structure sheet only went to 100kbb then said it was up to the TD. It also said TD has final say in all matters. "Okay we all want this, we can play it right." "No sorry the sheet says 300kbb next." "No it does not." "Well we didn't play 25kbb and we need to stick with the last cycle of blinds." "Well a) you should've included 25kbb it's ridiculous you didn't and b) you DID have 2500bb, go off of that!" "Sorry we can't." Some really insane stuff tbh.

I open K8s on button, bb who started FT with 1.5bb and now is at 8 or 9bb defends then donk shoves 864. I call and beat 96 and now have near 4m. I chip up to 5m and then the blinds go up, taking me from 25bb to <17bb. Really absurd stuff. Fortunately the table is insane and I get one of the biggest gifts you'll ever see at a final table. UTG opens to 2.2m at 300k, just picks up a big stack of white chips and plops em down. Folds to me in the BB and I have QQ and shrug and say all in. "Ah ****!" he says. After a while he says "gotta gamble" and puts his last 2m in. I wouldn't have minded a fold to win all those chips uncontested tbh! He has ATs and by some insane miracle I win the pot to push to close to 10m. We get down to 6 players and both other NJ guys are still in, along with a pretty stereotypical NY Italian 60ish year old businessman kinda guy, a stereotypical hyper Eastern Euro whale who wanted to keep taking breaks to go smoke, and a young live kid who was taking FOREVER to act in each spot but wasn't exactly making things hard on me. My buddy Mike busts 6th to the tanking kid and then I play the pot that defines the tournament.

NY guy has been on my direct right the entire FT and we've been chatting and laughing. Earlier at the FT he gets 66 in vs AA and AJs and turns a 6 to triple and bust a player. Less than an hour later he mentions that he hasn't made any hands all FT and I simply cannot keep quiet on this one. "Sixes my guy, sixes! You cannot possibly sit here with AA guy still at table and claim to not have made any hands." "Well yeah I mean since that one!"

I open AhKc utg and he defends his BB off 10bb or so. Flop comes K64hh and as I'm going through the merits of betting big, betting small, or checking, he announces all in. I recheck my hand and call and once again hear "Ah ****!" He turns over 33 and I'm about 92% to take a big chip lead into 4 handed. The turn is the 3h and he flies out of his seat to celebrate without realizing I've turned a flush draw. Annoying, but with how I've ran this tournament I'm pretty sure the river's gonna be a heart and it's not gonna matter. River is a black card and I quickly resolve to make sure not to let anyone see any emotion out of me. I can't control the insanity of this guy's play, I can't control the turn being a 3, I can't control the rail that's gathered (20-30 people maybe) all going nuts, but I can control my reaction. I count out the chips and see I'm down to something like 2.4m at 400kbb with 5 left while NY guy has vaulted into the chip lead. "Well," I think to myself, "I've had this stack multiple times in this tourney and haven't been knocked out yet, might as well spin it back up again!" The other NJ reg busts to NY guy and I get a very appreciated payjump as we move down to 4 handed.

I find a few close spots in the CO where I'm in the same dilemma as I was earlier. I'm very short and have a not good hand but am going to need to post the BB next hand. Fortunately for me NY guy somehow walks me twice in 3 orbits which is insanely huge when I'm sitting there with 4-6bb. Finally I find J9o on the button with 1.6m at 400kbb and I couldn't be happier. I shove and the SB Euro guy tanks forever, asks a few questions about my stack, asks a few questions about BB's stack, says something to his rail, then says "CALL." BB snap folds and SB shows AA. Something about all those dramatics and how this entire tournament has gone had me feeling more optimistic than I should've. Flop comes QT4 and the rail goes nuts. Turn is a 3 and I really felt like it was coming on the river, which it does in the form of a king. Crowd goes wild, I count out my stack and make sure this Euro guy, who always seemed to have trouble counting his chips properly, pays me the right amount. The dust settles and Euro guy in a joking way asks "J9 why would you shove that?" NY guy responds seriously, "that's what I'm saying!" This man shoved 33 on K64 for more than pot like 20 minutes earlier, but wasn't a fan of my 4bb button shove. Got ya man, got ya. I double JJ vs 44 of the live kid and have some life again.

We go on break and I have 6.1m at 500kbb. When I get back the other 3 guys are at the table with a proposition for me. They mention a deal and NY guy tells me he's been shown ICM numbers. "I don't know if those numbers will work for me but we could talk it out," says NY guy. "Oh you want MORE than ICM??" I ask him to which he says yes. "Let's play!" I respond. We are not deep but I'll be god damned if I give this dude more than ICM. In fact I'm almost definitely going to need more than ICM to possibly consider a deal at this point.

I'm looking for shove spots but it's a fine line to dance around right now. I'm quite far behind 1st and it seems like Euro guy and NY guy are not going to be ICM aware by any means. Getting the 4th to 3rd jump would be nice given NY guy is pushing 20m at this point and the rest of us are pretty close to each other. Eventually NY guy busts live kid and we're 3 handed at which point the other 2 start to lobby hard for a deal. Stacks are now 24m for NY guy, 7m for me, and 4.5m for Euro guy. Payouts are $88k to 1st, $51k to 2nd, $31k to 3rd. NY guy is asking for $75k and Euro guy seems more interested in convincing me to make any deal than worried about specific numbers. I walk away from the table to look at ICM where I see my stack is worth somewhere in the $51.8k range. If I could do this over again I would have gone about it all in a couple different ways but what I came back with was "I kinda wanna play guys but if you gave me $55k I'd be willing to consider it." Euro guy plugs that number is and sees he's not getting enough to accept the deal and starts to barter hard with NY guy. Eventually they propose NY guy gets $73k, I get $54k, and Euro guy gets $43k. I agree and NY guy says that he clearly gets the trophy since he has all the chips. Euro guy and I agree and off we go to do the paperwork.

What I'd do differently in the future is a) I'd start by asking for around $60k. I'd really appeal to the way fish think about poker. "Look bro I know you have a lot of chips but one flip and we're even! This could change so quickly and all of a sudden you're out the door with $31k!! We're still giving you the most money, $68k is a ton and you don't even have to play another hand of poker!" Even if I don't do that, once I get to the point where we've agreed to numbers and NY guy says he gets the trophy, I should have put up a pretty big fight on that. "No man we have to flip for it!" "No I have all the chips I deserve it!" "Well how about this, you take an even $70k, I get $57k, and I give you the trophy without putting up any more of a fight." This guy wanted the win way more than the money and I think he would've agreed to that but in the frenzy of everyone on the rail saying something all at once and me trying to come up with the best number I didn't think to negotiate for the trophy. I've never worked on a live deal in poker even in a small tourney, so doing it on a bigger stage was completely new to me. I'll be more prepared if this situation comes up again in the future!

So the official result ends with me finishing 2nd of 726 for $54,000. With about 20 left I realized I was basically playing the Stars $100 that I chopped on Sunday out in a live format with a bigger buy in. 700 players, pretty soft field, lots of exploiting, lots of passing on close EV high variance spots in order to simply open half of the deck from every seat and win a lot of uncontested pots. And sure enough it ends similarly with me taking a chop for more than ICM. I basically erased the rough summer's worth of results with this one $600 MTT. This whole experience did a good job of really putting MTT variance into perspective for me!

Photo dump from each break:

Congrats on the recent heat!! Your thread is one of the best reads on the forum

Thank you, it means a lot to hear people say stuff like this!

Amazing run, congrats Dan

Thank you!

November Wrap Up and Looking Ahead

The night of 11/19 (last time I made a full post in here) was a Sunday and I was not all that motivated to play. I eventually got myself up off the couch and max late regged a 1k BetMGM (Party/Borgata) tourney with 100k as 6k/12k started. It was just after the break that ended at 10pm. At 10:55pm I finished winning my 9th hand in a row (of an eventual 13 straight) on the stone bubble of the MTT and had an overwhelming chip lead with over 2.6m of the 10m in play with 15 left.

That 55 minutes of poker is probably the biggest sunrun I've ever gone on in my life. It started with me defending K7o 3 ways off of 8bb and doubling vs a whale on 877r (he bet flop and shoved turn with A3o). An orbit or two later I iso AA vs a limp, the whale and the fish who limped both call, flop comes AT7r and whale donks 75% with 43o then shoves the K turn. An orbit later I do something I almost never do and overlimp QJdd after a guy running 22/17 limps UTG. I think I just couldn't handle getting limp/raised from UTG for the umpteenth time that week. Combine that with the fact it'll incentivize the whale behind to get in there, and I thought it was the best play. That's exactly what happened as he overlimps Q9o. The board runs 865ddTdJx and I win another big one off him to get to 700k. Orbit later I win yet another pot against the same whale to get over 900k. Orbit later a fish calls an open then calls my all in squeeze with KJs and my AK holds and I'm over 1.3m. I was at 1.5m at 16kbb when the bubble started and I decided to test a theory I had that suggested that even though players should play tighter as we go hand for hand, especially with me in there with the chip lead, a lot of these NJ guys continue to play everything anyway. I think since I was 1 tabling and this felt like the freest bullet of tourney poker I'd ever played I decided to go wild and see what happened.

Stack: 1.5m
1st hand: I open A9o LJ to 35k, HJ 3b's off a 750k stack to 105k, I 4b to 240k and he folds.
*Level up to 10k/20k*
2nd hand: I open 98o UTG and everyone folds.
3rd hand: CO limps, BTN limps, I make it 100k in BB with KJo, CO folds, BTN calls (started with 1.3m). I bet twice on Q83rTh and get it through on turn.
4th hand: CO opens to 40k, I go 160k in SB with 64s and get it through.
5th hand: I open 6s2h btn, BB defends off 400k. Flop 654ss xx. Turn Qs, I bet and win.
6th hand: I open CO 98o and win.
7th hand: UTG1, who was villain in 3rd hand and 4th hand, opens to 40k, I make it 120k from HJ with KJs and win.
8th hand: I open K6o in LJ, BB defends off 250k. K82r xx, Qh I bet 25% he calls, river 3x he donk shoves exactly pot, I call and beat JThh. H4H started 2 off money so we're now 1 off money.
9th hand: I open 93o UTG1, BB defends. A98ss I cb 25% he calls. Turn Ax xx. River Kh he bets 75% I call and beat QJo.
*First break of tourney for me*
10th hand: I open A2s UTG and win.
11th hand: I get walked with 54o.
*Level up to 12k/24k*
12th hand: HJ opens to 48k off 500k. When I re-entered the live Borgata $2500 I was sat at a table and dealt in. As I situated myself and looked around the table I see the BB has posted his BB and ante but has already thrown his cards to the dealer and is completely engrossed in looking at his phone. No one could even get his attention to ask him why he'd already folded and if he realized his mistake. This made me feel way more confident in the idea that he's not paying any attention to the dynamic of this table and the fact that I am VPIPing literally every hand. I 3b SB to 156k with 92o and he folds.
13th hand: I open BTN with A7o, BB defends, and I get a cb through on 432cc.
14th hand: I open J4o in CO and BTN shoves 22bb. The bubble had just burst but I couldn't help myself but to try to keep up the streak, but it has finally come to an end!
Stack: 2.9m

I hit a bunch of snags at the FT but because I'd built such a massive stack, losing flips was not going to be the end of my tournament. Eventually I get 3 handed with Darren Elias and Jake Ripnick where we start with all of us between 3.3m and 3.5m at 70kbb. 66 minutes later I bust in 3rd. It was a fun battle but Jake got me in 2 key pots and that was that. 3rd for $12.5k and I really can't complain after buying in for 8bb! What a crazy weeklong stretch of MTTs given the lack of volume I put into these things these days. Heads up chop in a 700+ player field for $9800 in a $100 buy in. 3 way chop in a 700+ player field for $54k in a $600 buy in. 3rd in a 1k after regging with 8bb for $12.5k. After a rough summer in Vegas I've managed to completely dig myself out of the hole and then some in 2 dumb tournaments. First the $2500 online on October 1 for $46k, then the live $600 for $54k. The 2 10k scores to bookend the live trip were very nice as well.

Speaking of Vegas, I'm flying out on Sunday. I'm gonna try to late reg 1d of the $1100 Prime which is sure to be a zoo but Sunday's the earliest I can get out there. We're throwing a 30th bday party for Amy on Saturday which will be a lot of fun. Her birthday is 12/22 which always clashes with people's Christmas plans so we decided to do this party early. I plan on playing milestone satties 12/11-12/13 after WPT Prime if I bust on day 1. I might play cash instead one or two of those days. Win or lose I'll get in the $10.4k WPT Main for 1c on 12/14, then get in again if need be for 1d on 12/15. I've booked my return flight for 12/21 so I can be home for Amy's real bday. That is the same day as the TV Final Table for the main event, so if I have to push the flight back a day I think it's something she'll understand!

Digging my way out of the massive hole I got into in Vegas this summer makes me confident that I can do it again if it happens again. I say if, but in reality if I continue to improve and take bigger and bigger shots, "if" isn't the right word. It's "when" it happens again. Because that's the thing about improving in poker. The better you get, the more you should attempt to move up in stakes, at least in my opinion. The higher stakes you play the bigger swings you'll deal with. So hitting your new biggest low point is not really a sign of a big negative. In fact, it's a sign of growth. I lost $56,800 from 6/1-7/16 in MTTs, live and online combined, and that even included a 20k online score on 7/9. I played tournaments on 38 of those 46 days and lost 33 of those 38 days. 3 of the 5 winning days were for less than $400, and a 4th was for less than $2k. So in reality for that stretch of 46 real days, 6.5 weeks, I ended one day feeling good about how things were going. From June 1 through July 8 I felt bad about my results literally every day, and then again from July 10 through July 16. I didn't play tournaments from July 17 through July 29, and then on July 30 I won $6k after finishing 2nd/190 in the Party Sunday $215.

I take a few things away from all of that and I'll try to list them in order of importance.

1) My mental toughness is probably 100x better than it was about 5 years ago. I use 5 years ago as the benchmark because that's around the first time I really committed to trying to actually get good at poker. I had my moments of frustration and sadness in Vegas, but for the most part I woke up each day ready to give it my best shot and try to turn the trip around. That day never came, but I never quit. I kept firing, I kept telling myself the win was right around the corner, and I kept doing my best to play well and stay positive. I have a really, REALLY tough time losing again and again and convincing myself that I am not a loser because of it. But I did that really well this summer and it's something to be proud of. While I felt bad about my results, I didn't feel bad about myself or about my efforts, and that's most important in a game where there's only so much you can control.

2) Cash is VITAL to my mental game and bottom line. I didn't play a lot of cash from 6/1-7/16, but I made $14k in the 4k or so hands I played during that stretch, which all came between 6/22 and 7/2 (the time I was home between my 2 trips to Vegas). High stakes went well, and running good in big spots felt amazing after 3-4 weeks of frustration. The $14k is great, but the confidence that "I can still do this" I gain by playing cash is invaluable. Cash also does a great job of reminding me "oh yeah, tourneys are very often about who flips coins the best, and to get down on yourself about calling heads when it's tails is ridiculous. You're a great player, keep your head up."

3) I can get into a big hole and feel confident I'll get out of it. It might take me a while but it will happen. And I don't have to force things. If I can't stand the idea of playing tournaments a certain day, then I'll play cash or study. I need to get my work in, but I don't have to force myself to grind tourneys if it doesn't feel right that day. And that's what July 17 through July 29 was all about! As I looked through pictures on my phone to find the exact date I left for Yosemite with Amy, I found a picture she sent to me of the jury summons we'd received while I was away in Vegas. It's saved in my phone on 7/16, the last day I was in Vegas during this very rough trip. I credit jury duty for putting my mind in the perfect place to get out of the giant hole I'd dug in Vegas, so the fact that this pic was taken on the exact last day of that trip seems extremely fitting.

For that stretch of 10 days we had some amazing vacation time and when I got back home I didn't force things. On 7/27 I studied for 90 minutes then decided I didn't have it in me to play. I took off on the 28th, then played 1500 hands of cash on the 29th. I lost $2k but was on my computer for 6 hours putting in the low volume, high stakes grind. That felt good. So it's no surprise at all to me the next day I took 2nd in that $215 for $6k. I also finished 17th of over 1000 entries in a WSOP $100 tourney, and won $1200 in 1300 hands of cash. When I first started trying to get good I'd take days off that did not help me improve with poker. In fact they probably hurt me. My days off now are so effective in both giving me quality time with loved ones AND allowing me time to relax and reset to come back to poker at my best. I'll take Amy out to dinner tonight then go to a party her friend is having. I'll take all of tomorrow to hang out with all of our friends and celebrate Amy's birthday. That will help a ton to recharge and refocus me for the 10 days of live poker ahead.

Before I left for Borgata I told a couple friends that I was gonna shoot down there for a few days, rip off a big score, and get outta there. I felt really good before I headed to AC. I ran amazing to chop that thing. But I ran AWFUL on the first 2 bullets, losing an 80/20 to bust each of them! If my mental game wasn't great at that point I might have convinced myself to not fire the 3rd bullet, or to at least wait until after dinner. Instead I got right back in, spun 50k to 300k in the 45 mins before dinner, and the rest is history. I feel that same way now. Clearly the odds of me actually ripping off something massive out there are low. But if I come home having secured my first 6 figure score (or dare I say, SEVEN figure score??), I really wouldn't be all that surprised.

I saw your comment on Ryan DePaulo's recent vlog and recognized the screen name from here. Hadn't checked out your thread previously, but it's a great read! Good luck, will be following along in the future!

Every time I go looking for other MTT threads, I realized how much you spoil us and that you're the only great MTT thread left.

I wish I had the dedication to keep a thread going like you; appreciate you posting all these years!

Thanks, good to have you following along!

Hey that means a lot thank you!!

Quick 2023 Synopsis

Some quick stats:

Hours played--1114
Hours studied--330
Hours coaching--20

Honestly not a bad job overall. This works out to 1464 hours overall for an average 28 hours per week assuming no weeks off (and I definitely took some vacation time throughout the year). The "study" category is all encompassing of anything poker related that isn't playing or coaching. I should probably change the name for next year but a big majority of it is study, with stuff like writing in this thread and traveling also included in there. I only started aspiring to put 40 hours per week in back at the end of September. Speaking of September, I put a total of 63 hours in that month due to 3 weeks of jury duty that left very little time for poker. I put 52 hours in in April and 92 hours in in May; every other month spanned from 113 hours to 179 hours.

When it came to live poker I tracked travel as half-time (for example, on December 10 I left my house at 9am ET to get an uber to the airport; I was in my hotel room in Vegas at 6pm ET for a total of 9 hours of travel. I gave myself credit for 4.5 hours, and logged it in the study category). I considered counting live poker at some discounted rate of hours since you're just sitting in a chair waiting for a hand for so much of it, but given I do a pretty good job of paying attention and staying engaged I decided to track that as full time. This led to June being that biggest 179 hour month since I played so much live poker at the WSOP.

I played just under 160k hands of cash on the year. While I want to play more than that in 2024, I don't think it makes sense to list that as a goal. At the end of 2023 I realized a lot of the time it made sense to fire up some MTTs on some days rather than playing cash. After the summer at WSOP went poorly I think I was very averse to playing MTTs, but as the year ended and I hit some bigger scores I remembered I can be quite good at them when I'm on and they're an easy way to make a ton of money.

I still think I way prefer the cash grind as the results are more consistent and the effort I put in at and away from the tables shines through way more often in that format than in MTTs. I had 10 winning months and 2 losing months at cash, which came during the 2 months I put the least hours and effort into poker. Funny how that works out. In contrast I had 3 winning months and 9 losing months of MTTs. Due to winning 100k on the dot in October and November, I squeaked out with a 9k win on the year in tournaments.

Speaking of tournaments, let's look at some live MTT stats. I played exactly 50 bullets of live MTTs this year and lost $25k. Total buy ins finished at $83,549 with a total of $58,639 in cashes. Average buy in was $1671 which includes 3 freerolls (ToC at WSOP and 2 MTTs at Aria I'd won a package to online). Biggest buy in was the $10k WSOP Main, next biggest buy in was 2 bullets of the $5300 "Return" at Borgata in early January. Smallest buy ins were a $600 during the WSOP and a $600 at Borgata, which I chopped for $54,000. You might notice that $54k is a rather large chunk of $58,639, and you'd be correct. I got slaughtered playing live poker this year and it was mentally draining for me. Don't get me wrong; I handled it infinitely better than I would have in the past. But those feelings of simply not being good enough anymore still loom large when you cash 1 of your first 33 bullets to start the year!

I'm on the fence about what to do with live poker this year. Plan A is to slow down with these bigger buy ins. Crush the <1k stuff that has much softer fields and less variance. I played a total of $3800 in buy ins in tourneys with a price tag of <$1000 and I felt VERY comfortable in all of them. It's not that I felt uncomfortable in the bigger stuff, but I didn't feel like I had a clear vision of how I was going to run a table over in most of those $1k+ events. Whereas the small buy in stuff it was always very easy to see where the money was going to come from. Plan B is to continue full steam ahead. Keep firing the bigger stuff, don't be afraid to get into a big hole, and if that big hole comes about again I know I can get out of it like I did this year, and the year before, and the year before, and the...

My record keeping was very good this year. Reflecting on what I did right and wrong is much easier since I have so much data to look back at. After a very good start to the year (171 hours in January, 116 hours in February, 129 hours in March), I worked 52 hours in April and 92 hours in May. What happened? I can look back and figure it out and try not to repeat those mistakes in 2024. Or I can look back and realize there wasn't much I could do about it due to the circumstances. Let's take a look.

It appears I put a very low number of hours in the first week of April. The 2nd week I was in Vegas with Amy on vacation. The third week I had my biggest losing cash day of my life on 4/18 and the stuff I was writing in my daily reports had a very negative tone when it comes to MTTs. I didn't put a session of over 2 hours in again until 4/30.

I think this is a common theme in my career but it's one I've improved on greatly in the last few months. When I miss a few days or a week, whether it be for something planned or unplanned, I struggle to get back into a rhythm in the days right after I get back. Poker is kinda wild in that way; I can be really locked in, take a week off, then come back and the game feels foreign again somehow. That clearly happened here, and coupled with losing the most I ever have in cash appears to have broken me a bit and led to very low volume for nearly 2 weeks AFTER having already taken the previous week off. Let's see what happened in May now.

Big losing cash day on 5/5 followed by some negative thoughts on how WSOP.com cash was going for me on 5/9. That was something I struggled with this year. Without a HUD reviewing hands on WSOP is very difficult. I also get the vibe that a few of the NV regs get very out of line, but without stats to back it up I find myself unsure in certain spots. By the end of the year I felt much more comfortable with all of that and realized sometimes you just have to call down with some **** hand that has good bluff catching properties and live with the results. On the tracked sites I'm almost always leaning one way or the other depending on my opponent, especially on river spots, based on stats and experience with them across 3 sites. But on WSOP.com vs the NV guys I have only the notes I've taken on them and the hands I've played with them on this one site. So the exploits become very difficult to employ and I imagine in the beginning of the year I was employing them very poorly. The later into the year I got the more comfortable I was with theory and the more willing I was to stick the money in when it felt right.

On Sunday 5/14 I wrote this in the notes section of my reports: "Came in with a good mindset, lost every all in and was eliminated pretty quickly from every tourney. 15 bullets in 2 hours. See ya next week." However I snitch on myself since I log when I start playing and when I finish. I started this Sunday session at 7:30pm. The rule of MTTs I've established is that if you're not starting them on time then you don't get to ever complain about running bad. The 7 tourneys I played had 3 starting at 5pm, 2 at 5:30, 1 at 6:00, and 1 at 6:30. How can I start at 7:30 then be upset about losing all ins lol. Pretty clear weak mindset there, and again not surprising that I found it hard to get volume in this month. Also not particularly surprising that the summer did not go well!

The next day: "QQ<77 for quite a few chips with 9 left in the ring event lol only 17k up top nbd, hopefully this run ends this century." This negativity might not seem like a big deal but the older I get and the more I play this game the clearer it is that when you're thinking this way you are so much less likely to have positive results. What I'll at least give myself credit for is this note written later that night: "Disappointing finish in the big ones, hung tough to win the smaller nightly for a good day. Want to build off this going into tomorrow." I was trying to find positive momentum when I could. That can be tough to do when things aren't going your way. And what I'm doing now is an example of something I did very well in 2023. I gave myself credit! Way more often I made it a point to dwell on things I did WELL. That's something I didn't do enough of in the past and it led to negative feelings and prolonged downswings.

Next day's note: "Smashed my Rubik's Cube when I busted everything except the Stars 250, which wasn't even out of late reg yet. One tabled it (with the occassional 2nd table joining from late regging the last 2 WSOP birds) to the win." This again shows a negative and a positive about where I was mentally in May. I remember absolutely SHATTERING that Rubik's Cube, which I more or less use as a fidget spinner while I play, all over the floor. It was really embarrassing, Amy heard it and was annoyed with me, and I take pride in keeping myself together these days, so it felt out of character. But then I really did grind the hell out of that last tournament despite being frustrated. Didn't punt and dug deep to win the thing for 10k, turning a -5k day into a +5k day.

From 5/15-5/31 I played very little cash and focused solely on MTTs before flying to Vegas at the end of the month. I finished the month down $300 in tournaments on $22k in buy ins. I didn't study or play the amount of hours I would have liked to in any of the 4 weeks that month. Outside of those 2 months though I think I did a very good job getting volume in and doing my job. This was my lowest profit year in a while but that's mostly due to getting beat up in tournaments. I was down money through 9 months this year which is not something I ever really expected to experience. Fortunately I got called to jury duty and a switch flipped in my head that led to me being locked in the last 3 months of the year. I'm sure this sounds ridiculous but I really do believe that changed me in a very important way. I made 6 figures in MTTs in October and November. While variance does play a part, I don't think it's a total coincidence that my mindset was not great in April and May and it was the best it's ever been at the end of September. I went on to lose over $50k in MTTs in June and July, and make $100k in MTTs in October and November. Poker is an insanely mental game and when my head is on straight I'm capable of great things. When it's not I'm capable of lighting money on fire!

I'm going to attempt to make a post each Monday this year. That probably won't last long but I'll keep it going while I can. I'll write more about 2023 and some 2024 goals next time. While last year was not my most lucrative one, I think I learned a ton and have the tools to make 2024 the best of my career.

2024 Week 1

Not the greatest start to the year but I'm gonna go easy on myself about it. I didn't play any of the first 3 days. I didn't make a schedule on 1/1, made a schedule on 1/2 but didn't do any of it, and made a schedule on 1/3 but the plans got switched up. Instead of playing at 1pm like I'd been thinking I would, I did a review session with a couple other guys. By the time it came for me to play a night session I felt low energy and exhausted again so I skipped it. I did at least get 5.5 hours of study in the first 3 days, but this is nowhere near the amount of hours I want to put in.

I've decided to add 4 tabs to my daily schedule planner thing. I want to do a meditation each day. It's easy, 10 minutes, the entire thing is just sitting there and trying to be completely present in the moment. Pretty simple and I think it'll help me calm down both in my day to day life and while I play poker. The second tab is to stretch. I'm getting older and my legs feel sore from doing almost nothing sometimes now so I think that'll be a good habit to get into. The third tab is to walk. I want to put in at least 5000 steps each day especially given my legs are in enough pain that I don't think running is going to be an option again until I see a doctor and really try to figure out what's going on. The fourth tab is soda. That's the only tab I don't want to be checking off. I didn't drink it at all in November and then thought maybe I could do it in moderation in December. That's never proven to be possible for me in the past and December was no different. I'm pretty clearly addicted to soda and am not capable of having it in moderation, so cold turkey quitting is going to have to be the way I go about it. I've done this before and gone years before deciding I could drink it in moderation again (it's never happened). So this year the plan is to simply not drink it at all.

This week I hit the meditation and stretch goals 5 days and the walk and soda goals all 7 days. I missed the first 2 days for meditation/stretch because I hadn't come up with those goals yet, so I consider this a perfect week in that regard. These are the kinds of things that are very easy to do on any given day, but become very difficult to continue doing day in and day out. I'm hopeful I'll find time to get all of this done every day.

1/4 I stuck to my schedule and studied 3 hours and played 3 hours. I played 808 hands and booked a win. I could have put a night session in but instead used most of that time to study, still feeling tired and having started to enjoy going to bed at 11pm with Amy each night. 1/5 I also stuck to the schedule but since it was a Friday I knew Amy was going out with her friends and would be going to bed later than usual. I was tempted to go out with them but I'd already planned on taking off and going out on Saturday, so Friday was a must work day. It was the first day of the year that I properly put in both the afternoon and night sessions, playing 5 hours and studying 2. I played 2029 hands and booked a nice win. I finished up around 12:15am and still got to go to bed with Amy. It's a tough push and pull; I love that routine, going to bed early, knowing Amy's happier that we're going to bed at the same time, getting up earlier, feeling better about myself. But clearly playing later allows me to put more hours in and hit more of my goals. I'll continue to monitor what I think is best longterm.

1/6 I took the day off as planned, going to brunch with friends around 2pm, then going to a bar near our place that's a lot of fun. It was mixing snow and rain here in Hoboken and felt like one of the first proper winter days I can remember in nearly 2 years. Around 6pm we walked back to my apartment and hung out and talked. It was a great time. Around 7pm we decided we needed to eat then remembered a place nearby has trivia on Saturday nights at 9, so we went there for food and trivia. We finished 5th outta 5, not our best showing, but I'm going to blame it on the 7 nonstop hours of drinking we were doing beforehand.

1/7 I woke up predictably hungover and tired. The headache went away quickly but the exhaustion never did. I have a watch that monitors my vitals and whatnot and it's amazing seeing the difference in restful sleep I get after a night of drinking vs not. The body battery function shows you how rested you actually are at all times and it's quite accurate in my experience. I often wake up with it at 100; sometimes it'll be in the 70-90 region if I get slightly less sleep or was exhausted the day before. I woke up Sunday morning with it hovering around 14 despite me getting a normal amount of sleep. It shows stress as well and the stress levels are through the roof while sleeping after a night of drinking.

The clear remedy to this is to stop drinking, but if I'm being realistic I'm not going to do that. However, the stress levels definitely go down after I wake up and get some food and water. So in the future the plan is to take a nap around 2pm on Sundays if I was out on Saturday. I think I'd get actual restful sleep at that point, wake up at 5 and be ready to play some tourneys. I did not do that this Sunday and paid the price. I simply couldn't get myself onto the computer. Sitting on the couch with Amy reading, watching tv, eating dinner, it was all too tempting and more appealing than playing poker. While my focus is going to be on cash games this year, it's still important I play these MTTs when the time makes sense for it, and Sunday is of course one of those days.

Eventually I got myself up at 9pm to play a $600 satty to the live $5300 at Borgata. I bricked 2 of those and called it a day. Not exactly a great session! I did however start and finish Slaughterhouse 5 this week, which I was given for Christmas. I've started up on Invisible Monsters Remix by Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club author), the second book I was gifted. I sometimes forget how much I love reading and it's really nice to get back into it after an extended break.

Overall on the week I clocked in with 13.25 hours studied and 9 hours played. 22.25 hours in a week is not going to cut it this year! However I'm not beating myself up over it. December was tough with the sickness and the constant travelling for the holidays. Add to that a very long night on NYE and missing a day or two is to be expected. I do feel like I'm back in the swing of things now though and I'm ready to put a solid week in before heading to Borgata next Monday.

Congrats on the mtt rebound end of 2023, gl in 2024!

Thanks tyman you too!

2024 Week 2

Pretty good bounce back week for me. Not perfect but not bad. I had several tough starts to sessions and did very well in each of them to stay composed. Most of those ended as small losing/breakeven/small winning sessions. It's really nice to be able to take a potential -3k day and turn it into a -500 day. It's hard sometimes in the middle of the tough start to the session to keep things in perspective but it's vital. On Monday 1/8 I lost $1400 in 1800 hands. I wrote "This day could've easily been a 'man what a dumb session, gonna quit after 45 mins.' If I was a degen it could've been a -$5k day. Instead I played nearly 2k hands, 5 hours, and only lost $1400. Think I should be quite proud of that." I'm glad that I'm giving myself credit when I do a good job with a session, even when it's a losing one.

On Tuesday 1/9 I did a coaching session until around 2:30pm. I had a rough session shortly after, losing about $1500 in 500 hands in about 90 minutes before deciding to take a break at 6:30pm. I struggled to get back on the computer at night before finally deciding to simply study for about 2 hours instead of playing. This was the day that I realized it's probably for the best if I'm off the computer by 5pm if I plan on coming back for a night session. I think I need about 3 hours in the middle of my day to relax and unwind after a morning/afternoon session. If I don't get that time then I struggle to feel prepared to play.

Wednesday 1/10 I planned on studying at 1pm but had some good cash games going. Played a ludicrous hand vs a buddy where I had 99 on Qs9d3s8s9s where I xr'ed river and got shoved on for a bunch. I really thought he'd 3b QQ pre and didn't think he'd shove 88 on river vs xr given I'm basically repping a full house myself. Can't say I've ever tanked quads on the river before but given he's a good player who isn't going to overvalue a hand I was genuinely worried about JTss. I called after about 20 seconds and felt like a massive idiot when he had QQ. Been a long time since I felt that bad to win a pot! I got a good study session in after that then another 2 hours of playing at night and recouped just about all of the losses from Monday and Tuesday.

This brings me back to my point about how vital it is to turn a potential -3k day into a -500 day when possible. Both of those $1500 or so losing sessions on Monday and Tuesday could have been much bigger losses had I played worse or lost my cool. Sometimes when you're down a lot it's easy to chase those losses and try to get even. But if you can turn big losses into small losses instead of big losses into bigger losses, your bottom line will be so much better in the long run than it feels in those moments. Keeping my cool and a) playing well through it on Monday and b) realizing I didn't have it and not firing another session on Tuesday led to my nice day on Wednesday getting me back to even on the week!

Thursday 1/11 was a wild day. A friend who lives nearby is a Cleveland Cavaliers fan and they were playing the Nets at 2pm EST in Paris for some reason. We met up, got some lunch, then went to a bar to watch the game. I had 3 beers and got home around 6 after the game was over. I laid down to relax and next thing I know I'm waking up at 11pm! An unplanned 5 hour nap is not great for the sleep schedule. I tried to keep sleeping (maybe I could just get up at 6am or something and keep a reasonable schedule) but to no avail. At 1am I got up and played until nearly 6am! The games were great but I found myself in a 4k hole pretty early. Something about being on such a weird schedule and really tired while feeling really rested at the same time led to me not feeling anxious at all about the big quick loss. The games were great so I just kept grinding, getting it all the way back to -300 before losing a 2/5 buy in as I was leaving games. -$800 in 1700 hands was yet another good result, despite a loss, on the week.

Friday 1/12 I turned around and made that same amount back in 1100 hands. Once again, fighting through the -4k start when it made sense leads to me being even on the week when it could have been much worse. Saturday 1/13 I was responsible for throwing a kegger due to getting last in our fantasy football league last year (I really procrastinated on this punishment). My buddy agreed to host it since Amy, quite reasonably, didn't want a keg in our apartment. We drank a lot and stayed up very late and I woke up the next day at my buddy's place. Last week I learned I need a 2 hour nap or so after these crazy party days in order to feel fresh to play poker. Unfortunately by the time I got home on Sunday it was 6pm and I still needed to do laundry since I was going to AC the next day for a 10 day trip. I did the laundry, played a $600 satty to the live $5300 and a $100 Stars MTT, mincashed the $100 and called it a night. A good cash game popped up and I won a little in the 50 hands it ran for, leading to me finishing the week up small in cash. A small win on a week like this might as well be a massive win; I was proud of that number being in the green.

I ended up at 11 study hours, 22 playing hours, and 2 coaching hours for a total of 35 hours on the week. Shy of my 40 total hours but the Monday-Friday grind was great. It was just the poorly executed timing for Sunday that led to me not getting the full 40 in. I'm in Atlantic City now and expect to get a big number of hours in since live poker more or less forces you to be in there for quite a while. I traveled for about 4 hours yesterday (counted as 2 study hours) then got in the $2200 Mystery Bounty at Borgata at 2pm. 8 hours later I bagged 178k from 30k starting with 15% of the field left. Day 2 is tomorrow, bounties will be in play from the start, but Borgata continues to stubbornly pay 10% of the field so we're not in the money yet. Hopefully next week's post will be a recap which includes how I pulled $500k out of an envelope!

Coaching

I want to do a lot more coaching this year so I'm going to try to be more proactive about getting students. I really enjoy coaching. I think I'm good at it and I think I really do help people improve their games. Given I have a math degree with a certification in teaching and a natural inclination to try to see things from multiple different perspectives, this almost feels like a calling for me. If you or anyone you know is looking for coaching please reach out to me. You can do it on this thread, through DMs, on Twitter, or any way that's easiest for you. I'll be happy to talk rates and plans and I offer a 50% off the first session deal where you can decide if I'm the right guy for you. I'm planning on creating a website at some point but wanted to at least post in this thread since those of you who have followed it for a while will be most familiar with me and how I think about the game. I've played MTTs for most of my career and still feel very good with them, but I do focus on cash now and am extremely confident in my abilities there. I'm optimistic that I can help you with any format you need help with so please don't hesitate to reach out if this sounds like something you're looking for!