Hey Pads!

First, v nice thread. Really enjoy reading it and its prolly the only thread that makes me check 2p2 on daily basis.

I persoanlly think that sleeping well is absolute key to living a healthy and balanced life. (cannot belive im talking about life balancing like mine is balanced at all, but sitll). You absolutely cannot pass on that and thats prolly the main thing you should be working on. (really funny that everytime I woke up and check the chat, I see you posting in something like 8-9am and i am like "wtf? ".

Eating healty is def v important as well because we are what we eat after all, but at the end of the day calories are calories. You can be eating healthy and still get fat as **** just like you can be eating only choclete all day long and be losing fat. Its all the matter of how many calories we consume on a daily basis and how many do we actually need. As long as you consume the right amount of calories eating choclete you will be losing weight if thats your goal. Are you going to feel like **** if you eat only choclete and junk food all day long? Absolutely! But you will be going in the right direction if you goal is to clean and lose weight.

I think we, as a human beings, SHOULD NOT restrict ourselfs from thing we love because, first, that is v hard to do mentally and, second, its prolly not good at all. After all we have our needs. There are times where our bodies want to ****ing eat that whole choclete so bad and its prolly not a good idea to mentally fight that need and resist eating some choclete when we want. Its all the matter of balance and how we do it. "Cheating" from time to time does not mean that you are going to **** up your 8pack progress or anything like that.

So, IMO, sleep is as important as eathing healthy or even more and absolutely nothing cant replace the night time sleep. Its v hard to do it as MTT players but it is doable for sure!

Gl with that! Keep updating on the progress. Will be v interested to see how its going.

Hey Patrick , your blog is a nice read as always , following it from a while but I rarely post on forums :P

I think it's really nice to talk about the variance in general and how you perceive it ; since it's something so ambiguous not many ppl understand it fully . It's nice another solid opinion on it , more over one that comes from a very reliable source

Overall nice to hear about the downswindes and the upsides of it :P

Lots of luck man ! ! !

Just wrote my longest ever post on 2p2 explaining what I think people do wrong in online tournaments, how they approach them, how they play them, how they study them, how they deal with variance etc etc and as I pressed "send reply" my PC crashed Maybe that is God telling me to keep it quiet!

10 is a small number my friend.

Of course, how degen would you like to be?

Hey, its tough to say, if I had to though.. I'd go with:


10k Highroller = Trex on a Sunday
5k EPT Main = Super Tuesday


Ma man, I agree with all you say. Personally, sleep is my biggest issue for sure. I think for online MTT players its one of the most difficult things to handle, not just because of playing, but also because of their living arrangements. If you live with other people, even if they are MTT players themselves, you will never be on a perfect sleeping schedule, you will always be woken up when you need to have a long sleep and recharge the batteries and it will be a hectic lifestyle. Maybe you need 8 hours sleep but get woken up after 5-6 hours, you then are up, you try and stay up in the day, but you're sleepy, groggy and can't perform well, you're game is generally effected and you sometimes need to take a nap, if you take a nap you will generally be sleepy again for your session or not in the best frame of mind and then you will end up being awake until 8-9am and the cycle starts again. With MTT players they are usually the last guys up and the last guys asleep so its really tough for them. I've always been a long sleeper, I like to sleep 8-10 hours in general to feel "peak" for the next day. I perform pretty poorly in poker if I sleep poorly, thats for sure. Biggest tip in general is that if you're tired or didn't sleep well, just take the day off and don't burn money. I've done that way too much.


ma man, thanks a lot <3

I wrote a lot about this just now before it deleted, but will try again. I was basically trying to say that variance is the most evil thing in poker, but its evil because we fail to tackle it. Personally, last year before SCOOP/MONACO/WSOP, I thought I was the best MTT online player in the world. I was studying a tonne, I was playing a tonne, I was surrounded by very good players, I was coaching 3x/week so was actively engaging every day in MTT's, I generally just thought that I "got" it. This wasn't enough for me though, I wanted everybody else to think I was the best too, I wanted to have a huge SCOOP, a huge WSOP, a huge Monaco, but I didn't want to do it so I could make money, I wanted to be recognised. It was a pretty big mental flaw I had. Yesterday I won a tournament, last year I would have posted in this very blog minutes afterwards how I was now "triple crown hunting" the next day maybe I would have checked my pocket fives wall to see how many people "liked" my post or checked how far up it took me in the pocket fives rankings. Yesterday, I shut down my computer, my house mate grinding next to me didn't even know I was on the final table, I didn't blog and instead I deleted my pocket fives account. I realised that negative variance impacted me because I didn't want to fail. I realised that I didn't want to fail because I didn't want people to start doubting me. Ohhhhh look at pads SCOOP, he got crushed, he's on a 60k downswing, maybe he just ran good. Those kind of thoughts really haunted me! They were my worst nightmare, I wanted to be recognised and I wanted people to think I was the GOAT. I didn't care that I was on a 3 month downswing in terms of financial pressure or worrying about if I could feed my dogs, I was scared about stuff that in the grand scheme of things meant absolutely nothing, or should have meant absolutely nothing... It sounds really ****ing stupid, but its true, and in the end it was ironically my biggest leak.

If I win the Sunday 530 this week people will say in Skype groups, or at dinners, or at their hotel rooms in EPT Dublin, wow pads is such a sicko, he won the Sunday 530. But winning the Sunday 530 means absolutely nothing. It doesn't mean that I studied a lot this month, it doesn't mean that I put a tonne of volume in this month, it simply means I won a tournament. Terrible players win tournaments every single day. Lazy players win tournaments every single day. In 2016, I am by biggest fan and by biggest critic. I don't care who thinks I'm the best anymore and I certainly don't care who thinks I am the worst. I am going to constantly challenge myself and critique myself, as long as I answer myself, then negative variance won't impact me.

So I think its very important if you think you have a problem with variance to ask yourselves...

1- Ask yourself, WHY is variance a negative thing to you?
2- Ask yourself, WHY is this negative thing a negative thing?
3- Ask yourself, is this negative thing ACTUALLY a negative thing?

1- Variance was a negative thing to me because I was wanted to win.
2- I wanted to win because I wanted others to think I was as good as I thought I was
3- This is not important.

My top tip for players who are playing less than $50 abi MTT's (most people) is simply to really understand how much you should be studying and what you should be studying. I see so many players ineffectively studying. If you're playing small stakes MTT's you don't need to worry about how to build GTO ranges playing 100bb deep pre ante, you don't need to worry about how Sauce would play Heads Up again IKE, you don't need to worry about how many exact combos your bluffing frequency should have against an opponent at $2knl 6max deep ante cash games. The best high stakes tournament players in the world (WITH THEIR CURRENT SKILL SETS) would not be able to win at $2knl, in fact they would be a huge mark, they would have a green label around their avatar and their would be a waiting list full of sharks waiting to take their money. This isn't a bad thing, in fact its a compliment. However, if you want to play MTT's for the next few years and you want to move up stakes and you want to improve your tournament game then its very important you effectively study. Phil Galfond may hate me for this, so sorry Phil! But many people think runitonce is one of the biggest things hurting the game, I think in tournaments its not true at all, if anything its the opposite. So many guys are spending all their studying hours watching videos there that aren't applicable to their game type, making notes, rewatching and trying to deeply understand all of the deep theoretical stuff in super detail. I promise you with everything that I know about poker and tournament poker in general, that isn't close to the best way to learn how to win at poker tournaments. If this, and don't get me wrong, it is amazing content, wasn't released then maybe players would have been more effective in their studying and worked out what they needed to work on and tried to emulate the top players in their game rather.

Had a funny conversation yesterday where I assumed a reg was berating me. He wrote in chat " you can tell pads uses piosolver a lot" I was really intrigued, so found his Skype.

[02/02/2016, 22:52:01] Patrick Leonard: hey what did you mean?
[02/02/2016, 22:52:07] xxgoodregxx: Pads!
[02/02/2016, 22:52:14] Patrick Leonard: because i called off when he was v strong?
[02/02/2016, 22:52:18] xxgoodregxx: you clearly use PIo alot
[02/02/2016, 22:52:28] xxgoodregxx: No regardless of that hand
[02/02/2016, 22:52:34] xxgoodregxx: genral statement
[02/02/2016, 22:53:01] Patrick Leonard: why do you think that though? :d
[02/02/2016, 22:53:12] Dando (Fold Machiii): Cus you play like PIo says
[02/02/2016, 22:53:14] Patrick Leonard: like in what ways do i?
[02/02/2016, 22:53:15] xxgoodregxx: Its a good thing
[02/02/2016, 22:53:39] xxgoodregxx: Not gunna give you my reads now am i.
[02/02/2016, 22:54:04] xxgoodregxx: you obvi study with it a lot. its good right?
[02/02/2016, 22:54:07] Patrick Leonard: because i 3bet instead of jamming off 20bbs?
[02/02/2016, 22:54:11] xxgoodregxx: No
[02/02/2016, 22:54:14] xxgoodregxx: Not atall.
[02/02/2016, 22:54:18] Patrick Leonard: ive never used it before
[02/02/2016, 22:54:23] Patrick Leonard: but i have no idea why you think this
[02/02/2016, 22:54:38] xxgoodregxx: you serious?
[02/02/2016, 22:54:56] Patrick Leonard: serious
[02/02/2016, 22:55:01] Dando (Fold Machiii): Hahaha
[02/02/2016, 22:55:07] Dando (Fold Machiii): another great read by me.
[02/02/2016, 22:55:27] Dando (Fold Machiii): your just lucky then
[02/02/2016, 22:55:45] Patrick Leonard: i know stuff it suggests
[02/02/2016, 22:55:50] Patrick Leonard: but have no idea why you’d think that :d
[02/02/2016, 22:55:58] Patrick Leonard: come on I’m intrigued
[02/02/2016, 22:56:06] xxgoodregxx: your sizing's basically.

Pretty ironic

My 2nd top tip would be volume. If you're playing $50abi or less and playing less than 500 tournaments/month you're simply doing it wrong. Volume is absolutely key in this game, without volume you're capping two very important things.

1) The amount of money you can make. Sure you can bink the Sunday Million one week, but at the end of the day its very simple maths. You currently play X abi, you currently play Y volume and your ROI is currently Z giving you a final figure of W. You're goal should generally be to increase W as much as possible. Sure studying is important, sure a balanced lifestyle is important, but if "Y" is gone then their is no W.

2) Poker tournaments are ALL about population tendencies and seeing what other people are doing. This is what its all about. He who does not play, can not see.


I would love to start coaching again right now, I think I have a very winning orientated logic towards approaching tournaments right now and "get" what it takes to really win at most stakes. Previously I struggled a little bit at not knowing the key differences between low-mid-high stakes tournaments, but with coaching these 50 guys in the stable for the last year or so and looking particularly at statistical evidence over really big sample size, I think that the "winning strategy" is actually pretty different to how most people would perceive it to be. Its really tough because I'm very busy with stable/poker/anonymous alleged businesses! but maybe in the future I will try to make time for some motivated guys that have a lot of potential.


Also have some really nice news for bitB Staking. We are adding 4 new coaches to our team, doubling our current coaching team. All are complete sickos and can't wait to announce it publicly.

You might be able to lose weight temporarily by counting calories, but in the long run it's unsustainable and makes you feel like ****, which is probably the opposite of what Pads is wanting with this goal. Different foods are metabolized at different levels of efficiency by the body. Some foods increase the body's ability to burn fat, and others slow down metabolism and increase the body's desire to store fat. For anyone interested in this topic, check out the book Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubs. It breaks down all the food myths we've been told about fat and calories growing up with total scientific proof.

Sorry for the derail Patrick, I'll go back to enjoying all your content now.

I used to do this crap all the time when I was on FB and finally I just said **** it stopped typing to anyone...sometimes silence really is golden, however, I am sure that was a really good thing to write, but probably helps people we wouldn't actually like lol

You didn't edit out his name entirely. Also, do you really believe veea is good or is he just a friend?

oops.

I've never spoken to Vea before. I think he's good because he won a lot of money and the statistics he plays (hud stats) are close to what I think is very good, also he grinds a LOT of volume and plays most days.

edit: I usually berate/chat **** to the Russians actually, they all love the chat box hating, biack or whatever he's called 4bet shoved btn vs bb with 95s yesterday vs my horse and wrote "genius" when my guy had AK. He loves to say stuff like that, HelloTotti also top 5 chat box warriors.

Yea I know he's won a lot of stuff, I've just got him noted as a bad reg. Mb he had too much vodka that time. Generally, I find that a lot of high profit players commit suicidal mistakes especially in icm spots or shortstack push/fold ranges. Whether you got a lot of money or not, some plays are stonecold bad.

Datamining exists in timbeys, yes?

The EPTs that I played where def softer than the super tuesday, but maybe I ran good with tabledraws.

Veeea is good, but mostly good in exploiting the weaker players I think, and generally clicks call a but too much I would say. Love the russian guys' chat game too :P

read this and reread this until you figure out that what is limiting your progress is entirely contained in these few sentences.

Not making -EV shoves and -$EV calls is definitely not what's limiting my progress.

How is this different to any HS games?

I pretty much fall under that category, playing $40 ABI and volume is mostly capped at around 500 games. I understand that volume is a big key and that I could potentially increase hourly and decrease ROI by adding more tables but I'm really struggling with multitabling (10 tables are absolute max for me). And you we're actually the one given me confidence that I don't need to fire up 16 tables at once in order to succeed but instead pay absolute attention on the few tables I'm playing. So this statement makes me think about my approach again..

Medium level degen I think.

Are ruin pubs really the go to spots, and if so which ones are the nuts? I'm also looking for a thermal bath/spa to cure the hangovers.

Hey, playing 10 tables maximum isn't a bad thing at all, but allowing yourself to 1-4 table for the last 30% of your schedule instead of battling on and soldiering on and allowing yourself to play a bunch of extra turbos to help with volume is pretty important.

A lot of people start off with 10 tables, drop down to 7-8 after 2-3 hours and then just whittle down to one deep run and 1 table that for 2+ hours, playing extra tables on the side is going to be way better.

Lets say I'm in the big109 at 1am and theres 50 left, we won't be at the FT for 2+ hours and the money between 50th-10th is so little. Playing 10 extra turbos at $50 abi and wit 20% roi I make $100. More so than not you end up 1 taking for a while, if on average you make even an extra $50/night from it and play 5 nights/week thats over $12k/year. Math is not idiotic yo.

you're right. regs with over 30% roi at above a $100 bi haven't learned how to read charts or use icm calculators yet. god help us when they do.

Dunno why you're being sarcastic when you probably don't even play those stakes. You'd be surprised how many regs are winners because of +var and not because they're better than abi5 grinders. And no, those I'm referring to haven't.

hopefully once i fix my nash leaks i'll be able to move up to your stakes

gl finding ~10 turbos at 50$ abi from 1am -3am CET

Relax guys! No hating!

Got down to two heads up tables tonight, $160 Crocodile and $320 6max on stars, Crocodile would complete my first every triple crown and $7.5k, $320 6max wouldn't because I won the $215 turbo on Sunday but was $8.5k for first. Friend messages me and says "money or glory" I told him "I deleted my pocket fives, I told you its all about the money now"

I won the $320 and came 2nd in the Crocodile, hopefully I'm still OK with that in the morning!

What Alexo is saying is 100% true imo, HS regs are horrific with ICM mostly. I think you try to differentiate too much between stakes levels when there's not much difference at all. There are deep thinking regs who u will only know their level of thinking once you've played with them enough, whether that's $1 or $10k games makes no difference. $3-$7 games are soooo infested with new learners being coached by every stable under the sun now that I'd feel far more ahead of everyone playing the one-drop than I do in a $3 45 man these days. Fedor makes glaring mistakes that wouldn't see him achieve 5% in $2-180's.

I love how you illustrate the grind as a battle (this feels spot on on so many levels) <3.

Very true things you say there, despite so obvious still very helpful to hear them again.

Still wondering why you explicitly addressed this to <$50 though, whereas this should apply to everyone no matter the stakes?

Anyway, this is def one of my favorite blogs out there. Thanks for sharing all kind of thoughts on so many different things! Best of luck this year!