Can't believe Mirage is still around. Great to see you still crushing, OP. Keep at it.

60 bi downswing, brutal, hang in there bro and send some pussy pics for the rungood

Results updates? How’s the grind g

no updates for your fans?

Hey thanks Tyman, sorry it took so long to reply. Read this more than once and appreciate you taking the time. I agree with all of it, I'm just too much of a gambler to not keep taking shots haha

Appreciate all you guys checking in! Didn't mean to not post for so long but tbh it's just been a slog of a grind lately. I had a great January to start the year, +15k or so and then feb/march I did horrendously. Just running so absurdly bad in such absurd spots. I want to post a bunch of hh because I think it's pretty ****ing hilarious (and also graphs for ytd) but first I should post 2022 results.

They are admittedly my worst results ever, both in bb/100 and money earned. I also won another ~10k on the apps but I really needed more like 50k+ on the apps to make it a normal year and make up for not being able to play global poker anymore. Going to really work on improving that this year and already got a sweet new rb deal that should help a lot.

2022 cash:



2022 mtt's:



1275 played
~90k buyins
+$7900 profit

Graph of mtt bb/100:



Not bad, right?

Mtt bb/100 with less than 25bb:



Just running horrendously when the stacks get short and you actually have to win a flip to cash. If the average aipf is ~20bb deep then I'm 50bi below ev in make/break mtt spots which explains why I basically broke even in 2022. I'm down another 8k and 100 buyins to start this year so I'm on a 270 bi/$25k downswing in mtt's... Honestly might just quit playing mtt's because it's just too brutal to give back all my cash winnings for 6-12 months between binks. I lose so many 70/30's in a row it feels statistically impossible even though I know I'm probably not even running that bad because everyone feels like they ran bad in an mtt if they don't win.

Besides poker I've been doing a ton of hiking the past couple months. We got a ton of rain this year so it's beautiful and there are rivers and waterfalls all throughout the valleys. Any time I've had a chance I've been trying to explore as much of it as I can before it all dries up. Can share some pics if you guys want, just have to screenshot them from video clips. This is the peak of El Colonel:



Anyway, we need a thread saver. Who likes pussy?

I like the pic at the end with a bowling ball in it

Those are some well-fed cats.

Chonkers

Love the cat playing Loteria

Thanks for reaching out with the agent help. Just read through the last two years of the thread and was bummed to hear you had a bad experience in my neck of the woods down south, should have reached out and I would have been happy to take you guys out and I promise you would have had a way better experience. Definitely not the norm to be pro tourist and anti local, but anywhere in the tourist zone around the Marina can definitely be like that. You´re absolutely right about the cost of living stuff though. Cabo has basically turned into Southern California. I think you guys would probably love La Paz, we almost relocated there during the pandemic and prices are much more similar to Northern Baja. Hope 2023 turns around for you and you get back to what you´re accustomed to. Cheers

6 years playing and I've never ran anywhere close to this bad before. Can't look at this graph and convince myself I'm a winner in these games yet I just can't see how... Literal 100vpip whales are everywhere and honestly the games have never appeared better. guys repeatedly putting in 20-50% stack pre with 74s or j8s or just open jamming 100bb with t8s. just so much dead money punting off trying to give it away but I'm the guy getting QQ/KK < AA five times a day and every set runs into top set every flush into nut flush for hundreds of thousands of hands.



this isn't the whole year, just since february. January I won 70bi so at least it hasn't been a totally b/e year in these games


might just say **** ignition and focus on other games where I'm still crushing even though those games feel much tougher. feels like there are teams of guys with someone playing the 100vpip whale and 2-3 buddies playing 40vpip and team playing every pot. sounds crazy but observing the same pattern of 4-5 way flops and weird ass leads/floats/raises and same types of guys seemingly crush it with ridiculous stats... who knows, could just be paranoid but the games look insanely soft while playing impossible to beat on ignition

Your running at ev and think you are running terrible? lol Wait until your actually running way under ev like most people.

All-in ev is just a small part of real ev...

Lol, 100 vpip whales colluding with 40 vpip fish, probably not, just variance man. Having a bad stretch too and it's easy to level yourself into thinking you can't beat the pool, but you gotta face this feeling and keep putting volume, you will get out of this hole, it's hard for someone with you winrate over such a big sample so far to be losing in those games.

Btw, I like playing insanely loose at bodog, imo the most profitable regs will have between 25 vpip and 35 vpip, gotta get involved with fish and open very loose to make money vs the nits in the pool and to abuse the fact that you get 3-bet less often than monker in these games.

Is that volume only on reg tables? How many hours/day do you play? Sick volume

The games used to play like that but the last 6 months or so they completely changed. people are 3betting crazy wide. Like any offsuit broadway is 3betting btn vs utg open 9 handed. I dont see nits in the pool anymore. Used to be 4-5 fish per table with 3 nits. Now its 7-8 guys all playing 40 -100 vpip 3betting anything calling 4bets with anything. And these guys dont fold post flop if they catch a 3 card straight or a backdoor 5 high flush draw with one pair outs. Should be easy money but I 've proven to myself I cant beat whatever this new class of whale is. Too good for me.

Luckily I'm up almost 25k on the apps in the last 4-5 weeks since I decided to hop back on them. Games are much tougher in appearance, 5 reg/ 1 fish typically but at least they dont play like a collusion festival most of the time

All reg tables. My goal is 10 hours a day 20 days a month. Have about 200k on bodog so far this year. Also played about 1k mtts jan-march while grinding cash before switching to playing cash on the apps

How do you grind 10h/day? Sick grind skills

Vs people who 3-bet a lot, open tighter and 4-bet more, 4-bet for value pretty hard vs them(99+, AQo+) your range will crush theirs if they're 3-betting QTo OOP, Just play well postflop. Call more hands too.

10 hours is easy tbh. A lot of days are more like 12-16 to take more days off.

Yeah I mean that's exactly what I do I just can't beat them lol. It's not hard to adjust to but it is hard to never win for such long stretches against total trash plays. Most guys are 3betting sizes like 2.5x ip and 3x oop so you can't have a fold range to their 3bets anyway.

It's felt like anytime someone gets AA pre I get dealt AK+ so out of curiosity I checked my average all in preflop equity with premiums.

KK: 53% avg pf equity
QQ: 45%
AKs/AKo: 43%
JJ: 37%

For KK to have that low avg all in pf equity my opponents basically have to only get it in with AA/KK/QQ and AKs. Throw in AKo and KK goes up to 57% equity. So I'm either running horribly aipf or I'm playing guys who simultaneously 3bet/vpip way too high and also don't want to put the money in without the absolute nuts preflop.

Which would make sense except my 4bet bluffs always get jammed on light af. I check the hh the next day and see all kinds of air so just feels like every single 4bet bluff gets picked off with omniscience while even when I 4bet KK I know I'm getting stacked.

If this statement is any representation of how you think about math and poker then it doesn't surprise me you still can't beat 5nl, Mirage.

Hey man I hope I didn't make it sound like I hate cabo. I think I was just ranting a bit about how I don't see why it's valued so highly besides being a quick flight for Americans to go to "mexico". Generally it isn't where I would choose to vacation but my sister wanted to celebrate her 30th there though so obviously we had a good time. I think I was just shocked how much more expensive it is to drink/eat/stay there than places like san diego or cancun. There are some genuinely great restaurants there though, much better than the options in Rosarito/tijuana. I think I dropped like $150 per plate at Roasted but the lobster and steak was so good we had to go back a second time.


I really, really like La paz. We stayed a weekend there because my boyfriend's sister lives there. I'm not sure I want to be that far from the border and amenities like costco and good cheap weed unless I could save a ton on rent which wasn't really the case last time I was searching. Pretty similar prices to live there vs living here in northern baja near the border. Love going there though, it's much more relaxed than cabo. Can walk around town all day without getting harassed by all the "tour guides" and it's a surprisingly bike friendly place which was fun. Had a great experience there and I mean I've been to cabo a dozen times so I knew what to expect.

And had I not gone with family who just wanted to relax I would have spent a lot more time exploring the surrounding areas because there is a ton of stuff to see around cabo that for me is a lot better than sitting on a beach or spending time in town. Really want to spend a couple days backpacking in Sierra de la Laguna next time. I'll try to remember to get in touch next time we're down there. If you ever need motorcycle/bike repairs done lmk, my boyfriend's sister owns the Italika in la paz

This is how many in my pool play. When they don't want to fold to a 4b, they call their non-premiums (sometimes AK and QQ too) but they never forget to jam their KK+ pre. They're not balancing their flats with premiums or their jams with air. Pretty common from people playing what feels comfortable but not thinking holistically about what they're doing and why it might not be great.

The exploit of this player type is not exactly rocket science

That's quite an ironic statement considering you are crying about normal run bad variance. My KK keeps running into AA!!!, fish keep donking me! booo hoo. Of course card distribution can be terrible while on EV but non sun runners usually get hit with both, its normal.

so on the one hand you say this, but on the other you complain about iggy being unbeatable (plus a million other unfounded claims). sounds quite contradictory

Looks like a bunch of iggy regs are starting to realize I was right all along, maybe even you also.

The difference is that we've all been pulling 50-100k+/year off there while you whined about 5nl being unbeatable for 6 years. Even a blind squirrell finds a nut eventually.

Also you think online poker generally is unbeatable. I just think the collusion has gotten too bad in a certain pool. Still on pace to make 6figs this year overall and I'm having an awful awful year

Decided to study this 4-bet situation on pio and here are the results of that study, decided to study monker vs monker on Kxx, Qxx and low boards, as well as a looser range vs monker 4-bets. Here are the ranges I used:

Monker 4-bet from UTG (6-max)



Monker IP call vs 4-bet(these are actually ranges made by me, don't have monker in that spot, but I wouldn't be surprised if those were decent ranges, maybe more calling with AKs and some extra folds with KTs-type of hands).



The situation is so ugly for IP in that K72 board that it's folding 90% of JJ vs a range 25% cbet, folding most AQ with bdfd, now on KJ7, it's calling way more with the extra EV from the gutshot with AQ, still folding half of those without the bdfd, makes me wonder how it would be the turn approach vs population, who overcalls those OTF and pre(gave IP a reasonable amount of pre-flop AQo folds vs the 4-bet, which doesn't happen much in these games), probably play very cautiously on Tx turns(which it's already doing with monker ranges fwiw) and go thinner for value with more bluffs on brick turns and rivers.

Decided to study the Qx boards a bit, I believe those are very important to study because they are very likely the ones in which we will face the biggest difference between monker ranges and those bodog ranges we see because IP will have more AQ in their range. One interesting thing I've learned studying these boards is that AK has a very very low EV in those boards, but it has some strong blockers vs AQ/AA/KQ, so we should ship very often OTT, way more than I've expected, IP can't fold much 99-JJ, which is surprising imo(it's calling 50% of 99 OTT).

The difference between Q73 and QT3 isn't much, I thought IP would have a higher EV on QT3 because he has more TT than OOP, also QT3 connects more with broadways, which are present in both players' ranges, so I thought it would even out the EVs a little bit more, but it doesn't, probably because OOP is putting a lot of pressure and IP can't realize much equity in that spot, this effect might become more important if OOP is jamming OTT rather than going for a small sizing for a second barrel. Also it's important to note that IP isn't 3-betting 100% of TT from MP vs UTG and that OOP is 4-betting some TT too, which in practice might change a lot the post-flop play, because I believe population 3-bets all TT combos and OOP doesn't 4-bet those much, this shifts the 5-bet dynamics a lot and there are some obvious adaptations one might have vs those, specially in some specific boards like JTx, 9Tx, J9x and even on brick boards if you believe villain can't fold TT vs a ship OTT.

The last board I came up with was 825ssh, more like a brick board to see how pio plays those, there are some other important boards to study, but can't cover all of those. OOP has a higher EV on 825ssh than on Qxx boards, OTT the strat is very interesting, the turn ships revolve around equity denial hands and bluffs blocking Jx. Also copying the value combos too, pio likes to do that, in practice those can be very tricky to use and I wouldn't be surprised if only the very best might understand how to use this nuance to their favor. Tbh I don't use that, it's not relevant in these games anyway, people are misplaying this spot so much that there are more important things we should focus on, like our unblockers to the bdfd(which dictate which AA are shipping or checking the turn). Btw, I play a ship or check strat OTT, but it was very interesting to see the river play of this sim after a small turn barrel on a brick, lots of potential exploitation vs the pool(as well as playing well vs tough players and knowing what your range wants to do in there), it's worth studying that.


Now I've ran some sims with a range that looks more like the population(more 3-bets with AQ/TT/99, more calls with AQ/suited broadways, as well as less AA/KK traps pre-flop) and here are my thoughts:

Population IP calling range vs UTG 4-bet:



EVs on each board types



K72ssh: Pio is going absolutely crazy on this texture, without AA/KK to protect the range on this texture, OOP is playing very aggro with value and bluffs, IP can't stand the heat on this texture, you have to go nuts here and turn a lot of hands into bluffs to get value from KQ+.

KJ7ssh: Pio is folding half of QJ OTF vs a range cbet, just to show how bad the situation is for IP in there(I believe it's because even QJ won't realize much EV because OOP is shipping a lot OTT, it's going as thin as shipping AJ for value in there wtf).

Q73ssh: it's somewhat similar to the monker vs monker scenario, maybe the extra AQ balances out the lack of AA/KK traps in there, pio is checking a little bit more OTT, I believe we should check a bit more OTT vs population, because pio is defending more OTF and stabbing less OTT than population, so vs that we have to be more cautious with our checking range OTT to not reward them for stabbing 99-JJ(which they do a lot and pio is stabbing those only 25%-50%). Make sure you're x/jamming this turn with AK unblocking the FD and the bdfd, if you're unsure on how crazy villains are in this spot, just x/j 30% of AK.

QT7ssh: same as Q73ssh, but watch out that pio is floating 95% of its range OTF vs the range cbet

825ssh: Very interesting how those low boards are playing out with a higher EV for OOP, IP folds way more than I thought(folding a lot of bdfds), OOP cbets very often OTT for a small sizing with some portions of its range and checks very little. Imo from what you said, it's in this spot where you might be facing some real problems in your strat vs those aggro players, you're probably playing too face up OTT with your hand and not recognizing that your range is way stronger than from your opponents, AK wants some thin value on those low boards, while QQ/JJ wants to ship. Your opponents are very likely floating you wide and stabbing a lot OTT, vs that you have a lot of different options, imo if this type of aggro strat is a thing like you say, it's very likely some sort of exploit developed by a HS guy like Ohheycindy and nick howard did(their strats dictate the bodog pool even on this day). Vs that you can either develop a checking strat OTT that will punish wide floats OTF + wide and mergy stabs OTT, or play a jam or small cbet strat yourself that is more based on theory OTT. The key here is to play the turn and river well, since we're ranging OTF a lot when OOP in 4-bet pots.






Some cool tips:
- Go more aggro on 2 to flush turns, IP is defending a lot of bdfds OTF(and population defends those more than pio and less A highs unblocking the bdfd and fd, which gives more power to the unblockers as bluffs), so you have to force more equity denial in that spot, go crazy with unblockers in that spot.

- Make sure you're 4-betting 99-JJ at some frequency, those hands will realize very hard on low boards and you can turn those into bluffs on Kxx and some turns too when you hit some equity and your range becomes too strong(like on QTx on Kx turns).

- Vs strong opponents watch out for your blockers/unblockers, in these situations with narrow ranges this is a factor that gets exponentially more important, they can make or break your EV vs someone who is capable of thinking about blockers.

None of that is true. You have definitely made the most out of your sun run thats for sure. I only started saying iggy was trash about 4 months ago anyway.

At 5nl? You got to be trolling.