well that's good and dandy if there is a shortage of sellers. but there is not.

I would assume that your hourly in the main is something like minus -500 an hour

If I don't sell enough, I have a pretty solid hourly awaiting me in the 5/10 games. I'm not in a position where it makes sense to give away my action at little/no markup when I can take 100% of myself in a game where I'll make 100+ an hour. I badly want to play the Main, but I'm still going to be smart.

Your hourly probably isnt 100hr in a vegas 5/T game unless there's a straddle and you're deep. If it is then you should grind that as much as you can and then take all of your own action next year.

Pretty sure it's higher than 100/hr during the WSOP.

you've been in vegas all summer. what traveling expenses are you speaking of?

you say you make > $100/hr playing 5/10, yet in your staking thread you said you played 40 hrs of 5/10 since December of last year, and 60 hrs 1-tabling .25/.50 on wsop.com last month.

This isn't the Spanish Inquisition here folks.

Cuse can charge whatever MU he wants for whatever reason he wants.

It's called investment folks.

The money I spent to get here, the money I'll spend to go back, and the $2K I spent on housing.

So you're calling me a liar? I've been as open on here as anybody. I post my bankroll every month or so. I just moved up to 5/T recently - I played 3 or 4 sessions on the east coast, and I've mainly been playing 5/T in Vegas. I posted my 5/T stats so far.

Also I wasn't 1-tabling .25/.50 I just wasn't multi tabling heavily since I was on a laptop... 4 tables on average, and .50/1 as well. Which is basically irrelevant since I put about 2% of my bankroll online...

But, as they say, haters gonna hate.

Of course he can offer whatever MU he wants. Doubt anyone disagrees with that. The market speaks ultimately however. Then the question becomes why.

I assume part of his reason for having a PGC is to get feedback whether that be certain lines in a hand, life stuff, whatever. But judging by Cuses reaction to most advice offered he isn't really interested in advice unless it supports his already held beliefs.

But to be fair to him I haven't read this PGC as closely as others so I could be wrong.

you posted that you had made 12 buyins between 50nl & 100nl online last month over 61 hours. you also make > $100/hr (ev) playing 5/10 live, and you've played 40 hrs of 5/10 minus the 3 or 4 sessions back home.

People giving you their thoughts are not inherently haters bruh. Some are for sure but most aren't

The dude basically calling me a liar about playing 5/T and insinuating I'm really a .25/.50 player is hating. I wasn't talking about you.

I'm not calling you a liar. I'm pointing out that you've played 9 hours of 5/10 live between June 6th and when your Main Event thread went up.

And your point is? There was a stretch of a week or so where I barely played live because I wasn't feeling great and was playing a lot of online satties. It doesn't mean my expected 5/T hourly during the WSOP isn't 100+.

All jealousy aside you could make 100hr playing 300bb 5/T especially if you don't have bankroll concerns, which is a powerful and unique advantage you have over other people. I would recommend you hire a coach for a few hundred an hour. Should be some sick chip stax

Thanks... Depending on my 5/T winrate after a significant sample size I might get a little coaching. I'm not opposed to the idea, but if I'm still beating it for 10bb/hr+ I'm not sure if it's worth it.

I'm buying in 150bb right now but the games do play deep out here, and there's been good action. I had 7K on the table earlier this WSOP - dunno if I posted that pic or not.

On the coaching front, I'm very interested in trying to go out of the country for 1-2 months and getting coaching while playing a lot of hands online and in multiple games.

All of that time and money is far better spent buying a coach now and taking the next 400hrs to realize you play like a scrub and need to fix things. You can just do the EV of a coach and figure it out that way unless you believe youre better than all the coaches

I just realized you think youre running at EV with 100hr at 5T over whats likely under 100hrs right?

I play like a scrub making 10bb/hr (or more) at every level I've played, lol. I am well aware I'm at a small sample size on 5/T so far. I'm also capable of estimating my hourly in a game based on game quality based on thousands of hours of live poker in various games and stakes. I don't know what I'd make right now in Vegas 5/T some average time of the year - probably 70-80/hr. During the WSOP, though, there's a lot more action.

I'm not going to get coaching until I hit a stake I don't beat for 10bb/hr or more, or have specific leaks I need coaching to fix. Right now there are a couple areas I plan to improve, but they're things I can do on my own. There's one area I can work on with a coach, but it's a small thing, and I'm going to work on the other areas on my own first and see where my hourly is.

Over the last ~6 months, I'm making almost 15bb/hr across all stakes in almost 600 hours. That's closer to a significant sample, and that includes some downswing sample too. If that's playing like a scrub, then I can't wait to make 20-30bb/hr.

As far as playing the main event goes I think people get too hung up on their edge against the majority of the field and don't think enough/don't want to admit how the fair against the top 5 - 10% of the field.

Do you have an edge over the rec fan boy droollers that will make up much of the starting field? Yes, you have a huge edge against them.

Do you have an edge over all the $2 - 5 and $5 - 10 grinders playing in the main event? Well you know you beat/crush $2/$5 and you feel you have a solid hourly in most $5/$10 games so the answer should be yes, but it's obviously a much smaller edge than the one above.

Now, do you have an edge over guys that grind low to mid stakes tournaments for a living, say someone like Ari Engel? Eh, probably not. If somehow you do it's tiny, but I doubt you have one at all. That's not hating, that's just being realistic.

Let's go higher than that, those that grind mid to high stakes tournaments. Well hard to see you having any edge against guys who regularly play in those and have solid winning ROI's.

Now let's go to the top of the pyramid. Your Martin Jacobsons, Greg Mersons, Vennessa Selbsts, Shaun Deebs, etc.

Please do not tell me you believe anything other than these players have a massive edge on you when it comes to MTT's.


Are you a favorite against the starting field? Yes, for sure.

Are you a favorite against the final 10 - 15% of the field? probably not.

But when it gets down to final couple of hundred players you're a dog against the expected remaining field.

That's true purely based on experience if nothing else.

I'm not hating on you man, just being realistic.

The Cuse Thread: No Brag, Just Fact!

I've never played with Ari Engel, so I don't know - but I'd suspect that I have edge on most really good mid-stakes MTT grinders 80+ BB deep and they have edge on me <50 BB deep, and it's a push in between. I play deep way more than they do, and they play shallow way more than I do. I think this also increases my chances of accumulating a big stack over the first few days, which can offset the edge they might have later in the tournament with equal stack sizes. I believe this is a big part of why you see so many cash game pros go deep in the Main Event.

I think I have a pretty huge edge over most 2/5 grinders, based on my experience... 5/10 I don't have enough of a sample size to say, but nobody I've played with scares me. There are 5/10 pros I'm not looking to go to war with, but that's just common sense.

I've also played 5/10 with bracelet winners, including someone who shipped a massive field bracelet within the last 3 years at the WSOP, and I had edge on him IMO. I outplayed him in several pots, some in and some out of position. Yes, LOL sample size, and he could have picked up different hands and it could have gone differently... But when you identify someone's mistakes, attack them, pick off a bluff, and bluff them in one session, it's reasonable to say you do have edge. I've also played 5/10 cash with someone who has been in the final 50 of the Main Event multiple times, and more than held my own.

I don't think they have a massive edge on me in this tournament. Would I swap a % with anyone on that list in a heartbeat? Of course - would I swap laying them a price? Sure. They have a better resume and proven results. Of course, for the matter at hand - selling action in the Main Event - they're pretty irrelevant, because none of those guys/girls are going to be selling action. It's not like you can go buy 10% of Greg Merson at 1.3MU or even 2.0MU or whatever. The question isn't whether I have as much edge as them, it's whether I have more than 30% edge, and I believe I clearly have a lot more than 30% edge on the field. I see cash game players selling at 1.8MU getting buyers, but people are going nuts on me for asking 1.3MU.

As far as playing in the same field with them goes, I don't think they significantly impact my edge the way you do. The odds of me drawing a table with one of those types of players, let alone multiple, is pretty slim.

If they're on my left, then it's going to make my life very difficult, but the same could be said of any good, aggressive player. It's pretty unfair to pick specific players and compare their edge against me - we're not playing heads up. If I had to play Dan Colman heads up, 25 BB deep, he'd have massive edge on me. If I had to play him heads up, 150 BB deep, he'd have edge - but not nearly as big. If I'm playing 9 or 10 handed and he's halfway around the table, he's got edge on me based on his experience and results, of course, but I can easily still have a lot of edge on the table as a whole, and it's not like my game plan is going to be to play as many pots as I can with him.

The list you picked is pretty interesting, because Merson and Jacobson in particular are two people who's game I respect as much/more than anyone else in poker. I actually watched the whole final table without hole cards Merson's year to try to analyze his thought processes and play, and in many instances, I believe we were looking at hands the same way. Coming into the 2012 WSOP, would anyone have been able to pick him out of a lineup? I'm sure he would have had people questioning his edge just the same at that point in his career.

Jacobson's strongest skill set in tourneys is probably my weakest - the shorter stack situations around 30BB and below. I haven't really seen him play enough deepstacked poker to analyze that, but I'm sure he's fantastic at that too. I watched the whole final table last year live and I thought he played as close to perfectly as anyone I've seen.

But looking at the final 100 in any year of the Main Event, you're only likely to see a handful of people of that caliber, and even that deep in the tournament, you're pretty unlikely to have more than one of them at a single table... Of course, the table that draws 2-3 is going to be the TV table, which is what you're going to be basing a lot of your analysis on if you aren't watching all the hand reports and following every result. And more important than how you play against them is going to be how you and they play against the weaker players. So much of the later stages of a tourney like this is about getting gifted a big stack by a recreational player, not butting heads with the other remaining good players. My edge relative to some of the sickos you named in this specific department is going to be pretty close.

It's like the difference in LeBron James going 1 on 1 with me at basketball and Michael Carter-Williams going 1 on 1 with me. They're both going to shut me out, and it's going to be over just as quick, even though LeBron would have big edge on MCW and more edge over me than MCW. At some point, you get to diminishing returns. In my opinion, I'm well past the point where that starts to matter, so I think I can accumulate chips nearly as efficiently as those elite players against most of the weaker competition we're both going to face.

Then you've got people like Maria Ho, who's a very good player with some deep runs, but who is spending most of her time year-round on limit mixed games. A lot of people might take her over me in a deep stacked NLHE tournament, but I wouldn't - all due respect to her. I actually have more respect for her poker game overall than mine specifically because she plays all the games with success, but in the Main Event, we're playing the game I play year round and focus on all the time. For a lot of the recognizable higher stakes pros, that's not the case... So in many cases, a 2/5, 5/10 or whatever grinder might have more edge than some of the big names you see on TV.

I think to say that I wouldn't be a favorite against the final 10-15% of the field is patently absurd. If you took the most skilled 10% of the field, eliminated everyone else, and let us play it out, I'm very confident I'd be in that 10%, but maybe not a favorite against it specifically - few even in that 10% would have any significant edge on each other, we're talking about very small margins. But it's not like all of us are going to survive every year, so realistically if I get that deep I'm going to be hands down in the top 15-30% of the field at that point, which still makes me a favorite against the remaining field. I think the same is going to be true as you pare the field down. If you dropped me in the final 200, I'd still expect to be in the top ~25% of that. For every Dan Smith or Greg Merson, you've got a couple of Curtis Rystadt's.

If you want to say I don't have experience, so you think I'm going to meltdown and implode, then you can speculate on that, but that's really the only way you can say I wouldn't be a favorite against the remaining field at any stage of the tournament, except maybe the final table or two, and then it's dependent on the year. Last year at the final table I'd say there were two players I'd have a lot of edge on, one I'd have some edge on, three who would be about a push, and three who would have edge on me.

Bottom Line

What I think about my edge should be pretty telling given that I'm a bankroll nit and I'm willing to take about 7 times as much as I "should," of my own buyin, given my bankroll. You're welcome to dispute what my edge is, but it's not like I'm out here trying to hose people or talking out of my ass without being willing to put a significant chunk of my own bankroll in play. Meanwhile, you've got people with a "better" resume (more tournament results) who are selling 70-90% at markups that are basically leaving them putting up under $500-$1,000 of their own money.

I'd rather back the guy who's putting more of his own money up, demonstrating his own belief in his edge on the field, than the people who are trying to borderline freeroll it.

I tell it like I see it. I'm extremely confident in my NLHE game, and the stats back me up on that. I'm also honest though. How many people with a lifetime 10+BB/hr win rate are going to speculate that they'd only make 7-8 BB/hr year round in Vegas? Or go sit in a 1/3 (straddle) game instead of 2/5 or 5/T, because they think that's their highest hourly at the moment... Then post about it?

So yeah, I'm extremely confident, but I also tell it like it is and don't hide the downswings, the smaller games, etc from this thread, or back down when people question me. I'm always there at the end of the month (in this case end of the WSOP instead of each month) with my results/stats and goals achieved/missed.

All that said, I did also drop my markup significantly for people taking bigger chunks. If you think I'm a good investment, you better get in on it this year... Because I have no intent of selling action next year! You're going to get a steal this year, and next year I'm going to make sure I'm in a position to be taking 100% of myself.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/18...event-1542448/

Even the haters are welcome, I'll just tell you I told you so when I'm handing you your share of the winnings.

Missed these earlier while I was at the table...

LOL, ok buddy.

The market is also pretty inefficient in this regard. It lacks a great deal of information. There are certainly people charging more than 1.3MU who don't have that much edge, and people like me and others who aren't getting buyers or who are selling for less who have even more edge. You have a lot of cash game players with big edge selling action in a tournament in which nobody ever gets a truly significant sample size in their lifetime. That's not an efficient market.

As for my PGC, it really depends on the advice and the situation. There are things I've posted in here asking for opinions from time to time, and that's fine. There are some hands I've asked opinions on, and some I just posted for entertainment.

At this point, I've got several people I know from 2p2 and the poker community that I speak with regularly via text, in person, etc who I know are very good players and know the poker world well. I tend to go to them for advice a lot more than this thread.

Meanwhile, a lot of the "advice," on here (not you) is coming from people who are looking to troll, talk s***, etc, for whatever reason. I have felt for a while that there is a lot of animosity toward 2p2ers who successfully play a LAG style from people who are very inside the box TAG players or winning recreational players. I'm not really talking just about this specific instance, there have been several examples in this thread that have more to do with strategy. Thus, I don't really put up with anything that I feel is negative BS. So, I fire back at someone like RelentlessDoubt. ITT666 on the other hand laid out his case for why he thinks my edge is less than I think, and I responded with a lot of detail on why I disagree.

That's the equivalent of the difference between saying "you suck" "fold pre" and "here's why I disagree with what you did." I'm pretty much always going to be open to discussion with the third example, and always going to fire back at the first example.