What tournaments do you think are worth playing? I only play $22s and under, with some shots up to $44, so should I just play literally everything, even quadruple ups (lol)?

It depends how high your ROI is to some extent. Theoretically, with infinite bankroll, you'd want to play everything on the site if you're decently good.

In practice, some can be avoided. The $109 12k (2.5k chip starting stack) can be avoided. It plays extremely shallow and is will produce a lot of variance in your schedule (high buyin + short stacks). I used to play the $82 thousandaire but have stopped, probably leaving a decent amount of money on the table in doing so, but the amount of time spent waiting as people tank as the bubble approaches became unbearable for me. Don't recall any quadruple ups being offered. The $215 50k can be skipped by most, it's pretty objectively the toughest tournament that runs regularly.

I play mostly cash but when i do mtt it's usually turbo format for schedule reasons. I think turbos can be pretty good value on Bovada if you have the bankroll. I see tons of players limp folding in like early position with a 5 bb stack. You can build up a monster stack while most players are carefully managing their 14bbs despite the fast rising blinds.

I am studying up and planning to use vacation days to play a big schedule for the gspo3 hoping to hit some nice scores. Keep plugging away m8, the players are so bad on that site that you will make tons of final tables despite this stretch of runbad. If you weren't getting bad beat tons in your downswing then there wouldn't be much value on that site. All that does is confirm that there is $$$ to be made. gl

yeah I just checked out the GSPO3 schedule. seems solid. pretty hefty, the second series at least--I did a quick calculation and it totals around $10000 in buyins (only talking nlhe events, not plo if those exist). lots to think about.

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second hand i VPIPed in tonight's session lol (I was the top set)

ending early again in favor of rest, reading, and some gaming. recurring theme these days

funny how things pan out! i managed to grind up a decent sized stack in that same tourney, single tabling while doing non poker work on the side.

very interesting blind v. blind hand occurred just now. I will try to remember to post it here later on, with my thoughts

i'm really drawing stone dead these days:

he was soooted

reminds me of the final table of a $300+25 600 runner GSPO2 final table I was at, AQs<AQs for the swiftest bustout known to man, good memories

Bovada fields are a lot smaller than if someone is grinding stars or something, so variance shouldn't be as bad, although it's still MTT and the variance is still insane.

Maybe add some sngs on the side to even out the variance a bit? Should also actively work on your mental game if you are going to continue playing mostly mtt. Full time MTT definitely not gonna end well without proper mindset.

yeah avg. field size for me is somewhere in the realm of 350 runners, so there is far less variance than if I grinded strictly majors on stars, etc.

anyway, yeah, definitely need to reformat my mind's response to these things. i used to tilt money off when i'd get frustrated, which i've eliminated completely from my game--now I think that when a bad stretch gets particularly bad those old feelings rise up in a "oh, woe is me!" form. realistically just need to stop complaining. i want to be in my absolute strongest form strategically and mentally (though they're one in the same) come GSPO3 to maximize expected return



on that note, i can't decide what i want to do as far as how much of/what tournaments of the GSPO3 high buyin series i want to play. options would be to play <100% of it, play 100% of it (around 82 tournaments, $10000 total buyins), or play 100% and sell action for some of it

i played all of GSPO2 (roughly the same figures) on a total (life+poker) bankroll of $16000, when I was still a student and didn't need the money for anything--ended somewhat well for me, but obviously might not have. i guess i'll grind the "contender" series out and see if i bink anything decent (in which case i'll likely go full salvo with the high stakes ones not selling anything)

there's a long time before it starts at least



(the graph and finishes on the first page are outdated, but mods have stopped editing in recent finishes for me...at some point in the near future i'll have to post the updated material on a later page)

I'm just gonna leave this here:

http://www.nsdpoker.com/2011/01/mtt-pros/

TLDR: Variance is insane, it can always get worse, understanding long term is only way to deal with the short term variance (Fwiw 2k Mtts is VERY short term, 5k Mtts is medium term, 10k+ Mtts can start to be considered longish term)

Interesting read. He made it seem a litle more doom and gloom than I think it really is (especially in the current USA market), but the point is very spot on.

Imo if you depend on poker for an income and you can't play 800-1K MTTs a month you need to find another game. MTTs are all about volume and to get through the swings you need hundreds of buy ins and a lot of perseverance.

If you put in huge volume it's possible to profit nearly every month, I've seen it done, but you have to be very smart about game selection and fully buy into the fact that it's a #'s game.

Playing 800+ mtts/month sounds like a miserable life. IMO 4k+/year is a solid goal. Attainable just by playing on bovada and also by playing like average of 3-4 days a week. 4k mtts should yield you very decent profit almost every time.

Math begs to differ. Even the best of the best are at the mercy of variance playing only a few hundred MTTs a month, even on an easy site like Bovada.

Not only is the variance higher with less volume, but it can crush your confidence if you're on a downswing because it will seem to last much longer than it really is.

Fwiw, 1k mtts a month is only 50 mtts a day for 20 days. That might not be possible on just Bovada without playing really low, but playing only 1 site is dumb anyway.

I don't pay much attention to sitngos on bovada since I play cash/the larger prize pool tourneys, but I thought I've heard stuff about them running and being soft. If someone is going to grind only bovada then adding those on top of their mtt grind seems like the best thing to do. I still think most full time mtt guys are crazy for subjecting themselves to that grind/variance though :P

Yeah that MTT article is depressing. I'm just gonna pretend I never read that.

falling asleep in bed right now so don't wanna get into the volume numbers etc. just yet, but 2 points

A) many MTTs we play here on a semi-full schedule are very small fields. they would be considered SNGs on stars. a few i can think are typically around 90-120 people on average, which helps a ton--equally important is

B) ROI% on bovada is quite high for skilled players. the phenomenon of people performing stack donations in absurd spots in, say, a $109 (which happens semi-frequently) results in a ton of long term variance being mitigated

i'm not grinding the Super Tuesday here, but the exact opposite field strength wise (speaking of which, i'm hyped for the $51000 wcoop high roller a week from this sunday...good luck selling action to that)

True about some of them only having 90-120 people, but then you've got pretty bad structures in the daily 109's, one being a turbo and one a deep stack, which = +variance

The rest of them that I play (up to 55's) all have at least 200 people per. Obviously the sunday big ones always have huge fields as well.

The article referred to an average field of 180 people, so I think it's pretty comparable, aside from the skill of the player pool.

Edit: NVMD.. article said at least 181 entrants, not average

So yeah it's definitely not as bad as bovada

you cant control the runbad which sucks and i hope it turns around soon but you can control things like limping Q2 from the sb. as bad as youre running with plays like that(yes i saw the sick runout from the hand but you never shoulda been in it in the first place) its obv you also have leaks and should be using your energy working on those instead of complaining so much. GL

exactly (regarding the edit)

off the top of my head i'm thinking the 6max bounty and the $44 6max are both around 100 people if i'm not mistaken--i've taken to avoiding the 109s for this precise reason, but the turbo is always good as a way to let off steam occasionally.

key takeaways regardless: never stop improving & more volume is always a good thing

5 way limped pot pre post antes

I agree; if coping with variance is an issue then grinding more will get you through it quicker. There are some downfalls to that though. Grinding more during a downswing can lead to bad play and just overall despair not just on the poker table but off as well. Its a tricky subject. I still deal with great pains during downswings. I think my solution has been to make sure i have a life outside of poker. I tend to average 12 days / month (or a little under 3 days/ week) So i actually spend MOST of my time away from the tables. Its mostly in streaks. Ill play over 20 days one month, then ill take a month or two off etc. I dont think thats the solution for everyone to grind 'so little' but having a balanced life outside of poker deff reduces the pain for me.

Additionally, getting involved more in the live grind also helps a ton. Its a very nice change of pace and keeps things interesting. When im getting bored with online, ill find a series to grind for a couple weeks and it will always be exciting whether im doing well or not because its just a new interesting experience compared to being in front of a computer all day at home. Ultimately I come back to the realization that online is so much more convenient and i then get excited about grinding online. This pattern of keeping things interesting by switching the arena where i compete helps keep my mind off the results a bit and instead focused on enjoying the game and its challenges.

FWIW Dont think its THAT dumb playing on just bovada on the weekdays (Sundays WPN has some solid juicy very high buy ins). At least not for me. Prob just being results oriented tho.

I agree that balance is huge, but do you ever find it hard to get back on the grind after taking a break? I just had a 2 week vacation and I had almost no motivation to start playing again once I got back. A couple days into it and I was addicted again, though.

Seems when I take a break from anything it makes it that much tougher to get back into it.

Good points by Duque about balance. Balance was always my issue and I never found the perfect mix while focusing only on MTTs. About 9 months ago I started to play 75% cash with my main MTT grind being Sunday and it's been the best decision I ever made for my poker career.

Aweosme is never knew until recently that there was online poker again in the U.S. After Black Friday. Does bravado have other forms of poker tournaments like house, stud, Omaha, or razz?

Hey did anyone notice that the weekly $100,000 guaranteed is now a $200,000 guarantee or the fact that Bovada can run a $100,000 guaranteed with a $55 buy-in now? The prize pools are growing, and the special tournament series are becoming more frequent. Look forward to more mula.

Haven't looked but i think the 100k is a 200k only because the contender series is now going on. But yeah prize pool wise bovada isn't doing bad. Not much of the contender series interests me but looking forward to the higher buyin series starting afterwards.

busted the 200k in a very marginal spot that mayyybe i could have avoided and AA<JTs in the 3rd anniversary tourney

but very strong stacks in the $55 15k, the $44 30k, and the $215 50k. $109 6max is about to kick off. let's do this.