Glad everybody is enjoying the hand histories. I’ll make an effort to post more cash hands when I play as I imagine that deepstack live cash is where my insight is more interesting since it’s my strongest game. Unfortunately though the next month is going to be spent playing tournaments so the hands may not be quite as fun but I will probably gain from hearing some feedback.

Flying to Vegas in 12 hrs, might fire a few turbos in the meantime.

Cool thread. Just getting into MTTs myself. Sick HH glgl

I'm in Vegas now, played day 1 of the WPT 5 main event which was enjoyable but Bellagio is always a horror show when it comes to the experience of playing poker. Bagged up 85k from 30k thanks to a young nerdy euro guy who was at my table in the first level and immediately started talking about ranges and strategy in a online-guy style way. He proceeded to roll in 300bb vs me in the first level UTG1 vs my BB squeeze with AKo. Solid.

I played a load of hands, my table had like 3 pretty big punters and then the three regs to my left were either very card dead or very tight so I was able to splash around and get in there with the punters. Most of these pots were small, I did make a pretty epic calldown with A8o on Q5439. My BB vs aggro punter CO open and triple off, he mucked river and I just mucked behind though it was pretty tempting to pretend I thought I had to show this one ha.

Played one hand of interest late in the last level. I open CO Q5 to 750 at 150/300 into two tight regs in BTN & SB and seemingly competent but overall seemed on the tight side BB.

He calls flop is 963. He checks I bet 700. Stacks are approx 25k. Not sure about this sizing probably supposed to size up flop a bit. Turn 7s so I turn double gutter. He checks and I think I get to overbet here, think it may be a two sizing spot and also I think in general overbets get a ton of work done vs most regs in live fields. My image is definitely pretty awful at this stage though so perhaps embarking on an ambitious double overbet bluff is not the wisest idea. Anyway I decide to bet 3800 into 3500 turn planning to overbet river as well.

He calls river is 6 he checks, I bet 13.5k into 11.5k and my opponent shoves for 6k more RIP money. Think the hand is gonna work plenty and is fine from an EV point of view, and I think it's pretty reasonable from a GTO perspective anyway, pretty sure PIO will take this line at a fairly high frequency and I think explo it's printing so happy with the play. Only niggling thought is I hate bluffing when your image is a young overaggro kid which I'm worried is what I looked like at that stage.

I've played some cash here too, been pretty pleased with the quality of the games, think some of the regs are a long way behind the times, there don't seem to be loads of huge VIPs floating around but it's a nice lower variance grind. Played a 25/50/100/200 game with a couple drunk SHR players which got pretty out of hand, ended up getting fairly hammered myself and played some pretty fun gambling pots. Got out losing 5k and got coolered for 15k so managed to fade waking up raging at myself for getting carried away.

Also I have managed to get myself on a really ****ed up sleep schedule- waking up at 5AM at the moment which has meant that I've had loads of time to do some off the table work. I'm really enjoying doing it but I would like to double check my method as I am getting some results that are surprising to me.

So here are the inputs of two preflop SIMs I ran. Just want to check that I've not butchered the options too much.

First is BB vs UTG off 20bb

You can see I gave options of call, fold or shove preflop vs a tight UTG open. If you look closely you can see the options I gave for IP and OOP. As per instructions I simplified postflop options but I think that's enough options to give realistic results for 20bb play? Would appreciate if somebody who is into their solves could take a glance and let me know if I can trust the results.

I know to go wide defending here but I was a little surprised by how wide and how little rejamming we do, here are the results:



Next solve I did a while ago. Here there are a few more preflop actions that lead to postflop play so I had to use slightly more simple options for postflop- the video I watched suggested that this is fine, you don't need accurate models for postflop play as it won't affect EV too much.

This is 20bb blind vs blind. I'm just going to list rather than image the options I gave preflop as I'm on a small screen struggling w the screengrab.

-OOP player 5 money in pot, IP player 10, dead money 9. Starting stack 200.
-SB can limp, open to 26 or shove.
-BB can call open, 3bet small vs open, shove vs open.
-BB can raise 26 vs limp, check vs limp, shove vs limp.
-SB can call vs raise or shove vs raise.

So there were 4 postflop exits: BB checks, BB calls raise, SB limp calls, SB raise calls small 3bet.

Here are the options I put in for limped pots, the other pots are about same complexity of options (so definitely very simplified but I think sufficient?)



And here are the results to this SIM:



and BB vs Limp



It was the results I saw here that were most surprising to me- shoving K2o but not K3o. Ripping T2o and 92o for 20bb over limps? These results are what made me question my process. I used 40 flops from the PIO preflop number of flop options.

Another question I have is whether 26 is too small of an open option to give SB given antes as it only uses that option 6% of the time presumably because it gives BB too good of a price. Perhaps 30 is a more reasonable open size.

Anyway would love if anybody who's done their own preflop solves could take a glance at my process here, I'm fairly confident I haven't ****ed it up but I would like a vote of confidence so that I can happily continue with my work.

Made day 4 of wpt 5 diamond main event w nearly 3x avg. Played some pretty fun hands and played well overall I thought, ran really good to pick up hands in all the spots where it looked like I was fos so hopefully that continues.

Made a pretty big calldown: peel T6o no diamond to 6k UTG2 open at 1200/2400/400. Opponent is a pretty good and aggressive reg afaik. Flop QT4ddx i ch he bets 10k i call. Turn 5o i ch he bets 30k i call river 7 I ch he shoves 90k I tank call eventually.I had a few specific reasons for the call but in general I think this hand is a pretty good calling hand, I almost folded it on the turn and then I realised that it's much better than all my stronger Tx and probably better than my Qx to calldown given that it doesn't block any straight draws and most of my Tx and Qx are going to. So i called turn and then on river I think it's a pretty good bluffcatcher for the same reasons + I had some other thoughts that made me wanna call. I decided I didn't want to hero it off always here, it's not scientific but I like to take a little of the pure leveling decisions out of poker in these spots, I feel like if I eventually decide to call T6 I might just end up always calling any bluffcatcher here. So decided to randomize and call 80% of the time, fold 20%. Fortunately the clock was in my favour and I called and beat KJo to win a nice pot.

The other most significant hand was just perfect timing really. My image was pretty over the top from picking up so many opening hands, getting flop check raising hands and taking the spot and from getting some value 3bets and cbets thru without showdown. So it was pretty unfortunate for my opponent who is a good and aggressive regular when I opened UTG 5200 at 2400bb, UTG2 flats, UTG3 flats, villain makes it 26.5k from next seat- I guess lojack. He's got 240k, I cover and I have AA. Such an incredible spot for me, the hand plays itself and I'm able to pick up another 240k vs AKo all in pre to bring me up to a big stack.

After that I didn't make any headway, but didn't really lose too much ground either, got 750k tomorrow down from 800k at peak so very happy with the day and hopefully more to come tomorrow.

Best of luck!

Really enjoying this thread.

Wauw, Glgl sir!!

Gl Matt

Looks like OP is currently 11th in WPT 5 diamond, and under the radar collecting chips.

*donating my "one time" that went unused for 2017

gg m8, big one is coming!

Gg sir. I cannot wait to read your write up

gl, subed, nice HH

It's been a few days now since my 5 run. It was a ton of fun and I remembered how much I enjoy playing main event poker in America. So many awesome spots where you get to do some crazy stuff, make some huge folds, bluffs, etc.

I was really happy with my overall play throughout the run, I've definitely been guilty in the past of getting too hungry or impatient and basically playing as though because I think I'm a better player than my opponents I deserve to get their chips so I can play every hand.

I think the work I've done on my preflop game online meant that when I decided to expand my ranges I did it with the right hands, in the right spots and I knew why I was doing it. If we take say, my main event run last year, because I didn't really know what I was up to preflop I would often end up just going bat**** in a spot without realizing that what I was doing was bat**** because I just didn't know proper preflop ranges for different stacks and situations.

I think the thing I love most about big tournament runs is the emotional swings and the extra challenge that brings. It's fun to have to battle to keep your expectations down and focus on the here and now. I enjoy the process of making sure I don't get too carried away and don't try to win the tournament in one level. I think I especially enjoy that element of tournament poker because I know a younger version of myself has ****ed up these spots in the past. One thing I still struggle with is getting enough sleep during these runs, I just get too excited and I'm wide awake at 4AM, after sleeping 3 hours. I'm not completely sure it's going to get easier either as when I've spoken to other players who have had a few more runs than me, some of them say it still happens to them, we will see.

I haven't really gone through any of the hands I played in depth yet so I might just dump them copied and pasted from my phone in here and then I can respond if anybody finds specific hands interesting.

Unfortunately I did play and dust a couple of 25ks after the main event so the overall trip was profitable but hampered by that dust. I did pretty well in the cash I played earlier in the trip, I'm definitely of the opinion that the standard of live cash regs basically anywhere outside of Macau is way way lower. I think this makes sense as Macau has the biggest daily open games so if you want to play them every day you're gonna have to be the best.

Anyway, I hung around for a couple of days for those HRs but that's done now so this update is coming to you from Heathrow Terminal 3, I'll be arriving in Prague in a few hours just in time for main event 1B tomorrow.

Will dump those hands in a minute.

congrats on the solid run

I open AA no club co 7500 btn calls bb calls he is new to table looks like weak reg. Flop T83ccx ch I ch btn ch turn Q ch I bet 18.5k bb calls. River 5 he ch I set him in for 85k he tanks ages and calls, maybe 45k better idk. Worked anyway

Guy opens off 170k at 2/4 to 8k btn I have black 22 sb 81 pay 101 left bb is deep but **** so I peel. Bb folds. Flop 975sss I ch he 11k I make it 29k he folds. Ppl cbet too much he looks **** and my hands has equity but can’t call barrels

Peel 37cc bb vs goose core CO 10k at 2/4 flop J65r chch turn Tc I go for xr he ch back river 5 I bet 17.5 into 26.5 he calls T9o

85 left 81 pay. I have 750k sb has 200 bb has 140. t4o btn open or fold? Folded

T8o hand for hand hijack everybody 50bb or less. One reshove stack. Opened

Peel 89hh vs utg1 open off 125k direct bubble. Flop 543ddx lead 13k into 28k he folds

Peel Q7dd vs kinda aggro fishy btn open flop K93r chch turn Jd I bet 52 into 40 he has 160

Open 77 btn bb calls flop AT6r chch turn 6 chch river K he ch again we?

Open 58hh co bb Spanish reg calls. Flop 532r he ch I bet 24 into 48 he calls turn 2 he ch I bet 64 he call river 5 he ch I bet 108k he shoves 650k I call and beat A3o

Peel Q8cc bb vs co reg flop Q86r I ch he bets 14 I make 48 he calls turn Ad bdfd I bet 108?? he calls river 2s I bet 182?? he calls I lose to AQ

Open A6cc 17k utg1 goose core peel hij off 240k stack. Flop T65r I ch he 18k I call turn A, I check he bets 42, I call. River 9 chch I win. Gave off big tells in this hand, was hard not to with the shot clocks and this spot being quite tricky I think. In hindsight I think I should lead turn, which I thought about doing a lot in game then eventually checked.

Lauren R opens 18k, SB calls, I call QTcc. Flop AJTr one club chch Lauren bombs 60k into 65k. SB tanks and folds. I think Lauren mostly has Ax here with this sizing, that could be wrong but it's a pretty reasonable read I think. SB tank and fold probably means folding two of my outs (QJ QT KT type hands). Lauren has 240k back so if I call we have 1.25x pot back. I honestly think I should just shove here, my equity is ok and I think it's possible to get her off a weak ace on this street, but I'm worried that if I call it's gonna go check check and then on river I'm going to feel I have to shove and I'm going to give her opportunity to call me off. I hate giving other players in tournaments the opportunity to beat you just by making a semi-big call. I get scared she has AK AQ and eventually just call flop because backdoor flush draw. Turn 9c chch river 6, I shove 230k and she tank calls it off with A3. Annoyed at that one.

Mp Reg opens 24k, dan colman flats loj, I flat CO. Flop J43ddx. Reg bets 47k, Dan calls I call. Turn 3 chchch river 7, Dan uses a timebank chip (which is rare for him) and bets 160 into 200. I felt like this made him more likely to have full house or bluff, although it could be a tank with thin value. However I really don't expect him to call worse so I just flatted in the end. Lost to JJ.

MP opens 26k dan flats btn I call 77 sb bb calls 12k bb 16k ante. Flop Q94r ch thru turn 7s bdfd I bet 68k bb calls rest fold. BB has 220k back. I check he checks back. Figure he won’t call 9x he will vbet Qx and I can maybe get him to bluff. Thought if I shove maybe he folds Q. Maybe I should quarter pot.

460k at 10/20 21 left I got Kqdd sb I just open shove?

Guy opens utg I have 520k I flat btn A5dd dan calls bb. Flop 975ccx chchch turn 3c chchch river 3d chch I bet 80k dan calls guy folds I win against Q5

Open shove 19bb A8dd co into big stacks

Reshove KJo 17bb SB vs btn

Reshove ATo 21bb co vs hij

Lauren opens 55 at 24kbb mike del v flats SB I have 430k total stack A5o just folded

Open AQo 52k co at 24 bb SB big stack looks kinda bowl calls flop is ATTddx he ch I ch back don’t think I have to bet really. Turn T chch river J he ch I bet 94 he folds

Open KJo MP 48k Daniel calls SB with 700k, bb is tight rec. flop J99hhx he ch I bet? 62 into 150 he folds. Could check back but I think he might make a play w str8 draws and I think I have best hand mostly

Peel JTo bb vs utg1 7 handed flop A23r chch turn 8 chch river 5 I bet 28 into 112 and win

Reg open utg 75k utg1 call 5 handed. I call bb 45dd flop Q56r utg ch utg1 chip leader bets 100k I make it 265k he calls turn 3 chch river J I ch he 500 I fold. I had 1.1M at hand start.

Final hand mike del v opens CO, I have 740k BTN, I'm pretty sure ICM wise this is a shove, and it probably should just be played as a shove, but I think I've seen mike get kinda stubborn/spewy and the dynamic is he's had a very frustrating few orbits so I decide to 3bet call 195k vs 70k open he shoves I call and lose to QQ gg.

Sorry, what place did we get in the 5diamonds events? Nice write ups in the thread, will be following along. Live poker sounds so fun when people do these write ups, then I go and play and I'm like, oh...

Also in the last hand against Mike D you forget to mention your holding.

Hey buddy have one question if you want to share your thoughts on it (actually is bet with a friend)
You mentioned that you were playing live 30+ hour sessions...
So question is do you (players that are playing around the clock) use any drugs...
If yes which one??(and if u want to elaborate a litle more... side effects etc)

What did you have against colman when he bet jj otr on j3437? Also I 2nd what kangal said, nice blog thx for the write ups will be following etc.

In Prague right now, haven’t had any success so far but been playing great I think and in the 10k now so there’s still hope. I’ll write it up once I’m back in uk, will be taking it easy over the holidays so should have plenty of time.


Came 11th. Had JJ vs Mike.

I don’t use any drugs. Don’t like to mix drugs w work seems like a bad path to go down. I know a lot of ppl are/have used adderal/Ritalin/modafinil but idk how they’ve found it. Some of them are able to play 60 hour sessions frequently tho so I guess they’re effective.

I had 56hh there. Thanks.

Subbed. Nice HHs!

re: f.lux. I switched to "iris" which seems more enjoyable or at least has more presets for the colors.

Gl

Quick update as it’s been ages since it’s been ages since my last:

Really enjoyed my prague trip, played a load of tournaments, I bricked them all but I was pleased with my work ethic in terms of showing up at least. My focus was definitely below 100% which was disappointing but I think I was slightly burnt out and it was hard to muster up the energy to really play my A game during an €1100 deep stack. I didn’t play any HR apart from the 10k which definitely helped the bottom line. Got to see a good number of friends and had a couple of pretty solid nights out at the end of the trip when it was clear the writing was on the wall. Definitely looking forward to my next stop, which is Aussie Millions, although I’m staying with a crew of Aussie guys who play in Macau, this trip is essentially their week off from the Macau grind and they go pretty damn ballist when they’re off, so i feel like the chances are I’m not gonna play so much poker. Oh well, a week of drinking in Melbourne sounds fun too.
I will still be playing the main and should be able to squeeze a few sides in but I imagine my tournament count is gonna be sub 5.

Although I took a last minute drop everything flight from Macau late on Boxing Day (one of the 2 guys who I will drop everything and get to Macau for turned up on a Christmas Day), apart from that I really haven’t been too focused on poker lately. It’s disappointing in a sense because I really felt I was making a lot of progress and I have been really enjoying the buzz of dedicating myself to tournaments but my energy has been directed elsewhere and these things happen. Hoping to find some more time in the near future to get back into an online rhythm and hit a few more tournament stops.

It’s a pretty grating cliche in the poker world at the moment but I have been focusing my efforts on crypto much more in the past 6 weeks and I feel like this is a much bigger hourly at the moment than grinding poker. I’ve been in crypto in one way or another for quite a while, was lucky to buy bitcoin during its run from 100-1k back in like 2013 but I’ve mostly been an uninformed long term holder, happy to listen to my friends and just buy people’s tips and hold without wasting energy or time on it. I think this approach is totally reasonable and a good one but I think with the current market there is quite a lot of edge to be gained by learning more about it.

Most of my positions are long term well researched holds of projects I like and of the main big coins but lately I’ve been doing some daytrading of ****coins. It sounds like a surefire way to lose your money and it may well be, but I think in the current market conditions- millions of fish trying to 5-10x their money on different punts, it is possible to beat these guys even if your strategy is pretty terrible itself. Currently I’m trying to get an idea of what coins are trending short term and have a lot of hype- I look into them and try to avoid the obvious scamcoins but other than that I fire in and try to exit at like 25-30% profit. I think this takes advantage of all the guys trying desparately to 5x their money on each hold but I’m still fairly early in this project and I won’t be surprised if this strategy gets burnt, I definitely think in any mature market this strategy is awful and it probably won’t stay around as a viable option for more than a few months but it’s pretty damn fun for now so if I can make it work I’m loving it.

So going forward I see myself glued to the crypto world for the next few weeks- couple of months. Fortunately I can do crypto from anywhere so I can still make some poker trips and after oz I will probably hit up Macau again for Chinese New Year and then possibly LAPC. Whilst I’m caught up in this crypto obsession though I am unlikely to make much progress on my poker game but for now that is a trade off I think I’m going to have to accept. I’m sure the conditions of crypto will be wildly different in two months time so maybe then it won’t make sense to spend hours on end refreshing 4chan/biz...

Gl everybody and feel free to shill me your ****coins

Aussie Millions

As expected, this trip has been mostly a holiday. I've had a lot of fun checking out Melbourne and have definitely found it to be a vibrant city. There are lots of great restaurants, shops, bars and plenty of interesting parts if you just want to go for a stroll around town. The nightlife was great, personal favourite was revolver and I can't wait to come back here next year really.

I did manage to scrape myself together in time to play the main event, I had a decent run in it, finishing something like 70th for $20,000 which was one payjump ($5000) more than a min cash. Helped cover some of the costs of the trip but it's been an absurdly expensive trip on the spending front. I noted down every interesting hand again but I'll just share the most defining hands of my tournament on here:

1) I open A4o, A, CO to 600 at 150/300. (BTN & BB are weak). Eff. Stacks like 35k. SB reg peels, BB peels.
Flop 662. Checked to me I bet 700 into 2100 and only SB peels.
Turn J he checks, i bet 2400 into 3500. My plan here is to just bet turn and give up river with this hand, I control myself by only using the top 3-4 AdXo hands to triple off with but those are probably actually worse blockers, perhaps I should be more precise. Anyway he checks his cards and calls which appears genuine but I don't put too much stock into it.
River 7 He checks. I wasn't sure about sizing here, it's tempting to overbet since I kind of only rep Kd+. However I don't really have too many non diamond bluffs and I think his most likely hand is a mid pair with a diamond or occasionally KJ QJ KQ floats with a high diamond. So I think a smaller sizing is more likely to get paid even if it is theoretically incorrect (and I'm not sure if it is incorrect or not). So i bet 6400 and got snap called and won.

2) Rec limps MP, i iso to 1600 at 400 bb w 45. BB rec fairly splashy peels the open, now MP limp re raises to 4000. Stacks are 50k. I'm obviously hating it because the LRR probably has an overpair and the SPR is going to be too low for me to chase my hand too well. It's going to go 3 way and action is probably gonna be MP bets flop big, MP shoves turn. So my hand is going to really struggle to actually realize its equity. However the price is too good and I'm going to be in position so I resign myself to calling and most likely losing 4000. BB calls.
Flop 763. Ok lol, all worried thoughts out of the window, I call flop call turn shove and beat AA to get to 110k stack from 30k stack and it's at this point (3x starting+) that I start to feel comfortable in tournaments.

3) Open TT utg, BB seems fairly inexperienced young asian dude, peels.
Flop 532. I bet flop 2300 into 4600 and he check raises to 5200. I call.
Turn 5 He bets again 7600 I call.
River Q He bets 12.4k I fold.

This hand was a little tricky, I'm not really expecting to get check raised loads on the flop but on the other hand there's not a huge number of value combos being represented. It's possible he's raising 66-99 for value/protection on flop too, as well as some 5x, maybe 44, and maybe some Ax hands as bluffs + possibly just some random bluffs as that happens occasionally in these tournaments. In general though I give people a lot of credit until I see a reason to do otherwise as I think most people are underbluffing.
Turn, I'm tempted to fold here, but I think it's still possible he has 66-99 and a few Ax bluffs + turned hearts, so I reluctantly call but I could definitely see an argument for a turn fold.
River, at this point I think we can rule out 66-99 and therefore only beat a few random bluffs which I think are not enough to make it a call, even though he only really reps A4, 46, boats + occasional 5x. So i folded here and didn't feel too concerned about it.

4) Kinda splashy guy opens CO 2300 at 1kBB, I flat btn 87 100k deep, bb calls.
Flop 625. CO bets 2000 into 7700, I raise to 7700. He calls.
Turn 9 He checks, i bet 12.4k, he calls.
River K He checks I bet 32.8k out of 80k stack, he calls and mucks.

On flop I perceive that sizing from a rec as being typically weak, obviously my hand is a great raising hand, 8 high and combo draw. On the turn now that I'm nutted and his range is looking bluffcatchy or he could also be drawing, I decided I wanted to make sure he didn't fold the turn. If I'd gone big, like 18k, with the intention of getting stacks in, I think I run a big risk of getting him to make a fold on the turn. I think if I lock up the turn call, I've got a great chance of getting paid on most rivers, so I went with half pot, expecting him to never fold an overpair or pair + SD (so most of his range). River on the K I think I should choose a size to get called by Kx+. I think he could be the sort of guy who wants to hero down with TT-QQ but if he is, he's fairly likely to call most sizes, so I don't try to target that part of his range since many recs will just auto fold those hands now on the somewhat scary river. So I went with 70% pot to try to get paid by Kxhh, AA, any sets/two pairs that have played slow and I will still sometimes get hero called by worse anyway.

5) Open A9o UTG, this older guy who seems to be on tilt/ is going completely mental, shoving and reshoving like 40% of hands for an hour reshoves 21.5bb, I call and lose to A3o.

6) CO reg opens, SB fish calls, I call bb 34o, open size 2.3x.
Flop 976. Checked through.
Turn 4 SB ch, i bet 22.6 into 17.2, CO calls, SB calls.
River 8 checked through SB wins w AK.

So pre is probably too loose but it's nice to be in there with worse players. Turn I think CO is capped and SB is very likely weak so I think overbetting here with intention of overbet shoving river vs CO is going to print hard. CO has approximately 90k stack on turn. However when both call I'm worried that SB has a hand he planned on check raising on turn and if it had bricked off I would have given up. On the spade it's an even easier give up since CO can have plenty of flushes and SB can have some too.

7) CO reg limps, BTN makes it 6800 at 2k bb, I peel 75 BB, goes 3 way.
Flop A44. Checked to BTN, he bets 5600 into 22k, I think this is just too small as most of his cbets have been one third and although this texture makes sense for a tiny bet I think usually when inexperienced players downsize it's based on the strength of their hand not so much the board texture. Also the smaller his bet the better the price I'll get if I respond to his bet by approximately 3xing it. So i make it 16.8k and he folds.

8) Open A6ss utg at 2400BB, the mental old guy reshoves 51k, I call and beat A8cc.

9) Fairly inexperienced looking middle aged guy opens BTN to 7k at 3kbb. I make it 24.5k w J4 from BB 160k stack, he covers. He calls.
Flop 246 I bet 18.5k, he calls.
Turn 8 I check he bets 45k, I have 115k total and fold.

Man this hand was fairly annoying. I like to target these BTN opens from less experienced looking players when I'm in BB as I think they open a fairly wide range and then don't know how to defend themselves vs 3bets. I like Kxo and Qxo for their blockers so Jxo is pushing it but I don't think it's disastrous. He makes this weird squirmy face thing and tanks for like 2 mins before calling preflop. I think that makes it a bit more likely he has a borderline hand like 88-JJ AQ/AJ that are thinking about shoving pre, or a fairly fruity preflop call that he decides to go for.
On flop maybe I should actually check this but it's pretty nice to get the protection that one third gets vs the overcards in his range of which I think there are a lot. Once he peels I think he's going to have some mid pairs and some flush draws + potentially some floats although I'm not expecting to see too many of those.
On the turn I was extremely suspicious here, is he really betting 99-TT right now, my stack is primed to check shove. So if he's not I only lose to a couple of sets/two pairs straights and my hand is likely good most of the time. However it's not like my hand is bulletproof in equity terms vs his bluffs and I'm totally dead vs his stronger hands. I think that calling here is probably making chips as I really don't think he reps much but I think these tournaments are so soft that it would be a mistake chasing every marginal spot and I decided I wasn't willing to call off my tournament here. It's perhaps too conservative but I feel like I do well by surviving high variance spots in these things as you get so many spots to chip up without variance.

9) Guy who looks kinda like a reg limps CO, i make it 11.5k BTN w TT, BB fish calls, guy now makes it 55k with 180k effective stacks, I just fold, fairly weird spot though.

10) Same guy now opens UTG, 8.5k, I make it 25.5k w AKss off 170k, very good australian reg (K. Burns) now makes it 63k from SB. I shove and he folds getting like 2.5:1, must have been pretty damn light.

The last 3 hands I described basically all happened in the space of 10 minutes and me being moved to this table. So my image probably looked fairly psychotic and Burns I think knows me as we've played a couple of SHRs together so might just think I go ballistic in main events as a strategy approach. Think that's what induced his 4bet and it meant I had to shove AKs even though I really don't love the spot (UTG1 vs SB).

11) Rec limps utg 3k, same good reg makes it 10.5 UTG2, I have JJ SB, 145k effective with reg. I make it 36.5k, he shoves, I call and lose to KK.

Given dynamic I think I have to 3bet get this in. I hate getting it in at all light in main events vs good players as this is just absolutely not where you win these things but picking up 20k preflop is important and given the dynamic going down I think it's possible he shoves 99/TT vs this 3bet or maybe the occasional worse 4b bluff. Really though I'm hoping to pick it up pre or take it down by cbetting a flop.

12) Near bubble, I open AA utg off 88k at 4k bb, rec flats, reg flats btn, BB flats.
Flop J43r, I bet 10k into 38k, rec shoves 100k, I call and double up vs KJo.

Not too much to say here, I think 4 way checking flop to xr would be tempting but a very bad option as we can't allow 3 hands to realise their equity especially near the bubble where us getting stacked is a disaster.

13) Very aggro, previously extremely successful HS HU player opens CO 12k at 5k bb (we are now ITM). I peel BB 87.
Flop J95. I ch call 16k.
Turn 6 I ch, he bets 40k, I call.
River 4 I ch, he shoves for my stack, 160k (he is very deep like 500k+). I fold.

This hand is the one that has annoyed me most. I definitely messed it up. I had made an actual note on my phone fairly early on after watching him play that I was going to have to call him down with anything resembling a reasonable bluffcatcher as I think his MO is to overbluff in these tournaments. I imagine that he thinks (rightly) that most people deep in these tournaments are scared money and are not going to call off light for their tournament life. I had seen him opening K2s utg, 36s HIJ and barreling postflop with A4 on TT48X. So clearly very capable of barreling light. Whilst standard until the river, I basically decided on the end that I would only call if I had a diamond as this is a good way to control myself and not end up calling this guy with any two cards. However in hindsight I think this is the wrong approach as the blocker is almost irrelevant. Having one diamond only bluffs one combo of Axdd which really isn't that big of a deal. Given that I think he's way overbluffing and I'm still getting nearly 2:1 I think I should just call here without a blocker, my hand is still perfectly sufficient to beat all bluffs, and that's really all I need. So I think this fold is a big mistake and I regret it a lot. It also takes me from 25bb stack on folding to 100bb stack on calling, I think this was my opportunity to chip up in a great spot late in the tournament and I totally blew it, so I'm frustrated with myself for acting so quickly and not identifying that blockers weren't really relevant in this spot.

14) Anticlimatically shove 17.5bb from LOJ w 55 and get knocked out by AQhh.


Anyway, although I'm disappointed in myself in the ending of this tournament I thought overall I played pretty well, continue to gain confidence in my play vs less experienced tournament players and I like some of the conservational mentality I have with regards to high variance spots. I was also pretty rusty after two months off and I had a blast playing so hopefully this will spur on some more play (it's especially easy to get the focus locked back onto poker with the crypto meltdown we were experiencing).

So next up I am flying to Macau on Monday, chinese new year is coming up which will be a cash grind, in the meantime there are some live tournaments running there actually so I'll be able to catch a couple of events before settling in for a couple weeks of cash grinding.

Macau to Now

Since flying to Macau I've done pretty much exactly what I had hoped to do in terms of inputs. I did a 5 day detox thing which I followed up by eating keto for all the time I was in Macau and I played a ****load of poker, initially tournaments during MPC 28 and then I played maybe 130 hours of cash during Chinese New Year which amounted to approximately 12 hours a day.

I really enjoyed the detox + diet, definitely found after a few weeks of keto I had lost a surprising amount of weight- like 6kg down from 81 to 75kg, obviously a lot of that will be water weight but still I was happy with the progress visually and I found that by the end of the 3 weeks I was thinking really clearly and for longer periods of extended focus, which was a main reason that I decided to try it. I'll definitely be doing a longer period of keto in the next year but I'm doing a lot of traveling in the next 2-3 months so I had to shelf it for now.

Poker

I won't go through an extended version of the hand histories of my two tournament runs during MPC 28 as it takes ages but will pick the best ones and give an overview of how the tournaments went.

I played 3 tournaments, the 15k Red Dragon Main Event, 25k deepstack and 80k high roller.

I bricked the deepstack but I had two really nice runs in the other two events. I came 20th/1150 in the main event and 5th/125 in the HR.

I absolutely love playing tournament poker in Macau. It's so much fun, especially the smaller events. The fields are just so soft, it brings me back to the days of playing £500 tournaments in the UK like 6 years ago. There are so many very new players to the game in the main event that you get to play an insanely fun and hyper aggressive style. I really got back to my roots as a heads up player of trying to play and win every hand I could. My VPIP must have been 40+ on 10 handed tables.

The reason it seems to work is that nobody ever fights back, everybody runs like 2.5% 3bets and their sizings are like min 3bets preflop too so you get to try and crack their aces with dubious holdings too. Everybody under defends every spot massively, they overfold bb , overfold LP vs LP and then postflop it feels like you never get raised or floated so the run feels like you can just open unbelievably wide in every spot, make a small cbet and you will basically break even/win small on chips doing this if you literally never make a hand. So once you flop one or two hands it almost feels inevitable that you get a big stack going. I know that in reality this isn't the case and I'm definitely running good and running into the right spots but it feels like a pretty damn fun way to play a tournament, accumulate all the blinds and then if you get a couple of top pairs you're suddenly chiplead haha. Also I think my years of playing Macau VIPs helps as it feels like I'm able to basically look at the guy as he sits down and know if he's a massive aggro punter or not (90% of the field is insane passive and then 10% are just insane cannons).

However, despite that overconfidence, the whole run was built off of a foundation of getting in 125bb in level 3 with KK vs AA and binking, so clearly I should make sure to temper my expectations a lot, but when playing this style works it feels practically invincible ha. It definitely does feel kind of punty registering these things though, I don't feel like I'm trading money for fun quite as much when I'm playing tournaments in europe or in vegas but when you can go play a cash game down the road where a big blind is most of the size of the entire registration fee I feel a bit guiltier about wasting my hourly. These tournaments are fun but they are a significant trade off of EV to grinding cash, so it feels a little dirtier registering them, but I guess if it brings me a lot of enjoyment and has brought me lots of motivation to improve my poker over the last year then I should just ride with it and enjoy my 15k HKD events.

Main Event Hands

I had run up approx 10x starting stack by midway thru day 2 when this hand happened. The guy to my right had basically 6x'd his stack without showdown, I could tell he was blasting wildly and people were just folding everything. He was doing a ton of crazy limp re/r, check r postflop, 3bet preflop and barrel offs.

So he opened to 5k at 1k2k from SB, I made it 16k in BB with KQ , he raised to 45k and I peeled off 250k. Flop came K83, he bets 50k, I call, turn is 4, he puts me all in for effectively like 155k into 185k I call and hold vs a somewhat aggressively played 55.

This next hand was played in the last level of day 2, at this point we're maybe halfway through the money down to the final table, so semi deep. My opponent had a ****load of ante chips earlier in day and ran a massive failed bluff with 0 equity and an awful hand to use like 4 hours before.

I open QQ to 20k from hij, he raises to 58k from SB with 330k total stack, I have like 1M chips. I call, flop KJ4. He checks, I check back. Turn 8 he bet 75k, I called. River 9 he shoves 200k, I fold and he shoves me the 5.

So this hand I thought was fairly interesting. I had heard from others that this guy was a huge spaz. I'd been opening at least 45% and he was approx 3 seats over from me. I could also see that he was hating letting me open so much and I was pretty sure he was gonna blow up soon. So for that reason when he 3bet preflop off 330k at 10kBB I felt like I would win more flatting and letting him go off. I'm not sure how I feel about this, I definitely like it with KK and AA but QQ is kind of vulnerable so it's a pretty big win to take down 58k preflop and it's not impossible that he spazzes vs a small 4bet anyway. But I feel like it's fairly difficult and unlikely to spaz 5bet shove vs a 4bet here. Any reasonable 4bet size like 110k+ is practically committed vs a shove. Perhaps I should still give him a chance to mess up and if not collect the 102k that's already in the pot. But I decided to go for glory and try to stack him so I peeled it pre to let him barrel off.

When he checks a king high flop alarm bells always go off for me. I feel like people who play really kinda spewy bad are usually way off balance when they check here and have Kx or traps a ton. Anyway QQ seems like a standard check back so don't think this is too controversial but I'm immediately supsicious he's got something when he doesn't fire the automatic 25% cbet everybody is doing regardless of board or context.

On the turn I'm hating it even more because he's chosen a big sizing to allow himself to get all in. But it felt kind of ridiculous to go into the hand with these reads and then just end up folding to one turn bet so I felt like I had to defend QQ. However QQ kinda blocks a fair number of his bluffs and KQ might flat pre so in terms of value blockers it's not great. I usually think the logic of 'shouldn't call turn if you're not going to call river' is totally flawed, obviously a good player will have some hands that are turn calls and river folds or people would never bluff rivers. However in this spot I think I do kind of need to make my decision on the turn, if he is spewing and he has nothing he's surely not going to give up river having fired turn like this, so it really makes little sense to call here if I'm going to fold later. But yeah I just felt like I couldn't really fold at this stage to a guy like this and in fairness they do give up river more often than you expect so maybe it's not completely dreadful.

River he gave off a bunch of pretty strong tells, and I decided to go against the pre-hand read that he was ready to blow up and go with the logic that I had used earlier in the hand that I thought he was probably skewed to strong hands when he checked flop so I folded. I'm not sure about making folds like this. Obviously thinking purely exploitatively like this allows you to make larger mistakes. But I think on the whole fully explo play in very soft main events is the way to go so perhaps I just have to accept that I'm going to make some very big mistakes that I wouldn't be in danger of making if I stuck closer to a GTO style and the payoff is that I get to make some very high profit plays in exchange. I think ignoring the preflop which I imagine is just always a 4bet or shove at equilibrium this might not be that awfully played postflop from a balance perspective anyway. Flop and turn seem correct and river I think QQ is a pretty terrible bluff catcher, AQ should be one of the most likely bluffs and I would also play KK, AA, KQ and KT like this so I do have some better calling hands. Was really lost in this one though and it showed, I had the clock called on me for the first time in months.

This hand is fairly deep on day 3, probably 30 players remaining and I have chiplead of like 2.4M chips.

Guy opens HIJ 70k off 800k, I flat co with 99. Flop T62ssx He checks I check back. Turn 3 he bets 100k into 240k, I call. River A he bets 150k and I shove for 580k effective. He calls with 22.

So preflop shoving is actually an option as people behind me have less chips but I think I prefer always taking the postflop option if both are close in soft tournaments like these. Flop and turn I think are very standard and river I think is a great bluffing spot. He has almost no flushes, I have plenty of flushes, I expect to see AK here a lot and I don't really see people calling off for their tournament life so deep in the event with AK here. I also think he could be bluffing a fair amount, his line doesn't make too much sense and kind of looks like two broadways planning to check fold flop, stab turn and then deciding stabbing an ace since it's a 'good' card for him. I don't like calling though as I think we can fold out plenty of better hands but it's a huge bonus that our shove auto wins whenever he's bluffing so it requires way less folds when he's got a better hand. However, the blinds were about to go up to 40kbb and one thing I'm not entirely sure about is how much it's worth taking these high variance spots in the name of EV. With a stack like I had, 2.4M, I have a pretty comfortable stack to avoid the high variance short stack stuff and have the potential to just open and cbet my way to the final table. I think there needs to be a pretty big EV premium relative to just pure chipEV bluffing as the additional chips you win are worth less than the chips you lose and on top of that a higher standard deviation of your stack is a bad thing.

However, I think for the reasons I outlined this is a pretty premium bluffing spot and I think I'm ok with this shove despite its failure here.

Eventually I was knocked out by the same guy who woke up w AA behind me after I had 3b shoved AK for 20bb and that was the end of the run, in 20th.

High Roller

This was also a fun run. It was still really soft but it was quite different to the Main Event. This was way more aggressive, the punters were maybe a bit richer and a bit more comfortable playing poker so instead of passively dusting it they would make massive bluffs, calls, and generally hyper aggressive plays so I wasn't able to play the same style. I played something closer to the defensive style I try to play vs good players, with some room in there to go for exploits vs the massive punters, but definitely nothing like my 45 vpip in the main event.

I'll just fast forward to a couple of ICM final table spots but basically I got to 5.5x starting stack really fast making decent hands vs some super speculative punts. Then I played awfully and gave away my chips down to 1.5x starting stack. Then I made a pretty awful get in vs 3bet + cold4bet, I had AKo and was fairly committed. Binked vs QQ and KK and then proceeded to continue to get pretty lucky along the way to the final which I made with a small chiplead.

New Chipleader opens MP 120k at 25k/50k, pretty bad and super spewy seeming rec flats btn I call in the BB with QJ. Flop is Q52. I check, CL who is a reg cbets 155 into 410k, btn calls I call. My stack is approx 2M I think, CL 2.2M rec has like 1.4M roughly. Turn A checks through. River 5 I bet 185 into 890 and lose to chipleader's A9.

So here I kind of wanted to raise the flop, I think I can get value vs the punter and I think that the reg is going to play fairly straightforwardly and cbet way too frequently. It's pretty nice to fold out two hands worth of equity but with the backdoor flush I'm slightly more inclined to see a turn. And whilst I feel like raising isn't going to get me into too much trouble that often, it obviously increases my chances of getting stacked by the chipleader, which is kind of a disaster at a table with multiple 15-25bb stacks and many ICM unaware players. So i reluctantly took the more passive option. River I'm not totally sure about. I think the block stops the chipleader from bluffing ever, and I can get looked up by some mid pocket pairs for this size so it has some value. But mainly I'm betting this size to prevent myself from getting bluffed and I'm going to lose vs an ace at a really high frequency. It does feel like this increases my chance of winning the pot a lot though, so maybe putting in 20% pot on river is ok even though we are going to get called and lose a lot. I think if i check and the chipleader has an unpaired hand he surely has to fire it and then I don't really want to call vs what will inevitably be a larger size with both his bluffs and his aces so I felt like this was kind of reasonable if a little unorthodox and pointless seeming. It could easily just be a bet that only gets called when I'm beat and accomplishes very little though.

I squeezed K8 BB vs SB good reg and BTN fairly weak rec with 2M at 25k/50k, squeeze was 380k vs 105k open. Stacks were 1.3M btn 1.2M SB and two stacks of 600k and 800k elsewhere on the table.

I think SB is going to be trying to peel pretty wide vs this weaker player and I have one blocker plus a hand that doesn't play well multiway. Feels like a pretty great spot to punish these ranges.


Open Shoved 1.8M utg with 99 under the gun 5 handed with 1.8M stack at 80k bb. I'm second shortest and BB is shortest with 1.2M. CL is ICM unaware but other 2 players are somewhat aware and have between 2.5M and 3.5M.

I feel like min raising 9s here is a recipe to get abused by the deeper stacks so I felt like shoving was the best way to play the hand wrt ICM.

3bet/folded AJo from SB at 80kbb vs somewhat weaker reg who had opened CO. He had 3M, CL had maybe 4.5M and I had 2.1M.

I'm not sure I get to make too too many 3bet folds here but I'm going to use AA and KK for 12 combos. I'm probably supposed to just shove QQ but if i 3b call it I get a few more bluffs. I guess all AJo is too much but I think I would flat AJs, AQo and AQs, perhaps that's too loose and what I should be doing is just using like AQo and not even all AQo for my 3bet folds here.

Open shoved 1.65M in the same spot as 99 one orbit later with AJo. Stacks very similar.

Self explanatory, I think this is my cutoff point though and it felt like it was possibly too wide of a shove.

Got knocked out shoving 20bb on BTN with KQo. CO was shortest stack with approximately 12bb so it hurt to eliminate myself and give him the payjump but KQ seems too strong of a hand to do anything else with. Got called by fish2013 and lost to TT after flopping a Q .

Was great to get the experience in of another final table and I felt like my play was much stronger than it has been previously and both more ICM aware/better and also I did a better job of being aware of who at the table was actually thinking about ICM and who it would be a disaster to try and apply pressure/logic regarding ICM play against as they wouldn't be thinking about it.

Chinese New Year

After the fun of the tournaments I got settled in for the cash grind. We had a pretty busy chinese new year and I played a ton of big games. I basically broke even over the whole period, think I won like 0.5 buy ins, but I lost through all my swaps so despite being a really productive period in terms of my inputs there wasn't much to show for it at the end. I was really happy with basically all of my play all chinese new year and I really found that the new diet was helping me during the 36 hour sessions that I usually lose my focus and play my C game for the last few hours which often costs me a lot.

One hand I probably got wrong was as follows in a 1k2k4k game.

Decent reg opens hij 10k, he's very deep and I have approx 750k. I make it 50k from the 2k blind with 56. He calls. Flop is K32. I bet 38k he calls turn 3 I bet 134.5k river Q I shove for 514k into 445k.

So preflop I think is pushing it but it's certainly a reasonable hand to have in your 3bet bluffing range. Flop I think is standard although I tried to bet slightly smaller but did some mental maths wrong lol. Turn I think he is pretty stubborn preflop, very stubborn on the flop, but is somewhat capable of folding rivers. I don't really want to go any more detailed on any reads as some people who play in my games read this and he might also read this. Anyway I basically thought that I would be able to make a lot of the wide pre and flop calls fold the turn or the river including some Kx on most brick rivers.

Given that I have 56hh which is 6 high and doesn't block any flush draws when I get to turn I'm pretty confident I'm going to barrel off on brick offs quite happily and am expecting to be all in often. However that Q river is awful as now KQo is definitely going to call river so the number of auto calls on river has just increased massively. I went through the combos and it's really difficult to find enough folds to justify it. I figure he auto calls A3s, AK, KQ, 22, 33 and QQ if he called turn with QQ. He may fold AcKx if I'm lucky. So its approximately 27 auto call combos. Folds Axcc- probably 9 combos, Folds QJ QT JT J9 T9 98 87 - dubious if he calls the worst flush draws on the turn for that size. If I give him all JJ and TT and also include all QQ I can bring it to 31 folding combos and 30 calling combos. So even in the best case scenario the shove is still kind of losing small. But i mean I can't really check 6 high and it makes the most sense to shove so maybe I just want to shove it and not worry too much about it as I don't think I will be overbluffing this spot at all.

One option I kind of like is betting quarter pot here in the hopes of getting draws and possibly JJ/TT to fold but that feels like such an unbalanced and pathetic play, and I can't really think of too many value hands that make sense for me to go for that size with so I don't think it's justified. I don't know, it's an annoying spot where I immediately think I'm going to lose money shoving but I think that anything other than a shove is pretty unbalanced and bad as part of a long term gameplan.

edit: he called in this hand with AK and i did my money

Travels from now

After wrapping up the Chinese New Year grind we had kind of a blowout week in Macau which probably undid some of the health progress I was making. And since then I've hopped on a flight over to Japan- one of my favourite things about Macau is how easy it is to access the rest of Asia. I'm here visiting an old friend I met skiing 8 years ago. He's instructing out here now so I've been getting a pretty awesome tour of Hokkaido and some excellent free lessons too.

I have a really action-packed few months of traveling coming up and I'm definitely very excited to dive into it head first. Next is back to Macau for the full APPT schedule, I'm pumped for this as I love playing tournaments in Macau, this schedule is much higher stakes than the last one with lots of 100 and 200k buy ins and I always seem to miss multiple days of most series so I'm really excited to get back in time for it and actually just blast through all the tournaments.

I'm then off to Japan again with some separate friends from London who are doing a non-skiing trip visiting the major cities so I'm going to hop on board that trip until it finishes on April 5th. Then it's off to Barcelona for partypoker Barca, quick pit stop in London, then Monte Carlo for my first time there and then I will probably spend a month in London for WCOOP, can't wait to get back into my online groove as I find that's where the most improvements get made and also can't wait to get back into the London life as it will have been pretty much 6 months away at that point.

After that it's a friends wedding in Portugal and then off to Vegas for WSOP where I've just booked a solo apartment for a month so I can really dig my teeth into my favourite thing- the WSOP 1ks.

I really love having all these experiences and trips lined up as it's great having event after event to look forward to and really helps to motivate me through the grind periods since they are kind of few and far between.

Getting back to the Japan trip now and will be back grinding in Macau on the 9th for two weeks.

Here's a picture of me teaching some Japanese farmers to play poker in a countryside pub I was in last night, was pretty hilarious their enthusiasm!

Nice write up Moss! Hope you're well hombre, see you when you're back in London!

Best of luck sr!

very nice read.

Keep m coming. Gl on your journeys