FT: 2/9 w/ 654k @ bb25k

Bust. 3rd. A8o < AQo bvb. Ran A7 into AQ (short stack), 77 into KK, K10 into QQ (I sucked out here) and then A8 into AQ all from 4 handed down.

Meh day. Really meh. Really annoying meh. F**K!

Played the SCOOP-L today at 11:00 AM and decided I didn't really care for what was happening in SCOOP on Saturday and tomorrow I can't play until the evening if I want to play at all, so I would just use the money I had allotted for SCOOP and build a decent sesh of low-mid stakes tourneys.

First I make a run in the $11r w/ $6600 up top only to bust against a spaz w/ QQ when he finally wakes up with a real hand (AKo) and wins the flip. Then I bust in 25th in the $8 4k when I run AK into AA and am crippled and can't win a 40/60 to get back to 12bb. Then I make a bit of a run in the Nightly 25k before losing back to back flips against very loose players who just conveniently both had small pairs and were short when I had big AXs hands. Sigh... and then I have to nit my way into the money in the late $11r only to walk AQ into AK first hand after the bubble burst. And yes, I realize nobody likes a whiner and this is all standard variance blah blah blah, but obviously I am just frustrated looking for a decent score to get this "challenge" or whatever it is off the ground and back into some decent stakes. And maybe some interesting stuff for 2p2 to rail!

Oh well... day off tomorrow, I may go out to blow off some steam or I may play the evening session again. We'll see.

Not much to report lately, been a bit sick and playing mostly small sessions with small profits from min cashes. Intended to crush a big one today, but felt ****ty when I woke up, so I just played a couple. ITM in the 8max SCOOP-L with about 80k@ bb4k... so hopefully we can spin that a bit and make a Day 2. Also in the $11 Turbo SCOOP Wrap Up. I'll update anything interesting... if I make Day 2 I will be playing tomorrow obviously otherwise I'm off until Wednesday to get healthy and plan my summer schedule.

166k @ bb7k... about 2 hours from end of Day.

~700 runners left.

Guy stacked off for a 3 barrel w/ AKo (A-high) when I had trip 9s. It was enjoyable for me.

Pretty predictable. I thought, for just a second, I might have got through my run bad earlier in the middle stages when I ran AKs into AA and then trip As into a bigger trip As... and survived. But nope, Stars had more in store for me... out in 559th or something. Sigh.

Hyello,

Now that SCOOP is over, it's time to think about my long term plan. I am going to end this portion of the "challenge" here (graphs below). The bankroll was managed extremely aggressively throughout May as I tried to take as many shots as possible and sadly we just could not run well when good money was on the line (3 outer in the Nightly 25k deep-ish ITM and the 2 outer today with 550 to go in the SCOOP-L 8max being prime examples).

In the MTTs that our bankroll can actually afford, ~$4.70 ABI, we did OK. Slight winner of about $200 for the month (plus another ~$100 or so last month), but with all the shots and so forth, the final total was about -$234 (+~$100 from last month). So, close enough to even. Whatever about the money. Doesn't matter.

I did learn quite a bit this month, did a lot of studying and improving my pre-flop play. I've also gotten better at maximizing value by allowing players to bluff spots where my hand is medium strength or slightly stronger where I might have just bet before and allowed them to fold out all of their bluff range. I've become more secure in my ability to fold hands of that nature should the board become gross and therefore am willing to give more rope to players who want to bet.

I've also improved my river calling range, I was too wide coming in and have gotten better at bluff catching only in spots where it truly makes sense for my opponent to be bluffing and not just because I want to see his hand.

Finally, I have improved my ability to simply play the spot I think is best and if I run into the top of someone's range, just double check my math after and if it checks out to me based on game flow and stats, just let it go.

For example:

I had A8o in SB three-handed of the VIP 50 FPP tourney w/ $120 up top. I had about 12bb to start the hand and the BB had around 15bb. The BB had been very aggressive from the final two tables down, something like 27/22 over 65ish hands and 3b fairly frequently. And on a personal level, he had 3b shoved on me 3 times since we had gone four handed. Each time I had folded as my stack was bigger. So my options were open fold A8o, which is pretty terrible, especially as ICM is nearly irrelevant to me at this level of money, it was win or bust. Jam A8o, which to me wins the dead money the vast majority of the time, folds out all of his middle hands and bluff hands, and we only get called by hands beating us as I don't see him calling w/ weaker A too much (maybe A7s). Or I could min-raise and call a jam, which should widen his range significantly given his stats and our history. I went that route. He jammed, I snapped. He showed AQo. I lost. I stand by the play (though am happy to read alternate opinions).

The point is I am getting better at viewing my play as part of a bigger picture, one that is more comprehensive than this one tournament (though occasionally, that mindset can be useful still). I expect this to continue the more volume I get in.

Anyway, here are the final graphs for this part of the "challenge."

$5 $ Under



Full Graph



I'll be off for a couple days. Start back again at 8 AM on Wednesday. This time, it won't be any challenge really, it will be a slow build of my bankroll. I'll start with the $300 that is left online right now and work my way starting at ~$4.75 ABI with 180 mans mixed in. I won't be adding money from my savings, though I will restart the roll if it busts.

That being said, I do expect a pretty decent tax refund this year, and I will add some or all of it to the BR if I think it will be a worthwhile boost at that time.

GL grinders! Peace out for a few days...

Hyello,

Good couple days off. Almost played today, but decided against it. Important to rest too. I'm excited to get back to it tomorrow. I have mapped out a good plan for the summer and hope to be back abroad (either Thailand again or Mexico) by October, but I won't leave until I am at mid-stakes solidly.

As for the grind, I'll be on the grind 5 days per week (Saturday/Sunday, Tuesday-Thursday) buying in to reg. speed and turbos (no KOs or Rebuys until the bankroll gets bigger) as well as filling my sessions with $2.50 180 mans. Hopefully it doesn't take too long as these limits to move up as I find this level a little mundane stimulation-wise, but there is good money to be made and it's an important step.

Off to ball now... then a good night's rest and back to the grind!

Late!

Real sick today. Blah. No session. Back at it tomorrow. Should be full session tomorrow, half session Friday night, full sessions Saturday and Sunday, then Monday off.

Tried to get a session in Thursday, but still felt awful and just mostly took time off the rest of Friday and today. Was about load up $500 to get started with tomorrow, but ended up using my last $100 online to gamble it up a bit in 6m hyper sateys and got it up to $225, and then I switched to straight 6m hypers and shipped a $100 and runner-up in $60 simultaneously to end the day with over $560, so I'll just start with that instead and parlay the run good into some legit grinding.

The summer leader boards are going these next 3 months and seem like some extra value there, I've read a little on these, but I'd be interested in hearing some tips on making a decent run at them from you guys...? I don't expect to win one or anything, but curious as to any tricks to the guys who seem to grind specifically for them in game selection, ABI, style of play, etc... any info?

Anyway, have about 40 mtts planned for tomorrow. Grinding around $4.50 ABI, turbos and reg. speed for now. We'll move up as soon as we can. Want to be at mid-stakes by summer's end (run good willing) and hopefully play a reasonable WCOOP schedule before heading to Mexico with some buds for a vacay.

Finally got in a decent size session. And a moderately successful one at that! Grabbed a win (after chopping for 2nd place money/playing out for TLB points) in an $8 6max along with several cashes including one near FT in a turbo 50c which would've been good for the TLB start. Anyway, final days numbers are:

*Cashed out down to $400 for the start, that's why it's a lower number than I planned on last post.

Bankroll (Start): $400.00
Bankroll (End): $542.15
TLB Points Earned: 599.64
Top 20 TLB Points Total: 599.64 (8/20)

Lobbies

Good job man must feel good to book a win after the stretch you've been on.

Yah it did, sadly my next session was right back to the same horrifying run bad, but oh well. Life is good. No whining here!

Bankroll (Start): $542.15
Bankroll (End): $389.50
Top 20 TLB Points Total: 942.69 (16/20)

Played 39 events on Thursday night. Cashed in another 6 or 7, but just got destroyed in All-In hands over the course of the day. Ran KK into AA like 4 or 5 times, AKs into AA/KK another 3-4 times, all for key swing pot moments deep in tourneys where stack sizes were not allowing me to ever really consider getting away.

Anyway, about to start a solid grind for this afternoon and then have a good Sunday sesh planned to back it up. Obviously I have 4 free TLB points to add to that number and then I start trying to improve upon a lot of the weak cashes that I have to see if I can squeeze myself up into the bottom end of the payouts by month's end. I will be able to get more volume in the rest of the month.

GL everyone!

Bankroll (Start): $389.50
Bankroll (End): $665.00
Top 20 TLB Points Total: 1408.32 (20/20)

Phew! Crazy, swingy day yesterday! Started out decent, building a big stack early in the Phase 1 while building some nice stacks in a few small field events. Also running up early stacks in both $7.50 Turbos (nice paydays in both). Then the wheels come off. I start busting everything just before or just after the money and with two levels to go I lose a big, but correctly played flip w/ KQs (v. 77) to drop me to 12k in the Phase 1. Anyone who grinds any decent volume knows the feeling when all your early tourneys flame out and all of a sudden you're back down to 5-6 tables of tourneys that are early stages and it feels like starting a brand new session, but you're already 4 hours deep. It's tough mentally sometimes, but I was feeling good. So I kept at it.

Worked my stack up in Phase 1 to about 20k and then managed to get a spaz to double me up plus dead money w/ 1010 v. A7o (money in on 8-7-2 flop and holds). Ended that with just over 50k and a likely min cash at worst today for $30 or so.

Then made two deep runs that ended in FTs. One was a small $3 8max that I was 4/9 before playing this hand:

CO: Villian opens
BTN: I 3b w/ AxKs

FLOP: As6s4s, check/check (he was quite spazzy and willing to bet a lot and my hand strength plus draw made me feel I could allow a turn to try and get him to enter the pot first and feel more committed).

TURN: 9h, bet/call (flat call for same reason, want value from weaker, drawing dead or almost dead hands, feel like a raise here - would be committing - would look strong and get a lot of folds).

RIVER: Jc, pot size bet (about 2/3 my stack). This felt wrong. He was spazzy, but never made huge bets like this. I now felt he either had me from the flop or hit AJ. I normally just get it in here if I am going to call anyway, which I felt my hand was too strong and in a $3 tourney, these bets can just be cause they are poor at bet sizing for value with their medium strength hands like AxQs, Ax10s or it can be a semi-bluff w/ KxJs/QxJs/Js10x, etc... so I called and he showed me Js10s. Oh well. I grinded the short stack one more pay level to make official FT and then busted in a 40/60.

But simultaneously, I managed to ship the $11 1.5k for $400! No chops or deals. Straight up win. So that's 2 in the last 3 sessions. And the bankroll is moving in the right direction!

So good session planned today starting around 9 AM and hopefully can work that Phase 2 stack into a $13k payday!

Lobby



GL everyone!

Quick Update: Busted Phase 2 around 115th for $75 or so. Got a few early pots including a nice call w/ KJ on 7K7A9 board where I picked off a 3 barrel bluff. But then went extremely card and spot dead, manage to get like 1 3b steal in and one open w/ Q10s, which I bricked and dumped. Ended up jamming AJo into 44 and missed the world on river. Lots more events still to go today tho!

Bankroll (Start): $665
Bankroll (End): $500 (after an $85 cash out)
Top 20 TLB Points Total: 1668.68 (20/20)

Brutal day for all-ins again. Sadly, this time there was no daysaver. It was just 45 mtts of puking all over my keyboard as either every big hand I had walked into the nuts or if it didn't, I was shoving sort of weak, I'd find myself in those "sweet, it's a race!" spots only to lose every single one of them. Still ended up 8 or 9 cashes and the $75 from the Phase 2 helped keep the losses down to around $80 making the weekend profitable.

I've been doing well, as in a high cash rate, in the turbos and I've been playing a lot of them to try and get some TLB points and it's working to some degree, this is my best month TLB wise most likely, or close. But given I am still about double the points I have off 100th place and my two best TLB scores are victories in small field, bigger buy-ins (relative to my ABI) I am thinking of dropping the turbos for this week and raising the ABI a bit, but really focusing on the best structured events (regular speed, deep stacks, 2r1a, cubed, rebuys) and focusing for now more on making money rather than just mass crushing everything from $0.55 to $7.50 turbos. I have always had more success in smaller field tournaments, even several years ago. My sweet spot seems to be from 200-2000 or so with a couple of exceptions in the Daily Majors. So I think I will do that, still going to get good volume by raising my ABI to include $13.50, $16.50 and $22 (maybe even $27/$27.50s), but I think the slower structures will help increase my ROI significantly.

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Also, I am planning to get some new monitors. I am deciding between 2 x 27" Acers @ 1920x1080 which are on sale for 199 right now or just getting 1 27" 2560x1440 and using my 23" as my side monitor as I typically prefer to grind my tables on one screen anyway. Interested to hear anyone else's thoughts on best setup?

Also, a decent mesh back chair as well, my leather chair is sweaty and annoying. Mid-level price range, so not Herman Miller sadly (yet!), any suggestions?

Welp, I decided to just go ahead and purchase my ideal setup. If I'm going to do this, I figure I might as well invest in it. I'm not concerned about being able to return to at least midstakes by years end, which that alone would make the investment worth it. Hopefully I can take that next step past midstakes and really make a solid living at the online MTT grind as I did in live grind back in the day, but either way the setup will get used and very likely paid for plus. So yah... here is a pic of what it's basically going to look like:



But without the top monitor. And I have Razer mouse and keyboard. I typically will 16 table the main screen when necessary and use the left screen for charts/calculator/equilab/taskbar/music and the right screen for lobbies. Pretty stoked for it to arrive.

I have that exact setup ^^. Like you my right screen is for client lobby middle for up to 24 table and left for charts . My top screen I use skype and google as it's a pain to look up so I use them less while playing. Any professional should invest in there setup. A carpenter wouldn't want to work all day with ****ty tools. This is our life ! We don't need small hicups messing up daily grind. Make sure you have a few SSD in your pc or it all be useless imo if you run sql.

Word. Yah, my box is tight. My pops used to build machines for a living from like mid 90s to mid 00s, so I've always been able to go to him for a custom box when it's time to upgrade, but monitors were always up to me to sort out. When I was in Thailand, I decided I wasn't playing enough to justify the money on the 30" making the 19" side monitors irrelevant. I ended up compromising on 3 x 23" LG Flatrons. Decent monitors, but kind of a ****ty setup for pokering. But now that I am back Canada-side and grinding regular, it's time, as you say, to get all the right tools. So purchase made and I'm stoked for them to arrive next week!

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Got a baby sesh going tonight. We'll see if anything good comes of it. Either way, I'm likely taking the rest of the week off, 50/50 about the weekend too. Might just wait for my monitors to arrive, as well as a few other little purchases I made and sort all of that out before I hit the grind again. I almost may end up just dumping some extra cash online and jumping back in a little higher, also say I'm about 50/50 on that decision for right now. Gonna take the week and figure out my plan going forward.

If nothing cool happens tonight, then I'll be back on the weekend or next week. GL grinders!

Enjoyed reading, can you please update with your setup as considering investing in one myself.

Hey, thanks for the read... and absolutely. I just got my shipped notification from Dell today, so good chance it will be here by the weekend, in which case I will definitely be grinding. But after it's setup I will take a couple pics and throw them up. Was there anything specific about the setup you wanted specs on or just the monitors?

Honestly, i do not know much about computers. Right now i hook my laptop up to a 23" monitor which seems to do the job. Although i plan on moving abroad again soon and am considering changing things up.

Cool. Well if you are only playing 12 tables or less, I'd say that's a reasonable setup and one I used for a while. My issue is (a) I want a ballin' setup cause it's cool and (b) I'm now starting to put more volume in and I find I'm at 12 tables and often having to wait for a table to clear in order to fire a new tourney and that means I'm often late reg-ing stuff I shouldn't need to be as I can play more than 12 tables comfortably just don't have the space for it tiled like I prefer.

So new setup will be my PC with a Dell Ultrasharp 30" main display and two 19" Dells on either side. Both of the 19" monitors will be flipped portrait style (they line up almost perfect in height to the 30" in that formation, so it's a very clean style). The left side will be for my charts/main lobby/icons/taskbar... the right side will be for tourney lobbies I want to keep tabs on and probably my foobar music player when I need to change playlists. The main screen will do a **** tonne of tables rendering real estate no longer an issue.

If you just want something a little better, but are happy with the basic config you have... I'd say keep the Laptop if it's good and just get a nice 27" monitor, if you get 1920x1080 (BestBuy has an Acer for 199 on sale like every two weeks) it will be the same tile config for your tables, but everything will be a little bigger which is nice. If you get an off-brand (like QNIX, Crossover, etc) Korean 27" with 2560x1440 you'll be able to tile up more tables, probably 16 w/o any overlap and maybe 20 with slight overlap. Both are decent options. It also depends on how much you want to spend. I got the 30" on sale from Dell for 1199 (reg. 1699 I think) and the two side monitors for like 200 each. Plus an upgraded video card to handle three monitors for like 200 or so. So your budget will definitely affect what you should be looking at.

Hope that helps, but if not, ask more questions and I'll try to answer them!

Hey guys,

Small session today. My monitors didn't arrive on Friday as I hoped and I wasn't feeling a heavy grind without them, so I played a few tourneys in the day, made a couple deep runs that fizzled into about $100 profit, which I used in the evening on 6 more MTTs and I ended up chopping up 2nd place in the $11r 5k for $810 (lobby porn below).

I had a little bit of luck with 12 left when I had about 13bb and I shipped A6o from SB against a very aggressive player raising from CO. The BB (shortest stack at about 6bb) woke up with AJo and the original raiser snapped us both off with K10dd... so my jam against the CO was fine, just sad to see BB wake up there, but I flopped trip 6s and tripled up, so that was fun! Nothing too exciting about FT, played solid, let the guys spaz around me mostly including 4 handed when 2nd place just lost his patience and got it in against CL w/ AJs for like 85bb and two short stacks still in and ran into QQ. Oh well, his loss is my gain!

Anyway, I will try to fit some off peak sessions in this week once my monitors arrive and then get back to the hard grinding next weekend onward.

Peace