I've seen and used a couple different methods for multitabling over the years, i find currently that 12 tables is my max in terms of playing decent, any more and my brain gets overwhelmed. As for setup, i have a BenQ gw2270 monitor (around 24 inch) where i just use an unnatural resolution setting for when i'm grinding so i can fit more tables on. I think this started because with pokerstars tables if you change the table size the ratios of text and whatnot get all ****ed up and its hard to see, but when i change resolution i could fit more tables without it being hard to see. I also have another monitor but i don't put tables on there when i'm grinding. I used to use starshelper, but i don't anymore (mainly because i don't play on stars, i don't even know if it works with ipoker), i just manually tile and usually tables overlap with one another, so it doesn't look too clean
Also to help with sleep after using devices, i'd recommend installing flux, this can certainly help a lot. Also volume is king ;D

June Review

Wasn't a terrible month, overall ended up about £5.7k. I can say that i've definitely recovered from my scoop downswing, and i'm still on track to succeed with my yearly financial goal (bad goals to set but still come at me).
Quite similar to May in the sense that i started off strong and tailed off towards the end of the month.
First 10 days i was winning every session, then after that i only had 1 real winning session for the rest of the month, which was after the sleeping problems started.

Staking, backing, and selling action
Going to quickly write up some thoughts, as i think i have very different views than most people, and after watching the videos on pads' course about BRM and selling action (overall a very good and interesting video), i just generally disagreed with some of the sentiments and i thought i'd write my overall thoughts here.
Selling action
If you're selling for an event because its outside of your BRM requirements, this usually means that you are inexperienced in these buyins and don't tend to play that high. If this is the case, i think it is gross to sell at markup (maybe you can excuse 1.1 for the admin), given that really you should be grateful that people are funding you to be able to play the tournament. And given that the buyin exceeds your norm, you are likely to play differently to usual which will decrease your expected ROI, and that's on top of the fact that these tournaments are generally tougher, so thinking that you're likely to be winning at 20%+ ROI i think is just arrogant.
Then there's some of the stuff that goes on on GG, which i honestly think is a bit criminal. Where people sell for regular games that they play, in which everyone overestimates their ROI, so they sell at stupid markups where people who just don't know better are just losing money by investing in them. The flipside of this is you sell at a much lower ROI for a tourney you are perfectly well rolled in, and then you are just losing money. So it feels like its a bit of a lose/lose.
The most criminal example of this is a well known GG reg who would sell 50% at 2 markup (Fwiw in pads videos, he states he's also highly against massive markup) in events $10 and below, and often sellout. Obviously this is 'smart' for him, since he is then freerolling all of these tourneys. But this would assume that he has 100% ROI, so lets take a look at his results in these events:

Would you take a look at that, he's barely up and almost losing lifetime. But maybe he's has 100% ROI and is just running bad? Lets take a look.

Oh wow, even in his worst possible run, he would still be up more than he currently is. Makes me feel like he might not actually a 100% ROI! It's almost like when you can't lose anything, you're not going to give a ****. He made a nice $6k through doing this too which is wild.
There's also a very well known affiliate who sells at these bonkers markups (2.0 for lower events) even for the higher buyin stuff (saw this individual selling at 1.4 for a $525 pko) and i think its just disgusting, like honestly at this point you should just go on twitter and beg your followers to donate you some money, it's that gross. Or at least tell your 'investors' that it's not actually a profitable long term investment.
Staking
Now i'll address this in 2 parts, firstly Pads video made the suggestion that instead of selling action individually for higher buyins, that you set up a typical staking deal with someone for all higher buyins. This is because you often see players who for example for tournaments 0-$100 over 10k games they might be up over $100k-150k, but then $100+ they'd be down $50k+ over a sample of less than 1k games. Now they might actually be a winning player in $100+ tourneys, just variance has wrecked them, so by getting a staking deal they can manage the variance. So this sounds good in theory, but in practice, if you go on a $50k+ downswing at higher MTTs, i think its much better to just lose that money personally, than to owe it in makeup. Because you never know how long (or even if) it will take for you to clear that makeup, especially as a 40-50ABI grinder, and you can easily just become enslaved to that debt, which becomes a really miserable existence. So would just much prefer to lose that money personally than to owe it to someone else.
Then there's full time backing (being staked for everything). Getting backed so you can play higher stakes games i think generally is a terrible idea, if you're good enough, you will reach those stakes anyway. But mainly, i don't think people understand how much 50% (which is usually how much you give away) of your profits are. I think the only basis you should get backed is if the coaching is elite tier, and will likely improve your skill (and then profits) by double and then more. So lets say you make on average $50k per year, when you're staked you only then make $25k per year, because the backer gets $25k. Now you have to be really honest with whether you think your backer is giving you 25k of value every year, most of the time probably not. And especially considering that there's so many good publicly available coaching platforms nowadays. Lets say theoretically in a year, you spend 1k on a poker course, 500/m on coaching platform (like CnC/BBZ, then maybe RIO too) to provide 3-5 group session/seminars a week, then every month you get 2 1on1 coaching sessions for $200 a session.
(500+400)*12=10800
10800+1000=$11800
I would be surprised if you could get the same volume of coaching at the same standard at a stable, but here you are already saving over $13k a year. This could be enough to actually be a bankroll.
And 1 thing i've noticed (and even experienced) whilst being backed, is it can be really hard to get out of being backed unless you make a lot of money. Lets say you make $50k a year playing $50ABI, if you're in a stable for a year, you only take home $25k because of profit chop, then if your living expenses are $1.5k per month, thats $18k a year, so you end of year profit is only $7000, that's no where near enough for a $50ABI bankroll, you'd need at least double, if not triple-quadrouple that, depending on sites that you play on. And 50k a year is on the mid-higher end of what people in stables make. So if you get kicked/leave stable you have 2 options, you either selfroll and drop stakes significantly and try to grind it back up, or you go to another stable and continue to play similar stakes (but continue to lose half your profits). And a lot of backed players don't actually have as much money in the bank as you think (which is the irony, because the point is the horse can then keep the money that they earn, and should have more money in the bank), because they don't even get half the money they make, so they often take the 2nd option and end up in a cycle of being backed and not really being able to escape it.
I know from personal experience that both times i left a stable i had **** all money in my bank account, like literally less than £2k both times, so i tried to respin both times, and it was really hard. I only succeeded the 2nd time because i had a friend help me out and give me a sick deal where i kept most of the profits, just to help me get to a point where i could selfroll myself appropriately, and luckily i ran really pure during that time.

So just to round out with selling action, its obviously not illegal to sell at super high markup, we live in a free capitalist society so you can sell at what you want I just think its a bit scummy to sell a clearly losing investment to people who don't know better. It's kind of like all these celebrities advertising to purchase crypto shitcoins that are clearly bad investments that will lose people money, but the celebs do it because it fills their back pockets, with the absolute irony being that they say 'this isnt financial advice' when they are literally telling them how to spend their money, just so they cant have legal action taken against them when it all goes to ****.
Also i use the word 'backed' and 'staked' interchangeably, but hopefully its not too confusing. With backing i just think there is too much publicly available coaching and content, there aren't quite as many 'secret strategies' anymore which you could only acquire by being part of a certain clique. So i would just strongly avoid getting backed if possible.

08/07/21 Session

Should've got top 2 but ran a bit bad at the end unfortunately!

Got this bink too though, so not a bad session overall!

However i got a couple topics that i want to talk about though

Landon vs Perkins Challenge, US players in general
I say its about the challenge but it's mainly about Landon.
As to why he quit the challenge i'm still very confused and i imagine there's a lot going on behind the scenes with his backers.
Its worth noting that this guy is only 1 year younger than myself. Firstly i say this because this was initially a guy i was very envious of, i always prided myself as being a 'young' player with 'potential', so seeing someone who was younger than me and having more success really made me question things, but he was also receiving a lot more support and credit than i think i had ever got. But after quitting the challenge and seeing what buttonclickr said about him, it seems that he essentially wasn't as good as i thought he was, and got way too much credit way too early, which i think has negatively effected him.
The 2nd reason i point out that he's just a year younger than me is because of the response(s) that he's put out following the challenge. I think the amount of sympathy baiting that he's done is ****ing pathetic, and i don't think age is an excuse (or even the reason he gets away with it). Any time i've sympathy baited on this blog i've been hard to called out on it, and i deserve to be, its pathetic behaviour. But the difference is when he does it, he has a bunch of american fanboys rub his back and tell him he's the best. And I think ultimately that's what's going to hold him back in his poker career. If he was as good as everyone said he is, this challenge would be and easy dub if you're a top HUNL player, but really when he started getting noticed he was just a midstakes grinder. As a midstakes player he's being called a poker prodigy and a theory god, i find this so weird, to give someone this much attention and praise so early on. Like in football its very common for young players to be titled 'prodigies' and then to never go anywhere, research Hachim Mastour for a perfect example, i won't go too into it now.
Honestly I think if Landon wanted to prove himself and try to become a top NL player, he should get on a plane to Europe or Canada and play on the global sites and try to become one of the best there, instead of just saying he wants to be the best on podcasts, since actions speak much louder than words. Even if he doesn't become the best, if he's able to network with European/Canadian (can be almost anywhere really) players i think this will be much better for his poker development than if he continues with the American crowd he currently associates with. I'll be surprised if he does this, but if he's serious about trying to become the best, and not just trying to be famous or whatever, then this seems like a good plan.

So why did this guy get so hyped up in the first place? Honestly i just think its because there hasn't been many good American players come up over the last 10 years. You could maybe name 1 or 2, but overall its been a bit embarrassing, and the lack of online has certainly effected that. So as soon as they see a young guy playing midstakes online, they decide to give him all the resources possible and hype him up into oblivion as the next American poker prodigy. Whilst there are a few Americans who i individually like, the American poker community generally just tilts me into orbit, and i think it's because they think they are much better than they are, and they don't realise how behind the curb they are overall. There's a lot of small things they do that annoy me, one example is always saying the GTD of an MTT when talking about, as if i'm going to know the payouts, just say how much is up top. As well as always writing out how they busted the tourney, mate, no one gives a **** that you lost a flip. Generally though speaking strategy with Americans gives me brain pain, but maybe i just haven't found the right guys yet. A lot of my stupidest poker arguments have been with Americans
And whilst i'm on this rant, there is 1 American who has come up over the last 10 years who has come onto global sites, and thats Alex Foxen, and whilst i think he's a very good player, far better than i may ever be, and crushes the live scene, unfortunately being down nearly 1k buyins in small field tournaments online means he just cannot be the best, and this is another example of someone who i just think is very overrated by Americans because he's American. He hasn't proved himself in the toughest games yet, and therefore cannot be one of the best.

Song

How this has 400 views i have no idea lol

Can you clarify what exactly you do? I have a 24inch 1920 monitor and been wondering if there's a way to fit more tables properly.

So my monitor is set up with hdmi cable which i think allows me to do this. But i just right click my desktop background, open up display settings, then change resolution to 3200x1800. Its super scuffed, and i wouldn't really recommend, or at least experiment to see what fits you best. It's just what i personally do.

Life update
Guess i'll just update 4-5 things that's on my mind and i have been up to, as there's a few things i've wanted to talk about for a bit.

Firstly i played my first session in over a week today. I actually went back to Bristol last weekend to watch the Euro Championship Finals with my friends, absolutely gutted that we lost on penalties ;( But it was really nice to see my friends again.
Then most of this week i haven't felt very well. I mentioned earlier that i had been having sleep problems which persisted, then i was eating very little as well, this was all going on whilst i was in Bristol too. Not too sure what's going on, but i'm starting to feel a bit better. I mainly just didn't want to lock myself into a 6h session when i wasn't feeling too great.
Feeling this shitty has definitely been a wake up call to start exercising again, as well as cutting down on the amount of processed food i eat, as especially when i grind i eat processed foods quite regularly as it is much easier to prep. And although I enjoy cooking, I'm generally quite fussy with food, and its hard to think of many dishes that i can make over and over, that keeps well over the period of a few days, so i can cook it in bulk.

I've also been learning chess over the last week. I knew the rules when i was a kid but only just started to learn proper strategy. I've just started playing online the last few days and i'm sitting at around 900 ELO, which makes me a pretty big noob but hopefully i can get better! It's definitely taking up a lot of my time, and distracting me from poker, but i think it'll be a fun side hobby. I just enjoy getting good at things, and chess fills that void quite well. Hoping that i can get to like 1200-1500 within a year, although that might be a bit ambitious I don't know too much about the ELOs

Also this evening i just heard that my favourite league of legends pro player, Febiven, is retiring. Always really sad to hear **** like this. Like in poker whenever i heard a friend was retiring it would make me really sad, because especially if they were much better than me, because this might sound strange, but if they don't think they can get to the top, then why can i?

Solvers in chess and poker
Its quite funny seeing how differently solvers are viewed in chess compared to poker, even though they enact pretty similar roles.
Like when i play chess after every game i just looked at the solver and analyse my play and try to learn that way which lines make the most sense and why it makes certain moves. And i just feel in chess the solvers are embraced much more as a learning tool and just a normal part of the game.
Whereas in poker solvers are often viewed as the death of the game, and that it will just kill the game at the highest level, which i just don't think is true (and don't think its that much of a problem if it were true atm, for reasons i'll get into later). Like you see the best chess players all the time make deviations, or just play different moves compared to the solvers, and they do this ultimately because they are humans and they make mistakes, or they are making deviations for the people that they are playing against. And in poker, i think ultimately the deviations against weak players is where you're going to make the most money.

Where the money is made in poker
The reason i say that i don't mind if poker 'died' at the highest level in the sense that everyone played like a solver, is because currently i don't really feel like the highest stakes (especially online) is where all the money is to be made, especially longterm. And i realise this might sound quite stupid, and this is just my opinion.
I think i stated this before, but i think highstakes online are quite dry and mainly consist of the same regs just passing money between one another.
I've spoken to a few others about this, and i think most of the money right now is to be made in $50-$1k tourneys, and i think it will continue to be very profitable for many many years. Because even if solvers did kill in the game at the highest level (in chess and poker), in chess you still get a lot of recreational players who just have fun at 800-1500 ELO, and in poker there are still plenty of recreationals who would keep these $50-$1k games juicy. Whereas the highest stakes rely on consistent whales who would probably disappear if things got that bad. Also the live poker scene is still growing and will always be very profitable too.
So i made a player group of 70 players who i believe are probably the best poker players in the world, from online legends and crushers, to live endbosses, and i decided to take all their GG graphs to see how their results are.

So it looks pretty sick, but considering i believe these to be the best players in the world, $65 per game on a 2.2k ABI i don't think is too special, thats like 3% ROI. Includes a tasty $4mil downswing too. Most of the money was made during last years WSOP online series.
Next i decided to break down the games by buyin, i wanted to see $2k and above, then below $2k. Worth noting that $0-1 covered a 10k where day 2 is listed as freeroll which is really dumb, so combine the bottom 2 to make up the higher stakes graph.

Its actually crazy to see that most of the money was actually made in the 'lower stakes' games.
So i did the math and the average profit per game for the higher stakes stuff was about $128, which is double that of the lower stakes game, but the average buyin is 10x as high, making for about 2% ROI.
And i can't say this with complete confidence, but i assume that a lot of these players playing the super high games are selling action in some sense, so when you factor that in, how much money are they actually making per game? It becomes pretty negligible. And i assume that most of those guys playing MTTs below $2k arent selling that action, or not much of it.
I broke the nosebleed stake stuff down by specific buyin, and weirdly 25ks are really profitable, 10ks are pretty good, then 5ks are just abysmal results wise.
Anyways i just think most of the nosebleed regs in these games are just losing to rake and coin flipping whether they win or lose $1 million. And might just be better off selfrolling some lower stakes as their $ per game will be very similar and it will likely be a more pleasant experience. In all fairness some of the regs i included in this group have like 500-800ABI, whilst others have like 5k-10k. And the lower stakes guys are more consistently doing well.
And one reason you might not think of as to why 'midstakes' is a dream right now (yeah i know $50-$500 is the new midstakes) is because the best players in world aren't playing these games, you might see one in the $500's, but even then they probably don't give it too much attention with their 10ks or 25ks in there. A few years ago the best online players would play the bounty builder 109 every day, or the big215, but the stakes have just been pushed so high that its too low for them now. So knowing that there's still so many fish in 100s-200s and that the best 50 players in the world won't be in those games mopping up is a dream scenario.
I've shown players who are crushing midstakes in 2021, and i know of plenty of other players who are doing it too, and the swings often haven't been too crazy.
So overall I think if you want to make a lot of money in poker crushing this new midstakes range of $50-$1k, then include a balance of live games too, as they will continue to be soft for a long time i think. I just think aspiring to play the highest stakes isn't great as you're ego battling a very low ROI, where you are better off just selfrolling at slightly lower stakes and just crushing worse players. The future is bright for midstakes.

good post, thanks for your thoughts. You have a new follower.

Thanks mate!

Update
Just using this as an opportunity to post a couple sporadic thoughts that i've been having.

Poker wise I haven't really been having any big results, unfortunately i keep coming 4th-8th on big FTs which is a bit frustrating, but these periods are to be expected. Just looking generally to increase my volume as i took a good chunk of time out this month, and just try to press on.

Deep work
So i've started reading the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. I find that when i say over the last year i haven't been doing as well in poker as i want, it's not that i haven't been investing enough time, its just that this time is used very poorly and ineffectively. Since when i do study i feel like i can learn things quite quickly, but the problem i have is i get distracted very easily and i'm not very good at focusing for long periods of time especially if my brain isn't super engaged, not that the content is boring, just having my focus on 1 video is very different to 12 tabling. So as it says on the front cover of the book, it is about 'Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World'. And although i'm very early on, and yet to reach the how, it talks more about the premise and why it is important attain this skill, throughout the time i read the book i find myself thinking how i can apply some of these concepts and situations to my life and specifically to poker.
Even since starting to read the book i've already taken strides to try to increase my own concentration levels, since i think some of the 'rules' that the book will say are things that i have already been made aware of. For example cutting down on social media consumption, i've logged off twitter and deleted the app from my phone, and i have no intention of logging back on, i think its an extremely toxic app anyway so i think its relatively easy. Next i'll look to reduce my usage of instagram and messenger. Another thing i've been working on is during my grinding sessions, because i'm an absolute criminal when it comes to having tables open then having something else open on the side, which obviously doesn't allow to me max focus on my tables and therefore not play at my best. Even during sessions i would listen to podcasts, and generally things that would take some level of my attention away from the tables, because i thought my brain needed X level of engagement and podcasts would fill the gap, but honestly i just need to learn to sit with that 'boredom' or just slightly lower level of intensity. So the changes i'm making for now are no youtube videos unless i have very few tables (obviously this is very situational) but also muting discord so i don't get distracted with messages, as well as having my phone off throughout the session, which i kind of already do. In regards to listening to music whilst grinding i know there's a few schools of thought. I remember €urop€an saying that he doesn't listen to any music whilst he grinds, playing basically in silence, others listen to music as it doesn't effect them. For me personally i find that music with lyrics (especially lyrics i know) are extremely distracting and certainly takes away a lot of my focus. Another issue i have is ensuring i maintain good energy levels, so whilst in the past listening to like DnB (closer to jump up) can get me really focused and in the zone, it often makes my energy levels far too high, which i feel like leads to me being more emotional and being quite mentally drained by the end of my session. But with something like lo-fi beats, the energy here is far too low, and can often leave me quite bored and non-engaged. Both these genres can be good when my energy is on the opposite end, so DnB good when energy is very low on the day, and lofi for when energy is very high (during big deep run), but i found a radio/playlist that has been very good for me over the last few days, and i'll just leave a link for that below. Title is a bit cringe but its been very good for me.
https://youtu.be/_daTfgc4u3k

Body is the engine
So i watched this podcast with Logan Paul and KSI, i've been watching KSI's videos since i was like 13/14, so come at me, idgaf.
https://youtu.be/fYjdEHn2pWs
KSI brings up a really important point that your body is basically and engine, so you need to treat the engine well so it can run smoothly.
And i know in the past i said that ultimately if you want to become one of the best at poker, meditation and healthy lifestyle is a bit nonsense, and you just need to invest a shittonne of time into learning and playing the game, and that living balanced lifestyle is not how people make it. And whilst i still stand my those statements, i feel for me personally my engine is a bit ****ed, i'm not putting in the time i want, i can feel my health deteriorating physically and mentally, and i think becoming healthier mentally and physically can be really beneficial to me improving my focus and day to day energy levels, and then be able to invest more time more easily into the game.
So i've already taken the steps to cut out most processed foods from my diet, i'm actually eating pretty healthy now, probably the healthiest i ever have. Now i just need to be more active and go for runs regularly again, this part i'm less enthusiastic about and it's very much on and off for me. Maybe i'll reference back to the books i've read about habits, and try to sort something out.

Overwhelmed
So i watched a cnc session today about the new HRC update that's coming out and how to utilise it appropriately. The session was really good, and new HRC update is ****ing insane, and i'm super excited to use it and to learn from it, being taught how to utilise it appropriately makes me feel like i have a head start and may take a while before people catch up. And i just really want to delve in and start to learn preflop on a deeper level.
During the session and following the session i got this feeling that i get like 2-3 times a year. I felt very overwhelmed as if i was very far behind the curve and realising how far i've got to go before i can reach the level i want to reach, and with the increased volume i'm putting in i just don't feel like i have enough time. And i think i got the feeling because this was the first CnC session i attended in over a month, because i was supposed to be focusing on pads course, which i've realistically not done as much as i want. So i want to finish going over pads course, attend cnc sessions, run a tonne of preflop sims and postflop sims, go over a bunch of RIO content, be active in cnc forums posting hands+reading threads, go over HH reviews with friends and network to new people, as well as start getting individually coached again, then applying all the new knowledge when i increase my volume and the amount i play. It can all feel very overwhelming. Usually the feeling fades off after a day or so, since i know that if i just take it step by step i can achieve all these things, and hopefully with some of the life changes i make, it will allow me to work more efficiently, since i have the time, its just the efficiency of that time that i lack.

Sounds like you need a hobby/interest where your not over taxing your brain.
Far too easy to overload the brainbox nowadays.

A few things you can do.
1. Buy broccoli you can cook in microwave/carrots are good.
2.Buy 10-30 lb dumb bells [cost basically nothing i spent 35$ total for 20 lb and 10 lb set] workout 2-3 minutes on break 3-4 times/grind] [do abs/leg workouts too youtube dumbbell workouts/bodyweight]
3. Study 30 minutes of video content when your one tabling near end of session/start.
4.Next big bink take 2-3 days off study...grind 2-3 days.... study 2-3 days..... grind 2-3... taking a few days off in general here then get back to grinding.
5.Meal prep [beans/beef/chicken/rice]

All good advice, but I'd buy a TR-X instead of dumbells: you can do the same exercises (if not more) but have more room for progression.

Yeah i realized this too. I'm dropping the chess as a side hobby for now, maybe i'll come back to it at a later date

Thanks for the advice lad! I'll note some of these, got a slowcooker so i should be able to do some decent meal prep, as i have in the past, but just need to find more things that i like!

I'll look into this, thanks lad!

July Results

Sadly doesn't show my result from last night.

But even then the sharkscope graph is usually pretty inaccurate.
I ended the month up just shy of £1k, which at this point i would consider breakeven since i can just lose that again in 1 session.
Wasn't the best month in terms of results, but i certainly don't think i played bad. Towards the end i was having some really good sessions, making lots of deep runs and FTs, i just struggled to convert the FTs, which i think is just mainly variance and running a bit **** on FTs.

Like here you can clearly see that i had a lot of FTs, but predominantly coming 6th-3rd, especially on these 'bigger' FTs with a couple thousand up top. And my only wins were in very small field pkos with £500-600 up top. It's obviously a bit frustrating not to be converting as many FTs as i'd like, but its a good sign to see that i'm making so many deep runs. And i feel with my new approach i'm definitely starting to have some better sessions, so hopefully if i just keep up what i'm doing then my results will be really strong to close out the year.

I actually analysed how much money i had made on a few sites yesterday. And since selfrolling (mid september 2020), i realised on unibet i've only made £1.7k, which is really insane. This site is so soft but for some reason i can't make money on it. It could be variance since my volume isn't massive, but for comparison i've made about 5x as much on skypoker with i think a bit less volume, and thats considering i had a very obvious breakeven stretch for about 4 months. Overall unibet for some reason is just some kind of enigma when it comes to making profit, because i know other regs who have experienced similar issues, that it feels so soft but its hard to make profit. At least for now i'm switching a good chunk of my volume over to 888, and i'll keep a couple unibet MTTs in my schedule, but hopefully they revamp the MTT schedule soon and bring back some higher stakes stuff. Maybe i've just improved a lot, but 888 actually feels really consistent and really beatable now. The MTTs are really soft, with lots of fish, and decently sized fields, so it feels like you can make a really consistent profit on that site now, so i'm excited to grind it more and see how my results go, since in the past i definitely somewhat struggled on that site

I guess i'll quickly say as for WCOOP, i have no plans to play it, and if i do it'll all be selfrolled which means none of the higher buyin stuff. I've just hit a point where i don't see the glory in it anymore, and given that i'm at the same point (in terms of profit) as i was before SCOOP, the downsides just feel too big for it to be worth grinding. Maybe i'll flick in a few events but it's not something i am overly enthusiastic about.

Also i'll likely post some strategy content soon, as i know its been a while since i've done that, and i'm currently just experimenting with new HRC to get a feel for it. It takes a really long time to run the sims but it has been fun!

Not the worst month for essentially a breakeven one!

Not sure about your Unibet thoughts - maybe it's primarily the effect of the mixture of sites? ipoker, unibet, 888 and Sky all look and behave quite differently, which can lead to misclicks, timing out, tech tilt and tiredness/irritation after dealing with them all for a few hours.

I know some people will disagree with this, as 'just use software bro' and 'it doesn't affect pros' but you might just find you lose a few % ROI from the issue of trying to grind on four very different sites simultaneously? I think it's a very underrated issue that affects grinders more than they think or will admit.

I've seen you a little on the Sky tables last month. Are you playing GUKPT Manchester?

I've never had a real problem with mixing sites, because i'm doing fine on all the other sites. Although unibet aspect ratio can tilt the **** out of me sometimes
I was banging out games on sky last month, must've just missed me. What's your screenname on there?
Also no, i have no plans on playing manchester GUKPT, or any of the other GUKPT livestops besides maybe Leeds as i have a friend who lives near there. Just want to focus on online for now and get out of this breakeven period. Also with all the regs playing live its a really nice time to clean up online imo.

05/08/21 Session

Binked this 200e pko sng for 2.2k.

Then 2nd in the 50fof!
Good to say i ran pretty good at the top of my buyin range today.
Had a couple other deep runs, so overall was a pretty good session.
Contemplating taking tomorrow off, because with these longer sessions i don't want to risk mentally burning out over the weekend if i play 5 days in a row. I'll decide though.

08/08/21 Session

Nice little bink here! Dude HU was super tight nitfish, then went completely ballistic HU, almost lost it because i couldn't make a hand, but we got there in the end.

Also came 2nd here for like 750e. Don't really play 20s anymore, but always latereg these 2 20 pkos at the start of my session!
Given those 2 results i'm only up £1.1k on the day, i can't think of very good words to describe but its almost exhausting. I guess thats just the price i have to pay when moving up stakes, since today i bricked a 200 and 6 100s. I feel like i put in all that effort and struggle to win 1k, but i could very easily lose 1k in my next session. It can just feel very difficult to win, but very easy to lose, not even mentally just results wise. Obviously i have to just take my sessions one at a time, and if i put in good volume the long term results will show for themselves.

Why are you thinking like this let alone actually putting it in writing?

As a passive observer of your game for awhile now it's pretty obvious that your Achilles heel is mental game/attitude. Talent/strat/execution wise, you're not going to have a problem unless you manage to melt down mentally... And I can't help but feel you enjoy sort of poking the bear in that regard... like flirting with disaster... (most of us who engage in self destructive behavior do so because on some level they enjoy it).

Anyway, I don't mean to hammer you on this, I'm sure you're just expressing your thought process here anecdotally and it's not some serious mental leak, but engaging in and articulating that type of thought process (micro analyzing daily results) just strengthens that viewpoint/thought process and is entirely counter-productive. I realize this is an mtt blog and it's like what are you going to talk about... and you're just expressing yourself and I love the way you communicate openly on here but this is very leaky (to answer your question yes, thinking like this is exhausting). Are you pushing BR management to an irresponsible place (and irresponsible is a nice way of saying essentially not using BR management)? Are statements like this a reflection of some unconscious insecurities about not being able to withstand a nasty stretch of variance at this ABI? If so, yeah there's something to be learned from this analysis. If not, don't think like this.

Again, I just read this and it struck me so I thought I'd throw it out there for discussion. Between here and discord I've been getting a sense that your poker game has been really blossoming this past year and it would be cool to see you put it all together the next few years.

Thanks for answering my questions about multi-tabling, and congrats on the ROI the past couple months, glgl

Hey mate! Yeah i think its no secret that my mental game is pretty ****. It definitely came off as a big moan when i said ONLY 1k. I just meant after having a 2k score and other results i'm used to being up a lot more for the day, but its just a consequence of playing higher stakes.
As for my BRM i think my BRM is pretty responsible. I'm not really one to push to play a lot higher than i need, that idea doesn't really appeal to me much anymore, as i realise that my bigger winrates are often going to be in lower stakes tourneys. My BRM 'rule' is usually to have 300-400 ABIs as roll, and then the biggest buyin i play is 1% of my roll, then move up and down appropriately, given my age and life situation i think i can definitely afford to have a more aggressive BRM approach. As i move to higher stakes though i'll need to make sure my roll is a bit deeper esp with ROI likely to go down.

As for my mental more generally when i move to a new city (which i've been waiting to do for 6 months now) i want to get a therapist and really work on my mental, as i don't think a poker mental game coach is qualified to help me as much with my issues (no offence to any mental game coaches ).

13/08/21 Session

3rd

2nd, shoutout moray too

2nd

Was gutted to come 6th here, as i was 1/6, thought it could be the perfect finale to a very good day.
Felt a bit weird after this day. Since i did really well and had lots of deep runs, but at the same time i felt like i should've won the 888 HU vs a fish super deep, as well as get a better placing in the 10fof. So i felt like i could've easily made another 1k. But it is what it is.
I was saying after it weirdly feels better to have 1 big bink and a +2k day, than 4 'nearly' results and have the same profit as you feel like you could've done more. But still a very nice day overall!

14/08/21 Session

bink

bink

almost bink
So close to the triple crown! Very happy with this session.
I'm kind of on fire atm, got a big sunday session coming up tomorrow.
Feels like with a lot of the grosvenor regs playing the manchester live stop it's a really nice time to clean up online. Like the daily 100 and 200 pools are far softer than usual.

My brothers actually coming down to where i live tomorrow, so i'll see him for the first time in like a year. So after sunday session i'm not sure for my plans next week, at the moment i just want to grind a lot, but i want to spend time with him too, so i'll figure something out. Will help when i take social media cleanse next week though, will be uninstalling everything besides discord basically (instagram + messenger mainly).

Also i PROMISE to post some indepth strat stuff soon. Started a little project to help me study a bit better, so i'll share some stuff from that when i get time, as it all takes a bit of time.

Hand

Hand vs a decent reg on 888. At first looks like its played fine, but a few small details that i think could really elevate the level of the hand.
IP flop strategy

Having an overbet sizing here makes A LOT of sense. BB has no offsuit 2 pairs, and EP has this portion of overpairs that want to pile money in now to clean its outs from most of the overcards and likely can't go 3 streets, that's why 99-JJ wants to mainly overbet, then KK/AA can use a smaller sizing, since those hands don't mind keeping in QJhh.
Then hands like JThh make a really nice choice of bluff since it mirrors the value really well. But in game its most important to find this sizing with overpairs which a lot of people wont, because they think very static and never cbet bigger than 75%. (For what its worth i'd likely miss too if i wasn't very focused).
OOP turn strat
5(after IP b70 on flop)

Can see OOP is supposed to nudge close to range, this is a card that interacts very well with OOP, giving them a lot of 2pairs and straights.
IP response vs 10% lead.

You can see that its very effective for OOP to do with single pairs aswell, since 10% is the sizing that makes a lot of these overcard hands (without fd) indifferent. And even freezes a lot of the overpairs which i'm surprised to see (because usual response vs a nudge is to treat as check, so call everything then raise hands that would normally bet when checked to).
This turn lead strategy is very similar no matter if IP bets 70% or 110% on flop. Usually i expect slightly more nudging vs bigger flop sizes because IP is a lot more polar.
vs bet 70 on flop:

vs bet 110 on flop:

Main difference is vs overbet that OOP is exclusively going 10% because the range is much more polar, either strong 8x/overpairs or those 2 overcard hands that can be made indifferent.
1 more really interesting thing i wanted to look at is IPs strategy when checked to after cbetting 110 and 70.
IP turn strat when checked to
IP turn strat after b70 flop

Interesting to note here that JJ is actually mixing checks (which means my point about response vs nudge is actually accurate, and i was just wrong in assuming that IP would always bet JJ on turn when checked too).
IP turn strat after b110 flop

Interesting to note that more betting is happening here, and i think part of the reason is IP can jam, since 2x pot is okay, but 3x pot is a bit much to jam. Also note that A5ss is jamming, which is a gangster play that i'll touch on in a second.
OOP response vs 2x pot jam

You can see hands like AQ/AJ with fd and 94hh type hands make it into the calling range, this is the reason A5ss can jam, as a megamaster to fold out 8x but also get called by these hands which is dominates, which is pretty cool.
Also after b70 when you 3x pot jam a lot of these hands start to fold on the turn, which means that the EV of jamming the overpairs becomes a lot lower since it then will just run into a lot of better hands. And the problem with betting smaller is vs x/j you are indifferent so things can get very very ugly, so the EV of checking goes up a lot and just turning our hand into a bluffcatcher. But the EV between betting and checking are very similar.
Conclusion

1. Overbet for value on boards where OOP can't have offsuit 2pairs (Not totally correct, but not a bad start point, mainly if board is T high or below too), as we want to push a lot of equity with our vulnerable overpairs.
2. OOP turn nudging a lot following polar IP cbet strategy. Esp on turns that connect well with OOP range. Population will respond very poorly.
   a. OOP use small nudge sizing (10%) to make overcard hands indifferent.
   b. IP responds by treating it similar to check.
3. IP on turn can have 2x pot jams, but 3x pot is a bit too much.

Just overall a hand where on the surface it looks like it was played standard, but both parties could've taken slightly different lines to really up the level of the hand.

29/08/21 Sunday Session

Gutted to finish 26th here, was about 50k for first. But thats the pain of big fields.
Had a bunch of other deep runs too, so nice to end on a decently profitable day. Last 2 Sundays i got completely crushed so i'll defo take this.

Life stuff
I wanted to grind more this week, but after getting my 2nd vaccine jab on tuesday i had a headache for the following 2 days which was a bit annoying, so i thought it'd be best to rest. I feel fine now though which is good, i can go see my mum in spain at some point, since i haven't seen her for almost a year now.

That being said, the WSOP ruling on vaccination has certainly rubbed some people the wrong way. I don't want to talk about vaccine views too much, but in short i think if you don't want to get the vaccine for whatever reason that's fine, although mainly on the basis that you don't live a lifestyle where you're likely to spread covid, and are willing to take some of the short term L's that come with it. So if you're an online poker pro and you sit inside all day and dont go out much, i think its fine to wait till more testing on the vaccine has been done. But if you go clubbing every weekend and you're not vaxxed, i don't think this is okay, and if i'm being pedantic i'd say you're a walking chemical weapon.
So yeah in short, WSOP is private business, they can do what they want and accept who they wish. And if you don't like their ruling, you can just play elsewhere, that's fine.
I must say the reddit threads have been good fun to read, some very funny comments, and probably one of the first places where i felt like the sentiments were very pro vaccine. I feel like often when reading the internet, the anti-vax sentiments are a lot more seen. Like if you go on any covid related youtube video it'll often be mass downvoted by anti-vaxx/lockdown people, but generally in society most people are in favour of these things, just the 'anti' people are a lot louder about their views.

Music
I am fully on the Drill X LoFi wave right now. Its relatively new but its sick!

Also there are some sick slowed and reverb remixes

Nice blog and really good strat stuff! It is easy to miss those overbet cbets on certain boards as well as turn leads as OOP on favourable card. I have done similar PIO work, but with only 30% pot lead sizing.

Also a difference in b70 and b110 is that OOP folds 67/55/45/52/A3 much more often so wont improve as often when its b110 vs b70.

Lower SPR will make JJ want to jam more especially the combos unblocker FDs but also think 5 just not as bad when its overbet on the flop.

Think if you take out turn leads, IP will play more passive and might not get to shove turn?

Thanks lad, yeah these things can be easy to miss in game especially when you've only just learned about it, i think that's why its important to study lots even if you're often just refreshing information. Try to get it to a point when you can identify these kind of spots even when slightly 'autopiloting'. At the start though just good i think to find for value.

As for tree setups i have a more complex one, and a more simplified one for bigger trees.
complexsimple

Usually i'll use the simple setup, then i'll think about if a certain 'niche' sizing could make sense. For example i found a spot where OOP prefers to lead for an overbet on the turn after x/c flop. Just sometimes good to experiment with expanding parameters to figure out something new.

Also a good indicator for sizing is if 1 size is HEAVILY preferred, then you might want to rerun with a bigger/smaller sizing to see if thats preferred (so could prefer b150+ over b110, or b15 over b30). Then usually if you have 2 sizings and its a close to perfect split, the middling sizing can be preferred (so if flop splits b30 and b70 very evenly, b50 might be the optimal sizing).


Hehe we spoke about this on discord, certainly an interesting convo!

August Results

This is actually very far off what i actually made. I ended the month up about £3.9k/$5.3k. Sharkscope doesn't show unibet results where i ended up a bit over £2k, and my £1.3k score in the goliath too, so this partly contributed to it.
Overall it was an okay month results wise. Little bit disappointing given how strong my start was, i kind of just ran out of steam towards the end of the month, and being sick for a few days certainly didn't help.

Also i must say there was a few spots where i made some pretty big ICM punts. And its certainly a topic i've been starting to think about a lot more, although more to do with bubble money than FT.

So this is my YTD results and stats in non-pko tourneys. The stat i want to highlight is ITM% (pko considering winning 1 bounty as ITM, so thats why i cut it out). 20% is a pretty high number for this stat, and its likely that im often just creeping my way into the money, and not often coming in with a big stack, and i do think i play very passive around bubbles. So given that most of my tourneys are small field, usually less than 200 runners (ignore the stat in screenshot because stars/gg warp it), it actually makes sense to play slightly more risky around bubbles, because if you double up and have a big stack, your likelihood of winning the tournament or having a top 3 finish goes up significantly compared to 1k+ runner fields where doubling up doesn't make too much of a difference to likelihood of winning the tourney. Obviously i am being quite vague, and there's a lot of things to take into consideration, for example 888 mincash is often 2.5x, compared to ipoker 1.8x (or even less in r&a's), but i think the general logic makes some sense, that if i maybe decrease my ITM by 2-3% (20%-18%/17%), but then have top 3 finishes more often should be a profitable approach.
Although i must say, a lot of ipoker regs don't give a **** about icm, which makes it tough to apply pressure as big stack on FT, but also might make cashing far easier and a more profitable approach.

Awesome thread man keep up the good work

Thanks lad!

04/09/21 Session

BINK BINK BINK!
Feels like its been a while since i had one of these 'bigger' binks. Also feels nice to win one of my higher buyins, since its defo important to get those binks in the smaller fields.

Song
I'm still on the drill/lofi wave

05/09/21 Sunday Session

Big bink!

Another super nice run too! Slightly disappointed not to come top 3 given stacks but it is what it is!
Had a couple other smaller FTs/deep runs too.
After getting rekt every sunday for the last month or so, it feels ****ing good to have a big sunday

Well done Ben, you obviously put a lot into your game and deserve some good fortune now and then.
Lets hope it continues.

Cool analysis on that 8 high tt flop. Thanks for sharing!