If there's anything you can do to make stars change their mind about the payout structures would be great but something tells me is not gonna happen lol. How receptive are they to players feeedback based on your time working for them?

I would be more interested to see a bounty builder 215$ at 2030 malta time than all those low gtd crap running around. I cant imagine any builder not being popular especially at this time frame. Just my 2 cents since there are many stars stuff reading your thread

Thanks! Yeah I'm on that Vitamin D grind.

You edited your post but I really hate them will post something constructive soon about what a joke they are

Definitely have you as an elite reg. You did get me with the ol Quadsky and Hutch against my top boat AAA77 no good. We would have qualified for the bad beat jackpot in some jurisdictions

Hey Rakkazzar, welcome! Two reasons:

1) I don't mind who knows. It doesn't matter to me who knows they're playing against me.
2) I re-opened my pocketfives for the e-peen flex so eventually it will be public knowledge anyways

https://www.pocketfives.com/profiles/yugiohpro/

The operations team is pretty great overall in terms of being receptive and supple. Keep in mind Luke is one of the og 2+2ers and has his ear to the street even though his ear must be covered in poop now with how often everyone wants to **** on him. During my time I've seen him have MTT Skype groups to chat with, talked with some real HSMTT heavyweights, and gets the official thread posts pinged directly to his sweet cheeks every morning.

Everything in the official thread is read and digested even if it's not responded to. Operations don't call the shots though and I was never a part of the high level executive discussions that makes the big financial decisions so I'm not sure what that side is like. The head of my department is also quite passionate about poker and cares what the community thinks.

I think sadly this is just a case where the power moves start from too far up the ladder.

This has been a passion project of mine for a while. I want to remove the fluff and consolidate into a hotsauce schedule. When I drew up Bounty Builder Series (with Luke's guidance) you'll notice I put a lot of high buy-in Bounty Builders in that 15:30 region where I think we really need it.

Stars is punting a lot of money by not optimizing their schedule in certain spots. My position this whole time has been to organically boost revenue through sharp decisions so that players don't have to suffer later every time more money needs to be raised. Changes like making the Pacific Rim Special a daily tournament will increase tournament revenue by quite a bit. This revenue isn't incremental, meaning it doesn't purely add to Stars bank since the money might have otherwise gone to Zoom or SaG or Casino. But still!

You know the BBHR is one of our best performing tournaments by far and it wasn't even around. Luke had the idea and we fleshed it out together in the fall of 2017. It's downright criminal that the $215 BB goes at 10:30, then there's a massive $109 at 13:30, but then the $55, $82, and $162 versions are nowhere around near peak.

It goes $109 (amazing), $33 (huge), $7.50 (?), $2.20 (?), $55 (great). The $7.50 and $2.20 slots are criminal. I think my main men over there read this so if you're reading this.. 1) <3 and 2) please add some mid-high bounty builders to the $7.50 and $2.20 time slots!

I remember that pot, I one outered the turn right? Yuck. Sorry!

Yes, this please

Poker Update: March 24, Week 12



I had a fantastic week on my modified schedule. I end up starting around Big 215 time, or slightly later, and playing through til the $44 Bounty Builder and even the :45 $109 Turbo that signals the end of the day.

Fun fact: When we introduced the Biggers and Hotters I wanted to call the Bounty Builders the Bountier Builderers. Was shot down

Volume was a bit high. I'm getting ready to go visit Hong Kong and know I won't be playing from Tuesday to Saturday. But if I run the math on 300 games a week at $75 ABI, that easily sustains $200k+ a year with 15-20% ROI. Even a 20% drop in volume should sustain it. I don't think it's realistic to grind all year the way I have this past week.

I'm settled on Stars and Stars.ES and will have a report on both sites after this Sunday. I've had a great week on Stars winning the Big 215, $215 Turbo, and assorted other birds. While doing this I'm getting into a lot of HU matches and realizing my HU game is pretty weak. I still win my fair share but I could definitely do better. I'm going to add some HU ranges to PIO and start working out some spots.

I ran deep in an $88 on WPN with All in Pav. I usually open up Twitch when I'm playing against streamers to get more information on how they're approaching the table. I ended up running a big bluff 4-handed on Pav (he still owes me $50 for posting the hand history where you at Pav). One of my best friends was very anti-Pav for a while so I never rated him and independently never found him tough at any of my tables. Truthfully I was surprised to see he's made something like $80k+ this year already. It seems like he mostly also plays the schedule I'm playing, while also running hot in $500's though.

Anyways the point is Pav seems to be the model for this semi off-peak NA grind and my respect for him grew quite a bit while watching his stream. I think when you have hundreds/thousands of people following you it's easy to get super fake or peddley or big-headed but he seems quite humble and grounded. I went down the grapevine and watched a bunch of his stream highlights and stuff to see where the magic comes from.

I just wanted to shout out some of the new Party streamers Pav, Buehlero, and Egption (are they in a crew together?) in this thread. Honestly I wasn't a huge fan of Egption either based on the SM video with bencb but my respect for him has grown quite a bit and he's for sure a high level player. I think all 3 of them are very good at poker and it looks like a lot of the streamers are actually doing quite well lately. It must be incredibly tough to play day in and day out with everyone knowing your approach and strategy. Respect to these guys.

Results

Had a busy week so will just list the highlights

- 1st Big 215 for $5K
- 1st Turbo 215 for $4K
- 1st 55 Sunday monsoon for $2.7K
- 3rd Hotter 82 for $3.2K. First got $9.6K in this and let me tell you I will be RANTING about Stars payout structure as soon as I stop winning on there
- 3rd $88 Mega Stack for $2.3k
- 4th WPN $530 for $4.3K

Overall FT distributions (just counting up to 8th place even though this will include some 6-max tournaments that weren't the FT)

19 Top 8 Finishes, 3.42 average place, 6 1sts, 4 2nds, 2 3rds. I could have won a few of the heads ups if I had just played better and not been such a nooblord.

EV Analysis

- The games are definitely softer at these hours. I ran about 4 bb/100 below my expectation but won +9M chips.
- Red line has quite a negative slope downward this week which is weak and flaccid. Every time I flirt with getting it positive it breaks my heart.

Key Hand

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 25,000/50,000 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 15.3 BB
BB: 38.84 BB
Hero (CO): 25.68 BB
BTN: 23.18 BB

4 players post ante of 0.11 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.94 BB) Hero has T K

Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, BB raises to 5.02 BB, Hero calls 3.02 BB

Flop: (10.99 BB, 2 players) T J 8
BB bets 4.96 BB, Hero calls 4.96 BB

Turn: (20.91 BB, 2 players) 4
BB checks, Hero bets 15.58 BB and is all-in, BB calls 15.58 BB

River: (52.07 BB, 2 players) Q

BB shows A J (One Pair, Jacks)
(Pre 64%, Flop 78%, Turn 89%)
Hero shows T K (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 36%, Flop 22%, Turn 11%)
BB wins 52.07 BB

FT of the $530 on WPN with $14k or so up top. I was very surprised to see his hand. This guy showed up at like $600 ABI and was a winning regular and I almost thought he was super elite like a Brynn Kenney or something based on his screenname and play style until this showdown. Never trust an American regular to be sharp.

I think turn is a pretty close decision and I've PIOed this and talked to my coach/friends about this spot. In game I remember asking myself if people would check better on this kind of texture and I thought no so I thought protection was valuable enough to warrant the shove. It was pretty unlucky because I shouldn't bust often in this spot but we ended up just playing a marginal game of chicken because of his sizings.

I think this hand is just a clear jam pre or at least a bigger NAI 3-bet but MTTers like to get weird/nitty at final tables and make the last call instead of the last bet all in so they can nut peddle. I think in general they do a lot of stuff like this. He hardly 3b at all, ran hot in a few all ins and got the chiplead, and felt compelled to 3 bet me twice. You don't see it as much now but WPN kind of plays like a 2012-2013 era site in a lot of ways. This is why it's always good to watch FT replays!

I'm putting in a full Sunday grind and then will post some stuff about my Stars user experience. Toodles

One other thing, I want to clean up my grind on Sunday so let's look at some ability scores.

Sundays with Jae

Party $530 175K- 87
I two united this. Pretty terrible fire. Even one is questionable. I'll skip it tomorrow

Party $530 275K- 86
Party $320 250K- 85

These are also not "good fires" but I think it's slightly better because of the extra 100K. These things really matter because when you sun run a tournament you want the biggest prize possible

Stars $530 BBHR- 83

This is more like it. 400K prize pool is absolutely massive. It's tough but I'm okay with this.

Winamax HIGHROLLER- 82

I cut this from my daily schedule. I'm fresher these days when I play it but most of the time I'm playing this it's just too deep and lasts too long for starting at 05:30.

Party $215 Turbo- 85
Hotter $215- 81

Games are definitely softer on Stars. I'm okay with most of these fires as long as the $200's are getting say $75K+ in prize pool, or even $50k+ in some spots. It's not realistic to expect Sunday fields to have super soft scores so I think there's some merit to anyone who wants to HATE on glorious Sundays (like blakman).
******************

Dailies with Jae

WPN 530- 88
WPN 215 Manic Monday 25K- 84
WPN 270 Wednesday 40K- 84

Chico 109 Daily Dozen- 83, 81, 92 (wtf)
Winamax 250 HIGHROLLER- 80
Winamax 100 SHOOTER- 75

Stars 215 Fast Friday- 79
Stars Big 215- 81
Stars Hot 215- 76
Stars 215 Offpeak Diablo Turbo- 78, 81, 74, 79
Stars 215 Super Tuesday Late- 77
Stars 162 Bounty Builder- 75
Stars 109 Hyper- 75, 73, 75, 76
Stars 109 6-Max PKO- 71, 72
Party 109 Gladiator II- 77

So I've given a few of these tournaments the doo doo brown color and might avoid in the future. I think some of the offpeak scores are filled with boosted pros beating up on the softer fields though and rampantly INFLATING their scores (shoutout to the Canadians).

Hey Yugioh, glad to see you back! I lurked your stream all the time mostly trying to figure out your weird expressions as I'm not native english speaker... was a realllll challenge lol

Are you still a table stacker? I love to play stacked but nobody seems to do it nowadays... I know you're the OG on the subject, so just curious if that part has changed or not.

I'll be lurking here too, good luck on the tables!

Absolute unit. LFG

BUMP

Hi dvd, welcome! That comment about the expressions makes me laugh. I do tend to drop some spicy hot sauce daily.

Yes I'm still a filthy table stacker with Stars. It's mostly a humble stack of 5 instead of a power 12 now though. I have a Stars stack in the middle, a Stars.es stack in the bottom, and then assorted Party/888/WPN tables off to the sides.

And much <3 to angeles and blakkman! I took a short holiday and I'm back.
********************

Monthly Update 3: March 2019




EV was good though the sub 40bb ev/100 was weaker than usual. Couldn't get the red line positive and ran a bit below expectation but it's within reason for sure. The theme of this month was getting close to big money. Felt a bit rough leaving so much dough on the table but it's out of my control and we can only play the best we can. I had a winning month and had fun so what more can you really ask for?

4th $55 Marathon for $5297 (1st 15k)
10th $320 Gladiator for $4957 (1st 35k+)
4th $530 for $4364 (1st 14k)
3rd Hotter $82 for $3226 (1st 9.3k)
11th in €30 SCOOP-01 for €538 (1st 13.7k)

And so on. I don't even really want to list this but I'm just doing it for thoroughness. It's in the past! I was actually a bit upset with how I got 4th in the Marathon, felt like I misplayed quite a few FT spots near the end and got 4th in a spot where I really should have finished 2nd+ most of the time with the chip distribution and softness.

Right after the Marathon though I was on a flight to spend time with Wildawg one of my best mates/poker coach/life coach/spiritual advisor/transcendalist guru. We had quite a fun time and some stimulating conversations about the future. After this I came back for a Sunday and got 2nd in the WPN $215 Major for ~$22K after being stuck quite a bit. Was going quite big due to Powerfest Sunday. Actually fired two $1,050's with $300k on them, a $1K on WPN, and quite a few $500's. Felt like Romeopro junior for a moment there.

Don't have much more to say about the month. Let me know if you have any questions reading through it feel like I'm missing something. Have two things I'd like to discuss though I guess thinking on it now they are kind of tied together.

1) Why Blog?

So I was on the HK subway aka the streets of Shaolin with WD and he told me he heard of my blog through a friend (didn't read it) and asked me why I was blogging. It's definitely true that sharing your thought process and assorted posts like my game selection ones or key hands is negative EV. Why do it? Who knows. It's something I have to ponder. I know the reasons why I started. Honestly I think a lot of it was just idealism. I wanted to help players peek beyond the Manx Kipper curtain and have some insight into what's going on with PokerStars.

2) Poker News

I've decided I want to comment on some industry items so that anyone who is reading this can get some consistent info on poker. Shoutout to pokerindustrypro.com I would suggest subscribing to them for the culture if you want to support hard hitting poker analysis. My topics won't always correlate with them so here is the first edition of my own personal newsletter. I'll try to talk about 3 items or so that interest me, free of charge and hot off the press.

1. 888 Rake or Break

I'm a part of a few chats related to the boycott. There is a large chat for MTT regulars to talk with each other, PM me if you want access as long as you promise not to share horse porn. One thing I find interesting is some of the HS regs are trying to drum up support for reduced rake for MTTs and I think this is the wrong approach for sure. In my opinion:

- Pricing on regular speed MTT's, especially high stakes, is more than reasonable and borderline underpriced based on max attainable ROIs
- Pricing on turbo speed and hyper speed MTT's is a problem on PokerStars and talks of price decreases should be focused on this
- Jury's out on PKO pricing. I think it's competitive but definitely appreciate Party's reduced cost for the PKO element. SUPPORT this type of price reduction with your dollars and play habits.

While 888 is making a noble effort to listen to feedback from regulars, I think they're just going to head down a one way train to FAIL TOWN if they keep up with this Rake or Break nonsense. As someone who has played almost every Rake or Break tournament, I've noticed that the gimmick has not increased participation. These 888 players, unfortunately, do not seem to be very price sensitive. It's depressing for me to see how little poker players care about business practices and pricing.

I think trying to reduce rake on normal tournaments sets a dangerous precedent and is the wrong approach. Yes I want more transparency and fair, sustainable poker for all. But the model doesn't work at all if the site is just giving the game away for free.

2. Microgaming Back in the Trap

If you read previous entries you will know that I'm not a fan of Microgaming's approach recently. But lo and behold, this past Sunday I took a looksee in the client and saw a 109 50K Knockout. Absolute hot fire from the Microgaming network. Usually I'm opening the client and then closing it with a sasd face It looks like it missed by 39 players but let's do some quick math:

461 players * 9 euro= +4149
39 * 100 euro overlay= -3900

Boom a net win especially factoring in the buzz and sizzle. These 461 players came out of nowhere because they've never run something as massive as this on a non-series Sunday and I don't see a repeat in the client as of today They'll have to work hard to sustain this tournament but it's a great step in the right direction. I know my man Casey aka bigdogpocket5s aka he's floating just to float is making some power moves at OneTimePoker. Looks like the site is just overlaying nonstop. Again just my opinion but MicroGaming is definitely one of the good guys and a strong Microgaming is good for all poker professionals. I think you should sign up and play. They have a big series coming up which should be amazing value.

3. PokerStars.COM Report

I sent my first report to my old team about my play experience. I won't go into all the details but one thing of note was I took the total percentage of games played on Stars.com versus all other sites combined and the total percentage of rake paid as well.

Percentage of Games Played on .COM: 40%
Percentage of Rake Paid on .COM: 34%

I consider both of these numbers too low considering Stars.com's market share and liquidity. More on this in the future and feel free to chime in with any suggestions or feedback.

I'm off to a good start for April due to the WPN Major and I'm looking forward to this month. I'll be moving to a new apartment this month and will have a new office set up.

I think the main issue with rake or break is that it doesn’t actually hold a guarantee. Given how even myself being a pro I tend to choose mtts by a glance at guarantees and then by a second glance at the makeup of the populous in that mtt lobby once my interest is peaked, both of those are super unattractive and given start time of the tournament I don’t have enough time to gauge if the safe in rake warrants playing what has been a tougher mtt than average for that buyin.

It certainly was reghier than the 320 rakefree thing they had with 100k guaranteed and while I obv can’t expect a site to run rake free tournaments, they should at least make promos that are attractive at first glance

To reiterate

If I m a rec with a budget of 320 on a Sunday do I reg a tournament high at 45 min after starting time shows 4K for first place or do. I reg the 320 500k on party with 60k for first?

If I m a rec with a budget of 320 on a Sunday do I reg a tournament high at 45 min after starting time shows 4K for first place or do. I reg the 320 500k on party with 60k for first?[/QUOTE]

Thanks for your thoughts here blakk I didn't even think that Rake or Break starts with no guarantee. ew. And thanks for that ehbarone you know we don't see the chat in game!

Speaking of 320's on Party with heaps for first, I binked a $320 PowerFest today for nearly 21k (21 21). This puts me well on the way toward my goals and puts me over 6 figures since I left my job. This is an important milestone for me given how hard 2015 and 2016 were mentally.



I'll finish out the weekend grind and then there's APPT Korea coming up next week. Looking to fire a handful of big birds but skipping the 10K high roller I think.

Your boy will be making moves in the P5 Rankings and the live scene this year, hopefully. Toodles for now!

Didn't know this was you, how are there two former dgz/ygo people with decent PGCs on the front page?
Not sure if you saw that Max passed last year.

Welcome Frantic! Yes I did hear about Max, from Wilson. He is in my thoughts here and there. I didn't know him that well personally but we were quite cordial and I remember playing with him on IRC back in the day. Still remember his triumph at nationals and him taking part in the team battle as well with his Kentucky drawl. Every now and then I wanted to put my thoughts down on some sort of obituary for him on Pojo or DGZ but there's no place for that and it's not like we were that tight. One of our finest
*****************

Poker Update: April 7th, Week 13



I just finished a hamburglar grind today and capped one of my best weeks ever. Yesterday and today was an interesting juxtaposition. Yesterday I was getting destroyed all session, laddered to 2nd in the 250 High Roller on .ES, and then binked the 320 PKO for 20K.

Today I final tabled eleven tournaments out of 110 or so games played and won 5 tournaments outright today. I'll be collecting a triple crown which is great because the hunnies go wild for the triple crowns. Won the 50 SCOOP on ES for 5.3k and the hot 50, the 109 and 27 hypers on Stars, and the 33 Gladiator II on Party. I also managed to get 2nd in a 215 15k on WPN that hasn't shown up yet and other assorted delights.

Which one would you take? Easy question. I would take the day that gets me more money to feed my family! But both sessions were very nice. Confidence is at an all time high and I'm walking around talking in a Mike Tyson lisp every time I grind these days.

Results

2nd in WPN $215 Sunday Major for ~21k
1st in Party $320 100K PKO Powerfest for ~21k
1st in SCOOP.ES 50 Hyper for ~5.3k

Don't think I get anything for the SCOOP win but shoutout to my old pals working at Stars.FRESPT! I actually quite like the site, think I like it more than Winamax for sure due to less 6-max.

EV Analysis

It was a good week and I ran very hot. Maintained ev bb/100 in the double digits and ran about 0.8 bb/100 above my expectation. Also ran 4m chips above expectation but that will happen when you win a lot of HU's and run hot.

Up Next

I sent some feedback to my old team about my thoughts on the PokerStars schedule. At one point I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I knew more about the Stars.com main schedule than anyone in the whole world! The amount of main schedule data I've collected and processed oh boy. Yet it's such an eye opener actually playing it as a user and seeing the weak points and gaps. It's also alarmed me that in the time I left Stars and waited 3 months, a lot of "trouble tournaments" have tanked completely.

One of my big regrets is not pushing harder on changing the schedule up more before I left. I remember I took holiday in Korea and was quite swamped with Bounty Builder Series preparation. I remember pushing through the Daily Pacific Rim change, getting approval for that, and then just sort of hitting a wall and being quite disheartened with the lack of movement on the rest of the discussion. I was the kind of guy who gave my bosses space/respect but I should have been in their GRILL piece wedgie-ing their underwear every morning pestering them about making wholesome changes to the schedule that will boost revenue for Stars, give players a better experience, and slow down negative changes happening in the future.

Can you imagine a world without the Daily Marathon, Bounty Builder High Roller, re-entries on Sunday, and such? Because that's how it was before my time. And our team put a bunch of great tournaments together that made oodles of money. And then we stopped. Why?

One of the things that brings me joy is knowing a lot of my colleagues at Stars who I'm still rooting for read this thread including some big kahunas. Maybe my goal is to get Big Rafi to read this thread and send me a PM one day (doubtful). I do want to write a comprehensive post about my thoughts on the Stars main schedule and how much of a revamp it needs. My goal with this post is to hope some of it carries through to my main men, who I know are swamped with SCOOP preparation right now. And maybe it can lead to a better schedule with more to play for everyone and more revenue for Stars so negative changes don't have to come any time soon.

I personally hate the addition of reentries on Sundays

Agree with the rest

I would love to see all tournaments that currently dont have a reenter with one reenter on the daily schedule like bigs, hots etc

u fokin crazy m@

I also think that scoop .es team did a nice job

Did u told your ex colleagues that FT payouts suck and they are really painful??

Also why that deal pop out doesnt have third option to custom chop left prizes ( now it only has icm or chipev chop and popout dont even have chat)??
Stars own fultilt software and fultilt had that kind of popout years ago

Simple 3 option for deal popout ( + build chat in it to negotiate)
- icm,
- chip ev,
- custom chop = chip lider will be admin and he will type chop numbers in popout and players can chop it on different terms betwen icm and chip chop + they can left some money behind to play for
Congrats on the binks, gg
i really like your thread with all discussion/ratings about diffrent mtts/sites keep it up, gl

This.

Just leads to a reggier pool, the only saving grace is that a glut of regs see no problem re-entering with 8 BBs because they think they're some sort of end boss who can overcome the inherent disadvantage of having such a shallow stack compared to the field.

Thanks for your thoughts guys. Really like the regulars in this thread it's a great lineup.

Overall re-entries are bad for the ecosystem logically speaking. If I had to guess I'd say it's mostly regulars re-entering, especially as the buy-in gets higher, and that just leads to winning regs taking more money out of the system. I also think it's unfair/disheartening for recs to see some of these guys have 3 lives or something.

As a group I feel we were quite inconsistent with how we implement re-entries and it's detrimental. When Luke and I designed the October 2017 main schedule changes (adding re-entry to Sunday, bringing in the BBHR Daily 500 Triple Threat Marathon Weekend Slams and more) I had re-entry in quite a few spots that ended up being removed with the tournament suffering. Examples of this include the $55 4K 8-Max at 21:00 EST (intended to support $10K with re-entry) and the $44 6-Max Hyper at 20:35 (also intended to support $10K with re-entry).

Two of the most notable tournaments with very inconsistent re-entry policies are the Marathon and the Bounty Builder High Roller. They are also probably the two most successful tournaments in the October 2017 revamp. I do think these two things are somewhat tied together.

I was actually a casual grinder even before the sync break era and before re-entries were a thing at all. The real purist in me actually wishes no tournaments had re-entry at all. But the pragmatist/analyst in me sees that the landscape has definitely shifted and hungry competitors are using re-entry as a platform to move towards much closer footing to Stars than they should be. I always use WPN as a model of this. I think their liquidity is much lower than Stars, for sure, but I find the implementation of their strategy staggeringly effective. Unlimited re-entries, obnoxiously long registration periods, and some of the largest daily prize pools out there. They are running $66 $40k's at peak American time that pay almost $10K to first which is just preposterous without having a heavy PKO strategy.

So on one hand you have a site with no re-entry at all and then at the extreme end of the spectrum you have WPN which is punching way above their weight with their strategy. Then you have companies like Stars and Party trying to mix in between. Where this really hurts Stars is during series, where Powerfest total guarantees are getting closer to Stars by the day (also because Party just throws everything into the Powerfest umbrella). Stars is still trying to support series with mostly no-reentry which is something they should be commended for but doesn't bring them the Petey Phat prize pools that bring in the dough.

I'm way more with belthazorrrrr on this. I think re-entries on Sunday are mandatory mostly because of the lack of big tournaments there are to play on Stars. Without re-entry it would be even worse and Stars would get less than 30% of my volume on a Sunday. Anecdotally speaking it seems like Party is reaaaaaaally getting close to Stars and it's only tournaments like the Million and the Storm that are creating separation.

I'm working on a big post that will tie a lot of my thoughts on this stuff together.

I think stars doesn’t deserve more than 30% of any regs action after all the aids they have pulled in the last couple years so ya not an issue there

Hey Re8uZ just numbered your points for easier discussion.

1. Yes, I did but without any expectations for change. Unfortunately FT payouts are outside the scope of operations and given to us from higher up. I personally think the FT payouts are a travesty and will rant about this in my big Stars post. Now I feel like this post is getting real hyped up. Like I'm on the street promoting a mix tape. Which I actually do have check me out https://soundcloud.com/yugiohprohotfire

2. I actually agree with Stars on this and think it was a great change. One of the things that always tilted me was greedy regs trying to angle negotiations, especially versus casuals and recreationals who were shook by the big stage. Yes I realize this is part of the skill in life etc but rather than trying to squeeze every ounce of EV out from everyone like a soulless vulture, I prefer looking at the bigger picture. Systems should be put in place to protect people from themselves, especially novices.

3. Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying this. Really appreciate your contributions to different PG&C threads you're quite a helpful/thoughtful poster.
************************************************** *****

Sunday Results:

Chopped $530 Rake or Break for ~14.1k
27th in $2100 Party 500k PKO for ~7.4k
35nd in $109 Party 200k
43rd in $215 Sunday Supersonic
45th in $530 Party 250k
69th in $215 WPN Sunday Special

1st in the Big 27 for ~1.5k!
6th in the Party $22 Hyper for $60
9th in the $82 Turbo for ~$125

All of the tournaments above the line break were pretty massive payouts so we'll throw them into the "close calls."

Played some big boy buy-ins on Sunday. Fired multiple 1k's and even got in there on a 2k PKO. As a hot blooded Asian degen I find the nosebleed PKO's incredibly fun. You get to just spew and monkey punt versus an all star line up of superstars. Some of them made some pretty cool plays against me but not cool enough. Here's a fun hand where I won enough for a daily set of buy-ins in one go!

partypoker - 2000/4000 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 7 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BTN): 45.2 BB
SB: 29.13 BB
BB: 77.68 BB
UTG: 68.62 BB
UTG+1: 9.99 BB
MP: 30.5 BB
CO: 57.81 BB

7 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.37 BB) Hero has As 4c
fold, UTG+1 raises to 9.87 BB and is all-in, fold, fold, Hero raises to 45.08 BB and is all-in, SB calls 28.51 BB and is all-in, BB calls 44.08 BB

Flop : (129.91 BB, 4 players) 2s Kc Ac

Turn : (129.91 BB, 4 players) Jd

River : (129.91 BB, 4 players) Jc

SB shows 6s 6d (Two Pair, Jacks and Sixes)

Main Pot [40.34 BB]: (Pre 15%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)
Side Pot#1 [57.43 BB]: (Pre 19%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)

BB shows Ts Tc (Two Pair, Jacks and Tens)

Main Pot [40.34 BB]: (Pre 47%, Flop 16%, Turn 15%)
Side Pot#1 [57.43 BB]: (Pre 56%, Flop 16%, Turn 15%)
Side Pot#2 [32.14 BB]: (Pre 69%, Flop 16%, Turn 15%)

UTG+1 shows 7d 7s (Two Pair, Jacks and Sevens)

Main Pot [40.34 BB]: (Pre 18%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)

Hero shows As 4c (Two Pair, Aces and Jacks)

Main Pot [40.34 BB]: (Pre 21%, Flop 68%, Turn 75%)
Side Pot#1 [57.43 BB]: (Pre 25%, Flop 76%, Turn 80%)
Side Pot#2 [32.14 BB]: (Pre 31%, Flop 84%, Turn 85%)

Hero wins 32.14 BB
Hero wins 57.43 BB
Hero wins 40.34 BB

One of the rough parts about living that Chips to BB conversion life is constantly forgetting how deep you can be in a tournament. All too often I get messages like "congratulations you finished in 32nd place." Rarely I get final table backgrounds pop up on me like whoa what's this?! And then often I bubble tournaments by playing in CEV mode without realizing the ITM bubble is approaching.

Ended up getting out of line in the $530 Rake or Break on 888 and chopping that as well for another 5 figure day. Felt a little bad to find a cheeky score from a concept I've been slagging off but not bad enough. That's actually 3 five-figure days in a row which has been an incredible run. For me I have a lethal combination where I feel defined by my poker success and the losses always feel worse than the wins. Through the good times I'll always try to remember how stressful and barren 2015-2016 was. Not in a bad way but more of a way to keep me sharp and apprised of how much of a blessing all of this can be.

I actually fired the later $530 on WPN so added some more tables and grinded way too much. Ended up winning the Big $27 for $1499 6.5 hours after chopping the $530 on 888. This definitely says something about me. Not sure what. Speaking of saying things about someone, I want to write a brief portrait of excellence.Also just ended up busting 52nd in the Winamax High Roller for 1.5K in bounties with 48 paid while writing this post

Portrait of Excellence

Was talking to two of my mates in our casual safe-space Hearthstone/Poker chat. This chat is composed of me, my good friend and pal kleath, Wildawg aka WD aka HK fever aka the real Romeo pro, my coach, who might be one of the best HUSNG players of all time, and then another heads up player who might be the actual GOAT. Let's call him G-Man. I consider all three of them better at poker theory than me and it's quite an interesting mix of personalities and the chat has been a real highlight for me in the past year.

I've brought this up before but one of the things I find super interesting is when they play Hearthstone compared to me, they are super attentive and try-hardy. I'm usually playing Hearthstone with one hand down my pants and my eyes going back and forth between Youtube and Netflix and my iPhone. But they are super thorough and meticulous and really focused on analyzing plays and getting better in the game.

So G-Man asks the chat if we can recommend any good card reviews for the next Hearthstone set. I recommend a piece I really enjoyed: https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/the...adows-preview/. It's a holistic review of all of the cards with pictures and ratings. I'd give this article pretty much a 10/10 in terms of fitting what I'm looking for from a set preview.

G-Man did not share my fondness for this piece. He hates the formatting and just wants to sort it to look at the good cards. The bad cards are irrelevant. Straight mamba mentality! Just wanting the clarity of thought and process to make the best decks in competitive play and go for the W. To me the way G-Man and Wildawg approach Hearthstone says a lot about why they're better at poker than me and why they are successful in life. It could be much ado about nothing but I think success is forged from the small margins like this.

imo the big picture is that #1 & #2 are really strongly correlated with each other => if #1 on FT payouts isnt artificially pumped then icm or chip chop options only will be really ok...

the problem is occurring when first is pumped so much (that is really obv and really bad imo in turbo and pkos) and you kinda "need" to chop when 3-4 left especially in turbos when stacks are so shallow and close to each other, and not giving option to chop(even or ICM) and leave some money to play for is really bad for all => because regs obv dont want to give up edge and chop with weaker players when there is "still some room to play" and what is the end product is that when u get top 3 in masive field... u ether need to do unfavorable chop giving out edge or not chop and vamooo variance
and no i dont think that this is protecting recs because they will make more mistakes in late game (play too tight)

...is just really imo bad marketing move =>look how huge our first place prizes are, type of thing, that is getting short term profit but will back fire long term after scoop is over(summer) when MTT fields will be way way lower and they wont be able to artificially pump first place price and the all the recs they are targeting with <look how big our fist place price is > will look at lobby and say wow look how low fist place is now it used to be X and now is Y i am not reging this MTT any more

#3 ty