in for that freeroll ofcourse duh gl man

What he said!

Maybe you could consider some satellites to some of the more potentially profitable higher buyin stuff you'd like to play. You also have a SnG background and could consider some sort of side game to play at times to lower the variance from MTTs. Either of these two even if they do not increase your immediate EV/hourly, the lower overall variance coupled with the variety and occasional shots in big $ tourneys might make your grind more exciting and fun. Playing a shorter stack turbo/hyper game on the side can also keep your skills sharp in that area in MTTs.

Also, remember an MTT is sort of a measurement of how hot we play/run in an individual tournament. Sure a better player sets up more opportunities than a weaker player but in the end the earlier to middle parts of an MTT are sort of like a satellite to the "end game" where all the money is made. During the times that you are running bad near the "end game" it's going to be a rough ride because even the best players only get those opportunities in ~10% of their total games. Probably, not even.

May the pot of duality be with you

Always interesting and well thought out posts.

I've seen many successful MTT'ers printing at mid stakes and below, often wondered why they don't take the easy option and just keep printing easy moniez.

Either way best of luck dude, and in for the freeroll

Seems like a very good plan!

And obviously in for freeroll

semi confused by the bolded's logic. Maybe I missed a refence to this in the post, but based on the numbers you posted, aren't 55's significantly more profitable for you than $530s? while there's a decent chance that that's not your true ROIs, working with what you have seems to indicate you make more off of 55s

<3

Thanks Tyman. Appreciate your posts in other PG&C's.

Thanks guys!

Thanks for the suggestions CN3. I might have to become a hyper MTT pro (key word being MTT here I'm staying away from jdawg) it's all I'm beating on Stars right now.



I don't believe in satelliting into tournaments. The people at BIG SATELLITE have us fooled. I treat satellite buy-ins as cash prizes and add them to my bankroll. If I'm not able to unregister from the target (which I think is a good policy) then I tend to not play the qualifier unless I'm going to direct buy-in to the target anyways.

Agree with you on the measurement part. Pretty good way of phrasing it. I will reference this post below in my writeup.


Thanks guys. Props to the advanced Pot of Duality reference. That card was actually after my time so I never got a chance to play with it too much.

Yeah, pretty much. I was speaking more from a rhetorical standpoint of why someone would choose to play higher. The arguments for playing higher are:

1) more $ if you make it
2) you get better so it gives you a better skillset to fire live birds and all that cool stuff that those tantric yoga proper mindset mfers are doing in Montenegro or whatnot.

SCOOP Day 6 and 7 Update

Regrets, I have a few. If I could go back to April 15th I would just not want that HSMTT smoke and stay in my nice marshmallow soft lane. I was on such a heater I honestly never imagined I would tank like this. I'm still confident this will just be a blip in my story and I can rebuild. And I can't help but be excited for Sunday despite not having a winning session now in years. Scope is showing 3 winning sessions out of 29 active days which is just ludicrous considering I'm putting up 10.31 ev bb/100 in that sample.

I ended up gingerly throwing up the $530 $300k (no re-entry) and the $1k 1M PKO today. I was almost about to pass on the $1K but then just decided not to be a nit. I fired up the $320 150K on Party, the $215 Scuffle, and the $215 Saturday KO which is pretty reasonable. Actually skipped the $530 BBHR it's had some pretty high ability scores during SCOOP. Tomorrow my plan is:

Fire $1K SCOOP 500k PKO
Fire $530 BBHR
Fire $530 Sunday Million SE
Probably fire $530 Cooldown PKO 350k

And that should be it. I'm getting dusted pretty nasty hardcore lately so I'm hoping it will end soon.

Runs Today

- I cashed the $109 PKO and made day 2 of the $55 200K, coming in tomorrow 26/142 with 37k to 1st. I was in a similar position with the $109 so I'm curious where this will end up.
- 4th in a withered $109 4K and 4th in a $55 Hyper

I accumulated decently well in the $530 and $1K today but made a bad play in the $530 to bust AT<AKs. Once I busted my two high stakes tournaments it was like a weight had lifted and I just started throwing in midstakes stuff from various sites.

One thing I've noticed about midstakes is there's always something attractive to play. When you're firing pretty high you can't really be spending time on $33 15k's but when you're topping out at $215 (if that) you have a lot of leeway to mix it up in all streets all dimensions and all realities.

I've noticed when I'm playing high stakes that even super juicy tournaments like the $109 builder become afterthoughts in the mad rush to claim bounties in $530-1K-2K. But the $109 builder is always waiting for us to come home and give her the tender focus and attention she deserves, sniff*

So I enjoyed myself and I was having quite a fun grind. I think I've been underrating "having fun" and "enjoying yourself" in the past month. I find I enjoy myself more when I'm playing more comfortable stakes. I don't really like the pressure of dealing with a bunch of sickos for tens of thousands of equity unless I'm forced into the jungle. Or maybe I don't like it because I haven't run above expectation in a super high stakes invitational yet. Chicken or the egg?

Thanks for all the posts guys hope your Sunday goes great

Egg!

Gl today!

Enjoy your posts and thinking about the game selection etc

Gl today yugioh , ill hold you to that freeroll!

SCOOP Day 8 Update

Another Sunday and I threw up zeros. I think the key for sure is to keep the buy-ins down by skipping stuff like the high rollers. It's just much more relaxing/sustainable for me to put up 6k of buy-ins on a Sunday rather than 10k or something.

I came back for day 2 of the $55. I was building quite well and it was just a super soft set up. At one point I had 60bb and then lost TT vs KK, AQ vs AK, and 88 vs KK all for reshove stacks. Finished 50th. So I guess that's 50/5212 and 30/3458 in my two SCOOP day 2's. And I have about $1k to show for it.

Lost a key flip near the bubble of the $530 Million. Lost with flopped King high flush versus flopped Ace high flush in the $320 PKO 1M on Party. Lost with QQ vs AA in the $530 Builder. Lost with AK vs two A3's ITM of the $109 Builder.

I could go on but it's just tiresome. More crucially I didn't play very well today and I haven't been playing well for the past few days. Maybe I'm just in a perma tilt negative flow state but I'm making plays that are too wide for my ranges and then I'm getting max punished for them because God does not like nash and monkey shoves.

I'm going to take a break for a bit and come back maybe targetting Thursday. I am not having fun playing right now and I'm not too happy with my performance today. I think I made a big mistake this time around. I regret cashing in on my momentum after April 15 and playing very high after that point. The ensuing -30k has left me weak and flaccid for SCOOP.

I just put up a B- Sunday effort and I'll be missing a few days now in the last week. And honestly the past four days or so too I haven't been firing everything that I've earned a right to fire. This was just a bad game plan all around and I am paying the price to the maximum.

For the next series, I should try to stay fresh and then focus on the big buy in events while keeping a steady table count. What's ended up happening is I'm getting destroyed so I'm only throwing up a few $530-$1,050. And filling the rest with a normal midstakes grind to try to make some $.

Here are some PT4 stats from SCOOP

ABI: $130.75
0-40 bb stack adjusted bb/100: 7.22
0-40 bb stack actual bb/100: 0.21
0-25 bb stack adjusted bb/100: 7.44
0-25 bb stack actual bb/100: -4.10

Those latter 0-25 stats just make tournaments unwinnable since it covers the reshove or go home stage that all tournaments eventually devolve into. It's just not possible to win with this kind of set up and I'm very frustrated by my lack of control over my destiny. The irony is I left the corporate environment/PokerStars because I wanted more control over my work. And now I'm in this job where none of it is under my control.

Every day I run sims with my homeboy Peter PIO. Every day I feel myself understanding poker and getting better. Two examples off the top of my head during the recent downswing are advanced FGS ICM to try to secure more cashes and check raising more boards without initiative.

I feel like I'm the same guy, maybe slightly better, running the same sims and wearing the same fresh clothes and chillin with the same dudes on Skype and eating the same food, and I've left the extreme hot end of the spectrum and have been dumped into the nightmare cold end. My wife always chides me for being extreme one way or the other. Good lord would I like some moderation right now.

I refuse to accept this though. I'm taking a break because I haven't been very sharp on Saturday and Sunday. I will say goodbye to my baby girl (Poker) for a while and come back with some more fire in my belly. Still have the $22/$215 Phase 2's to win along with the $1,050 Medium and $109 Low Events. All simultaneously. Book it.

Loving this thread, you'll be out of this downswing soon!

Good luck with your new focus, hope to see you pull out of the downswing soon.

Opened 2+2 after sooooo long and your thread pops up, blast from the past! Not sure you still remember me just wanted to wish you all the best and i will pop in here more often now. GLGL Bud!

In for said freeroll. Love your honesty and work ethic, keep crushing Jae!

For sure.

Thank you guys. Really appreciate the encouragement and hope the grind is going great for you.

Lol Igor I will never forget you. Shoutout to the BBZ crew and I miss all you guys.

SCOOP Day 13 Update: Meditations in an Emergency



Anyone know why Youtube embeds don't work?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ukmjBSQY-c

Not gonna lie your boy was in some rough shape for a minute there. The downswing hit a pretty big number and I was feeling the pressure. On Tuesday/Wednesday I even felt the pangs of what I'm pretty sure is depression or the start of it. In these times I do not want to leave the bed and lose my appetite for life. I wasn't interested in anything including my family and just wanted to curl up in a ball and play worthless games on my phone.

Hello darkness my old friend. This actually happened to me in 2014/2015. It was a lot darker/violent back in the day though. Now I can insert a bunch of cliches about mental strength and how +70k after 5 months is still a decent earn despite losing 70k in a month. But the heart feels what the heart feels and my brain's gentle encouragements were not being received.

I just finished a Saturday session and I feel GREAT. What happened? I'm not sure. Let me trace the steps.

Step 1: While interacting with my wife and baby, I realized I needed to find my inner strength. Poker is a tough, tough game and you need to be strong.

Somewhere while wallowing in the darkness I picked it back up. I talked with my wife about our situation. It gave her a lot of anxiety but eventually she gave me a heartfelt pep talk which was great. I saw my baby just living her life day by day. Growing and developing. It sounds corny but I'm not a 25 year old ordering breakfast from McDonald's and hitting the CLUB any more. If I don't make it playing poker who will feed my baby girl and buy her Versace jumpsuits?

Step 2: Recognize the demon within

While reflecting on this I realized I was in a pretty toxic cycle of entitlement and this toxic behavior was being enabled by my robust ev bb/100. In the middle of an impressive stretch of five months, I lost sight of the long term goal. Glittering prizes are temporary and made me lose track of the true reward. The true goal of this is to become the best poker player possible. That will give me the skillset to be rewarded long after each short term bink is gone. The great short term results made me lose track of the true long term goal. Suffering from success.

I was very fortunate here because one of my friends in our Team Hearthstone chat was heavy in the game during SCOOP, posting hand histories, and then answered a question that blew my mind. What was the question? Click below to find out more!

So this friend is one of the GOATS of poker and should inspire terror to any sweet cheeks McGee unlucky enough to sit in his presence. I might wet myself if I had to play against him. I asked him what his WWSF (Won When Saw Flop is) and he asked me what number would impress me. Now I have been around the WWSF block and know a bit about this elusive beast. I see a parallel between WWSF and penis length (or girth if you prefer). Everyone wants the gains but it's difficult to increase. Every 1% of WWSF you increase requires incredible work and it's a constant journey for me trying to boost this metric. I know the WWSF struggle and I'm Asian so I know the other struggle as well.

Also I'm going to put my foot down on some rumors now. Your boy is not packing super soaker heat but I am HAPPILY married in a loving marriage with no kinky swinging arrangements. Back to the story.

So I replied: 52%. 52% would impress me. Now I know this guy is a randy savage but I was not expecting 52%. I used to be at 44-45% and it took a lot of work to bump that up a few percentage points. This mfer responded with 51.49! Playing all super high stakes.

51.49 WWSF is just unfathomable. It took me a year to get from 44-47! Once I saw this number I had a new target. I realized how flaccid I had gotten in the past month. Success bred complacency just like DJ Khaled says. And in the past month my WWSF had actually dropped 1% and my red line was also beginning a negative slope. Why? Because my belly was full and I was loading too many tables due to greed. This led to a low intensity effort.

Step 3: Rebuild

Part of me knew this already. The reason I took a break after the last Sunday is I just played like ****. I fired too many low to midstakes tables and I did not put forth a proper effort. So I pulled up about 8 tournament IDs of deep runs this past month where I didn't get the final prize. I looked at the final 30-50 hands of each tournament and put all of my mistakes into a file. I had at least 8 mistakes worth big equity. Monkey reshoves, bad raise/calls, bad river bets, and so on. Mostly categorized as mistakes of precision. Ranges slightly too wide a pip here or there you know.

After looking at this and taking a hard look at myself the past few weeks, I can see why the downswing happened. The full amount of it was definitely not deserved but to a certain extent I can say I "deserved" what happened. I mean real talk. Is it hoodrat bull**** that I put up a 9.83 adjusted bb/100 and 0-40bb 7.76 adjusted and lost so much after becoming champion of the world? Yes, it is.

But did I do everything possible to protect myself, ward against complacency, and put up my best fight in each and every tournament? Hell no. Grinding PIO, going through the motions, and putting up strong bb/100 numbers is not enough. Armed with this realization, I was excited to play today.

Step 4: Find my Sea Legs

I put up a glorious session today. Despite losing 5x set over set coolers for full stacks, I put up a very solid winrate and felt very "in control" all day. My WWSF was an outrageous 50.85%, a full 4-5 inches er percentage points above my full sample. My red line was very positive. I know these improvements are sustainable, possibly not to this extent, because I strained and made a conscious effort today to focus on every hand and fight for every pot. Midway through the session I accidentally loaded too many tables, like usual habits, and I felt the time pressure and lack of ability to form clear thoughts. I FELT the difference.

Tourney Finishes

3rd 109 Hyper
5th Big 109. Made a few mistakes at this final table but I tried my best and was pretty focused. Will analyze these spots and improve for next time.
6th .ES Big 100
7th Winamax 50e GO FAST
9th .ES Night on Stars

And booked a win even though the money doesn't matter. The quality of play and desire I showed today is what matters to me. I also made day 2 of the SCOOP $215 I'll be coming back 30/112 tomorrow.

Step 5: Protect the Future

In my last 30 days of play I put up 2-3 winning sessions out of 25+. Today I decided to focus hard and booked a winning day and way more final tables than I had been doing. Is it magic?

No, it's not magic. Part of it is coincidence too. I could have just run fairly well today along with playing better. But the point I will takeaway is that I need to focus on putting my best foot forward in every session moving forward, no matter how much I win or lose. Is part of this post just putting on a brave face? You bet it is. The downswing scares the **** out of me and if I sit and think about it too long I just end up mopey/emo. I have to keep my feet moving right now because if I stop it's just dangerous.

Today was a great start for me and has provided a lot of encouragement. While I don't know what the future holds, I'm going to do my best to be my best whether it's the final SCOOP Sunday or a withered Wednesday NA grind with djleet in the $55 4K PKO. I'm going to take a page from the silver linings playbook and treat this downswing (possibly my biggest ever) as a reality check. Better now for this amount than later for six figures+.

Always continue improving or the game will pass you by. The difference between +140k and -70k can sometimes manifest itself over one month of unfocused play.

Versace jump suits

Best of luck on Sunday! All it takes is 1. You got this, and the graphs don't lie, lower table count and lower bi and you'll print unlimited jump suits!

Always love your updated.
Good luck!

GL on turning the down swing around!

subbed - gl to you

Thanks for the well wishes guys. Means a lot in times of darkness.
******************************

SCOOP Day 14 Update: I'm Back.. I think

Your boy has just put up back to back winning sessions. This is officially a heater. The wins have been small and the money doesn't matter but it feels good to take the black two days in a row. Ended up coming back for day 2 of the $215 and cashing the $109 deep today. Fired 2 bullets into the $530 Million event. It was pretty juicy and I'm still skipping the BBHR and all Party 500's.

I was not as sharp today. Wasn't in peak condition but I had a $215 day 2 at 2AM so I had to power through. The $215 was pretty whack I think I busted within the hour. It's a pretty big drop off from being 100 left in a $215 500k to filling the rest of your schedule with daily stuff

EV was less than stellar today got stacked a bunch of times by fish and coolers. Ran at 46.24 WWSF today with a slightly negative red line. I feel like a man off a viagra/pump binge deflated and coming back to Earth. I knew 50%+ was not sustainable! I'm hoping to establish something like 47% as my floor though and then live life like Vin Diesel said. One percentage point at a time. I will post full samples after SCOOP wraps up. Tomorrow is a huge Sunday. I don't have super high hopes but I'll give it my best shot.

Scores

3rd in 100e Night on Stars for 2518e
2nd in 55e IPoker Night Club for 519e
3rd in $82 Bounty Hunter Party for $832
69th in SCOOP $215 52-M for $955

I saw the SCOOP Main Events pinned to the top of the lobby today and it almost made a tear trickle down my eye. I reminisced on times past when Big L would have ME pin the tournaments in the lobby using that ForceOnTop=YES,STICKY icky icky parameter. Shoutout to Big L, Triple J, and AC Slater plus the Grand Wizard MJ23 DP bvdahl Thierry's son and the whole gang. I hope SCOOP is a wonderful success. I heard some complaints about ninja adding re-entry. I think this is a no no and we tried to avoid this in the past. But I'm no longer getting overlay reports so I'm not sure how much Stars is bleeding during this series and in which spots.

My plan for tomorrow:

- Multiple-bullets into the $1,050 Main 4M as long as it's a reasonable stack size
- $530 BBHR
- $530 500k
- $1,050 Cooldown PKO 750k no re-enttry
- $1,050 Party 1M Championship Event

It looks like I can almost make a full list of people in the freeroll so let me just restate it and clarify the terms.

The intent of this freeroll is to hold myself accountable for game selection and shot-taking.

List of Rules (lightly edited in italics):

$2100+- Not allowed. After 200k+ profit, series shots are allowed on case by case basis if they have $1m guaranteed+ with no re-entry
$1050- Series fires allowed on case by case basis. Minimum is $400k+ prize pool no re-entry.
$530- Series fires allowed on case by case basis. Minimum is $200k+ prize pool no re-entry. Sunday BBHR allowed as a weekly shot. Re-evaluating the daily BBHR on a daily basis due to recommendations from a few respected friends. No other $530's.
$215 range- Cut down bad daily tournaments

I just extended the rules for the $1k down to 500's for future clarity. To estimate re-entry, I need at least 1.5x the prize pool or even 2x to play an event that has re-entry.