Day 3 of Pure Heart Grind

ev bb: -12.00(!)
bb/100: -9.04
WWSF: 44(!)

Had a pretty nasty session today. I've recently activated "try hard" mode so seeing the dip in flops won today (yesterday WWSF was 51 which is much higher than avg) was a bit jarring. Yes I do realize this stat is a bit misleading due to its correlation with how tight you're playing and not filtering out all ins. But it's a stat I hold dear and near to me in my believesies so I'd like to keep tracking it if you don't object.

Gotta admit nearing the end of my session I wasn't expecting to climb out. Managed to wiggle out a 3rd place and a 6th place though and made a small profit (I think). I've been playing FT's a bit reckless lately with the chiplead and I made another kind of reckless ICM exploit today and got MAX punished. Will have to rethink that spot.

Ended up multi-barreling quite a few high stakes tournaments today including the Fast Friday x3, Winamax High Roller x2, and more. I wasn't feeling too great about that but I ended up checking the Scopes on them and they were both ability 77. Almost every HS tournament I played today was super soft, much softer than usual. Which correlates with what I was seeing in the lobby. So I feel pretty good about the shots taken.


Some hands from today:

1) Pretty tough spot against easywithaces. I play all streets differently based on how tough I think people are playing. I think he's definitely on the tougher side so I was kind of lost on all streets from flop sizing to turn barrel to river. Will PIO this one.

PokerStars - 50/100 Ante 10 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 7 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (MP): 99.9 BB
CO: 112.23 BB
BTN: 103.38 BB
SB: 109.97 BB
BB: 99.7 BB
UTG: 102.74 BB
UTG+1: 110.98 BB

7 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.2 BB) Hero has A K

fold, UTG+1 raises to 2.3 BB, Hero raises to 8 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, UTG+1 calls 5.7 BB

Flop: (18.2 BB, 2 players) Q J K
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets 6.01 BB, UTG+1 calls 6.01 BB

Turn: (30.22 BB, 2 players) 6
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks

River: (30.22 BB, 2 players) 8
UTG+1 bets 37.5 BB, Hero calls 37.5 BB

UTG+1 shows J T (Flush, Queen High)
(Pre 41%, Flop 37%, Turn 36%)
Hero mucks A K (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 59%, Flop 63%, Turn 64%)
UTG+1 wins 105.22 BB

2. Interesting bounty spot in the $530 Builder. Over the year I've fluctuated on how hard I go for PKOs. I've ended up kind of in a happy place but lately I've been rethinking spots like this one. I think basically everyone is very capped in this spot but I'll still pass on it depending on what the KO amounts are. In this hand the UTG shorty had a $562.50 bounty, significantly larger than min. I also had a large bounty ($812.50) which induced the optimistic call with T9s. For me I think this one is just a punt and pray. But PKOs are obviously debatable with so much future game so you can debate this one and I'll hear it. Not soliciting strat here though I'm reasonably happy with this play.

PokerStars - 700/1400 Ante 175 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 0.98 BB
UTG+1: 92.64 BB
MP: 26.55 BB
MP+1: 71.65 BB
CO: 32.7 BB
BTN: 98.87 BB
SB: 70.26 BB
Hero (BB): 47.63 BB

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has K 3

UTG calls 0.86 BB and is all-in, UTG+1 calls 1 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 1 BB, fold, SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 47.51 BB and is all-in, UTG+1 raises to 92.52 BB and is all-in, fold, fold

Flop: (98.88 BB, 3 players) 9 4 Q

Turn: (98.88 BB, 3 players) 6

River: (98.88 BB, 3 players) 6

Hero shows K 3 (One Pair, Sixes)

UTG+1 shows T 9 (Two Pair, Nines and Sixes)

UTG shows J 4 (Two Pair, Sixes and Fours)

UTG+1 wins 98.88 BB

3. I built the bounty earlier with this hand. Again the shorty had a $625 bounty (compared to $250 starting). The 3-bettor is more of a rec type not super aggro in this spot but I think this is just a punt and pray as well. Got even luckier with another shorty coming along and managed to scoop on the river. Sometimes lucky!

PokerStars - 600/1200 Ante 150 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 30.91 BB
UTG+1: 61.06 BB
MP: 0.89 BB
Hero (MP+1): 16.84 BB
MP+2: 52.48 BB
CO: 3.15 BB
BTN: 44.34 BB
SB: 23.29 BB
BB: 7.45 BB

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

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has A 9

UTG raises to 2 BB, UTG+1 raises to 7 BB, MP calls 0.77 BB and is all-in, Hero raises to 16.72 BB and is all-in, fold, CO calls 3.03 BB and is all-in, fold, SB raises to 23.16 BB and is all-in, fold, fold, UTG+1 calls 16.16 BB

Flop: (70.96 BB, 5 players) 3 3 5

Turn: (70.96 BB, 5 players) 6

River: (70.96 BB, 5 players) 9

SB shows 9 J (Two Pair, Nines and Threes)

Main Pot [6.5 BB]: (Pre 18%, Flop 10%, Turn 8%)
Side Pot#1 [10.5 BB]: (Pre 24%, Flop 15%, Turn 24%)
Side Pot#2 [41.07 BB]: (Pre 27%, Flop 16%, Turn 26%)
Side Pot#3 [12.89 BB]: (Pre 37%, Flop 23%, Turn 32%)

UTG+1 shows A Q (One Pair, Threes)

Main Pot [6.5 BB]: (Pre 35%, Flop 20%, Turn 8%)
Side Pot#1 [10.5 BB]: (Pre 40%, Flop 23%, Turn 8%)
Side Pot#2 [41.07 BB]: (Pre 56%, Flop 69%, Turn 63%)
Side Pot#3 [12.89 BB]: (Pre 63%, Flop 77%, Turn 68%)

Hero shows A 9 (Two Pair, Nines and Threes)

Main Pot [6.5 BB]: (Pre 13%, Flop 7%, Turn 5%)
Side Pot#1 [10.5 BB]: (Pre 14%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)
Side Pot#2 [41.07 BB]: (Pre 17%, Flop 14%, Turn 11%)

CO shows 5 8 (Two Pair, Fives and Threes)

Main Pot [6.5 BB]: (Pre 20%, Flop 43%, Turn 47%)
Side Pot#1 [10.5 BB]: (Pre 22%, Flop 55%, Turn 63%)

MP shows A 4 (One Pair, Threes)

Main Pot [6.5 BB]: (Pre 14%, Flop 21%, Turn 32%)

Hero wins 58.07 BB
SB wins 12.89 BB

4. Fun hand vs skilled player and streamer BIG EGYPT. Think my river bet is probably just a punt. I don't think people are really looking to fold Ax in these spots but I'll run this one.

One of the things I like about Egption is he tries to maintain a strong chat game at the tables. Kind of amusing himself and metagaming with himself a lot because a lot of regs are just playing too many tables and ignore the chat. But I admire the effort. He actually busted this chat out almost the second I jammed river. If I had seen the chat I would have actually just shut down here and saved a buy-in.

*** RIVER *** [5c Tc Ah Td] [5d]
Egption.es: checks
Egption.es said, "we checkin or am I re-entering"
Frespt_oO_Jae: bets 7633 and is all-in
Egption.es: calls 5666 and is all-in

PokerStars - 50/100 Ante 10 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 98.2 BB
BB: 121.29 BB
UTG: 107.86 BB
UTG+1: 133.5 BB
MP: 130.6 BB
Hero (MP+1): 117.87 BB
CO: 99.79 BB
BTN: 98.2 BB

8 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) Hero has Q K

fold, UTG+1 calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 4.5 BB, fold, fold, SB raises to 16 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 11.5 BB

Flop: (34.8 BB, 2 players) 5 T A
SB bets 10.44 BB, Hero calls 10.44 BB

Turn: (55.68 BB, 2 players) T
SB checks, Hero bets 15 BB, SB calls 15 BB

River: (85.68 BB, 2 players) 5
SB checks, Hero bets 76.33 BB and is all-in, SB calls 56.66 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Q K (Two Pair, Tens and Fives)
(Pre 29%, Flop 17%, Turn 9%)
SB shows A K (Two Pair, Aces and Tens)
(Pre 71%, Flop 83%, Turn 91%)
SB wins 199 BB

Alex Jacob (Managing Director of Poker at MPN and formerly at both FTP AND Stars pre-Black Friday) gave a great interview to PokerFuse recently. I read the whole transcript and would urge you all to read it if you're interested in the industry and the development of poker.

https://pokerfuse.com/features/week-...interview-mpn/

Cheers man.

Also kudos for critizing the ridicilous marksup on stakekings.
I mean comeon...Like sellings stocks thats worth close to nothing, nah

Day 4 of Pure Heart Grind

ev bb: 2.29
bb/100: 13.53

I'll probably update Sunday and then be done with the Pure Heart Grind updates for a bit. Had a pretty frustrating day today ended up breaking nearly even but I can't say I like it one bit.

Finishes today were:
2
3
3
5
7
7
9 (a $109 Hyper)
9
11
12
14
15
16
16
17

I'm not too worried about the EV. I've just been playing a lot of big pots in the past 2 days and losing more than a fair share of them. Running quite ashy in the endgames so my chip graph is far below despite running quite above expectation this week. Overall stats for the week are 7.26 expected and 12.11 actual but 2.5m chips below which is just super ew.

Have a lot of hands to review today to get in top shape for Sunday. I looked over my distributions for the entire year and I think they're quite solid so I think I'm done tracking it. Very heavy amount of first places and just need to shore up the rest of it.

Have some bad habits creeping in lately. Starting to fire too many tables again so I'm cutting myself off from stuff like the Big Fish $33 now. Mostly the endgames are slow since I stop loading but early/middle session it's just too wild lately. I guess it's $50's and up and mostly late registering the $50's as well.

Final Pure Heart Grind Update

ev bb: 7.68
bb/100: -3.55

The chickens came home to roost (?) today. Absolute bloodbath just got massively destroyed for the maximum. Didn't FT a single tournament and ended up multi-bulleting the BBHR and more so I've lost many thousands today. EV this month has been 6.89, and running at 11.52 actual. But almost 3m chips below performance so it's just not working out at the end stages.

Not much more to elaborate on so I have nussing to say. Just gotta keep working at it. Keep the table counts down and focus on improving. And try to bink. Pretty happy with the week overall other than the $ totals.

We have a free market and anyone can sell whatever price. If i buy real madrid at 1.20 to win sevilla will you blame the book offering 1.20 or me buying this price when it should be 1.40?

Everyone who wants to buy he should inform himself. Poker is the biggest scam scene i know in my life. I know a few highrollers who shouldnt even touch 10k but they are playing 25k-50k They have bad graphs on sharkscope but sure they found a group of people to buy them in 25k's I wonder how some canadians or spaniards not beating any format in sharkscope or beating mtts for 5% pre 2017 and they considered good. One of them reseted his sharkscope but i think i have his graphs on every different format

My point is if you find people who buy in breakeven/losing/marginally winning regs into 25k i dont find anything bad into charging whatever for the 100-200$
I know some people underselling some people overselling. It is like this everywhere. Look at cars phones etc and i dont think is anything bad. You have the freedom to buy or not as we have the freedom to play in pokerstars or not

A highroller bought another highroller for a very heafty markup. They asked me my opinion and i said i dont think he is beating the games. Why you buy without taking a look at his database? What is his ev bb / bb in every different stack size? The dude is having -3ev bb 50k hands online, losing at every format and barely winning mtts because of some winnings at 2015-2017 but sure lets sell 1.3 the 5k. If a highroller is so stupid to buy a player who had 5% roi in mtts pre 2017, made 50k postrakeback in hypers playing 3 years, lost 6 figures in turbos why you expect when you go down the ladder things will be different?

@cev I dont believe this is a number to look. I was 13m chips bellow ev at 808$ abi. But i understand different stack sizes, you have bounty builders, icm and if you win like 10 allins as an underdog in a final table the history will be different (and more things). Cev is just a number to make them feel better. It would be accurate if every tournament has the same starting stack. Just my opinion

@hypers the sample you posted about top regs doesnt mean anything. I had 1500 games that i lost 80k ev playing hypers. Unless you have icm ev for the hypers or at least ev bb you need 5k samples to make a comparison but just lol the prices they are selling

I am against selling and i dont sell any action because i have my own reasons. Mainly because i think if you want to be fair and follow the public you have to undersell if you have good stats

most of this post is comparing apples and oranges

you have option to take a look what 19529169 different sellers (bookmakers) have to offer and compare where to buy. can also see the standings and history and who's playing and who's injured and make some sort of analysis etc, and then decide to buy/not buy in x , y or z shop. don't see how is that comparable to twitcher selling at 1.6 markup ?

huge lol at comparing people buying 25ks/5ks action vs people buying twitch streamers action, those are 2 completely different markets imo. avg person buying twitch streamer action will be pretty much clueless about how markup works and will just buy piece for sweat etc, doesn't need to do due dilligance for that, and he can't ever know that jamiestaples will be marked as a spot for most of the regs in higher buyin games that he's playing. I'm not saying jamie CAN'T sell at x.x markup, he surely can, same as pharmaceutical companies can sell drugs at 200x prices, but that ain't making it right and that ain't making it ethical. also I'm not targetting jamie specifically, have he's just an example. do find him repulsive tho.



I do agree that looking at cEV at mtts is pretty meh especially in psko era. think different stack depth ev/bbs can provide decent informations/guidlines on reasonable samples, but looking at overall ev/bb daily / weekly like OPs doing doesn't serve any purpose imo.

Thanks for your posts.

Agree with malice that the market for people buying live action in 10k's+ is much different from the market targetting people on Twitter/Stake Kings/etc. Even different from the 2+2 marketplace.

I think there are a lot of imperfect "apple/oranges" comparisons here. To me more accurate comparisons would be if the books had C. Ronaldo to win the golden boot at 2:1 or something and then Ronaldo was posting on his twitter that he was accepting bets to win the golden boot at 4:1 in his favor or something.

But I also agree with the core argument that life in general actually boils down to finding goods from somewhere, processing them, and then selling them at markup. You can buy a bunch of ingredients at a 3* michelin restaurant and then sell them for 800% markup or something because your chef is famous.

I guess the difference for me is when you start throwing in terms like "investment/marketplace/shares" etc. To me when you start using these kinds of terms it starts getting divorced from the regular world of exchanges we live in. But again, this is just a personal take from me and you'll probably get farther in life playing looser with ethics.

re: chip ev and ev bb/100

Want to make it clear I don't put that much stock into these numbers on a day to day basis. I used the ev/bb100 and chip ev at the top of each daily post just to have a unifying theme to each session kind of. Like a preface to each post that unites the narrative if it makes sense. I care much more about ev in specific situations which I'm mostly focused on drilling through PIO (such as BTN flats IP).

I've also talked with belth about this but I don't care about raw chip numbers either and don't try to draw anything from them. I mean they do very generally paint a picture if you're running +ev or -ev, especially if you remove HU from the equation. But it doesn't really mean much outside of that. But if you're posting numbers where you're 14m chips or something below expectation at ABI $500, yes you have run bad in general and lost a lot of money to that to circumstances out of your control. But incidentally, I've never seen anyone post a graph where they're running above chip EV over a long sample. Maybe that's because you need to win a bunch of HU for millions of chips or something. I'm curious if my YugiohPro sun running era during 2012-2014 had me running above chip ev.

Also the average human being WEAK and FRAIL I will admit that having a positive EV for the session at the end of getting buried is a slight + mentally. But at this point I think my personal ev is pretty well established as positive so it will never really make a difference for me one way or the other. Just a slight moral victory here or there.

re: hyper samples

Agree that very small samples don't matter. But I do have much bigger samples and I do believe I have a better idea of max attainable ROI's in most games based on field size/composition than most. And yes a lot of these markups are outrageous. Mostly they are well above the max attainable ROI for the ideal perfect regular (and these guys are mostly breakeven).

When there is such a big misinformation on people who should know how to buy sell then there will be the same issue in lower stakes

As you can see the form injuries of the team you can also see what markup all the regs are selling, check sharkscope and you can even see the form of a poker player who hasnt been winning the last 3 years just by dragging your mouse on his results. Of course you cant do that if he is blocked

So yes if you see a reg winning at 2017+ era 400k through grinding and selling at 1.2 but another one is breakeven at 2017+ and selling at 1.6 something is wrong. Just lol that i have to explain further this

So no its not comparison of apples and oranges. If you are misinformed both are gambling actions and i am focussed on the free will the punter has. Noonne will bet recreationally and have 10 accounts(not even sure if you are serious) in different bookmakers because they dont understand that 1.9 vs 1.8 is massive differece. They are betting 5-50 euros and they dont care. Every single person i talked to is like this

I explained many times and i wrote down how big the difference is but they dont care because they bet small amounts for something like 10 times a year. Its for the thrill of the rail and not an investment

The market of 10k 25k etc is different for sure. I never said anythingn different. My point is: if there are issues in educated people who buy pieces as a serious investment then we will have issues in the same market with people who dont even know how what markup is

There is a reason why some people have stopped playing so many highrollers lately. It is mainly because the investors are catching up. Took a few years. Huge lol that i have to explain this but i assume you arent that familiar dont have much info what is happening in these games neither i will write more. I just expect more people to stop playing them

Surely later some youtuber or streamer might inform the people what is happening with twitchers but people will still bet. Because people are emotional beings and not rational. Just read a little bit about history

I agree with everything you wrote. The comparison isnt perfect and it wasnt meant to be. I compared the mentality of gamblers approach which doesnt matter if it is 1.2 or 1.6 price. You cant really compare trading goods like medicine because there is no gambling element

Also i didnt compare 25k market with twitch market. I compared how misinformed the people are for the game overall and then i wrote my point of view for two different markets

I personally filter my results for 3 people+ and always look different stack depths

I also used to hate on people selling at markup which they don't beat games. But after thinking about it more I think it's totally fine in most cases and definitely not fine in others. I would make two categories:

1) People who sell at too high MU and advertise their shares as "opportunity to earn money" or say "invest in these great tournaments that I will play". Basically actively trying to fool people who has no clue about ROIs and making them think that it will be a +ev investment.
I think these are pure scammers.

2) People who just offer their shares but do not lie about their profitability. In this case you leave it all up to person to decide if it's profitable or not. And the most important, people want to buy FUN EXPERIENCE. Isn't it fun for poker fan to be a part of their idols tournament and watch it live on twitch while having a beer? There is a big chance that by overpaying for shares they lose less money if they were playing that tournament themselves.
Another example would be asian millionaires playing poker in live games for millions with the pros. Are they smart enough to earn hundreds of millions in business, but dumb enough to not know that it's -ev for them to play vs best in the world? No, they are just "buying" the fun experience.

Why you think its a scam? I dont know how they promote what they sell neither if they do try to promote at all. Ofc if they say its a big opportunity etc, its straight up lie

I dont like what they do. I dont hate these people either. If someone is buying their service for this price why they should sell lower?

As I said for me selling at any MU is not a scam and it's totally normal thing to do imo, especially for streamers who are providing entertainment.

What I call a scam is when for example person selling at much higher MU than he beats the games and telling his audience that it's such a great investment.

@belth

what regulates the markets ? competition. for me, morally, people scamming investors of their winrates to get into high rollers or streamers scamming audience by giving informations that are false ( it's extremly hard to believe they're misinformed and are acting for the best of their knowledge ) are completly same.

I think we actually agree on most of the points, but you're arguing on buyers mentailty and I don't have any issue w buyers. I do have with sellers.


+1

I see your point of view but you dont answer me or anyone else. If people keep buying in these prices why would they sell lower? If you had your service selling at x price and selling everything. Would you sell lower?

I dont know how they promote their shares. If it is promoted as big opportunity yes its a scam. If its more in a casual i am selling those mtts in these prizes then i dont see anything bad. I never saw a streamer who is trying to sell something and i dont know how they promote their shares. If you do know feel free to educate me

Agree with belthazorrrr. I do think as well that a lot of these “clueless” investors probably save some ev investing in a breakeven or slightly winning twitch streamer than playing the same tourney themselves. If mark up allows players to filter into higher level games these will only help to keep the games softer so probably is a net positive for poker.

everybody can do whatever they want w their own product. and to answer belthazor point - it depends! if i was selling cure for cancer I wouldn't. if i was selling cocaine I probably would. this is probably arguement in your favour though. it ain't right but it ain't wrong.

@kanabal I disagree. selling big 109 at 38% is outright theft. avg twitch viewer will not have negative 38% roi in that tournament. net positive for poker thing reminded me on more rake is better.

I hope i'm out of this though, will refrain from additional comments I hope

Because we disagree doesnt mean we fight. Its just a discussion

Anyone can argue that they are selling entertainment and not their true roi. So for them in order to continue streaming, giving free (bad ) info, interact with people and doing a nice show they are willing to sell at 38% roi (since they are not saying its a nice investment)

Do i agree its fair? No. Do i like that? No. Is it bad? Not imo

Yeah I think there's a sliding spectrum of morality vs free market here and different people will want to get off at different stops. But I think we're mostly on the same page here. I think the Stake Kings landing page to me is a pretty clear example of this being promoted as an opportunity to make money right down to the classic earnings instead of profits.



I don't buy the free market arguments. Stake Kings is not a free market. It's actually an uneven power dynamic where an average customer goes to the site and immediately sees larger than life Antonio Esfandiari "Total Earnings exceed $27m" along with a billboard saying SK Pros have over $250m in lifetime earnings (not profits). Very exploitative.

Speaking of which shoutout to DramaticDegen for posting the $162 Builder at $30k GTD at 55% markup. Just absolute scum. Speaking as someone who was growing momentum on the Twitch streets and then decided to hang it up.. it's pretty clear to me what these guys are doing. They are just jerking each other off, trying to get deals, and trying to fleece people on markups to finance their "wild streamer lifestyles."

Some analogies (that are imperfect because nobody loves dragonwarior the way they love sports):

- Liverpool FC fan goes to the team website and sees the team offering betting lines (at a more favorable price to the team)

- Lebron James fan on Instagram/Twitter finds him offering personal bets on the Lakers winning the championship (at a more favorable price to him)

- We see a real world example of this with Conor McGregor when he fights. I bet a large % of my gambling roll on the Floyd and Khabib fights because of the public following along and making the lines super favorable. But at least these lines are from independent books with competitors and a long history of data.

Stake Kings is not independent. It's most definitely taking a cut from all of the action sold so it has an incentive to manipulate the public just the way these withered pros do. I have some problems with Poker Shares as well but at least with Poker Shares you can make arguments about liquidity/risk of ruin since the site is booking against each player. And the site is building in these margins to avoid getting hosed as opposed to the players themselves exploiting for profit which is just pathetic. But still I wouldn't touch Poker Shares with a ten foot pole either.

2. Argument about what else punters would do with their money is pretty silly as well. To me it's a spiritual descendant of just saying I'm going to steal losing player's balances because they'd lose it anyways.

3. If you're arguing that "if it sells it's fine," do you draw the line somewhere? Right now they're setting some unbeatable lines. What if they doubled it and got action from their fans everywhere? What if nans are putting their monthly government money on the line to finance DramaticDegen in the Bounty Builder $162 at 80% markup?

I'm with Yugioh, there's a line where it becomes scummy and some of these guys have long since crossed it.

big fan of the thread + your streams , Yugioh .

I thought the point of staking/selling action was reducing bankroll variance and give the stakee (is that even a word?) a favorable price so you could play a higher ABI .

Surely it'd be better for a fish with -25% roi to play a tourney himself rather than buying action at 1.65 of a guy who's probably in the breakeven-5% roi range .

Dramatic degen putting up 55% markup on a $162 BB? What the ****? I think all in pav doesn't do anything with staking? I hope he is one of the good guys

Poker Update

I'm having a bad month. Both in terms of $ results (less important) and approach (more important). I have recently added and re-added a few sites to the grind and that, along with basically firing anything that I think is a good spot adding to my buy-in range, has led me to consistently play with too many tables this month. This is a problem I've always had and I still haven't fixed it so it's just on me for being dumb. My winrate has been solid, but lower than usual, and I do think I'm running poorly this month in situational EV. I've bumped up some of my metrics and have been studying quite well.

In fairness to me there are some outside factors. I still have a lingering cough from the flu which hit me very hard and has sapped me of my strength and focus. I feel a bit cheated (but don't want to deflect blame) because right after my massive Sunday score at the end of December I just ate the flu, came back, and got buried on two Sundays while being out of shape. This week due to Lunar new year festivities/family/Legends of RuneTerra I actually didn't play poker at all from Sunday to Sunday but did quite a bit of study.

This Sunday I just played bad and ran bad. I felt rusty/out of shape and I was losing a lot of very unfortunate pots to regulars and recs who were just clicking buttons and getting into good spots or hero calling bad spots. Focus was not ideal although in fairness to me I did find out on break that Kobe died. Being in LA I always hated on Kobe and the bandwagon Laker fans when I was young. But weirdly the death hit me quite hard and I was shocked.

I'll have a lot to study. I managed to wiggle out some runs but just went 2/6/8 in some early bowlcomps, 25th in the Cooldown, a "deep" ITM run in the Million, and almost made the money of the BBHR but might have torched a nice 69bb stack. I have a Winamax day 2 on Tuesday coming up and I'll want to get some study done today. I have a lot of holes to fix in my approach for February and some reflection to do.

How can anyone hate on Kobe? Dude had top mindset