This was 20 years ago so I was just a teenager watching b-ball and I was a big Miller/Pippen/Iverson/KG fan. And they just kept winning and smacking up all my favorite players. The mamba mentality and all that neat stuff came out later and as he retired and post-NBA my hate turned to respect and then I guess love because the death hit me real hard.

did you bet on his recent fight vs cowboy?

Love to see some hand review that has thought behind
Hope it will keep coming!

Hey Yugiohpro, your thread and acbarone are my favorites here. I believe you answered or replied in acbarone thread on this when i asked about running good/running bad EV in mtt and would like your opinion on this since you play high stakes mtt and obviously use to play low and medium stakes mtt back then.



So its mentioned EV BB/100 is the most important stat to look at. But do you use pokertracker or holdem manager? But you look at the overall EV Bb/100 right? But you are suppose to look at it for each stack size to see how you play at different stack sizes right?



Also the more mtt you play, say someone plays 10k mtt or more. But lets use 10k mtt as an example which is a lot of mtt. If someone runs real bad, that means a players EV bb/100 can be say 12 ev bb/100 or higher right? But what about their bb /100? I know those numbers are not that far off the more you play etc. But i seen tons of days where my ev bb/100 is like 18 and higher... my bb /100 is like 5... yes like 13bb apart. I had many days where my ev bb/100 is like 15... my bb/100 is -5bb/100. Yes you read that right. Im running insanely bad that i cannot believe it.



But i just want to confirm, that as long as your EV bb/100 is at least like 5, you are a winning player correct? Always heard its 5 for a winning player. Like 7-8 evbb for a very good player. And anything 10+ is a crusher. But if your EV bb/100 is say 12 over a huge sample, is it possible for that bb/100 to be like very far off like all the way to a 6bb/100? Or is that not possible? Do you know any players with a ridiculous high ev bb/100 but losing over a large sample?



Basically you have to run good when it counts right and even someone showing a 15 ev bb/100 over say 15k mtt and 10 bb/100 can be losing right?



I know that in cash games and sngs, you can see your EV and it shows how much you should be up or down. But when it comes to mtt, its basically the ev/bb only right? Do you completely disregard the bb/100? But isn't the bb/100 how you ran? The ev bb/100 is how you ran assuming things were even?

No I did not. Should have though.

Thanks Tom!

Thanks Pauly.

I'm responding to each of your questions in bold above.

Poker Update

I've been having a lot of fun playing poker lately. My past 3 sessions are some of the best I've played in a long time. EV is really high and then the other metrics are also looking extremely sharp. I feel very locked in when I'm grinding.

Have been coming close to some big wins but I am running poorly in end games. I just checked my graph since December for the purposes of this thread and it looks like I'm stuck ~17k or so since my glorious triumphs in December.

My ABI has climbed since then, about $114 ABI since January. FT distributions have been pretty weak averaging about a 4.91 average finish from places 1 through 9. I did win the Whale for ~$7k but other than that there hasn't been much glory.

Running quite cold in some big money spots. Got 12th in the $215 Sunday Builder and 27th in the $530 Bounty Builder Series losing 80% spots vs Naza where he had $700 in bounties in one and $900 in bounties in the other. Seemed unjust considering how rich he is. $30k+ to first for both. Also got 23rd in a $109 Bounty Builder Series where 1st was 25k+.

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Just have to keep working at playing better and I'm very happy with my game in relation to the fields. I'll start recapturing my equity again and binking. Or maybe I won't. There are no guarantees in life.

Non-Grind Update

I think the recent changes to the Stars schedule are awful. Changing the iconic Hots to PKO, not even boosting their guarantees, and removing basically nothing and adding basically nothing. They seem to have just settled on keeping everything the same and trying to run more series while gaping holes hour by hour still exist. I have a long list of suggestions to boost revenue in a healthy way but at this point it just is what it is and I've accepted that.

I will be taking a trip to Dublin in 11 days to sort out some necessary stuff in the Isle of Man. I think there will be some big changes to my life once I return and I'll share more details once that's finalized. Just gotta fade that coronavirus!

Thanks for the response Yugioh.




By the way in terms of volume, how much mtt do you play a day when you play a full session? Also how many tables max do you play at a time? So for example say you plan to play 25 mtt for the day... is that number about right? Do you reg all of them at once and then if you are still in lot of tournaments early, you unreg the ones that are coming up soon. Or do you only reg a certain amount, then every break you add some mtt if you are running low in mtt? Also you table select mtt a lot right since you play high stakes mtt right?



When you played low-medium stakes mtt, what was your daily volume like in terms of how many mtt a day you played and max you played at once. I read ppl who put in a ton of volume in mtt... they are playing at least 30 mtt a day minimum and ppl say its like 40 mtt at least if someone is serious. Is that number about right? The thing is i cant imagine players playing more than say 18 tables max at once is good right? I mean you cant really even see whats going on if you have that many tables. I think lot of ppl seem to say 6 - 12 tables is like the ideal amount of tables one should play max at once. I think it probably could go up to 18 tables if you play low-medium mtt right? The thing is how much volume do high stakes mtt players play a day? Like those that play $55, $109 and up mtt a day. I mean there is no way those guys are playing more than say 25 mtt a day at the absolute max right? Probably like 20 at the most?

Do you play much on 888 or not at all? Do you think its ridiculous their late reg is so long? I play low-medium stakes on stars, 888 and on party and 888 takes way too long to be itm. I mean its not like WPN with that 5 hour late reg... but its like the first few hours, its a waste of time. Do you agree/disagree on this? Seems like on 888 compared to stars/party... its way too slow. Do you agree stars has like the perfect structures? Like not too long... not too fast. Party which use to have the longest tournaments... they fixed it to where mtt take much faster now compared to stars. Lot of party mtt go fast now. Do you like this? I honestly think that is good because who wants to play a mtt that takes 9 or 10 hours when its not a big gtd... u agree/disagree?



In terms of competition, how would you rank stars, 888 and party in terms of toughness level? I always heard ppl said 888 was the softest. But when i look at their mtt and play them, there seem to be tons of regs. Do you know why? Someone in the 888 thread mentioned a while back how a final table in a 5.50 progressive had like 8 regs out of 9... which is insane. But with partypoker... i always found it to be hit or miss. I always thought partypoker was a tougher site because of the rakeback they give etc but i think i see a few crazy players. On stars, its much more reg heavy at whatever stakes... do you agree with this? I asked in Acbarone why he played mtt on 888 since i notice its extremely small fields... and he tells me he finds 888 softer and play it even if those mtt has like 60 runners or less. I always thought any mtt with like under 100 mtt is not worth playing because smaller amount of players... tougher it is... You agree on this?



If you were to play only low-medium stakes mtt, you probably play on party only right? Also do you have tough time multitabling sites? I find it very hard to multitable stars with say party etc. Since well back then it was tough to do it but now its harder since no hud so its like... u need to pay attention with reads. I don't know how some ppl multitable 3 different sites.

I guess he was just testing the waters there...

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...convo-1762764/

Absolutely love the thread and insightful advice! Will be following you on your journey and good luck! I do remember playing with you in wpn!

long time no update, hope all is good buddy <3

+1 stay healthy YugiohPro & family

he hasnt played for a month in stars thats extremely worrying

no need to worry, he is alive and well

i assume you have contacted him. Thats relieving. Thanks

Hey guys <3 I'm good! I'm working at GGPoker now on the Tournaments Team. I keep meaning to write a long update and just haven't gotten around to it due to real life adjustments and laziness. I will be giving up the blog (for now) after that post so maybe a part of me just doesn't want to see it die *sniff

glad to hear this, good for u


if you can manage to make 22-109 midstakes series on GG will be good for us too

And more bounties

sorry if it's too personal, but what are the core values of GGpoker that inspired you to join the team?

Thoughts on the cash game and MTT rake on that website?

Is the reward to join the team worth more than grinding MTTs as a poker player?

And thoughts on Daniel Negreanu as the face of the company?

We need a full update!

Glad to hear things are good, man!

If you're still allowed to publicly talk, would be awesome for you to keep writing here occasionally about your thoughts on the online mtt scene/industry as a whole. Some really interesting content and discussion in this thread, shame to see it die.

With that said, know a lot of internals and info can be kept under NDA or what have you, so fair enough if you're not able to say much. Hope the move to the GG team is going well and everything's good

Hey YugiohPro,

Congratulations on the new job. Can you tell me what the chances are in the future of GG poker introducing Trustly, Sofort or Internet Banking as both withdrawal and deposit options within Europe? Are they planning on adding more withdrawal/deposit options in the near future to avoid becoming a new 888? Thanks in advance.

Hey Yugioh, as a fellow grinder from the Asian region (same timezone), what do you think is the best schedule to take for the SCOOP grind? I mean do you think it’s better to play through the night or mostly mornings?

I’m thinking of a mixed approach where I will play mostly in the mornings starting around 4am so I am fresh for the long SCOOP grinds and maybe play through the night for the main. Maybe.

In your experience, what the best approach? Do you play through the night on Sundays?

Congrats on the new job btw


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Just wanted to say, big fan. Ended up going to Yugioh worlds in 2015 (I bubbled ) and saw you play the main event that year on TV. Got to play it for the first time myself last year and ended with a pretty much mincash but crazy how time flies and things change. GL in future endeavors and congrats on the job!

what happened