Super Sunday!

Reminds me of one glorious day way back in 2008, I think, when I got 3rd in the Stars Sunday Warm-Up ($40k) while still running up a stack in some UB Special Event (finally finishing 4th for $20k).

The next day, I went to my local mate's bar in Spain for the usual Monday night 20 Euro rebuy and I was like nonchalantly "yeah, I had a good weekend..."

Heroooo <3

Mah man. Sick run bro.

wow what a massive sunday!! congrats yugiohpro! well played!

Welcome back Jae. I can relate with the weight gain and seemingly nagging gf.
I think I try to deny it but I get pretty grumpy and moody after a bad day of poker.
What a good day man. You gotta remember that day regularly because it'll help on tougher poker days.
I'm excited you're back and to work and study with you again.

Thanks guys

Poker Update:

I had my first daily session yesterday and we got a bit out of line and over the top (shoutout to OverTheTop43). It ends TODAY friends. The degenerate habits and sloshing about. I have a few discussion points from my schedule yesterday.

I think I have a similar grind mindset to blakkman but most definitely poorer game selection. If you look at the really pretty tony midstakes graphs, including mine in the past, I think I can limit downswings to around 20k. Around this point I think I start to get stressed out. Do I want to be this way and weak af? No. But I can't help it and I should work around these limitations.

Now my behavior yesterday was not the behavior of a man looking to avoid the downer. Let's take a look.



$100 ABI, 59 games over a full session, and net -$2,757.

Point 1: Late registered a $1,050 100K PKO for Overlay

I got into a Party $1,050 100K PKO last minute because the prize pool was about $10,000 short. $10,000 split amongst the 57 players remaining is about a $175 discount. It's more complex because it's a PKO prize pool as well but overlay is overlay.

First of all I don't think my calculations are accurate to begin with. Second, I don't want to live this life. Late registering 1K's for 25bb to eke out a thin edge doesn't seem like a very good move. That one is the first and last. Good riddance to the daily 1k's.

Sharkscope Av. Ability Score: 90(!)

I like to use this Sharkscope score to gauge the toughness of the field. When you hop into these games it's just all killers man. The very best of the best don't even play in the 55's and very few 109's. It's just a different level of competition and you can see it in the field compositions.

If I ever make it to daily 1K's it will be on its own merits regging from the start. Not showing up at the last minute.

Point 2: Analysis of some sketchy fires
1. Fired 2 bullets into $320 100K Gladiator PKO Av. Ability 87

This one is fine. Valid reasons to fire two include winning it on Sunday (you get the defending champion equity), a 20K overlay, and playing from the start. Also a $320 is almost half the cost of a $530!

2. Double checking some of these $215's

Winamax 250 HR and 200 Battle Royale: 82 Ability Score
I see plenty of recs in these games and 6-max is a good format for sure.

Party 215 Main Event 40K: 87 Ability Score*
This one is pushing it. I think it has multiple re-entries as well. Will skip this at least on Tuesdays and see how it shapes out. I am * the events that are fires based on the day.

Party 215 PKO's at 30K (85), 25K (85), and 15K (87)*
These might be okay because they have reduced rake and such. However I think they're skips on a day like Tuesday.

I won't focus too much on the $109's and below but I think I can skip the $109 15K Warmup on Party as well on grinder days like Tuesday.

I'm fine up to around 82 ability score. Once you start pushing past that the fields get noticeably tougher. And I missed quite a few value juice boxes like the Monsoon and Xtase while being in the thin/bad games. Here's to good habits in the future and if you feel like discussing any of this I welcome all thoughts!

Also to close let me look at the ability scores of the Sunday birds.

$215 WPN Sunday Special 125K- 84 Ability
Pretty surprised by this. It was quite soft or maybe I had too many chips. Unlimited re-entry probably toughens the field quite a bit though.

$320 Sunday 200K Gladiator- 86 Ability
Seems about right. I think there was overlay value here.

$215 Sunday 100K Main Event- 86 Ability
This was an extremely tough end game. This seems about right too.

I think this is about right. Past 85 Ability or so you better come ready to bang it out.

congrats on scores
sub
gl

Quick Poker Update:

Put in another session today. 41 games, had a few final tables that didn't go my way. As a follow up to my last post I was curious what the ability scores would look like for some of my HSMTT games today:

$530 6-Max 25K: 85
$320 Gladiator: 85 (missed by 12K)
250 Euro Winamax High Roller: 80
$215 Turbo 25K: 83 (missed slightly)

I'm pretty happy with these fires. I'm confident Wednesday is softer than Tuesday, which makes sense because of the Super Tuesday historically. Looking forward to charting the rest of the days.

I think Friday and Saturday are ideal days to grind. Tuesday is probably the worst day of the week since all the good players will show up. I usually like taking a day off after Sunday but I might need to change it so I'm skipping Tuesday and possibly Thursday and then playing on M/W/F/Sat/Sun.

I want to quickly talk about two things I noticed today, both regarding PartyPoker. As a former employee of PokerStars, Party and I have a complex relationship. A decent bit of my personal interest work (not assigned to me officially) at the office was focused on them but I've also been a long time customer. Overall my impression of Party is very positive but I wanted to explain I'm not a shill before giving them the props they are due.

1) Sweetening the Pot

I fired the $530 6-Max because I saw Colette and a few other players registered. Shoutout to Colette. Now I'm not sure what the arrangement is with Colette and Party but I'm always been a big fan of "sweetening the pot" in HS tournaments by throwing in a few recreational players. I also don't mean to disparage Colette but I do know she was the 2+2 Party rep so how good could she be, right? Again, apologies in advance if she's actually a sicko (I have rarely played with her so I don't know).

From what I know of my HS friends, a lot of decisions made to enter the really big buy-in tournaments are based on the existing field. I've heard some version of "there's 16 players registered in the 25K and I'm better than most of them so I'm playing for sure" at least 10 times from 10 different sickos I know.

One of the things I really wanted to push for at Stars was putting in Twitch personalities into any tournaments that might be struggling. When you have tournaments that are cancelling or might not otherwise run, it's a good idea to add a few spots to the lineup. I even had an idea to try to have disgruntled 2+2 players beat down Luke at the tables, though he's actually quite good :P

Stars draws a hard line and never lets its employees or affiliated people play in tournaments to boost the guarantees. I think this is very commendable and the ideal of how a room should be run for sure. But this is tied to my second point.

2) The $320 Gladiator 100K

I have both clients open right now and Stars shows 34,465 players online and Party shows 2,677. I'm sure it's much closer during peak but the fact is that Stars has a massive liquidity edge. But when I go down the list and compare like for like tournaments and guarantees we see:

Stars vs Party Guarantees

1. 1K Wednesday (100K) vs Party High Roller Bounty Hunter (50K)
2. $530 BBHR (150K) vs Party $530 High Roller (50K)
3. Daily 500 (40K) vs Party $530 High Roller (30K)
4. $215 Battle Royale (150K) vs Party $320 Gladiator (100K)
5. $215 Bounty Builder (60K) vs Party $215 Bounty Hunter (30K)
6. $109 Bounty Builder (100K) vs Party $109 Bounty Hunter (50K)
7. $33 Bounty Builder (60K) vs Party $33 Bounty Hunter (30K)

7. Big 215 (20K) vs 215 Wednesday Grind (40K)
8. Big 109 (25K) vs 109 Warmup (15K)
9. Big 55 (30K) vs 55 Main Event (20K)
10. Bounty Builder $55 (50K) vs 55 Gladiator (40K)
11. Hot 215 (25K) vs 215 Bounty Hunter Fast (25K)

To me it's an incredible achievement on the part of Party that they're able to keep things so close (with a few exceptions) despite the massive lead that PokerStars has. In my opinion sites with the gap that these two have should never have the same guarantees. I've never been to Party's offices but from the outside I see a hungry company that is spending money and taking risks to try to reward its players.

The $320 Gladiator is missing regularly. It missed yesterday for $12K and it missed today for $12K and I believe it missed on Sunday for $200K. But they keep throwing it up there with that big $100K stretch guarantee. When you look at some of the philosophies that Patrick (pads) has posted in the past about how they fiddle with registration times and re-entry to try to support the guarantee then later remove these things, I find the process very commendable. It's exactly what we need to support as poker players.

Between Party, Winamax, WPN, and to a lesser extent 888, I have hardly noticed not having Stars. And I've put most of my career volume on Stars by far! We'll see how Stars affects my schedule once I'm allowed back in but man is Party doing a great job with their tournament offering.

You sure it’s the real colette and not just some (hs) reg who took that as screenname?

Thats not the party Colette, I think she even said it.

Man am I dumb. That was not a good fire then but the point about sweeteners still stands! Thanks for letting me know that guys lol.

Fake Colette’s and Graftekkels and slayerv1fan’s running around When will it end?!

Def good reg and not the hero we remember

Holy hell, man. This sounds brutal.

Life lesson for me as well is get a lawyer before a big deal like this - especially in another country.

Interesting thread, fun read, will be checking it out in the future as well.

Poker Update:

I put together a solid grind today. Had quite a few final tables:

1st 55e Warmup IPoker
5th 109 Party Bounty Hunter 50K
6th Winamax High Roller
6th 33 Hyper Party
6th 33 Turbo Swordfish 888
8th 55 Warmup Party
8th 109 6M Bounty Hunter Party

The 5th place in the Bounty Hunter hurt a bit. It's one of the biggest daily tournaments on the schedule each day and my bustout hand was quite unfortunate. Regular running 8M above EV or something at the final table shoved Q4s into AA. I got a safe flop and then running 4's to bust

I had two interesting hands from the two biggest final tables of the day. Play along if you want!

Hand 1: Final Table of Winamax 250E High Roller

Winamax - 4000/8000 NL (7 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 33.31 BB
Hero (BB): 42.7 BB
UTG: 29.94 BB
MP: 81.34 BB
CO: 35.22 BB
BTN: 39.98 BB

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

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has 2 2

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.5 BB, SB raises to 8.37 BB, Hero

Reads:
- Button opening enough where I probably thug jam if folded to me
- SB is $34 ABI and seems to be a regular. Has 3b 4/21 times so far and running 30/19.
He 3b me earlier with KK and made it 5.9 over 2.1. He also 3B with AQ earlier and used a 2.8x sizing.

I can mess with the parameters until the result becomes what I want to do but that would defeat the point of actually finding the right play. I might post this in MTT strat actually I'm curious how people's personalities align along the spectrum. One man's spew is another woman's fist pump!

Hand 2: Final Table of Party $109 50K Bounty Builder

partypoker - 80000/160000 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 31.48 BB
Hero (SB): 38.53 BB
BB: 45.03 BB
UTG: 12.32 BB
CO: 17.02 BB

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

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.12 BB) Hero has K 8

fold, fold, BTN calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4 BB, fold, BTN calls 3 BB

Flop: (9.62 BB, 2 players) 6 J K
Hero bets 3.18 BB, BTN calls 3.18 BB

Turn: (15.98 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, BTN bets 5.27 BB, Hero calls 5.27 BB

River: (26.52 BB, 2 players) 5
Hero checks, BTN bets 18.91 BB and is all-in, Hero

Reads:
- Opponent has made a few questionable decisions at the FT leading to a big stack. He's been quite loose since that point.
- ABI $66, has won 13/25 flops seen.
- He's recently lost the chip lead and this is his first open limp on the button.

22 hand did sb 3bet you inp or oop?? because he might use 2.8x for inp/ bigger from oop, when that said i think 22 is clear fold

k8s when you play it that way preflop i think we need to call off river we are actually on top of our range

Both OOP. Damn I’m the only one that wants to shove first hand. I must be a spewtard lol.

H2 K8s part of my ranges but if I could go back in time I think I would just complete and keep it low variance.

Thanks for your thoughts Re8 have seen you post helpful strat in other threads it’s quite nice of you.

Not sure what it is we are debating in k8 hand. Once u get here u have prime hand to call and he is way too heavily weighted to having bluffs than value here

22 has pretty bad removal and we are a bit to deep to consider vpip here imo, risk reward given icm seems pretty meh. I do see what you mean wrt his sizing, does look like we have a bunch of fold equity here. Still 22 pretty sucky hand

Actually, think bet bet mix river might be a better line, he really doesn’t have that many better hands in his range, kjx x hits your Sb iso Range much better than his limp call range, especially given that it’s his first limp, gonna be super weighted to jx that will just take a free card and gutters/ QT, think we can quite happily bet twice with tons of hands in our range here and do stuff on rivers

Yeah I find it difficult to range the button limp. It's not really a "thing" in solver world, certainly not to where people have memorized the open limping ranges and then certainly not with ICM weights factored in. From a lot of HS replays I see I do think it's part of a trend but a lot of button clicking is being done as well with the open limping.

Flop pretty standard we check 1.66% and choose 33% sizing 75% of the time. On turn EV of all options is pretty close. Solver chooses bet more frequently despite EV of check being slightly higher. It actually C/S over his bet though so my final take on this hand is it's kind of a "cooler" with 1.5M in pot and 4.3M starting.

I think pre iso is the most debatable part of the hand I wasn't sure how to range him but I thought the limp was weak-ish and he ended up with a hand I did not expect him to limp (the BB was quite tight and playing weak).

think ur size is a little too small given how ppl normally design their limp ranges. its usually no traps, mostly hands that have no problem calling what in this spot still is a small sizing. think to apply pressure properly sth like 5.5bb should work much better

Yeah I actually have a set of ranges that isos to 4bb and another that isos to 6bb. I haven't studied iso limp ranges much but I'll work on it soon with all of the limping hot sauce being thrown about in these replays. I went with 4x and paid the price big time.

Quick Poker Update:

Just a few more average ability scores for yesterday's grind. Will be interesting to see how this changes based on today and tomorrow since I think Friday/Saturday are quite soft. I'm going to sit out the Friday Grind $30K today and see how it scores.

109 50K PKO: 82. Using this as a baseline comparison since we're always firing this one no matter what.
320 100K Gladiator: 85 (missed by 4K)
215 50K Thursday Grind: 87 (this was a very bad fire with 2x re-entry, it starts at 1:30 though and the field was decent at that time). I'm looking over the table I busted and it's 8 decent/solid regulars. Awful game here.
250e HIGHROLLER: 85. This one wasn't so bad at the start but I should have skipped it despite finishing 6th. Again, you can see the game is tougher on Thursday though.
109 Warmup Party: 84. Pushing it for sure here. Not much value bad fire.
215 PKO 888: 83. Low fee. Not the worst but probably a skip on Thursday as well.

Looking over most of the higher games and it's just all regs of varying skill levels. I'd give myself a B- or B for game selection on this Thurday. Better than Tuesday but still a few bad spots.

One final thing is I'm still greed firing $22 10K's and $33 15K's and stuff last minute if I "need tables." This is something I won't be able to do once Stars shows up so I should start weeding out this habit at some point.

Final edit: The games look super good today I'm very tempted to hop in a bunch of these high stakes games

agree w blakk on all counts, especially preflop sizing in K8 hand. why do you want to use 2 sizings there though ? seems like a good way to make our strategy/gametree(s) super difficult and I can't see that being higher EV than using 1 sizing

cOngrats yugioh, will be following your thread, you seem super chill