YugiohPro: There and Back Again (MTT Discussion Thread)
02-22-2019
, 02:39 PM
Thanks j 
malice, I'm saying I have a set of preflop ranges that will 6x this spot and another set that will 4x. Not that I use both in game. If I had to pick one though I'd pick 4.5x but I'll have to run this by more mates.
Agree with b8 bomber that we want to pressure more preflop in these kind of FT situations but there's sometimes more to pressure than just pre!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU88c0f5-h0
malice, I'm saying I have a set of preflop ranges that will 6x this spot and another set that will 4x. Not that I use both in game. If I had to pick one though I'd pick 4.5x but I'll have to run this by more mates.
Agree with b8 bomber that we want to pressure more preflop in these kind of FT situations but there's sometimes more to pressure than just pre!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU88c0f5-h0
Last edited by YugiohPro; 02-22-2019 at 02:56 PM.
02-22-2019
, 02:43 PM
02-25-2019
, 11:53 PM
Poker Update: February 26, 2019
Don't leave while you're hot that's how Mase screwed up
This was a good week of learning. I closed Sunday by firing a few big birds including the Party $530 250K and the WPN OSS $1,050 300K. Over my career I've found that being aggressive with fires when results and confidence are high is a good thing. Going forward I'm going to switch up the way I structure my daily schedule and the updates for this thread.
1. Playing Schedule
Monday off, Friday or Saturday off.
The ideal days off would be Tuesday + Thursday. Unfortunately that doesn't work for me. It's more practical to rest after Sundays due to the big adrenaline dump and many high equity spots to review. I usually also need a break around Saturday if I want to enter Sunday with a clean and pure heart.
I've been thinking about a conversation I had with my coach and how important it is to create a sustainable schedule for consistent profits. I think MTTers in general are way too driven by the big score and sometimes even mail it in in the lower prize day to day stuff. I've always personally been a meat and potatoes kind of guy, really focused on grinding the TLB leaderboard and trying to make money every day consistently even if it's not a big daddy 5-figure ship. Lately since 2014 I went a bit astray on this and set a lot of money on fire.
I have a lot of people I'm friendly with over the years (or friends with) who are also super consistent grinders. Some of them like ModzillaPL sunrun the huge field competitions too as an added bonus but their work ethic and devotion to a sustainable grind have done very well for them over the years. Many of them have either SNG or MTTSNG backgrounds which is very good for MTTers. People I would put in this category include Modzilla, tonkaaaa, abarone, Lipofund, Jabracada, jdawg, T8ofdiamonds, and more. Most of these people have "graduated" at some point but the point remains.
Then people who I don't know also go into this category like markovitsus (probably the gold standard for this though he plays much higher now), Belabacsi, and many other names I'm not as familiar with now since I don't play on Stars.
Anyways, this is just a long-winded way of saying I'm going to be focusing on value competitions during the weekdays. Will be looking to pump out a consistent grind with mostly $22-109's. I will consider swinging frankfurters around in daily HS competitions once I build up to 6-figures within a year like I used to and have my EVs where they need to be. I don't mind taking shots on Sundays, especially in huge tournaments. Due to table limits I'm mostly firing $109 and $215+ on Sunday and a win in any of them can save the whole day. So it doesn't hurt to throw a few $530's in the mix. But I think the withered daily Super Tuesday $1,050 100-150K guarantees have been the demise of many a good man.
I also apologize in advance. Anyone who's followed my old threads knows I've had posts like this probably at least ten times. This will be the last one for a while!
2. Posting Schedule
I'm going to change the way I post in this thread a bit. From now on I'm going to post a weekly graph along with any interesting spots from an equity perspective. My weekly recap post may or may not include the previous Sunday so it will basically run from Sunday to Sunday. If I have a big or interesting Sunday it will probably get its own post. WPN results come in a bit late which pollutes this a bit but I can always update it later.
I will not be posting EV numbers or other metrics but I'll make an objective statement about how I ran each week. I have been a bit small-minded and mentally weak about poor runs in the past so I just want to make clear I'm posting these week to week for the sweat benefit and for my own pleasure (it's like having a diary I can look at later). Here's this week's results.
Have lost +/- $1K on WPN as well that hasn't rolled in yet. Went deep in their $160 30K but bricked a few other tournaments including the OSS $1K.
Results
- I finished 5th in the Party $109 50K Bounty Builder after losing on a call I posted here. That was a big chunk up top.
- I finished 6th in the Winamax High Roller, comparable 7K+ to 1st there losing on a cold 4b I posted here. Side note: Most hands I post tend to be possible mistakes or lost hands
- A large chunk of my losses this week come from daily HSMTT I won't be playing in the future. About 4K from 7 tournaments alone.
- Many of my finish distributions in this week line up in the dreaded 5th-28th region instead of 1-2-3-4. This was a problem for me this week as it will be in many losing weeks. Occasionally you want to track your FT distributions if you feel it's becoming a problem.
EV Analysis
I didn't include the previous Sunday but on that day I ran about 5 ev bb/100 and 26m chips over as I had my biggest winning day since 2010. So take this with a grain of salt. I'd much rather have poor ev bb/100 and win a lot of money than have shining metrics and lose!
- I think you can split EV analysis into "very poor," "poor," "average," "good," and "very good." I haven't done this long enough to know what very poor and very good look like.
- We ran poor or even very poor this week, about 2 ev bb/100 below amounting to 4M chips. The chip totals don't mean as much now spread out over so many sites with differing totals.
- I think this manifested itself in the finish distributions. Just a tough amount of 6th through 27th's as I'm looking over the list. It looks like this in case you're curious:
Next post will be some thoughts on the boycott and some Site Power Rankings.
Don't leave while you're hot that's how Mase screwed up
This was a good week of learning. I closed Sunday by firing a few big birds including the Party $530 250K and the WPN OSS $1,050 300K. Over my career I've found that being aggressive with fires when results and confidence are high is a good thing. Going forward I'm going to switch up the way I structure my daily schedule and the updates for this thread.
1. Playing Schedule
Monday off, Friday or Saturday off.
The ideal days off would be Tuesday + Thursday. Unfortunately that doesn't work for me. It's more practical to rest after Sundays due to the big adrenaline dump and many high equity spots to review. I usually also need a break around Saturday if I want to enter Sunday with a clean and pure heart.
I've been thinking about a conversation I had with my coach and how important it is to create a sustainable schedule for consistent profits. I think MTTers in general are way too driven by the big score and sometimes even mail it in in the lower prize day to day stuff. I've always personally been a meat and potatoes kind of guy, really focused on grinding the TLB leaderboard and trying to make money every day consistently even if it's not a big daddy 5-figure ship. Lately since 2014 I went a bit astray on this and set a lot of money on fire.
I have a lot of people I'm friendly with over the years (or friends with) who are also super consistent grinders. Some of them like ModzillaPL sunrun the huge field competitions too as an added bonus but their work ethic and devotion to a sustainable grind have done very well for them over the years. Many of them have either SNG or MTTSNG backgrounds which is very good for MTTers. People I would put in this category include Modzilla, tonkaaaa, abarone, Lipofund, Jabracada, jdawg, T8ofdiamonds, and more. Most of these people have "graduated" at some point but the point remains.
Then people who I don't know also go into this category like markovitsus (probably the gold standard for this though he plays much higher now), Belabacsi, and many other names I'm not as familiar with now since I don't play on Stars.
Anyways, this is just a long-winded way of saying I'm going to be focusing on value competitions during the weekdays. Will be looking to pump out a consistent grind with mostly $22-109's. I will consider swinging frankfurters around in daily HS competitions once I build up to 6-figures within a year like I used to and have my EVs where they need to be. I don't mind taking shots on Sundays, especially in huge tournaments. Due to table limits I'm mostly firing $109 and $215+ on Sunday and a win in any of them can save the whole day. So it doesn't hurt to throw a few $530's in the mix. But I think the withered daily Super Tuesday $1,050 100-150K guarantees have been the demise of many a good man.
I also apologize in advance. Anyone who's followed my old threads knows I've had posts like this probably at least ten times. This will be the last one for a while!
2. Posting Schedule
I'm going to change the way I post in this thread a bit. From now on I'm going to post a weekly graph along with any interesting spots from an equity perspective. My weekly recap post may or may not include the previous Sunday so it will basically run from Sunday to Sunday. If I have a big or interesting Sunday it will probably get its own post. WPN results come in a bit late which pollutes this a bit but I can always update it later.
I will not be posting EV numbers or other metrics but I'll make an objective statement about how I ran each week. I have been a bit small-minded and mentally weak about poor runs in the past so I just want to make clear I'm posting these week to week for the sweat benefit and for my own pleasure (it's like having a diary I can look at later). Here's this week's results.
Have lost +/- $1K on WPN as well that hasn't rolled in yet. Went deep in their $160 30K but bricked a few other tournaments including the OSS $1K.
Results
- I finished 5th in the Party $109 50K Bounty Builder after losing on a call I posted here. That was a big chunk up top.
- I finished 6th in the Winamax High Roller, comparable 7K+ to 1st there losing on a cold 4b I posted here. Side note: Most hands I post tend to be possible mistakes or lost hands
- A large chunk of my losses this week come from daily HSMTT I won't be playing in the future. About 4K from 7 tournaments alone.
- Many of my finish distributions in this week line up in the dreaded 5th-28th region instead of 1-2-3-4. This was a problem for me this week as it will be in many losing weeks. Occasionally you want to track your FT distributions if you feel it's becoming a problem.
EV Analysis
I didn't include the previous Sunday but on that day I ran about 5 ev bb/100 and 26m chips over as I had my biggest winning day since 2010. So take this with a grain of salt. I'd much rather have poor ev bb/100 and win a lot of money than have shining metrics and lose!
- I think you can split EV analysis into "very poor," "poor," "average," "good," and "very good." I haven't done this long enough to know what very poor and very good look like.
- We ran poor or even very poor this week, about 2 ev bb/100 below amounting to 4M chips. The chip totals don't mean as much now spread out over so many sites with differing totals.
- I think this manifested itself in the finish distributions. Just a tough amount of 6th through 27th's as I'm looking over the list. It looks like this in case you're curious:
Next post will be some thoughts on the boycott and some Site Power Rankings.
Spoiler:
Last edited by YugiohPro; 02-26-2019 at 12:02 AM.
02-26-2019
, 12:06 AM
honestly i would go ahead and delete chip totals from your tracker thingy or at least make an effort to not even look at them (apart from the poitns where u feel u ve run bad but somehow u have run above ev and millions of chips below to be able to say 'see? told u i ran bad!')
i ve had yearly graphs where the chip totals were meaningless and if u mix sites like winaamx and stars (20k-50k starting vs 3k-10k starting) you will quickly find that this number is totally arbitrary
or say u make a deal 3way and then u flip for it. millions of spots where it just produces info that cant do any good.
having once again sounded like an a$$ however, i m loving the self reflection in ur posts, i personally struggle to throw deep stuff into my blog so my posts tend to be way more rambly and/or preachy rather than educational or insightful unless i m asked questions ,def sth i could learn from you. pm me some of ur screennames if u want, i m sure we play a bunch all over the place
glgl
i ve had yearly graphs where the chip totals were meaningless and if u mix sites like winaamx and stars (20k-50k starting vs 3k-10k starting) you will quickly find that this number is totally arbitrary
or say u make a deal 3way and then u flip for it. millions of spots where it just produces info that cant do any good.
having once again sounded like an a$$ however, i m loving the self reflection in ur posts, i personally struggle to throw deep stuff into my blog so my posts tend to be way more rambly and/or preachy rather than educational or insightful unless i m asked questions ,def sth i could learn from you. pm me some of ur screennames if u want, i m sure we play a bunch all over the place
glgl
Last edited by blakkman08; 02-26-2019 at 12:07 AM.
Reason: also welcome to #TeamCantClose
gg sir
02-26-2019
, 08:30 PM
02-28-2019
, 12:05 PM
Thanks Josh, much love to you as well Hopefully we meet this year!
---
Poker Site Power Rankings and Personal Observations
Incoming wall of text. Cliffs at the bottom.
I've started the humble grind off 5-tabling a mix of withered $22's-$55's and figured it was only appropriate to write up my Site Power Rankings. I will omit PokerStars and PokerStars.FR from this list. I have actually never played on Stars.FR
BIG DISCLAIMER: While I'm familiar with all of these sites due to being a customer, I do not interact with any of these companies so all conjecture/opinion is personal. I can be off the mark with some of my assumptions and conclusions for sure.
1. PartyPoker
+ Pretty much a perfect poker site for players
+ Very good software with a BB display and great tactile feel to the buttons
+ Fantastic guarantees and buy-ins offered
+ Exceptional rakeback scheme and pricing
+ Amazing value in satellite chases and live dollars
- Many regulars have complained about the software but I disagree
- Lobby filters and set up is not ideal but the lobby is still visually cleaner than Stars due to focused liquidity
Second place on this list isn't even close and I shudder to think what life would be like for all of us if Party wasn't around. They haven't been perfect and I could name a few issues they've had in the past off the top of my head (BRS, PP Live Dollars) but overall nobody is trying harder than Party.
Party is investing in the growth of the game while also using a sustainable approach. Look at their rake on Turbos and PKOs along with their re-entry policies. Throw in their rakeback and this company really does care. It's also the only site that can straight up compare with Stars in terms of headline guarantees, though they're not there yet.
Party seems to have a different strategy for its main schedule from Stars. Party is pooling all of its liquidity into generating the biggest prize pools possible. If you notice, Party has no tournaments outside of :00 and :30. And the expansion to :30 has come recently!
2. Winamax
+ Very smooth software with different table themes for tournaments (I turn all of these off) and a BB display
+ Great lobby filters and game selection
+ Solid guarantees and promotions
- Too much 6-Max
- PKO heavy
Winamax is a great site. They were really smashing Stars up in France before I joined but I think the recent merging of liquidity for .ES and such has reduced the gap. Winamax runs a variety of promotions and series and also seems to care about its customer. One of my good friends at Stars was a former Team Pro for Winamax. He told me about their culture and how hands-on it is. The company is run by people who also love poker. One of the common themes about all of my favorite sites is they seem to be run by people who love and believe in poker.
I'm not sure why the shared liquidity (FR.ES.PT) sites run so much 6-Max. But it's too much for me! And I have to remove some of the Winamax stuff especially on Sundays.
3. Winning Poker Network
+ Fantastic guarantees
+ Exceptional rakeback
+ Solid software with automatic timebanks and pop culture avatars like Nicki Minaj and Yoda
+ Soft games due to US-facing
+ One of the only games in town for non-Americas players after a certain hour
- Unlimited re-entry on most tournaments
- Rumors of botting and propping of guarantees through stables and such
WPN is definitely a mixed bag but I think its strengths more than outweigh its drawbacks. You kind of have to take the good with the bad with this company. Past a certain point in the schedule it's one of the only big games in town. I'm personally not a fan of Global Poker's business model at all and I'm blocked from Ignition/Bovada etc.
4. GG Network
+ Great guarantees and a big push into the tournament game with the Black Series and Blade Series
+ Beautiful software with full color avatars and many team pros
+ Rec friendly with no HUDs and soft games and banning of predatory players
+ Creative promotions and solid rakeback
- Cash rake seems oppressive (disclaimer: I haven't researched this)
- Software can be laggy and I've had tables crash on me occasionally
- I've read stories of bans and such that might be unfair
- I've seen services offer HUDs for this site so you could be at a disadvantage
Unfortunately I'm growing more and more out of touch with GG because it's blocked in Korea. I would recommend signing up through the GG Network skin itself. The site is really building momentum and I'm a big fan of the product overall.
5. 888
+ Decent software with auto-time banks
+ Decent guarantees
+ Solid midstakes offerings such as the Big Fish
- Too much re-entry
- Guarantees are too small
- Obnoxious policy on player to player transfers and a few of my friends have had balances outright stolen
- This site is withering away
- Someone please send help
I'm not really sure what's going on with 888. I'd like to write an article one day but you also can't just give game for free so who knows. I do know the company is based in Israel but I don't know how their operations are structured.
They're just slowly losing ground after being a true titan for years. They still have decent tournaments with decent guarantees but there's a lot of wasted potential with 888. I get the feeling based on some of the games they are promoting that 888 doesn't care as much about poker and wants to gameify it with jackpot mechanics and forced all-ins and such.
6. Chico
+ Some great Sunday majors
+ Decent option later on in the day
- I'm not too familiar with this site
Just a quick blurb about BetOnline/Chico. They run a Sunday $109 60K and a Sunday $109 40K and seem to have great guarantees on a lot of their tournaments. It's US-focused so most of it starts way too late for me. I can't get a HUD running on this site so I guess it's an even playing field for all as well?
7. Unibet
+ Great team that believes in poker and wants your business
+ Decent software
+ A few great tournaments such as the $109 major on Sunday
+ Rec friendly with no HUDs
+ Very soft games
- Limited schedule, not much that attracts me on a weekday
- Very UK focused, not sure if it's open to all countries globally. I'm blocked in Korea
I love Unibet. They're slowly growing each year and their team really cares about creating a sustainable poker environment. If every poker company operated with the ethos that Unibet has we'd be in a really good place. If you're able to play on it I would suggest making an account and supporting the company. The 100 Euro Supernova has 20K guaranteed each Sunday and is a great value tournament. They also occasionally run 100R and 20R's with great guarantees during their series.
8. IPoker
+ Decent software
+ A few solid tournaments such as the daily 55e 10K
- The provider does not seem to care about poker
- Allegations of Bots all over the place
I'm not sure what's going on with IPoker. I think I have an idea but it's just guesswork. IPoker is owned by Playtech, I believe, which is one of the biggest gambling companies in the world. My guess is that Playtech makes so much money from its other enterprises that poker is just a drop in the bucket and pretty much irrelevant. If any of you remember the glory days of IPoker when Titan was king, they used to run $215 200K's and such.
They still have decent daily tournaments with pretty soft games. I think the fact they go by the Skin/affiliate model where different brands like Betfair license the software hurts them but this is just conjecture from me.
9. Microgaming
+ Decent software
+ A few decent tournaments
+ Great team that believes in poker and wants your business
- Pretty cool innovations such as the early bird (extra chips for registering at start of tournament)
- Schedule seems to be on the decline
- Too many gimmicks
Microgaming is another UK-focused provider that I'm a big fan of. Microgaming is actually also located on the Isle of Man so I've interacted with a few people who work there. They have a 2+2 thread where they take a lot of feedback and seem to be making a genuine effort to attract players.
Unfortunately I have some reservations about their schedule. I think it's taken a few steps back from what it used to be and I don't think they're pursuing the right strategy. Disclaimer: I don't have their internal metrics and haven't been tracking their series performances so this is just my view as a customer.
MPN and Unibet actually have similar quality daily schedules though MPN is stronger in this regard with a daily 22R 7.5K. The key difference between MPN and other UK-based sites such as Sky, Unibet, and IPoker is that the other UK sites have big Sunday Majors with at least 20K guaranteed and also try to run big daily majors. I think smaller rooms should realize they are competing against the worst tournaments of the biggest sites, not the best, so you want to establish a foothold by offering at least one daily tournament that attracts deposits to your site. Smaller sites also need regulars and I think 10K prize pool is a good magic number for attracting regulars.
MPN used to run daily 100's and 55 Turbos that seemed to perform decently. The 22R also used to have a 10K guarantee on it. Lately they've scaled these back, removing the 109's entirely and introducing a bunch of gimmick tournaments. They seem to be pursuing a sustainable self-contained system where people log in and play only MPN tournaments such as 55 Euro 2K's and 22 Euro 1K's.
I also think MPN is hurting itself a bit with all of the gimmicks. I'm not sure if it's coming from the 2+2 thread or what but it's a bit of an eyesore for me personally to read through the schedule and see the stipulations attached to each tournament.
One of their gimmicks is a Booster tournament where you get 5K starting for say 22e and then can boost your stack by 5K at a discount (11e). I really hate these kinds of formats because they're very anti-recreational. It's usually the regulars who will scoop this value up which gives them an unfair advantage.
10. PokerDom
+ Decent software
+ Decent guarantees
+ No HUD so pretty rec friendly with soft games
- Vig on withdrawals
- Some weird stuff going on
I took my roll off PokerDom once they started charging a flat 3% (I believe) on all Skrill withdrawals. It's a decent Russian-focused site with pretty solid tournaments. Unfortunately the main high stakes tournament on PokerDom uses something called a Phoenix format where you can rebuy for 2x the starting stack upon busting. I could never figure out how to work this out since I don't speak Russian and didn't want to spend ~$170 each time to figure out.
The guarantees are solid but outside of special PokerDom series times not really big enough to warrant a lot of interest. The main tournament I played on Sunday was about a $75 tournament with around $7500 guaranteed.
--------------------------------------------
If you made it through this wall of text, congratulations! Here's my cliff notes:
For the Culture:
- PartyPoker
- Winamax
- Unibet
- Microgaming
If you care about the future of online poker as a sustainable product, I would suggest supporting these companies with your dollars assuming they have something that appeals to you.
Get that Dough:
- PartyPoker
- Winamax
- WPN
- GGNetwork
- Chico (on Sundays)
If you just want to make some $ and get it quietly, I would still suggest playing on these sites because Party and Winamax offer massive guarantees and Unibet and Microgaming are butter soft sweet cheeks. But WPN and GG are also spending money and throwing up some massive guarantees.
Neglectful in their Ways:
- 888
- IPoker
I'll channel my Kanye West blank stare/stammer and say 888/IPoker don't care about poker people. Both could do a lot better and make more $ for themselves as well.
Hopefully we meet this year!---
Poker Site Power Rankings and Personal Observations
Incoming wall of text. Cliffs at the bottom.
I've started the humble grind off 5-tabling a mix of withered $22's-$55's and figured it was only appropriate to write up my Site Power Rankings. I will omit PokerStars and PokerStars.FR from this list. I have actually never played on Stars.FR
BIG DISCLAIMER: While I'm familiar with all of these sites due to being a customer, I do not interact with any of these companies so all conjecture/opinion is personal. I can be off the mark with some of my assumptions and conclusions for sure.
1. PartyPoker
+ Pretty much a perfect poker site for players
+ Very good software with a BB display and great tactile feel to the buttons
+ Fantastic guarantees and buy-ins offered
+ Exceptional rakeback scheme and pricing
+ Amazing value in satellite chases and live dollars
- Many regulars have complained about the software but I disagree
- Lobby filters and set up is not ideal but the lobby is still visually cleaner than Stars due to focused liquidity
Second place on this list isn't even close and I shudder to think what life would be like for all of us if Party wasn't around. They haven't been perfect and I could name a few issues they've had in the past off the top of my head (BRS, PP Live Dollars) but overall nobody is trying harder than Party.
Party is investing in the growth of the game while also using a sustainable approach. Look at their rake on Turbos and PKOs along with their re-entry policies. Throw in their rakeback and this company really does care. It's also the only site that can straight up compare with Stars in terms of headline guarantees, though they're not there yet.
Party seems to have a different strategy for its main schedule from Stars. Party is pooling all of its liquidity into generating the biggest prize pools possible. If you notice, Party has no tournaments outside of :00 and :30. And the expansion to :30 has come recently!
2. Winamax
+ Very smooth software with different table themes for tournaments (I turn all of these off) and a BB display
+ Great lobby filters and game selection
+ Solid guarantees and promotions
- Too much 6-Max
- PKO heavy
Winamax is a great site. They were really smashing Stars up in France before I joined but I think the recent merging of liquidity for .ES and such has reduced the gap. Winamax runs a variety of promotions and series and also seems to care about its customer. One of my good friends at Stars was a former Team Pro for Winamax. He told me about their culture and how hands-on it is. The company is run by people who also love poker. One of the common themes about all of my favorite sites is they seem to be run by people who love and believe in poker.
I'm not sure why the shared liquidity (FR.ES.PT) sites run so much 6-Max. But it's too much for me! And I have to remove some of the Winamax stuff especially on Sundays.
3. Winning Poker Network
+ Fantastic guarantees
+ Exceptional rakeback
+ Solid software with automatic timebanks and pop culture avatars like Nicki Minaj and Yoda
+ Soft games due to US-facing
+ One of the only games in town for non-Americas players after a certain hour
- Unlimited re-entry on most tournaments
- Rumors of botting and propping of guarantees through stables and such
WPN is definitely a mixed bag but I think its strengths more than outweigh its drawbacks. You kind of have to take the good with the bad with this company. Past a certain point in the schedule it's one of the only big games in town. I'm personally not a fan of Global Poker's business model at all and I'm blocked from Ignition/Bovada etc.
4. GG Network
+ Great guarantees and a big push into the tournament game with the Black Series and Blade Series
+ Beautiful software with full color avatars and many team pros
+ Rec friendly with no HUDs and soft games and banning of predatory players
+ Creative promotions and solid rakeback
- Cash rake seems oppressive (disclaimer: I haven't researched this)
- Software can be laggy and I've had tables crash on me occasionally
- I've read stories of bans and such that might be unfair
- I've seen services offer HUDs for this site so you could be at a disadvantage
Unfortunately I'm growing more and more out of touch with GG because it's blocked in Korea. I would recommend signing up through the GG Network skin itself. The site is really building momentum and I'm a big fan of the product overall.
5. 888
+ Decent software with auto-time banks
+ Decent guarantees
+ Solid midstakes offerings such as the Big Fish
- Too much re-entry
- Guarantees are too small
- Obnoxious policy on player to player transfers and a few of my friends have had balances outright stolen
- This site is withering away
- Someone please send help
I'm not really sure what's going on with 888. I'd like to write an article one day but you also can't just give game for free so who knows. I do know the company is based in Israel but I don't know how their operations are structured.
They're just slowly losing ground after being a true titan for years. They still have decent tournaments with decent guarantees but there's a lot of wasted potential with 888. I get the feeling based on some of the games they are promoting that 888 doesn't care as much about poker and wants to gameify it with jackpot mechanics and forced all-ins and such.
6. Chico
+ Some great Sunday majors
+ Decent option later on in the day
- I'm not too familiar with this site
Just a quick blurb about BetOnline/Chico. They run a Sunday $109 60K and a Sunday $109 40K and seem to have great guarantees on a lot of their tournaments. It's US-focused so most of it starts way too late for me. I can't get a HUD running on this site so I guess it's an even playing field for all as well?
7. Unibet
+ Great team that believes in poker and wants your business
+ Decent software
+ A few great tournaments such as the $109 major on Sunday
+ Rec friendly with no HUDs
+ Very soft games
- Limited schedule, not much that attracts me on a weekday
- Very UK focused, not sure if it's open to all countries globally. I'm blocked in Korea
I love Unibet. They're slowly growing each year and their team really cares about creating a sustainable poker environment. If every poker company operated with the ethos that Unibet has we'd be in a really good place. If you're able to play on it I would suggest making an account and supporting the company. The 100 Euro Supernova has 20K guaranteed each Sunday and is a great value tournament. They also occasionally run 100R and 20R's with great guarantees during their series.
8. IPoker
+ Decent software
+ A few solid tournaments such as the daily 55e 10K
- The provider does not seem to care about poker
- Allegations of Bots all over the place
I'm not sure what's going on with IPoker. I think I have an idea but it's just guesswork. IPoker is owned by Playtech, I believe, which is one of the biggest gambling companies in the world. My guess is that Playtech makes so much money from its other enterprises that poker is just a drop in the bucket and pretty much irrelevant. If any of you remember the glory days of IPoker when Titan was king, they used to run $215 200K's and such.
They still have decent daily tournaments with pretty soft games. I think the fact they go by the Skin/affiliate model where different brands like Betfair license the software hurts them but this is just conjecture from me.
9. Microgaming
+ Decent software
+ A few decent tournaments
+ Great team that believes in poker and wants your business
- Pretty cool innovations such as the early bird (extra chips for registering at start of tournament)
- Schedule seems to be on the decline
- Too many gimmicks
Microgaming is another UK-focused provider that I'm a big fan of. Microgaming is actually also located on the Isle of Man so I've interacted with a few people who work there. They have a 2+2 thread where they take a lot of feedback and seem to be making a genuine effort to attract players.
Unfortunately I have some reservations about their schedule. I think it's taken a few steps back from what it used to be and I don't think they're pursuing the right strategy. Disclaimer: I don't have their internal metrics and haven't been tracking their series performances so this is just my view as a customer.
MPN and Unibet actually have similar quality daily schedules though MPN is stronger in this regard with a daily 22R 7.5K. The key difference between MPN and other UK-based sites such as Sky, Unibet, and IPoker is that the other UK sites have big Sunday Majors with at least 20K guaranteed and also try to run big daily majors. I think smaller rooms should realize they are competing against the worst tournaments of the biggest sites, not the best, so you want to establish a foothold by offering at least one daily tournament that attracts deposits to your site. Smaller sites also need regulars and I think 10K prize pool is a good magic number for attracting regulars.
MPN used to run daily 100's and 55 Turbos that seemed to perform decently. The 22R also used to have a 10K guarantee on it. Lately they've scaled these back, removing the 109's entirely and introducing a bunch of gimmick tournaments. They seem to be pursuing a sustainable self-contained system where people log in and play only MPN tournaments such as 55 Euro 2K's and 22 Euro 1K's.
I also think MPN is hurting itself a bit with all of the gimmicks. I'm not sure if it's coming from the 2+2 thread or what but it's a bit of an eyesore for me personally to read through the schedule and see the stipulations attached to each tournament.
One of their gimmicks is a Booster tournament where you get 5K starting for say 22e and then can boost your stack by 5K at a discount (11e). I really hate these kinds of formats because they're very anti-recreational. It's usually the regulars who will scoop this value up which gives them an unfair advantage.
10. PokerDom
+ Decent software
+ Decent guarantees
+ No HUD so pretty rec friendly with soft games
- Vig on withdrawals
- Some weird stuff going on
I took my roll off PokerDom once they started charging a flat 3% (I believe) on all Skrill withdrawals. It's a decent Russian-focused site with pretty solid tournaments. Unfortunately the main high stakes tournament on PokerDom uses something called a Phoenix format where you can rebuy for 2x the starting stack upon busting. I could never figure out how to work this out since I don't speak Russian and didn't want to spend ~$170 each time to figure out.
The guarantees are solid but outside of special PokerDom series times not really big enough to warrant a lot of interest. The main tournament I played on Sunday was about a $75 tournament with around $7500 guaranteed.
--------------------------------------------
If you made it through this wall of text, congratulations! Here's my cliff notes:
For the Culture:
- PartyPoker
- Winamax
- Unibet
- Microgaming
If you care about the future of online poker as a sustainable product, I would suggest supporting these companies with your dollars assuming they have something that appeals to you.
Get that Dough:
- PartyPoker
- Winamax
- WPN
- GGNetwork
- Chico (on Sundays)
If you just want to make some $ and get it quietly, I would still suggest playing on these sites because Party and Winamax offer massive guarantees and Unibet and Microgaming are butter soft sweet cheeks. But WPN and GG are also spending money and throwing up some massive guarantees.
Neglectful in their Ways:
- 888
- IPoker
I'll channel my Kanye West blank stare/stammer and say 888/IPoker don't care about poker people. Both could do a lot better and make more $ for themselves as well.
03-03-2019
, 01:28 AM
Thanks Tom, glad you enjoyed it
Poker Update: March 3rd, Week 9
I've finished two months of full time grinding now. The schedule has wobbled back and forth and this week I took it to a new extreme.
You can see my ABI dropped from $89.20 to $57, mostly grinding value $22-109's with very few $215+. Honestly it was a bit painful sitting out some of the premier competitions and I think there's a happy balance to strike somewhere here where I can still fire a few $320 100K's and such.
Fortunately I'll be allowed back on PokerStars in 11 days so this withered schedule might sort itself out for me. It's been almost 3 months now since I left the company and I'll do a cute write up once I'm back on there to wrap it all up.
I mostly miss Stars on the offpeak hours where it still retains a huge majority of the viable tournaments.
Today I woke up a bit late and ended up grinding a Saturday morning in Korea, from somewhere like 7PM ET. Was quite striking how soft the games are at these hours and if I was a North American struggling to maintain I'd probably beat up on this schedule a bunch. Realistically that's probably what a decent amount of people are doing. I saw quite a few names that must have TRUE heart firing off at these hours when I see them in the early/peak stuff as well.
Results
- Distributions were much better this week. Got 1st in my two biggest FT's this week.
- Won the $109 PKO 10K on 888. This was a very smooth final table.
- Won the 55 Euro 10K Championship on IPoker.
EV Analysis
- EV was fantastic this week even though I ran very poorly. I ran 6.3 EV BB/100 below expectation over 15,000 hands and still finished in double digits.
- This kind of stuff is very encouraging for me and gets me through the lean stretchs where I'm not making much money.
Key Hands
- No real key hands but I did save this final table runout from the Championship.
iPoker - 15,000/30,000 NL - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
BB: 30.1 BB
CO: 31.88 BB
Hero (BTN): 17.94 BB
SB: 6.08 BB
4 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 1.9 BB) Hero has A
9
fold, Hero raises to 17.84 BB, fold, BB calls 16.84 BB
Flop: (36.57 BB, 2 players) A
9
K
Turn: (36.57 BB, 2 players) 7
River: (36.57 BB, 2 players) A
Hero shows A 9 (Full House, Aces full of Nines)
(Pre 28%, Flop 9%, Turn 5%)
BB shows K K (Full House, Kings full of Aces)
(Pre 72%, Flop 91%, Turn 95%)
Hero wins 36.57 BB
It's actually a pretty close spot pre. The players on sites like iPoker tend to be nittier so they're not punishing opens as much. I actually did consider raise folding this hand but I'm not a big fan of opening up spots where people can unload cleveland steamer's on your chest at very high frequency. One of my weaknesses is not often taking alternate "safer" lines that are more exploitable compared to an option that I know is +ev for sure. bencb goes into some of this on one of his FT reviews but I didn't fully agree with it though I don't have a big sample on these spots since I'm mostly taking the shove option.
I'm also a curious bear so I never know what they're reshoving on me! Anyways, I have lived a life of discipline this week and am looking forward to a big Sunday. Best of luck!
Poker Update: March 3rd, Week 9
I've finished two months of full time grinding now. The schedule has wobbled back and forth and this week I took it to a new extreme.
You can see my ABI dropped from $89.20 to $57, mostly grinding value $22-109's with very few $215+. Honestly it was a bit painful sitting out some of the premier competitions and I think there's a happy balance to strike somewhere here where I can still fire a few $320 100K's and such.
Fortunately I'll be allowed back on PokerStars in 11 days so this withered schedule might sort itself out for me. It's been almost 3 months now since I left the company and I'll do a cute write up once I'm back on there to wrap it all up.
I mostly miss Stars on the offpeak hours where it still retains a huge majority of the viable tournaments.
Today I woke up a bit late and ended up grinding a Saturday morning in Korea, from somewhere like 7PM ET. Was quite striking how soft the games are at these hours and if I was a North American struggling to maintain I'd probably beat up on this schedule a bunch. Realistically that's probably what a decent amount of people are doing. I saw quite a few names that must have TRUE heart firing off at these hours when I see them in the early/peak stuff as well.
Results
- Distributions were much better this week. Got 1st in my two biggest FT's this week.
- Won the $109 PKO 10K on 888. This was a very smooth final table.
- Won the 55 Euro 10K Championship on IPoker.
EV Analysis
- EV was fantastic this week even though I ran very poorly. I ran 6.3 EV BB/100 below expectation over 15,000 hands and still finished in double digits.
- This kind of stuff is very encouraging for me and gets me through the lean stretchs where I'm not making much money.
Key Hands
- No real key hands but I did save this final table runout from the Championship.
iPoker - 15,000/30,000 NL - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
BB: 30.1 BB
CO: 31.88 BB
Hero (BTN): 17.94 BB
SB: 6.08 BB
4 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 1.9 BB) Hero has A
9 fold, Hero raises to 17.84 BB, fold, BB calls 16.84 BB
Flop: (36.57 BB, 2 players) A
9 K Turn: (36.57 BB, 2 players) 7
River: (36.57 BB, 2 players) A
Hero shows A
9 (Full House, Aces full of Nines)(Pre 28%, Flop 9%, Turn 5%)
BB shows K
K (Full House, Kings full of Aces)(Pre 72%, Flop 91%, Turn 95%)
Hero wins 36.57 BB
It's actually a pretty close spot pre. The players on sites like iPoker tend to be nittier so they're not punishing opens as much. I actually did consider raise folding this hand but I'm not a big fan of opening up spots where people can unload cleveland steamer's on your chest at very high frequency. One of my weaknesses is not often taking alternate "safer" lines that are more exploitable compared to an option that I know is +ev for sure. bencb goes into some of this on one of his FT reviews but I didn't fully agree with it though I don't have a big sample on these spots since I'm mostly taking the shove option.
I'm also a curious bear so I never know what they're reshoving on me! Anyways, I have lived a life of discipline this week and am looking forward to a big Sunday. Best of luck!
03-05-2019
, 02:41 AM
Coming back with a brief Sunday update.
I have mixed feelings about Sunday but overall quite positive. EV was again quite high (double digits+), WWSF was solid (48%), and I ran well overall except at the end in the biggest spots. I managed to have a +$5K day despite my deepest finish being 7th!
10th place in the $320 Gladiator for $5200.
This was the tournament I won two weeks ago. I was running super well in this one and locked in. I looked over the lobby after busting this one and I think I ended up having the third highest bounty total. Had a shot at second even. The bounty total led me to play quite carefully after my "fall from grace".
It's funny how humans are wired. My cash ended up being ~6th place but 6th place feels better than getting 10th. Here is a huge hand vs Conor B1 and another unknown pro who ended up finishing 6th.
partypoker - 35000/70000 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
Hero (UTG): 6,369,136
UTG+1: 2,779,054
MP: 4,419,141
MP+1: 4,162,284
CO: 851,134
BTN: 537,302
SB: 3,052,248
BB: 2,696,163
8 players post ante of 8,500, SB posts SB 35,000, BB posts BB 70,000
Pre Flop: (pot: 173,000) Hero has A Q
Hero raises to 147,000, fold, fold, fold, CO raises to 842,634 and is all-in, fold, SB raises to 3,043,748 and is all-in, fold, Hero calls 2,896,748
Flop: (7,068,130, 3 players) 8 9 J
Turn: (7,068,130, 3 players) 8
River: (7,068,130, 3 players) 7
Hero shows A Q (One Pair, Eights)
Main Pot [2,665,902]: (Pre 23%, Flop 30%, Turn 0%)
Side Pot#1 [4,402,228]: (Pre 29%, Flop 51%, Turn 38%)
CO shows 8 8 (Four of a Kind, Eights)
Main Pot [2,665,902]: (Pre 45%, Flop 69%, Turn 100%)
SB shows K A (One Pair, Eights)
Main Pot [2,665,902]: (Pre 32%, Flop 1%, Turn 0%)
Side Pot#1 [4,402,228]: (Pre 71%, Flop 49%, Turn 62%)
SB wins 4,402,228
CO wins 2,665,902
This was with 2 tables left and me chipleading. My brain couldn't quite process the runout in real time since it was a side pot as well. I saw the other guy had Quads on the turn and didn't realize until the hand was over how unfortunate it was to brick here.
Both players had $2K on them. I'm not sure how an elite regular like conor processes the bounty here but I'd be isoing a range that AQs should probably call against. Not sure about other hands I don't think we go too much wider.
I had the lobby open and 2nd and 3rd place ended up having 4M and 6M at one point so this was the spot of the tournament. Cool hand! Ended up after a few orbits of tough play (everyone there almost was playing tough/aggro) making a reshove with KQo and running into KK.
45th place in the $540 1M on WPN for ~$3.2K
It struck me while running deep in this very majestic bird that I had not played a tournament in a very long time that had 6 figures up top. This tournament was paying $190K to first and when there I was 14/100 it started getting really real for me. This was a very exciting run.
The structure started speeding up and I had about 3.5M. I ran QQ into a short 1.3M stack's AA with two minraises of dead money also out there. This was obviously a great spot for me made slightly worse by the fact the shortie was running 8/6 over 50 hands. The next hand I called from the SB vs a 9.5bb MP shove and lost ATo vs JJ. And then an orbit later I put the rest of it in with 99 vs A8cc and couldn't hold. I ran pretty well overall to build the stack and then lost two big pots with QQ and that's usually all of the margin you'll get in these tournaments.
I also finished 10th in an 888 tournament with $6.3k to 1st and a few other assorted finishes.
Overall I feel quite blessed after playing such a big Sunday and having such exciting runs. This is the blessing of running hot two Sundays ago and winning so much. It's also the blessing of running pretty good since I left my job and winning what is realistically more than my expectation. If I was stuck in a downer or something I'd probably be more upset about these finishes. But as long as the EV is good and I'm making money, I can do this forever. And it's making me look into that toxic mindset from afar and try to take steps to address it.
Bonus BBV hand. This was in the $530 discount Whale I probably shouldn't have even played. I realize the good regulars aren't always there at the start and sometimes it's better to just wait 15-20m to see who else enters. The lobby at the time I registered was full of weak "house regular" types. I'm not sure if they're props or bots or what but I see them in $33's too at all hours. Had the table fill up with Romeopro and a few other really good regulars and was not happy with my decision to play.
In terms of strat I play a pretty simplified gameplan in 3b pots and this is one of those spots I'll PIO and see how much it's hurting me to not play differently. I'm rarely this deep in tournaments either so it was a tough one on every street pretty much.
888 Poker - 200/400 Ante 50 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
CO: 116.83 BB
BTN: 123.12 BB
SB: 119.42 BB
Hero (BB): 130.46 BB
UTG: 122.87 BB
UTG+1: 138.01 BB
MP: 132.87 BB
MP+1: 195.66 BB
MP+2: 63.79 BB
9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has K A
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.81 BB, fold, Hero raises to 12.2 BB, BTN calls 9.39 BB
Flop: (26.02 BB, 2 players) 9 4 7
Hero bets 9 BB, BTN calls 9 BB
Turn: (44.02 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero checks, BTN checks
River: (44.02 BB, 2 players) J
Hero bets 12 BB, BTN raises to 101.8 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 89.8 BB
BTN shows 9 T (Straight Flush, Jack High)
(Pre 36%, Flop 75%, Turn 75%)
Hero shows K A (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 64%, Flop 25%, Turn 25%)
BTN wins 247.62 BB
post-Pio edits: I actually played this hand perfectly with the initial set-up I put down! Yay me? Although I might have C/S turn which wouldn't be great. I'm going to rerun the sim with 3(!) flop sizings and see where that gets us in life
I have mixed feelings about Sunday but overall quite positive. EV was again quite high (double digits+), WWSF was solid (48%), and I ran well overall except at the end in the biggest spots. I managed to have a +$5K day despite my deepest finish being 7th!
10th place in the $320 Gladiator for $5200.
This was the tournament I won two weeks ago. I was running super well in this one and locked in. I looked over the lobby after busting this one and I think I ended up having the third highest bounty total. Had a shot at second even. The bounty total led me to play quite carefully after my "fall from grace".
It's funny how humans are wired. My cash ended up being ~6th place but 6th place feels better than getting 10th. Here is a huge hand vs Conor B1 and another unknown pro who ended up finishing 6th.
partypoker - 35000/70000 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
Hero (UTG): 6,369,136
UTG+1: 2,779,054
MP: 4,419,141
MP+1: 4,162,284
CO: 851,134
BTN: 537,302
SB: 3,052,248
BB: 2,696,163
8 players post ante of 8,500, SB posts SB 35,000, BB posts BB 70,000
Pre Flop: (pot: 173,000) Hero has A
Q Hero raises to 147,000, fold, fold, fold, CO raises to 842,634 and is all-in, fold, SB raises to 3,043,748 and is all-in, fold, Hero calls 2,896,748
Flop: (7,068,130, 3 players) 8
9 J Turn: (7,068,130, 3 players) 8
River: (7,068,130, 3 players) 7
Hero shows A
Q (One Pair, Eights)Main Pot [2,665,902]: (Pre 23%, Flop 30%, Turn 0%)
Side Pot#1 [4,402,228]: (Pre 29%, Flop 51%, Turn 38%)
CO shows 8
8 (Four of a Kind, Eights)Main Pot [2,665,902]: (Pre 45%, Flop 69%, Turn 100%)
SB shows K
A (One Pair, Eights)Main Pot [2,665,902]: (Pre 32%, Flop 1%, Turn 0%)
Side Pot#1 [4,402,228]: (Pre 71%, Flop 49%, Turn 62%)
SB wins 4,402,228
CO wins 2,665,902
This was with 2 tables left and me chipleading. My brain couldn't quite process the runout in real time since it was a side pot as well. I saw the other guy had Quads on the turn and didn't realize until the hand was over how unfortunate it was to brick here.
Both players had $2K on them. I'm not sure how an elite regular like conor processes the bounty here but I'd be isoing a range that AQs should probably call against. Not sure about other hands I don't think we go too much wider.
I had the lobby open and 2nd and 3rd place ended up having 4M and 6M at one point so this was the spot of the tournament. Cool hand! Ended up after a few orbits of tough play (everyone there almost was playing tough/aggro) making a reshove with KQo and running into KK.
45th place in the $540 1M on WPN for ~$3.2K
It struck me while running deep in this very majestic bird that I had not played a tournament in a very long time that had 6 figures up top. This tournament was paying $190K to first and when there I was 14/100 it started getting really real for me. This was a very exciting run.
The structure started speeding up and I had about 3.5M. I ran QQ into a short 1.3M stack's AA with two minraises of dead money also out there. This was obviously a great spot for me made slightly worse by the fact the shortie was running 8/6 over 50 hands. The next hand I called from the SB vs a 9.5bb MP shove and lost ATo vs JJ. And then an orbit later I put the rest of it in with 99 vs A8cc and couldn't hold. I ran pretty well overall to build the stack and then lost two big pots with QQ and that's usually all of the margin you'll get in these tournaments.
I also finished 10th in an 888 tournament with $6.3k to 1st and a few other assorted finishes.
Overall I feel quite blessed after playing such a big Sunday and having such exciting runs. This is the blessing of running hot two Sundays ago and winning so much. It's also the blessing of running pretty good since I left my job and winning what is realistically more than my expectation. If I was stuck in a downer or something I'd probably be more upset about these finishes. But as long as the EV is good and I'm making money, I can do this forever. And it's making me look into that toxic mindset from afar and try to take steps to address it.
Bonus BBV hand. This was in the $530 discount Whale I probably shouldn't have even played. I realize the good regulars aren't always there at the start and sometimes it's better to just wait 15-20m to see who else enters. The lobby at the time I registered was full of weak "house regular" types. I'm not sure if they're props or bots or what but I see them in $33's too at all hours. Had the table fill up with Romeopro and a few other really good regulars and was not happy with my decision to play.
In terms of strat I play a pretty simplified gameplan in 3b pots and this is one of those spots I'll PIO and see how much it's hurting me to not play differently. I'm rarely this deep in tournaments either so it was a tough one on every street pretty much.
888 Poker - 200/400 Ante 50 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
CO: 116.83 BB
BTN: 123.12 BB
SB: 119.42 BB
Hero (BB): 130.46 BB
UTG: 122.87 BB
UTG+1: 138.01 BB
MP: 132.87 BB
MP+1: 195.66 BB
MP+2: 63.79 BB
9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has K
A fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.81 BB, fold, Hero raises to 12.2 BB, BTN calls 9.39 BB
Flop: (26.02 BB, 2 players) 9
4 7 Hero bets 9 BB, BTN calls 9 BB
Turn: (44.02 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero checks, BTN checks
River: (44.02 BB, 2 players) J
Hero bets 12 BB, BTN raises to 101.8 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 89.8 BB
BTN shows 9
T (Straight Flush, Jack High)(Pre 36%, Flop 75%, Turn 75%)
Hero shows K
A (Flush, Ace High)(Pre 64%, Flop 25%, Turn 25%)
BTN wins 247.62 BB
post-Pio edits: I actually played this hand perfectly with the initial set-up I put down! Yay me? Although I might have C/S turn which wouldn't be great. I'm going to rerun the sim with 3(!) flop sizings and see where that gets us in life
Last edited by YugiohPro; 03-05-2019 at 03:07 AM.
Reason: PIO edits
03-07-2019
, 10:52 PM
it is crazy to think how long i've been following jae's journey. was probably 17 years ago when I first started reading your TRs on Pojo
best of luck man. enjoyed catching up through the thread. I think once you get Stars back and get on .es, you'll realize how little you actually want to play. I also don't think your decision between chasing HS glory and turning on the money printing machine in games with avg ability ratings under 80 will be tough when you have so many options.
either way, see you at the tables
best of luck man. enjoyed catching up through the thread. I think once you get Stars back and get on .es, you'll realize how little you actually want to play. I also don't think your decision between chasing HS glory and turning on the money printing machine in games with avg ability ratings under 80 will be tough when you have so many options.
either way, see you at the tables
03-09-2019
, 11:23 PM
Quote:
it is crazy to think how long i've been following jae's journey. was probably 17 years ago when I first started reading your TRs on Pojo
best of luck man. enjoyed catching up through the thread. I think once you get Stars back and get on .es, you'll realize how little you actually want to play. I also don't think your decision between chasing HS glory and turning on the money printing machine in games with avg ability ratings under 80 will be tough when you have so many options.
either way, see you at the tables
best of luck man. enjoyed catching up through the thread. I think once you get Stars back and get on .es, you'll realize how little you actually want to play. I also don't think your decision between chasing HS glory and turning on the money printing machine in games with avg ability ratings under 80 will be tough when you have so many options.
either way, see you at the tables
Marty's post is a great segue into the weekly update.
Poker Update: March 10th, Week 10
4 days left until PokerStars.com unlocks for me. I'm very excited to see what this has in store for me. Strongly considering using one of my former bosses as an avatar but I think I'll start with my partner for now and work my way up.. And maybe I'll ask my friend to run a query on me every now and then :P The plan is to win a bunch of money from my former employer though!
I haven't interacted with any of the new changes such as chests and every software update. It'll be quite interesting and I've promised several of my colleagues some detailed user reports. Although I'm a very niche/specialized type of user.
Another week another graph:
I've decided to run the week from Monday to Sunday. This should capture the previous Sunday through Saturday.
ABI this week jumped up $20. I had a massive Tuesday going 2nd in an $88 PKO and winning a $165 on WPN, a $109 PKO on Party, and a $33 Mix Max Turbo all in the same day. Decided the competition was sweet and fired some big boy buy-ins Wednesday. At this point this is just a rinse repeat cycle so I will spare you the angst.
Billy Beane famously said his **** doesn't work in the playoffs. A lot of my **** doesn't work in the highest stakes. The competition gets much better and way more balanced in every spot. I ran quite a few punts against elite competition and had a pretty bad Wednesday.
I had a birthday party on Friday and a wedding on Saturday so I just took a few days off and locked myself in the basement running PIO sims on all of the tough spots on Wednesday. Came back in today (Saturday) feeling fresh oO_D. Just wrapped up today's session. Played all 3 $530's on Party. 2 of them overlaid and the last one came in at 81 Av. Ability. All good spots I think. I had a hefty bounty amount in the $530 and lost a massive pot with a flush vs top set on the turn
It was a frustrating day but we got there in the end. Had this string of finishes:
2nd $55 Gladiator
6th $22 Classico
6th $55 Monsoon
8th 888 $215 PKO
9th $33 Bounty Hunter
10th 888 $109 PKO
11th $100 XTASE
11th $30 Turbo Swordfish
I could write something about how I feel about firing the HS birds but my opinion will probably change tomorrow. I think there's a lot of merit to what Marty is saying and it feels like I will most likely go to a midstakes value pumping route once Stars is unlocked. Maybe save the big boy stuff for Friday/Saturday if I'm having a good week. We'll see.
Again though I was printing to $13K and then it's just a quick dip to $7K once you start getting into the $500's. Career graph for $500+ is not a pretty sight!
While I was one of the not good regs firing most of these, in fairness to me even then I finished 30th in WCOOP Main, 14th in SCOOP Super Tuesday, etc, 25th in WCOOP $2M, etc wah wah. What happens in alternate dimensions? (that is a rhetorical question. given my skill level in this sample the most likely answer is still a dumpster fire).
When you really break it down most of the turbulent times during my lean 2015/2016 years came from playing too high and implementing some strategies that weren't good at all (too much check/calling, not enough reshoving, not enough monkeying around in general). It's nice to be able to see this though I can't quite seem to avoid the high stuff right now.
Results
- 1/55 WPN $165
- 1/135 Party $109 PKO. Tough heads up against a tough regular
- 2/430 $55 Gladiator
- 1st $33 Mix Max
- 2nd $88 888 PKO. Made a bad call heads up against another tough regular
- 6/6/8/9/9/10/11/11 etc in a bunch of other stuff, most of it listed above.
EV Analysis
- EV again in double digits. I ran 5.3 above expectation this week over 19,500 hands and finished 1.4m chips below.
- I don't like playing coy with my EV numbers but I don't see the value in posting them when I'm doing well. I'd rather post the numbers when I'm playing poorly so I can self-flagellate.
Mixing it Up
If you are enjoying this blog or hate-reading it or lurking it and semi-enjoying it while multi-tabling work/adult entertainment/netflix, one thing I'd really appreciate is some more questions! I still monitor the PokerStars MTT Thread (force of habit) and it makes me sad to see so many people posting in there without an answer.
One of the main reasons I started this thread was to help out anyone who had a question or issue but it seems to have limited visibility and the questions dried up. Spread the word if you can, thanks!
Best of luck to all grinders on Sunday I may be going big with the WPN BOSS $2100 $1M and other assorted delights.
03-10-2019
, 09:12 AM
03-11-2019
, 06:24 AM
Enjoying the thread
1) Dependent on field sizes, expected ROI, etc obvs, but what do you think MTT BRM should be in 2019? Stars big field stuff, vs bowls on small sites. These suggested numbers have changed a lot over the years!
2) For what sort of ABI would you say solver work is a requirement? Actually running sims yourself, as opposed to seeing some results in a video
3) Top 3 favourite restaurants
tyty
1) Dependent on field sizes, expected ROI, etc obvs, but what do you think MTT BRM should be in 2019? Stars big field stuff, vs bowls on small sites. These suggested numbers have changed a lot over the years!
2) For what sort of ABI would you say solver work is a requirement? Actually running sims yourself, as opposed to seeing some results in a video
3) Top 3 favourite restaurants
tyty
