arent you the guy that posts in the ssmtt bbv thread every day about how you never win?

I read about the first 26 pages of this thread before I couldn't take it any longer. I had to chime in. It seems that nobody can really grasp the difference between the great players and the mediocre players. Really, seabeast seemed the most knowledgable out of anyone up to this point (page 26) in this thread.

There are many players who have posted in this thread that I could call terrible to their face. But the thing is, they would get extremely defensive and do everything in their power to reverse that on myself and prove to everyone that they really aren't terrible. But why?

If someone calls me terrible, I won't say anything. I'll accept their opinion, and completely go back and look hard into my game. I'll look for any possible leaks I can find, attempt to plug them, and let my future results do the talking.

But the fact of the matter is, 98% of the tournament regulars would get extremely defensive at a statement like that if it were directed at them and go completely out of their way to belittle the person that says something negative about their game. This is an example of being emotionally or mentally insecure.

The other 2% wouldn't care at all. If I called zangbezan, westmenlo, djk, gboro, or zeejustin, johnnybax terrible; they would read it, accept it, and move on. It's because they are so secure with their abilities, and so secure with not letting anything effect them that it doesn't matter to them what other opponents think of their game. They might grin slightly to themselves, go back through their game to make sure there are no balatant leaks that have developed, and comeback better than ever.

Whereas, back to the other 98%, they would be so emotionally and mentally insecure about their game, that they would come up with a long, drawn out post about how they actually are good players and that they aren't really bad. For example, I think a player that has posted in this thread is actually a pretty terrible player. To avoid all the drama, I'm going to leave out his name. I have played with him, and he plays like a complete 5/2rock and plays on complete auto-pilot (similar to probably 98% of the regulars), and doesn't even understand how he's terrible. You see, this last sentence would have offended this player greatly and his stomach would have went into a few knots and he would already be thinking about a long reply to write back to counter my statement. Whereas, he should be going back through his game, watching videos, and getting better so he can comeback as an improved player and let his results do the talking. This proves two points. It proves that 98% of players are weak mentally and emotionally. It also proves that 98% of players have developed dillusioned egos and aren't interested in improving their game. And like MANY have stated in this thread, they just blame variance.

The best illustration I can think of to prove the difference between the great tournament players and the mediocre tournament players is the following:


In this graph, it's a graph of a mediocre cash game player. I've played a lot with him, and he definitly knows all the right players, he's not a fish, he's capable of putting you in tricky situations, and he's not looking to throw his money away. I would say this cash game graph is comparable to the average, mediocre tournament player that sustains a 5-15% ROI over the longrun. (I removed all names to comply with 2p2 rules and regulations).




Now, in the following graph, it's a player that if tableratings didn't exist, you really couldn't even differentiate the skill difference between the above player and the following player. But the fact is, there's huge difference that really isn't visable to the naked eye. It's just a TON of little stuff that adds up to tons and tons of value and dollars over the longrun. I would say confidently, that this graph is equal to tournament players such as the ones I named above (zangbezan, westmenlo, djk, gboro, or zeejustin, johnnybax). Hell, I'll even throw SEABEAST on this list since I think he's a great player and has been an active part of this thread. Going back to the little things that isn't really noticeable to the naked eye, I once saw a screenshot of SEABEAST's tournament lobby after he won a Sunday Major. He posted the picture on his blog the following week. It was of the tournament lobby after he won the Mulligan (i think). One thing I found interesting, is that he had notes on about 15 of the 20 players that you could see on the lobby. THIS is just ONE of the little things that the GREAT players do in order to maximize their EV that the mediocre (5-15% ROI) players are simply ignoring.





I felt that these cash game graphs were a great way to physically see how variance works due to the sample size and similar stakes. I believe they correlate (variance wise) extremely well over to tournaments for the reasons I discussed above. I hope my reasonings also demonstrate how easily a tournament player (who plays like the player in graph 1) could accumulate so much makeup.

Thank You

Guess you forgot the post settings when you made the gimmic?

But not really.

Cool story.

plz, i dont never win and i dont bitch every day. Usually just once a week or after i get brutalized with 5figs on the line. (2 outers with under 35ppl left in mtts that matter, fml story of my life, yadda yadda bs bs).

u dont need to be lucky to beat micros for 40%+ roi.

i'll be playing msmtts and hsmtts soon.

i made my comment (itt) becuz of the 1 guy stating how backing is pointless. That the only people worth backing have rolls. Becuz the only ppl u should back should have great stats for what u desire to back them in, and if they do why would they need to be backed. I have stats for what i am backd for, i have large volume at my limits and have goot stats, due to run bad + life **** i have allways had to withdraw my profits... thus the backing.

/end cool story bro.

[x] lol micro limitz

You're overlooking the fact that it is indeed the small things that differentiate players that play this much volume from one another. The largest mistake that Player A is making is that he doesn't have the skill set necessary to play this amount of volume condensed into such a small time frame by playing I'd assume 24 tables of Nit Ring.

In regards to tournaments and the difference in skill set between accomplished players...

My brother got 10th and 11th respectively in the October and December Full Tilt $500 Million Guarantee. Is he among the best tournament players on the Internet? No. He's probably not even in the top 250. However, if he hadn't lost back to back coinflips when he got 10th, nor lost pair over pair in the next, the perception of him as a poker player to his peers would be much different. He wouldn't me much better than he is now, but he'd be a lot richer, happier and most likely perceived to be much better than he actually is.

Poker is about the small things that add up to mean a whole lot and in the case of tournaments those things aren't immune to bad timing and misfortune. The best players in each respective field do the small things a whole lot better than the others and in a few of the fields (high stakes HU cash, tournaments) they might be a bit luckier. Nevertheless, without that skill set, the bit more luck that they've had wouldn't mean much at all.


Oh... and lol to compare some guy that can't beat nit ring to nano.

Perhaps your missing something

like an apostrophe and an e?

Waaaaaaaaaay too obvious.

I had never seen this thread until it got bumped to the first page, and it's one of the few epic threads I've read all the way through.

I am a cash game players and I have a kind of conflicted relationship with MTTs and the whole variance-fest aspect of tournament play generally...

I really think being backed is bad and -EV long term for most winning players. I just cannot understand why winning high-volume online grinders would want to be backed. I think I agree with seabeast that it's kind of a leak as far as self-confidence or understanding variance/bankroll management.

Now here's the odd/hypocritical part: I have staked people myself and had pretty good experiences with it. I wouldn't want to ever be staked myself but I don't mind being the staker.

I see staking as way more beneficial for the stakers, especially at lower levels. A friend of mine who was a clear winner at lower stakes (below $50) took out his entire roll to pay for a big wedding, fly in family, etc. He wanted to start again but was American (deposit troubles) and didn't have a lot of money anyway and wasn't interested in grinding $5 SNGs or whatever.

The horse got what he needed - a quick bankroll from scratch, some FPPs that he can turn into tourney tickets or bonuses - and I got what I considered a low-risk high-upside short-term investment. I staked him multiple times and the worst result was just breaking even.

Generally I think busto microstakes people on long-term stakes playing $11 turbos are pretty delusional... BUT there are some good opportunities as a staker that arise b/c people have life issues outside of poker than require them to withdraw their roll for big things (weddings/travel/emergencies/health problems). They are still winning players and then there is a nice sweet spot for both horse and stakers where they can both benefit.

Basically staking makes sense to me in only three cases:

1. large live events where the long run is unattainable and the buy-ins are so expensive that very few people are rolled.
2. winning players who for whatever reason need to take out most of their roll and start over
3. People who are winning players but lack respect for their own money - I know one guy in particular who is a total crusher but when it's just his bankroll he has no regard for it and just takes a winning day straight to high stakes cash games. When he's backed by someone he respects, he will never do that. So it's beneficial for him to be backed and forced into BRM.

As far as the whole debate about how large edges really are in tournaments... I'm torn. As a cash game player I see tourney fields as pretty weak, it's unbelievable to play $215 sundays on stars and see people open-limping 44 in the cut-off with 10bb and still obsessed with slowplaying aces.

On the other hand structures kind of suck online so it gets to the point where you can't really have that much edge b/c it's almost impossible to make mistakes. My only real tourney success has been at the deep-stack tourneys on stars, however these are SO deep-stacked that they always take 10+ hours to finish even with small fields and no guarantees so they have their own problems. In other tournaments it just reaches that point where someone has 77 and someone has AQ and that's about it as far as thinking goes.

Anyway thanks to everyone who contributed to this, like Skier I found this a really interesting view "behind the curtain" of the MTT world that I don't know a lot about.

read the bolded followed by the underlined and re-evaluate your statement
lol WAT at the 2nd bolded

ha ha true, I guess it does look contradictory. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though the play is weak, aside from the real droolers it's not too hard for people to understand "my M is 3 SHOVE" and it can't ever really be a big mistake. It's kind of like ratholing in cash games, you get to a point where stacks are so shallow that you don't really need to consider much about your image or their image or anything else except that you have two high cards so shove.

jesus christ i'm not a ratholer, I'm a full stacking reg on stars 200NL. all i'm saying is that short tournament stacks are similar to 20bb poker in cash games.

shrug, the post was supposed to be about backing.

Guess you classify that as a fail then lol!

Nice post verstehen.

+1

but you might want to rephrase it so people don't have to feel like your reaching

You make a good point. The nightly 100r gets pretty stupid because every reg is almost as good as the best 30bb or less and without many fish few people bust so e1s just gambooling from ~300 600 on. I'll still play it when I am on an upswong but mostly for ego/gambooling purposes. Of course in the large field hsmtts, and tougher stuff with a really good structure there's a little more seperation so even if you aren't that +EV there is a much higher ceiling if you work on your game

Hi guys. Didn't want to make a new thread out of this so I thought I'd post it here.

Got a bit of a weird staking situation here. Last summer I agreed to a part-stake for live cash with my live coach. He puts up £2k, I put up £2k, and I keep 75% of any winnings. I lost £3300 of that money, at which point I was low on personal funds, so he agreed to stake me outright, freezing the previous stake. The new stake was him putting up all the money and me keeping 50% of the winnings.

I was ~£2200 in makeup on that stake, until last night. After % swaps and tips, I took home £13175, I think. After we clear the makeup on both stakes, should the excess go 75% to me or 50% to me?

Clearly we should have established what happens in this case beforehand, but we didn't. FWIW he has supported me a lot over the last 3 and a half years, I'd almost certainly be a losing player without him, and is a good friend.

My current thoughts are that I should accept 50% of the excess, and ask him to consider giving me something at his discretion, partly in exchange for agreeing to continue to play on a half-stake with him for the time being even though I'm rolled to play on my own dime.

well, what deal was going on at the time?


seems pretty simple that 50% is what you are entitled too. didnt you get into the mtt through a rakerace er something? and you got into that rakerace while backed by him at 50%?

Yes, we were on the 50/50 deal. He only stakes me for cash but they ran a rakerace and this freeroll was the promotion for it, so obviously any profits go onto the stake.

seems like it should be 50/50 than.


i dont even think you should pay off the other makeup tbh since its a completely different deal.


you guys seem to be friends though so maybe paying off that other makeup is good for you guys, and than split the rest 50/50 and reevaluate the deal

100% only entitled to 50%

And 100% have to pay off the previous makeup,don't know how anyone could think otherwise.

Yeah I think I had things wrong. Thanks for the input guys

Oh and on the theme of this thread, at one point I was about $16k in makeup with my online staker, $1/2-$3/6 plo cash and donkaments from $10 to $200, and live I was at one point £3k in makeup buying in for £50 a buyin at £1/2 nlhe and plo. The former lasted I guess for 3-4 months, the latter about 8 months.