That is more or less a popular opinion (Janda also more or less thinks so) and it is true in a heads up game. But you can lose a lot of money by calling as well as betting and raising too much vs. non-optimal players. You will of course also make money vs. bad play.

The main thing, that matters in practice, is to know the GTO strategy as much as needed in your game and then adjust it when you see you should. In any game, it is how one wins.

Wait....i read the whole thread, and guy claims he can beat micros cash to build a roll up to 10k, takes shots massively over what any micro grinder could or should do, throws in MTTs, finally gets to 10k by winning at NL200, and you lot congratulate him for completing his challenge ?

He just made 10k....but he didn't do it by beating micros or by even proving micros are beatable. What's wrong with you all ?

Next up, guy proves 2nl hold em is beatable for $100k, by playing plo 5k HU.

he started at micros and moved up gradually as anyone should, not play micros all the way up to 10k rofl

lol no

He moved up aggressively but always moved back down when his shots didn't go well.

Didn't he always have 10-12 buy ins at the level he was shot taking?

lol yes

Moving up aggressively is how to beat the raketrap micros. Hardly an epiphany.

I watched his streams in 2018 religiously. It was a thorough demonstration of highly skilled GTO crushing. Imo, that was the point.

If you play like a microgrinder, you will always be a microgrinder.

It is an epiphany to Epiphany77.

if you watched epiphany's talk with apotheosis, the only point epiphany ever tried to make was that microstakes players were not good enough to apply GTO concepts thus they should stick to easy-to-use exploitative strategies while they are learning

It was a good show, stop drinking the haterade bruh!

I'm not hating on him, i'm more pointing out how stupid the people itt are.

I was also deeply disappointed with Doug, why can't everyone crush the micros the right way like epiphany77???

are you implying you are smarter?

You're essentially correct in what you're saying. He showed that micros are a rake trap if you're playing against anyone who has a half-reasonable idea what they're doing. That's why he had to play MTTs and mid stakes cash in order to complete the challenge.

Polk lovers will argue it was because he ran bad at the micros, but anyone with a rational view of things can tell that wasn't the case.

Beating micro stakes cash games proved to be much more difficult than Doug envisioned.
The challenge was taking up way too much of his valuable time as well.
He experimented with different formats; 6-max, HU and tournaments in an effort to accomplish the end goal as quickly and painlessly as possible.

At one point it looked as if he had completely given up on the challenge.
However, people kept posting sh*t about him and this thread motivated/forced him to keep his promise.

Unfortunately, his love for playing the game was fading fast and would soon be extinguished completely.

He was a desperate man, looking for a way out of this self imposed hell.

''WTF can I do?''
''WTF can I do?''
He kept asking himself. Over and over.
He put the same question to Fees, J Mo, Binks, and any son of a b*itch with a set of functioning ears.
But nobody could help him, neither man nor beast.
It was at this moment that he turned to God.
That's right, you heard me.

Douglas Polk struck a deal with the poker gods whereby he would run white hot until his balance on WSOP.com reached $10,000.
This enabled him to embrace a most reckless form of bankroll management.
One step shy of urubu111 flipaments.
In return Doug would have to sacrifice all the winnings from the challenge and he could never play online poker again.

''GG online poker.''

Obviously, because i don't see someone who goes 'i can prove that any average joe can still win at micros !' and then congratulate them on 'winning' when they're buying into $300+ mtt's on a $1k bankroll and playing nl200 with like 8 BI's.

If you genuinely can't see that bigging him up for completing his 'challenge' is borderline spergy then w/e.

You donks don't get it
The bigger part was from $60 to $1k
Than the 1k to 10k, doug wasnt expected to struggle there

And I did the math ant his winrate was 5bb+/100 ish between 100 and 1k, pretty decent streaming without a hud and high rake

Epiphany77 couldnt beat 10 Nl. He tried to move up to that stake and failed many times.

That's why he's not streaming anymore.

Thank you for explaining the joke sir! No joke is funny until someone explains it properly!

Carrel just doesn't know how to communicate his ideas.

Let me sum it up, worrying about balance in certain spots is pointless, no you don't need to try and bluff mega stations (most micro stakes) on the river v a big bet because you "should" be bluffing, they're almost never bluffing in that spot themselves so they have no air you fold out and they're almost always calling.

There you go, this **** GTO perspective is pretty dumb as knowing GTO frequencies and balance helps your own strategy formulation. For example, in a variant I love to play, one of the biggest crushers has a CB of 75% and yes this works, despite the GTO rec being much much lower, but he's not going crazy in everything which would be true "**** GTO" fashion, his xr isn't 25%, his probe isn't 80%, his open isn't 100%, his 3b isn't 50%. He has found an exploit (which I personally don't think is an exploit based on my population database) and now uses it with success.

Now this could be for marketing which is FINE, but I don't think CC needs it as he makes good content tbh, unfortunately now he has pigeon holed himself like Douglas and honestly Douglas didn't start his own challenge by saying "XYZ person effectively sucks." So yeah, he's probably never going to hear the end of this.