"Thanks @oynutter. I think you may well be onto something there with the graveyard shift bounty hunters - especially if your sharkscope graph is anything to go by!"
Nice one duesenberg, a good roi is easily achievable targeting the smaller fields. I know this from expeirience, I'm not a good player at all, but the "spot da loony" game kicks in at around 11.15pm, and earlier at weekends. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of good players that should have gone to bed, but have decided to donate 2 quid, or a fiver to the cause
After Thursdays spanking at heads up cash, Friday was much kinder. I found myself on a few particularly wild tables and was fortunately able to make the most of it. Two fairly short but lucrative sessions pulled in a total profit of +£195.18 to bring me back into the black for cash games.
Just the two tourneys for me in the evening - the mega stack and, of course, a £2.20 deepy. No glory once again but I did manage a small cash in each, finishing in 15th and 8th place respectively. At one point I was hoping to have a truly epic tale to tell from the mega stack. Just after the bubble had burst I got it all in vs a player I just about had covered but lost a flip and was left with a mere 75 chips - the blinds were 1.6k by this point so not much hope with a 0.05bb stack. A few orbits of monumental run good later I found myself sat on a 50k chip stack. Serious hope was beginning to build and I was starting to think my name was on this one, but it sadly wasn't meant to be. Would certainly have been one to remember though! Tournament profits totted up to +£10.64.
By the way, am I right to assume that your name is taken from the most annoying Star Wars character ever devised, or are you actually something like Jonathan Jason Binks in real life?
By the way, am I right to assume that your name is taken from the most annoying Star Wars character ever devised, or are you actually something like Jonathan Jason Binks in real life?
so it was Jacob my son and Jay for me then Binks as in poker bink term, then Jacob had the great pleasure in telling me it was some ugly creature from star wars which I have never seen lol, so big fail on my part but still like the name
By the way, am I right to assume that your name is taken from the most annoying Star Wars character ever devised, or are you actually something like Jonathan Jason Binks in real life?
so it was Jacob my son and Jay for me then Binks as in poker bink term, then Jacob had the great pleasure in telling me it was some ugly creature from star wars which I have never seen lol, so big fail on my part but still like the name
Nice bit of fun in the mega stack tournament with you, I did have the chance to play I did offer you the chance to play 1 of my valuable 1010 against me but you folded. What made you fold that time, sick of coming up against 1010
I took the day off from all things poker related on Saturday and we also had some guests over on Sunday afternoon, so not a huge amount played since the last update. I did manage to get back on the grind come Sunday night though and inch a touch closer towards that far distant £10k target.
Tournament wise I just played two £2.20 deepstacks (of course!) and the mini. All saw a mid-stage exit unfortunately but losing an all in pre in the mini with my KK vs 77 for a pretty significant stack left me feeling a little salty. The lovely TommyD then finished me off when his AQ out-flopped my JJ. I must confess that I'm struggling to get myself motivated to register for many of these at the moment and if feels like the novelty is wearing off a little. Maybe I'll give tourney's a miss entirely for a few days and see if I feel more enthused after that. -£15.40 on the night.
Fortunately cash games were a bit more successful and, after feeling a general sense of malaise towards cash come the end of last year, there are signs of my mojo returning on this front. Results were pleasing but, more importantly, I felt it was the best I had played for quite a while - especially vs a couple of particularly tricky opponents. Sometimes results can be good by simply having the cards turn in your favour and I'll readily acknowledge when that is the case, but last night I felt like I really 'earned' my money which is the most satisfying way to win in my book. Cash profits from the night totalled +£135.58.
Increase MTT volume and it will get more fun/less painful
With the solid way that you think about the game, if you decided to apply yourself to MTTs and work on different aspects of them, you would do well in them for sure IMO
Going back to your post about returns There are good returns to be had from lots of different forms of MTT poker. Key thing is an ability to adjust to the format you are playing. Often complaints about certain formats is because don't want to adjust and want to play the same way they have always played. The game changes over time and we must adjust to these trends and understand why certain plays are being done. Personally I prefer rebuy tournaments and I believe I have my best ROI in these games over all sites but if they aren't popular there is nothing I can do about it. I believe you are better playing in a format you don't like as much against worst players. No point in saying I like rebuys and will only play them if it means I play against the top 100 players in the country as I would get destroyed! Also with MTTs you need to think about field size and variance. Sometimes a slightly worse ROI but smaller fields is a lot better for us mentally.
MTTs are all about volume, I made a post on Trebor's diary about this last year which shows how a bad MTT stretch can last for a long time but isn't actually that many MTTs compared to the higher volume players.
Volume is a big reason. Looking at last month (I excluded sats) and games played was
68trebor 47 scotty 388 MB 435 lool 671
Your games played for the year is 366 which is less than any of us played last month. It means the equivalent of a bad couple of weeks for one of us is months for you.
Higher volume which will mean you put yourself in more deep spots more often and will make you more excited about MTTs. You are a thinking player and I think you will enjoy the different aspects to MTTs once you put yourself in these spots more often.
Going back to your post about returns There are good returns to be had from lots of different forms of MTT poker. Key thing is an ability to adjust to the format you are playing. Often complaints about certain formats is because don't want to adjust and want to play the same way they have always played. The game changes over time and we must adjust to these trends and understand why certain plays are being done. Personally I prefer rebuy tournaments and I believe I have my best ROI in these games over all sites but if they aren't popular there is nothing I can do about it. I believe you are better playing in a format you don't like as much against worst players. No point in saying I like rebuys and will only play them if it means I play against the top 100 players in the country as I would get destroyed! Also with MTTs you need to think about field size and variance. Sometimes a slightly worse ROI but smaller fields is a lot better for us mentally.
MTTs are all about volume, I made a post on Trebor's diary about this last year which shows how a bad MTT stretch can last for a long time but isn't actually that many MTTs compared to the higher volume players.
Volume is a big reason. Looking at last month (I excluded sats) and games played was
68trebor 47 scotty 388 MB 435 lool 671
Your games played for the year is 366 which is less than any of us played last month. It means the equivalent of a bad couple of weeks for one of us is months for you.
Higher volume which will mean you put yourself in more deep spots more often and will make you more excited about MTTs. You are a thinking player and I think you will enjoy the different aspects to MTTs once you put yourself in these spots more often.
Thanks for the post Matt - some very wise words indeed. I'm beginning to have my suspicions that you just might know a thing or two about this MTT malarkey .
I completely agree with you about the volume thing. I was actually putting in a little more MTT volume at the start of this month (prior to getting this diary going) but it has dropped off a bit since. So far in January I have played 114 MTT's. Whilst that is pretty insignificant and far less than I actually have the time or capabilities to grind, it is more than I will have played in total over the previous 15 years, so it's a start at least!
There is a bit of a psychological barrier here which I think I'm struggling to get past - I hate having a losing session. As a successful cash game grinder I have grown accustomed to the luxury of finding that more often than not, I will finish a day in profit (even if it's just a tiny one). The increased variance attached to playing MTT's is effecting my motivation to play them as I believe there is a greater likelihood that I will finish with a loss. I know this is just silly and that when you have a good day in MTT's you have a really good day, but I'm trying to be honest with myself here. When I combine that with the fact that I still prefer the deeper stacked play of cash games, it explains why my MTT volume has been tailing off. These are flaws in my overall mental game and so represent a leak like any other that I will need to address somehow over time - especially given that the bolded part above from your last post was a principal factor in looking to add MTT's into my play in the first place.
I wasn't really intending to play on Monday as I was feeling absolutely knackered but, as I'd so much been enjoying participating in the Triple Takedown challenge each week, I decided to login and just play those. Events 1 and 3 saw uneventful mid-stage exits but, low and behold, I actually managed to fend off 146 competitors to win event 2! Having had a few deep runs over the past couple of weeks it feels great to finally go all the way in one. Although this tourney probably has one the lowest financial returns for a 1st place (it's a £1 buy in event and I got £40.42 for 1st), I'm hopeful the boost to the confidence will prove far more significant than the boost to the bankroll . Total tourney profit on the night was £35.42
Monday also saw a bit of rakeback to add to the kitty. I earned 1,102 points last week (slowly improving there!) for £13.77 in rewards payments and also got £10 from the pentagon promo.
My mindset is that I make £x or x% per MTT I play. Whether I win or lose on any night doesn't matter. Results over a day is just a small snapshot of what is going on. Last year on sky (based on scope) I had 1 breakeven day 141 losing days 156 winning days
Lool had 57% winning days
With the nature of MTT payouts you will have big winning days but lots of small winning/small losing sessions. As you play more MTTs I think you will get more effected by mistakes when deep or by not closing out MTTs.
It's been a couple of days since my last update which has mostly been due to having little to report. The majority of my play has been focused on cash games and it's been slow going really. Not particularly swingy stuff (which is easier on the stress levels at least!), just lots of up a bit, down a bit, and then back up a bit type sessions. I have managed to inch a little further forward since the last update though with total cash game profits coming in at +£77.11.
Tourney volume has been almost non-existent with the exception of jumping in to a few £2.20 deepstacks here and there resulting in a total loss of -£2.12. Plenty of deep runs in these once more but my moment of glory just won't seem to come. I still have faith though and have vowed to buy myself a special treat once victory is secured! On a final note, I was lucky enough to win a free £10 MTT ticket in this weeks prize draw so will be forced to jump into something slightly more interesting over the next few days .
It feels like slightly slow going at the moment but I am rather impatient and also quite competitive - even if it's just with myself. I'm certainly ahead of schedule though and (based on the first 14 days of this challenge) if I can continue at this pace I'll hit the £10k mark on October 1st, which just so happens to be my birthday .
As a cash table player with poor patience and competitiveness MTT poker will be a difficult thing, you can use your strong cash game of poker at the early stages of an MTT and the mid stages of an MTT won't be too bad if you've built a decent chip stack but things become nasty in the late stages of an MTT, stacks are 20-30BB, varience can have a massive effect of the chipstacks and every BB you lose can be costly.
I've poor patience and a competitve manner at times myself, my yearly target has been divided into 12 smaller monthly targets, this months target has been reached already so I'm now calm and relaxed playing poker for total fun. I might be trying to be an MTT player but right now I think of cash as my main competitive and skilled game, MTT poker is a patient learning game for the future. It would be great to see MTT cash help me build on my target but any money I gain from that is a side pot, the main pot is cash poker.
Comments
"Thanks @oynutter. I think you may well be onto something there with the graveyard shift bounty hunters - especially if your sharkscope graph is anything to go by!"
Nice one duesenberg, a good roi is easily achievable targeting the smaller fields. I know this from expeirience, I'm not a good player at all, but the "spot da loony" game kicks in at around 11.15pm, and earlier at weekends. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of good players that should have gone to bed, but have decided to donate 2 quid, or a fiver to the cause
After Thursdays spanking at heads up cash, Friday was much kinder. I found myself on a few particularly wild tables and was fortunately able to make the most of it. Two fairly short but lucrative sessions pulled in a total profit of +£195.18 to bring me back into the black for cash games.
Just the two tourneys for me in the evening - the mega stack and, of course, a £2.20 deepy. No glory once again but I did manage a small cash in each, finishing in 15th and 8th place respectively. At one point I was hoping to have a truly epic tale to tell from the mega stack. Just after the bubble had burst I got it all in vs a player I just about had covered but lost a flip and was left with a mere 75 chips - the blinds were 1.6k by this point so not much hope with a 0.05bb stack. A few orbits of monumental run good later I found myself sat on a 50k chip stack. Serious hope was beginning to build and I was starting to think my name was on this one, but it sadly wasn't meant to be. Would certainly have been one to remember though! Tournament profits totted up to +£10.64.
Best of luck folks.
Progress so far:
Cash: +£146.77
MTT's: +£114.33
Rakeback: +£21.16
Total: +£282.26
By the way, am I right to assume that your name is taken from the most annoying Star Wars character ever devised, or are you actually something like Jonathan Jason Binks in real life?
What made you fold that time, sick of coming up against 1010
I took the day off from all things poker related on Saturday and we also had some guests over on Sunday afternoon, so not a huge amount played since the last update. I did manage to get back on the grind come Sunday night though and inch a touch closer towards that far distant £10k target.
Tournament wise I just played two £2.20 deepstacks (of course!) and the mini. All saw a mid-stage exit unfortunately but losing an all in pre in the mini with my KK vs 77 for a pretty significant stack left me feeling a little salty. The lovely TommyD then finished me off when his AQ out-flopped my JJ. I must confess that I'm struggling to get myself motivated to register for many of these at the moment and if feels like the novelty is wearing off a little. Maybe I'll give tourney's a miss entirely for a few days and see if I feel more enthused after that. -£15.40 on the night.
Fortunately cash games were a bit more successful and, after feeling a general sense of malaise towards cash come the end of last year, there are signs of my mojo returning on this front. Results were pleasing but, more importantly, I felt it was the best I had played for quite a while - especially vs a couple of particularly tricky opponents. Sometimes results can be good by simply having the cards turn in your favour and I'll readily acknowledge when that is the case, but last night I felt like I really 'earned' my money which is the most satisfying way to win in my book. Cash profits from the night totalled +£135.58.
Progress so far:
Cash: +£282.35
MTT's: +£98.93
Rakeback: +£21.16
Total: +£402.44
Good work Dues, you are getting there, keep it going.
With the solid way that you think about the game, if you decided to apply yourself to MTTs and work on different aspects of them, you would do well in them for sure IMO
There are good returns to be had from lots of different forms of MTT poker. Key thing is an ability to adjust to the format you are playing. Often complaints about certain formats is because don't want to adjust and want to play the same way they have always played. The game changes over time and we must adjust to these trends and understand why certain plays are being done.
Personally I prefer rebuy tournaments and I believe I have my best ROI in these games over all sites but if they aren't popular there is nothing I can do about it. I believe you are better playing in a format you don't like as much against worst players. No point in saying I like rebuys and will only play them if it means I play against the top 100 players in the country as I would get destroyed!
Also with MTTs you need to think about field size and variance. Sometimes a slightly worse ROI but smaller fields is a lot better for us mentally.
MTTs are all about volume, I made a post on Trebor's diary about this last year which shows how a bad MTT stretch can last for a long time but isn't actually that many MTTs compared to the higher volume players. Higher volume which will mean you put yourself in more deep spots more often and will make you more excited about MTTs. You are a thinking player and I think you will enjoy the different aspects to MTTs once you put yourself in these spots more often.
I completely agree with you about the volume thing. I was actually putting in a little more MTT volume at the start of this month (prior to getting this diary going) but it has dropped off a bit since. So far in January I have played 114 MTT's. Whilst that is pretty insignificant and far less than I actually have the time or capabilities to grind, it is more than I will have played in total over the previous 15 years, so it's a start at least!
There is a bit of a psychological barrier here which I think I'm struggling to get past - I hate having a losing session. As a successful cash game grinder I have grown accustomed to the luxury of finding that more often than not, I will finish a day in profit (even if it's just a tiny one). The increased variance attached to playing MTT's is effecting my motivation to play them as I believe there is a greater likelihood that I will finish with a loss. I know this is just silly and that when you have a good day in MTT's you have a really good day, but I'm trying to be honest with myself here. When I combine that with the fact that I still prefer the deeper stacked play of cash games, it explains why my MTT volume has been tailing off. These are flaws in my overall mental game and so represent a leak like any other that I will need to address somehow over time - especially given that the bolded part above from your last post was a principal factor in looking to add MTT's into my play in the first place.
I wasn't really intending to play on Monday as I was feeling absolutely knackered but, as I'd so much been enjoying participating in the Triple Takedown challenge each week, I decided to login and just play those. Events 1 and 3 saw uneventful mid-stage exits but, low and behold, I actually managed to fend off 146 competitors to win event 2! Having had a few deep runs over the past couple of weeks it feels great to finally go all the way in one. Although this tourney probably has one the lowest financial returns for a 1st place (it's a £1 buy in event and I got £40.42 for 1st), I'm hopeful the boost to the confidence will prove far more significant than the boost to the bankroll
Monday also saw a bit of rakeback to add to the kitty. I earned 1,102 points last week (slowly improving there!) for £13.77 in rewards payments and also got £10 from the pentagon promo.
Progress so far:
Cash: +£282.35
MTT's: +£134.35
Rakeback: +£44.93
Total: +£461.63
Last year on sky (based on scope) I had
1 breakeven day
141 losing days
156 winning days
Lool had 57% winning days
With the nature of MTT payouts you will have big winning days but lots of small winning/small losing sessions. As you play more MTTs I think you will get more effected by mistakes when deep or by not closing out MTTs.
It's been a couple of days since my last update which has mostly been due to having little to report. The majority of my play has been focused on cash games and it's been slow going really. Not particularly swingy stuff (which is easier on the stress levels at least!), just lots of up a bit, down a bit, and then back up a bit type sessions. I have managed to inch a little further forward since the last update though with total cash game profits coming in at +£77.11.
Tourney volume has been almost non-existent with the exception of jumping in to a few £2.20 deepstacks here and there resulting in a total loss of -£2.12. Plenty of deep runs in these once more but my moment of glory just won't seem to come. I still have faith though and have vowed to buy myself a special treat once victory is secured! On a final note, I was lucky enough to win a free £10 MTT ticket in this weeks prize draw so will be forced to jump into something slightly more interesting over the next few days
Progress so far:
Cash: +£359.46
MTT's: +£132.23
Rakeback: +£44.93
Total: +£536.62
Nice work Dues, its n ambitious target but I'm sure you'll get there.
Presumably another few bob to come this week from Rewards Money & Pentagon, too. It all adds up.
It feels like slightly slow going at the moment but I am rather impatient and also quite competitive - even if it's just with myself. I'm certainly ahead of schedule though and (based on the first 14 days of this challenge) if I can continue at this pace I'll hit the £10k mark on October 1st, which just so happens to be my birthday
I've poor patience and a competitve manner at times myself, my yearly target has been divided into 12 smaller monthly targets, this months target has been reached already so I'm now calm and relaxed playing poker for total fun. I might be trying to be an MTT player but right now I think of cash as my main competitive and skilled game, MTT poker is a patient learning game for the future. It would be great to see MTT cash help me build on my target but any money I gain from that is a side pot, the main pot is cash poker.
I've finally won a £2.20 deepstack!!!
Be nice to move on with the rest of my life now
Will do a proper update in the next day or two.