Here's a hand from the 1915 £500 RB B/Hunter that had me stumped. We started this hand on the money bubble. I can't put him on a hand when he check-calls flop and leads turn for 2x pot. I can't imagine them playing a flopped flush this way, and playing a straight this way seems moderately suicidal with a three spade flop. My best guess is he thinks I have a flush draw or a pair most of the time and is trying to get me off it with a worse hand. I think I would have called if the turn didn't complete straights. Had absolutely no idea what to do here in the moment so I just folded. (Who was it who said they'd rather make a bad fold than a bad call?) Still can't decide what the **** happened here.
(Editing this to add: I've just run this through HRC and I can probably just jam 66 preflop chipEV-wise--it's marginally profitable, assuming everyone is playing correctly--but given how marginal it is, I doubt it's correct to do so with ICM involved. I don't know for sure and I don't have enough information now to run that. If I had covered the big blind I might have been more tempted but I think a standard open is better in this case.)
Doubled up off the same player a few hands later and was chip leader for a little while. Lost most of my stack trying to bluff-catch vs a player I'm not familiar with. He limped to me in the SB with 95o--don't remember stacks but we're both over 20bb I think--flop came 22Q, we both check, turn is a 5, he bets I call, river is a 6, he bets again. I called because I didn't think he'd play a Q this way and had A-high most of the time and I was right: he had A2. Should have folded in retrospect but I was feeling pretty spicy in the moment.
Final hand: Three-handed in the BB with about 7bb, BTN is the infamous @chicknMelt who limps and I check A7. Flop 755, they bet, I jam, they show TT. Not sure I'd do anything differently there. Don't really like jamming it pre, even though it's likely the "right" play, because I feel like this particular player is never limping without a good reason and is probably trapping here vs my short BB quite often. Given that rationale I could have considered folding but that just seemed weak.
Feel pretty good about how I played this overall and got all the way to the money without needing a rebuy, which is always a treat. Arguably made mistakes in these three hands but otherwise can't think of any other major goofs.
In other news, I am looking forward to playing some Las Vegas satellites. My wife and I had hoped to honeymoon in Las Vegas when we married last year but couldn't quite make it work so that would be a nice treat for us. Please keep that in mind if you see me in a satellite and take it easy on me.
Here's a chart I've tried to keep in mind as I've been playing the past few weeks. It's the output of a tournament variance calculator, which calculates a cumulative likelihood function for the results of a defined series of tournaments. I've plugged in £5.50 tournaments with an average 100 runners paying 15% of the field and a 20% ROI, which is a slight lowball on my true ROI (always good to be conservative with these things), and estimated that I will play about 600 of these over the course of a year, which again is probably a bit of a lowball. That is what the calculator comes back with after simulating that 1,000 times. And here's some random samples from that simulation:
On average I'm going to win about 600 quid but there remains approximately a 9% chance that I will come out at a loss. I think poker players more than anyone know how easy it is to lose a 90% flip. The worst run of this simulation had me ending up down £600. Heartwarming stuff. But the real eye-opener here is the confidence intervals. Here they are:
99.7% of the time I'm going to end up somewhere between £600 quid in the hole or up £2,300. That is an absolutely massive range of possible outcomes, and that's the simulation's most confident prediction. (In truth, the high value MTT's this thread is ostensibly diarising have at least 200 runners, which only serves to increase that gap.)
Absolute mug's game, these tournaments are.
Anyway, this is how I perk myself up when things aren't going my way. It's hard to tell in the moment if we're running bad or simply playing bad but it's comforting to know that even if I was playing my absolute A-game it's still possible to be losing for an extended period of time.
On the other hand, I'm really pleased with how calm and focused I've remained in a week where I've lost over £100. In context, and with these calculations in mind, that's sod all. But in absolute terms, it's 20 buy-ins and almost an entire fortnight of play, which is discouraging to say the least. There was a time where I would be going out of my mind over this kind of loss. But it happens, and it's very much part of the game.
All of this misery is only compounded by other personal difficulties I won't be going into detail about. School is hard and owning small, furry animals with short lifespans is harder. We're two guinea pigs down this month, one of which was only a few weeks old, which is more heartbreaking than I ever expected it to be. Had no interest in pigs until my wife talked me into buying her two.
As for results: Needless to say, I have won f*ck all lately and I'm on a bit of a losing streak. I put a good run in on a £2 Bounty Hunter last night but nothing more interesting than that. Pretty **** standard at this point that I was all-in on the final hand of that with by far the best hand and managed to lose, but that's random numbers for you. Did well in the Mini Avenger with no rebuys needed but didn't make the money or any bounties. It's annoying that this run is coming at a time where I'm studying poker more than ever and genuinely feel like my game is considerably improving but that's the way it goes sometimes. Water off a duck's back, mate.
Not giving a **** is an easy adjustment to make. Something else I've done is lower my ABI and volume to avoid losing too much of my bankroll, since I kind of had my heart set on this being my first no deposit year. Had to withdraw a few quid to cover vets bills but otherwise fine on that front. I'm only occasionally playing the Mini Mains right now, not even bothering with satellites, doing much fewer £5+'s, and trying to stock up on £1 RB cashes. If I ever recover, I'll be back on the original aims of this thread.
Will end this with a recommendation for anyone who struggles with tilt at times like these. Jared Tendler's Mental Game of Poker is one of the best poker books I've ever read. Get yourself a copy and read it twice.
Not happy. Took my first shot at a main event in a while last night and it went very well, all the way until I busted.
Insightful analysis here. It was good until I lost all of my chips. Fascinating.
It was an absolute dream set-up all the way. I played a direct satellite and it couldn't have been easier. I got to the final four without a sweat (two seats and a third place cash booby prize up for grabs) and felt the other three were playing awfully. A highlight was when the person with a 2x chiplead over the rest of us called off half of his stack with a gutshot and missed. He ended up bubbling with nothing. The new chip leader proceeded to limp everything with a face card and c-bet every flop, ultimately evening out the stacks. People really don't seem to know how to play satellites. Anyway, I won. All-in Ax vs Kx, we hold and we're in business.
Had an absolute dream of a starting table in the main event, loaded with green rings of fishiness and not a single reg. One player in particular gifted me more than a full double up over the course of three hands where he called a raise or 3-bet OOP and decided to donk into me and keep betting for three streets. The first time he had a small pair on a board full of face cards, the second time he had top pair vs my better top pair, and I don't know what he had the third time because I called down with the nuts up to the river where I min-raised him all in and he folded with something like a fraction of the pot left behind. It amazes me that people will spend £33 on a poker tournament and play like this. This chap managed to rebuild fairly well just down to raw aggression but eventually and inevitably got owned.
At this point we're at around 2x average stack with a considerable chip lead over the rest of the table and it's only a few orbits in.
My first and only obvious mistake, I think, was a bit of a bet-sizing goof that I make more often than I'd like. On the river, I've got the effective nuts with a full house and two callers. The late position villain has just over half pot behind but I haven't noticed that yet because I'm preoccupied trying to decide what size to bet on a board that doesn't seem to make many strong hands possible. I eventually settle for a little under half pot and immediately realised my size leaves the late position villain with about 2bb if he calls. Stupid! He does call, I win the pot and miss out on his sizeable bounty. Dropped the ball there. Someone else got his bounty and he immediately rebought. Whoops.
Other than that, I couldn't have hoped for a better run. By the mid stages I had 3x the stack of the rest of my table, who were all playing terribly, and was comfortably in the top 15 overall with a few bounties secured. Having a look in the lobby, most of the good regs seemed to be short-stacked or busto and it was starting to seem like I should be able to get myself an FT here.
Then the table change of death.
Another table full of fish and unknowns, plus one well-known reg who was chip leader. The reg had a fairly obvious strategy that I wasn't too troubled by (shots fired!) but didn't get many playable hands against him. Unfortunately I was pretty card dead by this point. I got a full double up full house over full house, taking me up to 80-odd blinds and third place with 40-ish left (21 paid) but drained chips pretty fast after that. Very card dead and missing every board, bluffs not getting through, combined with more preflop aggression than I'd seen so far.
Down to about 30bb now with 29ish left and in the middle of the pack. One player in particular who had position on me seemed to be 3-betting all my BTN opens from the BB. Not a player I've ever seen and they don't have a public sharkscope, but no reason to believe they're a particularly strong player and they were playing in a fairly straightforward way so I'd tended towards giving them the benefit of the doubt.
And then this hand, pasted below. I messed up big time here.
I opened on the button with AJo, they once again 3bet to 4.5x. I need to fold here. It's as simple as that. I've been sitting here trying to write myself into thinking calling or maybe even jamming is fine but it's not.
- If I believe this player is a weak amateur, and I do, they probably have a strong 3-betting range, especially when they 4.5x it. I have ~30% equity at best against that kind of range and I'm frequently dominated. - Against a more balanced BB vs BTN RFI range (according to charts provided by Jonathan Little) I've got around 55% equity but I absolutely do not believe this player is 3-betting me that wide. If I take the absolute junk out of that range, leaving the usual stuff and some suited connectors I get up 50% but I don't even believe this player is 3-betting suited connectors. And since this player used a comically large sizing I don't think it's likely they have this sort of stuff in mind at all and just have the nuts most of the time. - Against someone more balanced, it's clearly worth considering 4-bet jamming. Against someone who is a moron, I would consider 4bet-jamming and hoping to get called by something like ATs or 99. But as noted, this person is unlikely to be balanced and I don't think they're a moron. - If I call, I only have a PSB left and I have to jam or fold post and be left under 25bb. - I can't reasonably expect to flop any truly safe hands or draws. Pairing my ace isn't necessarily good since I lose to AA, AK and AQ and I still lose to overpairs if I pair my jack. Best case scenario is flopping a straight but that will almost never happen.
I think this is one of those spots that separates good players from bad players. It looks like a nice hand but it's a fairly easy fold when you put all the pieces together. But I hadn't seen a flop for about a year at this point so I made a frustrated call. Even on the flop it's incredibly obvious they beat top pair and I probably could have found a fold with a bit more in the time bank. I clearly had a good read on this player and should have gone with my gut.
Busted 29th with two bounties, 8 away from the money. Although I made a bad call at the end it's encouraging that my instinctive response was pretty much spot on. It's just a shame that I ignored it. Although it didn't end well, this was a pretty good confidence boost, especially after a bit of a dry spell of late. I feel like I can do reasonably well against this field. Next time.
@NOSTRI your analysis seems pretty good to me, you know it's a fold pre and even flopping as well as you did just put the nail in the coffin.
I think AJ is one of those hands we can fold to a 4 bet pre 90% of the time, especially if we started the hand 30+ bb deep, the 4 better covers us and we're not far off the money. But then I'm rubbish.
At last, an encouraging update. Just came tenth in the Mini Gold Rush for about 70 quid including £40 in booties. It was actually a pretty garbage result considering I went into the final ten in first place by a small margin but things didn't go my way on the table I got moved to once we were down to 12. A couple of weak players but very few playable hands. Stacks evened out after a few orbits and I think the table average came down to around 15bb. Not my favourite playing conditions. Turbos are generally a weak area for me and I definitely struggled here. I like to play postflop but there's not much room for postflop play with such short stacks. Not something I plan to do much work on though as my overall strategy is to just not play turbos and I'm happy enough with that. Fortunately I believe only one of the Mini/Mains is a turbo.
The only hand I have any real regrets about was my last one. I was down to about 12bb but still in 4th or 5th with ten left. Got A7o in the CO and banged it in vs the big blind. Debated it for a moment or two but I think it's basically not that bad. I probably need to be a bit tighter with ICM especially when the player in the big blind has shown a propensity to call rather light (I think that makes offsuit aces better actually) and I'm not sure if these offsuit aces should still be jams. He had TT this time and managed to flop a set. Probably could have found a better spot but with stacks getting so short I'd rather give myself a chance to have a big stack on the FT than just blind out so I'm not going to worry about it. Will look it up in ICMizer tomorrow and see what the poker gods think.
Played well overall, ran well on all my flips until the final one, not much else to say about it.
Screenshot included for posterity as I believe it's the first time I've been in possession of over a million chips on this site.
In other news, I'm currently in self-isolation with a bad cough and lots of free time so I tried my luck on some DYMs this morning. Stuck to £5's and £3's which were superbly soft and it went fine but dear god is it f*cking boring. Won't be bothering with that long-term.
Here's hoping I don't die before I meet some of this thread's goals.
Just a few notes, nothing much to do with anything. Going mad in self-isolation.
- Have just come back from a quarter of a big blind in a £5 BH with 20-odd left to 2nd place going into the final table. Run good mode activated! Took 4th in the end after running into @Allan23 with aces. Jammy git. - Prize pools are magnificent right now. This £500 GTD has a £900 prize pool. Saw the biggest I've ever seen on the £1 RB earlier. Loving it. - People abusing other players at the tables makes me sad. Stop tapping the tank, muppets.
Having seriously mixed feelings about this whole lockdown thing. If I was alone, I think I'd be in heaven. I'm a hermit at the best of times and generally enjoy my own company. But it's different when you're being told to stay at home and have a wife to take care of.
University is shut down (though the bu**ers still expect me to hand in my assignments) and all the freelancing I was doing has dried up. My wife is stuck working from home with me, which, as an outgoing, sociable person (opposite of me, then) she hates. She's also facing the prospect of being laid off as work for the startup she works for is drying up, which is increasing stress levels. I'm also putting in a lot of emotional work keeping her level-headed, which I don't mind but it's taking it's toll. We're both very anxious about Coronovirus since we both have conditions that make us vulnerable and see people being morons all around us. We wandered into town for some bread the day after the lockdown went in to effect and there were people everywhere. Stories on the news about people enjoying the weather. It's the height of stupidity when 20-somethings with no underlying conditions are dying. If the wife's work situation gets any worse I'm going to end up looking for a job at a supermarket (no UC eligibility for students, hooray) which is going to put my stress levels through the roof.
Frankly, I can't think of anything worse than staring at a screen counting outs at the moment and I've barely played anything in recent weeks. It feels silly because this is the closest thing to a poker gold rush I'll ever see and there will probably never be so much dead money on Sky again, never mind that I'd like to get into some UKOPS MTTs.
I think I'm looking at taking a break of up to a week to focus on other things. I'll probably try and get some UKOPS satellites in and maybe some Mini Mains, but not much more. I've actually found studying poker in a dedicated manner quite rewarding this week and I think I'll lean into that. RIO and Poker Coaching have made a bunch of their materials free this week and I'm spending a lot of time digging into those, which have previously been unaffordable. I'm also challenging myself to contribute more to hand discussions on here as it helps clarify my thinking, reinforce some concepts, and has the bonus of sometimes helping other people out. I might also write about some of what I've been learning on this thread, on the same basis that writing things out is a great way to clarify your thinking.
I also did something a little compulsive and withdrew a bunch of the money I had on Unibet and Stars and bought a Switch. I struggle to amuse myself when I'm not playing poker or doing school work and I've been desperate for a Switch for a long time. Although it's a large chunk of my overall poker bankroll I'm considering it an investment in the sense that I won't be punting off so much playing poker just because I'm bored in MTTs that aren't really worth it, like the morning £5's.
So that's me right now. I'm off to study satellite strategy. Here's a cheeky little 3%-er I hit in last night's rewards freeroll. I'm sure Misterpj will get a kick out of it.
Hope things pick up for you. Have been in similar-ish situation (obviously nothing is too similar to the current situ) maybe three years ago and trying to play MTTs with emotional stress is one of the worst feelings I've experienced. Supermarket job sounds infinitely more appealing tbh if you need some money quickly.
Cool that you're taking advantage of the RIO stuff. One thing that helps me with study is to make a graph in excel of the number of hours of study I've done each week. Find it really motivating clocking up another hour to add to the graph and most of all I like having one graph that's always heading in the right direction
Well then. Good news and bad news today. I've spent a lot of time studying in the last few weeks and decided to break my hiatus for a punt on a Main last night. I got free entry to it by using my rakeback tickets to enter a satellite to a semi, both of which I obviously won. So that's nice.
Not going to sugar coat it: I got absolutely wrecked. There were two pivotal hands that turned this into a nightmare. I think I got a little unfortunate in both but let's see. Expert analysis to follow.
I don't hate the way I played this, I think it was just an unfortunate runout.
Preflop is fine I think. I don't think min-raising is ideal when we're 34bb deep but it seems to be what everyone is doing these days. I know Jonathan Little advocates for 2.25x at this depth, which I keep meaning to try. But that means using my keyboard to type instead of leaning back in my desk chair with my feet up. It's important to conserve my energy in these trying times so this is probably +EV overall.
It's hard to say what his calling range is. HRC says the BB can call my BTN open with literally anything profitably at this depth. I would say this is why I don't like min-raising but apparently even a 2.5x open doesn't stop every single hand being a profitable flat. Fine, whatever.
I highly doubt the BB is calling with 90.5% of his range (the rest 3-bets) but I don't know this player at all. I've chucked this into Flopzilla and given him all the suited combos except AKs and AQs, all the pairs worse than TT, and a fair old chunk of offsuit combos adding up to 67% of possible hands. Expecting AA-TT, AKs, AQs, and AKo to 3-bet seems reasonable. I still think this is comically wide for most players on Sky but let's run with it.
Flop
In game, I figured my flopped set was almost always ahead and not particularly vulnerable. If I've learned anything from my time with Flopzilla it's to not be scared of the flush draw, so I wasn't. Easy value bet. I considered a check to let him catch up or bluff but decided not to for no particular reason other than greed. I went 2/3 targeting top pair, worse sets, flush draws and gutshots.
Flopzilla is with me so far. My hand is best literally 99.5% of the time. He has top pairs, pocket pairs, flush draws and an absolute truckload of gutshots that should call. That adds up to 41.5% of his range calling. Beautiful! I am smart.
Turn
Panic at the disco as the flushes come home. I'm not scared of flushes though and no other draws got there so I bet again. I went around half pot, my standard "I'm not sure what you're calling with but I hope it isn't a flush" sizing. Enter the check-raise. At this point I start to strongly suspect that not being scared of flushes may not have been wise.
But he might do this with top pairs and two pairs with the ace of spades, and some of his other nut flush draws as a bluff. I can have a lot of flushes too so he shouldn't be going too mad with straights and draws. He might just be trying to make top pair fold. I don't know this player at all but he has a solid Sharkscope. This gives me hope that he has bluffs. Call.
Flopzilla thinks I'm a genius. My hand is still best more than half of the time. He does just have a flush around 42% of the time but he also has his nut flush draws around 30% of the time. That's fairly well-balanced which is another word for "good." I'm still not convinced it's not optimistic to give him any bluffs or worse hands at all but I'd rather assume people are playing well than poorly and make better decisions in the long run.
I don't need to be right anywhere near half the time to call his cute little baby raise. Folding would be criminal so I am glad I didn't do that. But should I have 3-bet jammed?
Yes.
What I noticed after calling before I even noticed the river card was that a) his remaining stack was already in the middle and b) we both had only half the pot left back. We're basically pot committed ourselves by calling so we might as well chuck it in on the turn and keep his best bluffs in if we're not folding. And to be clear: we are not folding.
River
I folded.
I think this was a mistake. I just didn't think many players have any bluffs here. Something like two pair or top pair with the ace of spades would make sense but a lot of players would just give up when that misses. I think it would be a mistake for him to value bet any made hand worse than a flush. But that's a lot of assumptions to make about an unknown player. Some people will show up with straights, some people will show up with sets, I wouldn't even be shocked to see two pair. Very few people, I think, will show up with air.
Another consideration is he snap-jammed which is almost always weak in my experience. I don't want to make too much of it in this instance since he only had a half-pot bet behind but it adds a few percent in the bluff column.
Flopzilla says we can have around 38% equity if he chucks it in with his As bluffs. We need 25% to make the call on the river. Even if he has straights and better sets, I'm still comfortably over 25% equity. Pretty sure I just needed to call it off.
But I also think I could have checked the turn. Couple of benefits to that. I can get to the river without committing my entire stack. I can beef up my checking range with some strong hands since I will mostly have flush draws and top pairs that might need to fold to a lot of action. I give villain a chance to bluff with more than just his nut flush draws and let him think his top pairs might be good. I'm almost certain the turn was a check.
Still think his preflop range is wider than is realistic but all I'm really doing by reigning that in is reducing his possible flushes, making most of my decisions here even better.
Never mind. I have 17bb left. I can do something with that. Or can I?
Here's the exit hand. I had three decision points and I got them all wrong. Go me.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
Kidpoke450
Small blind
200.00
200.00
11547.50
NOSTRI
Big blind
400.00
600.00
4705.00
Your hole cards
4
4
chicknMelt
Fold
gac123
Raise
800.00
1400.00
15280.00
MRBLEWPIE
Fold
puttitin
Fold
Kidpoke450
Fold
NOSTRI
Call
400.00
1800.00
4305.00
Flop
3
7
5
NOSTRI
Check
gac123
Bet
800.00
2600.00
14480.00
NOSTRI
Call
800.00
3400.00
3505.00
Turn
7
NOSTRI
Check
gac123
Bet
1200.00
4600.00
13280.00
NOSTRI
All-in
3505.00
8105.00
0.00
gac123
Call
2305.00
10410.00
10975.00
NOSTRI
Show
4
4
gac123
Show
8
9
River
K
gac123
Win
Flush to the King
10410.00
21385.00
Preflop
This one is easy. I should have jammed. I knew it then and I know it now. I have absolutely no excuse for not doing it.
Flop
We flop a flush draw, straight draw and straight flush draw. Villain leads out. Beautiful, let's get it in!
I call.
I'm absolutely appalled at myself. I think my brain may have stopped working at some point between the last hand and this one. In the unlikely event that I was thinking, I imagine I was trying to slow play my hand for max value and get some revenge on the same villain that just took half of my stack. Stupid.
In my defense, I had seen three straight flushes that day and was pretty sure I could get another one. Makes sense right? That's a rhetorical question.
Turn
Villain bets one third pot and I raise all-in. I sensed weakness in his sizing here and decided to get it in three streets too late. If he has air, we're good. If he's ahead, we still have straight and flush outs.
He did not have air.
This whole hand was dumb. I genuinely believe I played well up to this point but I threw it away on this hand because I was frustrated.
Please feel free to chime in and laugh at me because it's the only way I'll learn.
Love this thread, having said that - the in depth analysis of hands/spots brings it home to me how seriously lacking in the game I am. Pretty much seems any tournamentsI have ft or won has been down to luck lol. Cue lots of “ Agree” 😊 Ever tried your hand at PL08? Fun game.
Love this thread, having said that - the in depth analysis of hands/spots brings it home to me how seriously lacking in the game I am. Pretty much seems any tournamentsI have ft or won has been down to luck lol. Cue lots of “ Agree” 😊 Ever tried your hand at PL08? Fun game.
Cheers, Tom, and thanks for the encouragement! Family is all good and sensibly self-isolating. Hope yours are well too.
If you're making money I don't think you should put it down to luck. I think it's possible to be a winner at low stakes and maybe higher without going anywhere near as deep as I've been trying to because you can win with fairly simple strategies. That more or less describes the last two years where I've managed to be modestly profitable without having a deep understanding of how I should be playing. I think we all know bad players can luckbox a win here and there but if you're consistently profitable then it isn't luck. Full stop.
The benefit of going as deep into it as I've been trying to do is to be able to a) play against really good players at higher stakes who will punish basic strategies and b) push my ROI up even higher. I enjoy the intellectual challenge too, as I'm rarely satisfied to just half-understand something. If you're happy with where your game is at then I'd say it's not necessary to worry about it and that it by no means makes you a bad or lucky player.
I'm not too interested in PLO in general. I've been keeping up with the Galfond challenge a little and the action just seems crazy. PLO8 does sound fun though.
Most of the UKOPS events are well beyond the limits of my current bankroll so I don't think I'll be posting too much from that series of events. For the most part I'll probably only play what I can satellite into but exceptions may be made for freezeouts. Haven't actually looked at the full schedule yet so I'm playing it by ear for now.
Gave a couple of satellites to tonight's £110 event a punt and got nowhere so I decided to treat myself to an entry to the £11 £5k. The prizepool for that was absolutely eye-watering after late registration closed, getting over £15k with 1063 runners.
I finished 14th for 87 quid minus two bullets. Happy with how I played, especially versus some tough players in the closing stretches of my run. I think I could have been a bit more patient waiting for a better spot with my final hand but I was dead last with less than 10bb, and one of them already invested as the big blind. UTG big stack opens to 3x, which most of the table seemed to be doing for some reason (?!), folds to me in the BB and I jam A4o with 8.6bb. He had AQo and I missed.
Had a good session overall today, with a good run in the £1k Mega Stack and a £2 £1k BH. The £2 must be a UKOPS special since I'm sure that one's usually a £200. Three buy-ins, three small cashes, for a modestly profitable Saturday evening. Can't say fairer than that.
In other news, I have my first coaching session on Sunday. I'm sure I'll have more to say about that later.
Most of the UKOPS events are well beyond the limits of my current bankroll so I don't think I'll be posting too much from that series of events. For the most part I'll probably only play what I can satellite into but exceptions may be made for freezeouts. Haven't actually looked at the full schedule yet so I'm playing it by ear for now.
Gave a couple of satellites to tonight's £110 event a punt and got nowhere so I decided to treat myself to an entry to the £11 £5k. The prizepool for that was absolutely eye-watering after late registration closed, getting over £15k with 1063 runners.
I finished 14th for 87 quid minus two bullets. Happy with how I played, especially versus some tough players in the closing stretches of my run. I think I could have been a bit more patient waiting for a better spot with my final hand but I was dead last with less than 10bb, and one of them already invested as the big blind. UTG big stack opens to 3x, which most of the table seemed to be doing for some reason (?!), folds to me in the BB and I jam A4o with 8.6bb. He had AQo and I missed.
Had a good session overall today, with a good run in the £1k Mega Stack and a £2 £1k BH. The £2 must be a UKOPS special since I'm sure that one's usually a £200. Three buy-ins, three small cashes, for a modestly profitable Saturday evening. Can't say fairer than that.
In other news, I have my first coaching session on Sunday. I'm sure I'll have more to say about that later.
Not a "UKOPS special", no. Guarantees have been raised generally across the board, including this one, due to the recent situation. I think last night's renewal made a staggering £1,500+.
Am much enjoying this diary & your crisp style.
After you graduate what do you plan to do with your life?
Not a "UKOPS special", no. Guarantees have been raised generally across the board, including this one, due to the recent situation. I think last night's renewal made a staggering £1,500+.
Am much enjoying this diary & your crisp style.
After you graduate what do you plan to do with your life?
I've been seeing the boosted prizepools but hadn't seen a £2 that big. Possible I missed it though since I've been busy with other things. Either way, thank you Sky!
Don't want to get ahead of myself as far as graduation plans. Right now, I'd like to be alive for graduation. My wife is off to her training for St. Johns duty at the nearest Nightingale hospital today and I'm bricking it for her and for me.
But in all seriousness, I want to get into tutoring or teaching people in computer skills. I worked in startup land in New York in a previous life and it was a constant reminder in the tech support emails how woefully unskilled people are with computers (shout out to all the old people who have emailed me their credit card number), even on a basic, conceptual level. I think people, especially older people, are criminally underserved in this aspect so I'd like to get involved with improving that situation.
Early doors again tonight but not going to bed in tears.
- Tried two satellites to the Main. No dice. - Won entry to the £22 £4k on my second try. Started well but fizzled out long before the money. - Played the £11 Mini again. Busted 100th for a min-cash and a few bounties.
Down about £20 on the day with my UKOPS entries but got saved a little by another decent performance in the £1k Mega Stack. Still showing a small overall profit on UKOPS entries.
My exit hand on the Mini was slightly less of a punt this time but still fairly speculative. CO limps with 80bb, I'm on the BTN with 22bb and A8hh and I raise to 3bb, folds to the BB who 3-bets to 7.5bb. Limper folds and I decide to call. Probably supposed to fold here but I still have 12bb back if I miss the flop so I decide to have a cheeky look. Flop is Ac3h2h and I snap BB's jam. He has AQ and the rest of the hearts are nowhere to be seen. Goodnight me, feeling ever-so-slightly robbed.
Comments
(Editing this to add: I've just run this through HRC and I can probably just jam 66 preflop chipEV-wise--it's marginally profitable, assuming everyone is playing correctly--but given how marginal it is, I doubt it's correct to do so with ICM involved. I don't know for sure and I don't have enough information now to run that. If I had covered the big blind I might have been more tempted but I think a standard open is better in this case.)
Doubled up off the same player a few hands later and was chip leader for a little while. Lost most of my stack trying to bluff-catch vs a player I'm not familiar with. He limped to me in the SB with 95o--don't remember stacks but we're both over 20bb I think--flop came 22Q, we both check, turn is a 5, he bets I call, river is a 6, he bets again. I called because I didn't think he'd play a Q this way and had A-high most of the time and I was right: he had A2. Should have folded in retrospect but I was feeling pretty spicy in the moment.
Final hand: Three-handed in the BB with about 7bb, BTN is the infamous @chicknMelt who limps and I check A7. Flop 755, they bet, I jam, they show TT. Not sure I'd do anything differently there. Don't really like jamming it pre, even though it's likely the "right" play, because I feel like this particular player is never limping without a good reason and is probably trapping here vs my short BB quite often. Given that rationale I could have considered folding but that just seemed weak.
Feel pretty good about how I played this overall and got all the way to the money without needing a rebuy, which is always a treat. Arguably made mistakes in these three hands but otherwise can't think of any other major goofs.
In other news, I am looking forward to playing some Las Vegas satellites. My wife and I had hoped to honeymoon in Las Vegas when we married last year but couldn't quite make it work so that would be a nice treat for us. Please keep that in mind if you see me in a satellite and take it easy on me.
Here's a chart I've tried to keep in mind as I've been playing the past few weeks. It's the output of a tournament variance calculator, which calculates a cumulative likelihood function for the results of a defined series of tournaments. I've plugged in £5.50 tournaments with an average 100 runners paying 15% of the field and a 20% ROI, which is a slight lowball on my true ROI (always good to be conservative with these things), and estimated that I will play about 600 of these over the course of a year, which again is probably a bit of a lowball. That is what the calculator comes back with after simulating that 1,000 times. And here's some random samples from that simulation:
On average I'm going to win about 600 quid but there remains approximately a 9% chance that I will come out at a loss. I think poker players more than anyone know how easy it is to lose a 90% flip. The worst run of this simulation had me ending up down £600. Heartwarming stuff. But the real eye-opener here is the confidence intervals. Here they are:
99.7% of the time I'm going to end up somewhere between £600 quid in the hole or up £2,300. That is an absolutely massive range of possible outcomes, and that's the simulation's most confident prediction. (In truth, the high value MTT's this thread is ostensibly diarising have at least 200 runners, which only serves to increase that gap.)
Absolute mug's game, these tournaments are.
Anyway, this is how I perk myself up when things aren't going my way. It's hard to tell in the moment if we're running bad or simply playing bad but it's comforting to know that even if I was playing my absolute A-game it's still possible to be losing for an extended period of time.
On the other hand, I'm really pleased with how calm and focused I've remained in a week where I've lost over £100. In context, and with these calculations in mind, that's sod all. But in absolute terms, it's 20 buy-ins and almost an entire fortnight of play, which is discouraging to say the least. There was a time where I would be going out of my mind over this kind of loss. But it happens, and it's very much part of the game.
All of this misery is only compounded by other personal difficulties I won't be going into detail about. School is hard and owning small, furry animals with short lifespans is harder. We're two guinea pigs down this month, one of which was only a few weeks old, which is more heartbreaking than I ever expected it to be. Had no interest in pigs until my wife talked me into buying her two.
As for results: Needless to say, I have won f*ck all lately and I'm on a bit of a losing streak. I put a good run in on a £2 Bounty Hunter last night but nothing more interesting than that. Pretty **** standard at this point that I was all-in on the final hand of that with by far the best hand and managed to lose, but that's random numbers for you. Did well in the Mini Avenger with no rebuys needed but didn't make the money or any bounties. It's annoying that this run is coming at a time where I'm studying poker more than ever and genuinely feel like my game is considerably improving but that's the way it goes sometimes. Water off a duck's back, mate.
Not giving a **** is an easy adjustment to make. Something else I've done is lower my ABI and volume to avoid losing too much of my bankroll, since I kind of had my heart set on this being my first no deposit year. Had to withdraw a few quid to cover vets bills but otherwise fine on that front. I'm only occasionally playing the Mini Mains right now, not even bothering with satellites, doing much fewer £5+'s, and trying to stock up on £1 RB cashes. If I ever recover, I'll be back on the original aims of this thread.
Will end this with a recommendation for anyone who struggles with tilt at times like these. Jared Tendler's Mental Game of Poker is one of the best poker books I've ever read. Get yourself a copy and read it twice.
Nothing like a good moan to turn things around.
Insightful analysis here. It was good until I lost all of my chips. Fascinating.
It was an absolute dream set-up all the way. I played a direct satellite and it couldn't have been easier. I got to the final four without a sweat (two seats and a third place cash booby prize up for grabs) and felt the other three were playing awfully. A highlight was when the person with a 2x chiplead over the rest of us called off half of his stack with a gutshot and missed. He ended up bubbling with nothing. The new chip leader proceeded to limp everything with a face card and c-bet every flop, ultimately evening out the stacks. People really don't seem to know how to play satellites. Anyway, I won. All-in Ax vs Kx, we hold and we're in business.
Had an absolute dream of a starting table in the main event, loaded with green rings of fishiness and not a single reg. One player in particular gifted me more than a full double up over the course of three hands where he called a raise or 3-bet OOP and decided to donk into me and keep betting for three streets. The first time he had a small pair on a board full of face cards, the second time he had top pair vs my better top pair, and I don't know what he had the third time because I called down with the nuts up to the river where I min-raised him all in and he folded with something like a fraction of the pot left behind. It amazes me that people will spend £33 on a poker tournament and play like this. This chap managed to rebuild fairly well just down to raw aggression but eventually and inevitably got owned.
At this point we're at around 2x average stack with a considerable chip lead over the rest of the table and it's only a few orbits in.
My first and only obvious mistake, I think, was a bit of a bet-sizing goof that I make more often than I'd like. On the river, I've got the effective nuts with a full house and two callers. The late position villain has just over half pot behind but I haven't noticed that yet because I'm preoccupied trying to decide what size to bet on a board that doesn't seem to make many strong hands possible. I eventually settle for a little under half pot and immediately realised my size leaves the late position villain with about 2bb if he calls. Stupid! He does call, I win the pot and miss out on his sizeable bounty. Dropped the ball there. Someone else got his bounty and he immediately rebought. Whoops.
Other than that, I couldn't have hoped for a better run. By the mid stages I had 3x the stack of the rest of my table, who were all playing terribly, and was comfortably in the top 15 overall with a few bounties secured. Having a look in the lobby, most of the good regs seemed to be short-stacked or busto and it was starting to seem like I should be able to get myself an FT here.
Then the table change of death.
Another table full of fish and unknowns, plus one well-known reg who was chip leader. The reg had a fairly obvious strategy that I wasn't too troubled by (shots fired!) but didn't get many playable hands against him. Unfortunately I was pretty card dead by this point. I got a full double up full house over full house, taking me up to 80-odd blinds and third place with 40-ish left (21 paid) but drained chips pretty fast after that. Very card dead and missing every board, bluffs not getting through, combined with more preflop aggression than I'd seen so far.
Down to about 30bb now with 29ish left and in the middle of the pack. One player in particular who had position on me seemed to be 3-betting all my BTN opens from the BB. Not a player I've ever seen and they don't have a public sharkscope, but no reason to believe they're a particularly strong player and they were playing in a fairly straightforward way so I'd tended towards giving them the benefit of the doubt.
And then this hand, pasted below. I messed up big time here.
I opened on the button with AJo, they once again 3bet to 4.5x. I need to fold here. It's as simple as that. I've been sitting here trying to write myself into thinking calling or maybe even jamming is fine but it's not.
- If I believe this player is a weak amateur, and I do, they probably have a strong 3-betting range, especially when they 4.5x it. I have ~30% equity at best against that kind of range and I'm frequently dominated.
- Against a more balanced BB vs BTN RFI range (according to charts provided by Jonathan Little) I've got around 55% equity but I absolutely do not believe this player is 3-betting me that wide. If I take the absolute junk out of that range, leaving the usual stuff and some suited connectors I get up 50% but I don't even believe this player is 3-betting suited connectors. And since this player used a comically large sizing I don't think it's likely they have this sort of stuff in mind at all and just have the nuts most of the time.
- Against someone more balanced, it's clearly worth considering 4-bet jamming. Against someone who is a moron, I would consider 4bet-jamming and hoping to get called by something like ATs or 99. But as noted, this person is unlikely to be balanced and I don't think they're a moron.
- If I call, I only have a PSB left and I have to jam or fold post and be left under 25bb.
- I can't reasonably expect to flop any truly safe hands or draws. Pairing my ace isn't necessarily good since I lose to AA, AK and AQ and I still lose to overpairs if I pair my jack. Best case scenario is flopping a straight but that will almost never happen.
I think this is one of those spots that separates good players from bad players. It looks like a nice hand but it's a fairly easy fold when you put all the pieces together. But I hadn't seen a flop for about a year at this point so I made a frustrated call. Even on the flop it's incredibly obvious they beat top pair and I probably could have found a fold with a bit more in the time bank. I clearly had a good read on this player and should have gone with my gut.
Busted 29th with two bounties, 8 away from the money. Although I made a bad call at the end it's encouraging that my instinctive response was pretty much spot on. It's just a shame that I ignored it. Although it didn't end well, this was a pretty good confidence boost, especially after a bit of a dry spell of late. I feel like I can do reasonably well against this field. Next time.
I think AJ is one of those hands we can fold to a 4 bet pre 90% of the time, especially if we started the hand 30+ bb deep, the 4 better covers us and we're not far off the money. But then I'm rubbish.
The only hand I have any real regrets about was my last one. I was down to about 12bb but still in 4th or 5th with ten left. Got A7o in the CO and banged it in vs the big blind. Debated it for a moment or two but I think it's basically not that bad. I probably need to be a bit tighter with ICM especially when the player in the big blind has shown a propensity to call rather light (I think that makes offsuit aces better actually) and I'm not sure if these offsuit aces should still be jams. He had TT this time and managed to flop a set. Probably could have found a better spot but with stacks getting so short I'd rather give myself a chance to have a big stack on the FT than just blind out so I'm not going to worry about it. Will look it up in ICMizer tomorrow and see what the poker gods think.
Played well overall, ran well on all my flips until the final one, not much else to say about it.
Screenshot included for posterity as I believe it's the first time I've been in possession of over a million chips on this site.
In other news, I'm currently in self-isolation with a bad cough and lots of free time so I tried my luck on some DYMs this morning. Stuck to £5's and £3's which were superbly soft and it went fine but dear god is it f*cking boring. Won't be bothering with that long-term.
Here's hoping I don't die before I meet some of this thread's goals.
- Have just come back from a quarter of a big blind in a £5 BH with 20-odd left to 2nd place going into the final table. Run good mode activated! Took 4th in the end after running into @Allan23 with aces. Jammy git.
- Prize pools are magnificent right now. This £500 GTD has a £900 prize pool. Saw the biggest I've ever seen on the £1 RB earlier. Loving it.
- People abusing other players at the tables makes me sad. Stop tapping the tank, muppets.
University is shut down (though the bu**ers still expect me to hand in my assignments) and all the freelancing I was doing has dried up. My wife is stuck working from home with me, which, as an outgoing, sociable person (opposite of me, then) she hates. She's also facing the prospect of being laid off as work for the startup she works for is drying up, which is increasing stress levels. I'm also putting in a lot of emotional work keeping her level-headed, which I don't mind but it's taking it's toll. We're both very anxious about Coronovirus since we both have conditions that make us vulnerable and see people being morons all around us. We wandered into town for some bread the day after the lockdown went in to effect and there were people everywhere. Stories on the news about people enjoying the weather. It's the height of stupidity when 20-somethings with no underlying conditions are dying. If the wife's work situation gets any worse I'm going to end up looking for a job at a supermarket (no UC eligibility for students, hooray) which is going to put my stress levels through the roof.
Frankly, I can't think of anything worse than staring at a screen counting outs at the moment and I've barely played anything in recent weeks. It feels silly because this is the closest thing to a poker gold rush I'll ever see and there will probably never be so much dead money on Sky again, never mind that I'd like to get into some UKOPS MTTs.
I think I'm looking at taking a break of up to a week to focus on other things. I'll probably try and get some UKOPS satellites in and maybe some Mini Mains, but not much more. I've actually found studying poker in a dedicated manner quite rewarding this week and I think I'll lean into that. RIO and Poker Coaching have made a bunch of their materials free this week and I'm spending a lot of time digging into those, which have previously been unaffordable. I'm also challenging myself to contribute more to hand discussions on here as it helps clarify my thinking, reinforce some concepts, and has the bonus of sometimes helping other people out. I might also write about some of what I've been learning on this thread, on the same basis that writing things out is a great way to clarify your thinking.
I also did something a little compulsive and withdrew a bunch of the money I had on Unibet and Stars and bought a Switch. I struggle to amuse myself when I'm not playing poker or doing school work and I've been desperate for a Switch for a long time. Although it's a large chunk of my overall poker bankroll I'm considering it an investment in the sense that I won't be punting off so much playing poker just because I'm bored in MTTs that aren't really worth it, like the morning £5's.
So that's me right now. I'm off to study satellite strategy. Here's a cheeky little 3%-er I hit in last night's rewards freeroll. I'm sure Misterpj will get a kick out of it.
Only play when you feel mentally ready-strange times affect us all differently.
Good luck
Cool that you're taking advantage of the RIO stuff. One thing that helps me with study is to make a graph in excel of the number of hours of study I've done each week. Find it really motivating clocking up another hour to add to the graph and most of all I like having one graph that's always heading in the right direction
Not going to sugar coat it: I got absolutely wrecked. There were two pivotal hands that turned this into a nightmare. I think I got a little unfortunate in both but let's see. Expert analysis to follow.
Preflop is fine I think. I don't think min-raising is ideal when we're 34bb deep but it seems to be what everyone is doing these days. I know Jonathan Little advocates for 2.25x at this depth, which I keep meaning to try. But that means using my keyboard to type instead of leaning back in my desk chair with my feet up. It's important to conserve my energy in these trying times so this is probably +EV overall.
It's hard to say what his calling range is. HRC says the BB can call my BTN open with literally anything profitably at this depth. I would say this is why I don't like min-raising but apparently even a 2.5x open doesn't stop every single hand being a profitable flat. Fine, whatever.
I highly doubt the BB is calling with 90.5% of his range (the rest 3-bets) but I don't know this player at all. I've chucked this into Flopzilla and given him all the suited combos except AKs and AQs, all the pairs worse than TT, and a fair old chunk of offsuit combos adding up to 67% of possible hands. Expecting AA-TT, AKs, AQs, and AKo to 3-bet seems reasonable. I still think this is comically wide for most players on Sky but let's run with it.
Flop
In game, I figured my flopped set was almost always ahead and not particularly vulnerable. If I've learned anything from my time with Flopzilla it's to not be scared of the flush draw, so I wasn't. Easy value bet. I considered a check to let him catch up or bluff but decided not to for no particular reason other than greed. I went 2/3 targeting top pair, worse sets, flush draws and gutshots.
Flopzilla is with me so far. My hand is best literally 99.5% of the time. He has top pairs, pocket pairs, flush draws and an absolute truckload of gutshots that should call. That adds up to 41.5% of his range calling. Beautiful! I am smart.
Turn
Panic at the disco as the flushes come home. I'm not scared of flushes though and no other draws got there so I bet again. I went around half pot, my standard "I'm not sure what you're calling with but I hope it isn't a flush" sizing. Enter the check-raise. At this point I start to strongly suspect that not being scared of flushes may not have been wise.
But he might do this with top pairs and two pairs with the ace of spades, and some of his other nut flush draws as a bluff. I can have a lot of flushes too so he shouldn't be going too mad with straights and draws. He might just be trying to make top pair fold. I don't know this player at all but he has a solid Sharkscope. This gives me hope that he has bluffs. Call.
Flopzilla thinks I'm a genius. My hand is still best more than half of the time. He does just have a flush around 42% of the time but he also has his nut flush draws around 30% of the time. That's fairly well-balanced which is another word for "good." I'm still not convinced it's not optimistic to give him any bluffs or worse hands at all but I'd rather assume people are playing well than poorly and make better decisions in the long run.
I don't need to be right anywhere near half the time to call his cute little baby raise. Folding would be criminal so I am glad I didn't do that. But should I have 3-bet jammed?
Yes.
What I noticed after calling before I even noticed the river card was that a) his remaining stack was already in the middle and b) we both had only half the pot left back. We're basically pot committed ourselves by calling so we might as well chuck it in on the turn and keep his best bluffs in if we're not folding. And to be clear: we are not folding.
River
I folded.
I think this was a mistake. I just didn't think many players have any bluffs here. Something like two pair or top pair with the ace of spades would make sense but a lot of players would just give up when that misses. I think it would be a mistake for him to value bet any made hand worse than a flush. But that's a lot of assumptions to make about an unknown player. Some people will show up with straights, some people will show up with sets, I wouldn't even be shocked to see two pair. Very few people, I think, will show up with air.
Another consideration is he snap-jammed which is almost always weak in my experience. I don't want to make too much of it in this instance since he only had a half-pot bet behind but it adds a few percent in the bluff column.
Flopzilla says we can have around 38% equity if he chucks it in with his As bluffs. We need 25% to make the call on the river. Even if he has straights and better sets, I'm still comfortably over 25% equity. Pretty sure I just needed to call it off.
But I also think I could have checked the turn. Couple of benefits to that. I can get to the river without committing my entire stack. I can beef up my checking range with some strong hands since I will mostly have flush draws and top pairs that might need to fold to a lot of action. I give villain a chance to bluff with more than just his nut flush draws and let him think his top pairs might be good. I'm almost certain the turn was a check.
Still think his preflop range is wider than is realistic but all I'm really doing by reigning that in is reducing his possible flushes, making most of my decisions here even better.
Never mind. I have 17bb left. I can do something with that. Or can I?
@NOSTRI
Fascinating analysis, really enjoyed that, & learned a great deal too.
Thank you.
Here's the exit hand. I had three decision points and I got them all wrong. Go me.
This one is easy. I should have jammed. I knew it then and I know it now. I have absolutely no excuse for not doing it.
Flop
We flop a flush draw, straight draw and straight flush draw. Villain leads out. Beautiful, let's get it in!
I call.
I'm absolutely appalled at myself. I think my brain may have stopped working at some point between the last hand and this one. In the unlikely event that I was thinking, I imagine I was trying to slow play my hand for max value and get some revenge on the same villain that just took half of my stack. Stupid.
In my defense, I had seen three straight flushes that day and was pretty sure I could get another one. Makes sense right? That's a rhetorical question.
Turn
Villain bets one third pot and I raise all-in. I sensed weakness in his sizing here and decided to get it in three streets too late. If he has air, we're good. If he's ahead, we still have straight and flush outs.
He did not have air.
This whole hand was dumb. I genuinely believe I played well up to this point but I threw it away on this hand because I was frustrated.
Please feel free to chime in and laugh at me because it's the only way I'll learn.
Love this thread, having said that - the in depth analysis of hands/spots brings it home to me how seriously lacking in the game I am.
Pretty much seems any tournamentsI have ft or won has been down to luck lol.
Cue lots of “ Agree” 😊
Ever tried your hand at PL08? Fun game.
If you're making money I don't think you should put it down to luck. I think it's possible to be a winner at low stakes and maybe higher without going anywhere near as deep as I've been trying to because you can win with fairly simple strategies. That more or less describes the last two years where I've managed to be modestly profitable without having a deep understanding of how I should be playing. I think we all know bad players can luckbox a win here and there but if you're consistently profitable then it isn't luck. Full stop.
The benefit of going as deep into it as I've been trying to do is to be able to a) play against really good players at higher stakes who will punish basic strategies and b) push my ROI up even higher. I enjoy the intellectual challenge too, as I'm rarely satisfied to just half-understand something. If you're happy with where your game is at then I'd say it's not necessary to worry about it and that it by no means makes you a bad or lucky player.
I'm not too interested in PLO in general. I've been keeping up with the Galfond challenge a little and the action just seems crazy. PLO8 does sound fun though.
Gave a couple of satellites to tonight's £110 event a punt and got nowhere so I decided to treat myself to an entry to the £11 £5k. The prizepool for that was absolutely eye-watering after late registration closed, getting over £15k with 1063 runners.
I finished 14th for 87 quid minus two bullets. Happy with how I played, especially versus some tough players in the closing stretches of my run. I think I could have been a bit more patient waiting for a better spot with my final hand but I was dead last with less than 10bb, and one of them already invested as the big blind. UTG big stack opens to 3x, which most of the table seemed to be doing for some reason (?!), folds to me in the BB and I jam A4o with 8.6bb. He had AQo and I missed.
Had a good session overall today, with a good run in the £1k Mega Stack and a £2 £1k BH. The £2 must be a UKOPS special since I'm sure that one's usually a £200. Three buy-ins, three small cashes, for a modestly profitable Saturday evening. Can't say fairer than that.
In other news, I have my first coaching session on Sunday. I'm sure I'll have more to say about that later.
Morning.
Not a "UKOPS special", no. Guarantees have been raised generally across the board, including this one, due to the recent situation. I think last night's renewal made a staggering £1,500+.
Am much enjoying this diary & your crisp style.
After you graduate what do you plan to do with your life?
Don't want to get ahead of myself as far as graduation plans. Right now, I'd like to be alive for graduation. My wife is off to her training for St. Johns duty at the nearest Nightingale hospital today and I'm bricking it for her and for me.
But in all seriousness, I want to get into tutoring or teaching people in computer skills. I worked in startup land in New York in a previous life and it was a constant reminder in the tech support emails how woefully unskilled people are with computers (shout out to all the old people who have emailed me their credit card number), even on a basic, conceptual level. I think people, especially older people, are criminally underserved in this aspect so I'd like to get involved with improving that situation.
- Tried two satellites to the Main. No dice.
- Won entry to the £22 £4k on my second try. Started well but fizzled out long before the money.
- Played the £11 Mini again. Busted 100th for a min-cash and a few bounties.
Down about £20 on the day with my UKOPS entries but got saved a little by another decent performance in the £1k Mega Stack. Still showing a small overall profit on UKOPS entries.
My exit hand on the Mini was slightly less of a punt this time but still fairly speculative. CO limps with 80bb, I'm on the BTN with 22bb and A8hh and I raise to 3bb, folds to the BB who 3-bets to 7.5bb. Limper folds and I decide to call. Probably supposed to fold here but I still have 12bb back if I miss the flop so I decide to have a cheeky look. Flop is Ac3h2h and I snap BB's jam. He has AQ and the rest of the hearts are nowhere to be seen. Goodnight me, feeling ever-so-slightly robbed.