Old Dog New Tricks - long time cash game pro learns MTTs and shot takes HSNL cash
I have been grinding cash for almost 20 years. These days that means 2/5 live and small stakes online.
My two biggest cash game challenges have always been: 1)moving up in stakes as I am risk-averse and 2)putting in enough volume. The upside is that I have had a lot of free time, get to work when I want, and how I want. The downside is I likely missed out on making a lot more money. I have struggled with volume over the last two years and have had to dip into my savings more than I am comfortable with. My goal is to level up my game over the next few years so I can play fewer hours but still make some real money in this game.
A few years back I decided to play the WSOP seniors' event as I am over 50. I still haven't done it. I couldn't bring myself to put up 1K in a format(MTT) that I am not confident in. I plan on playing this and lot more MTTs during the 2025 WSOP.
I will be away from home for about two months and have limited access to 2/5 live, global poker, and ACR. So the short-term goals are:
1) grind as much 2/5 action as I can find to pad the bankroll
2) study MTT poker
3) grind online MTTs at least one day per week
4 Replies
GL!
I switched from cash to MTT this year as well. My advice:
-Realize that it largely doesn't matter that you are better deepstacked than MTT players. Those 3bb mistakes made 200bb deep are less important in $ terms than the 0.3bb mistakes 10bb deep
-Ergo, study 5-25bb spots a lot
-Also learn about ICM. Don't listen to general wisdom especially from cash players, they really don't understand how tournaments work. Dana O'Kearney's book is required reading IMO
GL!
I switched from cash to MTT this year as well. My advice:
-Realize that it largely doesn't matter that you are better deepstacked than MTT players. Those 3bb mistakes made 200bb deep are less important in $ terms than the 0.3bb mistakes 10bb deep
-Ergo, study 5-25bb spots a lot
-Also learn about ICM. Don't listen to general wisdom especially from cash players, they really don't understand how tournaments work. Dana O'Kearney's book is required reading IMO
Thanks
I believe you are right that some spots matter WAY more than others. It also happens that the things you mentioned are likely my biggest weakness = great area for me to study 😀
I am working through some BZZpoker videos, switching my GTOW sub to MTTs, and reading the book you mentioned.
Learning a new format is so much different nowadays with so much information available. Half the battle is deciding what content is worth watching and which software is worth buying. For now, I am sticking with the above as it is what I have.
I have been working through the GTOW MTT Fundamentals course, which has many drills and some videos. This feels like a good starting point as the curriculum touches on all areas of MTT play. I also like that it has many drills. This forces me into "active learning mode" instead of passively watching another training video.
I am fascinated by all the complexity of MTTs and I am just scratching the surface - ie
- dramatic shifts in ranges due to ICM at FT based on stack sizes. I knew about this but didn't realize how drastically the strategies can shift.
- CC ranges on 100bb are crazy wide compared to cash and have way more combos mixing between CC and 3B. ie AKs and AA are the only combos that are pure 3Bs in position(UTG1-BTN)
- even with 50% of players left ICM matters and impacts preflop ranges on 20bb
While all this complexity feels a little overwhelming it doesn't bother me because I don't expect to master it anytime soon, and I am pretty sure everyone else is struggling to digest it all. It reminds me of when I started using PIO for cash(~9 years ago). Of course, I haven't mastered GTO cash play but I have improved my game. So I am happy with progress, not perfection 😀
I finally feel settled after moving my stuff into storage and hitting the road.
I now have access to an online site that gives me HH, so I have been playing with a HUD and importing hands into GTOW. This will be good for the MTT study. I have played 5 online MTTs and GTOW says I had an average EV loss of -0.03 which sounds too good to be right? I have only reviewed a few of my mistakes and can see already that this stat isn't that important as a bunch of the spots are multiway or vs preflop strategies that solver doesn't use(4x open and limps).
Of the 5 MTTs I already had a small cash and 3 deep runs in fields close to 1k players. I also played a live $400 MTT. It seems like the live player pool was much weaker than $10 online tournaments!
