MTT Low Stakes Grind Journal

Didn't manage to play at all yesterday due to other commitments, but whilst travelling on the train I managed to review quite a few spots using ICMizer.

I'm going to try and get a couple hours in today, and hope to satty into the Weekender / GGMasters.

Daily update from yesterday:

BR standing: $788.15
Daily change: +$28.43

Managed to min cash The Weekender and qualify for the GGMasters, but didn't get too far. I managed to build up a big stack early but got coolered in a massive hand that ultimately led me to busting early. Still a successful day nonetheless.

Here is the hand I made a massive mistake with. I realise I said i got 'coolered' but this is far from the truth, I overplayed my hand and value owned myself.

This has led me to an important concept of 'way ahead or way behind'. Although I'm really disappointed in myself and saddened that I made such a big blunder in a high buy in tourney, I must learn from this mistake and continue to improve.

Today has been quite tough. The hand that I have posted above was a terrible mistake, and in such a high buy in tournament, it has left me a bit anxious.

Am I really a winning player?

Will I be able to take my game up to a new level?

I managed to build up my stack in the first hour or so of the tournament, and out of 5000 people I was ranking in the top 40. I then blew half my stack on a horrendous play. If I just played more cautiously, I could've even min-cashed, and who knows how I would've ended up overall.

I posted the above hand on reddit to get more advice and it has been helpful. It's introduced me to the concept of 'way ahead or way behind' which I will bear in mind from now on.

The main takeaway from this hand is that my deep-stacked play needs a lot of work. Due to the fact that I have been exclusively late-regging tournaments up until this point, I haven't had much experience playing deep-stacked. Having said this, the mistake I made was still a very poor one and one that I should have recognised.

I've been listening to a few podcasts on the psychology of losing in poker and how to recover which has helped a bit. To put it simply, I feel quite anxious following yesterday.

However, I am still motivated to play and keep improving. I'm finishing up playing some tourneys online for the day, and I'll be playing an in-person tournament that I free-rolled into a little later on.

I'm brining myself some peace in mind at the moment because of the fact that: a) I'm actively reviewing my mistakes in order to not make them again in the future and b) I satellited into the tournament. Point b) isn't really that relevant since it's still my bankroll that contributed to me getting into the tournament, but hey.

BR standing: $776.85
Daily change: -$11.30

Low volume day today, made a deepish run in one tournament but nothing monumental.

Today's been a tough mentally processing my loss in the GGMasters tourney. It hurt especially because I managed to build up such a big stack, and then punt off a large majority of it in a terrible blunder.

However, I managed to come first in my local live tournament today for £125 so I feel a lot better. I know I'm both competent and a winning player, I just need to learn from my mistakes.

Haven't posted these in a while so here's my GG graph (excluding rake):

And here's my in-person tournament graph (including rake):

BR standing: $757.66
Daily change: -$19.19

Quick update since I haven't posted in a while. I've been travelling a lot recently so haven't had the opportunity to play for a while, however I'm settled now so will be back to playing. Will probably be putting in lower hours for all the time I'm abroad (i.e. the rest of this month).

Before leaving, I managed to win the in-person £12 buy in tournament twice in a row, giving me 3 wins out of 4 sessions! Absolute heater and it's nice to see my graph explode from being slightly profitable to very profitable.

BR standing: $737.86
Daily change: -$19.80

Managed to squeeze in a couple tourneys this evening, a few deepish runs but nothing substantial.

BR standing: $629.37
Daily change: -$108.49

Shite day today, don't think I played particularly bad, but I don't think I was particularly focused either. We keep grinding though, I'm happy I've built up a large enough bankroll now that these downswings don't bother me.

Managed to qualify for the Weekender in the last chance! Starting 81 out of 944, let's see if I can hit a cheeky deep run.

BR standing: $802.24
Daily change: +$172.87

Another all time high for the bankroll!

Decent run in The Weekender! My best yet, and I felt like I got a little unlucky in some spots but on the whole, very pleased with how I played. E.g. final all in I got it in with A8 vs A5 and the flop came 234... anyway, not gonna moan haha.

Overall today was alright, a couple deepish runs but no final tables unfortunately. Quite a few finishes in the 20s I think. We keep on the grind.

Finding some spots really tough, and this one is particularly jarring. Ordinarily looking at this hand, it's almost always a call. However here I was against an opponent who had an 11% VPIP. I had them marked as a nit, and once I saw the large bet on the flop, I already thought I was dead.

Makes me question, should I be exploitatively folding here? I lose to all his AA, KK and QQ. If the nit is feeling adventurous, I beat his AQhh, and AKhh. AJhh would probably just have flatted pre. I also beat TT, but again, this might just flat pre.

I wish I could use a solver to node lock this position.

BR standing: $761.13
Daily change: -$41.11

Nothing much to report from today. Not great volume due to factors out of my control, tomorrow should be a better day.

I posted a hand above which has given me a bit to think about. In the future, I think calling flop and folding turn is reasonable. He might c-bet flop with his AK that missed the flop, and check back turn. Anything after him leading OOP as a nit screams strength.

Just came 8th in the $5 Daily Hyper, and here is the hand I got busted on.

I ran the spot through ICMizer and I now realise this call was a massive mistake. In this spot, I should be folding a large proportion of my hands.

Against a GTO opponent, my calling range should be: 88+, AJ+ and ATs.

However, I noticed this person's stats were particularly nitty. As a result, my calling range should have been extremely tight, consisting only of JJ+, AK and AQs.

In the future, I need to realise that when there are pay jump implications, and there's so many short stacks, I need to play insanely tight.

BAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!!

Came 1st in the $5 Daily Hyper. I believe this is my biggest win yet, and there were lots of interesting spots on the final table that I will be analysing soon.

Not only have I smashed my goal of getting the BR to >$1, 000, but I'm sitting at a cool $1, 200. What a beaut.

THE GRIND CONTINUES! Rewarding me and my gf with a cheeky Burger King takeaway.

BR standing: $1216.69!!!
Daily change: +$455.56

All time high for the bankroll, thanks to a massive win near the end of today.

Will spend tomorrow morning analysing a lot of the ICM spots from my victorious tournament, especially a spot where I folded pocket 88 4-handed! (I think it was a good fold...).

Anyway, put in solid volume today so quite pleased. Since the bankroll is now larger, I might give a stab at a few $10 tournaments if the field size is small (<150?). However, I'm going to remain very conservative with my bankroll management and not get too ahead of myself. Tournaments between the $0.25-$5 are working well for me, so I'll keep on prioritising these.

Some hands to highlight from yesterday:

4 left, I'm 3rd and 4th place has shoved into me. I recognised that I have to call somewhat wide, due to the fact that 4th will be shoving with a wide range as they're being forced to make a move. KTo is a pretty simple call, however I realise I'm supposed to call very wide. My calling range should be 22+, Ax, K6+, K2s+, Q9+, Q2s+, J8+, J4s+, T8+, T5s+, 97+, 95s+, 87o, 85s+, 76o, 74s+, 64s+, 53s+.

4 left, I'm 3rd and 1st has shoved into me. According to ICMizer, calling with 88 in this spot is profitable. Looking back, I probably should have called, since I noticed that the big stack was shoving very frequently. He seemed to be aware of the ICM implications at play, and the fact he gets to shove a very wide range. I think ordinarily I would have called, however I had been in a similar spot earlier on today where I had pocket 66, and I called when I should have folded. I think this impacted my decision here, and it that spot I remember pocket 88 being on the brink of calling. If my opponent was playing tighter, I would've had to call much tighter, i.e. JJ+ and AKs. Opponent shoved with A3o in this spot, and I would've hit quads with my pocket 88 lol.

11 left, I'm 3rd. Short stack shoves in to me and I fold with AJo. In retrospect, this is a pretty bad fold. In this spot, I was afraid that one of the other biggish stacks might wake up with a hand, and so I'd be in big trouble if I shoved and got called. However, I don't think I can play this fearful. The short stack will be shoving with a pretty standard range, and with AJo I imagine I've got pretty good equity. Hence, I should've be reshoving this spot. There's even an argument for flat calling, and then folding to a shove from a big stack, however AJo seems a bit too strong to do this. I might do this with the bottom of my range (A9s, AT) and the top of my range to trap (AA, KK).

On the whole my takeaways are the following: don't be afraid to call with strong pairs facing a shove from aggro opponents, and see if I can make more marginal shoves (e.g. 86ss type hands). The big thing though is to continue to assess each player I'm against, because the moment someone calls too wide (which they often do at this level), I need to adjust my shoving / calling ranges a fair amount.

2nd place out of 1365!!! Super chuffed with the result, and I think I adjusted quite well on the final table given there was a lot of loose splashy players who didn't seem to grasp the concept of ICM very strongly.

Definitely a few hands where I think I made some mistakes on so will analyse a lot of the spots from the end of this tourney. Nonetheless, another massive result, which brings my bankroll to just under $1500 now!

Congratulations on the past few days' results amd well done blog, enjoying your journey. How many hours a day are you putting in? Do you have a source of income separately to live off of?

Spots from the 2nd place finish tournament:

4 left, and I'm chip leader. In retrospect, this is a clear shove, albeit at the bottom of my shoving range. However, these guys were playing especially loose, so this was probably a more profitable shove than I would've anticipated.

9 players left. After I folded my hand, I immediately regretted it, given that I thought it would be a good spot for me to be shoving into 2 smaller stacks. The reason I highlight this hand is because I didn't realise that I can essentially shove any two against a reasonable player, given that my opponents are forced to play incredibly tight.

An interesting spot that I haven't seen come up in my analysis of MTTs so far. 207 players left and the money bubble is at 195. As a result, this allows me to shove any two into a middling stacked player who is comfortably within the money bubble, who is forced into calling with a very tight range. Even after adjusting for a slightly wider range, I can still shove any two in this spot.

Another interesting spot. 4 left and I'm chip leader. Even though I made the correct decision here, I didn't realise that I am able to shove any two and that I can play so wide. In retrospect, it make sense, given the CO short stack that my opponent should be trying to outlast.

Key takeaways: try to realise those spots where I can shove 'any two', and don't be afraid to call off with strong pocket pairs.

Hi Gadflier, thanks for your comment! Been on quite the heater recently haha

I'd say I'm averaging around 5-6hrs a day, however this has been lower recently due to the fact I'm on vacation abroad at the moment. I am a student who is currently taking a break from his studies due to reasons I won't get into here, but I'm living frugally off of student finance loans I have received + a bit of savings from jobs I've worked in the past until October.

BR standing: $1, 497.62
Daily change: +$280.93

Another fantastic day, continuing the heater I've been on recently and furthering my bankroll's all time high.

I've had lowish volume over today and yesterday, and tomorrow I'll be taking the day off since I'll be spending it with my friends. Hoping to try and ramp up the hours on the weekend and thereon.

Let the grind continue!

Congrats on the binks and run! Keep it up!

I'd say you are definitely ready to mix in some 11s. I am not at all familiar with GGs tournaments, but a smaller field $11 sounds good. Do they have like a Saturday or Sunday weekly $11 with a big guarantee? If so, I'd consider adding that as well.

Another thing you could consider is if they have sattys in the $7-$11 range to something like a big weekly $55 or $82 or whatever perhaps give those a try once or twice a week. In my experiences, the bigger field mid-stakes tournaments are going to have a lot of players that aren't any better than what you might see in a small field $11.

Hey Ice Wolf, thanks for your comment 😀

So there's quite a few big guarantee $10 tournaments that GG run frequently. I haven't actually played a $10 tourney yet as I'm trying to stick to strict BR management principles, and from what I've read online, people say having between 200-300 buy ins for a given tournament is safe. I'd say my avg buy in cost atm is $3 so I agree that it's fine to mix in a few $10 tourneys now.

With regards to sattys, that's what I already do. There's 2 weekly tournaments on GG that I try to satty into - 'The Weekender' which is a $50 buy in, and the 'GG Masters' which is a $150 buy in. I start from $0.50-$1.50 step sattys, and then work my way up. I think I've been quite successful at these so far, and have managed to cash in a few of the target tournaments, since I've done a bit of studying into satellite theory.

Recent hand from a $1 Weekender satellite:

UTG shoves 12bb
Hero calls with 88

Looking back, this was a pretty poor call, because of the fact that not only am I already a pretty large stack, but because there is still a lot of us on the final table, and in particular the fact that there is quite a few short stacks.

Given my large stack size, this is a spot where I should be calling extremely tight (JJ+), and I should only be widening my calling range once we get closer to the bubble + as a smaller stack shoves.

The reason I highlight this hand is because it highlights how different satellites are in comparison to standard MTTs. Having said that, even after adjusting pay outs to make them more 'MTT' like, 88 still stands as a fold.

This is a bit of a rambly post but I just want to reconsolidate a bit of satellite theory, and highlight where I went wrong.

Solid win!

Played a very exploitative big stack strategy on the final table, got to a point where I was shoving any two from any position into 5 others since people's seemed to understand the ICM implications (which is surprising given this is such a low buy in tourney).

Will be fun to analyse the spots from this tourney later on!