100k Profit at MTT's

Decided to fire a bunch of Sunday mtt's again this week and it ended up being a slightly profitable one. My biggest day of buyins since I started the thread @ $2,422. $2,632 in cashes for a profit of $210. Fired a higher ABI than my regular grind but I have been slowly increasing the ABI the last 8 weeks or so.

I managed a win in the $27.50 5k gtd on ACR for $1,228. This really helped cover most of the expenses and as it happened half way through my session, I knew I would be almost freerolling the rest of the day. Sometimes on Sundays it feels like you are just going to be stuck infinite $$$ the way things are going 😀 So It I was super happy to get that score.

12th in the $55 pko marauder on global for a couple hundred where a punter reg chipleader raise called CO vs my 17bb sb jam with K9o. I didn't even have a big bounty either..anyways nice score there.

Won a $218 seat to the scrimmage on global but lost a huge flip 99

As the business end of the session approached, I was left with 2 really sick spots deep into my session. The $88 100k gtd Encore on ACR and also the $88 Loncar A on ACR.
With $19,919 up top in the Encore and down to the final 3 tables, I was sitting 12/23 with 17.5bb. I really thought I played my best in this mtt out all of the bullets I fired. But this one hand is still haunting me this morning and I can't get it out of my head. Any advice on the following would be appreciated:

Folds to me in the SB with 17.5bb with Q3s. What's your play?

To me, limp seems very obvious and is highest EV play in theory. In almost any lineup, I would be limping. But in this spot and with the field remaining(I had other 2 tables open and had sharkscoped the players. Was a very tough field remaining maybe 3 recs out of 23 left..), I decided to jam in game. The BB I had scoped. He is a $135 abi/$35 per game winner/$137 per hour winner. Dude is very likely crushing the game. He has 20.5bb so he barely covers. I just don't think I will have an edge postflop vs this guy and I may not get to realize all my equity on some runouts. I may play a little scared and not find all the bluff spots. May not find the hero call with my bottom of range calls on certain runouts. So I think that may help with the EV of jamming. Also, I was thinking about how he would perceive me. He's gonna see a $25 abi who's at the upper end of his buyin range and likely jamming a way stronger/scared money range than usual. So I thought I would get some overfolds vs a high stakes reg in this exact spot. Anyways, he tanked and tanked and tanked and eventually called KTdd and I bust out in 23rd for $458. KTs is a snap call vs any type of standard jamming range so I guess I feel pretty good then about the jam if he's tanking this strong?? Pretty sick equity spot as it was good for a 4/23 stack if I got there. Next time...

I really would like anyone's opinion on the above hand though if you feel strongly about it one way or another i'd like to get others' insights.

The last table of the night was the Loncar A. $9,485 up top in this one. I'll admit that I spewed a little after busting the 100k. Guess it's a form of tilt... got super lucky though and sailed into the money with an above average stack. With ~27 players left, I made a pretty sick triple barrel bluff jam vs a fish. Was sweating it super hard but just went with my gut and he folded pretty quickly vs triple off. My range had a decent equity advantage on the board and I thought they would fast play flop and turn too much based on previous showdowns from that villain. So all in all very happy with the play. Down to final 2 tables and 16 players left, I raise folded 2 hands in a row vs passive fish. Unfortunate to just run into it and I started to chip down Avg stack was very low at this stage <20bb before ft rollback. I actually had a way better table as the other one had 3 or 4 high stakes regs including Michael Loncar himself(spoiler: he ended up winning his own tournament lol). Lenny Foley AKA IllusoryPoker also featured on that table. I have learned quite a lot from his streams he is a great poker player.

Down to the final 13 players and I have KJo in the LJ with 16bb. Although we have to play very tight ranges due to icm, this is a combo that is perfect for a raise/fold. I'll be balanced in this spot and have KJo A8o A9o KQo and some suited Ax and Kx as bluffs to balance with my value range. So very happy with the open but I get some bad news when the CO 3b jams his 6.1bb. Every other player behind had 15-25bb so this is the only player i'm forced to call off and sure enough he finds the part of his range that is a jam. He has AKo and holds and now i'm down to 10.5bb and need help. Next hand one player bust at our table and we are now down to 12. Blinds are up and i'm into the BB with 8.8bb. Folds to SB who jams covering me. I have QJhh and a snap call. I'm up against Q6dd the dream spot. If I double i'm back to 4/12 with 19bb. Flop Q52. Turn 7. River....6. Brutal but that's how it goes. 12th for $352.

Every passing week i'm getting more confident in my game. For the longest time last year, my biggest score was just under $3k. Then over the past 8 weeks, I have had 2 scores >$4k. I know that if I keep my head down and keep working hard, I will start making some 5 figure scores soon. There were 2 chances last night and another close call 2 weeks ago in the $109 60k on acr where I finished 9th. I just need to keep putting myself in those spots and it will start to happen.

To me, the better I think an opponent is, assuming limited information, the closer to GTO I want to play because there are fewer spots I can exploit him in, for less chips, so the importance for me is to minimize his exploitation of me/play less hands of consequence vs him and pick off better spots at the table. The adjustments I would make would be adjustments vs his optimal range, so folding the bottom of my ranges and playing the top of my ranges as I would play the middle of my ranges (so for example, if there's a spot where you'd rejam 88-QQ but 3b AA/KK, I'd also rejam AA/KK). In game I would likely limp, shoving would be the lowest of my likely actions because like you said, he's likely to call correctly which would be very bad since he "should be" calling something like 30%.

It's incredibly impressive that you've achieved a near linear $60k+ profit without any big scores, which really speaks to your consistency. Seriously, great job.

Thank you Rolled High. Makes a lot of sense. Having studied the spot quite a bit I also like limp pre.

I really appreciate the comment, thank you. Especially given how the last week went. Was trending linearly downward this week 😀 I think a lot of it has do with me playing very low avg field size and likely playing a pretty low ABI for my skillset. I think I could likely win some more money playing a higher ABI but would have much more swings and variance than I would be able to handle right now.

It has been a very bad week results wise on the felt. Having upped the ABI by about 30-40% in the past few months, the monetary swing has been my biggest in the challenge to date. Down over $3,000 since last Tuesday. I knew the doomswitch was going to strike eventually but man has it all come in one shot. Just a really bad run of variance. In terms of how I played, well that is debatable. I think I was playing my A/B game starting off most sessions. However, some small things were starting to trigger me a little and that's when I started rushing decisions and not thinking things through. It was just a week where every nice triple barrel off spots failed running into top of villains range. Or else they call off absolutely ridiculous hero call combos. My hero calls always ran into top of villains range. Losing all the flips/coolers deep in mtt's. You know how it goes. Just one of those weeks.

This past week is motivating me more than ever to really grind hard on the studying. I have a project on 3b pots that I have been working on and want to make sure to finish that off. Also going to deep dive into some gtow stuff I have been meaning to do. Been slacking off a bit the past couple of weeks while spending so many hours grinding. But now it's time to get in those study hours.

I have arranged a free first time consultation with one of Elliot Roe's coaches for Wednesday morning. I had been holding off on this for some time but I really just need to invest $$$ into the mental game. It's holding me back more than any other facet of the game imo. Well that and just sheer theory knowledge compared to the HS guys. But I think my winrate can be improved most rn by working on the mental game. I'm definitely spewing money by going off in the chatbox. Even if i'm not in the chatbox, i know that I can be playing my A game far more often that I am. It's definitely an underrated part of the game. In game execution is so so important. Even some of the best theory coaches in the game would struggle to beat high stakes simply because of in game execution. I remember seeing a piece on the mechanics of poker podcast where one HS reg detailed how one of his friends chose to stay at midstakes for the duration of his poker career. He had been dabbling in 5k+ cash games and simply couldn't handle the swings. He decided there and then to just mass table 2/4-10/20 and have a really nice winrate there with very little swings. He just decided that's where his skills lay. It got me thinking about my own personal situation and how I really do need to talk through some of the past experiences I have had with a professional who can help walk me through everything. If I can't handle simple stuff like losing 4 or 5 flips in a row without getting tilted, then I will never be able to climb to high stakes mtt's. I know some of these experiences are triggering certain reactions/emotions/feelings inside me and then bringing out some ridiculous reactions. Having listened to countless hours of Elliot Roe's material, I like how they try to work with potential clients.

They basically get the client in to a calm meditative state. Then try to delve into past experiences that are in your subconscious. Stuff that you may have forgotten or hasn't been brought up in years. For Elliot himself, he first got into hypnotherapy bc of his own fear of flying. He sought out help and when he was in a deep meditative state, a memory came up of him being at his grandfathers house. While there, he saw a picture of a crashed plane. He asked what this was and his grandfather explained that it was the plane a friend of his had died in. From that moment on he was terrified of flying. However, as an adult, he had no recollection of this memory until he worked with the hypnotherapist. He even asked his parents if this really happened or if it was a made up memory. They confirmed that it was all true. Once Elliot and the hypnotherapist identified this memory and worked through the fact that flying is still in fact very safe and that this was just a very unfortunate accident i.e. reframing the thought, his whole perspective on air travel changed.

Anyways all this is me just hoping that this work will be able to improve my mental game and make it much stronger. It's holding me back for sure. To be able to sit down in front of a computer for 8 hours+ and just be happy while grinding would be a dream come true. I don't see the point in feeling anger/shame/anxiety/overly stressed/despair almost at times... But this does happen. Some people will not be able to relate to this as they have a different mental state and these feeling would never show up for them. That's why i'm seeking out professional guidance on the matter.

Start of a new week now and i'm ready to crush it. Especially on the study side of things. January and February were 2 of my best months results wise so far. I am still in the green for March even though I have had my worst downswing of the challenge so far. Let's hope I can close out the month strong and get lucky at the latter stages of the tournaments. All I can do is keep putting myself in those spots

Very nice post, GL!😀

Maybe your point is getting conflated because you hit on a bunch of different subjects all under kind of the same umbrella, but to these specific points, I really don't think that playing in your comfort zone/not playing high stakes has anything to do with past life trauma or repressed childhood memories, or anything else people are trying to sell you. A lot of people, myself included, decided somewhere along the way that poker was so variance filled and stressful on the best of days that the thing that makes the most sense is to play overrolled and not have it be an all consuming part of their life.

Imo, if you start with what you'd like your long term goals with poker to be, and then work backwards, it's overall very beneficial but also will give you a blueprint to move forward with that might help keep some things in perspective when the inevitable bad runs happen.

This post was the thing I needed to see today. Living In Ny(upstate) myself and with Global Poker likely coming to an end sooner than later I've been dreading the move back to WPN and wondering what was even still beatable with my skillset. All I ever see is bot this and rta that and collusion and all the other **** but you're just chilling grinding out mid stakes mtts and I just find that inspiring.

Nice points Rolled High I appreciate your post. I agree with pretty much all of what you said. Especially helpful was the point regarding planning long term goals in poker and then working backwards. Never really thought about it in this way but it does make a lot of sense. Poker being "an all consuming" part of your life is definitely something I can relate to. At times I feel like my whole week and thoughts are solely about poker. I guess it's a slippery slope people go down from time to time but I try to catch myself quickly when I notice this happening and find more balance/take a break from poker.

One of my favorite streamers, Lenny 'Illusory Poker' Foley, is often asked about how he remains so stoic in game. It is very noticeable as he almost never reacts to an all in situation win or lose. I only ever see him getting slightly tilted when he himself thinks he made a blunder. He was on the ft of the venom last year and won 400k for 3rd place. He never cracked a smile when he won a flip, didn't curse when he lost a pot. Just remained focused on optimal play. Was pretty inspiring to watch.

He said he used to be a massive tilter. He fixed this by just spending a couple months saying to himself " I will not react emotionally no matter what cards come out. No matter what the other player does...etc etc" He says he just did this in game during every session for months until it finally stuck.

For me, I would like to speed up the process. I have spent several months now really working hard on this area of the game with less than adequate results. I am going to give these guys(Eliot Roe's crew) a shot to see if they can help. Sure it may not work out and I may lose my money but i'm willing to take the risk. I believe the potential payoff to be worth the price. To be able to reframe one's thoughts to then have better performance in game is worth so much money long term. I tihnk it is easier said than done to achieve this(for a person like me at least I can't speak fro everyone else's mindset/past experiences).

Hello there. Yea I have heard the news also. Will be very likely moving from NY myself shortly anyways. To be honest, the WPN player pool is way tougher than global/ignition/chico. You really need to be winning at a decent clip on WPN to have it in your schedule imo. It's already bigger fields and tougher competition so it's really not worth it unless you are sure you are beating it. There are new sites like club wpt gold and clubs poker that have much softer fields. I think even the likes of coinpoker is softer (for now at least). I know that club wpt gold is 1 table for now as they are new and in beta, but hopefully it will be a good choice for us residents once they sort their stuff out.

Sunday March 23rd 2025

Was pretty happy with how I played for the majority of the 10 hour session. Was running terrible all day and just couldn't get any momentum going until the last couple of tables. Didn't even have a sniff of an ft. I think my biggest cash on the day by 11pm was $235 in the $109 Moneymaker on ACR. Was looking like a -$1,000 day until I finally caught some heat in the $110 Sunday Snap Mystery Bounty 10k gtd on Global.

Exactly 100 runners so no overlay and a 10k prizepool with 15 players paid. I ran extremely hot winning every flip/cooler from 30 players down until the money. I had 3x 2nd place stack when we hit the money 😀 Then it was time to go bananas for the bounties and that's exactly what I did. I managed to nab 2 bounties before the ft for ~$450. 5 out of 9 remaining players in the 5-15bb range while I had 100bb lol. While they were fighting for payjumps, I had free rein to rfi/limp pretty much any two cards. The big bounty of $1,250 was still in and I was defo not giving that up. The crucial hand happened when I flatted an open w 10 2o (shoutout doyle) on the button vs hj 22bb stack open. Yup i'm a whale. SB jams 5bb and then BB rejams like 18bb. Original opener folds(huh) and I snap 10 2o for 2 bounties. We can debate this call all day long but I will never be swayed. It was for <20% of my stack and the EV of each bounty at the time was ~$360. Payjump from 9th to 8th is like $20...IMO original opener has a very clear any 2 call after he opened covering 2 players. But he is a bigger winner than me so maybe i'm missing something and just whaling around. I know there is an argument that you can fold so that you have a chance at bounties in future hands. To me the math is very clear. Anyways....SB shorty had 88 and BB (good on him) jammed the t5s. Not what I wanted to see.... Flop was clean for the 88 but I spiked a 2 on the turn so was looking good for 1 bounty. Then the miracle T came on the river and i'm good for 2 bounties. Hit the big bounty and a small one for $1,400 total. From there on I just rfi'ed 90%+ of hands until we got 3 handed... I scooped up the remaining big bounty of $650 along with a coupe smaller ones also. Eventually got HU and took it down after a gruelling 75 minute match. I lost a flip 2nd hand of HU and the lead swung back an forth a few times before I finally won it getting lucky A5>A8 all in pre. A dream win and my new biggest score of the challenge. $4,793. In total, I managed to win 10 of 15 bounties and shipped the tourny on top of that. What a sunrun after a very tough day of grinding up to that point.

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I was recommended by my poker coach to join this forum , I have never used a forum and im not a tech guy lol. Im trying to make a change and be more active on forums , discord , twitch etc . Can someone let me know what the purpose of this forum is ? Thanks and I apologize for the dumb question like I said before I'm new to this

Hi Tuffa. This forum has a bunch of different stuff related to poker. Just browse through each sub forum and you will get different info on various parts of the poker world. Hand history discussion/People's personal goals threads/Lifestyle/etc etc. There is a beginners questions section here also that may be able to help you out.

Nama- what a blog and what a great read for a slow Wed at work! I’m in awe of the results and consistency

Very inspiring as I never had the courage ever to say screw it im doing it full time

I love your tone and how you post everything in this forum- something I’ll take away as I’m a fish when it comes to this stuff (just started blogging to help with my mental game struggles)

So over this journey what has been your hardest challenge to over come?

What have you enjoyed most about the journey?

Looking forward to your 100k I reached it post and I’m subbed!

Lastly Im recommending the all in on mindset book- going through it now as my mental game is worse than yours and it’s starting to finally help- I’m sure it could help you too.

Hello Dammo! Thank you for your kind post. It certainly does help to write things down on paper(or on a blog in this case😀) to really put things in perspective. Thank you for your recommendation on the book i'll be sure to check it out!

As for your questions: the hardest thing to overcome for me so far has been dealing with the $$ swings/bad variance/mental game leaks/feeling self confident in my own game. This stems from various different things that I have been working on lately. It kind of answers your second question in a way. Although they have been my main challenges, they are also some of the things I have most enjoyed working on so far in the challenge. Getting better in these areas will help me to be a better person overall. I find pleasure in working hard in these areas and then reaping the rewards on the backend. It just takes a s hit ton of work to make money in this game. I used to think otherwise and you could just sail by on 'talent.' I think there is much more fun involved when you just put in the hard work that needs to be done to climb the stakes.

Best of luck on your poker journey.

APRIL:

Great start to the month. I had my first hypnotherapy session yesterday with one of Eliot Roe's coaches and I really liked how it went. We delved way into the past and worked through some stuff that has been itching at me for a while now. I don't know exactly what happened during that session, but imo I played my best poker session in the last 12 months yesterday. I felt dialed in the whole session. I had a very strong mental game. Maybe felt myself slipping once or twice very briefly after a particularly rough 30mins, but I quickly recovered my composure and didn't tilt/punt off. Felt totally in the zone and was thinking rationally through every decision. All my timebanks were nearly hitting zero which I was think is a good sign bc it means i'm taking my time through tough spots.

Obviously i'm aware of short term variance. Also am very aware of how this new hypnotherapy work can sometimes have a placebo effect in a way. Kind of like giving a kid some energy drink and telling them it'll make them run faster. In that moment on that day they will likely believe it and may perform better in that moment. Maybe I just had much more confidence in myself. Confidence in my plays and knowing that it's ok to make some mistakes along the way. Being way too self critical can only hinder my performance in game. I'm going to try to trust myself more from now on in game. When I feel discomfort, a lot of times it is because I just don't know the theory of how that particular spot/node actually works. From now on, I will just mark the spot in game and then review at a later time knowing it can only help my confidence grow. Also not focusing on my opponents and if they are good/bad/whale/reg/fish who cares. Just focus on playing the spot correct and making necessary exploits based on opponents tendencies.

One thing I did really well yesterday was reacting well to losing big pots deep in mtt's. I had a few spots in various mtt's yesterday on ACR and chico with between $1,500-8,000 up top ....bricked every one of them but still kept my composure all the way through and still ended the session with 2 W's on the smaller field shores of Global. Had a nice sunrun win in the $55 lunchtime nine for $900. Then I closed out my session with a smaller win in the $5 rebuy and addon mtt for $275. Total profit on the day was $879 and a great start to April

Great work Nama,

Glad to hear it was a great mental day for you.

Out of curiosity how much was the Elliot Roe session?

Looking into getting a local sports psychology session here in Australia, wondering if it's a similar cost etc.

It was $1,500 for 5 sessions. First session was 2 hours 15mins. The rest will be 1 hr 15 mins. Pretty expensive but i'm willing to invest in myself and see if it can improve me. To be honest I think it has already paid for itself. I have played 2 sessions after having that hypno work done and have won $1,725 in profit. Have played better in those 2 sessions than I have all year. Not 100% locked in but getting there. I just think about how much I would have won if I hadn't had a stronger mental game and had some punts....Prob would have cost me $500-1k in those 2 sessions. Whatever I won this week I earned it. Of course it is positive variance and I wouldn't deny that. But if I had played those same 2 sessions last week I would have won far less money based on my performance. That's how I feel about it at least.

Thursday April 4th:

Excellent session today. Had 2 more W's to go with Tuesdays wins. Managed to scoop the $33 3k gtd pko on chico for $962 and just had a small W in the $11 1x rebuy and 1x addon on global for $240. Had a few more super deep runs and ft's including a couple on coinpoker which I just started playing. Unfortunately sharkscope doesn't track that site yet so i'll leave that out for now. Now for some exercise and dinner. Then chill and maybe review some hands.