MTTs are my bread and butter [UPDATED - see page 3]

[Dingdell]

Hi Danni,

not sure I can offer any great advice, but just wondered if you'd been able to put your finger on any factors affecting your results.  Do you think you are not playing as well, or are you getting unlucky?  IMVHO it sounds like you had a good run, and that's being balanced out by a not so good run.  Try not to let the bad results get to you, and remember that you are a good tournament player, and it's the long term results that matter.

Hi Claire, yes it was a very good run indeed and I'm aware that things aren't going to be like that very often, but I don't feel that this bad swing in tournaments is just down to variance.  The main problem I think is the venue.  The structures just don't allow the good players enough of an edge.  But I worry that this is not the only reason, and that my game has been altered for the worst by playing against bad players all the time, or that I'm playing too much so I'm not always playing to the best of my ability or something.  As far as the cards go, I'm not getting particularly bad ones at the moment (although its not wonderful either), although if I find myself in a coinflip situation I pretty much always lose at the moment, which doesn't help.  Thanks for the advice though, hopefully things will turn round a bit soon.  New Year and all that.

As far as cash play effecting tournament play and vice-versa, I tend to try and keep both styles of play very seperate, especially in tournaments with very restrictive blinds.  I do worry though, like I've said before, that because the standard of play is not very good at Gala, that sometimes I get sucked into playing much looser than normal because I want to play them at their own game, see more flops, and try and outplay them.  And this quite often backfires.

A lot of the Gala players have migrated to Luton and are happy to keep going back - that must say something. I think a definite change of venue is needed, and not just for one night, spend some time at one place, get to know the players - don't make life difficult by going to lots of different places and having to relearn people all the time.

A change in venue may give you a change in variance. It's worth a try.

[kinboshi]

it seems like I look at poker in a fundamentally different way to you guys. To me it's all NL HE, you get two cards and they put 5 in the middle. If I have 100 BBs I play pretty much the same whether I'm playing cash or a comp. If I decided I wanted to play cash with 10 or 20 BBs then I would play pretty much the same as I would in a comp. There are some other things to consider in a tourny, blinds going up, the bubble, going up the pay ladder but they are fairly simple things to consider aren't they?

so where am I going wrong? what are these huge differences that I am missing? why will playing cash ruin my tourney game when I think it's the total opposite?

the reason I started thinking about playing cash is that I donked my way into the season 2 Monte Carlo EPT where IIRC we started with 200 BBs. I absolutely was a fish out of water, errr yeah I'll call with , er implied odds, er I've missed, er I'll raise the turn and hopefully he'll fold, oh he's called and the rivers missed me, what do I do now

If I ever win a sat to a big event again I will be a lot more confident when deep and when short it's just the standard 20 BB tourney game we've all played a zillion times right? 

Playing cash only I feel I have lost a little understanding of the nuances of tourney poker that I had before. I bluff less, poistion raise less and generally just play the cards instead of looking for spots I can exploit. In cash games I like to have certain criteria met when I sit at a table, these conditions are unattainable in tourneys.

This is a very interesting point.  As far as cash games go (and I'm talking online here), you can pick and choose when to play, what level to play, and who to play against.  This is an important part of cash play for me (and I play at low levels so I don't know what it's like at the dizzier heights).

You can join and leave a table when you want, knowing that another is just a click away.  I often sit down at a group of tables, work out which ones are going to be the most lucrative, and ditch the tougher ones.  You can't do that with tournaments.  Obviously, you can choose tournaments that suit you and look for the added valooo or weaker fields, but it's not the same as table selection for cash games.

[TightEnd]

Game selection in Live Mtts though is vital..seems to me Pocket Lady is making a mistake here

whether you focus on buy-in, structures, venues (and how well you know the players) and associated expenses...I would have thought you could do a lot better (for a decent player looking for an edge) that Gala Sol!

[bobby1]

it seems like I look at poker in a fundamentally different way to you guys. To me it's all NL HE, you get two cards and they put 5 in the middle. If I have 100 BBs I play pretty much the same whether I'm playing cash or a comp. If I decided I wanted to play cash with 10 or 20 BBs then I would play pretty much the same as I would in a comp. There are some other things to consider in a tourny, blinds going up, the bubble, going up the pay ladder but they are fairly simple things to consider aren't they?

so where am I going wrong? what are these huge differences that I am missing? why will playing cash ruin my tourney game when I think it's the total opposite?

the reason I started thinking about playing cash is that I donked my way into the season 2 Monte Carlo EPT where IIRC we started with 200 BBs. I absolutely was a fish out of water, errr yeah I'll call with , er implied odds, er I've missed, er I'll raise the turn and hopefully he'll fold, oh he's called and the rivers missed me, what do I do now

If I ever win a sat to a big event again I will be a lot more confident when deep and when short it's just the standard 20 BB tourney game we've all played a zillion times right? 

Playing cash only I feel I have lost a little understanding of the nuances of tourney poker that I had before. I bluff less, poistion raise less and generally just play the cards instead of looking for spots I can exploit. In cash games I like to have certain criteria met when I sit at a table, these conditions are unattainable in tourneys.

This is a very interesting point.  As far as cash games go (and I'm talking online here), you can pick and choose when to play, what level to play, and who to play against.  This is an important part of cash play for me (and I play at low levels so I don't know what it's like at the dizzier heights).

You can join and leave a table when you want, knowing that another is just a click away.  I often sit down at a group of tables, work out which ones are going to be the most lucrative, and ditch the tougher ones.  You can't do that with tournaments.  Obviously, you can choose tournaments that suit you and look for the added valooo or weaker fields, but it's not the same as table selection for cash games.

Thats how I see it and why I disagree with Mantis, you look at where your profit comes from and where it looks more likely to come from in the future and you play in those games. If you can then tilt conditions in your favour then even better but the OP is winning at 2 of the 3 disciplines she is playing yet wants to play more of the disciplines she is not winning at. Restricting the games instead of playing online too is fine If you can afford to play for a living without it but to me it seems to be the most financially sound arena to play in as Tighty says, your exes are minimal and you can stop start when you feel able to play your best.

[PocketLady]

What strikes me in the OP is, as Flushy says, how little you've actually played in six months, despite putting the hours in.

I have basically no feel at all for what is an achievable return on investment in live MTTs and STTs. And obviously I don't know what your living costs are, PLady. But if poker is your sole income and you want to build your bankroll as well, then if you're 'investing' £10k in six months I guess you'd need something like a 100% ROI. Is this realistic...?

If you played online then a 10% ROI would probably be realistic for STTs at the same stakes - but you'd easily be able to see 10 times as many hands per hour, so could 'invest' £100k in six months and make the same amount of profit.

It seems to me that there's a major psychological disadvantage here to playing live as opposed to online. Online, it's fairly quick and easy to work out what your average ROI is. That means that when you play solidly but have a losing week, you can still tell yourself, "Well, I put in 30 hours and on average I make $30 an hour, so in theory I'm up $900." (As long as you scale down your big winning sessions to their 'theoretical' level as well.)

But live, because it's so much harder to work out whether and by how much you are actually a long-term winning player, a losing spell can much more easily make you think that you're throwing money away, and affect your game/motivation.

Good luck.

(If anyone can say what's an achievable ROI in MTTs live and online I'd be really interested, thanks.)

This 10k figure I've stated...this is at Gala only.  Where they only offer STTs and MTTs.  As stated before this is most definitely not the only place I play on regular basis, and doesn't include cash games at all. 

[RED-DOG]

Overall it is definitely easier to make a regular income playing cash.

I even know a ventriloquist's dummy who loves tourneys but insists that cash games are his gread and gutter.



 

[bobby1]

Overall it is definitely easier to make a regular income playing cash.

I even know a ventriloquist's dummy who loves tourneys but insists that cash games are his gread and gutter.



 

Thats easy for him to say!!

[PocketLady]

Hi Danni,

not sure I can offer any great advice, but just wondered if you'd been able to put your finger on any factors affecting your results.  Do you think you are not playing as well, or are you getting unlucky?  IMVHO it sounds like you had a good run, and that's being balanced out by a not so good run.  Try not to let the bad results get to you, and remember that you are a good tournament player, and it's the long term results that matter.

Hi Claire, yes it was a very good run indeed and I'm aware that things aren't going to be like that very often, but I don't feel that this bad swing in tournaments is just down to variance.  The main problem I think is the venue.  The structures just don't allow the good players enough of an edge.  But I worry that this is not the only reason, and that my game has been altered for the worst by playing against bad players all the time, or that I'm playing too much so I'm not always playing to the best of my ability or something.  As far as the cards go, I'm not getting particularly bad ones at the moment (although its not wonderful either), although if I find myself in a coinflip situation I pretty much always lose at the moment, which doesn't help.  Thanks for the advice though, hopefully things will turn round a bit soon.  New Year and all that.

As far as cash play effecting tournament play and vice-versa, I tend to try and keep both styles of play very seperate, especially in tournaments with very restrictive blinds.  I do worry though, like I've said before, that because the standard of play is not very good at Gala, that sometimes I get sucked into playing much looser than normal because I want to play them at their own game, see more flops, and try and outplay them.  And this quite often backfires.

A lot of the Gala players have migrated to Luton and are happy to keep going back - that must say something. I think a definite change of venue is needed, and not just for one night, spend some time at one place, get to know the players - don't make life difficult by going to lots of different places and having to relearn people all the time.

A change in venue may give you a change in variance. It's worth a try.

I have cut down on the amount I play at Gala a fair bit over the last couple of weeks.  I'm intending to start getting up to dtd on a regular basis, and I also play at The Isle at Coventry, who's cash games are quite good.  I have a problem in that for personal reasons I can't play at Luton.  I wish it were otherwise but it leaves the problem of having to source out other venues unfortunetly.

I agree with TightEnd that I most definitely need to be playing MTTs at venues other than gala.  But to be honest, I already travel all over the place to play MTTs quite often as it is.  Hopefully playing GUKPT Brighton next week, maybe that will wake me up a bit and let me get the buzz again!

[bobby1]

good luck next week mate, sometimes a good chat can invigorate the poker mind nicely, let us know how it goes.

[PocketLady]

it seems like I look at poker in a fundamentally different way to you guys. To me it's all NL HE, you get two cards and they put 5 in the middle. If I have 100 BBs I play pretty much the same whether I'm playing cash or a comp. If I decided I wanted to play cash with 10 or 20 BBs then I would play pretty much the same as I would in a comp. There are some other things to consider in a tourny, blinds going up, the bubble, going up the pay ladder but they are fairly simple things to consider aren't they?

so where am I going wrong? what are these huge differences that I am missing? why will playing cash ruin my tourney game when I think it's the total opposite?

the reason I started thinking about playing cash is that I donked my way into the season 2 Monte Carlo EPT where IIRC we started with 200 BBs. I absolutely was a fish out of water, errr yeah I'll call with , er implied odds, er I've missed, er I'll raise the turn and hopefully he'll fold, oh he's called and the rivers missed me, what do I do now

If I ever win a sat to a big event again I will be a lot more confident when deep and when short it's just the standard 20 BB tourney game we've all played a zillion times right? 

Playing cash only I feel I have lost a little understanding of the nuances of tourney poker that I had before. I bluff less, poistion raise less and generally just play the cards instead of looking for spots I can exploit. In cash games I like to have certain criteria met when I sit at a table, these conditions are unattainable in tourneys.

This is a very interesting point.  As far as cash games go (and I'm talking online here), you can pick and choose when to play, what level to play, and who to play against.  This is an important part of cash play for me (and I play at low levels so I don't know what it's like at the dizzier heights).

You can join and leave a table when you want, knowing that another is just a click away.  I often sit down at a group of tables, work out which ones are going to be the most lucrative, and ditch the tougher ones.  You can't do that with tournaments.  Obviously, you can choose tournaments that suit you and look for the added valooo or weaker fields, but it's not the same as table selection for cash games.

Thats how I see it and why I disagree with Mantis, you look at where your profit comes from and where it looks more likely to come from in the future and you play in those games. If you can then tilt conditions in your favour then even better but the OP is winning at 2 of the 3 disciplines she is playing yet wants to play more of the disciplines she is not winning at. Restricting the games instead of playing online too is fine If you can afford to play for a living without it but to me it seems to be the most financially sound arena to play in as Tighty says, your exes are minimal and you can stop start when you feel able to play your best.

I don't play online often because I feel that live play is where many of my strengths lie.  Multitabling 4 tables for 8 hours a day will just never be my thing really, and I'm much better when I play live (cash) so what would be the point anyway.  My main reason for playing online is to play satellites for big live events. Other than that, it just isn't for me.

I am beginning to think perhaps I chose the wrong title for this thread.  I don't mean I want and expect to be able to play MTTs day in day out and make a living just from that.  I'm saying that MTTs are what I have always known, and until recently, what I have always been good at.  And what I want to be good again, but  along side other disciplines, not instead of.

good luck next week mate, sometimes a good chat can invigorate the poker mind nicely, let us know how it goes.

Thanks :-) Would be an ideal time to get some form back...think that's asking too much?? Lol.

[bobby1]

not at all, give it your best shot.

[Longy]

I think you have to be realisitic here you are trying to make a living playing live (mainly MTT's) this is about the hardest way to make a living out of poker. As varience is massive, you have overhead that while seem inconsequtial on a night by night basis are often massive in the long term to eat and travel to a casino every night must be £5-10. This is like paying the tournament fee twice over at least.

Also as Flushy and others have pointed out, your sample size is very small. People ALWAYS underestimate varience in poker especially live players, for example i made a living out of crapshoots for 18 months (playing turbos sngs) and i can give show you periods of breaking even for at least 500+ tournies* and i was solid winner in those games. That is 25000 hands, you are playing 40hrs a week top right. I would estimate you are only getting 30 hands an hour. So that 5 months in live poker and thats assuming you have a significant edge. These are conservative estimates and i was probably lucky not to have worse runs, 100000 hands is somewhere nearer the long term.

[PocketLady]

Whilst variance will always be a factor (and maybe I do underestimate it), I have been ignoring and overlooking other factors which mean that I am not able to play to the best of my ability.  Variance can always be blammed if someone is running bad, and often it is probably true, probably in this case as well, but I just want to get rid of any other contributing factors that could be making it worse.  This is the issues with venue/players etc.  And if I'm honest, it is mainly down to laziness and the social aspect which means I drag myself to unsuitable games night after night.  But that will be changing, as of now I think. 

[Longy]

Whilst variance will always be a factor (and maybe I do underestimate it), I have been ignoring and overlooking other factors which mean that I am not able to play to the best of my ability.  Variance can always be blammed if someone is running bad, and often it is probably true, probably in this case as well, but I just want to get rid of any other contributing factors that could be making it worse.  This is the issues with venue/players etc.  And if I'm honest, it is mainly down to laziness and the social aspect which means I drag myself to unsuitable games night after night.  But that will be changing, as of now I think. 

Ok, sounds like you have the right attitude to succeed. Best of luck

[PocketLady]

Well after following the advice of the blonde forum (and kind of what I already knew), I chucked in Gala and went to DTD for the first time last night to play the £75 freezeout.  After being down to 1500 chips after the first 4 hands I thought "here we go again".  But by some miracle I came back from almost nothing and ended up finishing 7th out of nearly 150 runners.  Unfortunately I was card dead for the final otherwise I think I could have done better.  Nonetheless it was a nice change to be rewarded for good play.  The most important hand for the night for me would have undoubtedly ended in disaster if I had been at Gala.  The blinds were 300-600 and second to act had raised to 2400, with a call from the guy next to him.  I was on the button with  and it felt to me like chances are I was behind to a bigger pair.  I opted to call and see a flop as I had position on them.  The flop was a brilliant  .  I am sat with about 12k. First person to speak checks, and the other guy bets 5k.  I re-raise all in for 12k.  The checker immediately passes, and the other guy calls the remaining 7k with  .  Two blanks come down and I'm home free.  I find out after the hand that the guy who passed to my all in had in actual fact thrown  .  The river was in fact the which would have sent me to the rails if he wasn't good enough to pass.  Just highlighted to me the huge difference in standard.  So it wasn't a massive cash, but a confidence booster even so.  I also sat in the cash game for an hour after and won £200 quid, so a good night all in all.  Roll on brighton!