I don't do Blogs!

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

17 minutes ago, CuteRaven said:

Unfortunate run, as fun as bounty tournaments are (my favorite one is space madness) the variance is pretty brutal sometimes

I swear I was starting to think he was a super user or something. It was insane but then when he crashed out I stopped throwing things around the room ( I don't really throw things around the room, the wife bolted everything down years ago).

[GR1ZZL3R]

  I've more or less stopped being surprised by what players will call or shove, especially in satellites, especially small stakes, but sometimes much higher stakes. Many times they are standard hands but then again many times they aren't. Quite often it's fun to nominate a player with loads of chips that you think won't ticket up. Some simply have to play every hand no matter what, some will call every small stack shove with any two, even after losing 2 or 3 of these and being dragged into the middle of the pack, carrying on doing it in an attempt to get their stack back when it's not really necessary. My favourite of course is when two big stacks have an ego battle, ( sometimes known as a dick swinging contest ) which usually ends with one crashing out after frenzied betting in every round, showing Ace high 6 kicker against Ace high 8 kicker.   

Thank goodness  

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

Figured I could only really be in terrible shape against 88 so all goes in on the flop....couldn't even wait until the river !

 

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

No poker to be seen here folks....move along!

 

 

 

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

And just to keep the reporting unbiased....

 .......making a poor read and call and getting very lucky makes a nice change.

 

[P0kerM0nk]

Poker, a game where excellent play gets punished and terrible play awarded 

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

Well it's been a while since I posted anything because I haven't been playing here. I actually logged in to see if my account had been verified yet and it hasn't.

A couple of weeks ago I had made the decision to deposit enough to move up some levels where I would hope to be playing a better calibre of opponent. I know that sounds really nuts, why would I want to play against better players and make my job harder! What I have always found for me personally and I think it is true generally, is that you are only as good as the company you keep.

How that translates with poker for me is  that I have been surrounded by mainly poor players and as a consequence I ended up lowering my standards and increasing my expectations. When the level of play is so bad that I have absolutely no idea where I am in a hand most of the time, or what cards they hold and I start playing like a robot, it's time to get out. It's ok to play like a robot in terms of controlling emotions but not the way you play. My bankroll has been up and down like a yoyo, usually in tune with my emotions and not helped with the missions, more on that later.

So I decided that I was going to move up for two reasons. 1.I needed to be amongst better players to keep me on my toes and keep me interested. At the same time I would hope after the initial baptism of fire I would make more money from playing less to allow  me more time to play some tournaments. 2. I wanted to reach level 6 and I wasn't going to do that playing at the level I was in the time remaining, no matter how many hours I put in. I think I did well to get as far as I did but level 6 would have been a bridge too far.

What actually happened was this. I can't remember what my bankroll had dropped to again but it was under €100 and I had the last mission to complete which was to cash in 2 MTT's 2 days in a row which had to be at least €5 buy-in (way above the limits of my BRM but I like a challenge). Shouldn't be too difficult but there are no guarantees in tournaments. Anyway I entered a couple on day 1 and managed to cash in one of them. Day 2 I forgot about until it was getting on a bit and so I entered some, including a €10. I can't begin to explain how badly I ran (I'm not sure how many times I need to explain to the poker gods that I don't require a set on the river to make their straight). I should have had final table chips on 2 tables when it was still in the rebuy period ( i hate rebuy tournaments but there wasn't many options) but instead I ended up having to rebuy.

In the end I ended up on tilt, spite rebuying until I ran my BR down to zero and then found a way of getting rid of whatever was left. I didn't just go on tilt because of what was happening in the games. In the back of my mind I was thinking that I may never see any money I win anyway. It has now been 3 weeks since I gave access to my bank account (something I really did not feel comfortable doing) for UB to verify my source of funds. This is after they had already verified my ID and address. Ultimately the blame for trashing my BR lies with me. I'm in control of what I do but poker is a very emotional game. A lot of people don't realise that there are so many things that can affect how you play and your thought process. If you are not in the right state of mind when you play because you had an argument with your wife or whatever, it will affect your play. Sometimes in your favour but normally not.

Now because it has taken so long and my account is still not verified  I won't make my target. I needed to make an appropriate deposit 2 weeks ago if I was to be successful and I certainly wasn't going to do that with the uncertainty of not knowing if or when I would ever be able to withdraw. I know most, if not all of you have no issues getting your funds out otherwise you wouldn't be here and neither would UB but I also know that a LOT of people are having issues from reading posts on the subject. I don't expect or want anyone to be slagging them off because overall I like the way it's set up and the community spirit. All very different to other poker rooms, which is nice. However, there is no reason why they couldn't have asked for this information when I was asked for my ID and proof of address, to speed things up. Moreover they should have asked for all of this verification BEFORE I deposited in the first place. The fact that they wait until you have deposited is very alarming and shows that it is simply a business decision and nothing to do with protecting the player or an anti money laundering prevention. If people had to wait weeks to be verified i'm sure most would just find somewhere else to play and that is why they take your deposit first.

Fortunately I have only really lost $50 and time invested. Could have been worse. I enjoy playing here and the community spirit but now I'm left feeling like it's all been a waste of time and even if I do finally get verified. I won't want to start again trying to reach the higher levels of rakeback . 

Well there you are. Sorry it was a bit doom and gloom but I thought I should explain why I dropped off the radar. I'll pop back from time to time and see if there has been any progress and take it from there.

GL in your games.

 

[Stubbe-Unibet]

2 hours ago, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

In the end I ended up on tilt, spite rebuying until I ran my BR down to zero and then found a way of getting rid of whatever was left. I didn't just go on tilt because of what was happening in the games. In the back of my mind I was thinking that I may never see any money I win anyway. It has now been 3 weeks since I gave access to my bank account (something I really did not feel comfortable doing) for UB to verify my source of funds. This is after they had already verified my ID and address. Ultimately the blame for trashing my BR lies with me. I'm in control of what I do but poker is a very emotional game. A lot of people don't realise that there are so many things that can affect how you play and your thought process. If you are not in the right state of mind when you play because you had an argument with your wife or whatever, it will affect your play. Sometimes in your favour but normally not.

Now because it has taken so long and my account is still not verified  I won't make my target. I needed to make an appropriate deposit 2 weeks ago if I was to be successful and I certainly wasn't going to do that with the uncertainty of not knowing if or when I would ever be able to withdraw. I know most, if not all of you have no issues getting your funds out otherwise you wouldn't be here and neither would UB but I also know that a LOT of people are having issues from reading posts on the subject. I don't expect or want anyone to be slagging them off because overall I like the way it's set up and the community spirit. All very different to other poker rooms, which is nice. However, there is no reason why they couldn't have asked for this information when I was asked for my ID and proof of address, to speed things up. Moreover they should have asked for all of this verification BEFORE I deposited in the first place. The fact that they wait until you have deposited is very alarming and shows that it is simply a business decision and nothing to do with protecting the player or an anti money laundering prevention. If people had to wait weeks to be verified i'm sure most would just find somewhere else to play and that is why they take your deposit first.

I have to admit I'm really confused about all this. I don't see anything about the source of funds request and your verification was incredibly fast. Documents were uploaded just after midnight and approved just after noon the same day. I don't see any open verification case or source of funds request. Should add that I don't have access to everything, but document requests and open cases I should see. 

I'm a little concerned if you've been subject to a scam and would love to get some more information about all this. You can send further details to me by PM.

It's not "a lot" of people having issues. It's a tiny minority - we are not talking percent, barely per mille. Keep in mind we have millions of customers. I'm not seeing we never have cases that take too long - it's obvious we do - but it's a very small share of customers that run into issues with document requests (and in many of these longer cases it's because the customer deposited with 3rd party credit card or violated the terms in another way).

We do block accounts on registration - no deposit or play allowed - and request documents for players to start playing with us. However, given it's a VERY small share of customers that will ever need to send in anything to us, it simply wouldn't make any sense to request every possible document from every single customer upon registration. Every account is unique and no two cases are identical. 

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

On 8/20/2022 at 10:35 PM, Stubbe-Unibet said:

I'm a little concerned if you've been subject to a scam and would love to get some more information about all this. You can send further details to me by PM.

I'll do that thanks.

[CuteRaven]

On 8/20/2022 at 9:39 PM, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

So I decided that I was going to move up for two reasons. 1.I needed to be amongst better players to keep me on my toes and keep me interested. At the same time I would hope after the initial baptism of fire I would make more money from playing less to allow  me more time to play some tournaments. 2. I wanted to reach level 6 and I wasn't going to do that playing at the level I was in the time remaining, no matter how many hours I put in. I think I did well to get as far as I did but level 6 would have been a bridge too far.

TBH I'm not sure it makes sense to me (apart from having a proper bankroll size for tournaments). I try to enjoy poker for the strategy, competition, thrill etc. regardless of how good or bad the competition is. I don't think playing higher stakes will be less frustrating especially if the low stakes felt like a bit of struggle.

If someone is playing really weirdly (or even if they are playing normally) I take it as a fun challenge to try and hand-read them ( and you seem like a decent hand reader from some of the hands that you posted). I start playing less robotically and sometimes level myself into doing dumb stuff (so I have the opposite problem ). When I start playing robotically it is usually a sign that I need a break from poker.

Getting to L6 also seems really tough regardless, unless you were planning on depositing more than 1000€. You need to rake 2205€ to get there (which is over 3000 10€ Hexapros for example which is quite tough even when playing a high volume format like that).

On 8/20/2022 at 9:39 PM, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

i hate rebuy tournaments

Same, and especially the add-on tournaments feel a bit like a scam, you pay the 5€ buy in and suddenly you are surprised with a prompt to invest double what you thought you would for the tournament (I know there is the tournament filter but new players won't notice it or know what an add-on is and many recs won't care about it, great way to bust the bankroll of recs fast). At least Unibet should rename the tournaments to "Good luck Mr Scamsky ADD-ON REBUY tournament" or something and show the buy-in column as "5€+5€" or something to make it more clear and drive the point home.

Mini rant about the scam-on tournaments.

On 8/20/2022 at 9:39 PM, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

Now because it has taken so long and my account is still not verified 

Hopefully you can get it sorted whatever it is and hopefully you are doing well regardless!

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

20 hours ago, CuteRaven said:

TBH I'm not sure it makes sense to me (apart from having a proper bankroll size for tournaments). I try to enjoy poker for the strategy, competition, thrill etc. regardless of how good or bad the competition is. I don't think playing higher stakes will be less frustrating especially if the low stakes felt like a bit of struggle.

If someone is playing really weirdly (or even if they are playing normally) I take it as a fun challenge to try and hand-read them ( and you seem like a decent hand reader from some of the hands that you posted). I start playing less robotically and sometimes level myself into doing dumb stuff (so I have the opposite problem ). When I start playing robotically it is usually a sign that I need a break from poker.

Getting to L6 also seems really tough regardless, unless you were planning on depositing more than 1000€. You need to rake 2205€ to get there (which is over 3000 10€ Hexapros for example which is quite tough even when playing a high volume format like that).

I would think exactly the same thing if it were someone else but I'm a bit weird. Low stakes were a struggle because I already served my time playing at that level(live) and endured the pain and it was really hard going back there to suffer it all again, only it seemed far worse than when I did my apprenticeship.

I was always a tournament player and that's what I enjoyed. One day I was offered a challenge by a fellow player and that challenge was to play nothing but low stakes cash (25/25)for a whole year. No tournaments. It was a daft £50 wager and he didn't expect me to be able to last a month but I like a challenge. I stuck it out for a whole year and actually made a net profit of over £10k and as I was tracking everything on my poker journal and wanted everything in the green, I would never go home until I had made a profit, even if it was only 25p . The point is that I learnt to deal with all types of player and acquired incredible levels of patience and discipline but I was only able to achieve that because it was a challenge and I had a goal. Without that I would have given up within a fortnight. I didn't enjoy it at all.

I later moved up levels when I did play cash and actually enjoyed it to an extent because the higher I went the more interesting it became and for me, the easier it became. Players didn't step out of line so often, their ranges were more predictable, their tendencies were more obvious and because the stakes were higher and most were grinders, the pressure was easier to apply, making tells more likely. Then there was the added bonus of mind games, the game within a game and it made it fun and interesting. Strangely enough, when it got to £5/£5 the standard dropped sharply IMO and it was closer to that of 25p/25p. I stuck to £1/£1 or £1/£2 when I played cash, mainly for that reason.

Lord! I'm not sure I've even made my point yet. I could sit at 4NL all day long, every day and make a decent living from it but I wouldn't enjoy it and it wouldn't help towards my goal. My goal was to play higher, make more in less time to allow me to play tournaments too as my reward and in turn I would make at least L6 and enjoy the challenge of better players. If I don't have a goal or challenge and I'm not enjoying what I'm doing then I lose focus, patience and discipline and that is why I needed to move up. From what I observed I was going to have to start at at least 50NL but under the circumstances I wasn't prepared to make that level of deposit and so it all went to hell.

I don't particularly like the Hexapro format as a daily grind. I would do 3000 S&G's but there isn't the volume running to do enough sets. 

21 hours ago, CuteRaven said:

At least Unibet should rename the tournaments to "Good luck Mr Scamsky ADD-ON REBUY tournament"

  

Most people tell me that you should always take the add-on. Live or online I don't always take it and try to find as many reasons as I can for not taking it. Personally I think it depends on too many factors to be something you take automatically.

 

21 hours ago, CuteRaven said:

Hopefully you can get it sorted whatever it is and hopefully you are doing well regardless!

Thank you. Things are going well elsewhere but I have to admit that there is something different about UB that I like. Jami and Stubbe have been great and are trying to sort it out. Sometimes I wish I would wait until the next day to have a rant when it's less emotional.

When I read about other people playing tournaments I get envious and wish I had more time for them. It's obvious that is what I want to be doing and so I have made the decision to give it another go and focus on just that instead of worrying about playing volume and formats I don't enjoy, just for the sake of reaching higher levels of rakeback. My goal now is simply to enjoy what I'm doing and play when I feel like it. So yesterday I deposited €50 and played a tournament. I only just managed to reach the money which didn't cover my costs because i had to rebuy(hate them!). Turns out that I have returned just in time to complete the final challenge for august and so I entered 2 tournaments today that I wouldn't normally attempt on that bankroll because....well because i'm a sucker for a challenge! Turns out I binked them both!

I don't really enjoy it when we get to H/U play but it's a necessary evil. One of them was pretty straight forward, the other was a bit of a struggle but they never adjusted so I caught up and overtook in the end. 

Dream start with the bonus of completing the challenge 

BR €158.62 (inc €10 from free spins)

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

On 8/8/2022 at 2:15 AM, CuteRaven said:

You need to get the more expensive bounty tournament edition. The standard run good package wasn't designed to withstand players as crazy as coco4742!

Arrived yesterday thank you   

Edited August 28, 2022 by AbvUrPlayGrd

[CuteRaven]

23 hours ago, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

I would think exactly the same thing if it were someone else but I'm a bit weird.

Well, I guess you know best, especially with all that experience. A player who tries to avoid bad players is a new one for me . I also enjoy playing against good regs (especially HU with all the mind games you mentioned) as a fun challenge, but I don't mind facing bad players that donate their chips to me.

23 hours ago, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

Turns out I binked them both!

Great start! And I guess, who cares about BR management when it's only 50€ and you can always redeposit

23 hours ago, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

Most people tell me that you should always take the add-on.

I've heard that with a big stack you shouldn't, and otherwise you should take the add-on. Probably someone could do some rough ICM calcs to get an approximate threshold for how many chips you need for the add-on to not be worth taking anymore.

23 hours ago, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

I don't particularly like the Hexapro format as a daily grind. I would do 3000 S&G's but there isn't the volume running to do enough sets

Yeah it's a shame with the SnG volume (they don't get much love in promos either). Hexapros are a bit too much of a variance-fest for my taste, though I do still enjoy them sometimes, for similar reasons that I like HU SnG ( I could see myself grinding Hexapros maybe, if for some reason I stop liking HU SNG, or the HU SnG volume drops a lot on Unibet). But the ICM and the "bubble bursting excitement" and related strategy of 5 man SnG is something I like, that's only present in MTTs, which take too long on average for my taste.

Edited August 29, 2022 by CuteRaven

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

39 minutes ago, CuteRaven said:

Well, I guess you know best, especially with all that experience. A player who tries to avoid bad players is a new one for me . I also enjoy playing against good regs (especially HU with all the mind games you mentioned) as a fun challenge, but I don't mind facing bad players that donate their chips to me.

Don't get me wrong. I welcome bad players on the table with open arms but not the whole table, time and time again. If you have1 or 2 on a 6 max table or maybe 3 on a full ring table then I find it much easier. It also opens up opportunities to exploit good regs who are targeting the whales on the table and then get into some meta games with them too. Keeps the brain alive and makes it interesting and hopefully profitable. 

When you start a session and all or most of your tables are just full of bad players it (for me at least) has a negative affect on my game and state of mind. If that's the situation day in and day out then your game has to suffer. The biggest issue is that most of the time you will have no idea where you stand in a hand because they will call a raise with literally anything, even heavy raises. And not just the odd one but often 2,3,4 at a time, so unless you absolutely smash the board, which you won't do most of the time, you are burning money. How do you combat that? It's hard to find a raise that is high enough to isolate to 1 player without them folding and quite often even when you think you have found that sweet spot, they get sick of folding their 92s,A3, Q5 and come along anyway. So you raise with AK and the flop comes K25r happy days and now what do you bet? 1/2 pot and they are all coming along for the ride, 3/4 pot and you may lose 1, pot probably the same difference. So you bet 1/2 and get 3 callers and there aren't really that many safe cards. Practically half the deck puts you in trouble or improves a hand.

No, give me a nice balanced table and I'm happy 

 

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

Entered a little micro tournament

I think I could probably walk away and cash at this point so I'll probably be the bubble boy 

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

Not much to report as I haven't played much at all other than complete most of the September mission. Played the 3k august freeroll and placed for €150  after running out of chips, so quite happy with that.

Hopefully i'll do more tournaments soon but I need to be in the mood and be prepared to sit for a few hours at a time. So we shall see.

BR=€303

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

September Mission completed! 

Actually made a bit playing Omaha for a change   

Need some serious coaching for Hexapro's because I can't win a bean at them 

Made some money on the free "Money train" spins but it is SO boring. I wouldn't have had a slot machine addiction when I was a kid if they all looked like that. Can we not have a Monopoly or Only fools and horses slot machine please 

BR= €327  

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

I came across this in Game Lab....

165 MTT's !!!  I'm assuming it must include Freerolls because I doubt I've even played 65 non-freerolls?

I didn't realise these stats were available. But now I know they are there, I quite like it because it gives me something to aim for other than just €. Like filling in the little trophies, improve ITM % etc. However, will the stats remain when the levels are reset in a few days?

Update: Current BR= $398 

Note to self: Self, stop playing Hex's 

 

 

 

 

[comanimal]

The stats don't reset 

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

Well, I just spent what feels like 1/3rd of my life reading all 29 pages of "Metalwolfs" blog and it has inspired me to set a couple of goals.

Goal number 1 is to spin my €50 deposit into €10k 12 months from the deposit which will be (hold on whilst I go and check)....Looks like 27th Augusts let's just say by August 31st 2023. I think that's probably reasonable, even online.

Goal number 2 is to have a minimum ITM 30% which again I think is reasonable, considering that I have to compensate for the fact that all those daft little freerolls and 10c nano whatsits that I played have been included. Definitely need to stop playing those, except any that I have tickets for. Which is a bit of a shame because they were great for going mental and getting it out of the system.

[CuteRaven]

On 9/8/2022 at 2:17 PM, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

Need some serious coaching for Hexapro's because I can't win a bean at them

I think the prize pool variance is so insane that it's easy to think you are much better or worse than you really are (also I don't mind discussing hands/strategy though I'm not claiming to be an expert :p)

On 9/14/2022 at 12:50 AM, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

Goal number 2 is to have a minimum ITM 30%

Nice goal number 1 and nice progress with the BR so far!

For goal number 2: I personally think ITM% is pretty meaningless. Interestingly if you look at Metalwolfs blog in sone of his old posts he has a high ITM % but lower ROI (nowadays it seems to be the other way round). I think within a certain range ITM% mostly just measures how nitty/aggro you are.

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

8 hours ago, CuteRaven said:

Nice goal number 1 and nice progress with the BR so far!

Thanks.

8 hours ago, CuteRaven said:

For goal number 2: I personally think ITM% is pretty meaningless. Interestingly if you look at Metalwolfs blog in sone of his old posts he has a high ITM % but lower ROI (nowadays it seems to be the other way round). I think within a certain range ITM% mostly just measures how nitty/aggro you are.

Funny you should mention that because I was thinking much the same thing when I decided on the figure. However, I figured that having a target of 30% (currently it's 20%) would help me psychologically to try and stay focussed in the game and not start to get reckless or play too many hands because I get bored. Something I struggle with online because of the lack of interaction.

8 hours ago, CuteRaven said:

I think the prize pool variance is so insane that it's easy to think you are much better or worse than you really are (also I don't mind discussing hands/strategy though I'm not claiming to be an expert :p)

Thanks for the offer and I may well take you up on the generous offer if I ever decide to play any volume. In the meantime If I end up playing any for a challenge or whatever, I will probably just go down the route of all-in every hand . Can't be anymore disastrous!

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

BR is fairly stagnant at the moment on £395. Every time I should be cruising over the €400 mark, something like this happens..

Final table all-in pre for CL HU    I always feel when its coming!

Don't think I'm playing too well lately. Making some poor decisions but scraping through with the occasional spark of brilliance 

I'm desperate to start playing €5> , so I decided to play a qualifier to get a ticket, because I'm trying to remain disciplined (99% success rate). I didn't realise it was for a "live" game. Is it possible to have this ticket exchanged for a generic €10 MTT or 2x €5 ?    I can't find any details in the lobby to show what or where the live games are going to be held.

[AbvUrPlayGrd]

On 9/16/2022 at 8:20 PM, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

I'm desperate to start playing €5> , so I decided to play a qualifier to get a ticket, because I'm trying to remain disciplined (99% success rate).

So, I gave in to the 1% and played a €5 because for the first time in a while, I felt like i was in the mood for a 4 or 5hr game. Turned out to be a €10 game because I hadn't realised there was an add-on . I had 10k>chips and above avge at the time>  from 3k starting stack and the add-on was 7k, so for me it was very borderline to take it or not, plus technically, I was already playing above my BR. With about 3 seconds left to decide, I cringed and took it. Prepared to punch myself in the nuts if I didn't at least win back my outlay.

.

I would be interested what others think with regard to taking the Add-on in that situation?

As it happened, I was fortunate enough to make a nice profit from the game and would have been H/U if I could have held against a FD. The question is, would I have made it, had I not taken the add-on! I honestly don't know for sure. At one point I made a misjudgement when already in the money and went down to just under 3bb. So based on that, you would think the extra chips saved me, would I have taken different decisions in other spots if I didn't have the cushion. I certainly would have had to play more aggressively at points where I would have either been out or won more than the add-on. Also, I never really doubled up to the point where the 7k extra made a difference.

On this one, I'm leaning towards believing the add-on was a good choice, but I don't think it was a clear-cut choice at the time. Incidentally, my major misjudgement earlier was I believe out of frustration as much as anything else. Once in the money, I never got a raise through without at least a call. And the BB always defended against my raise. I got AA back to back (never happens to me) and guess what, everyone folded both times 

Very pleased with my discipline (once in the game  ) , especially as I was the shorty again when reaching the FT. It was nice to play something other than micro's and a slightly better field (generally). 

Would I have posted this if I hadn't cashed? Probably not tonight anyway, because I would have still been rolling about in agony!

BR= €554 

ROI= 1004% (enjoy it while it lasts)

ITM = 21%

 

 

[CuteRaven]

I think personally I'm not taking the add-on when I'm a big stack like that (but I'm no expert either).

On 9/20/2022 at 1:50 AM, AbvUrPlayGrd said:

ROI= 1004%

What a beautiful number . You have to make it deep into the final table on average during the sample to make an ROI like that, don't you?