GamesDean

These are by far the best wins, aren’t they? I can still remember winning a tournament after being down to 1/10 of a single big blind or winning after loosing an all-in for most of the chips with something like 99,7% equity at a final table. I can’t remember any hands in particular but these were epic rides for sure. Also had a run in the €25 Abyss earlier this year where I had a gigantic stack very early, then I went absolutely card dead and barely made the money, barely made the final table, was down to just a few big blinds for I don’t know how many orbits, just to come back strong to bust like 7 out of 9 players (as the freaking short stack!) and win the whole thing. This is why I love tournament poker. Sure, it sucks when you don’t win any flips – the UOS High events hate me at the moment – or you get sucked out on. But in the long run you will get rewarded if you stay calm and patient and make the best decisions possible, even or especially when nothing seems to work.

Finally – I was looking forward for the UOS since it was announced! I will play all events today and hopefully, I won’t miss out on too many. Let’s rock these leaderboards! 🆒

Stop playing. Take a break. This will make you loose even more, because you will either miss out on bluffing spots, you will play too scared and let your opponents realize their equity more often etc. If you run bad and you realize it actually affects your decision making, it’s already too late. I can somewhat relate because earlier this month I ran extremely poorly myself – I lost 8/10 AA preflop all-ins, ran into AA a couple of times, my opponents constantly hit their 3, 2 or 1 outs, it was insane. Looking back, I definitely lost more than my fair share because I stopped thinking while making decisions. I was playing poorly. Of course, I was unlucky but actually – I wasn’t. If you don’t have 100% equity your opponents will win from time to time. And from time to time can mean this entire week – next week you might win close to every big pot. Will you post here then, too? No, because you think it was right because you got it in good all the time. Accept that poker is a game of chance and expect to loose even when you are playing at your very best. Downswings are part of the game. They happen to everybody. You might be the unluckiest poker player of the world but chances are, you are as lucky/unlucky as most players.

Indeed. Were you at the €25 Abyss final table last night? I was playing as TheLeechKing and actually won the tourney – after starting the table 9/9 and having 4 or 5 big blinds at some point. My point is, my opponent played much different HU than 3- or 4-handed – way more aggressive, way more moves, way more anything. It took me a while to adapt but in the end I was able to make a sick hero call and grind him down after that. HU SNGs are different in comparison to MTT HU situations, of course, since MTT players rarely play HU and mostly suck at it. But in my experience, no HU is the same because there are way more variables, way more things you can do wrong or right. It’s the ultimate test imo if you are a decent Hold’em player or just a lucky nit. That’s why I was wondering the other day, how you are able to play 4 tables at the same time vs. different opponents all the time. Makes sense if you apply a GTO strat – unfortunate it didn’t work out on the first bullet but I wish you good luck in the near future!

@System32 Am I missing something? Who has the remaining 5% equity on the turn? :laugh:

Staying calm is the only recipe – yesterday I lost two MTT hands within seconds with a higher pair vs. 44. Both times my opponent flopped a set. Yet, the probabilty for this to happen is 1/25, so this exact spot will come up once every 25 sessions – that’s a lot to be mad about. And it’s only one of many possibilities how things can go wrong. For me personally, it helped to calculate the math in my head – to calm my thoughts. Hell, one time I lost a hand with 99%+ (it was at least 97%, can’t remember the exact number) equity at a final table to bust two players and have an insane chiplead (like four times their stacks) on the remaining combatants. But the poker gods decided otherwise and dealt out the exact and only runner runner that would make me loose or split the hand, can’t remember. I was sitting here, WTFing to myself but in the end I was able to overcome this absurdity and still win the tournament. You just have to be relentless sometimes, keep on going and in the end you will get rewarded more often than players that are unable to deal with bad situations.

4-tabling HU SNGs sounds like an insanely hard task to me – no surprise, you lost your concentration while grinding. You have to make decisions every split second while having zero breathing space to calm your thoughts. Sure, real grinders are able to multitable these with ease but imo you should try 2 tables first and see where your mind goes. If it works, add one more and so on.

Downswings and bad beats are part of the game. You have to learn to deal with it because it will happen again and it will be worse than this time. If you get your money in good way more often than not, it’s just variance. Try to keep your A game if possible (it’s probably not). I had a terrible downswing on NL25 a few weeks ago and, looking back now, I played really bad in the latter stages of the downswing – at least for my standards. That’s always the danger because you want to win again and chase your losses, sometimes it’s unconsciously and you don’t really know it until it’s too late. So keep your cool and keep on grinding!

Well – that’s easy: Look at his stack. Obviously it’s a recreational player who doesn’t care about GTO lines and just wants to have fun. Suited aces are getting too strong then to fold them preflop.

So not only Unibet is rigged but other sites too? 😏

I understand where you are coming from but QTo is not useless when your opponent is limping – in fact it’s much stronger than your opponent’s range and you could even consider shoving because of that. Since you would be playing a limped pot there is only so much villain can do – if you whiff the board, just fold and wait for the next hand. On certain boards you can float or bluff-raise your opponent – if you are not familiar playing limped pots you should try to improve your rangereading skills. Do you have problems in 3-bet pots too or is that easier for you because it’s easier to put your opponent on a narrow range of hands? Loosing extra big blinds here and there might not sound like a big problem but it adds up – in cashgames your winrate will be smaller (considering that winrates of 5bb/100 hands are good it’s a huge deal to loose money unnecessarily), in tournaments you will lower your chance to win because double ups are smaller and it’s less likely you have everyone covered in big pots. If you have 13 big blinds after the hand you will double up to 26, then 52 big blinds – if you have 14 big blinds you could double up to 28, then 56 big blinds. That’s a 4 big blinds difference, so it adds up because there are numerous spots where we loose chips we could have saved.

First of all: Yes, your opponent played his hand poorly, BUT that shouldn’t bother you because you want your opponents to make mistakes as often as possible. You do not want your opponents to make good decisions. Second BUT: Why did you minraise preflop? That makes no sense, you have close to zero fold equity vs. limpers (since they already limped they will call another big blind with any two cards), you have a shortish stack yourself, you get no additional information about your opponent’s range. I can see no merit at all in minraising a limper – you can either shove your hand or just take the flop against a range that you will likely dominate with your holding.

I have to fight some ridicilous runbad myself right now – yesterday I lost two stacks on NL50 with AA vs. K8o & QQ vs. A3o when my opponent was on monkey tilt and would loose against everyone but me (and thats only the tip of the iceberg) – but I would never consider leaving this site. Variance and bad luck is something you have to accept when playing poker. Variance will not change by switching the poker site. Also: Blockers do matter. However, they only block certain combos, never 100% of combos possible – therefore you will still run into hands you are blocking. By using blocker effects and playing better ranges you will increase your winrate in the long run but the long run takes thousands and thousands of hands, so you won’t really notice it when playing without tracking your results.

I think you misunderstood me. Even if you are trying to sneak into the money you definitely have to take this shoving spot (especially in 11th place) because it’s that good. There are just situations with borderline hands (e.g. ATs or JTs from early position) that you should shove when you are playing for the win. You could fold these type of hands when the bankroll boost is huge for your bankroll. I understand that you are not that type of player but imagine this: With a bigger bankroll the risk of ruin (the chance that you loose your entire bankroll) is much smaller and you can play bigger cashgames/SNGs/MTTs in the future. That’s why it’s worth a thought to fold into the money with a smallish bankroll (relatively to the tournament) – it has nothing to do with being scared or anything. It’s just a smart thing to do and highly recommended, even from the MTT top guns. It’s obviously no mistake to just take every +EV spot and try to get that trophy – in the long run it’s even better than the sneaky approach.

You should definitely limp sometimes with strong holdings like AA to get shoved on and almost guarantee yourself a double-up. To balance your range you could limp suited connectors like 54s as well and bet most flops but in tournaments it’s often less important to play a balanced strategy because most of your opponents will think a limp is mainly weak. Regarding your QTo shove: It’s totally fine – don’t worry! There are a few factors at play that could make you play tighter than strategy would suggest. If even a mincash increases your bankroll massively it’s reasonable trying to fold into the money. Generally you should play rather aggressive at final table bubbles because you’re playing for the top 3 spots. That will result in you busting more often than tight/nitty players but you will also win the tournament way more often than these guys who will finish in 7th to 9th place most of the time. The ‚playing for the win’ approach doesn’t hold true at money bubbles where it’s still a long way to the final table (although it isn’t that long in most Unibet MTTs) where you should definitely tighten up as a middlish/short stack to make the money. This is a special situation though because the money bubble also is the final table bubble therefore you should be aggressive for sure. It’s also unlikely that 3 other players will bust before you when you are already in 11th place – so this is a great spot to shove and you just got super unlucky to run in the best starting hand possible.