Groggy

'The games seem much softer than at the beginning of the promo', must be because I took a week off ;)

Interesting post. I'm curious as to why you expected your win rate to be better than your historic ROI when the games were much more reggy than usual? Was rake on the 25's 5% before the promo? 10-15% ROI in the games that ran seems difficult, although maybe not impossible. I would be very curious to see how you fared at the end of the month compared to this guess if you are willing to share. I would also be interested to know what aliases you commonly used in the pools if you are willing to reveal that. I wonder if the high volume reg you felt you have a huge edge on is the same one who I felt I have a large edge on. It would be hilarious if we were both thinking of each other ;) But I think I know who you mean. In terms of liquidity the games were certainly best in week one. In terms of game quality I would have thought the weeks would get progressively easier. A lot of regs generally get excited for promos like this, over-extend, burn out then drop the volume, meaning their slot is more likely to be filled with a recreational, who don't really care about playing in rake free games so will roughly play the same amount every week (unless the increased difficulty of the games put them off). I think saying you'd rather have these bad regs in the line ups than a -30% roi rec might be slightly stretching it, but it is certainly nice to have players in the pool that you have exploits on.

I don't know the answer to your question I'm afraid. I'm sure there are some GTO defence ranges ICM adjusted out there at varied stack depths somewhere. I haven't studied ranges or the format, it's just my opinion, it isn't necessarily correct. I would defend A5o so to me it is marginal. I would like to know the answers to the questions your asking myself.

The problem with a hand like A4o is it under-realises a lot postflop just because of how badly it hits boards. It's just a hand that we are going to lose with a lot even when we are still ahead on a lot of flops. In terms of raw equity of course it is doing well enough to defend vs btn, it just doesn't get to realise that equity efficiently. The reason there are negative ICM implications is because we basically always have to call down stacks when we make top pair just because we are massively lacking for Ax hands when we call preflop given we reshove a lot of Ax hands. Ace high boards are significantly better for button so it is a board we should face a lot of aggression on. In terms of suggesting river check fold that would purely be an exploit play against the pool, we are definitely supposed to get stacked here. I don't think opponent's are bluffing big size often enough, especially on this kind of board. The 3rd diamond improves a lot of potential bluffs to high equity semi bluff jams on the turn. (T9, K9 one diamond) So realistically, what bluffs are we going to see the average villain show up with at river given this line, other than perhaps T9 or T8s without a diamond? The main reason I'm playing 5 man SnG's is also just to experience a different game type, poker has been feeling a bit stale for me and I've enjoyed the change. I enjoy promotions that feature leaderboards that give me an incentive to grind.

I suspect at the highest stakes 5man SnG's KQo would be shoving pre but it seems unnecessary in these games. It feels a bit lazy and gives opponent's fairly easy decisions. I think mixing some flats and some 3bet folds is going to be good. Especially as the pool is probably going to 4 bet jam too tight. A4o I would guess is just a fold pre. Seems close for chip ev as it is and with ICM considerations is probably going to just be a fold. You are almost defending to try and flop a bluffcatcher as a fairly best case scenario. It feels like villain is gonna insta-win on quite a lot of boards and when lots of money goes in on ace high boards again it feels like we lose a lot. As played I don't think shove achieves anything after villain has cbet 3/4 pot. It seems unlikely they are gonna have a hand like KQ/KK for that size on the flop, let alone call with it even if they did when our only potential bluff is T9. I actually think it's more of a check fold than a check call, and that the pool is going to be massively under-bluffing this line if we check and see a jam. 53o hand is a lot too loose pre, it isn't even a defend heads up. Your hands are tied till you reach river which is the decision point. I actually think you stumble into a good bluff-catcher just because there are so many potential bluff combos and situationally on the bubble it's easy to over-bluff to apply max pressure. Think of all the AK AT A9 A8 A4 A3 K9 KT T9 combos with one heart that could potentially get to the river this way. Your hand blocks a few value combos and unblocks villain's most likely bluffs.

I think it's possible you might be underestimating the importance of deep-stacked play for win rate in these 5-man sng's. I've put in quite a lot of volume at them in the last 3 months-ish without ever studying ICM (although I have played a lot of MTT's and Satties in my time so I think I can make decent guestimates). I think it would be arrogant to think that much of my edge is going to be in the ICM spots but my ROI is still good. I find the pool to be better preflop than they are postflop and I think that's where most my EV is coming from.

You probably didn't play 'worse than your realised'. It's very easy to be results orientated in this game we play. I find that on the best days, you don't play nearly as well as you think you did and on the worst days you don't play nearly as badly as you think you did. A lot of the time the difference is just in how you ran, whether it be in all ins or less obvious ways like your bluff-catching, bluffs and the card distribution of you and your opponents. That's not to say you shouldn't work on your game, but don't let the financial results of a session dictate how you feel you played. I've had good winning days where I've been disappointed with how I've played and terrible days where I have played my A game. Think the 53o hand you recorded before is a perfect example. On another day, when you're stuck money you call and are shown a value hand and beat yourself up and think your terrible, but the same situation happens on a day your winning and feeling good, get shown the bluff and you think you're a poker god. The reality is it's a marginal spot vs population when you reach the river and you really could go either way (although it should just be an easy fold pre).

Great gesture by unibet. Nice to see Dennis rewarded for his honesty. Was this manual payment given in the form of bonus points or cash? I received the automatic payment at midnight, but I don't believe I received a manual payment.

I have an €1100 euro ticket for the unibet open that expires March 6th and have a few questions. 1. Is there any version of being able to hold onto the ticket for a live unibet open down the line, whenever that may be? 2. How many more opportunities will I have to use it if not today. The ticket is a general ticket I received for hitting the 1.25 million point milestone in the last quarter. It wasn't a satellite for this specific event.

I know of someone who played 6-man SnG's on another site. He was the best reg in the pools and was finding the format a bit stale so he flicked in a few MTT sessions. He couldn't believe how soft they were and basically transitioned over to them full time and was better than nearly all the MTT regs already. I think he still plays some 6 man sng's when they run, but as far as I know makes a better income now. It's easy to be lazy and stick to a format you know/ are comfortable with but sometimes it's worth giving new things a chance.

Where do you think (some) other regulars might have an edge on you? (If you are being completely objective) Where do you have an edge on them? It's hard to say what average ROI is possible in these line ups (What is even considered a good ROI in this format?) but considering all these games have been completely infested with regs since the promo started, where a healthy amount of line ups have literally been all regs, the average reg must only have made a 1 or 2% roi so far. Obviously some will have a better ROI than that and some will have lost. There hasn't been enough recreational players in the pools to account for the mass amount of regs. Recreationals don't care about rake, so there's probably a similar amount of rec's in the pools now as there were before.

I've been there before as well Dennis. You get super pumped for a promo like this and think of some figures in your head of what you'd like to win (even though money orientated goals are super bad) and go super hard for it and it just ends up being disappointing and you end up feeling disillusioned with it. On multiple occasions I have doubled my hours and increased my tables for rake race promos and subsequently end up doing worse than an average month. I've been there before with confidence issues as well when running bad. I think the game quality has been pretty tough, moreso than I expected. For me there's a big jump in the standard of the average 25 5man that runs and the average 50 5man. It seems like with your 6-man hyper background that the shallow stack part of the game is the main area where you're making your edge over other players. It could well be that at deeper stacks your -ev vs at least some other regulars in the pool, especially with your table count compared to theirs. It could be that it is neutralizing your shallow edge a fair amount which is really cranking up the variance. Maybe play an amount of tables which is comfortable and get really dialled in. Maybe focus on what some of the other regs are doing and keep an open mind. Maybe you like some of the stuff they're doing which you could implement into your own game. Maybe you don't like how they are playing and you can feel more confident about your edge. Maybe you aren't adjusting to the player pool efficiently enough and losing ev that way by trying to play too 'GTO'. It's a high variance format. If variance had gone in your favour your confidence would be sky high and you wouldn't give grinding hard all the tables a second thought. With your skillset you have some transferable skills to other formats to make some extra money there. Grinding satellites should be a really decent option for you. As should playing small field tournaments where you are going to end up playing short handed/ heads up reasonably often with a large edge. I personally think grinding SnG's for a living is one of the more inefficient ways to make a wage in poker, it seems you have more players at 100bb/ mtts 'giving it away'.

I think it would be harsh to say on the forum. Also I think I have a pretty good grasp on their game now so I don't want them to read this and maybe reevaluate their play style. I don't know if it's you but there's a player in the pools called TonnyP who seems good.

Unlucky Dennis. Brutal to lose that amount in one day. FWIW I think CuteRaven is right. The 5man SnG format is all about eking out profit from high volume and small edges. It's obviously great playing in games that are rake free, but it seems like the games have got so much tougher on average that they really aren't any more profitable than they were before. Instead of paying the site rake, I think it's just a case of everybody's ROI has reduced and win rates might even be lower now than they would have been before, paying rake. I also think it's naive, maybe even a little arrogant to think that you can get away with playing maximum tables or close and maximum stakes all day and expect to have the same edge that you're used to having. Especially if you are playing the 100s too. I have played maybe 5 100's on here, all pre promo and they were super reggy then, all the ones I played were 5 reg affairs, I can only imagine they've got even worse with this promo. I think you also need to evaluate whether it's worth it. Going balls to the wall, 12 hour sessions every day for 125 euros difference in the leaderboard. It seems hard not to lose MUCH more than that in ev from worse plays/ misclicks/ time outs/ mental strain/ tiredness/ fatigue/ mistakes from mass tabling over the course of the week. Promo's like this should be about the pursuit of profit at the tables with leaderboards as a bonus imo. For all you know 2nd place could be down thousands and it's a lot of the regs lower down the leaderboard who are scooping up a lot of the money at the tables. I also agree with CuteRaven in regards to what he said about high volume players. There is one fairly high volume reg who's game I am a bit unimpressed with. (I'm pretty sure it isn't you). There are gonna be decent players like Raven jumping into these games playing maybe 4-6 tables and getting all sorts of reads on all opponents and being able to exploit the mass tabling regs who are forced to play a more auto-piloty GTO strategy/ exploitative strategy vs pool tendancies because they have too many tables to follow the action. Sucks for you to have such a horrible day after clawing back your downswing. I'm sure the game quality will be better over the weekend so hopefully the poker gods will be kind to you. I still think hiding your balance for things like this is benificial mentally. I think with the approach you're taking it is very possible to lose money over the course of the promo which would be a disaster when you're putting in so many hours. You're lowering your ROI per game in exchange for more volume which is gonna increase the swings. I think the games have been reggy enough since the start of the promo that you have sufficient reason to have doubts about how much of an ROI you actually have when playing so many tables. Good luck. I enjoy reading your updates.

You can't ever use a hand like TT as a 4b fold imo. The decision point is whether to 4bet run it, jam yourself, or nit fold. Tens has no relevant blockers to a 5bj range to use as a 4b fold. AK is gonna be a pure shove for a lot of the 5man sng regs I think. Villain may also trap AA pre. If you were ever gonna 4b fold in this spot, use AQ.

Hi. I would like my results for all formats in 2020 please separated by format if possible. 100BB Hexapros 5 man SNG's HU sngs MTT's Banzai I would like to compare my results in all formats. Thank you.

Hi Dennis. It seems like you are a bit too invested in your short term results. A good solution which I find is a feature I really like on unibet is to hide your balance. It makes you more process orientated. If you have 2k euros in your account and the games are as soft as you say then its unlikely you will bust the roll. Also I am curious what this unibet SnG promotion that has been eluded to is. Or did I misinterpret something.

3 people per game, 10,000x 3 = 30,000 entrants.

I also think people should be auto-regged. Seems a bit unfair for people to miss out because they didn't know about it.

Had an issue. Now resolved. I do agree with Shark that It's a shame the skill side of it has been removed. I lost quite a lot of buy ins jackpot hunting and It's a shame to have it taken out of my hands. Props to unibet with how they have handled this though. Good to add some value to the prize pool and a reasonably fair solution all things considered.