*** Collin Moshman Blog ***

Hi. So I'm also going to take a chance in getting this amazing opportunity to have 1on1 tutoring with you.

I play poker for about 1 year and I would say that I am late-beginner in this game - one of the motivators for starting my "poker career" (except of money ofc ♦ ) was a professor at my business school who once told us that poker is great thing for business students, because it helps enrich and maintain great level of analytical thinking ♠_cool:.

I started with 9man KO Turbo SnGs back in January 2012 (before that I was playing without any "deeper" knowledge of the game and busted some of my few bankrolls before I realized, that there has to be studying before I can really play so I started studying this beautiful game); then I switched to cash games and went through beginners course here on PS.com - it went quite alright but at the beginning of December I had to cash out+I really started missing playing SnGs + I found out that I enjoy playing, studying and analyzing SnGs even more than cash games so (after few weeks of thinking about which game really suits me the best and which to put my entire focus on) I decided to come back to them , starting with $150 bankroll on 1.50 Turbo KO SnGs and for the future I plan to add 45man and 180man to my games. My goal for now is to take this bankroll up to $10000 in no certain timeframe (although it would be amazing if I was able to reach this in 2013). But my primary focus is not on numbers, but rather on my deep understanding of game and becoming skilled poker player.

Only sky is the limit in this and I am willing to move up and up to the sky and private tutoring from you would be a lot helpful in reaching my goals of once becoming a great poker player!

Good luck at the tables, happy holidays and Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Collin

Nice Blog

Milan and Durinko: Thanks for posting and sorry it's been so long before I replied. To make it up, I will go through one SNG for each of you, PM me to claim

Sirilidion: Thanks and hope you had a great holiday.

SherlockHolmes2ez: Thanks!

Today's entry: Stars Results since Black Friday

Now that I’ve gotten to over 5k games on Stars since moving to Mexico, I thought it’d be interesting to do an overview of how things have been going. Here’s the overall Sharkscope graph for my screenname, tfnc314:

By no means the most baller stakes, but I think a decent/consistent showing at least. I play a wide mix of 9man SNG, 18man, 180man, and MTT, usually around 20 tables but I sometimes get up to 30 or so when a lot load at once. Currently I play stacked on a laptop.

Here's a more detailed breakdown by game type.

9man SNG: 2162 games, $33 ABI, 12% ROI. I’m probably running good at these as I’m not sure 12% is sustainable at midstakes even with nonturbos mixed in, but I also game select quite a bit, particularly at 60s and 100s. As I type this, the top 100 turbo filling has ICANTSNG, La_Alvarado, LBC.boliver, Raventhon, Skyblueah, and YugiohPro. I wouldn't sit a game like that and hope to breakeven before FPPs. (If the guys in it are going after SNE, then the decision to play could be very reasonable.)

18man SNG: 9% ROI after 1520 games. Lot of SNE regs grinding these, particularly at 60s/100s, but sometimes 30s/60s fill up pretty soft. I'd like to think I’m running below EV here, but possibly these are just tougher games and 9% is accurate.

180man: 70% ROI over 775 games. Small sample, running at an unsustainable pace, but definitely a lot of value in these games.

Scheduled MTT: 24% ROI after 1052 games. Wins or HU chops in $16.50 turbo, $27 KO turbo, Hot $22, $10k gtd $11r, $11 quad, and $109 turbo.

So far this year I’ve collected 25k VPPs in about 2.5 weeks of play which is at least something even though I don't get the best rakeback as Platinimum Star and definitely won’t make SNE this year.

I study some every day, and having super-talented regs like Goldman_V, Newbguy, Losched16, and others in Team Moshman to give me advice and help me out is really invaluable. There are a lot of very talented regs in today's games, and there's no point in playing if I'm not going to at least keep pace with them as they improve every day.

In other news, Katie and I are moving to a nice new place in Rosarito hopefully on Feb 1, pics to come when we’re there. It’s very eclectically decorated!

Do you mix games with different structures in same session or focus more in one at a time? I tend to go for 6 and 9 handed games (stt) or purely for mtt-sng games (mostly 18man). No idea why poker stars is not using the "final table background" in 18man final tables. Have sometimes missed some crucial ICM spots when mixing game structures.

Btw table selection really do pay off in 18man these days. Sometimes have seen like 10-12 players registered and all of them marked as regs. King of funny sight. How many regs would you take at maximum to 18man game?

Very nice results sir, impressive also for mixin formats with sick volume!!! GL in future!

P.S.: Def PM u, pls add me when u have time

What roi do you think is sustainable for turbos in 30$?
Can you expand a little bit in table selection? Do you play with 4 winning regs or 3 winning are the borderline to join a game?

Originally posted by ghaleon
Do you mix games with different structures in same session or focus more in one at a time? I tend to go for 6 and 9 handed games (stt) or purely for mtt-sng games (mostly 18man). No idea why poker stars is not using the "final table background" in 18man final tables. Have sometimes missed some crucial ICM spots when mixing game structures.

Btw table selection really do pay off in 18man these days. Sometimes have seen like 10-12 players registered and all of them marked as regs. King of funny sight. How many regs would you take at maximum to 18man game?

Yes, I mix many different structures in the same session. For an 18-man, if I'm seeing mostly regs on my first table, I'll stop loading them. Roughly half regs would be the most I'd want to play.

We are friends on Pokerstrategy so feel free to PM me at any point to claim!

Originally posted by MilanBurdych
Very nice results sir, impressive also for mixin formats with sick volume!!! GL in future!

P.S.: Def PM u, pls add me when u have time

Originally posted by belthazorrrr
What roi do you think is sustainable for turbos in 30$?
Can you expand a little bit in table selection? Do you play with 4 winning regs or 3 winning are the borderline to join a game?

4 would definitely be the max, with 2-3 being ideal. I'm really not sure for $30 turbos, maybe 7-8% as a max with some table selection? Even 3-4% would be pretty good.

14 regs is like standard in 18 mans these days. Kinda why they became a rakeback game

18's are a mile off the rb grind, thankfully no one knows how to play them right.

The problem with sngs generally is that you have little room to maneuver. Even a bad breakeven reg hurts your roi. If you play 12+ regs every time in a 18 table game then no matter how good you are your roi is hurted significantly

But yes i dont think any format till 100$s should consider unprofitable pre rakeback

Originally posted by CollinMoshman
Milan and Durinko: Thanks for posting and sorry it's been so long before I replied. To make it up, I will go through one SNG for each of you, PM me to claim

Hey, thanks for reply. I've sent you a friend request in community tool.

My personal line is to not attack all limpers that actively as you seem to prefer Collin. Decently many randoms does somewhat weird lines postflop. So I am bit pessimistic that we get that much folds preflop. Barely any seriously with 2.5bb raise versus some of the looser ones. Plus it's not that rare sight that SB will decide to donk bet flop and we are the one in awkward spot. E.g. flop pot is 5bb, villain bets 1-2bb and we have 13bb behind. Referring to one hand that was talked in coaching.

Just saying that I prefer to check behind versus the more or less unpredictable randoms and keep raise range more on stronger hands. Obviously very wide raise preflop is fine versus more straightforward randoms or versus regs I don't expect to be planning for check-shove that often.

what is Nash program that u r using in this ->video

Thanks for the comments everyone. Ghaleon I think a lot of it is stylistic, personally I like attacking limpers wide but definitely understand your points. TheRebuz, it's the Holdem Resources Downloadable calculator.

Today's entry: Downswing + Recovery, Coaching Packages, and Mexico

First, I'm happy to announce that fixed-rate coaching packages are now available on Team Moshman. We have some great players coaching at rates friendly to a variety of different budgets, check them out here.

After saying that I was pleased with how everything was going results-wise since getting back on Stars, and posting a decent-looking graph (obv the kiss of death), I immediately went on a $5k downswing. I wasn't running the best, but my games also seemed to be drying up. 9-mans were taking longer and longer to fill (this was at nights pacific time), with more and more regs in them and 18mans.

So I switched to playing earlier in the day, focusing on games where I had an edge that was very clear due to the ratio of recreational players to regs. Jorj95 has an interesting interview up where he points out that the label "breakeven rakeback grinder" is, in a sense, kinda dumb. If you're making $50/hour, it doesn't matter for your bottom line whether that's through breaking even at the tables and earning FPPs/rakeback totaling $50, or because you're crushing $5 games and have a huge winrate with little or no rakeback.

Apart from the potentially higher swings of higher-stakes breakeven rakeback grinding though, for me there are psychological benefits of having most of profit come through game profit rather than rakeback/bonuses. I've realized more and more that having edge at the tables is very important to me, and I would sacrifice a small amount of hourly rate to play in games where I'm happy with my edge relative to the other players.

The other thing I did was spend more time studying. A talented reg we stake said something that really stuck with me. He said he liked having LAG guys to his left. I asked why, since that didn't seem to make sense (traditionally you'd want tight players to your left, loose players to your right). He said because there were so many good light 4-betting opportunities.

Now I don't necessarily agree that given the choice, I'd pick LAGs to my left. But I loved the sentiment of finding opportunity in any situation, rather than focusing on the downside.

Anyway I've recovered from the downswing which is nice, and am very much enjoying the new schedule of games.

In other news ... living fulltime in Mexico has been going very well. Aspects like mail and banking aren't the best, but the ocean living and low cost of living more than compensate. The new place is very eclectically decorated; e.g. here's Wilbur in the entry. He's also had several occasions to chase seals on the beach, which seems to be a new favorite pasttime of his.

Nice post!

Like the house, only one photo, but looks nice and if u hear the ocean/see from outside - NUTS.

Good that u recover

And for the games, regfest and so on. There s more and more posts about that on various forums. Like that 9mans, 18mans are tougher thn ever, too amny regs goin for SNE, no fish, no traffic, hard to select and so on. I must only agree with that unfortunately, I was playin these stakes 60/100s in November/December so maybe I also picked the worst months, but am gonna give it a shot now, try 60/100 9/18mans only for like 1k games and if I wont like it, no shame goin back to 15s or different format if I ll make more money, be more happy and so on - LIKE your attitude, makin money from game is much more pleasant thn from RB for me too. It also reduces stress level for me a lot, dont know why

GL!

Just calling in to say excellent coaching last night Colin

Roo