From Recreational to Regular (Challenge Completed $37 to $1000)

Originally posted by Tamaseger
I think you made a good call, good luck at the tables!

By the way, have you ever played on 888? I am a SnG player, but got a bunch of free MTT tickets, and I would say the micro tournaments are extremely soft. I played a lot of satellites, freerolls, and $1 MTTs, and even I had a decent ITM%. For example, I'm late regging to 10 1$ ticket GTDs for $0.10, and I usually fight with 30-50 people for a prize pool worth at least 100 times the buy-in, and 10-14 places paid. All I do is a slightly modified push-or-fold strategy as I always start with ~10bb. Usually it doesn't take more than 2-3 double up to reach the money.

I wanted to play MTTs once I'm decent enough in SnGs, but right now I'm in doubt if I should reschedule my learning path. I live in Hungary, and I think the starting times fit you, but I can't recall if we have 1 or 2 hours difference in time zones this time of the year.

Yes I play on 888Poker sometimes but I haven't deposited anything there so I don't have access to all the freeroll. But mainly I play the Pokerstars and now the GG Platforms. So I don't have a bankroll for it yet, I am playing there some private freerolls. And yes we are 1 hour before your time zone so not much difference between us.

Hello guys,

The past week was relatively a short one, I played from Monday to Thursday night. On Friday I was at a wedding and on Saturday I wasn't " able " to grind properly I played only some freerolls on Stars and the daily freebies on GG. Nevertheless it was a very good week for me, getting 2nd on Monday freeroll for $15.50 and on Tuesday winning the daily $1.10 [1000 Player Cap] $750 Gtd for $117.67 so a big boost this week in bankroll on Pokerstars.
Also I played an $11 Sunday Million satellite the new PKO format but unfortunately I did not qualify to the $109 Sunday Million.:f_smile:

On Sunday the microMillions started on GGPoker and I played 2 events. On the $1.05 Bounty Hunters I busted with only 12 players before the money bubble when I had 19BB and pushed with 99 and the BB called me with AJo and 2 A came on the flop but there are still a lot of tournaments to play yet

Also on Pokerstars Scholars Leader Board I need a big result the coming weeks since I am 537 with 6 tournaments left.

So this week the Bankrolls are:

Pokerstars: $312.36
GGPoker: $86.21

Played from 13.06.2022 to 19.06.2022

Challenge Starting Bankroll: $36.48
Last week Bankroll: $280.28
This week Bankroll: $398.57

Profit Last Week: + $118.29

Goal: $1000

Have a great week guys and good luck at the tables.

Recently I play more and more MTTs, and I really enjoy them. My strategy is always looking for late regs, and do the following math: prize pool/remaining players. For example, if I have to pay $1 for a stack of chips that places me in like the bottom quarter of players, but not too short compared too others, and I got a $2 equity of the prize pool (for example $100 prize pool and 50 players remaining), I almost always register. Only exception is when only 3-5 places paid, I don't feel like I have a good chance hitting them.

I hope it makes sense as I phrased it, I wanted to share with you guys because I think it actually gives really great odds. Not to mention as I skip the first hour (even 2 hours in some cases), I have to play for less time for the same prize pool each time, what gives me a bigger hourly income when I cash in these tournaments. Although I'm not sure if this worth it for an MTT regular, maybe a good MTT player would lose too much edge doing this strategy.

Originally posted by Tamaseger
Recently I play more and more MTTs, and I really enjoy them. My strategy is always looking for late regs, and do the following math: prize pool/remaining players. For example, if I have to pay $1 for a stack of chips that places me in like the bottom quarter of players, but not too short compared too others, and I got a $2 equity of the prize pool (for example $100 prize pool and 50 players remaining), I almost always register. Only exception is when only 3-5 places paid, I don't feel like I have a good chance hitting them.

I hope it makes sense as I phrased it, I wanted to share with you guys because I think it actually gives really great odds. Not to mention as I skip the first hour (even 2 hours in some cases), I have to play for less time for the same prize pool each time, what gives me a bigger hourly income when I cash in these tournaments. Although I'm not sure if this worth it for an MTT regular, maybe a good MTT player would lose too much edge doing this strategy.

I saw that a lot of players are doing this, late reg on some tournaments and play push and fold especially on smaller platforms . I don't know much about this, in my case I like to reg when the tournament started. Have you won a tournament like this or basically min cashed in almost everyone ?

Last minute late reg is very reasonable strategy at least in mtt that has addon available. Especially if addon give considerably more chips compared to buyin (for same price). So idea is to get into addon period with as little money/time invested as possible and then with addon get stack into size that allow decent edge over the pool.

This is good mostly for mincashing I think. I had some tourneys where I was able to build a decent stack but made a mistake big enough to get busted too early, but that's all.

This strategy I think worth doing with satellites, where the top x players share the same price. I mostly do them, and it doesn't matter if I have the second biggest stake (this happened multiple times tho) or the smallest on the bubble, the game ends when the bubble guy get busted. So for example for as low as $0.1 I qualify for a $1 tournament, and mincash for $2.6, than I made 26 times the original buyin. Also worth mentioning, that if I play a satellite instead of a tourney that gives general tournament tickets, on 888 it's not possible to unregister from the target tournament, so those i play from the very beginning.

I share these with you not to convince you about it, but I want to know what you think about it, as you are a more experienced MTT player than I am

Originally posted by ghaleon
Last minute late reg is very reasonable strategy at least in mtt that has addon available. Especially if addon give considerably more chips compared to buyin (for same price). So idea is to get into addon period with as little money/time invested as possible and then with addon get stack into size that allow decent edge over the pool.

That's an excellent suggestion to pick games with add-ons, and I will surely do them once I have a better overall MTT skill. Right now my edge is not enough to consistently reach the bigger payout levels, so an addon would actually result in a way worse profit than it is with single buy-ins.

Day 2 of microMillions update:

Played 5 events yesterday and I qualify to all of them via satellites ( from $0.35 to $1.75 ). In $5.25 Bounty Mini Main I managed to get some bounties just enough to get my entry (via satellite ) back. On the $2.10 Bounty Big Game got 354th and won $11.41

So basically I will try to play this 5 events every day from Monday to Friday and on the weekend I will try to qualify to some more events. If I get into Day 2 of the Mini Global I will play only 4 events.

Day 3 of microMillions update:

Yesterday I played 6 events and one $1 satellite to the Main Event (top 3 got the $ and 1st got the ticket ) in which I finished 9th Yet again the $2.10 bounty hunter big game is the event in which I got the best results.

After 2 days of playing.... my satellites buy-ins are $47.25 and my winnings return are $27.97 so I am down at the moment fortunately played also some $0.25 Spin & Gold and some $0.05 Flip & Go's and managed to get some good results in them so the bankroll is still ok for now. If it will go down ( I will not get some nice results ) I am going to remove the $10 event and maybe the $5 also. We will see how we progress in this next couple of days.

On Pokerstars I am playing some $1.50 Spin & Go's to see if I can satellite into the Sunday Million ( by getting the $5.50 or $11 tickets ) also I am playing the scholars $1.10 tournaments ( in this ones I run really bad this month ).

Day 4 of microMillions update:

Yesterday I played only 1 event, got home really late so I did not have enough time to play satellite to all the other events. I played only one sit & go flip for the $2.10 bounty hunters managing to win it and late reg. In this event I got 1 bounty and got knocked out when I went all in pre-flop with KK from SB and the BTN called with 66 and the flop came 5♦:6♥:A♠: turn 9♣: and river Q♥: and that was it.

Buy-ins status of microMillions after 3 days of playing.

Day 5 of microMillions update:

Hi guys, yesterday I played only 3 tournaments of the microMillions serie, and in $2.50 Monster Stack I entered twice after I got knocked out when I hit the Q high flush on river and my opponent rivered the A high flush early on the tournament. Played the hand bad thinking that Villan as he played did not had a better flush.

Here is the updated buy-ins for the series:

Besides the microMillions I also play until the events start some $0.25 Flip & Go, $0.25 Spin & Go and some $0.25 Battle Royal tournaments so specific for this series I am down in profit -$28.39 but recovered some of it $ 17.25 from cashing other formats. I am not focused on the money won and lost, we will see how we are at the end of the series.

Yesterday big buy-ins where from me trying to qualify to the $10.50 Mystery Bounty day 1, $10 Daily Main Event and $5.00 Mini Global Millions day 1, unfortunately not much success. I am not giving up just yet

Also I played the $11 Sunday Million satellite on Pokerstars after winning a $3.75 satellite to it and finished 236 for $9.70 and $7.50 in bounties.

So that is pretty much for yesterday. Have a great day.

Day 6 of microMillions:

Yesterday was a short one, played only 2 events (late reg in both of them by winning flip & go sat. ) that started at 19:30 and 20:30 PM my time. In the 5.25 Bounty I lost half my stack when I try to bluff the river (on a sweaty board ) and my opponent called with AA, after that I went blind vs blind A2s vs 55 and no A for me on the board.
In the $2.10 Bounty Hunters this happened. Do you guys fold 2 pairs here?

GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - 1,500/3,000 (450 ante) - 8 players

UTG: 200,484 (67 bb)
UTG+1: 149,421 (50 bb)
MP: 479,873 (160 bb)
MP+1: 100,000 (33 bb)
CO: 235,803 (79 bb)
BU: 324,802 (108 bb)
SB: 89,912 (30 bb)
BB (Hero): 368,754 (123 bb)

Pre-Flop: (8,100) Hero is BB with 6♣ 4♦
UTG raises to 6,000, 1 fold, MP calls 6,000, 4 players fold, Hero calls 3,000

Flop: (23,100) 4♥ 6♥ J♣ (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets 13,500, MP raises to 51,075, Hero calls 51,075, UTG raises to 194,034 (all-in), MP raises to 473,423 (all-in), Hero calls 311,229 (all-in)

Turn: (941,742) 8♥ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: (941,742) T♥ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: 941,742

Showdown:
MP shows 7♥ 5♥ (a straight flush, Eight high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 29%, Flop: 53%, Turn: 100%, River: 100%)

UTG shows J♠ K♠ (a pair of Jacks)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 51%, Flop: 11%, Turn: 0%, River: 0%)

BB (Hero) shows 6♣ 4♦ (two pair, Sixes and Fours)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 19%, Flop: 36%, Turn: 0%, River: 0%)

MP wins 941,742

Updated buy-ins:

Saturday and Sunday I hope I can play more events and get some better results. Next update will be on Monday when I will post the weekly update.
Have a great weekend guys.

So the past week was a tough one on GGPoker, I was playing a lot of microMillions events and sadly no big results. On Saturday I played only 3 events but also played some satellites to the $25 Main Event and $ 10.50 Mystery Bounty events (haven't managed to get a ticket being so close finishing 4th on one of them)

Some of the satellites played:

But on Sunday was big day. I played a lot of events.....maybe ( definitely )to many. I have 2 monitors setup and even that was hard for me to keep track of my opened tables; at one point I had 20 tables opened (only on GGPoker)....playing like that is not for me, I can realize now that I am confident on my play when I have max 6 tables opened since my monitors are not gaming monitors. So from now on I won't do the same mistake. I had tables with events running and satellites to the Main and other microMillions tournaments, at least I learned my limits...the hard way
At the end of the week my bankroll took a big hit, so for the coming week from Monday to Thursday I will be playing only 2 events ($1.05 Bounty Hunters Big One and the $2.10 Bounty Hunters Big Game) since I need to play comfortable with a bankroll of $41.05 and not loosing it. Also I will be playing the daily freebies so I am expecting to get some $ there too.

Sunday events that I played:

The only big result on GGPoker Sunday was this one in the $11 Sunday Super Storm....once again I know that slow events suits me the most. Also I got some bounties in the late $10.50 Bounty Hunters and I could also get a min cash if I would play more tight towards the bubble ♠_evil:

On Pokerstars I played some Freerolls and some $11 Sunday Millions satellites, also I received some $0.50 mega path tickets and play them on Spin & Go's and turned them into $3.

So the Bankrolls this week are:
Pokerstars: $329.03
GGPoker: $41.05

Played from 20.06.2022 to 26.06.2022

Challenge Starting Bankroll: $36.48
Last week Bankroll: $398.57
This week Bankroll: $370.08

Profit last week: -$28.49

Goal: $1000

Have fun at the tables guys and good luck.

Hello guys,
I played form my pc this week from Monday to Thursday, then I went out of town and I got back home on Sunday. From Friday to Sunday I was playing from GGPoker mobile app, I was playing late at night ( from 1 AM my time) and managed to qualify to the microMillions Main Event (Europe) and microMillions Main Event (Asia). On Europe I had around 40 BB left with 2 more levels to go until day 2 and I raise 2.2BB with Q9s from SB against a fish in BB and the flop came 10cQh7h and I c-bet he min raise me and I call, the turn is 3d and I shove (bad play on my part probably I should check call) he thinks for about 40 seconds and then calls; the river is a 6d and he then shows 10c7d and I'm left with 4BB. I managed to get back up to 18 BB when I got AQo in BB, the MP+1 min raise and I shoved (this was the second to last level before day 2) he thinks for about 1 min and then calls with 66 the board was 583K5 and I was down to 2 BB.
This is my last hand:

GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - 200/400 (50 ante) - 8 players

UTG: 8,700 (22 bb)
UTG+1: 10,726 (27 bb)
MP (Hero): 13,020 (33 bb)
MP+1: 43,504 (109 bb)
CO: 7,637 (19 bb)
BU: 26,926 (67 bb)
SB: 15,295 (38 bb)
BB: 22,867 (57 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,000) Hero is MP with A♦ A♠
UTG raises to 1,200, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets to 3,410, 2 players fold, BTN 4-bets to 26,876 (all-in), 2 players fold, UTG calls 7,450 (all-in), Hero calls 9,560 (all-in)

Flop: (35,590) 6♥ A♥ 4♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Turn: (35,590) 3♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: (35,590) 8♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: 35,590

Showdown:
BU shows 9♣ 9♠ (a pair of Nines)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 17%, Flop: <1%, Turn: <1%, River: 0%)

MP (Hero) shows A♦ A♠ (three of a kind, Aces)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 68%, Flop: 96%, Turn: 86%, River: 0%)

UTG shows K♣ T♣ (a flush, King high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 15%, Flop: 4%, Turn: 14%, River: 100%)

MP (Hero) wins 8,640
UTG wins 26,950

Today I will be playing the micromillions Main Event (Asia) and the stage 1 of the $10.50 Mystery Bounty that will pretty much be the last tournaments played. On Pokerstars I had a good start of the week with a final table on the $1.10 Scholars Leader Board finishing 6th.

So the Bankrolls this week are:

Pokerstars: $341.89
GGPoker: $35.75

Played from 27.06.2022 to 03.07.2022

Challenge Starting Bankroll: $36.48
Last week Bankroll: $370.08
This week Bankroll: $377.64

Profit last week: + $7.56

Goal: $1000

Have a great week guys.

Hello guys,

So this week I am leaving town again from Friday to Monday, so I will be playing from my PC until Thursday night, then from Friday I will play from my mobile phone. On the weekend I plan to play only some freerolls. I don't want to play other tournaments since I can't focus 100% (a lot of distractions when I'm not at home)..
On GGPoker since the microMillions is over and my bankroll took a big hit during that event I will be playing this month only the daily freebies (it's the safest way to build my bankroll again)....started well this week on GGPoker and on Pokerstars.
On GG managed to win the daily freebie $0.25 Battle Royal

And on Pokerstars I finished 44th on the $1.10 Scholars Leader Board (I really hope I can turn this tournament month around and finish for the first time in top 50 )

I wish you all a good week and good luck at the tables.

Congratulations on your results!

I think it was in your blog where I first saw the Scholars Leaderboard, and decided to give it a try this month. After 2 tournaments I'm a bit far from top50, but I enjoy playing them, and with the $400 added money I think it's +EV to play them even if I won't cash on the leaderboard.

So thank you for letting me know about the series, and good luck with the leaderboard!

Hello guys,

For me the main focus last week was to play the 3 Scholars Leader Board tournaments, which I did and to play the daily freebies on GGPoker. Since for the most of the week I wasn't home it was hard to focus on anything else. Thankfully now I am back home and I saw that Pokerstars announced the return of the MicroMillions series, so I am looking forward to play it in the coming weeks.
So I need to make a schedule to see what microMillions tournaments I am going to play.

On Scholars Leader Board I am on 131st with 42.42 points after I played the first 3 tournaments form last week.

So after playing last week the bankrolls are:

Pokerstars: $342.66
GGPoker: $39.58

On a side note.....one bad news for poker players in Romania is that the greedy politicians what to tax winnings from poker with 40 %. :censored::wtf:

Played from 04.07.2022 to 10.07.2022

Challenge Starting Bankroll: $36.48
Last week Bankroll: $377.64
This week Bankroll: $382.24

Profit last week: + $4.60

Goal: $1000

Have a great week guys and good luck at the tables.

Hello guys,

Since MicroMillions is starting on Pokerstars from this Sunday I decided to keep a daily update since I will be playing around 4-6 tournaments a day and I can't get all of them into the weekly update. The plan is to play the tournaments that start from around 7:00 PM my time (I will try to qualify via satellites ) until 9 PM (any tournaments that start later I will not play since I got work in the morning ).
Every morning I will post the tournaments that I will try and play (also the results from the previous day).

So the plan for Day 1 (Sunday) of Micromillions is to play this 5 events:

On GGPoker I am playing still only the daily freebies until I can build a bigger bankroll.

So that's the plan for Micromillions.

Have a great day.

Best of luck!

Hello guys,

So the last week was a preparation week for the microMillions on Pokerstars. I played only some freerolls and most of my time was studying the gameplay at microstakes. I played only 2 Scholars tournaments and now I am on 212 with 53.54 points with 6 games remaining to play.

On Sunday I played the microMillions (the results from that will be in the next post ), I was a bit mad when I saw that for the first time Pokerstars does not have satellites for the $11, $5.50 and even $3.30 events like the years before. It seems that they changed a lot in worst for the past years.
I think that I have to rethink the tournaments that I play this year on this series, I don't have the bankroll to play every $11 and $5.50 tournaments since they do not have anymore satellites.

So after last week the Bankrolls are:

Pokerstars: $335.21
GGPoker: $21.52

Played from 11.07.2022 to 17.07.2022

Challenge Starting Bankroll: $36.48
Last week Bankroll: $382.24
This week Bankroll: $356.73

Profit last week: - $25.51

Goal: $1000

Have a great week guys.