Elite Stakes Ring Rundown

Poker Strategy
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Having reached 1B chips I find I suddenly have very little enthusiasm for the MTT circuit. It’s SUCH a grind staying mentally sharp for tournament play day in and day out. So I am going to be taking stupid high-variance shots at 250/500k ring as often as possible from now on (my BR is only 20 buy-ins, and these guys do NOT like folding).

I will update this thread periodically with my observations about how games at this stake level differ from the games I’ve played most on Replay (20/40k and 50/100k). So far, I have check-raised an A44 two-tone flop and gotten called by QQ (lost about 50M on that hand, as I had a 4 and the turn was a non-flush Q).

Yippee! :confused:

EDIT: down 170M so far, lost two flips in addition to the aforementioned. Poker is fun! :smiley:

FURTHER EDIT: honestly might not play tournaments on Replay much after this. The difference in the level of play is so immediately apparent. I already got punished big twice for mistakes/exploits that I’m not used to being punished for. If the average 250/500k player is an 8/10, the average 1M tournament reg is a 5/10.

Plays I’ve already seen multiple times in just under 2 hours of play, that you rarely see on the Replay MTT circuit:
-floats
-low-equity bluffs
-calling with a draw despite getting incorrect pot odds, because villain’s line is sus
-massive overbets with thick value
-more than two preflop 3bets per hour

FURTHER FURTHER EDIT: upon reflection I may have assessed my MTT colleagues overly harshly. Play is definitely happening at a higher level, but any differences are surely exaggerated by the fact that I’m SUPER USED TO all the MTT regs, and having to learn new players’ tendencies is making me feel like it’s “harder” than what I’m used to.

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dont worry we’ll be waiting for you when youre back to 0

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MEAN :////

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I always wondered what your motivation is once you hit 1B.
You can literally play any tournament you want so I guess the thrill must be different than when you’re struggling to reach millions.

It’s crazy to think that even with 1B, you have to multiply that amount by 20-30 to reach the top 10.

What are your goals now?

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Honestly, I think I realize that I would like am to take a break for a little while. I realize I am pretty burnt out on poker after making this my primary free-time activity for the better part of 2024. Since setting my 1B goal, every month has been a pretty grueling grind to turn at least 100M net profit. Having finally reached it I realize that was the main thing driving my participation; I played a few tournaments today and my heart wasn’t really in it. So I think it is time for an overdue break.

Next goal is Top 50 rank but not clear what the timeframe will be with that :slight_smile:

Now my main motivation is to get better at ring games versus the best opponents on Replay. I think I have the MTT field pretty well figured out and it’s mostly a matter of how focused/patient I am at this point, whether I get good results or not (along with a big dose of luck, of course).

The top ring game regs are still pretty tough for a guy like me though! Once I am feeling rested I look forward to that challenge :smiley:

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Reinventing yourself always will be a step down.

Michael Jordan playing baseball for example.

Sure, he did get a few hits every now and then, but nothing like the glory of being #1 in the NBA.

Michael Jordan went back to the NBA and the rest is history.

Initially, you stayed away from ring games, knowing Goatsoup and many others went

broke many times there.

Now, stepping away, or you can say stepping down from your claim to fame, brings you into

a deep and strong current of treacherous waters.

Choppy and uncertain.

One billion can easily be swept away there.

For a visual, testing the waters with your toe cost about 200 million.

Go ahead!

Rest up and then jump in!

You may think twice about the joys of being swept away!

The, “I got to be me” mentality applies here.

Go back to being who you are!

Everyone here expects to see you in a steady progression.

Deciding to deviate?

Dime a dozen!

"Your one billion becomes cheap, expendable goods.

So, as you stand “On the Waterfront” pondering your fate,

the harsh reality sets in.

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He lost quite a bit but if he can adapt I think he can go very far
The challenge is interesting though

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100% Joe I agree with all you’ve said

Certainly my edge in ring is not as large as my edge in MTTs—the field is stronger, and my knowledge of theory here is not nearly as extensive. Frankly I win at tournaments largely because there are several tools in my bag that most of the field simply doesn’t have. This may also be true of ring but if it is, I haven’t figured out what those tools are yet.

That said, it’s important to keep scale in mind: I’m down 200M, but that’s only 4 buy-ins. It’s like being down 25M at 20/40k, which didn’t happen to me often, but wasn’t an unprecedented occurrence.

100M of that comes from losing two flips, both of which I had a slight advantage!

I also chose a bad time to call down a hyper-aggressive opponent with top pair in a single-raised pot (he had KK) and lost 40M that I “didn’t need to.”

I think I will go back to short-buying at 250/500k because I think my edge is bigger when SPR is smaller, and this reduces my ROR. I did want to test out sitting with 200bb as I have never really done it at those stakes; however the impact to my BR is significant, and while so far I’ve avoided being “scared money” it could definitely begin creeping into my mental metagame if I lose another 100M quickly.

I’d love to get some reps at 250/500k O8 because I feel my edge there is bigger than my edge in HE. But that game seems to run mostly never :frowning: I am up about 30M at 100/200k O8 so far.

As far as MTTs, for now I think instead of stopping altogether I will just reduce volume. My style of play requires nonstop focus as I’m always hunting exploits and I get pretty out of line on a regular basis. One or two mistakes can be a lot more costly for me than for the average TAG player. So I’m looking forward to a higher ROI as I play fewer tournaments, but bring my A game more consistently in those I do play.

I am glad the new Elite MTTs exist so that I can play a 2.5M and/or 5M every day if I want to.

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@Fowony I appreciate your encouragement :smiley:

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This should also emphasize that perhaps my greatest skill thus far has been bankroll management!

Take that away and I’m as vulnerable to variance as anyone else; probably more than some.

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Bankroll management is the key.
That’s the difference between broke and successful players.

I’ve seen average players go far just because of that.
Also knowing how to stay mentally strong after a big loss and not tilt is almost more important than the game itself.

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Younguru, I am probably one of those questionable players you called out in your post, lol. But I really liked your post, and sharing what’s up with you. Based on your input, I’m debating if I should play more (or less) at the 250K tourneys. Keep posting - I do learn a lot from your posts - but can only remember about 50% of it.

jrseanev (John)

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@jrseanev hahaha it’s always fun playing with you! I like facing opponents like yourself who don’t play the same way as everyone else, and embrace more risk. Keep doing you!

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Not at your table! “Have to see it” is not a winning strategy. I’m a slow learner.

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I bluff plenty u just always seem to get curious when I stinkin’ GOT IT hahahaha </3

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A step in the right direction…
yay :smiley:

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I have a question for your brains
What skill level are you to be able to lay down a nut hand knowing you will lose most of what you put in.
My read on this hand is, neither of them has a high or one is trapping me.
Did I make a terrible play here thinking my high was good?

The hand in question

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@_Rain funky spot!

I don’t know about “thinking my high was good,” but as played you have the nut lo and at least some chance of winning the hi, and your opponents have played the hand passively since your turn raise, suggesting you have at least some fold equity if you can rep a scoop.

So exploitatively jamming the river can’t be too bad IMO

I don’t know much O8 theory from a GTO standpoint tho

I do think a lot of players won’t have the discipline to continue checking here if they make trip 5s or a boat on the river, so I’m leaning toward it’s a good play to try to push at least 1 of your opponents off their showdown value.

The more I think about it, given the action and the fact you had the nut lo, the more I think it may actually be kinda irrelevant whether or not you thought you had the best hi.

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40+ years of playing OHL, your first part of the answer was spot on, trying to get them to fold, I would never raise in that position without top or second pair as a backup, my first raise (turn) there were still 4 players in, that’s the break-even bet if another low is in play, after that hand folded and we were down to three players, I shove to get the weak high out in hopes of getting 3/4, when they both called I figured I was screwed, the hand was an oddity with three lows, the play is a good one. some may say otherwise.

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UPDATE (Nov 1, 2024)

Back up to 910M from a low of about 780M.

Playing 50/100k and 100/200k mostly. Paying a lot more attention to GAME SELECTION; I will hunt players I know are good for lots of action, and leave the game if I realize I’m suddenly surrounded by nits. Yes, you can bluff them, but it’s hard to win a lot because they mostly only put serious amounts in the middle when they have something really good. I’d rather have higher variance with a higher ceiling playing against the more “loose cannon” types.

I’ve gotten pretty locked into MTT mindset; I’ve definitely stacked off more than a couple times in places where I simply did not need to. The most egregious was a 3bet pot where I flopped TPTK with A9 on a 9-hi flop and called down vs. KK. Generally in a tournament it pays to be sticky, as you have limited chances to make a good hand and conversely, opponents are more incentivized to take shots with marginal holdings because winning the pot (especially in a raised or 3bet pot) is so valuable when there’s a fixed pool of chips everyone is fighting over. In ring games, I am finding I need to be more consistently aware that even if my hand looks good, if I face sustained resistance I should often be willing to release as I can just wait for a better spot. Taking a hit to the ol’ hourly rate is a lot less of a worry than missing a chance to double in an MTT when you’re only sitting on 25bb or something.

The 250/500k game has NOT been going which makes me sad! I still don’t really feel comfortable sitting 500k/1M, though I occasionally lurk and watch for a while dreaming of bigger things to come :slight_smile:

More than anything: TIGHT IS RIGHT. Small sample since hitting 1B but the correlation between my preflop discipline and my profitable sessions seems pretty direct thus far. Position is super important, too. Getting frisky from BTN/CO = all gravy. Getting frisky from UTG/UTG+1 = “hey! you are going to die in there.” (American Horror Story, anyone? No? Bueller?)

High stakes ring players are consistently less “pushovers” than most of my high MTT regs. I can’t boss them around as easily as I’m used to, or at least, it often takes a significantly larger investment of chips to get a made hand to fold—without this cheap fold equity, playing marginal hands, especially OOP, becomes a lot less viable.

On the other hand, players still seem just as likely to overvalue a strong but non-nutted hand: bingo, bango, bongo