Player breakdown of $6 45's.

I haven't nearly been using my susbcription enough and feel like I'm wasting my money without using the data to do something like this. I've compiled almost every player from a $6 45 man that went off at 3:30 pm us central time. The only exceptions are players blocked. None of the names will be revealed. Everything is based off of only $6 45 man sng turbo stats for the year 2011. Obviously, no huge sample can be taken here, but I still think it goes to show a lot.

This is interesting because I would consider the $6's to be the top of the micros. Despite being significantly tougher than the lower levels, it's still a small buy in and attracts a lot of casual fish along with losing regs. I would personally say an roi above 10% is great and 15%+ is fantastic. There's not many players that fit either category that are constantly grinding the 6's as most would have either moved up, or just casually play. The player with an 18% roi and 217 games is most likely a good player since he is ranked high on the leaderboard for $2 turbo 180's.

So how can you wade your way through these semi-reg infested games? Here's my take:

Roi related:

There are two players with a great roi over a decent sample. One has a stunning roi of 25% over 2889 games, also more games than anyone else entered in this sng. This player is most likely running very hot or doesn't play that many tables at one time. The second eyepopper is the player with 467 games and an roi of 26%. Even though it's possible that he's a breakeven player on a heater, this is still just one of the few non fish in our field.






Sample size:

Most players are new to $6 45 turbo's and we can most likely put them into the casual player catergory. They are probably only playing a few tables and doing whatever they think it takes to have a good time or win. They like to play tournaments with just 45 people in them because it gives them a better chance to win in the short-term.

The median average player has an roi of 2%. There is one player labeled with the fish bowl and has a -20% roi over 163 games. 19 players have losing roi's. Some have a very small sample but a few it is evident that they are not that good. The player with 1705 games and a -$253 is a bad reg. He's the type player in which his style is good enough to win at the 3's but he's just going to be a long term break even with rakeback-losing player at the 6's. These kinds of people are good for the game because they play a lot and you will always have an edge over them if you consider yourself one of the better players. There's 5 players with 2-10% roi with a signifcant sample for the year. These players are most likely good players who understand icm but maybe overuse it a little bit. They most likely have 1-3 major leaks in their game that keep them from being one of the best. I've searched many of these players who have a 5-6% roi over say a 4k+ sample, then also played with them and realized they just don't have what it takes to be the best without being willing to learn. I'm also fine with these players in the game because I know I'll still have an edge over them as well.

If all the fish swam away and it was down to only players that play a lot, I still think a solid 5-7% roi would be attainable, however it would either drive the bad regulars to get better or stop playing. However, there will still be enough fish to make the bad regulars think they are good and keep the games flowing.

Here's an analysis of the top 4 grinder in my opinion, along with myself. People hidden on the site are not included.



I have not posted the graphs yet, but not a single person on here has a larger downswing than 100 BI's. I believe that the style implicated by the turbo 45 man grinders is less variance than some may believe. Could just be my own thought, and that all break-even-winning players don't have huge downswings but my guess is that the lower the Roi, the bigger chance for a bigger downswing.

I have not looked at the time of the day yet, but note that when the games are going off less, the 6's come nearly as soft as the 3's. Not sure if that's how the top player has such a good roi since I've never seen him around much but I rarely play deep into the night, only the start of the off-peak hours. They are also not losing very much early in the tournament and have more 1st/2nd place finishes than all other final tables positions.

Based on this, I believe the best players are going to have a 15%+ roi at the 6's with the state the games are in right now. Not as ideal as we would like, but with all the tools to play huge volume, it's not too bad. 40 tables/h of $6's at 15% would be:
$36/hr, which isn't a bad earning for playing $6 tournaments.

Only played 4 mtts this weekend

This was most likely the lowest volume weekend ever. Anyway, I had no intentions what so ever on playing the glorious Sunday Million but I did. 200 fpp was all it took. What?! They let you in with just 200 fpps ?!?! Well not exactly, this was the path I took.

200 fpp hyper turbo rd1
500 fpp hyper turbo rd2
1500 fpp hyper turbo rd3
4500 fpp hyper turbo rd4
Sunday Million rd5

All I had to do was win the lottery about 4 times, no problem eh? Ran pretty well through them, then got to play in the big one for just 200 fpps!

My lifetime record is horrible in $200 buy in mtts. I can only remember one cash although this one had it's own story. The blinds were raising quite quickly after reaching the money. After losing one huge flip earlier in the tournament, I was handicapped to a near 10bb grind. Finally I found a good spot to get it in with KJ but got called by AQ. A hand in which I was slightly +cEv preflop but just a 35% favorite once called by AQs.



A few hands later I am forced to shove K5s utg+1 with about 3.5bbs.



Then I manage to get it in as a 34% with T4s as a desperate short stack.



Looking in good shape to make a nice run now. Down to the final 700 player or so by now after having started with over 9200 players. This hand was once again another very close hand, as a lot of my shoves have been.




Ended up all in with a 30% chance to win. That win would have given me a realistic chance of winning. It's still not likely to get called by a hand better than A8s in this situation, but when called you are normally behind. It was a great run. Turned 200 fpps into a 620th place finish yielding $520.15. Not sure if I should add it to the challenge roll, since I didn't risk very much to get into the tournament.

Was all hyped up for the sunday storm that started before this. Had a good run in that too finishing in about 3500th place out of over 113k runners for a $11 buy in. Kind of nuts but someone will be smiling after they ship 200k, if you thought winning the weekly sunday million was a lottery, gl winning this one.

First grind of challenge

Since I started I put in two small sessions.

Hoping to get in a good 500 games this weekend. About 1350 vpps away from plat star with 5 days to go, would be nice to get there this time.

Starting a new healthier plan for eating/exercise. Before each day and sometimes each session, I need to jog at least one mile at a pace that keeps my heart going well. As for eating I'm learning how to make green smoothies and might also learn how to cook. Fish is a food that I don't have nearly enough and would love to have much more fish. Fish is rich in omega3 which your body needs about three times more than omega6. I think omega6 is what is in the typical person's diet in food such as chicken and beef. My mom is into nutrition so she has the books and stuff to find healthier meals and even one specifically on making green smoothies. The smoothies will mostly consist of fruits and vegetables, something that my body is lacking. Healthier should translate into being able to put in better grinds.

It's a new day.

I decided it was best to make sure I am set financially for at least a few months, it hurts a lot to be in debt I suppose. My entire account is cleared out with the exception of $100, fpps, and an additional $131 in tournament entries incase I go broke. My thoughts are to ram my way into more aggressive bankroll management since there will be much less to lose.

Only 46 days away from my road to SCOOP. Everything earned from this micro grind will go towards playing SCOOP events. If you haven't heard yet, it's the Spring Championship of Online Poker. The foundation to the series is allowing everyone to play, with buy ins going as low as $11 and as high as $10k (not including 25k hu). All 38 events are spread with a low, a medium, and a high event. Progress of my grind will be recorded here and the next post will come with which events I'm most interested in playing. Would be a lot of fun to get to play at least one 2k event but I'd be just as happy playing several low's and mediums.

The plan is to start off at $1 45 man's, and maybe include $.55's with the grind if they don't go off enough. Gum needs to be purchased since I think when I was chewing gum my focus was well kept.



I'm not sure if the grind starts tonight, I'm pretty tired.

Missing in action: Now found.

Been a long week, worked my part-time job 4 days this week. I grinded a little with horrid results. Mostly felt too tired or lacking the interest of grinding. Things fall apart, not everything is going too smooth with backing but am glad to still have one solid horse at the moment. Still interested in picking up 1-3 more people, post a comment if you are interested.

My 60 tabling grind session went for about 2-3 hours and I lost about $91. Honestly feel like it was run bad more than play bad. Felt more comfortable than I would have imagined yet I still don't think it's reasonable to 60 table.

Caught the mtt bug lately. Sngs are pbj, same thing over and over. Feels good to know that I can always fall back on them in case I'm in need. Tomorrow marks the quest for mtt gold. Even though I've already gotten my gold after shipping a $4 freezeout, I still would like a bigger win. Hoping to keep all the buy ins $11 and $3r and under for mtts and also add in 4.4 180's, 11 180s and 22 180s. Mtts are still a work in process but at least I feel like I learn a lot every time I play. There's always room from improvement and times in which you get to mix up your play. Goal is to keep my losses at a minimal.

Sick day of dodgeball Thursday. Once again my body met it's full expectations. Lots of new people and played real well. A guy I met a few years ago playing dodgeball showed up and I made sure right away he got on my team because I remembered him as the best there was at the Sportsplex. Battled through an early jammed ring finger on my throwing hand but my sniper scoped it's way through the night.

Also made the most epic name on bigbetpoker. Might deposit $20 for deposit bonuses and play some micro tournies there.

gist of my day

Woke up, played tons of sunday milly sats, shipped sats for WU and milly, busted both, 3 deep runs and all 3 pretty much damaged my mental well being. 2 of them i sucked out the turn and got resucked on the river (deep and itm 55r and $11 250k) and got called off by a QT high straight draw when i had a Q8 high straight draw for a nice pot.

Fell short of my weekend goals but I still think I had way more fun than if I stuck with the plan. Friday and Saturday I just didn't feel right and keeping grinding minimal was the right thing to do in my opinion. Highlight of the day was seeing that jorj was 68 tabling hyper SM sats. In honor of this tommorrow im going to see how many tables I can possibly play at once, I'll mix in both $3's and $6's, maybe 1's and maybe $6 18's. Would be nice if my computer can handle 60, then nice to know if I can handle 60. I am not playing 27's for a while again, I had my good run in them and don't find it needed to keep playing them on my tiny bankroll. Hoping to have a good week and doing another big mtt sunday like a did today, but without the 215's.

Watched some live at the bike tonight, never knew how neat the show was. http://www.pokernetcast.com/ They said they are live streaming the big tourny's final table thursday at 12:00 pm pacific time, I plan on watching some. Not sure if the NBC heads up finished or anything but last I saw it was down to 8 and it would be really good if livb wins it since he's a heads up specialist, even sicker if siedel wins another tourny this year. Before this year I was convinced he only existed in Rounders. Can't wait for the sequel.

Found out that the local dodgeball team that played in some sort of national championship in Detroit with foam ball won first place. There was 43 teams involved they were the survivors and 1st place champions. One day I'd like to get to the level where I can play this. Tommorrow I'll start looking at gyms and other physical activites that I can do in order to better my body since I'm in real bad shape right now. Once again, my shout out to Western Springs Dodgeball.

Call me cheesy, childish, or whatever you want but I'm quite into the WWE right now. I've always enjoyed it since I was a little kid. Last night when I was bored of grinding I watched a real interview with Phil Hughes (CM Punk) one of my favorite wrestlers. I didn't even believe that he was really drug-free and doesn't drink and all that stuff. This is just another great reason to like this guy along with sharing the same hometown of Chicago, IL. It's called "straight-edge" and I really agree with a lot of the stuff involved in this. It's basically just a lifestyle in which you don't drink and don't do drugs. I'm not too sure where playing poker comes into this. Phil talks about how his addiction is wrestling and he is very passionate about the way he wrestles. My addicition is poker and it's something that's come easier to me than others. The full enjoyment of grinding it out and building up is fun but the best parts are taking shots at the big ones. I've never done more in my life than take a sip or two of beer, and agree with him that it tastes awful and I'd never want to get into drinking or drugs. Tune in to watch him Monday night's at 9e/8c on USA where he plays one of the greatest bad guys of all time or search youtube for his 16 part interview to find out more.

When motivation is on vacation for a day

Started the day with plans to reach 300 45's for the day, but I soon realized that there was just no way I would be able to play my best for that long. About 83 games or so got played but the best part about today was its adventures. First, it was some hypers. I would enjoy playing these daily and I although the edge is small, I believe they are quite profitable. The buy in is $18.50 I think and they are 6 max sats to the nightly 70k paying the top 2 seats. I remember the old hyper style and I could never really figure out a good balance style as all the best players had. In these hypers, my typical thought process of how to win at them works well, since there isn't that weird 3rd place gets their money back clause. I noticed some players who appeared to have some big leaks and were also playing on many of my tables. I believe this will lead to produce some sort of roi, maybe between 2-5%. Hyper's with tableninja's sng sensei isn't really the best way to reg them though. I need some sort of additional script, or maybe just learn how to use TN a little better. As a downside, they only run from 6:00 to 8:30. However, this is an upside too because I think most fish would swim there all at once.



Adventure two was quite the sequel to hypers. Mixing speed, distance, insanity, and strong use of the brain ; I played some Cap 100nl 6 max. Of course I decided that I couldn't possibly cope with playing a few tables so I loaded up 17 tables to play on. Luckily I ran good and one some money. All in ev had me down about $30 or so but it was really good for vpps, i made about 260 vpps in 900 hands or so. The play was very difficult because I know you need to be able to mix solid shoving with good blind defense and a reason opening range from each position. I think I could win while 4 tabling but that just isn't as fun for me. This session has convinced me to go back to the bread and butter of turbo 45's.

Also included today was an epic 30 or 40 hand huhu heater (limit holdem heads up) in which I won about $60 playing 3/6. Was something I felt like doing and I'm sure I was a huge fish. Played some random sats and tournys. Mincashed a few but the highlight came when I shipped a $8 double shootout satty to the sunday million. Not sure if I should play it or just walk away with my hard earned tourny dollars.

My reasoning for not being able to grind is blamed on the brutal day of dodgeball yesterday and the rainy weather (already? sigh). I'm sure blood was shed somewhere, it was quite the battle and I don't think I've put that much effort into dodgeball in a longggg time. I think we're going to have a good team for the upcoming spring tournament given that we play the lower divison. It's a lot of fun and I kind of want to make a balla avatar for stars using a dodgeball mixed with other stuff i like.

Rant ends here, hope to get back on the horse tomorrow.

Weekend goals.

The past few days have been rough in volume since I was sick last week and played mtts over the weekend. If I decide to stick with having 2 days off in a week, they will be wed and thurs. I want to get 1k games in over 3 days. This is given that I don't move up or start playing less tables. No monetary goals are to be set since it's really hard to strive for an amount when variance is so brutal. Considering mixing some 18 mans during off peak hours, maybe even some 180's.

New thoughts

My part time job at Home Goods just isn't really worth the time for what it pays. I'm probably going to be able to make at the very least $20/h grinding sngs so minimum wage isn't really worth working for. Now I'm in the pursuit of trying to find another job, or do something in order to get a better one such as take some classes. Something that has to do with writing or editing interests me so I want to keep writing in this blog for practice. I'm in need of another hobby or other things to go out and do, my town is pretty boring, it will probably have to be getting a gym membership or joining some kind of class.

In other news I started my own stable of 45 man players. Most are starting out at the very micros and learning basic strategy. My goal is to guide each player to at least the $3-$6 buy in levels. It's something that is acheiveable, I've been down grinding the $1's quite a few times. Camstasia is my new wonder pet. Too bad it's only a 30 day trial but I'll try to make as much use of it as possible. I want to make a personal section in my blog to talk about the progression of players that I'm teaching. It's something that is inspirational for others and feels good to create good things for others.

Don't really know what's going on, I'm over 2k games on the year now and this run good hasn't really stopped. Every time I've added in the next highest buy in level I've gone on a huge 100% heater at that buy in. I think I've made over 1k over just 50 $27's. At least now I have the confidence to include them in my grind, as feel that I have an edge over others players at this level, unsure how big but I would guess that it's under 10-12%.