Turning 0$ into WSOP trip

Weekly review, part 46
2020 Challenge
Weekly loss 2575€
Previous profit 16 746€
Current profit 19 321€

If previous week was very good, then last week was very bad Both formats - Spins and tournaments - went in red numbers, which is never a good sign when PokerStars EPT weekend begins. Played on the very 1st event, a 1000$ buyin event but busted 2 bullets. Some discount as one bullet was a satellite win Especially the first exit was very painful when I had nuts fullhouse on the turn with 8♣:8♦: on the 8♠:5♦:3♦:3♠:, but the opponent hit his 2 outer Jack on the River, having J♣:J♥: himself Variance always puts the worst in the highest buyins, doesnt it?

As for spins, nothing good either

I won a freeroll on Monday and got a 250$ Spin ticket, which I managed to turn into 500$ win. Also tried EPT satellites in Spins format, which were quite soft, but I just kept losing them And finally my main 100$ format with interesting numbers at least to say.. ChipEV is almost breakeven so probably my play wasnt that good. Lost 10 buyins, according to money EV, should have lost another 10 at least. Surprisingly I was winning more tournaments then finishing 2nd or 3rd, so that means I was getting too often 2x multipliers. Happens sometimes so I hope a better luck this week, starting with 500$ event on PokerStars in a minute Hope to provide better results in the next review!

Weekly review, part 47
2020 Challenge
Weekly loss 378€
Previous profit 16 746€
Current profit 16 368€

Not the week I have expected but nothing changed too dramatically. Interestingly, Spins went pretty well The 100 limit was one of the best this year, but had some losses at 75$ EPT satellite spins. The biggest prize I got there was 500$ ticket, so no EPT Main Event for me unfortunately

But I still wanted to play some higher buyin events, so I made couple of direct buyins to 1000$ events. Pitty, no success here as well so my week ended in red figures. But I taught me that I don't know hot to play bounty tournaments at all I've seen good players making such loose calls that I was surprised how can that be a profitable call. One very painful exit here, having an average stack and not far away from the money..

Poker Stars, $1,000 Buy-in (4,000/8,000 blinds, 1,000 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 8 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: 148,406 (18.6 bb)
Hero (BB): 161,275 (20.2 bb)
UTG+2: 202,040 (25.3 bb)
MP1: 223,725 (28 bb)
MP2: 57,975 (7.2 bb)
MP3: 180,274 (22.5 bb)
CO: 694,608 (86.8 bb)
BTN: 190,094 (23.8 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K♦: A♥:
3 folds, MP3 raises to 16,000, CO raises to 40,000, 2 folds, Hero raises to 160,275 and is all-in, MP3 folds, CO calls 120,275

Flop: (348,550) 4♠: 3♠: 8♥: (2 players, 1 is all-in)
Turn: (348,550) 2♣: (2 players, 1 is all-in)
River: (348,550) T♦: (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results:

If not the River, there was a big chance my week would have turned into a green one . But no time to moan about, so its the time to get to tables again. Hopefully Rivers won't be so scary this week

A bit late for monthly review but I wanted to finish PokerStars EPT online festival first, with a hope of grabbing a title ♠_biggrin: Didn't work, but let's start from the first points ♠_cool:

1. Make 12 trips
February - MPN Madrid 895€
February - Kings of Tallinn 1880€
March - Unibet UK Tour London 95€

The number is stuck at 3 and there is no way to improve it. Unless I decide to play WSOP Main Event in Razvadov next month Which is not in my plans unfortunately. With some pharmacy companies claiming that they already found a cure and next year we could travel freely again, I have some hopes we can play live again in some 6 months or so. But for a time being, I guess I will stick to online poker

2. Get some profit over 10k games at 100$ Spin&Go's

Not catching 10k games, but I'm happy I've crossed half the figure. And more happy with the winnings section as it is way above my expectations. I'm running much above EV, but even if it was equal, I would still be happy. My ChipEV is around 45 chips per game which is fine at 100$ level. I made some calculations and it seems that you need to have ChipEV of 30 if you want to be breakeven. But being breakeven is not my desire, so I hope at least to keep this figure or maybe study more and reach 50 ChipEv.

3. Everlasting study of poker - 360 hours
January - 35 hours
February - 30 hours
March - 37 hours
April - 34 hours
May - 20 hours
June July August - 0
September - 9 hours
October - 38 hours
After 45 weeks, it is 203 hours. It is still below the plan but again, at least it has crossed the middle point. Also it was my best month of studying hours which hopefully reflect in my game. After a long time of holidays, it was crucial to get back into shape as soon as possible, and I really feel my game improved greatly recently. EPT festival showed big leaks in my Bounty Tournaments so probably that's the area I have to switch my focus the most. Not forgetting Spins of course, as it is still my main income

4. Update trophy room or win Online Major
No win in EPT festival, so Nations Cup bronze medal remains on the Top. PokerStars are starting MicroMillions in a day but I wonder what is more difficult: to win a 1000$ event of 500 very good players, or a 10$ donkament of 10000 players Wouldn't mind any of this though

5. Practice French language
Today I've reached a very special milestone in Duolingo, 100 days learning in a row! Small commitment a day but still a decent amount once you add it all up.

6. Buy some land outside the city
Been to couple places but no deals made yet. I want a very special place with natural waters, some forest and plenty of space so I am willing to wait a little until I find that perfect one My wife is also very supportive of this idea and she already bought a book on how to decorate the place. A very picturesque book, highly recommended for nature lovers

7. Hold a healthy body through proper nutrition and active exercises

Ok, it is not pizza but I've ordered a healthy food delivery every day for couple of weeks for my wife. Raising a small baby, it is very easy to miss a meal as all the attention goes to the little one So now she has a little more time as the doesnt have to cook for herself and also she doesnt skip a meal too! It was a gift for her birthday but I am considering to giving such a gift to myself as well I'm terrible in the kitchen so having healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner and some snacks would definitely taste better than my food. Also I think it could be +EV for poker as you want to keep your energy levels up, plus saving some time and spending extra minutes taking sports is a good way as well It costs around 15-20 euros a day, I think it could be a very good investment.

8. To maintain strong relationship with others
There is a quarantine in Lithuania again so no direct contacts with people for 2 more weeks. But I have 2 wonderful women at home so I don't care that too much The little one is growing so fast that I'm not sure if I can call her a "little" anymore. A big shout for my wife, who is giving enormous efforts for raising her. I'm already tired after being with her for an hour, so I can only imagine how it feels when you have to keep with her all day But once again, that hour is the most enjoyable moment in a day so have no complaints here

9. Get promoted with Top Kickers to League III

So in the end we won our A2 league, but because of the poor start, we will remain in the same league next year. It was a tough season, Covid didn't help us at all, but we improved greatly in the last matches. We avoided a defeat in the last 7 matches, winning 5 of them, and raising up to the Top of the league. Some good players with international experience joined us so if we are able to keep them next year, something good might happen

10. Read 15 books
1. "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling
2. "Think like a cat" by Pam Johnson Bennett
3. "Unlimited memory" by Kevin Horsley
4. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo
5. 2nd World War by Robertas Petrauskas
6. "Kiss me" by Carlos Gonzalec
7. "The gentle sleep book" by Sarah Ockwell Smith

No book in a month and that's a big shame I should find extra 30 minutes in a day, so there are no excuses for not doing so. Especially that I have already 6 books in my shelves waiting for me

I hope next monthly update will be on time, so expect some writings on the first winter days

Howdy, thank you for the detailled post!

2. Your Spin-EV. Yeah, 27chipEV on 100s is enough to be breakeven on the paper. BUT... variance can be an ass, especially with 0.9% of EV going to the top prize pools. Hence I'd always include an extra percentage of rake to account for that (or in Swongsim simply eliminate the top 3 multipliers). If you hit them, well.. than your calculation was wrong but so what. If not, you are going to be more accurate.

6. You know, my favorite topic - buy some nice land. I find it a bit strange that your wife wants to "decorate" it, because you know - a garden is decorating itself with the leaves & plants you have there.
Still, will be very happy to see pictures once you bought a place
(one time to the moooon with bitcoin and i'll do the same)

7. Eating healthy - we had a similar experience once: when we had our baby, our cleaner that comes twice a week turned out to also be a very good cook and nanny. 2 Birds with one stone and she even brought the vegetables and eggs from her own backyard garden from Spain. In the end the cost was very low for what we got. Maybe a way to go as well if you could live with the intrusive act of having someone around in your home.

9. Why you do not get promoted if you are on top of the table?

Thanks Sven for a reply
Indeed, nature takes care of itself perfectly well, but I think we could make some places even more beautiful. Having couple extra ideas never hurts

As for nannies, we decided to raise the girl on ourselves at first and maybe later ask for a help. Today I've already started "food at home" plan, and it definitely saves time. I guess we can get some natural food once we move to the village

The reason we didn't get promoted is the fact that after first half of the season the league split into 2 groups. First one was battling for champions and the 2nd for surviving. Unfortunately due to poor start we were in 2nd group

Weekly review, part 48
2020 Challenge
Weekly profit 3308€
Previous profit 16 368€
Current profit 19 676€

A very good week, one of the best this year by far. However, most of the success is due to PokerStars points promotion. For grinding high volume in two week, I got extra 2400$. My wife usually opens the Chests on PokerStars, claiming that she is more lucky than me, so I've decided to trick her a little. On average you get around 20-30 dollars per one chest, so you can imagine her reaction when 2400$ appeared Of course she was angry at me when next day I revealed that it was a fixed prize and her magic had no part in it

Moving to Spins, it was great as well. ChipEV at good rate of 62, profits close to 3k, but according to moneyEV I should have been closer to 1k$. I would be happy with that sum though too. And finished much more times first than any other place so all good in this department.

The only negative factor is Sunday Tournament grind. Still can't go deep in any big tournaments and this week I got nearly bubbled in Sunday Million. With minutes to the prizes I got T♣:T♦: in the SB and 3bet jam my 15BB stack against CO opening. My nemesis had the same stack and decided to call with A♠:J♦:. A standard flipped ended in my elimination when A♣: appeared on the flop.
However, some better news on Unibet software, where I won a nice ticket for a highroller event Such high buyin events happens rarely here, so it will take some time before I can use this ticket

So that was my week! With spending lots of hours on studying, I really feel like my game is improving a lot. Hopefully it's not a short time God variance, so I hope to show similar results next week

Hello Mantas,

That's a very interesting and inspiring blog that you have how many years do you play poker for already?

PS: I really like Lithuania, the Trakai region and Palanga up north, been several times. I have no doubt you'll find a beautiful piece of nature to buy! ♦

Originally posted by SamoB25
PS: I really like Lithuania, the Trakai region and Palanga up north, been several times. I have no doubt you'll find a beautiful piece of nature to buy! ♦

Hi Samo, very good picks for experiencing Lithuania Which country are you from?

I see next to my avatar "Joined: 12.05.2009" so it must be my start of the career before PokerStrategy I didn't even know the rules

Weekly review, part 49
2020 Challenge
Weekly profit 964€
Previous profit 19 676€
Current profit 20 640€

A late Monday update as I've just finished my 2 day Unibet Series event. Can't complaint too much, after long hours of battling, my fate was dedicated to A♥:K♣:. Unfortunately I couldn't win a flip against opponent's 9♦:9♠:, so no crown for me

On PokerStars there was a little success in the biggest tournament of the week - Sunday Million.

It's always good to finish in the Top100 with over 10k players, but you always hope at least reach a Final Table I guess I will have to include that into my next year goals
The exit hand in this tournament was very standard - I open jammed my 12BB from UTG with T♣:T♠: and opponent on the BB snapped me with A♦:J♠:. J♣: on the turn

However, my Spin grind was not so good. ChipEV stood at 33,5 which on paper should bring small profits, but variance had other view Minus 1500$, although $EV says I should have been in profits of somewhere 500$. I also played some 50$ and 25$ level games but not because I had to dropped down the limits - PokerStars are running some nice promotions and I've collected 15 tickets each on those levels. So in theory, I might have ended in the positive $ playing spins last week

Let's see what the first week of the winter will bring to us

Originally posted by Mantelo
Which country are you from?

Slovenia, a good 1500km closer to the equator than LT ♦

I wish you good luck at the tables! I'll keep following your blog and I'll try to learn something from it ♦

I've been to Slovenia as well! But only on our way to Croatia.. Maybe one day if there is a big Live tournament

Weekly review, part 50
2020 Challenge
Weekly loses -1485€
Previous profit 20 640€
Current profit 19 155€

Not the best week as I couldn't find my luck neither on Spins nor in tournaments Only 10 chips per game on Spins is not enough for being breakeven, so it is no surprise I've lost 11 buyins here. The biggest game I've played was 5x in all week, probably giving me higher multiplier this week

I had a very good tournament session on Friday, but then all tournaments on PokerStars freezed and I was credited some money the next day. Something annoying to happen but not much what we can do. And lastly I had a tournament session on Sunday, but it was a big no-no. Expensive Sunday million of 200$ where I had to make 3 reentries And all times I've busted with my lovely A♣:K♠: Once into A♥:A♦:, once into J♦:J♣: and once into 4♦:6♦:.

Anyway, this week is a new beginning and hopefully a little better one

One month since my last monthly review, so here is the update

1. Make 12 trips
February - MPN Madrid 895€
February - Kings of Tallinn 1880€
March - Unibet UK Tour London 95€

No surprise that I didn't have any more trips and it will certainly stay at this number this year. In Lithuania (like in many countries) the situation is getting worse and a bigger quarantine is taking place from tomorrow. We won't be allowed to leave the city until January 31st, unless you workplace is in other region, so I don't expect any live tournaments to take place soon. However, vaccines in UK is something promising so maybe there is a chance in the middle of 2021

2. Get some profit over 10k games at 100$ Spin&Go's
A little drop in the profits, but the numbers are still good this year. I won't reach the desired games count, but I'm very happy with the net won and other stats.

I still need 240 Spin Games to complete PokerStars Exclusive challenge and after that I plan to rest myself for the rest of the year. I know that in Christmas time the games are very juice but I feel that the burnout from poker is not far away so I'd better enjoy this period in a Christmas mood

3. Everlasting study of poker - 360 hours
January - 35 hours
February - 30 hours
March - 37 hours
April - 34 hours
May - 20 hours
June July August - 0
September - 9 hours
October - 38 hours
November - 45 hours

Best month in studying hours so the number stand at 248 hours after 49 weeks. Still a decent gap from the goal, but I'm happy with the recent routines. Hopefully I will manage to keep the pace for the next year

4. Update trophy room or win Online Major
The festivals on PokerStars were not very successful, but I had some deep runs in Unibet Series. Been twice in the Heads-up situation, but lost both But as Unibet is not such a big site anymore, I'm not even sure that winning such an event could be described as major event Probably will have to test GG Poker next year as it is getting very popular.

5. Practice French language

Already reached 10k XP so the goal is done! But I'm still going to continue my learning, so I could order a glass of wine in Paris like a boss :f_cool::f_biggrin:

6. Buy some land outside the city
Unfortunately this goal is with the least success I still have 2 weeks time but with moving restrictions it is difficult now to even get a live look of the places. And from my experience, it is a huge difference between the pictures and the real views. However, together with my wife we are still scrolling through offers and maybe something fabulous will appear The only positive is that we both agreed what region we should be looking for and how we imagine the setup. Only the details left..

7. Hold a healthy body through proper nutrition and active exercises
After a good feedback from my wife, I've ordered daily meals myself. So now I get a breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and one snack every weekday. Only on Saturday and Sunday we have to cook ourselves, or order a pizza for a guilty pleasure But with such routine, to fail in proper nutrition is almost impossible. The other good thing is that I picked "order for athletes" which has many calories and I have to take exercises if I want to eat all that food. Win Win situation

8. To maintain strong relationship with others
Tough times on this goal throughout all year, but the baby makes it much easier for us And as she is growing with a lightning speed, such is growing her speed in general I've never imagined that one hour with a kid can take so much energy from you Anyway, those hours are the most precious in a day, so I want to spend as much time with her as I can Her night sleep regime is still a mystery, but some experts say that after 6 months it is normalized. Not long to wait for it

9. Get promoted with Top Kickers to League III
We didn't get promoted, but we stayed in the league at least. Normally at this time we would start our winter competition in 7x7 format, but it was delayed at least for a month. I have a feeling that indoors football will be cancelled at all, so we will have to wait for spring to kick the ball again. As for now, it is a good time to recover from any injuries and start a preseason personally

10. Read 15 books
1. "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling
2. "Think like a cat" by Pam Johnson Bennett
3. "Unlimited memory" by Kevin Horsley
4. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo
5. 2nd World War by Robertas Petrauskas
6. "Kiss me" by Carlos Gonzalec
7. "The gentle sleep book" by Sarah Ockwell Smith
8. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
Crossing the middle of this goal but as it is December, that means I'm far away from reaching it. But a good thing I'm getting back to this routine and now I'm in progress of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century book. Interesting ideas about what can we expect in the near future with robotics getting more influence in our lives. Bots are not only in poker, in the end

as always, I enjoy reading your reports!

Today I had the best session of Spins ever. So the downswing turned to upswing immediately The biggest multiplier was 5x, but got them like 10 times and took almost all of them

But the question is, can I hold my place in the Daily Leaderboards? 10 hours left

...now I even need to rail the leaderboard, not only your property-hunt!

Weekly review, part 51 & 52
2020 Challenge
Weekly loses -1011€
Previous profit 19 155€
Current profit 18 144€

I've put 2 weeks results here as last Monday I provided my monthly update But it didn't help to climb from the red zone

Despite the strong start on Tuesday, I only got breakeven for a week. Should have been around 1k up, but with ChipEV of ~28 per game you can't expect much. I thought that Christmas period will attract a lot of weaker players but usually I had to fight with strong regs who spend much more time in Labs than me

Also tried a tournament session but it was very bad and after busting early my 4th bullet in Sunday Million, I decided not to register in any coming tournament and go to sleep early. Will have to try them next week again, and probably it will be my only left session this year. However, I won't forget poker completely as I want to build a strong structure for next year and kick 2021 from the very start I've already started working with ICMizer, in next days I will look into PokerTracker (Transiting from dying HoldemManager2), CoffeHud (completely new tool for me) and some kind of Solver for postflop spots. So lots things to do

Another thing bothering me is constant drop of USD value. In that last 2 week period my software shows that I should have been a little up. And indeed if I look at my USD balance in PokerStars, it shows a little increase. But because my account is set in euros, I'm losing a lot even if I'm not playing. Today I Tried to convert most of my funds to Euros, but PokerStars has some kind of restricions and I can only convert a small amount. Not sure if I could do that in 10 times, but will give it a try

Ha, should have converted all to Bitcoins 3 weeks ago, shouldn't you?
But as a noob in terms of currency predicitons, your EV is just 0 whatever you do. You can just minimize the risk by having 2 currencies at once.
I actually tried that back in 2010, when asking everyone returning from holidays (or doing it myself) to exchange my GBP or EUR into whatever they brought. So, got a couple of hundred USD, Swiss Franks, Norwegian Krona, Swedish Krona, South African Rand - so, basically a lot of paper money for the eventual case of being able to go on holidays again...
Let's hope!

Best wishes for a very Merry Christmas,
VS

Originally posted by SvenBe
Ha, should have converted all to Bitcoins 3 weeks ago, shouldn't you?

I've just looked at the graphs, seems like a record price But probably not going to keep for a month..