Padelbro - BR challenge 2024

Hi Sven!

I wouldn't wrote a strategy article from highly unorthodox and non-standard play On most stakes villains can have very wide calling and opening ranges that this hand has crushed.

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The biggest problem playing on Unibet is that it's not easy to track results and where you're going. But I guess it's a necessary evil, as I very much prefer nobody using pokertracking softwares on the tables. And the site itself isn't obviously very eager to provide these overall results or graphs, as it might be de-motivating for gamblers to see big losses over time.

So last week I asked some stats from the support from past 2 months (roughly for the duration of BRChallenge), got the info and used some Excel to make my own graph. Unfortunately they didn't have (or "it wasn't possible to deliver") any EV information. I'd say my run must've been well above EV

Nice upswing last 2 weeks. Though as visible from the graph, 10bin downswing will hurt fast if it hits on PL4. So far challenge going right direction.

Result last two weeks: 6.678,12 €
Overall BR Challenge: 13.410,09 €

Hands played last two weeks: 10.872 (GL tracker now @38.568)
Overall BR Challenge: 32.790

Looking good!

All the best,
VS

Last week I had a little project of converting my bonuspoints into real money. Decided to go with HexaPro-tickets as there are limited options when I seem to have some playthrough bonus all the time anyway. So I bought 38x25€ tickets and spun those away.

I won 16 tournaments for ITM 42% and got back 962,5€, so marginal 1% profit for my investment even if I think that win% was quite okay-ish. And the game itself, constant flipping as stacks are so shallow - or maybe it just us omaha players seeing equity everywhere even when you take half of our hole cards away Anyway, sick format, sick variance, I can see there is a good reason they call these lottery-SNG's.

One nice 5x win with this flip, isolated short stack push and BB woke up with a nice holdings, I scooped the pot anyway with worst hand.

Watched parts of coach-Lemon's stream from Twitch and some good stuff about mental game there. I have had the fortune to not record losing 2 weeks so far in the BRC, but I've certainly had some bad days and sessions. Like that 4k hole in the graph, and after last week's reporting had a bad monday donking very stupidly multiple stacks for a reg - he can't have it every time, right?

Anyway after bad sessions seems like motivation for anything poker-related is gone for a while, day or two, even a week. Feelings of shame and failure if the loss is particularly big. On the tables I start doubting whether I know what I'm doing, villains seem to got the best of me every time. And during losing sessions, espesially against too wide opponents, my normal game-plan sometimes fly out of the window, and I start playing waaaay looser myself.

Then there's the other side, when winning it sometimes feels like wrapping up the session for the reason that I'm winning - it's a nice feeling and dont wan't to risk ending up losing after all. I listened like a year ago podcasts about Finnish pro-poker players and some crusher there said that when he is wininng it's exact the time he wants to be playing - his opponents are losing money and maybe start losing their composure too, playing worse than normally. He has them right where he wants them right there and then. Like that reg had me Monday two weeks ago

Most stupid spew:
Biggest lost hand during past two weeks was AA vs AA preflop all-in for 165bb, but that's quite standard. This one was one of those spewed hands against the reg. I 3b SB vs BTN, flop goes checked, check-raised turn with no blockers hoping villain would be quite capped not betting on the flop IP, followed up on the river. Questionable line.

Biggest won hand:
Villain 3b my button open 250bb deep effective and pretty much insta-pots flop. I've a second set, weak FD and weak gutter. Calling seems reaonable IP when deeper stacks. Villain pots turn too and I ship the rest. I don't love villain's pot OTF, turn was quite nice for him so pot makes sense, although there will be many nasty rivers if I call. 75%/25% equity edge flip for me.

???
Mr Dundee dropped in too playing some hands in PLO4. He squeezes from SB UTG open / my BTN flat. Flop is HU and he check-calls my 2/3pot stab and donk-shoves turn. Questionable line.

Result last two weeks: 5.945,07 €
Overall BR Challenge: 19.355,16 €

Hands played last two weeks: 6.422 (GL tracker now @44.990) - guess some of these are Hexa-pro SNG-hands
Overall BR Challenge: 39.212

Potting A high flop with Ah on the board is decent. If the board was Ah Tc 8c it would be a bit different, as he would have topset+nfd way more often than on the Ah Th 8c. Turn gives Kfd and gutter, versus your combo draw or made hand that is not that happy to call a pot sized barrel.

Just a short update this week.

Result last two weeks: 2.283,83 €
Overall BR Challenge: 21.638,99 €

Hands played last two weeks: 10.869 (GL tracker now @55.859) - again there's a bunch of HexaPro-lotterySNG hands included
Overall BR Challenge: 50.081

BR goal achieved!

Playing on Unibet has been really pleasant experience. There is only so many good regs on this site playing omaha and plenty of fish at all stakes. The level of play on PLO4 is still very soft in general, unless there is only regs at some table. Only issue is low traffic volume especially on day times, so not many games running really. And PLO4 is highest stakes available.

Overall BR Challenge result: 24.092,79 € (Cashgames 21.251,04, rakeback and bonuses 2.841,75)
Cash game hands played: 52 887

Most impressive!

Are you also getting those "Rake X, get Y" bonuses all the time on unibet?

Originally posted by ghaleon
Are you also getting those "Rake X, get Y" bonuses all the time on unibet?

I got one a while ago, rake 2800 to get 280 if I remember correctly.

I had to play a TON in 2 weeks period of time and that was bit more than half stack in PLO4, so quite bad value there. Maybe better than nothing, but playing more than usually might have negative effects on game and sometimes forced to play against only regs to get the needed volume. So I was above my goal BR bit earlier already but wanted to grind that bonus and got a litte downswing while doing that..

Other than that I cant remember getting these type of bonuses. I've gotten some gifts and free-bets from account admins now and then.

After the completion of the BRC I withdrew some moneys (btw made request Sat and it was paid at latest next day when I checked my account, nice job there Unibet) and been playing mostly PLO50 as there has been zero action anywhere else earlier hours. No one is folding anything it feels like at these games.

Insane winrate!

congratulations - that did not take very long for you!
Next challenge 300k?

Hi Padel! Really nice work at the tables and gz for reaching your goal! From my perspective I can confirm that you must have ran above EV :f_mad::f_drink:

Br JUST1CE

Congratz! Good luck on the next challenge!

Thanks guys

Originally posted by U0T1L4
Hi Padel! Really nice work at the tables and gz for reaching your goal! From my perspective I can confirm that you must have ran above EV :f_mad::f_drink:

Br JUST1CE

Hey U0T1L4, I guess you're one of the "Top Dogs" from Unibet, given your success in rake races here I kind of regret registering to Unibet via some random sportsbetting site back in the day instead of PokerStrategy, seems I missed some value right there

And thanks to SvenBe and Barry Carter for the interview, gonna link it here mostly so that I can find it in future too:

BR Challenge completion interview by Pokerstrategy

Slow start for the year poker-wise, I have been buried under quite heavy work-load lately and haven't found energy nor time to play much. I withdrew half of my bankroll from Unibet and gonna try to build it up again. Should probably re-join the BRChallenge indeed at some point for more motivation.

Last Summer Unibet had a campaign and asked if I was interested in soccer-themed present when Finnish team made it into European Championship first time ever, and they sent a nice "Huuhkajat" scarf and a football. Before Christmas they asked if I was interest in receiving a Christmas present and this time I got a wireless charging tray, wireless headphones and a portable Bluetooth speaker! Quite a nice present

Summer and vacation is here, time to raise stakes on pokertables again

First of all, decided to change my nick and thanks to good people at Pokerstrategy this was allowed. My old nick was a joke that didn't age well, as you might know Steven Seagal is worst kind of Kremlin apologist and on February Putin decided to show his true face. But that's a topic for another blog.

2nd quarter ended yesterday and had to grind a bit already to achieve 390k bonuspoints and a playthrough bonus. And boy were there some crazy action! There was this one player 3-betting every hand and just getting it in pre and gambling for stakcs. Some hands:

Table €400 PL - 2.00/4.00 - Pot Limit Omaha
Seated players
Seat 2: CO (€607.20)
Seat 3: Crazy dude BTN (€550.72)
Seat 4: Hero SB (€1077.09)
Seat 5: BB (€983.70)
Seat 6: Fishy dude MP (€455.28)

Hole cards
Dealt to Hero J♣:9♣:9♦:A♦:

Preflop
MP raises €8 to €8
CO folds
BTN raises €12 to €12
Hero calls €10
BB folds
MP raises €44 to €52
BTN raises €80 to €92
Hero folds
MP calls €40

Flop 200 € Q♠: 7♠: A♠:
MP checks
BTN bets €200
CO raises €363.28 to €363.28, and is all-in
BTN calls €163.28

Showdown
Turn Q♠: 7♠: A♠: 8♠:
River Q♠: 7♠: A♠: 8♠: T♠:

Table €400 PL - 2.00/4.00 - Pot Limit Omaha
Seated players
Seat 1: BTN (€180)
Seat 2: SB (€400)
Seat 3: Crazy dude BB(€396)
Seat 4: Hero UTG (€3400.11)
Seat 5: MP (€1240.54)
Seat 6: Fishy dude CO (€1023.80)

Hole cards
Dealt to Hero 9♥:Q♥:5♦:8♥:

Preflop
Hero folds
MP folds
CO raises €8 to €8
BTN folds
SB folds
BB raises €22 to €26
CO calls €18

Flop 54 € Q♠:7♥:4♣:
BB bets €54
CO calls €54

Turn 162 € Q♠:7♥:4♣: 6♠:
BB bets €162
CO calls €162

River 486 € Q♠:7♥:4♣: 6♠: 3♠:
BB bets €154, and is all-in
CO calls €154

Showdown

Somehow I managed to luck-box three or four all-in's against this dude ending up with probably my biggest stack so far 843bb at PLO4, was tempted to try 1000bb but when this wacko gambled 400bb stack for himself the variance was just too high for me and ended the session. Same ol' song came to mind, doesn't really matter what the crazy dude does he will end up with all the moolah

So yeah, last winter Q4 I had at least double those bonuspoints I had now, so poker volume has been down quite a bit. But let's achieve some goals this summer to make up for that:

- 2,5k hands per week (starting point @game lab 105 096)
-560 500 bonus points Q3
-all profit would be nice (BR starting point 21790,07)

Would be nice to know what the rakeback from Unibet actually is. There are bonuspoints that can be converted to cash via playthrough bonuses and spin&go's, but then I really like how part of the rakeback comes in multitude of different ways:

-Free stuff when there is big sporting events, birthdays, Christmas, Summer whatever. Yeah usually branded with Unibet's logo but I don't mind advertising them Got custom game Jersey when Finland won ice hockey's World Championships last month, giftcard to Verkkokauppa.com (online store), powerbank (I'll come back to powerbanks later) etc.
-Free bets for sportsbetting and account-managers gifts quite often, they're usually 50/100€
-Deposit bonuses for casino with no further conditions, usually it's deposit 50€ get 25€ worth of free games and keep the profit

Received a questionnaire from Veikkaus (local gambling monopoly in Finland) about how I would rate their games and how I see their brand and responsibility etc. There was a raffle of 3 power-banks between everyone that would answer and I almost died of laughter at that point. Like come on guys, you're monopoly with unlimited moneys and user-base you can do better than that. Boy did they score low on my feedback (They had absolute no rakeback last time I played there, none. Biggest customer advantage was maybe a small discount from coffee when playing lottery at local kiosk.)

Third quarter closed, so time for a little review. Goals were:

- 2,5k hands per week (starting point @game lab 105 096)
Ended up playing 22570 hands, 13 weeks so that would be 1736 hands per week - not even close!

-560 500 bonus points Q3
This one was achieved, grinded enough hands last week to reach the goal and 40 000 bonuspoints reward.

-all profit would be nice (BR starting point 21790,07)
Profit of 1391,98 in cash tables. As the games have mostly been PLO2-4, pretty much breakeven result maybe 1-3bb/100. Had unfortunate ending to Q3 against some aggro fellow playing multiple tables, he just crushed everybody that night

I wish there was a way to tag interesting hands for posting/reviewing in Unibet, but unfortunately there's not such a feature on the software. Well, this one was quite nice.

Game #1741932917: Table €400 PL - 2.00/4.00 - Pot Limit Omaha - 18:18:28 2022/09/26
Seated players
Seat 1: __AA__ (€400)
Seat 2: Vhagar (€763.77)
Seat 3: Malte1948 (€487.25)
Seat 4: Lento-orava (€589.09)
Seat 5: shortK (€123.25)
Seat 6: -Majstro- (€309.82)

Blinds and button
shortK has the button
-Majstro- posts small blind €2
__AA__ posts big blind €4

Hole cards
Dealt to Lento-orava A♣: Q♠: A♠: Q♦:

Preflop
Vhagar folds
Malte1948 folds
Lento-orava raises €14 to €14
shortK folds
-Majstro- raises €44 to €46
__AA__ folds
Lento-orava raises €127.39 to €141.39
-Majstro- calls €95.39

Flop 7♣: 7♠: Q♥: 286,78 €
-Majstro- checks
Lento-orava checks

Turn 7♣: 7♠: Q♥: 3♠: 286,78 €
-Majstro- checks
Lento-orava checks

River 7♣: 7♠: Q♥: 3♠: 6♦: 286,78 €
-Majstro- bets €168.43, and is all-in
Lento-orava calls €168.43

Didn't have too much motivation for poker last year, so I decided maybe participating Pokerstraegy's good old BR Challenge would be a nice idea. Well close to 80k hands last year, I guess that's not nothing but not enough for even that set goal from post above (2k hands / week). Also I haven't finished Jnandez book still but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day!

I'm gonna play PLO200 and shortstack PLO400 for beginning, and I've set stop loss of 1k€ per day. This is because obviously can't go nuts with 25bin BR no matter how good customer there might be, even 50bin BR could be lost quite fast obviously. But hey, I'm gonna play on Unibet, good old fish-paradise ♠_love:

My landlady decided she's gonna sell my apartment, so decided that I might aswell buy it rather than finding a new one. This means quite sizeable mortgage loan, apartments in Helsinki-area are not very cheap, at least in decent neighbourhoods. So if I'm gonna rather succeed in this challenge than go broke, I'm not gonna keep whole balance on the pokersite, rather using the possible winnings for loan paybacks.

Also there is occasional Casino-bonuses for depositing, so I'll have to deduct those and winnings from those from this challenge. Actually I started keeping track on these ones over year ago, and I've received 37 depositbonuses, got 1075 freeplays for Casino with those, nominal value of 539,5 € and actually won 297 € with those. I guess it's quite okay bonus, but still RTP of 55% doesn't seem quite normal to me... I guess these freespins have different winrate than normal casino play, or my luck is

I also have some sportbets going on for NHL, gotta also remember to deduct winnings from those too from this challenge. Most of these are for regular season, one bet is for Stanley Cup for * Dallas Stars ****. They are second on Central, but I guess not too special season for them so far, big players seem to have underperformed.

So here we gon then, good luck for everyone in the challenge this year

Starting BR aka current balance for the challenge 10 634,2 €
Goal BR 55 000 €.

Long time no speak & welcome back! Wishing you a speedy challenge (but gimme a share!)
Looking forward to some crazy PLO hands....

Okay, the first two weeks of the challenge is behind. During this time I had one day where 1k stoploss was reached and coulnd't play anymore. Little bit annoying of course if there are good games running, but I think it indeed protecs such a shallow BR quite nicely. It's so tempting to start playing wide ranges with that megagambler who just keeps nailing it Only problem there is only so much PLO200 action going on, seems like PLO400 has more often games running so I've been shortstacking those quite a lot. Let's get some hands.

This one is a bit older from December, but must be one of the biggest hands for me over 300bb effective deep PLO400.

This is the biggest hand from last two weeks, had grinded/flipped my stack probably from 50bb to 150bb since a bit deeper here again on PLO400.

I forgot that Unibet gamelab actually has a hand counter, so gonna start tracking how many hands I've played too. Starting now @228 875, cant remember if it counts Hexa Pro hands aswell though (using bonuspoints with those).

Week 2
Starting BR 10 634,2 €
Goal BR 55 000 €
Deposits and casino/sportbook winnings 47,5 €
Withdrawals and casino/sportbook losses 20,1 €
Current BR 13 956,00 €
Result 3 294,4 €

Some turbulent times for my BR this week. Made a withdrawal as my apartment deal is coming tomorrow. Quite exciting, tomorrow by this time I will own an apartment! And have a hefty mortgage ♠_ugly:

On the other hand NHL regular season is nearing it's end and some succesfull bets have already been paid and rest will be settled within next 2 weeks to give me some needed outside of poker boost. And for Stanley cup bet Dallas is looking quite good actually, 2nd overall currently, team has looked strong recently and there is still lot's of room to improve from top players. I hope.

On the pokerside losing 3 weeks, albeit 750 € is less than 2bins in PLO400 so small marginals. Played against some wild player on Saturday and as you know swings in omaha are just massive. Winning either of these spots and the result would be the other way. Oh well, cant win 'em all.

Week 5
Starting BR 10 634,2 €
Goal BR 55 000 €
Deposits and casino/sportbook winnings 305 €
Withdrawals and casino/sportbook losses 3 545,99 €
Current BR 9 933,22 €
Result 2 540,01 €
Result last 3 weeks -754,39 €
Hands played 4310