Chip Up & Ship It (GGPoker, Spins recreational regular diary)

Any updates?

Many events have negatively influenced my setup and perspectives on playing at 888Poker:

- I was finally accepted into an affiliate program that offers up to 60% in RB. However, the week after, 888Poker removed leaderboards for German players, which accounted for 30-50% of my RB according to my spreadsheets.
- Subsequently, 888Poker removed access for German players to play at the 50s and 100s levels, making it essentially unbeatable for us.
- Overall, German online poker regulations incentivize seeking alternative setups, either on unregulated sites or through other people's accounts registered in more favorable countries. Understandably, those taking this route are not blogging about it or sharing it publicly.
- My company had a round of layoffs, and I opted for a voluntary severance package. While it's a good deal, offering a 6-month salary bonus, I'll need to figure out my next career steps.

On the other hand, some good news came during this period:

- We are expecting an addition to our family (a girl), with a target delivery month of September.
- Before switching to full father mode, I've set a goal to build my bankroll and sell the rest of my action to participate in the WSOP Main Event this year. I'm currently at +6.5K (up from -10K when I started in January). I plan to cover travel costs myself (3-4K) and sell about 40% of the action to friends.
- I've added more offline sessions to my schedule. My local club added double-board PLO bomb pots every orbit on 5-5 tables, where I've been quite lucky (winning a 4.5K pot this week). I generally aim to improve my offline games and reads by playing a few hundred cash hands online with thorough analysis in GTOWizard, followed by offline sessions.

So, that's the update... lots of news, but not much to share with the broader poker community.

Hello from Italy! I've been lurking your blog for the past few months and wanted to thank you: with your tips I got into spins (your "trick" for blast leaderboards gave me some €€€ - even though I don't play on 888 anymore either) and GTO Wizard, which proved to be really useful (I hadn't played for a long time and thought solvers were only for cash).
I hope everything is going well, with the baby on the way, your family and... poker

Hi @5agittariusA,

Happy to hear that my blog still bings value to people. Everything is going better than expected - I managed to decrease amount of hours in poker alongside with increasing my hourly by moving down the limits (now, it is about 120$/hour for the past 60 hours in the last 2 months). Baby and mother are doing good, all tests are perfect and we expect to meet face-to-face in 1 month.

Good luck in your challenge

Hi,

Sorry for writing here, I couldn't find the right place

I just started reading your diary and based on your success I started playing Blast poker again on the Poker888 site,

I am running into a problem that the hand histories collected from the Blast tables do not include the results, if I win, if you take it, it is always entered into Hand2Note as a losing game? didn't you have such a problem?
Hand histories do not include ranking

Originally posted by Gyuri00
I am running into a problem that the hand histories collected from the Blast tables do not include the results, if I win, if you take it, it is always entered into Hand2Note as a losing game? didn't you have such a problem?
Hand histories do not include ranking

It's the same for any tracker, i use PT4 but tried H2N, HM and Xeester too. I wrote to PT4's support and they told me it's on 888 side and they can't do anything.
I had to resort to writing down each result and multiplier while playing...

Same here, results are not recorded correctly in PT4 from Blast tournaments, therefore I track them separately in the spreadsheet. On top of results, I'm tracking rakeback per each limit. This is a bit inconvenient as it requires manual input, but it's ok for me. Tracking software wouldn't track Leaderboards final standings anyways.

Originally posted by Gyuri00
I just started reading your diary and based on your success I started playing Blast poker again on the Poker888 site,

Good luck on your journey! :f_drink::f_drink::f_drink:

Thanks for your help, I contacted poker888 but they didn't really want to help me, that's what I noticed

Then maybe I'll make an excel table too,seems like a difficult task after every race, but I'll get used to it

Studentishe Thank you for the good wishes

Congrats for the $50 from the lottery
https://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/content/Payday-for-the-English-community_132774/

Oh wow,

Thanks for highlighting it here, what a nice surprise 😮

I took a small time off from the tables as my daughter came to this world at the end of September and it was quite a ride from that date.

Back in Action: Reflecting on 2024 and Announcing a New Challenge

Hello, fellow poker enthusiasts!

It’s been a while since my last update—over six months, to be exact. Life and the tables kept me busy, but I’m excited to resume sharing my poker journey with all of you. Let’s start by recapping 2024, a year that’s been nothing short of incredible for me in poker.

📊 2024 Highlights:

Profit: +€38,000
Hours Played: 1161
Online: 700 hours at €49 hourly
Offline: 461 hours at €37 hourly

One of the most exciting recent poker events for me was making a comeback into leaderboards chases. This time GGPoker German Spin & Gold leaderboards. Over the past 7 weeks, I’ve battled a bit with local regs and managed to turn a €1,000 deposit into a solid €4,000 bankroll. The grind has been challenging but rewarding. There is this special feeling when in the last moments of leaderboard chase you make the right move and overtake or defend the first place.

Now, it’s time for a new adventure—a bankroll challenge on GGPoker! Starting with my current €4,000 bankroll, I aim to grow it to €20,000. The goal is ambitious but achievable with the right strategy, discipline, and a bit of good luck.

I’ll be documenting my progress, sharing key moments, and discussing the strategies and adjustments I make along the way.

Let’s make 2025 even more exciting! Stay tuned for updates, insights, and plenty of action from the tables.

Good luck at the tables

...

...

Oh wow, I'm flattered that you read the whole blog – that's quite an effort, and I'm happy to hear that you liked my approach. I try to combine what I use in my job with poker and vice versa.

Originally posted by Untiltable

You mention that ICM only becomes a factor at the 10x Blasts, but at GGPoker, aren't payouts top two even at the lowest multipliers and therefore never pure chipEV? Was it or has it been difficult to adjust?

No, GGPoker has a very similar payout structure to 888Poker, where 10x+ multipliers have 2+ places paid. The big difference lies in the probabilities of 4x, 5x, and 10x multipliers. On GG, they are about the same, whereas on 888, they follow a geometric progression. I prefer GG probabilities because they smooth out variance.

My coach mentioned that grinders usually don't bother much with the ICM factor since they play in EV pools, where all calculations are based on chipEV, completely ignoring ICM. I haven’t delved into this topic myself since those games are rare, and playing for first place the same way as in lower multipliers is a solid approach.

What was actually challenging was adjusting to Spins without antes. In ante games (888), push and call ranges are much looser. On GG, they’re tighter, with more post-flop play. The games are a bit slower, which I like better, but I need to work on calibrating my ranges for this format.

Originally posted by Untiltable
2. After your severance package, did the idea of playing poker professionally make a return? And did you resolve the career change issue?

I like having poker as a side hustle. It's perfect for that purpose. On the other hand, I want my main profession to be more meaningful and impactful. I view poker as more of an entertainment field than a sport, and I don’t want to entertain people for a living. 😊 That’s one reason. Another is that it’s quite hard to turn poker into a profession legally here in Germany – paying taxes, social security, medical insurance, etc., is complicated. It’s also nearly impossible to get a mortgage as a professional poker player. So, I prefer to keep it as a hobby.

About the career change – I’m enjoying my ALG1 (unemployment benefits) at the moment. I’ve been approved to receive them until June this year – I get 50% of my salary for doing 0% work. 😊 It’s sort of a German rake-back scheme that I’m happy to take full advantage of. Alternatively, I could take parental leave, but it would be 50% of what I get now or 25% of my former salary.

On top of that, as a family, we’re not sure where we’ll be by June. We initially planned to move to the US, but external factors put those plans on hold.

Originally posted by Untiltable
3. How come no one asked a follow-up question on page 17 when Anonymous mentioned having DIED once?

I somehow missed that. It would definitely be interesting to follow up on this fun fact.

...

6max version is only available on GG and only on lower limits, 3 max is a classic format that you can find on other rooms and learn much easier. I would avoid investing too much into studying GG-specific formats - you'd be locked to this room.

A little bonus from GG right at the start of BR challenge (+111.72$):

Intrestingly, completing 11/12 missions was more +EV than completing all 12/12 missions

📊 2025 Highlights:

A new Studentishe's challenge

♦ a huge :gl:, i'll surely follow your delvelopments.

So you can play on GG from Germany? Is it something new?
I'm in Italy and GG is banned unfortunately, i hope they plan to expand to new markets as the spins offering is down to 2 networks with decent traffic, and 2 more that are pretty much dead. Boy do i hate closed markets...

Hahaha, thanks mate. I Hope more "2025 Highlights" yet to come )

Originally posted by 5agittariusA
So you can play on GG from Germany? Is it something new?

Yes, GGPoker is one of 4 licenced platforms here in Germany, along with Pokerstars, 888 and PartyPoker. Unfortunately, Germany introduces additional 5.3% tax for all buy-ins and poker rooms reacted differently. Additionally, German players can't deposit more than 1K / month and game is limited to 4 tables simultaniously. Most of rooms (PS, 888 and Pary) cut all the promos for german players meaning less or no rakeback that's killing action in Spin and Gos, GGPoker racted a bit differently. They introduced 3% tax on all tournament winnings as well as "German Leaderboards" in which only players from Germany can participate. They differ from the "rest of the world leaderboards", but in short, for 50s limit there is not much of the competition and this leaderboard at some weeks can give 100%+ rakeback alone. Places are limited, only 5 top players payed in High leaderboard and there is no difference in points earned between limits, so it only make sense to play 50s there.

Well, we'll see if they are as profitable as I think they are.