BRC Supporting Blog

Welcome to the challenge!

Best of luck!

I just checked and didn't see the bankroll goals — be sure you posted them in the EN community forum.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Welcome to the challenge!

Best of luck!

I just checked and didn't see the bankroll goals — be sure you posted them in the EN community forum.

Thank you!

I have just posted my numbers now, as I wanted to finish playing without a challange for the very last time. From tomorrow on everthing counts.

The challenge is on!

Currently I think I will do updates for the challenge on a weekly basis as most of the participants do. But maybe I will switch to the minimal required two week interval in the future.

Reasons are simple. First: Starting something new, the motivation is extremly high most of the time. Second: As a German player I underly the newly integrated restrictions on legal platforms. The hardest thing is the table limit of up to four tables. So my volume will not be very high, especially the formats and platform I am playing.

This post is intended to introduce a little bit into where and what I am playing: I only have one platform at the moment and that is PokerStars. I am one of the lucky guys that are in shape to receive some PS.com points through playing there. Currently my main game is the 18 man 9-max turbo mtsng. It perfectly fits into my preferred time schedule. One game at most lasts about one hour of play and most of the time there is enough trafic to fill up to four tables in a reasonable amount of time.

Very very hard day for the challenge... but more on this on the weekly update on monday.

Today I am going to write about something else and I ask for your support. With the beginning of May I started scoring at the Scholars Leader Board. I first heard about it in someones blog here. After a short sighting I came to the conclution that it is worth a try. Every week there are three tourneys with a buy in of just $1.10 but $400 added on top to the price pool. Someone gets points based on the finishing place. The formula is given at the linked webpage. There is a price pool of T$6000 that is distributed over top 50 places with T$1000 for the first.

I am more and more thinking about the best strategy. Currently I buy in at the beginning if possible. As I busted because of bad luck before the late registration was closed for some times now, I recently started to make some statistics in Excel. Beside the finishing result, I record my stack and the player numbers when late registration closes. If you buy in late you are going with 12BB. The points are distributed very top heavy with one specialty: There is a jump when only 25% of the players remain. For an exemplary count of 360 players points distribution looks like this:
Given the formula you always get at least 5 points by just participating. This slowly grows to 10 and jumps to 20 at the 25% mark. 4th gets half of 1st and 18th gets half of 4th. This month 12/14 games are already played and the leader has ~417 points while 50th (which is the last rewared place) has ~220 points (so reaching always the 25% mark would be enough).

What do you think is the best or at least a good startegy for this. Buy in as late as possible and having a good amount of players already busted or going from the very begining giving yourself an edge over the field. Is it worth blinding out until the 25% mark is reached or would you just play the game and try to win it?

BRC Update

Bankroll: €864.94
Games: 192
Hands: 9048
Winnings: -€73.67
Rakeback: €63.34
Bonus: €0.00
Movement: -€10.33

I am sorry. Today I had/have no time for some meaningful post. I will catch up on it tomorrow.

Originally posted by irieill
Very very hard day for the challenge... but more on this on the weekly update on monday.

Today I am going to write about something else and I ask for your support. With the beginning of May I started scoring at the Scholars Leader Board. I first heard about it in someones blog here. After a short sighting I came to the conclution that it is worth a try. Every week there are three tourneys with a buy in of just $1.10 but $400 added on top to the price pool. Someone gets points based on the finishing place. The formula is given at the linked webpage. There is a price pool of T$6000 that is distributed over top 50 places with T$1000 for the first.

I am more and more thinking about the best strategy. Currently I buy in at the beginning if possible. As I busted because of bad luck before the late registration was closed for some times now, I recently started to make some statistics in Excel. Beside the finishing result, I record my stack and the player numbers when late registration closes. If you buy in late you are going with 12BB. The points are distributed very top heavy with one specialty: There is a jump when only 25% of the players remain. For an exemplary count of 360 players points distribution looks like this:
Given the formula you always get at least 5 points by just participating. This slowly grows to 10 and jumps to 20 at the 25% mark. 4th gets half of 1st and 18th gets half of 4th. This month 12/14 games are already played and the leader has ~417 points while 50th (which is the last rewared place) has ~220 points (so reaching always the 25% mark would be enough).

What do you think is the best or at least a good startegy for this. Buy in as late as possible and having a good amount of players already busted or going from the very begining giving yourself an edge over the field. Is it worth blinding out until the 25% mark is reached or would you just play the game and try to win it?

The answer is to max late reg, you will notch up the most top 25% places that way. If you needed a win or two then play from the start. Play the game and try and win it, but *maybe* the blind out strategy is good if you are protecting a lead near the end of the promo

Proof - I cowrote a book on ICM and have done tons of stuff like this https://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/content/122775/

I have mixed feelings on the first week of my BRC. The week started normally: low volume and unspectaculary results. Since Wednesday I am on vacation for two weeks. Sadly, that does not mean that I have plenty of time for poker. Currently I have to rearrange things in my apartment but progress on that is much greater than the BRC. Thursday was an official holiday in Germany that I spent with my friends. They left on Friday afternoon and that was the point when I started some grind.

My main goal was to finish my rakeback challenge on PokerStars. I was at something about 50% with 60 hours left. After having called it a day early on Friday (because of some nice concert), I realized that I would not reach the goal with my normal schedule (4 x $5 18man), so I decided to mix in 2 x $10 18man on Saturday. Anyway, I mixed them in before to fill up tables on bad times and plan to mix in one regulary if my BR is over €1k and smoothly increment the count until €1250. Therefore I did not feel bad about it as my BR was about €950 at that point.

But I can tell you that Saturday was very very hard. I played about 12 hours with only two small breaks. For me this was very exhausting especially because I did not have a recovering night. I ran bad and would normally have quit poker for this day very early. In the end I dropped nearly two times my weekly winnngs only to be break even after rakeback. But hey, I completed the challenge!

I lost a huge amount at the $10s. So I ask myself is that jump really that challenging? Before Saturday I had good feelings about going up. And even now I have no fear. From my point of view there are more bad players in the games compared to the $5s. But maybe they are not bad but much better than me.

On Sunday I wanted to use the remaining 4 SCOOP tickets. I had three satellite tickets that i managed to transform into one entry to 98-L PKO and one ticket that I used to enter 94-L PKO. Sadly, no bounty and no prize in both.

Originally posted by BarryCarter
The answer is to max late reg, you will notch up the most top 25% places that way. If you needed a win or two then play from the start. Play the game and try and win it, but *maybe* the blind out strategy is good if you are protecting a lead near the end of the promo

Proof - I cowrote a book on ICM and have done tons of stuff like this https://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/content/122775//blockquote >

Thank you for your input Barry. I have read the interesting linked article before. I am still not sure what to do here. I think to be on top of the board you will have to reach at least one final table. Maybe a mixed strategy will do the job, going for gold at the beginning and then switch to late reg (which does not mean you will not get to final table again). Well, I will investigate and think about in June too.

I missed ITM this month. I would have needed 8.11 points at least but only managed to get 5.79 with 88 < AKo. I am very exited on the upcoming final standing, especially if the only one tourney and 5 points that I missed would have had some impact. But I think it is not even close.

Short BRC update: 2 winning days and almost forgot about Saturday. Today I felt very comfortable in what I was doing. Will review the whole session tomorrow nevertheless.

Today I would like to share two hands that I think are very interesting. The first one I am totally confused. Maybe someone is able to explain to me as I do not get it:

I think I would have pushed KQs+ and 99+ but not KJs- and 22-88.

For the second one at the very first moment thinking about it after I was like, doooo you stupid donk. And ICMIZER also told me that I was. But with FGS turned on it is totally profitable. My thoughts in game where that for UTG it is an any two one and I have an ace so what?! BTN was not good, so the chance that he would move in the next hand was not bad. What would you have done?

K4 is a +0.02% push — that is so close to 0 it becomes important to take a look at who the other players are.
I agree — it looks like a fold to me.

2nd hand with a short stack, you might as well get it in I think.
You have 2BB left.

Originally posted by irieill
Maybe someone is able to explain to me as I do not get it:

I thought over it and played around with Equilab too. I think our pushing range is mainly constructed based on UTGs calling range that schould be JJ+, AKs, AKo. If we have an ace or king we block 17.5% of his calling range. That sounds huge to me. So why not pushing Axo and Kxo too? I speculate the reason simply is the equity advantage of suited hands if we get called. But we also push the top offsuited Ax and Kx nevertheless that perform well against JJ and QQ. Nearly the same counts for QJs. It blocks 15% out of his calling range and runs well. Whats left are all the small pockets up and including TT. And they flip against the 40% AK of his calling range. But what still confuses me are the A9s and 99 in red. Is that some line between our value and bluff hands?

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
K4 is a +0.02% push — that is so close to 0 it becomes important to take a look at who the other players are.
I agree — it looks like a fold to me.

Totally! I always try to think about the optimal play in theory and then adjust to the opponent. If I had known that K4s is positive I would have pushed because UTG was able to fold.

BRC Update

Bankroll: €930.55
Games: 71
Hands: 3853
Winnings: €58.16
Rakeback: €7.45
Bonus: €0.00
Movement: €65.61


The second week was ok and I managed to end it with some profit. I did not play that much. My final result on the Scholars LB in May was 62th with 232.14 points. I missed ITM by only 16.52 points. Unfortunately I busted in the first tourney of June very early.

Beside my regular schedule I try to win the Bounty Builder On-Demand with BIs $1.1 and $3.3 from time to time. Before the BRC my best result were two final tables. This week I had a deep run but unfortunately I finished 10th. I am not good at PKOs and I am looking forward to learn more about PKO strategy. So here are the three key hands (all against the same villain) out of 28 that led from I think 3rd in chips with 25BB when only 11 or 12 players where left to the end. I wanted to apply maximum pressure at this stage of the tourney. I already analyzed them with ICMIZER and I am fine with them, but I also want to ask you about your opinion and experience.

PokerStars - 6000/12000 Ante 1800 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 15.21 BB
MP: 12.02 BB
CO: 33.08 BB
BTN: 17.03 BB
Hero (SB): 25.13 BB
BB: 9.58 BB

6 players post ante of 0.15 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.4 BB) Hero has 4:club: 7:heart:

fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 24.98 BB and is all-in, BB calls 8.43 BB and is all-in

Flop: (19.76 BB, 2 players) 8:club: 2:heart: Q:club:

Turn: (19.76 BB, 2 players) J:spade:

River: (19.76 BB, 2 players) A:spade:

PokerStars - 8000/16000 Ante 2400 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 11.39 BB
CO: 11.98 BB
BTN: 8.01 BB
Hero (SB): 13.59 BB
BB: 10.16 BB

5 players post ante of 0.15 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has 4:spade: 8:diamond:

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 13.44 BB and is all-in, BB calls 9.01 BB and is all-in

Flop: (20.78 BB, 2 players) J:diamond: 6:heart: K:spade:

Turn: (20.78 BB, 2 players) 3:heart:

River: (20.78 BB, 2 players) 4:club:

PokerStars - 9000/18000 Ante 2700 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 4.58 BB
CO: 10.65 BB
BTN: 13.97 BB
Hero (SB): 5.39 BB
BB: 14.42 BB

5 players post ante of 0.15 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has 9:diamond: T:diamond:

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 5.24 BB and is all-in, BB calls 4.24 BB

Flop: (11.23 BB, 2 players) 2:diamond: 5:diamond: K:spade:

Turn: (11.23 BB, 2 players) A:heart:

River: (11.23 BB, 2 players) 5:heart:

Some non poker related content. On Tuesday I arranged my small balcony for this summer. As I am totally happy with it I would like to share a picture with you. Maybe it gives you some joy because every time I step outside I get happy.

Today I reached the FT of the Scholars LB tourney with the shortest stack. Unfortunately my ambitions to win the tournament were abruptly dashed in the fourth hand. Nevertheless I am happy with the points. It is my second best result so far and I already have 1/3 of the points of last month.

My first Razz tournament ever. And guess what... I registered at the very last moment on purpose. It was much fun and a good variety to my normal schedule. I think I am going to play it again in the future. Especially now to see if it was pure luck or some undiscoverd ability.

Originally posted by irieill
My first Razz tournament ever. And guess what... I registered at the very last moment on purpose. It was much fun and a good variety to my normal schedule. I think I am going to play it again in the future. Especially now to see if it was pure luck or some undiscoverd ability.

I'm impressed!
Razz is pure poker.
It's one of my favourite games, and one I don't play often enough any more

Well done

BRC Update

Bankroll: €1006.33
Games: 111
Hands: 3457
Winnings: €75.78
Rakeback: €0.00
Bonus: €0.00
Movement: €75.78


Week three of my BRC and again I managed to end it with some profit. That always feels good and motivates to keep on track. I had a peak on about €1050 and stopped playing today as I aproached the 1k mark. Just for my mind. This week I focused studying on bounty content. I trained and applied the new findings on the PokerStars Kick-Off. I managed to score the goal in a 5 sprint today. Nice outcome for the investment of $1. Of course this will not happen very often but I like this challenge and the fact that if you win the first sprint you freeroll with some chance for a big hit.

BRC Update

Bankroll: €1003.43
Games: 111
Hands: 2897
Winnings: -€2.90
Rakeback: €0.00
Bonus: €0.00
Movement: -€2.90


Week four ended in red. It was a fairly unspectacular week. The most interesting is that I am currently placed ITM at 31th after having played 7/13 Scholar LB tourneys. So keep your fingers crossed!

Nice looking graphs!
What program do you use to create them?