Week 4
52 tournaments
+$9
Bankroll $159
Notifications
Clear all
Your Poker Blogs
116
Posts
15
Users
98
Reactions
16.1 K
Views
Originally posted by BarryCarter
IMO spins should include tickets to bigger spins as random prizes
This would reduce the ITM (I mean, the frequency of winning cold, hard cash).
When Stars ran a promo giving tickets to $0.50, $5 and $100 spins (all with a $1M top prize) on a random basis, I got a $100 ticket once. I used it and was drawn an x2 vs 2 regs (SpinWiz was legal back then), got outplayed HU and walked away with nothing. If I had been given twenty $5 tickets instead, I would have had a bigger chance of turning this $100 into $1M as well as a bigger chance of cashing.
Besides, HS games are ego wars by and large, so they don't need that much additional 'food' to run once the table selection opportunity is removed. As witnessed by the high attendance of 'All Stars, No Recs' tables, quite enough regs are willing to battle each other when a small carrot (fame and a bit of money) is hanging in front of them.
The ideal scenario for me would be if the only publicly accessible spins with a $1M top prize were the $10 ones, whereas the $100 spins were exclusively all-star.
Anyone here tried intermittent fasting? I'm giving it a go. There are a number of benefits, listed below:
http://jamesclear.com/the-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting
Basically you can only eat for an 8 hour window, more me that is between midday and 8pm. I have lots of willpower in the morning and then it goes haywire in the afternoon, so this one could suit me. Plus I tend to eat out of boredom at times and this might nip that in the bud.
I also think it's really important to have some discomfort in your life, which is why I found this story quite funny
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/fyre-festival-disaster-unfolded-bahamas-officials-have-site/
Originally posted by BarryCarter
Anyone here tried intermittent fasting? I'm giving it a go.
Welcome to the intermittent fasters' club 
Two bloggers known to have tried IF are IvicaIliev77 and Mystt (you can find their key posts on this topic by typing 'intermittent fasting' in the forum search box) and apparently both loved it and benefited from it.
In the latter half of the last year, I went through a phase where I was eating 1 time a day in the evening on most of the days. That, along with the reduction of carb and fat intake, did allow me to drop the excessive 27 kg ~ 60 lb in 4.5 months but that was rather a consequence of anorexia than of consciously planned fasting.
Originally posted by tonypmm
Originally posted by BarryCarter
Anyone here tried intermittent fasting? I'm giving it a go.Welcome to the intermittent fasters' club
Two bloggers known to have tried IF are IvicaIliev77 and Mystt (you can find their key posts on this topic by typing 'intermittent fasting' in the forum search box) and apparently both loved it and benefited from it.In the latter half of the last year, I went through a phase where I was eating 1 time a day in the evening on most of the days. That, along with the reduction of carb and fat intake, did allow me to drop the excessive 27 kg ~ 60 lb in 4.5 months but that was rather a consequence of anorexia than of consciously planned fasting.
Do you still do it now?
Thus far hunger has not been a problem, but I envisage it may be
Thanks for blog links, will check em out
Originally posted by tonypmm
Thanks for the article about Beat The Clock. I definitely agree that the game is too monotonous - Spin & Gos at least offer a variety of prize pools, though the 70% probability of an x2 is too big and can get on the nerves of a rec - that's why 3-max is inferior to 4-max where it's possible to deliver an x4 or x5 game about half the time (as seen at Party and 888) and prevent x2's from coming in annoyingly long series.
__________________________________________Speaking of lottery SNGs, poker sites have increasingly been running lottery satellites to their flagship events: WCOOP / Sunday Million / SCOOP Spin & Gos at Stars, Power Series Hero at Party and, since this Monday, Blast satellites to XL Inferno ME.
I'm very jealous and frustrated with this as it seems to me that those sats funnel too much of Spin addicts' deposited money into the MTT ecosystem. Moreover, those sats likely have a smaller reg-to-rec ratio that normal Spins, because not all the regs are ready to suffer the variance of the target MTTs.
I don't know whether the sites keep a significantly bigger share of recs' deposits to themselves this way - a large part of the tourney equity earned by recs in those sats is donated by them to HS MTT regs during the target event.
Maybe these sats make some people deposit more who otherwise wouldn't, but I doubt that this effect is large. The largest result of these sats, it seems, is that the frequency of hits of jackpots of normal Spins drops a bit (because their traffic is cannibalised by the sats), while the MTT guarantees increase.
Is it true that poker operators believe that bigger MTT guarantees give them a better advertisement than higher frequencies of JP hits?
I disagree about the "advantage" of 4 max games.
In Spins, the worst you can get is a prize pool that is 2x the BI, paying out 2/3 of the BI of all players.
in 4max, payouts are usually on the lowest multiplier only 50% of the BI of all players. To me, that sounds a lot more unfair than 2/3...
As a regposter of the Spin & Go discussion thread on 2+2, I've noticed a lot of complaints from recs about long streaks of more than ten 2x games in a row. This was an especially big issue when the probability of a 2x game was 76-77% - then the probability of all the games in a 15-game session being 2x was higher than 1.5%.
That's why Stars has had to reduce the probability of a 2x to 69-73% depending on the stake. But even now, the chance of all the games in a session of ten $15 spins being 2x is 3% (0.704388 to the power of 10).
And that's why there have been promos where one would score points by hitting 2x's - the detrimental effect of their long streaks on the mindset is so significant that a special promo is needed to mitigate it.
So even though 2x multipliers in Spins and Fish Party are less frustrating individual events (but, to most recs, only slightly so, I believe) than 2x's in the 4-max Blast, the former seem to frustrate recs more when hitting a 'typical' number of times in a row (10-14 for 3-max) than the latter that usually come in streaks of 8 or shorter.
Out of 3-max games, I believe that Twister is the one with the most attractive payout structure. The 2x's are about as frequent (57%) as in Blast and they normally don't gang up in 2-digit-long streaks. This has been achieved by replacing most of the 4x games by 3x ones, which is a bit of a concession because 3x doesn't give the positive feeling of a 'bigger game than average'. But I do believe that the negative psychological effects of the replacement of 4x by 3x are more than outweighed by the benefit of the shortening of 'typical' streaks of 2x's.
As for 4-max, the fact that the second lowest prize pool in Blast is strictly bigger in terms of BIs than the number of players (5>4) has some benefit, the probability of a 2x is still a bit too high to my taste. In a set of four $5 Blast games, the chance of them all being 2x is over 10%, and it's a bit depressing to see all the table backgrounds on the screen being blue without a single chunk of gold (5x) or green (10x).
In $3-20 Sit & Go Hero, the probability of a 2x is merely 35%, whereas the one of a 4x is 56-58%. As a result, streaks of 2x's are barely noticeable: in a set of 4 games, the chance of them all being 2x is ~1.5%.
Originally posted by BarryCarter
Do you still do it now?Thus far hunger has not been a problem, but I envisage it may be
Sorry for the late reply - your question made me anxious as I'm blaming myself for the failure to maintain a proper diet.
Intermittent fasting was just a temporary measure for me to lose weight fast as that was really needed at the time. The habit of eating 1 time a day was unsustainable - there's no way I can fast like this without slipping into severe anorexia. Eating 2 times a day is much more sustainable, though I'm somewhat bulimic right now 
and have to do some psychological self-therapy urgently to stop myself from overeating.
My method for suppressing hunger was drinking coffee and/or tea, both without sugar, in the morning (without eating anything then) but, in the hindsight, I think that it has caused net detriment to me (caffeine addiction) and appetite-suppressing prescription drugs would have worked better than caffeine.
My thoughts on why PKR has folded
I was an active poster on PKR's forum from September 2015 till around April 2016 and thus witnessed the talks surrounding the migration to the MPN.
Chris Welch's team tried hard to preserve their customers but most of the recreationals didn't like the move to the MPN where the social aspect was lost as most of their opponents were from the other rooms of the network and had default avatars with no personal twist to them.
Neither did they like the network-wide option to change screen names. They felt the names were an integral part of their personalities, and a lot of them left the names unchanged, but at the same time, they understood that it was making them more vulnerable to the opponents who were switching identities.
On the software side of things, the integration with the MPN didn't go smooth enough, it introduced a lot of new bugs that took months to tackle.
The migration also caused a dramatic backlog of cashout requests, as the MPN didn't allow PKR to carry customers' document copies over from the database that PKR had during its independency. The customer support was swamped for a month as re-verification was needed for each customer. The CS handled the situation heroically and Chris himself was handling each forum poster personally, but of course the immense workload took over a month to sort out.
A significant part of the PKR player base were fans of slow-paced MTTs and SNGs and they didn't appreciate the abundancy of superturbos on the MPN's MTT schedule that was tailored to loose-aggro gamblers - the majority of the MPN's player base. The player population of the rest of the MPN was so different from PKR's that their coexistence was unsustainable.
At the end of 2016 or maybe the start of this year (I don't remember exactly when, as I was already inactive and only briefly checked back in when the payout structure of JP SNGs / Fish Party changed), the PKR forum experienced a bug that caused all the forum avatars (except those manually set up by the admin) to fail to be displayed.
All this has resulted in a severe loss of customers, from which PKR hasn't been able to recover. But that would also have likely occurred if PKR had stayed independent - its liquidity had started plummeting in late 2015 already - apparently, 3D poker is hard to sell nowadays - most online players like faster games (PKR did have to speed up the movement of 3D avatars to keep up with the pace of the MPN games). Chris chose the lesser of two evils - the migration... it's sad that it didn't work out well.
RIP, PKR
Think you are mostly correct. Once they joined MPN they lost their unique selling proposition.
I worked a lot with them over the years, great bunch of folks.
I think they were a few years ahead of their time, poker as a video game is very much a theme of the modern game, but not so much when they started.
Ok everyone (well, mostly Tonypmm 
) play nice with each other, I've got next week off so I'll be 'going dark' for the next 7 days
Well, I'm a workaholic, so probably not, but I'm gonna try
Originally posted by BarryCarter
Ok everyone (well, mostly TonypmmWell, I'm a workaholic, so probably not, but I'm gonna try
...oki, i will send some news requests via email with topic "URGENT CAT PICS INSIDE"
So I'm back after a week off. Nothing exciting, my wife is from Norfolk, I am from Sheffield, thats 3 hours away. So the week was basically a trip to London then we visited her family.
Highlight of the week was getting kick ass seats to see this guy in Nottingham next year:
Intermittent fasting - I love it.
All week I have eaten shit, I tried to watch my overall intake, but because we were relaxing/family stuff we inevitably had take out or a meal out every night. Last week I had burgers, chips, pancakes, chinese food and japanese food. I only made the gym twice. I still managed to lose weight.
It really suits me, not only have I found it easier to get to 16 hours of fasting (thanks coffee) but my general appetite has been reduced when I can eat also.
I'm pretty sure this is still very much a placebo period, but so far so good
Probably wont post much this week as obviously I am now playing catch-up
I did a few different styles of IF,
now I am pretty much sticked with eat from 12a to 8 pm. which some would call IF and others just to cut breakfast.
(John Kiefer: "Best Breakfast - Non")
What I suggested to alot of people who had problems to get rid of junk in their diets is the 24/24 approach.
Basicly you eat 24 hours followed up by 24 hours without any calories. Since all of the guys did bodybuilding we set the window so it would perfectly fit with their training routine times.
most of them worked out at around 5-6 pm. So we would set each window from 4 pm to 4pm on the next day. and all of them could keep working out at their prefreded time between 5-6 pm.
Now some "nerds" will complain "But you have to eat after your workout" - "neeeeeeeeeeeet" wrong. your body opens a window of 36 hours after your workout in which you should consume enough proteins (and mb carbs if you so desire) for your cells to recover (in very short) so if you don't eat 20+ hours after your workout it will not harm anything. Yes, there is a window after your workout where it is benefitial to eat. but that window is way longer than most people think (i.e. those "nerds" who instantly eat a banana and a protein shake in the locker after they pumped their chest for the 6th time this week).
Damn I am drifting away.
All I wanned to say is, that for people who have problems with junkfood, that 24/24 approach is great, because over the period of very few weeks they will notice what their body is carving for after a few 24 hours of fasting. Let me tell you, it won't be sweets. It won't be junk. It might be potatoes and chicken!
Originally posted by BadHabit1989
I did a few different styles of IF,
now I am pretty much sticked with eat from 12a to 8 pm. which some would call IF and others just to cut breakfast.
(John Kiefer: "Best Breakfast - Non")
What I suggested to alot of people who had problems to get rid of junk in their diets is the 24/24 approach.
Basicly you eat 24 hours followed up by 24 hours without any calories. Since all of the guys did bodybuilding we set the window so it would perfectly fit with their training routine times.
most of them worked out at around 5-6 pm. So we would set each window from 4 pm to 4pm on the next day. and all of them could keep working out at their prefreded time between 5-6 pm.
Now some "nerds" will complain "But you have to eat after your workout" - "neeeeeeeeeeeet" wrong. your body opens a window of 36 hours after your workout in which you should consume enough proteins (and mb carbs if you so desire) for your cells to recover (in very short) so if you don't eat 20+ hours after your workout it will not harm anything. Yes, there is a window after your workout where it is benefitial to eat. but that window is way longer than most people think (i.e. those "nerds" who instantly eat a banana and a protein shake in the locker after they pumped their chest for the 6th time this week).Damn I am drifting away.
All I wanned to say is, that for people who have problems with junkfood, that 24/24 approach is great, because over the period of very few weeks they will notice what their body is carving for after a few 24 hours of fasting. Let me tell you, it won't be sweets. It won't be junk. It might be potatoes and chicken!
Thanks
Yes I ate shit last week because it was a vacation and we were away from home, but I do indeed crave 'better' foods generally. My appetite is so much easier to control with IF (so far) so I largely am making better choices.
Personal trainer friend of mine told me last week that his brother is a competitive bodybuilder and he swears by it, including the 24 hour ones, and that he has gained muscle not lost it.
Luckily for me, as a 37 year old with a 'dad bod', I'm not too concerned about a six pack, I'll be happy to stay 'not fat' and in good enough shape that my back doesn't go when I pick a box up.
Originally posted by BarryCarter
Luckily for me, as a 37 year old with a 'dad bod', I'm not too concerned about a six pack, I'll be happy to stay 'not fat' and in good enough shape that my back doesn't go when I pick a box up.notsureifserious
Don't lie in your blog, you will be caught!
Originally posted by SvenBe
Originally posted by BarryCarter
Luckily for me, as a 37 year old with a 'dad bod', I'm not too concerned about a six pack, I'll be happy to stay 'not fat' and in good enough shape that my back doesn't go when I pick a box up.notsureifserious
Don't lie in your blog, you will be caught!Well it defends on your definition of 'not fat'
Mine is being able to see 'little Barry' when I look down
Week 7:
Tournaments: 27
Profit: -$64
Bankroll: $65
Had a go at a few SCOOPs obviously, to no avail 
Looks like I'm reloading if a reload bonus comes up