Turning 0$ into WSOP trip

Hello again
I'm back to Lithuania from Las Vegas, but tomorrow I'm starting another journey - trip to Bahamas for WSOP Paradise

This year I smashed my record of travels and Bahamas is definitely the cherry on the top. As you may know, I will be representing all the PokerStrategy community in this festival after GG Poker provided me with this opportunity. If I make it into the money in the Main Event, You might win something as well, all you need to do is post a comment in this forum thread https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=542235

And now some evaluation of the Las Vegas trip

First week was very disappointing, bricked all 4 tournaments I played. But next week I moved to MGM casino to play some cash games. I've read that it is possible to achieve 10BB/hour winrate at 1/2$ stakes but was very surprised that I ended up with 25BB/hour after 50 hours in total

The games were very soft, especially on Friday and Saturday when people joined the tables after or sometimes in between entering the night clubs Also Formula-1 GP helped to invite more people at the tables. As F-1 fan myself, I was very happy that I could experience this Grand Prix as organizers put a lot of effort for it to be unforgettable. And despite some issues on the first training session, the later days and nights were amazing.

Living the dream sir!

Do you have your winner dance ready?

:gl::gl:

Originally posted by leveleleven47
Do you have your winner dance..?
:gl::gl:

Drinking from the shoe like Ricciardo 😅

Greetings from Bahamas!
Arrived one day later here than expected as our middle flight was not that successful. After the take-off, the pilot couldnt get in the shasi, so we had to flight over Warsaw for couple of hours to burn out the fuel. Standard procedure but still not very enjoyable 🙈 so naturally we missed our last flight and had to spend one night in Miami before arriving in Paradise, a place that verifies it's name. First two days we Explored the area, would need couple more, but tomorrow I will start warming up for the Main Event. Mini Main Event of 1k is on the schedule, so it would be nice to get Bahamas flag from the first attempt. I saw a lot of crushers here playing all The events, Even those 1k buy-in tournaments, so I expect a tough field overall. There is a saying, "If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best". Hopefully I can fullfil this quote soon 😎

Good luck playing all the tournaments, and have fun also. ♠_thumbsup:

Have fun and good luck in the Bahamas

Awesome hands and

Hello again 🥃
Some good news and some bad ones. Got the Bahamas flag on Hendon, but it took me two attemps in Mini Main Event to cash in 🙈
First on day 1b I finished 140th when 120 players get paid. On my exit hand I opened K9s on the CO with 20BB. Big blind defends and performs check/raise on 973 flop with potential flushdraw of two hearts. Interestingly my K9 blocks many of his strongest two pair combinations like 97 or 93s, so in theory my hand is even better than overpair. But not in this case as opponent showed 97o 🫡
Also on this day I had a chance to play with WSop Main Event winner Jamie Gold and even managed to win a flip against him 😎 He opened Mp AQs with 2,6bb sizing, Co flatted whilest I jammed 20BB on Button with 99. Ace on the Window, but another nine showed up immediatelly.
My second bullet was shot on day 1B, a turbo flight just before day2. Was chipping up gradually but still was at risk once bubble phase came. Luckily I found KK with two Allins in front of me (88 and TT), and after it held, my task of cashing became a lot easier.
Yuri Dzivilieski was my neighbour directly on Day2, but we didn't play any hands between us. Actually I didnt play a single hand in 3 levels as was totally cards dead and eventually I had to commit my 4bb stack in BvB situation with J2 vsK6.
Overall feeling is that this is super tough field for such buy-in level. Usually when I play 1k event, there is like 10 star players in whole tournament and you can count "unlucky" if you face one of them at your table. Here it is very standard to have at least 3 crushers at the table, and even unknown players are very good. One other notable shark sharing my table was Cris Brewer, who said that GG promotion kinda forced him to play this festival.
So this is my journey so far, with Main Event still on the line. The plan is to play Day 1a on Saturday as all live satellites were directed on this flight. Hopefully I can get a good table as seat draw might be a key factor here 🍻

Good luck. Hoping for a deep run in the Main. ♠_thumbsup:

Originally posted by mariussica88
Good luck. Hoping for a deep run in the Main. ♠_thumbsup:

Especially those 15 lucky fellows who ran over EV in our raffle:

https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3441348#post3441348

barkomp
bigdog63
BSCpl
DarkLuxor
ghaleon
JALA65
mizu58
Mrosu22
pablopmartins
Paskakala
Riddler1988
Samurai
stranovsky
WhiteEagle
YXKCOBRA

Hi guys, short update from Mantelo on his Day 1:

• Very aggressive first table. In his first 5 openraises Mantelo got 3bet 4 times. He once tried to 3bet, just to get 4bet on.
• In the beginning there were no famous players on the table, but later Chino Rheem joined and after the 1st break High stakes pro Chinwei Lim
• one guy overplayed with AK on AQ54 and ran into QQ
• Mantelo down to 40.5k from 50k starting stack

Next break, we are at 38k:
Interesting hand:

• Mantelo opens KJ from MP, both blinds call
• BB leads on T97, mantelo calls with double gutshot
• Turn 9 - BB bets, Mantelo calls
• River Q - BB bets again, Mantelo announces all in
• Opponent says something which the dealer understands as call
• Dealer: "call - showdown please" - Mantelo shows the straight
• Villain argues he said fold and dealer allows it as nobody else followed the action

Mantelos opinion: Especially with south americans in the hand, take extra time after every decision and confirm opponents intent

Also one cold4bet with A8s which he had to let go on K83J

Sorry guys, no day2 for me 🤕 I was hanging with around starting stack all day, but couldn't break through at any point. As mentioned above, the table was very tough, only 2 weaker players, but even they didn't make any substantial mistakes. For myself, there are two hands which I'm not sure if I played correctly.
1st - UtG opens with effective stack of 60Bb, I only flat on the Bu as there were 2 "shove" happy stacks on the blinds, and no surprise Chinwei Lim squeeze jam 30BB from BB. However original raiser calls half stack and I have to re-evaluate my plan. Eventually I mucked, but was not happy when BB showed QTs and UTG pocket TT. Will have to look this hand in solvers 😕
And now my busto hand. Mp opens and I find AJs in the Co with 17BB. This time I decided to go with it but instantly regretted when Button shipped his stack right after me with AK. No help on the board and that means my game time here ended. It was a long walk from casino to hotel room and I kept wondering if I can still 3bet/fold such stack or there is no room for such move anymore.
Once again thank you all for support and encouragement sent, hopefully I still have my chances in the future ✌️

So what was your hand in first one? From the way you wrote perhaps JJ or AQ type? Anyway I don't think you can fold JJ at least because you already expect light shoves behind. If you assume that then probably the open raiser expects same meaning his call/shove range is wider as well. I would take UTG call as shove as default and not go to path of "why just call".

Second one is very standard shove. 3bet-fold with less than 20bb doesn't really make sense as we invest so much of our stack.

Originally posted by Mantelo
Sorry guys, no day2 for me 🤕 I was hanging with around starting stack all day, but couldn't break through at any point. As mentioned above, the table was very tough, only 2 weaker players, but even they didn't make any substantial mistakes. For myself, there are two hands which I'm not sure if I played correctly.
1st - UtG opens with effective stack of 60Bb, I only flat on the Bu as there were 2 "shove" happy stacks on the blinds, and no surprise Chinwei Lim squeeze jam 30BB from BB. However original raiser calls half stack and I have to re-evaluate my plan. Eventually I mucked, but was not happy when BB showed QTs and UTG pocket TT. Will have to look this hand in solvers 😕
And now my busto hand. Mp opens and I find AJs in the Co with 17BB. This time I decided to go with it but instantly regretted when Button shipped his stack right after me with AK. No help on the board and that means my game time here ended. It was a long walk from casino to hotel room and I kept wondering if I can still 3bet/fold such stack or there is no room for such move anymore.
Once again thank you all for support and encouragement sent, hopefully I still have my chances in the future ✌️

nv, u did ur best and even we had a good time following u. Enjoy the rest of the trip. Glgl at the tables.

Yeah, forgot to add my hand 🙈 But your guess was correct, JJ it was.

Originally posted by Mantelo
Sorry guys, no day2 for me 🤕 I was hanging with around starting stack all day, but couldn't break through at any point. As mentioned above, the table was very tough, only 2 weaker players, but even they didn't make any substantial mistakes. For myself, there are two hands which I'm not sure if I played correctly.
1st - UtG opens with effective stack of 60Bb, I only flat on the Bu as there were 2 "shove" happy stacks on the blinds, and no surprise Chinwei Lim squeeze jam 30BB from BB. However original raiser calls half stack and I have to re-evaluate my plan. Eventually I mucked, but was not happy when BB showed QTs and UTG pocket TT. Will have to look this hand in solvers 😕
And now my busto hand. Mp opens and I find AJs in the Co with 17BB. This time I decided to go with it but instantly regretted when Button shipped his stack right after me with AK. No help on the board and that means my game time here ended. It was a long walk from casino to hotel room and I kept wondering if I can still 3bet/fold such stack or there is no room for such move anymore.
Once again thank you all for support and encouragement sent, hopefully I still have my chances in the future ✌️

UTG just flatting that is SUS as hell there, chipev says we just got to go with it though even at full stacks. Let me know what you find out please Mantelo

It'd be cool if we do a podcast for PokerStrategy at some point, we can talk about your Bahamas plays there too!

Originally posted by ghaleon
So what was your hand in first one? From the way you wrote perhaps JJ or AQ type? Anyway I don't think you can fold JJ at least because you already expect light shoves behind. If you assume that then probably the open raiser expects same meaning his call/shove range is wider as well. I would take UTG call as shove as default and not go to path of "why just call".

Would you discount/weight the combos in his range differently when he just flats? Is call an option there pre when the pot will be protected somewhat and we got position?

How much will the spot change as bubble factor increases?

In general bubble doesn't matter that much when we have chance to get into big stack as that increases chance of deep run a lot. Well probably also matter how big min cash is compared to buyin.

But yeah of course if you assume spot to be close in cEV then you can fold more often with some icm tax. Icm is bigger deal in bubble when your stack is on shallow side as doubling up doesn't increase deep run possibility that much so value of min cash increases.

Other factor if this was bubble would be that even 3bet happy BB would probably not want to gamble that much with healthy 30bb stack thus making ranges tighter.

I would think UTG calling does increase chance of big pocket at least when it's weaker player. But these spots are rare so usually you don't have any reads really about the line. Then if we start to tighten our range because of reading this as monster we are in sort of thin ice.

Calling for us seems quite meh. Pot will be 90bb with 30bb left. So if opponent shove we need only 20% equity to stack off.

Hi everyone,

If you won a % of Mantelo then there is a special Xmas treat waiting for you....

https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3443552#post3443552