these huge tournaments on pokerstars pay out %15 to first place. They pay out like %20 of the field. So horrible. Play for 6 hours to make the bubble. Play for another 3 to make 3X your buyin.   

But then I only turn my $1 into less then $5. I think it's time to give up on tourney poker altogether. It feels to me like buying into a MTT is like admitting that I am a bad player because if I was good I could put the same amount of time and money into a cash game and come out way ahead.

Does not compute!  Cash games are so different from large MTTs; and SNG's have their own different dynamic.  There is no reason why you can't learn to be good in all of them.  There is also no reason why you need to try to be good in all of them.  Play what you're good at; play what you enjoy.

Prodigy/Everleaf is so volatile [and overrrun w/ rebuy turnys] that 20% payout is a blessing

play sng's LOL

u guys r all completely wrong.

play cashgames to practice early MTT levels.

play STT SnGs to practice MTT final tables.

then go to your local casino poker room and enter the regular $40-$70 buyin live MTTs that are full of either "wait for TT+ or AQ" nits or super-LAGtard donators (who rebuy/re-enter TONS, if your poker room allows for that)... and crush!

ironic timing my post above, tonight I was gonna do laundry and get some groceries, instead on impulse played the 7pm $50 mtt, had about 40 entries and was paying 5 or 6 people. I had a co-CL stack at the FT and we pretty quickly got to 3handed before 11pm with me a monster CL. The 2 shortstacks battled PFAI QQ vs. 77 (i folded 88 on the BB cuz the QQ had a stacksize dangerous to me if I lost) and so by 1130 one of them HU vs. me and he flopped a set and I got away from it but now we had ~equal stacks, we both agree it's just about midnight with like 20bb each so fck it let's just chop $500 each (1st was 680 and 2nd was 350) and call it a night. Good way to start the new year

I think I'm gonna just stop playing CASHGAMES live from now on, they're such a high-variance grind (or an extremely boring grind, if you decide to nit up) -- just gonna focus on live MTTs. Amazing how easy it is to stack someone's "one pair" hand the first few levels, and even more than that it's ridic ez to build safely in the late stages if you have some pretty solid reads about opponents' unwillingness to call my raises without a monster (as a "trap" lol) it seems their calling (and even shoving!) ranges don't loosen up nearly as much as they should once the blinds are super high.. Even the "good" mtt regs are surprisingly tight and fold a huge majority of times to my steals even if I keep min-raising and they verbalize their awareness/frustration, the majority of them really do not know how (or do not have the cajones) to fight back   )




PS: spike, not all live "turbo" mtts are created equal. Here in Edmonton one of them runs Friday night, the blinds pretty much double every increase. Another casino runs one on Tuesday night, the blinds go up like 20%-35% each increase. Both mtts are 10 minute levels, but the Tuesday one consistently takes more than 3 hours to get to HU/3handed (where typically a deal is made) and even though it's a Turbo there is still has plenty of flop play at the Final Table (typically the average stack is 15bb-25bb, depending on how many coolers the dealers provided). That reasonableness is a huge contrast to the Friday complete lottery where the average stack is something like 6bb at the first break.

So if you can, remember with live MTTs just like cars and houses and electronic appliances and gadgets: it is well worth the effort to shop around before you hand over your money  

+1

:yawn: had a 4x starting stack at first break, stole a bit and crushed with dominated hands vs. shortstackers' Ace-Rags, once 3handed had a decent CL  and the medium stack busted the shorty so we were close enough stacks with <10bb that we did 50:50 money chop, but 100 difference in "player points" between 1st and 2nd so we played for bragging rights, I busted him legit with AJo>T7s for the win, another > $400 profit in less than 4 hours at the live donkaments, so far in '12 I've got a perfect record, made it to HeadsUp "2 for 2" :ezgame:


...maybe I need to start playing the Stars mtts... #MercieresqueRunGoodIsNice

Well it's not all snowshoes and igloos here in north-central Alberta. Not this year anyways -- last night walking back from the tourney @ 11pm, it was +2 celsius. Earlier in the day a light rain was falling (which made the icy sidewalks even more icy -- but haven't seen actual SNOW fall in maybe 5 days!)

So it's actually colder on the east coast of USA this week :blink:

http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/forecast/city_e.html?ab-50&unit=i

^ actually it looks like only the California/Texas/Florida regions are warmer than Alberta/BC this week!
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/eastern-cold-escapes-quickly_2012-01-03




but you ARE correct when it comes to live game selection -- in Alberta we've got like 3 million total population, most of which is in Edmonton and Calgary area (around 2.2 million total, just under 1 million in Edmonton metro area) and there's 7 casinos with poker rooms in Edmonton area, 6 in and around Calgary, and 5 or 6 elsewhere in the province ... so "per capita" we are almost tops in North America ("poker rooms per 100,000 people" is just about "2"!) pretty much only beat by Vegas and Reno, from what I've heard.

No, the tourney I was walking back from was the live MTT that I took down ... not the disappointment of a hockey tourney where Our Boys vs. the Ruskies decided to not show up on the ice until the 3rd damn period... :sigh: