POTD #180 FT Friday: Black Friday Special Two Hands for the Price of One

At EPT Cyprus, I punt twice in a short period of time

Readers of this newsletter, or blog, or diary of my gripes, may be aware that I have some contrarian impulses. It has led me to some unexpected places, such as writing a Substack at a time when every other popular poker creator is making (very similar) short term videos. So as we approached American Thanksgiving and I saw every other online retailer, poker or not, offering Black Friday deals, I had to ask myself, should POTD offer a Black Friday deal? And because I like to zig when everyone likes to zag, I decided not to for two reasons: one out of loyalty and one that is self-aggrandizing.

POTD is a small shop, and I respect the first round of subscribers who pay full freight and I didn’t want them to feel like I was pulling the rug out from under them by offering a discount to Johnny-come-latelys. The self-aggrandizing reason is that I am very proud of my product. I think I work quite hard and provide a very good service at a rate that is well below the market rate of other, worse poker content. Does Patek Philippe have a Black Friday special? Of course not. Why should I? Well, if you haven’t already closed this tab in disgust at my display of ego, I have some good news for you. I have come to my senses and determined POTD is not an established luxury brand like Patek Phillipe, so we will be having a Black Friday sale. I cannot go full Crazy Eddie and claim these prices are so insane that I should be thrown in an asylum for even offering them. [That will happen for other reasons. -ed] However, the initial price of $100 USD/year POTD is a very good deal, so any discount on that is an even better deal. I am offering a 40% discount on an annual subscription, which is a 50% discount on a prorated monthly subscription. (Substack pays me out in CAD, so the price will fluctuate around $100 USD. At the time I am writing, it is currently $101.60 USD.)

In addition to that, POTD is currently just shy of 2000 total subscribers (paid and unpaid), and for every 100 subscribers we add between now and the end of the Black Friday sale, I will be giving one hour of free coaching to a subscriber picked at random. If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, you do so by following the link below

https://www.puntoftheday.com/BlackFriday

But wait, there’s more! In addition to offering a special Black Friday sale, today there is another treat for POTD readers. For the first time ever, I will be writing about two hands for the cost of one (unless you are a premium subscriber who has had the privilege of reading about two extra hands this week alone). Today’s hand takes place from EPT Cyprus in 2023, a trip that began terribly for me. I had ended my previous stop, Triton London, bricking my final 12 tournaments, and I began EPT Cyprus on an 0-for-16 streak. EPT Cyprus had small fields, but a cash is a cash and a win is a win. There were 18 entries in this $25k and 4 remained; I was the chip leader and had already broken my streak of not cashing a tournament, but I was looking to end another streak, my streak of not winning a tournament.

2023 PokerStars EPT Cyprus $25,000 NLHE IV
(10k/25k/25k) (SB/BB/BBA) We are at the FT. 4 People Remaining
1st: 219k, 2nd: 141k, 3rd: 94k, 4th: 68k

Pokernews Update

Kyle Cheong (440k) folds, Jules Dickerson (402k) folds, Maher Nouira (728k) limps, I (805k) raise to 75k, Maher shoves, I call with 9♣️9♥️ and lose to J♠️J♦️.

I fold the small blind and Maher steals the blinds.

I fold the button and Maher steals the blinds.

I am left with 67k UTG and fold Q7o¹ with Kyle (380k), Jules (352k) and Maher (1.6M) in the BB.