Week in Review #15 June 29th- July 5th
The launch of the POTWSOPME is Faraz the leader in the clubhouse?
In what’s becoming an annual tradition for me, I have received messages from people asking me if I am playing the Main Event. It’s always nice to have friends check in on you, even if their true intention is to determine if you’re draftable in a Main Event Fantasy pool. When that’s the case, I appreciate that they think highly enough of my game that they want to gamble on me, but once again I had to disappoint them by telling them I’m not playing. The Main Event is a lot of fun, but it’s also a big time commitment and not all that lucrative. I hate to be a bummer about the whole thing, but if you think you have 50% ROI in the Main Event, and it takes ~40 hours of play and a week of your life to mincash, it’s not the best spot hourly-wise. However, it is the only spot where you could win eight figures. It is a special tournament and it’s a privilege to get to play it, and no one should ever take it for granted. I took 2022-2025 off, but maybe next year I’ll return. In the meantime, I’ll be spectating and trying to find the Punt of the WSOPME or the POTWSOPME. You can follow along , check out the link below.
Punt of the World Series Main Event
We at POTD are trying to find the biggest punt of the World Series of Poker Main Event. This post will be a running thread of all the contenders. The comments will be open to all, so if you have a submission, please post it here or reply to this post
Testimonials
Last week I shared Nate Silver plugging POTD on the GTO Lab podcast. This week Dan Dvoress answers a question from Jon Jaffe with the only correct answer.
Additional Sims For Premium Subscribers
Premium subscribers get the raw files of sims I used to write my POTDs, sims that are more accurate and appropriate than equivalent sims in the big public libraries, videos of me walking through the sims, and a text summary of how I ran the sims. This week I uploaded:
A Three Way Rocket Solver Sim for POTD #71
A PIO Sim with the actual in game stack to pot ratio for POTD #72
An HRC sim testing the PF open size and a 4bp PIO sim for POTD #74
A PIO ICM sim allowing min raise wars for POTD #75
In addition to that, I ran two HRC sims and posted a video of me going over the strategies of the instant classic poker hand that ended the Wynn Millions. Should Daniel Rezaei have called off TT? Premium subscribers already know the answer. We are closing in on 200 paid subscribers, for POTD when I reach that total, I will post my video analysis of that hand for POTD subscribers.
As always, if you like what you’re reading on this newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers can ask me about any poker hand they played in the comments of this post, and unpaid subscribers can ask me here. The subscription tiers and all the ways to contact me are listed here.
Additional Analysis for Premium Subscribers
Everyday Premium Subscribers get an extra bit of analysis not included on Substack. Today I’ll share #onemorething I posted about POTD #71. I wrote about what a common, but under-discussed emotion one can feel in a poker hand.
POTD onemorething #71
Today I am going to be talking about a common emotion you can feel in a poker hand: paranoia. In today's hand I was paranoid that if I led the flop, or led the turn or raised the turn, no one would believe I would have a good hand. However, I've established that I would arrive at the turn with trips and would make sense for me to play them like this. So there are two problems with being paranoid that "no one will believe this line". Firstly, if I truly felt that way, I should play trips like this every time. I have a great hand and found a line to take that disguises my hand strength while putting money in the pot, what a great spot. Secondly, as someone who has been on the other side of the coin-- having to construct a counter strategy on the fly vs. an odd line-- I think it's important to remember that your opponent's response will often be unpredictable. In an ideal world, you put someone in an unusual spot and receive a predictable response that you can exploit. In reality, you put someone in an unusual spot and hope they make a bigger mistake than the ones you will make. Simplifying your game tree and decisions makes sense, but abandoning a complex play because you fear it will look weird or stupid and others will respond oddly does not.
Media
I was on the Double Pivot Podcast to discuss sports analytics, poker, and Canadian soccer, and that episode is no longer paywalled. Listen to it here. If you haven’t been following the Gold Cup, but you listen to this podcast episode, you can just assume Canada dominated and won the whole tournament. No need to look up results.
I did commentary on Day 1C of the Main Event with Griffin Benger, Joe Stapleton and Caitlin Comeskey. You can watch the stream here. I was on for the first two hours.
I watched most of Season 4 of The Bear this week and it was… okay, so instead I’ll recommend watching George Springer hitting home runs vs. the New York Yankees. Even better if you can build a time machine and watch them while grilling steaks on Canada Day.