MicroMillions
Aahh, the MicroMillions. The MicroMillions series of events is a conundrum and a dilemma, and, for me, the epitome of tournament poker on Pokerstars. There are a couple of things to note about the MicroMillions events, for a buy-in of just a few dollars you can win you a five figure prize but in order to do that you must first best a gazillion players.
For a recreational player who mostly likes to play some poker in the evening, the large player pool of Pokerstars is actually a problem. I can't be playing against a few thousand players until the wee small hours when I need to get up for work at 7am. No where is it more evident than the MicroMillions events. Nonetheless, there are HUGE prizes to be won, at very little cost and somebody is going to win them, so why not me?
As an experiment I have decided to play as many of the events as is reasonably possible, and see where that gets me. A late night will be worth it for $10,000! It might also act as some sort of barometer of where I lie in the small stakes ecosytem, I consider myself a decent player (at this level), surely a series of well structured tournaments will either confirm or reject that idea, especially as it is presumably against my small stakes peers.
Rather than create a new post everyday, I'll just update this one as I go.
Sunday 16th
$5 NLHE half price Sunday Storm - 13219/64741
An excellent opening tournament for the MicroMillions series, about $30,000 up top, for a $5 buy-in! That of course meant over 60,000 entries but you know, I guess that's the deal. I was on course to cruise into the money on this one, sitting average stacked, just chipping up nicely with no great drama, positioned 7000ish in the field with roughly the top 10000 getting paid, then I got carried with Ace Queen. I opened early position with AQ, folded round to the big blind who called. Flop came A56 with two clubs, my opponent lead out with a really small bet, I read this as a blocker bet with either the flush or straight draw and decided reraising was the route to take to make him pay for that draw. The draws never got there but instead my opponent took me to value town with AK. I was left with 10bbs after that hand, and soon shoved with AJ, called by 9s and out. Pretty annoying because I basically threw it away overvaluing top pair with "he's on a draw" tunnel vision.
$3 NLHE Progressive Knockout bounty - 3985/57638 +$8 profit with bounties.
Beginning to realise/remember how much of a slog these tournaments are. Made the money here and picked up a few bounties but never felt like I was ever close to the real money. A friend went a little deeper, finishing around 400th but he rebought earlier so after 5 hours of play he made a profit of $13. Wow. A finish within the top 1% of the field, and thirteen measly dollars.
$5 NLO8 Progressive Knockout bounty
No-limit omaha hilo progressive knockout bounty, just look at that description. What a silly game.
Monday 17th
There didn't seem to be anything of interest scheduled tonight, which was a little disappointing but at the same time it's Game of Thrones night for us Europeans, so perhaps that's deliberate or simply fortuitous.
Tuesday 18th
$1 PLO rebuy - 238/6033 +$19 profit
1am finish, nice to cash but I am beginning to tire of the MicroMillions and blogging about it.
Wednesday and Thursday
I am somewhat bewildered by the lack of appealing tournaments on offer in the evening slot. My tournament selection criteria of events includes pretty much anything holdem or omaha that I can register before 9pm that isn't turbo or hyper (Zoom being an exception to that). Surely my criteria covers the most popular types at the most popular time for European players, isn't that the biggest player base these days? Do the Americas still command that honour? I don't know, maybe its my filters or something but it seems weird to me there's not a suitable game on.
Friday 21st
Late regged the $5 8max no-limit holdem tournament with a shortstack and got absolutely nowhere near the money after check raising all in with 9J on a QT3 board and running into kings.
However, I also recorded my easiest and thus most satisfying win of the series so far...
I won a $5 Micro Millions ticket on Twitter!
I've had a number of good results on Twitter, if only that was an event...
Saturday 22nd
Had a big family dinner today, it was meant to be a barbecue but that was prevented by the Scottish Summer weather, no poker today.
Sunday $23rd
$5 HORSE - 2028/3208
Playing tonight really highlighted my ability level at the five games, I think I exclusively gained chips on the holdem and omaha rounds, exclusively lost them on the stud rounds, with razz being kinda break even. I am aware that I'm not very good at the stud games but I do enjoy the occasional game of HORSE, must be the variety of something, but tonight's tournament demonstrated very clearly that I should really concentrate on HO and forget about RSE (or you know, get better at them, but who has the time?)!
Monday 24th
$1 PLO rebuy - 594/5704 +$6 profit
Autopiloting large portions of these tournaments. Almost not even paying attention, one table, watching Twin Peaks and doing various bits around the house.
Tuesday 25th
There wasn't anything catching my eye on the schedule tonight so I decided to have a go at some satellites for the MicroMillions $22 Main Event. I've played predominately on PKR and PartyPoker over the years, so I'm used to playing a more gradual stepped satellite format where approximately 1 in 5 players win a seat to the next stage but I noticed that on Pokerstars there's less of that, unless it's for the real big events, it's very much 1 in 20ish win the target seat and that's it, no mucking around. In this case there was a $1 turbos for a $22 seat starting every 30 minutes. Trying to win a 1 in 22 seems more difficult than winning a 1 in 5 twice even though statistically it isn't. I late regged a couple while waiting for another to start. Some of the plays were quite incredible. Incredibly bad that is. I found myself the victim of this, not from a badbeat perspective but from being drawn in to the madness.
Crucial AA in bb vs sb shove with A2 saw me comfortably into the prize zone. $22 Main Event ticket in the bag! My biggest cash of the series, it's the happiest I've been results wise too because I won the top prize.
Wednesday 26th
$5 PLO
KKxx vs AAxx, and I knew it, went for it anyways with king high flush draw, hoping he didn't have ace high flush draw. Bricked, out. So annoying, knew what he had, stacked off anyways.
Sunday 30th
Played the main $22 Main Event but nothing of note to report.
Summary
As you can probably tell my enthusiasm for the MicroMillions series waned over time, as did my interest in blogging about it. Without a big score, grinding away at these massive field mircostakes tournaments is a bit of a slog and does not make for exciting reading/writing.
Overall I played 9 events, including the Sunday Storm, some PLO, HORSE, and the Main Event:
$58.30 buy-ins
$58.93 money won
$0.63 profit
Sadly I think those results suitably reflect the my position in the ecosystem, which a bit like this blog is a bit depressing.
For a recreational player who mostly likes to play some poker in the evening, the large player pool of Pokerstars is actually a problem. I can't be playing against a few thousand players until the wee small hours when I need to get up for work at 7am. No where is it more evident than the MicroMillions events. Nonetheless, there are HUGE prizes to be won, at very little cost and somebody is going to win them, so why not me?
As an experiment I have decided to play as many of the events as is reasonably possible, and see where that gets me. A late night will be worth it for $10,000! It might also act as some sort of barometer of where I lie in the small stakes ecosytem, I consider myself a decent player (at this level), surely a series of well structured tournaments will either confirm or reject that idea, especially as it is presumably against my small stakes peers.
Rather than create a new post everyday, I'll just update this one as I go.
Sunday 16th
$5 NLHE half price Sunday Storm - 13219/64741
An excellent opening tournament for the MicroMillions series, about $30,000 up top, for a $5 buy-in! That of course meant over 60,000 entries but you know, I guess that's the deal. I was on course to cruise into the money on this one, sitting average stacked, just chipping up nicely with no great drama, positioned 7000ish in the field with roughly the top 10000 getting paid, then I got carried with Ace Queen. I opened early position with AQ, folded round to the big blind who called. Flop came A56 with two clubs, my opponent lead out with a really small bet, I read this as a blocker bet with either the flush or straight draw and decided reraising was the route to take to make him pay for that draw. The draws never got there but instead my opponent took me to value town with AK. I was left with 10bbs after that hand, and soon shoved with AJ, called by 9s and out. Pretty annoying because I basically threw it away overvaluing top pair with "he's on a draw" tunnel vision.
$3 NLHE Progressive Knockout bounty - 3985/57638 +$8 profit with bounties.
Beginning to realise/remember how much of a slog these tournaments are. Made the money here and picked up a few bounties but never felt like I was ever close to the real money. A friend went a little deeper, finishing around 400th but he rebought earlier so after 5 hours of play he made a profit of $13. Wow. A finish within the top 1% of the field, and thirteen measly dollars.
$5 NLO8 Progressive Knockout bounty
No-limit omaha hilo progressive knockout bounty, just look at that description. What a silly game.
Monday 17th
There didn't seem to be anything of interest scheduled tonight, which was a little disappointing but at the same time it's Game of Thrones night for us Europeans, so perhaps that's deliberate or simply fortuitous.
Tuesday 18th
$1 PLO rebuy - 238/6033 +$19 profit
1am finish, nice to cash but I am beginning to tire of the MicroMillions and blogging about it.
Wednesday and Thursday
I am somewhat bewildered by the lack of appealing tournaments on offer in the evening slot. My tournament selection criteria of events includes pretty much anything holdem or omaha that I can register before 9pm that isn't turbo or hyper (Zoom being an exception to that). Surely my criteria covers the most popular types at the most popular time for European players, isn't that the biggest player base these days? Do the Americas still command that honour? I don't know, maybe its my filters or something but it seems weird to me there's not a suitable game on.
Friday 21st
Late regged the $5 8max no-limit holdem tournament with a shortstack and got absolutely nowhere near the money after check raising all in with 9J on a QT3 board and running into kings.
However, I also recorded my easiest and thus most satisfying win of the series so far...
I won a $5 Micro Millions ticket on Twitter!
I've had a number of good results on Twitter, if only that was an event...
Saturday 22nd
Had a big family dinner today, it was meant to be a barbecue but that was prevented by the Scottish Summer weather, no poker today.
Sunday $23rd
$5 HORSE - 2028/3208
Playing tonight really highlighted my ability level at the five games, I think I exclusively gained chips on the holdem and omaha rounds, exclusively lost them on the stud rounds, with razz being kinda break even. I am aware that I'm not very good at the stud games but I do enjoy the occasional game of HORSE, must be the variety of something, but tonight's tournament demonstrated very clearly that I should really concentrate on HO and forget about RSE (or you know, get better at them, but who has the time?)!
Monday 24th
$1 PLO rebuy - 594/5704 +$6 profit
Autopiloting large portions of these tournaments. Almost not even paying attention, one table, watching Twin Peaks and doing various bits around the house.
Tuesday 25th
There wasn't anything catching my eye on the schedule tonight so I decided to have a go at some satellites for the MicroMillions $22 Main Event. I've played predominately on PKR and PartyPoker over the years, so I'm used to playing a more gradual stepped satellite format where approximately 1 in 5 players win a seat to the next stage but I noticed that on Pokerstars there's less of that, unless it's for the real big events, it's very much 1 in 20ish win the target seat and that's it, no mucking around. In this case there was a $1 turbos for a $22 seat starting every 30 minutes. Trying to win a 1 in 22 seems more difficult than winning a 1 in 5 twice even though statistically it isn't. I late regged a couple while waiting for another to start. Some of the plays were quite incredible. Incredibly bad that is. I found myself the victim of this, not from a badbeat perspective but from being drawn in to the madness.
Crucial AA in bb vs sb shove with A2 saw me comfortably into the prize zone. $22 Main Event ticket in the bag! My biggest cash of the series, it's the happiest I've been results wise too because I won the top prize.
Wednesday 26th
$5 PLO
KKxx vs AAxx, and I knew it, went for it anyways with king high flush draw, hoping he didn't have ace high flush draw. Bricked, out. So annoying, knew what he had, stacked off anyways.
Sunday 30th
Played the main $22 Main Event but nothing of note to report.
Summary
As you can probably tell my enthusiasm for the MicroMillions series waned over time, as did my interest in blogging about it. Without a big score, grinding away at these massive field mircostakes tournaments is a bit of a slog and does not make for exciting reading/writing.
Overall I played 9 events, including the Sunday Storm, some PLO, HORSE, and the Main Event:
$58.30 buy-ins
$58.93 money won
$0.63 profit
Sadly I think those results suitably reflect the my position in the ecosystem, which a bit like this blog is a bit depressing.
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