Thanks, theginger45.

Totally agree about minimising variance. The thing is last year I was not playing as good in SNGs, but this time I am going to do a micro-sample run in various types to see where I am more successful in growing the tiny roll. The other day, I 4-tabled 1.50 45-man Turbo SNGs and Final Tabled all 4, cashed in in all 4 for a nice bankroll increase. There's no guarantee I can regularly repeat the feat, but I am certainly playing better this year compared to last year's last session and to the beginning of this year's session in June or so.

I am not sure how I am going to organise this but most probably a mixture of Fifty50 STTs and 45-man, 90-man SNGs and try to level up. I need to play a little bit more to make sure I am doing good as I have studied quite a bit this year and practised quite a bit, but mostly MTTs.

Some of the Big and Hot MTTs have huge sprawling fields most of the time. I think I have seen a few with smaller fields at certain times which could be more worth trying, the only thing is they're at odd hours…

The last good score I did were a $1.10 1,000 Cap where I made the Final Table. The last 1,000 Cap was unfortunately Final Second Table only for a meager win, quite frustrating.

Tried a small live MTT tonight, about 20 people, with add-on and rebuy, starting 10K chips and 20-minutes blinds. Played tight early. It felt like a fast structure and I was squeezed out, checked/raised and trapped a few times. Doubled up with a flush, and then ran QT into AA from the SB, flop came AXY, turn was a , and I rivered 2 to double up as a 10BB short-stack or so to 20BB. Man, the player on my left must have been disappointed to not only see his pocket Aces cracked, but his set of Aces cracked! He was cool about it though.

I was perhaps under the velocity of the earlier short-stack status as I shoved KJo in the CO, got called by KQo in the big blind, and busted out. Man, if only I had something like Ax. Could have waited for a better spot.

The guy on my right was an actor: always playing weak and as if he never had played a tournament, making string bets and saying sorry etc… In fact, I am pretty sure he crushes online. He ran very hot, and some of his card distributions were:

AA, QQ, AA, AK, KK, AA, AA – unreal… Big stack when I left.

One of the first big hands I had was AJs, raised, got re-raised and re-re-raised, shut down, the two remaining played a shove and a call: AK vs AQ, with AK pairing on the flop.

Fun experience, especially since I only paid part of the buy-in since I won at Blackjack right before the tourney, but I'm not sure I'll play it again as it doesn't seem to be great value.

Dealers were sloppy and rude (several fat fingers, several cards flashed and burned), rude personnel at the entrance of the Poker area except for the guy, who was very knowledgeable about the tourney and answered all my numerous questions (Payment structure, Tournament structure, what's the $15 additional for, etc…). That's what you get in Quebec…

Perhaps I'll play again at the smaller venue I visited on Thursday which has some $25 Buy-in 'Old School' way, i.e. we are our own dealers until the FT where we get a real dealer. More affordable, better practice, and didn't seem the blinds went high as rapidly.

Or maybe I was just too card dead this time, then perhaps I should have used some clever ballsy techniques to win some chips despite that. 

Was getting frustrated at PS, so started playing a Canadian daily freeroll on Party, and… shipped the freeroll the first time I played it.

Now this is interesting because My BR was 0 on Party. So, from there and playing that freeroll several time, I built my BR to $65-85 since Nov 2015.

This made me comfortable enough to play the 0.55 real money MTTs.

Then, I shipped one of those as well, which brought my BR to around $100 or so, and in turn this meant I could play some of the higher BI MTTs.

The number of Final Tables I have made since November 2015 has seriously increased to the extent that I made two final tables in two consecutive days.

I thought a 3rd Final Table on a third consecutive day would prove to myself that I know how to do it. On the third day, I had two near misses, finishing 10th and then 12th, but the third time, I not only made it to the final table but shipped that $1.10. I believe it was a Rebuy, so that built up my BR again.

Since then, I played many more MTTs there and my BR today stands at around $345.

The other day I placed 2nd on a field of 400+ as well, so I now think I have a good grasp of structure, techniques frequencies for MTTs.

Now, following theginger45’s advice, I want to build up my BR on PS again but this time with SNGs/MTTSNGs, as I am hoping to then play some higher ABI MTT on PS because frankly, the lower BIs at the micros, with their huge fields of lucky donks are really annoying and really, really high variance.

This year, I will be studying MTTs and Poker in depth, I will be doing reviews and focus sessions on particular techniques and track the results. I am also building my own HUD and MTT stat reporting with PokerTracker 4.

I can finally say I understand what makes an MTT click, but there is so much yet to study.

Twitch has helped immensely: being there during some grinding period with somebody else doing the same thing makes you feel less lonely or insane. Killingbird had an epic stream the other night wearing shades (‘who are these effing dolts!?’ – hahahaaaaa!).

Being able to watch other players like Elky and Danzer play can help your game immensely, even more so if you can ask questions and get their answers and thought process.

This is a rather unprecedented in Poker History as it’s near real-time. If you haven’t followed and watched a few streams on Twitch yet, I highly recommend you try that: the feeling of community is rather strong. Poker is quite a new game there but it is going to grow.

This year, I am also planning to get coaching: I have found that interacting with others can spur me onto results rather fast.