Month has ended, some random thoughts

September has finally came to a close and I'm up roughly 500 bucks playing, 1700 in staking, 1k credits for cash, and about 4-500 in rakeback, putting me roughly +3700......Im fine with that really, as I have no need for cash and felt like I played decent....I was was at one point -6k playing on the month, so to get positive I guess I shouldn't complain much?? I had an amazing 1.5% ROI in the month over 320 mtts. I rule. So some random thoughts poker related

-why do people play strong 100rs,200rs,1ks, etc? As time progresses more and more people are learning mtts - the losers are becoming breakeven, the breakeven are small winners, small winners have become big winners, etc....theres so many names popping up that no one knew of a year or two ago that are now crushing big...yeh variance helps, but these guys also play pretty good. I was on P5s the other day and looking at HH's at 6 max 100r tables with like 4-5 winners - wheres the edge? Another example is the 1k on AP - usually gets about 120 entrants - Id say atleast 40-50 players are winners - so lets assume 50 people are winners, that means at a 9 man table your looking at about 3-4 winners a table - wheres the longterm edge? Of course you can still have an edge with these types of tables even if the winners are just small winners, but who wants to deal with 1ks and small edges? There will be one day when 100r's are unbeatable or near breakeven unless the US regulates poker. One day.

-why do people show bluffs?? I understand if you want to tilt someone, otherwise its the dumbest thing ever. Example - I was deep in the 20k on AP 2nite when I got 3 bet and folded - he showed K3. Amazing buddy - I had been opening a ton so of course you'll be able to 3 bet me with garbage.....What does this accomplish? Well I'm not tilting from it, I could care less.....the problem for him was I had a large stack so I could easily come after him more and make him make tougher decisions for his tourny life. Yeh this is great if your a great player vs a bad player, but him being OOP and having a 1/3 of my stack seems like -ev for him to show that bluff.

-If you care about the money in a MTT you're losing alot of profit - its funny how money is such a big influence in MTTs and how alot of people play. This was definitely me not too long ago, tightening up in bigger MTTs late...the problem is to win that 25k you need to have every chip in play, so don't think about trying to survive, but how can you accumulate. The amount of luck late in mtts is insane, so play to win. I think subconciously the payouts can affect people and they dont realize it. Just go for the win

-raise/folding - alot of spots it seems people will raise/call way too light with stuff like weak aces, K10s, etc against players who are simply not reshoving that wide - I think we got it driled into our heads that raise/folding to stack that are under 20 bbs is just bad but if theyre not reshoving that wide its perfectly fine. Id be curious to run some math on what range a villan needs to reshove to make raise/folding unprofitable. Alot of times people aren't reshoving light as we would suspect because the general consensus is the original raiser isn't folding. I tend to raise/fold alot on AP since the majority of AP players aren't reshoving anywhere near what they do on stars or tilt. Its just crazy how wide some people call

-bluff lines - when setting up a bluff its good to represent a hand unless your bluffing against a total idiot whos just paying attention to making a hand....sometimes I find myself running a bluff line that makes no sense - why do I do this? laziness I guess....I had a hand come up tonight where I had ATs in UTG+2 to a 7 man table. I raise 2.5x with like 40 bbs. SB calls who seems not that great with like 25 bbs behind. Normally with his stack I'd be hesistent to get testy with him postflop, since usually when people are calling with stacks near that 20 bb threshold theyre not folding often, but I didn't think he was all that great. Anyways flop comes J83 two hearts - he checks, I check back. no clue why I don't fire. turn comes Qs, he checks so I decide to fire 60% pot he calls. River comes a 2, he checks, I fire again, he calls with KQ and I lose. First off him calling with KQ there pre with that stack was bad but I figured he was calling somewhat light. I was just mad I didn't even think about what I was repping - maybe it was late at night and I wanted to sleep who knows....thinking is +ev - i should do that someitme :)

thats all for now. alot of rambling i know but just some ideas that i wanted to get in print. anyways im off to sleep to dream about winning aruba for like 800k and stopping poker for the year. we can dream right?