If you haven't been following the famous Omashist's previous upstreaks with us, you can catch up here:
At the end of May, Dirk approached the $500k mark:
Week 31:
Total account balance: $467,474
Cash games including rakeback: +$115,963
MTT results: +$22,973
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These past two weeks have probably been the hottest run I’ve ever experienced. A mix of playing great and running even better when all the chips are on the line. This is exactly what we need to have a shot at reaching our goal for this year.
Starting now, I’ll be adding $50/$100 games and all MTTs up to $5000 buy-ins. We have a nice bankroll, but the next few weeks will be swingy and crucial for a potentially successful end to this adventure. I have a specific amount in mind at which I will start streaming if we come close to $1,100,000.
The thoughts from my last post have faded a bit. When you run well in poker, everything else seems to flow automatically. You find more time to go to the gym, put in extra hours for studying, and avoid playing when you’re not feeling great. It's usually during the bad times that you’re challenged and need to look after yourself more.
We’re all familiar with tilting from losing, but winner’s tilt can be even more dangerous. You start overestimating your skill level and taking on competition that you’re not ahead of. This has cost me a lot of money in my career, but I’m choosing my spots much more carefully nowadays.
The big Triton tournaments definitely got me itching to play, so I’ll dedicate a couple of weeks this year to compete in those.
I’d like to end this post by saying that even though we had a big week, my position on online poker hasn’t changed much. I have all the right contacts, natural abilities, and history in the game, but I’m still "struggling" to make things work. It’s becoming increasingly harder to make money as a professional poker player, and I wouldn’t advise anyone new to the game to pursue it in the current landscape.
Do you agree?In early June, VeniVidi won a $10k tournament, the result of which did not count towards the marathon.
Week 32 :
Total account balance: $531,874
Cash games including rakeback: +$42,021
MTT results: +$22,379
A like on this post is much appreciated.
Another great result in the challenge, but it feels bittersweet this time. Yesterday, the $50/$100 table proved tough, and handling it didn't go as usual. Despite a fantastic year in terms of results, losing a couple of buy-ins led to forced actions and a struggle to maintain control. Writing about it definitely helps with leaving those moments in the past.
After handling swings for 10 years, it seems like it shouldn't affect me anymore, but it did. Thankfully, running well bailed me out again, but there's still frustration over not being more mentally resilient.
On a positive note, the challenge is going quite well. Turning $100k into $200k should be roughly as hard as turning $200k into $400k. Following that logic, we are well past the halfway point and on schedule to reach the goal. Next Monday, it's off to Vegas for the PLO tournaments, which will count towards the challenge. I'll be taking 100% of my $10,000 tournaments, 50% of my $25,000 tournaments, and 25% of my $50,000 tournaments.
In reality, all of my own action is being taken except for a small portion shipped off to Nik Airball. The stated action seemed to be an appropriate amount for the current state of my bankroll.
Before leaving, there might be enough time to play enough hands for another post and possibly a couple of updates unrelated to the challenge. Hopefully, the hot run continues and the challenge is locked in before the end of the year! Stay tuned and please like this post if you enjoyed it.
– Great job so far!! After you are finished with the challenge do you have any plans to release any PLO training videos or a MasterClass?
– Most of the sites reached out to put out a product, but not sure if I can produce something that I’m fully behind and hard to be compensated well. Would need to compensate/work something out with the people that helped my in the past too.
VeniVidi's trip to Vegas was unsuccessful :
Week 33:
Total on account: $574,893
Cash games including rakeback: +$36,655
Online MTT results: +$46,364
WSOP results: -$40,000
A like on this post is much appreciated.
I wanted to share my Vegas stories before this update, but it's been a while since I updated on the challenge, so here we go. Just before flying off to Vegas, I did exceptionally well in the online tournaments, allowing us to stay in the green even after only min-cashing in one of the six events I played in Vegas.
A good run in all-ins saved us this time, reigniting my motivation to study. When I was on a winning streak for weeks, I started slacking on studying, which has always been the weakest part of my game. Playing comes naturally to me, but studying does not. To keep myself accountable, I promised my friend a $500 freeroll for every day I don’t study for at least one hour until the end of the year. So far, the added motivation not to pay my friend has been working out well.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with life at the moment. I'll be pushing really hard in these last few months to complete this challenge. My plan includes two focused three-hour sessions and an hour of studying almost every day. I also intend to leverage my social presence to find some good games to play; hopefully, I’ll have more on that later.
I plan to show my face more at live events going forward, most likely at the stops in Europe since the quick visit to Vegas drained a lot of my energy. Stay tuned for some stories about the 25k and 50k WSOP events.
– With freeroll perks like that – Do you need an internet friend too?? (:
– Haha tx but I have enough friends
– For your one-hour study going forward is there a specific thing you’re looking at or is it changing based on the days results?
– I try to focus on spots/opportunities that arise during the day. Eg. if I get some HU action I try to put some effort into HU. Get some action at 5-card I do the same thing
– Do you do coaching?
– Have some long term students yes never coached per hour
– You working with the AI PLO trainers Vidi? (VISION from RIO or Jnandez Mastermind trainer)
– I mostly work with Vision and Monkertrainer
– You think it’s still worth learning plo as a struggling $80k-a-year NLH online mid-stakes grinder? Is the grass greener ?
– To be honest if you are making 80k a year in NLHE it's unlikely you will succeed in PLO. You'll have to find a way to upgrade your system
After returning from Vegas, VeniVidi's upstreak continued :
Week 34:
Total on account: $724,457
Cash games including rakeback: +$148,564
MTT results: +$1,000
A like on this post is much appreciated.
Bouncing back from Vegas with the biggest result in the challenge so far. I’m super happy that I’ve been running great in the right spots and working hard to keep it going.
This week, I’ll be ordering some products to fire up a stream in the near future. The end of the challenge will definitely be streamed.
Regarding money management, this is the moment I could consider adding $100/$200 into the challenge. However, as we get closer to the goal, we should start minimizing volatility. I remember this from following the Jeremiah Williams challenge.
Most of the money and volume have come from playing HU on CoinPoker. I have a decent edge over Sam, but I ran hotter than the sun when we were battling it out.
I’m trying to upgrade my system every day and will continue doing so until the end of the year. Then, I’ll probably take some time off because poker has been consuming most of my daily time.
I ended up being down $11,749 in the game where I had a giveaway, so unfortunately, there will be no winner. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see or if you have any questions about the challenge or poker/life in general.
– What are some adjustments you make as you move up?
– People at the higher stakes are more creative for sure. At $10/$20 you can make a lot of money pounding on checking ranges and steering clear of betting ranges. Whenever you start playing $25/$50 you have to play more balanced and this logic is more through the higher you go. A lot of people feel uncomfortable when they play very high stakes and you have to take this into account too.
– Does the GGPoker graph include rake?
– We played a bit this week right? It does not include rake, so the reality is quite a bit worse than the graphs. At the end of the year I'll post all my results inside and outside of the challenge and the most likely outcome of this, is that I'm wasting my time on $10/$20 because of the high rake on GGPoker.
At the end of July, VeniVidi kept his promise and started streaming his game on CoinPoker.
The recording of the first stream is available on YouTube.
Week 35 :
Total on account: $797,773
Cash games including rakeback: +$3,424
MTT results: +$53,718
Private game results: +$16,174
A like on this post is much appreciated.
So much to talk about in this post, during a week intended for some downtime after pushing hard for the last two months. The action slowed down, and feeling less than 100% made it a good time to take a break. Except for two big sessions, most of the week was taken off, but it was still quite eventful.
There was some crazy 5-card action earlier this week, and a couple of hands might be posted later. Sunday marked the first stream, followed by some cash games and tournaments. Entering the $5,250 and $525 on GGpoker led to a second and first-place finish, respectively—a sick run, obviously.
In the streamer VIP game on CoinPoker, 16,174 was won, and 5% of that, $809, was promised to a lucky individual: DwZaba.
Future streams will be visible on the Twitch channel (vvv1993). A recording was made and will be uploaded to the YouTube channel:
This week, there's hope to play a HU session versus Sam on stream, feeling very energized to put in some hands. A shot was taken outside of the bankroll challenge at $400/$800, resulting in a $118,000 loss. It's a tough break, but part of the game. Gratitude remains for the run in the bankroll challenge, and there will be greater caution with those kinds of spots in the future.
The last week was once again marked by a major MTT win:
Week 36:
Total on account: $838,356
Cash games including rakeback: +$2,197
MTT results: +$30,002
Private game results: +$8,384
Another week in the green and another hot run at the MTT tables. Not too many hands were played this week, and the next update will be in two weeks since some friends are coming to visit. With the action being a bit slow, it'll be a good time to focus more on studying. While I've been improving, there's still room to be better in that regard.
Last Sunday was the first long stream, and there was a lot of positive feedback. After six hours of streaming, we ended up heads-up in the $5,250 MTT with $50,000 up for grabs, and it ended with a win.
It was pretty exhausting from the streaming and playing, so I wrapped things up quickly. Unfortunately, the three-minute delay caused everyone watching to get disconnected before seeing the conclusion, showing my true colors as a rookie streamer. For those who missed it live, here's a clip:
We had two giveaways and these are the winners for the following amounts ($45 and $241):
ZeAngels76 and thomaTOO0
As requested on the stream I'll be sharing some more personal stuff on social media in the next few weeks. If you want to check out the full 6 hour stream you can watch it back on youtube or twitch (the one on twitch missing a couple of minutes in the end):
