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Week 5 Recap: Look at us, putting in another solid card, right on que. As I have said in previous years, weeks 1-4 are usually a little high variance, but weeks 5-14 are where the data collection yields it's fruits. Thursday was fantastic, we picked the underdog upset and went 4-0 on the night. Sunday was also a positive day. We were VERY close to some big boy daddy long shots. I feel confident that they will show a return eventually, they are just a long term play. Our teaser was 1 off, that tends to happen with teasers over 3/4 picks so nbd. Overall a good building week. Let's keep this train rolling!
Singles (9-8, +5.6u)
Parlays (2-1, +19.6u)
Teasers (0-1, -5u)
BBDLS (0-8, -6.8u)
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SUNDAY GAMES
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Chicago at Carolina: Bears coming off a win over the Bucs and some extra days rest. Carolina also coming off a win (3 game win streak) where they were underdogs. At the beginning of the week when the lines were released I jumped on the Bears +3 And the Ml +120 for 2u and 1u respectively. However, the more research that was done, the more I like Carolina. Neither of these teams are proven winners yet as all of their wins have come against losing teams. Carolina is like TEN in that they aren't flashy, they just are well coached, execute properly and do their best to minimize mistakes while forcing the other team to WIN the game. As we have seen when they face a team that can win, that team does win. But if they face teams that have trouble getting the win...Carolina out executes them and wins comfortably. The main problem I see Carolina having when losing is they settle for too many field goals in the red zone. (27th in red zone efficiency, scoring touchdowns on just 10 of its 20 red zone trips) Unfortunately for them, this is the Bears defensive strength. They are currently No. 1 in the red zone and No. 2 on third down.
A side story I am looking at in this game is running back Mike Davis returning to CHI (the team that drafted him and then let him go). He has been running as an unstoppable force these last 3 games and I look for it to mostly continue. I do think against this bears front he is more likely to get his action through receptions and YAC than through handoffs.
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Detroit at Jacksonville: This one should be simple (I feel like I say that a lot for Detroit write ups) Detroit is coming off a bye and this is the perfect time to put together some wins. They have a VERY favorable schedule coming up but to have any shot at catching Green Bay or Chicago need to take care of the easy ones. This week and next week are those games.
Jacksonville is coming off another loss, this one to the previously winless Texans. Their main problem is defense. They have given up 30+ to every team in their losing streak and the only team they beat was, IMO a bad QB. (Late age Phillip Rivers in a season opener with no preseason) Bad news for them, as mentioned, the Lions are coming off a bye week and have now returned previously injured players. Look for Adrian Peterson to have a day and keep an eye out for the return of Kenny Galloday.
My algo likes this game for an over and so I put in a Same game parlay on Fanduel for half a unit. It is a BBDLS to win +150u. There are a few games to look at same game parlays on, and with the way both of these two teams have played defensively, this is definitely one of those games.
Side note, this was a pretty detailed video explaining why the Lions will defeat the Jags: https://youtu.be/7RVcmu3fHeM
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Atlanta at Minnesota: Failcons blew another one. They started out exactly as I predicted, leaning heavy on Gurley and blitzing Teddy B, getting a lead... but then they just stalled. Now... Quinn is gone.
Minnesota played a hell of a game week 5 and gave themselves every opportunity to win. They just didn't convert in a key spot and gave Russ the chance to win it...and that's what he did. Based on team vs team matchup, we would expect the Vikings to take this one. Cousins has had a rough first few matchups, but a shitty Falcons D could be his elixir back to at least an average form. Cook is out, but Mattison is a very capable backup that has replaced Cook well. The key to this one will be MIN D. It was able to slow Russ down last week, finally showing signs of cohesion, but once crunch time came, they fell apart. Can they keep climbing, back to a normal form? Or will Matt Ryan look to prove it was Quinn and his leadership that held him back and come out and win this one.
Personally I am a huge fan of betting on a team when they get an interim coach. We took Houston last week, and they rolled nicely. Here is what interim coach Raheem Morris had to say, "At the end of the day, we have to find a way to put our foot on people's throats and end games," Morris said. "That's what has got to happen."
Feels like he knows his defense is trash and he's going to be very loosey goosey with his play calling this week. This is another game my algo likes the over in and has potential for Same game parlays on player props.
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Houston at Tennessee: Houston broke the winless streak and the curse of Obrien has been lifted. They looked good, but let's keep in mind that was vs a sinking Jacksonville team. Tennessee, as predicted and given as a play to my premium subscribers, continued the winning ways and crushed the Bills in a Tuesday game! Now on short rest return home to take on the Texans in an important divisional match up.
This is tough because TEN is coming off a shorrrrrt week. After playing Tuesday night, that only leaves them 4 days of travel, rest, game planning, and the tons of Covid protocols to go through. I feel like as the better, complete team, they have the overall advantage given all things neutral. However with the increased energy for the Houston team after the coaching chances and first win and the short week for TEN defense to recover, my algo leans a HOU cover and possible win.
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Washington at NY Giants: Whelp, Washington went exactly like I wrote last week, haha. We got to see Alex Smith! Seriously though, Kyle Allen looked pretty legit in the first quarter. He was a Full participant in practice on Friday and looks to be good to go for this one. On the other side Daniel Jones is just not progressing. Last week the Giants put up over 30 points and Jones threw 0 TDs. HOW ARE THE GIANTS FAVORITES?!
I feel like Rivera's thought process is...if we can win the next 3 games, (2 against an 0-5 team and 1 vs. the worst defense in the league right now) we are 4-4 and 4-0 in the division. With another divisional game vs the depleted eagles still to be played this season. I expect Rivera to unleash some early deep balls and pressure the shit out of Jones.
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Cleveland at Pittsburgh: 17 years since a Browns win in Pittsburg. Cleveland did well for us last week and got the upset vs the Colts. They are looking like the Titans, establish a good run game, have the QB make manageable throws, take a few shots, play above average D.
The Steelers are 4-0 and their defense is averaging 3+ sacks(5 PER) and 1+ INT per game this year...but who have they played? winless Giants, and three one win teams in the Eagles, Texans, and Broncos...
The major weakness to the Steeler D is that they are allow teams to convert a whopping 50% on third down.
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Baltimore at Philadelphia: Ehhhh, another one of those game I don't want to touch. Outside of the win vs the 49ers, I don't know what is keeping this line between 7-9.5. I am not sure why it didn't open closer to 10 than 7. Usually when something like this happens it's a flag for me to stay away or take the dog. However Philly? I'd rather lay money on the Jets ml than the Phl ml right now
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Cincinnati at Indianapolis: Cincy lost what looked to be a blowout vs the ravens. But if you look closer, their defense played surprisingly well against one of the better offenses in the league. Burrow was again sacked like 47 times and the offense had trouble getting anything going. The Colts are coming off a loss to the Browns where its now becoming glaringly obvious that Old man Rivers is getting too old to be a starting QB for a team with this good of a defense and this good of an offensive line. I mean shit, you put Sam Darnold in this team and I bet he looks twice as good as Rivers. This will be an interesting game and I am excited to see Burrow get his second win ;)
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Green Bay at Tampa Bay: BATTLE OF THE BAYS 4-0 Packers traveling to Florida to take on the 3-2 Bucs. Both teams off rest with the Packers coming off a bye week and the Bucs playing the previous TNF. The Packers are getting Davante Adams and Mercedes Lewis back. The Bucs are getting back almost there whole offense in Godwin, Evans, and Fournette. Honestly, my algo has this game as TB -2.5. It targets the Bucs pass rush as being the difference maker in this one. When under pressure Rodgers goes from a passer rating of 141.1 and a completion % of 80 with 9.4 YPA all the way to a 68.8 passer rating with a completion % of 34.6 and 6YPA. So far this season the GB O line has protected Rodgers well. However, they have yet to face a formidable pass rush with their only challenges being MIN and NO, both shells of their former defenses.
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LA Rams at San Francisco 49ers: The Rams are turning into a very nice team this year. I have been high on them all season, and I will continue smoking that dooby for this game. Don't get me wrong, there is a reason this game is only 3.5 even though the Rams blew out their last opponent and the 49ers GOT blown out, but the Rams this year feel like the 49ers of last year. Stout defense, a committee of running backs, both of those elevating average QB play to above average. As you can see, without the dominant running game and stout defense, Jimmy G (or whoever plays QB for the previous SB finalist 49ers) struggles.
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NY Jets at Miami: No analysis for this one. I am skipping it except for some small plays on the Jets. I am not confident enough in MIA to take them as a large favorite. I am not comfortable enough in Joe Flaco to take him at this point in his career for any large amount. But, this is the NFL and any given Sunday so I feel there is always a little value on massive dogs that the public is against.
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Denver at New England: Both of these teams have been off the field so long, how can we know what to expect? Who is even QB for both of these teams? Is Cam back and if so, is he healthy? Personally I think it shouldn't matter too much for the overall winner of the game. You give me Billy B with two weeks to prepare and I'll take him coach for the Falcons over this Denver team. But the spread is a decent amount of points to cover with little knowledge on the status of the players. Outside of some ml parlays, I will be avoiding this game.
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***I put in a few bets at the beginning of the week to start getting the best of numbers I like. Sometimes my fade switches as I learn more info throughout the week. The bets with \** were all placed at the beginning of the week, so tail those with caution.*
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Singles (29-30, -2.56u)

• CHI +3 (2.4U to win 2u) \*\**
• Mike Davis 5.5 Rec Over (1u to win 1.22u)
• Mike Davis Anytime TD (1.6u to win 1u)
• Mike Davis 58 Rec Yards (1u to win 1.95u)
• CHI/CAR Total Field Goals Made 3.5 Over (4u to win 5u)
• DET Team Total 27.5 Over (2.3u to win 2u)
• HOU +4 (2.13u to win 2u)
• HOU ml (1u to win 1.75u)
• WAS +3 (2.4u to win 2u) **\*
• WAS ml (1.5u to win 1.88u) **\*
• WAS HT ml/FT ml (1u to win 2.2u)
• CLE +4 (2.2u to win 2u) **\*
• CLE ml (1u to win 1.6u) **\*
• Kareem Hunt anytime TD (2.75u to win 2u)
• B. Roethlisberger & C. Wentz 1 or more Passing TDs Each (1u to win 1u)
• CIN + 7.5 (1.1u to win 1u)
• TB ml (1u to win 1.15u) **\*
• NYJ ml (1u to win 3.2u) **\*
• NYJ +9.5 (2.2u to win 2u) **\*
• DAL ml (1u to win 1.2u) **\*
• I have many more plays that are going out to my subscribers. Most of them are the props I found +EV. The targeted games are DET/JAX, ATL/MIN, CLE/PIT, AND AZ/DAL.

Parlays (2-11, -14.09u)

• CLE HT ml/FT ml, BAL ml, IND ml (2u to win 11.22u) **\*
• WAS 1h +1.5, BAL ml, DET ml, IND ml (2.5u to win 9.9u)
• DET ml, WAS ml, TBml (0u to win 57.57u) SugarHouse had a deposit promo this weekend. This is the FreeBet from that promo.
• HOU +7.5, CIN +8.5, CLE/PIT 44.5 OVER, NYJ +10.5 (5u to win 42.16u) 50% Odds Boost on this one
• BAL ml, DET ml (3.2u to win 3u)

Teasers (1-4, +23.85u)

• WAS +7.5, CLE +9.5, HOU +10, DAL +7.5 (4.5u to win 10u)
• WAS +7.5, CLE +9.5, HOU +10, DAL +7.5, NE -1, TB +8, DET +3.5, NE -1 (3u to win 21u)

BBDLS (0-27, -22.57u)

• We have another 7 of these rocking for a total of 6.42u wagered.

I enjoyed writing up and seeing positive feedback from this post so I decided to write up about an interesting prop bet that came from the 2+2 poker forums that I feel went under the radar. It's way longer than I thought it would be but this story has it all: large amounts of money being bet, furious grinding, 25 buy in swings, community outrage and Doug Polk.

The Site

The modern cash game grinder may be surprised to hear that there used to be a Sharkscope style tracking website for online cash games, it was called PokerTableRatings or PTR. It tracked hands fairly accurately. Today, it doesn’t exist and has been shut down for years but it was a valuable resource for grinders and having one browser open to check out opponents was useful. PTR showed your graph and win rates at different stakes, it also had an achievement system. Some achievements were serious like ‘1 Million Dollars In Profit’ and some were less serious like ‘Check Raise 3 Times In A Hand’. One coveted achievement given by PTR was the ‘Ultimate Grinder’. This was given to the most profitable player each month at each stake, this was all tracked on the Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard. So for example: if you are the top of the leaderboard for 50NL in December 2008, you will receive the ‘Ultimate Grinder December 50nl 2008’ badge on your PTR profile.

The Bets

The year is 2010. Johnathon Duhamel has won the WSOP Main Event. Poker, especially online poker is still booming. The grinders are plentiful. The fish are more plentiful. Posts flow on 2+2 like wine.
Enter Silent_0ne. He puts out a proposition bet on BBV (Beats, Brags and Variance: a subforum of 2+2 which is the precursor to Poker’s weekly BBV thread). Back in the golden days of online poker and 2+2 it was common for large prop bets to be made on BBV. Silent_0ne’s prop bet is he will be the ultimate grinder for December 2010 at 100nl. No easy feat, the previous months' ultimate grinders had won between $12k-18k and Silent_0ne claimed to have never played more than 10 tables or ever played on Pokerstars. The odds were set at 6:1 odds in Silent’s_0ne’s favour. Jalexand42 was selected to be the escrow and judge of this prop bet, so he will be the middleman for the money and he will arbitrate any disputes. The rules were set down covered many different situations. The judge was confident of this:

Jalexand42: Just a quick note about the judging... I'm optimistic there won't be any controversy in this bet the way the rules have been defined. (#83)

He would turn out to be so wrong.
Many 2+2 posters weighed their opinions in and started to place bets:

Chicago Joey (Joey Ingram): damn that is going to be interesting for a bunch of reasons(#46)
Canoodles: If I was OP, I wouldn't take this for less than 100-1. (#18)
Chinz: Settling for 6-1 and doing it on December when lots of SNE chasers are playing really high volume... You don't seem to like money. (#218)

Nearly all the posters doubted Silent_0ne but he seemed confident and Jalexand42 started collecting money.
By the 28th November, with 3 days to go until the challenge begins the bets were placed and finalized, 14 people put up between $600-$3k. Silent_0ne stood to gain $67,500 or lose $11,250 from the bet alone. In just a few days he would put himself at the mercy of variance and would dedicate himself to destroying 100nl. If he overcomes this challenging month, he stood to win a significant amount of money.

The Play

December the first rolled in and Silent_0ne starting playing. It was a rocky start for him, he finished day two down more than $2k and received comments from 2+2 posters like:

ChicagoJoey [Joey Ingram]: lol trainwreck (#392)
MinSixBet: are you still taking action? (#399)

But some posters really believed in him and were rooting hard:

Eaglesfan1: Forget about the leaderboard and focus on your game and playing ur best. (#406)

However things got worse and Silent_one seemed to be losing hope, on day 4 he posted this:

Silent_0ne: just got owned
bad rly bad "hero call" for big pot
set of 8s < set of As
KK < AK
bad river bluff shove
set of 6s < str
10s < Js
AK < AA
AK on AK6 board < 66
AA < 99 on 974 board
^ all greater than 200 big blind pots
could have prevented half of those if I didnt suck so much (#410)

Day 5 and Silent_0ne was doing better but was down a few buy ins, still far behind his target. Remember, he needs to be number one in profit in the massive 2010 pool of 100nl Pokerstars players. He posted this astonishing hand:
Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 9 players

Silent_0ne: $568.55 UTG+1: $444.30 UTG+2: $519.10 MP1: $226.75 Hero (MP2): $257.70 CO: $250.00 BTN: $100.00 SB: $257.70 BB: $120.90
Pre Flop: ($3.30) Silent_0ne is MP2 with 9h9c
Silent_0ne raises to $4.80, UTG+1 raises to $18.60, 1 fold, MP1 calls $18.60, 5 folds, Silent_0ne calls $13.80
Flop: ($59.10) 2h8s5s(3 players)
Silent_0ne checks, UTG+1 bets $32, MP1 folds, Silent_0ne raises to $92, UTG+1 calls $60
Turn: ($243.10) Kc (2 players)
Silent_0ne checks, UTG+1 checks
River: ($243.10) 4s (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $127, UTG+1 raises to $333.50 all in, Silent_0ne calls $206.50
Final Pot: $910.10
Silent_0ne shows 9h9c (a pair of Nines)
UTG+1 shows 9dJc (high card King)
Silent_0ne wins $907.10

As you can see, 2010 was truly an amazing place for online poker.
Silent_0ne was bringing out his inner grinder and was playing 16 hour sessions and seeing huge swings in the first week. Day 7 and he posted some hands that shocked the community and his growing fan base:

DPred123: wtf at those HHs. (#520)
Transa: LoLolLololooLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL (#521)

Here are two of the hands he posted:

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 9 players
Pre Flop: ($3.30) MP1: $365.20 Hero (CO): $342.35 Silent_0ne is CO with 7s7d
3 folds, MP1 raises to $4, 1 fold, Silent_0ne raises to $15.50, 3 folds, MP1 raises to $41.90, Silent_0ne raises to $342.15 all in, MP1 calls $300.25
Flop: ($687.60) ThKc6s(2 players - 1 is all in)
Turn: ($687.60) Ts (2 players - 1 is all in)
River: ($687.60) 2h (2 players - 1 is all in)
Final Pot: $687.60
MP1 shows AcAh (two pair, Aces and Tens)

and:

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 3 players
BTN: $656.85 Silent_0ne(SB): $288.00 BB: $345.00
Pre Flop: ($2.10) Silent_0ne is SB with 4d4h
BTN raises to $3, Silent_0ne raises to $12, 1 fold, BTN calls $9
Flop: ($25.60) 3h6d5s(2 players)
Silent_0ne checks, BTN bets $18, Silent_0ne raises to $275.80 all in, BTN calls $257.80
Turn: ($577.20) Js (2 players - 1 is all in)
River: ($577.20) 9c (2 players - 1 is all in)
Final Pot: $577.20
BTN shows 3d5d (two pair, Fives and Threes)
Hero Silent_0ne 4h4h (a pair of Fours)
BTN wins $576.20

Silent_0ne explained:

Silent_0ne: barely ate anything last few days. i just get up and play, dont prepare anything. im playing right now btw. down around 2700$ for the month. im really dumb for spewing off 3k+ just cause i was tilted/ran bad, and snapped. another problem that people overlook is the extra attention i get at the tables for doing this prop bet. lots of regs can exploit my plays and then all tend to focus on owning me. (#554)

Silent_0ne had started the month on a $3k downswing, then won $2.5k before going on another $3k downswing in just one week. He must have felt desperate as after an hour and a half Silent_0ne had an idea and events took a shocking turn:

Silent_0ne: any interested if i give up 100nl and start tomorrow on day 7 at 50nl to try and get the badge there for 6 to 1. i wanna gamble and break even on the month, so im willing to put up 5k on this if any1 is interested? (#570)

This new bet must have seemed too good to be true. At this point he had been relentlessly grinding 100nl for a week, was losing badly, he was tilting, was likely playing more tables than he can handle and he’s a week behind getting to the top of the 50nl leaderboard. The bets started to pour in and within an hour he had 7 people place action. The community commented:

Absurd: This is adsurd (#601)
jalexand42: Seriously, take a day to cool off. (#599)
King Fish: I'd be interested but highly advise you to reconsider this and maybe take an hour and step back. Edit: will take $1800 to your $300 assuming same judge and escrow. (#574)
loK2thabrain: I call dibs on first bet when he moves down to win the 25nl badge. (#700)

Everyone on the thread couldn’t believe what they reading, However, Silent_0ne seemed to accept that the 100nl bet was dead and he wasn’t getting the $67k prop bet win. He was willing to pay the $11k out and enter a new prop bet. Now, being the Ultimate Grinder at 50nl is his goal. Again, the bets were substantial and he had 8:1 odds in his favour for being the Ultimate Grinder for December at 50nl. The same day he made the new bet, he started at 50nl and was off.

The New Bet

Enter Fees. Fees is the 2+2 username of Ryan Fee (Currently on Team Upswing), at this point he was known for being a fearsome 2000nl grinder and writing Ryan Fee’s 6 max guide, which he distributed for free. In a world where succinct and good poker strategy was hard to come by, this was a valuable guide for many players. He takes interest in the thread on the 7th of December:

Fees i'll take all the action, PM me (#746)

Fees booked action late and the details of this booking were not listed in the thread. The next day, Fees acts a question about the rules:

Fees: what if kerpowski or jeffmet wins the ugl and he gets second? (#878)

Kerpowski and Jeffmet are players who took action against Silent_0ne. They are also 50/100nl grinders. The case of fellow grinders taking action was covered in the rules. A poster quotes the rules and informs Fees that they have to be existing 50nl/100nl grinders. Fees then asks the following question:

Fees: i think that implies at the same tables as him, but what if they just play completely different games and just win the ugl?

Remember these probing questions, they’ll become relevant later.
By the 10th of December things looked tough for Silent_0ne, the player of the top of the 50nl leaderboard was already at $2.5k profit (50 buy ins). Silent_0ne was up $1.1k and estimated he was only 2-3 days behind pace. By the 12th of December he was still playing brutally long sessions:

Silent_0ne: just finished 11 hour session, too tired to post anything, ill go to bed for a couple hours then post graphs/hands when i wake up. was tilted throughout entire session, played 12k hands...eyes burn...ran bad for once (6 buyins below ev)

He also posted eight hands that looked pretty spewy, here is one of them:

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em $0.10 Ante - 5 players BB: $50.00 UTG: $103.40 CO: $137.65 BTN: $133.00 Silent_0ne (SB): $144.60
Pre Flop: ($1.25) Hero is SB with AdQh
1 fold, CO raises to $1.50, BTN calls $1.50, Silent_0ne calls $1.25, BB calls $1
Flop: ($6.50) 6c6d6s(4 players)
Silent_0ne checks, BB checks, CO bets $4, BTN folds, Silent_0ne raises to $14.75, BB folds, CO calls $10.75
Turn: ($36.00) 8h (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $25.75, CO calls $25.75
River: ($87.50) 4d (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $102.50 all in, CO calls $95.55 all in
Final Pot: $278.60
CO shows JdJc (a full house, Sixes full of Jacks)
Silent_0ne shows AdQh (three of a kind, Sixes)
CO wins $276.60

Even people taking action against him gave him advice:

King Fish: I am speechless … It's NL50. Stop trying to get so fancy. (#1038)

But then, Silent_0ne has an explosive session and is up an incredible $2800 in one day, that’s 56 buy ins! The posters go wild as he moves into 3rd place on the 50nl Ultimate Grinder leaderboard:

1. vaike $3,142, 19.38 Hands BB/100
   
2. zzn1980 $2,833, 2.46 Hands BB/100
   
3. Silent_0ne69 $2,634, 5.19 Hands B/100
   

For the first time people are starting to believe that he can do this.
Fast forward to the next day, December 13th and with another miraculous winning session he reaches number one on the leaderboard. He has $3.4k profit at 50nl and number two is close behind with $3.1k, if he can maintain his win rate of 6b/100 hands then he should have a very real chance of making an incredible comeback.
14th December. Fees posts:

Fees: still taking action, I want 2:1

Despite Silent_0ne being top of the leaderboard when he posted this and Fees already buying action Fees seemed willing to take 2:1 in Silent_0ne’s favour.
Soon after, a poster in the thread reveals that:

tightmaniac: fees is 4th

It is revealed that Fees who is normally a 2000nl player is playing 50nl HU and is 4th on the leaderboard. HU 50nl still counts towards the 50nl leaderboard. With the higher rate of hands of HU, bigger winrates of HU and Fees' skill, it could mean he would soon reach the top of the leaderboard. 10 minutes after TightManic’s post Fees lowers his odds:

Fees: Looking to take action on this at 1:1 (#1180)

The judge weighs in:

Jalexand42: If fees' didn't disclose this to whoever has his action, it's obviously pretty questionable, although that probably should have been asked. As far as the prop bet tho, I specifically asked Silent whether HU players should be included/excluded and he said included. The rules clearly don't exclude some random player from dropping down and playing $50nl (or $100nl for the original bet). They DO clearly state that people who bet against Silent one as part of the prop bet are NOT allowed to interfere with the bet, but I don't have anything to do with whatever side action fees may have on this. I told kerpowski last night that I didn't want him to play HU to try to win the badge, since I felt like it was a gray area in the intent of the rules (since he obviously doesn't normally play those stakes).
Kind of sucks for OP if this is going on, but I can't really change the rules after it's started since that would affect the people that bet against Silent. (#1196)

As of the 15 December Silent_0ne was still top of the board with $4.4k and most posters were expressing their displeasure if Fees were to continue playing 50nl. Silent_0ne drops this bombshell:

Silent_0ne: ‘2. Actions must be in accordance with the intent of having a fair prop bet. No actions (chip dumping, collusion, ghosting/coaching players on Silent_0ne's tables, etc) can be taken with the intent to affect the outcome of the prop bet. Violations will result in the violator's action being forfeited and may result in additional modification/extention to neutralize the interference.’ [Silent_0ne is quoting the rules here.] ‘The spirit of the bet is that OP is competing against players who 'really' play NL100, both ring and heads up.’
I know a friend of Fees and his friend said he was legit and everything. alittle after the bet started and action was full, fees approached me and my friend about taking additional action at 10 to 1. my friend and I took an additional 2.5k to his 25k and escrowed to wcgrider. the bet was under the assumption that the same rules as the 100nl bet were going to be used, and whatever the judge decides would be final.
so given the quotes above, it is against the rules that someone betting against me should also be able to compete against me given that he does not regularly play at 50nl (he plays 6max 2knl and WON the UGL badge last month at that stake) also, im not allowed to play 50nl HU which is really fishy and easy to win the UGL badge at if you put in enough volume.
regardless of if fees action is with Jalex or not, i think the same rules apply, because he is not a regular at the stakes and he accepted the same rules when making the bet with my friend and I going to eat something then start up a grind session, hopefully I continue to crush and run good, though my heart has sunk when I looked at fees in forth, and I feel ill and tilted (#1205)

Silent_0ne posted that he did a deal, off with main thread with 10 to 1 odds (Fees betting $25k to Silent_0ne’s $2.5k that Silent_0ne will win ultimate grinder 50nl) with Fees and that WCGRider (Doug Polk, currently of Upswing Poker and poker Youtube fame) is the escrow, not Jalexand42. Most posters now seem outraged:

King Fish: Wow what an angle shoot by Fees on this. This does help define the measure of what type of person he is that he is even attempting it. (#1207)
Tumaterminator: sickest hustle ever. (#1210)
kp1022: wait, doeboyfre$h is fees?
he sat me in 50nl HU a few days ago FWIW
after PTR'ing him , i asked why was he playing so low? he replied, "busto" (#1234)

Some of the posters were trying to play Fees at the 50nl in attempt to slow down his winning streak and tell Fees that he is breaking the rules. Silent_0ne expressed his displeasure and downed mental state:

Silent_0ne: this is horrible. im going to start my first grind right now. imo what fees is doing is against the rules and is unfair. i really hope i dont lose alot right now, but im in a pretty poor emotional state
please whoever is decent, sit it up with fees and discouarge him to continue what hes doing. 2knl player won badge last month, makes big bet against me and decides to compete for 50nl badge against me... (#1267)

For the first time in a few days Fees posts:

Fees: Hey,
Just to clear a few things up,

1. I haven't broken any rules, there isn't a rule that explicitly states that I cannot win the UGL.
2. I'm not trying to scam/do anything shady/etc, when I made the bet I posted in this thread asking if a bettor could win the UGL […] anyway I'm going to try and win the 50nl UGL this month... I haven't done anything wrong and there is nothing wrong with me going for it.

Then, an enflamed debate about the rules erupts, almost every poster is furious at Fees

Silent_0ne: had a conversation with WCGRider over the phone. the assumption was that jalex is the judge of this bet, and his word is final. WCGRider is simply just an escrow. fees and I agreed on the rules of the bet and having jalex of the judge. #1352

Then WCGRider (Doug Polk) posts for the first time:

WCGRider: Wanted to make a quick post here because i talked to colin earlier about this and i want to clear up a few things.
First off, I was never told i was going to be an escrow. I literally woke up with colins [Silent_0ne] money in my account. I was never asked anything, I was never told anything, I just was sent the money and thats it.
So now im being brought into this to make a decision, which i dont think really is fair. I haven't read any of this thread, I haven't read the rules. Also, fees has to be one of my best friends here in las vegas, and I want that to be clear before i give my opinion about this. I think its sort of unfair that i get put into this situation.

jalexand42 then posts his judgment in a lengthy post (#1526) but I believe this excerpt sums it up:

jalexand42: So, while it is not UNFAIR of fees to be playing $50nl, he has CLEARLY taken actions that will influence the outcome of the bet IF he wins the UGL for $50nl for December. Fees would clearly NOT be playing $50nl (and in fact is still playing his normal stakes) if he didn't have action on this bet. Fees also clearly understood this was a questionable area with regard to the rules based on his posts in this thread and he did not clarify it with the judge. He posts also indicate clearly that he felt he was subject to the rules. Therefore, I rule that Fees' standing on the UGL for December WILL BE IGNORED for purposes of determining this bet if he wins.

Many posters praise Jalexand42. But Jalexand42 does not have the money from the sidebet between Silent_0ne and Fees. WCGrider does. Silent_0ne gives his piece of mind and a quick poker update:

Silent_0ne: yes, i agree with this [Jalexand42's judgment].
also, fees can keep the 25k in the bet without any forfiet. im just really happy things worked out okay.
however i probably should have read this before my session I just played. probably wouldnt have spewed as much at the endodays been my worst day since the start of the 50nl bet so far. gonna play 1 more session later tonight and going to be in alot better and focused mood (#1561)

Then, another bombshell drops, a friend of WCRrider’s reveals that Fees didn’t even escrow his money to Doug:
theskillzdatklls: Afaik, Fees did not ship his $25k share to Doug, only Colin [Silent_0ne] sent his part. (#1669)
2+2 reacts:

Handbaggio: LOL wtf, fees hasn't escrowed his bet??? (#1676)
rnb0sprnkles: LOL and when I thought the drama was starting to die down, the thread gets even crazier (#1698)

Jalexand42 has a conversation with WCGRider to reach an agreement and reports:

Jalexand42: Okay, so here's the summary of my conversation with WCGRider:

1. He is only holding Silent & the_most's action, $2,500.
   
2. He did talk to Fees. Fees told him he was going to talk to Colin [Silent_0ne] today and 'hopes to work out something reasonable'.
   
3. I asked what that means, he said he didn't feel like he could tell me, because he felt like what Fees told him was as a friend, but that it sounded fair in WCGRider's opinion.
   
4. WCGRider said he thought my decision making sounded reasonable.
   
5. WCGrider said that noone told him what to do, so he figured he was just holding on to Silent's money.
   
6. I told WCGrider I was willing for him to ship me the $2.5k now if he was feeling uncomfortable, he said he'd wait to see what Silent & Fees work out. ( #1703)
   

Back to actual poker and Silent_0ne reports a bad losing session on the 16th December citing all the ongoing drama:

Silent_0ne: 22 buyin downswing im playing really bad right now, and I really wish I didn't have to think about and deal with all these other problems.

The community are rooting really hard to him at this point and are all telling him to stay strong. Things start to get messy when Jalexand42 speaks with WCGRider and Fees and in a long post ( #1957) said that WCGRider protested his participation was unfair and Jalexand42 accused him of not of not already sending the $25k to Jalexand42. Fees also tried to offer Silent_0ne a $1k buy out saying it was ‘super generous’, it was refused. Silent_0ne states that the reason fees doesn't want his money escrowed by Jalexand42 is that he is afraid that his bet will be forfeited due to breaking the rules. WCGRider chimed in to defend himself (he also spoke about playing 50nl-100nl and having a rough year, which is interesting as he developed into the top HU player for a time and couldn’t get action, even at the highest stakes.) The 2+2 community then debate and lightly harass WCGRider and Fees to concede and send the money to Jalexand42. Fees finally agrees to a 50% buyout.

The Outcome

On the 17th of December and Silent_0ne slips to number 2 on the leaderboards.

1. vaike $3,835 ,17.44BB/100
   
2. Silent_0ne69 $3,523, 4.25BB/100
   

Silent_0ne then makes a post that changes everything:

Silent_0ne : Hello everyone
firstly, I would like to say thank you so much to everyone who supported me throughout this bet. i cant stress how much it meant to me to see any post wishing me goodluck, or someone pming me given me some life lessons and more encouragement.
ive been approached by the bettors on numerous occasions regarding a buyout. the original buyout deal offered was 33%. eventually 37% was offered, and then 44%, and finally I agreed on 50% of total wagers from all 6 bettors as their buyout.
I am not really satisfied with a buyout, and I was not the one originally looking for the buyout. the bettors wanted it and I decided to see what they had to offer. what I wanted was time to spend with friends and family throughout the christmas break. With continuing this bet, I do have alot of confidence of accomplishing it, but at the expense of isolation through one of the most special times of each year. My family was mad at me when I tried explaining to them I probably wouldn't be able to particpate in any family events and have much if any celebration of christmas.
my goal the next 14 days was to just grind it out 10 hours each day with breaks inbetween, and sleep. Instead I will be able to go back to my regular, stress free grinding, and shipping 50% of the total wagers after half the month as gone by. In the end, including both the 100nl and 50nl prop bets, I made a net of roughly +20k. The other two options would be risking a net of -20k or a net of +60k. I took the variance free route, and all the bettors did the same thing. None of us wanted to lose the bet obviously, so I think we worked out a fair resolution with this buyout.
I have no hard feelings against fees or wcg rider. Perhaps a different scenerio would have occured if the recent issues did not occur, but thats in the past now and i'm looking forwards to a postive future. (#2511)

So, in the end all the parties involved reached a buyout agreement on the 50nl prop bet. Silent_0ne would stop playing the 50nl prop bet and would be up $20k. The community replies:

Ditch Digger: Silent, nice job. 50% is more than reasonable. (#2516)
kelnel: gg on +20k, u rocked!! (#2520)
shhhnake_eyes: I call this the most anticlimactic finish ever. (#2522)

Link to original thread.
Note: Please note I’ve tried to be impartial in writing this. Please let me know publicly or privately if there are any errors or you feel I misrepresented something or someone. The quotes I’ve included don’t always show the full post made but I’ve included the post number in each quote so you can read it on 2+2 in full context. If you want to be fully informed you should read the whole 2+2 thread.

Alright, guys, it's been about a week since the post I made about the federal repo market. It garnered a lot of attention and interest. Since then, we've moved very quickly and have mobilized a team of some 35-odd people to run analysis on... well, everything.
Somehow, we managed to conscript a WSB user with a Bloomberg, and we've been scraping data on foreign banks for analysis. This morning, this post was brought to our attention and we've switched focus to identifying banks with ABS exposure. So far, we've found a few names with massive (and I mean massive) amounts of exposure to poorly rated ABS pools (CCC or lower). Allianz has exposure to the tune of 20% of their total ABS involvement. It's nuts.
We're not going to post any tickers yet, but we're tracking the virus and trying to predict manufacturing and retail/service disruptions in Europe and in the US. These disruptions are likely to lead to credit defaults across the world. Now, as noted in the post above, these debts have been packaged, leveraged, and resold to various banking institutions. They've been used as collateral in repo transactions (which is why we saw the interbank repo spike last year).
The reason why the Fed is pumping cash through the PDBs is because Jamie Dimon has Powell's balls in a vice. Large US banks are holding enormous fucking bags right now that are growing bigger by the day. They likely have an excellent exit strategy in place, so they're not going to fail - in fact, they'll probably profit off of it. However, as soon as the Fed runs out of credit to extend, a lot of these SBS are going to fail.
Basically, as predicted in both my post and the one I've linked above, the international banking system is direly at risk. You're not going to lose by shorting the world right now, but we're still working on providing a list of specific tickers to drive to 0. This is The Big Short 2.0, fellas; the difference is that it's corporate bonds this time instead of mortgages.
We have a GitHub that's open to the public (for viewing) where you can find some of our research. At the behest of u/theycallmeryan, we'll continue posting updates as new information comes in. What we can tell you right now, though, is that these past few weeks are just foreplay. The real selloff has yet to come. Bear game engage; load up on puts, gents.

I wrote this article on poker and I thought it would go down well here, it has some online poker hand histories and some poker lingo but it’s not vital to the story. The post is pretty long but it’s got it all: large amounts of money being bet, degenerate behavior and community outrage in the world of online poker. To give some context, poker was and still is taken very seriously by many people. Some of these poker players are professional players and some are professional players online. Online poker was very popular between ‘The Poker Boom’ of 2003 and ‘Black Friday’ of 2011 and serious money could be made with hard work, careful money management and discipline. It was (and still could be) possible to achieve winrates of $20-300+ an hour. The 2+2 Poker forums were incredibly popular during these times; the following post chronicles a proposition bet on the 2+2 forums. A proposition bet is where someone takes bets on the likelihood of them completing a task.

Here’s a quick glossary:

Buy in: The normal amount of money that you buy in for in a poker cash game
50nl/100nl: The way to describe online stakes. 50nl means the big blind is 50 cents and that the normal buy in is for $50, $100nl means the big blind is $1 and the normal buy in is $100.
HU: Heads up, this means just two players in a hand. It’s considered to be a skillful and difficult form of poker
Escrow: A third party who takes care of cash in a bet or trade. They should only move cash as agreed by both sides or the rules set.
Grinder: Some who plays a large volume of hands. Usually a serious player. If they play online, they may play 4-12 tables of poker at once.
Fish: A weaker poker player

The Site

The modern cash game grinder may be surprised to hear that there used to be a Sharkscope style tracking website for online cash games, it was called PokerTableRatings or PTR. It tracked hands fairly accurately. Today, it doesn’t exist and has been shut down for years but it was a valuable resource for grinders and having one browser open to check out opponents was useful. PTR showed your graph and win rates at different stakes, it also had an achievement system. Some achievements were serious like ‘1 Million Dollars In Profit’ and some were less serious like ‘Check Raise 3 Times In A Hand’. One coveted achievement given by PTR was the ‘Ultimate Grinder’. This was given to the most profitable player each month at each stake, this was all tracked on the Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard. So for example: if you are the top of the leaderboard for 50NL in December 2008, you will receive the ‘Ultimate Grinder December 50nl 2008’ badge on your PTR profile.

The Bets

The year is 2010. Johnathon Duhamel has won the WSOP Main Event. Poker, especially online poker is still booming. The grinders are plentiful. The fish are more plentiful. Posts flow on 2+2 like wine.
Enter Silent_0ne. He puts out a proposition bet on BBV (Beats, Brags and Variance: a subforum of 2+2 which is the precursor to Poker’s weekly BBV thread). Back in the golden days of online poker and 2+2 it was common for large prop bets to be made on BBV. Silent_0ne’s prop bet is he will be the ultimate grinder for December 2010 at 100nl. No easy feat, the previous months' ultimate grinders had won between $12k-18k and Silent_0ne claimed to have never played more than 10 tables or ever played on Pokerstars. The odds were set at 6:1 odds in Silent’s_0ne’s favour. Jalexand42 was selected to be the escrow and judge of this prop bet, so he will be the middleman for the money and he will arbitrate any disputes. The rules were set down covered many different situations. The judge was confident of this:

Jalexand42: Just a quick note about the judging... I'm optimistic there won't be any controversy in this bet the way the rules have been defined. (#83)

He would turn out to be so wrong.
Many 2+2 posters weighed their opinions in and started to place bets:

Chicago Joey (Joey Ingram): damn that is going to be interesting for a bunch of reasons(#46)
Canoodles: If I was OP, I wouldn't take this for less than 100-1. (#18)
Chinz: Settling for 6-1 and doing it on December when lots of SNE chasers are playing really high volume... You don't seem to like money. (#218)

Nearly all the posters doubted Silent_0ne but he seemed confident and Jalexand42 started collecting money.
By the 28th November, with 3 days to go until the challenge begins the bets were placed and finalized, 14 people put up between $600-$3k. Silent_0ne stood to gain $67,500 or lose $11,250 from the bet alone. In just a few days he would put himself at the mercy of variance and would dedicate himself to destroying 100nl. If he overcomes this challenging month, he stood to win a significant amount of money.

The Play

December the first rolled in and Silent_0ne starting playing. It was a rocky start for him, he finished day two down more than $2k and received comments from 2+2 posters like:

ChicagoJoey [Joey Ingram]: lol trainwreck (#392)
MinSixBet: are you still taking action? (#399)

But some posters really believed in him and were rooting hard:

Eaglesfan1: Forget about the leaderboard and focus on your game and playing ur best. (#406)

However things got worse and Silent_one seemed to be losing hope, on day 4 he posted this:

Silent_0ne: just got owned
bad rly bad "hero call" for big pot
set of 8s < set of As
KK < AK
bad river bluff shove
set of 6s < str
10s < Js
AK < AA
AK on AK6 board < 66
AA < 99 on 974 board
^ all greater than 200 big blind pots
could have prevented half of those if I didnt suck so much (#410)

Day 5 and Silent_0ne was doing better but was down a few buy ins, still far behind his target. Remember, he needs to be number one in profit in the massive 2010 pool of 100nl Pokerstars players. He posted this astonishing hand:
Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 9 players

Silent_0ne: $568.55 UTG+1: $444.30 UTG+2: $519.10 MP1: $226.75 Hero (MP2): $257.70 CO: $250.00 BTN: $100.00 SB: $257.70 BB: $120.90
Pre Flop: ($3.30) Silent_0ne is MP2 with 9h9c
Silent_0ne raises to $4.80, UTG+1 raises to $18.60, 1 fold, MP1 calls $18.60, 5 folds, Silent_0ne calls $13.80
Flop: ($59.10) 2h8s5s(3 players)
Silent_0ne checks, UTG+1 bets $32, MP1 folds, Silent_0ne raises to $92, UTG+1 calls $60
Turn: ($243.10) Kc (2 players)
Silent_0ne checks, UTG+1 checks
River: ($243.10) 4s (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $127, UTG+1 raises to $333.50 all in, Silent_0ne calls $206.50
Final Pot: $910.10
Silent_0ne shows 9h9c (a pair of Nines)
UTG+1 shows 9dJc (high card King)
Silent_0ne wins $907.10

As you can see, 2010 was truly an amazing place for online poker.
Silent_0ne was bringing out his inner grinder and was playing 16 hour sessions and seeing huge swings in the first week. Day 7 and he posted some hands that shocked the community and his growing fan base:

DPred123: wtf at those HHs. (#520)
Transa: LoLolLololooLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL (#521)

Here are two of the hands he posted:

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 9 players
Pre Flop: ($3.30) MP1: $365.20 Hero (CO): $342.35 Silent_0ne is CO with 7s7d
3 folds, MP1 raises to $4, 1 fold, Silent_0ne raises to $15.50, 3 folds, MP1 raises to $41.90, Silent_0ne raises to $342.15 all in, MP1 calls $300.25
Flop: ($687.60) ThKc6s(2 players - 1 is all in)
Turn: ($687.60) Ts
River: ($687.60) 2h (2 players - 1 is all in)
Final Pot: $687.60
MP1 shows AcAh (two pair, Aces and Tens)

and:

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 3 players
BTN: $656.85 Silent_0ne(SB): $288.00 BB: $345.00
Pre Flop: ($2.10) Silent_0ne is SB with 4d4h
BTN raises to $3, Silent_0ne raises to $12, 1 fold, BTN calls $9
Flop: ($25.60) 3h6d5s(2 players)
Silent_0ne checks, BTN bets $18, Silent_0ne raises to $275.80 all in, BTN calls $257.80
Turn: ($577.20) Js (2 players - 1 is all in)
River: ($577.20) 9c (2 players - 1 is all in)
Final Pot: $577.20
BTN shows 3d5d (two pair, Fives and Threes)
Hero Silent_0ne 4h4h (a pair of Fours)
BTN wins $576.20

Silent_0ne explained:

Silent_0ne: barely ate anything last few days. i just get up and play, dont prepare anything. im playing right now btw. down around 2700$ for the month. im really dumb for spewing off 3k+ just cause i was tilted/ran bad, and snapped. another problem that people overlook is the extra attention i get at the tables for doing this prop bet. lots of regs can exploit my plays and then all tend to focus on owning me. (#554)

Silent_0ne had started the month on a $3k downswing, then won $2.5k before going on another $3k downswing in just one week. He must have felt desperate as after an hour and a half Silent_0ne had an idea and events took a shocking turn:

Silent_0ne: any interested if i give up 100nl and start tomorrow on day 7 at 50nl to try and get the badge there for 6 to 1. i wanna gamble and break even on the month, so im willing to put up 5k on this if any1 is interested? (#570)

This new bet must have seemed too good to be true. At this point he had been relentlessly grinding 100nl for a week, was losing badly, he was tilting, was likely playing more tables than he can handle and he’s a week behind getting to the top of the 50nl leaderboard. The bets started to pour in and within an hour he had 7 people place action. The community commented:

Absurd: This is adsurd (#601)
jalexand42: Seriously, take a day to cool off. (#599)
King Fish: I'd be interested but highly advise you to reconsider this and maybe take an hour and step back. Edit: will take $1800 to your $300 assuming same judge and escrow. (#574)
loK2thabrain: I call dibs on first bet when he moves down to win the 25nl badge. (#700)

Everyone on the thread couldn’t believe what they reading, However, Silent_0ne seemed to accept that the 100nl bet was dead and he wasn’t getting the $67k prop bet win. He was willing to pay the $11k out and enter a new prop bet. Now, being the Ultimate Grinder at 50nl is his goal. Again, the bets were substantial and he had 8:1 odds in his favour for being the Ultimate Grinder for December at 50nl. The same day he made the new bet, he started at 50nl and was off.

The New Bet

Enter Fees. Fees is the 2+2 username of Ryan Fee (Currently on Team Upswing), at this point he was known for being a fearsome 2000nl grinder and writing Ryan Fee’s 6 max guide, which he distributed for free. In a world where succinct and good poker strategy was hard to come by, this was a valuable guide for many players. He takes interest in the thread on the 7th of December:

Fees i'll take all the action, PM me (#746)

Fees booked action late and the details of this booking were not listed in the thread. The next day, Fees acts a question about the rules:

Fees: what if kerpowski or jeffmet wins the ugl and he gets second? (#878)

Kerpowski and Jeffmet are players who took action against Silent_0ne. They are also 50/100nl grinders. The case of fellow grinders taking action was covered in the rules. A poster quotes the rules and informs Fees that they have to be existing 50nl/100nl grinders. Fees then asks the following question:

Fees: i think that implies at the same tables as him, but what if they just play completely different games and just win the ugl?

Remember these probing questions, they’ll become relevant later.
By the 10th of December things looked tough for Silent_0ne, the player of the top of the 50nl leaderboard was already at $2.5k profit (50 buy ins). Silent_0ne was up $1.1k and estimated he was only 2-3 days behind pace. By the 12th of December he was still playing brutally long sessions:

Silent_0ne: just finished 11 hour session, too tired to post anything, ill go to bed for a couple hours then post graphs/hands when i wake up. was tilted throughout entire session, played 12k hands...eyes burn...ran bad for once (6 buyins below ev)

He also posted eight hands that looked pretty spewy, here is one of them:

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em $0.10 Ante - 5 players BB: $50.00 UTG: $103.40 CO: $137.65 BTN: $133.00 Silent_0ne (SB): $144.60
Pre Flop: ($1.25) Hero is SB with AdQh
1 fold, CO raises to $1.50, BTN calls $1.50, Silent_0ne calls $1.25, BB calls $1
Flop: ($6.50) 6c6d6s(4 players)
Silent_0ne checks, BB checks, CO bets $4, BTN folds, Silent_0ne raises to $14.75, BB folds, CO calls $10.75
Turn: ($36.00) 8h (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $25.75, CO calls $25.75
River: ($87.50) 4d (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $102.50 all in, CO calls $95.55 all in
Final Pot: $278.60
CO shows JdJc (a full house, Sixes full of Jacks)
Silent_0ne shows AdQh (three of a kind, Sixes)
CO wins $276.60

Even people taking action against him gave him advice:

King Fish: I am speechless … It's NL50. Stop trying to get so fancy. (#1038)

But then, Silent_0ne has an explosive session and is up an incredible $2800 in one day, that’s 56 buy ins! The posters go wild as he moves into 3rd place on the 50nl Ultimate Grinder leaderboard:

1. vaike $3,142, 19.38 Hands BB/100
   
2. zzn1980 $2,833, 2.46 Hands BB/100
   
3. Silent_0ne69 $2,634, 5.19 Hands B/100
   

For the first time people are starting to believe that he can do this.
Fast forward to the next day, December 13th and with another miraculous winning session he reaches number one on the leaderboard. He has $3.4k profit at 50nl and number two is close behind with $3.1k, if he can maintain his win rate of 6b/100 hands then he should have a very real chance of making incredible comeback.
14th December. Fees posts:

Fees: still taking action, I want 2:1

Despite Silent_0ne being top of the leaderboard when he posted this and Fees already buying action Fees seemed willing to take 2:1 in Silent_0ne’s favour.
Soon after, a poster in the thread reveals that:

tightmaniac: fees is 4th

It is revealed that Fees who is normally a 2000nl player is playing 50nl HU and is 4th on the leaderboard. HU 50nl still counts towards the 50nl leaderboard. With the higher rate of hands of HU, bigger winrates of HU and Fees' skill, it could mean he would soon reach the top of the leaderboard. 10 minutes after TightManic’s post Fees lowers his odds:

Fees: Looking to take action on this at 1:1 (#1180)

The judge weighs in:

Jalexand42: If fees' didn't disclose this to whoever has his action, it's obviously pretty questionable, although that probably should have been asked. As far as the prop bet tho, I specifically asked Silent whether HU players should be included/excluded and he said included. The rules clearly don't exclude some random player from dropping down and playing $50nl (or $100nl for the original bet). They DO clearly state that people who bet against Silent one as part of the prop bet are NOT allowed to interfere with the bet, but I don't have anything to do with whatever side action fees may have on this. I told kerpowski last night that I didn't want him to play HU to try to win the badge, since I felt like it was a gray area in the intent of the rules (since he obviously doesn't normally play those stakes).
Kind of sucks for OP if this is going on, but I can't really change the rules after it's started since that would affect the people that bet against Silent. (#1196)

As of the 15 December Silent_0ne was still top of the board with $4.4k and most posters were expressing their displeasure if Fees were to continue playing 50nl. Silent_0ne drops this bombshell:

Silent_0ne: ‘2. Actions must be in accordance with the intent of having a fair prop bet. No actions (chip dumping, collusion, ghosting/coaching players on Silent_0ne's tables, etc) can be taken with the intent to affect the outcome of the prop bet. Violations will result in the violator's action being forfeited and may result in additional modification/extention to neutralize the interference.’ [Silent_0ne is quoting the rules here.] ‘The spirit of the bet is that OP is competing against players who 'really' play NL100, both ring and heads up.’
I know a friend of Fees and his friend said he was legit and everything. alittle after the bet started and action was full, fees approached me and my friend about taking additional action at 10 to 1. my friend and I took an additional 2.5k to his 25k and escrowed to wcgrider. the bet was under the assumption that the same rules as the 100nl bet were going to be used, and whatever the judge decides would be final.
so given the quotes above, it is against the rules that someone betting against me should also be able to compete against me given that he does not regularly play at 50nl (he plays 6max 2knl and WON the UGL badge last month at that stake) also, im not allowed to play 50nl HU which is really fishy and easy to win the UGL badge at if you put in enough volume.
regardless of if fees action is with Jalex or not, i think the same rules apply, because he is not a regular at the stakes and he accepted the same rules when making the bet with my friend and I going to eat something then start up a grind session, hopefully I continue to crush and run good, though my heart has sunk when I looked at fees in forth, and I feel ill and tilted (#1205)

Silent_0ne posted that he did a deal, off with main thread with 10 to 1 odds (Fees betting $25k to Silent_0ne’s $2.5k that Silent_0ne will win ultimate grinder 50nl) with Fees and that WCGRider (Doug Polk, currently of Upswing Poker and poker Youtube fame) is the escrow, not Jalexand42. Most posters now seem outraged:

King Fish: Wow what an angle shoot by Fees on this. This does help define the measure of what type of person he is that he is even attempting it. (#1207)
Tumaterminator: sickest hustle ever. (#1210)
kp1022: wait, doeboyfre$h is fees?
he sat me in 50nl HU a few days ago FWIW
after PTR'ing him , i asked why was he playing so low? he replied, "busto" (#1234)

Some of the posters were trying to play Fees at the 50nl in attempt to slow down his winning streak and tell Fees that he is breaking the rules. Silent_0ne expressed his displeasure and downed mental state:

Silent_0ne: this is horrible. im going to start my first grind right now. imo what fees is doing is against the rules and is unfair. i really hope i dont lose alot right now, but im in a pretty poor emotional state
please whoever is decent, sit it up with fees and discouarge him to continue what hes doing. 2knl player won badge last month, makes big bet against me and decides to compete for 50nl badge against me... (#1267)

For the first time in a few days Fees posts:

Fees: Hey,
Just to clear a few things up,

1. I haven't broken any rules, there isn't a rule that explicitly states that I cannot win the UGL.
2. I'm not trying to scam/do anything shady/etc, when I made the bet I posted in this thread asking if a bettor could win the UGL […] anyway I'm going to try and win the 50nl UGL this month... I haven't done anything wrong and there is nothing wrong with me going for it.

Then, an enflamed debate about the rules erupts, almost every poster is furious at Fees

Silent_0ne: had a conversation with WCGRider over the phone. the assumption was that jalex is the judge of this bet, and his word is final. WCGRider is simply just an escrow. fees and I agreed on the rules of the bet and having jalex of the judge. #1352

Then WCGRider (Doug Polk) posts for the first time:

WCGRider: Wanted to make a quick post here because i talked to colin earlier about this and i want to clear up a few things.
First off, I was never told i was going to be an escrow. I literally woke up with colins [Silent_0ne] money in my account. I was never asked anything, I was never told anything, I just was sent the money and thats it.
So now im being brought into this to make a decision, which i dont think really is fair. I haven't read any of this thread, I haven't read the rules. Also, fees has to be one of my best friends here in las vegas, and I want that to be clear before i give my opinion about this. I think its sort of unfair that i get put into this situation.

jalexand42 then posts his judgment in a lengthy post (#1526) but I believe this excerpt sums it up:

jalexand42: So, while it is not UNFAIR of fees to be playing $50nl, he has CLEARLY taken actions that will influence the outcome of the bet IF he wins the UGL for $50nl for December. Fees would clearly NOT be playing $50nl (and in fact is still playing his normal stakes) if he didn't have action on this bet. Fees also clearly understood this was a questionable area with regard to the rules based on his posts in this thread and he did not clarify it with the judge. He posts also indicate clearly that he felt he was subject to the rules. Therefore, I rule that Fees' standing on the UGL for December WILL BE IGNORED for purposes of determining this bet if he wins.

Many posters praise Jalexand42. But Jalexand42 does not have the money from the sidebet between Silent_0ne and Fees. WCGrider does. Silent_0ne gives his piece of mind and a quick poker update:

Silent_0ne: yes, i agree with this [Jalexand42's judgment].
also, fees can keep the 25k in the bet without any forfiet. im just really happy things worked out okay.
however i probably should have read this before my session I just played. probably wouldnt have spewed as much at the endodays been my worst day since the start of the 50nl bet so far. gonna play 1 more session later tonight and going to be in alot better and focused mood (#1561)

Then, another bombshell drops, a friend of WCRrider’s reveals that Fees didn’t even escrow his money to Doug:
theskillzdatklls: Afaik, Fees did not ship his $25k share to Doug, only Colin [Silent_0ne] sent his part. (#1669)
2+2 reacts:

Handbaggio: LOL wtf, fees hasn't escrowed his bet??? (#1676)
rnb0sprnkles: LOL and when I thought the drama was starting to die down, the thread gets even crazier (#1698)

Jalexand42 has a conversation with WCGRider to reach an agreement and reports:

Jalexand42: Okay, so here's the summary of my conversation with WCGRider:

1. He is only holding Silent & the_most's action, $2,500.
   
2. He did talk to Fees. Fees told him he was going to talk to Colin [Silent_0ne] today and 'hopes to work out something reasonable'.
   
3. I asked what that means, he said he didn't feel like he could tell me, because he felt like what Fees told him was as a friend, but that it sounded fair in WCGRider's opinion.
   
4. WCGRider said he thought my decision making sounded reasonable.
   
5. WCGrider said that noone told him what to do, so he figured he was just holding on to Silent's money.
   
6. I told WCGrider I was willing for him to ship me the $2.5k now if he was feeling uncomfortable, he said he'd wait to see what Silent & Fees work out. ( #1703)
   

Back to actual poker and Silent_0ne reports a bad losing session on the 16th December citing all the ongoing drama:

Silent_0ne: 22 buyin downswing im playing really bad right now, and I really wish I didn't have to think about and deal with all these other problems.

The community are rooting really hard to him at this point and are all telling him to stay strong. Things start to get messy when Jalexand42 speaks with WCGRider and Fees and in a long post ( #1957) said that WCGRider protested his participation was unfair and Jalexand42 accused him of not of not already sending the $25k to Jalexand42. Fees also tried to offer Silent_0ne a $1k buy out saying it was ‘super generous’, it was refused. Silent_0ne states that the reason fees doesn't want his money escrowed by Jalexand42 is that he is afraid that his bet will be forfeited due to breaking the rules. WCGRider chimed in to defend himself (he also spoke about playing 50nl-100nl and having a rough year, which is interesting as he developed into the top HU player for a time and couldn’t get action, even at the highest stakes.) The 2+2 community then debate and lightly harass WCGRider and Fees to concede and send the money to Jalexand42. Fees finally agrees to a 50% buyout.

The Outcome

On the 17th of December and Silent_0ne slips to number 2 on the leaderboards.

1. vaike $3,835 ,17.44BB/100
   
2. Silent_0ne69 $3,523, 4.25BB/100
   

Silent_0ne then makes a post that changes everything:

Silent_0ne : Hello everyone
firstly, I would like to say thank you so much to everyone who supported me throughout this bet. i cant stress how much it meant to me to see any post wishing me goodluck, or someone pming me given me some life lessons and more encouragement.
ive been approached by the bettors on numerous occasions regarding a buyout. the original buyout deal offered was 33%. eventually 37% was offered, and then 44%, and finally I agreed on 50% of total wagers from all 6 bettors as their buyout.
I am not really satisfied with a buyout, and I was not the one originally looking for the buyout. the bettors wanted it and I decided to see what they had to offer. what I wanted was time to spend with friends and family throughout the christmas break. With continuing this bet, I do have alot of confidence of accomplishing it, but at the expense of isolation through one of the most special times of each year. My family was mad at me when I tried explaining to them I probably wouldn't be able to particpate in any family events and have much if any celebration of christmas.
my goal the next 14 days was to just grind it out 10 hours each day with breaks inbetween, and sleep. Instead I will be able to go back to my regular, stress free grinding, and shipping 50% of the total wagers after half the month as gone by. In the end, including both the 100nl and 50nl prop bets, I made a net of roughly +20k. The other two options would be risking a net of -20k or a net of +60k. I took the variance free route, and all the bettors did the same thing. None of us wanted to lose the bet obviously, so I think we worked out a fair resolution with this buyout.
I have no hard feelings against fees or wcg rider. Perhaps a different scenerio would have occured if the recent issues did not occur, but thats in the past now and i'm looking forwards to a postive future. (#2511)

So, in the end all the parties involved reached a buyout agreement on the 50nl prop bet. Silent_0ne would stop playing the 50nl prop bet and would be up $20k. The community replies:

Ditch Digger: Silent, nice job. 50% is more than reasonable. (#2516)
kelnel: gg on +20k, u rocked!! (#2520)
shhhnake_eyes: I call this the most anticlimactic finish ever. (#2522)

Link to original thread.

Hello, Reddit! First of all, a little introduction: my name is Vinícius Agliardi Karam, but I’m probably better known as “Mortadela” (both IRL and on MTGO). I’m from Brazil and I’ve been playing Magic for almost 10 years (since I was around 13). I had my first breakthrough at PT Journey Into Nyx, back in 2014. Since then, I’ve had a few breaks from the game (mainly due to college) but came back to it in full force once I got offered a sponsorship from my LGS, “Nerdz”. Things were looking good, with a few RPTQ’s top16s, a Nationals top16 and recently the RPTQ Trios top8 (where I punted a decisive game), so I felt I was again on the verge of another strong finish.
It all came together last weekend, in São Paulo. I decided on my deck (and decklist) almost as soon as Frank Karsten published his updated Affinity list. Having played the robot menace for a few hundreds of hours and thousands of games in MTGO (back when I was grinding for a few bucks) and talking with Pedro Carvalho (better known as “_megafone_”) during that period, I felt pretty confident with my skills on the archetype.
That said, Frank’s decklist is a work of art. The introduction of Karn, Scion of Urza and Damping Sphere fixes 2 major problems the deck has always had: first, Karn gives us another power card that is both easy to cast (compared to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas or Tempered Steel) and kills our opponent quickly (compared to Dark Confidant, Thoughtcast or Glint-Nest Crane). That makes it so we can shrink our Galvanic Blasts (which I strongly dislike) and max out on our other payoff cards, all while losing nothing on goldfishing speed; second, Sphere allows us to play effectively 20+ sideboard cards, all of them very good on their respective matchups – since you don’t want to dilute your deck with “okish” answers (Frank talks about that shift in the deck’s sideboard on his recent article, you should def check it out!).
Having settled on a list and knowing how to navigate the deck, all that was left was figuring out the sideboard plans and what other popular decks might have in store. Luckily for me, Frank also covered the first part of that with a very good Sideboard Plan (although it misses things like Infect and the KCI part is a little outdated), so all I had to do was go through around 100 or so decklists on mtggoldfish.com and take notes on decklist updates since I stopped playing Modern (which was nearly a year ago). This is often an overlooked practice in preparing for a big tournament: you should always be aware of what your opponent might be packing, and what are the most common trends on popular decks. For instance, I knew the “default” Humans list played 1-2 Restoration Angel in the maindeck, so I’d never get blown out by it.
All said and done, it was time to travel to São Paulo and jam some trials on Friday!
I started my first trial with a no-show opponent (“this is gonna be a good weekend”), then beat Bogles in a close matchup, and got crushed by a UR pyro/thing in the ice deck, thanks to very poor draws combined with a loose keep. Thinking about my chances to score a bye 2 (I already had a bye 1 thanks to ~1358 PWP points out of 1300 required), I decided to chill a little on Modern, since I had 14 rounds to play it on the course of the next two days, and just play some Dominaria Sealed, since I liked my chances there as well and the format is awesome.
Dominaria is a very fun format, although it has a higher number of bomb rares than what I’d like (if they were in my opponent’s decks, since mine happened to be full of those). I lost in the “semifinals” again, in a very sad 3-game match (the classical flood into screw, we all been there).
Well, time to shrug it off and go get some rest and give my best tomorrow! Except that for some reason I felt that the guys from the store would like some help, so I went to their stand for a few hours and helped them there. Huge props to William Rodrigues, that always manages to supply our team with full decks for every tournament, so I felt he needed some love back.
Arriving at the site on Saturday, I could see we would have some delay, so I went ahead and watched Eduardo Borges’s game. For those unaware, here’s a pic that sums up his Magic career (from an old SCG article: https://imgur.com/a/1VSfT0Z). He’s been one of the driving forces behind my love for the game and is probably the guy I most look up to (both Magic and non-Magic wise). He managed to delay the round by 33 minutes, playing KCI. Yeah.
Delay over, on to my first round after the bye!
Round 2 – Titanshift
A very close 3 game match. I managed to topdeck Plating on my last possible turn game 1, did not get to play game 2 due to mulligans, and won game 3 because my opponent sided-in Obstinate Baloth (don’t do this). I think this is overall not a great matchup. He has access to multiple forms of interaction (both pre-sideboard and post-sideboard) – some of which are devastating (namely Anger of The Gods variants) and his clock is not something to scoff at. I also got to watch a friend of mine playing Jund getting demolished by the evilest deck in Modern: Tron. So I was pretty happy I did not end up playing some “midrange super interactive deck” that is not suited to be played in Modern.
Round 3 – Burn
I like this matchup a lot. Game 1, you should aim to hold your Skirges a little so you can all-in it with Ravager, but that is not always possible. Pay attention to your opponent’s mana usage, so you can deduce what kind of spells he’s holding, since not all of his cards can interact (“is he planning to Boros Charm you? Then maybe the Cranial Plating play is better” and so on). Game 2, watch out for Deflecting Palm blowouts (even though I think this card is horrible, many people don’t feel that way) by having BB for instant-speed plating or sacing the chosen source with Ravager (remember that it can, in fact, redirect Etched Champion damage). Fun fact: my opponent’s name was “Pedro Carvalho” (which is _megafone_’s IRL name), so I thought I was gonna face another friend this round. Luckily for me, there are about 3 Pedro Carvalhos in the MTG scene, and in my opponent’s own words, he “was the worse of the three”.
Round 4 – KCI
Played against a friend of mine. He had just qualified for PT Magic 25th in a Trios PTQ in GP Santiago, so I assumed he had been playing at least some amount of Modern to help out his team. We had very quick games, and I got to goldfish turn 4 wins both times. I think Affinity is very favored in this matchup since it’s almost 1 full turn faster and has better sideboard cards (even though KCI plays 4 vindicates against you). Unlike Titanshift, 2 Explosives and a Spellbomb are very soft on the interaction side of things, and it’s hard for them to both develop their gameplan at the sime time they stop yours. Post sideboard, you actually have relevant cards against them, unlike Shift. I did misplay game 1 and could have killed him turn 3 going all in on Nexus on turn 2, since KCI has 0 ways of stopping that before sideboard.
Round 5 – Infect
My opponent mulligans to 6 on the play, thinks a lot, keeps his hand and scrys bottom. I keep a very explosive hand that kills on turn 3 if left unchecked. He goes no land, pass. I remind him that he’s on the play, but he just confirms “yeah, no land, you can go”. Huh. I do my stuff, and he plays turn 2 forest + noble hierarch, then turn 3 double Glistener Elf. I play my second Cranial Plating for lethal, and he says “congratulations”, in a mocking tone as he packs it up for game 2. He keeps a slow hand game 2 but has a Viridian Corrupter for my Overseer before it gets out of hand. I clear it with Whipflare and keep Galvanic Blast + 1 thopter up all the time for his nexus. One turn, he blows up my thopter, attacks, thinks for a second and just deals 1 infect damage. I play my second thopter in hand and now he looks silly. He has to make a very bad block because of his life total, using a pump spell to trade my Ravager with his blocking Nexus and I just Blast his face for exactsies.
Round 6 – Grixis Death’s Shadow
I got my first “snake eyes” dice roll this match. Things turned out OK when my opponent’s plan involved playing 2 Ambush Vipers (maybe because of the snake eyes?) on turns 2 and 3 as he stumbled on land. Game 2, I got a slow start and play the “Pacifist Game” against Shadow, neglecting to attack for a few turns. It pays off, since my opponent plays just a few spells with a lot of cards in hand, signaling he has a few dead Death’s Shadow. When I amass a good enough board advantage and start the pressure, he casts the 2 previously strained Shadows, leaving him open for a Plating finish.
Round 7 – Tron
Finally, the Tron menace catches up to me. I like the matchup by a lot, even though people now use 2-3 Ballistas maindeck. I got the “snake eyes” the second time in a row, and joke about the odds. We agree on a 50% chance: “it either happens or it doesn’t”. Pretty straightforward match. I made an attack playing around either Dismember or Contortion game 2, keeping BB up for plating while still presenting lethal, so I could get in a little bit of damage in case of the removal spell. For that, I had to tap a Blinkmoth Nexus that could pump my attacking Inkmoth. My opponent surprises me by casting Warping Wail on my 7/1 Inkmoth. I laugh internally, a little tilted and betrayed by the odds, since I might have just killed him, and instant speed equip Plating to another creature as planned, which is then killed by the Contortion he had anyway. I laugh internally again as it reassures me of the correct play, and I manage to beat him through a couple Thragtusks (don’t play this card against affinity as well) as his hand was all lands and I had a Sphere in play. Sometimes Magic helps you to shrug it off by itself, but you can bet that I would be sad about the Wail if my opponent did not have the Contortion and I had lost that game.
Round 8 – Jund
Hey, I got my first 7-0! Time to get that perfect score Day 1, and go eat some cake (yes, they had cake for all the 8-0 players later in the round). My opponent, however, seemed to like cake a lot more than I do, as he won a good 3 games match playing one of my favorite decks of all time. I always felt this matchup was very good for Affinity in the past (when BBE was banned and there was no Kolaghan’s Command), but since then Jund got a few toys to play with, and Damnations are more common in the sideboards (and I was playing 0 MD Champions). Even then, we also got Karn, Scion of Urza, which is an absolute beast in the matchup. I did get very unlucky game 3. Check out my (out of order) draws: https://imgur.com/a/tYP7Qbd (yeah I know, I’m a crybaby). Also, no cake for me ☹
After the games, I was pretty happy about my finish. I knew I liked Affinity in this meta, and that people were packing fewer hate for it, but boy was I lucky to dodge Stony Silence all day long. I did get Grudged a few times, though, so there’s that.
Me and the rest of Mimizentos (a group of Brazilian friends, including many PT players that were in and out the train for a few seasons) got together and went out for dinner. For some reason, I don’t really like São Paulo. It’s just so noisy it makes me feel like I’m always in the middle of a crowd. That being said, I was not very pleased when the guys wanted to go to a bar in the middle of Vila Madalena (the “Happy Hour” neighborhood of the city). I managed to dodge the bar with “Live Pagode” and people watching an UFC game (thanks Jonathan Melamed for that), and we go to a more “private” bar.
One of the best parts of MTG trips is getting together and talking with people you see so rarely. As many people say, the “Gathering” is the most important part of the game. We had a very nice dinner, and I called an Uber to meet the Nerdz guys and go back to our rented house. As I was getting off the car, after a 30min ride, I suddenly noticed I did not have my bag with me. You know, the one where I was carrying a very expensive deck (of which I owned 0 cards). So I told the guy to take me back to the bar, as I was summing up the costs of all the cards of the deck in my head. I got to around R$3.000,00 when the bar picked up my call and said they found the bag where I left it. Phew, dodged a bullet there. Another 30min trip back, and then 30 more to meet the Nerdz staff (and one hundred bucks for a trip around the town), I got to Outback. All I could think of was “man, if I write a report about the tournament, at least I’ll have this nice part to talk about”, so I guess it was not all for the worse.
Sunday morning, time for more Magic!
Round 9 – Humans
This was actually the only matchup I had never played before going for the GP, since the deck’s current iteration is very new (it used to be a CoCo deck) and I knew it was a very popular deck. Luckily for me, the one guy that was also playing the main event and was in our rented house was playing Humans, so I got a good feel of the matchup beforehand. Not so luckily, though, was my match. I got crushed in two games, wished my opponent good luck as I always do and went to get my head straight.
Losing two matches in a row after a 7-0 start is always rough, so I knew I’d have to do my best if I wanted to get back at the PT. I talked to Eduardo and he said the usual stuff to get me back on my feet (something along the lines of “just win the next 5 rounds, OMEGALUL” and a few other inspiring words). For some reason, I get really affected by my peer’s evaluation, so knowing that a person I looked up to in MTG had faith in me was really uplifting.
Round 10 – Jund
Remember that friend that got crushed Round 2? He managed to climb it back up and was also sitting at 8-2. I had a strong hand, but he putted enough pressure that I had to race him. Unfortunately, when your opponent passes with 3 mana up and your racing tool is deploying a Cranial Plating, things usually don’t turn out so well in the matchup. He managed to screw up his signaled Kolaghan’s Command, and I had the choice to leave him at 6 and leaving 2 blockers (I knew he had bolt in hand and I was dead on the crackback) or activating 2 Nexi and putting him to 4 (thanks to a Karn token) with a Bob trigger on the stack. I chose the latter, and guess who showed up on top of my opponent’s library? You guessed it, our lovely unbanned friend Bloodbraid Elf. Game two he offered little resistance, since his turn 2 play was a Dark Confidant (I would have taken them out regardless of what my sideboard plan was, out of spite for the betrayal) and I had a pretty explosive hand.
Round 11 – Bogles
I got paired against Thiago Saporito, who I knew was playing this pile of trash. I say that fully aware that he top 8ed a Modern GP with it in 2016, which just happens to show how good he is. Game 1, I get a good enough hand, but I’m stuck with 2 Karns and 2 lands in hand, 2 lands in play, and he has just cast a Kor Spirit Dancer. I think to myself, “boy, I really would love a Galvanic Blast now”, and my deck delivers. Game 2 he does his stuff faster than I can do mine and does the math so he is not dead to an Inkmoth. Game 3, he stumbles for too many turns, and does not find a Rancor or Spirit Mantle so he can gain life through my Etched Champion. Fun fact: my first Pro Tour ticket was playing Mono Black Devotion back in 2014. By that time, Thiago was an aspiring pro, and PV was struggling to keep Silver status (Dragonlord Ojutai had not yet been printed), so they were both at Porto Alegre’s PTQ in January. I managed to get through PV in the Swiss and Thiago in the finals, earning my first PTQ win. It looks like the tables have turned, since bolov0 has kept his Platinum status for a few seasons now and PV got 2 PT wins and HoF induction, while I managed to get two cats.
Round 12 – Affinity
My opponent was either very nervous or did not have a lot of experience with the deck. The affinity mirror has a few lopsided games, but it’s probably the hardest matchup in all of Modern. There are a lot of very difficult boards, and Ravager math multiplies it by tenfold. Game one, he valued his Karn too highly and ended up making some bad blocks because of it, and Game 2 I got the good old double vindicate for 0 mana when my opponent blocked my 8/5 Skirge with a 2/2 skirge and a 1/1 skirge and double pinged it using Ghirapur Aethergrid hoping to kill it and I just used my Wielding Jar.
Round 13 – Tron
This time, my hand is pretty slow, and once I see my opponent is on Tron, I have to make a decision. I can either try to play conservative and just lose to a resolved big spell unless I topdeck a few good cards in sequence, OR I can go all-in on an Inkmoth and hope he does not play a Karn or Sylvan Scries for a Ghost Quarter. I go for the all-in play, and he ended up just playing a Karn and I scoop it up. Game 2 I manage to kill him through a Thragtusk (seriously, don’t sideboard these cards against affinity), and Game 3 he mulls to 4 and I Grudge his Sphere. By now, I believe I just have to win round 14 and I can then ID for the Top 8, so I start to feel the pressure like never before.
Round 14 – Burn
Even though I said I like my odds in this matchup, playing against burn is always a small heart attack, hoping you are just not dead when he untaps and draws. My opponents wins the roll but mulls to 5, burns an Overseer when chumping with a Lavamancer instead of going to face (which limits his outs), and I manage to win game 1 after taking 6 damage from an Eidolon so I could cast a Master of Etherium (the good old lotus petal Mox Opal). Game 2 he just has a much faster hand I burns me out on the last possible turn. Game 3, my heart is racing, and we get deck checked. When the judge comes back, she asks for my opponent to leave the table, and tells me some of my shields are marked. “WHAT”. It turns out they are worn-out, and some of the cards have a few spots that make them distinguishable from the others, so changing them was all that was needed. Phew. Ok, that was an unnecessary scare. My opponent comes back for game 3, and we find ourselves in a position where I end my turn with 10 life, a lot of power on the board, including a Ravager and an Etched Champion. My opponent has a Grim Lavamancer, 3 lands (one untapped) and 3 cards in hand. He EOT burns me for two with Lavamancer, and my heart starts to pound. I close my eyes as he untaps, I put my hands on my face and pray that I survive. Each second that passes after my opponent drew his card makes me 10 times more relaxed. Eventually, he plays an Ensnaring Bridge and is dead on board, so I untap and kill him. I was so happy I couldn’t hold it, but I know I have to check the pairings last round to make sure I can ID.
Round 15 – Hollow One
Turns out I can’t. Oh well. I get myself a feature match, and I know my opponent is on Hollow One, since he dispatched a friend of mine two rounds ago next to me. I lose the roll, but have a much faster start than his (just turn 2 Hollow One? Come on(e)!). Game two, he is hellbent and at 16 life. I sacrifice some artifacts to Raveger to make a Skirge a 4/4 and deal 8 to him with my board. He draws, cracks back with 2 Flameblade Adept, a Hollow one and a Bloodghast. He pushes my 4/4 Skirge on my turn (topdeck god), so my nexus + pest + thopter puts him to 5. I topdecked another skirge, putting the pressure back again on him to find lethal. He untaps, flashes back Faithless Loothing, and needs exactly Burning Inquiry to win. He does not find it, and I’m on the top 8!
I couldn’t be happier, and all the pressure on my back disappears as I realize I’m back at the PT.
We take some photos, and I have to wait for the Unlimted Draft to be over before we can play (shout out to Gabriel Fehr, another Mimizento, for winning the whole draft!). I take that time to prepare myself and my sideboard for the matchup. I know my opponent is on Abzan Traverse, and I ask for guidance from megafone and EdB. We don’t get to a final clear decision, mostly because we don’t know how many Stony Silences my opponent has on his sideboard. We do know we want 1-2 Ghirapur, 2 RiP, and all Champions, and want to take out the blasts, some number or all of Signal Pests, and a Ravager (because of the nombo with RiP).
Semi-Finals – Abzan Traverse
We exchange decklists, and I notice my opponent has 0 Stony Silences on his sideboard! Not only that, but he has only 2 Damnations, a Pulse, 1 Reclamation Sage and 1 Kataki in store for me (which a not very easy to tutor for with Traverse – both because it takes some time to setup delirium, and at that time Kataki is easily beaten, and because I got the Rest In Peaces to shut it down). I write down all the removals he plays both MD and post-SB, so I know what I should be playing around.
Game 1 and 3 are pretty unfun (at least for me). I mull to 4 (0 lands all hands), and mull to 5 (1 landers on the play with many 2+ drops) and offer little resistance. Game 2, however, is pretty interesting, and you can watch it on https://www.twitch.tv/videos/282729488 .
I had a lot of difficult decisions, and after 30+ hours of Magic, I made a few pretty obvious misplays that I’d like to point out. First of all, the most obvious one: the Etched Champion play. I was aware of Damnation the entire time, and knew it was one of my opponents few outs. The thing is, I had done the math the turns before, and knew I could kill my opponent through it with the Nexi (which would survive it), so I just played the Champion for the extra counter in case my opponent had the Pulse for the tokens and somehow managed to stabilize. That was very bad, because my opponent had 1 black mana left open and simply Fatal Pushed my Nexus when I tried to attack him, making my whole plan fall apart. Whoops. Instead, I should have attacked first and reacted accordingly, since that extra counter on the Champion pre-combat would have not made much of a difference. I made a very risky block with a nexus the turn before where he could have Damnation as well, which was VERY risky considering the tapped spirit wouldn’t do much. I should have just kept Skirge at bay instead, as PV pointed out, since my hand was 3 lands. Again, long day.
But I stand by some other “controversial” plays. Overall, I think that if you try to play a “grindy” game against a grindy deck, you are going to lose. If you don’t put enough pressure, your opponent WILL stabilize. This is even more true when you are playing against a Lingering Souls deck. So, by forcing my opponent to “tap” his tokens so he could kill Karn I made sure that his only play was flashing back Lingering Souls so he could double-chump the construct tokens, making it so he could not develop a board. Similarly, the turn before, I chose not to attack with my Skirge, so I could block the Grim Flayer in case he had removal for my token.
And that marks the end of my GP! A very bitter loss at the end, but I’m glad it came Round16 and not 15!
Shout outs:
To Frank Karsten, for the great amount of work put into this list;
To megafone, for being a great guidance when I was picking the deck up and helping me understand some fundamentals;
To EdB, for always being the grumpy, harsh mentor that he always is. “And I think you are an idiot” is my new favorite catchphrase;
To all of Nerdz staff, in particular William Rodrigues, for making all of this possible with the sponsoring;
To all of the Mimizentos, for all of their love and support during the tournament;
To all of the guys from Porto Alegre and my LGS, every round rooting for me and believing in me;
To my girlfriend, for understanding that for some reason I like to spend hours playing cardboards in a room with 1500+ people.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask! You can follow me on twitter @KaramVinicius (even though I don’t post a lot).
If you want to learn more about the deck, I suggest you to read ALL of Frank's articles about it, and play A LOT. Affinity has a lot of free wins, but converting that extra 5% winrate takes a lot of skill, and sometimes it's just what you need to take a PT invite home.
Thanks for reading!

Nobody needs a subwoofer. I mean you WANT a sub but do you NEED one? Your speakers will make sound on their own. Your neighbors will like you more and they are ugly. Why even bother?
BECAUSE.. EVERYBODY NEEDS A SUBWOOFER! The bottom fifth of the audible frequency range humans hear can't bet reproduced solely with speakers. Even towefloorstanding speakers can only produce down to about 40Hz which is just at the start of what a decent subwoofer can handle (down to 20hz). The real impact a sub can have on your listening is palpable. Getting any sub is good. Getting the right sub is Great.
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HOW TO PICK A SUBWOOFER

1. Determine your budget - I usually say hold off on the sub for last. Get your speakers and amplifier settled and then figure out what you have to spend. If your budget for a surround sound is $1000.. Spend $600-800 on the other things. They make more of a difference usually.
   
2. Know your room size - Your room decides if you need a monster sub or if you can get away with a "normal" sub or perhaps multiple subs. I consider 12x12 to be an average room and anything nearing 18x18 to be large. Also ceiling height matters since that is adding air volume to the equation. Bass gets lost in big spaces so you need more of it
   
3. Placement is Key - Can you only fit one sub or can you use two? In a big room you want either a big sub or two smaller subs (or two big subs you crazy bastards). It is super rare your sub will sound best where you want to put it. Be prepared to place the sub in an odd place and if a big sub won't work multiple subs can help fix this.
   
4. Usage matters - Is this sub for a desk? for a small bedroom? for a $200,000 home theater? Hooking to powered monitors? A cheap 2.0? In the end, you are filling your whole room with bass and you can't avoid the bass going everywhere. On a desk or in a great hall it is all the same. SO, what you need to consider is Hookup Options. Do you need Wire Passthrough's on the sub for a cheap 2.1 setup? Are you looking at a sub for Powered monitors? make sure it has TWO RCA INPUTS and not one!
   
5. Preference Matters - Do you LOVE bass. Do you need it. Does it get you randy? I can't deny that bass is fun but your personal wants will also take hold. Many people are OK with the minimum/correct amount of low end for a particular space and some people don't stop adding bass and then go to prison. If you are the latter, double your budget but never skimp on the rest of the setup!
   

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SMALL SUBWOOFERS

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These subs are "mostly" for desk setups or small rooms. You can easily buy one and then down the road double them up if you want more or go into a bigger space. note: not all small subwoofers are cheap and some have outputs matching or beating the large subs
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Price--	Item------------------	Description - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
$100	Dayton Sub-800	One of the cheapest subs I can still recommend. Has enough for any desk setup and even a small living room.
$135	Dayton Sub-1000	This is the most popular sub for noobs. This is also as cheap as I would ever go on a 10"and is more than enough to fill in the lows in a budget 5.1
$170	Earthquake FF6.5	Using the smallest driver I have ever seen in a standalone sub this little 6.5" promises many things. Review Incoming.
$180	ELAC S10	You don't really ever need a "Matching" sub but should you need a small, powerful little sub this elac baby will work just fine. Even looks good.
$250	Yamaha SW210	AKA the flat sub. These designs are around for people who have something to hide.. namely their subwoofer. Keep in mind this has no speaker wire passthroughs.
$270	Klipsch R-10SW	Keeping the size down and being able to handle bigger rooms, lower frequencies means spending on more power and more engineering. Thus This.
$330	Jamo Sub 800	This is a unique Micro Cube sub. Designed to be as small as possible and still deliver all the boom boom you could want. I want one!
$400	Sunfire SDS8	Ever hear of sunfire? Well if your neighbor 3 houses down gets one you will hear of it.. You will hear of it all day. That is all.
$500	SVS SB-1000	YES, this is a small sub. It is the only 12" hiding in this category and costs the SVS amount but nobody suspects the 13" cube.. Nobody.

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LARGE SUBWOOFERS

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The space these subs take up will be noticeable. They also perform their jobs in spectacular fashion BUT you have to remember that one expensive big sub may not work AS WELL as two cheaper ones if placement rules can't be followed.
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Price--	Item------------------	Description - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
$215	BIC America F12	Review THIS is the sub most people end up with. The Looks, The reviews the Wubba Dubba Dub dub. 12" with nearly 500 peak watts. Sells itself.
$150	Dayton Sub-1200	Popularity and cost put this on the list as one of the best selling subs of all time. Works for almost any room and looks... well, like a sub.
$125	Monoprice 12"	A decent entry level sub with a unique shape and good reviews. When you can't spend a fortune you can always count on monoprice for deals. King Cheap 12"
$200	Dayton Sub-1500	The cheapest 15" subwoofer in the world. It can reach down but has moderately low power which makes it suitable for "basic" crazy home theaters.
$250	BIC Acoustech PL-200	The BIC F12's more grown up brother. Better build. Higher peak output. This SOB is a definate upgrade to the worlds most popular sub.
$345	Klipsch R-12SW	These bigger 12" klipsch stand quite securely as a high end box of death and murder. Plus look how sexy it is.
$700	ELAC S12EQ	The most technologically advanced sub on this list. Full adjust-ability via your smart phone. Has true potential to be the prototype sub for years to come.
$800	SVS PB2000	Review Not small for a 12", Not cheap nor is it very pretty. But it attacks with more gusto then any of the budget subs. Beware the bass.
$910	Rythmik FVX15	Review I own this sub. It uses Servo's instead of just raw power which means it is TIGHT, Fast, and controlled. Few need more than this.
$1000	PSA S1500	Review American Made and HUGE. These subwoofers brute force their way into your heart and spine and whatever internal organs you have.
$2000	SVS PB13 Ultra	Review The end game sub for most of the world. Most well known and by far the largest I have ever used/seen/felt. Be serious if you get this. It is serious.

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DIRECT MANUFACTURE SUBS
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These subs you can't find in stores and won't find in many homes because they are built special and in low volume. I have reviewed a few but want to include this section to simply take you to their homepages. Shop around and message me if you think I missed a spot.

• Rythmik Subs
  
• Power Sound Audio
  
• Velodyne
  
• HSU Research
  
• HTD Subs
  
• Sunfire
  

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PLACEMENT TIPS & TRICKS

• Do the Subwoofer Crawl: This age old technique is basically where you put your subwoofer where you want to sit (up on the couch etc) and then crawl around the places you can put the sub and listen for when it sounds best, tightest, cleanest. Many times a lackluster room can be attributed to the improper placement of a sub. This is something I highly recommend doing and heeding the results. Martin Logan Sub Setup Video
  
• Isolation is a good idea: Keeping the floor from shaking is a huge concern with many. There are Isolation pads out there that can keep SOME vibrations from transmitting through the floor but these can get expensive and I usually just buy two pair of Yoga Blocks and prop up the sub. But..
  
• Isolation is Futile: Most subs move so much air that there is no preventing the low end from transferring to your downstairs, next door or across the hall neighbors. The only way to do this is poured concrete or building a room inside a room which is PROBABLY not available as an option for most people. But do not fear. There are two solutions..
  
• Lower the Sub. Like the volume not physically. Most people turn their subs up until they can Definitely hear it working and this is usually too much. Get a friend, loved one, or a well trained pet and have them adjust the sub for you. Lower it down until you can't hear it and then raise it up slowly. When you think you hear it.. Stop. That is probably correct. It is here to assist not to star in the show.
  
• Introduce yourself to your neighbors. Most people are introverts and don't even say hello to their neighbors. This is why the police are called if you watch edge of tomorrow at 9pm on a Saturday. TALK TO YOUR NEIGHBORS! This guarantees two things. You aren't seen as some scumbag drug dealer (I think this about all my new neighbors) and YOU are who they call first instead of the cops. I am serious about this. Invite them over, know their names. You will not be so afraid to get, use and enjoy your new found subwoofer(s) once you have a report with those living around you.
  

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Questions and Comments Below: