The Poker Chronicles

« December 2004 | Main | February 2005 »

January 31, 2005

Announcement

I wasn't going to announce this until the contract was signed, but it seems like it is pretty much a definite at this point, so why not? It looks like I am going to be writing a poker book. I was contacted by a major publisher back in December sometime, and have been talking to them ever since. A friend I met on Party Poker referred their editorial director to me, and he is a professional editor and a frequent poker player, so I am glad to say he will be doing the copy editing. It is good to work with someone who knows writing and knows poker. I am a pretty good amateur writer (I think) but much more knowledgeable about poker, and he is the reverse, so I think that between us this book should turn out to be one of the best.

The book is entirely on Texas Hold'em and is looking to be just shy of 300 pages. I am supposed to have it finished in just over 3 weeks, so I am pretty much going to be working on that full time from now on. I already have a decent part of it done, maybe 1/5th or so, and I am pretty sure I can complete it over that time. I am going to focus on limit hold'em, as that is pretty much my area of expertise. Because 9/10 poker players are beginners or of a lower skill level the book will be mainly aimed at them, but for the more advanced players it will have a few things too.
The biggest selling point for advanced players will definitely be the short handed section. This is the one area of limit hold'em that I feel hasn’t been covered well at all. Anyone who reads this section and follows instructions will be beating the $5/$10 6 max games in no time. There are a lot of very skilled poker players out there who are afraid to play short handed poker so this should be of tremendous help to them.
I feel that my book will be better than most of the poker books out there. I will teach fundamental concepts (bluffing and semi bluffing, pot odds, etc.) that players of every game should know. Then I will try to build on that, chapter after chapter, and teach hold'em in a linear and organized manner, much the way 2+2 books do. I plan to give a lot of example hands, and am toying with the idea of quizzes at the end of every chapter.
The book should be published sometime next fall. I believe they are aiming for December. The publisher is Sterling Publishing, a major publisher that was bought by Barnes and Noble a few years back. So my book will definitely be on the shelves at the local bookstore, which will be neat to see.
I probably won't be playing much poker for the next few weeks. I do intend to play as many limit hold'em tournaments as I can in preparation for the Party Poker Million, but that will be the majority of my day-to-day playing for a little while. Party is also having their last week of semi-finals, so I might try to run a few of those too, since I get $12.6k for any I manage to win. I will definitely run the two limit ones, and if I have any extra chips left over I will run the no-limit ones as well. I will also try to run some of the super satellites for the tournament as well. Next year I hope to win my way on the cruise much earlier, so that I can play in all of those just for the cash. I know of numerous people who won multiples this year and that is a nice chunk of money.
I will keep this blog updated on the process of writing the book. This is my first foray into the publishing industry, so it will be interesting to see what develops. So far I have a number of the earlier chapters done, the ones on basic poker theory, and I haven’t really gotten into hold'em specifically, but I will probably be jumping into that soon. I will possibly even post my outline here as it solidifies, and see what my readers think of it. Any ideas you all have would be greatly appreciated.

Posted by themaroon at 11:37 AM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

January 29, 2005

Bad End To A Bad Week

Yesterday was another bad day of poker. It started off well, with me up almost $1000 after my first 3 hours, with only 1.5 hours left to go. Then I played about an hour of 6 max, where I lost a little, until I got a heads up match. I played this guy heads up $15/$30 for 2.5 hours and he beat the hell out of me, so I eneded up the day down $1,100 or so. Not a spectacular loss by any means, but still enough to make me up only $1,500 or so on the week (for 32 hours play) which is less than 1/3 of what I probably should have won. Still it is better than losing, but it is frustrating to not win a nice amount after the beating I took the week before.

Heads up I think I played very well for the most party. The guy just got insanely lucky over and over again. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times he just dumped in $150 with 2 or 3 outs and then hit the river. It was insane. And then I would have AA against his Q8 and the flop would come 8 8 J or something, and I would lose a ton. Such is heads up I suppose.
Normally against weaker players like that I am able to gain control pretty quickly. He started off playing very passive, but as the deck began to hit him he began to open up, eventually switching into maniac mode. I know from our 6 max time together that he wasn’t really that aggressive of a player and that he was going to make a ton of mistakes playing that way, which he did, and normally in that situation you just bitch slap them with a few big hands and they shut right back down. Then you have complete control and it is all over.
But with him every time I managed to cap the turn he just hit the river on me. I'm not talking flush draws either, I mean 2 or 3 outers. Like I would cap AK against A3 on the AA84 board and he would river a 3. Or once I capped 10 3 of dimes on the 10 8 2 2 board with 2 dimes, and his 4 4 crushed me when the river was a 4 of dimes. So it was no surprise when I found myself sunk $2,400 or so to him.
Eventually though the deck stopped saving him and I managed to get almost all of it back. After smacking him good a few times where the river didn’t save him he just switched back to passive mode. At one time he even folded 7 times in a row preflop. I don’t even know if there are 7 hands you should fold heads up with a small blind of 2/3 the big blind, but if there are you will never get them all in a row. I was able to get back to the point where I was only down $300, and you could tell all of the wind had left his sails.
Unfortunately that is when his luck kicked right back in. He caught a couple of 4 outers in a row on huge pots, then started getting aggressive again. One pot after another went sailing over to him. I probably overplayed a couple of hands at first but for the most part the deck just nailed the guy, and before I knew it I was back down $1,500. Except this time he just did the intelligent thing and left. I am pretty sure that he knew that he was defeated the whole time I was making my comeback, and once he got lucky and got some chips back he decided to call it a night. Even though I was incredibly frustrated I can't say I blamed him. He was done for and he knew it.
I was very upset for a while after about it, but then I realized that I can't win every time, even when I play better. Most of the times I have lost heads up were from going on tilt. And I generally don’t even play people who I think are better at it than me. But I have had a few sessions where I felt I played much better than my opponent and still lost anyway, and I don’t suppose there is any reason why that should happen in every other game I play and not heads up. This guy was bad, and definitely had a few glaring weaknesses, but he was nowhere near the worst players I have played against. He was at least good enough to get lucky, a lot of people are so bad that they can't even beat me then.
So I guess I will suck it up and come back next week. Hopefully I will just win $10,000 or some absurd amount so I can call it even. And if not there is always the next week. Or the one after.

Posted by themaroon at 5:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 28, 2005

Some Realizations

Today was another long day of poker. I played 7.5 hours total. John and Keith came over some time around noon, and we played for 3 hours then went to eat at The Winking Lizard, this very cool beer bar we go to weekly. I lost about $1500 in that first 3 hour session. Typical atrocious beats, yada yada.

Then we came back and the three of us played poker for another three hours. Another player we know who plays mostly at the Vegas Nights and house games in the area came over and ran some Paradise with us about halfway through that session as well. I started off that session well, but then the beats took over once again and before I knew it I was down $2k on the day.
Then we watched the third episode of Tilt, why I don’t know, and were amazed that it somehow managed to be worse than the first two. I didn’t even think such a thing was possible. After that everyone left and I decided to play a little while longer. I guess I just felt like I hadn’t been kicked in the teeth enough for the day. I actually managed to win $1,300 or so back in my 1.5 hours of play, so the day only ended up down $700, not bad at all for a bad day of that game.
I have come to a few realizations throughout the day. First of all that Fiji water (my 3 cases came today) is the greatest stuff on earth. Any buyer’s remorse I may have had over spending $84 on bottled water went away the instant I tasted it. To be honest (I know this may sound silly) I think it will help my poker play. It is so refreshing that it makes me feel exceptionally clear headed, especially after drinking a few of them. I am right now working on my third for the day (they are 1.5 liters each) and will likely finish it before the end of the night. This is also much healthier than drinking all of these 270 calorie bottles of juice that I bought.
Second I have realized that I like playing with friends so much better than playing alone. John and I have established this ritual of playing a few hours, going to lunch somewhere, and then playing a few more hours. This is a lot of fun (at least compared to sitting alone at home) and makes it much easier to play long sessions. It makes it somewhat like a normal workday, which is good in many ways. I am seriously thinking about buying one of those timecard punchers (definitely need one with that trademark loud KA-CHUNK sound) and putting it on my wall. It won’t really serve any purpose, other than to make that cool sound. Maybe I could get my computer to blow a whistle noise at lunch time too.
Third I have realized what I want to do with my office. I was thinking about just getting a sofa-recliner, but now I want to get a giant leather sectional (a reclining one of course). This will allow 4 people to play at the same time easily. Also there was this very cool table that I saw at Sofa Express where the top lifts up and comes towards you, which is great to put my monitor on when reclining. And it was angled, so if you put it right in the corner of the sectional then two people could easily put laptops/monitors on it. I would of course have end tables (or one of those cool sofa tables behind it) for beverages and whatnot. I will probably try to find a black leather one somewhere.
Which reminds me that I put the curtains up today. They aren’t the greatest curtains, just some plain black faux suede ones. They only cost $45 for the entire set, and they are unfortunately a little small for the windows, but I am concerned far less with looks than functionality. They do a great job of cutting the light down to a reasonable amount, so I am very happy with them. The sun was definitely too bright without them.
Anyway, my last and most important realization was that I need to stop trash talking when I play. I know, I have talked many times about the benefits of it (and I definitely will miss the heads up matches) but there is one tremendous disadvantage about it that never occurred to me (or anyone else as far as I can tell) before. It makes playing less enjoyable for me. So even if it does boost my hourly rate (and it does I am sure) and get me heads up matches, I am much better off enjoying playing (and therefore playing much more) in the long run.
I think it makes playing less enjoyable for a few reasons. First it often puts me in logical battles with people with little or no capacity for linear thinking. You could sooner teach a fish to ride a bike than you could convince a bad player that they are a bad player. Try it sometime if you haven’t, people who are terrible poker players just can’t understand that they are terrible poker players. I suppose if they understood why they are terrible they would play better and cease to be terrible. Arguing with these people isn’t fun at all. It does really get under their skin, telling them that they are terrible, but it annoys me too because their arguments (feeble attempts at self-defense) run logical circles around themselves. I am one of those people who likes to argue, but with people who just aren’t capable of an informed opinion it gets real old fast. It was a lot of fun when it was new, but now that I have heard each idiotic argument these people have (now I just hear the same ones over and over) it isn’t really interesting at all.
Second, I hate it when the suckers talk trash. It doesn’t bother me so much when I am crushing them like I should be, but that is only 2/3 if the time. The other 1/3 of the time they just get out on me repeatedly, and that is really annoying. I have one friend who can’t even play on Party because so many idiots play terribly, get lucky, and trash talk and it puts him on tilt. It is hard to deal with, and most of them don’t say anything unless I start bothering them first, so by just not saying anything I will avoid a lot of those situations.
Of course if one of them says something to me I won’t hold back. And I will probably jump in when one idiot starts criticizing another, because I always find that hilarious. When the guy who just bad beat you by cold calling a raise with a gut shot says “nice chase idiot” to another fish it is just too tempting to pass up. But for the most part I think I might try just not starting anything. I never bother people in real life, and I think that is part of why I enjoy playing there better than I do playing online.
Don’t get me wrong though, I am glad I did it for a while. It got me a lot of heads up matches, which are very profitable situations. And perhaps even more valuable is the insight it has given me into my opponents. I now understand a lot of the misconceptions that they have. I have delved into the mind of typical suckers and 2+2ers both, and found their biggest logical weaknesses from their pathetic arguments. Those weaknesses dominate their play, and when you understand what people think and how that manifests itself in their play there is no hope for them. I suppose I already knew about the 2+2ers from their forum, but the trash talking has given me a great insight into the mind of the very bad players.
I think that is most of what winning at poker on a high level is about, getting into your opponents’ heads. I think that is one of the things I do best, watching what they do and trying to discover their logic from it. For instance today a fellow sitting behind me really liked to slow play, especially with mediocre hands like top pair no kicker. So when I had top pair with a good kicker I was able to threebet the turn much more liberally than I would have been had I not known that. I also knew that when he raised me on the flop he was unlikely to be holding anything better than middle pair, so I could play accordingly.
In any case I think I am going to stop trash talking, at least for a bit, and see if it makes the game more enjoyable for me. I think it will. I may just start typing “smash” every time I win a hand. John and I both get a huge kick out of doing that (and boy do people hate it) because this guy we know sometimes says it every time he raises for entire nights. He is a really funny guy, one of those people who really livens the game up, and so we just sort of adopted the “smash”. Online it would be too much of a pain in the ass to say it every time I raise, especially in $10/$20 6 max, since that is probably a few times a minute (even a pain cut and pasting) but saying it every time I win a hand should be a blast. I will probably have to turn chat off when I do it to avoid any fights, but it should help achieve some of the same effects as my trash talking strategy used to. I’ll give it a shot and be sure to post progress reports. Feel free to do the same.

Posted by themaroon at 1:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 26, 2005

Comment Responses

Since I seem to have successfully brought back comments I have gotten many of them, and what fun would that be if I didn’t respond to them? So here we go (my words from the posts to which comments refer are encapsulated by **):

Take this how you will but 37% VPIP will almost guarantee that you will be broke sooner rather than later and anything over 2BB/100 is almost impossible. Good Luck.

I think we found the 2+2er! So full of ideas about what is and is not possible, what VP$IP is optimal, and how many bbs/100 you can make, all gleaned from the infinite wisdom of the people on the forum. Trust me when I say this, I play against a lot of 2+2ers, and for them nothing above 2bb/100 is possible, and any VP$IP above 25% would surely be a losing formula. The fact that they can win at all at these 6 max games shows the weakness of the competition there. They are my favorite opponents to play against. I have had a VP$IP of about 35-37% playing full time for a year. I have played well over 1200 table hours, which is about 120k hands (roughly the equivalent of playing full time for two years) and have averaged over 4 bbs/100. So if I will go broke from it I promise it will be later. Much, much later. As far as the 2bb/100, what an ignorant statement. The “standard” win rate for a player in a casino is one bb per hour, though at limits such as $10/$20 many players make as much as 1.5 or even more. An hour of poker in a casino is about 30 hands, but let’s call it 33.3 for expediency’s sake. Our “standard” (1 bb/hr) winner is making 3 bb/100. I am playing short handed (where I have a much greater edge) against very weak competition. Point taken? That sort of mindset will prevent you from advancing further in poker. Don’t be so ignorant as to say what can and cannot be done, especially when you have little or no experience. Perhaps you did try 6 max, maxed out at 2, and think that nobody could do better. Either way I have either been very lucky over a very long period of time (far luckier, in fact, than statistics would allow for) or it is quite possible to make 4. Or from your perspective there is the chance that I am making it all up, which if you choose to believe is fine by me. I personally believe that 4.5-5bb/100 is possible in those games, and I plan to find out.

I was curious how you set up the rakeback agreement and who you set it up with. I play very frequently on PP in the NL 200 and Omaha 100 games and would love to get close to 25% of my rakeback through some sort of agreement.

Email me for more info!

** the worst player at each of my tables was trash talking and 2 outering me at the same time.** brutal - and the worst of it is, even if you point out what complete morons they are, they wouldn't understand it anyway...

I did. And they didn’t.

Hrm, I never seem to catch you on pp when you play so i can rile up the masses for amusement

I sure hope you do sometime. Nothing better than an angry woman on my side.

There's a curious thing that I am noticing. We both use pokertracker and rely on it as an accurate tool for gauging results. So it's great when you are running super hot and winning 8 BB/100 over your last 1,000 hands. But, at the same time, if you really believe in the power of stats, you know that 8 BB/100 cannot possibly continue forever. So you know you're due for a long losing period or breakeven period. It's a little depressing. Can't dodge variance. It's a bitch.

Actually that is the law of averages, and it is a myth. Put it this way. Suppose you run at 8bb/100 for a thousand hands, then run at 4bb/100 for a million. Your overall bb/100 is basically 4. No bad streak needed. Of course you will have bad streaks, no doubt about it, but you aren’t really due for one.

Congrats on a nice year and some great blogging. Looking forward to more of the same. I'll be at Commerce and on the big boat so maybe we'll meet up.

Thanks, and that would be cool. Commerce is still up in the air a bit, but the boat I will be on. Drop me an email and let me know where you want to meet up. Same with any other readers who will be cruising.

Congrats on a great blog. It is my first stop each morning. Please start writing about your plans for employing the homeless again. That was some fantastic blogging:)... BTW... you post is posted twice for some reason.

Ha. Well I did decided to stake someone, but he wasn’t homeless. Still I do think about it every time I see a will work for food sign. And I knocked out the repost, thanks.

Not everyone hates you, keep the posts coming! Are you really going to dabble into NL in the future as mentioned a few weeks back?

Definitely. I don’t know when, but sometime this year I would like to take at least a month or two to get my NL ring game into shape.

For the curtains, you don't need their color to be black (unless that matches your room). You just need what are called "backed" curtains. They'll have an opaque fabric sown on the back of them, but they can be any color that you'd like. Then again, black might be the color you want, but it still won't be opaque unless you get the right backing.

Well I do want black (unless they make stainless steel colored curtains) because it matches the room, but I didn’t know about the backing. Thanks for the tip

Any thoughts on the 60/40 split between winners and losers? Did you notice that the % of winners goes UP when you filter out anyone with less than 100 hands?

I think the split is caused by the low rake. I didn’t do any filters but that wouldn’t be surprising really. I think a lot of people play those 6 max games once or twice and then never come back.

In case you're curious, here are some stats from 30K hands I played at 10/20 and 15/30 6 max last year: My VPIP: 38.3 My BB/100: 3.3 Top 10 Hands: AA, KK, QQ, 99, AJs, JJ, 76s (whoah!), TT, ATo, AKs. I guess I play that 76s pretty hard in those short games. lol. AKo is 16th. I show 41% winners and 59% losers, nearly identical. I show an average VPIP of 40.67, nearly identical. Why am I playing full games again...?

Interesting stats, cant wait to get 30k hands myself (halfway there now) and see how we compare. Very strange about the 67s. Just shows how many hands you really need for those stats to become accurate. That or you are just a god with 67s. And why you would switch to full tables is beyond me, but I sure don’t mind having you not be at my tables!

Posted by themaroon at 11:24 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

January 25, 2005

Fiiji and Poker

Today was a very long day of poker. First I went over to John’s around 11. We played a couple hours (over which I lost a few hundred) and then went out to lunch at Lone Star with John’s two brothers (Jason and Paul) and his friend Joe. After that we came back and played two more hours (over which I won about $250 back) and then went to the store to get some beverages, because John’s refrigerator was empty. They had some Fiji water, so we got some to tide us over until the 3 cases of it I ordered online make it here. Plus John and I had been raving to his friend Joe about how good it is. Normally I tell people about this water and they think “water is water”. Most people would certainly find me crazy for paying $85 for 3 cases (36 1.5 liter bottles) of the stuff too. But then everyone who ever drinks it understands. It is truly like no other water on Earth.

So anyway we got back from the store and I went on a tear at the tables, winning something like $1,800. That put me up $1,700 for the day, which makes $3,300 for the last two days, plus $200 in bonus. A welcome change from the beatings I have been taking as of late.
One thing that amazes me every single day, despite seeing it for the past year now, is how many absurd beats you take. Even on my best days I take so many 2 and 3 outers from people capping it. It makes you wonder just how many tremendous underdogs these people are ramming at you. For every two outer that hits, assuming they have 2 outs after the flop, there have to be something like 11 that miss.
Two hands today I got to put in the maximum amount of money possible. You really don’t get to cap every street very often at all, and having it happen more than a few times in the same month is rare, let alone the same day. That is because normally one person (not me) in the equation slow plays if two hands that big are out there. Anyway here are the hands for you:
Party Poker 10/20 Hold'em (6 max, 4 handed)

Preflop: IBustChumps is BB with Ad, As.
UTG folds, Button raises, SB calls, IBustChumps 3-bets, Button caps, SB calls, IBustChumps calls.

Flop: (12 SB) Td, Js, Ac (3 players)
SB checks, IBustChumps bets, Button raises, SB folds, IBustChumps 3-bets, Button caps, IBustChumps calls.

Turn: (10 BB) Th (2 players)
IBustChumps bets, Button raises, IBustChumps 3-bets, Button caps, IBustChumps calls.

River: (18 BB) Qd (2 players)
IBustChumps bets, Button raises, IBustChumps 3-bets, Button caps, IBustChumps calls.

Final Pot: 26 BB

Results below:
IBustChumps has Ad As (full house, aces full of tens).
Button has Jh Jc (full house, jacks full of tens).
Outcome: IBustChumps wins 26 BB.
On that hand I was talking to my friends trying to tell them that I think the guy overplayed it. Granted the guy is going to lose a chunk, but if he were really thinking about what I had he would have realized at some point before $240 went in that I had him beat. I threebet him out of the big blind, then capped the AJT flop. I then capped when the ten turned. Now right there he should been very suspicious about what I had. Would I really go that far with KQ? Would I threebet A 10 out of the BB? Even if I would I am equally likely to have A10 or AA. And I might have 10 10? I think that when I bet the river he should have probably just called, as there is more chance I have AA or 10 10 than A 10. And if he thinks I would play KQ that hard he should raise the river, but when I threebet on the AJTTQ board I think its fairly obvious I don’t have a straight, so he shouldn’t cap. So I think he could have saved a bet or two. Fortunately these types of situations don’t come up very often at all, so even if you misplay them a tad it will have virtually no effect on your results in the long run.
Here is the second hand:
Party Poker 10/20 Hold'em (6 max, 6 handed)

Preflop: IBustChumps is MP with Qh, Qs.
UTG folds, IBustChumps raises, CO folds, Button calls, SB folds, BB 3-bets, IBustChumps caps, Button calls, BB calls.

Flop: (12.50 SB) Ad, Qc, 4c (3 players)
BB checks, IBustChumps bets, Button calls, BB raises, IBustChumps 3-bets, Button folds, BB caps, IBustChumps calls.

Turn: (10.75 BB) 8s (2 players)
BB checks, IBustChumps bets, BB raises, IBustChumps 3-bets, BB caps, IBustChumps calls.

River: (18.75 BB) 9s (2 players)
BB bets, IBustChumps raises, BB 3-bets, IBustChumps caps, BB calls.

Final Pot: 26.75 BB

Results below:
BB has As Qd (two pair, aces and queens).
IBustChumps has Qh Qs (three of a kind, queens).
Outcome: IBustChumps wins 26.75 BB.
On this one I find my opponent’s play to be absurd. What could I be capping that didn’t beat AQ there? Hell, I even think I overplayed it a bit, though maybe not, and there was really only one reasonable hand that could beat mine. There were at least 3 that beat his (all 3 sets on the flop) and I couldn’t possibly not have him beat. The guy was capping a lot of hands at me, but even still I maybe should have slowed a bit on the river.
I really think these people don’t even consider their opponent’s hand at all. The worst beat I took today (in terms of stupidity) was from a guy who called my raise preflop with 7 8 off then called my bet on the AQ2 rainbow flop. He runner runnered 7 8 to beat me. Literally if I just had an ace or a queen (which I did) he was drawing at a 4% shot. And even if I just had junk he is going to have to either make a powerplay (which he was far too weak to do, and even if he wasn’t it wouldn’t be such a hot idea on that board) or hit one of his 6 outs to win.
So with players like those it seems amazing that I ever lose. Still I manage to do it quite often. Just shows how much variance is inherent in the game I guess. I really can’t even begin to explain to people just how bad the beats get in this game. You really have to try it to understand.
Also it seems the Commerce trip isn’t going to happen. The person I was going to go with had to cancel. Annoying, but not the end of the world. I really should be staying home and winning up some money anyway. I might try to sneak out at some point to play some tournaments on my own though, so we will see. Maybe I will make an impromptu visit for a few days, perhaps the 8th-13th. Who knows?

Posted by themaroon at 11:31 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 24, 2005

Heads Up and 6 Max

Today was a decent day of poker. John came over some time around 11 a.m. and we started playing poker, him $1/$2 NL and me $10/$20 6max. I won a little bit in the beginning and quickly got a heads up match from a guy named nyrs1. He was basically a typical weak monkey, and he apparently only had $500 or so in his account. I took most of that in just a few minutes (which wasn’t hard to do) and when he refused to rebuy I sat out. No sense playing against a guy with only $90 left. He can easily just get a little luck and get a chunk of his stack back, and by the time I bust him the rake will have taken $90 or more out of his stack. He was too weak to really have any chance of winning, but with luck he could maybe have lasted a bit longer.

So after he went broke I headed back to the 6 max table where I proceeded to get beat in the face. I am having such a bad run there. Of course you expect that sort of thing once in a while. Still it the amount of hideous beats I am taking is getting absurd. And it isn’t just beats. It is every sort of luck in poker going bad at once. For instance you have those guys who just cap everything at you, and maybe you flop two pair against their set. Perhaps they are the sort of player who would cap top pair (and maybe worse) a few times so you can’t slow down. You didn’t really get unlucky in the traditional sense of the word, because they had the best hand the whole way, but still what are the odds of you having AK and them having 66 and the flop being AK6? And worse what are the odds of the 66 being in the hands of someone who you know would cap the flop and turn with as little as A 9, thus forcing you to never quit raising?
Then there is another entirely different type of luck. Suppose you can put your opponent on a range of hands, and you know that you have their hand dominated ¾ of the time, but the other ¼ they have you dominated. Now if you put in a bunch of money and they just happen to have you dominated you didn’t really get “unlucky” in the traditional sense of the word, because you were the one dominated. But in a superpositional sense it is just the same as losing with a 3-1 favorite. It is sort of like the Schrodinger’s Cat (link provided for all of you non ex-physics majors out there) of poker. Their hand exists in this smeared state where you are a 3-1 favorite, but as soon as they roll it over it collapses into either a huge favorite or a huge underdog.
Anyway John and I went off to lunch at Panera after the first 3 hours and then came back to finish the day. I started playing 6 max again but got sunk $400 or so when I managed to get another heads up match, this one $10/$20 with a guy named bufuj5. He was another Party “pro” who was probably used to being a marginal winner, and given that marginal winners in $10/$20 6 max can still make a good chunk of money he greatly overrated himself. He was much better heads up than the first guy, but still not good. He was aggressive when he shouldn’t have been, and not aggressive when he should have, probably in an effort to be tricky. In a sense though it told me exactly what he had every time, or a rough enough estimate. He had incredible luck at first, routinely capping 3 or 5 outers and hitting, flopping straights to my top two, etc. But he was so bad that he never got more than a $200 lead on me. This was mainly due to his biggest flaw, which was his propensity to limp on the small blind and then fold on the flop if he checked. He never once check-raised when limping preflop, and he very rarely check-called (he preferred to bet) so every time he limped and then checked I simply bet and took it down. He limped maybe half of his small blinds, and of those probably check/folded (the button is not the SB on Party) 2/3 of the time. This made it very easy for me to pick up $10 over and over again, an advantage you just can’t spot someone heads up. If you are just giving them $10 every 6th hand (effectively what he did) that is $1.66 a hand, and you can easily see 250 hands per hour. That multiplies to over $400 an hour you are spotting your opponent, an insurmountable advantage even if you were much better than them. And he wasn’t even close to as good as me.
He also had another fatal flaw, which was waiting for the turn to raise too often. This made it incredibly easy to play against him on the turn. If I bet the flop and he called I knew he was going to raise the turn most of the time. So if I had a good hand I would lead into him and threebet it, which meant that he routinely ended up dumping in $60 with slim draws. His strategy of doing that does make it tougher for me to bet the turn but for a hand that I wanted to put in one bet with I could just check-call. He did make it tougher for me to steal pots on the turn (I had to bite the bullet and lead into him even though I knew there was a high chance of him raising many times) but he more than paid for that advantage by dumping in 3 or 4 big bets every time I had a very good hand. And many times I just had middle pair and called his raise, winning $40.
Also funny (I wish I had saved the hand history) was a hand where I lead out with QJ into an A44 flop after raising preflop. He raised me, I threebet (he would have waited for the turn to raise if he had something so I wanted to make him fold) and he called. The turn and river were both blanks, I bet both times, he called both times. Imagine my surprise when the pot came to me. He had jack high it turned out. Then just a few hands later I called him with jack high (the board had an ace and a king, and I knew from his play that he was very weak) and won a little pot. He called me an idiot for calling with jack high. Too funny. He calls with jack high, loses, then I do it and win, and I am the idiot. His was blatantly beat, mine appeared to be the best hand.
He also kept telling me how lucky I was, which I found hilarious. Sure, I put a few beats on him, no doubt about that. That is heads up for you. But my beats were generally me semi-bluffing and getting there, or calling him down with 99 when a K flopped (thinking I had the best hand) and rivering a 9. They were bad beats, but the play wasn’t necessarily bad. The beats he put on my were generally him making some incredibly idiotic cap with a hand that was obviously dominated and getting there. But he never remembered those, he only remembered the times where I got lucky. It is that ability to delude himself that will prevent him from ever advancing.
One time he capped the turn with a 7 outer and hit on the river to beat my top pair. Then the next hand I called him down with a lower ace high than he had (thinking it might be good) but I had a gut shot and my kicker to draw to (the same 7 outs) and put in one bet on the flop and turn then hit the river. He was furious and told me how lucky I was, after putting the same hideous beat on me the hand before. But his beat came after he put in $90 with a blatant slim draw, mine after putting in $30 with a hand that rated to be good even if it missed a decent amount of the time. I told him that he was right, I was lucky. Lucky that I got such a clueless clown to play me heads up.
So anyway it was no surprise when I took $1k off of the monkey in one hour and he gave up. He had it coming for overrating himself so much. He said he would play me later too, I hope he meant it. He seemed to have a decent amount of money in his account, I wouldn’t mind moving it over to mine. Maybe I will make him a deal where he just transfers 75% of his account to me (saving me the rake) and he just keeps the rest. That would work out better for both of us.
After that I played $10/$20 6 max again for a couple more hours, won a few hundred, and ended up the day up $1600 or so. I also almost cleared my $200 bonus today, probably completing ¾ of the raked hands. Not bad for a day’s work. My $10/$20 6 max rate for the day was still somewhat low, but better than negative. I am very optimistic about being able to get my full 30 hours in this week as well, which is always good when you are on somewhat of a bad streak. “The best way out of a shooting slump is to keep shooting.”

Posted by themaroon at 10:29 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Poker Tracker Stats At 10k Hands

Well I have now officially logged over 10k hands of 10/20 6 max in Poker Tracker and I have some stats to post. I logged a few thousand hands between other people’s computers and my own PC the week before I formatted it, so there are a number of hands that don’t show up here, but for what its worth here are the stats from the first 10k that PT absorbed:

VP$IP: 37.92. I’ve never been a tight player. Still I think I might try to weed out a couple % of hands. maybe drop it to the 35% range. Maybe not though.
Amount Won: $8,040.83. At 30 hours a week I estimate 24k hands a month, which at this rate would amount to about $20k.
BB/100 hands: 3.98. This is right about where I think it should end up. I have had a good and bad streak so far, but 10k hands is still far too small of a sample for this to mean much.
Total Rake: $3,284.50. Times 25% back is just north of $800, meaning I would get about $2k in rake back a month. This month though I missed some rake back while fulfilling bonus requirements, because bonus money is more profitable.
Top Ten Hands and their average win:
1. AA: $47.33
2. AKs: $36.94
3. KK: $33.79
4. QQ: $31.48
5. JJ: $29.47
6. QJs: $27.52
7. AJo: $21.99 (for a limited time only)
8. QTs: $17.17
9. A8s: $16.96
10. AQs: $16.70
Well the top 5 are all reasonable, though obviously I expect KK to move above AKs. I have actually won a higher percentage of the time with AKs and QQ than with KK, so we know right there that this sample is too small to yet be meaningful. Also I expect 10 10 and AKo (currently both under $14 per hand) to move up quite a bit, as well as many other obvious changes.
Some interesting bulk stats on the $10/$20 6 max, taken from my own play and countless hours of datamining (my stats excluded):
Unique players: 3,339
Winners: 1,397 (41.81%)
Losers: 1,943 (58,19%)*
Avg BB/100: -1.70 (average player loses almost $35 an hour)
Avg VP$!P: 40.26 (therefore I am a little tighter than average)
*Please note that this means losers at poker. If it meant losers in life the number would be much, much higher

Posted by themaroon at 12:00 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

January 23, 2005

The Office

I decided to get a jump on the week ahead and work a few hours today and actually had a winning day. I played 4 hours, won $600, so right about what I believe to be average. This also managed to clear another $200 in bonus for me, and I have another $200 more to obtain tomorrow, which I will then work to clear. The bonuses sure are piling up this month. What is sad is when I think back to when I was working at The Home Depot, which is now almost two years ago, and realize that I didn’t make as much in a month as I made in bonuses this month. Or as much as I generally will get in rake back in a couple weeks. Scary isn't it?

So anyway I have been working on a plan for my office for a while and I think I have figured out what I am going to do to it. I took the first step today by going to Sam's Club and buying a dorm sized refrigerator. One thing I will never understand is how my headphones cost $300 but I can get a refrigerator for half that, but anyway. I got it because when you are playing a few tables at a time it is a pain in the ass to get up and go to another refrigerator. Plus the fridge we have isn't very big, so I couldn’t just go loading it with all sorts of beverages anyway.
I have always felt that poker is an emotional game and as such you are best off playing when you are comfortable. This is no top-secret advice either, every book out there tells you not to play when you are agitated, tired, hungry, etc. I am the kind of person who always has to be drinking something (usually water) and there is nothing more annoying than having my glass of water run out and trying to find a long enough break in the action to go refill it. Now I can just grab another bottle of Fiji out of my stainless steel GE refrigerator.
The next step for my office will be curtains. It already has cellular shades over the enormous window but that does little to block the sun on bright days, so I am going to get something dark (preferably a black color) to help keep the glare off my screen. It annoys me how bright it gets during the day in there.
After that I want to get a new PC. Mine is loud and slow. I am thinking of building my own again (I built the one I have) and using an Athlon 64. It will be top of the line all the way, PCI express, 2 SATA HDs in a 0+1 Raid (with my 200gb IDE for media files), dual layer DVD burner, GB of Ram (minimum), and water cooling so it runs silent. Last time I built my PC (I think about 2.5 years ago) I used good quality parts but I was still on somewhat of a budget, this time I am going to make it a performance machine. I never really had any use for a faster system, but now that I am datamining with Poker Tracker and using playerview (more on that later) I wouldn’t mind all of that importing taking much less time.
After the new PC I am going to replace my ratty old couch either with a reclining couch or with two recliners. I am going to get a new table in front of it to set up my monitor on. Maybe some sort of office desk that is high enough off of the ground for me to easily view the monitor while reclining. If the distance makes it too hard to see the tables and read the print at 1600x1200 resolution I may have to buy a second monitor and just run it in dual screen mode, but I don’t think that will be necessary.
After that I may get a new stereo system. The one I have in my office is very old and the sound quality, while great for 1990, isn't so hot now. That is pretty much my plan for the office. It is as close to a bachelor pad as I am ever going to get. Maybe I should go crazy and throw a few plasma screens in it (even though I don’t watch TV) just to be like EDOGN. Well I have to go order some Fiji water off the internet and cook dinner. Later.

Posted by themaroon at 7:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 21, 2005

Bad Streak

The cards haven't been falling well for me this week. I am down a couple grand, nothing unusual. I keep taking the worst beats. But you will have that when monkeys keep ramming long shot draws at you. It hasn’t really bothered me, other than for a brief period where the worst player at each of my tables was trash talking and 2 outering me at the same time.

Posted by themaroon at 7:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 20, 2005

1 Year Of Poker Chronicling

Today is this blog's first birthday. I have now officially been writing my thoughts on poker for an entire year. And what is even scarier is that people have been reading it. Even though I am the most hated blogger in poker (or tied for it at least with a certain blogette) I still manage to get thousands of hits per day. But let's see if we can't recap what has happened over that past year, and make some forward looking statements about the year ahead.
I began this blog just before I went to Tunica for last year's World Poker Open. I didn’t do too well down there, but didn’t do badly either. I met some cool people, two of whom have since made it on the WPT (one first, one second) and one who moved to Vegas who I still keep in touch with.
After that trips included Las Vegas (numerous times), Atlantic City (couple times), and last year's Party Poker Cruise. I have played in 5 events with buy-ins of $1,000 or more, two of which were televised, and was eliminated due to bad luck in 4 and bad play in 1. Ok, one may have been a combination of the two, but still I have gotten progressively closer to the money each time and have an excellent feeling about the next outing, which will be the PPM4 in March.
When I began this blog I was playing $10/$20 6 max, one table at a time. I did that for a couple months, then went to playing 2 $5/$10 6 max, then 3, and now am playing 2 $10/$20s. This isn't much in the way of growth to be honest, but I had a period of about 4 or 5 months where I just couldn’t bring myself to play much. I think I was just burned out and needed a vacation but had put myself in a financial situation where I couldn’t take one. I won't do that again.
I did take a brief period (about a month) where I played tournaments almost exclusively, but realized that I didn’t like it. Tournaments are fun, and to me there is nothing better than making the top table of one, but top table finishes are few and far between when you routinely play in 1200 man tournaments. To play tournaments online for a living you not only have to withstand tremendous swings but also have to adhere to a schedule, and I didn’t like either of those.
I did have a few successes in tournaments however. I got a 4th in a Sunday $215 NL on Party (2000 entrants) for $24k. I won a $109 NL for $8,500 or so and got a 3rd in one for something like $4.5k (if memory serves me). I won a tournament at the Mirage for about $4k, took a 3rd in a tournament on Paradise for about $3k or so, took a 3rd at The Orleans for something like $3,500, and won two seats in Party Poker Millions for a total of about $22k between them. Add that up and it comes to about $70,000, though I imagine total buy-ins (have to count the PPMs in) add up to over $40k. I also had too many cashes in the $1k range to remember, but those aren’t very impressive in $200 buy-in tournaments.
As far as the year ahead goes I am starting the year of travel off in February, going to Los Angeles on the 3rd with UallGoingTap of Poker Stars fame for the L.A. Poker Classic. I will be playing two NL Hold'em events with $1k buy-ins and a $500 limit event too. After that will be the Party Poker Million 4 cruise, which is about as far ahead as I have concrete plans for.
So stick around for year two and see how the results end up. I hope to be playing (and beating) at least $30/$60 games online by the next birthday of this blog. Let's see if I can stick to those New Year's resolutions. Now to go find me some cake.

Posted by themaroon at 11:57 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

January 19, 2005

Comments

I am trying a new approach to tackling comment spam by using a plug-in, so everyone holla at me so I can see if it works. If this can reduce the spam to tolerable numbers (lets hope) then I can just leave them open. Thanks!
**Update**
Seems to be working. Thanks for the shout outs! Turns out that for some reason my spammers all had the word "phentermine" in their spam, so by blocking all spams using that word in addition to the normal mt-blacklist words I should be able to defeat spam bots. Hooray for comments!

Posted by themaroon at 11:33 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

January 17, 2005

Nothing even remotely to do with poker but...

This is too good to for the whole world not to see. Buy your own badonkadonk. Be sure to read all of the comments, especially the last. Too funny.

Posted by themaroon at 5:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Well, I tried

I attempted to turn comments back on. At first things were going good. I got about 10 real comments and 6 spams. It was annoying having to sift through them, but I figured that if that was the worst it got I would be alright.

Then today I woke up and checked my inbox (all comments are emailed to me for approval) and saw that I had 250 new messages. It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. From reading around this turns out to be a very common problem, and if I leave comments on it will only grow worse and eventually eat all of my bandwidth.
So I am unfortunately forced to turn them back off. The only good news is there is no reason why I have to continue to use MovableType software at all, so I may just switch. My brief experience with WordPress showed that software to be easy to use. It was all written in PHP too, which I am somewhat familiar with, so if it lacked any features I wanted I could simply program them in.
So I may switch to another software sometime in the not too distant future, but for now please accept my apologies. I tried. Unfortunately millions of idiots out there are downloading unexpected email attachments containing viruses that turn their machine into a spambot, and a few of those bots are targeting MT sites. Including mine. I really wanted to have comments on, but I can't sift through 250 emails each day, even if I could afford the bandwidth.
I did once write about a solution I had come up with to spam on my other site, but for those who missed it here is the theory:
First you have to realize that spam wouldn't work if nobody bought the crap they are selling. So the easiest way to get rid of spam would be to get rid of the people buying it, because as long as spam is profitable somebody somewhere is going to keep sending it. Now it should be obvious that all people who would buy their penis enlarger or Viagra from a random emailer who doesn’t even speak passable English is an idiot. So if you eliminate the idiots, you eliminate spam. So how do you eliminate the idiots?
What you do is send out a ton of spam advertising a device to enlarge men's penises. But you design the device to castrate them immediately. And for women you would sell weight loss pills that contained birth control. Then you wait a few generations and let evolution take control. The people dumb enough to buy things from spam have now been castrated/regulated and can't have any children. Children who would likely be dumb enough to buy spam themselves, given their inferior gene pool. In just 100 years or so spam might be completely ineffective.
Now I realize this is a long time, but attempting to fight spam merely by technological means won't ever work. And apparently the legal system isn't very effective either, as the Can Spam act seems to be doing nothing at all. So 100 years is better than never. And in the mean time we have the pleasure of knowing that every guy who bought a penis enlarger was castrated, which is what they deserve for supporting the spam industry.

Posted by themaroon at 5:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 15, 2005

Comment Unmoderation

A long time ago I disabled comments from this site in an attempt to combat the enormous amount of combat spam I was receiving. Before I did that I was getting an average of 4-5 real comments and a similar amount of spam comments on every post. Since enabling MovableType's TypeKey service I have had very few comments, if any, despite my readership now being about 5 times what it was in 6 months ago. So I am going to try just reopening the comments to anyone and see what happens. I know MT is having a lot of trouble with spambots these days, so I might end up having to close it right back down, but then at least I tried.
So comment away, and sorry about the pain in the ass that was TypeKey. It was a great idea but for some reason the system just never worked. People would often complain that they had registered with TypeKey, verified their email, then came to comment and were told they were not a member. There were far too many people like that for them all to be doing something wrong (it is a pretty simple task) so it must have been the TypeKey program itself or some goofy setting wrong in my blog.
So holla back at me. Sorry, been watching to much Cribs on MTV.

Posted by themaroon at 1:34 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

January 14, 2005

Tilt

I posted a brief review of ESPN's new "poker" drama TILT on the new site, but for those who don't feel like looking I'll sum it up here in one word. Atrocious. It may be the worst show on television. I say that as someone who doesn’t watch much television though, but that has to be about as bad as it gets. Even my girlfriend thought it was bad, and she watches Will and Grace.

Let's see, the acting is 100% terrible. The poker hands themselves are as realistic as fictional hands ever get on screen (a set losing a big pot to a guy who had 4 6 and caught a straight happens daily) though for some reason everyone always makes minimum sized raises and reraises. Maybe their hand consultants play in too many tournaments on Party. The one-liners, such as "it's going to cost you a tank of gas to call this raise",are as bad as you might expect, maybe worse. And did I mention the acting is bad? No big surprise, given that it has Michael Madsden in it.
Still all of the above might be forgivable if not for the plot. The plot is as hokey and unrealistic as humanly possible. Madsden plays "The Matador", who is kind of like Doyle Brunson on crack (and with worse hair). He got his name from his tendency to take down the "young bulls". Now that nickname alone is enough to eliminate any possibility of the show being picked up for a second season, but wait, there's more.
The Matador is the boss of some sort of poker gang, and the pit bosses, cops, and even the chairman of the board of the casino are in his pocket. I don’t know where they got their information from, but guys who own casinos buy guys who play poker, even at the biggest games. Not the other way around. The Matador sits at the highest tables, where the other members of his gang play and use signals to tell him their cards. Somehow by the way they scratch their nose The Matador can tell exactly which two cards he folded, so he knows exactly what cards are left in the deck. The complexity of a system that would tell your accomplice which two cards you had would be mind boggling, but they manage it merely by tapping their wrists.
Anyway three young players, all bankrolled by a washed up old ex-pro, are out to take down The Matador. As is a cop (in an unrelated plot thread) whose brother disappeared after making a tell-all video about The Matador's scam. Somehow the three pro's ( two guys and a woman named Miami who was a high-stakes pro at age 12) are going to work as a team to "take him down" in a cash game. The guy has been swindling people in the biggest games in the world for over ten years and they are going to bust him in one night. To do it they have to work as a team while making the Matador think they are enemies. One of them develops a second plan, however, when he finds a way to possibly get the Matador to back him.
Also hilarious were the cameos. In one scene The Matador asks TJ Cloutier and Daniel Negreanu to play with him, and Daniel says he is going to find an easier game somewhere else. Now if they want to have real pro's do cameos what they should have done was replaced Daniel with a player who actually knows the definition of game selection. Not that I'm faulting Daniel there mind you, he just seems to think he is good enough to sit in any game, and he may be right. And second they should have TJ say something like "No thanks, I am going to go play at the craps table. Can I borrow some money?"

Posted by themaroon at 9:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My week off

I have changed the twoouts.com site into a poker news blog. This is sort of a proof-of-concept type thing to see if poker is popular enough to sustain its own Wonkette or Engadget. I also wanted a chance to play around with PHP-Nuke, which is a very powerful content management system. To all those who expressed an interest in having their own blog I am sorry that I was not able to set them up before, but you can now set up a journal through that site yourself. I will be doing a considerable amount of work on it in the near future, and it will become a pet project for me.
Also there will either be a very major announcement coming from me in the next week or so, or a very interesting story as to why there is no major announcement. Either way it should be a good read.
Other than that nothing is new here. I decided to take the week off. I had been pushing myself quite a bit lately to increase the bankroll a little more (for my own comfort mainly) and to make it on the cruise. I accomplished both so I thought I would take a week to just play around on the web, build this new site, and maybe play some video games. The week has gone by far too quickly though. It is amazing how you can have zero responsibilities and still keep yourself busy.

Posted by themaroon at 12:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 13, 2005

2004 Felicia Awards Acceptance Speech

Felicia published her list of the best and worst of poker blogs for 2004. Her livejournal is a private site so I won't give away any of the details other than the fact that I won two categories, the first being "Poker Bloggers who seem to have the best/deepest understanding of serious poker" and the second being "Most Hated Bloggers" (I think this means most hated by the blogging community). Hoooray! I sure hope I can get some sort of statue out of this.
I would just like to thank God, my parents, my girlfriend who has been very supportive through everything, my friends and family, and most of all the Academy (Felicia) for recognizing all of my hard work over the past year. And last but not least I would like to thank all of the haters out there. Most Hated Blogger is the most prestigious award of all, and without all you wannabes blogging about your $.5/$1 games and hating me for actually making money I never could have won it. I just hope I can follow up with an equally spite-inducing performance in '05.

Posted by themaroon at 11:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 11, 2005

Poker Tracker Ritual

Today I performed the weekly Poker Tracker ritual. I play poker on both my desktop and my laptop, though I must admit lately I have been playing more on my laptop, just because I very much enjoy playing from my recliner. My office chair is pretty comfortable, but it just can't match a good recliner. Ever since I bought my laptop desk (which is ugly as sin but quite functional) I have had little motivation to play in my office. I have a new toy on the way from Amazon which should arrive by next Monday or so which may enable me to never leave my favorite chair again, but more on that later.

Anyway I keep my Poker Tracker database on my desktop, so I have to use my home network to move hand histories from my laptop to my PC, which is very easy. I simply tell windows to share the Party Poker folder, then I copy my hand history folder and my notes file over to my PC. I import the hand histories and the notes. Then I run the advanced player note export and go back to my laptop, where I copy the new note file into my Party Poker directory.
I also like to make a compressed folder on my PC and copy my Poker Tracker and Hand History databases into it. All of that compresses down to about 1/6th of its normal size. Then I copy that onto my laptop as well, so that if one hard drive goes bad I will have a backup. I probably should also buy a DVD-RW and burn it onto one of those just for complete safety, but the odds of two hard drives failing at the same time are very small. I have never had one hard drive fail before (knock on wood) but I am sure I will, and I think I might even be in the process of it on my desktop, as it has been acting a bit goofy lately.
Also I like to back up my Stat King database. Thank god for 802.11g. Moving all of those files over would take more than 5 times as long on the old 802.11b. They don't take long yet (they were a total of 600 mb today) but the way my database is growing (I add about 20k new hands daily) it will be in the gigabytes soon. Then I will have to start compressing and burning to DVDs because my laptop only has another 5GB or so of space on it.
I get that many new hands each day because I have started using Poker Tracker's ability to import hands you are observing. Once I figured out how to do it (about a week or so ago) I thought it might be to my advantage to watch some games on Party. Thanks to all of the skins I have accounts at I am able to watch 12 games at a time. So I set it to watch all 3 $30/$60 games, all 3 $15/$30 6 max games, and then 6 random $10/$20 6 max games. I currently play the $10/$20 6 max and will likely move up to their $15/$30 cousin in the next month or so, and would like to eventually become a regular in the $30/$60s, so I figure it can't hurt to know exactly how every regular in them plays.
I have found some very interesting statistics doing this. Unfortunately Party disconnects you from a table after a period of inactivity, but that period must be at least 4 or 5 hours. Still it disconnects at some point when I am sleeping, so I don’t get every single hand dealt at those tables but I probably get over 20 hours a day of information. And that is most likely enough to know who the regulars are and get a good feel as to how they are doing in those games. I really wish Poker Tracker could observe the $100/$200 on Stars too, but I don’t think it can yet.
The funniest thing I found is that there is a guy who I have a few thousand hands of $30/$60 on whose VP$IP% is 11. That means he is seeing ridiculously few flops. I would think that optimal in those games might be above 20, though it depends on how aggressive they are. Of course he is losing, and I don’t really see how he could be a winner over any significant time period playing that tight. If he is still around when I get ready to play those games more often (which I highly doubt) I might go through the hands and see which ones he is playing and which he isn't.
As for my own stats I am getting near 10k hands, and my VP$IP is a little high, at 37. I usually seem to keep it around 35, but I also have over 6bb/100 for that time period so maybe I was just running well. I did get aces 85 times, and I should have seen it only 50 or so in that period. I had kings only 20 times though, so I guess between them they are even.
Right now my most profitable hands in order are AA, AKs, QQ, 10 8 s, KK, and J8s. So you can see my data is nowhere near complete. I am guessing that it will take at least 100k hands before they order themselves out completely, and possibly even as many as twice that. It will be interesting to see how it works out, and whether or not 99 (which wins 58% of the time for me so far) really is better than KK (54%). I'm betting the under on that one but you just never know.

Posted by themaroon at 8:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 8, 2005

Imposters

Yesterday after the tournament (which ended around 6 a.m.) I was a little too excited to sleep, so I spent a few hours writing up the report and talking to a few friends on the phone. I was debating whether or not to even play in today's tournament because I knew that having just won a seat the night before my heart wouldn’t be in it. So I asked John if he would want to run it using my account and just pay me the entry fee, so he could get the extra chips. He generally does his playing on a Party skin so he didn’t have any extra chips for his own account. He decided it would be cool and that if he won he would give me half of it in return for half of my action on the cruise.

That was a good deal for me because I had woke up early to spend some time with my girlfriend and was in no shape to be playing a 9 hour tournament. John started off playing very well and rolled up a 10k stack early in the tournament. My friend Chris was also playing in the tournament and he got bad beat out early with Q Q against some chump's 10 10, so I decided to go out for a quick beer or two with him and his girlfriend Karin. After that I called John to see how he was doing and he had a big stack (25k or so at that point I think) so I went over to his house to watch him clean up. I am glad I did too, since there were another 5 or 6 poker players over and we were all having a great time. Everyone was amazed at how many people stopped by to talk to me. At first John was telling them all that it was him playing, but after a while he just got tired of it and decided to just say hello. I must say though, he did an excellent imitation of me (no big surprise) by making fun of all of the bad players. He kept saying "get out of my office" when he busted them out of the tournament, which is right up there with my usual "I busted a chump."
So anyway he got pretty deep in the tournament with a decent stack and then this amazing hand happened:

***** Hand History for Game 1406073712 *****
2000/4000 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 8488368) - Sat Jan 08 02:29:19 EST 2005
Table Jan. Semi-Finals Day2(73046) Table 4 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: rivered25 (41336)
Seat 2: jimbobway58 (70906)
Seat 3: littleamy (32263)
Seat 4: IBustChumps (40328)
Seat 5: alwaysawinne (53932)
Seat 6: gusman04 (63092)
Seat 7: laate (40944)
Seat 8: hersom (15232)
Seat 9: justin2day (146904)
Seat 10: WSmithers (64058)
hersom posts small blind (1000)
justin2day posts big blind (2000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to IBustChumps [ Ac, 8c ]
WSmithers folds.
rivered25 folds.
jimbobway58 folds.
littleamy folds.
IBustChumps raises (6000) to 6000
alwaysawinne folds.
gusman04 folds.
laate folds.
hersom folds.
justin2day calls (4000)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 8h, 4s, 7c ]
justin2day bets (20000)
IBustChumps raises (34328) to 34328
IBustChumps is all-In.
justin2day calls (14328)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 6h ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 2c ]
Creating Main Pot with $81656 with IBustChumps
** Summary **
Main Pot: 81656 |
Board: [ 8h 4s 7c 6h 2c ]
rivered25 balance 41336, didn't bet (folded)
jimbobway58 balance 70906, didn't bet (folded)
littleamy balance 32263, didn't bet (folded)
IBustChumps balance 0, lost 40328 [ Ac 8c ] [ a pair of eights -- Ac,8c,8h,7c,6h ]
alwaysawinne balance 53932, didn't bet (folded)
gusman04 balance 63092, didn't bet (folded)
laate balance 40944, didn't bet (folded)
hersom balance 14232, lost 1000 (folded)
justin2day balance 188232, bet 40328, collected 81656, net +41328 [ 5h Ah ] [ a straight, four to eight -- 8h,7c,6h,5h,4s ]
WSmithers balance 64058, didn't bet (folded)

What an amazingly stupid play that was by justin2day. He had a 4-1 underdog there, when even a random hand would only be a 3-1 underdog. Still he got lucky and hit his gut shot. When people at the table started making fun of him he said that he didn’t care what the cards were, he just wanted to knock people out. This was with over 90 people left. I sure hope that monkey doesn’t make the boat. Or maybe I should hope that he does. In any case the thought that I am going to be playing for millions of dollars with people like that is so lovely.
I am unfortunately not going to be able to play in the semi-final tomorrow, as it is my Dad's 50th birthday party. What is odd is that I never forgot about that party, but yet it never occurred to me that I was only going to be able to play 3 out of the 4 semi-finals because of it. If it had I would have started yesterday with a 3k stack instead of 2600, and who knows how that might have impacted the day for me. I guess in the end it couldn’t have won me any more but it might have made a few things easier along the way.
Still it is things like that which make me want a PDA or smart phone. I have no concept whatsoever of time or date. Of course I really don’t need any concept of it either. If weren’t for my cell phone I would never have any idea what day of the week it is. Iggy and I were joking about that earlier today. I must have been asked 10 times today when the cruise is, to which I could only respond "March". That is all I know, and other than for the 15 minutes it will take me to book the flight it is all I need to know. If they emailed me and told me it was on Monday it would be fine by me. What great fun it is to be unemployed!

Posted by themaroon at 5:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 7, 2005

The Legend Continues

I am going to warn you now, this is a Stone Brewery Ruination IPA-fueled uber-post. Don't blame me if you get fired because you spent half of your workday reading this. I know a couple readers who were rooting me on (some for the whole time) will be calling off of work tomorrow. As Ali G would say to all of the readers who came out and cheered me on (and there must have been at least twenty) "Big up yo' selves. Respek!" I am glad I was able to win it for all of y'all. I was going to go to bed and write this later, but I figured since some of you spent 8 hours watching me I could stay up another one and edit/post it.

So anyway I woke up Thurday, went to eat with Keith, then came back and took a little nap. I woke up again around 8:30 and drank some tea and answered some reader mail, and just hung out until it was time for the tournament. Much to my surprise it ended up getting almost 1400 entries for 23 spots and some change to the next 3. The average starting stack was 2500 and mine was 2600, so I was happy. Considering that the average stack when we got to the cruise spots was going to be 150k I wasn’t too worried about being short the 400 chips from the full 3000.
At this point I was feeling very good about my chances. I have been on top of my game for the last week or two. I was no longer feeling fatigued from my cold, and I have been running very well lately. I figured I had as good a shot as I was ever going to get, so I took it. Starting a tournament in that mindset is a tremendous advantage, so I was glad for the opportunity to do so.
My table started out loose aggressive, with everyone really gambling it up. I was at tale 6, so I knew I would be there for a while. For the most part early I was content to sit back and watch them all battle it out. I don’t see much value in playing many hands early in these things. I like to just sit back, play tight, and let my good hands collect the chips that the monkeys are all throwing around. It is fun sitting around watching people call 3 bets cold with K 10 or A7s. Still I managed to get dealt a few good hands and for the most part had them snapped by idiots calling raises with A2 or similar garbage, but I won a few little pots too and by the first break I had about 2685.
I immediately got back from the break and got beat on a couple decent pots by a monkey who was playing pretty much every hand. I had about 2k left tough and was still doing alright. It is really annoying to lose a hand to a guy who calls raises with 9 7 off, because you know he has zero shot of winning anything. If a non-idiot beats you in a pot at least those chips might help them make the money, but when a guy like the one who beat me a few times wins them they are just chips being flushed down the drain.
I even made a comment that I would shave my head if that particular monkey lasted another hour. Of course I shave my head weekly, but still I found myself rooting harder than ever for the idiot to get what he deserved. Eventually I picked up KK, flopped a set, and busted one monkey and crippled the one who made me promise to shave my head, so I didn’t have to. I probably will tomorrow or the next day anyway though.
Anyway I soon picked up a couple hands, but lost a small pot later and ended the level with 3600 or so. That was just below par at that point, and the BB was only 200 so I was still in decent shape. Unfortunately it meant that I was arriving at that point where every hand is going to have a significant impact on my stack, but I guess you will pretty much always have that at some point. I just kept playing fairly tight and waiting. Meanwhile it seemed like every single person who ever read my site stopped by to say hello. That was great. It seems to have brought me a little luck too, as I picked up a few small pots right out of the gate after the break. It is so cool to have a cheering section. It may be even cooler than to have all of the monkeys hating on me.
The play at my table was starting to tighten up a bit but it still wasn’t tough. I got lucky towards the end of level 7 and picked up AA against QQ and won a big pot. The guy who had the QQ was a pretty solid player named Hudak_TheKid and I had raised UTG, so I was pretty sure he had a big pair. I capped it preflop, the flop was rags, and I bet and threebet him when he raised. He called me down from there and I won a nice pot. Then I flopped a set of 7s, won a little pot, and got dealt QQ against an AQ and won another little pot to get to over 10k.
At that point I had a big stack, which is a huge advantage in a limit tournament. You can push marginal hands and draws that you might have to be careful with or even fold if you had fewer chips. Unfortunately the good player to my left, who I very nearly busted with my AA, managed to catch a few hands of his own and build back up to 8k. I had about 12k then and would much rather he just have been knocked out, even though he was pretty tight and unlikely to really harm me. Still having another monkey to my left instead of him would have been nice.
Sure enough towards the end of level 7 he took a nice pot off me to bump me back to 8k. I raised q9 on the button and he 3bet me, and the flop came out k 9 x. He bet, I raised, and he called. The turn was another king and he bet again so I raised again hoping he would lay down whatever he had, figuring he almost certainly didn’t have a king, which I thought he would have checkraise on the turn for sure. He only had about 3 big blinds left in his stack at that point so I thought I might pressure him out if he had something like JJ. He came back over and since I couldn’t fold (I was too sure he didn’t have a K) and he was almost in I just reraised and stuffed him. He called and rolled over A 9 to take the 10k pot. I really don’t like his call on the flop at all, if he was going to continue I think he should have reraised. Also his bet on the turn I don’t like as well, as it commits him to playing all of his chips. He probably read me for reading him for empty, which I did, but think he should have played it safe and check-called twice. Still I was annoyed that the hand played out that way, but when level 9 ended I was still in decent shape with about 7500 on the button. The bb coming back was 600 so I had a little over 12 bbs, and the rounds changed to a half hour so there was plenty of time for me to pick up something.
I then won a little pot with AKs after the break against a guy who felt the urge to go all in with J 10 on a Q high flop. Then I split a huge pot with AK against another AK (with another monkey all-in) to bust another chump, making two busted chumps in two hands, and I was back to 11k. A little later in the round I rivered an ace with my AQ to beat a KK. I think I might have been mistaken calling the turn (definitely was against KK) but the guy hated me and was a fairly aggressive player. I thought that a K would be good (for a straight) and maybe an ace or a queen as well. No matter, an ace (my only out due to pair on board) fell on the river and I was up to almost 17k. I blinded down a bit then won a hand against a guy who grossly misplayed AQ to get to 19k.
After that I blinded down a bit and lost a big pot with JJ to AA. The idiot limp reraised and I should have known there he had AA. My instincts were telling me to fold on the turn, but I let my brain overrule them because the idiot had been limping, even first in on the button, quite a bit. Somehow though I suspected he had AA though and as always my instincts were correct, so I was down to 9k when I should have still had 12 had I not played like a dunce. After I posted and limped on the button in a 5 way pot I was down to 8k, with an 800 bb. Fortunately still 20 minutes were left in the level.
Then I won a little hand with a set of jacks and bet down a decent pot with AJ after a couple monkeys limped and rags fell to get back to 14k. I hit break 4 with about 12k in chips and blinds of 500/1000 coming back. I then flopped top pair on the bb against some monkey who limped first in from middle position, but the turn came an ace and he raised so I had to fold. I lost another little pot to be down to 4k, then picked up AK on the button and raised to get 4 way action. The guy who beat me when the ace came had K 10 and called me HU on the 993 flop. I turned an ace and locked it up to be back up to 13k.
I then lost a small pot out of the bb to go to 9k, then busted a chump with A 8 against his AQ (he had very few chips and I tried to steal on the cutoff) when the flop came A82 to get back to 13.7k. Play at this point was still fairly loose, with lots of limping UTG and other such plays that could almost never be correct. The aggression level had picked up a bit, but it was still safe to say that nobody left (the good player to my left went bust a while before) had the slightest clue what they were doing. I kept raising hands like AK and AQs. I won a few little pots and a couple mediocre ones to get to 33k, back above average for the first time in an hour or two. That was great considering that we were in 30 minute levels. That meant that I could work my stack up a little bit at a time and not be forced to win every hand I took to the flop.
In the next round I got dealt 66 on the bb and two players went all in for about 2 bbs. Pretty easy to put in 1500 there with no more betting possible, and I had the best hand the whole way and bumped them both. Then someone threebet my KJs with 8 9. Why I don’t know. They called on the K 10 10 flop, then I checked it out, hoping he had QQ and would bet. Had I known he had 8 9 I still would have checked though, since he couldn’t call and maybe could bluff. So I was up to 50k. I really liked my chances but I still wasn’t too excited, since I had been that deep in many tourneys with a stack and busted out before. Still having 35 bbs or so with only 80 suckers left to drop is a good feeling.
At this point we were down to about 90 people, with 23 making the boat. You would think that anyone would realize that half hour rounds mean you don’t have to push your 20bb stack with crap, but everyone kept shoving one hand after another. It is really amazing to me how 95% of all of the players in the tournament are completely clueless, especially when over half of them bought in directly. But that is Party for ya.
Right after the break I raised an A9s in the middle, got called by A 8, and 3 bet all in by 10 8. The A 8 and I chopped the 10 8 out of the tourney. Then a couple hands later I was dealt AA on the bb. It folded to the sb who raised. That guy had gotten in a few little confrontations with me and every time I muscled him out of the pot, so I knew he was going to take his hand all the way. He capped preflop and the flop came something like K 8 3, all clubs. He bet and I raised, at which point he called me out. I was very worried about a club coming but he only had 5k left in chips (big bet being 4k) so I wasn’t folding anyway. Fortunately though he just had A 9 of hearts and was drawing dead after the turn, so I busted another chump. I then took down a little pot and was up to 72k, or 36 bbs with 69 players remaining. I was also chip lead at my table, though that doesn’t matter much in limit. I then won a couple little pots and was up to about 83k (still 2k bb) with 61 players left. This was the first point in the tourney where I really liked my shot. We were now 6 hours into it, and I had an above average stack. Even when the next blind level came I still had over 25 bbs left and with the half hour rounds I felt no pressure at all. I could take a beat or two and still have a shot to win. Unfortunately I was at that point where my expectations were so high that I knew I was going to be let down if I missed the boat. That is the one thing I hate about tournaments. The let-down when you get knocked out. With ring games if you lose you don’t care, in tournaments it is depressing. I can't imagine what the life of a professional tournament player must be like. To me it seems like it would be a self-imposed manic depression. I am the sort of person who likes to be on an emotional even keel, so I don’t know if I could ever take that life. Ring game players make more anyway, so I guess I don’t care.
So anyway at that point I blinded down to 80k when I got dealt KK in early position. I don’t think I had seen a flop in over 20 minutes, but that didn’t stop some monkey from threebetting me with 88. I capped it and bet the whole way (he called) and I won taking me to 110k with 54 people left.
At this point I decided to play super tight. No more taking blind steal shots with mediocre hands. I was near (but probably not at) the stack I would need to make the boat. Players were dropping out rather slowly at this point, due to super cautious play and their stalling, but oddly enough people at my table were still managing to see flops with atrocious hands. I raised an AQ, got called by two players, and bet it down when junk came to get to almost 120k. Then came the first bad beat of the day.
I raised QQ UTG and one of the guys who called my raise last time called. The flop came Q high with 2 dimes and I bet and he called. The turn was a dime, I bet he called, and the river was a 4th dime. He rolled over AK with A of dimes to beat me. I still had a good stack and raised AK UTG and won a little pot to get right back to 100k. I was annoyed because winning that QQ would have put me on the boat, but I still had plenty of chips left.
At that point I got moved to table number 1. At my table was a guy with over 235k (and the chip lead) and I tried convincing him to sit out and quit playing. He definitely should have (and I hate to say it but he should have stalled as much as possible) since he was guaranteed to be on the boat that way. But instead he was taking his locked up seat and gambling with it. It was a negative freeroll for him. I was praying he would go broke for his stupidity, but he ended up making the cruise.
Anyway I found myself down to 41 players left with about 100k on the button. Idiots with good stacks kept playing bad hands badly and slowly eliminating themselves for no reason. At this point the going got real slow as everyone began stalling, and my stack remained around 100k. This was now about 16bbs, so I was at a point where I could only afford to lose one hand, then the pressure would be on. And that was when hand for hand hit.
At that point the guy who previously had 230some thousand ran it way up to about 400k. and he still kept playing. I just can't fathom how dumb you have to be to do that. He could sit out and make the boat with no hesitation. I tried talking him out of it, mostly because a guy in the same situation put a huge beat on me last year and nearly prevented me from making it. I had visions of that happening again, but this time without the almost. So sure enough another guy rolls up 300k and same thing, starts playing every hand. People who would play in that spot, especially with someone to point out that they are taking an inverse freeroll, aren’t just bad players, they are stupid. Anyone even remotely intelligent could realize the foolishness of this, if not on their own then immediately when someone pointed it out to them. They had nothing to gain and everything to lose, so why not post and fold and enjoy your cruise. If you want to play go jump in a sit and go.
When the next break hit I had about 100k which was just under average. We were coming back with an 8k BB and numerous people in the 2-5 bb range. I was thinking another round or two tops. Unfortunately the idiots with the big stacks weren’t sitting out, if they were it would have been possible for us to steal all of their blinds and for most of us to make the boat easy. But they were playing every hand, so instead I had to just play tight poker and hope to pick off a couple blinds or small pots. And if I hit a big pot I was on the boat for sure.
I posted the blinds, stole the blinds, then posted them again the next round. Then I raised a KJc and one of the big stack idiots called. The flop came Q78 with 2 clubs, he checked and I bet. He of course called. The turn was a king, he checked and I bet and he called again. The river was a Q and we both checked, and he had 5 6 off (busted straight draw) so I won the pot. I then got free blinds and when the button came I had 135k with 32 players remaining.
We got down to seven handed and I got dealt AJ utg. I had to raise but I got 3bet and got out on the flop so I only lost a little. Then came the killer hand. From this point out I decided to stop writing this play-by-play and focus on the tournament, but I did request hand histories for the critical ones, so here they are. The hand history converter I normally use is misfiring today, so I am going to post them raw for you. Anyway, this hand was the one I thought was going to be my last:

***** Hand History for Game 1401927200 *****
8000/16000 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (Limit) (Tournament 8462112) - Fri Jan 07 05:00:28 EST 2005
Table Jan. Semi-Finals Day1(73045) Table 1 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: kingdown (17632)
Seat 2: FiftyOuts (95280)
Seat 3: NYFred (482387)
Seat 4: jyden (81357)
Seat 5: A_plus (199782)
Seat 6: Bufftown (32000)
Seat 7: IBustChumps (110389)
Seat 9: Ocean_girl (17624)
Seat 10: PERSUE (353804)
Bufftown posts small blind (4000)
IBustChumps posts big blind (8000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to IBustChumps [ Qh, Qs ]
Ocean_girl folds.
PERSUE folds.
kingdown raises (16000) to 16000
FiftyOuts raises (24000) to 24000
NYFred calls (24000)
Bufftown could not respond in time.(disconnected)
Bufftown folds.
IBustChumps calls (16000)
kingdown calls (1632)
kingdown is all-In.
Creating Main Pot with $74528 with kingdown
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 6h, 5s, 7s ]
dxsammy: PR ATLEAST RERAISE THEM
IBustChumps bets (8000)
TheRealBlood: and get down on ur knees
FiftyOuts calls (8000)
UHBigTex: careful chumps
boombooms: chump is busted
blazed_1: persue you rock too
blazed_1: keeping it steady
PERSUE: thanks
NYFred calls (8000)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 3s ]
IBustChumps bets (16000)
FiftyOuts calls (16000)
blazed_1: tri-state area cheering
PERSUE: i learned to listen
NYFred raises (32000) to 32000
IBustChumps calls (16000)
UHBigTex: careful chumps
FiftyOuts calls (16000)
** Dealing River ** : [ 6s ]
sixclubcult: yikes
IBustChumps checks.
FiftyOuts checks.
NYFred bets (16000)
IBustChumps calls (16000)
Bkstoney: lol
FiftyOuts folds.
PERSUE: look at this
** Summary **
Main Pot: 74528 | Side Pot 1: 171104
Board: [ 6h 5s 7s 3s 6s ]
kingdown balance 0, lost 17632 [ Kd 4d ] [ a straight, three to seven -- 7s,6h,5s,4d,3s ]
FiftyOuts balance 31280, lost 64000 (folded)
NYFred balance 648019, bet 80000, collected 245632, net +165632 [ Js As ] [ a flush, ace high with ace kicker -- As,Js,7s,6s,5s ]
jyden balance 81357, sits out
A_plus balance 199782, sits out
Bufftown balance 28000, lost 4000 (folded)
IBustChumps balance 30389, lost 80000 [ Qh Qs ] [ a flush, queen high -- Qs,7s,6s,5s,3s ]
Ocean_girl balance 17624, didn't bet (folded)
PERSUE balance 353804, didn't bet (folded)

As you can see NYFred (one of the big stacks who should have been sitting out) wrecked me. The first player to raise was low on chips and didn’t have to have much of a hand to make his raise (as evidenced by his K 4) and actually he deserved what he got for making it, which is playing 8 hours then going out with a crap hand just short of the money. FiftyOuts (whose blog I have a link to over on the right) was playing very well, and I put him on probably having a good hand, but because the original raiser only had one more bb in his stack I thought Fifty could have a lot of hands that I could beat. Plus if an ace or king flopped I could get out easily. The guy who cold called the threebet obviously had no idea whatsoever what he was doing. I originally told my friend on AIM that I was going to fold, but then I thought about Fifty's raise and realized it indicated strength but not necessarily (though possibly) AA or KK. So I took one off. In hindsight I am not sure if this was a good idea. It probably was, as the odds of me losing any more than my preflop call were much less than the odds of me winning a hand to get on the boat. What happened was the most devastating possible result, losing with an over-pair. Me either losing the 16k (and still being in good shape) or me winning a hand that puts me on the boat is much more likely. Still folding gives me a very good shot at the boat as well too, so it is very hard to judge which was the correct play.
After the flop I couldn’t fold. I had to bet the flop, and I think I had to call the raise on the turn because of my flush potential and the fact that even though NYFred was completely clueless he was unlikely to have a 4, and he had been making overaggressive plays with crap all day. If I didn’t have the flush draw I maybe would have dumped it, but since I did I called, hit the flush, and had to call the river. Oomph, what a beat. And from a guy who had no business doing anything other than sitting out. Just like last year.
Then the next hand I got this:

***** Hand History for Game 1401933833 *****
8000/16000 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (Limit) (Tournament 8462112) - Fri Jan 07 05:04:29 EST 2005
Table Jan. Semi-Finals Day1(73045) Table 1 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 2: FiftyOuts (31280)
Seat 3: NYFred (648019)
Seat 4: jyden (81357)
Seat 5: A_plus (199782)
Seat 6: Bufftown (28000)
Seat 7: IBustChumps (26389)
Seat 9: Ocean_girl (21624)
Seat 10: PERSUE (353804)
Ocean_girl posts small blind (4000)
PERSUE posts big blind (8000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to IBustChumps [ As, Qd ]
FiftyOuts raises (16000) to 16000
UHBigTex: ya think bravo?
NYFred calls (16000)
jyden folds.
A_plus folds.
Bufftown folds.
IBustChumps raises (24000) to 24000
Ocean_girl folds.
PERSUE folds.
FiftyOuts calls (8000)
NYFred calls (8000)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 2d, 8h, 3h ]
UHBigTex: ull need it
IBustChumps: tx
FiftyOuts checks.
NYFred checks.
IBustChumps bets (2389)
IBustChumps is all-In.
FiftyOuts folds.
NYFred calls (2389)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Js ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 9c ]
Creating Main Pot with $88778 with IBustChumps
** Summary **
Main Pot: 88778 |
Board: [ 2d 8h 3h Js 9c ]
FiftyOuts balance 7280, lost 24000 (folded)
NYFred balance 621630, lost 26389 [ Qc 6h ] [ high card queen -- Qc,Js,9c,8h,6h ]
jyden balance 81357, didn't bet (folded)
A_plus balance 199782, didn't bet (folded)
Bufftown balance 28000, didn't bet (folded)
IBustChumps balance 88778, bet 26389, collected 88778, net +62389 [ As Qd ] [ high card ace -- As,Qd,Js,9c,8h ]
Ocean_girl balance 17624, lost 4000 (folded)
PERSUE balance 345804, lost 8000 (folded)

Well I tripled up and got about where I would have been if I just folded those queens like I should have. I had to cut about 20 lines of chat out of that because there were so many railbirds. Now I was back to almost 90k and back in it. Hooray!
The next hand I was on the BB and this happened:

***** Hand History for Game 1401935395 *****
8000/16000 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (Limit) (Tournament 8462112) - Fri Jan 07 05:05:29 EST 2005
Table Jan. Semi-Finals Day1(73045) Table 1 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 2: FiftyOuts (7280)
Seat 3: NYFred (621630)
Seat 4: jyden (81357)
Seat 5: A_plus (199782)
Seat 6: Bufftown (28000)
Seat 7: IBustChumps (88778)
Seat 9: Ocean_girl (17624)
Seat 10: PERSUE (345804)
PERSUE posts small blind (4000)
FiftyOuts posts big blind (7280)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to IBustChumps [ As, Ah ]
NYFred calls (8000)
jyden folds.
UHBigTex: nh matt
A_plus calls (8000)
Bufftown folds.
IBustChumps raises (16000) to 16000
Ocean_girl folds.
PERSUE folds.
boombooms: this could be the BOAT hand
IBustChumps: boat or bust
NYFred calls (8000)
A_plus calls (8000)
Creating Main Pot with $33120 with FiftyOuts
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 2s, Kh, 5s ]
NYFred checks.
A_plus checks.
IBustChumps bets (8000)
NYFred folds.
A_plus folds.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 2d ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 5c ]
boombooms: respect for Chumps
** Summary **
Main Pot: 33120 | Side Pot 1: 34160
Board: [ 2s Kh 5s 2d 5c ]
FiftyOuts balance 33120, bet 7280, collected 33120, net +25840 [ 5d Jc ] [ a full house, Fives full of twos -- 5d,5s,5c,2s,2d ]
NYFred balance 605630, lost 16000 (folded)
jyden balance 81357, didn't bet (folded)
A_plus balance 183782, lost 16000 (folded)
Bufftown balance 28000, didn't bet (folded)
IBustChumps balance 98938, bet 24000, collected 34160, net +10160 [ As Ah ] [ two pairs, aces and fives -- As,Ah,Kh,5s,5c ]
Ocean_girl balance 17624, didn't bet (folded)
PERSUE balance 341804, lost 4000 (folded)

Well Fifty bad beat me but he had no choice, he was all in from the bb. I still won a bit on the hand, to get to over 10k. Now the field was getting narrow. If memory serves me correctly I noticed that there were about 10 people who had to go all-in before me at least once (some more than that) and we were only 4 spots away from the cruise. So I decided I was going to fold every hand from there out, except aces. I would play aces only because I was uncertain that folding would get me in, and I figure to win with aces at least 75% of the time anyway, since I could probably get it down to one or two people (I would have folded them otherwise). So sure enough I started pitching hands I would normally never fold. I threw away a few AQs, a few AKs, an AJ that would have flopped quads (and put me on the boat), even a pair of queens when I had about 4 BBs left in my stack that would have flopped a set and put me on the boat. Still I felt that if I ran the QQ (one guy had already raised and one of the idiots with a huge stack who should have been sitting out was still left behind me) I had a 1/3 shot of getting knocked out, maybe more, whereas I was about 90% sure I could blind in. And even if I was wrong I would be able to play a blind hand and if I won that have another round. So I mucked them and a nice pot came up that I would have won, but oh well.
I just kept folding and we got down to 1 spot short of the cruise. At this point losing would have annoyed me greatly, but even if I got the $2k consolation prize it would have made for a decent hourly rate. So I would have been upset but would have lived. Anyway, we were down to 24 and there were two people who had to go all-in before me. At that point I probably would have folded aces, figuring that I would have about a 75% shot (or less) to win with them, because I was highly liable to be against a few opponents. I figured that by my folding those two people, even if you give them each a 50% shot of winning (highly unlikely given that they are forced to play a random hand against 8 opponents who all want to bust them) would both only survive 25% of the time. Plus if they did both survive I would have a little more than 1 big blind, so I could play either of my blinds all-in (if I fold the bb I could win the sb and survive, though I would then have to post all-in the next 87 times I got a blind) and then at least another two or three people would have to win their blinds all-in, so the chances of one of them going broke (I would say 80-90%, maybe more) plus the chances of me getting another round if they didn’t and making it in that way added up to way more than my shot of winning with aces.
Luckily the first player of the two lost and I made the boat. What a suspenseful tournament. I can say that if it were a regular tournament and not a satellite I would have had an excellent shot of winning. All of those big pairs and AKs and AQs I folded would have either made me or broken me, and most likely I would have won a few small pots with them and a couple big ones with the queens and won the whole thing. I do want to find out what Fifty had when I lost that giant pot with QQ, but he said he was going to do his write-up on his blog, so I will check that out and see if he said. I am also curious what he threw away when I went in with the AQ the very next hand.
I will write a little more on this topic tomorrow, but for now I must get to sleep. See you all later.

Posted by themaroon at 7:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 6, 2005

Those Who Can't

Rather than play any more poker today I decided to teach a bit. I was hungry late in the evening (or early in the morning to my diurnal readers) and decided to see if John wanted to go grab some food. He wasn’t really hungry but thought he might be later, and since the place I was planning to get food was right next to his house I thought I might as well just go over there. John has been wanting to take a stab at the $5/$10 6 max games for a while, but whenever he tried before the results hadn’t been so great. We had been talking for a while about me watching him play and giving him some advice, so I decided to get that out of the way tonight.

John had seen a friend of his (K_Rose on Stars) play 6 max before and I think was playing way too tight for the $5/$10 games on Party. A lot of the things I do in $5/$10 and $10/$20 games on Party probably wouldn’t fly in the biggest games online, but against the weak competition on Party they are quite profitable. So I think it was a big help for him to see how I play preflop.
Also on Party you really have to get used to people calling the flop with junk. All the time people call your raise preflop, call a bet on the Q 6 2 rainbow board, then fold when a brick like another 2 hits the river, and you are left thinking "what did he call the flop with?" This natural tendency to try to put people on a hand is quite hazardous to your health when playing with complete idiots, because they are perfectly capable of having K 8 suited or J 9 off or some garbage like that there. So whereas against reasonably intelligent opponents you might be inclined to back off with your AJ on the turn you have to bet again against the people who play on Party, who have no qualms whatsoever with playing hands that are drawing nearly dead. It is very hard to get used to that.
For the most part though I think John just needed encouragement. He got really unlucky when we played together, but I am sure it helped having me there to verify that. Being new to the game he might think that losing that much was due more to his doing something wrong than to just plain bad luck, even though he got aces cracked every time they were dealt and missed 87 consecutive flush draws. I was fortunate enough to start crushing the 6 max games when I first played in them, so by the time the losing streaks set in I had already built up a little confidence, a little know-how, and a little bankroll as well.
Today I won't be playing any live games until after the semi-finals, which I hope will take all night for me. I have been on a very good run lately, and I feel like I have been playing very well (except, of course, for when I have been drowsy from the cold medication) so I feel like I have an excellent shot of making the boat this weekend. I am supposed to go get a beer with Keith at the Winking Lizard tomorrow, then I will come home and do my best to win a seat on the cruise. Stop by and wish me luck!

Posted by themaroon at 6:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 5, 2005

Sick Day

Well the first time I played today I only lasted 45 minutes. I was doing ok, winning a little bit, but I got tired and had to quit. I took a little break and found my laptop desk that I had ordered sitting on my porch. I put it together and tested it out, and it seems pretty cool. It is very nice to not have this thing sitting on my lap anymore. I am not sure how this thing will hold up over time, as it seems rather cheaply made, but I guess we will see.
So in order to test it I jumped back in the 6 max games. I really felt like my playing just wasn’t on my A game, probably due to fatigue from this cold, but that didn’t stop me from winning another $1,800 or so and ending up the day about $2k ahead. I really don’t think I am going to play anymore tonight though, unless I get some sort of energy burst. Normally when I am faced with overly aggressive players I am able to deal with them well, today I just couldn’t think and ended up giving a bit more than I should to a couple of them. I made my stands at bad times and didn’t feel like I was alert enough to pick better ones. So I think I am just going to relax for the rest of the day and hopefully I will be in better shape tomorrow for the semi-finals, which already have enough people signed up to give out 10 spots. I expect there will be enough by the time it starts to give out 15 or more, so I am hoping I will be able to concentrate and win myself a seat on that boat.

Posted by themaroon at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 4, 2005

Not Feeling Well

Well I defintely got a bit of a cold. I feel so tired and weak. I tried to play today but had to quit after about an hour because I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was just too tired to take the loads of bad beats that I get at these 6 max tables. I tried to play again a little later but again had to quit after 45 minutes. I think I ended up the day $800 or so ahead (for two hours) but probably would have won more if not for this illness. So I think I will call it a day and waste the rest of my time playing chess or some such stupid game, or maybe watching some television. I don’t even know what they play on that thing anymore.

For some reason today I started reading some of Jackpot Jay's articles on ESPN about his attempt at making a career out of poker. It is funny because they have a guy writing for ESPN who has about as much poker skill as I had three years ago, maybe less. He really has no idea whatsoever. They call him a "high-stakes pro" but as far as I can tell he plays low buy-in no-limit games and has made about $15,000 in the last 8 months or so. I am guessing that he gets paid more for writing about his poker exploits every few days than he does for actually playing. So he is neither "high-stakes" nor a "pro".
In any case his new debate seems to be whether online poker is or is not rigged. He seems to realize that paranoia about it is unhealthy for him, which it is. Granted I think people who think that online poker is rigged are dunces, but even worse are the people who think it is rigged and play there all the time anyway. Thinking that online poker is rigged is generally either confirmation bias, which is very common (though very hazardous to poker players), but the latter is sheer stupidity.
One funny quote from one of Jay's readers:

Random number generators aren't. Random, that is. Every random number generator ever made in software uses an algorithm to generate the numbers. Someone clever enough might be able to figure out the algorithm by simply playing at free games to determine tendencies. Or, you could have an insider tell someone the algorithm. Why not? How can you be caught?

Well this guy is half right, there is no such thing as a random number, they are generated by algorithms. He is wrong in his assertion that knowing the algorithm would enable you to predict cards. I won't go into it too in depth here, but suffice it to say that knowing the algorithm used to generate the numbers (without knowing the seed) would not enable any hackers to find out anything worthwhile. The poker sites could (and some do) divulge exactly which algorithm they use and it would make no difference, assuming they have a secure seed generator. Poker Stars has a very interesting page about the topic for those interested, but suffice it to say that a program like the one once built for Planet Poker software back in the day would no longer be feasible on any of the major card rooms.
I actually played poker with one of the guys on the team who cracked Planet Poker back in the day, and he told me a lot of interesting stuff about it. I guess that after they did it they told Planet all about it, and Planet refused to do anything at all. Planet apparently figured that if they allowed the people to go on using the hacked software that they wouldn’t tell anyone about it and didn’t care if their customers were being cheated, so long as it didn’t leak out and deter people from playing. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for their customers) it was an ethical group of people who only wanted to make the game more secure, so they went off and told everyone about it. There were eventually articles in many top publications, even New York Times, about their discovery and the result was disastrous to Planet Poker.
Anyway it cracks me up that a guy who can't beat $1/$2 nl games on the net is writing for ESPN as a "high-stakes poker professional". And he has a book coming out. He should title it "How To Hake $15,000 A Year Playing Poker For A Living".

Posted by themaroon at 10:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Getting A Cold

I woke up with a bit of a cold forming today so I didn’t feel like playing yet. I might run a bit tonight, but even if not I have plenty hours in already this week anyway. I am going to suck down a bunch of those Cold-Eez tablets, even though I have no evidence that they actually work. I suck them down every time I get a cold, despite their having the foulest taste of any medicine on earth, just on the long shot chance that they will actually shorten it by a day or two. On second thought even if they did work having a cold for one less day probably wouldn’t be worth that nasty taste, so screw their stupid lozenges.

As far as poker goes I still can't believe how good these $10/$20 6 max games are. It is such a big game and these people are so bad at it. I am starting to wonder just how much I can make at it. My current average is a bit over $300 per hour. I definitely expect that to drop, but I am now wondering if I can't make closer to $200. I used to average somewhere in the $80 range at one table, and I am now a much better player than I was back then (and the games seem much better as well) so maybe I can pull as much as $160 or $180 an hour now.
Later in the evening I decided to put my name on the $30/$60 lists just to see how long it took to get a seat. Two hours later I was chatting to a friend and I saw the seat pop up, so I though "what the hell" and sat down. I figured I have had a good week and that I would see what the games were like. Turns out the games were excellent. I wasn’t feeling well so I decided I would play one hour and then quit regardless. In one hour I saw about 150 hands at two tables, so 3 tables should average about 225 per hour if that is normal. I pretty much varied from a couple hundred ahead to a couple hundred behind until my very last round. As soon as I took off the auto post blinds I got kings snapped, missed a 12 outer and a 15 outer after the flop, and made a bad bluff (that I probably wouldn’t have if not for my condition) which got called and ended up down $500 for the session. Not too bad overall. Could have been much worse.
After that I checked out Mike Caro's site poker1.com for the first time. I am not a big Mike Caro fan. I feel he spends too much of his time talking about how great he is and too little time giving any useful advice. Don't get me wrong, that would be great in a blog (if he ever actually played poker) but if I buy a book I don’t want to read over and over again about how good the author is, I want some original and useful information. I don’t mind a little blurb on the back cover or in a forward giving me the author's qualifications, but I also don’t need a reminder on every page of how he is the worlds best player, despite the fact that I have never seen or even heard of him at a poker table since draw went out of style.
Also he was affiliated with Planet Poker, which is a permanent blemish on his reputation. I can never understand why the same people who hate Dutch Boyd don’t hate Planet Poker just as much. They knew about software that allowed opponents to know every card in every player's hand and which cards were coming on the turn and river and did absolutely nothing about it. They tried to cover it up by letting the people with the software (a web security firm who reported it to them) continue to use it to abuse their customers. At least Dutch either tried to salvage his site and pay players or acted like he was trying to do so. Planet Poker just said "you keep robbing our customers and don't tell anyone about this and we will call it even."
Anyway Mike Caro may or may not have had anything to do with that (I doubt he did) and as far as I can tell he has dropped his name from their site. Still you have to wonder if he knew how shady the operators were. Any time you put your name on something you are staking your reputation on it, and he couldn’t have bet on a worse horse in that race.
Also I don’t give tells much value. They exist and they can be helpful, no doubt about it, but they are a small part of reading people. Players should focus less on tells and more on betting patterns in order to figure their opponents out. Still besides his writing on tells I find most of his information to be regurgitated 2+2 material, not worth the time. He does occasionally come up with something original and thought provoking, but for the most part I attribute that to the monkey/Shakespeare effect.
So anyway I decided to poke around on his site and see if he has anything good on there, and I came to a part of his site where he is going to make predictions about the future of America and whatnot. He lists an article from 1994 that he wrote with a few predictions in them, and here are 2 out of the 3 he gives.

Will O. J. Simpson walk? At the end of his first trial (assuming there is one), what are the chances that the result is either an acquittal or a hung jury? It's about 3-to-1 against or 25.3% likely.

Good call there. I can't say I disagree with his odds on that one (other than his underrating the chances of a hung jury) but he sure ended up being wrong. He then says that the odds against the prosecution in the O.J. trial "will agree that a second killer was involved or was likely to have been by the time of a verdict" are 7-1. Had I seen that when he wrote it I would have gladly laid him 100-1, and I watched more of that trial than just about anyone. Anyway, prediction number 3:

Will Clinton be reelected? Predictions seem to be all over the board on this one, ranging from making Bill Clinton a heavy odds-on favorite to more than a 20-to-1 underdog. The real odds, the odds you can count on are these: It's almost exactly 2-to-1 against Bill Clinton being reelected in 1996, actually 33.5% likely.

I don't know at what point Clinton could possibly have been an underdog to be reelected, let alone 2-1 against. This was written when he had been in office for less than two years and the Republican Party was producing nobody noteworthy to run against him. He maybe hadn’t done anything spectacular at that point but he hadn’t done anything bad yet, and when there is no very popular opponent to run against an incumbent who hasn’t done anything wrong I don’t see how you could put the yet unknown challenger at a 2-1 favorite. So I disagree with 2 out of his 3 odds drastically,
He does have a decent amount of poker content on the site and allegedly more on the way. Sometime when I am bored I might surf through it and let you all know if I find anything interesting. I don’t have high hopes, but you never know. So far all I get are server errors when I try to access any of his lectures, but maybe he is still working out the bugs in his site. It is all dynamically generated using ASP it appears (why anyone wouldn’t use PHP is beyond me) so maybe he is just having some troubles getting started. Some of his topics are fairly interesting, who knows, maybe once they work I will find something to make me a better player. And if not I guess I will have another topic or two for this here blog.

Posted by themaroon at 2:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 2, 2005

Starting The New Year Off Right

I had another good day of work today, winning $2,300 in 4 hours. I even had a $2,000 session. What crazy swings this game has. I expect the downswings to be as bad as $4k and plateaus to last as long as two weeks (that being rare) at some point, but the further from now that point is the better. I am all about saving up more of a roll and then dealing with the dark side. My Party account was at $2,000 a few days ago, now it is almost at $11,000. Unfortunately that account isn't the one I am going to be doing most of my playing on. I guess it is time to cash out a chunk to Neteller and see if there is any truth to the "cashout curse" theory. I have never found it to have any merit in the past though for some odd reason I find myself worrying about it now. I guess having one superstition that doesn't cost me any money can't hurt. I could always just cash out $6k then buy $1k right back the next day, which would net me Neteller points (though I have yet to see any evidence of their raffles actually existing) and Party Poker FPPs.

Here is a sick hand for you from the game today:
Party Poker 10/20 Hold'em (6 max, 6 handed)

Preflop: IBustChumps is CO with As, Ac.
UTG (Chump A) raises, MP (roosterroo) calls, IBustChumps 3-bets, Button (Chump B) calls, SB (Chump C) calls, BB folds, UTG (Chump A) calls, MP (roosterroo) caps, IBustChumps calls, Button (Chump B) calls, SB (Chump C) calls, UTG (Chump A) calls.

Flop: (21 SB) 9h, Kc, Ts (5 players)
Chump C checks, Chump A checks, roosterroo bets, IBustChumps raises, Chump B folds, Chump C calls, Chump A folds, roosterroo 3-bets, IBustChumps caps, Chump C calls, roosterroo calls.

Turn: (16.50 BB) 9c (3 players)
Chump C checks, roosterroo bets, IBustChumps raises, Chump C folds, roosterroo calls.

River: (20.50 BB) 5s (2 players)
roosterroo checks, IBustChumps bets, roosterroo calls.

Final Pot: 22.50 BB

Results below:
roosterroo has Qc Qd (two pair, queens and nines).
IBustChumps has As Ac (two pair, aces and nines).
Outcome: IBustChumps wins 22.50 BB.

I always find it hilarious when you have aces, don’t hit an ace, and win a monster pot. I had no idea what roosterroo had, I just knew that his play preflop was incredibly stupid with any hand. I didn’t think he had anything with a 9, and I thought KK was a possibility, but given that the play was idiotic with any hand it could have been a large number of things, most of which are dominated by KK. He was the biggest calling station I've seen in a long time but he did have a tendency to just go nuts with crap every now and then so I had no trouble putting in a lot of bets. The other guy calling (Chump C) could have had anything as well, I put him on something like AQ or AJ, so I had to keep raising to push him out. He wasn’t the kind to lay down a hand without a lot of coercion.
My sleep schedule is all messed up now because I took a nap for a few hours in the middle of the day, so I might play a couple more hours before the day is over. I think I am going to try to take another nap at some point and then stay awake until Sunday night. So I will likely either run a couple more hours of 6 max or run the Sunday $215 tomorrow. I do want to spend some time with the girlfriend as well since she has to go back to work on Monday. Who works anyway? She is one of the few people I know who could turn down my offer to be taught how to play poker and make tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of dollars to be a teacher because it is what she loves to do, and I really respect her for that. I don’t enjoy doing anything (occupationally speaking that is) enough to choose it over making loads of money sitting in my recliner. Hopefully someday I will.
Also I found out today that I am only going to have 1600 extra chips in each of the 4 Party Poker million semi-finals. I could rearrange it and just have the full compliment in 3 and sit out on the 4th, but why bother. The average stack usually starts out at somewhere around 2500 anyway and it is not like I am used to starting tournaments with an above average stack. Plus chips are worth less when you have more of them, so I figure that the difference between a 3000 stack and a 2600 stack isn't much at all.
Since only 1/60 people make it in those I will put my chances at somewhere around 1/10-1/12 of getting in, which given that there are 8 of them left means I have a pretty decent shot of ending up on the boat. I am definitely going to start running the $215 satellites that they have every Tuesday and Friday night as well. Those usually have enough to pay two or three spots, and winning a 135 man tournament isn't all that tough. It might be a bit harder when everyone is trying to take top 3, which they should be doing anyway and normally don’t, but still most of the players are likely awful. And even if I don’t make it in through the satellites if I have a good month I might just buy my way in. Somehow the idea of playing in a limit tournament with a 2 million dollar prize filled with all of the yokels who play on Party Poker just sounds like a rather appealing idea to me. I think I could sell a chunk of my action out as well to friends and people online if I really needed to, so maybe if I can't satellite in I will try to parcel out half of my action. Hopefully it won't come to that though, as I think I have a good shot of picking off one of these tournaments in the next couple months.

Posted by themaroon at 6:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 1, 2005

Fun With Stats

I use a program called Stat King to track all of my wins and losses. A lot of internet-only players use Poker Tracker exclusively, and while I like PT very much it really serves an entirely different purpose than Stat King. I truly recommend that everyone use something, even just a simple Excel spreadsheet (there is a free one online somewhere) to track their playing information. I didn’t do this for a long time, even until well after I started playing poker for a living, and I do truly regret it as I may have learned quite a bit from it and be further advanced than I am today.
I think that Stat King has more than enough features to make it well worth the $30 it costs. It uses all of the mathematical theories explained in Mason Malmuth's Gambling Theory and Other Topics to help you figure out your hourly rate, standard deviation, bankroll requirements, how long you can break even, and much more. Plus it has these really funny pictures of Sklansky and Malmuth that talk to you, mouth moving and everything. Very funny in that low budget sort of way.
I like Stat King better than Poker Tracker because it gives you real world estimates. BB/100 are useful in determining what games you are best at but your goal isn't to play the game you are best at, it is to play the one where you make the most money. If at one game you earn a slightly lower BB/100 than another game at the same limit but you see twice as many hands per hour then that is what you should be playing. This could very easily be the case between say, $10/$20 hold'em and $10/$20 Omaha 8 or better because O8 tables are so much slower. If adding a second table of your normal game cuts your BB/100 down to 75% of what it was at one table you would still want to do it because in the end you would net 50% more that way. So while BB/100 is great for dick measuring contests on 2+2 it has little bearing on the real world in and of itself, as evidenced by the maniac I discovered who makes half as many BBs/100 as I do yet probably makes 2-3 times as much total profit as me in a year. Of course that was last year, it won't be 2005.
Anyway one of the neat things you can use the statistical information in Stat King for is determining your possible fluctuations. To do this you need to know two things, your hourly rate and your standard deviation. You can probably figure out your hourly rate on your own and if you want to figure out your standard deviation buy Stat King, the book, or just Google the term and figure it out yourself. I think there is even a simple Excel function that can do it for you, and I know there a couple of free tools out there that do the same thing as Stat King and will give you your standard deviation. If you are like me and you post over $500 in blinds in an average hour then shell out the $30 for Stat King. If you are a $0.5/$1 player then just go ahead and use the freebies.
Figuring out your possible results over a given time period is fairly easy once you understand what the standard deviation is used for. I get this question often and the easiest way to put it is that it is a measure of your fluctuations. Your results will be within 1 standard deviation of the mean (in poker that is your average hourly rate) 68% of the time, within 2 standard deviations 95% of the time, and basically within 3 standard deviations the rest of the time. So if your standard deviation for one hour is $50 then you will be within $50 of your hourly rate 68% of the time (half of that above, half below), within $100 of your hourly rate 95% of the time, and within $150 of your hourly rate all of the time. So if you made $10 per hour on average your results for one hour would range from winning $160 (the mean plus three standard deviations) to losing $140 (the mean minus three standard deviations). 68% of the time your results for one hour of play would be between winning $60 to losing $40, and 95% of the time would be between $110 and -$90, with an equal amount of times above and below the mean. Of course since your mean is positive (you are a winning player) you will have more winning hours than losing ones, but not by much. Easy enough right?
Also please note that this does not work for games in which your results don’t follow the normal curve. This is the case for tournaments for instance, because your losses are always a set amount but your wins can be very large. I think it should work for all forms of ring games, but sit and go and multi table tournaments won't work.
For periods of time longer than one hour you have to remember that the hourly standard deviation is inversely proportional to the square root of the number of hours played. So if you played 9 hours your standard deviation would be divided by the square root of 9, or 3. So if your standard deviation is $60 then over a 9 hour period it would only be $20 per hour. Times 9 hours that is $180 (as a shortcut just multiply your hourly standard deviation by the square of the hours played to find your standard deviation for that time period) meaning your results over a nine hour period could fall as far as $540 from your mean. So if you made $15 per hour your mean would be $135 (15 times 9) and therefore you could book a session anywhere from $675 to -$405. However 68% of the time your results would be between -$45 and $315. As you can see you are now substantially more likely to win than if you played only a one hour session, perhaps even as often as 2/3 of the time.
Playing $10/$20 6 max I have a standard deviation of around $650 per hour. Standard deviations are accurate after a very short amount of time, even as few as 100 hours, so we will stick with $650. It may end up a bit above or below but most likely it will be pretty close to that.
I don’t really have a very meaningful estimate of my hourly rate because it takes so many hands to get a reasonable one. Even at a hundred thousand hands your results could still be well above or below where they should be. However I do have thousands of table hours of 6 max play in and I will guesstimate my hourly rate at $150, plus about another $15 per hour in rakeback. I actually think the rate might even be a bit higher due to my improvement as a player over the past year, but we will guess on the low side (better safe than sorry) and just call it $150.
Below are the possible wins and losses for a few given time periods. I gave the % chance of the result falling in each category below it. I am assuming 30 hour weeks, 4 weeks a month, 12 months a year as my average. I doubt I will actually play at $10/$20 for that long, but the stats are interesting nonetheless.

hours	avg win	sd	Mean-1sd (34%)	Mean - 2sd (13.5%)	Mean - 3sd (2.5%)	Mean + 1sd (34%)	Mean + 2sd (13.5%)	Mean + 3sd (2.5%)
30 (1 wk)	4500	3560.197	939.8034	-2620.393248	-6180.58987	8060.1966	11620.39325	15180.5899
60 (2 wks)	9000	5034.878	3965.122	-1069.7567	-6104.63505	14034.878	19069.7567	24104.6351
120 (1 mo)	18000	7120.393	10879.61	3759.213505	-3361.17974	25120.393	32240.7865	39361.1797
240 (2 mos)	36000	10069.76	25930.24	15860.4866	5790.7299	46069.757	56139.5134	66209.2701
720 (6 mos)	108000	17441.33	90558.67	73117.33955	55676.0093	125441.33	142882.6604	160323.991
1440 (1 yr)	216000	24665.77	191334.2	166668.4685	142002.703	240665.77	265331.5315	289997.297

As you can see this means that in a given week my possible results will range from -$6,180 to + $15,180, though 95% of the time it will land between -$2,620 and +$11,620. Roughly once every year (2.5% of weeks) would I lose more than $2,620 in a week. And you can see that I will win a little more than 84% of weeks.
For an entire month my possible results are from -$3,361 to +$39,361. However only 2.5% of the time will my win be less than $3,759, with the odds of losing for a month being almost negligible, maybe less than once every ten years.
And finally of interest for an entire year my average win would be $216,000 but my actual results could range anywhere from $142k to $290k. This means that for a year my hourly rate could be below $100 even if it were actually supposed to be $150. Or it could be over $200. 2/3 of the time though it will range from $132 to $168, only $18 from where it should be.
Below is the same table for $165 an hour (which is what I would make with rake-backs if my $150 estimate is correct):

hours	avg win	sd	Mean-1sd (34%)	Mean - 2sd (13.5%)	Mean - 3sd (2.5%)	Mean + 1sd (34%)	Mean + 2sd (13.5%)	Mean + 3sd (2.5%)
30	4950	3560.197	1389.803	-2170.393248	-5730.58987	8510.1966	12070.39325	15630.5899
60	9900	5034.878	4865.122	-169.7567001	-5204.63505	14934.878	19969.7567	25004.6351
120	19800	7120.393	12679.61	5559.213505	-1561.17974	26920.393	34040.7865	41161.1797
240	39600	10069.76	29530.24	19460.4866	9390.7299	49669.757	59739.5134	69809.2701
720	118800	17441.33	101358.7	83917.33955	66476.0093	136241.33	153682.6604	171123.991
1440	237600	24665.77	212934.2	188268.4685	Posted by themaroon at 3:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack