My Old Free Poker Video

I reuploaded a video I made a few years ago that was popular at the time on 2p2. It's a 50nl sweat session devoted to loose aggressive play. Some of you may still enjoy it. Watch here.

It's been a while...

Since I last posted a lot has happened.

Black Friday came and changed everything.

I had dropped out of the SNE race well before April 15th, which I suppose is for the better, in a totally results oriented way.

I will continue to update this periodically and I will continue to play online poker wherever it is offered but I think this is the catalyst for finally moving away from playing poker for a living to something else.

I have taking several shots at making successful websites and have never gotten very far, but I have stronger motivation than ever. So, look for me blogging at Online Poker for Beginners, my new project. Let me know what you think of it and how useful it would be for a beginner. Obviously, I have a lot of content to build ahead of me, but even now I think my guide is better than 99% of poker sites aimed at beginners and losing players.

Barely Ahead of Pace

Well, this month has not gone as I had hoped, although I suppose it could be worse. The project that I had mentioned in my post from two weeks ago was that I decided that it would be a good idea to learn how to play the 20bb cap games on Stars and take a bit of a playing break, seeing as I continued to bleed money.

It seemed like a good idea to have as an option to crank out some VPP's when I'm tired or not playing my A game at 100bb for whatever reason. I have found the pace for SNE to sometimes have me playing an hour or two a day when I am not at my best and I figured that since its significantly easier to play 20bb poker that I could sub out that 20-30% of suboptimal play with 20bb since the VPP rates for cap are very similar at the same blind levels to 100bb. I started doing poker math to figure out optimal calling and shoving ranges for common spots. This was the first time in a long time I did anything like this and it was enjoyable to get some brain exercise like that, but there is a good chance all of this was for naught.

I didn't do my due diligence before I jumped into figuring out the game. I had seen winrates from top shortstackers at 1.5-2.5 PTBB at smallish stakes and figured even 1PTBB would be fine for my purposes and that I could achieve that. What I didn't factor in is that most of that play is from a time when you could buy in for 20bb at deepstack games and that the top cap players are making .5-1PTBB. I ran some simulations and discovered that this was unlikely to be a profitable venture without heavy game selection or being the very best. And even so, with the high variance and low winrates it may take 800k hands to even know if you are likely to be a long term winner. So, while I may pick up this later in the year if the cap games stay fish heavy (because I am sure that every reg is +EV with a big fish at a 6max table, even with only 20bbs) for now I decided to do something else.

The past week or so, and for the rest of the month, 100nl will be the game of choice. With all of the slow bleeding I have had this year I decided I needed to play something I can win at for sure to build up confidence and rehab my game. I've played about 40k hands of 100nl this month and am up 21 buyins, so things are looking OK for now, minus the fact that the VPP rate is abysmally low at .34. Eventually I have to get better and be able to play mostly 200nl, if not some 400nl to keep up with things.

VPP COUNT: 144250

Bad Call of the Day #5

Turn is shove or fold... Once I get there I could probably just fold the river - I don't think he is bluffing 15% of the time.

Hero (MP) ($103)
CO ($100)
Button ($84.05)
SB ($147.65)
BB ($105.65)
UTG ($105.50)

Preflop: Hero is MP with J, J
1 fold, Hero bets $2.50, 1 fold, Button calls $2.50, SB raises to $13, 1 fold, Hero calls $10.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($29.50) 10, 2, 10 (2 players)
SB bets $20, Hero calls $20

Turn: ($69.50) 6 (2 players)
SB bets $42, Hero calls $42

River: ($153.50) 9 (2 players)
SB bets $72.65 (All-In), Hero calls $28 (All-In)
Total pot: $209.50 | Rake: $3

Results:
SB had K, K (two pair, Kings and tens).
Hero had J, J (two pair, Jacks and tens).
Outcome: SB won $206.50

Change of pace

Just a quick update, after continued suckiness I haven't been playing as much and when I have, I have been playing way less tables than normal. Also, I have undertaken a new project that should help me reach SNE and deal with long bouts of grinding that I will discuss further in a later post.

Tentative Improvement

I have cranked out 32k hands so far this month and am up a bit, but we shall see if that sticks. I feel like I am playing well, but who doesn't when they are winning?

The propbet I mentioned earlier didn't go off and then I decided to place a bet on another bet that was very close to the first one. Unfortunately, that looks like it isn't going to go off either, but if you guys think its fucking hard to play 670k hands of fullring 100nl and show a profit over 31 days here's the place to get action.

VPP COUNT 119013

100k VPPs and Monthly Graph and Recap

Well, the month has come to an end and I am officially 10% done with SNE. I feel good because I am crushing pace (especially considering I took an 8 day vacation) but not so great that I have to do what I just did 9 more times.

Here is my graph for the month.

Yuck. A solidly losing month is definitely not the way to start things out. Not sure how accurate that is considering I don't know how the Euro results get factored in by HEM. I clearly was not ready for MSNL, after having been absent from those games for about 9 months. I am definitely going to cut the 600nl out until my results improve but I will continue playing 400nl as I am winning there for now.

For next month I have some adjustments I am going to try to make in my game. First, I need to stop fucking misclicking all the time. I get into a rhythm folding really fast with Tableninja and poof! there goes 88 UTG. Less of that will help the winrate. I also think I need to tighten up a bit from earlier positions because I am not as good as I used to be and therefore have more trouble postflop when out of position with marginal hands. And third, I think I need to be less focused on cranking out tons of hours when I am doing just fine in terms of pace and quit playing when I am unfocused or tired and use some of that time to watch some videos or post some hands on 2p2 or some other sort of poker study. I haven't seriously studied poker in quite some time and clearly I have been surpassed by the slightly newer generation and I have some catching up to do.

Here was one of the last 10 hands of the month. SB was a reg, the rest are megafish.

CO: $132.50

BTN: $222.90

SB: $209.35

BB: $57.60

Hero (UTG): $225.80

MP: $97.10

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is UTG with A A

Hero raises to $6, MP raises to $10, CO calls $10, BTN calls $10, SB calls $9, BB calls $8, Hero raises to $45, MP calls $35, CO calls $35, 1 fold, SB calls $35, BB calls $35

Flop: ($235.00) 2 5 6 (5 players)

SB checks, BB bets $12.60 all in, Hero raises to $180.80 all in, MP calls $52.10 all in, CO calls $87.50 all in, SB calls $164.35 all in

Turn: ($715.90) K (5 players - 5 are all in)

River: ($715.90) K (5 players - 5 are all in)

Final Pot: $715.90

CO shows 8 8 (two pair, Kings and Eights)

SB shows 6 6 (a full house, Sixes full of Kings)

BB shows 2 3 (two pair, Kings and Deuces)

Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Kings)

MP shows A 3 (a pair of Kings)

SB wins $153.70

SB wins $106.20

SB wins $158.00

SB wins $295.00

(Rake: $3.00)

January by the Numbers:

163994 Hands Played

101,180 VPP's

23/31 Days Played

4399 VPP's Per Day of Play

3263 VPP's Per Day Overall

16248 VPP's Ahead of Pace

-$8738 Loss

Pokerstars is Broken

The games themselves are running OK, once you get in them, but the lobby and waitlists are all messed up for me and the waitlists aren't popping up until there's only 10 seconds left to confirm and all in all it's a bit of a clusterfuck. So, I get to postpone today's session after getting a few hundred VPP's. As long as this gets fixed in the next few hours, and Pokerstars is a great site and is good about this kind of stuff, I should be able to at least put in a pace day. And then tomorrow I'm going to hit Supernova / 100k VPP's!

On the negative side, I forgot that when I restart Holdem Manager it reverts back to dollar graphs instead of BB graphs, so I accidentally looked at my results. Down 10k on the month. About what I expected, but it still stings nonetheless. When my results are broken down by stake, there isn't a clear picture of what I should do. I am winning at 100nl and 400nl and losing at 200nl and 600nl. None of the sample sizes are that large unfortunately and while my EV adjusted results have me losing 5k, that only tells one small part of the picture and either way, I am not going to be a losing player to get SNE. Even further complicating things is that when I filter for the time since I cut down tables (even smaller sample size, I know)from 24 to the 14-20 range, I have won 2500 in EV, but am still losing at 200nl. WTF? So, for today and tomorrow at least I am going to continue cranking at MSNL and then I will reevaluate. Not really sure what I am learning towards but for sure, if I can't up my game while staying on pace, I'll just have to cut my goal to 800k VPP's. I'll post a graph at the end of tomorrow for everyone to laugh at.

VPP COUNT: 93815

6000 VPP Day!

It's real snowy here in Providence and therefore its the perfect time to park my ass in front of the computer and grind it out. I played 9117 hands to get 6061 VPP at rate of .6648 VPP per hand. I get a pretty good rate when I can find all good tables at 200nl+, having to play 100nl, even 100euro NL, hurts the VPP rate a lot. I am very pleased with being 8351 VPP's ahead of Supernova Elite Pace. Tomorrow I will hit the 1/12 milestone at 83323 and I even have an outside chance of making Supernova before the end of January! I still haven't looked at my $ results, just BB results, so I still will probably have to reevaluate the games I am playing, but regardless, my results have been better since I cut down on tables.

VPP COUNT 82331

Bad Call of the Day #4

Yeah, he always has an ace or quad tens...

Hero (BTN): $600
SB: $600
BB: $648.70
UTG: $1,063.50
MP: $600
CO: $891.05

Pre-Flop: K K dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG calls $6, MP folds, CO raises to $18, Hero raises to $60, SB folds, BB calls $54, UTG folds, CO calls $42

Flop: ($189) A 2 A (3 Players)
BB checks, CO checks, Hero bets $103.50, BB calls $103.50, CO folds

Turn: ($396) T (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($396) T (2 Players)
BB bets $111, Hero calls $111

Results: $618 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked K K and LOST (-$274.50 NET)
BB showed Q A and WON $615 (+$346.50 NET)

Poker vs. Sports

I came across a nice post by Doublefly about how much top professional athletes make compared to top professional poker players. The actual graphic is a product of onlinepoker.org and you can read the original story and see the big chart there. Doublefly's analysis is spot on, that the real income figures are probably significantly higher than those listed in the infographic, pushing our "sport" even close to the NHL salaries.

However, my interest in the comparison of poker to sports lies within the middle of the pack, not the top. It really shouldn't surprise anyone that someone who is top 20 in the world at any sort of popular game, especially one that is both wagered upon and televised, is well compensated.

What I think would be surprising to laypeople is that someone who is say, the 8000th best poker player in North America, is likely making over 75k/year. (Please just ignore for now the difficulties of determining best and the fact that since poker income is a function of how much time is played so greater income does not necessarily mean a better player). I know 8000 seems like a lot of people, but I don't think this number is crazy, because you have to factor in all the different types of poker, the different sites people play on, the people who play live, and I think by the time you get to 8000 you'll still have a guy who is making solid chunk of change.

Compare this to baseball and there's only about 1300 MLB players if you include the 40 man roster. Minimum wage is 400k/yr for major leaguers, so they are probably doing pretty well on average compared to poker players even up to that point because I bet there's a very very steep drop off from people who make 7 figures in poker down to people who make more earthly incomes sometime between top 20 and top 1300. But for those who play baseball outside of the MLB things start getting worse even if skill levels are probably not even that much lower than the benchwarmers of the MLB. According to Wikipedia there are 246 minor league clubs, and at 20 players a team thats 6150 players. I used twenty instead of 25 to help correct for the overlap in those in the 40 man roster that play AAA ball most of the year. According to the MiLB the maximum starting salary for a minor league player is 1.1K a month with $25 a day for food. This clearly goes up with time but it is still peanuts considering the amount of skill it takes to achieve this. Also, I am assuming independent leagues have comparable salaries, if not worse. So, back around to the point I was trying to make... the 8000th best baseball player in North America may not even make a penny from his skills! He is likely to be retired, or in college!

I think that poker is by far the easiest zero-sum competitive pursuit to make a living at in terms of what the lowest percentile of skill you can be in to squeeze out a living. "Zero-sum competitive pursuit" includes everything from sports to video games to other card and board games, whether it be chess or Magic cards. In high school I was a high level competitive Scrabble player and there were a few characters who fancied themselves as "pro" Scrabble players. Considering the biggest Scrabble tournament of the year had a prize of 25k and most others had significantly less, making a living playing Scrabble is next to impossible, even for the best players in the English speaking world. In poker you don't even have to be the best player in your household to make a living, given some of the poker families that exist out there.

Now, comparing poker and sports is a bit of apples to oranges because almost all sports make their money from sponsors and paying spectators, not from entry fees of opponents, but nevertheless, it is interesting to see how different sports stack up against poker players. If anyone can think of something that is easier to make a living at than poker that meets the "zero sum competitive pursuit" criteria, drop me a comment!

VPP COUNT 74506

Lots of cool stuff today

First of all, I am both still doing well on the VPP pace front, and have only 13k VPPs to go to get to a complete month, which is great, but more importantly I am now only down 700bbs on the year, so maybe I am playing better poker. Only time will tell.

Secondly, here's some fun hands I posted on 2+2 the other day. Winning 650bb pots at 600nl feels pretty great, especially since the last time I was in a pot that size was in March.

Third, I just bet on my first prop bet this morning. Marshall000 is betting that he can play 600k hands of 100nl fullring in a month and have a winrate >0. I put $900 down at 3:1, so nothing too big, but this should be fun and hopefully profitable. It looks like we need some more action on this to get it to go off and I obviously think that this is a +EV bet, so if anyone is interested, the minimum bet is 300 and you can go check out the thread.

Fourth, sometime soon I'm going to fill up the sidebar with some useful information, maybe make a post explaining SNE as I'm not sure everyone who comes across this blog will really understand it in depth, change the poll, and other housekeeping type stuff. Come back soon!

VPP COUNT 70406

Officially ahead of pace!!

I am now about 750 VPP's ahead of true pace and by the end of today should hopefully be a whole day ahead (or 2740 VPPS). This is a pretty good sign considering that after being on vacation for over a week this month I had anticipated catching up to pace in February.

I think it's going to be very key to front-load this challenge as much as possible, to prevent a very stressful December. So, my new goal is to have 300k VPPs by the time I go on another vacation in the last week of March. This will take about 3850 vpps a day, or about 6420 hands per day at my current rate of .6 VPP per hand. I will probably scale this back to a goal of 275k vpps by that point if I can't pick up my MSNL game. Either way, achieving that goal would put me in pretty good shape for the rest of the year.

My favorite hand of the year, so far. I haven't tried doing this in a very long time and it feels great when it works. It was a snapcall of course.

UTG: $1,615.50
Hero (CO): $400
BTN: $1,525.65
SB: $421
BB: $447.15

Pre-Flop: Q A dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $12, 2 folds, BB calls $8

Flop: ($26) K 5 2 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($26) J (2 Players)
BB bets $8, Hero calls $8

River: ($42) T (2 Players)
BB bets $20, Hero raises to $380 and is All-In, BB calls $360

Results: $802 Pot ($2 Rake)
Hero showed Q A and WON $800 (+$400 NET)
BB showed J T and LOST (-$396 NET)

VPP COUNT 63766