Recalibrated

I think I've decided what I want to do poker-wise for the rest of this year now that everything has pretty much shaken out.

The Plan
8 - 12 table 6 max cash
Focus on learning
Forget about VPPs goals
Take maney

I've changed my vpp goal progress bar to 100k to essentially forget about grinding out a larger number. I'm certain I'll earn more than that at this point since I'm going to be winning at 50NL+ and should play about another half million hands this year. This will result in about another 100k vpp from today forward. But I'm not going to kill myself trying to get the 200k milestone while breaking even mass tabling and if I don't feel like playing I'm just going to take a day off. If I move up and earn more vpp/hand and make it there then I will consider it a true bonus and good for me. Breaking even for another 8 months to earn a milestone is kind of a non-bonus and more of a stress inducing lifeline imo.

I've done the mass tabling micro stakes for marginal winrates thing long enough. It's time to become good at this game and put some real effort into it again. I've fallen way behind the curve, or at least everyone's started to pass me. I'm going to make some smart investments in my poker knowledge and have already re-sub'd my training site accounts and I'm watching videos like a mad man which I haven't done in well over a year. It's amazing how much the confidence and anti-tilt zen come roaring back when you actively focus even though I don't have any real results to show for it yet.

I'm already in the process of creating my own Poker Bible (ty King Spew for this wonderful idea) based on info I glean from those videos and insightful forum posts. Right now I'm basically taking 3-5 pages of notes on a video, similar to how I would take notes in a uni lecture breaking everything down. I then have a video summary page where I list point form the two or three things I learned and can try to implement. Once I start to build up a decent repository of video summaries I'm going to take those point form ideas and throw them into my Final Poker Bible classified by skill set and topic. Need to work on my blind stealing? Chapter 3. Need to work on when to barrel? Chapter 7. All backed up with references and links to where I got the info.

This will create my growing overall game strategy base. Two benefits to this. I have a default to go back to if I start getting off my game, like a system restore. Secondly, I can see how and when certain changes were made and hopefully can roll them back if they're not working out.

In a way this whole Black Friday thing has been good for me personally. I don't think I would have changed what I'm doing if I hadn't safety cashed out 1/2 of my BR and forced myself to rebuild. I've thought about joining a discussion group but I just don't think I have the time to make that work in addition to my poker hours, plus I find Skype and AIM really distracting while playing. I'm starting to gain a real appreciation for the work ethic and discipline the big winners must have and I think I'm finally going to do this right.

10 Days Later

Ok well more like 9.5 days later.

This will likely be the last post I make regarding Black Friday unless something major develops. This whole situation is so messed up and I don't really see that much point in rehashing catastrophic developments that are at the same time meaningless to discuss with the same people who experienced the whole thing. What's the point in discussing the bomb that we all witnessed go if in front of us with the people who witnessed it or personally had their legs blown off? It is what it is and it feels like the poker community is powerless to do anything about those issues anyways. More disjointed thoughts to follow -- probably not going to link source very much of it since it's fairly easy to find all over the place and this is more my opinion than anything.

The Good (Great!) News

Much to everyone's surprise and contrary to popular predictions just prior stating no one would see a penny within 6 months if ever, there has been a remarkably fast deal made between the sites -- Stars and iirc FTP, unsure about UB as of right now -- and the DOJ to get the players' money back to them once a suitable processor mechanism is decided on.

More Fallout

Business partnership deals hastily cancelled between casinos and online sites.

TV poker being cancelled left and right. ESPN and Fox Sports both cancelling all of the online site produced shows. Who knows if ESPN is even going to cover the WSOP now that a ton of the money to run the production is gone.

All that build up of the illusion of legitimacy has vanished.

The continued silence from sponsored pros who normally have everything to say about anything is becoming rather deafening.

I lose a little more respect for Doyle every time he opens his mouth.

So to sum up the current situation:
People that should be speaking up are not. People that should not be speaking are.

All of the rats that were more than happy to take a ride on the "illegal" Stars/FTP/UB pirate ship and take their share of the plunder and knew that the DOJ armada was lurking somewhere cloaked in stealth mode have abandoned ship and are trying to save face by distancing themselves from those dirty, criminal pirates now that the DOJ has opened fire.

There's a ton more stuff going on out there but it just makes me very pessimistic even thinking about it so I think I'll leave it at that.

What I'm going to watch for from this point on:

Legal proceedings, if any actually go forward.
Where the player pool gravitates to.
Developments in competition between sites or continued lack thereof.
Watching for a wild turn of events somewhere in the world that could trigger a new mini-boom.
Working hard and preparing my game for the next mini-boom if it happens.
Preparing my life for that hissing sound of the online poker flame going out if it doesn't.

On a positive note to end this, online poker has effectively hit near rock bottom. At least as close as it can get while still being profitable and worth playing. There's only moving up from here. A year in this industry is 5 years in the real world. 5 years online is an eternity. Just remember, 5 years ago Party was the biggest site on the planet. Anything is possible.

Doing the Blogroll Shuffle

I've begun the process of migrating the non-updated blogs in my list to a blogroll archive page over there on the far right side. I want to keep the sidebar manageable, legible,  fresh and up to date with new content so I'm setting the bar at around 1 to 2 months without a post before links get sent to the archive. They will of course be reinstated if they happen to revive themselves at some point in the future. There's just too much good information and interesting and funny stories out there to delete them forever.

I imagine there's a good possibility that given the events of the past week a lot of people will stop blogging and I wanted to be ready to add some new blogs. I hope that's not the case and that everyone affected can turn their blog into a fun live poker trip report log.

If you have a blog and would like to swap links give me a shout here or on 2p2.

Time to Recalibrate

At this point everyone out there who's been effectively banned is trying to figure out if they should join one of the smaller sites that are still servicing Americans and decide if it's worth playing at those sites considering ability to multi table, traffic and implications of the DoJ going after them, too. At this point the "no notice of UIGEA breach because poker is a skill game" defense for sites still transferring with Americans holds no water imo although it's a pretty solid defense for the Big 3. I'm obviously not a lawyer though so I could be wrong. Good luck to all of you in whatever you choose to do.

For the rest of us it seems like things are ok on the surface as much as they can be. It's hard to comprehend how there's now these two separate poker worlds existing in parallel universes. One continuing on as if almost nothing ever happened. The other living in complete chaos. The ability to see the chaotic world without having to deal with it's problems still makes our world feel like everything's still a bit up in the air when it probably isn't.

Personally I am scrubbing any goals and plans I have made. It's time to recalibrate and see what the landscape looks like when the dust settles. No immediate goals for stakes or number of tables or VPPs or even what site although Stars has been the most trustworthy in the past which is what we need now so I'm willing to put my eggs in that basket for the time being.

Black Friday

Just a couple of disjointed thoughts on this. The more that the implications of this sink in, the harder it is to believe it. This post came out a little pessimistic so save it for a rainy day if you're enjoying a day off.

No news is frustrating. What can we really expect in terms of information at this point? Nothing is really going to make a difference at this point with respect to Americans being able to play online. So I guess the question that needs to be answered is what's happening with the money. I don't know which is worse: not knowing what's happening with your money or the prospect of not playing for an indefinite period of time.

We apparently have Mr. Tzvetkoff and the sites themselves to blame for this entire situation in a payback for payback kind of way. In retrospect I suppose we have ourselves to blame for silently accepting this arrangement instead of clamouring for an above board deal.

I haven't done a thorough search of the internet but the complete lack of sponsored online pro statements is somewhat conspicuous. Most of the sites have been really good about letting players speak their minds, but I guess when it gets down to real business and political / legal fights it's better just to keep your mouth shut if you're a 'representative' of a company in the loosest sense of the word. EDIT: Somewhat confirmed by DN on his twitter page: "Not ignoring #BlackFriday and as much as I'd love to discuss it, I've been advised not to for now. As soon as I can, I'll add my two cents."

Mpethy has written up a good summary of the charges.

Seeing new HHs irrationally gives me that feeling you get when you're embarassed for someone who doesn't realize what's going on. I just kind of feels like, "Seriously? You want to know whether Baluga Theorem applies to the hand when Mr. Seidman can't even play poker in his own damn house?" Everything seems to be of secondary importance at this point.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens with all the poker TV shows out there now. How many networks are going to want to air shows sponsored and produced by alleged criminal corporations who's founders are either on trial for fraud -- that's a great word for instilling confidence in future customers and investors whether convicted or not -- or fighting extradition. CNN Money brought to you by the honest folks at Arthur Anderson.

And will they want to even put patched up players for said corporations on display for non-sponsored broadcast events like the WSOP now that every aquaintance and family member of every semi-pro in America is going to be running around saying "I told you it was illegal!" I can very much see ESPN mandating 'no patches allowed' this summer. I suppose that would depend on whether they're even going to try to restore online's image in the US and if not then they might ad well patch up for the benefit of the Euro and Canadian broadcasts.

Not that it really matters as the WSOP and a ton of other events like the Stars sponsored tours (NAPT etc) and PCA are going to take a huge hit in the turnout department without all those luckboxing mega satellite entries out of the US.

This has unbelievably huge negative ramifications even if you are still allowed to play. Marketing has probably got to cool it with the outright promotion while they go into damage control mode. I assume guaranteed tourneys are going to be chopped up into itty bitty pieces. The only thing that will probably be up in the air is the loyalty programs -- I don't know if they'll all cut back due to decreased revenue, or if they'll fight over the rest of us even harder. Mpethy did make a good point about profit margins being higher though now that they are rid of the processor fees so there might be more cash per player to go around.


Will also be interested to see the effect on training sites and how poker theory progresses without a huge portion of the contributors. This might be a good opportunity to get back ahead of the curve.

It's tough to be optimistic at this point and I think a lot of us, and especially Americans are going to need to see a glimmer of hope before pessimism isn't purely realistic speculation.

EDIT: Stars has gone ahead and adjusted (in some cases slashed) the values on their guaranteed tourneys to reflect their new target demographic in Europe.
Sunday Kickoff $50k (iirc) --> $75k for European friendly start time
Sunday Storm $250k --> $300k in the last couple weeks --> $200k
Sunday Warm Up $750k --> $500k
Sunday Million $1.5M --> $1M

Image of the day: Significant blog graph.
Spike on April 15th. Rest of the graph is a fairly representative 75-90 visitors per day and I've never had more than 120 before.

Attack On Online Poker

Note: I have changed the title of this post. It was meant to be somewhat of a dry, witty remark based on the December blackout crisis, but I don't think it helps the situation considering the traffic I am receiving and the realization of how serious this actually is. I do not think this is a good time to panic. We all know what happens when people spazz withdraw en masse and I don't want to contribute to that.

3:52 EST Friday
Pokerstars, Full Tilt and Cereus have just been charged with a litany of offenses regarding fraud and money laundering. Web sites apparently seized. So far only UB's website shows the FBI warning for me although there are many Americans stating all four show this message. American players are reporting widespread notices when attempting to sit at cash tables on Stars that US government regulation is preventing them from allowing Americans to play.

From Reuters:

Prosecutors also filed civil money laundering charges seeking to recover at least $3 billion from the companies, which are all based overseas, court documents said.

Two of the men were arrested on Friday, one is expected to turn himself in to law enforcement and eight others are not currently in the United States, prosecutors said.

Raymond Bitar, 39, of Full Tilt Poker and Isai Scheinberg, 64, of PokerStars were charged with violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and other laws. Absolute Poker owners Brent Beckley, 31, and Scott Tom, 31, faced similar charges.

This could actually be the end for our American friends. It might be a while because 2+2 servers appear to be completely overwhelmed and I can't navigate there with any consistency but I will update later as more information becomes available.

As far as I've seen there has been no official statement from the PPA as of yet.

4:55 EST
Just managed to get back on to the 2+2 forum homepage.
"Most users ever online: 13,237, Today at 4:31 PM."
That's as far as I got. This is huge.

5:21 EST
Managed to get back into the Leg forum shortly with no new updates.
Made a quick perusal of the 50NL FR Stars lobby. 3 Americans, each 1 tabling. I assume this is the remnant that were still playing those tables when the shit hit the fan and hadn't sat out and closed those tables yet.
15,471 on 2+2
Took a couple of screenshots off of Pokerscout traffic counter. The first is around 3:50 PM EST. The 2nd was at 5:20 PM EST.

7:30 PM EST
Played a session on Stars over the last couple of hours . American-free and the lowest number of people I've ever seen during peak Friday time. I can only imagine the feeling of dread American grinders must be going through right now knowing that this is most likely the much anticipated doomsday.

First Impression of the New American-Free Cash Games
Of course this is really preliminary and I have no idea what traffic will do once Americans are gone for a couple weeks, but it looks like us foreigners will be ok. There's a noticeable volume drop, but games were extremely good. I got crushed by a wave of ATC 2 pairs of course, but we're generally left with legitimate Euro fish and Asian half stacks. Considering that (luckily) the games are now 40bb, the current state of the game if it remains as is is tenable for those of us still able to play. If they weren't 40bb, poker would be dead at least on Stars -- read: overrun by 20bb Euro / Asian players filling 95% of the lobby with 20-50.

I think this goes to show just how many American multi-tabling TAG Supernova semi-pro seats were being taken up compared to how few American recreational seats there were. It's a sad day when the games actually appear better with Americans gone and captain hindsight can see how untenable the status quo was with the difficulties of getting money online for people that want to gamble it up and the appearance of questionable legality. It really demonstrates the need for meaningful regulation to kickstart another mini-boom in the US.

Perhaps this is the final shove needed to force US lawmakers to finally write up real regulation legislation if for nothing else than to prevent this from both going further underground and to stop the courts from filling in huge voids with their own opinions now that this fight is front and centre.

Here We Go Again: Canadian Election Primer

Here's a quick primer on the quirky institution that is the Canadian political system for those non-Canadians out there. The government is dissolved and they're off to the races. Some of them have yet to realize that the gates have opened -- at least that's how much I've been paying attention, and I'm the most politically interested person I know. Thankfully we only have to listen to the rhetorical drivel and mudslinging, I mean campaign promises, for one month. This is quite merciful compared to the 18 months Americans are subjected to. This will be a bit tl;dr but you'll get a good idea of how Canada actually (de)funtions when the veil of textbook definitions and theoretical purpose is pulled away.

When are Federal Elections held? There are 3 possible situations where an election can be called:
1) 5 years since the last election.
2) If the government (governing party) decides they want one.
3) If the government is defeated on a confidence vote (must-pass bill), such as the current situation with the budget. This isn't ever an actual disagreement with the bill, it's just when the opposition thinks they are ready for an election.

Majority vs Minority Governments:
If a party wins 50%+1 seats they have a majority government. It is then their sole discretion as to when the next election is (option 1 or 2) since everyone in the party always supports the motions of confidence put in front of them because they're obviously not going to do anything that could cost them their job. If a party wins less than 50% but garners the most seats (possible in a 3+ party system) they are traditionally given a minority government where all options are possible. A third type of government is theoretically possible in a coalition which would combine their seats to create a majority. This would cause a lot of unprecedented drama (understatement).

Pros and Cons: I'll preface this with the fact that Canadians hate elections. We hate elections in winter when we have to trudge through a blizzard. We hate elections in spring when we're dealing with flooding. We hate elections in summer when we want to turn off the TV and go on vacation. We don't quite hate elections as much in fall as the kids are back to school and we're looking for some entertainment, but most would still rather watch a few episodes of the new soon to be cancelled sitcoms. Majority governments sit back and enjoy the status quo getting absolutely nothing done - don't rock the boat - but we don't have the overwhelming dread of elections around the corner. Minority governments get a lot done because the opposition is just chomping at the bit to bring them down so they have to keep up with doing what we want them to so they don't at any point look bad if at all possible.

Political Structure - From the ground up:
The way the power structure actually works in Canada is precisely opposite of the way it is laid out in terms of authority. Messed up, I know. But the thought of having it set up the 'right' way is horrifying.

Bureaucrats: In Canada bureaucrats are typically known for being huge policy wonks and are able to hold rather long term positions because of their willingness to use any playbook put in front of them. A fairly stark contrast to the rabidly partisan counterparts who get swapped out fairly quickly en masse when power changes hands in the US. I had a political science professor who always said if you want real power in Canada, don't be a politician. Be a bureaucrat. They decide how, where and when policies are implemented and enforced.

House of Commons: We elect Members of Parliament to represent us nationally in the House of Commons in Ottawa. This is considered to be the lower house, similar to the House of Representatives in the US. Everyone votes only for their local rep who is part of a national party. The party that wins the most seats becomes the government. The leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister and head of the country, kind of like if the House majority leader would become president. Geographic distribution of the 308 seats is determined by population, roughly trying to encompass 100k people per seat with one caveat. During the 1980s Quebec thought they were so special that to protect their specialness, they needed to be more special than the rest of us and held the country hostage trying to hammer out a new constitution demanding minimum 25% of all seats regardless of their relative population. This is apparently not enough, see below.

Senate: This is the upper house, meant to be a "sober second opinion" free of the ramifications of being unpopular because they are unelected but rather appointed by the Prime Minister (GG, see below). Essentially what this boils down to is a bunch of politically rewarded old guys rubber stamping every bill that comes up because they've got better things to do in their retirement. Everyone is pretty much in agreement that this needs to be abolished or turned into a regionally based elected house. That is, except for the old guys raking in a nice paycheck for nothing and the politicians losing the utility of an effective loyalty gimmick.

Governor General: The representative of the 'official' head of state, the queen. We're still part of the British Commonwealth (royal family and all that jazz) even though they couldn't be bothered with us. The feeling is mutual. What this means is that any time the Prime Minister makes some sort of traditional or formal declaration, decision or appointment, he sends it off to the GG as a 'recommendation' and she/he reads it to make it official. Imagine Barack Obama having to be a ventriloquist and whip out the Mini-Me version of the queen every time he says something formal. However the potential for the previously reffered to coalition may actually give the GG the first real, meaningful choice they've had to make in the past century as they are officially responsible for handing over governing power.

The Parties:
This is essentially a perpetual dual between the Liberals and Conservatives with a few odd people wanting to jump into the middle of the action but haven't heard that you shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight. I'll rate these on a left to right 0-10 scale using the US Democrat and Republican parties as the 0 and 10 standards.

Conservatives (5):
Led by current Prime Minister Stephen Harper. General all around control freak appearing rather cold and calculating most of the time who is fairly effective at getting his message across and getting things done the way he wants. You know it's almost election time when the snapshots of sweater-wearing, piano-playing-and-serenading Steve at the Conservative Christmas party start showing up to lighten his image. Steve and the Conservatives are as far right wing as this social program loving country allows, kind of like George W. Light. This party is the phoenix of the Progressive Conservative ashes Brian Mulroney left behind combined with the ultra-right wing now defunct Refoooooorm and Alliance parties of Preston Manning who Don Ferguson does an amazingly good imitation of. Originally combined to avoid the right wing vote splitting keeping the Liberals in power, they were to be called the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party (CCRAP). Also known as the Tories.



Liberals (0):

Pretty much the definition of a US Democrat, considered slightly left of centre here (fun fact: English Canadians use the French spelling of center). Led by Michael Ignatieff, Cambridge / Oxford / Harvard professor known for thinking rather highly of his intellectual self. This is the party of more well known Prime Ministers such as Jean "a proof is a proof" Chretien and Pierre "just watch me" Trudeau. Also known as the Grits.

New Democratic Party (- 4):
These are your run of the mill union heroes. Current leader is Jack Layton. The very existence of this party is what prevented the Liberals from grasping a permanent majority government by splitting the left wing vote and allowing the new Conservatives to get a foothold. Kind of ironic that they're the ones giving the right wing party they ideologically despise the opportunity to form government. For that, they are eternally doomed to shout from the far side of the House and current forecasts state they don't have any reasonable chance at actually becoming the government in the next 100 years. The Bloc has more seats and a better chance at 0%. Exercises in futility repeated election after election. Insanity.

Bloc Quebecois (?):
Somewhat of a ragtag group led by Gilles Duceppe. This party only runs in Quebec. I admittedly don't know a lot about this party because of that. It's tough to say exactly what kind of ideology they represent as they tend to be supported by rural conservatives and urban unions. I do however find it odd that not only is a political group who's stated goal is the destruction of the country not charged with treason, it is welcomed with open arms into the House. Democracy at it's finest.

Current Seats

Conservative

Liberal

Bloc

NDP

There's a few other odd parties, notably the Green party who runs across the board and are obviously left wing environmental types yet to be elected to a seat, but these are the important players.

The interesting situation here is that we've been in this stalemate where we have election after election after short stints of minority government for the greater part of the last decade and everyone's getting sick of it. My suspicion is that if we get the same result again, the 3 opposition parties will be trying to catch a good public vibe on proposing a coalition majority government of Liberals, NDP and the Bloc for stability's sake as opposed to the instability of another minority Conservative government -- at least that's what they'll say to the GG. This could also easily backfire if the vibe comes down as a government no one voted for takes over by ironically installing the Separatist Bloc as the ones propping the whole thing up. We'll have to see what the 3 Stooges have in mind.

April Fools: 7am and already leveled

Woke up this morning and fired up Firefox and see an unassuming line of text below a plain Google logo.

New! Gmail Motion: Turn your email into a true body of work.

 I actually thought they were totally serious until I scroll down to this image and think, "You have got to be joking. I will stick with my mouse and keyboard. Idiots."

I then scrolled a bit further and realized today was April 1st. Should have realized right away after hearing about the Brett Favre nth unretirement last night.



There need to be more days when people can be stupid and creative. The world would be a better place if people would better learn to relax and how to efficiently waste time for fun's sake.

And The $60k Goes To....

Pogo650 at a 5/10 Limit Table. $102k total. Congrats.

I'm just thankful it's over. These volume promotions always seem to reg infest the tables to no end. I woke up this morning and went to see if the 60 billionth hand had hit yet and they still had 2 million to go, so I quickly fired up the 50NL lobby to see minimum 5 on the waiting list for every table. No problem, I'll just start up my own tables. I play mostly stacked and was pleasantly surprised to find my tables insta-filling.

That is until I actually started playing and realized that it was every reg imaginable filling seats. I play at a lot of different hours so I've seen just about every reg there is and I think just about every one of them from every part of the planet set their alarm clock to get their 0.2% chance at 24 tabling into free money.

This was confirmed by the mass exodus that occurred on hand 60,000,000,001. Within 2 minutes there were literally 25+ tables in the lobby with one reg left on them who hadn't bothered to kill the table yet.

I don't really understand how Stars thinks this is a good promotion. Scratch that, I do know and it's why they've set it in stone for the next 40 billion hands -- note: 40 more billion hands, once completed, will equal about 1/3 of Stars' entire existence to that point in time. That takes quite a bit of confidence and commitment from the marketing department. But what it does is irrationally motivate people like me to fire up 24 tables and play till our ears bleed trying to win the lottery while they rake the shit out of us.

But from an actual promotion point of view in terms of bringing new money to the site, it's just laughable when you constantly see some random fish, after hearing the whole spiel from the moderator, say "WTF does this mean? zzzzzzz.... [folds]."

That's kind of counterproductive considering that Stars' stated VIP program goal for this year was to simplify things. A lottery with a payout structure based on VPP rates over the last x hands (including this one), is not simple when one fifth of the table doesn't even know the difference between a VPP and an FPP or how many they're earning or why everyone's shoving or why they're being berated for the next 5 minutes by the railebirds. Deposit bonuses, small instant cash bonuses at Supernova rate, even throwing more money onto the new depositor bonus would all beat this.

This lottery promotion doesn't help improve the poker economy at all. Stars rakes in x times more than usual and redistributes some of it by throwing random token amounts at a very select few. I seriously doubt anyone is making a deposit to try to hit one of these even if they somehow knew what was going on.

Of course this post would be completely different if I wasn't so bitter about not being dealt into the 60B hand...

Stars Milestones: Here We Go Again

Stars just announced the Road to 100 Billion Hands with the first stop at 60 Billion. So far I'm 0/3 with these milestone hand promotions so I thought I'd get up early and be the first one out here in blog-land to post about it and collect the ensuing good karma.

Once again, they are going with a VPP formula that encourages people to stop tables from breaking:

$50 base + ( VPPs earned in last 50 hands x $50 ) = WIN!

This means on average, most players sitting for 50 hands at a 50NL table would receive about $500 with the winner of the hand doubling that. Would be really awesome if they changed they're minds on this -- and I manage to bink one of course -- and made it the last 60 hands, then 70 hands etc. leading up to the 100 Billionth hand. So the way this is typically going to play out for those of you that haven't witnessed it before is the following:

• Everyone anxiously watches and waits for the milestone to hit.
• Milestone #____ is about to be played on Table _____!
• All 40k cash players converge on that table, spam crashing the chat box.
• The waitlist, regardless of stakes, irrationally and instantly tops 185 players.
• 1/3 of the table wonders wtf is going on everyone is shoving! Folds.
• 1/3 are mass tablers not realizing they are part of the milestone. Folds.
• Everyone else shoves.
• Flipfest!
• Spam chat box is now filled with "LOL nice folds morans!"
• Repeat

Good luck to everyone else putting in mind numbing volume trying to hit one of these in futility!

Confirmed: Saturdays Are Rigged

I don't know what it is about Saturdays but the RNG seems to get replaced by the unavoidable minefield that blows up in my face again before I get a chance to catch my breath from the last one. It's like I'm just sweating every hand I shove turn with a set on a 2 tone board and praying to dodge the 4:1 which everyone else apparently knows is coming when they're getting 1.7:1 on a call.

I mean, something is seriously effed up when I flop sets with 20% of my pocket pairs and still manage to finish the day in the negative. Maybe I should be raising to all-in minus 2bb or something to find a way around the doom button.

Still positive for the month and feeling awesome about my play but it just makes me want to puke when I put in 50k hands by the 3rd week of the month and see a 1.6 bb/100 beside my 4.1 EVbb/100.

Gmail hacked

My gmail account was hacked about 11 hours ago and sent out some random, obvious spam about diplomas. Thankfully they shut down my account after apparently only one email got out. I just reactivated my account now which is why this blog was down most of the day. I'm not sure if any damage was done on this blog yet so please be sure to hover links and double check your status bar to make sure everything looks legit and please let me know if you find anything out of the ordinary.

I suspect this was just a standard bot hack for spam use so most likely there wasn't a real person in my account and therefore wouldn't know I even have a blog, but I was a little freaked out when I tried looking at my blog and it was down thinking it was deleted.

Superstar Showdown: Isildur1 vs DN

Just read about this on the Stars blog. I haven't really ever paid much attention to the promotional matches that FTP set up with the Durrr Challenge or Stars' Superstar Showdown aside from hearing who won while listening to the Pokercast.

This one kind of caught my attention though. Daniel Negreanu taking on Isildur1 over 5k hands on two separate days with stacks carrying over. $150k on four 50/100 tables for 15 buyins. DN has been 'practicing' playing 4 tables to get used to multi-tabling. This is what really blew me away: The face of online poker has no experience playing four cash tables where decisions need to be made 'quickly.'

Needless to say when you consider the cash game multi-tabling inexperience -- if you actually consider 4 tables to be 'multi-tabling,' granted it is HU -- combined with what appears to be a rather large skill level gap, without an extreme amount of card racking on DN's part or Blom going absolutely batshit crazy, this is going to be a bloodbath.

I mean, I like the guy's character and all (except for that rather unfortunate douchebag looking display on The Big Game wrt Robl not straddling) but there has to be some sort of other deal or staking going on here inside the promotion because I really can't see Negreanu being this illogical when it comes to burning his own money.

GL though!

Sunday Million 5th Anniversary

Think I'm going to put up the cash and play this thing. I literally never play the Sunday Million because it's way outside my buyin level comfort zone but you aren't really ever going to find a $5MM guarantee at $215 so I'm going to jump on it.

{ Edit: I had a Step 2 ticket I decided to run up in the last couple hours. Step 2 was easy peasy when I decide on the 'look-like-a-fish' strat for the first few orbits which worked out nicely when I limp/call an out of nowhere JJ all-in shove with AA my first hand and run 65/20 the first 3 levels. Step 3 I managed a do-over the first time around and the second time I knocked out Stars Pro Dag Palovic to secure my seat in the Million with 3 minutes to spare. Cost me a total of $37.50 to get into the Million. GG Steps. It's looking like 50k+ entries and $10MM at this point. }

I've played one Sunday Million before going the Steps route and managed to bubble out with about 50 people left before the money iirc. Hoping some of my new found run good will carry over. I'm kind of torn on whether I want to give up 30 minutes of the Sunday Million to try to get in through the massive hyper turbo they'll be running although I suppose I could just play both and have an extra ticket if I win that.

I'm always a little amazed at the payout structure of tournaments and how top heavy they are. And these Sunday majors are of course notoriously flat compared to most. I'm quite luck/risk averse so this pretty much explains why I'm not a fan in general. I mean, 50% of the $5MM prizepool in a 25k+ person donkament goes to the final table with 9th place only getting $30k. That's messed up in my world but I suppose that's the whole point and it does bring new fish in hoping for that elusive, impossible huge score just like the corner gas station does with the lottery. My spread the wealth mentality, of course, comes from the viewpoint that my chances of making the final table are realistically 2000:1.

Good luck to everyone else playing this monstrosity!




{ Edit #2: And I'm out. Terrible table draw that just refused to break no matter how many players we went through. 60/15 and 25/20 aggrotards on my left with 3x as many chips as everyone else. And then I get this range of hands dealt to go with it: }

I need a bigger bucket

Just another quick note: HUUUGE thank you to Stars for the new buyin structure / funneling fish back into my game or whatever you want to call it. I call it happiness.

Here's a snapshot of me grinding along when I get whacked upside the head with a frying pan essentially rendering me unconscious for the next 8 months:

I started a new database for 2011 and here's a graph to date. All of the upswings up until the point of exile were played on Full Tilt. All of the downswings were played on Stars. 100% of volume has been played on Stars since the exile.

Software Conglomeration Post

I posted earlier this year that I was planning on doing a bunch of software reviews this year but things have changed and I've decided to write up this conglomeration of my current setup instead.

This stemmed from the fact that I was generally unhappy with my ability to find software out there that does exactly what I wanted it to do without getting something custom written up for me. My biggest issue by far was being able to get rid of bad tables and load up new ones. I wish I was an AHK pro as that would make life a lot easier. Closing tables is quite labor intensive when mass tabling considering that once you sit out next bb on a table it disappears to the bottom of the stack. Stars apparently does not see the logic in adding Sit Out and Close Next BB This Table to their play controls after it's been requested ad nauseum even though they have exactly that function to close all your tables.

I'm also currently trying out Notecaddy and I'm fairly happy with it so far. The biggest thing initially for me was the ability to take "notes" based on actions in a concise way since I basically take zero notes on my own. Up until this point my notes basically consisted of remembering how regs generally play different ranges and feeding off the game dynamic along with stats. I also can't make any sense out of taking notes like most people do by writing up what happened on xyz board with 1/2 PSB when villain was OOP and he turned a back door flush draw. That means nothing to me. Having note caddy quantify the percentage of the time this reg cbet and shutdown or that reg pot controlled a certain hand strength is much more useful to me. This is essentially my custom stat program as HEM does not have the ability to create custom stats like PT3 does. I'm still up in the air about the automatic color coding as I sometimes have to reset my colors in the Stars client and I'm not really completely sure about how I want to classify people - need to do more tweaking in this area since I only have 20% of people falling under an auto-color category.

So back to closing tables... I was obviously using the standard stuff that every grinder out there is using: Table Ninja, HEM, and a table layout manager (SaT in my case). I quite enjoyed the stacking and tiling functionality of Stack and Tile moving tables in and out of the stack based on hands where I vpip. There's also some other nice stuff out there like Placemint and a plethora of useful AHK scripts. But the ability to close specific tables efficiently was just not available.

Along comes Thois with his discontinued Table of Interest and after months and months of everyone pleading with him to sell it to them, he makes it free and unsupported. And guess what! It closes tables where I'm sitting out! Now all I have to do is Table Ninja hotkey sit out next bb target table and ToI closes it for me once that happens solving nearly all of my problems. I grabbed a simple table counter AHK off the forum, modified it to display different background colors based on how many table I have open and now I've got just about everything I need.

The only thing left on my list is something in the HUD that will tell me the quality of the table based on my own rules. Theres a lot of stuff out there that falls just short and right now I'm still relying on the old HEM table vpip/pfr averages and taking a quick look to my right.

The as of now shelved Table Retriever would have been a huge boon to opening/closing and categorizing tables based on user preferences. The beta testing on this software was very exciting in that I could automatically close tables based on number of fish or number of regs or stack sizes (my definitions of each) and their location around the table. Unfortunately it was put on hold indefinitely when Stars made the buyin structure changes and the developer decided that the vast majority of business which was supposed to come from shortstackers using it to rathole rules automatically leaving according to their own stack size and a rathole timer list would be lost. I still see a ton of value in it for automating table and seat selection for the regular grinder.

I tried out Table Scan Turbo which has a small HUD with table information. Very useful in that it has a fish on this table stat as well as a popup displaying a pretty useful table summary with player names, player type symbols and stack sizes. Not quite what I'm looking for though as a table full of bad regs might look bad when it's not. This might be worth another look as I didn't do a ton of customization.

Next I went back to the HEM HUD. Note that you can add the redundant Player Score from the HEM Scanner to the player HUD - I can see someone has a score of 5+ which indicates they're a fish according to my rules, or I could just look at their vpip/pfr which would tell me exactly the same thing. Also note that the HUD displays table vpip/pfr averages. I find it completely illogical that they have not gone ahead and added Table Score alongside table average vpip/pfr. This would actually be the most useful tool out there to gauge table quality according to my specifications. Sure Table Score is visible from the Scanner, but you can't actually close tables from there. That would be another nice feature and combined would make HEM Scanner the nuts.

So overall I'm pretty happy with my current setup and I've seen a marked improvement in my winrate now that I'm regularly table hopping in and out of 3-6 tables every 15 minutes and I feel like I'm 90% of the way towards what would be an optimal mass tabling system for me.

Things are looking up!

Games have remained relatively good since the changes on Stars. Weekends have been incredibly good. It's nice to see the 60/5's coming out of the woodwork again at 50NL and 100NL. I'm back to my 3 stake range of what I consider to be my home stakes: 25NL to 100NL. I thought I'd give a quick update on each for this post.

25NL has become extremely easy and very transparent.
Nits and TAGs play their hand straightforwardly typically in a weak-tight or obviously strong way.
LAGs and maniacs over-do everything and c/c down 3 streets with 2nd pair is most likely profitable.
Everyone's showdown value+ range is extremely inelastic so go ahead and exploit the shit out of your bet sizing depending on what you want to accomplish. Note that SDV is overrated by most of 25NL.

50NL is back to not being a huge nitfest.
Nits are still set mining nits.
Some TAGs are somewhat more floaty and better postflop but they pick the most obvious spots to apply the latest epic strategy concept post.
Ranges are generally inelastic early in the hand or when the pot is small. Tops of absolute strength ranges are inelastic. Mid and bottoms of ranges are extremely elastic in large pots and on later streets.

100NL is much more of a gradual step up in terms of skill level from 50NL for the first time in recent memory. This is encouraging in that perhaps some new money is being deposited there from the former 20-50 players and hopefully money is already starting to move up.
Plays very similar to 50NL with two caveats: More preflop aggression in the obvious light 3bet and squeeze spots and regs playing stickier postflop and most likely outleveling themselves a ton.

I'm still pretty wary of the effects of the rampant preflop aggression going on even though games have improved a ton since the changes. I'm all too aware that I'm most likely wrecking the enjoyability of the game for that 30/15 20% fold to 3bet guy when I value 3bet wide with KQs and he would rather just see cheap flops to quad mine J6o and c/c down postflop to see what's going to happen with his sooted hand. I imagine this game is much more enjoyable if you can do all that fun stuff without having to stack off constantly and busto your account in a relatively small number of hands. There has to be some $/hour or $/hand value involved here and if I were them I'd be fealing kind of ripped off and frustrated in terms of entertainment value if I'm a standard fish.

In some awesome life-news, I am going to get to play pretty much full time poker for 9 months total this year. Stars is looking good again so I'm going to be putting in 95% volume there with Rush on the backburner when I want to change it up.

I'm fairly confident now that the disaster that was 2010 was:
a) instigated by the Stars changes.
b) my unwillingness to leave terrible games.
c) mounting frustration leading to perma-tilt and steady rate of spew.
d) eventually realize that in the 2010 state of the game and my 2010 progressing state of mind, I could not win at small stakes.
e) lesson: it's kind of silly to get upset and then attack people by throwing fistfuls of cash at them.

I'm back to 2 winning months in a row now. Note that before June 2010 when the Stars lobby settled down into it's rut, I had never had a losing month pre-rakeback. Between June and the end of the year, I had 4 small losing months and 2 breakeven months post-rakeback.

Post Feb 10th / Pre Server Restart

20-50 is dying off slowly but surely. At stakes where it still remains, the waitlists are huge with regs trying to keep them going. At 50NL and 100NL the 100bb+ games are making up a good 60-67% of tables compared to CAP and remaining 20-50 combined. This is a very good sign as it shows a huge influx of the 20-50 crowd moving towards 40-100.

I would estimate that pre Feb 10th, it was a 3:2 ratio in favour of 20-50. It appears that would mean if the current dilution of the 20-50 player pool continues, fullstack tables should end up as a 3:1 favourite in the lobby over CAP. And CAP is still new and exciting as of right now 3 days later, that will wear off. It's also being mass tabled by a bunch of mediocre SSers who are just not going to be able to make it unless they find breakeven after rakeback enjoyable. When it's all said and done and the lobby settles down after a couple months, I'm optimistic that fullstack poker will outnumber CAP by at least 4:1 if not better. And then there's the possibility of moving CAP off into it's own tab on top of all that.

There's really only one way for me to fully describe the state of the games as of this moment. EA Sports NHL 95. That is, in a medium length memory sense relatively amazing. I've been playing 25NL and 50NL since the change waiting to get back into 100NL once things finish reorganizing and realizing winrates of 14 bb/100 and 8 bb/100. Granted small sample over only a couple days.

But the games just plain feel different. So what does my old Sega Genesis addiction have to do with describing this? I literally played NHL 95 every day after school with a passion for running a 2.5 goal per minute average because the goalies were just not programmed fast enough and wrap around to the far side using a backhand shot or sending a pass + one time shot from the crease line to my slightly far side centre were 95% sure things. I literally ran up 12k goal seasons like it was my job and was disappointed at games with less than 120 goals and non-shutouts were unthinkable.

That is how I feel right now when playing. I am becoming somewhat disappointed if my winrate for 25NL drops below 12 bb/100 and go into stack a donk mode to get it back up there. It's been a very long time since I could bet/bet/shove my QJ on J76xx for value and find multiple 88/20s on fullstack tables during the same session. We have seemingly stepped through the worm hole leading back to 2007. But all of us average regs are now monsters compared to what a good reg was back then considering what we've had to endure and the amount we've had to learn over the past year just to survive.

My current state of mind: slightly cautious, overly optimistic, feeling like Aaron Rodgers scrimaging with 14 year olds.

February To Do List

HU4rollz?

OK, time to actually put in some serious work and get things back together. I got my CardRunners renewed this week and started watching a bunch of videos. I downloaded everything iPod compatible that wasn't MTT stuff, sat down at work this weekend and just started watching.

First video I watch because the title sounds like maybe it's about me and I'm a little vain: The New Poker Climate. Topic: The Death of the Lazy Grinder. It is about me!  Discussion centers around running around with the biggest bucket you could find catching money falling from the sky 5 years ago vs 5 regs scrapping over every last dollar in the random fish's account now and how damn hard you better work if you want to stick around.

Second video, 13 Scariest Leaks. It's a Halloween comedy special and has some good back to basic information in it. This is now my go-to video if I feel my mindset starting to slip back into the FPS, they're playing back, general out leveling myself paranoia. I've played 2 rather long sessions after this while being sleep deprived with a total of 7 hours passed out in the last 72 (which is when I monkey tilt super easy), with very little beat induced tilt and the few times I was about to lose it I caught myself, said you better stop or you have to quit. Huge accomplishment.

On Deck, Mount Micro 2011 and A Little R&R.

Some things I want to work on this month so I can feel like I accomplished something:

• Revamp my colour coding system - colour coding by TAG, LAG, nit, fish etc is redundant to my HUD.
• Delete notes file and colour coding and actually start taking useful notes. No more auto-pilot.
• The above is going to require fewer tables - Feb 10th = 6-8 tables of 50NL and 100NL on Stars or 4 Rush tables.
• Post session review: pick the 2 regs I saw most during my sessions for a day and create battle plans in HEM.
• Keep watching videos. Minimum of 3 per week. Take the good basic stuff out of them and do not apply the fancy shit unless I am positive it's against a level 2 or 3 reg that actually knows what's going on.
• Pick up volume pace post-Feb-10th. FTP Black Card is currently on pace. Stars Supernova maintenance is a bit behind.

I've been pretty swingy in both my mindset and my results. Everything seems to be going great and then I run into one of those disaster sessions. That said, if I can manage to keep the tilt monster locked up, I can easily reduce the losses in those < 35% W$SD sessions to about one third of what they are now. And losing less is the same as profiting.

Still sitting on the fence wrt Stars vs FTP right now as I'm enjoying Rush more and more and seeing that it's the best of both mass tabling and focus oriented worlds. Still completely hate that they make me play a set minimum per day and can see myself falling into the having to buy Iron Days trap.

Countdown to Stars Christmas is on.

Stars vs FTP Value Tracker

Note: Those that downloaded before 6:30pm EST today, please re-download as I found a few bugs.

While I'm waiting to decide on whether to go back to Stars or not, I thought I should get a start on Full Tilt's Iron Man and Black Card statuses. I'll make my final decision once I see the layout of Stars' player pool after the 20-50 tables are gone.

So in the meantime I wanted to actually see the differences and made myself a spreadsheet to track my earnings and bonus value on both sites. There are 3 sheets in the excel file: Stars, FTP, and combined with a number of entries to help you track your value. Yes, some of this can be tracked in your HH tracker database, but I think it's interesting to see how your bonus value and effective rakeback % moves based on how much volume you play and which bonuses you receive over time in the Rakeback to Month End column.

 I've highlighted the cells in the screenshot which you'll want to use to enter data. The rest have formulas. I kind of suck at creating a locked working document for download so I've left everything unlocked. I've added my data sans winnings to give you an idea.

It currently calculates FPP value based on your regular bonus -- $1.5k for 100k FPP = $0.015/FPP. I also have a calculation for Full Tilt Point value if you buy Black Card cash bonuses although I assume you would just leave those points blank if you're not BC. I'm not all that familiar with the FTP VIP program yet and there seems to be a lot of variability in the value of medals so I just left a spot to enter direct $ for those under Other Bonuses. I assume you might have to manually adjust the Other Bonus tab to account for MGR hits. I'll hopefully update this as I get a better grasp of the FTP program.

Value Tracker Excel File
Enjoy!