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Weekend’s Over

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Failed to cash in any of the weekend MTTs. Shouldn’t be too surprised as the fields for both were massive!

The 5k freeroll I went out about 9000th – playing a few hands which all missed on flop + failed to get a cbet fold tends to cripple your stack, followed by the inevitable shove as the blinds begin to bite. I saw S1ndr0me hold on a bit longer as he doubled up at some point, but later even he succumbed to a AJ vs A9 seeing a 9 on the flop. Bit of a waste of time really anyway – you have to beat thousands of others just to cash $10? What’s the point…

The Turbo Takedown is similar, but at least the cash is better. I had poor hands throughout, although at least this time I did build my stack a bit. However again the blinds were ferocious and eventually I failed to stay in. I was tantalizingly close to the money – from a field of twenty-two thousand people (!!!), only 6900 were left and 5oooth place paid $78. But beating 15,000 other idiots wasn’t enough and I was left empty handed. Yegor railed me throughout (nothing better to do, really?) and said that I needed to have built a stronger stack and taken more risks. He’s right, but I was feeling a bit risk averse unfortunately.

So, no new update to November’s results. Might play tonight, but whatever.

Plans for December? I’ve decided that all my plotting and calculations on what’s the best rakeback etc is all a bit pointless when done in a vacuum. What I really need to do is actually put my money where my mouth is and test it out.

So I’m going to split my bankroll equally between Pokerstars, Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet. I’ll switch my sessions equally between the three and see how it goes (I’ll try to match it so that by the end of the month I’ll have roughly the same number of hands at each site). At the end of the month(s) I’ll also factor in Rakeback and bonuses into my winnings and see which site comes out on top. I probably should add in Titan, but I don’t want to spread the BR that thin on any one site.

This hopefully will factor in things such as the ‘softness’ of the sites, table selection etc, and see if it’s true that if the players on Ultimate Bet are that much worse than Full Tilt, then it should show a better winrate from that site.

Posted in Analysis, Bankroll Management, Bonuses, Freerolls, Full Tilt, MTT, Poker, Poker Sites, PokerStars, RakeBack, Titan, Ultimate Bet | Comments Off

November Results

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

A day or two early, but I’ll update tomorrow night if I get a result. I wanted to post today partly because it’s been a great month and I just wanted to brag, but I’ve also hit the milestone of 100k hands. To have played 100k hands is pretty awesome, but the results aren’t so hot so I’ll talk about November’s results first

Results from cash games has been ok, mainly because I’ve moved back to NL10;

Those nasty sharp swings in the middle was my experiment at shortstacking NL50 to see how quickly I could clear a bonus. I was lucky to get away with only a mild loss of $14 and it was clearly not a good idea to push a bonus outside your bankroll. The 2nd half of that chart is NL10, and the monetary boost is clear to see. Still very swingy though – I half wish I had a more consistent style, but on the other hand rollercoasters are a lot more fun.

The big result was the $2 180man tourney win which boosted the bankroll by $70, giving a total of $100 wins in tournament results.

Bonuses came to $20 (Full Tilt holiday bonus – hopefully I’ll clear at least another $20 before it expires), and about $18 in rakeback. So final total of $180 for November – a huge boost to the bankroll and long overdue. Tomorrow I’ve those MTTs as well, and just getting to the cash in the Turbo Takedown will be about $70, so as long as I can get a result I’ll be happy. I’m not holding my breath though, my tournament success is random at best.

So, on to the big lifetime result;

Quite disapointing to have been playing poker for so long and not really getting the hang of nanostakes. I think I’m back on track again, and my NL10 progress should be similar to that early rise (perhaps not so steep – it was a heater on the whole). I’m confident that from now on it’s just a matter of time & grinding to get to NL25 & NL50.

Also the chart doesn’t really reflect my true bankroll – it doesn’t include tournament results, bonuses or Rakeback – plus it only goes back to July 2008, and I’ve played longer than that. In reality I’ve probably redeposited about 4 times ($250 or so), then that heater after which I cashed out $170, and then from $30 (donated by S1ndr0me and Yegor!) rebuilt my account to $330. I suspect that means I’m actually in the black when it comes to true lifetime poker results, but I’ve no proof…

Posted in Bankroll Management, Bonuses, Full Tilt, Good Days, Hands, MTT, NL10, NL50, Poker, RakeBack, Short Stack Strategy | 4 Comments »

Clearing Bonuses at NL2, NL5, NL10 etc

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Full Tilt have just given a $100 promotion as many of you probably know. However even though I’ve moved back to NL10 it’s going to be heavy going to get all that monies.

The problem is that these microstakes just don’t generate enough frequent player points to clear the bonus effectively. For instance Last night I had an hour long session at NL10 on 3 tables – this cleared about $2 of the bonus. I’ve a month to clear $100 – not going to happen! Fortunately it comes in $10 payments so I should clear some of it (maybe half?), but it’s frustrating to see that free money just out of reach.

This is where a happy coincidence of my rakeback research and some correspondence with S1ndr0me this morning comes together for a possible solution;

Clearing the bonus is linked to frequent player points (or Full Tilt Points), which are 1 point for every $1 paid in rake. Full Tilt uses the dealt method for Rake (see my last post), so you don’t actually have to put any money in the pot to be attributed with that rake, you just have to have the cards dealt to you.

So, if you sat at a higher stakes full ring table and played super tight (QQ+), you’d be clearing that bonus far faster than if you played your normal 6max manic shove fest at NL5. To make it cost effective though, you have to avoid losing too many blinds, otherwise your losses will be more than the bonus you’re trying to clear.

So what would it take to be worthwhile. It has to be a ‘dealt method’ rake site obviously. You obviously have to be absolutely self-controlled. Playing hands out of your bankroll is going to be suicidal – the aim of this exercise is to be dealt lots of hand and lose nothing, not to win $$$. The loss will come from two things – losing your blinds, and losing the hands you do play. The latter is usual shortstack strategy – you’ll only be playing premiums like QQ+, which will at least win you the blinds. The former is not so easy since as a short stack you’ll have almost no fold equity and so stealing from late position isn’t going to be so easy. That means it’s possible to have a stack that’s *too* small. Playing above your bankroll the big drain will be the blinds, so it’s a fine balance between a safe stack size and the gain from the rake. The usual 20bb may be enough, but it’ll be the absolute minimum. However increasing it to improve your fold equity also increases your losses when those premo hands get sucked out on.

To sum up the strategy, table select the tables with the highest average pot. It has to be full ring obviously (Edit: not so obvious actually – the dealt rake is split between the players, so a FR player has 1/9 of the rake in a pot, while a 6max player has 1/6 – the balance comes down to loss due to blinds versus gain from less players. I’ll have to think about this). I’m undecided as to whether it should be 20bb or 50bb buy-ins – I’ll need to experiment as to whether 20bb has any stealing potential or not (possibly there’s a reason to pick the nittiest tables too, but not sure yet). SSS strategy has to be followed religiously, although I’d drop all unpaired hands other than AK, and PP under TT – having said that some risks would have to be taken to steal blinds from the button (actually CO maybe more effective since everyone knows the BTN is on a steal). Equally leaving the table on doubling up is also mandatory.

All that’s left is to try it out. If it works on this Full Tilt holiday bonus then it may be worthwhile signing up at the other ‘dealt method’ sites (Cake does it I believe), and do a bit of early bonus whoring. While being at microstakes the boost this would give my BR would be far more meaningful than when I’m doing ‘standard’ bonus whoring at NL100+.

However, I did mentioned this to S1ndr0me, and he’s tried the short stack strategy on and off and doesn’t think it’s a good idea. I can see where he’s coming from since SSS is fairly high variance really. I’ll proceed with caution I guess…

Edit: for those landing here from Google, my results from trying it out are here.

Posted in Bankroll Management, Bonuses, Full Tilt, NL10, NL2, NL4, NL5, Poker, RakeBack, Short Stack Strategy | 5 Comments »

What Site to Play NL10?

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Hold the presses: The wise people on the MSN microstakes chat group have pointed out that I need to consider the way MGR is calculated. Some more head scratching required before the following is right or wrong. Update: Had a think – my thoughts at the bottom of this post…

Ok, now I’m rolled again for NL10 I need to choose where to play (I say rolled again loosely – even though I’ve played half my lifetime hands at NL10, I was never actually rolled for it!).

I currently have accounts for Full Tilt, Pokerstars, Titan and Ultimate Bet (and PKR but it crashes on my laptop so I don’t care about them).

NL10 rake for each site;

Full Tilt: $0.01 per $0.15 in pot ($2 max)

Pokerstars: $0.05 per $1 in pot ($3 max)

Ultimate Bet: $0.01 per $0.20 in pot ($3 max)

Titan: $0.01 per $0.15 in pot (£2 max)

I have 27% rakeback for Full Tilt and 35% for Ultimate Bet (5% higher than usual offers since I’m an affiliate!)

I decided to break it down to see the Rake in a small pot (ie raise 3bb, get a call, cbet & they fold) = $0.75, and medium pot of £3, big pot of $10 and stacks of $20;

Results are (last time I did this I messed up and Yegor corrected me – he’s away at the moment so my ignorance may go unnoticed this time);
small pot
$0.75
UB: 0.03- 35% = 0.0195 (Rakeback 0.0105)
FT: 0.05 – 27% = 0.0365 (rakeback 0.0135)
PS: 0
TI: 0.05

med pot:
$3
UB: 0.15 – 35% =    0.0975 (rakeback 0.0525)
FT: 0.20 – 27% =    0.146 (rakeback 0.054)
PS:                 0.15
TI:                0.20

big pot:
$10
UB: 0.50 – 35% =    0.325 (rakeback 0.175)
FT: 0.66 – 27% =    0.48 (rakeback 0.1782)
PS:                               0.50
TI:                0.66

stacks
$20
UB: 1.00 – 35% =    0.65 (rakeback 0.35)
FT: 1.33 – 27% =    0.73 (rakeback 0.3591)
PS:                  1.00
TI:               1.33

So, apart from the smallest pots, it looks like Ultimate Bet is the winner. Pokerstars has no rake for those small pots though – does that outweigh the savings in the big pots? Most pots are small, so it might?

The other consideration is that you get rakeback regardless of whether you win the pot or not. That seems to argue for *more* rake as long as the rakeback % is high enough. Which sounds kinda stupid, but actually gives you a solid variance free return on your play. Full Tilt has a marginal edge on Ultimate Bet here, but it’s very close.

Finally, nothing to do with rake, the traffic is lower at UB, and I’m not keen on their interface. However 2p2 has a real chip on it’s shoulder about the site which probably reduces the number of 2p2 regs (even at nanostakes!).

Decisions, decisions… It’s really looking like Ultimate Bet. Oh well, I was really hoping it’d be Full Tilt, but whatever.

Update: Ok, the problem is that there’s two ways that sites calculate the MGR (monthly gross rake). There’s the dealt method, where every player at the table is attributed as a share of each pot, and then there’s the contributed method where only the players involved in the pot are.

So for instance, for Full Tilt does the dealt method – it’s a 6max game and the pot is $10. Every player is attibuted $0.11 (rake was $0.66), and those with rakeback get $0.0297 back.

Ultimate Bet uses the contributed method. If you were involved in that pot & there was just one villain, you’d be attributed with $0.25 (rake was $0.50), and the rakeback (at my enhanced rate) would be $0.0875. However if I wasn’t in that pot, I wouldn’t be attributed anything.

So, there’s a bunch more factors to consider for the contributed method (dealt method is easy). Well, two more factors really – how many players typically in a pot and how many pots do you contribute to (ie your VP$IP %).

My head’s starting to spin now – as if rake paid vs rakeback wasn’t enough…

ok, some assumptions. I play 270 hands per hour (apparently). Average pot size is $1.30. My VP$IP is 20%. There’s an average of 30% players to a flop on 6 max (so 1.8 players).

Full Tilt: 270 * $1.30 / 0.15 * 0.01 / 6 = $3.90, 27% rake = $1.053 rakeback

Ultimate Bet: 270 * 0.2 * $1.30 / 0.20 * 0.01 = $3.51, 35% rake = $1.228 rakeback

So that’s how much rakeback I make – UB in the lead there.

Actually if I plug in the standard 30% rakeback for Ultimate Bet it comes out as;

Ultimate Bet: 270 * 0.2 * $1.30 / 0.20 * 0.01 = $3.51, 30% rake = $1.053 rakeback – exactly the same as Full Tilt!!!

Do I have to compare it to rake lost? Only the winner of a pot loses out due to rake so it has nothing to do with whether it’s contributed or dealt. All that matters is the actual amount. And again, Ultimate Bet wins there.

Have I messed up with these calculations? No idea – I think what I need to do is play on both UB and Full Tilt for a while and just compare rakeback.

On top of that Full Tilt just offered me a $100 bonus. So I guess I’m on Full Tilt for this month anyway…

Posted in Full Tilt, NL10, PokerStars, RakeBack, Titan, Ultimate Bet | Comments Off

Return To Normal?

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Another session where (on the whole) I was in control and beating everyone else. It’s kinda strange – it’s so different to all the sessions throughout October that it really makes you give credence to all those people who cry rigged! It’s not as if I even have to hit my hands, the opponents just seem to do what you want them to do. For instance there was one guy who would cbet every flop, check the turn and then fold to a bet. Every single time. After I’d taken a fair chunk of his stack, he told me I play dumb and left

That might explain why the showdown chart looks like this though;

That redline is somewhat excessive even by my standards. The blue line sucks though, but that’s mainly through getting stacked twice, unfortunately both times with a slightly deep stack. One was QQ on the button getting action from a blind that turned out to be AA (can’t help that), but the other was a train wreck of a hand where an OESD turning semi-bluff met a guy who couldn’t fold top pair (rightly so as it turned out).

So $24 up over two days, plus rakeback, has put my roll back over $200. That’s revitalised me a bit, and given me a second wind to push for my return to NL10 again.

Meanwhile on the Betraiser site I’ve managed one freeroll (above was my usual Full Tilt) – knocked out half way, but the standard of play was shocking. I’ll keep at it for a while, although the traffic on the site is truly dismal and I can’t see it lasting. Plus the interface is a bit buggy – I’d raise using the slider, press the bet button and somehow the bet amount resets itself so I ended up minbetting over and over again. Very annoying…

Posted in Freerolls, Good Days, MTT, NL5, Poker, RakeBack | Comments Off

Another Poker Site

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

I’ve signed up to yet another poker site – something that I was really trying to avoid until I can get to NL25 or Nl50 (otherwise it’s a waste of sign-up bonus). This site wasn’t offering a sign-up bonus, so I figured it was worth a look anyway. The site is Betraiser – and I’m not in anyway recommending or endorsing the site, I have no idea if they’re trustworthy or not, but just trying it out.

The reason I wanted to check it out was that it’s rake free – apparently they just take a cut when you make a withdrawal (10% allegedly, although I couldn’t find any sign of this on the site).

So which is better – 10% commission on winnings or Rake on pots played? I think no matter which way you look at it, it has to be the 10% cut. I’m a ‘losing/getting the hang of it’ player, and according to PokerTracker in the last 80k hands I’ve played I’ve paid out $900 in rake, almost 5 times my BR. If I hadn’t paid that rake, then it doesn’t mean I’d be $900 better off (since many of those pots went to other players), but as a marginal player it’s hard to stay above rake – clearly the 10% deal is better for the fish and the break-even players. What about the winning players? It’s still an advantage, as it only comes out when you withdraw – that means you can build your bankroll unhindered by the continual drain from rake. I suspect that 10% is still small compared to the rake lost to the winning players anyway – some rake free sites have set a 25% commission, and these still seem to be a good proposition according to the consensus on poker forums…

Anyway, that all seems cool. So I signed up, and the interface was all very nice and clear, although I couldn’t reduce the size of the table to slightly bigger than a quarter of my laptop screen – this would be a disadvantage if it wasn’t for the fact that there was no-one on the site!!!

170 players were online apparently. 100 or so were playing the freerolls (which are pretty good actually – €50 MTT every 2 hours), 20 or so playing the $1 STT, and then 5 people playing cash! That was 3 people on a NL2 table and 2 on an NL10.

So ultimately fairly useless because of the traffic. I’m going to stick with it for a bit and see if I can build a BR from freerolls, but unless the cash tables pick up there’s not much point really. Also general opinions on forums are disparaging about these rake free sites too – they see the majority of players being competent players who know what it means to not pay rake rather than fish who join to just play. This means that the games are harder than Full Tilt etc and that outweighs the benefits of no rake. I haven’t played much yet, so that remains to be seen…

Posted in Poker, RakeBack | 1 Comment »

Slow Month

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Not a lot of poker going on at the moment – my plate seems to be crammed with lots of other things that are getting in the way.

Admittedly there’s not much incentive though – my plans to move up when my account reached $250 has failed miserably since rather than increasing my $$$ I seem to be continually decreasing it. At the point I made that BR decision I was at $230 and it made plenty of sense to grind out that extra $20.

Instead it’s gone the other way and I’m down to $200. I made the mistake of reading one of those monthly results threads on 2p2, and naturally the only people showing their graphs were those who were happily climbing up. Depressing that my only increases to the BR have been through bonuses and rake, and my dismal play has now eroded even those gains.

Oh well. Need to play through this as they say. The difficult thing is knowing whether this is my fault or just variance. Or were my previous winning sessions my fault or just variance? I keep going back to PokerTracker to try and spot the problems, and it’s really hard to know just what’s going wrong. I suspect I should play more weakly (I think I’m tight enough), but it just feels so wrong!

Update: There’s a thread in the gossip section of 2p2 talking about who has the most meteoric rise in poker (a bit premature perhaps). A load of nits are going on about meteors not rising, which is the typical moron nittitude of many 2p2′ers, but it has made me realise my moniker is associated with things that crash and burn (well, burn and crash). Hmmm, don’t really have much to disagree with though…

Posted in Analysis, Bankroll Management, Bonuses, Poker, PokerTracker, RakeBack, TwoPlusTwo | Comments Off

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