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Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
To quote Fabolous: "I feel like I'm back." I'm been working on my game a little & switched some things up. I'm being more selective on FTP $500s & only playing the softest ones that go off. My FTP table selection in general is much better as I have a much better feel for who is who by now. I've also started playing super turbos under $100 again. While the $100+ super turbos are flooded w/ ignorant non table selecting regs, I think there's profit to be made pre rakeback at the $50-$70 level. I still have to babysit the lobby & get out of games when too many ignorant regs hop in sometimes, but I think 2%+ ROI is sustainable at this level with a little table selection. With my high rakeback that can obviously equal out to be pretty profitable. I've started playing more cake again in general. I think the $52 to $78 levels are still more profitable than I thought & 6-10% might be sustainable w/ almost 0 table selection. Again, with my high rakeback on cake this makes the games very profitable, often more profitable than a $200+ on FTP. I have also recently lowered my tables to 8-10 at a time. I had been thinking about it for a while & an aim conversation I had with faarcyde was basically the clincher. Thanks faarcyde! I think most people try to play too many tables & "maximize" hourly rate. In the process, their ROI usually falls more than they thought it would & they just chalk it up to variance. Often variance is part of it (especially considering their ROI is lower, they will have more variance than before), but it's usually not the whole story. I have been guilty of this as well. Sometimes we just get too greedy. I think I've learned from it & I'm pretty sure you won't see my pre rakeback profits in the red for 2010. Hopefully I'll be back at the top of leaderboards again but we'll see because there's a lot of good players these days & the games are very competitive. Anyways, since the 11th I've been playing 8-10 tables & here has been the result so far:
528 $17 $115 15% $8,951 N/A N/A Global Alias 11/11/2009 11/17/2009 SNG Only
That's # of games, avg. profit, avg. stake, ROI, & total profit. Now I certainly don't think 15% is sustainable at this avg. stake. What it does tell you is that there's a greater than 50% chance that my true ROI is between 10% & 20%. Again, I think this is an outlier here as I doubt my true ROI is as high as 10% in this day and age with an average stake of $115. However, I do think there's a very good chance that my true ROI is quite high w/ my current playing style & # of tables. Even if my true ROI is just 5% that's still an excellent ROI for that average stake with the current state of SNGs, especially when you factor in that over 25% of my games are super turbos.
Gunnar sits in the office with me while I play. It can be distracting but I don't want to put him in his kennel for that long & he's not trained enough yet to be roaming the rest of the house on his own yet. Overall he's been very good though. There's a door stopper in my office & that's his favorite toy so he plays with that a lot & his other toys & sleeps a lot. I did catch him eating the drywall once but I don't think he's gonna do it again. Sometimes he wants to come up on my lap. I usually try it for a little bit & then have to put him down when he starts pushing buttons on my keyboard. He's seen me play a lot of games but I don't trust his SNG skills enough YET to let him control my keyboard while I'm playing.
My personal trainer has some new personalized training programs. Just $11.95 will get you 6-7 weeks of personalized programs. I highly recommend giving it a shot.
That's all I've got for now.
Results:
Year of 2009:
SNG Profit: $(20,607.34)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $198,727.69
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $220,340.15
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Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
Here's some pictures of my new son Gunnar & his parents & a leaf:
In case you didn't notice, he's adopted. We got him last Saturday. He's a yellow lab. While he's peed in the house a lot I think he's been very good for a puppy. He hasn't pooped in the house yet & he's pretty good when in his kennel compared to most dogs. Best of all, I haven't had a losing day since I got him. Perhaps I should mention that I've only played 6 1/2 hours over the course of 2 days since getting him.
Overall poker hasn't been very good. Since I play such a wide range of buy-ins my overall profits rely heavily on a small sample of games at my highest stakes. This can be really frustrating at times since I don't have too much control over my short term results. Here's some sick #s for 2009: Between $500+ on Pokerstars, $500+ on Full Tilt, and super turbos on Cake I'm down a combined $82,890 pre rakeback, & this # peaked around $90K.
jhub30 1,194 -$23 $531 -4% -$27,150 - N/A FullTilt Year2009 S>=500
jhub3000 4,804 -$6 $110 -2% -$29,280 - N/A Cake Year2009 Spd=ST
jhub3000 820 -$32 $543 -5% -$26,460 - N/A PokerStars Year2009 S>=500
If you've read my past posts on variance & table selection you should know that these #s tell us very little about my long run #s at these games. While I'm down overall in super turbos pre rakeback, the good thing is that I'm still up in $500+ over the course of my online career (about $24K over 4,000 or so games across all sites...this # jumps to over $50K if you explude the minuscule >200 games I've played at $1K+). It will probably take me 5+ years to get in a reasonable sample of games at $500+, and the game conditions will obviously change many times during that stretch. The ridiculous swings & lack of control over short term success are just some things you have to deal with if you want to play high stakes & maximize long run hourly rate. Thankfully for me I happen to make a ton of money in rakeback to keep me sane during the rough stretches. For the record I'm looking forward to the ignorant jealous hater comments about how I can't beat the high stakes anymore that this post will inevitably bring. They should be funny as hell like usual.
I'd like to thank everyone who donated to the cancer benefit my brother was raising money for. He reached his goal & I know readers of this blog played a part in that.
The Twins have Vikings have been a blast to watch lately. The run that twins made at the end of the season to win the central was ridiculous, even if they're a big dog to beat the yankees. As for the Vikes, as long as Favre's arm is fine the whole year (a big if) I think they can play w/ anyone in the league.
Results:
Year of 2009:
SNG Profit: $(23,259.28)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $181,972.53
Total SNG Profit: $158,713.25
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $200,933.05
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Thanks,
Hub
http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliat
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
I got married on August 8th. Everything went very well. We went to Aruba for our honeymoon and it was great. It was 90 & sunny every day. The water was a perfect temp & color. The food was great. The shows were good, etc... We also purchased a timeshare package while we were there. For my bachelor party we rented a boat & about 18 of us went on Lake Minnetonka for 8 hrs. I was blackout drunk about 4 hrs into it (3 pm). Then we came back to my house. During that time some of us decided it would be a great idea to play a cash game. I was dealing backwards & arguing w/ Jeremy (thevosh, voss1313's bro) before finally realizing I was wrong. Later he decided to fire up the weed whacker past midnight & weed whack a penis into my lawn. I was asleep by then. Thankfully he didn't do the greatest job in the dark & you couldn't really tell what it was.
Here's 1 pic from the wedding:
This is my wife Paula & I doing a nice ninja turtle pose. I was obsessed with the ninja turtles when I was young so my brothers gave me a ninja turtle shirt during their best man speech. Maybe I'll post some other pics another time. Some people have requested that I post more pics on my blog but it can be time consuming.
As for poker, I haven't played a whole lot. There was 1 week when I was really sick & didn't play at all. Then I had the wedding & honeymoon & obv didn't play during that. July 16th I decided to stop playing pokerstars, at least for now. There's so many ignorant regs who don't table select that you have to constantly babysit them by keeping an eye on the lobbies. This takes away a ton of focus from your tables, a bit too much w/ 4 sites going imo. Whether this helps my hourly remains to be seen and will be tough to tell due to the high variance of the games I play. However, if nothing else the games have been less stressful & more enjoyable w/o Stars. I'm pretty confident in my game. I've reviewed poker tracker stats of a bunch of top players & my #s are very similar to all of them. I love when people tell me I can't play post-flop. Of all the players my went to showdown/won at showdown #s were the best.
I don't have the time to post all my stats but my total profit for the year is at $208,188.33
Cake has been pretty quiet lately so FTP has easily been my #1 site volume-wise lately. I've done ok there. Their sharkscope was very screwy during a bunch of updates. It missed a nice upswing of mine but that's ok because it will just help feed the ignorant donks' opinion of my play recently.
As far as Brett Favre goes, I think he's kind of a d-bag but I'm glad the Vikings got him because he should be an upgrade over what we had. I think the Vikes are 1 of the favorites to win the NFC this year. The Eagles are gonna be really tough though.
Now on to a more serious subject:
My brother is running a race in support of 1 of his best friends, who has colon cancer. All donations are greatly appreciated. I'll just leave you with the story my brother wrote on the race homepage:
Hello,
I recently joined a team for the 18th Annual Rivertown Shuffle here in Winona that will be held on Friday, September 18th. This event is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society and is highlighted by luminaries placed on the bike path around Lake Winona. One of my very best friends, Joe Vogel, has been chosen to be one of this years Person's of Hope for this event.
In May of 2006 Joe was diagnosed with colon cancer. At age 28, the thought of cancer shouldn't even enter one's mind. But Joe faced the battle head on like a true champion. Joe did the chemo and all the treatments and side effects that came along with it and eventually was back to life before the cancer. Unfortunately, a few months back his colon cancer came back and was in his brain. Once again Joe's positive attitude got him through the radiation treatments and a Gamma Knife procedure.
During the 2 months that Joe was receiving his treatments for the brain tumors, the cancer spread significantly to his spine, lungs, and possibly liver. At this moment Joe is on Round 2 of chemo out of 6 for these areas. Joe is 31 years old and has had to deal with more than anybody should ever have to deal with in their entire life. His attitude is unbelievable and the way he's fought is heroic to say the least.
Joe is the reason I've decided to raise money for this event. In honor of Joe Vogel. I set our initial goal at $1000 and to be honest I think we can reach that no problem. So I hope we can raise that goal in the coming weeks.
You can visit Joe's personal CaringBridge page at:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/joevo
Thank you for your support!
Jeff Hubbard
To make a donation please click the link below:
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/Relay
Here's a picture of Joe (left) & Jeff (right) recently after Jeff shaved his head in support of Joe:
Thanks,
Hub
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Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
On June 11th I stopped playing Cake super turbos all together. It was a tough decision to make with my high rakeback deal on cake but I think it was the right thing to do. The other week I did some calculations & figured out that over 5,220 cake super turbos I was making less than $1 game after rakeback! Obviously I was running bad during this time but I was also running bad on FTP & Pokerstars during this time. Over the same # of games (although less on FTP cause I haven’t played that many) I was averaging over $4/game after rakeback on Stars & almost $6/game after rakeback on FTP. In 2009 when the games have been tougher I’m not even profitable in super turbos after rakeback. What started off as what seemed to be a dream scenario (Cake adding super turbos) w/ my rakeback deal turned into a nightmare due to the amount of ignorant regs who can’t put their ego aside & table select. Aside from that, super turbos also take away more focus from my other tables. You get about 2-3 super turbos in for every turbo, so if you take 40 minutes of turbos & 40 min of super turbos you’re involved in a much larger % of hands in the 40 min of super turbos. Also, with my multi tabling table selection routine it takes way too much focus away from my other tables while I’m registering & unregistering from all of the super turbos as more games pop up & I bust out of other games. Perhaps Cake will fix the registration process to make it easier when they come out with their new version of software. I’m pretty sure I recommended it to them. The variance of super turbos is also obviously very annoying. I think I can find plenty of games w/ similar profitability & less variance. Lastly, super turbos are very bad for my long run marketability. In super turbos you’re basically just hoping to break-even & make your money from rakeback. This is really bad for my stats when about half of my games were on Cake & probably half to 2/3 of my cake games were super turbos. I currently have a very good deal w/ Cake. However, I don’t want to close out future opportunities. Like most things, there’s also a business side to poker & that should always be a consideration.
Since I stopped playing super turbos I've been crushing so far ($377 hourly over about 100 hours). Obviously it's highly unlikely I will maintain that but it's still nice to see. Once I get in a good sample size I'll probably start posting hourly rate again. I keep calculating new hourlys since I've been experimenting w/ different games so I haven't posted my hourly in a while. Since we finally have nice weather in MN I've been taking advantage of that. I know there was 1 week where I only played 10 hours.
Since no longer playing super turbos I’m super confident in my game. I’m just allowed to focus so much more. I’m only getting in about 15 games per hr now but that’s about what I was getting in when my hourly rate was at its peak. The games have certainly gotten tougher since last year but w/ another site to choose from (FTP) I think I might be able to get close to my 08 hourly (although admittedly I probably ran about $30-$50K above expectation in 08). I might eventually try to play 1 more table at a time on avg. We’ll see how things go.
It’s amazing how ignorant even successful players can be. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people saying I fell off or that my “luck streak” has ended. Yes I was just that successful over 60,000 SNGs & then suddenly fell off. Yes I was LUCKY over 60,000 SNGs & it’s finally ending. I must be the luckiest guy in the world. When playing multiple buy-ins it’s not tough to lose for extended periods of time. All it takes is losing at your highest buy-ins over a smallish sample. If you exclude super turbos all of my avg. ROIs are still positive on the year other than a -1% on Pokerstars. I can assure you that I'm a better SNG player than I was in 08, despite what my yearly stats are. People just dismiss it as me falling off because they've never gone through a streak like this. Go play 70,000 high stakes SNGs & then get back to me.
I've talked a lot about table selection. I usually center on 6 max SNGs since that's what I play. I've posted some 9 man table selection stats in the comments section of my blog but clearly not everyone reads that since I keep getting asked about this. I highly advise everyone to read the comments on each entry but here is how each player effects your ROI in 9 man SNGs:
Cost of a good regular -2,80%
Cost of an decent regular -1,80%
Cost of a barely winning player 1,20%
Remember, this is how each player effects your BASE ROI. I might as well post the link again to the original table selection entry since most people seem clueless in this area:
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/200
Maybe I'll just sticky it at the top of my blog.
I'm sure most of you have heard by now that Minnesota gave up in their Nazi efforts to block online gambling ISPs. That's obviously a good thing for myself and other online poker players in MN.
http://www.pokerpages.com/poker-news/ne
Cake has signed Lee Jones:
http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/lee-j
http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/lee-j
I was very excited when I heard this. Lee was a big reason for the success Pokerstars has had & I think he'll do a great job helping make Cake 1 of the top sites in terms of volume.
I'm sure most of you also heard about the Nazi seizures by the FED:
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=7808131
A PPA spokesperson does a great job talking about the situation here:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/video/in
Send letters to congress in an effort to bring regulated online poker to the US:
http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersallia
I was very disappointed in the T-Wolves on NBA draft night. Ricky Rubio fell into our laps & I was stoked. I really didn't think we had a chance of drafting him without trading up. Not only were we getting him but we were going to draft Stephen Curry at 6. That young core of Rubio, Curry, Kevin Love, & Al Jefferson was sounding pretty good. Then the commisioner announced the pick. Jonny Flynn. WTF! This pick made absolutely no sense. They just drafted Rubio, about as pure as a PG as there is, then they draft another 5'11" PG when Curry is still on the board. Later they said they believe the 2 can play together. I'll believe it when I see it. It's also believed that Flynn was somewhat of an insurance policy for Ricky Rubio. Stephen Curry can play both the 1 & the 2 so he would have not only served at our starting SG (& a damn good one at that) but could also slide over to PG if Rubio were to continue with his nonsense & not play for us. Sure Curry may not be the pure PG that Flynn is but he serves as more than just an insurance policy & is a better player than Flynn. Flynn was a reach at 6, while Curry probably would have been a steal at 6. Another thing I heard is that Curry didn't workout for us. Guess what? He didn't workout for Golden State either & they happily snagged him at 7. I hope I'm wrong but I think we'll be paying for this for years to come. There was even a rumor before the draft that we were in talks to trade Al Jefferson and the #6 pick for Amare Stoudemire. I wouldn't even trade Jefferson for Stoudemire straight up. It was later reported that the rumor was false but you never know what to believe. For a second I thought Kevin McHale was back in office. I thought the same thing after the #6 pick. Sometimes I think I could run an NBA franchise better than these dopes. Hopefully when Rubio goes through puberty & stops being a whiny little bitch he will actually come and play for the Wolves. If it happens I'm sure he'll spend a couple more years in Spain first. If it doesn't, I guess we'll have to settle for trading him. I'd hope we could get decent value for him. It's ridiculous how players like Rubio, Eli Manning, & John Elway try to choose where they want to play when they come into the league. Be grateful you're able to play professional sports for a living & suck it up. If you don't like where you got drafted you can certainly leave in free agency when your rookie contract is up.
I was happy to see the Cavs added Shaq. He's still 1 of the top centers in the league & will be of huge help against Orlando in the playoffs. They still have work to do though. Both Artest & Ariza decided to sign elsewhere. Now their best bet is to sign Rasheed Wallace & hope he doesn't go to eastern conference rival Boston instead. I think Orlando upgraded its roster w/ the addition of Vince Carter & exit of Turkoglu. Jameer Nelson should also be healthy for the playoffs next year, so they could be even better than this year. I also think the Lakers have upgraded with Artest over Ariza as long as he isn't a distraction. Boston should be healthy again this year so they'll be tough, especially if Sheed signs with them. Either way I think Cleveland will make some more moves this offseason & make another strong push this year. Lebron isn't going anywhere. He's staying in Cleveland beyond next season. Andrew (Voss1313) said he'd bet me $1K on that. At first I said I wanted to wait until after free agency & trades to make the bet official (this was before the Shaq trade) but then I changed my mind. I figured they were almost certainly going to be big players this offseason & after they made those moved Voss might back out. I then offered him the deal again before the Shaq trade was made. I never heard back from him. I then offered it again. I still haven't heard back. It sounds like someone is getting cold feet. Andrew, what do ya think buddy?
The new Asher Roth CD is phenomenal. If you like Eminem you'll like Asher & I'd recommend picking it up.
Results:
Month of June:
147.26 hrs played
SNG Profit: $2,587.87
Rakeback/Bonuses: $27,278.46
Staking: $16,506.00
Total Monthly Profit: $46,372.33
Year of 2009:
889.48 hrs played
SNG Profit: $5,005.05
Rakeback/Bonuses: $152,001.75
Staking: $40,956.65
Total Yearly Profit: $197,963.45
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http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliat
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
I’m back in the red pre rakeback on the year. It’s been very swingy. I’m down over $20K at the $300+ level for the year. That’s the crappy thing about playing multiple buy-ins. Your overall #s rely heavily on a small sample of games at your highest stakes. I can’t complain with the rakeback I get though. I’m not alone in the red for 09. Spagravy, Bigjoe2003, bballwiz, & messier111 are all in the red pre rakeback in SNGs this year, & even the almighty durrr is in the red in cash games for the year. Hopefully seeing players have bad runs for such extended periods of time is educating people on variance more, because most people are clueless in that department.
My hours have been down lately. Even when I play a full week it’s usually not 40 hours.
Now that Cake has had super turbos for a while I decided to do a little research into attainable ROIs. I always assumed 1-2% was probably the highest attainable ROIs in the long run. I took a collection of players I considered good to figure out my #s. I think the results will surprise some people. Among these good players, they had played a total of 23,081 super turbos. Their average stake was $96.83 & their average ROI was just 0.274%! This should be an eye opener to those of you running at 2% or above over thousands of games. It’s extremely unlikely that your true ROI is actually that high. Super turbos can still be very profitable because of their length of time & rakeback, as long as you can handle the sick variance that comes with them. You will have negative ROI stretches over huge lengths of time. Hopefully people will start to realize the importance of table selection in super turbos. Games can become unprofitable much quicker than in regular turbos. Unless you have a rakeback deal like me on Cake (you don’t) there’s really no excuse for not using good table selection in super turbos. Too often I see games w/ the likes of 2 or more players like HappyLucky, buttabiscuit, JuneTLBKilla, odinnnn, avkalang608, etc… & it’s just ridiculous. I’m sure most of you have read my entry on table selection and variance. If not, you should do so now:
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/200
The thing with super turbos is that your base ROI is much less. While I said a top player at $100+ probably has a base ROI around 8.5 in turbos, that number should AT LEAST be cut in half for super turbos. I doubt you can profit pre rakeback w/ 1 top player & even 1 other winning player in the game. Most players have 33% rakeback. The rakeback you receive is roughly equivalent to 2.31 ROI points. Therefore, if your ROI in a super turbo is lower than -2.31 you are losing money even with rakeback! If you’ve read my table selection article & understand how to calculate your ROI in a particular game you should realize that’s it’s not tough to get to -2.31% in a super turbo. In fact, I see these games all the time. Fortunately for me I get way more than 33% rakeback so I have a lot more wiggle room than everyone else. The point is: use your head, put your ego aside, & table select. I’ve noticed many players starting to table select since my blog entry on it, but there’s still plenty of work to be done in that department. For most who don’t, they haven’t truly experienced the brutal side of variance. Others just never will. Hopefully this helps people understand the difference between table selection in regular turbos & super turbos. Clearly your edge is much less with 2 minute blinds as opposed to 5 minute blinds.
I made a mistake in my last blog entry. I listed my personal trainer’s website incorrectly. It’s fixed now but the address is actually http://goperformance1.com/ Again, I recommend him to anyone. He does a great job for a very good price. I’ve now lost 38 lbs. I’ll be posting a banner for his website on my blog soon.
I was very disappointed in the Cavs. Anyone putting the blame on Lebron is an idiot. He easily has the worst supporting cast of any superstar & seriously, what more could the guy have done? He made Mo Williams look like an all star during the regular season, but Mo & the rest of the team didn’t show up for the eastern conference finals. You can’t win a championship by yourself. It’s a team game. Jordan needed Pippen, Kobe needed Shaq/the good supporting cast he has now, Wade needed Shaq, Duncan needed Parker & Ginobli, Magic needed Kareem, etc… MJ didn’t win a title until his 7th season. Guess what season Lebron is going into? You got it. Hopefully they can put a better team around him & get it done next year. Fortunately it looks like they’re going to have plenty of cap room to work with. No championship is going to be easy in the next several years though. The Lakers are still pretty young & should have their core together for a few more championship runs. The Magic get Jameer Nelson back next year and as long as they resign Turkoglu their young core should be together for several more championship runs. The Nuggets will be back & The Celtics should have 1 more run in them.
The new Eminem CD is phenomenal as usual. If you haven’t gotten it yet go get it. Maybe I’ll do some CD reviews one of these blog entries.
I didn’t receive my May rakeback yet so that is not included in the yearly profits.
MJCACE’s staking agreement is up at the end of the month so starting July 1st my mix of games will likely look a little different. I’ll probably start up a new excel tab at that time. Since April 5th I’m making $219.42/hr playing (not including staking).
Results:
May 2009:
121.65 hrs played
SNG profit: $ (9,228.11)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $ 22,270.59
Staking: $ 1,080.00
Total monthly profit: $ 14,122.48
Year 2009:
732.98 hrs played
SNG Profit: $ (1,224.82)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $ 121,491.54
Total SNG Profit: $ 120,266.72
Staking: $ 26,127.65
Total Yearly Profit: $ 146,394.37
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Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
I’m in the car on my way home from Delaware & have been really lazy w/ blog entries so I figure it’s a good time to type one up. I haven’t played much this past week. My Dad, my brothers, & I drove to Delaware for my cousin’s wedding. We drove because we wanted to go to New York for a day as well. The drive on the way there was 21 hours, which wasn’t that bad because I probably spent 10-12 hours studying poker related material. Most of it was cash game stuff. I really doubt I’ll move to cash anytime soon but studying it still helps for SNGs some. On Friday we went to the rehearsal dinner & then drank in the hotel room with some other people that were at the dinner for a while. On Saturday I worked out, then we went golfing, ate lunch, & had the wedding after a little rest. Everything was a really good time. It’s nice to see cousins, aunts, & uncles that I don’t see very often. We went out for pizza & drinks after the wedding. On Sunday we went to NY. We didn’t have much time to spend there but it was still cool to see. I also came down to Winona a day early because 1 of my friends that is currently living in Mississippi was in town.
Obviously I haven’t gotten much playing time in the past week but I’m really feeling good about my game and have been on a roll. I started out the month on a solid $27K downswing. Then on April 5th I finally decided to cut down on my # of tables. Considering that probably about half of my games are super turbos & I’m table selecting 4 sites, which takes away a lot of focus, I think I was playing too many tables. It’s easy to do w/ my rakeback deal on Cake but the way things were going I had to try something new. I’ve mostly been in the 8-12 table range. I also have been really taking advantage of Full Tilt’s color coded notes, which I think are extremely helpful. It’s getting a lot easier the longer I’ve been on the site as I get better reads on the players, especially when playing less tables. I’ve also stopped having the TV on while I play. I love a lot of the shows on ESPN/ESPN2 like Mike & Mike, 1st & 10, NFL Live, Jim Rome, Around the Horn, & PTI so I used to just have those shows on all day. Now I only have them on if I’m just starting up & loading tables or if I’m winding down to break or end the session, with less tables going. Otherwise I have just had music going, which keeps me a lot more focused. I think the combination of all of these things has had a very big positive effect on my results. Since April 5th when I made these changes I’ve been averaging over $440/hr. Obviously that’s a heater & not my true win rate, but I have been feeling way more comfortable at the tables & think I’m making the optimal play a lot more. I don’t time out much anymore & have more time to think through decisions, & also have much better reads on different players. I think it’s helped the most in post-flop play, as I have more time to reconstruct the hand in my head & have better reads so that I can adjust to different players better. Anyways, obviously a big difference in the results has been variance, but time will time just how big of a factor it was. During my big downswing DDBeast had told me that he thought I was playing very well. Even though I respect his opinion on SNGs more than anyone, he still only sees a small percentage of my hands while playing a lot of tables, & I do think that playing too many tables & other factors had a significant negative effect on my results, even if variance was the #1 factor. Either way I’ll be fine w/ all the rakeback I make. I was looking on sharkscope, & it’s pretty crazy that despite how awful my 09 has gone I think I’ve probably still made more money overall (including rakeback, bonuses, etc…) than anyone else in SNGs. Now that I have the color coded notes system down pretty good on FTP, & my table selection is much better, & my confidence is up I can’t deny that the $1Ks & $2Ks on FTP are pretty tempting. However, I don’t want that stress & variance right now, so I’m going to continue to stay away from those. I’m sure I’ll be tempted back into them sometime in the future though, no matter how sick they are.
I’ve lost a little over 30 lbs as I’m trying to get in shape for my wedding in August (& just for the sake that it’s a lot healthier). It’s pretty easy to get out of shape as a professional poker player, especially if you go on a decent amount of trips. I’m going to stick with it now though. I have a personal trainer who designs my workouts (tailored to my goals) & tells me how many calories, carbs, protein, & fat to shoot for in a day. He’s been very helpful & recently launched his website at goperformance1.com I would highly recommend him. If you have the money it’s well worth the cost. Everybody should workout at least a few times a week. You’ll feel much better if you do.
As time goes by with this Minnesota bill I really doubt much is going to happen with it. They tried the same crap in Kentucky & it got overturned in appeals court. Every lawyer I see comment on it thinks that we’ll be ok because it won’t hold up in court. If anything does happen with it, I’m hoping there will be a way around it so that I don’t have to move. One thing that really bugs me is how they report online gambling as being illegal in the US. While it’s true that it’s illegal for an online gambling site to run its’ operations in the US, it is not illegal to play online poker in the US. If it was illegal I’d be in prison. Star Tribune did an article on me playing online poker for a living. If it was illegal that would be like them interviewing some drug dealer in MN about his “career” & the cops doing nothing about it. Everybody knows that site pros like Greg Raymer & Phil Ivey play online poker. If it were truly illegal you can’t tell me that there would be nothing done about it. The thing is, it is a bit of a grey area & there’s people who do believe it’s illegal to play, but anybody with any knowledge of the situation knows that they would have no shot of convicting a player. It just wouldn’t hold up in court because it isn’t illegal, & that’s why we continue to play. It’s truly baffling the kind of trash that passes for news these days. Some of it just has no credibility. Somebody mentioned it in the comments section of my blog, but when commenting on the issue one player made up a good point in my opinion. He talked about how many people look down on poker players because we’re basically taking other people’s money. In reality, almost everybody who works does this. When you work for a business you’re taking business away from other businesses, & are therefore taking money away from other people. It’s just not the direct route like it is in the poker world, so people don’t see it for what it really is. Therefore, poker players take slack for it, but there’s certainly nobody criticizes Joe Blow who sits in his cubicle selling electronics over the phone. He’s just a hard working citizen while we’re a disgrace. While the opinion on poker players has softened a lot in recent years, there’s still a long ways to go as there’s many uninformed and/or dillusional people out there when it comes to the subject.
For a while the Cake games were getting pretty tough, & I was even considering table selecting a little on there despite my high rakeback. One of the newer sites on the network, Lock Poker, was giving out under the table rakeback deals at up to 60%, despite the fact that it’s against network rules for them to offer rakeback at all. Basically they were stealing some of Cake’s biggest players by offering them 60% rakeback, when they weren’t even allowed to offer rakeback period. Some of these players thought 60% rakeback made it ok to register for games where they were the 4th best player & it got a little ugly for a while. Then Cake found out about everything & shut the lock rakeback program down. They’re lucky they didn’t get booted from the network. Needless to say, there’s going to be some unhappy players on lock who aren’t going to be receiving their rakeback.
People always ask me why I don’t play MTTs. There’s various reasons. They lock your schedule down. The good ones are mostly on weekends. Despite the weekends being the softest time to play, I rarely play weekends because there’s often way more other stuff to do since most people have work off. I can make plenty of money without playing weekends & don’t need to sacrifice social life to do it. Just because a certain time is the most profitable to play doesn’t mean it’s the best life decision to play at that time. Too many players just get in the habit of having their lives revolve around poker. I mostly just play around my fiancee’s schedule now that we live together, w/ differences usually being less than a couple hours. Another big reason I don’t like MTTs is that since I don’t play them as my main game, I’ll never really get to the long run in them in terms of sample size, so I’m basically gambling. Even if you play them for a living the variance can be very high & it can take a while to get a good sample size. I believe it was DJC311 that made a very good point about MTT variance. Most of the biggest money jumps in MTTs are at the final table, so performing well at the final table is probably the most important part of MTTs (obv you need to get there 1st but you get the point). Well, the final table of an MTT is basically a SNG, just with a different payout structure. Look at the variance of SNGs. Top players can run breakeven or losing over several thousand SNGs. Now how many final tables are you going to make in a year? I don’t care who you are, it’s going to be nowhere near several thousand, or even one thousand for that matter. The point is that luck probably plays a much bigger role in the difference of results between the top MTT winners & the marginal winners than most people realize. That’s just another reason I’m not a big MTT fan. While the thrill of winning them is like no other, the wins are way outnumbered by deep runs where you play extremely well & then continue to get screwed over & over until you bust, in which the disappointment matches the joy when you win.
Normally I try to play 5 days (Mon-Fri) a week at around 40 hours. Obviously there’s a lot of days/weeks where I have other stuff going on & don’t work at all or take time off for some days where I don’t reach that 40 hour mark. Contrary to what people seem to think, I “work” a lot less than most Americans, & probably less than most professional SNG players. Last year I ended up “working” the equivalent of 39 40 hour weeks. People just see how many SNGs I play in a year & assume I play all the time, without factoring in that I get in way more SNGs/hr than most people. I’ll probably play more than that this year but we’ll see. I’m not going to worry about it too much. Being able to make my own schedule is one of the things I like most about being a professional poker player. That’s right up there with the money & be able to actually do something that I truly enjoy for a living. One thing I have done this year is started to keep track of net vacation hours. For every day of the week other than the 1st week of the year (which started on a Thursday), the normal work week would be 40 hours. So at the end of each week I calculate how many hours I was over or under 40. If I was over they go into an overtime column & if I was under they go into a vacation column. I then have a forumula to subtract the difference. Anyways, so far this year I have taken 13.82 vacation days. I’ll probably have 2-3 more this week. I just thought it was another thing that’s nice to follow.
Injuries are really hurting the NBA playoffs this year. I thought it was going to be a great year for the playoffs until Kevin Garnett got hurt. Now the Cavs are pretty much going to walk right into the NBA finals, possibly without losing a game in the east. Since KG got his title last year I do want to Cavs to win it all, but I would have rather it been playing against the best & actually having some good games along the way. Now Yao Ming is out for the playoffs & the Lakers are going to get a walk into the Western Conference finals. At least the Nuggets-Lakers series should be good, & then the NBA finals should be good no matter who represents the West. Even though I can’t stand the Lakers, part of me wants them to win the west just so we can see a Lebron vs Kobe NBA finals matchup. That said, LeBron used to play against Melo in high school & that rivalry could be interesting as well, although there’s no debate of who is better like there is w/ Kobe vs Lebron.
It’s been way overdue but I’ve finally started watching The Sopranos & TheWire w/ Paula. Both are supposed to be very good. I’m not far enough in to comment though & it will be a long time before we’re through both of them. I’m a big fan of watching TV series on DVD. My favorites, in no particular order, are Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Weeds, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Office, Californication, & Everybody Loves Raymond. I also tried watching Dexter & Mad Men after hearing very good things about both. Dexter was ok but nothing special. Mad Men was just flat out awful & boring. It’s so slow moving & nothing happens. I have no idea how that show has won awards or what anyone could see in it.
As long as we’re kind of on the topic & I’m bored sitting in a vehicle, my favorite kind of movies are comedies. My favorite comedies of all time, in no particular order, are Dumb & Dumber, Office Space, Old School, Anchorman, & Wedding Crashers. I might be leaving some out but Superbad & Borat would probably receive honorable mentions.
Results:
Month of April 2009:
150.77
SNG Profit: $ (863.25)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $ 24,077.82
Staking: $ 9,100.00
Total Profit: $ 32,314.57
Year of 2009:
Hours: 631.89
SNG Profit: $14,910.79
Rakeback/Bonuses: $ 113,373.20
Total SNG Profit: $128,283.99
Staking: $24,450.65
Total Yearly Profit: $152,734.64
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http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliat
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
Here's a better article:
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/0
It's all just wait & see now.
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http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliat
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
http://www.startribune.com/local/439852
It looks like I'll likely be moving to Wisconsin soon. This is supposed to be implemented within a few weeks. I'll wait it out & if everything goes as plan I'll put my house on the market & start looking for places in Wisconsin, most likely in LaCrosse, which is about 30 minutes away from my honetown of Winona. I'm so sick of bullshit like this.
Please take the time to send a letter to your congressmen. The PPA letters can be found here:
http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersallia
The email is already typed out for you so it only takes a couple minutes. Don't be lazy.
Other than that poker has been going good. I'll do a blog update with results after the month is over.
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http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliat
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
Since February 16th when I completely changed my table selection I was cruising right along making $340-$350/hr. All was good. That was then. Then there was the last 2 days. On Tuesday I lost $14,637.30 & on Wednesday I lost $10,682.50. I'm pretty sure that Tuesday my single biggest losing day for days in which I didn't play any $1K+ SNGs. I'm pretty damn sure that the 2 days combined are my 2 biggest losing days in a row not playing any $1K+. That put me back to slightly losing pre rakeback for the year. I'm still averaging $256.10/hr since February 16th though so it's not all that bad. I can't say it's not a little scary looking at players like spacegravy & bigjoe2003 on 10,000 to 20,000 breakeven/losing streaks but I don't think either of them table select so I would think that is the biggest factor there.
I've recently been thinking about how silly it is of me to have being the most profitable SNG player pre rakeback as 1 of my goals. It's a very conflicting goal. For one, it's conflicting w/ the main goal of maximizing hourly rate. Since Feb 16th over half of my games have been on Cake. Of those games on Cake about 2/3 of them are super turbos. The profit from super turbos comes mainly from rakeback. I doubt more than a 1 to 2% ROI is sustainable at $100+. However, the rakeback & how quick they are make them extremely profitable overall. That profit doesn't add a lot to sharkscope stats. I wouldn't even be surprised if I make more in rakeback this year than I do gross SNG profit. When you have a goal you should be willing to do things to strive to achieve that goal. I'm certainly not going to sacrifice hourly rate for such a silly thing as being the most profitable SNG player pre rakeback. I'm also not willing to play extra hours to achieve this goal. So what's the point of having it as a goal? I don't think there is one. I think it's just something I'm used to. If there wasn't rakeback then I wouldn't even play super turbos & would play games that are more profitable before rakeback, but that's just not the case so let's scratch this silly goal. It's also extremely hard to repeat w/ so much competition these days. I was the most profitable 6 man SNG player pre rb 2 years in a row. I was ALMOST the most profitable SNG player 2 years in a row but a -$30K Dec 2007 plummeted me from almost a lock to 3rd. Other than myself only Kenny05 was a top 10 repeat from 2007 to 2008. The other players weren't even on the radar 1 year or the other. In fact, I think the only other top 20 repeat from 2007 to 2008 were DDBeast & phatchoy888. The point is that w/ so many good SNG players out there these days & the high variance of the game, it's very difficult to be the most profitable year after year. Maybe I'll still turn out to be the most profitable w/ rakeback (or at least for 6 max) but maybe I won't even come close in that category. I think it's good to be competitive, but becoming too competitive just adds extra stress & is kind of silly. My friend Justin (69madman69) also brought up a great point that being in the public eye also adds extra expectations. Between my blog, sharkscope, & interviews I've become pretty well known to SNG players. I not only have to worry about meeting my own expectations, but also the expectations of everyone else. The point is that it's almost pointless to worry about this kind of stuff. I'm 25 years old. I make a shitload of money. I'm engaged to a wonderful women. I have a great family & friends. I have a sweet house & car. Whether I make $300K or $600K this year isn't that relevant in the big picture. Most people would be thrilled to make the low end of that range, especially for playing a game for a living that many people play for a hobby. Proving haters wrong & living up to fans expectations isn't all that important in the big picture. That said, I am very competitive so it is hard to not think about it at all. However, I think it's important to still have some competitive edge, just not to take it too far especially in a game like poker where things like variance are completely random & out of your control.
I realize that I'm part of the reason why 6 man SNGs have become so tough. 6 mans used to be softer than 9-10 mans. Then people saw how much money players like me & Kenny05 were making & decided to start playing 6 mans. I advertised it on my blog. My sharkscope stats were very public. Now the games are much harder. However, we're much better off now than we were 2 years ago. While the 6 max SNGs have gotten much harder, the volume of players that play them has also multiplied many times over. Games run a lot more at each level & at higher stakes than they did before. In 2006 & early 2007 the highest 6 man SNGs available on the big networks were $119/$121 & the $100s filled extremely slow. Now $500s go off at a decent rate, $1Ks go off, & $100s go off at a very good rate. You can now make just as much money off rakeback as you used to total. I used to spam the chat box asking people to email support to add higher stakes 6 mans. I got Cake to add every level above $120 & also the very popular super turbo format. It's crazy how far 6 man SNGs have come in the last few years.
I'm starting to study cash games a little. In a few years when Paula & I start having kids it would be very convenient to play cash games because you can start & stop whenever you want. I would probably still mix in $180+ SNGs on Cake when I had the time, but having my main game be cash would certainly be easier. If I did this & was successful in cash I'd also probably start up a SNG training site. This is all merely a possibility & far in the future.
I've seen the effect of my table selection entry at the tables. Players who never table selected before are beginning to table select & that's good not only for them, but for the rest of us. I'd recommend telling good players who don't table select to read my entry. While most players who don't table select are simply people who are running above expectation, don't understand variance, are extremely ignorant, & are too arrogant to even consider it, if even 10% of the players listen it will have a large positive effect.
Having a week break to go to AZ in March was nice I have a ton of family there. Me, Paula, my mom, my dad, & oldest brother Jeff went & we stayed at my aunt's. We were talking about going to a Suns game while we were out there but were too lazy to check the schedule. Our 1st day there we finally checked the schedule & they just happened to be playing the Cavs at home that night. Shaq & Lebron are 2 players I wanted to see play live before they retire so it was quite ideal to kill 2 birds w/ 1 stone. We had to pay through the nose since it was the Cavs & it was that day. We got 3 tickets that are usually like $80 each for $500 something. Oh well. Lebron didn't disappoint. At the end of the game my dad made a comment that Lebron & Shaq didn't do much. In reality Lebron had 30 points & a triple double. It's funny when the superstars do these things how it just seems so natural. People just come to expect these things from them & don't even realize how impressive it actually is. While in AZ we went hiking w/ our friend Jeremy (thevosh, voss1313's older bro) who lives in AZ. We also rented a boat & did some other fun things. It was a good break.
After you read an entry I recommend checking back for comments between posts. If you skip the comments section of this blog you're missing a lot of good questions and answers.
Results:
Month of March 2009:
Hours played: 141.38
SNG Profit: $20,801.02
Rakeback/Bonuses: $18,828.87
Total Profit from Playing: $39,629.89
Staking: $5,545.65
Total Monthly Profit: $45,175.54
Year of 2009:
Hours played: 461.97
SNG Profit: -$1,173.26
Rakeback/Bonuses: $83,719.13
Total Profit From Playing: $82,545.87
Staking: $14,270.65
Total Yearly Profit: $98,816.52
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Top Stories
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
I don't have time for a full entry right now but I'll say that since I started table selecting like a mad man on February 16th I've been doing pretty well & making around $340/hr so far. I'm not sure how much of it is variance and how much of it is the effect of the table selection but I know that my table selection has had a significant positive effect on my hourly rate. I'm back in the green pre rakeback for 09. I'm up a little over $90K overall. While that's obviously below what I've become accustomed to, the games have gotten tougher & I don't know what kind of hourly is sustainable anymore. Some mediocre/bad players will start off the year hot & some top players will start off the year awful but it's the long run that counts. That said, I don't expect to have a quarter worse than my 1st quarter in 09 & I'm interested in seeing how my year ends up overall after starting on a horrendous downswing. I don't expect to make as much pre rakeback as I did in 08 because I'm playing a lot of super turbos & other games which are very profitable overall, but in which most of the profit comes from rakeback. Hourly rate is what truly matters anyway. They don't give you cash prizes (or any prize for that matter) for winning sharkscope leaderboards. Whether I can maintain $300/hr or more for a whole year like I did last year remains to be seen. I also had a nice 1 week break where I went on vacation to Arizona.
Recently Greg Raymer has had some interviews where he makes some great points on the UIGEA. I think everyone should read the interview & watch the video clip below, especially those of you who are overly paranoid about the gambling bill (a.k.a. a very large % of online players). I'll try to do a full entry with an update in a week or 2.
Enjoy:
http://www.examiner.com/x-1607-Boston-P
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2
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http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliat
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
I don't generally post strategy advice on my blog since it would effect my win rate negatively. However, what I can do is give advice/stats on things such as variance and table selection. That's what I'm going to do in this entry since 95%+ of poker players seem to be pretty clueless in these areas. It will be long but if you read the whole entry & use it correctly it will probably be the most useful blog entry I've ever made.
Let's start with variance since it kind of tied into table selection. We'll start w/ some stats that I've posted on my blog numerous times already:
After 500 games you're 50% likely to be within 5% of your true ROI
After 1,000 games you're 67% likely to be within 5% of your true ROI
After 3,000 games you're 90% likely to be within 5% of your true ROI
As you can see, these samples don't tell you a whole lot. 5% 1 way or the other can be the difference between being a winning player or a losing player at the high stakes games these days.
If your true ROI is 5% and you play 1,000 SNGs, your ROI can range from -8% to 25%. Only around 1/5th to 1/4th of the time when you play 1,000 SNGs will your ROI actually come within 1% of your true ROI. In over 10% of a 5% players' 1,000 game sessions they will experience a negative ROI. In about 1/7th of 1,000 game sessions you will experience an ROI that is more than double your true ROI. Your ROI can be 3 to 4x your true ROI over 1,000 games. In over 10% of sessions a 5% player will experience a 60 buy-in or greater downswing. The vast majority of 1,000 game sessions (90% or so) will contain a downswing of at least 25 buy-ins.
Although very rare, downswings can be as big as 300+ buy-ins for a 5% ROI player.
After playing 18,000 games, your ROI can be as much as 50% off your true ROI. For example, if your ROI over 18,000 games was 10% then your true ROI could range anywhere from 5% to 15%. Now I'm not saying this is likely, but it can happen, & it should be pretty eye opening for you guys. I've seen players run at 5-6% over 20,000 games, only to break-even or lose over their next 20,000 games. Now part of this was that the games got a lot tougher & they didn't stay ahead of the curve, but you get the point.
Now that you're educated in variance, let's move on to table selection. A recent study was done to see how winning players effect your ROI. Here's how much each type of player lowers your ROI when they sit in your game:
Good player: -4.5%
Decent player: -2.8%
Barely winning player: -2%
We'll assume we play $100 SNGs, in general I'd say each type of player would have the following ROI range:
Good player: 5%+, maybe 4%
Decent player: 2-3%, maybe 4%
Barely winning player: 1%
Now you need to use judgement in assessing ROIs. For one, there's good players who practice poor table selection. They might have a 2% ROI at $100s, but actually lower your ROI 4.5%. We'll assess some stats/player types & I'll tell you how I think they would effect my ROI in a $100 turbo:
Player 1: 10,000 games, $250 avg. stake, 3% ROI....Without knowing how they play I'd probably assume he lowers my ROI 4.5%...although his ROI is only 3% he has a higher avg. stake
Player 2: 500 games, $100 avg. stake, 6% ROI, has numerous glaring leaks....this player might even be a losing player, depending on how bad those leaks are, but you don't want to give your opponents too little of credit....despite the ROI, he has a small sample size & glaring leaks...I'd put him as a 2% ROI dropper
Player 3: 15,000 games, $50 avg. stake, 5% ROI.....this player has a pretty decent sample size, but his downside is his average stake, his ROI in $100s is probably closer to 2-3%, so I'd assume he drops my ROI 2.8%
Player 4: 10,000 games, $65 avg. stake, 8% ROI....he has a decent sample, his avg. stake is lower again, but his ROI is high enough where I'd probably assume he drops my ROI 4.5% until he shows me otherwise
Plater 5: 20,000 games, $100 avg. stake, 6% ROI, regular speed SNG regular, seems to have leaks in turbos....despite this players' high ROI at $100s, he plays primarily regular speeds, where you can usually get at least 1 to 2 percentage points higher in ROI, if not a lot more....many of these players also usually have a large portion of their sample size being from when games are much softer, since regular speed SNGs don't fill very well & they can't play that many per year....because of all this I'd assume he drops my ROI 2.8%, rather than the 4.5% that his stats suggest
Player 6: 25,000 games, $150 avg. stake, 2% ROI, high stakes regular, seems to register for any game without looking at the lobby, has a solid understand of SNG strategy & you rarely seem him make a mistake....this player doesn't have the stats to make him a 4.5% dropper, but he does have the game...it's pretty likely that his poor table selection has significantly lowered his ROI...if he read this blog entry maybe he'd boost that ROI up to the 4-6% range....I'd assume he drops my ROI 4.5%
Player 7: 20,000 games $20 avg. stake, 12% ROI....many people will make the mistake of underrating this player because of his avg. stake...don't make that same mistake...spacegravy & sizzlinbetta went from being low stakes players to 2 of the best SNG players around within a year...his ROI is high enough to garner a lot of respect, despite the low avg. stake....I think 4.5% might be a little too high since it usually takes low stakes players some time to adjust to the high stakes, however, I think 2.8% might be a little too low...somewhere in the middle like 3.6 might be most appopriate
Player 8: 10,000 games, $78 avg. stake, 32% ROI...however, through an advanced search you see that his 6-10 seated stats are 1,000 games, $100 avg. stake, 1% ROI....Despite his low 6 man stats it's also over a very small sample & it's pretty clear this player understands poker concepts pretty well & probably crushes MTT SNGs, many of the same concepts can be applied to single table SNGs...I'd give him the benefit of the doubt & assume he drops my ROi at least 2.8%.
Ok you get the point, the next thing we need to realize is that some of these players are already in our games. Therefore, if we have a 5% ROI then a decent player doesn't automatically make our ROI only 2.2%. What we need to do is find our base ROI, which is basically our ROI against only break-even & losing players. One thing you need to realize is that in this day & age even the break-even & losing players aren't all that bad, at least at the high stakes. One way of figuring this out is doing an advanced search (for ex. a particular month) & keeping a tally on how many of each particular player is in your game on average. If you really want to go in depth you can do an advanced search on each month of last year, since the toughness of the games is different at particular times of the year. However, that can be very time consuming. If you don't want to take that time you should find an average time like August or September. This will ensure that the games aren't overly tough like the beginning & end of the year (at least on pokerstars w/ many elite grinders) or particularly easy like June & July when many top players are grinding WSOP events. Personally, I just went through 50 games in August & figured that was close enough. Nothing is going to be exact anyway. Let's say you tally your 50 games & you have 20 4.5% droppers, 50 2.8% droppers, & 30 2% droppers. You would take 0.4 (20/50) x 4.5 + 2.8 + 0.6 x 2 & get a total of 5.8. You would then add that to your ROI to get your base ROI. Personally, I analyzed my Pokerstars games in which I had a 5% ROI last year. My base ROI came out to be 8.56%. If you practice reasonable table selection at $100+ & are too lazy to go through the calculations then you could just add 3.56 to your ROI to get your base ROI. As I've said, nothing is exact & it's all just an estimation anyway. However, it's going to be pretty damn close, & about as close as you can get. Another thing you need to do is factor in sample size & what you've learned about variance when using your "true ROI" to calculate your base ROI. If you play $78 turbos, your true ROI is likely not higher than 8%, no matter what your stats are. If you play $100-200 turbos then your true ROI is likely not higher than 5-6%, no matter what your stats say. If you play $300+ turbos your true ROi is likely not higher than 4%, no matter what your stats say. If you didn't table select well in the past then those #s should be even lower. If you play on a softer site then you MIGHT be able to get 1 to 2% points higher.
The next thing you need to do is calculate the profitability of different games. I prefer to make table selection charts, with the most profitable games at the top & the least profitable at the bottom. Even with rakeback, I prefer to never play a game in which I have a negative ROI (except on Cake because my rakeback is so high because of my deal). This is because you can pretty much always find a game with similar profitability that will have much less variance. When calculating the profitability of each game you also need to factor in how long each game takes. To get the base profit per game you just take the ROI x the buy-in & then add rakeback. Now you factor in how much time it takes. In general, for 10 minute levels you should multiply this # by 1.2. For 5 minute blind levels, multiply it by about 1.5. For super turbos w 2 minute level, multiply it by around 3. You can't just assume that a game with half the blind level time will take half as long. This is because these games usually go into higher blind levels than the ones w 5-10 minute levels. You will probably be much better off using these #s than trying to figure something out on your own. Now let's look at some #s:
I estimate my rakeback on FTP to be about 33.5%. I get 28% base rakeback + leaderboard bonuses.
$236 turbo: 2 2.8% droppers, 1 2% dropper, 2 losing/break-even players (0.96% ROI, 8.56 - 2.8, -2.8, -2)
0.0096 x 236 =$2.27 0.335 x $16 rake = $5.36($5.36+$2.27=$7.63 x 1.5 = $11.45 profitability)
$119 turbo: 1 4.5% dropper, 4 losing players (4.06% ROI)
0.0406 x 119 = $4.83 0.335 x $9 rake = $3.02 ($4.83+$3.02 = $7.85 x 1.5 = $11.78 profitability)
As you can see, despite being almost half the buy-in, the $119 is actually more profitable. This difference is not abnormal, & there's many games w/ a lot bigger differences.
Let's look at some more:
$555, 1 4.5% dropper, 2 2.8% droppers (-1.54% ROI)
-0.0154 x 555 = -$8.55 .335 x 30 = $10.05 ($10.05-$8.55 = $1.5 x 1.5=$2.25 profitability)
$60, 1 2.8% dropper, 1 2% dropper (3.76% ROI)
0.0376 x $60 = $2.26 0.335 x $5 = $1.68 ($2.26+$1.68=$3.94 x 1.5=$5.91 profitabilty)
Despite being over 9x the buy-in, you would need to play more than 2 of the $555s just to match the profitability of the $60!!!!!!
Hopefully this is very eye opening from some of you & will open up your mind. These days more than ever, I see a lot of good players basically throwing money away by registering for high stakes games that just don't have a shot of matching the profitability of lower stakes games. I even see good players in games where they won't profit after rakeback long run. That's pretty stupid imo. It's time to put the ego aside & try to maximize your proftability. Ignoring table selection is completely ignorant & hurts everybody, not just you. These calculations should also show you just how bad people overrate supernova elite. I see numerous players lose mounds of money at high stakes just to get supernova elite, when they would do much better for themself if they just table selected over numerous stakes, mixing in a lot of medium stakes games. Not only is it a lot more profitable, but it also leads to much less swings, which in turn lead to less stress & just an overall better quality of life.
Ok, now that the instructional portion of this blof entry is over, let me give you a little update.
I went on a $45K downswing. Most of it was just bad variance, particularely at $500+ where I'm down over $25K this year (over $11K in just 22 $1Ks & $2Ks). However, there were other factors. One big factor was figuring out who is good on FTP. There's always a transition phase when starting on a new site. You have to get good reads, not only to figure out how to play against those players in game, but to know which games to avoid when table selecting. Because of this, & some new players on other sites, I was in a lot of games that were -EV or very low ROI games that I would not have played if I knew this. The games right now are tougher than ever. I suspect the economy has had some effect on this. Numerous other top players started off the year on big downswings (DDBeast, Kenny05, Sparta45, & BigJoe2003 just to name a few). Some have since recovered, & others are still struggling. When games are this tough you're going to see shrinking hourly rates & increasing variance. That's just something you have to deal with. I did some research on how much tougher the games are. Last year I usually had about 50% of my opponents be winning players. So far this year it's been more like 67% winning players. Not only that but the winning players in the games are much more comprised of the 4.5% & 2.8% droppers rather than the 2% droppers. Another thing that negatively effected me was I was getting cheated in high stakes games on Pokerstars. I ended up getting a $7,200 collusion credit, which I listed under rakeback/bonuses.
Prior to the 16th of February I did all of the calculations I listed above. I then made a new table selection chart, factoring in how tough the high stakes games have gotten. I have since been mixing in a lot more medium stakes games, & been careful about registering too early & staying in when tough players enter, since too often some ignorant good player registers 5th/6th making the game not even worth playing. I started using sharkscope hud on FTP & it's been a huge help. Since then I've had better results (sharkscope is missing $8-10K profit during this time). That said, I'm not sure what kind of hourly rate is possible anymore. Last year I averaged about $300/hr. When you factor in variance, my true hourly rate was probably somewhere between $225 & $375 for the year. If I could sustain $300/hr I'd be pretty happy. Maybe I can attain upwards toward $400/hr, & maybe I can only attain in the lower $200s. Only time will tell. Either way, I'll make a pretty good living. The games could become easier. Some of the elite grinders may get burnt out. Maybe variance will take its toll on some the ignorant non table selecting mediocre high stakes players currently running like Gods & they'll have to drop down. Maybe they'll be too ignorant to drop down & go busto. On the other end, maybe people will continue to lose their jobs & the average casual gambler will be seen less frequent online. Maybe players will continue to get better & better & the games will only get tougher. Nobody knows. What I do know is that you have to be a lot smarter about table selection to make good money at SNGs these days. If I had waited til a month into the year to make my 09 goals I probably would have not made them so steep. I suspected that the games would get tougher after many of good high stakes grinders returned from the PCA, but I could not have predicted that the effect would be this bad. Time will tell if my goals are attainable. I usually end up adjusting goals throughout the year anyway. No SNGs are not dead, you just need to use your brain & put your ego aside.
Since the 16th I started a new tab in my excel spreadsheet. This is because my selection of games is completely different & I'd like my hourly rate to reflect the games I'm currently playing, rather than the games I was playing. My latest stint into the $1K+ was also pretty short lived. Every time I start playing them again I remember why I quit them to begin with. If you ever run normal in them they can be very profitable, but I just don't think they're worth the variance. This is especially true since my bankroll is dispursed over 4 sites. Even if I keep 100 times my average buy-in on each site I can still go bust on any given site w/ 1 bad run in $1K+. That's pretty absurd. Sure I could keep more on each site, but I think my money is much better off being invested than sitting in some offshore poker account just so I can play 3 $1K+ a day & bubble every one to a 2 outer while trying to stay sane.
I'm 90% sure that HappyLucky on Cake is River Prayer/LuckBoxFromHell. They usually sign in at the same time, they play similar, they're both from San Fran, & neither chats. Either way, he's starting off 09 on 1 hell of a heater.
Recently 1 of the good players on FTP (Good Night Baby) asked me why I think top Pokerstars players are struggling on FTP. He pointed out myself, Kenny, & sizzlinbetta, Little Kraut. It was a pretty absurd question imo. The numer one reason is variance. None of us have big samples. The 2nd biggest reason is probably what I talked about above. When you move to a new site there's an adjustment period in getting reads to play optimally & table select optimally. Third, overall we aren't even struggling. Kenny is crushing. DDBeast is doing pretty good. I'm break-even. Little Kraut played a lot of tough games, many of which were probably -EV & lsot the majority of his money at the highest stakes. I'm not sure how sizzlinbetta is doing but you get the point. Also, FTP is a lot tougher than it used to be. All of our samples are comprised of the new tougher FTP games, whereas old FTP regs have much of their sample comprised of the softer games, making their ROI look much better then what they could actually sustain in the current state of FTP SNGs.
Results:
Month of February 2009:
$160.07 hrs played
SNG Profit: $(32,330.32)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $31,374.22
Total Profit From Playing: -$956.10
Staking: $4,900.00
Total Monthly Profit: $3,943.90
Year of 2009:
319.84 hrs played
SNG Profit: -$7,847.67
Rakeback/Bonuses: $65,924.51
Total Profit From Playing: $58,076.84
Staking: $9,720.00
Total Yearly Profit: $67,796.84
http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliat
Top Stories
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/ar
Please read the above article & vote for regulated, legalized online poker.
I cooled off big time after my hot start to the year. I took 3 normal Mon-Fri days off during the month (New Years Day, my birthday (30th) & Paula's birthday (29th), but I made a tad less than $50K on the month. So far this year I've made the most money on my 4th site, but I don't expect that to be the case over the course of the entire year.
I started playing $1Ks & $2Ks again today. For one, I'm pretty close to on pace for supernova elite & might be able to get it without really trying to if I mix in $1Ks. I looked into the profitability of the games & I just can't pass up the edge just because of variance. I've started to register for $1K+ on all 4 sites, although I don't expect many to run outside of Pokerstars & Full Tilt for now. I'm sure there will be rough patches where I won't play them but I'd like to stick with them for the long haul. The only thing that sucks about playing 4 sites is you have to have to keep a much bigger bankroll online so you can handle the swings on each site. I wish there was a way to just combine the bankrolls of all the sites so I didn't have to try to move money around when I hit a rough patch on 1 site, & therefore wouldn't have to keep as much money on overall.
Congrats to my boy Kenny05 who finished 12th in the Borgata $3K for $39K, which he splits w/ his staker. It sucked cause he was chip leader pretty deep but oh well. He started his blog back up & claims it's for good this time. You can check it out at http://kenny05poker.livejournal.com/
Despite the first 3 quarters being awful the super bowl actually turned out to be very good. I was really rooting for the Cardinals though. I'm a big Larry Fitz fan (MN!)& have lots of relatives in AZ. I also often root for the underdog. At least it was a good game.
I'd like to say that Al Jefferson not making the NBA all star game is a complete joke. It's not his fault that his team sucks. He's 1 of 3 players in the NBA that's averaging 20 & 10 and it's pathetic that he's not on the team. Good players on good teams in the NBA are just as overrated as QBs who win super bowls. Some idiot on ESPN today was saying he'd rather have Big Ben than Peyton Manning. News flash: Big Ben didn't win the super bowl by himself. Football is a team game. In fact, he had the #1 defense in the league. He's asked to do a lot less for his team than Manning & to even think about putting those 2 in the same sentence is absurd.
I'll leave you with 2 articles that I found pretty funny.
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/ar
No this is not a joke. The guy is serious. When he speaks of the $500 tournies, he's referring to tournies with a $500 prize pool, not the buy-in.
http://www.winonadailynews.com/arti
The 2nd article is from my hometown news paper. The article speaks for itself.
Doyle's Room has joined the Cake network.
Results:
January 09:
152.02 hrs played
Monthly SNG Profit: $21,038.54
Rakeback/Bonuses: $24,398.04
Staking: $3,825.00
Total Monthly Profit: $49,261.58
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Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
I've had a pretty sick start to 2009. The addition of Full Tilt to my selection of games has just been absolutely huge. If I continue to get in the games/hr & average stake at each site that I have in so far in 2009 I'm very confident that I will be able to reach my yearly goals. However, that's a big if. I'm thinking that the PCA boosted these #s because I didn't have to avoid too many games because of 2 or more good regs in them. However, at the same time these players that were at the PCA make the games run more so we'll see. I've also started taking more of a stand against idiot regs that signup for tough games behind me. If I defend my territory more then maybe these morons won't jump in my games as much. It just baffles me how players who could crush $78s or maybe even $119s constantly signup for $235s where they're the 3rd or 4th best player & have no shot of being profitable. I guess they'll have to learn the hard way.
Sharkscope has changed their leaderboards in 2009. The any game 5-6 seated leaderboard is now only regular speed games instead of what it's name implies, the overall 5-6 seated profit leader. There's no overall 5-6 seated leaderboard, or 9-10 seated, etc... I think it would be a good idea to add a regular speed leaderboard but I don't like that they're replacing the overall leaderboard with it. I think they should add the overall 5-6 seated, overall 9-10 seated, etc... leaderboards back in & just have seperate regular speed leaderboards. I also think they should add an any game 5-10 seated leaderboard like the CardPlayer leaderboards they had in 2007. In my opinion the overall category leaderboards (not just any game) are the most fun to follow so I think it's pretty dumb that they've gotten rid of them. They've also had some issues with the leaderboard. My Pokerstars account was #1 on the any game 5-6 seated turbo leaderboard & then they randomly took it completely off the leaderboard for a few days even though I was still technically #1. There were some other issues like phatchoy showing up with $50K profit when he was actually in the negative on the year. It looks like everything is fixed today so hopefully they have everything under control.
I think Cake is going to be making some big jumps in the next year. They keep adding new sites to the network & are set to add a pretty well known US site in the near future. They're also planning to completely redo their software, which I think is a good plan. If everything works out as planned I think they will have some of the best software in the business. They're hoping to have the new software out sometime in the spring.
I won't start posting my hourly rate until we're a month or 2 into the year because it's just inflated right now.
2009 Yearly Stats:
Hours Played: 48.17
SNG Profit: $27,035.83
Rakeback/Bonuses: $9,940.64
Total Profit From Playing: $36,976.47
Staking: $3,775.00
Total Yearly Profit: $40,751.47
Top Stories
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
I didn't end up playing much in December. I just felt like taking a break & being refreshed for the start of 09, as I'm looking to have a big year. I only ended up playing 74 hours. Between November & December I only played 200 hours, which is 5 40 hour weeks. I wasn't running the greatest & have to admit that if I had been running good I probably would have played more. Oh well.
I still had a great 2008. I met my profit goal of $450K, which I surpassed w/ just SNGs & rakeback alone & I didn't play nearly as much as I had planned on playing to reach that goal. If I hadn't taken off the equivalent to 14 40 hour weeks I'm sure it could have been much better. That's about the amount of weeks I took off in 07, but in 07 I played a lot of long weeks to make up for some of it. I'll touch on this more in my 2009 goals section. I also achieved my goal of being the most profitable SNG player in the world for the year.
I have finally gotten what is basically rakeback on FTP. They're going to give me never ending $10K bonuses that clear at $20 at a time. When I'm close to clearing 1 bonus I just need to email this guy & they'll reload it. It works out to about 28% rakeback. They've already told me I'm the only one they're going to offer this deal to at the moment so please don't ask me to help you out with a similar deal if you don't have rakeback on there. FTP should really help my hourly rate & I'm pretty excited about having a lot more options.
Voss and I have decided to have him go for supernova elite this year. Personally, I think supernova elite is the most overrated promotion ever & I think most people would make a lot more money if they just table selected between a few sites. The higher ROI and average stakes you can obtain doing that will more than make up for the extra rakeback for supernova elite. However, considering that Voss just started playing in April, I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect him to be able to manage more than 1 site while playing 10+ tables. After watching him 10-12 table Pokerstars I'm even more sure of this. Therefore, since he'll only be playing 1 site we decided to have him go for the almighty overrated SNE.
I took New Years Day off but played a little over 7 hours yesterday & made over $10K excluding rakeback so it was a good start to the year. I should be back to mostly 40 hour weeks & hopefully updating the blog 2-4 times per month.
Some of my goals for 09 may seem a bit steep to you. While this may be true (I can only estimate my hourly rate & ROI without certainty), let me explain why I expect to make more in 09. The first reason is that I have FTP SNGs at my disposal. This should be a nice boost to my hourly rate as I'll have 12+ tables going more often & be able to substitute $236+ SNGs on FTP for $119 & lower SNGs on other sites. The 2nd reason is that I won't have to avoid my stakees nearly as often. Little Kraut, voss1313, are going to try to stick to somewhat set schedules to avoid each other as much as possible. None of us play together for obvious reasons, & it's nice to be able to have a full site to choose from rather than certain games. The only stakee I will need to avoid is MJCACE, who plays mostly $119 & lower on FTP. Most of my stakees I told they could have certain buy-in levels whenever they wanted because I didn't need them as much. Then my brother started playing for a living & there was another player to avoid. If I ever did the coaching/staking thing again (which I don't plan on) I would make it so the stakees had to work around my schedule. Anyways, while I made more money overall w/ my stakees last year, my poker hourly rate suffered. This year I expect a nice poker hourly rate boost & still expect to make a nice amount of money off of staking. I've also been improving a lot from each year to the next, so maybe that trend will continue.
On to my 2009 goals:
play 1,800 hours: this is almost 300 more hours than I played this year (over 7 40 hour weeks more) but I've already touched on this...I'd just really like to focus hard this year & have a huge year
$621,990 profit from poker excluding staking: I looked at some days of playing & the amount of games I expect to get in per hour on each site...I then multiplied my expected ROI by the average stake, added rakeback, & added each game together...my expected hourly rate is between $345.55 & $368.80....since it's just an estimate I went with the low end hourly rate estimate & multiplied it by my 1800 hour goal.
be the most profitable SNG player in the world again for 2009
Month of December:
74.31 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $6,149.42
Rakeback/Bonuses: $19,753.04
Total profit From Playing: $25,902.46
Staking: -$78.50
Total Monthly Profit: $25,823.96
Year of 2008:
1510.88 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $277,395.86
MTTs,cash games,HU SNGs,live: $(8,587.07)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $178,589.61
Total Profit From Playing: $447,398.40
Hourly Rate: $301.80 (excluding all yearly staking, as well as rakeback earned this month)
Staking: $121,573.29
Total Yearly Profit: $568,971.69
Top Stories
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
Congrats to my friend Kenny05 who finished 3rd in a $5K WPT even the other day. There were 154 entrants & he got $90,175 for 3rd, which he splits 50/50 w/ his staker BrynKenney. The way he busted was absurd. From cardplayer.com :
Ken Smaron raises to 55,000 on the button and Tim Bullard reraises to 150,000 from the big blind. Smaron announces he is all in for an additional 600,000 or so and Bullard goes into the tank.
After a few minutes, Bullard calls, much to the dismay of Smaron. Bullard shows K9 and Samron is ahead with 77.
The board runs out J9583 and Smaron is eliminated in third place.
Heads up play will begin shortly.
I'm not sure what the blinds were but I'm guessing from the looks of it that they were about 35-40BBs deep. The guy called a 4 bet w/ these stacks w/ K9o! Possibly the best part was that when the guy called he said "I don't think you have much. I think you have like KT." Well if he has KT you're flat out dominated so that's a really good way to rationalize your awful call.
I haven't been playing anywhere near the 40 hrs/week that I planned on during December. I guess I'll just wait til next year to get back to a normal schedule.
I've decided that I'm not going to do any coaching/staking beyond my current agreements. The high stakes games keep getting tougher & there's not many players you can really trust to follow everything you say & actually have discipline & judgement to table select well enough to beat the games at the high stakes. I'm also kind of sick of having to avoid playing with stakees. Moreover, if I teach too many people then some of them will be playing in my games in the future. It's tough enough to always find +EV high stakes games even when playing 3 sites nowadays, so I don't particularly want 30 jhubs to have to dodge.
I've talked about table selection in my blog numerous times. I think it's the biggest leak among high stakes players, & hurts peoples win rates more than the -EV decisions they make at the table. Sparta45 recently touched on this in a blog entry that can be found here:
http://sparta45.livejournal.com/200
I realize that it's a lot worse than usual right now because of players on Pokerstars going for elite & milestone bonuses, but the fact of the matter is that good players lack table selection on all sites at all times of the year. They hurt the win rate of themselves, myself, & many other professional players, whether they're arrogant, naive, ignorant, just plain stupid, or some combination of the four. Yesterday there was a thread on an online forum about table selection. There were a lot of ridiculous responses like "fuck the regs, they're easy to read early anyway" & "not enough $200s go off to table select." I couldn't help but reply & what I said is listed below. I would recommend that anyone who likes maximizing their hourly rate & keeping variance (stress levels) low to listen to what I say & to actually start practicing table selection at the tables.
I'm seeing a lot of ignorant, naive posts here, as is the standard for table selection posts.
First off, let's get one thing straight: solid regs are bad for your EV! While you may be able to steal small pots from them early, that's not going to make up for how well they play the late game stage. You're much, much, much better off having some loose tard who calls all sorts of raises early & then limps around when he should be in push/fold later. Saying **** the regs & ignoring the fact that they're bad for your ROI is absurd & ridiculously naive. While you may make money like this (& this money u will make will add to your dillusional thoughts by rewarding you for your stupidity), you would make more money if you used good judgement, had less of an ego, used some diccipline, & table selected. Oh, then my hourly rate will go down! Wrong again. It will go up. Just because you have the bankroll for $235s doesn't mean you can only play $235s. If there's a tough $235 go play a softer $60. You will do much better for yourself.
I can't say much for 9 mans because I think there's a large lack of table selection in 9 mans (ROIs reflect this). However, I can say a lot for table selection in 6 mans. It's no coincidence that the top 5 players on the any game 5-6 seated sharkscope leaderboard (myself, kenny05, DDBeast, sizzlinbetta, sparta45) use strict table selection. Kenny uses less than the rest of us because he's struggling to make nova elite, but he table selects nonetheless.
Slim Pickens once did a bunch of calculations for me based on head to head sharkscope stats & the conclusion was that 1 good player lowers your ROI about 2% in a 9 man. In a 6 man the effect is even worse & probably closer to 3%. At the high stakes SNGs it's usually not going to be profitable to play with 2 other good players in your game in a 6 man. I would imagine it wouldn't be profitable to play w/ 3 other good players in a 9 man.
You will probably continue to win money by not table selecting (at least for now). However, you will be playing in games that are -EV & you will be costing yourself money. You can choose to settle for your current hourly rate by not table selecting, or you can strive for a higher hourly rate & less swings by table selecting. To me the choice seems obvious. It's up to you to make that decision.
GL,
-Hub
I don't have anytime to post results right now so that will have to wait for the next post. Summary: haven't played much this month, haven't made much money from SNGs, made decent money from rakeback/bonuses/leaderboards/collusion reimbursements
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Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
For those that haven't yet, read these 2 previous posts before reading this. The links to them can be found here:
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/200
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/200
I'm going to keep this short.
Cake has fixed their software problems so I'm back playing there.
I finally got my new setup working properly & I am absolutely lovin it. On each 30 inch I can fit 6 games without resizing (no overlap) & 3 lobbies for table selection. Then on the 20s I have more lobbies & sharkscope & use it for more games when I have to. It just makes table selection so much easier having all that space.
I've decided I'm not going to play $1Ks anymore unless one happens to go off on Cake. Even if I play them for 6 years I'd probably still only get about 3,000 of them in. All 3,000 games tells me is that I'm 90% likely to be within 5% of my true ROI. If I had a 4% ROI edge in $1Ks, I could still be losing over a 3,000 game sample. That means that I could play them for 6 years & still be losing in them if I ran bad. $1Ks just don't run enough to get in any sample size to weed out the variance. That causes a lot of stress if you're running bad in them. No matter how good you're doing in your other games, if you're getting killed in $1Ks it's going to have a severe negative effect on your bottom line. I just don't think it's worth it anymore. If I ran like a Geek God in them like other top players have I'm sure I would feel differently about them.
November was not a good month. Cake had software problems. I had troubles getting my monitors setup correct, & therefore had limited monitor space & wasn't able to play my normal number of games for part of the month, I didn't get as many hours in, & I ran like shit in the hours I did log at the tables. It's kind of crazy to have a terrible month playing about 30 hrs/week & still making over $28K. However, I'm expecting December to be much better. Cake's software is working well again, I have my new setup working, & I can't continue to run bad for much longer. The only downside is that I probably won't get in more than a full 3 weeks playing because of the holidays. It would have been nice to get in another 160 hour + month running normal before the end of the year but I'll just have to shoot for a strong start to 09 & I'm expecting to take a staking hit as I've ended staking 1 of my players who just didn't get it.
Month of November:
126.16 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: -$2,418.43
Rakeback/Bonuses: $18,270.25
Total profit From Playing: $15,851.82
Staking: $12,555
Total Monthly Profit: $28,406.82
Year of 2008:
1436.57 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $271,246.44
MTTs,cash games,HU SNGs,live: $(8,587.07)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $158,836.57
Total Profit From Playing: $421,496.01
Hourly Rate: $299.38 (excluding all yearly staking, as well as rakeback earned this month)
Staking: $121,651.79
Total Yearly Profit: $543,147.80
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Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
For those that haven't yet, read these 2 previous posts before reading this. The links to them can be found here:
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/200
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/200
I didn't play as much as normal this past week. Cake started having some major software issues (at least for mass multi tablers) so I've stopped playing there until I know the problems are fixed. Please understand that it's normal for sites to have bumps in the road like this when they're newer. You can't expect every site to be the same as established sites like Pokerstars & Full Tilt. Eventually they'll get to that level, but for now you just have to be patient. Party Poker had major software issues even when it was the #1 ranked site in the world. I played minimally on Thursday and not at all on Friday. I could have just played my other sites but I didn't feel that motivated. I was also running awful at the highest stakes, which was annoying. I've already surpassed my yearly goals so motivation can be difficult when problems like this arise. I'm not sure how much I'll play the rest of the year. Maybe I'll play mostly 40 hour weeks & maybe I won't. We'll see.
I've stopped playing double ups all together. They simply aren't as profitable at the high stakes as I originally thought they were. Most players understand that they need to play much tighter than normal, & even the donks splashing around when they should be folding every hand don't make up for this. Perhaps if I studied double up strategy a lot more I could still have a good win rate in them. However, this doesn't interest me right now because they're the most boring games on the planet. For now, I'm gonna go back to my bread & butter & play strictly 6 man SNGs. Maybe there will be rare cases where the games are just dead & I will mix in a few double ups, but I don't plan on it.
I did some attainable ROI calculations for my friend AMT for an online forum. Since the toughness of games changes a lot, new calculations need to be made. Here's how I did it: I picked a group of very good players & did advanced sharkscope searches for earnings at different stakes for the year 2008. I then added the total # of games for each buy-in level for the group. Then I divided each players # of games at that buy-in by the total # of the group. Then I would multiply that percentage by that players' ROI. This way it gave more weight to those w/ bigger sample sizes. It wouldn't make sense to put the same weight on 1 ROI over 200 games & 1 over 3,000 games. Example: let's say that there were 30,000 total 6 man games at the $100 level. Let's say that DDBeast had 3,000 games at this buy-in w/ a 6% ROI. The calculation would go as follows: 3,000/30,000 = .10 .10x6=0.6
I would then do this for each player & add up each players' # to get the total ROI. Those w/ negative ROIs at a given level would obviously be subtracted rather than added. Only results from players playing on Pokerstars & Full Tilt were used. Here's my findings:
6 Man SNGs:
$100s: 6% avg. ROI over 23,017 games
$200s: 5% avg. ROI over 13,702 games
$300s+: 6% avg. ROi over 9,757 games
9-10 Man SNGs:
$100s: 5% avg. ROI over 37,213 games
$200s: 2% avg. ROI over 30,545 games
$300s+: 2% avg. ROI over 17,853 games
Some things to consider when looking at these #s: For 6 mans, most of the players whose ROIs were used play 8-12 tables, & sometimes a little more. For 9-10 man SNGs, most players whose ROIs were used play more tables than that on average. If you play less tables and are very good, you may be able to sustain a higher ROI. Likewise, if you play a softer site, or play mostly regular SNGs, you may be able to sustain a higher ROI. For the $300 6 man level on Pokerstars, only regular speed SNGs are available, so a lot more people play regular speeds in the $300+ stats. In regular speeds you can usually obtain a higher ROI, but the games take longer, so in reality they're usually about the same profitability of turbos. I don't play 9-10 man SNGs, but from what I've seen & heard, top 6 man players seem to table select a lot more than 9-10 man players. This obviously boosts their ROI. If they table selected at the same rate as the 9-10 man players, their ROIs would likely be closer. Looking at the #s you might think 6 man SNGs are more profitable. However, most people are able to multi tabler a lot more 9-10 SNGs (perhaps double that of 6 mans for some), so while their ROI may be lower, their hourly rate may be higher. Also, 9-10 man games run a lot more at the higher stakes, which is very important, especially when you factor in rakeback. All things considered, the games are probably pretty comparable in terms of overall profitability.
Hopefully you found that helpful or interesting. Recently Sparta45 made a very good post on his blog that has to do w/ sample size & variance. I think everyone should read it. It can be found here: http://sparta45.livejournal.com/200
Some of you may have caught that my total monthly profit in my last entry was an error. The # listed was actually my monthly staking profit.
Results:
Month of November:
109.74 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $4,879.09
Rakeback/Bonuses: $17,275
Total profit From Playing: $22,154.09
Staking: $10,505
Total Monthly Profit: $32,659.09
Year of 2008:
1420.15 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $278,543.96
MTTs,cash games,HU SNGs,live: $(8,587.07)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $157,841.32
Total Profit From Playing: $427,798.21
Hourly Rate: $307.28 (excluding all yearly staking, as well as rakeback earned this month)
Staking: $119,601.79
Total Yearly Profit: $547,400
Top Stories
Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.
For those that haven't yet, read these 2 previous posts before reading this. The links to them can be found here:
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/200
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/200
First off, those of you who think that scoz came onto Voss' blog & responded in an appropriate & friendly manner, you need to take a hard look at these 2 paragraphs from his 1st comment:
"Yes this is probably stupid. You know, the average teenager who plays video-games and eat at Mac Donald's will say "wow I'd love to give up school and make a living from poker", but someone more mature with a high level of education would be totally unimpressed by this, even if you can make one million dollars a year."
"- How was your day?
- Well, I made 2000 dollars by clicking thousands of times on fold, check and raise on my computer screen. How fulfilling, what an achievement in life. I guess Albert Einstein is happy to be buried so he doesn't have to be ashamed in front of me. He revealed the true nature of the Universe to humans, but he certainly doesn't know the right moment to fold or raise."
Yeah, you're right. I guess me & Voss should just appreciate this "friendly" advice. It's not like he came on here & flat out talked down on our profession & made us try to feel ashamed of ourselves as professional poker players. If he had come on here & talked about the merits of going back to school w/o being a complete dick to professional poker players I would have responded in a nicer tone. How can you not expect me to be upset with the comments he made?
As far as my tone discrediting my responses, you fail to see the big picture. Fighting back against someone who bashes me & responding in a negative tone should do nothing to discredit me. If someone was bashing the smartest man in the world & he replied w/ a lot of negativity, but with good thought out answers, would that discredit his answers & opinion? While it's true that when you have no reason to be mean to someone you should treat them with respect, this does not apply to people who are disrespectful to you. It sounds to me like you guys are the same kids that never fought back against the bullies in school. Don't give me any of that turn the other cheek BS either.
Voss responds nicely because he wants to avoid conflict. That doesn't mean he doesn't feel the same way about most of the things I said. I, on the other hand, don't mind conflict. I say what I believe, without caring about how people will judge me. I fight fire with fire. I treat people how they treat me. It's simply 2 different styles and personalities, & you can't say one is better than the other, just because it's similar to how you behave.
While being nice in life regardless of the circumstances will certainly make more people happier with you & avoid conflict, it's not always going to take you places in life. Someone who owns a business & is not able to fire an employee who is underachieving because he is too nice & doesn't have the balls is going to be a lot less successful than someone who is able to fire these people. I have the balls to stand up to people. I realize that this will cause people to be disappointed in me, or upset with me, but if you care too much about what people think you're just a fake person out to impress people. You can never make everyone happy. There's always going to be someone who disagrees. I stick up for what I believe in no matter what the consequences are.
As far as me putting the comments on my own blog, it was more because I'm sick of narrow minded people like scoz talking about how poker players contribute nothing to society than trying to ridicule him. It's narrow minded people like scoz that are pushing to keep us from the freedom of playing the game we love online, in the safety of our own homes.
I also realize many of you believe it was stupid of me to even reply. I stick up for myself, my friends, & my profession. I don't think it was stupid to reply initially for this reason. While it's true that dragging it on as long as I did was probably stupid, I got caught up in it & couldn't help myself, & I also found it pretty comical at times.
Sorry for standing up for myself, my profession, & my fellow professional poker players. Sorry for responding in a negative way to someone who also responded in a negative way. I guess next time I'll tuck my tail between my legs & run away. At least then I won't make anyone upset with my comments.
Chiefsfan17 (chiefsfan17.com) wrote:
"Jared Hubbard (jhub3000) was one of the first players I talked to a lot. I used to talk to him every day on AIM when he was still playing $78s and $119s and he is honestly the smartest, most motivated player I know. The dedication he's put towards his career is amazing and I have more respect for him than anyone else I know in the poker community. I don't talk to him as often anymore but I do at least a couple times a month but I want to say I am very happy for him with all of the success he's had - he deserves every bit of it."
Voss1313 wrote:
"#2 hub has more then a right defending himself and his fellow pro poker players, after you berated his profession
#3 i owe him everything...he is a amazing guy and one of my best friends...so he has the right to say whatever he wants here"
littlekraut wrote:
"As for Jhub I knw him personally and he would do anything to help he's friends out. You are disgracing something that we have worked so hard to be good at. Obv it makes him mad."
It's funny how the people who actually know me have nothing but nice things to say about me. I guess that discredits me too. I guess I'm just an asshole. Or perhaps I'm a nice guy who knows when it's appropriate to deter away from the nice side.
While I have admit that I was out of line & perhaps acting a little childish in some of my responses, I can't say that I regret anything I said. If the world were full of people who were all saints & were nice to others, regardless of the circumstances, it would be a pretty boring & unproductive world. If people bash me, don't expect me not to bash them back.
-Hub
Ok, on to the rest of this blog entry:
1 of my friends (chiefsfan17)who I stayed with in Vegas this summer has started up a blog at http://chiefsfan17.com/ Check it out
Recently Pokerstars has officially made it against their rules to use sharkscope to search pokerstars players w/ pokerstars open & are taking action to punish who do this. Quite frankly, as long as they don't completely take the Pokerstars stats off of sharkscope, I'm actually kind of happy with it. With the amount of tables I play I rarely have time to sharkscope my opponents. However, the majority of my opponents do have enough time to do this. Therefore, it really hurts me more than helps me. However, I do like certain things with sharkscope. I like that I'm able to checkup on my stakees easier. I like that I can do an advanced search & see how I'm doing at certain stakes. I also think the leaderboards are fun to follow.
Once again, I'm not accepting anymore staking applications & do not have any openings available. I don't know how many times I have to say this. PLEASE STOP SENDING ME EMAILS ABOUT THIS. When I have openings available I'll let people know on the blog. If you really want to be staked you will follow the blog and apply when I say there's openings. ANY PERSON WHO SENDS ME AN EMAIL ABOUT STAKING BEFORE THAT TIME WILL BE PUT ON A BLACK LIST & NEVER HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO BE STAKED BY ME ONCE OPPORTUNITIES BECOME AVAILABLE.
One of my stakees (Little Kraut), was accused of multi accounting at Pokerstars. They locked his account & were investigating if he was multi accounting on his dad's account depper9. His dad has an average stake of $8 & was playing SNGs mostly in the $3-$12 range. Meanwhile, in the last 6 months Little Kraut has an average stake of $167, plays up to $1K SNGs, & never plays less than $78 SNGs. I think it's great that Pokerstars security takes the time to investigate multi accounting issues, but this was just ridiculous. I don't know if they're beefing up the security after MrCasino got caught or what. While I found the whole thing to be hilarious, I always found it pretty annoying. Thankfully, his account was only locked for a day or 2 & they realized there was no multi accounting going on.
I'm looking for suggestions for the Cake Poker tournament lineup. I'd like to hear people's opinions on what they would like to be added or changed. Please give suggestions for type of tournament, buy-in, & perhaps a certain day or time you would like to see the tournament be held at.
It was a really rough week. I ran like complete shit at the highest stakes, which completely kills my bottom line. Without those games I would have had a winning week. It's been a down month in general. Such is the nature of variance in poker.
Results:
Month of November:
81.4 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $(420.42)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $12,185.05
Total profit From Playing: $11,764.63
Staking: $10,505
Total Monthly Profit: $10,505
Year of 2008:
1391.81 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $273,244.45
MTTs,cash games,HU SNGs,live: $(8,587.07)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $152,751.32
Total Profit From Playing: $417,408.70
Hourly Rate: $306.07 (excluding all staking, as well as rakeback earned this month)
Staking: $119,601.79
Total Yearly Profit: $537,010.49
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