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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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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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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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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
Top Stories
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
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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.
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
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'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
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
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
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
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
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
This post has been edited w/ more material added at the bottom since it was originally posted. You may want to check it out.
One thing that I really can't stand is people who bash professional poker players, & in particular, professional poker players who drop out of college, without seeing the whole picture. Some of you may know that my friend & stakee voss1313 is considering whether to go back to college next semester. Well, some clown decided to go on his blog (voss1313.livejournal.com) & basically bash all poker players for not contributing to society & the like. While it may not be worth the time, I don't stand for people coming on my friends' blog & telling him how stupid he is for considering playing poker professionally. I know it's really long, but trust me, you will not be disappointed that you read it. I think everyone will find this very entertaining, & it may help you to see things from a different prospective. Voss had a couple replies but I'm just going to post the replies between me & this clown. I'm sure he'll reply again after I post this so if you want to check that out & what others said, go to voss1313.livejournal.com. Enjoy.
From: scoz
2008-11-13 10:30 pm (UTC)
Give up your degree? (Link)
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.
Now think of the future. Poker is very popular nowadays, but maybe in 5 or 10 years some over game will have replaced it, and PokerStars will rename itself SomeOtherGameStars.
Even if poker remains popular forever, do you want to spend your life clicking on fold, check or raise like a robot ?
- 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.
I don't know what you're studying, but I know it's more interesting that knowing when to click on fold/check/raise.
(Reply to this) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-13 11:25 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
You sir, are a jealous hater.
First off, your argument that poker might not always be this profitable or be around is an argument in favor of not returning to school. School will always be there. Credits don't expire. If poker goes sour he can then return to school, after he's made his fortune.
As far as people with a higher education being impressed by this, who the hell cares? I don't make decisions in life to impress people w/ a "higher education." Life is short. You should do what you enjoy & not give a flying fuck what others think of what you do. You know what I'm not impressed by? I'm not impressed by your higher education. College has become the norm & any bum w/ half a brain can get a college degree. Meanwhile, it takes a lot of talent to be able to make hundreds of thousands of dollars each year playing poker, and putting that talent to waste would be a shame.
Do I want to spend my life clicking on fold, check, or raise like a robot? Absolutely. Click a mouse, win a house.
Conversation between me and someone else, we'll call him John:
John: How was your day today?
Me: It was just another average day. I made $2,400 playing poker. How was your day?
John: It was brutal. I sat in rush hour traffic an hour both ways. Then I got to work & everything was going wrong. The boss was on my ass all day, all for a measly $170 for the day. I sure wish I could play online poker like you. What a dream job that must be.
Me: Yeah I wouldn't trade it for the world. Want to go on the river tomorrow?
John: No I have to work.
Me: Oh yeah, sorry I forgot it's Thursday tomorrow & you don't get to make your own hours.
John: Yeah I hate my life. You got anything else fun coming up?
Me: Yeah I'm going to Puerto Vallarta at the end of the month. Then I'm going to Vegas in June for a few weeks. When I get back from that I'm going to go visit some friends in Philly in July & then I'm heading to Colorado in August. I'm planning on a trip to Europe at the end of the year if you're interested.
John: Sorry I can't. I already used up my 4 weeks of vacation for the year. Will you teach me to play poker?
I don't know one single person who works for the man and actually enjoys it. Meanwhile, basically every poker player I know enjoys playing a game for a living, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while making their own schedule & taking as much vacation time as they want. I don't personally know one single person that wouldn't trade their job for mine.
People with jobs play poker for fun as a hobby. Over half the males I know who work for the man (probably closer to 75%) play poker as a hobby.I don't know anyone who plays poker for a living & makes sales calls w/ their free time for fun. I don't know anyone who plays poker for a living that goes to a lab for fun.
While most people working for the man are forced to work until they're 62-65, I'll have the option of retiring when I'm around 35-40. The thing is, I'll never fully retire because poker is also my hobby & I enjoy playing the game. I don't know anyone working for the man who chooses to work beyond the age they're financially able to retire, unless they got some crazy offer to be a CEO or something & are being greedy.
If I wanted to make $80K/year I'd play poker for a month or 2 & then spend the rest of the year traveling while you're grinding it out in the office.
To be 100% honest, you could give me the option of playing poker for $80K/year (assuming my hourly rate was much less & I actually had to work 40 hrs/week to obtain this salary) or working for the man for all the money in the world, & I would choose to play poker for $80K/year because that's something I would actually enjoy.
Gl grinding it out for the man,
-Hub
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: scoz
2008-11-14 12:48 am (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
Yes I am jealous. But jealous of who, Einstein or voss1313? Actually I have a quite low level of education, and this is my main regret in life, and it's not about money. That's why I wrote this comment. Because I know that many young people who don't care about school change their mind when they get older. I suppose that voss1313's family, ie people who love him, his parents, would like him to pass his degree. They probably don't think that the possibility to travel a lot is a great achievement in life, and they won't be proud of their son because he visited every continent.
You think I said this because I'd like to be a great poker player. I hope you don't think that voss1313's parents are jealous haters (I assume that his parent's would like him to pass his degree, I don't know if it's really the case but that's what I'd like for my children). If I had to be jealous of a poker player, I'd be jealous of Stu Ungar, not voss1313.
You say that school will always be an available option, but it's not that true. Some school have an age limit. In my country, when you're over 23, most good schools (I always say school because my vocabulary is quite limited in english, it's not my mother tongue) won't accept you. Moreover, when looking for a job, it's quite a disadvantage to have a resume which says "Graduated from XXXX University at age 45". You'll be asked why, and if you're honest you'll have to say "Before that I was a gambler". Lastly, try to actually go to university (or college?) when you're older. It's much more difficult. You will have forgotten many things, you'll have lost practice, you'll be regarded by other students as "the old guy".
You also said that "any bum w/ half a brain can get a college degree". Yes, that's true. But that does not imply that any one with a college degree is a bum with half a brain. Or maybe Marie Curie was a bum and doesn't deserve to have her name written in history books. I don't think so.
You're too much money-oriented. When you play poker and make money, you actually make nothing for the society. You just take money from less skilled player. You have to be skilled at poker to do this, but anyway it is useful only for you. If you had not done this, the money would have been spend in the economy anyway. When you do a job such as the ones you criticize, at least you create something. You create "value added" (I hope it's the right term), you help increasing the gross domestic product. It seems that you don't care about what you're doing provided that you like it and that it makes money.
What you're the most wrong about is when you say "I don't make decisions in life to impress people". I think that poker players like to feel like a star (that's why online poker rooms try to seduce players with poker stars). The money you earn can also be spent to reach that goal. A big house, a big car, an expensive watch, expensive clothes, whatever. You don't need to have a college degree to read book of sociologists and see what they think of money and consumerism. Buying something, nowadays, is often just a mean to say "I own this". Why has voss1313 chosen for his blog a picture of him in front of 3 big flat screens? Why do you show detailed pictures of your (nice) house on the Internet? Why do you feel the need to specify the size of your TV screens? No, I don't believe you're not interested by the impression you make to people.
Would you play 10 tables at the same time if it was with play money? I don't think so. Poker is a hobby, except when you play on 10 tables simultaneously for dozens of hours a week.
I don't hate voss1313 or you. By the way, you seem to be a very good poker player. I don't get how you can play on 10 tables while being able to read the game of 50 opponents. Or maybe you don't have to at this stake level. But I can't admire you as a great person. I can only admire you as a poker player. It's not the same thing. I would have more esteem for you if you'd say that voss1313 should spend one more year to get his degree, just one small year in his entire life. Forget money for a while.
Don't go to college in order to make money. Go there in order to learn the knowledge of the universe. It can't be less interesting that checking/folding/raising properly.
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 02:59 am (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
As far as your 1st statement, while his family may want him to finish his degree, it's kind of selfish of them to want Voss to finish if he doesn't want to & has a very good alternative that would make him a lot happier about his life. What they should really care about is how happy he is. They won't be proud of their son for visiting every continent? Well maybe they should be. Maybe they should be proud that their son does something for a living that gives him the the flexibility & opportunity to such things. Would my parents like me to finish my degree? Sure they would, but that doesn't mean they're not extremely proud of me. Trust me, they are. They take a lot of interest in my career. They also wish they could have the job I have. My dad always talks about how he wishes he could get out of his hell hole job & play poker for a living. As far as college goes, when I told him I wasn't going back to school he said that he expected it & that "if his old man told him to go back to school instead of making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year playing poker I would have told him he's nuts." It sounds to me like you & your family are brainwashed & very closed minded. Your main goal in life should be to be as happy as possible. If playing poker for a living would bring the most joy to someone's life then that's what they should do.
As far as being a jealous hater & your whole comment about if I think Voss's parents are jealous haters for wanting him to finish his degree: There's a difference. My parents would like me to finish my degree, however, they understand why I don't want to. Not once did they ever tell me how dumb of a decision it is, which is basically what your entire 1st post was. That's called being a hater. You're hating on his decision. My parents accepted my decision, because they're proud of me & know that playing poker for a living makes me extremely happy.
Guess what? We don't live where you live & in the US there's no age limit for being in college. While it may hurt you in a job interview to have a gap in your resume, if you get good grades when you return to school you're still going to get a good job. You might even stand out in a job interview because they find you interesting because of the unique life you have lived. As far as forgetting things, give me a break. Most college students forget the majority of the material they have learned within weeks of taking a test. In a job they train you & you often use very little of what you actually learned in college. I couldn't even count how many people tell me that they basically don't use anything they learned in school when they have a job in the field they got a degree in. Degrees are kind of a joke because of this. Most good jobs now require you to have this piece of paper saying you graduated from college. Most of the use of a degree is just to get you the job, & then they'll train you. You also have to consider the tradeoffs, sure if he ever does have to go back to school & get a real job it might be a little tougher to get a job. However, that doesn't mean that he won't be able to get a job & that doesn't mean that it's worth hating 2 years of his life sitting in a classroom listening to some bullshit professors. I highly doubt Voss cares about actually learning about his field in college. More likely than not, like 90% of the population, he went to college to get a good paying job. With poker he already has that, therefore going back to school doesn't seem to have much value. Moreover, playing poker and making a lot of money will afford him another option if poker ever goes sour or he decides to do something else. He could start up his own business with the money he has made, & still be his own boss. Most people would prefer that to working for the man.
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 02:59 am (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
As far as giving back to the society and creating "value added" that's all a bunch of BS. Do you know anything about the US economy? Have you seen what the US job market looks like? There's a lot more qualified people than there are jobs in each field. Therefore, by doing something "useful" other than playing poker, you're actually doing nothing as far as creating value added & increasing the countries GDP. This is because there's someone out there just as qualified as you are who is unemployed & will fill the job if you don't. So in reality, by trying to way overthink things & create "value added" by getting some job that helps society instead of playing poker, all you're really doing is keeping a job from someone who needs it & would appreciate it a lot more than you. Being unemployed can ruin people's lives. That's all that would do. Also, one thing that playing poker for a living will allow you to do that some average job wouldn't, is donate a lot of money to charity. This money goes to a good cause & does a lot more for society than sitting in a cubicle selling plastic over the phone to some guy in Hong Kong.
As far as me being money oriented, of course I am. 99% of the population is. Money allows me to do a lot of things that bring more enjoyment to my life. What this doesn't mean is that I'm money oriented in a way that I would pass up 1 job that would be more enjoyable just to make more money at another job. That was my whole point about my statement that if you offered me $80K/year to play poker or all the money in the world to work for the man, I would choose to play poker.
As far as me wanting to be a star & impressing people, it's true that some people get into poker because they want to be a star. However, I don't fit that category. If I did I'd be traveling around the world playing all the tournaments that are on TV, so that I would be more recognizable & have star power. I play poker online. Not once have I ever been noticed in public for being a professional poker player. I'm sorry but kids don't come up saying "omg are you jhub300 can I have your autograph?" That's just not the case. I wear a watch that my fiancee gave me that costs under $100. If I wanted to impress people with my watch I'd have a watch that costs over $1,000. As far as clothes go, the majority of the time you can find me in public wearing a hoody w/ sweatpants & sandles. My brothers joke that when I walk into public people probably think I'm some poor college kid. Voss has pictures of his 3 screens because poker players like to see other players' setups. I don't think he's bragging about screens that cost $400. I showed pictures of my house on the blog because numerous people requested that I do it. It's not even something I wanted to do, which is why I took me a while to get some up. As far as the size of TV screens, it's simply details. Lol at bragging about 32" TVs when most average joes out there own a 50". People that know me & meet me say they like me in that I'm not like other poker professionals in that I don't try to impress people. Don't make assumptions about me when you have never met me or talked to me in your life.
Would I play 10 tables at a time if it was for play money? Absolutely. The more tables you play the more action there is. The more action there is the more fun it is.
Please stop preaching your brainwashed knowledge of the universe crap on us. Nobody cares. You don't admire me as a great person. Likewise buddy. If you were such a great person you would accept the fact that Voss enjoys playing poker for a living & it's what makes him most happy. If you were such a great person you wouldn't come on here bashing us for our decisions. If you want to be such a great person I suggest you stop the bashing & go be a priest. Until then, I don't wanna hear it.
Gl with learning the knowledge of the universe. It sounds like you live a very enjoyable life.
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: scoz
2008-11-14 04:48 am (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
"while his family may want him to finish his degree, it's kind of selfish of them to want Voss to finish if he doesn't want to", followed by "What they should really care about is", "they should", and a third "they should"
seems to be in contradiction with:
"If you were such a great person you wouldn't come on here bashing us for our decisions"
So you can say who is nice and who is selfish (I think they'll appreciate), what should people do and think, but I can't comment on anything? I'm not "bashing" anybody, just trying to bring an alternative point of view. If you have a blog, it's for people to read it. If you don't want them to say something that you don't agree with, then don't have a blog. What is the point in having people say something you already think by yourself? Yes it must be good for your ego but useless in itself.
Voss' reply is by far more humble when he says "I mean i am taking in everything you say and i thank you for voicing your opinion. And i still am undecided what i am doing what my life". So thank you Voss, at least you're kind and that's something good. Even if that does not make money, your parents can be proud of that (probably it's thanks to them). jhub3000, your reply is more like "I don't agree, I don't want to hear it, go away". It's not even your blog, and you tell visitors what to do and not to do. I'm sure Voss is able to do this by himself, even if you're his coach at poker and make more money than him.
Yes, what I said is not really pleasant, but hey, I'm trying to be convincing. What do I risk? At most, Voss will start to think "after all, in one year I'll have my degree". It's not the end of the world, you better have your degree that not have it, especially when you're just one year from it. And the 3.5 years already done would make much more sense. And having a degree does not prevent from playing poker afterwards.
By the way, I doubt that Voss' parents are selfish, I rather think that they have their son's interest in mind, like most parents. If they were really selfish, they'd probably prefer him to make money fast so they can benefit from it. It's certainly easier to benefit from your son's money than from your son's degree.
"Do you know anything about the US economy?" -> at least I won't say something as stupid as "By playing poker, I allow other people not to suffer from unemployment". If everybody would play poker for a living, there would be no economy at all because the guys you take money from have to earn it first with a job that actually creates something.
"As far as the size of TV screens, it's simply details" -> that's what I was saying. Strangely, details are always given when it comes about size.
"Lol at bragging about 32" TVs when most average joes out there own a 50"-> I'm not bragging about 32 versus 50, I was saying that this information seems important to you. And by the way, average joe doesn't buy three TV's and a house to put them in (or average joe has a lot of money). What average joe does, however, is to let the world know about his brand new TV on his blog. But maybe I'm wrong and intellectuals talk about this on their blogs.
"Nobody cares" -> let people make their own mind instead of claiming that everybody think like you.
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 01:11 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
Mr. Knowledge of the universe,
Please. I have shot down basically every single argument you have made, & backed it up with details. Look at the scoreboard buddy:
jhub3000: 2
scoz: 0
You haven't even come up with any reasonable counter arguments to the points I've made. All you've done is write a few more paragraphs of trash that will be easily shot down just as the previous ones have. Since your ego is too big to admit that you're wrong & that I have completely discredited everything you have said, I guess we'll have to make it 3-0. Don't be stubborn, just give it up man before you dig an even deeper hole than you already have.
As for as your 1st statement here, again, there's a pretty big difference between Voss' parents & you. Voss' parents aren't telling him that playing poker for a living instead of going to school is the dumbest thing that he could possibly do with his life, which is basically what you've come on here & done. While they may want him to finish his degree, I'm sure that deep inside as long as he's happy they're happy. That's what good relatives & friends do, they accept your differences in opinion with them & realize you're happy doing it. That's a far cry from what you've come on here & done. Mr. Knowledge of the Universe does not seem very happy for Voss.
As far as me not being humble & my parents not being proud of me, lol at that. Actually, I think they would be proud of me for sticking up for myself, my friends, & my profession. I'm simply letting my voice be heard. I don't let people stomp all over me in life. Simply voicing my opinion to someone bashing me is nothing to be ashamed of. If you said nicer things then maybe I'd do it in a nicer tone. But Mr. Knowledge of the Universe did not do this. Voss doesn't need to say much because I basically cover it all. As far as me coming on a blog that isn't mine, Voss already covered that one for me.
"Yes, what I said is not really pleasant, but hey, I'm trying to be convincing. What do I risk?" Gee, I guess I should pleasantly argue against your points. Or I could just take the same route you did & then have you look down on me for it. You might want to go on dictionary.com & look up hypocrite. That's what you are Mr. Knowledge of the Universe. As far as Voss having 1 more year of school, Voss has stated in his blog that he has 2 years left. I have stated that he has 2 years left. Maybe now that Voss has stated it the 3rd time will be a charm & you'll stop ignoring what you read in your dillusional state of mind. Focus on what you read instead of trying to argue it without knowing the correct facts.
Did I say Voss' parents are selfish? I stated that if they have viewpoints like you & can't accept the fact that poker makes Voss most happy, that they're selfish. Unless you had a talk with his parents & confirmed that their beliefs are the same as yours, stop putting words in my mouth, because I don't see his parents on here bashing him about not contributing to society & how it's the worst decision ever not to return to school.
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 01:13 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
By playing poker, I do prevent 1 person from suffering from unemployment. As far as everybody playing poker for a living, that's simply not possible because the vast majority aren't talented enough to play & they're wouldn't be enough money to go around. If there was no economy people wouldn't have money to play poker, & playing poker for a living would be impossible. You made my argument for me. Therefore, your statement is simply just some impossible statement that you thought up to make me look bad, while not fully thinking it through & realizing that instead you would be making yourself look foolish. As we say in poker, well played sir. As with your office job, if I wasn't taking money from people playing poker, somebody else would. I'm not really hurting people at all, because if I wasn't playing, it would simply boos the return on investment of the 2nd tier players, & the other top players, & the same people would be losing money. Most of the money lost in high stakes games is from rich people anyway. If they weren't rich they wouldn't have that kind of money to gamble with in the first place.
"Strangely details are always given about size." Again, a 32" is nothing to brag about. You made no argument to the contrary. All you did is make some stupid statement because all of the knowledge of the universe you have learned somehow didn't allow you to come up w/ a more creative argument. I bought 3 TVs because I went from living in my brother's basement to owning a house. Most homeowners own 3 TVs. Most people don't have a blog, otherwise if they were requested to put pictures up on their blog of their house, they might give details like this.
Again, don't try to act like you know about me when you've never talked to me in your entire life. As far as being flasy & trying to impress people, up until July 07 I drove a 1994 For Taurus that looked, sounded, & rode like death. I have made well over $200K at the age of 23 & was still choosing to drive this beater. If I were that concerned about impressing people, I would have bought a new car far before I was playing poker. Instead, I put all my hard earned money toward school & savings. Most people take out student loans & drive cars that aren't beaters when they're trying to impress people. I did the complete opposite. I could have afforded a much flasier house to brag about on my blog, & I'm pretty damn sure that most 24 year olds in my financial situation would have done so. However, I didn't, because I'm not out to impress people as Mr. Knowledge of the universe assumes in his brainwashed trance without ever meeting or speaking to me in his life.
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 01:14 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
You may be thinking I have a blog because I want attention. You're wrong. I started up a blog to promote myself for side deals in the poker world (sponsorship deals, special rakeback deals, etc...). I put up my hourly rate & profit to promote myself for that reason. Guess what? It worked. I got a phenomenal lifetime rakeback deal w/ Cake Poker at a special rate. Without my blog I would have never gotten this deal because I would have had no place to help promote Cake.
If I were so worried about being this big star & impressing people, I would always use the screen name jhub3000 that has become so well known in the SNG world. However, when I started on Cake Poker I changed my name every single week & not 1 of them resembled the name jhub3000 or had anything to do w/ my real name Jared Hubbard. Not until I got a deal w/ Cake & part of the deal was to change my screen name to jhub3000 & keep it there, did I change this. Had I not gotten the deal with Cake I would still be changing my name weekly, remaining anonymous, instead of going for the "fame" of online SNG leaderboards. In fact, I still play on my 3rd site under a name that doesn't even come close to resembling jhub3000. This is the only site I play on that I am allowed to play under a name other than jhub3000. I already stated that I can't change it on Cake. Pokerstars does not allow people to change their names. Therefore, I am stuck with the jhub3000 name that I created before I was well known in online poker.
Stop with the uncreative assumptions about me. You don't know me. You never will. In fact, stop all together. You're not doing anything good here & are only getting embarrassed. If you practiced the knowledge of the universe that you preach, maybe you would be able to come up with more thoughtful counter arguments. However, that doesn't appear to be the case, so just stop now. This young "college dropout" is showing a lot more intelligence that the knowledge of the universe you have learned. Perhaps college isn't what you think it is.
Have fun w/ your brainwashed, dillusional knowledge of the universe value for society ways,
-Hub
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 01:23 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
Please go find a professional athlete's blog & do your preaching there. Your job is done here. However, I'm sure LeBron James would like to hear what you think about his choice to not continue on with a higher & education & his contribution to society.
Good talk,
-Hub
One more thing. Your comments are just so stupid I can't help myself.
"I'd be jealous of Stu Ungar, not voss1313."
So someone who preaches the betterment of society & a higher education would be jealous of someone who was fucked up in life, could do nothing but play poker, had no higher education, & died at a very young age of a drug overdose over a drug free young professional poker player who went to college has his shit together? OJ Simpson was 1 of the best RBs of all time. However, he then went on to committ 2 murders & a robbery, & is now sentenced to life in prison. Would you be more jealous of OJ Simpson or Chester Taylor? Wow! How hypocritical can you be Mr. Knowledge of The Universe?
Many of people want to grow up to be a professional athlete. Most fail at this. They may be jealous of someone like Kobe Bryant, but that doesn't mean they also don't wish they could have been a player like Scott Skiles.
Preach on brotha! Preach on! You're giving me a lot of material to work with.
-Hub
Re: Give up your degree? [Nov. 14th, 2008|02:28 pm]
scoz
Voss, I don't say that freedom of speech is a bad thing, I only say you can't tell someone to care about his own business while telling who should do what in such a pretentious way. It would be true even not on a blog. Concerning 2 years instead of one, you probably already know that 2 years pass quickly.
jhub, saying something is not enough to make it true, and the way you say it is very pretentious, with childish things like points count, "I have shot down basically every single argument you have", "i cover it all", "lol at", and so on. If that's not a know-it-all attitude then what is it? Is that modesty? I searched for modesty on dictionnary.com and I don't see how the definition could apply to this.
"Did I say Voss' parents are selfish?" -> What you said is written above: "while his family may want him to finish his degree, it's kind of selfish of them to want Voss to finish if he doesn't want to". It's a copy/paste and you can check above that it's what you said and what was the context. You says "if he doesn't want to". Well, for now he's not sure (though his first post seems to say he doesn't want). So what you said is that "if he doesn't want to" then "it's kind of selfish of them". I'm not putting words into your mouth, you wrote them down here by yourself. So whether Voss' parents are selfish or not depends on Voss, that's stupid. What you don't want to understand is that if parents disagreeing with their children were selfish, then all parents in the world would be selfish some time.
By playing poker, you prevent one person from suffering from unemployment. Yes that's true (well, provided you'd not have been unemployed yourself). So what's the point? Poker as a solution to unemployment? Even if there were ten or hundred times more poker pros, the unemployment stats would be the same because thousands of people lose or get a job every day and 0,0000001% more or less is not considered to be a revealing change. Just be glad that most people have some classic job, because without them you wouldn't have your job. (And I wasn't saying that it's bad to take money from people that are willing to gamble). Don't think that your country is grateful to you for being a poker pro, especially when they want to stop pros from winning money from poker in december 2009, as said in the last post on your blog (well, the previous one, before you copied and paste all our discussion here to show off).
"However, I didn't, because I'm not out to impress people as Mr. Knowledge of the universe assumes in his brainwashed trance without ever meeting or speaking to me in his life." -> I am talking to you, and I read your blog, which is made (I presume) to let people know about yourself (and your TVs). 3 posts about your house. Several paragraphs about your 32" TVs and your 50" TV (I thought they were 32" only but just saw on your blog that you forgot to mention this one). The last post that is the icing on the cake, like "hey look at how I'm cool and this guy is stupid". A bit too theatrical though.
Well, since you shot down basically every single argument I had, that you covered it all (with modesty of course) and everything, I suppose that your voice will have quite an impact on Voss' decision. So let's hope that he will remain a winning player and that he won't regret giving up school (since it seems that it's what he'll do, after all you shot down every single piece of argument I made and probably every single argument his parents or anybody have made). You know, even the most successful poker player of history, won had won 30 millions dollars, went broke and died poor. Everything can happen. Sharkscope is full of guys who won a lot of money before losing everything. For now, you can show off with posts on your blog like the last one. If things were to turn bad, I'm sure that you won't post anything to say how wrong you were. Let's hope you won't have to.
Me: From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 04:04 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
While you may not have a clue what the fuck you are talking about, I'll tell you what, you sure have a lot of heart. Despite being shot down time & time again, you just keep on trying.
Do I care abot modesty & not displaying a know it all attitude when talking with people like you? No I don't. While you may care about things like that, I sure don't. I'm stating the truth: that I know a lot more about this situation than you & am shooting down every single one of your "arguments" (if you can even call them that) with valid points.
As far as Voss' parents are concerned, I have already explained myself on this. Clearly the knowledge of the universe you have learned is not enough to comprehend my statements.
If I didn't play poker I wouldn't be unemployed. I was a dean's list college student. This intelligence that I displayed in school is also helping me shoot down every argument you make. Oh the modesty. Did I say that poker is the solution to unemployment? No I didn't. Once again, get out of your brain washed trance & actually read & comprehend my statements correctly before replying to them. I simply stated that playing poker does nothing to hurt the society or GDP of my country, & that getting a job workin for the man would do nothing to help the society or GDP of my country. "Even if there were ten or hundred times more poker pros, the unemployment stats would be the same because thousands of people lose or get a job every day and 0,0000001% more or less is not considered to be a revealing change." Thanks for making the next argument for me. Even if there weren't unemployed people to fill the position that I'm not, I would have no relevant change in society & a 0.0000001% change in the GDP of my country would not be a relevant change (relevant, not revealing....pretty sure that's what you were going for but the knowledge of the universe failed you in your quest). Seriously, how hypocritical can you be? Think before you type things. As far as my country being grateful & proud of me, I don't care. Do you think I should do everything possible to try to give back to a country that is trying to strip my freedom & take away the job that I love? Get a clue.
Nice 2nd to last paragraph. No argument needed as you said nothing important.
As far as me eventually not making much money or going broke, the knowledge of the universe has allowed me to learn about things like sample size, which let me know that it's not possible to simply "run good" over 60,000+ SNGs. Apparently the knowledge of the universe hasn't taught you about sample size. Maybe you should take a stats class to gain more knowledge about this. I have taught Voss everything I know about SNGs. He plays like me. I think he'll be fine buddy. While sharkscope may be full of guys who ran hot over a few thousands SNGs & then played over their head, didn't table select, & went broke, it isn't full of guys who played 60,000+ SNGs, use table selection, & were the most profitable 5-6 seated SNG player in the world 2 years straight & then went broke. Again, think before you speak.
As for Voss getting his degree & how having a degree is so nice: Voss wants to play poker for a living, whether that's next semester or in 2 years after he graduates. You talk about how this hole in the resume looks so bad in job interviews. What looks better: Someone who graduated in 2011 & then has a resume gap until 2022, or someone who has a resume gap from 2009 to 2020, then returns to school & finishes his degree in 2022? If both of these people are appying for a job in 2022 who is more likely to get the job? If only we were so lucky to have you share your knowledge of the universe with us on this topic.
Give it up,
-Hub
From: scoz
2008-11-14 04:26 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
How pretentious are the first 3 paragraphs. They contains only statements about how you dominate the discussion, no arguments. The 4th one is based on the idea that you can do it provided that not too much people do it. Ok, why not. You were not the subject in the first place, even though you bring everything to you. By the way, I was not speaking of you when I said than it is possible to lose all the earned money. I know about sample size, and Voss' sample size is not that big. I have seen (and so do you, I suppose) people play 1000 games better than this before loosing everything. Even livb112 played incredibly good during thousands of games and now seems to have difficulties to make money on FullTilt (except probably rakeback). He may be the same player, but his opponents may be thougher now because he proved, along with the other sharkscope leaders, that heads-up can be the most profitable form of online poker.
Don't be satisfied with giving the impression of dominating the discussion. Sure it will impress many kids out there, but it's not fulfilling for you at all. Now tell me again how you're smart and how you are right on everything with powerful dominating arguments. Do you get an erection when you write such things again and again?
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 04:47 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
You come on here & give bad advice to my friend, backed up by bad arguments, & in the process call him stupid & talk down on my profession. What did you expect? The statements about how I dominate the discussion are just further showing that everything you say is garbage & should be ignored. I'm making a point to a clueless asshole by being an educated asshole. If you want to be treated w/ respect maybe you should have went about it another way.
Voss' situation is way different because I taught him & review his HHs. He has someone w/ the sample size & success right there to hold his hand the whole way. I won't let him fail. This simply isn't the case for the people you speak of, & therefore the argument has no validity, just like every single other argument you've made.
Seriously dude, give it up.
Go hug a tree. I'm gonna go click a mouse & make my $300+/hr while playing a game I enjoy.
-Hub
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: scoz
2008-11-14 05:09 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
Where did you see me saying that Voss is stupid? I don't think that at all. I don't read blogs of people when I think they are stupid. I don't give them my opinion when I dislike them.
Whether the advice of not giving up school is bad or not, it is just my point of view. According to Voss, it is the point of view of most people around him. Going to school isn't regarded as a bad thing to do, you know. It's not being selfish or hater or whatever, it's just common sense. If so many people think this, it's not because we live in a world of selfish jealous haters with you and some others being the smart exception.
The statements about how you dominate the discussion are not showing that what I say is garbage, or you don't know what an argument is. When I say "what you say is stupid", it just proves nothing at all.
I don't prevent you from playing, you're free to go.
(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
From: jhub3000
2008-11-14 06:39 pm (UTC)
Re: Give up your degree? (Link)
Ok, maybe you didn't flat out call him stupid, but you said it's stupid that he's considering dropping out of college to play poker. Either way, what do you expect from me?
If it's common sense to go back to school then why did I shoot down literally every single one of your arguments in favor of going bacl to school w/ valid points? Meanwhile you replied w/ more trash & no valid points to backup your arguments, which eventually just got discredited w/ more valid points by me. If anything, it sounds more like it's common sense for him to no go back to school next semester. The people that want him to go back to school are all old school & completely out of touch with online poker. They are all completely uneducated on the topic. Most people wrongly think that poker is just like playing the loterry, black jack, craps, etc... In reality, it's more like 90% skill in the long run. This is why you see a lot of professional poker players & you don't see professional craps players. In reality, most people are too conservative & don't want to take chances. People don't like change. They want him to go back to school because that is what they did & that is what they know. The concept of playing online poker for a living is completely foreign to them. If they knew what me & Voss know about the game, sample size, the poker is resume of who is teaching him, & the like, they would probably think differently. The thing is, they don't know this stuff, & even if you tell them this, they're just going to shake it off & think you're being too optimistic because it's what you want to do, when it reality we're using proven statistics equations to figure it all out.
Your last statement makes no sense. The fact of the matter is that I have backed up all of my arguments w/ valid points. You have done nothing to disprove those arguments. Meanwhile, your arguments have no validity & are immediately discredited by counter arguments that I make. How you can still think that all the points you have made are right is beyond me. It just goes to prove how closed minded & brainwashed you truly are. The statements that I dominate the discussion is just to clarify what anybody but yourself would easily realize, that you don't have a fuckin clue what you're talking about & that I have discredited literally every single thing you have typed into the comments section of this blog.
Do the world a favor & give it up. Nobody wants to hear your trash attempts anymore.
In the words of Will Ferrell: "That's how you debate!"
Get lost,
-Hub
http://pokerplayersalliance.org/
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
I'm sure most of you have already seen the recent developments of the UIGEA (gambling bill). For those that haven't, read these articles:
http://www.pokerlistings.com/treasury-d
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevent
Basically, they're making 1 last push before Obama is in office. 2 years after the bill was passed, the regulations were finalized out of nowehere & Bush is expected to sign off on them. They are expected to be in place by December 2009. At this time the banks will be doing everything they can to detect "gambling" payments & prevent us from receiving our money from online poker, online sports betting, etc...
http://www.ickypeople.com/2008/11/h
Summary: Once Obama is in office the new administration can overturn these regulations.
Now is our time to take action:
http://theleachlist.blogspot.com/2008/1
Contact Obama @
http://answercenter.barackobama.com/c
Please take the time to do this & don't be lazy. It won't take much time. Tell everyone you know to do the same, even friends & family members who don't play online poker. If they care about you, they should help, & every person that does this will have an impact.
Contact Your representatives and senators.
http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersallia
What you shouldn't do is overreact & start taking your money off of the sites. This is what a lot of people foolishly did when the UIGEA was originally passed & Neteller closed down to the United States. These sites aren't going to keep your money. They have a reputation to uphold. Even if the worst case scenario happened, & US players weren't allowed to play online sometime by December 2009, there would be announcements & a grace period would players would be allowed to get their money off. Chill out, keep playing, & start taking action & contacting those officials.
Also, if you haven't already, join the PPA! There is a link below.
Thanks,
-Hub
http://pokerplayersalliance.org/
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
I fixed the problem w/ the blog where you had to scroll to the right to view everything. I just had to choose a new background.
I finally got my internet up & running so I've started to play again this week. I was w/o reliable internet for 2-3 weeks so that was pretty costly considering my hourly rate. Hopefully I can get in 40 hours each week the rest of the year except for Thanksgiving & Christmas week. I will mostly just be playing when my fiancee works. Most of the time it will be shifts like 7:30 am to 3 pm & 8 am to 4 pm. This is obviously much different from my shifts before, which would have been anywhere between noon & 2 am. During the morning & early afternoon the games don't fill as well, especially at the high stakes, & especially on Cake. Because of this, I expect to see a significant decrease in my hourly rate. It's all good though. I obviously will still make several hundred thousand per year & be ok. Someone had mentioned to me before that it would be more profitable to just play my normal shifts & have my fiancee not work. I realize this but life does not revolve around poker & money. There's more to life than that & she would not like that arangement. Staking also hasn't gone as well as I had originally hoped. One of my stakees has been getting crushed in $1Ks & $2Ks (even though he's very +EV in them), which kills the bottom line. I didn't originally plan on having him play that high but couldn't help it after briefly playing the soft fields myself on Full Tilt. There's also been volume issues w/ some stakees but most of my stakees didn't start til July & I've still made over $100K off of them so I can't complain. Due to this, the 2-3 weeks I just missed, & my expected decrease in hourly rate, I doubt I'll hit the $700-$800K profit I was expecting on the year. However, before the year started I had set a goal of $450K, which I have already surpassed & will be well ahead of by the end of the year so it's still been a great year.
I still am having issues getting my 30"s hooked up & it appears I will need another new video card & a new power supply before I can run 2 30" monitors & 2 20" monitors. Until all of that is ordered & setup I'll just be playing on my 4 20" monitors. It's not a big deal though considering most of my games will be played in the morning & early afternoon when the games don't usually fill well enough where I would need my 30"s anyway.
Here's an interview I did w/ pokerlizard.com :
http://pokerlizard.com/interviews/Jared
I think they did a pretty good job so hopefully you enjoy it. I'll also post this in the links section. If you like this interview you might want to check out some of my previous interviews in that section if you haven't already.
My brother & I played the $1,080 Canterbury Fall Classic Main Event. There were 263 entrants & the field was extremely soft. It was definitely the softest live tournament I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I never flopped 2 pair or better the whole day, & it's tough to do much when you're that card dead. I got about halfway through the field & then shoved AT into AA. GG. My bro did have a strong showing though. He made it to day 2 & ended up finishing 13th for $2,500 or so. Obviously it sucks getting that deep & only making around $1,500 due to the top heavy payouts, but it was still a good experience & nice to see him do well in his 1st big live tourney (he's only been pro since May or June). Next year he plans on going out for a couple WSOP events, so I just plan on going out there the same time he does. Hopefully our friend & my stakee voss1313 (voss1313.livejournal.com) will be joining us as well, as I fully expect him to be playing full time by then.
Halloween was really fun. I decided to go as Missly Elliot. People ask me how I thought of it. I was at a wedding the weekend before Halloween & the song "1,2 Step" came on. Missy Elliot started rapping. When I think of Missy Elliot all I can think of is how ridiculously bad she is & how absurd she was in her first video "I can't stand the rain" wearing what looked like a big black garbage bag. Therefore, I decided it would be a good Halloween costume. I didn't get the wig I wanted but all in all it turned out alright & everyone loved it. We went to a Halloween party & then went to the bars. Here's a picture of some of us at the party:
I don't think I need to explain which one I am.
I'll leave it with a bunch of pictures my dad took of our house. The house was built in 2003 & is 4,200 square feet. There's a few rooms which he didn't take pictures of. I also wish we had pictures of the hallways cause the lights in the hallways are really nice :
Next spring I plan on putting a patio, hot tub, & deck in. We'll obviously be doing more landscaping next spring. Within a few years I also plan on putting in a pool.
The last 3 are pictures from the family room in the basement. The basement still needs to be finished (electrical work, bar, bathroom, etc...). In this family room I will have a ping pong table, foosball table, darts, & probably something else like pool or air hockey (it's a really big room, although it's hard to tell from the pictures). The 50" will obviously be in the entertainment center, & then I plan on mounting 2 32"s on the wall, which will be great for sports games w/ NFL ticket & all that. Then we'll have a sectional leather couch & probably a couple chairs. There's also a nice sized exercise room w/ a huge closet for storage which isn't shown in the pictures.
\
4 pictures of the kitchen.....the table in there is only temporary until we find one we like
2 pictures of living room on main floor....The doors shown are to my office, which there aren't any pictures of. In my office there's cupboards & then my desk, fridge, & there will be a 32" mounted on the wall once everything is done. In the living room we have a leather couch & 2 leather recliners. The 32" TV in the living room is in the entertainment center but the doors are closed on this picture.
window in the sitting room right at the front of the house that we still need to furnish
2 pictures of dining room...we still need to find a table obv
There's no picture of the bathroom on the main floow
3 car garage
laundry room before we had the washer & dryer in there...there's also a closet & an area where the laundry shoot (obviously mispelled but no clue on correct spelling) goes
master bedroom (top floor)...most comfortable bed ever (obviously has new comforter on it now)....also in room are 2 dressers, a night stand, & a 32" TV mounted on the wall
whirpool tub in master bathroom
2 more pics of master bathroom...toilet seats in all bathrooms are self closing, which is nice
walk in master closet
Bedroom 2 on top floor
other bathroom on top floor....has tub & shower
Bedroom 3 on top floor....also has a nice lighting ficture in it
Bedroom 4 on top floor
That's it for now. I'll probably be updating once every week or 2 for now.
Congrats to voss1313. He has his 1st full month of playing under my staking at the $119s & managed to make over $12K while going to school full time. That's pretty impressive considering he has never played SNGs or online poker until around April or May this year. It just goes to show you the progress you can make w/ a lot of hard work, a good coach, & a staker.
Results:
Month of October:
88.65 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $14,438.63
Rakeback/Bonuses: $16,992.97
Total Profit From Playing: $31,431.60
Staking: $19,695
Total Monthly Profit: $51,126.60 - $1,080 from Canterbury Fall Classic
Year of 2008:
1320.72 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $276,822.05
MTTs,cash games,HU SNGs,live: $(8,587.07)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $150,260.17
Total Profit From Playing: $418,495.15
Hourly Rate: $323.37 (excluding all staking, as well as rakeback earned this month)
Staking: $109,096.79
Total Yearly Profit: $527,591.94
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
On Wednesday Paula & I got engaged & moved into our new house. I couldn't ask for a better wife to be so I'm pretty happy about it. We're leaning toward an August wedding. Here's a picture of the outide of the house:
Eventually I'll get more pictures up of the inside of the house. We've obviously been pretty busy w/ everything. We're making strides on the moving process though. I just hired my assistant & 1 of his friends to move all my stuff up in a Uhaul so that was helpful. Our moms came over the day after we moved in to help clean. Paula's family also lives nearby so her parents, sister, & brother in law have been over to help w/ cleaning, putting things away, & fixing things. Everyone has been extremely helpful.
I can't get my computer working properly. First when I hooked up my 4 monitors the desktop background on the 30"s would move as my mouse moved. Eventually I gave up on that & decided to just hook up my 4 20"s for the time being. It was a good idea anyway. Whatever monitors I'm plugging into a certain adapter aren't working. I had 2 20"s going but those were acting up on me & now 0 monitors are going. I called my friend who does all my computer stuff for me & he was conveniently on a trip in Vegas. I didn't ask when he gets back but hopefully he can make it up here soon because it's costing me a ton of money having to play on my laptop. I'll pay him whatever. I don't care. I just want everything running & working properly. I had to get some things at Best Buy so I stopped by the geek squad desk to see if they could do anything about my computer situation. The guy told me they couldn't and actually told me that he wasn't sure if 4 monitos could run off 1 computer. Someone who probably works w/ computers 40+ hrs/week seriously told me that. It's ok buddy, I don't think I want you touching my computer anyway after hearing that. I just want to get back to a normal schedule where I can actually put in good hours on a good setup. Last month was a short month due to vacationing & other stuff & it looks like this month will be no different. Maybe Novemeber & December will be good but we'll see cause both months have big holidays that will almost certainly cut into my hours.
To top things off, our internet works like shit. Frontier & Charter are the only options in our area. Charter is garbage so I went w/ Frontier. The connection is in and out all day. I have been using my sprint card because it's more reliable. It's pretty bad when your sprint card is more reliable than some so called "high speed" internet. Frontier will be getting a call from me either today or tomorrow.
DirecTV must really be backed up because they can't come hook everything up until November 4th. I'm not too worried though. The only thing I'll really miss is the Vikings game but I can just go to a friends house for that. I also like to have ESPN on a lot when I play but I'll just have to strictly listen to Sirius for the time being. As far as watching TV, we can watch TV series & movies on dvd for for now. I'm a big fan of the HBO & showtime shows. I ordered 3 32" TVs for the house. I wish we could go bigger but we can't. 1 is for the living room, 1 is for our bedroom, & 1 is for our office. The living room has a built in entertainment center that can't fit more than a 32", our bedroom doesn't have enough space between the walk in closet & master bathroom for more than a 32", & I certainly don't need more than a 32" in my office. I went on consumer reports & did a little research & found the highest rated 32" & just ordered 3 of them. It's a Samsung w/ 1080p resolution. I plan on mounting the TVs in my office & my bedroom & obviously we'll have HD & DVR. The TVs were supposed to be delivered tomorrow but I added a couple things on my order over the phone & he never told me a total. Apparently I went over my debit card daily limit by just a tad with the purchase once everything was added so I need to call them today & get everything taken care of.
Consumer reports is great when you buy your 1st house. I've used it for TVs, washer & dryer, a vacuum cleaner, & a microwave already. I basically just look at the highest rated & if we don't like that one we go down to 1 of the next highest rated ones.
I'm thinking that double up SNGs aren't going to be nearly as profitable as I originally thought. I'm already starting to cut down on them a bit. I plan on playing about 3,000 of them before making anymore judgements. Players still make so many awful mistakes but even most donks realize they need to tighten up considerably in a lot of situations. They still might be as profitable as a normal SNG but we'll see. Now Cake just needs to get the SNG to end when there's 5 players left. For the time being I just wish people would use their heads. Unless you're the big stack, when it's down to 5 players you should raise all but 1 chip then click sit out & fold to any bet. I started doing this shortly after I started playing double ups & many players have caught on but the majority still just go all in & make the SNG last much longer than it needs to. Of course sometimes people don't realize it's 5 handed right away or the big stack folds so the 2nd big stack has to push but in general there's no reason for people not to do this.
Speaking of double ups, we were on a double up bubble & the short stack had been sitting out. I was the 2nd shortest stack w/ not much more than the short stack. The short stack was in the BB and was all in & ghub3000 (cake walkin & a million other names) was in the SB. All he needed to do was complete the SB & we all cashed. The donk retard folded & I ended up bubbling. I'm 90% positive he did this on purpose to get me to bubble because he's 1 of the biggest douchebags on the site & he doesn't like me because he's jealous of my success, much like the million other clueless haters out there. He's just another wannabe who doesn't understand what goes into the profitablity of a hand (hint: more to poker than "getting it in good"), sample size, variance, that maximizing hourly rate often leads to a lower ROI, etc... Hopefully karma takes it's turn on this scrub. For the time being he's luckboxing but in the long run he's just another break-even player, just like T$GetDatCake, and a bunch of other mediocre/losing players who are on 1,000 or 2,000+ game heaters & have gotten a huge ego in the process. Sorry guys but you have glaring leaks that no good SNG players have. I've seen plenty of people like them have heaters of 3,000 games or so & then fall off the face of the earth. I've also seen top players be losing over a sample size that big. Educate yourselves on sample size & variance & realize you aren't top dogs in the SNG world. In T$'s case (biggest asshole in online poker), the majority of his games were played when basically no good players played SNGs on Cake. Their time will end & I'll be sitting there laughing & saying I told you so.
My bro Jeff & I are going to play the Canterbury Fall Classic main event on Wednesday. It's a $1,000 buy-in that usually attracts about 200-300 players w/ a top prize around $80K. I'd much rather play a tournament like that than one w/ 1,000+ players & a top prize of $500K+. It takes a lot of luck to get through those mine fields & I don't play enough MTTs to weed out that kind of variance. You are generally still gonna have to be lucky to win the fall classic too, but it takes a lot less luck.
Obviously I've been very busy lately but eventually I'll try to get back to updating the blog at least once every week or 2. One of my stakees (MJCACE) has started his blog back up & hopes to update it every couple weeks or so. It can be found here:
http://mjcace.blogspot.com/
So far this month I've made $8,432.63 in rakeback on Cake & $1,284.71 in rakeback on my 3rd site, which will be added to my stats next month when I receive payment.
I don't currently have any staking opportunities available so please stop with the emails. I have over $160K locked up in staking, I have a lot of money locked up in other investments, I have a 6 figure tax payment due in January, I just made a 20% down payment on a $335K house, & I have to furnish the house. I also plan on putting a lot of money into the house over the winter & next spring. I appreciate the interest & all but now is not the time. When I have opportunities available I'll let you know on the blog.
Results:
Month of October:
84.98 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $18,160.63
Rakeback/Bonuses: $16,992.97
Total Profit From Playing: $35,153.60
Staking: $16,005
Total Monthly Profit: $51,158.60
Year of 2008:
1306.72 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $277,386.87
MTTs,cash games,HU SNGs,live: $(7,507.07)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $140,566.27
Total Profit From Playing: $410,446.07
Hourly Rate: $319.85 (excluding all staking, as well as rakeback earned this month)
Staking: $105,406.79
Total Yearly Profit: $515,852.86
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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 bought a house in Farmington this past week. It wasn't any of the ones I had posted online. 2 of the really nice houses I posted were directly under power lines. The one on a "lake" was on a pond right next to a busy highway so it was loud all the time. We looked at 16 houses this past weekend & the house we bought was a no brainer. It went on the market on Thursday & if it weren't for Paula's clinical instructor we might not have found it because it was priced lower than the general price range we were looking at. It was a foreclosure & is valued at $420K-$480K but we got it for $335K. Even if some of the houses I posted were nice there's no way we would have chosen them over this house at that price. It's around 4,200 square feet, has 5 bedrooms and an office, 2 living rooms upstairs & 1 big one downstairs, walkout basement, & has a nice sized yard so that we can put in a deck, hot tub, patio, & pool, as well as a vegetable garden for Paula. It has stucko (I think that's what it's called) on the front & vaulted ceilingsIt was built in 2003 & the basement isn't completely finished but it won't cost more than $10K to finish it. Our realtor was really great & I would highly recommend him to anyone in the twin cities area. He's good at his job, is fun to be around, & really takes care of you. I have an inspection on my house on Friday & my closing date is October 15th. I'll post some pictures of the house eventually sometime after we move in.
Last night at the end of the night both my regular internet & my sprint card went out of service. I couldn't get a hold of anyone to take over for me & it cost me about $1K. Sigh.
My friend Andrew has started up a blog at voss1313.livejournal.com. I started coaching him late in the spring. He started at the $6.50s w/ his own bankroll & has really progressed quickly. He studies his ass off & catches on really fast. I'm pretty sure he will be 1 of the best 6 man SNG players in the world within the next few years. I just recently began staking him at $119s on Full Tilt & Absolute.
Congrats to my bro for having his best month ever. He made over $12K. However, he's only been full time since June & I expect him to break that records many times as he improves, plays more tables, & moves up in stakes. Meanwhile, I think had my worst month of the year playing (not including staking), but like I said I was probably due and I didn't play that much because I was busy.
Now that I'm playing double ups on Cake about half of my games on there will be 10 mans.
I made over $12K in rakeback on Cake for September & another $1K+ on another site. The Cake rakeback will be listed under results for my next entry.
I think my brother & I are going to play the main event of the Canterbury Fall Classic towards the end of the month. I'm thinking I'm probably going to be going to the PCA this year too.
Results:
Month of September:
116.44 hrs played
Monthly Profit From Playing SNGs: $5,456.38
Rakeback/Bonuses: $23,341.87
MTTs, Miscellaneous: -$2,600
Total Monthly Profit From Playing Poker: $26,198.25
Staking: $11,533.72
Total Monthly Profit: $37,731.97
Year of 2008:
1221.74 hrs played
Profit From Playing SNGs: $259,226.24
MTTs,cash games,HU SNGs,live: $(7,507.07)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $123,573.30
Total Profit From Playing: $375,292.47
Hourly Rate: $313.32 (excluding all staking, as well as rakeback earned this month)
Staking: $89,401.79
Total Yearly Profit: $464,694.26
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