October Review - Ballin' on a Budget

October has been a good month for me in all. My game feels just as strong (perhaps even moreso) as it did in September, and I have the winrate to back it up. Unfortunately I didn't play quite as much as I would have liked, nobody to blame for that but myself.

Anyway, lets get started.



Aside from the one slightly nasty breakeven stretch of 40k hands, a pretty sexy graph. The winrate numbers are right where I would love them to always be. 3.15ptBB/100 is the nuts.

Here are my Sklansky EV graphs for the month. First half EV followed by second half EV:


As you can see above I ran good in terms of Sklansky EV this month (to the tune of ~$1.3k), especially during the second half.

Lets take a look at first and second half all-in luck:


I ran poorly in all-in luck during the first half, and good during the second half, both nearly by the exact same margin. Consider these a draw, giving me neutral all-in luck for the month.

Lets take a look at Set-o-meter stats for the month:

I flopped a reasonable amount of sets (running marginally bad in that regard) but what is really eye-catching are the heater vs cooler stats. I ran brutally bad in all 3-categories. I had folks two out me 10 times in 35 tries (they have a ~10% chance to do so each time, so this is ridiculous). I had the lower set in a set-over-set situation 9 more times than the opposite (there was a single one-outer going each direction). Finally, in AA vs KK I sucked out once in 17 tries with my KK vs AA, while they sucked out 4 times in 19 tries with KK vs my AA. Pretty ridiculous.

Combining the positive Sklansky EV with the hideous heater vs cooler hands, I think I ran pretty close to average on the month, though it's pretty hard to say exactly. I most definitely didn't run significantly hot or cold however.

The bottom line:
+$64.35 staking profit*
+$38.00 credit (collusion?)
+54,113 VPPs * 3.5 Supernova multiplier = 189395 FPPs = 1.6c/FPP = $3030.33
+$2200 milestone bonus ($3k - $800 worth of FPPs to purchase)
+$9679 winnings
---------------
$15011.73 total profit in October.

*Thanks to Will for this. He is now playing on his own roll and doing well.

A new personal best month continues the trend of a new record each month since I began in February. I imagine November will break this trend however, as I will not hit another milestone bonus until December, and I imagine I won't put in that many hands due to Wrath of the Litch King release.

One thing I've always found interesting is trying to determine a confidence interval for one's "true" winrate. Over the last 2 months, I believe I'm run pretty close to average during both, based on the metrics and measurement tools I have available to me (PokerEV, Setometer, etc). During that period, between $100NL and $200NL I have posted a 3.10ptBB/100 winrate over 271k hands. This is a significant sample size. My standard deviation (Pokertracker will calculate this for you) over this sample has been 30ptBB/100. Using uDevil's Poker Results Calculator with my data, we can form a 95% confidence interval around my winrate -+1.13ptBB/100. Thus, there is a 95% chance my true winrate during this period is between 1.97ptBB/100 and 4.23ptBB/100. Interesting.

A 99% confidence interval results in my winrate being +-1.68ptBB/100 (1.68ptBB/100 to 4.58ptBB/100). While these results are somewhat reassuring, it just goes to show what a giant factor variance is. If I had run in the bottom 5% in terms of luck over these two months, my 3.10ptBB/100 winrate could instead have been between 1.68ptBB/100 and 1.97ptBB/100. That is almost cut in half! Scary stuff.

Finally, lets address the goals I set:

(1) Start a new Pokertracker DB
Done, and it was a good idea to do this.

(2) Play 150k hands
Failure, no excuse.

(3) Play 12.5/10 ATS27 at the very nittiest
I ended up playing my stardard 12/9 ATS25. These goals are bullshit in the first place, I've got to stop setting them. Who cares if the 2+2 crowd loves the 17/15 ATS40 style.

(4) Play 20,000+ hands at 200NL
Failed, played 15.7k at 200NL. Still over 10% of my total hands, and game selection there is hard. I can definitely beat the limit handily though with good selection. More importantly perhaps I played 0 hands of 50NL this month. Yay.

The Weekend, The Dollar, and Eternal Sonata

From Thursday through Sunday I played ~28.5k hands. This number is dissapointing, as I really needed to play ~35k to give myself a good shot at reaching my 150k goal for the month. Over the hands I did play, I ran kind of bad. My Sklansky EV and all-in luck are close to neutral, the former of which is below:


Where I really suffered this weekend was in the heater versus cooler hand variety of luck. If you understand how Set-o-meter works and you have a weak stomach, you may wish to avert your eyes from the image below:

Being 2-outed four times and 1-outed once when in set vs overpair and set over set situations respectively isn't a lot of fun.

Focusing more on the positives, I did reach my 300k VPP milestone bonus as planned. This is a $3000 bonus that costs 50,000 FPPs. As the FPPs have $800 of cash value, this means the bonus is effectively worth $2200 in free money. I should hit my final milestone of the year in late December at 400k VPPs (for $3200 extra profit).


Enough about my results for the weekend. The freefall experienced by the Canadian Dollar relative to its US counterpart (in which all my figures are measured) has become a huge boon of late for myself. When I initially started withdrawing funds, the CDN$ was worth ~0.95c US. As of my withdrawal last night, it was worth 0.78c. This effectively gives me an extra 25c on the dollar I withdraw. Amazingly sexy.

Moving on, two games I had preordered were released last week. Eternal Sonata for the PS3 (which is actually a year old XBox 360 game that got ported) and Star Ocean: First Departure for PSP. Star Ocean was a must buy (I haven't touched it yet), but I hesitated on whether or not to pick up Eternal Sonata. However, as it was reviewed positively by some folks I trust, and I really want to get more use out of my PS3, I decided to pick it up. So far I have been thoroughly impressed. Gorgeous visuals (though in a very bright, cartoony style) combined with solid music (which is to be expected from a game in which Frederic Francois Chopin is a playable character) and an innovative and extremely fun combat system result in a very positive gaming experience. The character development has not yet been particularly creative or spectacular, and aside from the general premise (the game takes place inside Chopin's dreams on his deathbead - even better he is aware that he is inside a dream world) the plot is nothing to brag about, but you can't win them all.

Weekends Are The Nuts

People love weekends. When you're a kid, that Friday afternoon after school seems like the best time of your life every time it hits. While they may not be quite as exciting to the average adult, most still look forward to the weekend. Online poker players are no exception. Weekend play (especially at night) is completely different from play on weekdays. The fish population increases drastically, game selection becomes far better, and winrates increase as a result.

This weekend, I didn't play as much as I probably should have. When I did play, I ran well enough and made a lot of money. However, including the ~3k hands I put in on Thursday (where I went on a $900 heater), I only managed to log 19k hands. Here are my EV and luck graphs, including my Thursday session:



The minor downswing at the end sucked, and climaxed with a hero call 150bb deep I wish I could have back. All that said, I'm happy with my play and the results.

Here's a funny hand with no strategic value whatsoever:
Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players

UTG: $98.90 (98.9 bb)
UTG+1: $108.05 (108.1 bb)
MP1: $79.85 (79.9 bb)
MP2: $104 (104 bb)
MP3: $29.10 (29.1 bb)
Hero (CO): $148.95 (149 bb)
BTN: $104.30 (104.3 bb)
SB: $126.55 (126.6 bb)
BB: $115.20 (115.2 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is CO with 4s 4d
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, MP1 calls $1, MP2 raises to $5, MP3 folds, Hero calls $5, BTN folds, SB folds, BB folds, MP1 calls $4

Flop: ($16.50) 7h 2h 8h (3 players)
MP1 checks, MP2 checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($16.50) 2s (3 players)
MP1 checks, MP2 checks, Hero checks

River: ($16.50) 4c (3 players)
MP1 bets $74.85 and is all-in, MP2 folds, Hero calls $74.85

Results: $166.20 pot ($3 rake)
MP1 showed Ah 5h (a flush, Ace high) and lost (-$79.85 net)
Hero showed 4s 4d (a full house, Fours full of Twos) and won $163.20 ($83.35 net)

Heaters are fun

I played a short 2 hour session last night and ended up making ~$900 ($840 winnings, $60 rakeback). I did generate EV and luck graphs, but unfortunately forgot to email them to myself so I could post them from work today. Lets just say I ran like absolute God. I hit pretty much every draw. I think I was around $500-$600 above expectation in both Sklansky and all-in EV. It's nice to have some good luck for a change.

The biggest pot I took down was a $200NL heater hand where my AA was up against villain's KK. We were slightly deeper than normal (110BB or so) and AA held up. Unfortunately I did run my KK into AA once at $100NL and was set over set once at 100NL as well (QQQ versus AAA isn't cool) so from a heater vs. cooler perspective I was right around even.

Another big pot I won was multiway with two donkeys. It was one of those spots that comes purely down to pot odds, and I'm going to review it here to see if I made the right decision. It's going to be close either way.

I raised from EP with AdJd, got flatted by two fish, one running 50/10 and the other 30/5 or so. They're both bad obviously. Flop came 67T, two diamonds. I bet out something like $9 into the $12 pot, and the first donkey jammed the rest of his stack $90~ in. Other donkey calls. There is now ~$200 in pot, and I have to call $90. I'm going to whip up some hand ranges and try to come up with the EV of a call. I thought at the time that it was a call even if one of two donks always has a set or a straight.

I'm getting 2.22:1 on a call, so I need 31% equity for the call to be neutral EV. Lets consider two cases, the first being the "reasonable case" scenario, where the second donkey is willing to stack off somewhat light. The second case to be considered will be one where the second donk always has a set/straight and our overcards are never outs.

(1) Reasonable case:
Hero: 33.312% AdJd
SuperDonk: 21.202% TT-QQ,ATo,ATs,KTo,KTs,QTo,QTs,JTo,JTs,QdJd,KdTd,KdQd,Kd9d,T7o,T7s,T6o,T6s,76o,76s,98o,98s
RegularDonk: 45.486% TT-QQ, 66-77, 98s, 76s, 98o, 76o

Wow, thought I'd have more equity than that. I guess Superdonk having two of my outs some of the time hurts.

(2) Worst case:
Hero: 31.689 % 31.644 % 0.091 % 68.265 % AdJd
SuperDonk: 12.050 % 9.844 % 4.412 % 85.744 % TT-QQ,ATo,ATs,KTo,KTs,QTo,QTs,JTo,JTs,QdJd,KdTd,KdQd,Kd9d,T7o,T7s,T6o,T6s,76o,76s,98o,98s
RegularDonk: 56.260 % 54.099 % 4.322 % 41.579 % TT,66-77,89o,89s

Even in this case, we still have the equity necessary to call. Cool. I thought it was going to be close, but I expected both cases to be slightly higher EV than they are. Thankfully the 4d hit on the turn and I ended up taking it down.

Them kids these days...

... wouldn't know a good character if it bit them in the ass. The brackets for GameFAQs yearly character battle (in which fictional characters compete in a popularity contest) can be found here. Here are just a few of the travesties that have occurred so far in the first round:

Kain Highwind (FF4) fails to advance from his bracket in favor of Master Chief (HALO) and Raiden (MGS). I understand that there are a lot of HALO and MGS fanboys out there, but for God's sake, MGS fans don't even like Raiden! Just because FF4 was released around the same time many of the voters were being born screws one of the greatest video game characters ever.

Ness fails to advance from his bracket in favor of Pac-Man and Mewtwo. Pac-Man I can see. I don't have a problem with Pac-Man. But fucking Mewtwo? Seriously?

Balthier Bunansa fails to advance from his bracket in favor of Scorpion (MK) and Gordon Freeman (Half-Life). Does anyone even care about Mortal Combat anymore? Didn't think so. Even worse, I didn't even know who Gordon Freeman was and had to look it up. Ridiculous.

Kefka (FF6) fails to advance from his bracket in favor of Marth (Fire Emblem) and Duke Nukem. Arguably the greatest villain in a video game ever goes out in the first round to the poster boy for vaporware, and Marth. Marth is from a game that I would imagine 95%+ of the population which voted for him have never played. He only gets votes because he appears in Smash Bros. Gah.

At any rate, since this is a poker blog I'll talk poker for a bit. I ran like shit this weekend, having my first large downswing in awhile on Friday (to the tune of 15 BIs). While I did manage to recover and end up profitable on the long weekend, it certainly didn't live up to its potential.

For those who understand what this means, here's a Set-o-meter shot of my weekend to make your eyes bleed (I also ran bad in all-in EV, but I'll stick to the more appalling shot):


Since it is halfway through the month, here are my EV/luck graphs for the month so far. In total I'm sitting at around +$5.5k ($3.7k winnings + $1.8k rakeback). Note that I've actually run below average on the month so far.

First 3k Weekend

On the weekend I pulled in a little over $3k in winnings + rakeback. I put in 4k hands of 200NL (along with ~26k of 100NL) over the stretch, with solid results. I'm definitely confident I'll be a solid winner at 200NL, but game selection there is typically quite poor compared to 100NL.

Here are my EV and all in-luck graphs for the month of October so far:



I've run a little good in Sklansky bucks, and a little bad in all-in EV. Probably fairly average on the whole so far, which is awesome since my winrate is sitting around 3.7ptBB/100 currently. Crushing the games is fun.

Collusion at 100NL?

Stars sent me this email yesterday:


Presumably they busted some people colluding, no idea who it could have been. I doubt it was a regular, personally. At any rate, I won't complain about a free $38. I'm in the middle of a very profitable weekend, stay tuned for a review post on Monday.

October Goals

Before I get started with my goals for the month, one thing I like to do every so often for kicks is google my Stars screen name. While the bulk of the results are HHs where I fold preflop, today I found a 4 page long thread on french poker forum about this hand.

Aside from the epicness of the hand in general, I never really thought much about the river. It's AAAA versus a Royal Flush, of course the money is going in right? However, if you think about my range on the river, it is basically only bluffs + royals. I can't have AK, and I obviously only flat call river with KK. That said, a bluff makes a lot more sense than a royal there, so I really don't think he can fold the quads, lol.

On to my goals:

(1) Start a new Pokertracker DB
I will be importing my 150k hands from last month into this DB. The purpose of the new database is to both increase performance and keep my HUD stats more relevant. Currently against some players I have many thousands of hands from 50NL and sometimes even 25NL, when they were much worse and way nittier than they are currently. Thus, using the last month as a reference point should increase my ability to make accurate reads based on stats.

(2) Play 150k hands
I marginally failed this goal last month, and it seems like a good aggressive number to shoot for while avoiding burnout.

(3) Play 12.5/10 ATS27 at the very nittiest
Less aggressive than last month, but I really think I'm playing better when I open more hands from LP. I stacked a donkey with 60BB last month when I was stealing with K8, so it must be good!

(4) Play 20,000+ hands at 200NL
I need to start breaking into 200NL, but I always seem to find reasons to avoid those tables. Baby steps.

I think the thing I need to be worried about the most with respect to poker currently is complacency. I could go forward grinding out ~10k a month right now np, but I don't think that will be terribly fun. Instead, I need to keep pushing myself forward, despite the additional risk. I need to keep getting better and improving my game. Playing more 200NL will help.

When I started grinding seriously 6-8 tabling 25NL, I wanted to one day be megatabling 100NL-200NL, and to be able to make significant money doing so. I'm there right now. I don't think I ever really thought that to be playing midstakes+ was a good realistic goal, though maybe it should have been. It would be great to be Keli 2.0, playing 24 tables of 2/4, 3/6 and 5/10 and making $50k+/month. I might not have the skill ceiling to get there, but I don't know that yet. If I keep trying to get better and play higher, at the least I'll find out. Because I'll be easing myself in to higher limits while keeping many tables of the lower, it shouldn't be a major financial risk either. I guess the real risk is to my ego. At the very least, I'm pretty sure I can beat 200NL, and I need to man up and play more of it, even if the games aren't as fishy as 100NL (they definitely aren't).