2012 Review

Though I've gotten away from doing monthly reviews or posting at all recently, I promised a couple people a yearly graph and it is that time. Fittingly enough, the graph illustrates quite well why I decided to stop updating with the day to day stuff: it's all pretty much the same.

If you put this year's graph beside that of either of the previous two years, it's tough to spot any signficant difference. Compare it to my SNE run three years ago and the only difference is I won the amount over twice as many hands in 2009 (but picked up an insane amount of rakeback on the way). Just like the previous two years, I didn't put in a whole lot of volume simply because my hours are slack, around 25/week. The last ten days or so I've succesfully (for now) changed my sleeping schedule back to what most humans would consider normalcy for the first time in years, and I've found that I'm sleeping ~2 hours less per night thus far. This gives me hope that I could potentially manage stronger volume next year - though I'm certain I've said that before.

At any rate, here's the graph and chart:





The bottom line:
~$87.3k table winnings
+~$15.1k FPP value
+~$8.3k milestone/stellar/deposit bonuses/coaching/etc.
----------------------------------------------------
~$110.7k total profit

Like almost every regular, the change from dealt to WC VPP calculation on Stars was costly for me. A quick comparison to 2009: current VPP/hand rates appear to be just slightly better than half what they were back then. Some of this has to do with the state of the games and the slight rake reduction introduced to try to mask the cash grab - but it is still pretty insane when you think about it. I pity anyone trying to grind out SNE at small stakes these days.

Since I don't have any plans to change anything drastically in 2013, I imagine in 12 months I'll have another graph clone ready to be added to the pile, but you never know. There definitely are worse things than boring graphs.

One For The Road

Last September I went almost a month without blogging, partially because I was out of town for a bit but mostly because I just didn't have much I felt was worth saying. To be honest, I haven't enjoyed blogging nearly as much the past few years, and the reason why is pretty simple: much of what I post is similar stuff. Ran good/bad, Patriots played good/bad, Flames played good/bad/were locked out, video game I'm playing is good/bad...

When I started the blog, it chronicled what I believe was pretty interesting progression. In 2009, it helped keep me on track and motivated to hit SNE. In 2010, I had the SNE tournaments to blog about which I think were legitimately interesting stuff, but aside from those it basically followed the pattern of 2011 and this year.

So, since I'm not enjoying the writing much and frankly I don't think a lot of it should be worth reading (though some of you obviously disagree), I'm going to be posting a heck of a lot less. If something comes up where I think my voice is both relevant and interesting, I'll post about it (things like Pokerstars making changes to Full Ring structures, or US regulation going through could qualify as examples). The small talk stuff is done for though, at least after this post. One more can't hurt, right?

Poker this month has been unremarkable. I've been playing a little less volume which has been nice. Game quality the past few weeks has seemed really bad though, hopefully not a sign of things to come. Time for a reload bonus to bring back some fish perhaps?

The Patriots won on Sunday but didn't deserve to - their secondary looked really, really bad all game. Devin McCourty tried really hard to give the Jets the game by fumbling a kickoff with two minutes left in a tied game, but somehow the Jets only managed a field goal and the Pats were able to equalize on the last play of regulation time. Hockey is still on hold.

I should also mention I played live poker for the first time in over a year last week. One of my friends was visiting from Kugluktuk (yes, that's a real place waaaaay up north), and we hit up the recently rebranded Cowboy's Casino (ugh, they took the Stampede Casino and reduced its class several notches) for a six or seven hour session. The table was butter soft, despite some of the other players (who I assume were regulars) suggesting otherwise. I ran pretty poorly to start but after doubling with KK > A6 AIPF (iso'd a limp to 7.5bbs, got min 3b by whale, overshipped 85bbs and got snapped) ended up booking a 150bb win which was nice. As I say after every time I play live, as soft as it is, it just sucks. So slow, and kind of dirty - I don't really know how to describe the latter part, I just never feel good after a session.

September Review - Full Blown Disaster

As I alluded to in my last post, September wasn't a fun month at the tables for me. I'm actually reasonably certain I've never run this badly over a 100k+ hand stretch before. February 2009 wasn't pretty, but it was a combination of runbad and extreme auto pilot from putting in ridiculous volume. While I'm sure there was some bad play this month, it's really hard to overcome a 2ptBB AIEV handicap (ok, technically it was 1.74ptBB).

Over the 91k hands I put in at 100NL ZOOM, I was thirty-six and a half buyins below AIEV. I took two pretty insane beats at 400E and 600PL near the end of the month where in both cases my sets ran into no pair no draw on the flop that turned weak draws (in one case a double gutter and the other a bare gutter) that wanted to play for stacks. If I hold in those two pots and run at EV at ZOOM it's a ~$10k table winnings month. At least I ran fine at the 200NL limit - without that things would have gotten so ridiculous I don't even want to think about it.



The bottom line:
$3778.89 table winnings
+$1461.04 FPP value (26,090 VPPs * 3.5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$2600 200k VPP milestone bonus
--------------------------------------------
$7839.93 USD total profit.

In all, certainly a legitimate contender for "worst month ever" status though I'm not sure I can give it the nod over Feb 2009. 100k BE stretches just aren't a lot of fun. If you put in a lot of volume I guess its inevitable to run this bad eventually. It sure would be nice to get some rungood of even half the magnitude though. Maybe one day.

Exceptional Incompetence

I apologize for having not blogged in a little over three weeks. Though I've been slightly under the weather lately, the actual reason is simply that I try to avoid posting if the content is going to be thoroughly negative. Regardless, it seemed like it was about time, so prepare for some ranting below.

First, poker. I've run as poorly in September as I have in over a year at minimum, perhaps stretching all the way back to February 2009. It just gets really old fast to be getting the money in with top set and losing to backdoor quads/gutters. Not to mention being bluffing with zero equity whenever I shove preflop. I'll save the rest of this rant for the monthly review, which won't be pretty.

What the title of this post is about are the two labour disputes currently destroying professional sport in North America. One of my more recent posts talked about the (at the time upcoming, now in full swing) NHL lockout, so I don't really have much more to add to that.

The situation in the NFL may not be costing them football games or revenue, but it is quickly turning the league into a joke. If you read this blog religiously, you may recall that I have in the past wished for NHL officials to perform with the same degree of competence as their NFL counterparts. I'm not aware of what demands the union of NFL officials have made, or who fans should be upset at over the current state of things. What I am sure of, is that the replacement officials currently being used are utterly incompetent to a degree I never would have thought was possible. That overwhelming degree of suck was on display tonight in the Pats/Ravens matchup - and I know what you're thinking, this isn't me being sour over a Patriots loss, as there were brutal blown calls both ways. I'm trying really hard not to blame the replacement officials themselves, as they're probably embarrassed as hell. After seeing this gong show go on for three weeks now though, something has to be done - because this isn't the NFL the fans deserve.

I'm currently working my way through Gungnir for the PSP. It does a lot of things well, and provides a stiff challenge. Unfortunately, a few design choices make the game very frustrating at times. It really does shock me how often you'll find design features in a commercial game that nobody could possibly find fun, even in concept. Still, I'd say the good marginally outweighs the bad, though I will likely avoid the other games in the series.

TUESDAY EDIT:
Well, if you saw the end of Monday Night Football (I felt like a real idiot for turning off the TV after Seattle turned the ball over on downs with 2:00 to go), the replacement officials embarrassed themselves even further. I wonder how bad it can get... I'm sure eventually it'll go from a combination of sad and disgraceful to downright funny.

Also, I was actually almost finished with Gungnir and just unaware of it because it was much shorter than I anticipated. I figured I was at the very common point in a lot of RPGs where a pseudo-fake-potential-ending turns out to be a plot twist and you then deal with all the foreshadowing that had been building up. It turns out instead the game just ended, roll credits. I imagine they're making a sequel because they built up a lot of plot which they simply left utterly unfinished. Rather disappointing.

August Review - Mediocrity + Vacation

For the bulk of August I felt like I ran fairly poorly, though my winrate suggests it can't have been too bad, though certainly still below average. I'm happy that midstakes chipped in a bit, though 72% of my volume was at ZOOM which says a lot about where FR poker is heading on Stars.

During the last week of the month I basically bailed out to have fun and game like crazy, forsaking poker in favor of Guild Wars 2. I wasn't planning on a stay at home vacation week, but it turned out that way. As a result, I'm marginally behind pace for the 300k milestone by the end of the year, and I'll hit the 200k mark (and the $2.6k that comes along with it), sometime in the next few days. In all, I put in less than 100 hours this month, a regression back to 2011 effort levels. To be fair to myself however, this is only the second period of time off I've taken this year, so perhaps I deserve it. I'm definitely getting a ton more hands per hour due to the ZOOM influence.



The bottom line:
$7917.39 table winnings
+$1319.30 FPP value (23,559 VPPs * 3.5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$100 deposit bonus
-------------------------------------------------------------
$9336.69 USD total profit.

The strength of the Canadian Dollar has been screwing me again lately, hoping it recedes some shortly so I can withdraw and not feel cheated. In September I'd love to put together a large month given I'll have a milestone chipping in. Working 30 hours a week rather than 25 is a must as well.

Didn't We Learn Anything From '04-'05?

Poker last weekend wasn't terrible, which is more than I can say about any stretch so far this month. I still can't have a session where I catch my AIEV line, and it doesn't help when you have hands that put you 400+bbs below expectation like this one:

PokerStars Zoom No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
Button ($180.81)
SB ($28.88)
BB ($33.69)
UTG ($274.85)
Hero (UTG+1) ($736.89)
MP1 ($79.63)
MP2 ($249.23)
MP3 ($101.50)
CO ($187.82)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with A♠, A♦
1 fold, Hero bets $3, 1 fold, MP2 raises to $8, 1 fold, CO calls $8, 3 folds, Hero raises to $26.55, MP2 raises to $45.10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $736.89 (All-In), MP2 calls $204.13 (All-In)

Flop: ($507.96) 9♥, 5♠, 7♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: ($507.96) 8♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($507.96) 2♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $507.96 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Hero had A♠, A♦ (one pair, Aces).
MP2 had K♥, K♣ (flush, King high).
Outcome: MP2 won $505.16

I've also been one outed six times (that I've noted, could be more) so far this month. A few of the "standard" set over set no good variety, a couple getting an overpair + FD in on a mono board against a weaker overpair that has one of its outs tainted, and finally once in a rare spot where a shorty with ~15bbs puts it in with AA preflop, I hold QQ and get 30bbs in pre against a fish with AQo, and said fish open shoves the 120bbs effective remaining on 763r, binking his one outer for the ~270bb side pot.

It seems that just about everyone is resigned to the inevitability of an NHL lockout that will kill some, if not all, of the upcoming season. In '04-'05, the league legitimately needed a significant change in its fundamental economic model, and after sacrificing a season the owners got very close to everything they wanted, and justifiably so. Now, eight years later several owners are once again crying poor. One such owner is doing so after dishing out two ninety-million dollar monster contracts this off season. Yes, the new CBA needs some tweaks to close loopholes created after the last lockout. However, the players don't need to have their share of league revenues reduced because some owners haven't taken Econ 101. Said owners seem to think they should be able to spend to the cap to try to win a championship regardless of their market situation, yet have no risk of losing money doing so. Thankfully the Flames brass do not fall into the above category.

Persona 4 Arena has been loads of fun, and after playing a bunch online I'm actually decent at it. Not legitimately good, but for someone who almost never plays fighting games I'm really happy with my skill level relative to my competition.

Guild Wars 2 comes out next week, which should keep me plenty busy as God knows MMOs can eat up time. It looks like it could be a gem, and I'm excited to give it a go as I haven't played the beta at all.

Missed the Memo

Poker has been terrible this week, but that isn't what I want to blog about.

Tuesday evening while doing some light internet surfing I stumbled upon a tweet from one of the staff writers at www.rpgamer.com mentioning a game called "Persona 4 Arena". From the context, it seemed that said individual had been playing it. This took me by extreme surprise as I had not heard of the game, and I am a HUGE fan of the Persona series - so much so in fact that like many others I consider Persona 3 to be the greatest video game of the past decade.

A quick trip to Wikipedia and I found that this game existed, had been released in Japan a week ago, and had been released in North America that day. I truly have no idea how I managed to be completely oblivious to its existence, but I picked it up at my local Best Buy the next day.



I'm not a big fan of fighting games in general - I enjoy a little Street Fighter 2 Turbo against friends now and then, but mastery of entries of the genre (see: Nanonoko) has never been an interest of mine. Regardless, the game has been exceptional, and better, it contains a story mode with ~20 or so hours of gameplay, the vast majority of which is in a graphic novel style (I guess you might not consider that "gameplay", but I digress). Without spoiling much, the plot brings together some of the cast of Persona 3 with the entire cast of Persona 4, adds a new character, and sets up the story of what I can only assume will be Persona 5.

Best surprise video game ever.

The 'ol 83o

Poker this weekend has gone pretty well. The games seem to have improved, and for a few hours both yesterday and today were legitimately good. Fingers crossed. There are a couple notable HHs below.

First, a funny hand from Friday where villain tries really hard to represent AK with the old 83o for 130bbs+. Even if he has AK I'm happily freerolling, but I was quite shocked when I saw his holding.

PokerStars Zoom No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
Button ($54.80)
SB ($138.35)
BB ($47.71)
UTG ($100.46)
UTG+1 ($203.43)
MP1 ($124.26)
MP2 ($101.50)
MP3 ($110.49)
Hero (CO) ($232.46)

Preflop: Hero is CO with A♥, K♣
5 folds, Hero bets $3, 1 fold, SB raises to $9, 1 fold, Hero calls $6

Flop: ($19) J♥, Q♥, 4♥ (2 players)
SB bets $10, Hero calls $10

Turn: ($39) 10♠ (2 players)
SB bets $20, Hero raises to $55, SB raises to $119.35 (All-In), Hero calls $64.35

River: ($277.70) A♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $277.70 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
SB had 8♠, 3♣ (high card, Ace).
Hero had A♥, K♣ (straight, Ace high).
Outcome: Hero won $274.90


A less fun hand from Friday which ended up being the difference between a good session and a great session. Regfish picks probably the worst hand possible to try to gin flop vs myself and the overcalling whale, and is rewarded.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (9 handed)
UTG ($584.89)
UTG+1 ($1604.17)
MP1 ($396)
MP2 ($450.38)
Hero (MP3) ($575.36)
CO ($400)
Button ($239.36)
SB ($195.10)
BB ($252.20)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with A♥, A♣
2 folds, MP1 bets $10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $40, 1 fold, Button calls $40, 2 folds, MP1 calls $30

Flop: ($126) J♣, 10♥, A♦ (3 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets $84, Button raises to $199.36 (All-In), MP1 raises to $356 (All-In), Hero calls $272

Turn: ($1037.36) 9♣ (3 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($1037.36) 2♣ (3 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $1037.36 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Button had 9♦, A♠ (two pair, Aces and nines).
MP1 had K♣, Q♦ (straight, Ace high).
Hero had A♥, A♣ (three of a kind, Aces).
Outcome: MP1 won $1034.56


I've put twenty hours or so into Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time for the PSP, a remake of an old game which never saw the light of day outside of Japan. It has been quite enjoyable thus far, though in some ways it really isn't a very good game. Let me elaborate: the visuals are completely meh outside of the character portraits, the soundtrack is utterly unispired, and the combat system is clunky and has severe problems with movement, which leads to extreme spikes in difficulty. All that stuff aside, the story is great and has a ton of branches in the plot depending on the choices one makes - including ~40 or so different endings, and it turns out that is pretty much all the game needs to be enjoyable, and in the end it is fun that matters and I'm having fun.

Closing the Deal

As I'm sure the majority of folks who read this blog are already aware, the deal between Pokerstars and the US DOJ to acquire Full Tilt Poker is done.

We knew this outcome was likely for some time now, but to have everything confirmed and the drama over with is nice. That being said, not everything is necessarily positive. A few thoughts on how the deal will affect me personally and my concerns going forward:

• I should be getting my money back (along with all other "Rest of the World" players) within 97 days. I didn't have a lot of money on FTP like some people, but it is still a positive not to be stolen from.
• These events should hopefully help to kick start the redemption process for the reputation of online poker in the public eye. Frankly, I think this factor is probably underestimated significantly and is the biggest positive to come from the deal, unless you are Daniel Cates and have well into seven figures owed to you.
• US players are going to have to try to claim their money through the DOJ (from a pool of money paid to the DOJ by Pokerstars), rather than simply allowing Stars to pay US players their balances as they did after Black Friday on their own site. I believe this is partially because a repayment plan by Pokerstars could be in violation of UIGEA financial regulations. Still, it wouldn't surprise me at all if a lot of the money owed to US players ended up simply staying with the DOJ, or percentages were skimmed off the top as a "processing fee". I'm glad I'm not a US player.
• Pokerstars and the re-opened FTP will be using separate player pools, potentially further shrinking the player pools currently present on Pokerstars. With the state of the games currently, any further damage to the player pool at Full Ring cash would be devastating, but to be honest I'm not too worried about it. I don't think a significant number of recreational players moved from FTP to Stars after Black Friday, and for the few that did, who says they are going to move back? To be honest, I don't think it is out of the question that games could improve on Stars as a result of the FTP relaunch, as former FTP regs who prefer that site for whatever reason head back there.
• Pokerstars and FTP brands will be allowed to apply for US regulation at such a time as it is possible. This is obviously the biggest reason why Stars is coughing up the money to make all this happen. Unless the post-regulation US players are allowed back into international player pools (very unlikely) this won't help those of us elsewhere, but we can always hope.
• Finally, Pokerstars will extend what is already a near monopoly. I think this is by far the biggest negative to come from the deal. In recent history Stars has showed that it is more than willing to take from its regulars, and with virtually no significant competition why wouldn't they? Interestingly enough, it isn't completely unrealistic to speculate that the cash grab at the start of 2012 was to enable this deal. If that were in fact the case, the return of my FTP balance wouldn't come close to make up the decrease in my rakeback this year.

July Review - Return of the Doomswitch

Poker during the first week of July was legitimately pleasant, but the following three and a half weeks produced the longest stretch of run-awful I've had to endure since August of last year. I've had a couple two-week long stretches of nasty variance this year (the first two weeks of both February and March specifically), but this runbad has almost managed a full month in duration at this point which isn't fun to say the least, and resulted in a ~75k hand break-even stretch in the monthly graph. On the positive side, I ran well for most of last month and had a full month of godmode in November of 2011, so in the big picture I can't complain too much.

I did manage to put in a lot of volume this month, partially due to putting in a few extra hours due to the runbad. Mostly however, it was because I had 3-4 ZOOM tables going during all my sessions, and as a result ~70% of my volume was at ZOOM, which is pretty ridiculous. The Full Ring games outside of ZOOM were just awful on all but a handful of days in July, and I don't see this trend shifting any time soon. Hopefully the ZOOM tables stay similar to how they are now, else I don't think FR cash on Pokerstars will be worth playing period. I guess it is no coincidence that several FR grinders have been attempting switches to PLO of late.



The bottom line:
$6687.93 table winnings
+$1595.22 FPP value (28,486 VPPs * 3.5FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
-----------------------------------------------------------
$8283.15 USD total profit.

Not a number I'm happy with, but 2ptBB/100 isn't a full blown disaster. Hopefully after August I'll be back on pace for 300k VPPs on the year - if that's the case I'll hit the 200k VPP milestone at the end of the month.

Ramblings Round Two

I've been a little less doomswitched lately which has been a positive, though I wouldn't go as far to say things have turned around entirely. The games seemed like they might get a bit better during the weekdays last week, but come Friday they were as dead as I've ever seen them outside of ZOOM.

• Watched The Dark Knight Rises yesterday. Without spoiling anything plot wise, I enjoyed it and consider it a fitting ending to an exceptional trilogy, though I think it is the weakest of the three films. Though long in length, there just wasn't a whole lot of time spent on Batman, which was unfortunate.
  
  
• In acquiring Rick Nash, the New York Ranges shipped Tim Erixon off to Columbus, arguably the least desirable destination in the NHL. This after a little over a year ago Erixon refused to sign his entry level contract with the Calgary Flames, the team who drafted him, because he wanted to play for the Rangers like his father. Karma is a bitch, son.
  

Higher Than Before

I (once again) have failed to post over the past week and change, this time because I've been running like absolute death and hate poker.

This evening I sat at higher stakes than I ever have before in terms of big blind size, following a whale who had jumped from $600NL (typically my highest stake) to $1k NL CAP to $2k NL CAP, the latter of which breaks my record.

I was down around ~$280 in the 20 hands of $1k CAP and up ~$630 in the 40 hands of $2k CAP. Huge sample size, I know. There weren't any interesting hands, but I'll post the one where I win a short stack to fill some space! For what it's worth, the hand wasn't versus the whale, but a regular.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (3 handed)
BB ($460)
Button ($476.50)
Hero (SB) ($810)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10♥, A♥
1 fold, Hero bets $50, BB raises to $400, Hero calls $350

Flop: ($800) 9♠, A♦, 4♥ (2 players)

Turn: ($800) 6♣ (2 players)

River: ($800) J♠ (2 players)

Total pot: $800 | Rake: $1.50

Results:
Hero had 10♥, A♥ (one pair, Aces).
BB had 10♠, Q♠ (high card, Ace).
Outcome: Hero won $798.50


Boring indeed. The one thing I found interesting though is that it seems all CAP regs at these levels never ever 3b/fold - they just jam 20bbs over minraises. I'm by no means an expert, but I feel like is has to be suboptimal to be doing this rather than say having a 5.5bb/call and 5.5bb/fold range, or maybe even 5bb 3b size. Seems like they're just looking for simple rather than optimal, which is pretty shocking given the stakes, or perhaps a reflection on the regs that play CAP. Of course, it could very well be that I'm completely out to lunch on this. To be fair as well, I guess my sample size is only six or seven regs at this point, so perhaps I shouldn't be making sweeping generalizations.

Ramblings

It's been a week and a half since I have blogged, even though on at least three or four occasions I've considered posting. The topics at hand just didn't quite seem like enough to make a blog entry worthwhile on their own, but since I still haven't found anything that I want post, I'll lump them all together as some random thoughts.

• The Flames picked up Jiri Hudler and Dennis Wideman in free agency. They also re-signed Blake Comeau and Lee Stempniak. Wideman was the guy I was hoping we'd (realistically, in fantasy land I'd obviously love Parise/Suter) target in FA, so my wish was granted even though I think his contract is a slight overpayment. The Hudler signing I'm mildly happy with. Not thrilled with Comeau being back, but it's not the end of the world as long as he's being given fourth line minutes and nothing more.
• Two weeks into the season in which the "changing of the guard" at quarterback has taken place for the Stampeders, and the new guy (Drew Tate) has already blown out his shoulder. Maybe we shouldn't have traded Burris, but you can't always be handcuffed by the worst case scenario in sports or business.
• Ray Bitar surrendered to the DOJ, which suggests very heavily that something must be getting down on the FTP front. On the other hand, a semi-reputable source was tweeting recently that the Pokerstars bid to buy FTP and settle with the DOJ was a huge bluff to blow up the potential Tapie deal and simply keep FTP down and out. I guess we'll see in the coming months. I certainly haven't agreed with a lot of stuff Stars has done recently, but I really doubt they'd stoop that low.
• In the past three weeks I've written a ton of code working on the engine for my indie jRPG. I'm really happy with how well its coming. It's a bit strange, after I left my job at the end of 2008, I wrote virtually no code up until this project. That's a three and a half year break!

I've been experiencing some runbad at the tables lately, but nothing too serious. At the worst, the variance has motivated me to put in more volume than I was planning - it's been a while since that happened. I may play the Stampede Classic poker tournament on Monday, it's a $1000+$100 donkament held every year during Stampede. I'm certain the field will be lolsoft, but the structure sucks and every time I play a live donkament I'm reminded how boring live poker is.

June Review - Crushing the Hundred

In June I was fortunate enough to run well for the bulk of the month. The stretch of positive variance wasn't as extreme as that of November of last year, but it was very nice nonetheless. Much of the rungood came at 100NL ZOOM, and I thought for a moment I may have actually won more buyins at the 100-limits than I ever had before, though after a quick fact check it turns out I fell a tiny bit short of February 2010.

Though I'm certain ~4ptBB isn't sustainable at ZOOM, the games are curiously soft compared to what one might expect. I don't expect it to last as my guess is that many of the "fish" are SNG/MTT regulars taking shots at cash due to convenience of ZOOM, and once they figure out that they're losing players they will either stop playing or improve.

Thanks to ZOOM (where I played just over half my volume) and there being five weekends in the month June, I logged more hands this month than I have in a very long time. Not a lot more, but any positive on the volume side of things is nice. Unfortunately, my VPP count fell short of where I wanted it to be despite the volume, and I'm further behind pace to finish the year with the 300k milestone bonus than I hoped I would be this point. It's a bit sickening to think I'm only a few years removed from SNE and it's a strain to put in 300k VPPs.



Edit: Oops, it seems I accidentally cut the winrate column off the table above - as a whole it was 4.13ptBB/100. Hurrah for rungood.

The bottom line:
$13,660.00 table winnings
+$1513.18 FPP value (27,021 VPPs * 3.5FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$285 coaching
-----------------------------------
$15,458.18 USD total profit

In all, I'm really happy with the way June went. The state of the games is looking pretty grim, but I can hope that it is partially the effect of summer keeping recreational players outside and away from their computers.

Bad Metrics

Since the start of my successful SNE pursuit in 2009, and probably dating back into mid-2008, I've used VPP count as pretty much my only metric for "effort" at the tables. I really don't have a very large gap between playing my best and my worst relative to other people (this isn't necessarily a good thing), so I rarely feel like I have played particularly well or particularly poorly on any given day. Thus, what remains to feel good about is how much work got done, and VPP count was an inaccurate but seemingly meaningful way to measure that because they were worth something.

With the changes to the VIP system introduced this year combined with the state of SSFR, VPPs suck. I'm getting around half the VPPs per hour I was in 2009, probably even slightly less. Obviously, the VIP changes are costing me money. In total, I'll likely be out around 15-20k on the year compared to what I would have earned had 2011 VIP policy remained. What bugs me though isn't the money, but because VPP generation was a metric I've used for so long, it almost never feels like I'm putting in a respectable effort according to that VPP number, even when it feels like I'm working hard.

Obviously, I need a better metric. It isn't that I haven't adjusted by cutting tables and relying much more heavily on pure table winnings for profit - I have, and that started in 2011. But as a short term metric, profit is an even worse choice than VPP count for the obvious results orientated reasoning. All that leaves me with is hours, which is what I probably should have been using in the first place - but hours don't get turned into bonuses worth several thousand dollars, which causes a notable lack of appeal.

Anyway, I finished up a play through of another classic SNES RPG last week, that being Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals. It was as great as I remembered it, and isn't far off from the holy trinity of Square SNES RPGs in quality.



In fact, the experience was so much fun I've spent some time the last three days messing around in C# throwing together some bits of an RPG engine for the XNA (XBox/Windows Phone) framework. I'm actually really thrilled with my progress so far - maybe it just feels good to write code again - but who knows, perhaps I'll release an indie retro RPG for PC/XBox in a couple years.

Excuses

I had a lot of excuses for failing to put in my typical Friday volume. The first was that I needed to install a new motherboard into my girlfriend's computer, which had its old board blow up on Wednesday. Additionally, it was NHL draft day (the first round, anyway) and I was excited to see who the Flames would take at 14. More on this later in the post. Finally, when I finally did get down to business the games were utterly terrible for a Friday. They picked up immensely for about a two hour window, when all of a sudden a bunch of juicy 200NL, 400NL, and 600NL tables started up almost simultaneously. Unfortunately, after that burst of action the games returned to "I can't believe the games are this bad on a weekend" status.

The good news is, I made the most of the two hours of amazing midstakes games. It's been some time since I've had a day like today where 600NL profits carry the show.

The biggest pot at 600NL is below. The donkey in the hand was running 45/20 or so but in general just didn't like folding at all, though even given all that I was fairly surprised at his holding. He ended up leaving the table with a 3.2k stack, and put some really brutal beats on other regs.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (9 handed)
MP2 ($814.11)
Hero (MP3) ($606.86)
CO ($1252.09)
Button ($256.65)
SB ($2701.07)
BB ($240)
UTG ($859.98)
UTG+1 ($213)
MP1 ($465)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with K♦, A♦
UTG bets $15, UTG+1 calls $15, 2 folds, Hero raises to $72, 2 folds, SB calls $69, 3 folds

Flop: ($180) 9♦, 2♠, 7♦ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $120, SB calls $120

Turn: ($420) Q♦ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $138, SB calls $138

River: ($696) J♥ (2 players)
SB bets $240, Hero raises to $276.86 (All-In), SB calls $36.86

Total pot: $1249.72 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
SB had 10♣, 7♥ (one pair, sevens).
Hero had K♦, A♦ (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: Hero won $1246.92

I did win another pot of ~$1k with KK against a fish with JJ. In all, six hours well spent for a little over $2k profit but not nearly as many VPPs as I had hoped for today.

As for the NHL draft, it took almost two hours of TV time to reach the Flames at the 14th pick - which they then traded to the Sabres for the 21st pick and their second rounder in this year's draft. That meant another half hour of staying in front of the TV, but when the moment came Feaster and company did not disappoint from an entertaining standpoint, shocking everyone by going completely "off the board" and selecting Mark Jankowski. While the kid definitely has a lot of offensive upside, he's yet to play legit major-junior hockey. It may end up being a home run move, but at best it's an exceptionally high risk proposition. I guess we'll see how things have panned out in three to four years.

It's Good To Be Deep (With Quads/Top Set)

I mentioned earlier that a fair chunk of the "regulars" playing 100NL FR ZOOM are simply not very good compared to those who frequent the regular games of said stakes. Even better, due to the nature of ZOOM it is common to frequently become deep stacked with these players as well as the full blown fish. HHs with pot sizes of 580bbs and 360bbs below illustrate what I mean. In the former hand the opener was something like 15/2 over a decent sample which is why I chose not to 3b preflop. I probably should have backraise 4b/folded against the original 3bettor, as he was somewhat fishy with a ~3% 3b over ~400 hands. It turned out flatting worked great, but I still think it is a mistake.

PokerStars Zoom No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
Button ($116.16)
SB ($50)
BB ($224.41)
UTG ($261.02)
UTG+1 ($101.50)
MP1 ($96.21)
Hero (MP2) ($358.50)
MP3 ($412.73)
CO ($187.74)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K♣, K♥
UTG bets $2, 2 folds, Hero calls $2, MP3 raises to $10, 2 folds, SB calls $9.50, 1 fold, UTG calls $8, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($41) K♦, 9♦, 10♥ (4 players)
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $34, 1 fold, SB raises to $40 (All-In), UTG raises to $251.02 (All-In), Hero calls $217.02

Turn: ($583.04) 8♦ (3 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($583.04) 3♥ (3 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $583.04 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
SB had 9♠, 9♣ (three of a kind, nines).
UTG had K♠, A♦ (one pair, Kings).
Hero had K♣, K♥ (three of a kind, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won $580.24

PokerStars Zoom No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
Button ($86.03)
SB ($310.17)
BB ($100)
UTG ($107.23)
UTG+1 ($33)
Hero (MP1) ($253.62)
MP2 ($178.87)
MP3 ($86.26)
CO ($115.90)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with 6♥, 6♠
2 folds, Hero bets $3, MP2 calls $3, 4 folds, BB calls $2

Flop: ($9.50) 8♦, 6♣, Q♣ (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $7.25, MP2 calls $7.25, 1 fold

Turn: ($24) 6♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $18, MP2 calls $18

River: ($60) Q♠ (2 players)
Hero bets $225.37 (All-In), MP2 calls $150.62 (All-In)

Total pot: $361.24 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Hero had 6♥, 6♠ (four of a kind, sixes).
MP2 had J♦, Q♦ (full house, Queens over sixes).
Outcome: Hero won $358.44

... and as an addendum, a hand I played at ZOOM an hour after I posted the above. The villain is running 14/12/4 over a large sample and I have him tagged as one of the "special" ZOOM regs. I could get used to having +14 BI days at ZOOM.

PokerStars Zoom No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
Button ($257.77)
SB ($124.66)
BB ($39.57)
Hero (UTG) ($213.99)
UTG+1 ($60.30)
MP1 ($277.25)
MP2 ($100)
MP3 ($103.80)
CO ($38.60)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 10♠, 10♣
Hero bets $3, 5 folds, Button raises to $8, 2 folds, Hero calls $5

Flop: ($17.50) 4♣, Q♥, 10♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $7, Hero raises to $22, Button calls $15

Turn: ($61.50) 7♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $60, Button calls $60

River: ($181.50) 9♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $123.99 (All-In), Button calls $123.99

Total pot: $429.48 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Button had Q♣, A♥ (one pair, Queens).
Hero had 10♠, 10♣ (three of a kind, tens).
Outcome: Hero won $426.68

The State of SSFR on Pokerstars

I promised in my last post that I'd give my thoughts on how the full ring environment has evolved (maybe not the best word) over the last few years.

During 2008 and 2009, it was near trivial to be able to find 24 reasonably good tables at 100NL FR, and close to as many at 200NL and above. Since then the games have gotten tougher, Black Friday happened eliminating the US market, several other countries have segregated their players pools (France, Spain, etc), and Pokerstars introduced ZOOM Poker.

This combination of factors has shrunk the recreational player pool significantly, and thus made game selection far more of an art than it was previously. The good news is, it is still possible to make a good living playing nothing but full ring poker. To do so however, I feel that mixing stakes as well as regular and ZOOM games is very close to necessary. Surprisingly enough, the ZOOM pool at 100NL FR is actually quite soft at times, mostly because around half the "regular" players are not from the normal cash games, but instead must be coming from SNGs/MTTs or elsewhere, and in general these players have very little idea what they're doing, though unfortunately they'll probably improve over time, or stop playing cash when they figure out they are losing players.

One night in fact, the ZOOM player pool at 100NL FR was looking so amazingly soft I snapped a screenshot. The different shades of blue are players I have tagged as different degrees of fish. Yellow, red, and green are regulars. Keep in mind this was a rarity, and at times the pool is equally terrible.



People have been saying that full ring poker has been dying since I began this blog in 2008. While it may in fact be on the way out, its death has been so slow that I'm not worried. A dedicated player who keeps getting a little better every year can still crush, and while it may be a lot more difficult to put in volume than it used to, the changes to the Pokerstars VIP system have made it very clear that volume isn't the way to go anymore if you like money.

Because It's the Cup

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Kings, and Darryl Sutter in particular on winning the Stanley Cup. Due to the Sutter connection and the fact that they faced (and subsequently eliminated) the Canucks in the first round, I had been pulling for them since the playoffs began.

As a Flames fan the win is bittersweet, though on the sweeter end of the spectrum. Sutter took us to the Cup Finals in 2004, losing in 7 games. Although during his stint as coach/GM in Calgary he managed to resurrect the franchise, partially through the acquisition of Miikka Kiprusoff, he was responsible for several huge blunders in his later years which will haunt the team for years to come (see: Phaneuf deal, Stajan contract, Jokinen situation with NYR, etc).



He was definitely a better coach than GM, but regardless its awesome to see him hoist the cup.

I preordered two PSP games today - the system just won't die. The first of which was Gungnir, a tactical RPG in a series of handheld games which I've yet to try. I also put down coin for the Growlanser remake that is due out in July.



I've been meaning to post some thoughts on the state of the Full Ring games on Pokerstars, as well as ZOOM and how it has changed things. I know that kind of stuff will be a lot more interesting to the majority of this blog's readership, so stay tuned.

Typical

The games have been pretty lousy lately, but they had their moments today as there were a couple whales here and there. It didn't matter much though, as I had one of my standard 12BI below AIEV sessions, with a much worse gap in Sklansky bucks mostly due to hand #2 below. Anyway, three of the more memorable beats follow.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (9 handed)
Hero (MP2) ($325.04)
MP3 ($158)
CO ($491.11)
Button ($200.28)
SB ($498.11)
BB ($954.18)
UTG ($426.22)
UTG+1 ($200)
MP1 ($218.72)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K♣, K♦
UTG bets $8, 1 fold, MP1 calls $8, Hero raises to $32, 5 folds, UTG calls $24, 1 fold

Flop: ($75) 3♣, 2♣, 3♦ (2 players)
UTG bets $54.15, Hero raises to $116, UTG raises to $394.22 (All-In), Hero calls $177.04 (All-In)

Turn: ($661.08) 5♦ (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($661.08) 7♦ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $661.08 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
UTG had 6♦, A♦ (flush, Ace high).
Hero had K♣, K♦ (two pair, Kings and threes).
Outcome: UTG won $658.28



PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB
SB ($455.24)
Hero (BB) ($295.20)
UTG ($278.70)
Button ($200)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q♥, Q♣
1 fold, Button bets $6, SB raises to $10, Hero raises to $36, 1 fold, SB raises to $62, Hero raises to $192, SB calls $130

Flop: ($390) 2♦, 4♠, J♦ (2 players)
SB bets $108, Hero calls $103.20 (All-In)

Turn: ($596.40) 8♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($596.40) 9♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $596.40 | Rake: $1.50

Results:
SB had J♠, J♣ (three of a kind, Jacks).
Hero had Q♥, Q♣ (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: SB won $594.90



PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (9 handed)
MP3 ($377.20)
CO ($84.54)
Button ($444.42)
SB ($210.78)
Hero (BB) ($325.87)
UTG ($287.24)
UTG+1 ($200)
MP1 ($251.63)
MP2 ($200)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A♠, A♦
5 folds, CO calls $2, 2 folds, Hero bets $38, CO raises to $74, Hero raises to $110, CO calls $10.54 (All-In)

Flop: ($170.08) 3♦, 7♥, 5♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($170.08) 6♦ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($170.08) 9♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $170.08 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Hero had A♠, A♦ (one pair, Aces).
CO had 8♦, A♣ (straight, nine high).
Outcome: CO won $167.28

Since I hadn't posted in a while I figured I might as bust out a whine post. There really hasn't been a whole lot happening lately, aside from the Flames hiring Bob Hartley as thier new bench boss. My gut feeling toward him was originally negative, but after some research I'm filled with caution optimism.

May Review - Half and Half

As I spent half the month either in Hawaii or taking a little time off getting ready for the trip, May was a near even split between vacation and work. I ran pretty well during my first 40k or so hands of the month, but absolutely terrible for the latter 20k, resulting in what is probably my worst downer of the year so far, though I could be mistaken.

Though I managed a 3ptBB/100 winrate which falls into the "crushing" category, I ran terrible at 200NL and above while good at 100NL, which is a reciple for disappointment.

The bottom line:
$4781.55 table winnings
+$841.46 FPP value
+$185 coaching
--------------------------
$5808.01 USD total profit.

All in all, the month ended up being another very average (or perhaps a little below average) showing. I really haven't had a stretch of significant rungood since the end of 2011. Maybe it's coming, maybe it isn't. Regardless, I hope to get my grind on some in June and hopefully the five weekends do me some good.

Back At It

We're back from Hawaii and today was my first day back at the grind. Ran kind of poorly but whatever. The last few days in Hawaii were great. We attended my friend Carol's wedding which was very well done, the highlight of the night had the be the lighting of traditional Chinese paper lanters and launching them out to sea. I'm amazed that the Hilton at Waikoloa allowed this, as we had several lanterns make contact with trees/bushes/grass posing a pretty significant fire hazard (though the ones my girlfriend and I sent off were executed flawlessly and zoomed into the distant ocean).

The bus tour that missed us the first time around ended up being an informative trip that I enjoyed, though the twelve hour duration did make for a long day. On the last day of our stay we toured the OceanRider Seahorse Farm, and got to handle a seahorse which was lots of fun. It is truly amazing how small newborn seahorses are.

On the hockey side of things, I'm hoping the Kings manage to knock off the Devils in the Stanley Cup Final for Darryl Sutter's sake. He may not have been the best GM (though his trade to bring in Kiprusoff is one of the top three trades in Flames history for sure), but he was a hell of a coach and did a lot for the Flames franchise.

As we received the game for free, the girlfriend and I are giving Diablo 3 a run. It's pretty much what I expected so far, which is neither here nor there. It isn't particularly my style of game, but Blizzard quality makes it near impossible for it to not be enjoyable and worth the time.

Hawaii (Part 3)

On Thursday we were supposed to take our twelve hour bus tour around the island. We were up and ready at the crack of dawn, but the bus did not show up at our pickup point. Obviously we were not impressed, and rescheduled for Monday.

Yesterday we had a five hour snorkel trip booked with SeaQuest. We were fortunate to have a great Captain, and while the boat was on the small side the experience on the whole was exceptional. There were three snorkel stops, the first at "Place of Refuge", which to me seemed a lot like "Coral Gardens", a popular snorkel stop by boat in the Caymans. At this location we were lucky enough to see some moray eels, a bonefish, a small sea turtle (who after I followed him for a few minutes decided it was time for a nap and dove into some coral, wedging the front half of his body underneath), as well as a wide variety of the colourful fish we'd already seen around the island. The second location was the Captain's choice, and he took us to a sea cave which provided a unique experience, though the wildlife did not compare to the other two stops on the trip. Our final stop was at the Captain Cook Monument, which is apparently regarded as the best snorkelling amongst all the Hawaiian Islands. The fish density was exceptional and visibility was great, though we didn't see anything particularly out of the ordinary. One thing of interest at the location was that once you get more than maybe fifty yards from shore (where the water is between very shallow and moderately shallow for snorkelling) there is an immediate drop-off to an abyssal depth far beyond any hope of visibility. A shot of the monument itself above water is below. As before, we took some underwater pictures but as we were using a disposable film based camera there's nothing to show as of yet - hopefully they turn out.

Aside from the snorkelling, the trip had a bunch of other highlights. We ran into pods of spinner dolphins three times, the first of which was as we were pulling out of the harbour. They were fairly playful, and watching them jump and spin was entertaining. Later, we were shown several lava caves and educated as to how the island was formed with the visual aid of layers of volcanic rock as evidence. We were also fortunate enough to run into a rare fish-eating avian called a "Tropicbird" which was very impressive looking; it had long twin tail feathers which would drag behind it as it flew. There's a picture of one below:

In all, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. We have a wedding to attend tomorrow (which is why we're here in the first place), and then have a couple more days to enjoy before we head back. Along with the rescheduled bus tour we're going to take a tour of a seahorse farm which should be interesting.

Hawaii (Part 2)

Last night we went on the Manta Night Snorkel I talked about in the last post. It was a pretty unreal experience. The rays, with wingspans up to twelve feet or so would start below the gathered snorkelers (due to the light which was bringing plankton, their food, to the surface), and then loop up to near the surface in a 360 degree arc, and repeat. During their arcs, they rays would frequently come within an inch of the snorkelers. From up close you can see right into their maws, which extent for around a foot. We have a bunch of photos on film from a disposable underwater camera, though due to the lighting conditions there's no guarantee they'll turn out. Fingers crossed.

Today we tried snorkelling at Kahaluu Bay, which though a little crowded had a lot fish including a bunch I'd never seen before. There was also a small turtle sunning itself in the shallows, and getting a lot of attention from the tourists. One of my favourites in the fish department was the Moorish Idol, which seemed to often be found in pairs.

Tomorrow we're going on a twelve hour bus tour around pretty much the entire island, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the area around the Hilo side.

Hawaii (Part 1)

I arrived in Hawaii yesterday. I debated whether or not to blog on this vacation as there will be no poker related content at all, but since enough folks who know me personally read this stuff I figure I might as well. My girlfriend and I are here for a wedding, but made sure to plan out a ten day vacation to make the most of the trip to the Big Island.

The flight was long but good, and I actually managed to sleep some on the plane. We're staying on a golf course in Waikoloa, and I've been impressed with the service at our condo resort so far. Today we headed out to go snorkelling at a place called Anaehoomalu Bay. It's the first time I've been snorkelling in seven years, and while it was a little choppy with mediocre visibility, we did find some nice coral. Some fish I recognized from my many years visiting the Caribbean, but we found at least three or four new varieties. The highlight of the excursion was drifting near a three and a half foot long sea turtle, who I imagine must have been upwards of sixty pounds. His shell looked ancient, and he was entirely unconcerned that he was well within our reach.

We booked three activities for the week. Tomorrow we're doing a night snorkel with Manta Rays. I've spent a lot of time snorkelling with Southern Rays in the Caymans, but never interacted with Mantas. I’m looking forward to it.

Later in the week we'll be doing a full day bus tour around the island which allegedly contains 11 of the 13 climate zones earth has to offer. So far we haven't seen much beyond beach and fields of volcanic rock that stretch for miles. Finally we'll be doing a daytime snorkel tour with three stops, including one at the Captain Cook monument which is famous for its reef life. I think we'll also make our way out to a seahorse farm tour which should be interesting.

Staggering

Earlier in the week Pokerstars had a server restart, and upon the server being back online I was unable to login. I would enter my username and password successfully, get prompted for my RSA token and enter that correctly - and then nothing would happen. The issue corrected itself in about an hour and a half, and it was confirmed by support (hours later) to be a server side problem. During that time, I was troubleshooting on my end to make sure nothing was amiss. The last thing I looked at was my notes.xml file, containing all the player notes and color coding I have generated on Stars while grinding.

Nothing was wrong with the file (years ago there was bug in the Stars client that would corrupt one's notes.txt, which I why I was suspicious), but what I was shocked to discover was simply how many players I have color coded since the functionality was implemented (a little over a year ago I think, maybe as much as 18 months). The number was over 54,000. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of these players were of the recreational variety, as the regular pool plays many tables at a time and doesn't change all that much. I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised, but to think just how many players must deposit to support the poker ecosystem at small stakes is nothing short of staggering. Granted, a lot of recreational players have to throw $500 on Stars for me to end up taking six figures a year out of the economy, especially when so much of that money goes to rake. That being said, it just doesn't feel like I'm color coding all that many players any more - though after checking the file again it seems over the last two days I've added ~200 or so entries. Even though game quality may not be great, it's tough to argue that the advertising team at Pokerstars isn't attracting a lot of new recreational players.

April Review - ZOOM Joins the Mix

I was originally planning on grinding some today, but as I've come down with a cold I'm instead going to call it a month.

April was the first month where I put in any volume into ZOOM poker. Though the fish play a ton tighter at ZOOM and it is next to impossible to use any game flow information to help with decision making, I found the ZOOM games soft enough to be worthwhile. This was mostly due to what I assume were a mix of SNG/MTT/6max regs playing 100NL ZOOM FR, and playing quite terribly against the ranges of full ring regulars postflop. I'm not sure how long this will continue to be the case, as I assume most of those "regulars" will either get better or stop playing when they release they are unprofitable.

Unfortunately I ran quite awful overall, ending ~$3k below AIEV and eating some horrendous beats at midstakes, a few of which weren't reflected in the AIEV total. I had strong results and rungood at 200NL to compensate a little, and oddly enough my winrate as 100NL was higher at ZOOM than at the regular games (excluding pot limit and Euro games, which I murdered for something like 12ptBB over a paltry 10k hands), though I'm positive that is simply variance. It is encouraging that when running bad I can still pull off a 2.5ptBB/100 winrate.

The bottom line:
$8018.08 table winnings
+$1499.68 FPP value (26780 VPPs * 3.5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$400 stellar bonuses
+$250 despoit bonus
------------------------------
$10,167.76 USD total profit.

Due to having one or two ZOOM tables open much of the time, my hands per hour jumped around 25-30% from previous months. This is a good thing, though I did see a few bad habits resurface when I was adjusting to the higher volume of decisions. Hopefully I can correct them while maintaining the additional volume in the future.

Overall, I'm a little disappointed with the way things went. In reality, if you adjust for AIEV or allow me to fade runners at midstakes once or twice the month would have been somewhere between average to downright solid. Five figures can never be that poor a showing, but I'd really appreciate a stretch of rungood in the near future.

Blog Reflections

I started this blog more than four years ago after I decided I was going to take online poker seriously and deposited $500 on Pokerstars to serve as a $25NL bankroll.

Since that time, this blog has:

• Received 145k page views since August of 2009. It obviously had a non-trivial amount before that as well, but it was at that time I began using google analytics.
• Received ~28% of its traffic from the US, ~27% from Canada, ~11% from the UK, ~6% from Germany, with Australia, the Netherlands, France, New Zealand, and Estonia each clocking in near 2%. Since Black Friday the traffic breakdown has changed drastically, with US visits dropping significantly.
• Had 380 posts including this one.
• Never strayed from a very basic and somewhat boring blogger theme, which is kind of odd given that I'm a Software Engineer and my last job was maintaining a fairly cutting edge web application.
• Had multiple offers for advertising, none of which seemed appealing to me. This included one offer to become a "team pro" for a smaller skin on a network which doesn't allow Canadian players. They obviously did their homework.
• Chronicled my journey turning five hundred dollars into more than half a million, through a lot of hard work.

To be honest, I'm not entirely certain why I feel like I should continue blogging. I do mildly enjoy writing, so I suppose it is mostly a self indulgence on my part. I certainly get more traffic than I would have dreamed of in February 2008.

VIP Dinner: Round 2

This evening was the second Pokerstars VIP Dinner I've attended, the first being during October of last year. There were a couple familiar faces, though the majority of the attendees were there for the first time, and turnout was at least double that of the previous event.

With so much happening in the Pokerstars universe since the start of the year, including a bombshell rumor dropping earlier in the day about Pokerstars buying FTP, we had a great deal to talk about. The meal was excellent, and I had a thoroughly enjoyable night. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the decisions made by Pokerstars in the recent past, it really does seem as though they desire feedback and legitimately care what their players think.

I'll save comment on the potential FTP purchase until the deal has been verified.

Free Money

In the last few years Stars has released a reload bonus in spring, usually just in time for the SCOOP. This year the amount is 50% up to $250, which is the largest reload bonus I can remember. I'm pleased with the figure, though it is a drop in the bucket compared to the money going the other direction due to the VIP changes from the beginning of the year. I wonder if this means the changes combined with the introduction of ZOOM have resulted in significantly increased profits. I know that promotion dollars are not necessarily the result of strong financials, but they certainly could be.

I'd also like the state for the record that the officiating of the NHL has been utterly terrible for the latter half of the season and now the playoffs. This is not directed at one particular series, or an excuse for the failures of the Calgary Flames. It has just been painful to watch them get it wrong so often. The NHL quite frequently makes the other major professional sports leagues in North America look exceptionally well run by comparison, which is just embarrassing given how great a game hockey is.

I'll be attending a Pokerstars hosted dinner for the second time tomorrow at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Looking forward to it as I had a good time at the first one and I love the food there. I expect I'll see a few of the same regulars from the first dinner as well. There certainly is a lot more to talk about this time with the VIP changes, ZOOM introduction, and PTR lawsuit.

Sweat Over

After getting about as close as possible to the worst case scenario last year during the NHL postseason before being rescued by the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, this year my sweat ended after only five games. Darryl Sutter and the LA Kings have my gratitude.

Cease and Desist

A couple days ago Pokerstars issued a Cease and Desist letter to PTR, and as of today PTR has complied by blocking access to player profiles of Pokerstars players.

What interests me most about the whole situation is that PTR has been on the radar and something Pokerstars has claimed they "are working hard to stop" for over three years now. I'm under the impression that having your lawyers issue a Cease and Desist order is one of the first things that comes to mind when a company wants to stop another organization from doing something. Assuming this is in fact the case, one of the following must be true:

* Pokerstars were incompetent and up until now it didn't dawn on them that a Cease and Desist order might be a good course of action, or have a chance of being complied with.
* Pokerstars lied to us repeatedly and actually were not concerned with the presence of PTR, and not working to stop it. That is, up until something changed recently, and they decided to take the fairly trivial action necessary to do something about it.

While over the past year or so I think a lot of the decision making at Pokerstars has been highly suspect, three years ago I would have said the opposite. Because of this, I highly doubt that incompetence has anything to do with things. That simply leaves intent, and begs the question: why now? PTR clearly has its pros and cons for the poker community, but if Stars was content with leaving it be for three years, what changed? The only thing that jumps out me in particular is that the Pokerstars Security Department will no longer have its work being double checked by the public as easily for cases of collusion, botting, and such. Hopefully that has nothing to do with it.

Overdue Maintenance

In attempting to update HEM1 to have a working ZOOM import/HUD, I was forced to create a new database as my old one was so large the update process would time out after about 45 minutes of trying. The database I was using previously was entitled "2009 SNE Chase", and actually contained my last few months of hands from 2008 as well. The new database was long overdue, simply for performance reasons.

I put in a fair number of ZOOM hands today as the regular games were excessively dead for the first couple hours of my play. The fish definitely play tighter and the regulars seems to be far more spaz prone than normal. In all the day went pretty well.

Even though I bought the game in 2011, I didn't get around to playing Catherine until recently. I finished it the other day and it was as advertised: a unique, very adult themed puzzle game. The game builds up a ton of suspense through the first 80% of its story, but I was really disappointed when the twist arrived. Without spoiling too much let me say that what bugged me was that despite the creators being best known for their work on the Persona series and other Shin Megami Tensei games (which are fantastic in their own right), Catherine's world and plot seemed to be something quite unique - until the twist hit. In terms of the style of the game and the puzzle gameplay, I can sum it up pretty well with just one quote from the game's protagonist, Vincent Brooks: "I'm going to climb the shit out of these fucking blocks!"



On a related note, I noticed that three of the games I've recently played had the same voice actress (Laura Bailey) doing one of their leading ladies: Serah in FFXIII-2, Cheria in Tales of Graces, and Catherine in (you guessed it) Catherine. While she does an admirable job, a little bit of variety would be nice. Looking back over her career credits, Laura has actually quite possibly contributed to half the RPGs I've played since 2005 or so which have contained voice acting. That's a lot of work. Her range isn't that bad, as while some characters sound pretty close to identical (Rise in Persona 4 and Catherine, for instance), I would have never guessed that Raspberyl of Disgaea 3 and Jaina Proudmoore in WoW were voiced by the same person.

Rebounding

It really sucks to start out a session in hyper-runbad mode, which was what happened today. Pulling off the comeback does feel really good, maybe even better than booking a much larger win in a more traditional fashion.



At least I managed to grind out over 2k VPPs, which these days is a lot for me. Sick how during my SNE chase a super high volume day would result in ~5-6k VPPs.

March Review - Deja Vu

March as a month was a lot like February, aside from that it had a handful more days and an additional weekend. As in February, I ran lousy at the start of the month but well during the latter half.

I ran exceptionally well at 600NL, though equally poorly at 400NL. Better than the other way around, I guess. I also had very strong results at 200NL, and a down right solid winrate overall.

Where I fell short simply came down to volume. In a month with 31 days including five Fridays and Saturdays, I only managed 99k hands. Much of the time volume fail is simply a work ethic problem, but I ended up putting in ~29 hours a week in March, so I wasn't terrible in this regard, though I certainly could try to work more. The problem was simply that the games were really bad for the first three weeks of the month, though during the final week we did see some light at the end of the tunnel. Zoom Poker splitting the player base doesn't help of course.



The bottom line:
$10,534.41 table winnings
+$1418.31 FPP value (25327 VPPs * 3.5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$200 stellar bonuses
----------------------------------------------------------
$12,152.72 USD total profit.

Happy with the winrate this month, but not the volume. My results so far this year have been very consistent so far on a month to month basis. I do really hope the online poker industry gets shaken up with some good old fashioned competition sooner rather than later, as I'm sure it would help my bottom line and it is frustrating that Stars is getting away with treating their regulars the way they have in 2012.

He Gave Him the Ol' Nine of Hearts

When watching hockey or hockey highlights, you may once in a while hear a broadcaster refer to a player being burned by a deke as being "given the old nine of hearts".

I couldn't help but think of this saying when I binked a nut flush on the river at 600NL a couple days back in a hand that has got to be one of my top 20 largest pots won. The hand kind of plays itself as both players are fish with the deeper one being a legit whale. It really sucks when the shorter one jams the turn, but I still think given the prices offered there isn't a better way to play the hand, though I suppose you could make a case for raising the flop and getting it in.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (9 handed)
CO ($240)
Button ($600)
SB ($386.08)
BB ($609)
UTG ($684.40)
UTG+1 ($600)
MP1 ($537.82)
Hero (MP2) ($723.20)
MP3 ($411.55)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Q♥, A♥
2 folds, MP1 bets $24, Hero calls $24, 3 folds, SB calls $21, BB calls $18

Flop: ($96) 5♥, 6♣, 10♥ (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, MP1 bets $84, Hero calls $84, SB calls $84, 1 fold

Turn: ($348) 7♣ (3 players)
SB checks, MP1 bets $84, Hero calls $84, SB raises to $278.08 (All-In), MP1 calls $194.08, Hero calls $194.08

River: ($1182.24) 9♥ (3 players, 1 all-in)
MP1 bets $151.74 (All-In), Hero calls $151.74

Total pot: $1485.72 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
SB had 9♦, 8♠ (straight, ten high).
MP1 had 8♣, 8♥ (straight, ten high).
Hero had Q♥, A♥ (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: Hero won $1482.92


Anyway, after googling for information it turns out the phrase is derived from a card game called "Euchre" in which you are basically screwed if you are dealt the 9 of hearts when spades are trump (which I believe is half the time). Unsurprisingly I was quite thrilled when I was given the nine of hearts, snapping the river so fast one of the regs at the table took notice and MSNed me about my call speed.

Sharing Outs

I found the hand below pretty amusing, especially since I somehow held with my 69% preflop equity 4 ways:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
MP3 ($43)
CO ($44.07)
Button ($60.37)
SB ($100)
BB ($38.30)
UTG ($100)
UTG+1 ($108.89)
Hero (MP1) ($100)
MP2 ($100)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with Q♣, Q♠
UTG bets $2.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $2.50, 3 folds, Button raises to $5, 1 fold, BB calls $4, UTG raises to $100 (All-In), Hero calls $97.50 (All-In), Button calls $55.37 (All-In), BB calls $33.30 (All-In)

Flop: ($299.17) 5♠, J♦, 6♣ (4 players, 4 all-in)

Turn: ($299.17) 9♦ (4 players, 4 all-in)

River: ($299.17) 2♣ (4 players, 4 all-in)

Total pot: $299.17 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Button mucked K♥, A♣ (high card, Ace).
BB mucked A♦, Q♥ (high card, Ace).
UTG had K♦, A♥ (high card, Ace).
Hero had Q♣, Q♠ (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: Hero won $296.37


In general, variance has been a bitch this month. I did river the nuts in a $1.4k 600NL pot today which certainly helped however. After losing in Dallas today it is more or less game over for the Flames, which is unfortunate. It seems it'll be another year of pulling for whatever team is currently playing the Canucks until they are eliminated. At least Baertschi is active in the WHL playoffs - go Winterhawks!

I'm finished with Tales of Graces f, including the bulk of the bonus content added. Very well done game, with an exceptionally well executed version of the Tales battle system. Finally Namco got it right, it only took what, like twelve tries? Anyway, enjoyable game with the combat being the strongest point.

Svensational

Given his heroics since his emergency call-up, the kid deserves a blog post all to himself. I was lucky enough to be at the game tonight vs Phoenix (huge game, big big win) to watch Baertschi score 17 seconds in, his third in three games. While the city is obviously excited due to the playoff chase and five game win streak, I think I might be even more excited for next season simply to see what Baertschi can do over an 82 game schedule. It's a shame tomorrow's game will likely be his last with the big club this year, as it would be dumb for us to burn a year on his ELC (entry level contract) and even if we wanted to we couldn't, as the Flames are already at the 50 contract limit.

Not A Miss-Click

Poker in March has been downright soulcrushing. Up until today I had only booked one decent session. Today was a huge improvement as I picked up $2k, making my month less of a disaster thus far. A large chunk of the money came from me sucking out in two big AIPFs - both with regs showing up with AA and a whale all in as well (the first I had QQ > AA > QJ, the second KK > AA > AK).

I made a mental note a few days ago to post a hand, and I didn't get around to it until now. My flop fold is not a miss-click, though it may look like one. Frankly I think it should be reasonably standard though not many people would ever actually do it.

Of the players seeing the flop, one is a big donk while the others are all regs, including the guy donkbetting obviously. The villain who showed up with 96o I have running 13/11 over a good sample, just random spew on his part preflop I guess.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (8 handed)
UTG+1 ($273.42)
MP1 ($274.25)
MP2 ($169.38)
CO ($210.28)
Button ($477.56)
SB ($271.67)
BB ($200)
Hero (UTG) ($221.92)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 5♦, 5♥
Hero bets $6, 1 fold, MP1 calls $6, MP2 calls $6, 2 folds, SB calls $5, BB calls $4

Flop: ($30) 5♣, 8♠, 7♣ (5 players)
SB checks, BB bets $21.48, Hero folds, 2 folds, SB raises to $58, BB raises to $194 (All-In), SB calls $136

Turn: ($418) 2♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($418) A♦ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $418 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
SB had 6♥, 9♣ (straight, nine high).
BB mucked 8♣, 8♥ (three of a kind, eights).
Outcome: SB won $415.20

The Flames are teasing the fans again with a couple wins despite us icing a full line from the farm team in Abbotsford and now even a Junior call up from Portland (go Baertschi!) due to a ridiculous number of injuries to our forwards. At least things are interesting.

Devil Survivor 2 is great, mostly because it's nearly identical to the original. Tales of the Abyss, which I finished a few days ago, felt pretty average. Certainly not a bad game, just a middle of the road one that had a lot of unused potential. The same can be said of a lot of the "Tales of..." games I suppose. On that note, Tales of Graces F comes out for the PS3 on Tuesday, and the best part will be getting back on a console as the previous two games I've been enjoying have been on handhelds.