Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Warning: Contains Poker-Like Substance

Just barely. This is one of those "well what am I going to do with the next 45 minutes" posts where I trick myself into believing that writing my blog actually counts as being productive. LOL, that really shouldn't be the case, but whatever, my poker synapses are shot for the day and I really shouldn't be playing anymore, so at least in that sense writing these words is productive. In no particular order....

It really is hard not to check your results. Like I got a seat at a table and saw my account balance and it was "whoa where'd the money go" low and then all of a sudden I was loading up my graph for the day and just wow it's kinda tough. And now I feel like shit because I lost and well yeah I guess I just really need to try harder.

I'm finding it difficult to stay productive because I don't always have ready access to a bunch of games. I'm being pretty selective where I'll sit, and it means I'm ending up spending a good deal of time 3 or 4 tabling, which really isn't enough. Like I said at the beginning, for this to be even close to a valid option for me I have to have no problem logging 3000 or so hands a day. So far in 9 attempts I've only cracked that number once (my first day). Like today I spent almost no time studying, didn't watch a video, and still only played 2200 hands. Where did all the time go? I just don't know....I've been awake for almost 13 hours and might have watched 20 minutes of TV....I guess I need to be more diligent keeping on task, but like I said it's tough.

I'm considering putting in some play on other sites, if for no reason than to eliminate the problem of not playing at max capacity.

Since I looked at my results I know the following things to be true. I have played almost 19000 hands. I have destroyed the 2/4 games for over 2 big bets per 100 over about 8000 hands, and have lost .5 big bets per 100 in the 3/6 games over 9000 hands. I have played 1350 hands of 5/T and of course gotten obliterated , and actually played a few hundred hands of 1/2 (both the regular games and rush poker just for fun) and crushed it. Overall I have won .57 bets per 100, meaning that I'm up something like 100 big bets. Unfortunately since, as usual, I have run well in small games and poorly in big games, I am basically break even over the 9 days before rakeback. And actually if I put in a filter for 7 handed or more things get even worse (with me being $300 to the red despite winning .2 bets per 100 overall), so apparently short-handed play has actually been going well.

Ah rakeback....I have paid almost $2000 in rake over the 19000 hands, which in theory means I should be getting back something like 27% of that. Full tilt now uses the "weighted contributed" method to calculate how much you get instead of the "dealt" method, which I'm sure is costing me a ton of money but since I don't really have numbers from before I don't really know. For those interested....the dealt method is simply that. If 9 people are dealt in and $1 is raked, each is given 11.11 cents in raked credit towards their manager account. The contributed method is based on how much you put in the pot. If the final pot is $100 and the rake is $3, that $3 credit is divided in proportion to who put the money into the pot. If I put in $30, I get 30% of the $3 credit. If you just put in your $2 blind, you get 2% of the credit. It's more "fair" but people are pissed off yada yada yada. I noticed this before, but the 3/6 games are raked harder in big bets per 100 than the 2/4 games (that is to say that there is more than 50% more rake even though the game is only 50% bigger). My numbers show this to be clearly the case, and are even skewed towards paying MORE rake at 2/4 because I have actually won (and therefore likely won more pots) while at 3/6 after rake I am underwater. Anyway, it's kind of scary to think about, but basically I have broke even over the entire 19000 hands, but full tilt has made almost $2000 off me. Aiyah. Come to think of it I don't know how HEM is calculating these numbers as they aren't in whole dollar increments....which is odd. I'll try and figure that out later.

I guess that's really about it. Basically I'm getting crushed at 3/6 and 5/T and am not really sure why. Today it was actually comical the beats I was taking....several times I paid off knowing exactly what hand I was going to see, to the point that I began to think maybe I was playing badly. Then of course I'd pick off a few three street bluffs and remember where I was and that folding really wasn't as good of a plan as it is in my live games. Anyway, I guess that's about all for now. I was planning to write about the Steelers and fantasy football and some other interesting things, but my fingers are tired.

2 comments:

that_pope said...

Yes, games are rarer on FTP, so I do think it would be worthwhile to get a portion of your bankroll on Stars. The problem is that getting rewards that match Ironman + 27% rakeback requires a lot of play on Stars, so if there are no games on FTP, you are getting less 'rakeback' by being a low volume player on Stars, but if you are beating the game after rake, it is still positive money flow.

That being said, after optaining blackcard status, the more you play, the lower your 'rakeback percentage' is at FTP. So the optimal way to play is to play up to 500 ppd on FTP, and then play the rest of the day on Stars, maximizing both rewards systems.

jesse8888 said...

That's exactly along the lines I'm thinking, Patrick, except for one thing. I think the optimal rakeback percentage happens if you just do the absolute minimum to make Iron on FTP. Even putting in the extra work to get a black card likely lowers your actual percentage.