THE OFFICIAL SITE OF PROFESSIONAL POKER PLAYER SPARTA45

There are two kinds of regs who have really been getting on my nerves recently.  The one kind of reg is the one who gives absolutely zero consideration to table selecting.  Table selecting is really crucial even for a top player.   Some people really have too big of an ego and just think that other good players don't take away their profitability because they are just so great that it doesn't matter.  That's just plain illogical.    That would be like Florida's college football team believing they can beat Alabama just as often as they can beat some division II school.  I mean, it's great to be confident, but you have to be realistic too.   The better your opponents play, the less likely you are to make money.  PERIOD.  It doesn't matter how great you are at poker, you will make less.  I know I have referenced this in the past, but if you haven't read it, I highly recommend jhubs post on table selection.

http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/#asset-jhub3000-84368

The other kind of reg who has been getting on my nerves is the guy who is breakeven or is just very slightly above breakeven, yet they  register for every single sng that they possibly can.  I really don't understand that kind of logic.  I know they just want the rakeback or fpp's, but when they refuse to table select and make the games even tougher by continuing to sit down even when there are already two very good players in a sng (or more than 2), they probably aren't even profitable at all for that sng.  They probably have a negative expectation.  So what is the point of only caring about rakeback when you are going to lose money by playing in a sng?   And in the meantime, they are making the games tougher for everybody else.    It just makes no sense to register for a sng for the rakeback when you are likely going to lose money because it's such a tough table.

In other news, I'm planning on going to Foxwoods in early November to play in cash games.   I'm going with my cousin again.  We went to Atlantic City a couple months ago and I did pretty well in the cash games.  Obviously, variance is going to be pretty huge on any trip, but I was probably able to log about 30 or 35 hours of poker.  It will be nice to play some "different" poker for awhile other than my 6 max sngs.   The 6 max tables have been very very tough recently.  Not only that, but I think I've been running just horrible.  I've been a professional poker player for 16 months and I think this is the longest streak of bad luck I have ever had.  Not necessarily the worst luck I've ever had, (although it's close),  just the longest streak of bad luck..  It's just amazing.  Every few days I analyze everything I'm doing, I look at my hands, etc and I'm just absolutely floored by not only my total inability to win a hand when I am the favorite, but how long this has been going on.  For at least two months now I have just been running absolutely horrible.   I'm sure the fact that the games are tougher then they have ever been plays into this as well to some degree, but it still seems like just insanely bad luck to me.  I've been doing this long enough where I have a lot of confidence that things will eventually turn, but I'm just waiting for it to actually turn.   This is definitely the most frustrated I have ever been with my job.

Shayna and I went to the Dr. the other day and she got an ultrasound.  One nice thing about having twins is that they have to monitor you a lot, so you get an ultrasound like every couple weeks.  So now that she's 19 weeks pregnant, we were able to finally see the sex of the babies.  We're having a boy and a girl.  It's pretty great.    So she's 50% done.  We have another 19 weeks to go, although there is a decent chance they could come early since they are twins. 

I wanted to post about bankroll management because I think it's generally misunderstood and/or poorly practiced.    Also, I think it's a topic I understand pretty well.

First of all, I'm going to focus this post on bankroll management for people who are or who wish to play poker professionally.   The reason is because if you are just playing poker for fun, entertainment, etc, then using up your bankroll is not the end of the world.  You can always put some more money online from your regular income.....or just sometime in the future when you have more money to play with.  But you're not relying on poker income to support yourself.  Therefore, these opinions and assumptions I'm going to express are specifically for people who play poker (or wish to play poker) as their main source of income.

Now let's say that John Doe decides he wants to be a professional poker player.  So he asks a professional poker player "How big of a bankroll do I need to play poker professionally" (for the sake of argument, let's ignore the fact that if John is seriously considering making this move, that he should already know how much money he needs for a bankroll).  So the pro tells him...."well, you should probably have at least 100 or 150 buy ins.  So John says to himself...ok, well, I want to play $100 sngs and the pro told me that I need 100 or 150 buy-ins....so I'll be safe and aim for 150.  So once John gets $15,000 ($100 X 150 buy-ins), he decides to quit his job and go pro.....it would not surprise me one bit if John eventually has to get a "regular" job.  And it could very well have nothing at all to do with John not having sufficient poker skills.  In fact, I would say that most people who eventually have to return to "regular" work, don't have to return because of a deficiency in their poker skills.....but rather because of a deficiency in their bankroll management.  So what was wrong with the pro's advice that he gave to John?  Is 150 buy-ins not enough to withstand the variance of sngs?  The problem with the advice is that there are two sides to bankroll management.  There is the variance itself (making sure you have enough money to withstand short term bad luck) which our pro covered just fine...but there is also the personal finance part of bankroll management (which our pro didn't cover at all).

So let me give you an example.   Our friend John has $15K and quits his regular job and goes pro.    His expenses for his house, car, insurance, etc are $2,500 a month.  For the first 3 months, John makes $5K a month and after he pays his taxes, he has $3,750 left each month to pay bills.  So he's actually making an EXTRA $1,250 a month and has already put $3,750 ($1,250 X 3 months) into his savings account.  Being a professional poker player is pretty great he thinks to himself.  I'm never going back to a 9 to 5 job again.  In his 4th month, John experiences some bad luck.  He drops 5K (only 50 buy-ins, so a fairly small run of bad luck) in just the first two weeks of the month.  No problem he says to himself....that's why I have 15K in my bankroll, so I can handle variance like this.  While this is happening, he starts hearing a drip sound.  He realizes that his roof is leaking water.  He calls a roofer and he learns his roof is in fairly bad shape.  In fact, the roofer tells him that he needs to replace the entire roof.  He can patch it up, but the patch won't hold long.  He really needs to replace the whole thing.  The roofer tells him it will cost $10,000 to replace his roof.  Problem is John only has $3,750 in his savings account.  So he takes the other $6,250 out of his poker account and replaces his roof.  Now John is out of savings and his online account is down to $3,750 or 37.5 buy-ins (far less than the 100-150 buy-ins he needs).   John runs bad for the next few days (and he probably didn't play his best since he was so nervous about losing the last of his bankroll) and before he knows it he loses the last of his money and he quits poker and goes back to his old job.

So what did John do wrong?  His problem was that even though he practiced decent bankroll management for his actual online account, his personal finances were in no position to be playing poker for a living.  "But Sparta, I live in an apartment....I don't even own a house.  I don't need to worry about a new roof".  That might be true, but there are hundreds and hundreds of unexpected expenses that may come up....and the better your personal finances are, the better chance you have of riding out that bad beat.  You could get sick, you could break your hand, you could need to replace a roof, you could have money stolen from you, you might get married and have to pay for a huge wedding, there are literally almost an endless amount of expenses that could come up in your life (and possibly derail your poker aspirations).

So in my opinion, to practice good bankroll management not only does a person need probably at least 200 (or more) buy-ins if they want to play poker for a living, but they also need at least 12 months of expenses to cover emergencies that may come up.  Furthermore, the lower your debt is, the less bills you will have, and the less money you will need to make every month to keep yourself afloat.  The more debt you can remove from your life, the better chance you have of being able to cover your expenses when that time comes where not only are you running bad, but you're running bad in life also. 

I haven't done any official studies on this, but just from looking around, it seems to me that more people don't succeed at poker not because of inferior poker skills, but because of inferior bankroll management.  If you're considering going pro (or even if you are already playing professionally), I highly recommend not only having enough money to handle variance, but have enough money to handle unexpected emergencies as well.    Only when you do BOTH of these things are you practicing good bankroll management.

I have decided to restart my blog.   Let me try to update you on the past 8 months or so....

Pokerwise:  Obviously, things have been tougher in terms of poker in 09.  The games have become a lot tougher (I also think I've been running bad).  But I'm still chugging along and things have still been good enough where I have no intention of going back to accounting.

Personally:  Personally, things have been very good.  Not only is my wife 15 weeks pregnant, but we are having twins as well.  So that is both very exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. 

I'm going out to play basketball right now.  But I wanted to make a relatively quick post just to let everyone know that my blog is back and I will be updating it periodically.

I've decided to make this my last blog post.  I originally decided to start the blog because 1) it seemed like every professional poker player had a blog and 2)  it was a way for me to market myself

However, after 6 months of being in my new profession, I feel like I've sort of settled in and it can be very exhausting keeping everyone apprised of whatever is happening at that moment.   I'm also a fairly private person, and I think I would just prefer to stop telling the world every detail about how my career is going;  good, bad, or otherwise.

I know a lot of people enjoy reading my blog and I appreciate everyone who has taken such an avid interest in how I am doing and what I have to say.  I'm going to leave all my old posts up, I'm just not going to add any new ones.  So if anyone wants to contact me, they can always still contact me through the blog.  Thanks again for taking an interest in me and GL at the tables.

Sparta45

2008 is now over and it's time to look back and see how things went.  I think that by any reasonable measure 2008 was a huge success for me.  And if you think about my mindset this time last year, the progress is pretty amazing.   These are some of the key differences between right now and this time last year.

YTD 2008                                           YTD 2007

-$137,678 profit                                 - $11,000 profit
-6 & 7 tabling $78 and $119 sng's           -2 tabling $39 sng's
-Full time pro                                     -Accountant and part time grinder

At the beginning of this year, I was employed full time as an accountant.  My goal was to make around $20,000 for the year by playing in my free time.  In reality though, I really did not even think I would hit that goal.  I thought I would make around $15,000.  But in February of this year, I got better at playing more tables at once and pretty soon was playing 4 tables at once.  I also began to mix in some 78's which was double the stakes I was used to.  By March I was playing 6 tables comfortably and was only playing $78's and above.  Before I knew it, I had already made more money than in all of 2007.  In May I made more money playing poker in my free time than full time at my accounting job.  I knew at the time that it wasn't because I had a "lucky" month or because of positive variance.  I knew it was because of these concrete changes I had made....such as moving up in stakes and adding tables.  I knew these were sustainable changes.  By June I had decided to quit my job and play poker full time.  July was my fist month as a full time professional poker player. 

I also did very well on the sharkscope leaderboards this year.  For those of you who don't know sharkscope.com tracks all sng players across multiple poker sites and ranks them in terms of their profitability.  It's not a 100% accurate system because it doesn't link players who play across more than 1 site, but it's what we have.  Here is how I finished 2008.

Ranked # 1 in any game 5-6 Seated Turbo $36-$100 Total Profit 2008 Leaderboard

Ranked # 1 in any game 5-6 Seated  $36-$100 Total Profit 2008 Leaderboard

Ranked # 3 in any game 5-6 Seated Turbo Any Stakes Total Profit 2008 Leaderboard

Ranked # 4 in any game $36-$100 Total Profit 2008 Leaderboard

Ranked # 4 in any game 5-6 Seated Any Stakes Total Profit 2008 Leaderboard

Ranked # 10 in any game 5-6 Seated Turbo $101-$300 Total Profit 2008 Leaderboard

Ranked # 10 in any game 5-6 Seated Turbo $101-$300 Total Profit 2008 Leaderboard

In 2009, I want to be # 1 in the $36-$100 games and top 2 or 3 in the $101-$300 games.  Except for jhub, it seems that every year new people are at the top of the leaderboards.  It seems like the leaders let their games deteriorate or they don't keep up with their game with the increased difficulty level of sng's.  My bigger goal, even above staying at the top of the leaderboards is to make sure I don't become one of those people.  I want to stay on top of my game and constantly study the game to make sure that I'm always playing as well as anyone else.  I want to be at the top of the leaderboards year in and year out.  At least until I move to cash :)

Other than that, I don't really want to set any profit goals for 2009.  I just want to make good decisions at the poker table and enjoy my job.  I don't want to stress out about hitting my goals for the year.  That's it.  It's been a pretty great year and hopefully 2009 will be even better.  I'll probably take today off and try to enjoy the Michigan State bowl game against Georgia.....then I'll start work again tomorrow.
  

I just got my 4K milestone bonus which officially makes December my most profitable month in my 6 months as a pro so far.  I'm taking tomorrow off though from poker.  I'm pretty sick of grinding right now (plus I want to watch some bowl games).   The tables were really horrible today.  So many pros are working to try to get milestone bonuses.  Every high buy-in table was just packed with good players.  Tomorrow probably won't be much better.  These are my final December stats:

1168 $119's at 8.62% ROI = $11,983.00
284 $78's at 9.6% ROI = $2,126.4
24 $121's at 45.79% ROI = $1329.6
1 $76 at neg 100% ROI = ($76.00)
1 $235 at neg 100%ROI=($235.00)
1478 total sng's at 9.2% = $15,128.00
1 $4,000 FPP BONUS =$4,000.00
1 $4,000 milestone BONUS = $4,000.00
BOP leaderboard BONUSES=$2,900.00
Reload BONUS =            $150.00
Total December profit  = $26,178.00

and my updated YTD stats


3924 $119 sng's at  7.72% ROI = $36,030.00
6551 $ 78  sng's at 11.97% ROI  =$61,141.20
 553   $39 sng's at 12.12% ROI = $2,614.2
  105   $76 sng's at 26.05.% ROI = $2,079.00
    2   $220 sng at neg 1.7% ROI =   $   (1.70)
  26     $121 sng's at 34.57%  = $1,087.60
  1     $565 sng at neg 100%  =     ($565)
 1      $60 sng at neg 100% =    $(60.00)
11,165 total sng's at 10.06% ROI =$101,784.00
3 $1,500 bonuses                     = $4,500
3 $4,000 bonuses                      = $12,000
Battle of the Planets bonuses = $8,205.00
WCOOP bonus                           = $240
Reload bonus                             =$150
WCOOP events                          = ($540)
MTT's (Supernova 50K)            = $220
Milestone bonuses                   =$9,000
Bodog/Cake profit       (apprx)  = $1,500
Full Tilt profit                               =$169.00
coaching                                      =$450                              

I had a good week on the leaderboards.  I finished 3rd in the Saturn high orbit and 4th in the Saturn low orbit.  As of this morning, I've accumulated 390,442 VPP's, so I'm still 9,558 short of getting my milestone bonus.  I was doing some calculations last night and assuming I play mostly 119's, I need to put in about 24 or 25 hours of poker over the next 4 days to get there.  I've been working a lot recently, so I don't really want to play that much, but I'm going to do it anyway.  It seems sillly not to put in the extra work to get there when the payout is a 4K bonus.  And that was one of my major goals at the beginning of the month, so I'm almost there.

I've been enjoying playing the $119's this month.  I'm sure part of it is because I've been running well, but I'm not sure if I'm going to make this a permanent change.  At the end of the month, I'm going to do some calculations with my ROI at both levels and I'll add in the extra FPP'S I make at the 119's and try to determine which level is more profitable for me.  I think it's going to be almost a wash, especially since I can't really know my true ROI at either level, but I'll try to figure it out somehow.  Also, it never feels right to say that I've been "running well".  If I say I'm running well, it feels like I'm saying that I'm only doing well because of short term luck and things are going to eventually change.  It also feels like I'm ignoring the fact that maybe I'm just actually playing very well.  Maybe I'm just really on my game and extracting maximum value from my opponents.  On the other hand, I can't really say that I'm playing well because that just sounds arrogant and it ignores the fact that I probably am legitimately "running well".  After all, if I was running bad then it wouldn't matter if I was playing well, I would still be losing money.  So by virtue of the fact that I'm winning money, I must be running well....at least to some degree.  I guess for now, I'll just stick with saying I'm running well, since it's the more humble option :)

Anyway, these are my updated stats for the month

983 $119's at 11.21% ROI = $13,109.00
258 $78's at 10.02% ROI = $2,016.00
14 $121's at 46.78% ROI = $792.40
1 $76 at neg 100% ROI = ($76.00)
1256 total sng's at 11.41% = $15,841.40
1 $4,000 FPP BONUS =$4,000.00
BOP leaderboard BONUSES=$2,900.00
Reload BONUS =            $150.00
Total Dec. profit through Dec 27 = $22,891.40

Last week, when I was on the airplane going to California I was reading a bunch of cardplayer magazines. I used to keep really on top of reading them, but now I just let them pile up and read them all when I have time. And being on an airplane for 4.5 hours was the perfect time to catch up. Anyway, when the WCOOP was going on a couple months ago, I was complaining about the payout structures. If you missed that blog post the first time, you can read about it here.

http://sparta45.livejournal.com/13728.html

Anyway, I was pretty surprised when someone actually commented that the payout structures are good and in fact they should be even flatter. I could not disagree more. Well, I was glad to see that in the November 14th issue of Cardplayer, Matt Matros wrote an article about how they need to change the structure of the WSOP (I agree with him), but he also used the WCOOP as an even worse example of poor payout structures. You can read the entire article here for free if you like.

www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/17942

I want to highlight the part where he talks about the WCOOP because, well frankly, he structured his argument better than I did.

"...For a player like myself, who believes tournaments should reward those who play to win, and who believes in never playing just to sneak into the money, these developments in the pay structures were somewhat disturbing - and there are even more egregious examples online.

PokerStars' recent World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) had a $5,200 buy-in main event that attracted 2,185 players; 324 of them, 14.8 percent of the field, were paid - 48 percent more than is customary. Not only that, but 324th place was a whopping $8,740, for a profit of about 0.7 buy-ins. To pay for these massive sums handed to the bottom finishers, they of course took a little something from the winner, who got $1.775 million, or 16.25 percent of the prize pool. But the real crime is what happened to other deep finishers.

The 19th-place finisher in this year's WCOOP main event got $22,942.50. This person finished 19th out of a field of 2,185. He was in the top 0.87 percent of entrants in the biggest online tournament in history, and he received a profit of less than 3.5 buy-ins. To put that in perspective, he played about 17 hours over two days, beat out 2,166 of the 2,185 competitors, and received a rate of return less than he would've gotten from winning a sit-and-go. I can't be the only one who thinks this is a travesty...."

I think most serious poker players would agree that the payout structures for most of these online tournaments, especially the WCOOP and other major big buy-in online tournaments is garbage. It really is a shame that the payout structure to so many large buy-in tournaments are structured this way. That's all, I just read this article and I wanted to re-visit this topic since I think Matt Matros did a good job explaining why it needs to be changed.

I need to get 21,343 more VPP's between now and the end of the month to get my milestone bonus. That's 474 $119's or 711 $78's in 8 days. I think I can do it, but it's going to take some long days of work. So if I get it, I think it definitely won't be until the last day or two this month.

Here are my updated stats for this month

746 $119's at 9.14% ROI = $8,114.00
227 $78's at 9.43% ROI = $1,669.20
12 $121's at 71.24% ROI = $1,034.40
1 $76 at neg 100% ROI = $76.00
986 total sng's at 9.95% = $10,741.60
1 $4,000 FPP BONUS =$4,000.00
BOP leaderboard BONUS=$1,800.00
Total Dec. profit through Dec 23 = $16,541.60

Well, I'm back from California and since I got back it's been like two different months.  I think I'm down $1,700 since i got back, but I was down more than 3K yesterday.  I've been getting it in good, but just constantly bad beat this whole week.  This week has been how last month was.  Oh well.   I need to get 27,000 more VPP's to get my milestone bonus.  It looks like it's going to be a race to the finish.  I'm really close, but I'm going to need to play a lot from now to the end of the month.  Going to California really set me back because I probably could have made 10,000-12,000 VPP's during that time.  It's also difficult to play a lot when you are running bad because after a few hours of losing money and being bad beat, I usually want to take a break to get my mind off poker.

Here are my updated stats for this month

634 $119's at 6.33% ROI = $4,777.00
204 $78's   at 9.95% ROI = $1,584.00
11     $121's at 86.81% ROI = $1,155.40
1    $76 at neg 100% ROI = $76.00
850 total sng's at 8.02% = $7,440.40
1 $4,000 FPP BONUS       =$4,000.00
BOP leaderboard BONUS=$1,800.00
Total Dec. profit through Dec 20 = $13,240.40

Since I've been playing the 119's this month, there are a lot more "pros" in my games, and I have to say that it absolutely amazes me how some of them use absolutely zero table selection what-so-ever.  Jhub once told me that for every very good player that sits down in your game, your ROI goes down by 2%.  I don't know what he used for his math, I don't really care, and it doesn't matter anyway.  But the point is that if he uses table selection and avoids games with too many good players, the odds are good that you should be table selecting also.  It just blows me away when I'm first to register for a $119 and then 1 pro sits down.  Then 2 pros sit down.  Then 3, then 4, then 5.  I don't care if you are the best player at the table, when there are a bunch of really good players sitting down in 1 game, it's just not a very profitable game.  It might even be a negative EV game for you because of the rake.   Sometimes it is hard to avoid certain players, especially the ones who multi-table a ton of games at once, but if your goal is to make money playing sng's and you see more than 1 or 2 very profitable players already registered in a 6 max game, you should really find a new game to enter.  Not only is it hard to make any money playing against a table full of pros, but your variance will increase significantly as well since your ROI is going down.   Unless you enjoy huge bankroll swings that make your stomach turn, again I advise you to use a little table selecting.  

For me personally, I pretty much never table select the 78's because it's pretty rare for me to have more than 1 or 2 very good players in my games there.  For the 119's, I usually keep the tournament lobby open and if it gets too crazy, I just unregister.  I would rather play a softer 78, than a brutal 119.  I do tend to get a little territorial if I'm the 1st person in a $119.  But if there are already 3 players in one and 2 are pretty good, it doesn't hurt me to wait 2 minutes and register for the next $119.   I know some people will say that not enough $119's run to pass up an open seat and sometimes that is true, but I think there is also a lot of ego involved and some people just think that they are the best and will win anyway.   A lot of people just don't realize how much they are hurting their profitability by refusing to ever pass on a sng, no matter who is already sitting in it.  Personally, I'd rather make money than have an ego contest.

Battle Of the Planets Leaderboard

I did pretty well in the BOP leaderboard this past week.  I had the 2nd high score in the Saturn low orbit which was good for $800.  And I had the 6th highest score in the Saturn high orbit which was good for $300.  It's nice to make $1,100 extra in 1 week just for doing well at my job.  Maybe if I didn't table select, that never would have happened :)

These are my updated stats for the month

306 $119's at 14.73% ROI = $5,364.00
126 $78's   at 13.85% ROI = $1,360.80
9     $121's at 85.12% ROI = $927.80
1    $76 at neg 100% ROI = $76.00
442 total sng's at 15.98% = $7,575.80
1 $4,000 FPP BONUS       =$4,000.00
BOP leaderboard BONUS=$1,800.00
Total Dec. profit through Dec 8 = $13,375.80

I'm leaving for California on Wednesday for a few days to visit family.  So I might not post anything again until early next week.

I'm off to a great start this month.  Yesterday, I had my best day ever and made almost $3,100.  I've been playing well and I've actually had very respectable luck.  My hands have often held up.  A few bad beats here and there, but nothing insane.  Here are my updated stats for December so far

176 $119's at 25.42% ROI = $5,324.00
84   $78's at 18.35% ROI =  $1,202.40
3   $121's at 205.45% ROI=$745.80
1   $76 at neg 100% ROI = $ 76.00
264 sng's at 25.76% ROI = $7,196.20
BOP leaderboard =                $700
Total Dec profit so far =   $7,896.20

As you can see, I've been playing mostly 119's and really only filling my screens with 78's when the 119's aren't filling fast enough.  I usually play 78's because I like the reduced variance, but I need to do this to reach my milestone bonus.  I've been playing a lot, but I'm still not sure if I'll actually get there.  It's tough for me to play that many games.  Some people can play 12, 15 tables, whatever....but I usually max out at around 6 or 7.

I pulled a hand for your entertainment purposes.  I changed his name.  This one was head up.  It was a good time for me to do something like this because I had a really bad image and I was pretty sure he would call thinking it was a chopped pot.


PokerStars Game #22611857674: Tournament #124807653, $110+$9 Hold'em No Limit - Level VI (100/200) - 2008/12/04 9:19:36 ET
Table '124807653 1' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: villainXXX (3570 in chips)
Seat 5: Sparta45 (5430 in chips)
villainXXX: posts small blind 100
Sparta45: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Sparta45 [8c 2c]
villainXXX: calls 100
Sparta45: checks
*** FLOP *** [2h 2d 8s]
Sparta45: checks
villainXXX: checks
*** TURN *** [2h 2d 8s] [2s]
Sparta45: checks
villainXXX: checks
*** RIVER *** [2h 2d 8s 2s] [8d]
Sparta45: bets 5230 and is all-in
villainXXX: calls 3370 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (1860) returned to Sparta45
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Sparta45: shows [8c 2c] (four of a kind, Deuces)
villainXXX2: shows [Jc Qs] (a full house, Deuces full of Eights)
villainXXX said, "nh"
Sparta45 collected 7140 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7140 | Rake 0
Board [2h 2d 8s 2s 8d]
Seat 1: villainXXX(button) (small blind) showed [Jc Qs] and lost with a full house, Deuces full of Eights
Seat 5: Sparta45 (big blind) showed [8c 2c] and won (7140) with four of a kind, Deuces

One thing that's kind of cool is if you look at the Saturn leaderboards as of right now (10:15 E.S.T.), I'm # 1 on the low orbit and # 3 on the high orbit.  I've been # 1 on the low since Monday or Tuesday and what is odd is that my score is not really that high.   Every day I fully expect to drop down and eventually settle around 10 or so, but for whatever reason, nobody has done any better.  It's almost Friday, so I only have two more days for it to hold.  I'd be really surprised if it holds, but obviously I'm hoping it does since 1st is $1,200.  Tomorrow, I really want to play a lot.  It felt like I played all day today, but I only played 58 sng's which isn't going to cut it if I want to reach 400,000 VPP by month end.

Stars is having their servers re-set right now and since I don't have a lot of time this month on my quest to get to 400,000 VPP, I figured this would be a good time for me to update my blog. 

This past week I finished 2nd on the Uranus high orbit leaderboard which was good for a $700 bonus.  The extra cash is nice just from the mental standpoint of trying to get off to a good start this month.  Getting 62,000 VPP this month is going to be harder than I thought it would be.  Especially, with the time I'm taking off to go to California.  I think I can still do it, I just really need to stay focused when I'm at home and play a lot of poker.  I know it sounds laim to non-poker players, but playing poker all day is actually pretty tough.  It's not like a lot of other jobs where you might spend some time by the water cooler talking about last night's football game, or taking a few minutes out from your day to send an e-mail to a friend.  When you're playing poker, you can only be playing poker.  And if you're playing for 4 hours, there is not even 5 seconds of break time.  You can't really take phone calls or even go to the bathroom.  You just sit at your desk like a schmuck and focus on trying to make money.  Don't get me wrong, I love doing it.  My job is great.  But I think it's tough to play too much more than 40 hours a week.  At least on the internet.  Maybe live poker is easier, I don't know.

Anyway, these are my updated stats for December.  

84 $119's at 14.75% ROI = $1,527
54 $78's at 19.49% ROI =   $820.80
1  $121 at 269.99% ROI = $315.80 (I think I can sustain 269.99% ROI at this level)
1 $76 at neg 100% ROI = $100
143 total sngs at 17.53% = $2,587.60
BOP leaderboard bonuses = $700
Total Dec profit through Dec 2nd = $3,287.60

Also, as you can tell, I'm playing a lot more $119's this month to try to get to 400,000 VPP. 

Thankfully,  November is finally over.   The bad part of November was that I had my worst profit month since I turned pro and I also had my worst downswing ever ($4,500).  The good part is that I got through my downswing and I still ended up making some decent money anyway.

This is how I finished the month

980 $78's at 8.14% ROI = $6,223.20
39  $76's at 21.86% ROI = $648.00
1 $60 sng at neg 100% ROI = ($60.00)
110 $119's at neg 20.88% ROI = ($2,535.00)
1122 total sng's at  4.67% ROI = $4,276.20
BOP leaderboard = $675
BOP tripleshootout =  $195
Supernova 50K   =  $70
coaching               = $450
Total November profit = $5,666.20

and my updated YTD stats

Updated Year to Date Stats

2783 $119 sng's at  7.56% ROI = $25,025.00
6290 $ 78  sng's at 12.16% ROI  =$59,640.00
 553   $39 sng's at 12.12% ROI = $2,614.2
  104   $76 sng's at 27.26.06% ROI = $2,155
    1   $220 sng at 96.60% ROI =   $   227
  2     $112 sng's at neg 100%  = ($242)
  1     $565 sng at neg 100%  =     ($565)
 1      $60 sng at neg 100% =    $(60.00)
9,737 total sng's at 10.35% ROI =$88,794.20
3 $1,500 bonuses                     = $4,500
2 $4,000 bonuses                      = $8,000
Battle of the Planets bonuses = $5,305.00
WCOOP bonus                           = $240
WCOOP events                          = ($540)
MTT's (Supernova 50K)            = $220
Milestone bonuses                   =$5,000
Bodog/Cake profit       (apprx)  = $1,500
Full Tilt profit                               =$169.00
coaching                                     = $450
                     Total YTD profit  = $113,638.20

*note, my YTD is actually is actually over-stated by $1,600  because it includes December 1st, but my database is too big right now to re-filter it for the purpose of this post.


Battle of the Planets

Yesterday, I played in the BOP triple shooutout.   Just like last month, I won my 1st table, but busted the 2nd.  Hopefully, one day I'll crack that thing for the $12,500 first place prize, but for now I'll just have to be happy with the $195 I made by winning table 1.

Supernova 50K

I played in the Supernova 50K for the 1st time in a couple months on Saturday.  I placed 114 out of about 1,700 players.  Only made $70, but again, this is another tournament I'd like to crack for 1st one day.  First place is $9K, so I'll keep trying.  I hate MTT's though.  Nothing is worse then spending 3hours playing and getting past 95% of the field for $70.  I was running really good and built up my stack to 30K chips (from 1,500), but then lost a bunch of hands and eventually busted.  If I ever have a real good finish (like top 3), then I'll probably post the entire MTT hh on my blog.  I don't really care if I show how I play b/c my MTT game is much different than my STT game.

December

One of my major goals this month is to get 400,000 VPP's for the year so that I can get my 4K milestone bonus.    I need to earn about 62,000 VPP's this month to get there.  It's going to be tough, because (for example), I only earned about 35,000 VPP's in November.  So I need almost twice my November activity to get there.  I'm also going to be in California for 3 days visiting family.  So I'm kind of squeezed for time.  I'm going to be playing a lot of hours this month to try and get there and I'm going to be playing a lot more 119's this month for the VPP's.

My variance post got more feedback than any other post I've ever made.  So I'm glad that so many people got value out of it.  One person did make a good observation which is that all those numbers are really only accurate if you assume my ROI is my "true ROI".  I was aware of this little flaw in my post before, but I had already made my post and figured I would just update it in my next post.  So real quick, this is my best estimate of my "true ROI" using that same sample size from my last post

In the 78's, I am

68% confident that my ROI is between 10.67% and 14.76%

95% confident that my ROI is between 8.63% and 16.8%

99% confident that my ROI is between 6.58% and 18.84%


and in the 119's, I am


68% confident that my ROI is between 5.6% and 11.24%

95% confident that my ROI is between 2.78% and 14.06%

99% confident that my ROI is between neg0.04% and 16.88%

Updated month to date numbers

928 $78's at 7.64% ROI = $5,527.20
37  $76's at 18.74% ROI = $527.00
1 $60 sng at neg 100% ROI = ($60.00)
94 $119's at neg 23.89% ROI = ($2,672.00)
1060 total sng's at  3.84% ROI = $3,322.00
BOP leaderboard = $675
coaching               = $450
Total November profit = $4,447.00

Sometimes people ask me how much of poker is luck and how much is skill.  Well, the answer is that poker is obviously a skill game, otherwise, I'd still be an accountant punching numbers into excel for 10 hours a day.  But in the short run, I would say that poker is "a lot of luck and a lot of skill" and in the long run "a lot of skill, and not a lot of luck".   I'll try to demonstrate this using my sng numbers from this year.  These are the numbers I'm using (note, that every player will have different variance results since a lower ROI will equal more variance and a higher ROI will equal less variance)

Numbers I used

I just used my YTD numbers as of the end of October (when the analysis was done)

5,270 $78, 12.71% ROI, 39.73% ITM, 1132 first place, 962 second place

2,654 $119's, 8.42% ROI, 38.96% ITM, 523 first place, 511 second place

Before I go on, I just want to point out that I'm only about 95% sure I'm doing any of this right.  I'm not exactly an expert on standard deviation, square roots, etc.  But I'm pretty sure I'm doing this right and if you notice anything wrong, by all means, please let me know.

So let's say that in a given month I expect to play 1,500 sng's.  Based on the "luck factor", this is the range of ROI and profit numbers I can expect.

For $78 sng's I have a

68% chance of having an ROI between 8.88% and 16.54%, making between $10,394 and $19,354

95% chance of having an ROI between 5.06% and 20.37%, making between $5,914 and $23,834

99% chance of having an ROI between 1.23% and 24.2%, making between $1,434 and $28,314

For $119 sng's I have a

68% chance of having an ROI between 4.67% and 12.17%, making between $8,327 and $21,720

95% chance of having an ROI between 0.91% and 15.92%, making between $1,630 and $28,416

99% chance of having an ROI between neg (2.84%) and 19.67%, making between neg ($5,067) and $35,113


So let's look at the $78's which are what I normally play the majority of.  In a given month, I'm 95% likely to have anywhere from a 5.06% ROI to a 20.37% ROI.  Obviously, that is a pretty wide range and that is entirely due to "luck".  This is why it's so important for a profesional poker player to excercise good bankroll management.  So that they can ride out the ups and downs until their skill makes them money in the long run.  So how long is "the long run".  Well, let's use a very large number in our sample.  Let's use 10,000 sng's.  In the $78's I would have a

95% chance of having an ROI between 9.75% and 15.68% making anywhere from $76,030 and $122,300

Still pretty large.  Let's use 100,000 sng's which is pretty much an insanely large sample size.  I would have a

95% chance of having an ROI between 11.78% and 13.65%.  So even after 100,000 sng's, my ROI has a 95% chance of having almost a 1% swing in it's ROI going up or down.  That is a pretty large swing IMO.

Okay.  These numbers are pretty huge and most people don't play that man sng's anyway.  So let's use a small sample of only 300 sng's to see what kind of ups and downs I can expect.

With 300 sng's I can have a

68% chance of having an ROI between 4.15% and 21.28%

95% chance of having an ROI between neg 4.41% and 29.84%

99% chance of having an ROI between neg 12.97% and 38.4%

So this helps to explain why so many players start playing online and then run up huge profit when they aren't that good and then the opposite, lots of players who are probably pretty good at poker get very frustrated when they are losing money and don't understand how they can run so bad.  It takes a lot of sng's to get past the variance.

Special thanks goes out to poker player K4b4l.  I would have been unable to do any of this on my own.  I contacted him and asked him if I pay him a consulting fee, would he be able to help me analyze my sng results.  He agreed and did a great job.

I've been running better over the past 24 hours.  These are my updated numbers for the month

733 $78's at 6.69% ROI = $3,824.40
32  $76's at 31.25% ROI = $760.00
1 $60 sng at neg 100% ROI = ($60.00)
92 $119's at neg 22.23% ROI = ($2,434.00)
858 total sng's at 2.96% ROI = $2,090.40
BOP leaderboard = $450
coaching               = $450
Total November profit = $2,990.40

On a side note, MSU plays Penn State today for a share of the Big Ten title.  Very exciting.

I'm not mad anymore. I stopped yelling at my monitor a few days ago. Now I'm just at the point where I'm just going to keep playing and whatever happens happens. This month has completely sucked, but it's alright. As long as I bounce out of it as some point, that's all that matters.

On a good note, I did somehow manage to make to make 4th place on the Uranus high orbit sng leaderboard last week. Pretty amazing how I can be about breakeven on the month, yet still make a leaderboard. Variance is fun!!

622 $78's at 4.05% ROI = $1,963.20
30   $72's at 28.03 ROI = $639.00
1 55 neg 100% ROI  = ($60)
91 119's at neg 21.38% = ($2,315.00)
744 at 0.37% ROI  = $227.20
BOP leaderboard = $450
coaching                = $450
total Nov profit       = $1,127.20

In case you missed it, the title was an ACDC reference as well.

I took Monday off and now after 3 days of running well, I'm finally back to profitability.  This month obviously is not going to be a great month for me, but hopefully, I can still at least do alright.   I have 17 days left to at least make something good happen.  Also, thanks to everyone who gave me positive comments in my blog when I was running bad.

I watched the final table of the WSOP the other day.  It was pretty interesting.  It's always hard to tell anything by watching TV since they edit it so much, but I was most impressed with Demidov.  He seemed to do a great job of combining a lot of different concepts and seemed to play very very well I thought.   I think he made one mistake head up where he got a little over aggressive and I think that pretty much cost him the tournament.  I thought Peter Eastgate played very well too.  He seemed to play very solid and also caught some cards.  Always a good combination.  And I thought that Schwartz guy played pretty well too.  The way he busted out was kind of odd, but I think he was going with his read and there was no way for him to really think the 5 on the river changed anything. 

Updated MTD numbers:

419 78's at 5.61% ROI = $1,834.80
20   76's at 18.82% ROI = $286.00
1  $60 at neg 100%    = ($60.00)
56 119's at neg 27.70% = ($1,846.00)
496 sng's at 0.52%ROI = $214.80 (woo-hoo)

I'm sure most of you have already seen the recent developments of the UIGEA (gambling bill). For those that haven't, read these articles:

http://www.pokerlistings.com/treasury-department-finalizes-uigea-regulations-32656

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20081112b.htm

Basically, they're making 1 last push before Obama is in office. 2 years after the bill was passed, the regulations were finalized out of nowehere & Bush is expected to sign off on them. They are expected to be in place by December 2009. At this time the banks will be doing everything they can to detect "gambling" payments & prevent us from receiving our money from online poker, online sports betting, etc...

http://www.ickypeople.com/2008/11/huge-bush-gaffe-allows-obama-to.html

Summary: Once Obama is in office the new administration can overturn these regulations.

Now is our time to take action:

http://theleachlist.blogspot.com/2008/11/fed.html


Contact Obama @

http://answercenter.barackobama.com/cgi-bin/barackobama.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?p_sid=GWa49Kij&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0xMTIsMTEyJnBfcHJvZHM9JnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**

Please take the time to do this & don't be lazy. It won't take much time. Tell everyone you know to do the same, even friends & family members who don't play online poker. If they care about you, they should help, & every person that does this will have an impact.

Contact Your representatives and senators.


http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersalliance/home/

What you shouldn't do is overreact & start taking your money off of the sites. This is what a lot of people foolishly did when the UIGEA was originally passed & Neteller closed down to the United States. These sites aren't going to keep your money. They have a reputation to uphold. Even if the worst case scenario happened, & US players weren't allowed to play online sometime by December 2009, there would be announcements & a grace period would players would be allowed to get their money off. Chill out, keep playing, & start taking action & contacting those officials.

Also, if you haven't already, join the PPA! There is a link below.

http://pokerplayersalliance.org/

They continued the final table of the main event last night.  I tried listening to it an audio feed, but even for someone like me it was just too boring and I turned it off.  It was hard to follow what they were saying and really hard to follow the action.  But now they are down to head up play between Peter Eastgate (79,500,000 chips) and Ivan Demidov (57,725,000 chips).   They stopped play last night and will start the head up match tonight.  It should be pretty interesting since each player has at least 100 big blinds, so there is a lot of room for them to play poker.   1st place gets $9,152,416 and second place gets $5,809,595.  The final table will be aired on television this Tuesday on ESPN.

I'm pretty much in the middle of my worst run of poker ever.  This entire month has just been horrible, day after day, after day.   I'm down around $4,500.   And pretty much every time I play I either get cold decked or sucked out on.  I can't even begin to describe how many times I've been a 82%, 75%, 91% favorite and been sucked out on.  I can't win a race to save my life.  I'll get dealt KK in a blind versus blind hand and my opponent will get dealt AA.  The toughest part of this month has been the mental aspect of it.  Every day I sit down and I tell myself that I just need to play good poker and make good decisions and eventually this will end....but invariably I get all-in with the best hand and get sucked out on and then that happens the next 8 times in a row and I'm just left shaking my head.   I think I'm down around 50 buy-ins which although a lot, I think that is within "normal" range.   But when you're losing thousands of dollars, being within "normal" doesn't make me feel much better.  I think when I played the $39's, I once lost around 40 buy-ins, but this is definitely my largest downswing ever.  The last time I had a month where I didn't make any money from poker was a year and a half ago.  My mind has started playing tricks on me.  I can't fathom how I can lose with the best hand so many times in a row, so I start to think about if the deck is rigged, or if someone is a superuser.  I've started to look for patterns in people who I'm playing and trying to analyze if they just somehow "know" that they will win.  When someone 4 bets me with 77 preflop in level 1 and then hits their set to beat my aces, I'm thinking of if there is anyway they could somehow be cheating.  These are all things which I historically have never really done.   But running really bad for a long time can be really tough mentally.  Today is the 9th, so unless things turn around soon, this might be a losing month for me.  I think I might take Monday off and just do some studying and review my hands.  Maybe I'll notice some things that I'm doing wrong.

The one positive I can take from this is that when it turns around (and I do think it will turn around), I'll be that much stronger when I come through it and that much more experienced.  Since this is my profession now, I need to learn to handle the absolute worst of bad luck when it comes my way and make my way through it and keep playing good poker until things turn around.    In the meantime, thank god for bankroll management.

Updated MTD stats:

1 $60 neg 100% roi = ($60.00)
13 $72's neg 17.11% ROI = ($169.00)
52 $119's neg 29.07% ROI = ($1,799.00)
234 $78's neg 13.85% ROI = ($2,527.20)
300 total sng's neg 17.87%= ($4,555.20)