She Plays Poker

It’s been a while.

Sometimes, life kicks you in the face. I had a couple of bad days in a row. One I could have coped with. Two put me on the brink. You’re probably used to reading about my bad days. They happen frequently. Well, about once in every ten that I play. So two in a row wasn’t way out of line, statistically speaking, and I should have been ready for it. Another lesson learnt the hard way.

I start thinking about getting a job - a career to be precise. Maybe law school would be a good idea…. we’ll see. I traipse over to Iggy’s page to see what online poker’s blogfather has to say. Yup, he’s quitting too. I guess the old pros were right: poker is a great hobby and a lousy job.

Still, a chip and a chair is all you need. It’s all I’ve got. So I fire up WPX who are running rake free poker. They make a little sitting on the cash in your account and get to advertise their sportsbook operation, then pay you your rake at the end of each week. When I last looked they weren’t doing so well, and the games were tighter than a nun’s…. Whatever. Now there are always four to five tables available, they’re reasonably juicy and I can pay the rent playing breakeven poker. To be continued….

What else? Don’t play poker? Like playing video games? Try PKR. It’s got to be seen to be believed, though it doesn‘t do it for me - there‘s already enough in the game of poker to keep me interested. If I want entertainment I‘ll go to the pub. Good luck to them, though.Maybe they'll get the kids hooked and losing for real. “Wanna bunk off school and do some horse?” “Nah, I’m on PKR.”

Email me if you’re interested in rakeback.

Don’t play poker? Try backgammon instead. Supposed to be the ‘new poker’ but it’s too high variance, low skill, too mechanical, and low thought over large numbers of moves to have the same appeal. Still everyone knows how to play, and plenty of people think they’re good. Reminds me of back in the day, hanging out in Dahab and buying grass at a $1 a bag from the Bedouin. The kids used to come round all the cafes to sell colourful little cotton bracelets. If you refused they challenged you to backgammon. I was pretty proud of the way I could beat them all. Those under 6, anyway. Them 7-year olds really knew how to roll the dice. Think you’re better than that? Take a peek at PartyGammon.

Posted by nick jacob at 07:10 PM | Permalink |

Bad day. Appalling day. Black Thursday.

While Jamie Gold was eating blueberries in a Las Vegas hotel suite readying himself to go suck out on the other poor folks at the WSOP final table, I was pissing my bankroll away in a marathon 9 hour session of limit grinding. I had 9 out of 25 sets busted, half my Aces and Kings shot down and She-only knows what else. If it was bad, then it happened to me yesterday.

But was I playing good poker? Was I fuck. This morning I sat down to do my penance, working through the hand histories trying to find the mistakes. I didn’t have to look very hard.

1. Missed a turn bet with unimproved AQ on a 3-flush, K-high board.
2. Limped with J9o behind two limpers. Got raised and paid for it.
3. Failed to call river heads-up in 11BB pot with low pair when an obvious flush draw missed.
4. Limped T9s behind two. Folded instead of raising A9x flop.
5. Peeled flop with gutshot getting only 4-1.
6. Open-limped 33, then check-folded flop.
7. 3-bet a TAG’s early position raise with AJs.
8. Open-limped A8s.
9. Failed to bet-fold river.
10. Open-limped 33.
11. Open-limped QJ.
12. Called down with bottom pair after getting check-raised on AJT flop.
13. Paid off river raise.
14. Missed river bet-fold opportunity.
15. Missed turn bet.
16. Failed to bet turn with unimproved AK - and split pot.
17. Missed river raise.
18. Bet-fold opportunity with KQ on Ttxx turn. (Not sure about this one).
19. Failed to bet turn with 72o on 5352 board with no aggressors.
20. Failed to value bet river when I turned a pair of K’s.

This was all in the first 300 hands of just one session - I was probably still feeling pretty good about my play at the time, while cursing my fate. I decided I could look at my arse no longer. I play better than this, and I’m going to play better than this. So I did. Today I earned back what I lost. Did I tell you how much I love this game?

Posted by nick jacob at 03:28 PM | Permalink |

Iggy posted a video of Dan Negreanu trash-talking on High Stakes Poker (we’ve got to get around to a Sky subscription) on his site, so I had my first look at YouTube and found more in the series. This hand is a classic. If they hadn’t fixed the deck first, the show’s producers must have wet themselves when they saw the match-up. Sam Farha did wet himself when he saw the flop.

Posted by nick jacob at 10:10 AM | Permalink |

As the Maltese hedge fund trader told me, it’s easy to spend too much time working out the P+L when you‘re working for yourself. Too easy. So I found a harder, more time-consuming way to do it. Winrates at limit poker are usually measured in big bets per 100 hands and the standard statistics program, PokerTracker, does just that, without any effort. No effort? No wasted time. How about profit/turnover instead of BB/100?

Not so easy since PokerTracker doesn’t tell you how much you’ve bet. The statistics are buried deep in the database, so you’re going to need to do some programming - specifically, an SQL query - to get them out. Don’t worry if you don’t know what SQL is, just use the instructions here to set-up a query.

Then use this:

SELECT
sum(iif(isnull(g.exrate), gp.total_bet, (gp.total_bet)/g.exrate)) as TURNOVER,
sum(iif(isnull(g.exrate), gp.total_won - gp.total_bet, (gp.total_won - gp.total_bet)/g.exrate)) as PROFIT,
(PROFIT/TURNOVER)*100 as MARGIN
FROM game_players AS gp INNER JOIN game AS g ON gp.game_id = g.game_id
WHERE gp.player_id = (select pref_value from prefs where pref_key = 'RP')
and g.date_played between #2006-01-01 00:00:00# AND #2006-08-07 23:59:59#

I’ve figured out that I wagered $611,426 and won $8,211 at a rate of 1.34% from the beginning of the year until mid-July, when I started a new database. Since then I’ve wagered $69,603 and won $1,384 at a rate of 1.99%.

I’ve also paid $23,851 in rake. God doesn’t play dice, but she did invent rakeback.

Posted by nick jacob at 09:55 AM | Permalink |

No poker last week as we took a short break in the Cotswolds.

The huggable one’s cousin trained this year’s Derby winner, Sir Percy. We sought him here and we sought him there. Lovely horse, though he didn’t say much. I was told that he might not race again as a 3-year old - the Arc is a real possibility - but he will certainly be back in training next year.

I’ve never been excited about racing before, or known anything about it and I don‘t like gambling on things I don‘t understand, but having watched this horse race, and listened to those who know, I’d be happy to back Sir Percy in anything. He just seems to like getting his nose in front. You can back him at 15.5 on Betfair right now. If he runs then that is free money.

July graphs don’t make the prettiest viewing even accounting for nearly two weeks’ holiday. Once again, rakeback sees me through. Get it at RakeTheRake (code ShePlaysPoker) or ThisIsTheNuts (code 1188). Please. Still, I made a recovery of sorts after that terrible June, and I’m still re-acclimatising to the full-ring tables so there is hope.

Full-ring

6-max

Posted by nick jacob at 09:41 AM | Permalink |