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Exhausted! Took advantage of daylight savings time and got up at 7am to start playing as many multi-table tournaments on Empire Poker as I possibly could before I dropped dead. Discovered the hard way that Empire doesn’t allow more than six tables to be open at a time (I’m sure it used to be 10..). In the end, I played 29, cashed in 7 and walked away with a profit of $131.
More importantly, though, I racked up 77 regular VIP points and 841 bonus points (29 squared!). If I’d really tried I think I could have squeezed in maybe three more tournaments, but it’s not a bad effort.
Seven or eight more days like that and I’m in the Royal Flush Club!
I really don’t want to say this. I’m still not completely sure I believe it. But the figures look good – there is a very real chance that I can actually beat the $2/$4 game on PokerRoom now, and for a decent rate too. There have been two monster bonuses the last couple of months – $250 and $500 to mark the launch of their Silver Room and Gold Room programs respectively. This has given me a much bigger sample to look at than any of the Party Poker bonuses I’ve played, and then posted up the mindnumbing stats.
Here are the equally mindnumbing stats from my last two months grinding PokerRoom. I’ve really had to guess at how long I spent playing in total, sometimes I only played two tables, but usually, and particularly the past few weeks, I played four at a time.
Hands played: 9140 (for 7500 FPPs)
Hours played: 132.6 (approx 40 man hours)
Rake paid: $796.00 (they make $46.00 from my action)
Amount won: $827.60 (2.26 BB per 100 hands)
Win rate: $20.69/hr
Bonus awarded: $750.00
Rate w/bonus: $39.44/hr
Now, if you don’t mind me saying so, this is bloody good! I’ve made more than two big bets per 100 hands in a sample size of over 9000 hands. Not a massive sample by any means, but big enough to suggest to me that, even if I did run pretty hot towards the end, I could turn a steady profit here. Before this, I have 13,000 hands logged from PokerRoom $2/$4 and ran at a a loss of $168 (0.33BB per 100 hands). The deposit bonuses more than made up for this, but it didn’t leave me with a great hourly rate. I don’t know how significant this really is, but I’m staring at a losing record before the summer and a winning record since I got back from four weeks in Vegas…
Here’s the vitals.
Vol. Put $ In Pot: 15.97%
Pre-flop Raise: 9.77%
Post-flop Aggression: 3.35
Won $ When Saw Flop: 38.62%
Went to Showdown: 30.72%
Won $ At Showdown: 57.41%
Folded SB to Steal: 87.76%
Folded BB to Steal: 55.92%
Attempt to Steal Blinds: 36.30%
I won more with KK than with AA, even though I had it fewer times, and my worst losing hand was AQo ($76 lost in 84 hands). I was profitable with KQo to the tune of 50 cents. Still room for improvement then…
Only problem is PokerRoom have already stopped American players depositing, and in less than two weeks they’ll be blocked from playing completely. Even if the games are still suited to my style with whatever players remain (I still don’t feel confident enough to call the games "soft" with any certainty), four-tabling there is not going to be possible very often. I think it might be time to try PokerStars again and see how badly I get my arse kicked on there now.
Here’s the thing with tournaments.
Played 10, cashed once. Net profit $386.
A terrible record, but a nice result. I ran sooooo cold to start and wasn’t getting anywhere. I’d already given up – for the second time today. The first time saw me heading down to McDonalds to be comforted by a Big Tasty and a BLT Deli Sandwich. The diet resumes tomorrow in theory, so I’m allowed a little something with my burger…. 🙂
I’d decided that the $10 rebuy would be the last I’d play, even though I’d planned on doing a whole lot more (because of the way bonus VIP points are given on Empire, they increase exponentially the more tournaments you play in a single day). I’d also been playing a few $6.50 turbos on PokerStars, backed into 4th place (4 get paid) once and came nowhere near on the rest of them. Nothing had gone my way.
I was in this rebuy for $40 – two goes at the rebuy bug to top up my stack without going broke and an add on after the first hour. That gave me a little bit less than an average stack at the break, but it was plenty to play with. The top 20 from 190 were getting at least $70 back, but I was over $300 in the hole and really needed 7th place to get even on the day. It’s a funny old game – I ended up outlasting 187 non-Americans before busting out 3rd.
For a $40 investment, not bad at all. It only takes one good hit to swing you back into profit in multi-table tournaments, which of course I already knew it’s just nice to see it happen once in a while. And I should be a hundred or so VIP points closer to being able to get some Empire Poker junk too.
Party Poker have cancelled virtually all of their guaranteed prize pool tournaments. That includes the Sunday Million, which tonight was replaced by a $530 tournament with no guaratee. The actual prize pool was $85,000. They had 170 players. The $215 Sunday event on PokerStars, on the other hand, is still going strong. 6157 players turned up, putting over $1.2m in the pot – I think this is a record!
The Party Poker lobby stopped reporting their total number of players connected after they shut down for the big American boot-off on Friday. PokerSiteScout says Stars has about three times as many players right now though.
The inconvenience of not being able to play any more if you are an American?
Hey apologise to the shareholders…
At 10am Eastern Time tomorrow, 3pm in the UK, President Bush is expected to sign the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Party Poker will then, retardedly, close about a gazillion accounts belonging to Americans, for whom online poker will be no less legal that it currently is.
That’s just under 24 hours from now. At 10:30 EST I took the screen grab above showing the number of players connected. Tomorrow I will do the same at the same time. I can only speculate what proportion of their players are from the USA, but bear in mind that their stock price has lost over two thirds of its value. It’s quite high.
Actually a sample from a more sensible time (really, how many play poker at 7.30am on the West Coast?) might show a more dramatic slump. I’ll see what I can do…
Some would say I was ahead the whole time.
I played The Powerhouse rather loosely from the small blind with a bunch of limpers, picked up middle pair, then free turn card brought me a straight flush draw. I foolishly ended up paying two bets on the turn, only having one out to the absolute nuts (although the bottom end of the straight flush isn’t too shabby). Very poor. Another 5 (2 outs) or completing my straight (6 outs) would have got me into a whole pile of trouble with this garbage.
And then, magic.
The other guy had Jc Kc, and the river Ac had turned his second best flush into the best flush, but the second best hand. Darn that four bet cap…
And then say hello to Mr Tilt. Two hands later, this guy cracked aces with T7o after calling three bets cold preflop and getting involved with whole bunch of action when he flopped middle pair.
I have never been so popular.
It’s time for Party Poker’s occasional, but always welcome, $100 deposit bonus. I played this in almost exactly the same way to the last one, so let’s see how it compares, shall we?
Hands played: 1474 (for 1000 raked hands)
Hours played: 20.1 (approx 10 hours, playing 2 tables)
Rake paid: $54.75
Amount won: $35.87 (1.22 BB per 100 hands)
Win rate: $3.59/hr
Bonus awarded: $100
Rate w/ bonus: $13.59/hr
Always good to see Party Poker losing money. They lost $45.25 here.
My win rate is almost half what it was last time, but I had three horrendous beats which I copied the hand histories of, determined to write up into a ranty blog entry. But then I thought better of it, you’ll be glad to hear. Each time I lost with a very strong, but still second best, hand and for such monster vs monster situations to happen three times so close together was unusual. If I look back and think there might be something worth talking about, other than just my rotten luck, I may still post them. The poorer win rate shows just how much bonuses rock though – overall I only dropped from $15.98/hr to $13.59/hr – so not huge bucks but nothing to be sneezed at when I can be doing it at the same time as clearing the crud from my email inbox, or coordinating a server reboot.
Non-geeks may look no further.
Vol. Put $ In Pot: 15.94%
Pre-flop Raise: 9.90%
Post-flop Aggression: 2.93
Won $ When Saw Flop: 37.97%
Went to Showdown: 29.70%
Won $ At Showdown: 50.63%
Folded SB to Steal: 92.31%
Folded BB to Steal: 62.50%
Attempt to Steal Blinds: 35.62%
So compared to last time, I saw slightly more showdowns (29.70% vs 26.35%) but won at showdown quite a lot less (50.63% vs 63.01%). Last time I noted that I may not be paying enough river bets, but my win rate was much better then. Maybe this was just the cards – nothing can be proved from a 1500 hand sample size. I don’t really even know why I post these stats… maybe somebody finds them interesting!
So America can’t play poker online any more.
That’s not strictly true. As I understand it, and to be honest I haven’t done extensive research to work out which versions I’ve read are the complete truth, it’s going to become an offence to fund gambling transactions through a US-based financial institution. The bill – which has still not become law – does not make it any less legal than it currently is for Americans to play online poker.
Today my mailbox started filling up with newsletters from various affiliate programs reacting to the news. Interestingly, I’ve not yet had anything from a poker site directed towards me as a player, only as an affiliate. A few statements have been issued, with a handful of sites claiming it’s business as usual (well done particularly to Absolute Poker, whose shirt I am wearing inadvertently today, but had I realised the significance it would be with pride) and the rest saying, well, really we don’t know what to do yet.
Here are some excerpts from the emails I received today:
"As of today Betfred have stopped taking business from US customers in the wake of recent prohibitive legislation by the US government. To clarify, this means that US residents and/or US citizens will not be able to use Betfred at all for telephone betting, online sports betting, casino or poker."
"Our software and ECash provider for Sunpoker.com, The Sands and Omni Casino, CryptoLogic and ECashDirect, have made the decision to no longer service US registered accounts. Consequently, all accounts with US based addresses will no longer be able to play in the casino or poker room as of 12PM EST today October 3rd. Our sister casino 49er Casino uses a different provider, Real Time Gaming (RTG) who has not announced any changes due to these new regulations."
These two seem to be simply overreacting however the legislation may have given them the final push to block access to US players. It’s unlikely that this is the real reason for kneejerk. Last week William Hill already decided to dump their US players, probably in light of the Peter Dicks and David Carruthers arrests. It makes sense that Betfred would follow suit, and the tone of SunPoker’s email suggests that they wouldn’t care if they still had a payment provider that hadn’t jumped ship.
"(InterPoker) regret to inform you that from 11am EST on 3rd October 2006, we will be closing all US gaming accounts. Player’s balances, minus uncleared bonuses, will be returned to players within the next 3 – 4 weeks by check and you will cease to earn revenue share from these players in the future."
InterPoker also use EcashDirect and Cryptologic, so I guess their hands are tied too. However this is quite drastic. Less than three hours after this email was sent, all their US accounts are being automaticaly closed. However they are going to take nearly a month to send those guys their money back. The final statement is somewhat redundant – how could you earn revenue from a closed account anyway? Or do they mean they’re just going to keep that commission anyway? This is what started me thinking… and then…
"PartyGaming will no longer accept wagers from US customers once the act becomes law. Customers resident in the United States, or accessing us from the USA will no longer be able to access our real money gaming services. … Percentage Plan revenues from US customers will continue until the point those customers are unable to play for real i.e. until the legislation becomes law."
This is huge. Party’s stock price has plunged by over half since Friday, and understandably so when they have reacted so dramatically so quickly. Almost all of the other major operators’ statements have been undecided until they work out how the new law will actually affect them. Party – the largest on the net – have immediately said that they will block access to US customers.
My cynical mind sees a problem here. Firstly, their play money servers will remain available to US players. Whilst play money poker is clearly not illegal, why would they bother keeping the servers open? PartyPoker.net only exists as a decaf version of the real thing to give new players a taste for the action. And it works. So if there is any possible loophole to exploit, Party will be back in the market. Whilst Ecash is solely a gaming transaction provider, Party would be able to carry on using Neteller at least – a European company that has already stated that the US law cannot touch them. I just don’t believe they really mean this.
The statement about affiliate revenue makes me very suspicious. Even if it becomes difficult to play poker online, some players will be serious enough and make enough money to carry on despite the hurdles they have to overcome. The biggest players are those likely to have an illegal rakeback agreement, and even if they don’t many will have been referred via an affiliate bonus code. Party already has a history of closing down affiliates who give a share of commission back to their players – so here is an ideal opportunity to sever those affiliate ties and take back the 25% of the rake they are paying out.
You have to wonder just how much that affiliate commission amounts to and whether it is comparable to the amount of business Party stand to lose if they had simply issued an "undecided" statement.
Is it raining? No, it’s just the poker gods pissing on me through a sieve.
Hooray for me winning through to the Sunday Poker Dome final on Mansion. If I get 1st or 2nd in that bad boy then I’m on my way home to Vegas, to play on TV and in front of a live audience in a converted movie theatre. I’m on a semi-mission with this one. I’ve wanted to play the final for a few weeks but haven’t had many opportunities to get in it. Had considered buying direct to the $215 final but decided not to, but there’s only one freezeout satellite each day at 8:15pm, which I seem to forget about and miss the start much more often than not.
The final four played very cagey for a long time, with not many hands going to a flop. I was stealing plenty, even before that. Much more often than I usually do, but I’d recognised the need to build a big stack when only two players were going to get anything. The players eventually started to notice my relentless stabbing at blinds and began to fight back. "Quit raising the blinds" said one. Well, I’m sorry, it’s been working well for me so far. But hey, now I know you’ve finally caught up so it’s time to change gears.
Well, first it’s time to get lucky, picking up KK against JJ and leaving us three handed. And I have a decent chip lead now too.
With blinds at 150/300 Mr Please-don’t-raise-me pumps it up to 900 from the button. I have AQ on the big blind and about three times his stack. Here’s where I still haven’t decided whether I played the hand like a muppet or a genius. Instead of putting the pressure back on him, I decided I was far enough ahead to get a bit tricky and try and end the thing. I just call his raise, and the big blind folds. The board brings J88 with two clubs. I check and immediately call his 900 bet on the flop. I’m not sure why, but I guess I could be ahead, or I could try and outplay him anyway. I consider whether I actually have the balls to put him all on in the turn regardless of the next card but there’s hardly time before the turn brings another J and I move all-in.
Again, this is either stupidity or genius, and I’m still torn between the two. I may well have the best hand, using the two pair on board and my ace high. But there’s also a high chance I’m splitting, and so the bet is only good if he will throw away the same hand or one that beats mine. He may fold an ace here, but it’s unlikely, and I’m almost certainly getting called by any hand that beats me, unless he is extremely tight and puts me on a J, then he might throw away a small full house or a bigger two pair. But can I check-fold this hand now? I don’t think I can, so I may as well bet it just in case I can get him to fold a winner.
The screenshot below tells the bizarre story. I was ahead the whole way. Therefore it was genius. Clearly.
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