Analyzing Your Luck: Factoring Everything In

Date: Tue, Feb 1, 2011 Professional Internet Tournament

Poker players like to analyze how lucky they are. Some are delusional players who play mediocre w/ an 8% ROI over 1K games & a selective memory that causes them to whine like little bitches at the tables. Others use luck analyzers such as all in EV on HEM to analyze how lucky they are. No matter which type you are, hopefully this entry will help you understand your luck better.

For players without a luck analyzing program the best tool you can use is probably sharkscope. If a player plays multiple buy-ins I think the best to tell if someone is likely running good or bad is to compare their average profit to their avg. stake x avg. ROI. For example, if somebody has an average stake of $100 w/ an average ROI of 2% then their average profit should probably be somewhere between $2 (0.02x100) & $2.40 (since avg. ROI is rounded to nearest whole # 0.024 x 100). Therefore, if their avg. profit is below that range there's a good chance they're running below expectation & if they're above that range they're likely running above expectation, likely due to running good at their highest stakes. Every year you see people towards the top of leaderboards whose avg. profit is 2 to 3x or even more than their avg. ROI x avg. stake. That generally doesn't last over the years. The delusional players will tell you that it's because they focus more at their highest stakes (who doesn't?) or they play better against good players but anyone w/ common sense can realize that's probably not the case. We also need to use common sense & sample size. If your avg. ROI is 6% & the next best reg at your stake has an avg. ROI of 3%, you're likely luckboxing it up.

Now let's talk about those who use luck analyzer. First off, let's get straight what a luck analyzer does. It only factors in 1 form of luck. If a player is all in for a 100 chip pot as a 70% favorite then his chip equity in the pot is 70 chips. If he wins the pot then he ran 30 chips above expectation & if he loses he ran 70 chips below expectation. A program such as HEM will then factor in chip stacks & the prize structure to turn these chips into a $ number & adjust your profits & ROI. It doesn't factor things such as card distribution (constantly calling someone at the top of their range, constantly pushing into the top of someone's range, etc...), which can have just as big of an effect on luck, at least in super turbos. I believe it also factors in the luck of the other players at the table, but I am not sure.

Now that we know what a luck analyzer does, let's look at some #s. I cannot confirm this but some math genius figured that all in EV is like multiplying your sample by 3.9. So if you have 1,000 games played & look at your adjusted ROI, it's like looking at your ROI over 3,900 games. Here's a few important sample size #s to remember:

After 500 games you're 50% likely to be within 5% of your true ROI
After 1,000 games you're 67% likely to be within 5% of your true ROI
After 3,000 games you're 90% likely to be within 5% of your true ROI
After 25,000 games you're 90% likely to be within 2% of your true ROI

Let's say you play 15,000 $50 STs. If we multiply that by 3.9 it's 58,500 games. Aside from the fact that your game & the games you play in may have changed a lot during that sample, 58,500 games should get you pretty damn close to your true ROI.

Now let's say you play 15,000 STs from $35 to $200 w/ an average stake of $72.67. your adjusted ROI #s at each buy-in are as follows:
2,000 $200s: -3.3%
2,000 $100s: -2.3%
7,000 $50s: 2.5%
4,000 $35s: 3%

This should workout to an overall adjusted ROI of 1.22%. However, despite having the same # of games as the 15,000 $50 ST sample, this grouping of games is likely to give you a far less accurate adjusted ROI because it is composed of smaller samples of games from different stakes. Looking at that group of adjusted ROIs & using common sense will tell you that. From $35 to $50 that's an avg. stake of $44.55 w/ an adjusted ROI of 2.68%. With an avg. stake of $72.67, a player shouldn't expect that 2.68% ROI to take too much of a dip, especially a 1.46% ROI dip, or an ROI that is less than 46% as high. This is why you need to look at your adjusted ROI at each buy-in level instead of just looking at your overall ROI, & use common sense. A more realistic estimate of that players' ROIs at $100s & $200s would be something like 2.2% & 1.3% respectively. With these new #s the overall ROI now jumps to 2.43%.

My point is that luck analyzers can be a useful tool IF YOU UNDERSTAND THEM. If you don't understand them they're likely to just cause more headaches for you.

As for 2011, the FTP STs have been ridiculously flooded w/ regs at every buy-in level. The games are definitely as tough as they've ever been. I don't see the worst pros being able to stick around at this rate, unless they live in a country with a very cheap cost of living.

Since voss is such a cool guy that he tweets he's been bugging me to plug his twitter. If you're the type of person who has been dying to know when voss takes a shit or eats a big mac, just click the link below & your dreams may come true:

http://twitter.com/voss1313

GL at the tables,
Hub

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Happy New Year! 2010 Year in Review

Date: Sat, Jan 1, 2011 Professional Internet Tournament

2010 turned out to be a really good year. Total profit-wise it was my 2nd best year as a pro, but that's not all that huge to me because my bottom 3 years are all pretty close together. I think the most important part of 2010 was that my pre rakeback profit was a high # again. In 2009 I lost money pre rakeback, & although my all in EV said I should have made $40K or so, that just wasn't up to my standards either. The majority of 2009 was spent playing my C game & my table selection wasn't nearly as good as it could have been either.

In 2010 I spent a lot of time experimenting w/ different #s of tables, speeds, & mixes of sites. I didn't play $300+ at the beginning of the year because I wanted a little break from the brutal variance that they bring after 2009. I think I not only improved as a player in 2010, but improved my table selection as well, both of which are very important in today's tough SNG environment. Lately I've been 16 tabling on FTP.

Here's the top 5 total profit earners for 6-10 seated SNGs & 5-6 seated SNGs from 2010 based on sharkscope data:

6-10 seated SNGs:
1. jorj95, pokerstars $198,410
2. leoc00, full tilt, pokerstars $165,376
3. josselthekiller/jossel2008, FTP,pstars $143,730 *
4. Jared Hubbard $131,354
5. Spacegravy, pokerstars $128,667

* I can't confirm that josselthekiller & jossel2008 are the same person, but I assume they are.

5-6 seated SNGs:
1. Jared Hubbard $123,554
2. Gramps (luckboxfromhell, etc...) $116,025
3. jorj95, pokerstars $114,738
4. 6maxgr1nder/Pokerpro333, cereus, pstars $ 89,706
5. 666AceOfSpades, full tilt $ 84,131

I've been #1 in 5-6 seated total profit 3 out of the 4 years that I've been a pro now. It always feels great but it arguably feels the best this time around. Normally it would probably feel the best the 1st time or the time you made the most money, but after how 2009 went it feels pretty damn good this time. I heard so many people bash me after last year. "Jhub just made good money when the games were soft, he's just average now, everybody has caught up to him." I feed off comments like that & it feels good to show the meatheads the truth. The funny thing is that no matter how well I do I'll still hear comments like that. I just won't hear as many of them. I guess as leatherass points out in the following article: People would rather just tear a guy down than try to figure out how to beat them. That's the easier route.

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-blogs/51-dusty-leatherass-schmidt/entries/23768-people-s-crazy-obsession-with-the-word-bumhunter

I read this article a while back & thought it was good. I just stumbled across it again so I thought I'd post it on here. The article is based on cash games but I think most of it still applies to SNGs.

Pokerpro333 will be trying to break the record for fastest to elite in 2011 & has a lot of bets on it. I am the escrow for these bets. Good luck in your sick quest. I hope he gets on Team Pokerstars Pro Online if he can achieve this.

I'm going to leave you with the greatest interview of all time. Joe Paterno told a recruit this year that he was going to be coaching another 4-6 years. He's currently 84 years old. After reporting this, Colin Cowherd played the following clip on his TV/Radio show "The Herd." Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0fS8xLYIVY

Happy New Year,
Hub

Results:
December 2010:
158.15 hrs
SNG Profit: $29,634.15
Rakeback/Bonuses: $13,864.29
Total Profit: $43,498.44

Year 2010:
1,759.11 hrs
SNG Profit: $134,514.80
Rakeback/Bonuses: $134,412.98
Total Yearly Profit: $268,927.78

Year 2009:
Hours: 1,577.65
SNG Profit: $(22,746.37)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $213,977.09
Total SNG Profit: $191,230.72
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $233,450.52

Year 2008 Online:
Hours: 1510.88
SNG Profit: $277,395.86
Rakeback/Bonuses: $178,589.61
Total SNG Profit: $455,985.47
Staking: $121,573.29
Total Yearly Profit: $577,558.76

Year 2007 Online:
Total Online Poker Profit: $251,388.84 (no staking in 2007)

Career sharkscope:
135,280 $4 $115 4% $557,014

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Table Selection & Color Coding in Super Turbo SNGs

Date: Mon, Dec 13, 2010 Professional Internet Tournament

For those who haven't read my table selection & color coding posts you can find them here:
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/84368.html
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/#asset-jhub3000-87736
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/#asset-jhub3000-89039

Since there's less edge in STs the amount each player effects your ROI is different from that of turbo SNGs.

The ROIs I use are based on leaderboard research & math. You will notice that there's not nearly as big of a difference in ROIs between levels as in turbo SNGs.

I base my #s on a $50 average stake. Players w/ an avg. stake of $100 or more in STs either aren't table selecting well or don't play many tables.

I believe I recommended a base ROI of 8.5% in turbo SNGs. The base ROI is the ROI you use to add & subtract the numbers that will follow in order to figure out your estimated ROI in that particular game. In STs I recommend using a base ROI of somewhere between 2.8 & 4.2% if you're a good player.

Table selection & color coding in STs:

Cost of a good reg: -2.19%
ROI of a good reg:
$200+: 1%
$35-$100: 2%
$20: 4%
$5-$10: 6%

Cost of a decent reg: -1.97%
ROI of a decent reg:
$200+: 0%
$35-$100: 1%
$20: 2%
$5-$10: 3%

Cost of a breakeven reg: -1.76%
ROI of a breakeven reg:
$200+: -1%
$35-$100: 0%
$20: 1%
$5-$10: 2%

Cost of a -5% player: -0.67%

Cost of a -10% player: +0.41%
ROI of a -10% player:
$200+: -16%
$35-$100: -10%
$20: -5%
$5-$10: -4%

Cost of a -15% player: +1.49%
ROI of a -15% player:
$200+: -23%
$35-$100: -15%
$20: -8%
$5-$10: -6%

Cost of a -20% player: +2.57%
ROI of a -20% player:
$200+: -31%
$35-$100: -20%
$20: -10%
$5-$10: -7%

For stats I recommend using a filter of 6-10 seated NL hold em super turbo

Here are the colors I use for color coding in my notes & easier table selection:
yellow: good player
purple: decent player
red: breakeven player
green: -10% player
dark green: -15% or worse player ( I just assume they add 2.03% to my ROI, which is the average of a -15% player & a -20% player)
blue: anything else

I require that a player has at least 500 games. Otherwise I'll color code them blue. However, I use common sense as well. If somebody has 475 games at 5% it's pretty unlikely they would be lower than 2% after 500 games so I'll mark them good.

I realize 500 games isn't a lot but if you require more games you're going to be color coding too many people blue. You're going to do better going off what you have rather than requiring a large sample size because of variance. Trust me.

To make it easier on yourself just round everything to the nearest decimal.

I assume blues have no effect on my ROI. Obviously this isn't perfect but you have to draw the line somewhere because you can only do so much when playing a lot of tables.

Now let's look at some egos/ignorance in action:

204715986 (FullTilt)
Holdem NL Super Turbo Buy In: $100+$3.75
Entrants: 6 Status: Running

Username
tottenham_FC: 48,701 $1 $48 3% $52,635
MontesAlpha: 728 -$7 $107 -8% -$5,405
TaxIsTheft: 23,207 $3 $147 2% $77,919
XAPJIAMOB: 81,425 $1 $60 2% $59,723
Aideniokas: 596 $8 $62 5% $4,704
Mr_plush: 4,553 $1 $39 3% $3,331

Really guys? Good job. A top player could expect to be about -1.65% in this game & lose $0.54 AFTER RAKEBACK. Playing a game where you're losing money after rakeback is just plain idiotic when there's plenty of games to make money at. Hell, go play a $5. Also, by top player I don't mean a player w/ top skill who is playing 16 tables at the time. I mean a player with top skill who probably isn't playing more than 10-12 tables at the time. Once you're playing close to 16 tables the other good regs will almost always be playing less & will start to get an edge on you. I'm not saying you won't make the most money 16 tabling, I'm just saying that it will effect your edge in each game.

I see these games go off time & time again & it's just mind boggling.

But jhub look at how big of a sample size those guys have! Please. STs have gotten progressively harder as they become more & more flooded w/ regs so a lot of those games were probably played when higher ROIs were attainable. 25,000 games tells you that you're 90% to be within 2% of your true ROI. Yes that's right. That's all it tells you. XAPJIAMOB is down to 1% over his last 25,000. I would expect this to be closer to his true ROI in today's games.

If your excuse is you play for the FTP leaderboard then you're brain dead. If your most common played stake is $50 (pretty common for people towards the top of the high limit LB) & you WIN the LB you'll increase your hourly rate about $6.25. Whoop! Increase your ROI 1/4 of a % w/ table selection & you'll make up for it. You can certainly expect your ROI to increase more than 0.25% if you start table selecting though.

It's just mind boggling the amount of mindless volume whore regs I see in STs. A guy will run at -1% over 18,000 $50s because he's a non table selecting idiot & decide it's time to move up to the $100s. Great idea buddy! In reality he should start table selecting and/or move down to the $20s.

Results:
July 2010:
87.67 hrs
SNG profit: -$19,100.42
Rakeback/Bonuses: $7,096.04
Total SNG Profit: -$12,004.38

August 2010:
139.29 hrs
SNG profit: $10,079.71
Rakeback/Bonuses: $7,451.60
Total SNG Profit: $17,531.31

September 2010:
159.93 hrs
SNG profit: $16,637.02
Rakeback/Bonuses: $8,092.91
Total SNG Profit: $24,729.93

October 2010:
159.93 hrs
SNG Profit: $3,003.86
Rakeback/Bonuses: $10,365.78
Total SNG Profit: $13,369.64

November 2010:
179.61 hrs
SNG Profit: $20,424.49
Rakeback/Bonuses: $28,288.36
Total SNG Profit: $48,712.85

Year 2010:
1,672.30 hrs
SNG Profit: $114,996.95
Rakeback/Bonuses: $125,328.69
Total SNG Profit: $240,325.64

I'll probably do an update sometime after 2010 is over.

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Mid Year Review

Date: Fri, Jul 2, 2010 Professional Internet Tournament

Signup for 33% rakeback on Cake w/ the signup code jhub

So far I would say 2010 has been a success. It hasn't been anywhere close to 2008 but the reality is that the games are a lot tougher & I'm playing a tougher schedule now.

I always liked following the overall any game 5-6 seated (this is what any game 5-6 seated used to be, now any game 5-6 seated is really any game 5-6 seated normal speed) & overall single table leaderboards on sharkscope. For whatever reason they don't have those anymore. I decided to do some searches & see who the top guys were for the year. Of course this list isn't perfect because some people have their stats blocked & some people might have aliases on other sites but it's the best I could come up with. Here are the top 5 total profit for NL hold em 5-10 seated any speed 2010 as of July 2nd:

1. jorj95, pokerstars $230,355
2. Scoss, full tilt $89,059
3. spacegravy, pokerstars $80,209
4. jbidouilles, pokerstars $75,377
5. jhub30/jhub3000, combined sites $66,551 (sharkscope only, it's actually significantly higher but others might be as well)

As you can see I'm #5. Everyone ahead of has an avg profit that is a lot higher than their avg stake x avg ROI. This indicates they're likely running above expectation at their highest stakes & there's a decent chance they'll cool off during the year. Of course as far as the #1 spot goes that doesn't even matter because jorj is so far ahead of everyone. Since jorj has turned into an absolute beast I doubt I'll ever be the most profitable SNG player, or even most profitable 5-6 seated SNG player in a year again anytime in the near future. However, I think #2 is certainly doable so that might be something for me to strive for.

My hours are going to be way down this month, & might be down in general the rest of the summer with the nice weather. I think I might start trying to play 50 hr weeks during the winter & then play less during the summer while it's nice out. I just wish I would have put more hours in the first 2 months of the year.

For those who play hyper turbos & use all in EV for finding adjusted ROI & adjusted profit you might want to be cautious not to put too much stake into the #s. For turbos adjusted ROI is great. It's not perfect but it's said to be the equivalent to multiplying your sample size by 3.9. However, in hyper turbos card distribution is probably just as important, if not more important than all in EV. This is because you're forced into action right away & there's almost no post-flop play. In a regular turbo you can often get away from a hand like TT vs AA because there's post-flop play. When you're starting w/ 10BBs this is pretty unlikely. Almost every time 1 of the players will push & the other will call, or some sort of min raise/re-raise all in scenario will occur. Card distribution has its role in turbos as well, but it has a much larger role in hyper turbos. Therefore, I wouldn't put too much stock into all in EV for hypers. All in EV might have you running $5K below expectation, when in reality you've had very good card distribution & are running $5K above expectation in that area, meaning you're actually running neutral overall.

I assume a lot of you don't go through the comments on every blog entry so I think I should post this here since I think a lot of people have the same delusional mindset as the players we are talking about here. The following comment was left on my blog & is followed by my response:

interested in your opinion
Hope you will not mind to answer this question.I myself play a low stakes so not that I care that much but while reading russian forum I discovered a thread where most of the russian 6max regulars post.Mostly the guys you play 55s with.And there is an interesting topic about how easy is such regulars as you since you play so much predictable and that they can gain so much from you by outplaying you in early levels that there is even no need to table select against you.Those guys who claim that have top notch rois within the samples of 10k.(yeah I know they might be running hot).
Could you please share your opinion regarding this ?

Re: interested in your opinion
There have long been ignorant cocky morons w/ opinions like this and there always will be. First off, SNGs are won in the later levels and my late game is as good as anyone's. You can add some ROI points in the early levels but a good late game player is going to have more of an edge than a good early game player. Second off, how many pots are these idiots going to play with me in the early levels? They might play 1 or 2 pots w/ me early, if even that, while if we both make it to the later levels they'll be playing a huge percentage of pots with me. Third off, these idiots are rarely going to get my stack. The biggest gain you can get in the early levels is when you stack someone, not playing 1 pot w/ someone & winning 140 chips 55% of the time, while losing 45% of the time. Fourth, I probably play post-flop better than most of these guys who think they're outplaying me. My post-flop stats are very good, as are my HU stats. 10-12 tabling hurts this but I still do well. These idiots are rarely going to see my cards so they're going to either not see or selectively forget the times I outplay them or catch them trying to outplay me. Meanwhile EVERY TIME they outplay me they will remember it & tell themselves how sick they are. It's called selective memory & if they think otherwise they're kidding themselves.

These players can continue to 4-6 table & not select around me. Meanwhile I'll 10-12 table w/ good table selection & make 2-3x what they do post-rakeback. End of story. Also, a lot of the Russians have smallish samples & are clearly running above expectation.

I'd be interested to hear which Russians think this way. It's also odd that none of these guys accepted my total profit prop bet challenge. Please post that on the Russian forum as it's still open to any of these "post-flop studs."

I also find it funny that it's mostly $55 players saying this. Perhaps there's a reason they're stuck at the $55s. There's nothing wrong w/ being a full time $55 player. Good money can be made there. However, if you're a $55 player don't think you're God's gift to SNGs & have it all figured out.

The best Russian SNG player of all time is easily h1nt (fcukyourluck, paris_hilton 81, etc...). It's no coincidence that he table selected & wasn't a spewtastic lagtard trying to outplay regs every chance he got.

I suggest these Russians stick to drinking vodka & leave the killing SNgs to me
GL,
Hub

Results:
May 2010
164.69 hrs
SNG Profit: $14,053.57
Rakeback/Bonuses: $13,318.10
Total Profit: $27,371.67

June 2010:
145.75 hrs
SNG Profit: $21,188.60
Rakeback/Bonuses: $10,308.71
Total Profit: $31,497.31

Year 2010:
865.75 hrs
SNG profit: $76,157.49
Rakeback/Bonuses: $61,224.00
Total yearly Profit: $137,381.49

Year 2009:
Hours: 1,577.65
SNG Profit: $(22,746.37)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $213,977.09
Total SNG Profit: $191,230.72
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $233,450.52

Year 2008 Online:
Hours: 1510.88
SNG Profit: $277,395.86
Rakeback/Bonuses: $178,589.61
Total SNG Profit: $455,985.47
Staking: $121,573.29
Total Yearly Profit: $577,558.76

Year 2007 Online:
Total Online Poker Profit: $251,388.84 (no staking in 2007)

Career Sharkscope:

109,203 $5 $135 4% $492,978

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Donate to a Good cause

Date: Mon, Jun 21, 2010 Professional Internet Tournament

Those who have been following my blog for a while probably remember the story about our friend Joe Vogel, who has cancer. They're having a benefit next weekend & I thought I'd extend the invitation for donations on here. I know it's a tough time economically for a lot of people but if you can afford to give anything it would be greatly appreciated.

Checks can be written out to Team Vogel & sent to:

450 East King St
#3
Winona, MN 55987

You can also go to www.teamvogelvscancer.com & donate at the bottom of the page

You can read Joe's story here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/joevogel

Thanks a lot,
Jared

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My Full Tilt Color Coding System

Date: Sun, May 16, 2010 Professional Internet Tournament

Signup for 33% rakeback on cake using the signup code jhub.

I was going to write up my ftp color coding for my brother and a friend so I figured I might as well just post it on here. I hope you guys find this very helpful.

I recommend you color code based on people’s estimated ROIs at your average stake or the stake you play most often. I will use $55s for my example. Here are my colors:

Yellow: good (4% or better)
Purple: decent (1-3%)
Red: breakeven or good over a small sample
Blue: -1% to -4% or insignificant sample
Green: -5% or worse
Dark green: -20% or worse (fish)

Here are the minimum ROIs I require a player to have over 500 or more games to mark them yellow:

$300+: 1%
$200s: 2%
$100s: 3%
$50s: 4%
$30s: 5%
$20s: 6%
$16s: 8%
$6s: 10%

I realize 500 games doesn’t tell you much but I think it’s better to go off of the info you can rather than say ”his ROI could be 5% lower, blah, blah, blah.” Give the player the benefit of the doubt & your hourly rate will thank you later. If a player has 1 of these ROIs over 250 games I will mark them red. Use common sense w/ the # of game requirements. If a player is 30% over 400 games at the $16s it’s pretty safe to say you can upgrade him from red to yellow. The same is true for a player that is 5% over 490 games at the $100s, etc… If you play super turbos you probably want to lower the ROI requirements. Good players in super turbos might be 3% at $30s or 1% at $100s, etc…

For marking players purple or red that play different buy-ins I would just look at the difference in ROI of yellow players compared to $55s & subtract it or add it to their ROI. For example, to mark a player yellow at $16s we require an 8% ROI while at $50s we require a 4% ROI. The difference is 4%. If a player is 6% at $16s we can subtract 4 & estimate his ROI to be 2% at the $55s & mark him purple. If a player is 4% at the $16s we can estimate him to be breakeven at the $55s & mark him red. If a player is 0% at $100s we would add 1% to his ROI for $55s & mark him purple. You get the picture.

So for $55s these players should be marked purple:
$300+: -2% to 0%
$200s: -1% to 1%
$100s: 0% to 2%
$50s: 1% to 3%
$30s: 2% to 4%
$20s: 3% to 5%
$16s: 5% to 7%
$6s: 7% to 9%

At $55s these players would be marked red along w/ players who have a good ROI over 250 games but less than 500:
$300+: -3%
$200s: -2%
$100s: -1%
$50s: 0%
$30s: 1%
$20s: 2%
$16s: 4%
$6s: 6%

For fish I convert their ROI to $55s a little differently. Instead of adding or subtracting the difference between a good players ROI at each level & divide & multiply. For example, a good players ROI at $6s is 10% while at $55s it’s 4%. 10/4=2.5 If a player is -8% at $10s I will multiply that by 2.5 to get -20% at $55s, which is the minimum requirement for a fish. I would mark him dark green . This doesn’t really work for stakes above the stake you’re color coding so I would just use the addition/subtraction for those.

At $55s these players would be marked dark green (fish):
$300+: -17% or worse
$200s: -18% or worse
$100s: -19% or worse
$55s: -20% or worse
$30s: -16% or worse
$20s: -13% or worse
$16s: -10% or worse
$6s: -8% or worse

At $55s these players would be marked green if they aren’t a fish:
$300s+: -8% or worse
$200s: -7% or worse
$100s: -6% or worse
$50s: -5% or worse
$30s: -4% or worse
$20s: -3% or worse
$16s: -1% or worse
$6s: 1% or worse

Any ROI that isn’t covered would be marked blue, along w/ those under 500 games who aren’t marked red. The reason I convert the ROIs differently for fish than good players is I’d like to be more lenient when color coding good players. If somebody is actually a -2% player at $55s instead of a 2% player they’re still bad for my ROI so it doesn’t kill me to have them marked as a winning player. On the flip side, if somebody is actually -13% rather than -20% they’re still good for my ROI. Since I only differentiate between fish & -5% or worse players I don’t mind having looser standards for fish.

Obviously this system can be used on sites besides ftp too. It’s not perfect but I think it give you pretty good estimates & I’ve had great success using it. I usually try not to register on even 2 reds without a fish. I’m strict because it’s tough to know someone’s true ROI. First off there’s variance. Then there’s a bunch of people who don’t table select or table select poorly. There might be a 0% player who doesn’t table select but actually effects your ROI worse than a player with a 3% ROI who table selects. If 2 purples, 2 reds, or 1 red & 1 purple register behind me without a fish I might defend my ground depending on how well games are filling & how many games I currently need to fill.

A really easy way to color code is with sharkscope hud. For 6 max, set the filter to NL hold em any speed 6 seated or 6-10 seated normal format. Personally I prefer 6-10 seated because it gives you a better sample size to go off of & 6 max SNG players are generally good at 9-10 max & vice versa. Of course if you play something like double or nothings you would want that as the format instead of normal. What I try to do is once a day on days I’m playing I open up every 6 max table running at stakes I play & color code everyone. This does wondersfor table selection & reads because I don’t use sharkscope hud in game. It will take longer at first but once you’ve done it a lot the process is much shorter because there’s less people to color code. I prefer to do this right before I start playing so that it’s a lot of the people I know I’ll be playing against that day.

As for poker, things have been going pretty well. April was my best month of the year so far & I think I'm probably top 5 in total 5-10 seated SNG profit this year if you combine my sites.

You can use full tilt points on step tickets now. Since I don't need anymore electronics for the house I'll be using all of my points on step 7 ($2,100) tickets. Unfortunately they don't have 6 max but I'm confident my edge is pretty big in these if I'm selective. So far I'm I've played 1 & took 1st for a $12K WSOP main event package. I'm taking the cash though.

I've started to mix in super turbos on full tilt. This will obviously drop my ROI a lot (already dropped my overall ftp ROI 2%) but I'm hoping that the volume I can get with them & rakeback will make up for it. Time will tell I guess. I'm sure they're definitely a roller coaster ride. I've always talked about how super turbos have more variance. It's pretty much common knowledge. Somebody posted on my blog pointing out that jorj95's super turbo graph doesn't have much variance over a giamt sample. This is because most of the super turbos he plays are actually satellites which pay half the field. This leads to a lot less variance than the standard 65/35 or 50/30/20 structures.

Results:
March 2010
163.5 hrs
SNG Profit: $5,682.29
Rakeback/Bonuses: $10,042.33
Total Profit: $15,724.62

April 2010:
171.12 hrs
SNG Profit: $21,822.04
Rakeback/Bonuses: $9,686.23
Total Profit: $31,508.27

Year 2010:
629.67 hrs
SNG profit: $47,028.60
Rakeback/Bonuses: $42,510.86
Total yearly Profit: $89,539.46

Year 2009:
Hours: 1,577.65
SNG Profit: $(22,746.37)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $213,977.09
Total SNG Profit: $191,230.72
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $233,450.52

Year 2008 Online:
Hours: 1510.88
SNG Profit: $277,395.86
Rakeback/Bonuses: $178,589.61
Total SNG Profit: $455,985.47
Staking: $121,573.29
Total Yearly Profit: $577,558.76

Year 2007 Online:
Total Online Poker Profit: $251,388.84 (no staking in 2007)

Career Sharkscope:

100,734 $5 $138 5% $471,871

Read Full Blog Post

Gonna mosey on over to Rosie O'donnells, with McDonalds, jump in her lap & watch the Sopranos

Date: Fri, Mar 19, 2010 Professional Internet Tournament

Signup for 33% Rakeback on Cake with the signup code jhub

For some reason LJ isn’t letting my reply to comments so sorry for the delay

In response to this: Rakeback
Congratulations for your results. I registered today at Cake Poker with your signup code. Where can I see my rakeback? Thank you, regards. Screenname: Karavansaray

You can find rakeback under my account>stats
rakeback is paid weekly & you can find payments in your history of the cashier

In response to this: Wow this looks like a good bet looking at your Full Tilt score on sharkscope. Almost going into the red. I'm sure you will get it back tho.

By the way how is Voss1313 doing. I haven't heard much about him lately and it seems like he has been in the red on Absolute for a long time. Wondering if he is still playing for a living or not. It's ashame he hasn't updated his blog or twitter account in a long time.

4,850 $1 $104 3% $5,178 N/A N/A Global Alias Year2010 E6-10 G=H NoLim NormalFormat SNG Only
Those are my total SNG stats on the year. First off it's missing about $5K profit but that's just the nature of sharkscope. I actually lost $5K on another site anyway but that site isn’t tracked by sharkscope & therefore wouldn’t be included in any bets. Secondly, with a 3% ROI at that average stake you should have an average profit of $3. With an average profit of $3 my total profit would be $14,550. Add the $5K sharkscope is missing & my total profit could just as easily say $19,550 instead of the $5,178 it says. What this tells you is that I am running bad at my highest stakes. This has such a large effect on total profit, which is why I decided to stop playing FTP $300+ on january 21st. After last year I just don't want to deal with that kind of variance, even if it means I make less money.

If you want to improve as a player you have to try new things. The downside is that sometimes you waste a bunch of games trying new things that didn't work out. From january 21st through March 10th I was experimenting with pretty drastic changes to my play. I started out destroying the games with a 10% adjusted ROI (factoring in all in EV) over 1,000+ games. I suspect during this time my opponents hadn't really noticed the changes in my game. Then I believe they caught on. Over the next 1,000 to 1,500 games I went on a 130 average buy-in downswing & my adjusted ROI was right around 0%. Obviously the majority of this was variance since a 0% ROI would indicate that I neither lost money nor won money pre rakeback. However, had I not made these changes to my game I probably would have been losing about $4/game rather than losing $10/game during this stretch. I am a very ambitious hard working player. While that has worked out great for me at times, it has also been my downfall at other times, as I sometimes try too hard to improve my game & end up costing myself money. I think it's time to just accept the fact that it’s 2010 & if you 8-10 table with an average stake in the $100s then 6% is probably about the ceiling for ROI. I believe h1nt (paris_hilton 81) told me that his all in EV adjusted ROI was 6% and that’s what mine is over a decent sample. Playing the way I am now 8-10 tabling my adjusted ROI is 6% over a good 2,000 to 3,000 games, which isn’t much of a sample unadjusted but when factoring in all in EV it's like playing 4x the # of games. Therefore, 2,000 to 3,000 games of adjusted stats gives me the amount of info that 8,000 to 12,000 games of unadjusted stats would. If I hadn’t wasted my time trying something new & had ran at neutral EV it’s not hard to see how I could have made $30-$35K pre rakeback this year so far.

One really nice thing about all in EV is that when I do try something new & it’s not working I’m not going to waste much more than 2,000 games trying it out because I have a really good idea of how much variance I’m experiencing. In the past I had wasted many more games because the only tool I had for judging how much variance I was experiencing was my own eyes & what I saw at the table. When on a bad run we generally remember a lot more of the hands we got unlucky in & seem to forget many of the hands where we got lucky. It’s easy to see how this can cloud your judgement & analysis of your own game. That said, I’m pretty confident that I can still make $90-$100K pre rakeback this year, although it could have been more had I not experimented with new things.

I only have 1 total profit bet, which is with 6maxgr1nder/pokerpro333, who has his stats blocked. He’ll unblock them for me to see at anytime but I haven’t asked lately. If he’s still crushing he will be hard to catch & I may very well have screwed myself with the 2,000+ games of experimenting this year. However, it’s only a $2K bet & was more for fun anyway so I’m not too concerned. If some more people want to make a bet I might request that we only do it from March 11th until the end of the year if they’re good enough. Also, obviously there’s a time when you need to draw a line. I’m clearly not going to be betting people in September who are on the heater of a lifetime & way ahead of me. There’s a time when the window of opportunity to bet me will close.

As for Voss, he’s losing pre rakeback on the year but his all in EV shows that he’s running awful & should be winning. Also, since I taught him & he looks to me for advice, he also tried the same experimenting with his game from January 21st through March 10th with the similar results. The same holds true for last year. I had been experimenting with my game too much, which developed leaks, & also playing too many tables. He followed my lead and did the same. He made plenty of money in rakeback to make a living though. I can assure you he will be fine now & in the future as a winning player both pre rakeback & post rakeback. Another thing to consider is that about 35-40% of his games are super turbos. The majority of the money made in super turbos is from rakeback & they’re also a variance nightmare. Because of this his pre rakeback profit won’t be as high. This was even more so last year when I suspect that more than 50% of his games were super turbos.

I want to give some props to jorj95. He unblocked his sharkscope stats & what he’s doing is simply amazing. Prior to Pokerstars adding hyper turbos in 2009 jorj was a pretty good winning high stakes SNG regular on pokerstars, but there were certainly plenty of people I would have rated ahead of him. However, he really came into his own when he started playing hyper turbos. Here are some of his #s:

Jorj95 186,393 $4 $150 2% $738,656 -89 PokerStars SNG Only

Those are his total SNG sharkscope stats. The sicko has played over 186,000 SNGs since sharkscope started. For a comparison I have played 92,691 games tracked by sharkscope. Of people with an average stake above $100 I’m probably in the top 5 of games played on sharkscope & he has more than double my # of games!

Jorj95 95,014 $5 $117 3% $484,977 -

N/A PokerStars Year2009 SNG Only

Those are his total SNG sharkscope stats from 2009. The majority is from hyper turbos.

Jorj95 57,708 $3 $124 2% $158,065 -

N/A PokerStars Year2010 SNG Only

These are his total SNG sharkscope stats from 2010.

Are you kidding me with these stats? I’m speechless.

Congrats to jorj on being the new King of SNGs & being the sickest to ever do it. He has finally been rewarded as the newest member of team pokerstars pro online.

My volume was down in Februrary due to a trip to the Dominican Republic & being sick part of the month.

It just baffles me that in 2010 with all the info available to players, I still see idiot pros registering in 6 max games w/ 2 or more winning regs & no fish. It’s not uncommon to see games go off with 5 winning regs. The level of stupidity, ignorance, & arrogance that still goes on in the table selection of regs is beyond retarded. FTP has been especially bad lately. If you play on FTP & your name is BigG81, polarjoe, poutsokefales, FrankyFingso, Almagio II, kingofchicago, speeditup001, whitesnake1, Howdoiplayxx, bstacey33, PAAtron1843, zestfulyclean, UPNcoming4U, road of truth, or max conceal you are indeed one of the idiots I am referring to & you need to wake up if you want the games to stay profitable. Likewise, on Cake if your name is Akvalang608, License2win, pureprofit, u freaky fish, 4naterobNYK4, Rolmar, Henrickx, kk2754 wake up as your run of good luck won’t last forever. Of course there are too many idiots for me to remember so my apologies to any non table selecting moron pros I left out. Feel free to add any names in the comments. As faarcyde said, the games will stay profitable as long as we want them to, but it’s up to the players to use good judgement to make that happen. Not table selecting is not only awful for your own profit, but it’s also bad etiquette toward other regs who use good judgement & let you have games without registering on top & making it unprofitable for everybody. I also don't think it's very good etiquette to signup for 5 $119s at the same time on sites that let you register for more than 1 of the same buy-in at a time. If you have 100% rakeback you basically get a pass. However, that’s very few people & includes none of the people I named.

Results:
February 2010
85.82hrs
SNG Profit: $735.28
Rakeback/Bonuses: $ 5,179.98
Total Profit: $5,915.26
Year 2010:
322.44 hrs
SNG profit: $ 5,633.18
Rakeback/Bonuses: $ 21,838.46
Total yearly Profit: $ 27,471.64

Year 2009:
Hours: 1,577.65
SNG Profit: $(22,746.37)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $213,977.09
Total SNG Profit: $191,230.72
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $233,450.52

Year 2008 Online:
Hours: 1510.88
SNG Profit: $277,395.86
Rakeback/Bonuses: $178,589.61
Total SNG Profit: $455,985.47
Staking: $121,573.29
Total Yearly Profit: $577,558.76

Year 2007 Online:
Total Online Poker Profit: $251,388.84 (no staking in 2007)

Career Sharkscope:

92,691 $5 $142 5% $431,639

total

10,502 $8 $107 12% $84,176

normal speed 5-6 seated

70,410 $5 $154 4% $359,682

turbo 5-6 seated

9,689 -$2 $100 0% -$18,650

super turbo 5-6 seated

135 $20 $23 101% $2,650 MTT SNGs

Read Full Blog Post

An Open Invitation to the Haters: Put Your $ Where your Mouth Is

Date: Fri, Feb 5, 2010 Professional Internet Tournament

http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliate=jared2896

Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.

Over the past year I've seen a lot of comments from ignorant haters. There are two common themes. The 1st is that Everyone has caught up to me & I can't compete in the current state of SNGs. The 2nd is that I only can make money off of staking & rakeback (which if you look at my #s over the YEARS makes no sense). The standard is to just laugh it off as I take their money. Sometimes they'll catch me in a frustrated state & I'll attempt to set the record straight, which they're always too stupid to understand anyway. However, I was thinking, why not try to make some money off of these idiots? To those haters I offer this prop bet:

total 2010 profit NL hold em 6-10 seated normal format

stipulations:
-excludes non US siutes...these sites are clearly much softer
-excludes rakeback....this is bad for me as I make more rakeback than most SNG players...also, there's certain games like super turbos that I clearly wouldn't play if it weren't for the rakeback
-only includes games on sharkscope...again this is a disadvantage of me as sharkscope doesn't track probably 10-20% of my games
-max of 35,000 games.....this will help prevent people from account sharing...looking at players # of games on LBs, this shouldn't be an issue

Haters: this is your chance to cash in on your beliefs. If I get more action than I'd like to take I will look for investors so that I don't have to turn down any haters.

If you want to take this bet make an offer in the comments section. I leave for the Dominican Republic tomorrow morning but will try to sort through comments around the 15th.

GL at the tables,
Hub

Year 2009:
Hours: 1,577.65
SNG Profit: $(22,746.37)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $213,977.09
Total SNG Profit: $191,230.72
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $233,450.52

Year 2008 Online:
Hours: 1510.88
SNG Profit: $277,395.86
Rakeback/Bonuses: $178,589.61
Total SNG Profit: $455,985.47
Staking: $121,573.29
Total Yearly Profit: $577,558.76

Year 2007 Online:
Total Online Poker Profit: $251,388.84 (no staking in 2007)

http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliate=jared2896

Top Stories

Read Full Blog Post

Comparison of Games Over the Years & January Review

Date: Fri, Jan 29, 2010 Professional Internet Tournament

http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliate=jared2896

Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.

Everyone talks about how much tougher SNGs (& poker in general) have become over the years, so I wanted to look into it & actually analyze some #s to get more of a true picture of how the games have been over the years. How I did this is I took players from leaderboards over the years & created global aliases on sharkscope, combining their stats into 1 name. I did a lot of comparisons but all were pretty similar results so I'm just going to go over the more important #s:

Username Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100 Network Filter

6mantop102008 68,833 $11 $133 8% $763,730 N/A N/A Global Alias Year2008 E6-6 G=H NoLim Spd=T NormalFormat SNG Only

6mantop102009 32,905 $15 $246 6% $507,696 N/A N/A Global Alias Year2009 E6-6 G=H NoLim Spd=T NormalFormat SNG Only

It should be noted that I excluded players from European sites as I think those are generally softer. The 1st #s are from the top 10 of the any game 5-6 seated leaderboard in 2008 & the 2nd #s are from the same lb in 2009. Looking at these #s it doesn't appear that the games have gotten any tougher. In fact, the average profit of the players in 2009 was even better than that of 2008. One interesting thing to note is that the top 10 in 2008 was composed of more hardcore grinders, as the total # of games is more than double the top 10 in 2009. I think part of that is that many good players (myself included) tried to play too many tables in 2009 & their profits suffered because of that. In my opinion, another reason for the huge gap in # of games played between the 2 years is that the top 10 in 2009 simply ran much better at the highest stakes. I was very surprised that the #s hadn't dropped from 2008 to 2009 so I had to look further.

On to the next #s:
Username Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100 Network Filter

6mft&starslbplayers 57,274 $7 $112 8% $392,258 N/A N/A Global Alias Year2007 E5-6 G=H NoLim Spd=T NormalFormat SNG Only

6mft&starslbplayers 129,245 $8 $130 8% $1,067,341 N/A N/A Global Alias Year2008 E5-6 G=H NoLim Spd=T NormalFormat SNG Only

6mft&starslbplayers 163,134 $5 $135 5% $805,489 N/A N/A Global Alias Year2009 E5-6 G=H NoLim Spd=T NormalFormat SNG Only

You'll notice that all 3 groups of stats are from the same alias. They're just in different years. What I did this time was take all the players from the any game 5-6 seated turbo & any game 5-6 seated turbo $101-300 LBs (I might have even taken top 10 from $36-100, I forget) from either 2008 or 2009 & combined them into 1 alias. This time I only used pokerstars & ftp players, as I think those games are similar in toughness compared to the other sites.

From 2007 to 2008 the # of games makes a big jump. Again, this is probably partially because players started to play more tables. I also think it's because I didn't include the 07 lb players in the alias, so many of the 08 & 09 guys may not have broken out yet in 2007 & were probably starting out or trying to move up the ranks. The average ROi is the same from 2007 to 2008, & although the average stake is slightly higher in 2008, I don't think there's really a significant difference in the toughness of games there.

The big difference you see is the stats from 2008 to 2009. There's even more games in 2009 as I think people had broken out by then & were playing more tables. However, the average ROI of these players in 2009 is only 62.5% of what it was in 2008. I think that's the most reliable stat in all of this. If you're making around 60-70% of what you did from SNGs in 2008, it's probably not because your game has fallen off, but rather that the games are just that much harder. Hopefully sites are allowed back in the US in the next few years & the games will be softer than they were in 2008.

I found a bunch of hand histories from 2007 & 2008 & imported them into my hold em manager database. For those that think I run good, I give you the overall stats from all games in my HEM database:

29,757 games
$189.60 average stake
$50,839.44 actual profit
$109,865.44 adjusted profit (factoring in all in EV)

That means that over 29,757 games I ran $59,026 below expectation on my all ins. I tried to upload the graph but Lj said the format isn't supported.

I have decided not to play any $300+ on ftp anymore. I was only on pace for about 1,300 of them in a year. Again, my overall results would depend too heavily on a small sample of games at my highest stakes. After last year I just can't handle another losing year pre rakeback. The variance is just too stressful. I've decided to take a long run hourly rate hit for less stress in that department. I'm also rarely playing more than 9 tables now. I basically only add a 10th table if it's a $119 or higher where I expect my ROI to be 11% or higher, which isn't very often. So far it's going great. I started all of this on January 21st & here's how it's going so far:

Games avg. profit avg. stake ROI total profit
675 $18 $101 16% $12,343

398 $30 $118 23% $11,943

These are my sharkscope #s from the period. The 1st #s are my total games. the 2nd #s are my regular turbo stats, excluding super turbos & normal speeds. I'm averaging $292.67 during this period. Obviously these #s aren't sustainable. After analyzing my all in EV, it looks like my adjusted hourly rate for the period would be about $185. Interestingly enough, that's 61.67% of the $300 hourly rate I had in 2008 ($300) which is very close to 62.5%. Now obviously game conditions & my hourly rate will likely change a lot throughout the year. I expect most months to be better than January from here on out because of this, as I ran God awful at $300+ this month.

I ended up resetting my stats on ftp back to when I started 10 tabling. I might reset them again to when i started 9 tabling w/ no $300+ once I get a bigger sample. I'll take any edge I can get in this day and age. If 1 good reg per week doesn't signup for a game w/ me because of my stats, then it's worth it. It certainly isn't going to hurt anything.

I'm not even going to talk about the Vikings. There's not many things more frustrating than being a Vikings fan. You guys saw the game. We should have won by 2 to 3 TDs but instead just beat ourselves over & over & over w/ stupid mistakes.

We're going to the Dominican Republic for a week in February for a destination wedding so my hours will be down for the month.

It's my wife's birthday today & mine tomorrow so I'm done playing for the month.

http://sparta45.livejournal.com/2010/01/27/

Check out the comments by this spindersox guy. I haven't seen such a humble, intelligent, "superstar" since the legendary chillshot http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/5996-spadeclub-poker-39-s-2008-player-of-the-year

If you want more it gets better at http://spindersox.livejournal.com

I'm going to leave you w/ something that thevosh (Jeremy Voshage) sent me in an email. There's just so many classic parts in all of this: 90 tabling mostly folding, 2,000+ games in a day, sick grinder, etc...

Somebody sent an email to Pokerstars about this guy being a bot. Here is their response:

The Ultimate Micro Grinder - Supernova playing 1$ DoN

Click the image at least twice to see a bigger picture.

Pokerstars respones to this guy:

He does indeed play about 14 hours a day on average, non-stop, keeping
around 90 tables open, mostly folding.
Yeah, he's a sick grinder, but we've thrown all of our best bot detection tools against
him, and he doesn't show any signs of being a bot. We've analyzed his
session times, the computers he plays from, and more. He doesn't appear to
be account sharing, either.

Everything we see tells us "sick grinder", rather than bot.

I hope this has answered your question completely. Please do not hesitate
to let us know any time you need anything.

Best Regards,

Jeff
PokerStars Game Security

Results:
January 2010
143.79 hrs
SNG Profit: $10,354.21
Rakeback/Bonuses: $10,518.65
Total Profit: $20,872.86

Year 2009:
Hours: 1,577.65
SNG Profit: $(22,746.37)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $213,977.09
Total SNG Profit: $191,230.72
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $233,450.52

Year 2008 Online:
Hours: 1510.88
SNG Profit: $277,395.86
Rakeback/Bonuses: $178,589.61
Total SNG Profit: $455,985.47
Staking: $121,573.29
Total Yearly Profit: $577,558.76

Year 2007 Online:
Total Online Poker Profit: $251,388.84 (no staking in 2007)

Career Sharkscope:
90,009 $5 $143 5% $435,279 total
10,334 $8 $107 12% $85,825 normal speed 5-6 seated
68,773 $5 $155 4% $365,683 turbo 5-6 seated
8,809 -$3 $103 0% -$22,175 super turbo 5-6 seated
135 $20 $23 101% $2,650 MTT SNGs

http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliate=jared2896

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Analysis of 2009 & Looking Forward to 2010

Date: Wed, Dec 30, 2009 Professional Internet Tournament

http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliate=jared2896

Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.

Congrats to Spacegravy for making Team Pokerstars Pro Online. He's the only player I really know (or at least talk to on aim) that made the team. They went in a much different direction than I think anyone expected w/ most of them. They said they wanted to make sure people could play w/ a "pro" regardless of what games they played, so they picked people from variious games at all stakes. You have to play 100% on Pokerstars so the deal would have been no good for me.

Cake has added new rewards to their VIP program called gold stacks. You can read about it here: http://cakepoker.com/en/Rewards/GoldStacks/GoldStacksRewards.aspx & here: http://cakepoker.com/en/Rewards/GoldStacks/GoldStacksFacts.aspx
I still need to look into it further but it looks pretty good from what I've seen. I'll probably do a more detailed post on it sometime in the future.

Now let's move onto looking back at 2009. It obviously wasn't my best year. To give you a good idea of how bad it was here are my sharkscope stats from each year as a full time pro:

Year Games Avg. Profit ROI Total Profit
2007: 28,787 $5 $133 5% $147,011
2008: 24,120 $11 $152 7% $272,226
2009: 27,408 -$2 $173 0% -$45,345

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM..Yummy Now sharkscope does make it look slightly worse than it actually was because they were having coverage problems on FTP & other sites throughout the year, but I still lost almost $23K pre rakeback in 2009.

Why did this happen? Well, it was a combination of things. Some of it was variance related, but I actually think more was non variance related. Let's 1st analyze the variance portion of things. According to hold em manager all in EV calculator here are some #s from games in my 2009 database:

Actual numbers:
13,265 games, -0.5% ROI, -$13,512.51 "profit", $217.38 avg. stake
Adjusted numbers based on all in EV:
13,265 games, 0.7% ROI, $19,999.38 profit, $217.38 avg. stake

These #s don't include Cake. I'll get to that later. They also don't include 100% of my games from other sites, but that's all I have to go off of. What this says is that I ran 1.2% below expectation & should have made almost $20K in these games instead of losing about $13.5K. Now all in EV isn't perfect. It actually only accounts for about 20-40% of total luck, but it's all we have to go off of & it's better than nothing. I wish I still had my HHs from 2008 & 2007 so I could see what my all in EV & adjusted ROIs were in those years.

Here's my #s from Cake:
overall: 10,396 -$2 $98 0% -$23,300
turbo: 4,266 $1 $94 3% $6,369
super turbo: 5,996 -$5 $101 -2% -$30,720

I played some very tough games earlier in the year but I probably still should have been breakeven in the super turbos. So if I ran at neutral EV throughout the year I probably would have made around $40 to $45K pre rakeback. I played way more super turbos than in previous years but that's still less than $2/game, which is obviously nowhere near the $11/game from 2008 or the $5/game from 2007. What else went wrong?

For one, the average games were much harder in 2009. The sharkscope leaderboards reflect that. Players just didn't have as much of an edge as in years' past. I probably got overconfident & didn't give people enough credit when table selecting. For example, I would characterize certain players as 2.8% ROI droppers when they probably should have been closer to a 4.5% dropper. After all, I had made more than anyone in SNGs the last 2 years by far so there can't be too many people that drop my ROI 4.5% right? That's a bad way of thinking. The reality is that SNGs are a game of small edges & no matter how good you are, you probably don't have much of an edge over another good reg. I've talked about this in my recent table selection post but another big mistake I made was writing certain people off as just "running good" after seeing them make some bad or unorthadox plays. I know many players are guilty of this, particularly if the player plays a different style than them. The reality is that many of these players do other things very well to make up for their leaks. When I moved to FTP I probably didn't put as much time into figuring out who the good regs were right away, & that hurt my results for a while. On Cake I was playing a lot of super turbos earlier in the year w/ players like HappyLucky & Kenny05 in them where I knew I was slightly losing pre rakeback, but my rakeback deal is sick there so I played them anyway. After how that went I decided that the variance just isn't worth playing those games, even with a sick rakeback deal.

I played much different hours in 2009 than in years past. In past years I basically only played between non & 4 am, which were the hours I found most ideal. However, late last year I moved in w/ my fiancee (now wife) Paula. To make my overall life better with the new switch I decided to just basically play when she works, which is often far from optimal hours. Yes we'll make less money doing this but I can still make $200K+ per year playing a game for a living following her schedule so who really cares? I think people who disagree with that assessment are those who fail in their own marriages & finding an overall balance in life.

Lastly, as I've stated before, I think I was playing too many tables. After getting my deal w/ Cake & cake adding super turbos, I really thought I could maximize hourly rate by playing 12+ tables. In reality, the added tables drop your ROI so much that you lose more money pre rakeback than you gain from the added rakeback. There's probably very few people, if any, that maximize their hourly rate playing 12 or more 6 man SNGs. I've recently dropped down to 8-10 tables and have been doing well ever since.

Enough with the bad stuff, let's look forward to 2010.

I've recently started playing more super turbos on cake again. For a while I was playing no super turbos. Then I started only playing $65s. Now I've started playing them at all stakes, except I try to watch the lobbies when I can, whereas in the past I didn't bother w/ my rakeback deal. I think that combines w/ 2-4 less tables on average & hopefully some positive variance should make for some decent results in them, although I'm not sure much more than 1-2% is sustainable long run. I figure w/ my deal & the added VIP benefits on Cake it's time to try them again. I also feel like I owe it to Cake to play more on the site.

Since dropping to 8-10 tables my hold em manager #s are as follows:
actual:
2,131 games
3.1% ROI
$10,174.45 profit
$153 avg. stake

adjusted based on all in EV:
2,131 games
5.2% ROI
$16,947.23 profit
$153 avg. stake

Cake #s:
overall: 1,088 $0 $66 1% -$395
super turbo: 567 $0 $65 2% $120
turbo: 515 -$1 $67 -1% -$572

on the year my cake super turbos in that avg. stake range is 2% & 1% over all years....my cake turbos in that avg. stake range are 6% on the year & 10% over all years so my adjusted #s would probably look something like 3.92% ROI & $2,814.87

That would leave my overall adjusted #s since dropping to 8-10 tables looking something like this:
3,219 games
4.76% ROI
$19,762.10
$123.42 avg. stake

During this period I played 200.83 hours & earned $18,244.41 in rakeback, which would be good for an hourly rate of $189.24. I'll probably play about 45 35 hour weeks in 2010 so that would make for a $298K+ year ($148,322.34 pre rakeback). It's nowhere near the $570K or so I made in 2008 but I don't expect to have another year like that unless sites are allowed to operate in the US again. In reality though, many things will likely change over the next year. My game will change, my opponents will change, my makeup of games will change. That's why I'm not going to set any poker related goals for 2010. It's just too hard to predict. It's likely that my total profit will be somewhere between $200K & $300K (I don't stake anymore), however, likely is far from a sure thing.

Next year I might get back to being more organized & posting monthly results, hourly, etc... With the year I had in 2009 it was tough to get ambition to do that. You could see enough from the yearly results I posted.

I've been keeping chat off on FTP (& all sites) to help me focus unless I'm starting or ending a session, so if I don't respond to your chat it's not because I'm ignoring you, it's because I can't see it. Speaking of FTP chat, I've seen a lot of idiots commenting on my FTP sharkscope, saying ignorant things like how people have figured out my game, I can't compete w/ the current mix of players, I'm a jhub3000 wannabe (because my name is jhub30), etc... I've thought about resetting my stats so these idiots respect me more when table selecting. However, I probably won't. People who think I CRUSHED SNGs for 50,000 to 60,000 & then people sudenly "figured me out" (like they wouldn't have figured me out in the 1st 60K games)are usually too ignorant to table select anyway.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and have a happy new year!

Results:
Year 2009:
Hours: 1,577.65
SNG Profit: $(22,746.37)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $213,977.09
Total SNG Profit: $191,230.72
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $233,450.52

Year 2008 Online:
Hours: 1510.88
SNG Profit: $277,395.86
Rakeback/Bonuses: $178,589.61
Total SNG Profit: $455,985.47
Staking: $121,573.29
Total Yearly Profit: $577,558.76

Year 2007 Online:
Total Online Poker Profit: $251,388.84 (no staking in 2007)

Career sharkscope:
86,141 $5 $146 5% $419,859

If you haven't yet do youself a favor & read this entry on table selection, as well as the variance & table selection linked inside of it:
http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/2009/12/04/

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Table Selection Part 2

Date: Fri, Dec 4, 2009 Professional Internet Tournament

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Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.

For those that haven't read my 1st post on table selection, it is a must read for any SNG player and can be found here: http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/84368.html

I've been meaning to expand on this for a while but just haven't felt like typing up a long entry. I was also skeptical about sharing how much fish can increase your ROI because I feel like people will abuse this info & chalk up a lot of losing players as "fish" when they really aren't. However, if people realize how much a breakeven player can hurt their ROI this should balance out.

First off, let's summarize the main stats of the 1st table selection article. Each type of player drops your ROI x % for 6 mans:

good player: 4.5%
decent player: 2.8%
barely above breakeven player: 2%

for 9 mans:
good player: 2.8%
decent player: 1.8%
barely above breakeven player: 1.2%

Now I'll go into more detail not only on how the #s change if there's 2 or more of each player, but also add more player types like breakeven, -5%, -10%, etc...

The following #s will be 6 max only. However, if you play 9 mans you can kind of get an idea based on the #s above. Again, each player(s) drops your BASE ROI x %:

Cost of 1 good player: 4.5%
Cost of 2 good players: 8.7%
Cost of 3 good players: 12.57%
Cost of 4 good players: 16.16%
Cost of 5 good players: 19.5%

Obviously if you want to win money you should rarely be playing a 6 max game w/ even 2 good players but those are the #s anyhow.

Cost of 1 decent player: 2.8%
2: 5.45%
3: 8.11%
4: 10.56%
5: 12.9%

Cost of 1 barely above breakeven player: 2%
2: 3.9%
3: 5.87%
4: 7.7%
5: 9.46%

Cost of 1 breakeven player: 1.45%
2: 2.86%
3: 4.24%
4: 5.58%
5: 6.89%

Cost of 1 -5% player: 0.29%
2: 0.58%
3: 0.86%
4: 1.15%
5: 1.43%
THIS IS NOT A MISPRINT. A -5% PLAYER WILL ACTUALLY LOWER YOUR BASE ROI BY 0.29%.

Cost of 1 -10% player: +0.87%
2: +1.75%
3: +2.64%
4: +3.55%
5: +4.48%

Cost of 1 -15% player: +2.02%
2: +4.12%
3: +6.3%
4: +8.56%
5: +10.9%

Cost of 1 -20% (definition of a fish): +3.18%
2: +6.54%
3: +10.11%
4: +13.89%
5: +17.91%

Cost of 1 -30% player: +5.49%

Cost of 1 -40% player: +7.79%

In my 1st table selection post I recommended that good players use a base ROI (starting ROI of which to add & subtract these #s from) of 8.56. However, now that there's more #s to consider here, I'd say somewhere around 10 to 11% sounds about right.

It is very clear that since my 1st table selection post the games have gotten much tougher. Therefore, I think the ROIs we use to characterize players need to be updated.

If a player has the following ROI or higher at each level you should chracterize them as a good player when table selecting:

$6s: 11%
$16s: 8%
$27s: 6%
$38s: 5%
$60s: 4%
$114s: 3%
$225s: 2%
$335s: 1%

However, more needs to be considered. First off, when I list these ROIs I'm talking about their ROI in 5-10 seated NL hold em turbo SNGs. An advanced search would need to be done to obtain this info. For regular speed SNGs you can probably bump the ROIs up a bit & for super turbos you can lower them.

I recommend doing year 09 advanced searches on players which you are unsure of. If 1 player has played 3,000 games w/ an ROI of 4% at the $60s spread over the years & 1 player has played 3,000 games w/ an ROI of 4% at the $60s in 2009, I will give much more credit to the latter since the games have gotten progressively tougher over the years.

Then you need to factor in variance. If you read my 1st table selection post then you should have a pretty good idea of just how crazy variance can be. To summarize some stats:

After 500 games there is a 50% chance that you are within 5% of your true ROI
After 1,000 games there is a 67% chance that you are within 5% of your true ROI
After 3,000 games there is a 90% chance that you are within 5% of your true ROI

That means that if a player has an ROI of 4% over 3,000 games, all that really tells you is there is a 90% chance that his true ROI is between 9% & -1%. With sustainable ROIs becoming much smaller (especially at the high stakes) this can make it very tough to characterize players into the right ROI categories. My advice would be to usually just give them the benefit of the doubt. This is 1 thing I've been doing more lately & I think it has helped tremendously. There's plenty of players who have glaring leaks but do other things well enough to make up for these leaks. Downgrading a player too much just because you notice some leaks in their game can be a very costly mistake.

You always need to figure out how ROIs translate at different levels. If you're playing a $119 & a player has played 500 games w/ an average stake of $25 w/ a -10% ROI, you can be pretty confident that he is -20% or more in a $119. Use your head in spots like this.

Now I'll go through some real life examples using sharkscope tournament selector:
Game 1: $119 on FTP:
Username Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100
Player 1 30 $78 $64 44% $2,337 - 92 x
Player 2 899 -$1 $87 7% -$459 - 73 x
Player 3 6,209 $2 $66 7% $10,531 Tilt 85 x
Player 4 3,573 $2 $52 5% $7,615 - 85

Player 1 has only played 30 games. That doesn't really tell me anything so I'd just go with the default & mark him as a breakeven player. With player 2 you want to pay more attention to his avg. ROi than his total profit. The fact that he is losing overall w/ that ROI just means that he probably lost over a small sample of high stakes games. I advanced search player 2 & see that he's 2% over 771 6-10 seated Nl holdem & -1% over 583 6-10 n 2009. Given these stats combined I would probably characterize him as a barely above breakeven player. Player 3 has not played any 6-10 seated games before 2009. In 6-10 seated he is 4% over 3,855 games. Given that knowledge I would characterize him as a decent player at the very minimum, and probably give him the benefit of the doubt & chalk him up as a good player until he shows me otherwise. With this particular player I know that he is living with & being coached by a top SNG player so I will definitely characterize him as a good player. Player 4 is 7% over 3,237 6-10 seated & 2% over 1,889 in 2009 where his avg. stake has been a tad higher at $70. Again, at minimum I would characterize this guy as a decent player & probably give him the nod as a good player until he proves otherwise.

Now let's calculate our ROI. We have 2 good players so they drop our ROI 8.7%. We have 1 barely above breakeven player so he drops our ROI 2%. We have 1 breakeven player so he drops our ROI 1.45%. If our base ROI is 11% then our ROI in this game is -1.15%. If we wanted the game to be +EV pre rakeback we would want to watch the lobby & see if the 5th player who registers is -12% or worse. If there's better options out there for games or we don't need many more tables we would probably want to be more selective than settling for a breakeven pre rakeback game.

As is with the 4 players currently in the game we could calculate our profit in that game as follows: -0.0115 x $119 = -$1.37. Rake is $9. If the game is on FTP & we have 27% rakeback then rakeback = $2.43. $2.43 - $1.37 = $1.06 profit. That's not exactly the type of profit you should be looking for in a $119. You could almost always drop down & play a lower buy-in game for more profit w/ less variance & stress.

We wait 3 minutes & the following $119 is registering:

Username Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100
Player 1 1,642 -$4 $53 1% -$6,872 - 69 x
Player 2 2,245 -$2 $47 -4% -$5,204 - 68 x
Player 3 2,772 -$37 $194 -18% -$102,084

Player 1 hasn't played any 6-10 seated pre 2009 & has played 1,158 at 2% in 2009. We will characterize him as a decent player. Player 2 hasn't played any 6-10 seated pre 2009 & is -3% over 1,235 in 2009. I would usually give him the benefit of the doubt & characterize him as a breakeven player until I get reads on him. Player 3 has played 1,467 6-10 seated at -18% & 1,163 in 2009 at -15%. We'll characterize him as a -15% player.

So far our estimated ROI in this game starting w/ a base ROI of 11% is 8.77%. Odds are the last 2 players will be breakeven players, in which case our ROI would be 5.98%. Our total profit for that game would be $9.55, much higher than the 1st game. Even if the last 2 players to register were good players, which is pretty unlikely given the odds, this game would still be more profitable than the 1st game.

Obviously you won't be able to do all of theese calculations in game when multi tabling. Get to know the #s so you have them memorized. Then get to know the players. 1 thing I have found very useful is to look up players in a bunch of games once per day while I'm not playing. I'll then take notes on these players. It shouldn't take long. This is especially useful if you play on full tilt where you can color code the players. Use your head & check your ego at the door.

Since dropping my tables from 10-12 to 8-10 & changing a few things up I am still crushing.

Overall stats:
Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100 Network Filter
1,787 $9 $116 8% $16,186 N/A N/A Global Alias 11/11/2009 12/4/2009 E6-6 SNG Only

Turbos stats (excluding super turbos):
1,236 $11 $138 10% $14,172 N/A N/A Global Alias 11/11/2009 12/4/2009 E6-6 Spd=T SNG Only

Hourly rate: $244.14

I'm very confident in my game right now.

Results:
Year 2009:
SNG Profit: $(13,090.29)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $205,973.63
Total SNG Profit: $192,883.34
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Profit: $235,103.14

Career Sharkscope Stats:
Normal speed 5-6 seated:
Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100 Network Filter
10,124 $9 $107 12% $89,072 N/A N/A Global Alias E5-6 Spd=N SNG Only
Turbo 5-6 seated:

Turbo 5-6 seated:
66,450 $5 $156 5% $362,188 N/A N/A Global Alias E5-6 Spd=T SNG Only

Super turbo 5-6 seated:
7,768 -$3 $107 -1% -$22,044 N/A N/A Global Alias E5-6 Spd=ST SNG Only

9-10 seated:
1,534 $1 $91 0% $2,246 N/A N/A Global Alias E9-10 SNG Only

12 or more players:
135 $20 $23 101% $2,650 N/A N/A Global Alias E>=12 SNG Only

All games:
86,432 $5 $144 5% $435,648 N/A 89 Global Alias SNG Only

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I Feel Like I'm Back

Date: Tue, Nov 17, 2009 Professional Internet Tournament

http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliate=jared2896

Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.

To quote Fabolous: "I feel like I'm back." I'm been working on my game a little & switched some things up. I'm being more selective on FTP $500s & only playing the softest ones that go off. My FTP table selection in general is much better as I have a much better feel for who is who by now. I've also started playing super turbos under $100 again. While the $100+ super turbos are flooded w/ ignorant non table selecting regs, I think there's profit to be made pre rakeback at the $50-$70 level. I still have to babysit the lobby & get out of games when too many ignorant regs hop in sometimes, but I think 2%+ ROI is sustainable at this level with a little table selection. With my high rakeback that can obviously equal out to be pretty profitable. I've started playing more cake again in general. I think the $52 to $78 levels are still more profitable than I thought & 6-10% might be sustainable w/ almost 0 table selection. Again, with my high rakeback on cake this makes the games very profitable, often more profitable than a $200+ on FTP. I have also recently lowered my tables to 8-10 at a time. I had been thinking about it for a while & an aim conversation I had with faarcyde was basically the clincher. Thanks faarcyde! I think most people try to play too many tables & "maximize" hourly rate. In the process, their ROI usually falls more than they thought it would & they just chalk it up to variance. Often variance is part of it (especially considering their ROI is lower, they will have more variance than before), but it's usually not the whole story. I have been guilty of this as well. Sometimes we just get too greedy. I think I've learned from it & I'm pretty sure you won't see my pre rakeback profits in the red for 2010. Hopefully I'll be back at the top of leaderboards again but we'll see because there's a lot of good players these days & the games are very competitive. Anyways, since the 11th I've been playing 8-10 tables & here has been the result so far:

528 $17 $115 15% $8,951 N/A N/A Global Alias 11/11/2009 11/17/2009 SNG Only

That's # of games, avg. profit, avg. stake, ROI, & total profit. Now I certainly don't think 15% is sustainable at this avg. stake. What it does tell you is that there's a greater than 50% chance that my true ROI is between 10% & 20%. Again, I think this is an outlier here as I doubt my true ROI is as high as 10% in this day and age with an average stake of $115. However, I do think there's a very good chance that my true ROI is quite high w/ my current playing style & # of tables. Even if my true ROI is just 5% that's still an excellent ROI for that average stake with the current state of SNGs, especially when you factor in that over 25% of my games are super turbos.

Gunnar sits in the office with me while I play. It can be distracting but I don't want to put him in his kennel for that long & he's not trained enough yet to be roaming the rest of the house on his own yet. Overall he's been very good though. There's a door stopper in my office & that's his favorite toy so he plays with that a lot & his other toys & sleeps a lot. I did catch him eating the drywall once but I don't think he's gonna do it again. Sometimes he wants to come up on my lap. I usually try it for a little bit & then have to put him down when he starts pushing buttons on my keyboard. He's seen me play a lot of games but I don't trust his SNG skills enough YET to let him control my keyboard while I'm playing.

My personal trainer has some new personalized training programs. Just $11.95 will get you 6-7 weeks of personalized programs. I highly recommend giving it a shot.

That's all I've got for now.

Results:

Year of 2009:
SNG Profit: $(20,607.34)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $198,727.69
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $220,340.15

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I'm a Father!

Date: Wed, Oct 7, 2009 Professional Internet Tournament

http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliate=jared2896

Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. Make sure you type it in as the SIGNUP CODE, not the promotional code or any other code. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500. Transfers do not count as deposits. However, if you get money transferred into your account you will still be eligible for a deposit bonus once you actually make a deposit. If you need help getting money into Cake I usually have excess money in there & can swap money for money on another site where I have an account. Just post a comment on my blog or email me.

Here's some pictures of my new son Gunnar & his parents & a leaf:

In case you didn't notice, he's adopted. We got him last Saturday. He's a yellow lab. While he's peed in the house a lot I think he's been very good for a puppy. He hasn't pooped in the house yet & he's pretty good when in his kennel compared to most dogs. Best of all, I haven't had a losing day since I got him. Perhaps I should mention that I've only played 6 1/2 hours over the course of 2 days since getting him.

Overall poker hasn't been very good. Since I play such a wide range of buy-ins my overall profits rely heavily on a small sample of games at my highest stakes. This can be really frustrating at times since I don't have too much control over my short term results. Here's some sick #s for 2009: Between $500+ on Pokerstars, $500+ on Full Tilt, and super turbos on Cake I'm down a combined $82,890 pre rakeback, & this # peaked around $90K.

jhub30 1,194 -$23 $531 -4% -$27,150 - N/A FullTilt Year2009 S>=500
jhub3000 4,804 -$6 $110 -2% -$29,280 - N/A Cake Year2009 Spd=ST
jhub3000 820 -$32 $543 -5% -$26,460 - N/A PokerStars Year2009 S>=500

If you've read my past posts on variance & table selection you should know that these #s tell us very little about my long run #s at these games. While I'm down overall in super turbos pre rakeback, the good thing is that I'm still up in $500+ over the course of my online career (about $24K over 4,000 or so games across all sites...this # jumps to over $50K if you explude the minuscule >200 games I've played at $1K+). It will probably take me 5+ years to get in a reasonable sample of games at $500+, and the game conditions will obviously change many times during that stretch. The ridiculous swings & lack of control over short term success are just some things you have to deal with if you want to play high stakes & maximize long run hourly rate. Thankfully for me I happen to make a ton of money in rakeback to keep me sane during the rough stretches. For the record I'm looking forward to the ignorant jealous hater comments about how I can't beat the high stakes anymore that this post will inevitably bring. They should be funny as hell like usual.

I'd like to thank everyone who donated to the cancer benefit my brother was raising money for. He reached his goal & I know readers of this blog played a part in that.

The Twins have Vikings have been a blast to watch lately. The run that twins made at the end of the season to win the central was ridiculous, even if they're a big dog to beat the yankees. As for the Vikes, as long as Favre's arm is fine the whole year (a big if) I think they can play w/ anyone in the league.

Results:

Year of 2009:
SNG Profit: $(23,259.28)
Rakeback/Bonuses: $181,972.53
Total SNG Profit: $158,713.25
Staking: $42,219.80
Total Yearly Profit: $200,933.05

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