Friday, April 28: Vindicated

(Alright, with law school exams now essentially behind me, I look forward to getting back to posting here more regularly)

If you followed the two monster 2+2 threads (1, 2), you will see that the issue with my mother's PokerStars account was finally resolved, although it took some very involved intervention on my own part. It turned out that the Stars' security supervisor had simply made a mistake in interpreting the data...whereas he originally maintained that she had, at one point, played 43 consecutive hours, he admitted (after being told incessantly by me that there must be some mistake) that he had erred. Although I am frustrated that it took a lot of my own time (plus some serious heat from the 2+2 threads) to finally get this escalated to a level where the truth was ultimately discovered, I will say that both Jeff (the security guy) and Lee Jones wrote very gracious and humble apologies to my mother for a) accusing her of using a bot, which she clearly was not, and b) writing her very condescending and contemptuous emails. They were badly in the wrong, but ultimately realized their error and apologized with class. While I would like to, for now, put this ugly incident behind me, I encourage everyone to re-read the email that my mother sent to me, which I pasted in my last post. It really highlights the risks we all take in trusting offshore companies who really don't answer to any regulatory body with large sums of money.

So how have I been doing at the tables? Pretty well -- I hadn't posted a progress chart in a while, which I figured I would do today for 2006-to-date (below).



But wait! The above chart, while quite pretty, precedes by a day my admission into a very exclusive club: the "Five Figure Downswing Society!" While I await my membership card in the mail, I enthusiastically concede that I am currently on the receiving end of a $10,500 rectal rooting from party+stars. Thanks guys!! Displayed pictorially below:



Despite this, the foray into NL has been going quite well, although quite frustrating at times -- yesterday I got stacked by losing on a A,A,2,4 board holding 3,5 when opponent turned over only hand that he rationally could have beaten me with given the way he had played the hand (A,A). But on the whole I've been very happy with the way it's allowed me to expand my hold'em skill set. And it really is a far more intellectual game -- I'm at a point in my LHE education, where I can more or less turn my brain on autopilot, or come home very drunk, open a few tables and still manage a very good winrate, but have really noticed that I can really get my ass handed to me when I try to sit at the bigger NL games when my mental acuity isn't peaking. When I played a little short-stack bitch NL game, I managed approx 2.5 to 3 PTBB / 100, whereas I'm at around 4.5 to 5 PTBB/100 over my first 15,000 NL hands playing with a full stack (and it's far more enjoyable than short-stack anyway). No, my 5 PTBB isn't going to send any of the more skilled NL players cowering in fear, but I'm very much enjoying the game.

Very lastly (and although I have some more things to write about, I'll save them for the next few days), I know this is completely beyond the scope of this blog, but back during my fateful "$40,000 in 30 days" challenge detailed here, I got a lot of questions about just why I needed to have jaw surgery, then have my jaw wired shut for a month. Long story short, I always had a F'd up bite -- teeth were straight and healthy, but they simply dind't overlap like they should, which you can't fix with braces alone. So I needed to get surgery, and unfortunately braces too as part of the procedure. But they're off now, and here are the before (Dec 2004) and after (Mar 2006) pictures from the orthodontist's records. I am quite happy with the way everything turned out (click for larger image).

Tuesday, April 18: bots, bots, and more bots

I am loving the NL learning process so far, and will post a summary of my results to date soon. It feels like a whole new set of challenges, because the skill set required is so different. Deception is so much more important

Next: cheating / bots. They have always been a concern to online poker players, but seem to have really been thrown into the spotlight in the last couple months. First there was the JJ / ZJ multi-account MTT scandal, and now the 'outing' of 20 or so suspected bots who have been playing the Party $20 and $30 SNGs. Somewhat ironically, MTTs and SNGs are two things that have never really appealed to me, so I'm not too concerned about being cheated, personally, but the obvious concern is that if these things get too much press, it might discourage the prospective fish whom I subside on from taking the online plunge. There's debate about whether these latest SNG bots are even profitable (if they are, it seems to be marginally so). They still represent one of what I believe to be the 3 biggest threats to the continued viability of online poker: restrictive legislation, the integrity of the site and its security measures, and online collusion/cheating. As far as legislation goes, I'm really not too worried, perhaps simply because there's not really anything I can do about it (but moreso because previous attempts at legislation have proved unsuccessful). The integrity of the gaming sites? My personal view is that it's only a matter of time before one of the larger sites gets hacked, or its games are shown to be non-random. And when this happens, I just hope that it doesn't get played too much in the press, because it has the ability to do some significant damage to the marketplace. If you find yourself with some extra time at school or work, read this article about the Planet Poker random-number-generator scandal...granted it's from 1999 and mathematical algorithms have come a long way since then, but it's an absolutely fascinating read. Lastly: bots -- at this point (and with the exception of these low-level SNG bots), most bots simply aren't good enough to win at medium-to-high limit and NL games. But let's not stick our heads in the sand about this: it's only a matter of time before programmers develop successful and difficult-to-detect bots -- if they can build a computer to beat Gary Kasparov at chess, you can bet they can build one to beat Joe Q Public on Party Poker...it's just a matter of time. But again, I'm not so much worried about losing to bots myself as I am about them draining the fish's disposable income before I can get to it. It's one of those concerns that really makes me want to play full-time for 2 years, build myself a little nest-egg, and then hang up my online poker cleats entirely.

**DISCLAIMER: I (very coincidentally) wrote the above section 3 days ago, before the following shit-storm kicked up. To make an altogether too long story short: very coincidentally, Stars sent my mother (who plays the micro-limits on Stars) an email accusing her of running a bot, closed her account (but let her cash out what little money she had in there) and asked her to take her poker business elsewhere. I'll just direct you to a 2+2 thread about it instead of posting all the details here all over again. If you knew my mother, you would know how incredibly laughable the idea of her running a bot actually is. She really is just a woman in her fifties who enjoys online poker. The theory I'm leaning to most is that her computer's security has somehow been compromised (although I'm still not entirely sure how that would enable a hacker to make it look like she was running a bot). Anyway, I thought I would post the latest email that she wrote to me after she had several back and forth emails with Stars support who refused to budge, convinced that she was indeed running a bot. She's a pretty smart lady, and I thought the following was eloquently written even though I can't say I agree with her skepticism / paranoia about online poker sites...in fact, I'm not concerned at all. But the following is at least representative of the fear some people have, so I thought I'd post it (fyi, she makes vague references to having poker sites take your funds -- but just to restate: that did not happen in this case...I think she told me she had like a hundred dollars in her account that Stars let her cash out):

Here is what concerns me now the most. I have seen the dark side of the highhandedness and control exercised by the "best-reputed" poker site, outside the boundaries of any country law or recourse for complaint (no board of directors, no public shareholders, not even a telephone number to make human contact). They can confiscate your funds at will. I have actually become concerned for you about this. I urge you not to keep large amounts of money on any site. It is disturbing if your livelihood depends on faith in faceless internet communications. Even if you continue to make money at a decent rate, you should not build a career on this. I went along assuming "they are a big company, they would always act reasonably." Now I have discovered that the president of the "best-reputed" poker site turns out not to be concerned about fundamental issues of integrity. He was impervious to the most blatant evidence that his security guy probably overstepped his enthusiasm on this one. Of course 5 cent players aren't important to the company, but what should have been important to Lee was building knowledge about the strengths and fallibilities of his security systems. The power he has left in Jeff's hands to be arbitrary and pig-headed should be frightening to anyone who thinks, "if I follow the rules, then I can always work things out." So even moreso should you be concerned about their ability to push a button and poof your funds are gone. This is not just PokerStars but any of the sites.

Another angle I have on this is corporate governance breaches like Enron, etc.. There is an alarming discovery that "hey the big guys can't always be trusted." Fortunately, corporate governance principles and laws have rushed in to control their arrogant mismanagement of shareholder funds. Having just been through a course on corporate governance, I have become educated about the huge gap between our assumptions that people will act reasonably, and the facts of human nature when left unbridled by law. Without being subjected to any corporate governance, companies like PokerStars make their customers vulnerable to all the risks of manager fallibilities.

Bottom line: I am not telling you to give up Poker. But I do encourage you not to assume anything about the integrity and reasonableness of people you don't know and can't talk to. Keep the money moving out. As you have already observed, Netteller is a step up because of their public listing. Also, if Poker is going to be any part of your career, build your career on your ability to exercise leadership and intellectual strength, not on confidence in someone else's "systems" that seem to be reliable from experience. Past reliability and trustworthiness of systems does not guarantee they will be that way tomorrow or in crisis, just as surely as yesterday's huge gains in the the electronic stock market provide no guarantee of what will happen tomorrow.

That is the best learning from this Twilight Zone experience with PokerStars that I can pass on to you. Don't mind--it's my job as a mum. Lots of luv.

EDIT: I have read and re-read my mom's email to me (pasted above), and have to admit that it might be some of the most incredible (and well-written) mom-to-son letters I have ever read. Wow -- big ups to my mom. They might be over-bearing and embarass the hell out of you in front of your friends when you're a teenager, but mine turned out to be pretty cool the older I get.

Wednesday, April 12th: Checking out NL...

Again, apologies for the 10 day hiatus from posting -- there was a big law school softball tournament down at the Univ. of Virginia. Man is it gorgeous down there...would have loved to have gone to undergrad or law school there.

Anyway, after playing in the PPM $10,000 buy-in tournament, I decided I wanted to next tackle another one of the goals that I set for myself in 2006: learn how to master NL hold'em. While it's true that I've had quite a bit of success at the $1K and $2K NL tables to date, I've never actually believed that it was the result of any actual NL prowess. I used the Ed Miller short-stack strategy, decried by many. And since Party still hasn't prevented players from doubling up, getting up, then sitting back down with less chips, it has worked just fine. I'll be the first to say that Party really SHOULD fix their software to prevent it (like every other major online poker room already has), but since they haven't, it's something I used to take advantage of. But no more! I'm forcing myself to actually learn how to play no-limit poker. Although I've achieved a pretty impressive limit winrate, LHE is really nothing more than math...I really do want to learn more about the fine nuances of high-stakes NL play.

So I'm more or less immersing myself in it now, playing perhaps 80% of my play at NL tables. And to this point, I'm having a blast and doing quite well. I stepped down to the $1K ($5 / $10) NL tables, because it's where I feel most comfortable. In fact that brings up what I think is another important point -- any time I decide to give a new style or strategy a try, I nearly always step down at least a few levels in stakes. When I wanted to teach myself SH play, I stepped all the way back down to the $1 / $2 6-max tables. Yes: one dollar / two dollars. And this was when I was happily multi-tabling the 20/40 and 30/60 10max games. Granted, I got bored at 1/2 pretty quickly, and opted instead for the 3/6 and 5/10 SH games, but you see the point I'm trying to make: don't consider lower stakes to be "beneath you." They're quite valuable training grounds for practicing. For NL, I could have stepped it down to the $400NL or $600NL tables, but decided to stick it out at $1K to see how it went. So far, so good.

Here's one of the most imporant things I've come to appreciate, which I'd never really internalized before. NL hold'em is different from limit to such an extent that it's almost a different game. Compare this new experiment to my initial foray into the 6-max games after having succeeded for so long at full-ring. The change, while it took some getting used to, really wasn't all that drastic -- one elementary (although not altogether fallacious) school of thought is to treat a 6-max game just like a 10-max game in which the first 4 people to act have folded. All in all, I had to learn to become more agressive, but the post-flop strategy and general thought processes were the same. Didn't take long for me to get up to speed.

NL hold-em, on the other hand, is a completely different animal. I realize now why my previous forays into NL (at least with a full stack) had brought me very mediocre results. A limit mentality in NL isn't just exploitable by more skilled players, I'm convinced it's downright incorrect. I was playing my standard LHE slightly-loose-aggressive game, and couldn't figure out how my opponents kept taking my whole stack with their ragged two pair or set. Surely I must be the unluckiest NL player ever to have lived to be succumbing to beat after beat after beat when I held premium starting hands, I reasoned. But it wasn't just bad luck -- I really didn't have the tools nor understanding to really excel, and I understand that now. I had to completely, and I really do mean completely restructure my game. For starters, my VPIP / PFR at 10max NL is now roughly 29/8 (compared to approx 22/12 for full-ring limit). Cold-calling raises, which I do around 0.0001% of the time playing limit is now routine, although still not all that frequent.

The first (and arguably most important) observation I've made is that my biggest winning hands are NOT the premium starting hands; e.g. JJ through AA and AK. They're still winners, and have very high win PERCENTAGES, but it's been learning how to turn a profit from my more marginal hands that has really helped my NL game step up. Just sorting through my most profitable hands, interesting hands that crack the top-10 include 66, 64s, K5s, 52o (??), and K8o. Conversely, AKs, 99, and AJs are among the top-10 hands that have cost me the most thus far. I'm sure those of you who are winning NL-regulars must be watching me come to terms with these concepts that are all but second nature to you, rolling your eyes and thinking: 'damn, welcome to this century', but I'm really enjoying the intellectual challenge of sketching the outline of a winning NL strategy coming from my LHE background.

I'm hesitant to cite my results, because they're over a very, very insignificant number of hands, and I want to be the first to concede that I really don't think I'm all that good a NL player just yet...but there's no doubt in my mind I'm on the right track. For whatever it's worth, I'm around 8 PTBB / 100 for my first 10K hands at $1K and $2K NL. My results don't really mean anything; far more imporant, I think, is that I feel comfortable playing full-stack NL for the first time. My previous attempts had been characterized by feelings of being completely lost in what to do, intermixed with tacit acknowledgement that I had been completely outplayed on every level. But for the first time, I'm starting to feel good about my NL game.

Last thing for now: the very last comment that was made in my last post is as follows:

"However, may I warn against the advice of "have fun and enjoy life. Soon enough you will run into the right person". I employed that strategy, and it didn't happen. I didn't "bump into the right person" and I regret it enormously. I'm 50 now and a lonely old age beckons. Seriously, put some effort into finding someone you love and work hard at the relationship. You won't regret it."

I don't mean to pick on you, specifically, Peter B., but what you wrote is precisely what I'm afraid of -- growing old, alone. I am not passing judgment on you or your life choices, but to me -- someone who, since he was young, has always put a premium on getting married and having a family of his own -- the idea of growing old alone is positively terrifying. Thanks for your candor - it gives one perspective. In the post I wrote on self-consciousness not too long ago, I submitted that most people I know do everything in their power to hide their insecurities...I'll do my best not to do that here: the idea of growing old alone is frightening to me.