He Was Only A Hobo

[peterbirks]

A belated look at December 2006 and 2006 as a whole.

First, a chart of the month:






Perhaps I should stop giving myself my bonuses at the beginning of the month (those accumulated the previous month). This might psychologically put me on the defensive, trying to "hold on" to my winnings. Certainly this month (January), with little bonus accumulated from December, I've played a better game.


This is the chart for the year. The big blue line is the grand total, with the lines beneath it indicating individual poker sites.






The red line is Party, and the Orange line is Ultimate Bet. However, if you take into account the number of hands played, Ultimate Bet was my most profitable site for the year. The 4 cents a hand or thereabouts gained from bonus dollars on UBadd up.


The blue line is Virgin and the big dip half way through was either a bad run at $5-$10 or a case of serious collusion amongst the players I was up against. Certainly you saw a very small "pool" of players.

The brownish thin line that only kicks in near the end of the year, rising and then cfalling, is Full Tilt.

The two purple lines at the bottom ar Paradise and Party. Few hands played here.



And now for the depressing news. This shows at what stakes I made my money this year. The top two lines are bonus dollars/rakeback (red) and $2-$4.

At the bottom, the bad results are $3-$6 and $1-$2. $5-$10 is in blue and was looking bad, but I made a comeback late in the year, wiping out the Virgin mid-year nightmare. There's a small purplish line that heads to a profit of about $200. That's $50 buy-in No Limit.






Yes, it's confirmed. I'm a grinder making the majority of his profit from bonuses and rakeback.

But, hey, it's profit. And I was in the black for the other stuff.

Just not by much.


This is definitely something I want to change this year. Ferocious chasing of time-specific bonuses forced me to play more tables and at unprofitable times of the day or days of the week. Far better to stick to making the money while sitting at the tables and taking the bonuses as they come. if this means that you miss out on a few bucks of bonuses here and there, then so be it. It's already looking unlikely that I will be able to clear more than half the $500 bonus on Noble before it expires in 80 days or so. But, hell, I'm up $70 just from play, because I'm not pushing myself to play too many tables or too many hours.


Finally, here's the comparison of the past three years.






These are American dollar-denominated sites only, so the 2005 figures were actually rather better than they seem, because there's about $2,500 of Betfair stuff not included.

The 2006 numbers look rather depressing from May 23rd onwards, and the bad run from October 17 was the worst I have ever experienced.

Three-Bet Eric also noted a 20% drop in earn year-on-year. Milky Bar Kid had a better year than in 2005, but I think that he will find 2007 very difficult.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Pete,

Although we've kicked this around before, I do think you should take some time to evaluate your game. It is not good that in essence your are a zero profit player from your actual game. In fact, unless I'm reading it wrong, you actually lost $ on your play.

cheers

bdd

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Dave:

I actually won about $5000 in bonuses and rakeback, and about $6,500 overall. So I did win $ on my play, but, as I wrote, not much. I'm not sure from the above where you saw me losing money on actual play.

But, you are right, I needed to do some evaluation.

The interesting thing here is that I won quite well when I was not chasing bonuses. But when I was under time pressure to clear a bonus and started four-tabling for six hours a night, I lost money.

I'm not sure whether I lost money net when I was four-tabling -- I could break down the figures with some effort — but I suspect that I did. I probably just about won when three-tabling, but this was day-dependent, and the win would have been marginal at best (i.e., 90% or more of the profit was coming from bonuses and rakeback).

When two-tabling, I was significantly in the black, to the tune of about 2BB per 100.

You can probably see where I'm heading here. I could easily shift the proportion of win from bonus/rakeback to table-play by playing fewer tables simultaneously and only playing at "good" times, but this would not necessarily increase the total won at the end of the year by a significant amount, if at all. I could also increase my win-rate by only playing at the most profitable times, but there are only so many spare hours to play in a day and, so far as I recall, there is only one Sunday (the real money-winning day) in the week.

I could also increase my BB per 100 rate by playing at lower stakes. But, once again, this could result in a lower total sum. You've mentioned these points yourself many times in your own blog. Generating the best win rate is not necessarily the best strategy.

Andy once wrote that "the bank account doesn't ask where the money came from", a point that I think it's wise to keep in mind.

I think part of your line here is something that I was going to mention -- that living on bonuses and rakeback is a glass ceiling. I agree with this. Indeed, I suspect that my current style and strategy has an effective ceiling of $12,000 a year, possibly $15K max. To go any higher would require a radical re-evaluation, playing at significantly higher stakes, fewer tables and fewer hours (but choosing the best hours rather than any old hour I have spare).


PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Pete,

Well your graph shows the total figure as being lower than the rakeback figure. Where the money comes from does matter. Firstly, at the stakes you play I would be hugely surprised if you could generate that much rake without massively multi-ing. But more importantly, rakeback naturally makes a much smaller contribution. I had a reasonably good year, but without looking in depth, I suspect it was about 15-20% of my profit. Moving up without a significant win rate would be a variance nightmare.

I really do believe you overestimate how hard it would be to become a winning player at a different game. But if you're happy, viva la difference.

gl

dd

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

No, the two top lines in the graph to which you are referring (graph 3) are $2-$4 profit (in dark blue) and rakeback/bonus profit (in red), not rakeback/bonus profit and total profit. There is no total profit line in that particular graph, because such a line would simply duplicate the top line in graph 2.

So, yes, rakeback was the largest single contributor ($5,000-ish), but $2-$4 contributed $3,300 in gains. Unfortunately, $3-$6 generated $1,000 in losses and $1-$2 lost a couple of hundred.

Note also the downturn in $2-$4 shortly before there are two very big upticks in the bonus section. These two upticks are the Full Tilt Money, and gaining those bonuses cost me quite a lot in cash table play. I'm fairly sure that, had I stuck to two-tabling and not worried about the bonuses, I would have continued to see an upward trend in $2-$4, but with a concomitant smaller upward trend in the bonuses/rakeback.

Part of my re-evaluation was that tiredness and the 4-tabling led to errors. It isn't just a matter of turning up at the office. But the net win will not necessarily increase as a result of playing only when alert and restricting myself to two-tabling. But I might well win only a small amount less, which would be a good result in terms of less stress/effort expended.

These things are hard to quantify, but if the extra (say) 50% of hands played led to only 10% more income on the year, then it could be argued that it just wasn't worth the effort, even if no extra time was spent in the process.

So far this year I've pulled my horns in (although I've still clocked up 2000 hands in 6 days) and my play (not including any bonuses) is generating a win rate of $22 an hour (mainly two-tabling). Of course, 2,000 hands is nothing to measure with, but things are feeling better. The important thing is not to play long sessions "because I have to get the hands in", not to go to war with these players, and to show a little more patience when the cards are not coming. Oh, and not to get over-confident when the cards are coming.

I suspect that I can't maintain full conentration (even when only two-tabling) for more than one hour at a time, and that I need a half-hour or so's rest after that.

PJ

PJ

Look at it another way

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

I hesitate to suggest this because it's a bit like suggesting something to Bill Frindall (well-known cricket statistician, you American philistines). You seem fixated on seeing the metagame situation as a yearly thing and your graphs all have you a week into your 2007 situation, but that's not the case. Your game isn't seasonal so why treat it in such annual cycles.

Instead, what's the monthly average across the past three years? If you're making around £500-£600 a month how sustained is that and how does your recent rolling monthly average (last 6 months?) profit compare with the long-term trend. You'd have a graph that made more sense and was a better tool for analysing stuff overall. Pretty easy bit of Excel I would have thought but it would be more productive analysing your play - just less interesting!

Re: Look at it another way

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

The obvious answer to this is that I merely report in the same way a company does. Rolling averages are a piece of piss to produce in Excel and I might do it for my own satisfaction, but if you put trendlines into Excel it merely serves to smooth things out and, well, the graph still has a starting point and a finishing point.

"Rolling averages" are useful if volatility is very high and if samples within a certain time period are small (which is one reason for quarterly figures in many industries not being worth jack-shit). I could put in a six-year graph of three-month roling averages which would show a very satisfying continual upward trend until about October 2006, when the rolling average would move back to a flatter upward gradient.

However, since I don't have shareholders, I don't need to come up with such self-satisfying spin.

But if it made me feel better, I suppose I could.

PJ

Re: Look at it another way

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

No - what I mean is that in looking at relative performance, your graphs are trying to glean information from the varying gradients of a line whereas some form of comparison of alteration of a rolling 3 month average would give you an insight on whether your performance is improving in the sense of how your graph line is doing against a horizontal. It would also remove the spikes of early month bonus income because any 3 months would contain 3 slabs of bonus.

Re: Look at it another way

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I'm still not quite sure what you are getting at, Geoff. If you mean a line which shows "amount won in past three months", then you are going to increase spikes rather than decrease them. I know this, because I used to have just such a chart and abandoned it for that very reason!

I'm tempted to do a Sklansky and say "can you see why?"

However, here's a graph of "amount won in previous 365 days".


(http://tinypic.com)



And here's a rolling 365-day average win per day.


(http://tinypic.com)



The problem, as becomes quite clear from these charts, is that an unusually good performance over a short period of time in year x will make it look as if you are performing poorly the following year (because the line will slope downwards) even though, in reality, you might be doing better than average over the entire time span and you might be doing fairly well by your own parameters.

[countingmyouts.livejournal.com]

"I suspect that I can't maintain full concentration (even when only two-tabling) for more than one hour at a time, and that I need a half-hour or so's rest after that."

Most of us have this problem, especially old curmudgeons like you and me (I'm 41). The more tables you play only exacerbates the problem and tires you out quicker. I can 2-table for 1.5 to 2 hours, but 3-table for only an hour. Frankly, how some folks 8-12 table is amazing to me. I guess youth does have an advantage here.

I have gotten to the place in the last year to where I only 2-table now. The extra hands are just not worth it. Anything more than 2 tables and the errors seem to accumulate exponentially and it just becomes more of a video game and less of a poker game. That takes some of the enjoyment away from the pursuit for me. The enjoyment factor does have some EV, at least for me. And finally, you are less apt to improve as a player when you are playing a lot of tables.

While scaling back to 2 tables may end up earning you a bit less overall now, the other benefits (enjoyment, improving as a player, etc.) will be better for you in the long run.

Michael

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Spot on, Michael. That was how it became for me when I was 4-tabling -- a video game.

My problem was that I fell into the trap that "more hands = more money". This is true - marginally, but the impact is to make you a different kind of poker player (a video-game poker player?) and to reduce your proportional net earn from the game itself (sometimes even your absolute earn), while increasing your net earn when rakeback and bonuses are included.

I had a good month three-tabling at $2-$4 on Party and calculated that, if 4-tabling, at a slightly worse win rate, I would clear $2,000 for 20,000 hands.

It didn't work out like that; I lost money that 4-tabling month. The move was a mistake. I'd felt comfortable that month of 3-tabling because things had been going well -- god knows how many bets I actually gave up. This came home to roost during an uncomfortable 4-tabling month.

I suspect that if I had had the time to play those 20,000 hands while 2-tabling, it would have been a break-even month.

And, as you say, the enjoyment factor has an intangible, but real, positive EV. 4-tabling was just like work, getting the hours out of the way. That's no way to be a winning poker player, although you might make it as a rakeback grinder.

I've stopped setting myself annual targets and I've stopped worrying about the number of hands I play. Just focus on it hand by hand and, if you feel like not playing any more tonight, go and watch some TV, even if you've played only 40 hands.

It's a much better feeling and thanks for backing up my view of the poker world. No-one else has ever said what you just wrote, so it's always nice to realize that you are not alone amongst the 'serious' poker-playing fraternity!

PJ

PJ

[countingmyouts.livejournal.com]

I had a similar thing happen to me recently while 3-tabling the $3/6 LHE games at Stars. Those games can be on the tough side, but they are beatable. I had been doing well at that game (2+ BB/100 over 15,000 hands or so) by practicing careful table selection and only playing 1-2 tables back in October and November. Since that was going well, I extrapolated that I could 3-table and clear a nice amount (with their VIP benefits), even with an overall decrease in my BB/100.

Well, I was wrong. What happened was that I started making many more mistakes in my play. Mistakes that I would never make when I was 1-2 tabling because I was able to make good opponent specific decisions and keep my finger on the pulse of each table. Once I added the third table, all of that went out the window. Additionally, I just wasn't working on my game as much as I did. I would be tired after playing and didn't bother with that part of it anymore. Against a population of good players, that is not good.

The final straw for me was about a week ago when I had a rotten session where I dropped 35 big bets over 650 hands. The session loss in and of itself did not bother me. What bothered me was that silly mistakes accounted for 12 big
bets of that loss and they were caused primarily because I was 3-tabling and wasn't able to make correct decisions because my attention became spread too thin.

I had reached a point where I was on a 170 big bet downslide and I was responsible for 1/3 of it because of my mistakes. I was hitting my hand targets, but I was making mistakes that I normally would not if I was playing 1-2 tables. I take my poker seriously and while losses will bother me a bit, making silly mistakes bothers me a lot more. When that happens, there is less enjoyment for me. It had truly become a grind and not a lot of fun.

I like the comment from an earlier post where I believe you or another poster said that the bankroll does not care where the money comes from (actual play vs. rakeback/bonus). While that is true, the poker player may care, depending upon their goals. I would prefer to play as well as I can to make the money, rather than being subsidized by rakeback or bonuses. There are a lot of online players that play 8-12 (or even more) tables and have the goal of breakeven or no worse than something like (-1)BB/100 play so that they can have a profit from rakeback and bonuses. Bless them if that works for them. For me, that would be an empty experience.

My goal has always been to spend the time to improve as a player so that I can play higher limits in the future to attempt to make significant money and I was getting away from that goal because of setting hand targets, etc. Because I live in a state here in the U.S. where there are no card rooms and the closest one is 2 1/2 hours away, if I want to play higher limits, online is my only good option if I want to play on a daily basis. I love to play
live, much more than I do online, but that just is not going to happen anytime soon.

Like you, I have also decided to stop setting targets. Yesterday, I played 350 hands. Today I played 150, then stopped. It was more enjoyable and I played better. For me, that's +EV.

You are certainly not alone in your view of the poker world, Peter.