January Figures
Jan. 23rd, 2007 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksWell, until the last couple of days, it had all the makings of a record month. Twenty-one winning days on the trot, not many hours, a lot of enjoyable play, getting the hang of low stakes 6-max, feeling more in control at the ring games (I really should get myself to lay down a few more river bets, though -- calling when I knew I was beat probably cost me 10 river bets, without a single compensating "surprise win", although I made a number of very light calls on the river (one with Ace-six and no pair!) when I thought I had a chance of winning, and these were profitable).
However, the past two days at UB brought back the knowledge that a bad streak is only ever a few hands away. Actually, I did okay during the short "bad" sessions, restricting my losses, except for perhaps a couple of hands when I raised just a little too lightly in an attempt to make something happen.
The bonuses are high because Party decided to allow players to convert Party Points into cash, and I happened to have 20,000 of those. Ker-ching, $200. At Pokerstars I finished off a deposit bonus from December, and the rest were just run-of-the-mill bits and pieces.
The Noble Poker "deposit bonus" is a pile of shite at low stakes and I have no chance of clearing $500 in 90 days without putting in hours at stakes that are too high for my comfort zone -- a policy that I have sworn to avoid this year. It's really little more than ungenerous rakeback (about 27%), possibly the worst "deposit bonus" that I have seen.
I would guess that the average bonus for this kind of month over all the sites at which I play would be $200, making it a very satisfactory $800 month of which a quarter was bonus/rakeback.
For the moment, it's more of the same. I'm still finding my feet at 6-max. I still don't really enjoy no-limit when I sit down to play it. Razz, when I play it, is great fun, but I don't think the liquidity is there to make it worthwhile becoming a specialist. I really enjoy low-only games because they have a great capacity to send some players on rip-roaring tilt (as the saying goes, you never see a happy Razz player).
The bread and butter was Party, against bots or bot-like opponents who are not difficult to read and counter-attack. Ultimate (same kind of opponents and a good payment on bonus dollars per hour) would have been very good, except that I lost $170 in the last two days of "my" month.
Back in February. Perhaps one day I'll win that Bad beat jackpot, or a share thereof. I've certainly paid enough in rake towards it...
However, the past two days at UB brought back the knowledge that a bad streak is only ever a few hands away. Actually, I did okay during the short "bad" sessions, restricting my losses, except for perhaps a couple of hands when I raised just a little too lightly in an attempt to make something happen.
| SITE | Stake/Data | $2 - $4 | $3 - $6 | Bonus | low-stakes | No Limit low stakes | 50c - $1 (6 max) | $1-$2 (6 max) | Grand Total |
| Party | Win | $308 | $285 | +$594 | |||||
| Ultimate | Win | $43 | $58 | $70 | +$170 | ||||
| Pokerstars | Win | $83 | $150 | $6 | +$239 | ||||
| Virgin | Loss | -$59 | -$16 | -$9 | -$84 | ||||
| Noble | Win | $40 | $63 | $1 | $82 | $56 | +$242 | ||
| Full Tilt | Win | $50 | $1 | $8 | $1 | +$60 | |||
| Total Win | $374 | $58 | $595 | $48 | $0 | $83 | $56 | TOTAL: $1,221 | |
| Hours | 25.5 | 0.75 | 0.0 | 4.0 | 1.0 | 4.5 | 6.5 | 41.5 | |
| Average p/h | $14.66 | $77.33 | N/A | $12.00 | $0 | $18.44 | $8.61 | $29.54 |
The bonuses are high because Party decided to allow players to convert Party Points into cash, and I happened to have 20,000 of those. Ker-ching, $200. At Pokerstars I finished off a deposit bonus from December, and the rest were just run-of-the-mill bits and pieces.
The Noble Poker "deposit bonus" is a pile of shite at low stakes and I have no chance of clearing $500 in 90 days without putting in hours at stakes that are too high for my comfort zone -- a policy that I have sworn to avoid this year. It's really little more than ungenerous rakeback (about 27%), possibly the worst "deposit bonus" that I have seen.
I would guess that the average bonus for this kind of month over all the sites at which I play would be $200, making it a very satisfactory $800 month of which a quarter was bonus/rakeback.
For the moment, it's more of the same. I'm still finding my feet at 6-max. I still don't really enjoy no-limit when I sit down to play it. Razz, when I play it, is great fun, but I don't think the liquidity is there to make it worthwhile becoming a specialist. I really enjoy low-only games because they have a great capacity to send some players on rip-roaring tilt (as the saying goes, you never see a happy Razz player).
The bread and butter was Party, against bots or bot-like opponents who are not difficult to read and counter-attack. Ultimate (same kind of opponents and a good payment on bonus dollars per hour) would have been very good, except that I lost $170 in the last two days of "my" month.
Back in February. Perhaps one day I'll win that Bad beat jackpot, or a share thereof. I've certainly paid enough in rake towards it...
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 09:50 am (UTC)1) As with Full Tilt, you have to play a certain amount before you start generating your "earn". This works against my principle this year of playing to win, rather than playing to earn bonus
2) The games are real rock city, like 19% to 22%, when I want to play. You can win, but it's hard work and little fun.
3) The awards are in vouchers rather than cash. I assign a discounted rate to vouchers, depending on where I can spend them. Tesco's, for example, would have a discount of only 1%, because I spend money at Tesco every week. I probably only shop at Amazon.com twice a year, so their vouchers "to the value of" are far less liquid (for me) than cash. I think a 15% discount would be fair valuation, bringing the earn down to $0.013 a hand, which is far below that generated at UB and worse even than what I gain from Party.
PJ
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 08:14 pm (UTC)And I'll play pretty much anything except Limit Hold'em, of course.
And I've been getting slaughtered left right and centre all month, so I might as well do it at Stars and see if I can translate some of those points into spending power.
And it's probably time I signed up at UB and stacked up some bonuses.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 01:12 pm (UTC)I would have to agree with your commentary on the Stars games and how it relates to playing their ring games. On average, the $2/4 and $3/6 games have become much more rockish since Neteller went into the good night. I had been Gold Star for the past three months, but I am not likely to make it this month and that will happen by choice. The VIP benefits just aren't worth the headaches of playing at $3/6 tables where the average table has pot sizes of $23 and 15% VPIP.
I have been considering moving some of my play over to UB, it's been a couple of years since I played there. Do you have any insights you would care to share about the games at UB?
Michael
no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 07:46 pm (UTC)I do well at UB, but I have no idea why! You get the occasional loose cannon, who is promptly criticised left right and centre by the rocks, to which I and a few others now type in the automatic "So you would prefer your opponents to play perfectly, I assume?"
But as a rule I just play v aggressively pre-flop against possible stealers and very conservatively against the rocks. Some players will three-bet a drawing hand on the flop, but if they four-bet, it's the goods. No-one is prepared to three-bet the turn with anything but the goods. Sometimes these days I just try to get to the river cheaply, which means not betting the turn when on occasions I should have, but this is more than compensated by getting a free card when I was in fact behind.
If you are a stranger, you can be aggressive and get away with it for a while, until it shows up on your stats, at which point the Pokertrackers will start three-betting you with abandon. Many open raises from mid-position are three-bet, but the raise of a previous limper seems to get more respect.
But I would say the most important thing is to get a line on people's positional raising habits, and then to exploit them ruthlessly. The plus side of this is you then get comments from such players as "You three-bet with KQoff?"
and you can respond "I came here to gamble"....
PJ
no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 09:02 pm (UTC)Thanks for the insights on UB. I just started playing there a bit this week and what you say seems to be right on target. Definitely a few "book players" reside there.
By the way, I am using the Ultimate History add-on, but UB tells me to close the HH window after 25 hands for each table. Is there a fix for that or is it just part and parcel for playing at UB?
Sorry to hear vacation is over...
Michael
no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 10:04 pm (UTC)The HH limit was originally reduced to 4 hands, which made the Ultimate History software nigh-on useless (although I managed to get round it by shutting and opening the hand history at every opportunity). It then increased to 100 hands, and just now I played 70 hands on one table and 65 hands on the other without the "you must close the HH window" message appearing.
I'm not sure why it's happening after 25 hands for you. You could try UB support, saying that it happens after 100 hands for another player (i.e., me) but most of them are donkeys....
PJ
no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 10:29 pm (UTC)To call the UB support "donkeys" would be the understatement of the year. And I have learned that in the span of less than one week after a snafu with one of their latest promos, a 10% bonus in tournament dollars up to a maximum of $50 (TDs).
The games are better than Stars or Full Tilt right now, so I can deal with the inconvenience with the HH windows.
Michael