Au revoir Full Tilt

[peterbirks]

I cashed out most of my money from Full Tilt tonight. After nine not-very-happy months it seems clear that, even including rakeback, I am little more than break-even. The laggier style on Full Tilt calls for a more ABC "heads-down, look at my own cards because opponent's range is so wide" kind of approach than comes naturally to me, and the wider variety in playing styles looks to make even eight-tabling tiled a difficult proposition.

However, it was, strangely, a single hand that caused me to say "oh, fuck it, enough is enough – let's just stick to Party and Pokerstars:


In fact it goes back to earlier in the evening. I had started off very well, with my AA holding up against KK and AT (winning 76% shots comes as a surprise these days).



$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, March 08

Table Aethra XVI (Real Money)

Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: oQ|Lelik ( $52.90 USD )
Seat 4: 32dreamer32 ( $41.40 USD )
Seat 5: Incognito*52 ( $53.85 USD )
Seat 7: Keperi ( $113.00 USD )
Seat 8: sgk31 ( $313.25 USD )
Seat 9: Hero ( $98.50 USD )
Keperi posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
sgk31 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
32dreamer32 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ A♣; A◊; ]

Hero raises [$3.00 USD]
oQ|Lelik folds
32dreamer32 calls [$2.00 USD]
Incognito*52 folds
Keperi raises [$13.50 USD]
sgk31 folds
Hero raises [$30.00 USD]
32dreamer32 raises [$38.40 USD]
Keperi raises [$99.00 USD]
Hero calls [$65.50 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ T♠, 4◊;, 5♡; ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 7♣; ]

** Dealing River ** [ 2♣; ]

Keperi shows [K♣;, K♡; ]
Hero shows [A♣;, A◊; ]

Hero wins $114.20 USD from side pot

32dreamer32 shows [T◊;, A♡; ]

Hero wins $122.20 USD from main pot.


From then on it got a bit tossy and near the end of my session I lost a 54%/46% in an irritating way. This brought my EV back to about level for the session, and I quit about $50 up,

$100.00 USD PL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, March 08,
Table Pyrrha XIII (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ( $104.50 USD )
Seat 2: sinnnger ( $132.30 USD )
Seat 3: Kulturbeutel ( $31.90 USD )
Seat 4: 1papa1dee1 ( $124.25 USD )
Seat 7: FelD77 ( $40.75 USD )
Seat 8: Nickster8 ( $155.55 USD )
Seat 9: Trippen180 ( $33.50 USD )

Trippen180 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Hero posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Hero [ J♣; J♡; ]
sinnnger folds
Kulturbeutel folds
1papa1dee1 folds
FelD77 raises [$2.50 USD]
Nickster8 folds
Trippen180 folds
Hero raises [$7.00 USD]
FelD77 raises [$22.00 USD]
Hero raises [$66.00 USD]
FelD77 calls [$16.25 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 7◊;, 2♠, K♠ ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ J♠ ]

Woop woop. Anything but a ten.

** Dealing River ** [ T♣; ]

Oh.

Hero shows [J♣;, J♡; ]
FelD77 shows [Q♣;, A♣; ]

FelD77 wins $79.00 USD from main pot.


So, I wasn't in the best of moods for my daily Full Tilt session. But it all went relatively quietly. I was about $3 down and had reached the required 125 FTP points to go towards my Silver Medal target for the month.

So, about three hands from the end of the session, this occurred:


$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, March 08,
Table Erick (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button

Seat 1: XaXe1989 ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 2: AnyLord ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 3: SNOWKER ( $28.70 USD )
Seat 4: Acesdown711 ( $140.65 USD )
Seat 5: hero ( $105.50 USD )
Seat 6: thekingofgin ( $77.30 USD )
Seat 7: kdkime10 ( $115.35 USD )
Seat 8: juanmik2 ( $62.90 USD )
Seat 9: richterswil ( $26.20 USD )
juanmik2 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
richterswil posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to hero [ A◊; A♡; ]

XaXe1989 folds
AnyLord folds
SNOWKER folds
Acesdown711 folds
hero raises [$3.50 USD]
thekingofgin folds
kdkime10 calls [$3.50 USD]
juanmik2 folds
richterswil calls [$2.50 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 6♡;, 6◊;, A♣; ]
richterswil checks
hero checks
kdkime10 checks

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5♠ ]
richterswil checks
hero bets [$5.00 USD]
kdkime10 calls [$5.00 USD]
richterswil calls [$5.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ Q♠ ]
richterswil checks
hero bets [$10.00 USD]
kdkime10 raises [$20.00 USD]
richterswil folds
hero raises [$67.50 USD]
kdkime10 raises [$86.85 USD]
hero calls [$19.50 USD]
kdkime10 wins $9.85 USD

kdkime10 shows [6♠, 6♣; ]

kdkime10 wins $217.00 USD from main pot

hero doesn't show [A◊;, A♡; ]

Now, I've lost hands like this before, but it was a combination of it being one of the last hands of the session, of a good start to the evening turning to crap, and of every step forward at $100 buy in over the past four months coming up against a setback such as this, just as I thought I was getting on top of things.

I looked at the FTP balance and thought to myself "Fuck, I'm probably no more than breakeven since I got that rakeback deal and started playing in Italy. "

Blimey, I really wish I had never gone to that shit hole of a country. It's been a downhill path ever since.

In fact, I see that after a run of three good months in September/October/November (on Full Tilt), I've lost every month since then. In open play I'm now $1100 down on rake of about $3500 – which is roughly on a par with breakeven after rakeback and bonuses. So there comes a time when you have to accept that you are doing something wrong and that perhaps it's best to focus elsewhere.

The Youngster made the valid observation that this game is getting close to solved, and when you add in the inevitable snippets of collusion, there's no shame these days in being unable to beat the rake. And that's just about the position I am in when it comes to Full Tilt. Sure, I could probably focus on four tables, really bum-hunt for fish, and grind out a pathetic profit. But I've never really been comfortable on the site – ever since I started playing limit there in 2005 or so and my first 12 pairs of kings ran into six pairs of Aces.


So, out the money came (I'd fallen from a BR of about $2900 to a BR of less than $2000, which was another reason to walk away. I wasn't going to go skint there again, which is what happened in the three months after UIEGA in, er, October 2006?

I've still got a couple of freeroll tournaments to play, and bundles of IronMan Medals and FTP points that I can convert into other freerolls. When the inevitable "reload bonus" appears I might grind that out at $50 buy-in four-tabling, just to see how it goes. But, for the moment, it's over on FTP.

I was always likeliest to bite the bullet on FTP rather than on Stars or Party, simply because my bankrolls on the other two sites are so much higher, and I have always felt more comfortable playing opponents there. The downside is that just two sites can get a bit boring. The upside is that it will make my targets this month on those two sites considerably easier than they had previously looked.

I'm still a bit up this month (and I'm considerably up in terms of expected bonuses generated but not collected), but I'm still down for the year. Still, it's all rather minor in the grand scheme of things. Next big re-evaluation will be at the end of June. One thing I am really thankful for is that this is not my living. The past few months have shown me how I'm really not cut out for the professional's life.

__________

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sure you've crunched the numbers but anecdotally I'm pretty sure the vast majority finds FT easier than PS. It seems incredible you beat the game at PS and not FT, over a decent sample. I've actually gone the other way and quit Stars, despite it being my most favoured site by about 90% over my entire online history. I got tired of their terribly deteriorated service, and a bust up over my Supernova status was the final thread. And the games on FT are just easier, imho.

gl

bdd

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Dave:

Nice to hear from you.

I don't know what it is about me and Full Tilt. Perhaps I'm just in the wrong game. Perhaps it's the time of day that I play. Perhaps it's because I play so many more hands on Stars than I do on FTP. Whatever the reason, I find it far easier to estimate opponents' ranges on Stars than I do on FTP. And it's this that matters. I see people seeking out highest VPIP tables, highest average pot tables, and so on, and it's all bollocks. I reckon that an 8% VPIP $5 pot average table is going to be far easier (for me) to beat than a 24% VPIP $20 pot average table. Similarly, I find it far easier to play against six 12%/8% players plus one fish than I do against six 22%/18% players and one fish.

Empirically, given that Stars and FTP have the same potential player base, the free market should mean that neither site is intrinsically "softer". What I think you mean is that the vast majority of "UK-style" players find FTP more to their liking. But if I had to allocate myself a "style" it would probably be more of a taggy German.

I guess that I could change styles, but that's like completely rebuilding a golf swing. It's a long and risky process. So, for my "natural golf swing", the Stars game suits me better. That most other players find that FTP suits them better is fine by me, but I don't think that this means that the games on FTP are intrinsically softer/easier. I've never been able to generate a win rate on FTP despite the conventional wisdom telling me that, if I can win on Stars, I should win more on FTP. I've finally concluded that, once again, the conventional wisdom is wrong. While it might be true for most players, it doesn't seem to be true for me.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Pete

I didn't mean UK style players as I wouldn't consider myself one, nor have I had any contact with UK players in any sense in about 5 years. My view came from the seemingly overwhelming consensus from different 2+2 forums, and a limited playing experience. I think there is a reason for the difference. The massively multitablers mostly all stick to Stars. Now these guys are beatable, but not beatable by much as they tend to have kind of "smooth" games, often not much more than break-even, but not easy to exploit.

I think the thing, Pete, about looser games is that you can't mulit them so much. I don't know how many tables you are up to playing now, but my own experiences of the last 6 months or so, where I reached a peak of say 15, is that (a) it's not for me (b) how many tables you play is (another) source of game differentiation. By (b) I mean that if you only play, say four tables, then you've obviously got a massive edge in terms of in game exploitation over someone, however, good, playing 20. It all comes down to hourly rate, not bb/100, I guess.

gl

dd

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Dave:

Yes, these are very good points. In fact I shifted from cascades (9-10 tables max) on FTP back to tiled (8 tables, one big screen, so slightly reduced in size). It didn't make much difference.

I suspect that you are right that if I 4-tabled I could focus on exploitable weaknesses. I think that I sort of refer to this in my previous post, that there might be areas I could try that would work ($2-$4 FR or $3-$6 FR, four-tabling? 50c-$1 6-max four-tabling?. All might be winners for my natural style, but it would take time to find out for sure). But, when it came down to it, I didn't really want to.

I've seen the 2+2 forum comments, but, as I suspect you have written in the past, this tends to be dubious evidence. There's so much 2+2 groupthink that many posters just repeat what they've read before so that they don't have to display any independent thought. It's "accepted" that FTP is a bit softer. My feeling is that it's just different. But the people who prefer Stars don't post so much on 2+2.

But you are spot on that if you are playing four tables you have an advantage over someone who is playing 20. Indeed on Stars I focus in on the players whom I know are playing a large number of tables, because they have a large number of tells in timing (something I try to avoid) and habits of repetition (which I also try to avoid).

With Full Tilt the techniques required are different and, I suspect, more volatile. It just didn't suit me, but (and this is why I mentioned UK style), I get the feeling that the opposition on the Full Tilt Tables would be somewhat more suited to the traditional "winning" UK player. There's no shame in that, but, of course, I don't come from that tradition.

On Party I do a little jig when I see a UK player appear whom I don't recognize, because there are flaws in their play ("can never resist a float" being one of them) that offer great opportunities. The Full Tilt Players never fell into that "easy to beat" mold for me. They might have been weak, but I just had terrible trouble exploiting those weaknesses.

Am running good on Party at the moment, but Stars seems to provide a relatively predictable result.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Won't that impact your blog sponsorship?

Pete N.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Pete:
Not really. I didn't play there for a long time. Made no difference.

PJ

[nofidita.livejournal.com]

я бы сказал fulltilt (http://www.full-tilt-bonus.ru) наиболее нечестный покер-рум в интернете, такого генератора я не встречал