2009 in Review

Kurn · #1 01-01-10, 12:53 PM

What I Learned:

My strength is undoubtedly single table, non-turbo. NLHE SNGs - 709 played, 41.6% ITM, 16.4% ROI. Hourly rate of $23.67 at an average buy-in of $40.76

Moshman's book helped, as can be seen by the improvement over 2008

821 played, 41.8% ITM 12.5% ROI, Hourly rate of $14.52 abi $32.93

The lower number of tournies in 2009 is due to the fact that I played about 300 turbos which convinced me that I should not play turbos.

What this means for 2010:

It is time to stop fooling around with other forms of poker. I've always said that poker is my retirement plan, and while I enjoy being part of a team and shared endeavor, I do not enjoy getting up at 4:15 AM and getting on that damned train every morning and evening. Commuting takes up 4 hours of my life each day.

My goal for 2010 is to build my roll online to the point where my abi can increase to a point where I can realistically consider taking a lower-paying (or even part-time) job closer to home and supplementing my income through poker.

Does this mean giving up on multis and cash games? Not entirely. In 2009 I did reinforce my belief that I am also pretty damn good at low buy-in Stud/8 tournies (33 played, abi $8, 24.2% ITM, 115.35% ROI, 4 final tables, 1-2-3-7), so sure, if my bankroll suggests I can handle it, I may give the $1,500 Stud/8 at the WSOP a whirl.

As for cash games, my intent is to play much less. I tend to play when I get bored with SNGs and clearly, that's a behavior I need to limit.

Thanks again to the membership here for all the general poker insight that has helped me over the past year, and of course, additional thanks to my backers in my two BAPs. Without your support and trust I wouldn't be in the position to even consider the next step.

Happy New Year!

Wes · #2 01-01-10, 02:04 PM

Good luck at pokeretirement Kurn.

At least I didn't put any goals for myself in that thread. Goals seem to perpetuate something that I will invariably fail at.

Poker wise, I think it was a pretty good year. I made the least amount of money since I would consider myself a professional gambler, but I really didn't take poker seriously since I played at WSOP. The beginning of the year saw myself grinding a lot as I saw some need for money, and that probably forced my hand so to speak to actually "work". Then I hit that mark, and didn't particularly foresee much advantage of in working. I see some of my peers buying mansions and getting a brand new car. Although it would be nice to have those things, it is not worth my time invested to get to that point.

On that front, I'm inclined to believe right now that poker is nothing more than an end to a means. Mainly, supporting myself towards something else. It is hard to define what that is at this point, but I do know that poker surely is not the career in the long term.

I did start off with stand up comedy and did do some silly jokes without a message to them. Then I bombed horribly once on stage and saw some comedians after me doing dumb comedy and succeeding. It may have been a manifestation of ego in my loathing towards that comedian, but it did reinforce my opinion that comedians without a point are things that I do not enjoy. So I wrote a whole new set which I think was better than before, even if some of the old jokes are funny.

I'll probably come back to this thread January 1st 2011 and think that the whole comedian thing was pointless. I do know that there is no immediate success to be found in it as it will take years to even get comfortable on stage. How silly to think I'm going to stop playing poker and then derive the notion of being a stand up comedian as a job.

Robbie Robb · #3 01-01-10, 04:34 PM

I don't think that the comedian effort could ever be considered pointless. At the very least you're going to get comfortable standing up in front of a group of people and putting yourself WAY out there. That skill will be invaluable in other efforts.

MAYHEM45 · #4 01-01-10, 04:39 PM

Especially for us online poker nerds. Amirite?

thrash1294 · #5 01-01-10, 05:01 PM

I just ordered moshans book using fulltilt points so hopefully I can put it to some use.

Talking Poker · #6 01-02-10, 02:20 PM

2009 was easily my worst year ever as a poker player. I started off ok, but hit a gross and ridiculous downswing that really hit my confidence. I don't know that it affected my play, but it probably did. I do know that it made me start hating playing. Combine that with the fact that I could no longer get action i the HU SNGs that were my bread and butter in 2008, and I was forced to try to find a form of poker that would make me want to kill myself less.

I even went back to my roots of 6 max LHE, and while I'm pretty sure my playing style is still at least slightly +EV in those, I lost there too. There are definitely still a lot of bad players playing those limit games, but there are a whole lot of regs too and it's just nothing like the free money machine it was a few years ago. By the end of the year, I was back to 6 max NL for the first time in a long time, and doing ok, but again, the games are much tougher than they used to be, even at the lower levels.

Overall, I think I actually officially had my first slightly losing year on the felt, but when you add in RB and bonuses, I was back in the positive. Add staking on top of that, and I did ok, but it was still my worst year ever total income wise.

I started a partnership with a good friend of mine last month, and we have an interesting idea we are going to pursue very shortly. It's going to require quite a bit of my time, but I'm more excited about this than I have been any other business venture I've considered in quite some time. I think there is a high chance of moderate success, a small chance of complete failure, and an equally small chance of it being a massive success. We're still trying to get all of our ducks in a row right now, but things are coming along. Here's hoping by the time next year, the business will be a massive success.......... I think I'll know one way or another in a month or two.

Here's also hoping that 2010 will be the year of poker legislation bringing us closer to the true golden age of online poker. Can you imagine how good the game will be if we are ever able to play at Bellagio.com and such?

Kurn · #7 01-02-10, 03:02 PM

I got Stoxtrader's LHE book for Christmas and it was a shock to see the stats he had on the 6 max LHE pros. Under 0.5 BB/100!!!

That just sounds like a worse variance ride than SNGs.

IMO, LHE is still a tough place to make money online. Live is a different story, but I went up and down in my 6 max limit play at the end of the year and I just shelved the idea of that being my focus.

JDMcNugent7 · #8 01-02-10, 04:53 PM

worst year poker wise - best year in a lot of other aspects though, and sometimes I feel like that goes hand in hand. I could definitely balance the 2 better, but it is certainly harder than it seems

one thing I did this year that I may not realize now that will be huge for me, is how much I've gotten into investing in stocks. I've made like 50k through this huge downswing and then upswing, and without really realizing it while I was doing it, am setting myself up pretty nicely for the future, I hope.

PShabi · #9 01-02-10, 08:57 PM

6max LHE is brutal. BRUTAL. As Kurn states, winning players are winning by a slimmmmmmmmm margin. To make money you have to be playing massive amounts multi-tabling.

In my opinion and limited experience, the full ring limit games are softer online but still not like it was in the hey day. I'm finding my success in live LHE. Even with single tabling at a snail's pace and a $4 rake + $1 jackpot drop, I won slightly over 1.5bb/hr in a 4/8 half kill game. That's after a tip too, which speaks to how soft that game is.

My poker goal is to bankroll winnings from that game and try and move up to 8/16 and/or higher this spring/summer when my ability to play more increases.

JDMcNugent7 · #10 01-03-10, 06:51 AM

cool goal, $4 rake every hour or half hour? Either way that's brutal for low limit live. In missouri they have no rake, which is awesome and how every casino should be imo, I know the dealers love it. We just tip every hand that gets at least a flop, and at 5/10 NL, $1 is perfectly fine, just put up more for big pots. Also only the winner is tipping, so after you win a $100 hand you could care less about that $1, lose every hand and you never have to tip.

Kurn · #11 01-03-10, 10:18 AM

I assume when he uses the term "rake" as opposed to "time charge" it's max $4 per pot. At FW it's $1 on the flop (no flop, no drop) and $1 increments at specific pot sizes. At FW, the $1 jackpot drop comes at $20 for 4/8, but IIRC it's $3 max rake there not counting the JP drop.

JDMcNugent7 · #12 01-03-10, 10:50 AM

oh maybe you're right, i know i played in canada once and they took a certain amount per half hour though, so im not sure

Talking Poker · #13 01-03-10, 01:40 PM

Here is my problem with your math. Forgetting for a moment that your sample size is miniscule - I mean, this has to be for what 5k hands or something? - even if we assume 1.5 BB/hour is your long term true win rate, you should be able to crush that by multitabling online.

Let's say online you could only grind out .25 bb/hr somehow (including RB and bonuses), playing only 8 tables gives you a 2 bb/hour win rate, which is already higher than your live rate. And we haven't even factored in your time and expenses of driving to and from the game and so on.

And don't forget that by playing 20x as many hands per hour online, you'll be gaining experience so much faster, which should improve your win rate (online and live) faster too.

PShabi · #14 01-03-10, 05:22 PM

It's 10% of the pot, up to $4. Plus $1 every pot for the progressive bad beat jackpot.

PShabi · #15 01-03-10, 05:36 PM

Probably between 9k and 10k hands, which is still small, yes. I've played close to 360 hours and I think 25-30 hands is a good estimate. I've counted before.

I've never been able to successfully play more than 4 tables and sometimes that is tough for me to do. What stakes are you calculating for online? Online games are 100X tougher than live games. Maybe more. I'm not even sure I could win @ 1/2 LHE online anymore. They are that tough. And don't shrug this off as bullshit either. Play the games. The 4/8 half kill game I play in is softer than any online pre-legislation game I have ever played in. My edge is so massive it's laughable. Like, there is literally no one else at the table who understands limit hold em. It's free money. I cleared $600 in 6 hours Thursday and Friday night this weekend.

If I win .25bb/100 hands playing 1/2 LHE and I get in 350 hands per hour (3 or 4 tables) then I'm making $2/hr! WTF for??????

In my case, I am driving from my garage to the casino's parking garage which is exactly 1 mile away. So I'm spending $0.25 in gas and it's taking me five minutes to drive, park and walk to the room. My winrate does not include the beer I drink at the game, but it's cheaper than the beer I drink at home. Plus, I get $1/hr in food comps. So, my winrate is around $14/hr including that. What stakes am I going to have to play online, 4-tabling, to reach that? Assuming I can beat those stakes, which I'm not sure I can.

As Kurn stated, .25bb/100 hands indicates HUGE variance. I make less online and honestly, I have way less fun. Plus, I get a lot of thinking done at the table and take voice notes on my phone about shit that I need to get done outside of poker so it's like multi-tasking in a way.

Kurn · #16 01-03-10, 07:05 PM

Depends on the room. Some rooms have a time charge. For a while FW had a $5/half hour per player time charge for the 1/2 NL. I recall Casino Arizona took the first $1 of the drop right out of the blinds before the hand was dealt.

Talking Poker · #17 01-03-10, 07:07 PM

Fair argument. I guess it's just difficult for me to believe those numbers (on both sides). It just seems crazy to me that the difference in skill level between live and online is SO GREAT that the massive loss in volume you could play can't easily make up for it.

If you can only play 3-4 tables of 1/2 limit and eek out .25 bb/hour, then yeah, I guess that's true. But there are plenty of players who play 5 times to stakes, 5 times as many tables, and have 4 times the win rate. That's 100 times the hourly used in your example. I'm not saying just anyone could sit down and have those numbers, but I'm pretty confident you could do a lot better than you are giving yourself credit for.

PShabi · #18 01-03-10, 09:28 PM

Depends on your definition of "plenty" but I doubt there are too many dudes playing 12 tables of 5/10 LHE and winning 2BB/100. Good ass players at that level are probably only winning .5-1BB/100 nowadays.

Also: I'm speaking from experience when I compare online to live play. Online $1/$2 FR LHE, it's usually 2 to a flop. In live games, I'm 3-betting J10s on the button for value when UTG raises and the field cold calls. You NEVER see that online in any LHE game. Raise UTG with AK and have 2 cold-callers and the blinds come along so it's 5 handed. Cold callers have J6o and K2s. Blinds are playing anything. The difference is staggering, it really is. I go to my local card room and in 350 hours I was by far the best player for 348 of them. The other 2 I was really drunk and was still the best but the margin was slimmer.