A Day in the Life, a Life in the Night...

New Website

2010-04-06T16:40:00.000-07:00

Hey,

I've decided to move to my own website: fitorfold.com or alternatively, nickabourisk.com.

Check out my new six pack abs progress (finally!): http://fitorfold.com/2010/04/from-6-packs-of-beer-to-a-six-pack-and-back.html

Kiss Me, I'm Irish! (+ 2009 in Review)

2010-01-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

Note: This is an incomplete blog (uploading pics first).

Abs Bet Progress

Before/After for Abs Bet (Front)

Start of Weight Loss Bet to End of Abs Bet (Front)

Start of Weight Loss Bet to End of Abs Bet (Side)

Weight Loss, and Six Packs, and Mario... Oh My!

2009-06-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

This blog post includes updates on my completed weight loss bet, my new six pack bet, school (check out the Mario project!), and poker. Comments are always more than welcome!

Fitness Bets Update:

If you read my previous blog entry (February) then you know that I had two 3-month weight loss bets with some friends. The first was with a friend who bet me that I couldn't lose 15 lbs in three months; I crushed that bet, losing over 15 lbs in the first month alone! The second bet was more competitive, I had to lose more weight than another friend over the three months. We eventually decided that if both of us lost 25 lbs or more, we'd call it a draw. That's exactly what happened, I lost about 27 lbs. Here is a before/after pic for the weight loss bet:

Check out the previous blog post to see most of the adjustments I was making. Still not fully satisfied with where I was -- and, more importantly, not wanting to revert to old slobbish habits -- I joined in a summer six pack abs bet with several friends. Whoever ends up with the "most improved" abs (determined by a panel of judges) after four months wins.

Here's a graph of my weight loss thus far (over 5 months):

I'm really happy with the progress I've made and it's nice to see that the graph still seems to be decreasing linearly (and not decaying exponentially). I know that I'll eventually get diminishing returns but I'd be quite happy if I can continue to lose a pound per week ;). So far, I've seen quite the improvements:

I've lost about 39 pounds
I've dropped from pant size 38 to 34 (have to throw out over 11 pairs of pants!)
I've dropped from M-L shirts to S-M.
I've put on a lot more muscle mass and have become much stronger
I'm not tired during the day and actually have much more energy
I can think much clearer
I don't get heart-burn
My cardio and stamina are much better
I sweat a lot less
I'm much more confident and happy with myself

Here's a 5-month before/after pic:

Here's a side shot before/after pic:

Here's a 2-month progress pic since the six pack bet started:

Being someone who needs to see progress, often in some quantitative form, I decided to get a body composition test done for every two months of the new abs bet (at the beginning, middle, and end). I just completed the second test the other day and was very pleased with my progress: I lost 8.5 lbs (about a 1 lb/week), 2 inches from my waist (1 in./month), and 2.5-3% body fat. I also got four body fat estimates (from several formulas using different skinfold sites): 8.5%, 9.0%, 10.5% and 14.9%. They also give a rating for waist circumference and "sum of five skinfolds", I improved from 4/4 and 3.6/4 to 4/4 and 4/4, respectively. I also lost fat from every skinfold site except for my chest (the girl performing the test didn't know the reason but said the difference wasn't significant).

For the weight loss bet, I was working out three days per week. For the six pack bet, I've switched to 5-6 days per week. Here's what a typical week looks like:

Monday:

Weights - Chest and Biceps
HIIT - 3 minute warm-up, 10 minutes of intervals (5 high, 5 low), 3 minute cool-down
Walking - 15 minute walk to University and 15 minute walk back

Tuesday:

Ab Ripper - 240 reps total of 12 different ab exercises (uppers, lowers, and obliques)
HIIT - 4 minute warm-up, 20 minutes of intervals, 4 minute cool-down
Walking - 30 min.
Squash - 1 to 2 hours

Wednesday:

Weights - Shoulders and Triceps
HIIT - 3, 10, 3 min.
Walking - 30 min.

Thursday:

Ab Ripper
HIIT - 4, 20, 4 min.
Walking - 30 min.
Squash - 1 to 2 hours

Friday:

Weights - Back and Legs
Walking - 30 min.

Saturday:

Ab Ripper
Cardio - 25 min.
Swimming (I finally started using the pool in our apartment building)

Sunday:

Rest

I learned the "Ab Ripper" workout from the girl who administered the body composition test; she modified it from Tony Horton's P90X Ab Ripper X routine. I've since purchased the P90X program from GNC so that I can try it when Melissa and I move to our next destination (wherever that may be).

For weight-lifting days, we perform 3-4 exercises for each of the two listed muscle groups. For each exercise, we do 3 sets of 12 reps (or until muscular failure) with increased weight on each set. We normally do the high intensity interval training (HIIT) on elliptical trainers or exercise bikes (low intensity of about 65% maximum heart rate and high intensity of about 85-90% of max HR).

Our workout was adopted from the Lean Muscle Plan found on SixPackNow (yes, I signed up to one of these gimmicky-looking websites...), a website which turned out to be pretty legit. They gave me a 200+ page pdf book covering diet, stretching, exercise, weight-lifting, and everything you need. They also email you a personalized nutrition plan a few days after signing up (you give them information about yourself and a current body shot photo).

In addition to the workouts and squash, I'll also be playing ultimate frisbee on Mondays (if we get the minimum number of girls) and slo-pitch softball on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

School/Research:

Well, I finally finished taking all of my MSc courses (I just wrapped up "Introduction to Reinforcement Learning" with one of the field's pioneers, Rich Sutton, as my prof). The course ended up being a lot of fun, it kind of changed the way I think about life (in terms of maximizing future reward, the crux of RL). The main reason for the course being so fun was the option of working on Infinite Mario for the course project(s). I obviously chose to work on it for both course projects (the first on my own, the second with a friend, Rich, from the poker group). It pretty much took over my life near the end of the semester, I was probably spending 8+hours a day on it.

The goal of the Infinite Mario domain is pretty simple: get the Mario agent to learn how to play the game by maximizing his future reward. Mario often gets reward for things like collecting coins, killing enemies, and finishing levels. On the other hand, Mario often gets penalties for things like falling down a pit, getting killed by an enemy, or taking too long to complete a level. Mario has to learn what is good or bad through his experience with the environment. That is, he has to play through the level several times and eventually learns things like "Hey, I should not run right into that nearby Goomba, I usually get penalized or killed for doing so... maybe I'll try jumping over him". If you've ever played any Super Mario Bros. game (shame on you if you haven't!), you've probably discovered through your own trial-and-error experience that running to the right and jumping often is never that bad of a strategy (at least in the side-scrollers :D ). It turns out that Mario also quickly discovers this on his own. Here's a short video clip of one of our Mario agents in action (apologies for the quality; you can get a little better picture by clicking on the "HQ" button):

Rich (my partner, not our prof) and I decided to submit to the Reinforcement Learning 2009 Competition (open to anyone in the world) and placed second! Rich deserves most of the credit, though, as I was not able to help him out after we finished the course.

Regarding my MSc research, I recently submitted two 3-player limit hold'em bots to the 2009 Computer Poker Competition. It would be really good for my thesis if one of my bots wins. One of the bots was built by playing 43 million poker hands against two other copies of itself (learning from its mistakes over time). The other submission uses the bot just described as a base player when it's 3-handed but substitutes in some heads-up (i.e. 2-player) experts in some select preflop scenarios. For example, in the situation where the button folds, experts could be substituted in for the small blind or the big blind. Six of these heads-up experts were used and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, this corresponds to them being used for about 70-90% of all hands. Anyway, we'll get the results of the competition in about two weeks, I can't wait!

I received an email the other day from one of my physics supervisors from UPEI, he informed me that some of the work I did in my last year at UPEI has just been accepted as a publication submitted to the Journal of Chemical Physics! Here's a link to the abstract and here's a link to the pdf version of the paper.

Now that all of my courses are finished and I've created some competitive 3-player bots, I'm just writing my thesis and collecting final results. Unfortunately, all results will likely be empirical. I'd like to have some theory in there but multiplayer theory is quite difficult and my background in the area is minimal.

Miscellaneous:

I have a few other bets that I haven't mentioned. I have two other $50 six pack bets with other friends (one who is already in our group six pack bet, and the other one being Brodie Champion). I also have a sleep bet where I must get at least 7 hours of sleep every night. This was really tough for me as I was a night owl who would often be up until 1 or 2am. Now, I go to bed at 11:30pm and wake up at 6:30am and then hit the gym at 7am every weekday. Finally, I have a $40 thesis-writing bet with a friend where I have to have my thesis submitted by the third week or so of September. I plan on having it submitted and defended by this date, though, so hopefully everything works out.

I've purchased a few Wii games since the last blog post: Boom Blox, Boom Blox 2: Bash Party, EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Mario Power Tennis, and maybe a few others. Most of the games mentioned are made by EA and are great! Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods are especially cool as they use the new Wii Motion Plus controller add-ons. There are still a few bugs to be worked out and the "1-to-1 correspondence" is a bit of a fib, but they are great multiplayer games nonetheless.

When the previous blog was written, I was likely halfway through a UofA CS grad student competition called the "Beard-Off". I entered the month-long "Most Growth" competition and ended up finishing as the runner-up :-(. I really thought I had that competition in the bag but unfortunately, I'm only the second manliest grad student in the CS department. Oh well...

Melissa and I have had a few visitors here in Edmonton. Melissa's brother Bobby came out for a week or so and that was really fun. We ended up drinking and dancing (who'da thunk?) and showing him around a bit. I also had Theriault, Arlo, and a friend of theirs, Dave, come out to visit for a weekend. That also involved drinking and dancing (again, who'da thunk?). That was about a month ago and I lost my new jacket at the bar (took it off to dance and forgot to pick it up when we were leaving).

Another exciting note is that my good ol' pal, and one of my groomsmen, McWado (name rhymes with Mike Wazowski), has since moved out to Edmonton to do his Master's in Bio (and is living with my awesome workout partner, Adam). It's been a lot of fun having him around this past month. We've been playing squash together on Tuesdays and Thursdays, working out and swimming on Saturdays, and playing video games on other random days. We also started a fun little "tradition" where we're going to make steak and potatoes on Saturdays after our swim. We're currently trying different steaks every week; so far we've tried New York Strip and Cross Rib. We're thinking T-Bone next week. Any suggestions (including marinades, basting, grilling, etc.) are welcome!

Finally, Melissa and I have sponsored a very cute, four-and-a-half year old, boy from Nicaragua named Norgen A. Molina Calderon through World Vision. I used to think it was a bad idea to give to these bigger organizations which generally take larger amounts (~18%) out of each donation for fund-raising and administration costs. However, I don't see it as such anymore. If you look at the total amount (82.1% of all donations) given to programs that help the children, I'm sure it's much much higher (in terms of absolute dollars) than the organizations that give 95-100%. Without the advertising, many of the donators simply wouldn't know about such a cause (or at the very least, think about it on their own accord). For instance, Melissa and I were shopping in the West Ed Mall and noticed a table containing portraits of these poor children. Beside the table were two (most likely paid) World Vision representatives who informed us about their program. Had these women not set up camp in the mall (which requires both fund-raising and administrative costs), we would likely have never thought about donating. Now that I have more experience with both poker and Reinforcement Learning, I think much differently about these sorts of scenarios (involving investments or future rewards).

Poker:

Poker blog begins here... if you came for the fitness update, you can stop reading.

FTPoints: 316,902.4 (surpassed my 300k goal for the year)
Iron Man Medals: 1684

	Bankroll
Staking	$40
Party Poker	$119.70
Full Tilt Poker	$19,898.76
Total	$20,058.46

I'm pretty disappointed, I've been saving up my FTPoints for the last two years and set my goal for 300k points this year: the number of points required for a 30" Samsung computer monitor. I finally reached my goal (halfway through the year!) and then they took the monitor off their store! Oh well... I still have enough points for a new 13" MacBook, or 3+ 24" monitors, or close to enough for some large HDTVs. Also, I believe the value of my Iron Man medals is a little over $300 (they can also be traded for more FTPoints).

Even though I said I wanted to stop withdrawing from my poker bankroll, I ended up taking out over $2k. I got Melissa a really nice 12.2 MP digital SLR camera, the Canon EOS Rebel XSi, and lens for her birthday. I also paid for her trip to NYC (as part of the deal I mentioned in my previous post) where she is currently visiting with friends. I miss her already :'-(.

Since the last blog, I've played 48k hands of poker. Here are my overall stats:

I haven't run very well (0.3 BB/100) over this time period (start of February to end of May). I'm starting to think this might be due to how loose I've been playing lately (it's getting eerily close to 40/30). Although I feel like I have a big edge on most players in my games, I think you really need the right game conditions to be playing that loose; it probably shouldn't be a default style.

When I get time, I plan on revamping my game (by reducing the number of tables, thinking a bit longer before making decisions, reviewing hands, and studying situations with poker software tools (like Pokerazor, StoxEV, StoxCombo, Pokerstove, Poker Equilator, and Holdem Manager). I've already spotted several leaks in my game and am creating some preflop charts (based on empirical thresholds from Stoxtrader's awesome book).

Notice that I've taken some shots at $8/16 and $10/20 and they've gone well! I actually made an appearance in one of Bryce's Stoxpoker videos at $10/20 (called something like "10/20 LHE Adventures") where I proceeded to crack his pocket aces ;). I have enough of a bankroll now to play $10/20 (using the 1000 big bet rule) so I'm quite the nit to be still mostly playing $5/10. I'm okay with that though as the money at $5/10 is still pretty good, lower risk, and lets me work out some of the leaks I've discovered.

Here are my session stats over the same time period:
It took about 154 hours to play those 48k hands. Even though I didn't run very well (in terms of BB/100), I still did well in terms of an hourly: $50US/hr ($27/hr from play + $23/hr from rakeback). Rakeback is now being paid to my FTP account on a weekly basis instead of to PokerSource. I'm so glad since I've had so many problems with PS; the only downfall is not being able to easily get Amazon gift certificates to buy books, games, and DVDs.

Here are my position stats filtered for 5-6 players:
My 6max stats are 38/28/1.9, I'm becoming such a LAGtard :-o. I didn't notice until today, but it looks like my big blind play is getting worse (in terms of winrate). I'm probably defending a bit too much right now (at least for these high-rake games) so I might tighten up a bit on my defense. I have created some defense charts so I'll have to organize those a bit and start following them. Notice that I'm running over 1 BB/100 when filtered for 5- to 6-handed (my goal for the year, a pretty respectable winrate in today's games). This suggests that I've got some short-handed and HU leaks. I'll have to look into that.

Here's a graph for the hands I've played (in BBs):

and here's a graph of winnings and rakeback (in US dollars):

Almost $8k in a working month (assuming a full-time job takes ~150 hrs/month) ain't too shabby.

Anyway, congratulations if you made it this far and thanks for reading! As mentioned, comments are always welcome!

Working Out is Working Out!

2009-02-22T16:38:00.000-08:00

I've lost over 15 lbs in a little over a month!!!

For those who aren't familiar, I mentioned some weight loss bets I made a little over a month ago in my previous entry.

Basically, before Christmas, I had a $50 weight loss bet with a friend to lose 15 lbs over 2 or 3 months. I was doing all right, I think I lost 10 lbs or something but then eventually gave up and gained weight back. As a sort of New Year's resolution, I decided to try to redeem myself and asked the friend if we could do a double or nothing weight loss bet (I pay $100 total if I lose, or break even over both bets if I win). We came to an agreement of 15 lbs (I started at 215!) over a 3 month period.

I also made a second weight loss bet with a friend at school. This was also a 3 month $50 bet but involves losing more weight than the other. We decided to put a cap on weight-loss such that if both of us lost the cap amount or more, then we'd tie. This cap started off as 35 lbs (~3 lbs/week) but we lowered it to 25 lbs (~2 lbs/week) since 35 is a ridiculous amount to lose over 12 weeks (and probably unhealthy). I describe the changes I've made below along with progress updates.

Weight Loss Bet Update:

Well, so far so good. Everything is working out much better than I expected. I had two weight loss bets and I've already won the first one (assuming I can at least maintain my weight for another two months).

I've essentially changed my whole lifestyle in a month. Here are some of the changes I've made:

I now eat breakfast (before I never had the appetite)
Instead of two square meals a day, I now eat ~6: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, supper, snack
I've reduced my caloric intake
I've replaced bad/junky foods with good ones (generally)
I get more protein, fruits, and veggies now
I haven't had any alcohol yet (I likely will but not like I used to)
I drink 8+ glasses of water a day (and don't drink pop or juice anymore)
I've switched from 2% milk to skim milk (something I thought I'd never do)
I'm now waking up between 6:30 and 7:30 AM every weekday (where it used to be anything up to 10 or 11 AM)
I've switched from large lunches to smaller ones (I usually have a Subway 6" Ham with no cheese and mustard)
I started taking multi-vitamins and minerals daily
I'm walking to campus and back every weekday (~15 min. each way) instead of taking the transit system
I'm doing weight training with a friend at 7 AM on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and having a having a protein shake afterwards (skim milk, banana, and chocolate whey protein powder; 37g protein for 45g whey)
I'm doing one day of cardio (exercise bike, elliptical, etc.) on the weekend and taking one day off (I didn't take a day off for the first two weeks or so). I'm still playing about 1.5 hours of squash every Tuesday and Thursday
I've been recording pretty much everything I eat, all my workouts, my weight, and sleep in a spreadsheet
I've also been recording a bunch of things in the above bullet at fitday.com which is a pretty sweet site. It will calculate approximately how many Calories you take in, how many you burn, how much fat, protein, and carbs you take in (and a ton of other stuff).
I signed up for a nutrition program where a nutrition student outlined about how many Calories I should take in per day as well as what types of foods and how much protein and carbs.

Some results I've seen so far:

I've already lost over 15 lbs!!
I don't get really hungry anymore
I don't get heartburn anymore
I have lots more energy
I can think much clearer
I am more confident

One thing I still really need to work on is getting better and more consistent sleep. However, I have improved so that's good.

Our workout thus far has been a beginner workout found here. Here's a list of our exercises (3 sets of 12-15 reps):

5 min. elliptical warm-up (sometimes we miss this)
Bench press (with free weights)
Bent-over barbell rows (with free weights)
Seated shoulder press (with free weights)
Lunges (with free weights)
Barbell curls (with free weights)
Overhead tricep extensions (sometimes with free weights, others with the machine)
Crunches
Back hyperextensions (sometimes replaced with another exercise)
Core exercise (I think sometimes called bridges or something)

We're going to start a new workout intending to work different muscle groups (with pushing and pulling exercises).

I mentioned FitDay earlier, here is a link to my FitDay public profile. I haven't updated the food log in a few days but you can go through an archive of approximately what I've eaten every day since the competition started. It gives nutritional information and shows the weight fluctuations for that week.

Here's a graph of my weight change so far (all graphs/tables from FitDay; click on pics to see larger versions):

The short-term fluctuations were mostly from me weighing myself during different times of day. Your weight can easily fluctuate 2 lbs (I've even seen 3-4) over a day. Here's the same graph but with my weight loss goal (25 lbs):

It's always nice to see that my weight loss graph has stayed below my goal for the duration of the bet!

Here's a table showing the Nutrition Facts for the foods I've eaten since we started the competition (showing the average daily intake compared to recommended daily intake):

along with a corresponding graph (recommended daily value being 100%):

and finally a graph of my average Calorie intake since we started:

Some of the high numbers after starting are from not recording and thus averaging over a smaller week sample (like when I caught the flu). Anyway, in terms of my Calorie breakdown (in percentages) in Carbs/Fat/Protein, I've averaged 55/23/22. I've heard of two different goals to aim for: 40/30/30 from a friend and 60/20/20 from a Smoothies recipe book. I'm not too disappointed with my numbers as it's somewhere in between.

If anyone has any comments, questions, or especially suggestions about nutrition/working out/lifestyle, please leave some comments for me at the end of the blog.

RL (non-poker):

Melissa and I recently got digital cable and one of the channels we ordered as the Game Show Network (GSN). I'm pretty pumped about this because it hosts "High Stakes Poker" and the season 5 premiere starts this Sunday. On another note, my birthday is in a week (March 3) and I have a midterm exam that day :(

When browsing Google Reader the other day --this site has literally saved me hours of internet browsing a week by combining everything into one handy page with updates/RSS feeds-- I discovered a website called www.obamicon.me which gives you the opportunity to create the Barack Obama campaign type pictures. This can be done easily by either uploading a photo or taken directly using your webcam. Then, you can subtitle it with whatever you want (up to a certain number of characters, of course). Here are a couple I took while fooling around:

and nothing rounds out a blog like a NSFW pic, obv:

Now on to my poker blog, you can stop reading now if you came to read about the weight loss bet.

Cash Games:

Here's a screen shot of my overall stats for January:

I had a pretty good January, especially considering how few hands I put in. I obviously ran really well (especially at heads-up). However, I think my game has really improved a lot over the last little while (thanks a ton to my coach BigBadBabar from 2p2/DeucesCracked). The main strategy help I got from involved 3betting the SB from the BB and capping HU in position. Most of the improvements, however, have simply been psychological as I have a much better approach to the game now. I generally play fewer tables than I used to, don't check my results during a session (generally), and am trying to implement a daily stop-loss.

Here is a screen shot of my Session Stats:

I played for about 25 hrs and made $74/hr + rakeback (over $10/hr) which is pretty sweet.

Here are my positional stats filtered for 6max (5-6 handed) LHE:

Note that I am becoming even LAGgier. I played 35/27/1.9 but believe I had a significant edge on most of my opponents. I try to table- and seat-select a bit when I play so that always helps. It looks like I'm becoming even more stubborn and showdown-bound. I won when I saw the flop 47% of the time and went to showdown 47%! Thus, my W$SD is obviously < 50%.

Here's a graph of January in terms of big bets (BBs):

and here is the same graph except represented in dollars along with the rakeback made:

Tournaments:

I didn't really play tournaments at all. I played a few on a whim but didn't get into them.

Bankroll:

FTPoints: 199,328 (2/3 of my goal for this year)
Iron Man Medals: 1422

	Bankroll
Party	$119.70
Stars	$51.32
FTP	$13,059.88
Staking1	$1,545.90
Staking2	$40.00
Staking3	$640.00
Rakeback	$29.95
Total	$15,486.75

I was talking to a friend recently (actually, the one I'm competing against in the weight loss bet) and he got me thinking. I should withdraw a bunch of my roll and deposit it into a high-interest savings account. I could always redeposit onto the poker site if I had a downswing. Withdrawing some now might be a good time as the exchange rate is something like $1 US = $1.25 CAD. That means withdrawing 5k US would be equivalent to over 6k CAD. Also, I need to pay off my student credit card, I didn't know that your credit card rating is affected negatively just for having an outstanding balance, I thought you only get dinged when you are late on payments. I should have done this a while ago anyway because of the ridiculous interest rates the credit card companies charge.

Miscellaneous (poker):

Research has been going much better as of late. I'm working on multiplayer (specifically, 3-player) texas hold'em games. However, there are lots of complications with creating a 3-player equilibrium (and even if said equilibrium could be created, we're unsure of its effectiveness). Anyway, one thing we decided to do is to look at situations where you initially start with 3 players but then move down to 2 players when someone folds. We can easily solve such 2-player games so I've created some small blind-vs.-big blind bots in a 5-bucket abstraction. Something interesting that I've discovered is that the SB raises about two-thirds of his hands (mostly folds the rest with little limping) and the BB defends pretty much any two cards. Of these BB defends, the BB 3bets about 29% of the top bucket and about 14% of the middle bucket, IIRC. I actually lost a $5 bet to Bryce where we guessed how often the SB and BB would fold. I guessed something like SB folds 18% and BB folds 8% and Bryce guessed SB folds 25.5% and BB folds 0%. He said he was going to guess a larger number for SB but didn't want to come off as a nit, haha!

Also, I recently got access to a 32GB RAM machine to run a long memory-intensive 3-player hold'em game on. However, after seeing how quickly (slowly is actually a more fitting word) it was running, I discovered that the estimated time of completion of the program was about 15-25 years! Yikes!

Goals/Resolutions:

Here's a recap of this year's goals/resolutions from my previous blog entry. I sucessfully cleared the TFPT bonuses last month, I'm not sure if I'll be able to this month (it will involve a lot of Friday/Saturday play, if so).

[x] Lose 15 lbs by April 15 (midnight)
Lose more weight than Johnny (competitor) by April 16 or at least 25 lbs
Have a win rate of over 1 BB/100 at 6max LHE cash
Play and win at 10/20+ stakes by the end of the year
Clear TrulyFreePokerTraining (free CR/Stoxpoker) memberships every month (7000 FTPoints)
Get 300k+ FTPoints
Make $30k+ profit
Finish Thesis

A Glance at 2008

2009-01-18T16:37:00.000-08:00

I've included stats and graphs for the poker I've played over the last year. I also discuss my [again] late New Year's resolutions (along with a look at last year's).

Cash Games:

Here is my 2008 graph for all cash games (LHE/NL/PL) at Full Tilt. The green represents just table profit while blue represents profit including rakeback.

and here are the corresponding stats:

A few things are depressing about the above. Firstly, I played less than 10k hands/month on average. If I was playing full-time (8 hrs/day), I'd be able to play the same amount of hands that I played all of last year in just one month. Secondly, I am still playing the same stakes that I was playing last year (whereas I moved up from $0.25/$0.50 to 3/6 and 5/10 in a few months).

The upside to the above stats is that I could easily do this as a full-time job if I so choose after my Master's. I'd be able to clear $4k-$5k/month if I played 100k hands and another $3k+ profit. That's also assuming that I don't improve at all (same winrate and not moving up in stakes at all). There's a regular at my stakes (over 3/4 of his hands are at stakes that I play) whose played ~660k hands in the last 9 months (according to tableratings). He's made ~$82k profit + ~$42k rakeback at a similar winrate to mine.

Here are my 2008 stats for just LHE:

My average win rate was ~$24/hr (including rakeback) last year. For the last 6 months, it has been ~$30/hr.

Here are my 2008 stats for 5- to 6-handed LHE:

and my last 6 months of 5- to 6-handed LHE:

Notice that (even though it's over a smallish sample size) I have a higher win rate by about 1/4BB and my average stats have changed from 27/19 -> 33/23.

Here is my small sample of NL/PL:

The 5c/10c was me shoving most hands at a $3 CAP game. If it wasn't for me seeking out tougher regulars at deep stack $50 HU NL, the win rate would have been much better. Of course, none of that really matters since the sample size is so small.

I recently hired a coach, BigBadBabar from 2p2/DeucesCracked, to look over hands I've played and give me feedback (through documents/Skype). I've payed him for 6 hours of work so far. The biggest changes to my game haven't really been strategy-related but more of the psychological aspect. Here are some of the changes I've made:

I cover my stack sizes so that I don't know how I'm doing
I don't look at my results (through Cashier/HUD/HEM) until I've finished a session
I play shorter sessions
I play less tables
I pay more attention (not chatting/browsing internet)

I recently sent my coach a link to a video of myself 4-tabling 3/6 6max LHE on FTP (with a sweet DeucesCracked table mod). If you're interested, click here for the link (I can also email his comments on the video, if interested).

Since the coaching session, I've been running super hot:
Over this small sample size, it looks like I've become LAGgier preflop, I 3bet more, steal more. Something that I've really been trying to work on is bet/folding more on the turn and river. I'm also valuebetting thinner and not check/calling so much (along with check/folding more). This has done two things, I have a higher river AF and I have a higher W$SD (it's 51.6% whereas it's normally 49-50%).

Tournaments:

Here are my OPR stats for the last year (~$14k profit, 29% ROI, 16% ITM, $32 ABI, ~1500 MTTs):

It's pretty sweet that my rating is in the 99th percentile (and top 2000 players) for 2007 and 2008 even though I only played part-time during part of the year. I haven't really played MTTs for a while because I needed a break after the brutal $5k or $6k+ downswing. Luckily it followed my biggest month. Also, I want to get back into LHE cash games.

Bankroll:

FTPoints: 186,762
Iron Man Medals: 1422

	Bankroll
Party	$119.70
Stars	$179.97
FTP	$10,250.81
Staking1	$1,545.90
Staking2	$50.00
Staking3	$500.00
Rakeback	$52.09
Total	$12,698.47

The reason why this month's BR is lower than last months is because I've withdrawn $3k ($1k for Xmas and $2k for tuition since I used tuition money to buy plane tickets home to PEI). I really hate withdrawing from my roll all the time. This brings the total to ~$15k+ withdrawn. I'd almost be rolled for 15/30 had I never withdrawn. Oh well, I'll just have to start logging more hands.

Combining the cash game hands, rakeback, and MTTs, I made about $22k last year. I'm pretty happy with this considering I didn't get to play too much (an average of 1 hr of cash games and 4 MTTs per day) while going to school (at least compared to a full-time grinder).

Here is a graph of my BR plotted monthly (based on numbers from blog entries):

and here's a chart of the rakeback earned for each month of 2008:

Notice how it decreased almost linearly every month for the first half of the year. This is because I kept logging less and less hands (due to school, research, laziness, playing MTTs instead of cash). The most rakeback was ~$1500 a year ago (Jan 2008).

Miscellaneous (poker):

I haven't worked on the Preflop program I was describing in the previous blog entry. Instead, I started writing a new program. I originally started writing it in Java but it took a ridiculous amount of time to run. I then tried to figure out how to set up the Pokersource project but ended up giving up on that (their nice Java code was old, unused, and nonfunctional and I didn't really wanna use their C stuff). Instead, I found the C# project that's used by the Pokerazor guys. Of course, I didn't know any C# but I decided to learn a bit of a new language, and hopefully come up with a faster way to computer what I wanted. I ended up with a primitive program that is much faster (but I still wish it was faster). I really like how easy it is to create a GUI.

What it does: Given a board, it ranks every possible holding (hot-cold equity and current hand strength). These can then be sorted from highest to lowest or vice versa. There's a huge list of things to add/change but I haven't worked on it since before Xmas. For instance, I need to group equivalent/canonical hands together and be able to output ranges/subranges (e.g. top 50%) or compare equity of hands vs. another range or distribution.

Here is a screenshot of the preliminary program:

RL (non-poker):

Okay, so I obviously lost the weight loss bet I had with my buddy for before Xmas. I kinda just gave up (although I was moving at a good rate for a while). However, he's giving me a chance to redeem myself. Another 15 lbs /3 month weight-loss bet. If I win this one, I'm even, otherwise I owe him $100. I also have another $50 weight loss bet with a different friend; this one is for whoever can lose more weight than the other guy.

That said, I've been making pretty major changes already. I'm drinking 8+ glasses of water a day, exercising every day (fitness room and squash), eating less, eating breakfast every day, eating healthier. Melissa and I also ordered a blender and a slow cooker today with our grocery store points. Today, I got a decent 1L water bottle and "My Weight Loss Coach" for the DS today. To top it all off, I've been reading a bit about exercise/nutrition (book, magazine, online) and asking others. I might even look into getting a personal trainer or someone to teach me proper gym techniques for a bit. Finally, I have something where I can implement my competitive drive (aside from poker). I'm going to crush you ______! (you know who you are).

On a somewhat related note, I've also worked out a deal with Melissa. It's a pretty win-win deal for both of us IMO. She wanted to go on a trip/vacation with some friends in a few months (with a budget of ~$800-$1k). I proposed that she cook a healthy meal for me every night (that she doesn't work) and I'll give her $800 (since I'll have extra time to play poker) and we settled at $825. Both of us are pretty pumped about the deal.

Goals/Resolutions:

Below are last year's goals/resolutions (from my old Cardrunners blog). I'll use the standard 2p2 [x] vs. [ ] check boxes to denote whether I succeeded or not.

[ ] Reduce my procrastination significantly (I am a very bad-- or good, depending on how you look at it-- procrastinator). Although I've done well (school-wise) in the past, I can't really do that for my Master's.

[x] As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I want to have a $10k bankroll online by April 4 (3 months from when we got back from our Xmas trip).

[ ] Get into the top 100 on the tournament leader board (TLB on Full Tilt) for at least one month.

[x] Have a tourney score of over $5k

[ ] Be a winning player at $10/20 or higher at 6max LHE

[ ] Start playing and winning at NL 6max cash and SNGs as well as some more HU LHE and possible HU NL.

[ ] Get into better shape

[x (if you count withdrawn amount)] Have a BR of > $25k by the end of the year

[ ] Spend more time studying/calculating/reviewing hands and situations

[x] Always use proper BR-management

[x] Take a break/quit when I'm (a) tilting or (b) not playing well

Well... 5 out of 11 obviously isn't that great. Here are my new goals/resolutions for 2009:

Lose 15 lbs by April 15 (midnight)
Lose more weight than ______ by April 16
Have a win rate of over 1 BB/100 at 6max LHE cash
Play and win at 10/20+ stakes by the end of the year
Clear TrulyFreePokerTraining (free CR/Stoxpoker) memberships every month (7000 FTPoints)
Get 300k+ FTPoints
Make $30k+ profit
Finish Thesis

New Tools, Old Methods

2008-12-01T13:12:00.000-08:00

It's the start of December meaning it's time for a monthly blog update! I apologize for the length. As a token of my appreciation, I've included more pics than usual.

Cash Games:

I played a little less than 10k hands this month (mostly trying to clear a bonus I describe later in the blog). I'm really starting to love LHE again so I'm pretty excited about that. I've recently begun participating a bit more in the 2p2 forums and have been watching more LHE vids on CardRunners/StoxPoker/DeucesCracked. Here is a [swingy] graph of the month:

and here are my stats:

I ran pretty hot in the 5/10 hands I played but pretty poorly in the 2/4 and 3/6 hands. That's the ideal situation if I have to run bad somewhere though :P I played a pretty LAGgy style, 34/24, which seems to be becoming my norm. I'm okay with this (and I actually like it more as I get to play more hands). However, playing this style requires more focus and that's one of the leaks I need to work on. I've spotted some other leaks in my game (looking over my stats recently) and I'm going to try to fix them soon. I'm pretty excited about this because I think I'll have a really good winrate if I fix the known leaks (and then rinse and repeat, finding more)!

Tournaments:

I didn't play too many tournaments in November (60-some). There was mostly one day which I dedicated to tournaments (maybe part of the long Thanksgiving weekend). It started off horribly where I couldn't win at all then went on a sick rush after a streak of 17 no-cashes where I final tabled 5 of them (only 45- and 90-mans) and won 3 of them (two 90's and a 45). I ended up about +$1k on the day but didn't run so hot in any other tourneys I played. Below are the graph and stats from Poker Academy Prospector 2 although I think it's missing a few tourneys for some reason (OPR has a few more recorded and as a break-even month overall).

and here are the MTT stats for the month:

Bankroll:

FTPoints: 181,574.50 (probably saving up for 300k 30" monitor)
Iron Man Medals: 1422

	Bankroll
Party	$119.70
Stars	$73.67
FTP	$12,632.21
Staking1	$1,545.90
Staking2	$50.00
Staking3	$100.00
Rakeback	$988.73
Total	$15,510.21

I transferred $100 of rakeback money onto my old Party Poker account to try out the new software. I actually like the software a decent amount although the HUD doesn't seem to work properly for preferred seating yet. I might consider transferring more money there at some point (so I can actually play more sizeable stakes). After LHE cash, MTTs, and rakeback, I ended up profiting ~$1250 with ~40 hours of play.

Miscellaneous (poker):

Wired Magazine was originally going to write an article about the Second Man vs. Machine Competition we ran in Vegas this summer but instead decided to do a 6-page comic book spread describing a tiny bit of our technology and an epic J5o vs. 22 hand. Click here to check it out (and each of the 6 pages can be accessed at the top of the link). A hard-copy can also be found in the new December issue of Wired.

I think one of the main reasons I haven't been playing as much poker as I used to is because I get bored of it and don't have many exciting poker goals to motivate me. One promotion which excited me a little and gave me an incentive to put in more cash game hands is Truly Free Poker Training. Basically, if you accumulate enough points in a month, you can get subscriptions to CardRunners and StoxPoker for free. The awesome thing is that there isn't a catch at all, it doesn't take away from rakeback! I need 7.5k FTPoints to get a free month at both StoxPoker and CardRunners. I ended up clearing this bonus last month and would like to do it every month if possible. I think it's crazy that a $20 or $30 membership can give me an incentive to play (especially when daily swings are sometimes $500+).

I recently got a headset so that I can record poker sessions (as I'd like to eventually get some coaching). I also downloaded the 30-day trial of Camtasia Studio 6 (new!) which is pretty awesome. If I do decide to get coaching, I'll probably buy the software. There is a free program called CamStudio but it has less functionality, isn't as user-friendly, and seems to crash more.

My Master's is going much better now. I've finished most of my boring changes to the code-base and we finally have direction for the project. I'll be working on multiplayer situations which turn into heads-up situations. For instance, imagine a 3-handed game where the BTN folds leaving two players left. However, we can't just model it as a 2-player game with random hands, we have to take into account card removal effects. That's a little glimpse into what I'm working on now, anyway.

I kind of rekindled the "Robustness" program/tool I was writing a while ago. I decided to model the new program after some spreadsheets that Eric "Sheets" Haber created for subscribers of PokerXFactor.

Here is a screenshot of the spreadsheet I based the program on:

and here is my program:

Notice that we obtain the same EVs as Sheets' spreadsheet (within rounding error) under the same conditions:

holding JTs
position is CO (cutoff is with 3 left to act: BTN, SB, BB)
assume average reshoving range of remaining opponents is ~top 20%
assume average calling [shove] range of remaining opponents is ~top 15%
blinds are 50/100
there are 100 chips in antes
if we decide to raise, we raise to 3x
we have a stack of 1500 (15bb or M of 6)

Some things not included in his spreadsheet which I've added are:

I can specify "Top X%" range instead of needing to use Poker Stove (needed for his spreadsheet)
I display the pot size
I display your M (defined in Harrington on Holdem) and colour-code it based on its "M Zone"
I highlight the most profitable line in yellow (when considering: Fold, Raise/Fold, Raise/Call, Open Shove)
I highlight +EV plays in green and -EV plays in red
Beside the EVs is a percentage of all hands where that line is most profitable. For instance, in the screen shot above it is most profitable to open shove 13.1% of hands (shown in the tooltip when you hover over the label: {22, K9s-K5s, Q6s+, J7s+, T7s+, 96s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, 54s, A3o-A2o, QTo, JTo}). Under these conditions, we should raise/call with our stronger hands (since opponent is reshoving wider than he's calling an open shove) and we should fold all other hands (most of our hands, so it's highlighted in yellow). We should not raise/fold to 3x with any of our hands.
I have provided graphing capabilities (some graphs from the above scenario are shown below)

From the graph above (EV on the y-axis, Players Left on the x-axis) we can see that:

Folding is neutral-EV, obviously
Raise/Folding is profitable with two players left to act but not with 3. Note that "Raise/Fold" doesn't depend on your hand as it never gets to showdown so we can profitably raise/fold with any two cards with 2 or less players!
Raise/Calling with JTs is profitable with 3 or less players to act behind (under the above conditions). Note that it is also strictly better than Raise/Folding from all positions (i.e. the green line is always higher than the blue line).
Open Shoving with JTs is profitable here with 4 or less players to act behind. Again, note that the yellow line is always higher than the green line so it is strictly better to shove JTs from all positions than to raise/call a reshove.

From the graph above (EV on the y-axis, Villain "Top X%" reshove range on the x-axis) we see that:

Raise/Folding to 3x becomes unprofitable if our opponent reshoves more than the top 18%
Open Shoving is profitable yet constant (since it depends on our opponent's calling range which is independent of their reshoving range)
Raise/Calling with JTs here is pretty much always profitable (no matter how tight or loose our opponents' reshoving range). Open shoving JTs is least profitable (about neutral-EV) if our opponent shoves ~top 22.5% to 37.5% of hands.
Notice that as our opponent's range gets looser and looser, we gain more value from calling a reshove as our hand has higher equity.
Raise/Calling is almost strictly better than raise/folding (excluding vs. the top 10%).

There is a huge list of things I wanted to add or change with the program (both on the inner- and outer-surface). Some of these include:

instead of being restricted to "Top X%", use a PreflopRangeChooser which gives you a 13x13 matrix of all 169 preflop starting hands with buttons like "Any Broadway" and "Any Pair" (like in Poker Stove). I've already coded up most of this.
ability to graph over all (or a subset of) starting hands in the x-axis.
ability to choose units for some graph axes (e.g. if you wanted to graph your stack size or EV in units of bb or M).
complete the "Reshove" tab where it does similar calculations but in the situation where someone else has raised in front of us and we are considering reshoving on them
ability to see graphical tables representing the profitability of different hands

RL (non-poker):

Melissa and I are going to be on PEI from Dec. 16 to Jan 4. I can't wait! I still need to get most of my Xmas shopping done (but that's usually the case every year at this time). We'll be doing a ton of relaxing and visiting. I also hope to get a picture with Santa (along with my brother and old roommate Nick). This has become a Christmas tradition for us (not because we really want to see Santa but because it's funny and likely uncomfortable for the guy working in the mall).

Goals:

Lose another 7ish lbs. for the weight loss bet (by Dec. 20)
Play enough hands to unlock free month of CardRunners and StoxPoker
review some hands and write up solutions

Last month, I set a goal to play 25k hands and only played about half that many (3.5k of which was MTT hands). I also set a goal to analyze all of my marked HoldemManager hands but didn't get any of them analyzed. This is something I really need to start working on and I think would be much more useful than experience gained by playing (assuming a decent grasp on ranges already).

Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables!
- Nick

Barack and Roll!

2008-11-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

Again, click here for a link to my old poker blog posts (hosted by Cardrunners).

Edit: I've discovered some leaks in my blog-writing:

overuse of bullets
overuse of parentheses (I attribute this to my non-diagnosed ADD and constant asides/side-notes)

Cash Games:

I didn't play too much poker this month. I've been just taking it easy. I played 8k hands of LHE cash (6max and HU). It started horribly with a $900 downswing but I ended up just about breaking even for the month (making a profit in cash games if you count rakeback). Below is a graph of the month (green is the bankroll line, blue is bankroll + rakeback):

Even though the month was breakeven dollar-wise, I made 0.7 BB/100. So, as state above, I started playing some HU LHE last month and I really like it. Some things that I really love about it are:

you get to play almost every hand (something like top 85-90%).
playing so many hands forces me to pay attention
the game is very game-theoretical in nature and requires a lot of balanced play

Any time I'm on FTP and I see Matt "Hoss_TBF" Hawrilenko, KPR16, Quiet Lion, and most other high stakes HU LHE games, I datamine/watch them. I'm trying to model my preflop strategy from Hoss' (seeing as he's the winningest online HU LHE player in the world and often regarded as the best).

I've been thinking about EV/utility/balance and have messaged and emailed KPR16 and TheBryce about some concepts. Specifically, how to play bottom pair type hands OOP on the flop after defending in the BB.

I've also played a few hundred hands against Polaris (our UofA CPRG bot that we played in the 2008 Man vs. Machine competition in Vegas this summer) on Poker Academy Online. Obviously, I'm getting crushed (although, I'm admittedly running bad).

I can't wait to get much better at 6max LHE so that I can move up and not pay so much of my winrate to rake. At the lower stakes (up to $5/10 or so), FTP rakes about 2.3 to 3.2 BB/100!!! My winrate for the last month is 0.7 BB/100 and it's 0.78 BB/100 for the year. Note that I get 27% rakeback, so it's really like a winrate of ~1.5 BB/100. However, without rake this would correspond to a WR of ~3 to 4 BB/100. I've been recently playing LAGgier than 30/20 (often 35/25) and while I think this is near optimal in a game without rake, I think playing a more straight-forward TAG style is likely more profitable at the lower limits due to rake. One thing I can't understand is how I kill $2/4. This year, I'm running at over 3 BB/100 (not even counting rake) and higher if you count HU. One reason may be the sample size (20k hands) but I think it's just that the players are very exploitable and fold too often. I think a lot of the grinding regulars play $3/6 and $5/10.

Here is a graph on my stats for last month:

My 6max stats (in the form VPIP/PFR/AF/WTSD/W$SD) are:

$5/$10: 32/21/1.5/43/47
$3/$6: 34/24/1.6/47/47
$2/$4: 38/26/1.9/40/58

Some things to note about these stats (even though a very small sample size):

I ran poorly at 5/10 and 3/6 at showdown (W$SD is usually >= 50%) although I was a complete showdown monkey at 3/6.
I ran super hot at 2/4 and showed down much less than I normally do (40%).
the lower the stakes, the LAGgier I played (both preflop and postflop).

Tournaments:

I didn't really play tournaments this month. I entered 10 MTTs total and didn't cash in any of them. I like not having the binding schedule of MTTs every night that I choose to play. With cash games, I can come and go as I please.

When I go back to playing more tournaments, I think I want to play a bunch of 45- and 90-man SNGs (and maybe 180-mans on Stars). However, I might try to satellite into some of the upcoming FTOPS events. There is always a ton of dead money in satellite tourneys.

Bankroll:

FTPoints: 170,938 (almost enough for two 24" monitors)
Iron Man Medals: 1422

	Bankroll
Stars	$42.67
FTP	$11,940.31
Staking1	$1,545.90
Staking2	$50.00
Rakeback	$685.59
Total	$14,264.47

So, October has basically been a break-even month (down ~$60) which isn't too bad considering I didn't play too much and my 6max game is a little rusty and I haven't played much HU before.

Miscellaneous (poker):
So, I finally got around to unsubscribing to RealPokerTraining.com. This is most likely the worst poker training site on the internet! I originally signed up only because Chad "lilholdem" Batista had a few videos. As it turned out, he isn't a very good instructor (although a very very sick MTTer) and the overall quality/environment of the site didn't suit my liking. Obviously I had to add a new site though. I'm now signed up with a DeucesCracked subscription and I love what I've watched so far. The site has a very good reputation and contains coaches/instructors almost exclusively from twoplustwo.

I'm currently beta-testing an offline poker tracking program called Poker Academy Prospector 2 (the company is based here in Edmonton). By offline, I mean it doesn't have a HUD and is meant for post-analysis. I absolutely love this programs filtering. It is so quick and easy to add a filter for pretty much anything you can think of. Another beautiful thing the program has is "Action Sequence" filtering -- this lets you look at actions that you make on different streets and see how profitable they are. For instance, one line I've been wondering about lately is when I defend my BB (playing HU LHE), flop bottom pair, and check the flop to the raiser. I would like to know how profitable (if at all) it is to check/call or to check/raise. My standard line in this situation is to check/call. Here is a screenshot showing some of its filtering capabilities:

Notice several Filters on the left. It shows that before filtering I have 133k hands of cash games (NL/PL/LHE). Then I created a filtering funnel that narrows the number of hands down further and further as I seek more specific hands. I applied the following filters:

- #Players = 2 (HU)
- Sessions = Not Table Play Chip 623 (don't include play money games)
- Game Type = Fixed-Limit (LHE)
- Position = Big Blind
- Action Sequence = Preflop: only c (i.e. defend against a raise)
- Hand Type @ Flop = 3rd pair (bottom pair)

In the end, it narrowed down from 133k to 123 hands. This obviously isn't a big enough sample size (because I haven't played enough HU) but it can give you some insight as to how [un/]profitable lines are in certain situations.

So, our new apartment building has $20 freeze-out tournaments once a month. Some friends and I decided to try it out (they gave us free pizza and pop!) and I was completely dumbfounded by the level of play. Some of these people are literally at the level I was the week I was introduced to the game. We witnessed one amazing hand where a bunch of people limped, the small blind completed and the big blind checked. The flop came AKTr, the SB checks, the BB bets a fairly large amount (close to pot-sized I believe), the woman right behind him (UTG) calls, everyone else folds around to the SB who thinks for a bit and calls. The turn is a complete blank (say a three), now the SB donks out really quickly, the big blind calls and both the BB and UTG call fairly quickly. The river is a Q putting a four-straight on the AKT3Q board. Again, the SB bets out fairly quickly and AGAIN both the BB and UTG call. Can you guess their hands? Just take a second and make some reasonable guesses about their ranges.... Now STOP! It isn't worth it. The hands were:

SB: J2
BB: K4
UTG: 55

Anyway, I ended up busting by shoving a hand like 76o on the button right after the break as a short stack and the BB woke up with AA. I at least made him sweat a bit on the turn as I picked up something like an open-ended straight draw + flush draw. Although it's fun to play against such exploitable players, it's also somewhat frustrating as it means I can't LAG it up as much as the players are fairly call-stationy. Also, Johnny was on my left and could abuse me if I opened up too much.

Another cool thing that is only related to poker because of the person is: Bryce "TheBryce" Paradis (an instructor at Stoxpoker and one of the best HU LHE players in the world, winning about $3M last year) came to my apartment on a Friday night and drank beer and played video games with us. We didn't up the ante on our standard $5 video game prop bets though. Dave ended up ~$50 as he does on every such night (by pwning us all at Bomberman '93, Mario Kart Wii, and anything else we decide to play).

I don't think I've acquired any new poker books but I did get an introductory book on stocks and another book called "Fooled by Randomness". I've only flipped through these books at the bookstore (that Melissa works at, she got a discount obviously) and haven't started reading them yet. However, I would like to start learning about the stock market (and eventually invest).

RL (non-poker):

In my previous blog post, I mentioned a weight loss goal. A friend from PEI actually took me up on a $50 weight loss bet. I have to lose 15 lbs. from the start of last month's weight by December 20th. I'm currently almost halfway there (I've lost about 7 lbs and have 8 more to go). Actually, I have a second weight loss bet: if I lose those 15 lbs by Dec. 20, Melissa will get me a nice shaver (I only shave like every two weeks because it's such a pain and I don't have a good shaver). The things I'm doing to try to lose a little weight are:

continuing to play squash two times a week (Tues/Thurs)
walking to the University and back every weekday (it's a 15 min. walk and I used to take the bus)
trying not to snack late at night as often
taking multivitamins and drinking lots of water
occasionally playing DDR on the Wii

However, I think I still need to be doing more. I would like to start using the exercise room (mini-gym) in my apartment complex fairly regularly. Anyway, wish me luck!

I've rekindled my love for boardgames recently and Melissa and I have decided to alternate purchasing a boardgame every month. This seems like a fairly good rate to acquire new games and be able to play them a bit.

I'm uber-happy Barack Obama has been elected President of the USA. I've never really been interested in politics but for some reason I became very interested in the recent US Presidential election and have watched most of the "Most Watched - Daily" youtube clips involving the election. I've never really had a hero before but I discovered a couple weeks ago that Obama is that hero! I love his speech-delivery, his demeanour, his eloquence, his calmness, his care for the every man, and especially his confidence. However, his confidence isn't cocky, snobby, arrogant or condescending -- it is humble, modest, and selfless. I'm sure he's going to be great and can't wait to see what the USA/World will be like in 4-8 years.

Goals:

It's probably not a bad idea to put goals at the end of each blog post (to quickly remind me later):

Obviously lose those 15 lbs by December 20
play over 25k hands this month
review all 400ish "marked hands" in HEM (YIKES!)

Take care, thanks for reading, and good luck at the tables!
- Nick

Biggest [Losing] Month of Poker

2008-10-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

Again, click here for a link to my old poker blog posts (hosted by Cardrunners). This month (September) ended up being by far my worst month of poker ever. It's a little discouraging especially after having such a great August and naturally having high hopes for September.

Cash games:

Again, I didn't really play much cash this month. I played a very short 2/4 HU LHE session and a small amount of 5/10 6max LHE. I ended up running really hot and making over $400 in 2.5 hours. Trust me, if I could make over $170/hr (plus rakeback) every day, I'd definitely be playing more cash. Here's a PT3 pic of the month:

Nothing too special about the stats, I don't think. I played 33/23.5/1.8 which seems around standard for me. I think 47% WTSD seems pretty high even for me (of course I'm a showdown monkey). My "Attempt to Steal" was ~50% which seems on the high side but fine as long as the blinds aren't super tough. My "Fold BB to steal" was 24% so I defended by BB over 3/4 of the time (I think that's about standard for me).

Tournaments:

After playing close to 200 MTTs over September, I made only two final tables (not counting SNG MTTs). Here are the PXF replays of them:

$749.70 for $75 Big Double A; 6 out of 238; PUFF = 68
$482.76 for $26 $28k gtd.; 9 out of 1341; PUFF = 81

It was definitely a very tough month to swallow MTT-wise. I started the month with lots of confidence from last month's results. I think playing MTTs successfully depends a ton on high confidence. However, nothing ever seemed to really work out late in tourneys. I got to at least the final two tables of the Big Double A four times (6th, 10th, 14th, 18th) and got pretty unlucky in them all (wouldn't have changed anything). The 6th was a fun tournament because I got to play the final two tables with NEONPILS99, an 18 year old superstar from BC (He's currently ranked 1st in Canada and 12th in the world on Pocketfives). He pretty much pwned and I was amazed at his aggressive finesse (along with running very well). I ended up busting when I shoved 7.5x UTG with AQo and he woke up with AKo on the button. I also had two deep runs in the Midnight Madness (26th and 44th) along with two deep runs in the in the $75 $23k KO gtd (11th with AA and 17th). I busted on the second hand of my other FT:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3263131

Aside from it being a somewhat loose, but definitely not horrible, raise from EP, I don't regret my play at all. On the turn, he can so often have {a weaker Q, a smaller PP, a combo draw (like pair + gutshot), a FD, or simply air} that I think it's definitely a value shove.

Anyway, having one more key hand go my way late in a tourney could make the difference between my worst losing month ever and a profitable month. That said, I don't regret my overall play too much except for two key spots. One was in the 11r, I was one of the big stacks and the CL raised in EP (to a standard raise size), I decided to shove 88 from the BTN or so for 10x his raise. Against someone who can raise light (i.e. raise/fold more often than normal), I'm pretty sure this is a standard shove but considering the circumstances, I think I should have just called and played safely postflop. The reason is because if he calls and I lose, I'm out of the tournament (this was with 19 players left). Normally, I'm the last person to consider "tournament life" and think it's generally over-rated (by live players at least) but in this spot, I was able to accumulate chips with little risk due to table conditions. The other play I'm unsure of is in the Turbo Fiddy, we were down to the last 30 or so, and again I was one of the big stacks and again the CL raises from EP and again I have ~10x his raise. This time I ended up having AQo and decided to shove on the CL because he'd been quite active for the few hands I saw. I plan on analyzing the hand using StoxEV to find out what I should have done based on my assumption about his ranges for possible actions.

Here's the [very very ugly] graph of the month:

And here's a graph of my MTTs since May or so (it doesn't look AS bad in comparison...):

Here are some links to sites that keep track of MTT stats (with rankings in brackets):

OPR (Last 120 days: rank 1404 of 289,203, 99.51th percentile)
thepokerdb ($50+: rank 4828th; $11-$49: rank 9451)
Pocketfives (1292.02 PLB points, 92.62th percentile; 4th in Edmonton)

FTP Leaderboard points:
MTT: 1969
SNG high: 63
SNG low: 119

Bankroll:

FTPoints: 161,832.25
Iron Man Medals: 1342 (I'm considering using 750 of them to create my own table, always containing a reserved seat).

	Bankroll
Stars	$97.67
FTP	$12,371.81
Staking1	$1,545.90
Staking2	$50.00
Rakeback	$258.91
Total	$14,324.29

So I made a withdrawal of a little over $2100 (which brings my total withdrawals to over 10k). That said, assuming you know how to do simple arithmetic, you can determine how bad my worst month was using these numbers and last month's bankroll. Ugghhhh!

Miscellaneous (poker):

I haven't worked on that preflop holdem program any more but I plan to get around to that soon. I really want to start analyzing 3betting/reshoving for MTT scenarios (I could use StoxEV to analyze it, but it wouldn't be as convenient).

I picked up two poker books this month:

Winning Poker Tournaments: One Hand at a Time
Killer Poker Hold'em Handbook: A workbook for Winners

The first book seems really good (I believe I mentioned it in a previous post). It's written by 3 online pros and consists entirely of them reviewing hands they played. You get to see why they made the decisions they made at the time (along with the factors that go into their decision-making) along with regrets they had and how they might have played it differently after the fact. Melissa got me the second book from her work.

Some of the books I'd like to get are:

Kill Everyone
Colin Moshman's new HU SNG book

I decided it was probably a good idea to post leaks that I discover or changes that I plan to make to improve my game:

I want to stop taking several -EV "shots". For instance, I directly bought into several $109, $163, and even $216 tournaments last month (this definitely made the downswing worse than it would have been otherwise).
I want to start playing less tables at a time (in MTTs) and pay more attention to them
I want to try to focus on tells (bet-sizes, timing, betting patterns) of players and exploit them as much as possible
I want to start actually putting time into post-analysis of hands that I play
I want to avoid playing poker when I don't feel like it. This seems perfectly logical but often as a grinder, you'll play anyway
stop wasting so much time reading about poker news/forums (non-strategy at least)
I want to start using HUD stats more often in tough decisions. Here is a picture of my current Holdem Manager HUD:

The stats I currently have on the HUD are:

VPIP/PFR/AF
cbet %/fold to cbet %

screen name/hands

3bet %/fold to 3bet %
steal %/BB VPIP
squeeze %/ call open %

I've decided that I want to cut back on the amount of MTTs that I play. The reason for this is that when you grind tournaments, you are pretty much bound by them, you have to keep playing until they finish and never really get a break (sure, you get 4 min. breaks every once in a while, but if you are playing several tables, you never really get a break). Also, if you start some of the late night tourneys and actually go deep in them, you are often up until 2 or 3. This just doesn't work (esp. when I have to be at the university every weekday). I think grinding out MTTs is generally just unhealthy for you (physically and mentally) esp. if you have a job/school. So... the plan is currently to primarily play cash games (probably 6max LHE) on weeknights and to play MTTs on the weekends. Playing SNGs (such as 45-, 90-, and 180-mans on weeknights would be fine). The beautiful thing about cash games is that you can come and go as you please and can choose your opposition (at least moreso than in MTTs).

I find that I often perform much better when I have a goal to aim for. So, I've decided to set a few goals for myself (to attain by Christmas):

get my BR to $25k
get at least 1500 PLB points at Pocketfives and be ranked at least 3rd in Edmonton
become a winning player at 5/10 6max LHE

RL (non-poker):

Well, I finally got around to getting a TV that was larger than 13". With some of the money I withdrew this month, I purchased an LG 37" LCD HDTV and an HD DVD player. It's kind of funny because I don't really watch TV at all. However, I figured it was worth it because Melissa watches a bunch of TV, we could watch our movies on it, my friends could play video games on it when they come over (instead of bringing out my 22" monitor to play on, LOL).

Aside from that, I have a few goals for RL as well:

get into a better sleep routine (get to bed earlier and wake up earlier)
eat healthier
lose weight (want to go from ~200lbs to 185 or less by Christmas)

Like I said earlier, MTTs aren't very healthy for you and I'd like to get into better shape. I've already lost a little weight over the past few months (or so the Wii Fit tells me). This is probably because of softball, squash, and walking to school. However, walking to school and back on weekdays and playing squash twice a week isn't enough. I plan to start using the fitness room in our new apartment building and/or start playing more DDR/Wii Fit. I also think having a better sleep schedule and actually eating breakfast and healthier dinners will help a lot. Wish me luck!

- Nick

Biggest Day/Month of Poker

2008-09-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Again, here's a link to my old poker blog posts. This seems like a decent location for it now, let me know (in the comments) which hosting site you prefer.

Cash games:

I didn't really play cash games this month, when I played, it was mostly tournaments. I did play an hour session of 100NL with McAlduff and Fallsy just for fun. I ended up making about a buy-in ($96.85) but was ~$30 over all-in EV. Yes, I sucked out on the short stacks AA with my almighty K3s. That'll teach him to steal my BB!

Tournaments:

Here are the final tables I made for August (all 6 within 12 days). I also had deepish runs in the last two FTOPS events cashing for $2k in the Main Event (145 of 4880). I decided to include the Preflop Unadjusted Fortune Factor (PUFF) from PokerXFactor's replayer to show how I ran preflop. The way it works is, if you get the proper distribution of cards preflop (e.g. premium hands 3.3% of the time), then your PUFF will be 50 (i.e. average). This only indicates how you ran preflop and does not take into consideration things like postflop play, coolers, losing coinflips, just getting the blinds with monsters, etc.

(I think you can view these if you sign up for a free PXF account)

$8085: $26 24k gtd., 1 of 1567; PUFF = 96
$3655.60: $20R 11k gtd., 1 of 235; PUFF = 80
$2040: $75 Big Double A, 3 of 272; PUFF = 57
$493.50: $26 11.5k gtd., 6max KO, 6 of 705; PUFF = 41
$436.80: $75 Big Double A, 7 of 208; PUFF = 89
$428.25: $20R 11k gtd., 7 of 194; PUFF = 48

I ended up playing ~1/2 of the days this month (15). Here's Poker Tracker 3's summary of those days:
Sunday, August 17 was my biggest MTT day by far. I won ~10k on the day (the $535 buy-in was payed through a satellite entry from the night before so I consider that buy-in as profit on the day). Also, below is a graph of the month. I think MTT graphs really show how much variance there is in tournament poker. I didn't really win anything at all for the first 70ish tournaments and then BAM, I can't lose a coinflip! I ended up making about 11.5k profit on the month (most definitely my biggest month).
FTP TLB Points: 1726 (I don't believe I was ranked in the TLB, 250th had ~2500 points).

Speaking of the Tournament Leader Board (TLB), The Yid is pretty much always on top of the Full Tilt TLB. I have played over 1k hands of MTTs with him (pretty much seated at a table with him any night I play MTTs. He ended up taking down (chopping) the first Big Double A that I FTed this month (I came in 3rd). He's a sicko. Not a sicko like lilholdem or BeLoWaBoVe, but a sicko in terms of consistency/grinding. He actually plays very TAG and rarely busts early in tournaments. He must be a master of the preflop game, if that's the case. Anyway, I decided to send him a PM at PocketFives to see if he discusses poker strategy/hand analysis with others. It turns out that he teaches people to play tournaments. He trains out of Las Vegas, South Carolina, and Costa Rica (I believe). He charges $2500 for 4 days of intense training and you have to give him 10% of every tourney profit over $200 for the year after training. This seems like a TON of money/equity to give up for training but I think it would be worth it. Just this year, he's up 150k+ on FTP, 32k on Bodog and like 200k live. That's over a third of a million! I also PM'ed some of his previous students and checked their databases. They all said that the training was definitely worth it and some of them are even ranked (top 100) on PocketFives.

Just for fun, I asked Maven (The Yid) what kind of setup he has: two 30" monitors to play on and a 24" placed vertically between them for databases. Man, would I love that setup!

MTT databases/rankings:
OPR
thepokerdb
PocketFives (currently ranked 4th in Edmonton)

Bankroll:

FTPoints: 152,340

Iron Man Medals: 1253

	Bankroll
Stars	$115.07
FTP	$20,034.38
Staking1	$1,545.90
Staking2	$50.00
Rakeback	$95.45
Total	$21,840.80

Miscellaneous (Poker):

So, there's always been a sort of void in poker software in my mind. I have a ton of analysis programs but I've always wanted a sort of combination of them all with customizability. StoxEV is definitely the best all-around analysis program out there and does a great job. However, I sort of want something that is more convenient for strictly preflop play (like the push/fold calculators: SNGPT, SNGWizard, SNGEGT). One of the things that I dislike the most about these programs is that you cannot customize the rankings used. They will either use the Sklansky-Chubukov numbers to rank the 169 preflop hands or something like each hand's equity vs. a random hand. Then, when you choose "Top X%", it will use those rankings. Wouldn't it be nice to have the option to create a custom ranking? For instance, what if I wanted to create a ranking such that each hand is ranked (based on equity) vs. the opponent's range (e.g. {any broadway}). Some of the programs will also only let you choose the "Top X%" range as well. What if you wanted to take out certain hands from the top of a range because you know the opponent would play those differently?

Another problem with some of these preflop SNG programs is the graphing. SNGPT has no graphing option at all, SNGEGT has a pretty crappy graph that it associates with a push/fold or call/fold decision. SNG Wizard, in its defense, actually has a pretty nice graphing feature. I would like a program that has a very good graphing feature and is more customizable than the existing ones. For instance, what if I wanted to compare the cEV (chip EV) and the $EV of a play for a hand vs. the Top X% of hands. This would be especially useful for someone who plays both SNGs (or MTT final tables) and MTTs or short stacked cash games. One move that has become quite prevalent in MTTs nowadays is 3betting (restealing and reshoving). It's become so well known, actually, that many players are overdoing it and in many of the wrong situations. However, 3betting is still a crucial part of winning MTT play. Have you ever wondered, "If I'm going to 3bet all-in (reshove) and I know approximately which range of hands my opponent will call me with, what range of hands should I be reshoving with? Which is better, JTs or A2o? 22 or A3o?" Well, I know that I've definitely wondered about such things. I was even at the point last week where I was going to use Poker Stove for all 169 preflop hands, calculate their equity vs. the top {5, 10, 20, 30, ..., 100}% of hands and then plot the results in Excel to see which hands might be better for different reshoving situations based on the opponent's calling range.

Well, I decided to start writing a program to do such things. Thankfully, the author of Poker Stove created a text file containing all of the preflop hand matchups (taking the average of the equity over all combinations of matchups). I read this text file in and use it for calculations. So far, I can create hands, ranges, hand rankings, do hand vs. range and range vs. range matchups (with equities matching those using Poker Stove), and graphing. Thankfully, I found a free graphing/charting library for Java called JFreeChart which seems to do a decent job. Here are some preliminary graphs for looking at the "robustness" of a few hands. In "No Limit Hold'em: Theory and Practice" by David Sklansky and Ed Miller, they first introduce the Sklansky-Chubukov numbers in a book. They discuss how 22 is a prototypical robust hand. When the SB shoves with 22, assuming they flip over their hand, the BB will have the odds to call with over half of the hands, but 22 will still win close to half of the time. On the other hand, A3o (which happens to have the same S-C number as 22), is only called by the BB about 18% yet when called only has ~35% equity. Here is a graph of 22 vs. A3o:

As can be seen, you can't really say that 22 or A3o is better than the other. What you can say though, is that against the top X% of a given ranking (here, we're using "vs. random"), one is better than the other. For instance, 22 does better, equity-wise, than A3o against approximately the top 5-40% of hands. Conversely, A3o does better against the bottom 60% (top 40-100%) and the top 5%. This is somewhat useful information, for instance, if we are in the BB and we know (through experience) that the SB will shove any two cards for less than 10 blinds, we would rather call with A3o than 22 because it has about 5-6% higher equity. Another example is if we are in the SB and we raise, if we know that the BB will reshove with the top 25-30% of hands, we'd rather call a shove with 22 than A3o (because it has higher equity).

Here is JTs vs. A2o:

This graph is kind of weird. A2o does better than JTs against the top 3% and between the top 20-70% of hands. The equity graphs actually cross 3 times here. Once I get more experience with JFreeChart and the capabilities, I might try to graph this as a difference graph which would make the differences much clearer/pronounced.

Anyway, I will likely keep working on the program with free time here and there (esp. when I need a break from poker) until I have it doing most of what I want it to do. I'd like to make it easy to do 3betting/4betting calculations and some leveling games (find ranges based on initial assumptions, then find opponent's range based on our range, then find our range based on our opponents new range, etc.). If I keep at it after that stuff, I'll likely add ICM and maybe some Nash stuff. When I'm done, I'll likely just give it out for free (most of the SNG programs cost $50-$100). The good thing about that would be that people who don't have extra money but really want to work on their games could use it. Also, if it impacted the sales for the other programs (I own the three others I've mentioned), then maybe it'd force them to release better products or reduce their prices (which would never be a bad thing).

RL (non-poker):

Aside from poker, things are going fairly well. Melissa and I are now fully moved into our new apartment. It is sooooo much better than our old one. I didn't even recognize how much of a shit-hole our old place was until we moved into the new one. We went to the old place for the last time last night to clean/vacuum the place. I was so relieved to finish that and get out of there. It had a very sketchy and unsafe feeling to it. We're on the 16th floor now and get very nice breezes through the windows. There's much more sunlight as well so it doesn't feel so dark and gloomy. We're both much happier here. The only thing the apartment is missing is a nice big HDTV, currently we're using a 13" CRT!

I finished up the slo-pitch season with a bang! Aside from hitting an in-park-homerun, I messed my leg up royally by sliding into third base (it was a really close play and the girl on third was sort of blocking the base with her body). Little did I know that it was the absolute worst possible field in the history of the world to slide on. The field was full of pebbles/rock/gravel and of course lots of dirt. When I slid, my leg was sliced about 30 times and I bloodied up the field. At the time, it stung a little bit, but was tolerable:

However, as the days passed, and I did little to help the situation aside from spraying some saline solution on it (my philosophy on pain/injuries in life has mostly been to let time be the main remedy; this is mostly because I've never broken a bone or been really really injured before). Anyway, as time passed, my leg started hurting more, looking worse, and sometimes turning yellow/greenish. This is all normal right?

(Apologies if you've just vomited!). Anyway, I went to the Medical Centre on campus, and after a long wait, ended up getting a prescription for some preventative antibiotics and some special ointment (which is supposedly better than Polysporin). As of yesterday, the scabs started drying up and falling off and my leg is looking much sexier now (yet still pretty ugly). I really really hope that it doesn't scar and that the hair all grows back.

A few months ago, I decided to go to a psychologist for testing because I thought that I might have a learning disability or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or something like that. The reason is because I'm a pretty slow thinker/speaker/reader and thought that this might be due to some disorder/disability. I've always done really well in school, but I figured that I just learned to cope and went into the right fields (math-based) where my processing is much better/faster. Well, normally to get such testing, you have to pay like ~$1000 or more, but I went through some roundabout way and ended up getting tested for free. The test started on a Saturday morning and lasted about 5 1/2 hours without a break. It involved lots of different testing (shape/pattern matching, math, pronunciation, memory exercises, personality self-analysis tests, etc.). I got the results back recently and discovered that I don't have a learning disability or ADD (which I don't believe 100% but anyway) but that I have Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). It is characterized by perfectionism amongst other things and is not the same as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I also got some of the test results back. I scored in the top 99.5th percentile for Math, 99th percentile for Working Memory, 95th percentile for Memory and Learning. I scored ridiculously low (something like 18th percentile, LOL) for the test where you have to rhyme off as many words or things of a specific group (e.g. animals) that start with some given letter of the alphabet. I think my overall score was in the 86th percentile. I think that some of the tests are pretty stupid overall and some are time-based. If something happens that affects the time, they don't do anything to correct it (for instance, I was doing a connect-the-letters-and-numbers excercise where you alternate between numbers and letters connecting them; e.g. A1B2C3D4... On the last number, I couldn't find it for quite a while because it was in the corner of the page and my thumb was covering it). There's also some trivia-like questions regarding geography/history and spelling of words like "bouillon" where I heard it as "Boolean". You also have to define a bunch of words (a bunch of which I'd never heard of). I'm actually considering getting a second testing (if possible) for ADD because none of the stuff I've read about OCPD explains how I'm forgetful/daydreamy/spaced-out/absent-minded/etc.

Well, the Olympics just concluded and I've been watching Canada's Jared Connaughton in the 200m and the 4x100m. I was really interested in the results because Jared's from PEI and we went to the same schools together from grades 1-12. I also ran on his 4x100m team in Junior High and High School (we actually still hold the Men's 4x100m PEI record for Junior High). Anyway, Jared made the semi-finals of the 200m but not the finals. In the 4x100m, Canada made the finals but unfortunately Usain Bolt had to compete. Congratulations though to Jared and his team! Next Olympics, fo sho! Speaking of Usain Bolt (pretty effing sick how impressive his Olympics was with 3 Golds and WRs), there is a flash game online where you can race him, here. I have no idea how people have attained numbers that quick in the top 100. I wrote a bot to play the game for me, and I just got 9.44s (enough to make top 100, but no #1: -21474836.48s).

Anyway, I might play some tourneys tomorrow (possibly try to satellite into the FTP 750k gtd.) if I'm feeling up to it.

Good luck and take care,
Nick

One Year Recap!

2008-08-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

[BEWARE! VERY LONG BLOG ENTRY]

So, I've decided to try out poker-blogging at this Blogger site. My old poker blogs can be found at http://www.cardrunners.com/members/index.php?option=com_mamblog&Itemid=29&task=show&action=user&id=15395 . I might make this the permanent location, update both, or switch back to Cardrunners. We'll see. I apologize for not blogging for a while (my last post was on March 30). Because of this, this'll be an especially long blog entry.

Cash games:

I haven't played too much cash over the last 4+ months (about 18k hands in ~70 hours of play). Below are the hands played on my desktop:

Not too much to say here as it is a pretty small sample size (and considering the number of different games, a smaller sample size per game). In NL, I ran pretty well at everything except for a deep-stack 50NL HU match. At $3/6 and $5/10 LHE 6max, I pretty much broke even (lost a little, but made more in rakeback). I ran really well at $2/4 though (6max and HU). Some things to note about how the stats compare for different stakes (at 6max LHE):

I played pretty loose aggressive at all three stakes: 32/22/2 at $2/4, 35/25/1.7 at $3/6 and 33/23/1.8 at $5/10.
My W$WSF was about the same (44.35-44.99%) for all three stakes.
My WTSD increased slightly with increasing stakes.
My W$SD also increased with increasing stakes.
My aggression factor (AF) decreased with increasing stakes (most likely due to having looser ranges).
My Att to Steal was fairly high for all three (40-45%). This seems like a decent range though.
My Fold BB to Steal was pretty low in all three and decreased with increasing stakes (ranging from 32% at $2/4 to 23% at $5/10). Don't steal my blind!! I think this trend makes sense as the rake decreases with increasing stakes so I don't lose as much to rake on my blind defense hands. Also, players at $5/10 will be more aware of profitably stealing from LP so their ranges will be looser than the players at $2/4 meaning I can more profitably defend.

Also, I recently purchased a 17" MacBook Pro laptop (with poker winnings, as described later). It really hurt to withdraw that much for a laptop but I think I really needed one (my first laptop). Anyway, here are the [few] hands I played on it (with VMware Fusion):

While in Vegas for the Man-vs.-Machine Competition (discussed later), I couldn't stop thinking about HU LHE. I decided to start playing it (which I need to get back into). I approximately broke even at $1/2 and $3/6 (after rakeback). However, I ran really well at $2/4. I also played some 50NL HU. I do something different than many, in that I use anti-game selection. That is, I search out players who seem decent (usually with bigger stacks too). The reason is that $50 is a small portion of my bankroll and I'd rather have a challenge and learn through tough decisions (which bad players don't put you in very often). Anyway, notice the hugely negative number for my 50NL HU sessions. Here is one of the hands ($422 = 844bb pot) where I have no clue how to play:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2936439

Yes, that's right, I was playing 400bb+ deep (not knowing how to play NL properly, used to minbetting in LHE; LOL!). Anyway, this guy was competent and decent. I had been 3betting a ton and playing overly-aggressive and quite spewy. He is capable of raising the flop as a semi-bluff (as he'd done it earlier with a flush draw). I think the 3bet PF is very standard (esp. being deep and considering how often I was 3betting beforehand). I think the cbet on the flop is standard as well. I can't see folding to a raise on this flop being good here with bottom two. Now, if these assumptions are correct, WTF do I do on this turn. If I check to the aggressor, and he bets what he did, I have exactly a pot-sized raise left. Please leave comments about how to play deep-stacked OOP against a competent semi-bluff-capable opponent in a 3bet pot. I did come up with a reasonable looking range for him on the turn before and I had something over 40% equity vs. that range (by pokerstove). If that's the case, I think CRAI on the turn is fine (esp. since I have fold equity, good equity, say 45% vs. his range, it charges combo-draws the most, and there's already a ton of money in the pot; i.e. I don't need 50%+).

Tournaments:
Final Tables (sorted by most recent within each month): Here are the final tables (aside from SNG MTTs since the last blog entry). I think if you sign up for a free PXF account, you can view them. I had a gross $3k downswing (I guess $4k, if you count the whole downswing; which obv sucks) followed by two sizeable (for me) cashes in the Turbo Fiddy (a beautiful preflop tourney which only takes about 2.5 hours, and I run decently in :).

April MTTs:

$55 Turbo Fiddy, 7 of 303 for $492.38
$109 30k gtd. 6max, 4 of 274 for $2460
$75 Daily Double B, 5 of 219 for $1087.50

May MTTs:

$55 Turbo Fiddy, 1 of 317 for $3,962.50
$26 9.5k gtd., 4 of 711 for $1208.70

June MTTs:

$26 9.5k gtd., 6 of 628 for $596.60
$55 Turbo Fiddy, 2 of 351 for $2808
$1 MTT, 7 of 592 for $18.35

I've only played the Turbo Fiddy a handful of times but I already have 3 FTs with a win and a 2nd place exactly a week later (losing to FTP "pro" Mandy B who entered HU with a 5:1 chip lead). Here is the graph showing the $3k downswing and then the recovery (the two upward spikes are the Turbo Fiddy's):

Bankroll:

FTPoints: 142,896.85 (a laptop costs ~twice this many)

Iron Man Medals: 1253

	Bankroll
Stars	$311.07
FTP	$8,202.60
Staking1	$1,545.90
Staking2	$50.00
Rakeback	$294.60
Total*	$10,404.17

* This is as of August 3rd or so (when I had my desktop/laptop together). I've since spend ~$200 on tourney buy-ins.

I have withdrawn a bunch ($7900) over the last little while for several reasons (bought a new MacBookPro laptop/ipod touch, bought plane tickets to PEI, went to Vegas, paying rent for two places in August, etc.). Considering my bankroll would have been about $18,300 had I not made these withdrawals is quite surprising considering I deposited $300 just over a year ago. I had never really anticipated making $18k in profit in a year in my free time (while doing my Master's). I'm pretty proud of that. I remember playing with like a $20-$40 bankroll two summers ago and using horrible bankroll management to run it up to $150ish and back down again (a recurring cyclic process). I thought I was so awesome when I got it to $150 or so but I was actually really bad and probably just ran well playing above my head. When I switched from that site (Pacific Poker) to FTP last summer, that was when I really realized that I sucked at poker. I started playing the lowest stakes limit hold'em 6max games they had and just got completely run over at the start. I wasn't used to playing TAGs and was just used to loose-passives which are very easy to play against and don't really put you in tough decisions.

Now that I've learned a lot more about poker (through experience, books, training sites, discussion, research, bankroll management, etc.), I can't wait to see where I'll be next year. I think it will really depend on how much time I can put into it (i.e. how much free time I get during the second year of my Master's).

I don't know what game I want to focus on over the next little while. I thought I was going to give up tournaments for a while and focus on cash games (LHE 6max and HU). However, because of the WSOP and other things, I have caught the tourney bug again (damnit!). I would really love to get my game to the point where I could become ranked on P5s (my account can be found at http://www.pocketfives.com/profiles/tanglewizard. Im currently ranked in the top 90th percentile (top 10% of players) on the site. The problem with their ranking system is that it is very volume-based. That is, the previously top ranked players take a break for a month or two and they aren't ranked (in the top 100 players) anymore. It will require a lot of play/work/study to get to that point but I think that it would definitely be worth it.

Poker books:
Here are the poker books I've picked up since the last blog.

Harrington on Cash: Volume I
Harrington on Cash: Volume II
Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen
Poker Tournament Formula II by Arnold Snyder

I've just about finished Gus' book. I think it's a pretty good book but I don't think there is too much to learn from it (aside from Gus' style and his outlook on the game). I don't agree with his preflop hand selection (especially in terms of blind defense) from an optimal poker sense. I don't think his style would be too successful in 100r or other HS MTTs online but I think his style is very good for live games (from what I've heard about their softness). I think some of the things he does are very good for getting players to play more predictably against him though. From the WPT, Gus has such a crazy loose-aggressive image (often saying he'll play any two cards, which isn't true). Because of that (and his blind defense), people don't seem to steal his blinds as often or 3bet him light or defend their blinds as much as they should, etc. It's cool to see his thoughts on hands though, because it shows you how even a super loose-aggressive player primarily uses logic and math to make good decisions. Another cool thing about his LAG style is that it kind of balances his range more than typical TAGs. That is, on many more flop textures (such as 876ss or 52Jr or whatever) he can nail it really hard (esp. random two pairs). Because his opponents know this, they might give up more than they should, or it might allow Gus to bluff more flops than his fair share because his opponents know how wide his range is. Overall, I think his style would work very well against almost any live field. Just look at his live record!

I just got Snyder's new tournament book. I have the first one (and had started reading it before). This one looks much better. It is centered around something called utility for proper tournament play (as opposed to pot odds and other things). I haven't really read about it yet (aside from leafing through the book a bit). I think it'll be pretty good. Another book I want to get is the new tournament book with hand analysis by three online tourney pros: apestyles, PearlJammer (I got his pic in Vegas), and Rizen. The players go through and analyze hands they've each played in tournaments and then all three analyze the same hands that someone else hand played (so you get to see how three different top players with different styles approach hands).

Vegas:

So, the reason why we, the CPRG (Computer Poker Research Group), went to Vegas was for the Second Man vs. Machine Competition at the Gaming Life Expo in the Rio (near the room hosting the WSOP Main Event). Last year, we had the first Man vs. Machine Competition where we played our HULHE agent, Polaris, against Phil Laak and Ali Eslami. Some pictures from this year's event can be found in the Live Gallery. I did some of the Live Blogging while we were there. Hands can be found in Results as links under the Match Number column (really cool display of duplicate matches). The highlight of the event was playing against [arguably] the World's best HULHE player, Matt "Hoss_TBF" Hawrilenko. The post-game analysis showed that he broke even against us while we crushed some of the other contestants (also very good high stakes pros). All in all, we ended up playing very very good limit hold'em players and ended up winning (3 wins, 2 losses, 1 draw)! It was pretty exciting it was tied 2-2-1 before the last day. To reduce the variance, the humans played as a team (if Hoss got AA vs. Polaris 2's 72o in one room, then his partner IJay "doughnutz" Palansky would get 72o in the other room vs. Polaris 2's AA).

While in Vegas, I got books signed by Gus Hansen and Dan Harrington and photos with Gus and Antonio Esfandiari:

I took pics of several poker pros while in Vegas. Here are eleven Main Event World Champions (listed by most recent):

Jerry Yang (2007)

Jamie Gold (2006)

Joe Hachem (2005)

Greg Raymer (2004)

Chris Moneymaker (2003)

Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (2000)

Scotty Nguyen (1998)

Dan Harrington (1995) and Bill Robertie

Phil Hellmuth Jr. (1989)

Johnny Chan (1987, 1988)

Doyle Brunson (1976, 1977)

Some other players that I saw were Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Vanessa "fslexduck" Selbst, Death Donkey, Joe Tall, Joe Cassidy, Mark "newhizzle" Newhouse (we played a MvM match against him actually), Humberto Brenes, Barry Greenstein, Ali Eslami, Kenna James, Erik Seidel and others (some are in my facebook albums).

While at the Gaming Life Expo in Vegas, I got to see Daniel Negreanu up close (and got a video of him). The cool thing about the video is that I found the *same* video shot later online at rawvegas.tv. The first video below is the rawvegas version and mine is the youtube video underneath. Try playing the first one until ~0:14 and then click play on the youtube video, this should approximately synchronize the audio and you can see the video from two different (yet close) viewpoints.

In Vegas, we walked through many of the major casinos. Here is me and Kevin enjoying the roller coaster at New York New York:
We also visited the Stratosphere (a 1000 foot high building with rides at the top). I went on two: one which dropped us from very high up very quickly a few times, and one called Insanity which swung us out over the edge of the building and the seats eventually angled at 70 degrees. It was pretty awesome (yet somewhat scary) as you could see vehicles and buildings below you on the ground.

We did end up getting a chance to play some poker: $1-2, $1-3 NL cash, $2/4 LHE and a $45 NL tournament. The cash games didn't go very well for me. The first night, I won $300+ (one buy-in) at $1-3 but that was mostly because of cards (AA and set of 9s) although I think I extracted the most on those hands from my image (very aggressive). The second night, I lost two buy-ins. I first bluffed half my stack where I strattled on the button (awesome option, I know; you get position and get to act last, that is SB and BB act first). Several people called the strattle, I squeezed (with Ax I think, although my hand wasn't really relevant). Some hick to my right calls, and checks the flop OOP. I cbet on a low flop, he calls. On the turn, he checks, I fire a second bullet UI and he check/minraises. I folded. Unfortunately, I can't remember the hand too well, as it was a while ago and I honestly wasn't concentrating well enough during the hand. Then a hand came up where I overlimped with 96o in LP (a monster, I know!). The flop came 964hh, someone in EP donks $15 (~pot) and gets two callers. I only have ~$130 after my bluff recently and I decide to shove with top two as I don't have enough to make a sizeable bet on the next round with a normal raise and I figure I'll get called by a FD anyway. I shove, the donk-bettor folds, the original flatter folds and the second flatter says after some thought, "sure, I'll gamble!". He turns over K4hh for bottom pair + FD and gets there. I rebuy. After misplaying a hand with two-pair vs. a slowplayed flush, I ended up getting what I had left in on a low flop with T9hh with two overs and a FD by check/raising all in. The guy thought for a long time and almost folded but ended up calling (because of my spewy image, I think) with AJ high and held. GG. In another $1-2 NL game, I bought in for $200 and after losing a bunch of small standard pots I ended up getting it all in PF vs. a very loose-aggressive player who over-raised to like $20 PF. Based on previous hands played with him, I really didn't feel that he was that strong. I ended up shoving AJo for like $75, I think it's very close/marginal/thin but I don't think it's horrible given the information I had. Anyway, he called with ATs and won (he was running really hot that night, always getting it in dominated and winning). Oh well. I also played some $2/4 LHE. They had a 5-bet cap instead of 4 I believe. Anyway, I don't really regret my play that night (aside from one hand, I guess, where I tried a 3barrel bluff and the guy just donk/called on the river with the nuts; i.e. he didn't raise me with the nuts!!!!). I lost ~$100 that night, I believe, but it was all standard. It's hard to win at showdown when there's 5 people that stick around to the river. I played a huge pot where I cold-4bet from the blinds PF with KK and played it very fast/aggressive until the river where I check/called after a flop FD got there. The guy to my right (Doug, a nice old dealer/math teacher) who had 3bet PF with AJcc and hit TPTK on the turn J with a flopped NFD ended up hitting his flush on the river. Afterwards, he said "Ship it!" which I thought was pretty funny but it still kind of annoyed me because he just beat me in a huge pot on the river and kind of rubbed it in. I made a bunch of other really good folds that I don't think anyone else there would make (folding the nut straight on the river on a paired board and other things like folded QQ to a single bet on an A turn vs. a straight-forward lady). As a general rule, I don't like making "good folds" in spots like that because if the opponent is playing properly (unexploitably and balanced) then their range should be wide enough that I have to pay off (esp. in limit). However, these live players are sooooo bad and exploitable and straight-forward that you can make "good" or "bad" folds (depending on how you look at it). We also played a $30+15 40-some person tournament at O'Shea's. Yeah, I know, 33-freaking-percent rake/tip. It was pretty ridiculous but we were just there to have some fun (and probably one of the cheapest tourneys you can find in Vegas). The tournament had a ridiculously horrible structure: 2000 chips at 25/50 (40bb) with blinds going up every 15 or 20 min. I really like how I played all throughout the tournament (aside from not noticing EP limpers occasionally). At one point, I raised after a limper with Ax (again, my hand isn't as important), the EP limper (a big tough-looking guy) called. The flop came with low cards but I remained UI. He checked, I cbet, he thinks for a bit and calls. At this point, I thought it was very likely he had two overs. On the turn, I pick up a gutshot, he checks and I bet what he has left, he thinks and eventually calls it off with AQ high. I don't hit my pair or gutshot, so I'm now short-stacked. After shoving a bunch of times and chipping up, I eventually accumulate a bunch more chips. Later some guy raises to 500 at 100/200 and I'm in the BB with 22. He raised for slightly less than half his stack. Now, I don't know how profitable shoving there would be (seeing as I have close to no FE, I say "close" because it's live and they suck at teh pokerz). However, I think that a stop-and-go is extremely profitable against a typical live player in such a situation. This is because if they don't flop well (e.g. UI high cards), they will most likely call much less than they should (based on the assumption that I can stop-and-go them and how wide I can do that). I haven't used many stop-and-go's over all of the tourneys I've played (over 1500+ online) but I think this is definitely a good spot for it. Anyway, I call planning on stop-and-going. I end up flopping bottom set and I think in this instance, it's okay to check/call their all-in. I do so and he has two overs but hits runner runner flush. Again, I have to chip up again. I end up chipping up pretty well (shoving a bunch) and the next hand comes up: Someone in EP limps or minraises (although I didn't see it at all), my friend Kevin (in the roller coaster pic) had just been moved to the table and shoves from LP (CO or BTN, I believe). Now, remember I hadn't seen the EP enterer and thought that Kevin open-shoved. I was in the BB with KTo and knew that Kevin would be shoving LP very wide with the 4-5BB he had (I believe). I call and then I notice the other guy is in the pot (I probably gave away live tells galore there where someone observant could probably tell I was worried because I didn't know someone else was in the pot). The flop comes T high with three spades (I have Ks). I decide to check and let the other guy shove whatever he has (to induce a bluff or worse value-shove). He does, and I instacall. He flips over QTo for TP/worse kicker. Kevin flips over AQ (with Qs). The turn comes the As giving me the nut flush and the nuts (with them drawing dead). GG Kevin (sorry about not seeing the limper). I kept stealing/shoving until the final table (while accumulating more rum-and-cokes). I found it to be pretty fun to get drunk and play this poker tourney. It really loosened me up (LOTS of table talk from me) yet I don't think I played any differently than I would have had I been sober. It's hard to mess up in such a poorly-structured tourney (it can never be that bad to shove in whatever situation). Anyway, I believe I entered the FT as the CL. Another member from our group, Dr. Michael Bowling, was also at the final table. Although he doesn't play poker, he was the one I was the most worried about at the table because he has some knowledge of hand-strength and aggression and knows that shoving in that structure can not be too bad. Anyway, he check/raised me all in on flops a few times and I folded (I found out later that he wasn't as tight as I thought he was). I lost a pot where I cbet after raising and getting called in two spots. I cbet and got check/raised all in. I folded my unimproved hand (not sure whether I should cbet 3way in that spot with such shallow stacks; I just didn't think too many people there were capable of check/raising). Now I have a lower stack. Some girl open-limps in EP for 1k at 500/1k with a stack of ~2k (WTF?), the guy that I doubled up with Ax vs. AQ high earlier in the tourney called in the SB. I look down at Kx-suited and decide to shove for >~4k in the BB. I figure that someone who is bad enough to OL for 1/2 their stack might fold and that the guy to my right wasn't very strong. I had both outchipped and if they lost, they'd be out of the tourney (a few people before the bubble). Because live players put so much value in "tournament life", I figured it was a decent spot to try to accumulate some chips so that I'd have more fold-equity with my shoves later. So, I do shove. She thinks and calls with QT and he thinks for a bit and calls with Kx (dominated by my king). Anyway, I end up losing to both of them (he hits a pair on the river and he had her outchipped). Anyway, the next hand I'm in the SB with 2k (1.5k after posting) and so there is 1.5k in blinds, I have 1.5k left. Someone in E-MP raises and I look down at Kx. I think this is a beautiful spot to gamble and try to accumulate some chips. Often, you can count the BB as being dead (unless they wake up with a big hand) because there is a raise in front. So, there is 2k (raise amount I have to call) + 1k (BB) + 0.5k (my SB) = 3.5k and I have 1.5k left. So, I'm getting 3.5:1.5 = 2.33:1 odds. Even if I have K4o against the top 10% of hands (probably too tight), I am a 70:30 = 2.33:1 dog. This means that even in an extreme case, I'm still getting the right odds. Anyway, I end up losing that (I think vs. Ax) and bust from the tourney. GG. The cool thing is that Dr. Bowling ended up chopping the tourney HU vs. a regular (haha!). Congrats Dr. Bowling.

Some of us (Johnny, Kevin, Dave, Morgan, Diane and I) ended up staying a few more days in Vegas to get to see Vegas a bit. Vegas is a crazy crazy city. It is soooo sex- and gamble-driven. We literally saw hundreds of Mexicans on the sidewalks while there and they handed out hooker cards all day long. You'd have stretches of 10 feet with 6 guys each trying to give you the same cards. Eventually, I started trying to hand stuff back to them (some comic about Him, God, that I got from some other person on the Strip). In most cities, on the corners, you have bins that contain newspapers/papers. In Vegas, they have booklets full of stripper/hooker numbers. Also, the cocktail waitresses are quite scantily clad (esp. at the Rio), they basically wear lingerie around serving alcohol. They also occasionally just jump up on a set of slot machines and start dancing. Crazy, I tell you! The guys I was with decided to head to a gentleman's club (I think this is just a more proper name for a strip club). I had never been to one before and told Melissa the other guys I was with were thinking of going and she said "go ahead". Well, I figured since I had permission, had never been to one before, and would have been alone since the other 3 guys I was staying with were going, that I'd go. We ended up going to the Spearmint Rhino which I'm pretty sure I've heard of (from poker players) before. It was a pretty classy place (only topless). It was $30 cover (plus almost a forced tip as you enter). We walked in and it really seemed like there was a 1-to-1 ratio of customers-to-strippers. Nice pot odds imo! Anyway, we went to get drinks, and it was $8 for a single and $16 for a double (WTF? No discount?). Before we got there, I had 3 small margaritas and two double rum-and-cokes (at an Improv Comedy Club at Harrah's, which was a pretty good show). So, I decide to start off light: another double rum-and-coke!! We end up going to find somewhere to sit. Surprisingly, the guys choose the seats right in front of the stage. Now, I was kind of uncomfortable at the start as the people in the front are basically expected to be tipping the strippers, especially making it rain in the club! Anyway, because I was already spending enough on their freaking over-priced drinks (although they had a good rum-to-coke ratio) and am married, I didn't really want to be sitting there tipping a bunch. Another thing they do is basically force you to keep spending tons on drinks (always coming by asking you if you want another drink). I decided that instead of paying with cash every time I would just start a tab (and charge it to my credit card). She says that the minimum is a $40 bill (i.e. they'll charge at least $40 regardless of whether you drink that much). She seemed to stress this point (for some weird reason). She obviously didn't know Nick "About Risk" Abou Risk and how much alcohol I can handle. I told her that $40 would not be a problem (esp. considering that that's only 2.5 doubles). I ended up drinking a bunch more over the night (although I didn't feel very drunk, as Johnny can attest to :). After almost getting kicked out for pocketing one of the strippers bras later in the night (pretty sure I was really drunk at this point), we ended up leaving the joint at like 4am or later. We get back to the hotel (The Flamingo) and I decide that I want to go dancing (one of my alcohol-induced passions) and to eat. Johnny takes me down to the restaurant (more like babysits me) and I with a few customers there, I start my own little dance party (of one) in the restaurant. After we finish eating breakfast (at like 6am), I ask some younger looking guys if there is a dance party anywhere and they say, "Yeah, out by the pool!". Great, thanks buddies! I excitedly run out to the pool only to find an old lady there telling me that it's closed. "You mean there isn't a dance party??!?" I exclaim and Johnny walks me back to the hotel room.

The other fun thing we did in Vegas was take up prop-betting. We had pretty much constant bets of $5 each time but it was extremely fun. We bet on everything:

price of sunglasses
how many seconds it takes to travel from one end of an escalator to the other without walking
the highest priced slot machine in a casino (we actually found one that was $5000 a pull)
the number of creeps a Rio cocktail waitress has to deal with each day (plus double or nothing)
the price of oreos
the price of someone's alcoholic beverage
the amount of time someone would spend in the washroom
the person who would be out of the washroom first (when people enter as a group)
how long a song lasted
many others

Life (RL):

Before Vegas, Melissa and I were in PEI for about a week and a half. It was really awesome. We got to relax and see lots of friends and family. The beach was especially awesome (something we don't get to see here in Edmonton) except for the associated sun-burns. I got to play some live poker at my friend Craig's house. My family has recently acquired two adorable puppies which were fun to watch (they play-fight a ton). They're growing pretty quickly.

Here is a list of the video games I've gotten since my last blog:

Wii Fit
Mario Kart & wheels
Dance Dance Revolution (for the Wii)
Wii Play + wiimote
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007
Dr. Mario Online Rx (virtual console)

I got the Tiger Woods game primarily to play with Melissa's father while he's here visiting in Edmonton. Melissa's mother is here with us now and her father arrives tomorrow. Her mother was a great help with our recent move. We've moved from a shit-hole to a relative palace. We are living in a 2-bedroom (all they had available) on the 16th floor with a bath and a half-bath (no shower). It is pretty spacious with the living room and dining room combined. There is also a very nice balcony which has a beautiful view and a nice breeze. The smaller bedroom is going to be used as a Study (for school/poker) and Scrapbooking (Melissa's hobby). We really need a big HDTV though. As a TV, we've got a junky 13" CRT. It really bothers me (event though I don't watch any TV). Another really cool thing about the apartment complex is the second floor facilities: there is a game room (billiards, foosball, table hockey), weight/exercise room, pool, theatre room, 20-m pool, business room, dance hall, hobby room and boardroom.

Aside from that, Melissa and I had our one year anniversary on Monday (August 4). We decided to not spend too much on gifts (mostly because of the recent move and paying double rent this month + damage deposit). I took Melissa out for dinner and got her flowers and a gift certificate for The Tin Box, a store she really likes. I've started trying to get a bit more exercise recently too (although still not enough). I joined an intramural slo-pitch softball team (for CS), got a squash racquet (and played 5 games so far against Dave). Also, Melissa won a $400 mountain bike from the local grocery store and gave it to me (so I got a bike lock and helmet).

Anyway, this blog entry is probably long enough already.

- Nick