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OP: degenerate gambler starts grinding
Hi, FTR community. I’ve been lurking around for years here and decided it’s finally time to come out of the closet (in a non homosexual way) and take poker more seriously through active participation in this forum.
My poker experience in a nutshell- I’ve never taken poker seriously and just gambled a fuckton. I’ve played thousands of low to high stakes sngs/mtts , but haven’t learned much in terms of the mathematical theory behind poker. On the other hand, I’ve had most of my soul ripped out and have become desensitized to money and everything else in life. Gambling_lol.
Picture says it all:

I think it’s essential to be realistic and have good judgment or fair assessment of expected value. One of the worst things a poker player can do is make –EV decisions, run well and get paid for them, make the same mistakes, and ultimately lose money in the long run while failing to recognize and fix the mistakes he is making. How many times has this happened to you?
Run well: oh shit I’m crushing these $60 45 mans on stars cause I play like god (small sample). Run bad (small sample): I was crushing this earlier, it’s just bad luck. I guess I’ll play more so that the results normalize and I start making money again
…Play till you go broke because you’re not rolled for it or because you’re a losing player at that stake.
The variance associated with the game, no matter how much we bitch because of it at times, is what keeps losing players in the game. It entertains the casual gamer, it encourages a low stakes gamblers to take higher stakes shots, it causes people to be overconfident in their game at a particular stake. It is the backbone of poker and it’s making you grind tens of thousands of sngs or hands so that you fall within a certain confidence interval of your actual ROI.
Sorry for the philosophical digression. But what I’ve learned from poker so far is : be realistic, take things seriously, work hard/smart, desensitize yourself, and grind your ass off.
Oh and don’t masturbate while playing poker.
So I realized I suck at poker and was doing shit all wrong. Bought HEM and sng wizard a months ago. I’ve had a lot of sng experience in terms of volume so I will be working on my sng/icm game and building up a roll, but ultimately would like to transition to cash games.
I’ve been grinding the $5.30 super turbos on FTP since they changed the structure.
Old structure: $3.50 + .30 rake
New structure: $5 + .30 rake
So 6% rake instead of 8.6% = substantial increase to hourly profit @ $5.30 lvl since regular ROI for this lvl 5-10%. I’m sure a lot of the high stakes superturbo regulars had insta hard-ons when they saw the decrease in rake.
As for the softness of the games: the edge is mad small in a superturbo. Expect 4-5 regulars who don't table select to infest your games. A majority of the regulars don't shove wide/call wide enough from late position. I looked into the stats of the higher ROI regulars and realized they have much wider btn/sb shove range as well as a higher BB VPIP.
It's hard to use HUD stats for sngs because of the blind structures, but it gives me a general picture of how to categorize a regular as well as give me some information about a unknown.
been using the following setup:
VPIP / PFR / 3bet /Steal / call open
BTN PFR / SB PFR / BB VPIP / Hands
I also use color coding on things such as bb vpip, pfr, and hands. Since i'm running 16 tables it makes reading stats much easier and i can make snap decisions based on color.
I also color code hands so that after i play a set amount of hands vs someone i can color label them on full tilt. Purple for solid reg / red for reg with multiple leaks or nit reg.
Anyways: here’s a graph for the last 3 weeks:

Poker a love story: red line chase green line, green line not interested, they go their separate ways.
Stats:
Actual: ROI: 4% ITM: 39.2% $/hr: 10.70
EV$ Adjusted: ROI: 7% $/hr: 15.18
27% rakeback accounts for a 1.53% increase in ROI
I think 10%+ is achievable for these limits.
Confidence interval calculation at around 2715 games. I'm 95% confidant that my true roi fall between +- 5.47% of my observed green line ROI. Not sure how i could calculate this for the adjusted red line since i don't have finish distributions for this. How accurate is HEM's adjusted model for sngs does it just sum the expected equity using ICM calculations?
My original goal was to build my roll to 4k in a month so I could move up to $26 45 mans and a higher hourly. However, moving to my new apartment and just getting back into the grind has been harder than expected. So... instead of being result oriented, I’m not focusing on how much money I make but the process that makes me that money. I need to come up with a daily schedule and adhere to it rather than just approaching this casually.
I don't mind grinding all 4k at 5.30 super turbos. I could give the 7.50s a shot around 250 buyins. However, i don't expect my hourly to increase by a significant amount and i also believe that i can still improve my game at 5.30 and approach a 10% roi.
New Goal:
_ Live a balanced lifestyle
_ Work my up to 8 hour a day grind
_ Standardize my game: make the same decisions for the same scenarios
_ Review key hand histories 30 minutes a day
_ Fuck sng wizard to death
_ Memorize as many range vs range / shove tables as I possibly can
_ Find other resources to improve my game (coaching/websites etc)
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