Rolled On The River

Dutchin and I are still blogging but now we’re part of a much bigger conglomerate, see http://lifefish.net

Well, its been a while since I’ve written a blog entry (for which I apologize) and a lot has happened in that time.

The Book

The book is very near completion. We’ve tagged a couple of extra guest chapters on right at the end but the authors we chose along with the content is worth the added work / delay. I’m hoping by this Sunday Johnny and I can have everything that’s required from us more or less complete so our editor can make more headway and the book can hit publication in the very near future.

Poker

For the most part I’m pretty happy with everything going on around me. Dusty and I had a bit of a break from coaching for a while so he could catch up on his various business ventures and also play in the Party Poker Big Game but now that is out of the way we’ve resumed regular coaching sessions which I feel is helping my game progress at a steady rate. In addition to that I have a very active and tight nit study group consisting of primarily mid-high stakes players that has meant I’m never short of somebody solid to sweat me or to discuss a hand with. I’ve been meaning to get back to writing more strategy posts on RolledOnTheRiver (and will do so) but unfortunately between the book, poker and CaptureRake I either lack the motivation at the end of the day or simply don’t have the energy.

I’ve also started playing live poker on the weekends. There’s a couple of very soft 10/20 and 2/5 games running lately at StarCity and although the rake is rather bad (albeit improved recently) – it’s a change that keeps poker more interesting for me. Both games (on initial impressions) play much softer then any online table (100nl and above respectively) and I definitely think I have a large enough edge to justify taking a night away from online play to log some live hands. Oddly enough I’ve never lost my taste for live poker even though almost every online pro that I know can’t stand the thought of it. I’m hoping that by resuming a semi-active live schedule I can get some interesting posts on the topic as I think a lot of people coming from online poker to live poker either disregard the live table dynamic or continue stacking light in situations where many a live player wouldn’t (button vs blinds being the primary example).

CaptureRake

The affiliate Johnny and I started just a couple of months ago (http://capturerake.com) is now finally making considerable money that makes it feel a lot more like a legitimate business. I thought that the FullTilt affiliate change would be the nail in the coffin but it seems that it hasn’t slowed us down in the slightest. We’ve continued bringing on board 10k+ MGR guys who are converting from PokerStars to FullTilt (thank-you horrible shortstack changes) and are now at a point where if we didn’t bring anybody else on board at all we’d still have money to burn.

Life

Not too much to add here. I’ve made a few interstate trips recently but nothing too exciting and for the most part I’m just content playing and improving on my poker. I’m more or less working as much as possible now as of mid June I’ll be travelling to Hawaii, New York and Las Vegas with my study group (very much a social poker group also) so I don’t see any reason to travel between now and then and would rather get hands logged.

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to throw my hat into the coaching arena – not only to broaden my own poker knowledge but also to bring some more variety to my day. I coached a few SSNL and MSNL students for free to see if it suited me, build up my skills and get critical feedback and ultimately decided that I would continue with the idea. Today I went ahead and added a coaching page to the blog. I’ve included a variety of methods you can use to contact me along with a bit about my poker background and the graph from my current database (albeit only a few weeks old but more then a decent enough sample size). Any feedback and/or questions would more then be appreciated and hopefully my own game continues to develop so I can coach 200nl and higher sometime in the future.

Another guest chapter for the book was submitted this week by Collin Moshman. For those unfamiliar with Collin he is a renowned SnG Professional, Lead Coach at Stoxpoker.com and also runs a successful staking/coaching business. I approached Collin in late January to author a chapter on the subject of staking which he submitted this week. In true Collin style the chapter is extremely exhaustive containing a full introduction to running a staking operation, FAQ, and a series of case reports from difficult scenarios that Collin has experienced and how he tackled them or would tackle them in hindsight. Just like with the Rich Muny chapter a teaser from this chapter is included below:

Case Study 3: ODog79

ODog79 (William) applied for a stake to play to play $16 18-man turbo SNGs on Pokerstars. He had one reference, a respected member of 2+2 with over 6,000 posts. With an 18% ROI in these games, I gladly accepted his application. Over the next two months, he did exceptionally well in his games, maintaining a 14% ROI with an average of 250 games/week.

Within two months, he was playing the highest-buyin 18-mans that actually fill up — the $60 level. Like many horses and coaching students, we also became friends, talking about poker and other topics over Skype.
I was therefore disappointed when he told me he wanted to end the stake and start playing low-stakes MTTs. I was confident in his poker ability however, so I offered to switch to an MTT stake, so long as he continued playing a smaller volume of 18-mans.

William agreed. He then hit a long breakeven stretch at the 18-mans, while doing very poorly at MTTs. I asked to see HHs, and it was clear he wasn’t adjusting well between the formats. He was starting to play the early game of the 18-mans too loose to reflect his MTT style, and he was making clear errors in the deep-stack portion of his MTTs.

I never require a horse to change game type or buyin when in makeup, as we believe that’s unfair. Nonetheless we made the request that he voluntarily take a break from the MTTs. He agreed, but couldn’t seem to regain his former dominance of 18-mans. It took him six weeks of up-and-down swings to get out of makeup, and he became so frustrated with the swings that he eventually quit playing.

While I will still sometimes let a player transition to a related game type, it’s important not to assume that players will be profitable at the same buyin as their established game. Agree on a maximum percentage of volume that comes from the new game type until the player has a clearly winning track record.

Please note that all player names in the above quotation have been altered for the sake of privacy.

The book has been progressing quite well. I feel a bit more like a coordination-only guy lately with Johnny doing the bulk of the writing. I’ve been finding and liaising with our guest authors, who in my opinion are at the forefront of their specialised fields in the community, making the book greater quality than any two people could write about these topics. Rich Muny has been writing a chapter on the history and information pertaining to the legalization of online poker, I’ve included a teaser below:

The Internet was “born” on October 29, 1969, when the first two nodes of what would become the ARPANET were interconnected between UCLA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and SRI International in Menlo Park, California. ARPANET expanded greatly through the 1970s and 1980s, eventually becoming the Internet. With the introduction of the World Wide Web in 1989, the Internet became a means for decentralized, uncensored communication for the masses.

As the World Wide Web was designed to facilitate communication via graphical, linked interfaces, and as poker is a popular peer-to-peer game, online poker was inevitable. The first, Planet Poker, opened on January 1, 1988. They enjoyed a monopoly until early 1999, when Paradise Poker brought competition to the online poker industry. Many sites followed, creating a vibrant online poker market.

However, with this growth came controversy. Some aging social conservative leaders who grew up under progressivism cling to a belief that big government could undo the 1960s if only it would pass the right laws. As the Republican Party controlled Congress, these leaders wanted payback for their support for the party, and online poker was a tempting target.

After working on the book and having just left StoxPoker I’ve had another fairly large endeavour that I’ve undertaken this year that I haven’t yet talked about much. In January of this year I signed a deal with Dusty “leatherass9″ Schmidt as his 2010 Protégé. As Dusty writes on his blog:

I haven’t really talked much about this, but I decided to take on one student this year as my 2010 project. Some of you may remember in 2008 I took on Matt Bolt (mbolt1) as a student and I started with him as a micro stakes grinder and by year end he had a 6 figure month and has made about a million dollars since I began working with him. I have worked with a few others as well who have done well, but Mbolt1 was the only person I have really spent a lot of time working with.

While I don’t expect everyone I work with to necessarily go on to crush the games the way Mbolt1 has, I decided to take on one more student this year and hopefully we can have some success together. His name is Michael Skelton and he holds the distinction of watching more training videos than anyone alive, I would be willing to wager. Michael produced virtually every single Stoxpoker.com video and was as loyal of an employee as you could find. His tremendous work ethic and unprecedented level of understanding of the “away from the table” stuff like rakeback, which software programs to use etc. is what made me decide to take him on as my 2010 protége.’

I have some high hopes for Michael or skelm as he is known to the community and skelmr on FullTilT. He is developing a tremendous understanding of the game of poker and already has shown some tremendous progress over our time working together. Here is a before and after shot:

Before: Pre-Coaching

After: Post-Coaching

As you can see, Michael lost a lot of money when the pot did not go to showdown before we began working together. Our work together took care of his falling red line and turned him into a winner when the pot does not go to showdown. While I don’t think it is as essential as most people think to have a positive red line, it is always nice to improve your red line when your showdown line remains relatively unaffected.

I look forward to seeing if I can continue to have some success coaching Michael. I feel he has a ton of potential and seems to grasp concepts quickly and effectively put them into action. He is not afraid to make changes to his game the moment he realizes he will be better off for them. That is actually a big thing he has going for him because many people will try things, but if they don’t have success with them they abandon the changes right away, when in reality it was probably just bad luck that kept the changes from working. It is huge in this game not to let some bad luck deter you from making the correct adjustments in your game. That is one of the biggest problems amongst amateurs in my opinion. They are too quick to abandon winning plays just because they don’t have success with them right away.

If you want to follow Michael’s blog feel free to check it out at http://rolledontheriver.com

By Leatherass

I’ll be sure to write more about this experience on the blog in the coming future along with some of the advances that I make as a player.

Editorial note: As the owners of CaptureRake both Johnny and I are particularly biased in writing this entry. That said I think the content speaks for itself and that bringing this to everybodys attention is important.

This morning Poker Affiliate Solutions posted the following on Poker Affiliate Listings:

We have been informed by Full Tilt management that beginning March 1st, commissions for all rakeback affiliates will be set at 3%.

This change will not be retroactive and will only affect the commission on players who sign up starting March 1st. Players will still be paid 27% rakeback.

As we learn more from Full Tilt about this change and its impact on Poker Affiliates, we will post updates.

Tony Guerrero

Poker Affiliate Solutions

If true (and based on the reputation of the poster this is very likely) – what does this actually mean? Primarily – less money for affiliates. Understandably FullTilt affiliates have for some time been receiving a rather hefty commission on your signups (most rakeback affiliates currently receive 35% of your MGR and pay you 27%). This extra money goes towards rake races, support and in some cases sub-affiliates.

This change, although not retroactive creates a situation that makes it near impossible for sub-affiliates to exist (the margins would be too low on new signups), a reduction on the payout for rake races and a far less active affiliate community (which may or may not have an affect on the size of the player pool).

At this point in time nothing is completely verified but should we get first hand news or anything further then I will update this post.

If you’d like to view the original forum post click here.
To view the associated TwoPlusTwo thread click here.

One of the handier tricks with Hold’em Manager that I like to utilize is custom statistics. Using these you can add various values to your reports, one of which is rakeback.

For example:

Adding this to your reports is relatively simple. First, locate the file customstats.txt – It can be found in your Hold’em Manager reports folder (typically C:\Program Files\RVG Software\Holdem Manager\Reports). If the file doesn’t exist then create it in this location.

Once you have the file open you want to add the following information to it:

<stat GroupName="Default" ColumnName="FTP Rakeback" ValueExpressions="Sum(PH.RakeAmount)/100.0*0.27 as FTPRakeBackAmount" Evaluate="FTPRakeBackAmount" ColumnHeader="FTPRakeback" ColumnFormat="$0.00" ColumnWidth="*" Tooltip="FTP Rakeback based on 27%" />

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok so this is a bit of a spammy entry but all the same…

We now own a rakeback skin! I’ve been unhappy with my current affiliate for some time – they don’t list deductions, my MGR updates slowly (if at all) and the rake race is ridiculous. In shopping around and talking at length with Schwallie I came to the (somewhat ridiculous) conclusion that having my own skin would be a better solution.

We’re (Johnny, Schwallie and I) over at http://capturerake.com – If you have any questions in regards to rakeback amounts, deductions, etc’ then feel more then free to e-mail me at skelmer at gmail dot com.

One problem I had until recently was checking the Hold’em Manager sessions tab and/or FullTilt cashier when playing to see how a session was going.

I noticed that simply telling myself I wasn’t going to click either of these wasn’t enough – I needed something more drastic. The end result of this was an AHK script that will close the cashier if it’s opened and minimize Hold’em Manager if I try to look at it (if you use the AHK script remember to start auto-importing before you open it).

I’ve included the AHK script below for those who would like a copy. I’m in the process of writing an article on how to use and write your own AHK scripts so although some of you may not yet be sure what to do with it, I will be putting instructions up in the coming week.

#Persistent
#SingleInstance

SetTimer, NoCashierOrHEM, 300
return

NoCashierOrHEM:
IfWinExist , Cashier
WinClose , Cashier
IfWinExist , Hold’em + Omaha Manager
WinMinimize , Hold’em + Omaha Manager
return