I will go through the flaws in the common complaints briefly, and only because they are so pervasive that I feel the need to refute them.

1.  The software is rigged against them or to ensure more rake.  Most poker software is inspected by 3rd parties to ensure fairness and there has never been any case that they have been tampered with or that they have  malfunctioned.  Many people have played a statistically significant number of hands (I have played over 10 million hands in my career) and these hands and boards can be imported into a database in order to ensure they are occurring at the correct frequencies.  People have done this and the random number generator has never been found to be unfair in any way.  Since hand histories are available and people can compile a statistically relevant number of hands, if there were irregularities, they would have been found.

2.  The “cashout curse,” is when people lose soon after they cash out their winnings.  The best explanation I have heard for this phenomenon  is regression to the mean.  This is when a losing player runs above expectation (is lucky and wins) and then cashes out.  When they then return to expectation (by losing) they view losing as something anomalous, because now they believe themselves to be winners who have cashed out.  The easiest way to resolve this internal conflict is to blame it on the software being rigged against people who cash out, rather than to admit that they are not as skilled as they believe.

3.  Statistically unlikely events.   I smile every time I get aces on the same table in back to back hands, because I know how many players would say the software is rigged because it is so rare (about 48,000 to 1 against).  In actuality, I play more than 25,000 hands a week on average, so while it is unusual for me to have aces in back to back hands, it comes up about every 2 weeks.  Even I have been a professional for a long time, I sometimes feel like I have lost every hand for a few days in a row.  In reality, when I feel like I am getting unlucky, I tend to forget the hands I win and focus on the hands I lose.  The truth is that variance occurs and that relative to my winrate, sometimes I lose more than I should and sometimes I win more than I should.  Overall, it is exactly as expected.

The irony of the parallel between the 2016 Presidential Election and the people who complain about online poker being rigged is not lost on me.   For the past several weeks Donald Trump has started to forcefully call the election, the voting and the media rigged against him.

First, Trump saying that he might lose because the election is rigged is not a sound argument because that would require the coordination of thousands of local, state and federal election officials, who have both Republican and Democratic party affiliations.  Polls in Pennsylvania show Trump down approximately 10 points and predict he has a less than 10% chance of winning.  This independent data serves a check against claims of widespread voter fraud in same way I can evaluate my hand histories to ensure that the random number generator is operating correctly.  The most likely explanation for Trump losing is not that the polls, media and election are rigged, but that voters are favoring Hillary Clinton by a significant margin.  It is highly unlikely that significant voting fraud will take place since there have been several studies who have determined that it is minimal(under 100 cases in the last 3 elections). Anecdotal evidence is not evidence of widespread conspiracy in the same way that your friend getting aces twice in a row doesn’t mean that the software is rigged.

Second, when Trump is suspicious of Republican candidates’ poor performances in inner city districts comprised of mostly minorities, he fails to consider that: a) The districts are small, as small as a few hundred people.  b) The districts are comprised of people and demographics who tend not to vote for Republicans.  c)Trump is polling in the low single digits with minorities.  So, it is not an anomaly that he would get few votes in a district where the polls say people are not voting for him and the demographics predict he should be doing poorly.  I am sure Trump isn’t suspect of rural Wyoming districts where he is winning nearly 100% of the vote.

Third, Trump’s complaint that the media is rigged is bogus.  The media’s hyperfocus on him has resulted in enough attention to get him this far.  He achieved unprecedented fame and recognition simply from being wealthy. He was in the tabloids when he was younger, on the Apprentice, and now, every news channel covers his rallies, which gives him a platform to expand his audience.

Trump’s expectation in the primaries and in the presidential campaign was poor because of his lack of experience, lack of knowledge and his many scandals.  Most other politicians would have lost their support long ago, and the fact that none of his outlandish and offensive statements or actions were enough to squash his campaign meant that he was surely “running above expectation.”  Until the last few weeks, the media coverage has been to his “yuge” benefit, so he is starting to sound a lot like someone who is complaining about the “cashout curse.”  Over the past few weeks, he has returned to his expectation, in which people are horrified and unlikely to vote for him based upon what he has said and done is merely reversion to the mean.  It is not statistically surprising.

In addition, Trump has pursued a strategy that is unlikely to earn him enough votes to win the election.  His attacks on Republican allies, attacks on women and minorities and his reluctance to encourage the voters on a local level, do not appeal to voters he desperately needs to win.  He has doubled down on his core of support to the almost to the exclusion of others and his core does not contain enough voters for him to win.  Touting irrelevant statistics like online click polls and the number of people at rallies as proof Trump is winning are akin to measuring poker earnings by how often your opponent folds to your bluffs.  In the past, and hopefully in the future, anyone who behaves like Trump and has views like his will reach their expectation sooner and not be considered a serious candidate for President.

When I saw you busted just short of the final table of the World Series of Poker last year I was disappointed because it would have been great for poker and poker legalization across the United States.  You are one of the most recognizable figures in poker, and have always maintained a smile on your face while making the game seem fun and enjoyable to the masses.  Hats off to you!

When I first saw the report of your final hand, where you called preflop with A4 and checkraised all in on an AdKdT board it seemed clear to me that your hand was an obvious shove preflop.  When I saw the explanation of your mistake of this hand and 2 others on your blog, I was pretty shocked to see the clear mistakes in reasoning and I feel compelled to point them out.  The italicized are your words and the bolded are mine.

“Hand #1 Justin Schwartz threw out a 500k chip in the cutoff with 80k-160k blinds and didn’t say anything. I know limping is part of his game plan, but he had smaller denomination chips that he could have called with. My thinking was that he did this on purpose to make it look like he meant to raise so that the rest of us left in the hand would be less likely to attack his limp.
I picked up 7d 8d on the button and limped. This is exactly the type of hand that plays well post flop and I didn’t think it was necessary to isolate Justin. The small blind folded and the big blind checked his option.
The flop came Kd 7s 6c and both players checked to me. Here is where the mistake comes: I bet 250k. The big blind folded, and a short stacked Justin check raised to 600k. I called with lots of back door potential with a 3 card straight, 3 card flush, and a pair.
The turn was the 3 of clubs and he went all in for about 3 million. I didn’t think about it for very long and folded my pair.

So what is the mistake? My bet sizing on the flop allowed Justin enough room to check raise me as a bluff. If I bet 450k he would have to risk a million or so to bluff me and that wouldn’t have left him enough wiggle room. By betting just 250k in a spot where I could easily be bluffing myself, I opened the door to get outplayed. I found out later that he had QT of clubs so he turned a flush draw but I was still ahead. I don’t think folding the turn is a mistake, besides, he had 15 outs to beat me, but that could have been avoided had a I made a more substantial bet on the flop.”

Your call preflop is fine, and kudos for paying attention to your opponent.  However, if you believe there is a decent chance that you will be check raised as a bluff on the flop (though that is probably results oriented thinking), then perhaps checking back or 3 betting his checkraise bluff is the correct play.  You are probably betting pretty wide when checked to in that spot, so you want it to cost you less when you bluff/bet with weak hands, not more.

Calling his checkraise because you have “a 3 card straight and 3 card flush” is silly, because with your small ball style, the last thing you want to have to do is call a big turn bet when you turn a draw (hello variance!) or to get bet off your hand on the turn.  In most of the possible turn scenarios, you lose 350k chips when you call the flop raise and fold the turn, and in some you wind up calling again with a draw (hello variance!) and fold when you miss.  The only time it really works is when you make 2 pair or trips and he bluffs it off(and doesn’t have you beat or outdraw you), which happens very rarely.  It’s obvious you weren’t deep enough to start making moves like this and you are not playing Pot Limit Omaha where he is suddenly going to get scared and check fold a strong hand on the turn or river because a scary card comes.

Hand #2 Blinds at 150k-300k Alex (short stacked) raised from middle position at a 5 handed table to 600k and I defended the small blind with Ac 6c and we went heads up to a flop of 10-10-3. I checked, he bet just 350k and I called. The turn was a 9 and we both checked, and once again it went check check on the Jack river.

So what is the mistake? This one is a little more subtle so think about this one for a minute…

Some would argue calling preflop is a mistake. I disagree with that, and that’s not the mistake. When I checked and he bet 350k I felt like I had the best hand, but wasn’t certain. The play was to check raise to one million and put the pressure on Alex to guess. A 10 is a card that is very likely to be in my hand (9T, JT, QT, KT, AT) so even if he had a hand like 88 he may consider folding. Truth is though, he rarely has a hand like that and bets only 350k. To call my check raise he would have to call more than 25% of his stack and then be in no mans land on the turn whether I bet or check.

Turns out he had Q9 and hit the 9 on the turn to beat me that hand. Many would look at the hand and think “unlucky.” I don’t see any value in that. What’s the point in labeling it as lucky or unlucky? Did I play the hand the best way that I could? No. There is value in analyzing your plays, not your variance.”

You actually played this one well and it was unfortunate that he hit a 9 on the turn to win the pot.  I wouldn’t call it “unlucky,” as that is going to happen roughly 25% of time the hand plays out the way it did, not including the times he a)has you beat or b)bluff you off your hand.

You should not be checkraising this hand to “put pressure on him to guess.”  You are unlikely to get him to fold anything you don’t have beat, and saying a ten is “very likely to be in your hand” (which it is not, use Pokerstove to count the combinations if you need) is silly.  If your range is somehow has a lot of tens in it, then calling your range should be enough to ensure you don’t get bluffed too often.   It’s interesting that you want to checkraise him to “put pressure on him to guess,” while representing a very narrow range out of position.  

You probably would happy with the way this hand played if you had won it.

“My last hand was the A4 vs J3dd hand on an AKTdd flop. Some will argue that against a player who opens 100% of buttons in that spot, that moving all in preflop is a better play. I think for most people that is absolutely true, but not for me, and not in that situation. The reasoning for that is a little lengthy but I’ll try to explain it in brief the best I can:

My goal was to win the tournament not make the final 9. I knew that Joe was abusing the bubble and the other players were not fighting back. I felt fine playing both in position and out of position against his very weak range post flop. My strategy wasn’t to just guess when he had a hand preflop that was strong enough to call a reraise, it was to see flops with him and eek out value wherever I could and rather than double up in a flip situation, GRIND my way to a double up.

It was working. I was able to go from 4 million in chips to 9 million without being in an all in situation. I was clawing my way back into the match by seeing flops and moving in with some hands when necessary.

Once I got over 8 million it allowed me to start defending my blind a bit more liberally against Joe. A few rounds in a row I had defended the blind, once with an all in reraise with KT, a much better hand to move all in with than A4, by the way, considering how he was playing.

So the reason I chose to call with A4 rather than reraise was threefold:

1) It balances my calling range from the blind a little bit
2) I WILL get extra value post flop when I hit an Ace. He can’t check an Ace
3) I avoid getting it all in preflop in spots where I will almost certainly be a 2-1 underdog when called

Once the flop came out, the hand played itself and it wasn’t meant to be in the end. Had I won that pot, though, I would be sitting on a very healthy stack of about 14 million. That’s the way I do it. Chop away, chop away, chop away, see flops, try to get it in good when necessary, and then hopefully the hand holds. It didn’t this time, but I’m quite happy with how I played overall and stuck to my game plan throughout.”

Almost everyone’s goal is to win the tournament, not to make the final 9.  Making a poor play and blaming it on “trying to win” is a cop out.

You might feel fine playing against him postflop when he(and you) have weak ranges, but there isn’t really enough room to maneuver with a hand that flops as poorly, and has poor equity on so many flops.  You don’t need to balance your range in this spot, since it will a)probably not get to showdown b)you won’t be in this situation often c)he won’t know what you had.  In addition, when you do flop an Ace, you will get a small continuation bet out of him, but likely not too much else that you want (you want a bet, but if he barrells off, that’s not great for you).  You do much better in the long term shoving against a guy that is opening that wide(and who may or may not call marginally) then hoping to flop well and win a bet.  

All of this analysis is completely moot, since as soon as you flopped an ace, you checkraised allin, rendering all of your analysis of small ball, eking out value and grinding completely moot.

For the record, if you just call the flop, which you absolutely should, you will be put to the test on the turn when he shoves this hand.

I’d love to hear your thoughts of my analysis.

Best of luck this year!

-Jason

Playing $1/2 6max no limit.  I raise 99 in first position to $6 and get called on the button by a very weak recreational player(60/20 for those interested in stats) and a poor playing regular(27/12) in the small blind.

The flop comes 9h9s6c giving me four 9′s.  The small blind checks. Since neither of the two players were likely to have anything or to call with nothing(float), and the button was likely to bet when checked to, I elected to check.  Unfortunately the button checked behind.

The turn is the 6h.  The small blind checked and I bet $6 into $19 hoping that my opponents would either call me with Ace high or a pair, or try to bluff me, since it doesn’t look like I have too much.  The button folds and the small blind calls.

The river is the 5h, so the final board is 9h9s6c6h5h and the small blind open shoves for $190 into the $31 pot.  I call, he shows a 8h7h for a straight flush and I lose.

The point of the story isn’t to complain about how unlucky and rare it is to lose with four 9′s, but is to wonder what the heck the small blind was thinking and how we can use his mistakes to better our play in the future.  Here is the way he should be thinking about the hand on the river from his point of view (forgetting about ways to take alternative actions previously):

“It looks like my opponent doesn’t have much, so betting a large amount is likely to make him fold the vast majority of his hands.  If he did have something like AA that checked behind the flop or a flush, there is no way he can call a huge amount(6 times the pot) on the river with so many hands that he loses to.  My best bet is to bet something small in the hopes that he thinks I am bluffing either with something like T8, a pair under 6′s that got counterfeited or ace high.  If I bet a small amount and he does have a 9 or maybe even a 6, he is likely to raise and I can reraise and get all the money in, the same as if I had shoved.  Plus, if I bet small, there is a chance he might decide to bluff me.  If I shove all in, I take away all chance for him to call me with weak hands (since he knows I would never do this with a bluff) and he also cannot bluff me.  Clearly, the best play is to bet small, pray to be raised and expect to be called sometimes.”

His actual thinking went something like this:  ”I made a straight flush!  I am going to push all in and hope to get called because I cannot be beaten.  Wow, I can’t believe someone called me, didn’t he realize I had a straight flush?  What an idiot!”

Before I called, I remember wondering what he possibly could have(given that I had all the 9′s, his most likely shoving hand) and that whatever hand he had, he misplayed it.  For instance, if he had four 6′s, he should use the same logic I outlined above for when he had a straight flush and he should never be bluffing all in when a smaller amount would have done the job done with a similar frequency.  Fortunately for me, this short term variance where people grossly misplay their hands and still win occurs frequently.  Over time though, playing my hands more correctly than my opponents leads to better outcomes for me and is the reason I have been a successful professional.

For the record, on the river it’s still a good call by me because he would do this with one combination of four 6′s and one combination of 8h7h.  This means I win 50% of the time, and need to call $190 into $411, which only requires me to win 46% of the time to break even.

Poker is mainly about math, not reading people or tells.  At the primary level, it is about odds, such as am I getting the right odds to call with my flush draw? how often will I flop a set?  or how big a favorite is AA over KK?  Basic poker math and memorizing some odds can help you get right answers to these common questions and knowing these numbers are necessary to becoming a winner.  Those are the easy questions to ask and answer and they have nothing to do with tells.

The secondary level is about ranges.  In poker, a range considers all the possible hands someone would take a particular action with.  For example, if you have KK, but your opponents range is AA(meaning he only does something with AA), you had better be getting great odds, because you are about a 4-1 underdog.  If you have KK and your opponents range is AA, KK, and QQ, you are 50/50 against his range.  Getting an opponents exact range down is difficult and takes a lot of practice.  Determining a range is mostly math and how your hand fares against someone else’s range is strictly math as well.  This is also necessary to becoming a winner at poker and it comes up in every single hand and affects the outcome of every decision.  In live poker, tells might have a small impact in determining how wide someones range is, but because most decisions are clear cut mathematically and having a tell doesn’t help change them, it therefore only has a small impact on your bottom line.

The tertiary level of poker thinking is to take things like how often someone folds and other tendencies and to put that together with an opponents range to determine what the correct play is.  Again, the vast majority of the time, the answer is so clear cut that it can not and should not be overridden by tells, unless your opponent were to actually say what he had and you were to believe them.

Playing poker on the internet provides me with an enormous amount of statistics for analysis and allows me to go in further in depth in the three levels mentioned above. Having worked on poker for so long, I have a base of knowledge that allows me to adjust my play based on whether my opponent opens 35% on the button or 40% and whether they bet the flop 50% or 60% thereafter.  I have done analysis on a broad array of players with varying and specific tendencies.  Creating this  base of knowledge is virtually impossible in live poker and the translation of that skill is the reason that players who have been successful playing poker on the internet have had little trouble translating that success to live poker despite their lack of practice reading people.  Most successful live poker players who cannot transition to internet play blame it on the lack of live tells, when in actuality it is analysis of situations mathematically that needs to be improved.

There are two definitions of variance.  The first is the statistical definition of how far a set of numbers is from their mean.  For example, if you were a conservative player(tending to play less hands) winning $100 an hour playing poker, your variance would be lower than someone who was a more aggressive player (tending to play more hands and be involved in more pots).  The reason is that there are more opportunities for your stack to go up and down as you are involved in more pots.  The other definition of variance used in the poker world is the idea that all situations will even out in the end, so that being on the wrong end of a bad situation is just “variance,” or a statistical anomaly taking focus away from what is really important aka. your winrate.  So when you have KK and the other person has AA, you can usually chalk it up to “bad variance” meaning that it was unlucky and that if the situation was reversed, the outcome would be the same.

In theory, if your winrate was high enough and your variance low enough, you would never(or at least very, very rarely lose).  For example, if your standard deviation(the square root of variance) was $20 an hour, your winrate was $100 and your results were normally distributed, you would only lose when you had a result that was 5 standard deviations away from the mean(which is about 1 in 1.7 million).  The reality is no one has a high enough winrate and low enough variance to never lose(or come close to it)  and that results are not normally distributed.  I was one of the most successful players in midstakes no limit and my winrate was approximately 5.5 big blinds per hundred hands and my standard deviation was approximately 65 big blinds per hundred hands.  Although I frequently lost during an individual hour, I won approximately 70% of the days that I played and 100% of the weeks.

When I hear other players talking about going through a prolonged losing streak(aka a “downswing”) they are often focused on the second kind of variance, instead of the first kind.   They often fail to realize that the main culprit for their losing money is not having a high enough winrate(or too high a variance).  For example, if two players have the same standard deviation (the square root of variance), say $70 an hour, and one wins at $100 an hour and one wins at $30 an hour.  When they both experience a rough patch and are one standard deviation away from their results, the player winning at $30 per hour loses $40 an hour during this period and experiences a “downswing,” while the the player winning $100 wins only $30 an hour during this period.  However, they are both the same dollar amount and standard deviation from their true results!

Why should I care about all of these statistics and numbers you ask?  The answer is simple, poker is an emotional, thought driven game and results and emotions can affect the way you make decisions .  I assure you that the player who has undergone a “losing streak” takes it much harder mentally and emotionally than the player who is still winning, albeit at a lower rate.  If you feel like you have been losing and that the plays you have been making have not been working, you are less likely to make the optimal play when the opportunity arises.

It has been proven that losses hurt twice as much as wins thrill.  This idea is very important when comparing more conservative and aggressive playing styles.  As a looser player it is much tougher to maintain your winrate because when you are losing it is tougher to play your A game AND you are involved in more situations.  Not only does losing cause you to play your B or even C game, where your decision making is worse, as a looser player, you are now making more of those bad decisions.

When playing poker in person, you get the opportunity to observe people for large amounts of time and you can see there are many players(often of the loose aggressive variety) who do very well when winning, but who, when losing, play the same way despite the fact that their edge is no longer there.  For example, let’s say it is profitable to open T3s on the button when everyone has folded.  Doing so requires that you value bet 2nd pair well, fold when someone has a bigger flush, call at the right time with draws and a host of other things.  When a loose aggressive player is playing well and winning, he might be able to do all of these things and to turn a profit.  However when he is not playing well, playing this hand might get him into situations where his errors compound and he is no longer able to make all of the correct decisions necessary to make this hand profitable.  If he continues to lose, his winrate will drop, he will win less frequently and play less than his A game more frequently, all of which will contribute to less winning and more frustration.

There are many reasons that it might be beneficial to play tighter, but I believe that the most important one is the reduction of your variance.  Since many players do not have an adequate bankroll to play in the stakes they normally play, increasing variance and lowering their winrate increases the risk of ruin if they happen to encounter a run of bad variance.  This will prevent otherwise winning players from being able to play(and therefore win) assuming they could always play their A game, which is a near impossibility when they are losing and low on funds.  Playing more conservatively will allow you to play your A game longer, since you will be winning more instead of losing.  In addition, playing tighter has the huge benefit of helping you to avoid situations that are close that will tend to become unprofitable if you are not playing your A game.

The end result is that reducing your variance and keeping your winrate high has important additional benefits like keeping your mind sharp and being in the positive frame of mind that will allow you to win even more money.

My name is Jason Schlachter and I used to have the greatest job in the world until I was fired by the government 2 years ago.  I was an internet poker player.  Playing poker on the internet challenged me and pushed my limits.  Each day I woke up excited at the prospect of being the best I could be and through my hard work, I was one of the most successful internet players.  Not only was I successful in my job, but I took pride in the fact that I could provide for my family, and I loved the flexibility that allowed me to never miss spending time with them.  It has been 2 years since the government has prevented me, as well as my colleagues and other aficionados from playing poker on the internet.  Now, despite the fact that the law that was passed in 2006 making internet poker illegal has since been ruled NOT to apply to games of skill (like poker), and the proliferation of casinos everyplace in the US (including lottery and horse racing on the internet)the government continues to prevent internet poker sites from operating in the US and no longer allows me to pursue my chosen profession.

It took me a very long time to be able to admit to people that I played internet poker professionally, because some people did not understand the skill involved and therefore looked down on me, asked me when I was going to do something real with my life and called it gambling.  In reality, playing poker professionally is actually a bit like being a professional chess player and a bit like being a stock trader.  Like playing chess, it requires  thousands of hours of study to determine what the best moves are in different situations and when to use them.  You must be able to consider what your opponents are thinking and their thought processes as well as to remain in complete control of your emotions at all times.  As in stock trading, it is necessary to analyze situations in real time and to have the ability to make quick, calculated and rational decisions, often for a lot of money.  Despite what many people believe, it is in fact nothing like playing craps or the lottery.  You are competing against other players, not the casino, and your skill has a large effect on the outcome.  In fact, as someone who has played nearly 8 million hands in his lifetime, an amount which would take more than 300,000 hours in the casino, I can assure you, there is little gambling involved.

I began to take poker more seriously in 2003, when I was senior at the University of Pennsylvania.  I had played poker with friends on occasion and realized that there was a lot of skill and that I could get better by studying the mathematics of the game.  As a former runner and tennis player, I enjoyed the competition inherent in poker, was looking to improve and was willing to work at it.  I went to Atlantic City once or twice, but between taking 5 classes and writing my thesis, I did not have time to make the trip, so I decided to deposit a few dollars in an online poker site.  I began playing for pennies and soon I was trying to learn the best way to beat my online opponents too.  Often this required working out solutions away from the table and my geeky, math loving, solution based self loved it.  When I graduated, I moved back home and was looking for jobs during the day, and playing poker at night.  Before too long, I was making far more money playing poker then I could if I had gotten the jobs I was seeking, so I decided to continue.

In September of 2006, on the last day before Congress would break for the election, Bill Frist and John Kyl, two extremely conservative Republicans tacked on the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act(UIGEA) to The SAFE Port Act.  This bill made it a crime to process payments to online poker sites according to the 1961 Wire Act.  Despite the fact that no one on the Senate-House Committee had seen the final language in the UIGEA, it did not matter, because it was attached to The SAFE Port Act, which had to pass.  After this bill was passed, the European Union and Antigua filed lawsuits and won damages against the United States as a result of this law violating free trade agreements.

In 2009, New York and Illinois requested clarification of the UIGEA from the Department of Justice(DOJ).  In April of 2011, the DOJ took action to shut down the sites that were still operating in the US, ignoring the request for clarification over whether operating a site was actually illegal.  It was not until December 2011 when the DOJ finally admitted that the 1961 Wire Act did not apply to poker, which made their attempts to close the internet poker market in 2006 and 2011 wrong.

In fact, before the UIGEA, the internet poker market in the US was operating well and in the open.  Since 2006, poker has moved into a grey market and players who want to play have been forced to deal with disreputable companies, delays in payment and even the possibility of not getting paid.  When the US government shut down the poker sites in 2011, the reputable site that I played on, paid me, as well as everyone else immediately, but the players on Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were not so lucky.  The government has sold the company and has said that they will pay the players the money that is owed but to date has not done so and has shown no plans to.  This is very unfortunate for many people who needed these funds for living and working expenses, who were not only fired by the government, but have also had their money trapped by them.

Since 2011, I have been forced to travel to Atlantic City and Pennsylvania in order to support myself and my family.  Not only has my income been reduced substantially but my expenses have also risen. In addition, since I live in New York City, nearly a 2.5 hour drive from there, I cannot commute and must stay over and be away from my wife for extended periods of time.  While many of my colleagues opted to move out of the country to work playing internet poker, I did not feel as though this was a reasonable option for me.

The government has admitted that they have erred in this matter and have lost in the WTO regarding internet gambling.  I believe they are hypocrites for continuing to push the lottery, horse racing and for allowing casinos to be built everyplace, while denying people the ability to gamble in their own homes.  I am asking that the government finally do what is right and just and to restore internet poker to people who want to play.

Sincerely,

Jason Schlachter

I am often asked if I have played or planning to play in the World Series of Poker, and when I respond that I don’t play many tournaments these days, people ask me why.  It is normally to tough to explain in a few sentences,  so here is the complete explanation:

The main reason I don’t play tournaments is because over time, I think I will make more money per hour playing cash games.  I know the rate that I can win at playing in cash games, and roughly the rate I can win at playing tournaments and I prefer to get paid more per hour and to reduce the variance inherent in tournaments.

Tournaments have an incredible amount of volatility build into their structure. The payouts are extremely top heavy, precisely at the time when stacks are shortest and the amount you can do is limited.  These factors lead to a lot THE MOST variance in the results compared to all other forms of poker.

For example, if you play in a $1000 buyin tournament with 1000 players, 1000 times(this would take you ~3 years if playing every single day) with a return on investment of 50%.   After 3 years of playing every day, you would expect to win $1.5 million($500,00 of which is profit).  Not bad, right?  Not exactly, and the problem is that your sample size is not nearly big enough.The total number of times you would be in the top 10, assuming you are 50% better than the field is 15, over the course of 3 years.  Considering prize payouts for the top 5 spots would be $220,000, $132,000, $80,000 $67,000, and $55,000, one time where you come in 5th instead of 1st costs you $165,000.  Now, if you are looking to make on average $167,667 a year($500,000/3 years) that loss of $165,000 really stings!  With a sample size of 15, if you are unlucky a few times in the wrong spots, you can not make any money for several years.  Note that that one 5th instead of a 1st in the tournament drops your return on investment by 1/3 from 50% to 34%.  If you want to know how easy it is to experience variance in a sample size of 15, try flipping a coin 15 times.  Essentially 3 years of playing every day can, and will, come down to how you do in a 15 time sample size where variance is high and playability is low.

After several hundred hours of playing cash games, it is easy to know how I stand relative to the other players skill wise and am able to narrow down my hourly rate to a reasonable confidence interval.  In the above paragraph I showed that after 3 years of playing tournaments, you would still not have any idea of your return on investment. Noah Stephens-Davidowitz has done some excellent using different return on investment and variance among tournament players. http://www.nsdpoker.com/2011/01/mtt-pros/.

The other reason I don’t play tournaments is because of the inflexibility.  I must be at the casino ready to play at the time designated, whether I feel like it or not.  I am going by someone else’s schedule, and the ability to not do that is one of the reasons I enjoy my job so much.  I cannot chose when I stop and start playing which is an important edge that separates me from the competition.  I often play a long time when I am winning and am feared at the table, and stop when I am not doing well and my image is poor.  Most players play a long time when losing and stop quickly when winning, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do.  I play in games when I am feeling well against opponents who generally play worse than I do which is a good recipe for success.

Tournaments do not allow me to apply some of the other skills at which I excel.  In tournaments, your seat and table are assigned and cannot be changed. I cannot leave if my game is not good or move to a more profitable seat or a more profitable table. The ability to change tables and sit in good position relative to bad players is very important to long term profitability and can be a big advantage in cash games if done correctly.

While there are small adjustments that you can make deep into a tournament, many actions, especially when your stack is small, are automatic.  As Tommy Angelo has much more eloquently stated in his discussion of reciprocality, the difference between what you do and what your opponents do is what allows you to make money, and if situations become automatic and there is less room for your skills to become applicable.

I have played single table tournaments, multitable tournaments(like on ESPN) as well as many forms of cash games throughout my poker career and I have determined that the benefits of playing cash games (mostly no limit hold’em, pot limit omaha and omaha eight or better) outweigh that of tournaments.  I still do play tournaments from time to time, either because I have a yearning to play or because one piques my interest.  I think the decision to concentrate on cash games is fairly clear cut for me at the moment but I am always evaluating my options.

It is easy to get frustrated when playing poker in person,  you are dealt only about 30 hands per hour, which means you are rarely dealt a premium hand.  There is little to do between hands but think about the hands you have played and how you are doing, evaluate the other players, and make small talk.   Since the solution to each hand requires a complete analysis of a new set of variables., the best outcome for me is one that I can look a back on away from the table and be happy with the result.  If you are not doing well during a session, frustration can build and can close off your mind to certain possibilites.  Things like “I never flop a set” or “I always lose with pocket kings” can be at the forefront of your mind and crowd out the optimal way to play each hand.  Your can begin to believe that actions you take at the poker table, which you know are incorrect in a vacuum are correct.  The most well known of these is known as tilt, where you get frustrated and play sub optimally to the point of giving away money.  I often remind myself at the table that I am capable of anything at any time and to open my mind up to figuring out the best answer, even if I have never done it before.

Often a hand can come up where you are planning to do something, but then the action in front of you changes your perspective.  This is one reason is why it is important not to look at your cards until the action is on you.  That way you are able to independently evaluate what is happening without being clouded by your hand.  If you look at your hand before you have seen the action in front of you, you are more reliant on your heuristics and are more locked into your solution set.  For example, if there is a raise and you look down and see K9o, you might decide that it is not worthy of calling a raise and decide to fold.  You might miss the fact that there are 5 callers and it has now become a profitable squeeze opportunity.

In addition, looking at your hand before the action gets to you makes you become more vested in the outcome.  For example, if you look down and see JJ, you might get excited that you have a great hand.  Then when there is a raise and a reraise in front of you, you will be frustrated that you have a good hand and cannot play.  Instead, if you saw the raise and reraise in front of you, you know that you will only be able to play QQ or better.  Thus, you see JJ and fold with the same feelings as if you had 72o, keeping your emotional balance.

This makes paying attention to every hand extremely critical.  You never know when something you see will allow you to win a big pot because you can now act on the information you have discovered.  What this means is that every action a player takes has to be analyzed.  Did he bet, call or raise?  Did he show a hand down on the river?  Did he call or bet?  These are just a few of the many questions that need to be asked and answered about every hand played, categorized and then analyzed for use in future hands. It may seem like tedious work, but I look at each unique situation as a problem to solve and it’s a game to see if I can get it right.  It’s really fun to be right, and the bonus is that you win money when you are!

Here is a hand where the above came into play:

Someone limps, I limp behind with AQo and the cutoff raises to $40m, which he had been doing frequently and with a lot of hands, the button calls, the BB calls, the other limper calls, and I call.  So it’s 5 way to the flop for $40.  Earlier in the session the big blind turned trips and checked it from out of position on the turn hoping that someone would bet so that he could checkraise.  I had seen him do this and filed it away for later.

The flop comes KhKc4d and everyone checks the flop.

The turn is the 7s and the BB now leads $60. Using the information that I had gleaned earlier, I thought that he was likely to check trip kings on the turn.  Plus his bet looked like he was trying to win the pot cheaply with a weak hand.  So I raised to $180 and he folded.  Note that it cost me $180 to win $260 so it doesn’t have to work all that often to be correct.   He sighed and showed me 8h8c and folded saying “looks like you have a king.” I didn’t reply, but filed away “makes weak bet with weak hand in multiway pots on paired boards, and will fold to a raise” to his folder in my head for later use.

The kid on my right was very friendly, knew a bunch about the game and was trying to play well.  He probably played ok, but made a massive error that showed some of his inexperience.  The hand goes like this:

There was a raise to $60 and 4 callers and he calls out of the big blind with 88.  There is $300 in the pot and everyone has about $3000 on the table.

The flop comes 8h7h6c.  The kid leads out $300, 3 players call and the small blind shoves for about $3000.  He was not a very good player and would often have the nuts(best possible hand) there, T9 or another straight, but there was also the possibility he was overvaluing something.

If we assume his opponent always has the straight there is $1800 in the pot and it costs him $2700 to call.  He needs to have 37.5% equity to make a call correct, and PokerStove says that he has 35% equity so if he “knows” the guy has the straight, a call costs him about $180.  The kid assumed he always has the straight and folded.

The problem is that his opponent doesn’t always have a straight there, and if he doesn’t our   equity(share of the pot) ranges from 95% to 60%, making a fold horrible.  If another person calls, then a fold is also very bad since he is getting better odds to draw to a full house.

The kid folded and two other players went allin.  Another player had 9h6h and someone had T9, and the original raiser also had T9.  That leaves him with 31% equity in a $12,000 pot where he needed 22% to break even, so it cost him 9% of $12,000 or ~$1000.

The kid and I were talking and he was telling me that he made a good fold and asked if I agreed and I didn’t say anything.  The way the situation unfolded was rare but it was an expensive mistake, and one that showed a need to understand some of the more complicated math of the game.