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.

http://www.si.com/tennis/2016/06/29/wimbledon-roger-federer-marcus-willis-best-moments-highlights

http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/marcus-williss-very-brief-wimbledon-fairy-tale

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.

They could not give a time frame for PokerStars coming to New Jersey, since their licensing is still being processed, but as  soon as it is (I have read sometime in October) they expect to hit the ground running.  They have experience in implementing single country PokerStars brands and they expect to be able to improve on many of the areas which the current sites lack, namely depositing problems, software malfunctions, customer service and the rewards programs.

With so many of the major problems improved, I believe that they will be are able to pick up significant market share and I look forward to playing on PokerStars New Jersey as soon as it becomes available.  I hope that they can show other states what is possible when internet gaming is run the right way and thereby encourage internet poker to be more accepted in the United States.

The Spartan Race was super fun and a really great experience.  I would definitely do another one!

The course was very hilly and at every point on the course, it felt like I was either a)climbing up a hill b)trying not to fall down a hill or c)doing an obstacle.  I think the course was steeper than hiking up Table Mountain (which I did 5 years ago) and very, rocky.  I had to be constantly vigilant to be sure that I stepped down correctly and, for me, it made it more about completing the race, than actually racing.

I was proud that I was able to complete most of the obstacles and that my hard work paid off in a few important spots like climbing the cargo net and getting over the 8 foot wall.  I will recap some of the obstacles along with my predictions.

I will finish(98%) I was really happy to finish and it was pretty cool to be in the top 18% of competitors.  The chances of me finishing were probably lower than estimated given given the rocky uphills and downhills.

Rope Climb(30%) I made it about halfway up the rope, and my lack of practice really hurt me.  I think that if I was used to the climbing technique, and to the doing the descent, I could have made it.  Next time I will!

Monkey Bars(50%) This year they decided to make the monkey bars uneven, which I had not trained for, and do not think I could have done.  As it was, my hand slipped so I did 30 burpees and was on my way.

Monkey Net Cargo(15%)  It didn’t seem to be as hard as I thought, though I only made it about 3 lengths before my hand slipped and I fell into the mud.  I think I actually underestimated my chances of completing it.

Barbed Wire Crawl(100%) It wasn’t wasn’t as long or bad as I thought it was going to be and I think I moved through it pretty efficiently.

80lb Stone Carry(75%)  The stone was heavy and awkward, but once I got it up, I was able to get it across and back without too much trouble.

Wall Climb (80%) I needed every one of my practice pullups to get myself out of the mud and up the wall.  It was a great feeling though, because my hard work paid dividends and I pushed myself hard.

Spear Throw (30%) I had one throw and I missed.  More burpees.

Other Obstacles: The Cargo Net Climb was really high(also overlooking a massive downhill) and I am not a fan of heights.  I moved slowly and was extremely careful not to fall.  I am interested to see how the picture of me taken in mid-climb looks.

The Sandbag Carry was straight uphill and heavy.  Probably the toughest obstacle because it required continuous perseverance with a heavy burden.

The Log Carry was big and awkward(I choose my log poorly) and I dropped it, nearly breaking the feet of the people behind me.  The hill wasn’t so steep though and the course was short, so it wasn’t too bad.

The 6 foot, 7, foot and 8 foot walls were pretty easy and I was so happy that I was able to complete them without any assistance.  I made the 8 foot wall by my fingertips and was able to pull myself up.

The organization of the race is top notch.  The route you need to follow is obvious in order to register for the race, get your number, timing chip etc.  There were plenty of showers, changing areas and tents all of which were closely located and easy to find.  The course was well marked with signs and there was no way to get lost.   However, because of the staggered start (200 people leave every 15 minutes), and the one person width trails that caused bottlenecks at a few points, it didn’t feel as much like a race for me as I had hoped it would.

As Coach Flex said, “Now that you have one under your belt, you know what you need to work on and how to get better.  Then you get after it.”  Good words to end this blog with!

http://www.wnyc.org/story/online-gambling-in-the-garden-state-gets-off-to-a-slow-start/

While watching NFL Countdown today, which was previewing the games, the commentators were discussing how to beat the Denver Broncos.  They unanimously agreed  that what the opposing team (Dallas in this case) needed to do was to score more quickly and speed up the pace of the game.  I believe this is the decidedly wrong answer for two reasons.

Firstly, assuming that Denver is the better team, which the commentators agreed on, Dallas would want each team to have fewer possessions(not more) in the hopes that one outlier (fumble, interception return or 90 yard play) for them would be the difference in the game. Dallas would not want to score quickly and allow each team to have more possessions, which would enable Denver’s (and Peyton Manning’s) skill advantage to have more opportunities to shine through.  To use another sports analogy, in baseball, anyone can win a one game playoff, but over the course of 162 games, the best team usually wins its division.

The second reason why this might not be an optimal strategy for Dallas(and other Denver opponents) is that they are not accustomed to playing at a faster pace and taking more chances on offense.  Attempting to run plays that have little chance of success (though may go for huge yardage once in a while) means the chances of overall success(touchdowns) go down, and then the chance of success(winning the game) goes down even faster when you increase the number of possessions.

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.

Firstly, live play is usually significantly deeper than on the internet.  This means that the river bet is going to be more significant amount live and you often will have had to announce your strength to your opponents earlier in order to be betting that amount.  The combination of these two effects means that your opponent will more often fold when a lot of money goes into the pot.  While this was not always the way people reacted in the past, I believe it is the way that the games are trending.

Secondly, on the internet the pot size is right in front of you, whereas in live play, you must make an effort to count it.  This means that while people have a general idea of the pot size being small, medium or large, they don’t know it exactly and thus a 2/3 pot size bet to them means less than it would online.  In addition, live opponents (especially the poorer playing ones) are more influenced by the amount you bet (also being small, medium or large) then the amount relative to the pot.  So, if the pot is “big” to them you will be called with roughly the same range for anything they perceive to be “big” bet.

So how should this affect your strategy?  I think that when value betting, you should be betting the most your opponent will call and that in live poker, the amount is inelastic once it has become “big.”  When value betting against certain opponents, you will have to be content with not getting their entire stack.  For an extreme example, if your opponent will not call more than $500 on the turn or river, then you are often best off betting $500 on both streets, instead of trying to set him up for a 2/3 pot size bet on the river(which he won’t call if it is more than $500).

Also, I think that you can push your opponents off hands by betting amounts that push them out of their comfort zones.  For example, in a limped 4 way pot, if the flop comes 922 and I lead out from the big blind and get called by one player.  I check the turn 4 and he checks too.  I can make a “big” bet on the river and win the pot most of the time, since when my opponent does not bet the turn, he doesn’t have a “big” hand and thus won’t call a “big bet” with it.

I hope this stirred up some thoughts on bet sizing, and I would love to hear what others think about the differences between live and online.