There's a long time

I have not posted since a long time, and some of you have mailed to me just to ask me if I was dead (it's an image of course).
I have not played poker for a long time, only because I'm working hard, very hard on my poker room project. Actually, I'm creating a small company which will be specialized in high availability services.

This company will have 4 activities:
- Delegation of IT people for big companies
- Computer security,
- Web hosting
- hardware and software counselling for small companies

We are building an infrastructure for the Web hosting activity. It will be composed with very small rooms (20 computers) of cheap PCs and several SDSL lines for each room.
Each room will cost less than 15 000 $ of investment and will cost less than 25 000$ each year to be effective 24 hours a day.
With such little figures, It's a big challenge.

This first room will be configured just to be the most effective solution against hackers. To achieve this, we will use open source softwares well known for their robustness.
Step by step we are building each component carefully having in mind the hacking problem.

Moreover, because some of our friends are very knowledgeable people in hacking, we will improve the overall solution by adding our own shield system. When all this will be achieved, we will organize a hacking challenge with 10.000 $ of prize for the winner.

Why to do this ?

If one day we build a poker room, we would like to be sure that no one could be able to break our systems and take money in the players accounts. I'm not sure that actually all the poker rooms can guaranty this.

Good Day yesterday

If you want to look at the biggest list of poker weblogs, just go to Tao of Poker written by Dr Pauly. His list and the time he spend just to publish everyday is really impressive. What a passion my friend.

Poker is my passion. I always try to show poker to friends and make them discover the fun of this game. I organize online showrooms some nights and some game at home with my nice chips for free.

Yesterday was one of this online session. I was playing on a NL 5/10 table on pokerstars just to show my friends how this game is difficult at high level.

With this group I had a previous demonstration friday the 23th on NL 1/2 tables, and I played play money games with them on wenesday or tuesday (I don't remember).
All this games were on pokerstars, because this is the site I play actually a lot, but once or twice in a week I play on other sites as well.

So yesterday I was playing on pokerstars and in the same time I was connected on ICQ just to comment each hand and give them some hints.
In fact after a 4 hours period, I finished winning 1390$ which is an incredible score for me. Of course I had luck, a lot of it. Whatever it was a pleasantfull show for me and for them because they finished the night with a lot of enthusiasm for this game. They will continue to play 'play money' games for quite a long time, because they understood that poker is a complex game.

With the results I had yesterday, I gained confidence to take some other shoots at this limit. This month I will have won a little more than 3500$ playing 64 hours which is very good for me.

Can I do it again in the next few months ?
Can I survive among the NL 5/10 players during the next few months ?
Can I reach a 50$ rate per hour level for a long time ?

These are questions I will try to answer cautiously in the next few months.

Clever guy

I don't know who is this guy but he has made a very clever list of weblogs. Just have a look of it.
http://pokernerd.blogspot.com/

Results for July and a new Idea

Hello all

We are neally at the end of July and my results are good.
I made more than 2000$  this month playing neally 60 hours at poker tables and averaging a 35$ per hour rate. I'm happy about that. Morevover I have 65% of winning games at NL 1/2 and 70% of winning games at 2/4. I lost 420$ at NL 3/6 and I won 100$ at NL 5/10.
I paid more than 750$ in rakes for the poker room. So this month is a good month for me.

Since a week, I proposed to some friends the idea of creating our own online poker room. All those friends are computer guys, some of them working for an IT company, others being at school. Creating a online poker room is a hard task, You need a very high availability and the solutions to achieve this, are all but easy.

My friends (6 total) are not poker players, so I teached them Texas Holdem, played in front of them during 3 hours on pokerstars and  give them some advices. They started to play on play money tables on some online rooms.

I ask them to test different online poker rooms assigning them different ones.  My goal with them is to let them play during the next 2 months just for them to understand what is a poker room. I do believe that you are a better poker programmer when you are a good poker player.
We have built a training program for the next 2 months just to let them improve.

During the next 2 months, I will study carefully all the aspects of creating a poker room, and especially the IT part of it. Creating cheap High availability solutions is difficult. Robustness, fastness at the lowest cost is hard to achieve.

For the financial part of this business, let have some numbers suppose there are 10 000 players each hour on internet on a site. Suppose that only 60% of them are playing on real money tables and that a player pay 7$ per hour to play. It gives a total earnings per year of more than 380 millions dollars.

Now for the costs. Suppose that you need 3 sites somewhere in the world for redundancy. Each site being equipped with 300 big PCs. You need big routers, big leased lines, a building for each site. Suppose that you need 70 people per site to have 24/24 hours support paying them an average of 50 000 $ a year (very good average salary).
  
Investment per site   1 500 000 $
Annual costs per site    5 000 000 $

so a grand total for the costs of 15 millions $ per year and 5 millions of investment.
then you will have to pay for marketing.

Suppose you spend 100 millions dollars for marketing per year.  
It gives you 280 millions $ of margin.

I definitely want to try to have part of this.

Now suppose that we only have one site and that the software is created to reduce the total costs of administration by redundancy everywhere.
To which level  can we reduce our costs per year ?

Probably less than 500 000 $ per year. At this price you don't have big marketing, and hire only 5 employees. You have machines, large broadband wire and a building, telephone, Fax,
and secure stuffs and what is priceless you have time to increase your number of customers.

Ok but we need a software, and we need a good one a one which we'll need to improve ourself, so we have to build it. How much time do we need to build it. 2 years part time.  1 year full time. 1 000 000 $ dollars just to create it and 500 000 $ per year to improve it. 

 
Can I find 3 000 000 dollars for the software company (6 years of creation and improvement) and  4.5 million $ (initial investment and 6 years of hosting) for the company which will host the servers ?

good question.

 

 

Results for July

Using poker tracker a lot, these are my results for the 14 first days of July

Totals 54 Sessions

NL(4$) 5 sessions ----- 4 winning sessions
NL(2$) 49 sessions ---- 31 winning sessions

True Win Rate 31.05 hrs
Hands 3447
$Won 40.40

Of course I'm happy about these results but what they don't say is that I had 3 periods during these 15 days. The first one lasting 7 days I played my normal game, having a 35$ per hour rate.
Then I started to slowplay some hands, and my rate per hour falled to 20$ (same as it was last month playing only one table), then understanding that I was going nowhere, I played more agressively going all in sometimes. My rate per hour climbed again to 40.40$.

I have paid 399$ of rake during this period for 31 hours, so a 12.87 rake per hour and a 0.1157 rake per hand. Quite expensive.

There is an excellent article written by a weblog buddy about the different types of poker players in rounders. I'm actually playing to make money. I need some. I try to earn 2000$ per month playing 60 hours. It's less fun than the way I played before, but it's quite effective.

If some of you have a comment on the rate per hour, please let me know. Do you guys do a lot better ? which amount ? playing on which tables ?

You should read as I do, the other weblogs. They contain definitely some gems in it. For example the 13th of july's post in grubby's weblog demonstrates clearly the concept of time dimension I explained several posts ago. Another lesson from this post is Let the other guys think you are the fish, at the end you will have the money (another of my favorite concept).

Tough Hands

Sunday 4th of July, I was playing at WPT in Paris for a cheap tournament (NL 55 euros)
I was doing quite well, having sized the majority of my opponents and leading the table with 250 chips (we started with 100 chips).

Then came the following hand.

I'm in the big blind. I have J8o.
No one raise so I have a freeroll.
5 players in the hand.

The Flop J85

The small blind checks.
Of course, I'm happy with such a flop, so I check because I know that someone will make a bet and I will check raise.

The guy just after me bets 10. Ok it's what I expected.
A very tough girl raises it 50. A solid player raises all in.

The small blind folds
uh oh, I'm in trouble. I think quiet a long time and because, I respect both players who raised, I fold.

The guys who bet 10 folds. The girl calls the raiser.
At the end, she will show pocket jacks and the other guys will muck his hand.



Same tournament, a while after the preceding hand.


Pocket 8's. I bet 6 preflop.
A guy calls me.

Flop J64

I check, the guy bets 30. I think for a while about this hand. I suppose that if he wanted me in the pot, he would have bet less so I call.

Turn 4

I check. He goes all in for 50. I'm in trouble. There is 125 in the pot, and I have to put 50 to call. I'm now really afraid of a jack in his hand, but I'm committed and the call won't kill me. I call again. Just after my call, he says "nice call" and he leaves the table. He turns his cards face up, he has A8. The river will not save him.

Those 2 hands were tough. If you have a comment please let me now.

Stats for June

After a rocket start, I lost my discipline and made some pretty bad plays (calling someone who is not a bluffer, bluffing at the wrong time). Whatever I finished June by having a 21$ per hour rate playing mostly NL 1/2 during 50 hours. I took some shots at bigger limits 2/4, 3/6 and 5/10, but I lost money at these limits so I stopped playing in it.

July has begun and I play mostly 2 tables NL 1/2. This way I try to increase my winning rate. Even if I have some money for myself, it's fully invested in some small promising companies so I definitely need some fresh money for my new project (bakeries). And my best way to achieve this goal is to win it at poker tables or to sell my shares which I don't want.

By playing 2 tables at same time, I try to reach a 35$ per hour rate. It's not easy for me. I'm pretty sure that some players do far better on internet, but it's hard for me just to achieve it.

Another change, I made in my games is: I stopped playing being tired. Now I always play after a good rest. I have observed that my results were far better this way.
So I go to bed early and I play when I wake up. Most of the time I wake up at 5 am and I play for 2 hours before going to work.

Moreover I use poker tracker intensively to track record, to improve my own game and to have some useful insights on the other players. However I have a line on the play of my adversaries long before I start using poker tracker in a session, just by observing them.

So for July the goal is to be the more efficient as Nike said it:
'Just do it'

Poker and Time Dimension

Today we will explore one of my favorite concept about poker: Time Dimension.
When you play at mid or higher limits, players often have a line on you very quickly. They remember what cards you play in particular situation, and when you bet. This capability can be used to your own advantage to trap them. Let me show you an example.

This morning, I played on table entering short stack with 20 big bets. I played very few hands but agressively. My first hand played was AJ. I raised preflop. Another guy reraised, I went all in. I had AJ, he had 66. A jack, with 2 queens on the flop and a 6 on the turn. I had to rebuy. I put another 20 big bets. Next hand played 44, a bet preflop, reraised by a guy, and all-in from me, called by the guy. He had AQ and nothing hit the board and I doubled. Few hands later, AJ again played agressively before the flop and called by someone. Bet on the flop, the other guy folded.
Some hands later, AQ in hand. I called a raise preflop. KQ8 on the flop. K on the turn and a blank on the river. I won the hand showing 2 pairs Kings and Queens.
Then pocket 8 with which I called a raise of 3 big blind (ok not a clever move but I do it sometimes). Nothing on the flop, I folded the flop's bet.

Finally pocket AA. I put 3 big bets, a guy after me doubled my raise, I called. Most of the time I go all in with such a hand, but I thought about slowplaying the hand so I just called. Flop AKJ. Perfect for me. I raised half the pot. The other guy reraised me 1.5 pot. Thinking some time about it, I went all in. Thinking a great time, he called my all in. Turn blank, River blank.

He had pocket Jacks, and his set of Jacks was beaten by my set of Aces.

I talked about the hand with him. He thought I had A9, AT, AJ, AQ or AK because I didn't reraised preflop and just called. On the flop he put me on top pair with the first bet and 2 pairs after my all in. He said that he had been trapped by the 2 hands he saw where I called the flop.

This is a perfect example of poker as a game where Time Dimension should be used intensively.
Of course, this one was perfect for me, but even if I had lost this hand, it would be a perfect example.

Next time, I will try to show you really bad plays in the first moves which lure the opponents giving you a shot to win a lot. These plays work well in mid limits (NL 2/4).