ParkaP

I have been in contact with RIO customer service multiple times. I dragged out my old laptop and can play videos from it. But it is a major nuisance to use two laptops. I only brought the old one with me to CR as backup, and in case I needed any files off of it for various purposes. My intent is to not use that old laptop unless absolutely necessary.

So it is not Costa Rica, or the distance away, that is the problem. It is something about my new laptop. A driver missing. Flash player (if that is used, which no one will tell me). Something technical. Customer service essentially gave up.

My last email to customer service goes unanswered. All I am asking for is insight into the technology RIO uses to stream video. This problem is eminently fixable.

Please respond to my emails and let's get this fixed.

I have to say I am disappointed in the support I have received to date. Slow responses (at least a day). I've had to prompt once to get any response, and now no response to my latest email sent more than two days ago. This doesn't bode well for new poker site if can't even support this site.

Please do better and help me to fix this!

Thank you.

This is awesome.

So many messages that I doubt I will read them all. But in my opinion reasonable rake for micro players needs to be a priority if the dream is to be kept alive.

For the last 13 months I tracked the rake I paid at Bovada now Ignition. 99.9% of hands I played over that time frame were NL25 Zone Poker. The rake there for NL25 is almost identical to PokerStars (at least the last time I checked so if this changed in 2016 [doubtful] then perhaps not any longer).

Across the 382K hands I played the average effective rake was 7.51 bb/100. The low in a given month was 6.67 bb/100 and the high was 8.38 bb/100. In no month did I play less than 19,000 hands. These rake calculations are good and valid.

7.51 is usurious but more importantly it drives recreational and hobby players away from the game. It is nigh on impossible for a recreational player to have any chance of success versus such a rake structure. And people aren't dumb. They get this. And they quit playing.

For example, the rake structure at Bovada/Ignition for NL50 is so usurious that NL50 Zone Poker has exactly zero players all day every day until late in the evening on weekdays and on weekends, and even then there are often zero players. People typically look at Bovada/Ignition as a very soft pool and I'm sure they're right. But there are good players, too, and they almost never start up NL50 Zone Poker (it's a good bet that only good, confident players open the action in an empty "zone").

FWIW, I just last week relocated to Costa Rica to be able to play international sites. So pretty soon here I will be on PokerStars, Full Tilt and maybe Party Poker. If RIO sets up a poker site I will definitely play there.

Same pool until Sep 30, then we'll see. But honestly, it seems softer to me now than it was prior to the sale. Perhaps they're bringing in new players somehow. But it seems softer right now.

Seems to me playing on Ignition now that the player pool is at least as soft, maybe softer, than before Bovada Poker moved over. We'll see if that continues.

I am a little surprised there hasn't been more said here about the Pokerstars “Comprehensive Plan for an Enhanced PokerStars Experience” (CPEPE). Perhaps people are still digesting the news and trying to sort out what it will really mean to poker at PokerStars and for the online poker ecosystem more broadly.

In full disclosure, I don't (can't) play PokerStars because I'm in the US. However, if all goes according to plan I intend to move abroad next year for a variety of reasons, one of which is to be able to play online poker at the best sites in the world. PokerStars, with or without the CPEPE changes, is surely at the top of that list and it is my hope to want to play there in 2016.

And I did play PokerStars before Black Friday, albeit at micro stakes. Perhaps my perspective has some value because of that. As a player then who won $3.50 on a pokerstars.net freeroll and worked up from NL2 to NL10 and $163 by Black Friday I know something of “the dream” of climbing from nothing to something, and the ultimate dream of climbing to high stakes.

I thought it might be useful to take a look at the specifics of what is in the CPEPE, and also what it seems to me is missing. After all, “CP” equals “Comprehensive Plan” but it doesn't seem very comprehensive to me.

PokerStars states that the objectives of the CPEPE are “to enhance the playing experience and to re-emphasize the fun and social aspects of online poker while attracting and retaining more players to the game.” I think we can all agree that those are laudable objectives. The question becomes, of course, whether that stated intent is met by “the plan.”

They mention that a new VIP Club program, innovative new games, broad-based consumer marketing campaigns, investments in research and development to bring new innovations, and limiting certain software programs will all help to “put the poker ecosystem on the right tracks to deliver growth for years to come.”

However, the only one of these they detail is the new VIP Club program. An uproar has ensued with hundreds of pages of comments on 2+2, including from Ansky and sauce123, a Joey Ingram podcast with Ansky, twitter messages from many well known poker personalities, and a slew of other social media responses.

So why all the uproar?

Generally, I think the simplest answer to that is that poker players, especially “regs” but some “recs” as well, see the VIP Club changes as nothing more than a money grab by PokerStars. And it's easy to see why. There is nothing tangible (as in computable) in the new VIP Club that is good for players. While the new system is simplified, which I think should be seen as good, that's not a tangible benefit for any players at any level. (Chromestar is actually increased by 10% but according to Ansky that is worth a whopping 30 cents per month so I still put that into being a non-tangible benefit).

Rather, the only tangible difference to the old VIP Club is reducing “rewards” for high-volume and high-stakes players. I put “rewards” in quotes because in reality the “rewards” we're talking about are really “rebates.” More commonly referred to in poker vernacular as “rakeback.” That is, earning back some of the rake you already paid. That's not a reward. That's a rebate on money already paid in.

As sauce123 argues in his 2+2 post, the reduction of rakeback for high-volume and high-stakes players reduces quite simply to an increase in rake. This is an over-simplification of sauce's 2+2 post and he may want to correct me but that's how I read it. And to me it's hard to see a rakeback reduction any other way than as an increase in rake.

More specifically on why the uproar, here's what the CPEPE says:

• VIP Club rewards will be capped at 30%, impacting mainly high-volume Supernova and Supernova Elite status players.
• PlatinumStar status will have up to a 10% reduction in their overall rewards.
• In recognition of the players who have already-earned Supernova Elite status or will by the end of the year, the benefits cap for players who earn Supernova Elite in 2015 will be 45% in 2016.
• No VPPs for pot-limit and no-limit games with blinds of $5-$10+, 8-game $10-$20+, and other limit games with blinds of $10-$15+. This change is implemented due to high transaction costs and operation costs of monitoring these games.

The last two bullets are where the uproar comes from. And with good reason, I think.

Regarding the third bullet, Supernova Elite (SNE) is a two-year VIP program. Achieve SNE in 2015, maintain it in 2016, and the benefits accrue for all of 2016. While I'm sure it's in PokerStars' Terms of Service (ToS) that they can change the VIP program whenever they want (I won't bother to look it up since it's immaterial to the argument), and they are therefore presumably on solid legal ground, it doesn't make it any less unethical or immoral. Players have been busting their butt to reach SNE in 2015 so they could lock in the advertised 70% rakeback in 2016. Announcing ten months into 2015 that you're reducing the SNE rakeback for 2016 to 45% after players busted their butts, and generated a ton of rake doing so, to achieve SNE in 2015 is unethical. Frankly, I think it's not outrageous to call it stealing.

There is huge and unanimous uproar on this, and rightly so. This must be re-instated to the full benefit for 2016. And given that PokerStars has now said that SNE goes away altogether for 2017, that's fine. But take care of the players who you encouraged for ten months of 2015 to achieve SNE by paying them in full in 2016.

I will be very surprised if PokerStars doesn't re-instate this to the full 70%. And if they don't then it says something very meaningful, and very bad, about Amaya as a corporation generally and about Amaya's stewardship of PokerStars specifically.

The last bullet above is also causing a lot of uproar, but not so much for the immediately obvious reason of no VPP's for playing high stakes. Rather, the uproar is more nuanced. The most common theory is that the high stakes players, especially on the cusp (for example, the NL1000 players) will move down in stakes so as to earn VPP's for their play. This in turn increases the NL600 player pool skill level, which pushes the least skilled NL600 players to NL500 and NL400, which in turn increases the player pool skill level at those stakes and pushes some of those players down to NL200. And so on. The net result being that the “recreational or new” player that PokerStars (and everyone) wants to have a more enjoyable experience will actually get crushed all the more quickly at the lower stakes, which is where the vast, vast majority of recreational and new players play.

I don't know if the above theory is right or not. To me, someone needs to do some modeling to determine if it makes actual sense that this would happen. But looking at PokerStars' rake tables, and considering for example that max rake at NL600 is $2.80 and at NL1000 is $3.00, and for SuperNova status you could get 30% rakeback (effectively capping NL600 rake at $2.06), it would seem that the theory could have some legs for some of the NL1000 player pool. But if you can beat the rake difference with a good NL1000 winrate then the effect would be lessened. At the very least, though, it seems the result will be that NL1000 also becomes all the more skilled since only the best players can beat it more than they can win with rakeback at NL600.

Another angle that I've not seen discussed specifically, though perhaps it is implied by definition, is that even continuing high stakes players at NL1000 and NL2000, for example, will likely play NL600 as well so as to achieve SuperNova status and a 30% rakeback. The new VIP Club program does not segregate rake from higher stakes games from rakeback benefits. It simply doesn't give VPP's for play at the higher stakes games. So achieving SuperNova status will require playing at NL600 or lower. This could mean even some of the higher higher stakes (for example, NL2500+) players also play NL600, which would really make the downward-pressing, skill level cascading effect go haywire. I just don't know if it's worth it to NL2500+ players because I don't know how much rake matters at those higher higher stakes.

All of this calls into question whether the VIP Club changes help to achieve PokerStars' stated goal “to make sure that every player at PokerStars -- advanced, recreational or new - can enjoy this game as much as we do.” If it really happens that high skills get pushed down to lower and lower stakes due to a cascading effect, which in turn causes recreational and new players to lose money faster, then it would seem that the law of unintended consequences will bite PokerStars, and the online poker ecosystem, right in the ass and the opposite of what is intended will happen.

So if PokerStars really wants to “put the poker ecosystem on the right tracks to deliver growth for the years to come” what is missing from the plan?

Well, the first thing missing is any details on what the third-party software restrictions and product innovations will be. While there is text in the CPEPE on these items there's no meat on the bone. And because there's no meat on the bone players such as Ansky rightly point out that one ought not conflate issues. The CPEPE looks an awful lot like cover for a money grab by PokerStars in large part because the only detailed information is how money will be taken from players and kept by PokerStars.

There are some clues on software restrictions. For example, “The new restrictions on third-party software will extend recent changes to our third-party software policy. Last month, we reduced data mining in Zoom!, restricted the use of heads-up displays, and limited the use of Spin & Go seating scripts.”

Players seem universally OK with restricting or even eliminating HUDs provided they can still get their hand histories so as to review their own play as well as to help detect bots and any other cheats. PokerStars needs to understand that there is not a lot of faith that their security team can catch bots. And whether they can or not, they should welcome help from the community of players. So hand histories are a must but HUDs are not. Players are also skeptical about PokerStars' ability to stop non-compliant players from using screen scrapers and HUDs on a second computer if they were to eliminate their use on PokerStars.

My own personal view is that eliminating HUDs actually helps the most advanced players. And that HUDs don't really give any advantage at all versus recreational or new players. Skilled players can spot recreational players a mile away with or without a HUD, know the player types and tendencies, and will typically have not much hand history versus them anyway, which lessens the usefulness of a HUD. Where HUDs are most useful is advanced player versus advanced player. All that said, there is a perception among recreational and new players that HUDs provide an advantage to advanced players versus them so restricting or eliminating HUDs seems to be universally acceptable.

As to seating scripts, they are almost universally hated. So if PokerStars can get rid of them then by all means do so. But there is no details on this other than one phrase of “limited use of Spin & Go seating scripts.”

When it comes to product innovation I think players are truly concerned that Amaya PokerStars just doesn't get it. Spin and Go's may be good for PokerStars, and players are all for PokerStars being very profitable so have at it. But let's not confuse that with the overall online poker ecosystem. So statements like “a standalone PokerStars branded app that we believe will bring a brand new twist to poker” and “Later in the year we're planning an even more bold take on poker that we believe will be very exciting” simply don't resonate without any details of what is being talked about.

Let's be clear. Poker to most players is NLHE and PLO. Period. Sure, players like other poker games, too, and it's great you can play some of them on PokerStars. I personally would love to see Open Face Chinese on PokerStars. But again, let's be clear. To have a healthy poker ecosystem the foundation is a healthy NLHE and PLO ecosystem. I think players are very concerned that Amaya doesn't get this.

What else is missing from the plan?

To me what is also missing from the plan is any relief to the lowest stakes players. The rake burden on low stakes is astronomical. While I can't play at PokerStars right now because I live in the US, I do play at Bovada, which for NL25 has a rake structure that is very similar to PokerStars. At NL25 at Bovada the rake is 5% with a cap of $2.00 for 5+ players. At PokerStars it's 4.5% with the same $2.00 cap. I've been tracking rake since Sep 1 and I have paid, on average 7.5 bb/100 across 78K hands. And for the month of October (33K hands) it was 8.4 bb/100.

To me it is patently absurd for PokerStars to claim they want to make the game enjoyable for recreational and new players and yet rake the games they play at these high levels.

This correlates to another thing that is missing from the plan, and that is feeding “the dream” that most continuing online poker players share. That dream is to start small and work your way up to high stakes. Sure, some perhaps many recreational and new players just play for fun. But I'll bet at least 25% of all recreational and new players share the dream of working their way up to the top.

But rake them to death at the start and they quit. They don't even know they just got raked to death but they did.

Have a VIP program that forces skilled players down in stakes and make lower and lower stakes harder and harder to beat, in a game that is progressively harder and harder to beat anyway, and recreational and new players quit. Not only are they raked to death but they're out-skilled to death before they could even take a breath.

I heard on a 2+2 podcast that Negreanu had said the average new player deposits $20 (but I couldn't find the actual quote from DN himself). If this is true, making that $20 last as long as possible is critical to keeping players in the ecosystem. Someone who loses it all in ten minutes is much less likely to come back than someone who manages to play poker with it for days and even beyond for the select few. Make that $20 last days and maybe that player comes back with $100 next time. But there is nothing in this plan for that new depositor. Nothing.

I'll leave it there for now as this is already twenty times longer than it should be. Maybe it will generate some discussion.

I've been reading up on this PokerStars move and (at least) two things are quite disturbing. First is the claim that this VIP system change will be better for 98% of the field yet the only level that gets better is ChromeStar, for which it's basically not any money anyway. The second is the breaking of a 2-year pact on SNE since they're gipping SNE players out of promised 2016 rakeback (70% down to 45%). If they really want to make it better for recreational players then it would seem that they have it backwards entirely since I've heard that the rake at low stakes is unbeatable at PokerStars.

But I can't speak about it in a totally educated manner since I can't play PokerStars because I'm in the US.

I'm wondering what the PokerStars rake is at NL25, the same stakes I play at Bovada, if anyone knows.

I only started tracking Bovada NL25 rake over the last 78K hands I've played and it's running at 7.54 bb/100 on average. FWIW, Bovada has no rakeback program at all.

I don't have a graph of the entire downswing as I got HM2 after I was already inside the downswing. But below is a graph of my entire time playing at Bovada.

The blue line is total bankroll. The downswing starts at roughly the 4/15/15 mark and ends roughly around 9/1/15. Since then my bankroll has jumped nicely, and is currently $1919.

This graph doesn't look so much like HM2 (or other HUD/HH) graphs since those have number of hands played on the x-axis, whereas this is by date. I keep a spreadsheet, including this graph, with a row for every day I play. I track my bankroll and how much I won or lost that day (and some other info). You can see from the graph the periods of time when I played more (like the last 6 months or so) because the data points are close together, and when I didn't play much (like Sep '14 - Mar '15) as the data points are farther apart.

Just to point out a couple of things in case you're curious. The orange line is from Bovada bonuses. So you can see at the far left where I earned my initial deposit bonus on my $100 deposit. In 2014 they ran some bonus deals where if you earned so many poker points in a week you could earn a bonus. (I don't know whatever happened to these bonus deals -- they were easy money but haven't seen it in awhile). They also have a 100BB bad beat bonus, which I have unfortunately got twice, and a 50BB royal flush bonus, which I also got twice.

You might also wonder what happened at the very beginning where there is a steep incline in the blue line. This was from binking a $2.20 MTT, which won me $164. Combined with the $200 of initial deposit bonus happening in the same time period it got my bankroll off to a nice jump.

In toto there is $384 of MTT profit in this graph (since is total bankroll) but I only play an occasional freeroll anymore, which is all poker points are useful for at Bovada. In all I've only played 72 MTT's in more than 2 years but it helps out with bankroll. I track that, too, and am in the money 22% of those MTT's, which is pretty good I think. But freeroll fields are surely quite soft.

Approximately 125,000 hands. Since the downswing ended I am up about $650, or 2600 big blinds, in approximately 78,000 hands. I am currently averaging 32,000 hands per month, a slight increase over the 4.5 month downswing period.

I think Bodog is the non-US equivalent to Bovada.

You're welcome. I just hope DFS becomes a forcing function for online poker. I don't play DFS precisely because it is a skill game and I devote that skill-gaining time to poker instead. Both should be legal.

Actually, I believe online sports betting and casino games should also be legal. While these are more pure gambling, especially casino games versus the House, the reality is people play them online from the U.S. anyway but at unregulated, offshore sites. For example, in my wanderings on the net regarding DFS I learned that we in the U.S. spend $93B a year on conventional sports betting, only about $6B of which is spent legally (e.g., via Vegas sports books). That dwarfs what is spent on DFS and online poker combined by about 20 to 1.

How stupid is our government? Pretty damn stupid. All presumably to save ourselves from ourselves. Land of the free, except we need a nanny telling us what we're allowed to do and not do. But people ignore the nanny anyway and just do it illegally. Unregulated. Untaxed. Yep, our government is pretty damn stupid.

I did a google search of: legality "online poker" "daily fantasy sports" and found this interesting CNBC article: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/02/online-poker-vs-daily-fantasy-which-creates-more-winners.html

An excerpt:

Pro poker player Andy Frankenberger believes daily fantasy is much more like gambling than online poker.

"A daily fantasy pro's competitive edge over a beginner is nothing compared to the edge of a poker pro versus a first-time poker player. Your decisions in daily fantasy can't be that bad when players' prices are efficiently set by the sites," he said.

Frankenberger spent 14 years on Wall Street trading equity derivatives before becoming a two-time World Series of Poker champion and World Poker Tour player of the year. "It's similar to how there's no bad pick in sports betting if the lines are set efficiently," he said. "But in poker, players assign their own values to each hand, and as such, the skilled player stands to gain from making better decisions." In addition to poker, he's played fantasy sports since the 1980s, and daily fantasy for several years.

"It's a joke that between online poker and daily fantasy, poker is the one that's widely prohibited in this country," said Frankenberger. "Anyone who thinks poker is not a game of skill probably hasn't played much poker."

In the article there is also a poll:

Excerpted from this article on Time.com: http://time.com/4063474/draftkings-fanduel-daily-fantasy-scandal/

Pallone, the New Jersey Congressman, has called for daily fantasy hearings on the Hill. “Daily fantasy sports is functioning in a Wild West void within the legal structure,” Pallone says. He thinks all sports gambling, daily fantasy included, should be legal and regulated — beleaguered Atlantic City, in his state, could use the extra revenues. (TIME has argued this position too). He’s looking for consistency. Why can’t someone drop a few bucks in a casino because the New York Giants didn’t cover, but can lose a few bucks on these fantasy sites because Brady didn’t throw that extra touchdown?

The answer: hypocritical sports leagues are pulling the strings. For example the major pro sports leagues, plus the NCAA, sued the state of the New Jersey to try to stop its effort to legalize sports gambling. The legal fight succeeded — in August a federal appeals court ruled that New Jersey’s effort to permit sports betting at casinos and racetracks violated federal law. (NBA commissioner Adam Silver actually does favor legalized and regulated sports gambling, but wants Congress, rather than state lawsuits, to overturn the federal law banning it almost everywhere outside Nevada). Meanwhile, the leagues pile money into what are, in spirit, sports gambling platforms, and stand to profit off their success.

Hypocrisy or not, these daily fantasy sites aren’t going anywhere. The cartel that has effectively legalized sports gambling in this country doesn’t just include FanDuel and DraftKings, the upstarts each valued at over $1 billion. Among the “disruptors” are their investors and partners: century-old sports leagues and teams and networks and the entrenched old guard members of the industry who have found a backdoor way to profit off gambling, while publicly, and in the courts, opposing it. In this “insider trading” mess, daily fantasy industry may be facing its first big hiccup. But here’s a safe bet: daily fantasy is here to say. Big Sports always wins.

I still doubt it will be option #1. Too many power investors, including the sports leagues themselves, are backing DFS. I think it unlikely the politicians will stand up to those powers.

I will quit posting for now on this scandal as there is so much late breaking news now being generated. Just google "fantasy sports scandal" if you're interested.

But as I've said, I do see it as important to the online poker world as poker inevitably gets drawn into the conversation since it is truly a "skill game" for those who work to be skilled at it. I believe much more so than fantasy sports but that would be an interesting debate.

And another:

"This is a game of skill??? And poker is not, seriously. This is who has the most pull to get gambling online 'legally'!"

Here's another:

"So poker is not a game of skill? All chance, eh? Is that what we're supposed to believe? Meanwhile, assembling a squad of disparate football players and hoping they happen to collectively rack up good stats on any given Sunday...that doesn't involve luck?"

In the NY Times article posted above it's interesting to read the comments. Here's one:

"Online poker is illegal because it's considered a game of chance, but 'fantasy play' is OK because it's a game of skill? In my world, that's what we call a distinction without a difference."

It turns out that my original post here was timely. Just yesterday both DraftKings and FanDuel have become embroiled in scandalous activities by employees betting on each other's sites.

So, you work for one of these top two fantasy sports sites and are privy to the betting patterns of your customers. Which players are picked most. Etc. What a huge advantage. You're prohibited by your company from betting on its site, but not from betting on other fantasy sports sites. So you use your insider info to bet on other sites.

Surprise! A couple of these employees won big money on the other site. Essentially ripping off customers who aren't privy to this inside information.

Here's an article from the New York Times (read by millions), titled "Scandal Erupts in Unregulated World of Fantasy Sports."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/sports/fanduel-draftkings-fantasy-employees-bet-rivals.html?_r=0

The reason it's important to the online poker world is that it shines a light on the currently legal online fantasy sports betting in the U.S. That focus generates conversations not only on fantasy sports betting but other online betting as well.

It could end badly for fantasy sports betting, which would not bode well for online poker. But if fantasy sports betting survives, and perhaps even becomes regulated, then maybe, just maybe, online poker could be pulled along with it. Anything else is nonsensical. (Though don't put it past politicians to act nonsensically. They do it a lot).

Option 1 would be the least hypocritical. But somehow I don't see it given the power players now lined up behind daily fantasy sports.

Still, government can remain hypocritical for long periods of time. So while I think 2 will eventually prevail, and with DFS so clearly demonstrating the hypocrisy it will be expedited (I think), the time horizon will likely still be many years. But before DFS was pushed onto us constantly I would have said 10+ years. Now maybe it's less. Still 3 or 4 years minimum. Time will tell.

Hah! I spent most of last Fall and the first couple months this year ignoring poker to play Diablo 3. Had top 20'ish hardcore wizard. I think my top solo grift was 41, maybe 42. All hardcore as that's just how I am. lol (Played D2 hardcore, too, once upon a time so in D3 never played anything but hardcore).

This may be long after a decision has been made but one other thing to consider that I'm not sure was mentioned is that you only get to be 21 once. You can always go back and finish college later if you dropped it to play poker and then decide later you want to move on from poker to a more conventional career. But you can never go back and be 21 in college again. You get that chance only once in your life.

I can tell you without any doubt whatsoever that my college years were the funnest years of my life. I would not give up one minute of it for anything. Anything. In fact, I used to rue the fact that I did college in 4 years whereas many of my friends took 5 years (and some even more).

To put my viewpoint into context, I am 54 years old and have done the full career thing (software engineering, owned my own business, and now work for good pay for a large IT company). I didn't have the same poker options at 21 as exist today. I love poker and will finish my career before long to play it as a pastime, and if I'm good enough to climb the stakes ladder then I will. If not I'll be fine since I have a good life roll. So I definitely get taking the poker path.

But like I said above I wouldn't give up one minute of college at 21 years old for anything. Something to consider.

Also, for anyone whose interested, try green table with red cards on Bovada. For me it works really well. Easy to see and easy on the eyes it seems.

The HUD is Holdem Indicator. You can also use HM2 or PT4 if you have Bovada Card Catcher by Ace Poker Solutions (the same folks who make Leak Buster for HM2).

A little update, and some insights into playing on Bovada. And I'd be happy to engage in Bovada discussions if anyone's interested in sharing experiences.

After ending the multi-month downswing by getting my bank roll back up above $1375, I kept on the upswing for a few days to $1465 but then had 3 bad days in a row and bankroll back down to $1175. It was unmerciful, losing 11 buy-ins in 3 days. Some of it variance. Some of it my fault.

So I decided to switch things up and play Poker Zone NL25 for a bit. (Poker Zone is basically Bovada's version of Zoom). More about Poker Zone in a minute.

Why the switch? Well you see, I have trouble with Bovada's normal 6-max tables because it's really hard to put players on ranges when you're on the button or in the blinds and have 3 or 4 limpers in front of you. With cards towards the higher end of your raising range for your position you might raise only to find all or most of the limpers come along. It's very common. So now what's each player's range? Still no clue. Any 2 cards, more or less, and with 3 or 4 of them along for the flop any board texture is likely to be good for at least one of them. Alternatively, you can limp yourself but while it makes it cheaper to see a flop it still doesn't fix the range reading problem. It can be quite frustrating.

Also, I have Ace Poker Solutions' Bovada Card Catcher and HM2 for HUD and HH. But I can't help but wonder if the HUD is not more bad than good on these anonymous tables. Or my use of it anyway. It can be a big mistake to exploit apparent tendencies with less than hundreds, preferably thousands, of hands played. Which you never have with anonymous play. I try to keep that in mind but I think "subliminally" the stats still have an effect. If/when I play the normal 6-max tables in the future I may just drop the HUD.

Now back to Poker Zone. I've played it some before and was a moderate winner. But when Zone went bad (inevitably you have bad days) I found myself going back to normal tables because I could use a HUD there. And I figured I had an advantage since most Bovada players don't even know that there are HUD options for Bovada. But this time the Zone never really went bad.

In 21 days I am up $333 at Zone NL25, with a win rate of 7.4 bb/100. I've never had results like that. Add in $95 from poker point freeroll MTT's (the only thing poker points are good for, and there are no VPP programs or rakeback on Bovada) and my bankroll went from $1175 to $1603. In those 21 days I only had 4 down days (not sessions, but days). The worst of those days I lost 3.7 buy-ins. I lost less than 1 buy-in the other three days.

So what gives? Here's my summary of what I think.

1. I believe I have a pretty serious skill advantage (thanks in part to RIO) on Bovada, at least at NL25.

2. Since I import all hands played into HM2 I can, and I do, study the tendencies of the player pool. With approximately 19,000 Poker Zone hands played in September I think I have pretty accurate "player pool stats." And getting better every time I play.

3. I also have PokerSnowie, which I basically use daily to review my Blunders (as Snowie calls them) and to also capture some other data that I don't get elsewhere. (Tracking rake, for example. Might be able to capture that in HM2 but I don't know how). And since Snowie shows all known hole cards I can validate my assumptions about the player pool. It's amazing how correct those assumptions are, at least 95% of the time.

4. While I haven't done the same HM2 player pool analysis on non-Zone (I guess because I could use my HUD instead) I do know this due to Snowie -- VPIP on non-Zone is about 37%. On Zone it's about 26% - 27%. That's a huge difference, and eliminates a lot of the multi-way limp dilemma I described above. This makes it poker versus the any 2 card lottery. (Incidentally, PFR is about the same on both, which is to say there are still limper fish but as one might expect they limp a lot less on Zone since they can just fold and immediately be dealt another hand).

5. My win line (green) for Zone is way above my EV line (orange). I'm not entirely sure how the HM2 EV calculations work but I suspect several things are at play. First, playing below EV when have many multi-way pots is surely much more probable than when playing a lot more heads up hands. Second, my luck has been pretty decent on Zone in September. I remind myself of this every time I play. We tend to remember the bad beats but I've been on the right side of some myself, and seemingly a lot of 60/40 (etc) situations where I came out on top like I should better than 60% (etc) of the time. And third, because I know the player pool tendencies I can get a little tricky. So I get in some good situations where villain makes bad assumptions about my hand and overplays theirs. Again, I would think it more probable that you can play your win line above EV line when you have such advantages. But we'll see in time. Maybe more of the success has been pure luck than I think.

My last point I'll make for now is that while I had said I would take a shot at NL50 once I got to $1500 (30 BI) it's not so easy for Zone as there's very little NL50 Zone played. I think later in the evenings mostly. I did play a little when there were about 20 players (which really means as little as 10 and as many as maybe 13 or 14 since can play 2 Zone tables at a time) but found I was not real comfortable with it. I will try again when 50+ players but if still uncomfortable then I'll stick with NL25 for awhile. After all, it's been good to me so far.

Thank you!

Yes, my plan is to more or less review all the Essential NLHE videos (still some good ones to go yet) and then upgrade to Elite. Pretty much with or without continuing upswing.

I watched Tyler's and have also watched several others. Sauce, Ben86, Cole South, Jungleman, would have to look on YouTube to remember others. Each time you talk "to" those of us who are still on 3 hours deep I'm like "hey, he's talking to me." I suspect I'm not that only one who pretty much always finishes what we start.

Great work. I love that the videos are more about life than poker. Very entertaining and informative in ways that no one else provides. Thank you for the unique perspectives!

From a U.S. player and RIO Essential member, if something were set up that required real money on PokerStars then we U.S. players would not be able to play. Something to consider.