First Things First

Diggers two cents worth RE: black friday aftermath.

1) Expect that the regulation of US online poker will take longer than most expect.

Reason: the incentive to bring it back in is small. The companies involved have only a small amount of influence in Washington relatively speaking. Those that oppose re-introducing it tend to be based on moral grounds and thus less likely to be swayed than on other types of issues.

2) Expect that if you do relocate that it will be more expensive than you might otherwise expect.

Reason: the US dollar is in a structural decline + the duration in which you will be abroad I would argue will be longer than you might plan.

3) Opportunity cost of moving overseas is high.

Reason: the decision does not stand in isolation. You have a choice of being a poker player or any other form of employment to support yourself. Whilst there might be a short-term advantage in moving overseas - delaying entrance into the workforce can have a long-term impact on your advancement/ultimate return out of any non-poker employment that you might have achieved otherwise.

4) On average the cost of living for migrants is higher than it is for locals.

Reason: You do not have the social network that you would have in the US which can provide effectively cheaper forms of bartering for services. Citizens tend to have rights over social services which are not offered to locals, insurance is higher for migrants, part-time or supplemental forms of income might not otherwise be available.

5) Social cost of moving: there is a premium in a lifestyle being close to lifelong friends and family. This has some value which you are forsaking.

6) Visibility or certainty discount: the lack of visibility of the poker landscape or the level of certainty you are reasonably justified in having over your poker income is very low. Which should incline you to have a higher expected return on labour to justify your decision to relocate.

Good luck in your choices

Not sure what you guys are gonna do.

But I would take my money off the site if I was an American.

I wonder what will happen to high-stakes action now.

got me thinking of the good ole days for the rail.

Hope this inspires....love the sounds on this was 6 tabling uber micro PLO to this earlier today.

Have a good easter

ciao

Cant sleep big day ahead.........given up tossing and turning in bed before my first at school in-class workday tommorrow. The weird way my brain works I was not thinking about what might go wrong tommorrow, although I am sure that is ticking away in my subconscious, but I was doing my assignment in my head due next week.....weird.

Just felt like I needed to do something - so hopped online and hoped that watching The Leap video might get teaching outta my head so I can get back to sleep in an hour.

I thought I was cool and calm for tommorrow but my deep emotions must have overridden my conscious self confidence.....the brain is an amazing thing...

Yeah  not that other Floyd song

Fingers crossed!

In my other stomping ground 2+2 - I came across a post that I found interesting. It is one of the main Zoo threads which I discuss and argue with other players about BI structures on PS.....anyway I came across the hmmmmmm I guess you would describe it as the technical term for 'say one thing, and do another'. It was described as - declared interest (say one thing) and expressed interest ( do one thing) - these are sociological terms are most often used with respect to survey interpretation. In this case, recreational poker players dislike ratholers in surveys ( their declared interest) and would populate 20-50bb games nonetheless.

I would be another classic case of say one thing and do another - when asked what is the best way to improve my poker results often one of the first things I would say is cut down tables and play shorter sessions.......but of course I actually prefer playing lotsa tables and tend to like playing longer sessions. Given I dont play as well as Nanonoko - I failed in my attempt to go pro in 2010 and knowing what to do is not enough you actually got to implement it like a fascist prison guard - no exceptions.

But I dont mind so much - and dont feel sorry for my failure cause I have not been so relaxed and optimistic about the future in a long time. I am looking forward to studying to become a History teacher and being permanently under-compensated for my efforts.

My intent is to study hard and prepare in advance this year ........but if you dont already know............saying one thing and doing the other is always a risk with me   :)

Bit of pop for a change of pace

So I went to Orientation week for my university course today...........and I came away feeling slightly glum. I realised time is no friend of mine......I am 36 going on 37 and when I was in this seminar on University resources as my eyes scanned the 50 or so people I realised how young everyone was in the room. Now I am guessing you are thinking.......no shit Digger and you were suprised??? yeah yeah hold that thought....this was a seminar for returning students 25+.....and I was feeling old even with that precondition. Sigh.

So I was looking through my course outline, and whilst I think I am academically gifted, I thought sheesh that is alot of work in a short time. Which I wonder if I would have thought that 10 years ago or almost 20 years ago when I first went to Uni......well scratch that 2nd option I would never have gone to an Orientation seminar when I was 18...I prolly would have been in the uni bar.

Yeah time is no friend of mine...........which is kinda funny because my attitude was just take it as it comes..............and although I am aware of cliches it struck true today.....time waits for no man.

Hope things run smooth................

PS - have announced the change for NLHE cash games.
20-50bb games have been removed

Future structure will be 40-100bb and CAP (20bb)

Will the games get better?
Maybe, Probably at least to begin with.

Two main possibilities - either fish discriminate in their table choice....or they dont.
If they dont - then  the reduction in the table creation by SSer via the rathole rule should mean the total population of CAP tables as a proportion of total tables should be less than 20-50bb.

If they do - below is an example of migration pattern and potential effects. Bear in mind most of these assumptions are fixed when in reality they are not. And the base case e.g. no. of fish or fish per table

For the sake of simplicity. An example of possible discriminating fish scenario

lets say
10000 6 handed tables existed prior to the change both 20-50 and 40-100.
and there was 1 fish in each table on both types.
ALL tables are full at all times.
1666 tables 1666 fish.

say 60% of the tables were 20-50bb
1000 - 20-50bb
666 - 40-100bb

and two of every 3 fish move to 40-100bb tables (discriminating choice) 1/3 to CAP
ALL SSer move to CAP

2/3 of 1000 fish would move into 40-100bb
666

334 would move to CAP

Prior to the change there was 666 6M 40-100bb tables with
3330 regulars
666 fish
3996

666 fish move - so fish population doubles but total tables also increase
3996+666 = 4662 total 40-100bb population / 6  = 777 tables
1332 total fish population /777 tables

There would be 1.71 fish per table

CAP games
5000 regulars
334 fish migrate to CAP 6M
total population now
5334/6
889 tables
.37 fish per table

Prolly more appropriate song if I played FTP

Infamous 19th Century Economist and political philosopher Karl Marx once said " Religion is the opiate of the masses". Whilst I usually dismiss alot of Marx and thought emanating out of the 19th century....that quote always seem to fit with respect to the Arab world and its political predicament. That is to say, was it/is it because Islam precludes the Arab populace from modernity and free society - was the succour of the phrases of the Prophet sufficient to enable oppression and political/religious dictatorship to prevail over any other alternatives. That political peculiarity seemed perverse when peasants in South America demanded and claimed their democratic rights yet the urban, educated classes of Cairo, Tehran and Amman - age old centres of learning and civilisation seemed to prefer or be indifferent to the clarion call of freedom and modernity.

Hopefully that illusion has been shattered in the last couple of weeks in the middle east - and that the good people of these great nations rise up and take hold of their own destinies. And whilst it is actually more likely that they will lapse again into tyranny and oppression for power and might is usually favourite in the short-term, one cant help but think that the dawn of the internet has provided the Arab world a glimpse of the possibilities existent in the rest of the world and that veil once lifted can never fully return. A fools hope at the moment but something that I think will bear fruit in the long-run.

If you were wondering - why all of a sudden have these regimes come under such pressure. Well I think a people can put up with alot if some of their daily lives are tolerable. But if you look at the rise in soft commodities or food prices globally in the last 12 months, in particular, you will see a doubling of some core grain commodities adding pressure to already poor peoples budgets. Now you can restrict someone lives so much - in fact you can do alot if you are an oppressive government to satisfy the bare minimum. But if it becomes unaffordable on your meagre wage to pay for a loaf of bread on a daily basis - you might just think that that dude with his huge posters all over your city is not doing a good job and you might want a say in how things are run.

It is important to remember that it was women on the streets of Paris protesting the rise in the price of bread - with Marie Antionette infamous " let them eat cake" - that was the spark for the French Revolution more than 200 years ago.

"ill news is an ill guest" - Wormtongue The Two Towers

For the handful of loyal readers - I don't want to bore you too much with my Stormcrowing on the fate of online poker. But while I am interested in talking about it - I guess I will get it all off my chest. Let me return to where we left off....

As we made more explicit - Jokersfull makes more money from the highest volume players.

34k from the std (fictional) regular

77k from the cosmic regular

For alot of business their is a large increase in cost for a doubling of revenue like this but with an online site like Jokersfull - most of the extra cost is borne by the player or already sunk capital expenditure. And it underlines how online sites are a turnover and volume driven business. Whilst those same imperatives are true of B&M casino's too - with respect to poker - the B&M casinos prolly like the fact that poker makes money for them but are more interested in how much money the average poker player spends on their pit games than how much they earn in rake off them.

But lets take a view down a different avenue of our example. Jokersfull is highly likely to accumulate financial data on each of its clients as well as pay for extra information on who plays their site. So when I said to you avg. player earns 50k a year - and spends 10K on poker - and I said this was unrealistic - that is probably true. Most of the losing players, which is what is most important to the poker economy, have incomes to support their poker entertainment. Outside of problem gamblers most will not spend 20% of their income on poker - if you looked at a likely expenditure range - its prolly in the ball park of 5%-10% - my guess being on the lower side.

Median male income in 2006 in pokers largest market was $46000.

Jokersfull prolly has a pretty good idea of the average income of its clients and has a good idea of how much they spend on poker as a portion of income. They prolly have a pretty good handle of avg. rake produced by various levels of activity.

So prolly something like $2500 is the average spend on a higher than average regular loser - the staple diet of the poker economy.

We had $134k of loser money required to support the 10 normal regulars.

We had $277k for the 10 cosmic regulars........

Now you might contend that those regulars do/are accepting a lower nut than $100k and $150k but lets just keep those numbers because if you want to be a professional poker player you would want a large than expected income than you would otherwise earne elsewhere particularly as the longer you are out of the mainstream workplace the less likely you will be able to attain even median income levels in future.

We average the cosmic regulars and normal regulars and group them together 134k+277k/2 = 205.5k worth of loser money to support an the average regular...if median income and $2500 is the average spend is ball park accurate you need just over 82 fish per regular. I would suggest that is a big number. Jokersfull probably has a pretty good handle on the average amount of players playing at any given time on their site - maybe its 82000 - which would mean 1000 regulars could make the expected living. I am guess right now but Pokerstars has ~ 130k players on their site peak times 60-70K off peak times.......

Its also important to be aware that the losers population is not static once they enter the market - some improve to the point of no longer being losers - those player if acting rationally should be more likely to continue playing than those that don't. And apart from problem gamblers - most of the heaviest losers will make a choice of leaving the market or reducing their expenditure. I would suggest the professional is far more stickier than the loser - which would tend to make that part of the market less fluid than the losers market.

I might talk about what would likely take place in the event of the coming of the messiah in the poker world - freeing U.S. regulation and why it will eventually and inevitably reach an equilibrium similiar to now and how competition is unlikely to be a long-term saviour......but my guess is you are sick of hearing this stormcrow for now.

Stay strong my silent friends.

Ok so if we return to my pokersite Jokersfull...

Where we have a regulars nut of 100k a year.

On Jokersfull and my chief competitor StarTilts - the regulars in fact tend not to just make their yearly nut from WR but a combination of WR + Rakeback.

If say rakeback on my site for high volume players is set at 50%. And regulars tend to on average make 1/3 of their winnings from rakeback on my site.

And say we still have the complete unrealistic example of an avg fish losing 10k a year of his 50k ( because of a net income 25% is consumed in rent/mortgage) - ANd we assume that they play enough to make it mathematically certain they lose the whole $10k regular as clockwork.

At face value it looks like we need 10 fish per a regular within this matrix.........................but its not that simple.

If regulars income is 66k from WR and 34K from rakeback with 50% rakeback.......that means there is 34k going to me and my boys at Jokersfull.

So thats 134k worth of fishes money that needs to support the regular and Jokersfull. Or 13.4 fish per regular.....

What if I said to you that Jokersfull will have a bonus season on rakeback _ I will give you 66% rakeback if you earn = $227k of rake......but you only really get that 66% rakeback if you jump through these hurdles.....

So maybe on jokerfull - you would have some regulars who can earn 100k with 66/34k WR/rake split and say another 10 who can earn $150k by just turning over $227k worth of rake. So Jokersfull would get now 77k for the turnover instead of 34k a more than doubling of rake for Jokersfull - and the regular - say he cant win anymore but he can breakeven and earn $150k so his split is now 0/150k.

Say there are 10 of each normal regulars - and lets call the other regulars are "Cosmic" regular and there are 10 of those.

It takes 13.4 fish per normal regular for $1million regulars pay and $340k for Jokersfull

With our cosmic regular each earn 150k*10 1.5million + 10* 77k for the site 770k or 2.27million.

Now we need 23 (10K) fish to support this type of turnover.........

This perhaps illustrates how the more reliant rakeback becomes for the regulars income - how many more fish it requires to support this poker playing....

hmmm - I guess thats all very obvious too......

I wonder why the games are bad again hmmmmm

No wonder the only hope held out by some is that some flood will appear if the U.S. regulators change their mind.

All I have seen in my time - is there used to be 3-4 25/50 games run with alot of 5/10 games going............now you tend to see 5 regulars sitting out at 25/50 and maybe 3/4 5/10 games running on Pokerstars - and guys that if I popped open the high lobby - are now playing 3-6 and 2-4 and alot of 1-2 regs playing 100NL and myself and alot of 50NL regulars who are not playing all the time now but going out and doing something else.....

Anyway just my two cents worth of obviousness....

When you hear the term - the games are bad.....usually it means there are not enough fish in the game.

Lets just talk about a hypothetical example on our Jokersfull website.

We have 5000 losing players and 5000 regulars.....

If each table was 6 seated and you could only play one table at a time. If each table was distributed randomly - we would have 3 fish and 3 regulars on each table. This would by any reasonable measure be a good table and a wet dream for most online players in 2010.

We would have 10000 players / 6 seats - 1667 tables.

Say 'we' the good management at Jokersfull decided ok......lets increase the amount of tables you could play to 12.

Ans lets just assume that the losing player is happy to always play 1 table but the regulars all want to play 12 tables.

10000 players - 5000 of each.......but now the regulars occupy 60000 seats and the fish just 5000.

We would have 65000 seats or 10833 tables the fish per table if even distributed 5000/10833 - there would be just 0.46 fish per table.

Thus an extreme example shows the effect on the 'quality' of games if regulars play on average a much greater amount of tables per player than the fish. Such that even if fish/reg ratio is greatly biased towards more fish - there can still appear to be no good games. Bear in mind at my site Jokersfull you can play upto 24 tables.

This does not even take into account that it is not a zero sum game - my management team and its infrastructure and the promotions need to be paid for.

There would be an average rake paid per table at any given stake that would represent a % take on turnover something like 1bb/100 hand maybe.....or 1%....which the regulars would have to overcome prior to earning their monthly nut.

Of course it is not as simple as this example which is just used to illustrate one aspect - of why the games are bad.

More food for thought.....