Poker

ICM Calculator

rpadrela — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:55:32 +0000

I would just like to share an ICM Calculator for 4-handed play made in Microsoft Excel.

You only need to type the tournament payout structure and the stack sizes and the spreadsheet will calculate the chances for finishing 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th and the most important your equity.

Please let me know if you see something that isnâ€™t correct.

Microsoft Office 2007 or better is required.

Click here to download

SNG Simulator - Rakeback added

rpadrela — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:52:42 +0000

Delliks asked me to add rakeback to the SNG Simulator and so I did.

I havenâ€™t remembered about rakeback back then when I originally made it because as I play at PokerStars my form of rakeback is a bit different from the traditional form.

So, rakeback was easily added to the spreadsheet. Also, Iâ€™d like to explain a little better what the simulator actually does.

Based on tournament info and your finishing distribution, the spreedsheet runs a simulation over the specified number of games and calculates the resulted profit and ROI. For example, if your true finishing distribution is 10/12/15 there might be a stretch of 5000 games where you will finish in 1st place only 7% of the times due to natural variance and that will certainly impact your ROI, this is what the simulation does.

So, basically the simulation tells you that even if you have a 10% ROI you can always have stretches where you run a 5% ROI for example.

Click here to download

Update

rpadrela — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 23:30:01 +0000

Havenâ€™t posted in the last few days because Iâ€™ve been a bit bored about Poker in general. Finally today Iâ€™m feeling refreshed and with more energy to continue playing Sitâ€™nâ€™Gos.

Sadly, once again Iâ€™ll have to drop the $20+$2 games and focus solely on the $10+$1 level because Iâ€™ve already lost a good portion of my bankroll playing the 20s. Iâ€™ve been trying to transition from the 10s to the 20s since the beginning of last year but still canâ€™t see light at the end of the tunnel, this is becoming really frustrating to me.

Iâ€™m starting to think that Poker is not supposed to be played by part-time players because of variance. If you look at any winning playerâ€™s graph itâ€™s not difficult to spot runs of a couple of thousands of breaking even games or even losing ones, for the part-time player this can possibly mean several months of play or even a full year.

So, to motivate myself for this month, Iâ€™m considering thinking about quitting Poker if I finish negative at the end of this month playing the $10+$1 games.

You may have noticed that I stopped posting the Wizard Quiz results lately, thatâ€™s because I havenâ€™t been doing any but Iâ€™m thinking about restarting them in a matter of days.

I bought a couple of books from the PokerStars VIP store for a total of 7000 FPPs or so. Both books are related to SNGs somehow, they are:

. Kill Everyone: Advanced Strategies for No-Limit Hold â€™Em Poker, Tournaments, and Sit-n-Gos: Revised and Expanded Edition
. Heads-Up No-Limit Hold â€™em: Expert Advice for Winning Heads-Up Poker Matches

And finally, Iâ€™d like to ask you what kind of posts do you like more, do you guys prefer to see posts on hand analysis, posts on daily results or random poker-related stuff ? Leave a comment to let me know.

SNG Wiz Quiz - 4 April

rpadrela — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 23:24:03 +0000

Todayâ€™s result : 46/50 ( 92% )
Total : 276/300 ( 92% )

SNG Wiz Quiz - 3 April

rpadrela — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 22:16:00 +0000

Todayâ€™s result : 42/50 ( 84% )
Total : 230/250 ( 92% )

I'm sick of Poker !

rpadrela — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:51:32 +0000

This by itself may be the reason why Iâ€™m running so bad at the $20+$2 level.

All-time all-in luck graph

$10+$1 all-in luck graph

$20+$2 all-in luck graph

I think these images speak for themselves. I think I can say Iâ€™m running bad for more than 1 straight year playing part-time, poker isnâ€™t for everyone, is it ? Itâ€™s just psychologically devastating.

Any winning player with all-in graphs like these ? Please share, I want to make sure Iâ€™m not the only one suffering from this. :D

SNG Wiz Quiz - 2 April

rpadrela — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 22:08:04 +0000

Here is todayâ€™s result from the SNG Wizard Quiz :

Todayâ€™s result : 47/50 ( 94% )
Total : 188/200 ( 94% )

Iâ€™m starting to think it wasnâ€™t a great idea to mix the $20+$2 with the $10+$1 games, the 10s went pretty well today but the 20s were a disaster. I honestly canâ€™t see where is the difference between the two levels apart from the buy-in. Iâ€™ll continue mixing both buy-ins for the next 2 days and then make a decision to drop it or to continue.

SNG Wiz Quiz - 1 April

rpadrela — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:44:09 +0000

I missed yesterdays session of SNG Wizard Quiz due to lack of time but today did another 50 hands session, here are the results :

Todayâ€™s result : 50/50 ( 100% )
Total : 141/150 ( 94% )

Iâ€™m starting to feel thatâ€™s too easy but Iâ€™ll continue for a couple of weeks more till deciding to improve different aspects of my game.

Iâ€™ve started to mix some $20+$2 SNGs with the $10+$1 today and hopefully Iâ€™ll set myself at the $20+$2 for good. I usually play 6 tables of $10+$1 but today Iâ€™ve started to play 4 tables of $10+$1 and 2 tables of $20+$2. Today wasnâ€™t particularly good results-wise as I finished both $20+$2 games on the bubble but Iâ€™ll try not to be results oriented.

Now Iâ€™m off, going to review todays sessions.

March results / April goals

rpadrela — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:51:52 +0000

After 2 months completely away from Poker, March was time to get back to the tables. I was feeling refreshed to once again try to move up another level to the $20+$2. Unfortunately, I completely failed to accomplish this goal but at least I learned a lot. Believe it or not, Iâ€™m trying to establish myself as a winning player at the $20+$2 level for approximately one year and Iâ€™m yet to achieve it. Iâ€™m only playing part-time so this isnâ€™t really that bad.

March 2010 (350 games)
NET : -$64
ROI : -1.63%
ITM : 38.48%

For next month Iâ€™m not setting any â€œagressiveâ€ goal, Iâ€™ll just play as normal and hopefully it will be a better month than March. For next month my goals are the following :

April Goals:
. Play 400 $10+$1 SNGs;
. Keep reading â€œSecrets of Sitâ€™nâ€™gosâ€ book;
. Keep playing with the SNG Wizard Quiz on a daily basis;

Iâ€™ve been reading the â€œSecrets of Sitâ€™nâ€™gosâ€ book, the author is one of the best SNG players Iâ€™m aware of so certainly I have a lot to learn from his book. If any of you have read it before please let me know what do you think of it.

As you might have noticed, lately Iâ€™ve been playing with the SNG Wizard Quiz mode to try to improve my late game play and itâ€™s a crucial part of the game and I think I still have plenty of leaks to plug there, so hopefully the Wizard will give me a hand here.

Cya!

SNG Wiz Quiz - 30 March

rpadrela — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:53:34 +0000

Todayâ€™s result is 46/50 ( 92% ).
Total is 91/100 ( 91% )

Letâ€™s see how it goes tomorrow !

Improving SNG bubble play

rpadrela — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:28:05 +0000

Following the post on Tournament Poker forum by Delliks regarding the SNG QUIZ CLUB I decided to start using the SNG Wizard Quiz mode to improve my bubble play.

Obviously I havenâ€™t decided this in a matter of a second, this is something thatâ€™s been in my head for the last months and the reason is very simple :

If you look carefully at the number of bubble finishes youâ€™ll understand why I really need to improve my late game play. That has probably cost me a couple of thousands.

So, from now on Iâ€™ll try to play 50 hands everyday of bubble play and Iâ€™ll post the results here.

Todayâ€™s result is 45/50 ( 90% ).

Hands

rpadrela — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 01:06:36 +0000

Here are two interesting hands from todayâ€™s sessions :

1) http://weaktight.com/2145537
2) http://weaktight.com/2145545

Iâ€™d like to know what would you guys do in these 2 hands, leave a comment !

SNG Simulator

rpadrela — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:43:06 +0000

I would just like to share a SNG Simulator I wrote a couple of months ago.

Itâ€™s really simple, all you need to input is the number of games for the simulation, some tournament information and your finishing percentages. The spreadsheet runs a simulation based on your input and outputs the ROI and profit for the simulation.

White cells are editable, all others shall not be edited. Press F9 to run a new simulation.

Microsoft Office 2007 or better is required.

Click here to download

Let me know what do you think.

Hands

rpadrela — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:05:24 +0000

On a consistent basis Iâ€™ll try to analyse the hands that made me lose a big portion of my stack or even put me out of a SNG.

Iâ€™ll post the hands using weaktight.com, all info about the villains will also be there in the extra reads section, Iâ€™ll write my view on the hand and hopefully youâ€™ll write yours. :)

To start off, Iâ€™ll only post 2 hands :

1) http://weaktight.com/2121168
2) http://weaktight.com/2121170

Iâ€™ve checked the SNG Wizard for both situations and played with villainâ€™s ranges a bit and both situations are really close. What do you think ?

Progress so far

rpadrela — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:45:38 +0000

Iâ€™d just like to post my current numbers to be used as a starting point for this blog. Here they are :

Introduction

rpadrela — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:23:50 +0000

After a 2 month holiday period from Poker Iâ€™m back to the tables.

I mainly play 9-man SNGs at PokerStars. I started at the minimum buy-in of $1+$0.2 and have been climbing the SNG ladder from there for the last one and a half year playing part-time. Itâ€™s taking a lot more time to climb up than I thought it would but so far itâ€™s been a profitable ride.

Iâ€™m currently 6-tabling at the $10+$1 level but have already played close to 1000 games at the $20+$2. Unfortunately, Iâ€™ve failed to establish myself as a winning player at the $20+$2 level and was forced to drop down to the previous level.

I have played more than 2500 $10+$1 games and Iâ€™m winning with a 7% ROI which I think isnâ€™t good enough. Iâ€™m expecting to be able to increase it to 10%-15% range in the next few months. Iâ€™ll hire a coach if I canâ€™t make it by myself.

For those that climbed the ladder all the way to the top, leave a comment about how your experience was, what levels were the most difficult, etcâ€¦

Iâ€™m expecting to post at least once a week with updates on my current progress, hand analysis and some other poker related random stuff.