Poker Video: Misc/Other by PygmyHero (Micro/Small Stakes)

Nice vid once again Pygmyhero. Is your effective rakeback calculated by simply dividing Total Value by Total Rake or, in the case of your spreadsheet ($594.29 / $1553.21) = 38.26%?

Hey guys, I want to make one minor correction here. It's not really an error, just one thing I could have set up a little better.

When you finish the spreadsheet the cell that ends up as C27 would be better written as =C$26/C10 which would allow us to then highlight the rest of that row and the row below it and use the CTRL R+D commands that I like. It's not really a big deal - the way I did it in the video is fine. It's just a little faster than writing a separate formula for each row and then dragging them out to the right.

Hi Derek, that was actually a clever was of saying first.

As to your question, I believe you are 100% correct. That actually would have been a cool stat for me to write in. Maybe I'll add it in the final video.

is there any reason this couldn't be made as a custom report in HEM?

Hi ehunter, I'm not sure what stat you mean. Generally speaking I want to say yes - I once requested a custom stat in the forums and had it in only a few hours.

That said, if you mean the total effective rakeback that Derek was asking about I'm going to say probably no. Someone could do it, but I kind of don't think they'd want to. It wouldn't be as simple as just adding some number together and dividing by rake.

Basically they'd have to carry out all the operations I do in this video (calculate FTP points earned, determine Iron Man status, know what month of the challenge you were in, account for Iron Man Plus Medals, know if you take the bonus medals, etc., analyze play and assign extra FTP points to Happy Hours...).

I mean do the whole spreadsheet in HEM as a report. Arguably HEM knows the exact hours and amounts you were playing, so you could plug the various medal and point values into it and get exact values automatically?

Theoretically yes, that is possible. HEM does know all the data (I mean, I made a spreadsheet where I pull data from HEM) except for the assumptions I mentioned above.

I think you have an interesting idea, but unfortunately I can't help as it's well beyond my capabilities and I have no association with HEM. I think your best option is probably to ask in the HEM forums.

That said, if you do get something going and I can help in some way, let me know.

Nice video. I think the difference in total FTP points for all hands between adding up and calculating them is not just because of rounding but because your calculation of average players is wrong. You just average all the months without weighting. Let's say for example month a you play 10k hands of 6max with an average of 6 players and month b you play 1k hands of heads up with an average of 2 players. In your spreadsheet is would calculate the average number of players to (6+2)/2 = 4 while it really should be (10k*6 + 1k*2)/11k = 5.64.

Kerith, you're absolutely right. Thanks for pointing that out.

So now my cell E14 reads as follows:

=(C10*C14+D10*D14)/E10

Note that if you have more months of data you'll have to expand the formula (keep adding in the product of cells 10 and 14 for each new column).

UNFORTUNATELY when you add a new column of data this formula will have to be updated manually (as per above). I'll try and think of a way to fix that so it stays up to date automatically, but I'm not sure what to do yet. For now that's the quick fix.

As for rounding errors, kerith is right - it's much closer now. In cell E18 the difference between the two ways of calculating total FTP points is now only 2 point something.

When you spend full tilt points isn't that taken out of your mgr? So that would effect how much rakeback you get.

When you spend full tilt points isn't that taken out of your mgr? So that would effect how much rakeback you get.

This is a good point and I'm glad you brought it up. I really appreciate that people are looking at this critically and doing some thinking and work on their own.

My understanding is that what you say is true, but I don't know exactly how it's calculated. I don't know what value FTP assigns to every item in the store and if they deduct the full value or only a portion from your MGR. Because of that and for reasons of ease on my part I decided to omit that from my setup.

I made a number of intentional omissions at both FTP and Stars either because I lacked the data or because the cost/benefit of really delving into each assumption further made doing so impractical. For the most part these were factors I felt were small and therefore unlikely to affect our output extensively.

Furthermore, I left stuff off both sides of the ledger in the hopes that they will balance somewhat. The point you make about MGR reduction makes our output look like FTP gives us more than they actually do. But I am leaving off one or two things that make FTP look like they give us less than they actually do. The same is true for the work I did on Poker Stars. Ultimately I hope these factors approximately wash within each site and also end up being negligible when we end up comparing the sites.

The truth is we could go on almost in perpetuity refining our assumptions and tweaking the spreadsheet to get more accurate output. That's not really the point of these videos. The goal is simply to get reasonably accurate data which will allow us to make relevant comparisons between the two sites, as well as laying out a methodology for those who want to explore further (different limits, different sites, more and / or different assumptions, etc.).

If I remember correctly (it has been some time since I played on FTP), FTP deducts any cost they have assosiated with your account from your MGR for rakeback purposes. That includes store purchases, year end bonus and desposits. What value they assign to the points I don't remember but it probably is right around those $5/1000.
To calculate the effect that has is quite simple, just multiply the value/point by (1-rakeback%).

It's $0.005 deducted from your MGR for every point spent which is equivalent to $13.50 (rakeback hit ~ 50MGR deduction) for every 10k points, for anyone wondering.

Maleficus, can you cite any source for that? Or at least tell me where you heard it?

I'd love to incorporate something like that into the spreadsheet to boost it's accuracy, but I'm not willing to unless I'm fairly certain the information is good.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/51/affiliates-rakeback/buying-ftp-store-how-effects-your-rake-196154/

For cell E12, rather than doing SUM/COUNT you should just use the average function.

Hi Derek, that was actually a clever was of saying first.

Damn, I got modowned. Apparently they didn't think so.

As to your question, I believe you are 100% correct. That actually would have been a cool stat for me to write in. Maybe I'll add it in the final video.

Oops, forgot FTP points and bonuses are deducted from rakeback. Obv that reduces the effective rakeback.

Malefiicus, thanks for that link.

So I've changed cell C6 to account for this:

=0.005-0.005*C5 (C5 being the cell where we enter our rakeback percentage)

I also changed the formatting to show four places after the decimal point.

For cell E12, rather than doing SUM/COUNT you should just use the average function.

Good point. However, I don't like using the AVERAGE function here because it will create a weighting error. So I prefer to keep that cell calculated based on the data above it.

Speaking of weighting errors, cell E17 could be improved in this regard as well.

=(C10*C17+D10*D17)/E10

And again you'd need to keep adding terms inside the parentheses as you enter more months of data.

Malefiicus (or anyone else), do you have similar information on how redeeming bonuses affects your MGR?

This is another thing I knowingly left of the sheet, but if there's good information out there on the correct deduction amount I will incorporate it in the final version.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/51/affiliates-rakeback/raketherake-com-iron-man-bonus-321181/

Thanks again for the link Malefiicus. It says that the total amount of bonus is deducted from your MGR. Unfortunately that information does NOT mesh with my data.

I cleared the initial deposit bonus during October and November. Over that time HEM reported my MGR as $1,975.98. My rake tracker reported it as $1,543.92. The difference, $432.06 is almost exactly 27% of $600 (which would be $438 - this small difference could easily be caused by different methods of calculating MGR by HEM and the rake tracker). I don't really believe in coincidence, so I'm inclined to think that bonuses are deducted at 73% (1-27%).

Based on that I feel the Iron Man Medal Value in cell C7 should be changed to :

=0.2-0.2*(1-C5)*C5

If, on the other hand, you believe that 100% of the bonus is deducted from your MGR then you should enter:

=0.2-0.2*C5

Looks like you're right, I did some more scrounging and came upon this, and since your experience verifies the result you've definitely got it right there. Searching forums is like using a really shifty wikipedia.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/full-tilt-bonus-any-hidden-strings-119629/

Random posters, but it does match your data so I can't see it being wrong.

Wow, impressive find. Obviously the thread itself is a bit a train wreck, but there are enough coincidences here (my data, random thread) that we very likely have the correct answer.

I don't know why FTP has such a (likely intentionally) confusing bonus and rewards structure, but I assume it's so they can advertise certain values ($600 bonus!) while actually giving you slightly less (mine was really worth $481.74).

Anyway, Malefiicus, I want to again say thanks. I really appreciate you helping me work on this stuff. This spreadsheet needed a lot of tweaking. I've had the Stars one for a year plus, over which time I've worked a lot of improvement into it, but I'm still pretty unfamiliar with FTP, having only played there for the last two months.

Thanks Melefiicus for finding those. I did some searching myself but 2+2 searches are horrible and the archived threads make things worse.

Pygmyhero, are you going to make an update with the adjustments? It'd be really nice if we were able to plug in our figures and compare effective rakeback between the two sites accurately, esp with FTP points and Iron Man medals figured in.

Pygmyhero, are you going to make an update with the adjustments? It'd be really nice if we were able to plug in our figures and compare effective rakeback between the two sites accurately, esp with FTP points and Iron Man medals figured in.

Almost certainly yes. I think there are enough changes to warrant it.

Almost certainly yes. I think there are enough changes to warrant it.

top man

Cant wait for the conclusion to this series......when is it due?

My goal is to get it done before the end of the year so that anyone who's trying to decide where/how they should divide their time next year can do so. But of course just like everyone else I have a ton of stuff going on for the holidays. So I can't guarantee it.

Pygmyhero! We're dying for the finale!!

Still waiting......patiently!

Still waiting......patiently!

Thanks guys. I'm trying. BOTH Stars and FTP made some revisions to their loyalty/reward schemes, which is causing some complications. That and I'm just getting killed at work. I have a lot of stuff on my plate right now, but I'm trying.

Although, for the intrepid, be aware that I already gave enough information for you to solve 'the answer' on your own.

Ok, well I guess it's pretty obvious now that we are not going to get a conclusion to this series. Such a shame. Perhaps you could skip the video and just post the answer here instead? FT or Stars?

Anybody?