Update

Better late than never...even if it's over a year later. :p I'm back. Some things have changed. I'm single. I live in a big house in a good part of town now. I'm currently sharing it with my best friend and fellow poker grinder Weezermoo (Jeff). Though he's gone half the time visiting his fiance in Tucson, AZ. And we are going to actually enter a few WSOP events this year as well as scavenge at the side games (probably deep stacked 5/10 NL for the most part.) Soon my good friend Tyler will be moving in. He has saved some money so he can give this poker pro thing a try with our guidance. It'll be the most responsible, money conscious, non-gambling, ego-less (more or less) poker house on the face of the planet. :) I'm still multi-table grinding medium stakes online with much success...fairly lazy success, but success nonetheless. ;) So there's your brief update. I suggest reading my entry Stealing Is Wrong: Part 1 before reading this one. Even if you've read it already you might as well check it out again. After all, that was a year ago.

Warning Signs

It was September of 2006. I was playing on a few small sites offering generous rake back. One of those sites was a skin of the Ongame network. Some of you guys will remember. Poker Room and Hollywood Poker were the biggest skins, but there were several much smaller ones. One of those small rooms was called Pokes Poker, and I was signed up for 50% rake back with no seating rules. With plenty of tables to choose from on a network that size it was a fantastic deal...in theory. Some people had reported waiting a long time for cashouts. Jeff withdrew some as a test and it went through fine so we weren't all that worried.

October 2006... shortly after the passage of the UIGEA, my main site, Bet Hold 'Em Poker, a skin of the Prima network, announced it was going under. All assets were frozen. This had me pretty freaked out considering majority of my bankroll at the time (about 10k) was now tied up. Shorty after the accounts were frozen we were told that Bodog would be buying all the accounts, and that our money would be accessible as soon as the switch was made. This process took about a month. Just as promised, on the day the money was transferred to Bodog I was able to withdraw it all without playing a single hand.

Mass Thievery

While my money had been tied up I'd had little choice but to play on Pokes Poker. I played for a couple weeks and profited about 3k, but I decided to put in for a withdrawal since US players were going to soon be banned from the Ongame network due to the UIGEA. It was Ongame's attempt to remain as legitimate as possible in uncertain times. I had just over $4200 on the Pokes skin. I never have and never will see any of that money.

A couple months later it became clear that something was seriously wrong when all the US players from Pokes were posting on forums saying they hadn't received any of their cashouts. Pokes was claiming it was all due to their payment processor called FutureBet. There had been complaints about FutureBet from players on their other gaming clients posted on Casinomeister. The rumor was that FutureBet had processed about $1 million in US funds for Ongame relating to Pokes Poker. But instead of making it available to Pokes Poker so players could have their funds, they kept most of it to pay off debts. It seemed they had used the timing of cutting ties with the US to their advantage. Eventually Pokes stopped responding to the barrage of emails sent by angry players. Some of them were higher stakes grinders with 50k+ sums.

Fighting Back

We got organized and formed a Google Group. We were going to hire a lawyer and try to actually make something happen. The main obstacle was the fact that all these companies were offshore, and that online poker was already not considered a legitimate activity, even if there was no federal law against actually playing. The main target was obviously FutureBet. One of the more resourceful members of our group had discovered an address in Canada that was supposed to be one of FutureBet's main offices. But by the time anyone got around to confirming this, it seemed they had packed up and moved on.

Giving Up

Eventually we realized the pursuit of justice in this matter was all but hopeless. The lack of regulation and the obstacle of crossing borders to make anything happen ended our chances. After a while a third party dropped into our group and made a proposal. He wanted us to sign away the money owed us in exchange for some sort of share in the rights to some poker software owned by futurebet. They were supposedly out of liquid assets and were going under... The deal was that this third party was going to start a new site using this new software. But we wouldn't start getting our money back when he started profiting. NO. We had to play as props on his site and the 100% rake back we earned would go toward paying us back. Basically we had to earn money that was already ours. And this assumed his site even got off the ground. Most new sites never do. I think more than half the people signed since they figured it was their only chance to ever see any of their money again. I didn't sign. I figured I'd rather just put in some extra hours on one of the sites I already was propping at and pretend I was getting my money back. :p Seriously.

UIGEA Aftermath and Final Thoughts

These days it's pretty easy to keep away from any sketchy sites. Plenty of people will post all of their problems on poker forums and sites like Casinomeister. Mansion Poker stopped servicing US players, but we all got our money no problem. In January 2007 there was a big scare when tens of millions worth of US players' money was frozen on the ewallet Neteller. The biggest and most trusted ewallet in the world used by poker sites was cooperating with the FBI who were investigating Neteller's founder. Several months later everyone had access to their money and were able to withdraw. I had already gotten my 2k or so out via the Neteller debit card before that too was frozen ;). Neteller no longer offers service to US players... man, I miss those days.

After I withdrew my money from Bodog I put it on a small site called Bugsy's Club and ended up making a ton of money there. They actually went under just recently, but all the accounts were bought up by Poker Stars. Unfortunately, Stars made all of us clear our money $500 at a time by accruing enough VPPs (point system). This added up to me playing A LOT of hands. I'm still working on clearing the rest. But I'm glad they stepped in to protect the players. As you can see, even in extreme situations like when sites go bankrupt or close down people usually get their money back.

It was hard to see the events surrounding Pokes Poker coming. No one thought the UIGEA would even get passed. It's passage along with some dishonest scam artists posing as a legitimate business cost me $4200 and some people a lot more. It didn't really affect my life, but that's still a lot of money to get stolen from you no matter how you look at it. In a system where online poker was legalized and regulated in the US this would NEVER have happened. It's ironic that this example of fraud might be cited by those opposed to legalizing online poker AND by those of us crying for legalization and regulation. IMO, a logical mind can clearly see that my experiences support the idea of regulation much more than prohibition. DUCY?

So, yeah. I actually made money in July. How about that? In fact it was my second best month so far this year. Hurray!

Though there was nothing I could have done to stop my May-June downswing, I could have lightened it's effect by more quickly becoming aware of some bad habits I was developing. When you lose a lot at anything, regardless of the reason, it doesn't exactly boost your confidence. And subsequently my rotten state of mind was causing me to play worse. Nothing huge. But it adds up when you are playing several hundred hands an hour. Upon review of some of my sessions I was able to identify my "tilt" moments. It was usually just a matter of me not giving people enough credit. When you are running bad, it usually means someone else you are playing with is running good. And when they keep getting good hands over and over you assume they must be putting the moves on. But it's easy to justify overcompensation when you are in the middle of poker hell.

So reevaluating my play helped, but the main reason I was able to profit in July was simply a matter of not running like death. Maybe I can run even hotter in August.

I'm going to continue to blame my lack of blogging on the shifting tectonic plates of my personally life. There has been a whole lot on my mind lately and creating blog entries interesting enough for people to read has not been a priority. But the desire is still there, and I'm still here.

I'm very much looking forward to visiting you folks in the Bay Area in September for Jason's B-day. Until then, stack some fishies, avoid the other sharks, and hopefully you'll continue to profitably navigate the ocean of poker (ooooooooooo, epic.)

I'm back and am going to start blogging more frequently. I've been a bit stressed lately with some happenings in my personal life, as well as running at least twice as bad in poker as I was complaining about back in January (and right after I dutifully paid my sick chunk in taxes. argh!). But hey, that's why I keep a bank roll. Right? Besides. February, March and April were all above average months for profit. So I'm not in danger of busting or anything. Just feel very set back in my goals.

Seeing Jason almost final table in event #49 at the world series helped to rekindle the poker flames, however. So, I plan to play more, blog more, earn more. The goal is to have enough money saved come next year that I can enter some WSOP tourneys and not miss the buy-ins if I don't make the money. I mean, I could have entered one or two small events this year, but I wouldn't have felt responsible using my money for that. Multi-table tournament buy-ins are supposed to be 2% or less of your bankroll at maximum (assuming that's how you earn your living). Even the $1500 events are still well above that mark for me. So it's time to save. The cash games during the world series are sick good as well. So, it would be nice to have the money to play a bigger game than usual if the fish are plentiful.

So yeah, this is just a quick update to let those who care know that I'm still here. My next post will probably be the long overdue Stealing is Wrong: Part 2.

I've heard about many different incidents involving theft of online poker bankrolls. The most common form is someone getting their account "hacked." Usually it's because the victim's computer has been compromised with some sort of virus or spyware. Often times it's a keylogger that files the victims keystrokes and then sends data to some bastard with no morals. The bastard then logs in to the victim's poker account with X poker site and proceeds to "chip dump" to another account. While logged in he'll usually change the password.

It's not always necessary to obtain unique passwords for every site the victim has money on. Most people will use just one email address for their poker accounts. Obtain the email password and all you have to do is click "forgot password" at the many smaller poker sites that don't have security questions. It then emails the new password to the compromised email. The smart bastard also changes the email password. This can make it much harder for the victim to get things in order before it's too late.

One way I've heard this happens is when a bastard befriends a victim. He might spend several months earning a "high roller" victim's trust via IM and email exchanges. Then he'll send a file labeled as a hand history converter, an odds calculator, or something else poker related. The file is dirty of course, and often times programmed specifically to grab passwords from certain poker sites.

Other times the bad files can be acquired by clicking on a link posted in a poker forum that leads to something nasty. Moderators are usually on the look out for this. The best defense is to just not click on a link unless the poster has a fairly high post count and/or is trusted by a vast majority of the community.

This sort of theft is not nearly as easy to get away with as it used to be. And while I've heard stories about players 5 and 6 figure bankrolls getting stolen, frozen, or lost for weeks, the story usually ends with them getting their money back once the investigation is over. The major poker sites have sophisticated software as well as trained employees on the lookout for the signs of shady dealings.

Even with the beefy security, it still happens, but it's pretty rare. And the crime can usually be traced to the victim either doing something stupid like sharing an account with someone he doesn't know that well, or not guarding his computer thoroughly against threats like viruses. That's why I make sure to keep my computer squeaky-clean; a habit I started because of online banking.

Most of you know about the Absolute Poker scandal I'm sure. If not, the gist is that someone working at Absolute had access to the hole cards of every player and was feeding that info to accomplices on the outside who were in turn making perfect poker decisions at high-stakes games. The decisions turned out to be too perfect, and smart players used data-miners such as poker tracker to discover this and call out the cheaters. An independent company audited Absolute, players were compensated for losses, and suspects were fired. The hole cards were able to be viewed because of a back door written into the code back when the software was still in testing. This should not be, and is not possible under normal circumstances with any poker software. It would be incredibly stupid to write in that ability.

But this incident just fueled the fire of all the conspiracy theorists who think such "super-user accounts" ,as they are called, exist all over the online poker world. They think that the sites are in on it to get even more money. Some also think that players write programs that allow them to see opponents' cards or to know what cards will hit the board. I have actually been accused of this on more than one occasion. A semi-epic thread developed not long ago on the forums for my rakeback affiliate (the forums are private, otherwise I would link it). It was started by a player who just "knew" I had to be cheating. It was quite amusing, flattering, and offensive all at the same time. Anyways, that could be another blog entry entirely. In my opinion those scenarios are both very VERY unlikely. It's in the best interest of the sites to make things as fair as possible. Cheating players out of their money would bust them too many times. The sites make PLENTY from the rake. Also, it's virtually impossible to independently write a program that would allow you to view opponents cards or know the coming community cards. My longer term success in the online poker world coupled with logical reasoning is enough to convince me that "super-users" are a phantom non-issue.

Over the course of online poker history, the thieving methods I've mentioned so far have reaped very little total rewards for the morally deficient bastards out there who've used them. Despite this fact, these methods seem to be the most talked about. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I would bet that far more money has been stolen under very different circumstances. In a nutshell, those circumstances are simply the site just running away with your money. I'm not trying to freak anybody out. In general I think online poker is safe. But there have been many cases of smaller sites either going bankrupt and not having the funds to cash players out, or simply cutting their losses before things got that bad and running away with 7 figure sums. That's why I'm careful about the smaller sites that I play on. I read about their history. I listen to players opinions. And I check to see if they show up on any naughty lists at http://www.casinomeister.com/.

I wish I could say that all my preventative measures are purely the result of a thoroughly tenacious mindset for success and safety. But, like most people, my cautious behavior took a more defined and purposeful shape after I got burned. I learned the hard way. That is not to say it wouldn't have still happened even if I had been just as careful back then. But no one was quite prepared for all of the fall out created by the passing of the UIGEA. Having thousands of dollars stolen from you, and having virtually no legal route to justice was a very frustrating life experience. And I was one of the fortunate ones. Some players lost sums that would make me vomit. But that story warrants it's own blog entry. Tune in next time to hear the horror in it's entirety. ;)

When I arrived at the Wynn to play it out on day 3 I discovered I had been bumped to 4th in chips because of stacks that were built on the 2nd day-one. But I was still quite close to the chip leader and that was all that mattered. There were less than 70 people because the other day wasn't as big as ours. That meant there were still 4 places that weren't going to get money. Everyone voted to skim money from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd to give them each $600. So they got their money back and a little profit. We were all guaranteed money. Woo.

When the clock started I was still feeling a bit lethargic. The coffee hadn't really worked, but I was determined to really think my decisions through despite not feeling 100% aware of my surroundings yet. I was the biggest stack at my table. Everyone noticed how many purple (5k) chips I had. And then we were off. Short stacks were already busting right and left. I was getting complete garbage for hands and just kept folding. After a few revolutions I looked really tight, but it was just the burst of crappy cards that molded my image.

I finally got something playable in late position and took the blinds and antes. I noticed the player two seats to my right had raised at least twice per revolution when he was in the 3 latest positions. With as much stealing as he was doing it seemed like a good opportunity to resteal from him at some point, especially because I had such a tight image. The blinds passed me once more and I was on the button. He did it again. It was a smallish raise (less than 3x) considering how big the pot was with all those antes. He seemed to favor the smaller raises whenever he entered the pot. I looked down to see . Not the greatest hand to put a move on since it's so easily dominated, but I was a big stack and wanted to put pressure on these medium stacks around me. People tend to clam up without a premium hand in that spot in a tourney when you put their stack at risk. And as I mentioned, I had been very quiet. So I made a move and reraised him. It made sense in my mind because I needed to build a stack if I wanted to make any real money in this thing. Cashing a couple thousand is not what I was looking for. That's just another good session at the cash games. I wanted my first real cash. That meant at least the final table. OK, so I'm done making excuses. Back to the hand. He didn't look too happy about my raise, which is what I was looking for. Then...you guessed it, the guy in the SB behind me sat their for about 30 seconds...and then moved all in. He was another medium stack, but it was still enough to cut me down in size. The BB and original raiser fold, and now I'm left with a decision. Obviously I can assume his range is beating me, but is it beating me by enough to warrant folding when I'm being laid nearly 3 to 1 pot odds? In a cash game it would be a no brainer call with those odds, but you can't rebuy in a tourney. I still have a good stack. Is it worth it? Well, I decided he wouldn't be shoving in with A9, AT, or AJ with the stack size he had. He might even fold AQ sometimes considering my image. So that eliminates many of the hands that are crushing me. After thinking about his likely range for about 30 seconds I decided I needed to call. There are too many pairs that he might shove, that I'm just not far enough behind to fold. So he flips up . Ugh. Not what I wanted to see. Man...it's only . How did I get into this mess? What a tourney donk I must be...I feel so in control in a cash game...and so out of my element here. I feel choked by the restrictions of my stupid finite stack. A King flops and all but seals the deal. No lucky suck out for me. Sigh.

I had just lost more than a third of my stack and was feeling stupid/unlucky, but I shook it off and focused on the task at hand. Another revolution, the round ended and the blinds went up. Thank God the antes didn't. Now my "M" was less than 10. UGH! Then I look down to see . Alright, a hand. There is one limper, and I raise from late position. The BB and the limper call. Flop comes with an Ace. Of course. The BB bets, and the limper raises him. Ok, so much for queens. I fold. The BB thinks for a while, shows an Ace and folds. The limper shows his set for some reason, and we're off to the next hand.

Another revolution and my "M" is now 5. Damn it. This sucks. I pick up on the cut-off and it is folded to me. This is a clear shove with my stack size. I make the shove and it folds to a medium stack on the BB. He thinks for what seemed like forever. At this point I'm thinking he has something like or and isn't sure what to do. I'm hoping he'll fold. I'd rather not have to risk a coin flip, or even worse. He calls and turns over . What the hell were you thinking about, dude?! Drama and false hope just to see that damned hand again. And once again the King flops to seal the deal with no diamonds. I'm out in 47th place.

Wow. How the hell did this happen? But I know exactly how. I can't help but think what would have been if I had just folded the stupid to the initial smallish raise. Or even just called. I wouldn't have had to shove that and would still be in decent shape...Damn tourneys. I received $900 and change for a profit around $400. Needless to say I was disappointed. But I was awake now. The Wynn's poker room was full of busted tourney donks from this event and the $1k event that was running simultaneously. I took a walk around the slightly raised "high stakes" section, and the games were great. There were 2 10/20 NL tables going with no cap (all Wynn games have no max buy-in). The average stack must have been at least 10K. Good. That meant that the 3 5/10 NL games were mostly free of the toughest players. It was time for some deep stacked 5/10 NL. At least I felt like I knew what I was doing here. And I had the freedom of the 200 BBs (2k) I bought in with.

Next entry I'll be talking about a couple of my live 5/10 NL sessions. I want to run some of the hands by you guys and talk about some of the seemingly crazy plays that often make sense in a somewhat higher stakes game with decent competition. And while I'm at it we can talk about some of the differences between live and online games. Until next time.

Well, as I've mentioned before, I'm not much of a tournament guy. The reason is partly because the luck/variance factor is higher, and also because I got my start in cash games and feel more comfortable there. I love the freedom of deep stacks and being able to reload at any time. ahhh.... the purity of the cash game. But anyways, the Wynn has been running it's yearly Wynn Classic tourneys, and they actually have some decent structures for the smaller buy-ins. Our poker friend Dan was in town so all 3 of us (Jeff, Dan, and myself) decided to enter the $500 event.

We were only given 80 big blinds to start, but the rounds were 45 minutes long and blind increases were very reasonable. Another appealing aspect of this event was the prize pool. It was huge. They had to split the initial field into two day-ones. They would play down to 10% and then combine the fields to play it out on day 3. The total was just shy of 700 entrants. 1st place could expect a prize over 100k. That's a pretty sweet purse for a $500 event. You had to make top 5 to break 10k, but whatever. It seemed like a fun idea. If nothing else it was a good way to mix up the steady grinder's routine. Also, we got a $20 meal comp with entry. Heh, woo.

As is normal toward the beginning of a Multi-Table Tournament (MTT), I wasn't very active. In fact a few hours went by before I even showed a hand down. People either folded pots over to me, or I just stole the blinds and maybe a limper or two. But this was enough to adequately increase my stack and kept me ahead of the blind increases and the average stack.

A few rounds later I looked over to see Jeff had busted out. It was the standard overpair vs a flopped set. Such is poker. Soon after I managed to win a coin flip against a shorter stack. Then I flopped a set that held up against one of the chip leaders, and he doubled me up with his pair and straight draw. He started spewing chips and in another revolution he was busted. All of a sudden I was in a good spot. I was well above the average stack. I made it through the dinner break and so did Dan, though he was on a shorter stack. There were only 50 something of us left and we were playing down to 36 which was about 10% of that day's entrants. Since the second day-one would most likely have close to as many entrants as my day-one, I was very very likely to be in the money just by finishing out the day. This was a first for me. I'd never gone deep in any decent MTT. Though I've only played a handful of them.

Shortly after dinner Dan lost a coin flip for his stack. Now it was just me. Then came a relatively scary hand when I flat called a known bluffer's late position raise from my BB with . He'd been stealing the blinds a lot from the button and cut off. I could have gone for a reraise to resteal, but then I pretty much just turn my hand into a bluff and fold out the hands that I'm beating already. I didn't really want to play a big pot with this hand in a tourney, so I decided to "small ball" it Phil Hellmuth style. I flopped top pair with my . I opted to just check call to get value from a bluff. The only problem with that is I have no way to define my hand, and a better A obviously has me crushed. So he bet the flop and I called. I checked again and he bet again. I just called. The turn had paired a low card on the board and the river was a putting 3 hearts out there. So now I'm splitting with any A that I was previously beating. Also if he was betting the flush draw he just got there. The only thing I had going for me now was my read of his demeanor. I like to think I've gotten pretty good at this. I've made some pretty sick calls and bluffs based solely on my read of my opponents' body language. When the chips go in for this reason I'm almost always right. I felt like he was weak, but he didn't speak much English so I was worried about misinterpreting the situation. I checked once more. He shrugged and put me all in for about a pot bet. I tried to ask him questions in an attempt to get a better read, but he couldn't understand most of what I was saying. But there was really no way I could fold at this point. I called and he said, "You win" and flipped up for a complete bluff. Then the very next hand I picked up and called the now short stacked bluffer's all in. He had a smaller pair and my hand held up.

A few hands went by, I stole a few blinds and had to fold one of my raises to a shove. Then the next thing I knew we were done for the day. When the stacks were counted I was second in chips! I was certainly happy with that. Despite my large stack, I still only had an M of about 20 (M is a tournament term for the number of revolutions you can survive around the table before your stack is eaten by the blinds and antes). But such is often the situation in freakin' tourneys. ;) Anyways, that concludes day one. I don't feel like making this any longer, so you'll have to tune in next time for the rest. And all of you who know what happened just keep your mouths shut. :p

Well, December and January just sucked. I haven't had much good to say in my last few entries. That's why I wrote that silly story. If I hadn't, it would have been nothing but whining. I wanted to at least attempt to make the whining entertaining. ;)

I had battled to win back some of my deficit over the last two weeks of January, only to lose all that progress in one very short, very retarded session (no offense to the retarded). One outers included. Honestly, you have probably never seen anything so sick. It is very rare. It was time to change up my scene. I was going out of my mind and needed to mix things up in life so poker didn't suck all the joy out of it. So I decided some impetuous travel would be good therapy, and I bought a ticket to Eugene, OR to visit my friend Tyler for an extended 4 and a half day weekend. Yes, they actually have a small airport there, and the last minute ticket options were actually cheaper than going to Portland and getting a car ride down.

I played some more poker before I left for Eugene...lost more...then didn't play again until the day before I left. What a breath of fresh air that session was. I ran hot for the first time in what seemed like forever, and left for my short vacation in good spirits.

I was on a messed up schedule of going to bed at 9am and waking up at 5pm (don't do this, it sucks) and was having some insomnia problems while getting back on a normal schedule for the first two days. But once my bio-rhythms had righted themselves I was able to have a nice relaxing time with friends and clear my mind of the horror. I ate burritos and more burritos, played Rock Band, saw a couple movies, was introduced to the show Arrested Development, and played some buzzed dealers call poker for $5. Came out a $3 winner. BOOM. I did play some online poker while I was there and ended up losing another thousand, but I felt like I played well. And having booked the very large winning session before the trip, it didn't send me on life tilt or anything.

Well, it would seem the poker gods decided I had finally had enough...because that was the last losing session I have had up to the point of writing this, making it one of only two losing sessions for the whole month so far. I have since been running hotter than the sun. I am currently up 16k for the month of February. What a nice change of pace. It has helped reignite a desire to play and play well. I promised Jeff I would not forget. It's easy to forget the times you ran hot when things are going badly. I have seen it all and can rest easy in the facts that I didn't tilt off tons of money, and my bankroll was more than enough to cushion the swing.

Running bad can sometimes suck the smarts out of your game. I will sometimes catch myself having stopped thinking as in depth about situations because my brain's not receiving results that equal the effort I'm putting in. In fact it's receiving the opposite. It makes poker feel like a scratch off ticket, contrary to what they say in the Full Tilt commercial. This sort of results oriented reaction is a natural and normally good teaching tool of the human brain. But if you are going to be truly good at something like poker you have to press on and keep the faith. It's much easier to make the best decisions when you are passionate and enjoying what you are doing. It's hard to be passionate when the deck is hitting you in the face.

So, If you are losing, or just feel like you are treading water because of bad luck, keep the faith. Balance will come eventually. I was lucky to receive it in a rush of running hot right after running bad. It doesn't always happen like that. I could have had to wait a whole year to see the downswings mirror opposite. But it would have come eventually. Keep working on your game. Don't be short term results oriented. And try to enjoy yourself. After all, it is a game. And games are supposed to be fun, LDO. ;)