Sunday, May 29, 2005

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

YTD: +$31998.20

Something really just tickled me. As Faithful Readers know, I have long used a labrinythe of spreadsheets for analysis and record keeping purposes. One of the things I track is my estimated bankroll for a particular game.

So over 320 hours in the 2-4 PLO games on the net, I am 95% certain of having a win rate between $6 and $116 per hour, with an estimated bankroll of under $10k. Which shows how well I ran there.

In the infamous 5-10 PLO game, for a while at least, my estimated bankroll was between $40-50K, which felt about right.

With my recent form, this figure has changed somewhat. My new estimated bankroll requirement to play the 5-10 PLO game is...

$1,904,036

So it looks like a place finish in the Big One is necessary. Vegas here I come!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The great thing about the "bankroll required" stats is that it is a bit like a politician. It can never be proved wrong. There you are, having played 100 sessions, done ok, and you see that your required bankroll is 2K (to within a 95% degree of certainty). You then lose 1.3K. That's ok, you say to yourself, the stats predicted this as a potential loss. I've still got 1.7K in the tank. No need for me to shift down a level just yet.

You then input the figures, and the sheet promptly tells you that your required bankroll is now 4.5k.

You sort of feel like saying to it "A lot of use you are. I lose a fiver and you suddenly tell me that all bets are off..."

Pete

Big Dave D said...

Pete,

Quick questionwhile ur here...how much rake were you paying when you were playing below 5-10? I guess at a BB/100 rate would make sense?

cheers

Dave

Anonymous said...

OK Mr D. You asked for it....

I assume by rake you mean avge percentage of pots, rather than avge percentage of my winnings.

It's here that remembering how to do a table in HTML might be useful (I have to crank up notepad and paste in a file on the other machine, and since I don't even know if this will take tables, you'll have to do with the list!)


Paradise:
2/4 3.09%
3/6 3.37%
5/10 3.28%

Stars:
2/4 2.86%
3/6 3.16%
5/10 3.35%

Party
2/4 3.24%
3/6 3.47%
5/10 3.23%

All the above are on sample sizes large enough to be accurate within three or four basis boints either way, I reckon.


The lower rake on Stars at 2/4 compared with Paradise is solely down to the games being tighter and fewer hands being raked at all.

Party's rake improves at 5/10 (comparatively) because it eliminates the $10 increments that it imposes at lower levels (i.e., 50c at $10, $1.50 at $30, $2.50 at $50).

Its rake also improves comparatively because of a higher percentage of pots that fly through the $60 barrier.

As usual, lowest average rake does not necessarily equate with best game! I happily paid the extra tax on Party because the income was much higher. I'd guess that my "real" tax rate on Party was around 35%, while on Paradise (before a horrible run slaughtered my hourly rate) it was 40% and on Stars it was 60%.

Ultimate and Betfair impose 25 cent increments at the lower levels. I put up with this for a while on Betfair because for a while the players were so dreadful that this mattered not a jot. But then the sharks moved in from Ladbrokes and killed the games.

Avge rake in this kind of game is fairly constant at arounfd 4.2%, I think.

Betfair/Cryptologic's rake is the biggest insult to the intelligence (particularly short-handed). They could well end up doing a lot of damage to their brand over their lack of control over Cryptologic.

Pete

Big Dave D said...

Pete,

So, on a rough calculation, does this mean that you roughly pay $60 per 100 hands at the 2-4 level?

cheers

Dave

Big Dave D said...

Oops!

Sorry forgot you dont play every hand :(

So its more like $6 per 100 hands?

cheers

Dave

Anonymous said...

Ahh, the rate per hour paid.

Opening up the database that has the most games -- Paradise 2004, I see that I played 29,000 hands of 2/4 and paid $1,589 in rake. That equals just under $5.50 in rake per 100 hands.

Contrasting this with my biggest database thus far at 5/10. That comes in at $477 in rake in 3,134 hands. That's just over $15.20 in rake per 100 hands.

As you can see, it's a myth that the rake "kills you" at lower limits. It does in casinos, but not online.

I'm now at possibly the worst level for rake when you combine absolute amount paid and percentage of pot. Let's take, say, 15/30. Here you would probably be winning 10 hands in every 100 and paying $3 a time. That would make a rake of $30 per 100 hands, or twice as much, in a game that is (more than) three times as big.

Pete

steve said...

'Betfair/Cryptologic's rake is the biggest insult to the intelligence (particularly short-handed). They could well end up doing a lot of damage to their brand over their lack of control over Cryptologic'

Couldn't agree more, but BF do at least enhance their imageby running freerolls, overlays etc. The poker room have worked quie hard there, but they are hampered by crypto.

I remember a WH manager appearing on THM and being challenged on the near $6 rake paid in cash games, even when reduced to HU. He said 'its not nearly $6, it's £3': mind boggling. This was probably forgivable in the early days when the software was in it infancy. But that's not an excuse now is it?

Who can blame them? If people will pay it then why should they cut down their income?

The biggest mistake crypto made was to allow very high limits. With most of your punters gamblers, operating from sports books this is suicide for both the card room and the sportsbook. I'm sure there would be plenty of lively games there now if the limit maxed @ 30:60.

Its hard to believe something won't come along on to shake up the industry - lottopoker, Virginpoker. The greatest impedence are these damn skins leaving just a few poker rooms to compete. But I guess they've provided opportunity too in rakebacks.

There is certainly more awarenes in the poker community of the rake issue than when me and Dave were at it on the THM a couple of years ago. But not sufficient to reach the stage where a significant number of people can say 'right, what can we do about it?'.

Anonymous said...

Hey Dave,

Sorry to hear about the downstreak. My advice is to find a lower variance game you can play to keep your sanity during the huge downswings of playing PLO. 7 card stud is a good one to try as the variance is much lower than hold'em or omaha.

As an aside I'll be in Manchester in July and was wondering if there's anywhre I can play some PLO? Hope you break out of the streak.

Later,
LA_Price

Big Dave D said...

Beset,

The reason I asked was that I am going to offer a very special rakeback deal very soon.

LA,

The action in Manchester used to be at Salford, not the sweetest part of the world to be in. I have only been once now in 2 years so I am completely out of touch. I suggest you post on THM and see what happens.

A warning tho, most cash games will not be pure PLO, but a lot of differing flavours under the sun. You will be lucky to play 4 card PLO once a round.

cheers

Dave