Winnergambling's Blog

[Winnergambling]

Hi folks,

It´s time for a new blog! In this opening post I though it´d be good idea to shed some light on my personal gambling history and experience.

Well, I started online gambling on 2005. At that time I was working as a summer-jobber at a large papermill. One good friend of mine had started online poker a few months before and showed me the online gaming. He played some NL50-NL100 at that time.

I have always been interested in different games and playing cards, so it didn´t take long for me to deposit my first 100€ to pokerihuone.com site. Obviously that 100€ didn´t last too long because I had no skill whatsoever for the game. I played micro-stakes fixed limit hold´em there. After that, I borrowed some poker book from that friend of mine (might have been something like "Winning in small-stakes hold´em" or smthing along those lines). I read the book pretty fast and got general idea what kind of hands are good on the flop etc. After that, I made a deposit of 150€ to Pacific Poker and started playing small stakes fixed limit hold´em. The FL hold´em full ring games were extremely loose and passive that time and I managed to start winning pretty fast. I didn´t have great bankroll management at all, playing already $2/$4 FL game with a bankroll of $600 or so, but the level of play was so poor that my tight-passive style worked like a charm on those games. After the third month, I had already won $5000 or so from the games.

After that, my inexperience got me. I started to play higher and higher, and soon I found myself sitting at $30/$60 blinds FL game with a bankroll of $8000 or so. Even thou the games very extremely good at those stakes, my skills weren´t good enough. I played way too tight and passive post-flop and lost almost everything in a short time frame. I remember sitting with my last $1000 on a 3-handed 30/60 game and losing everything but $60 or so.

With that last $60, I jumped into a shorthanded $3/$6 game and managed miraculously not to go broke. At that point, I promised myseld never ever to do anything that stupid again while playing poker (playing way above my bankroll). I am somewhat proud that I have never busted my bankroll (if we don´t count the first deposited 100€) on my "career" as a player and have never needed staking. That time, I also started to work on my game and bought pokertracker to analyze my game. While plugging my leaks at my post-flop game by reading and analyzing my game, I also started to play 6-max FL games. Those games were great and I managed to win almost $10k in a month of February, 2006. After that, I hit a longish almost break-even stretch and also summer job didn´t give too much time to play. I managed to collect some big bonuses along the way though, making marginal profit.

In the fall of 2006, I transformed to a PLO player. I started from buy-in level $50 my career as a PLO player and soon worked my way to small stakes games between $100-$200 buy-in levels. At the start of 2007 I started to knock mid-stakes games doors. At the same time (fall 2006) I got interested in other forms of online gambling, mainly casino games and bonuses. The year 2007 was going to be a step-up for me as a gambler...but more about that next time!

While waiting for next entry, you can take a look at my free PLO poker training videos for beginners at the Poker section of this site. Comments are appreciated on them at the Poker Strategy section (there´s already a thread for that series made).

Good luck at the tables!

[Winnergambling]

So, let´s continue the history part here. This entry will actually cover up a brief trip report from 2007, not that much about my online gambling, so if you don´t prefer reading "life" stuff at all - then just skip this entry. But I think that you will enjoy photos anyway, so I hope you continue on reading.

In early 2007 I continued to develope my PLO game and on January 2007, I hit my biggest month ever at poker that far, winning over $16k during that month from PLO cash games, mostly between $200-$600 buy-in levels, including a few shots to $1k level. I had quite a nice run of cards during that month, but also played well. I also continued learning and exploring casino gaming online.

In February, we decided to visit Thailand, Pattaya with my friend (an online poker player too). He´s a couple of years younger than me, but we share a lot of same interests - one is a game of golf (we both are single-handicappers). So in mid-February, we jumped to a plane to Thailand to enjoy some sun,play some golf and to have some fun also. Our holiday lasted for two weeks and during that time we played 6 rounds of golf (if I remember correctly) and of course did many other things too we enjoy (like singing ABBA at karaoke in a bar after a big bottle of Baileys, but let´s not go into that this time...*cough cough*) .

Below are a couple of pics from that trip.



A monkey waiting for golfers to drop something to eat



One of my best photographs from the trip - a very beatiful setup on early morning at the golf course



This putt is gonna be a close one...



At least the caddie is a hottie even if the lie is not that appealing



Another beautiful morning at the golf course



A typical dance/singing show from a night club



And an overview of a typical large Pattayan night club


Hmmm....I don´t think this one needs any comments

A bonus video for (male) readers - girl above singing and dancing: http://www.winnergambling.com/movies/dancer1.avi

Feel free to ask more about golf or Thailand if you like.


Well, then after that trip, I mainly focused on casino games. I also encountered a longish break-even stretch at poker. I overcame that stretch in late summer though and started to win again. Happily I had made decent profit at casino games during that stretch.

In late 2007 I started to create this site and made the first, finnish version of it available. I took a 3 month break from poker because of that focusing to maintain that site.

In early 2008 I started to play poker again and after running bad at February (didn´t play at January) breaking-even, I hit my biggest month this far in March gaining over $40k during that month in ~25k hands. In April I had no time to play much constructing this site and during May I have only had time to play a couple of thousand hands because of the same reason. Hopefully I can get back to poker more at the end of June, even though I am planning to do much other things at summer and not to play that much. Below is a graph from my 2008 PLO cash games this far. As you can see only 50k hands played because haven´t had time for more yet.



Some might question why to "waste" time maintaining this site since poker is going pretty well. Well, I don´t feel THAT passionate towards poker as a player - never been a true "grinder" multitabling huge hours. My "grinding" months are the ones I pocket something between 20k-30k hands in. It´s more like just a source of income for me nowadays. I have always been interested in working with some my very own, international project like this website and this gives me some business experience too for the future.

Good luck at the tables until next time!

[Jeans]

Jeez nice girl in the video

[Winnergambling]

I haven´t had time to gamble much at all on June, so there has not been much to update on this blog. My total hands on June are in the ~1000 ballpark, so basically poker free month. I have concentrated on other stuff at life (like having a good time) and also have coached a bit PLO for a few students of mine. I enjoy coaching, and made a thread about my coaching services stickied to this blog forum. Check it there if you might be interested.

But well, some actual hands. I played a shortish session on weekend (to get to green for the month, LOL). I mixed in everything between PLO200 and PLO1000; 2-10 handed.

There were a couple of interesting hands during session, so I might comment a few on this entry.

This first hand occured after I had played ~20 hands in this 5-max PLO500 table. I haven´t had any big or even medium sized pots before this. Villain is unknown to me, but he seemed to multitable with full stacks so I´d guess he´s some kind of a regular at least.

Poker Room skin
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $5/$5
4 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $282.75
HERO: $452.50
SB: $485.25
BB: $986.00

Pre-flop: (4 players) HERO is Button with 6 A 2 A
UTG calls, HERO raises to $25, SB calls, BB raises to $100, UTG folds, HERO raises to $345, SB folds, BB calls.

Flop: Q 8 8 ($720, 2 players)
BB is all-in $641, HERO calls all-in $107.5.
Uncalled bets: $533.5 returned to BB.

Turn: T ($935, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $935)


River: A ($935, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $935)


Results:
Final pot: $935
BB shows 2:heart K:heart K:spade Q:club
HERO shows 6:heart A:spade 2:diamond A:diamond
RESULTS: HERO wins $933


After this hand, 5 hands later I made a huge laydown (likely a mistake) on flop in a pot, where this villain again 3-bet me pre. I had opened from the position pre with AQQTss. I should have 4-bet already there maybe.


Well, after that hand, 3 hands later following hand occured. The villain from the earlier two hands is a button in this hand:

Poker Room skin
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $5/$5
5 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
HERO: $838.00
CO: $398.00
Button: $689.50
SB: $143.75
BB: $276.75

Pre-flop: (5 players) HERO is UTG with A K T 9
HERO raises to $20, CO folds, Button raises to $55, SB calls, BB folds, HERO raises to $225, Button calls, SB calls all-in $88.75.

Flop: 6 T 4 ($598.75, 2 players + 1 all-in - Main pot: $436.25, Sidepot 1: $162.5)
HERO bets $598.75, Button calls all-in $464.5.
Uncalled bets: $134.25 returned to HERO.

Turn: 7 ($1527.75, 1 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $436.25, Sidepot 1: $1091.5)


River: 8 ($1527.75, 1 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $436.25, Sidepot 1: $1091.5)


Results:
Final pot: $1527.75
HERO shows A K T 9
Button shows J K Q 4
SB shows J K J 4
RESULTS: HERO wins $1,659.


This 4-bet pre-flop is definitely not standard from me with this hand OOP, but this villain had now 3-bet four times in a very short time span, so I was actually 80% sure that I have the best hand pre-flop and 4-bet was the only right choice. From the flop the hand plays itself from my point of view.

This hand highlights the fact how one should adapt to the opponents in PLO (especially short-handed), and not just play ABC-poker. Adapting is a key becoming a winner over typical regulars in mid-stakes games in my opinion.

[Winnergambling]

I hear many times poker players moaning that they are the unluckiest players in the world. Well, as every pro knows, the luck will even out in the infinite amount of time, right?

Well, I wanted to know if I am lucky or not (in poker) and how big factor luck is for a player like myself. I play omaha and it´s a well known fact that variance is bigger in omaha than it´s in NLHE, since omaha has more "coin flip" type of situations than NLHE.

To measure my luck, I downloaded the newest version of PokerEV software. The program is in beta phase and free to download at the moment. It supports all the largest sites and networks.

So, what I did is I loaded all my last 100,000 poker hands from my poker tracker database to this program and let it analyze them. Then I opened the "All-in Luck" page from the program and the result graph is following:



Basically what this graph tells is that

1. I have gone all-in before the river has been dealt against one or multiple opponents about 1830 times in last 100,000 hands.

2. It also shows that my expected equity in these situations has been almost the same as my realized winnings - about +$94,000.

3. That figure being that positive also tells that my playing style is TAGish - I have goods more often than a bluff when I go all-in with my hand.

4. After about 60,000 hands I have been about $10,000 under my expected value in these situations. This tells something about variance built in omaha. My buy-in levels have been ~$500 on average through hands 1-60,000, so I was 20 buy-ins down just because of the bad luck at that point.

5. The last 40,000 hands I have run better than expected, and the luck has evened out. My average buy-in level has been a bit higher through those hands; I´d estimate something in the ~$600 area so I have run about 17 buy-ins above expectation my last 40,000 hands.

6. Luck will even out eventually


When we take this thinking and use it to casino gaming, we should realize a few things. Poker has low variance - I´d estimate it´s very close to a variance of a coin flip - 1.00. Same number applies to casino games like baccarat, blackjack and pai gow poker (read more about variance in different casino games from our casino games reviews).

Slots for example have a standard deviation of ~5-15, depending on if the slot in question is low or high variance slot. So basically slots have 5 to 15 times higher variance than I have had in poker. If now my average contribution in a poker hand is something like ~$25-35 per hand when I am playing mid-stakes and I am able to get ~$10,000 differentations from expected results with these levels in poker, then just count how huge swings you will have playing slots on casinos with the same average bet size! about 5-15 times higher swings from expected return! That´s the reason why someone can hit a multi-million progressive jackpot on his first try at high variance progressive slot and why someone doesn´t have a winning session in 20 consecutive sessions playing slots sometimes.

Let´s take a concrete example: We have a medium variance slot wit a standard deviation of ~8.00. We have a bankroll of $100,000 and we wager it through once over time. Because this slot´s return percentage is ~96% on average, the average return is $96,000 from our starting $100,000. Well, we use the mentioned betsize above, ~$25 per spin total invested. Now according to our result gotten above from poker and multiplying it by ~8, we can see that after wagering that $100,000, our result could be something in between -$80,000 to +$76,000 from our original starting bankroll!

This same applies to other high variance casino games like 1-hand video poker and others.

So - think about these numbers next time before you claim some online gambling game to be rigged against you!


I made a post about casino game variance based on my gameplay data on a certain casino on different games early this year. It shows further how far away you can be from expected returns on different casino games after a significant amount of wagering even in rather low variance casino games.

I hope this entry brings some thoughts!

[Winnergambling]

Tonight, I decided to play a new casino bonus available, GoldVictory, which can be found as number 31. in out Top 100 Casino Bonuses list currently.

The bonus is 100% up to 200€, with 30xBonus wagering requirement, Video Poker being the lowest house edge game available. Bonus is credited pre-wager (nice).

I deposited 200€ for the maximum bonus, transferred it to casino section and requested bonus from support via email. They replied pretty fast that they need utility bill and ID photo. I sent those to them (always have these saved on your hard drive if you plan to play on several casinos). They accepted my docs pretty fast and credited me my bonus.

This casino doesn´t have automated wagering tracking so I had to use "deck of cards"-method. It goes the way that I pick up a deck of cards and then remove two cards, so that I have a 50-card deck on the table. Then I pick my betsize - I have quite a healthy bankroll, so I of course want to minimize the variance (picking 100-play JoB Video Poker as a game) and maximize the hourly rate (picking maximum bet size - 50€ per hand). Then I divide the wagering requirement (6000€) with my bet size (50€) and the result gives me 120. So I have to go my 50-card deck throught twice plus 20 hands on top of that to complete wagering. This "deck of cards"-system is quite good when there´s no automatic tracking available on the casino. Always when I hit "deal"-button, I remove one card from the deck. I go deck through twice this way + 20 cards on top of that.

I have two monitors, so I open the gameplay window to another and Net Ent JoB optimal strategy to another and start playing. In the beginning I drop to almost 200€ balance pretty fast, but then I start to hit some nice pat hands like two pairs and three of a kind and after 50% wagered I am up a bit even without the bonus.

Then I start to hit some good hands and my balance climbs pretty nicely. At the top point after ~100 hands, I am up to over 1000€ balance. After about 130 hands (I tend to play a bit more than minimun WR), I am at 886€ balance. It tooks about 30 minutes for me to play these ~130 hands, since I am quite an experienced casino game player. So nice +666€ profit in 30 minutes. Now I just wait for my docs to get approved, so that I can request a withdrawal. Day´s work done.

[tolihava]

Nice, this kind of stories i want more. Good work.

[tolihava]

Well, i tryed this one also. But only half size bet to get variance smaller. Well, not so good news. It went bad, lost. 177 hands with 25€ bets total. Well, this is now -400€ in 2 nights... Thats no good but still on profit anyway but i feel i should stick to blackjack, lol. But yeah. Thats life. Maybe later try again somewhere else when first get more play money, money is not problem but just dont wanna loose on these games..

If looking something good about it i did not have to play many hours, maybe 1 hour it took me to use it so it was fast.

[Winnergambling]

Yeah, it´s variance. EV is +170€, so obviously my result was well over expected on that one.

[Wakke]

Well, i tryed this one also. But only half size bet to get variance smaller. Well, not so good news. It went bad, lost. 177 hands with 25€ bets total. Well, this is now -400€ in 2 nights... Thats no good but still on profit anyway but i feel i should stick to blackjack, lol. But yeah. Thats life. Maybe later try again somewhere else when first get more play money, money is not problem but just dont wanna loose on these games..

If looking something good about it i did not have to play many hours, maybe 1 hour it took me to use it so it was fast.

I don't know if you are using aggressive method when you're playing BJ bonuses but 25 € (if 100 hands, 0.25 € per hand) betsize means almost 50 € betsize in BJ. If you aren't comfortable playing with 50 € bets, you should lower your betsize or you will bust most of the time.