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Know some guys are looking to sell and I want them!!! Can send either BOA or paypal.

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Found this gem yesterday, thought it's one of the most hilarious things I've seen this year and finally not another stupid fake prank video.

"The gunfighter":

The Gunfighter from Eric Kissack on Vimeo.

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As I am writing this I'm not sure what I will do in the following month.

But I do want to make some blog about goal-setting, how I approach decisions. I think that naturally my mind approaches decision making kind of like Conway's game of life. I'm not sure if I understand it 100% correctly but I think you have these binary squares of two different color with some initial state. Rules are set in which based on the squares interact with each other the successive state changes, etc etc and through this you can glean some kind of insight into dynamic/complex systems which I guess is a cool concept and can be often analagous to life? (I haven;t studied it indepth or anything, so correct me if I am wrong).



For me, I there's a reason goal setting is hard/elusive is because life is really really complex and ever changing. Rather, if you focusing on the rules that make up alot of your goal it becomes much more manageable and easier to implement into your day to day life. Iunno, perhaps as I am writing this I might focus a bit too much on the rules, but not so much on the goal or the "stable state?"

Anyway I think I have alot of rules. Rules within rules, etc. Weird starting points into the essence of my character. "I just know I LIKE this, I Like doing this,
I think this is good, I think this is bad, etc." love/hate. Some rules are good some are bad. I use these rules when I meditate at some subconscious level and just decide what I am going to do that very day and just try to do it the best I can possibly do it.

For example:

The Korean-Rule : Never go busto! Koreans frown upon gambling, especially if you lose. My dad gave me alot of shit a few years ago because poker to him was absolutely unacceptable. Anyway this is probably a huge influence for me not just like going crazy with shot taking, being a life nit, etc. For me I had to balance my Korean-Rule with my love of the game of poker. I mean if I am a losing player, or just not making xyz a year this rule just kind of hovers over you like a ghost. If I ever go busto this rule would be like a kettle of boiling water!

Some Rules I guess are just a consequence of variance, but nonetheless etched into you as a person. For example the past, people you have met, things that have happened. I think some rules you draw inspiration from philosophy, literature. You may browse, see what you like, etc. There's some moment for me...I LIKE exisentialism...Sartre says..So for me...I will do this, that, shape my life this way, that, etc. Some rules are useless.I have spent probably past 5 years thinking of what my GTO Pet strategy is, what type of pet how to name it, etc countless of countless times to no avail. I have no pets. I have no plants.

Furthermore, rules can be general like those I mentioned above or more specific. My game selecting algorithm has looked like the following of late.

1. Start the day trying to play my honey-pot player at 10/20. LOGIC - daytimes aren't the best times for game selection. However you can rely
on said player for consistent routine and action. Furthermore, athletes like Kobe Bryant, Reggie Miller, etc are the first ones in the gym before the game/after the game. Before they start playing a game, there is shoot-around, warm-up, etc. Why should poker be any different? Starting out at lower stakes as a warm-up might be a good idea, especially for players that seem to start sessions with losses. You need to put in alot of hours. Early bird gets the worm. Night times are best and you give yourself till the night time to play the bigger games and by starting early you can potentially play more.

CONDITION
--Either I am UP alot BEFORE the honey-pot player leaves around 1pm, or I am up decently, up alot, breakeven, down, down alot when honey-pot player leaves.

2. Alot of the times starting out I would hit and run essentially based on Condition. Avoided 20/40 completely for awhile until past month or so. Also, moreso than not,
my tendency has been to play 20/40 kind of to get unstuck? I mean that is kind of meh because of my logic for playing 10/20 in the first place. Furthermore when I have lost
a bit of money and I'm not on tilt it kind of gives me some competetive fire to play some bigger games.

But anyway yeah, the 20/40s have almost entirely when I am either Breakeven State of Down State at my 10/20 game. Furthermore, I play longer when stuck as opposed to unstuck.Today, I was stuck alot at 10/20, my fun-player left the game. I looked for a 20/40 at some point but there were no seats and the 40/80 lineup looked OK so I bumped it up, and was unstuck and it was pretty fun playing.

Not sure how good of a habit this is! It has been translating into a high % of sessions won, an upwards trending graph, but what happens when I take a huge loss at 20/40 40/80?!



(Graph is filtered out nolimit, which I lost a bit at, so all limit games mostly all Limit Holdem).

Anyway liferoll has been assisted lately by a nice check from the insurance company (property damage), some moderate winning at poker, and just putting in autopilot hours on uber when I had time, though I haven't done it the past week and am kinda feeling bearish about it overall. There's also a chance I win a nice check for personal injury so there's that. One time! On another note I have made small deposits on both lending club and prosper. If I am playing a really nitty bankroll game I shouldn't have so much of my funds in cash holdings which makes sense. I had the idea actually sometime last year and I had shopped around CD rates and Treasury EE Bonds, stuff like that but interest rates were obv so so low so I didn't think it made any sense. It seems LC and Prosper carry more risk, and I am still weighing what that risk would look like in an economic downturn.

I think I am a investing fish at the moment I put some money on tradeking but I don't think I have enough experience. For example the start of 2016 I was freaking out. Also the shit I had contributed to my IRA lifetime has not been dollar cost averaged and I don't think it's a GTO approach and I haven't really gotten in particularly good at all from an exploitative perspective or anything. As someone who entered the markets POST 2008 crash (I had no money back then) I have never experienced a true bear, etc I think there are many dangers with that. So for many reasons this is something I think about alot alot and I am starting at a big disadvantage somewhat kind of like poker starting out post boom/black friday crash. I plan on making a trip back to NJ sometime this year, not sure when. I'd like to meet-up with perhaps a few of my old buddies that work/worked in finance and perhaps gain an ear or two on a more seasoned approach to long-term value investing.

Anyway, that's it for now. Overall I think next month I'll try to grow the bankroll somehow, doesn't have to be specifically poker or it might be. TBH I wouldn't mind dealing the wsop or something I just don't care for now I just want to make monies.

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Team Liquid's CSGO team is in the semi-final of the MLG Columbus Major tomorrow. One of the biggest tournaments of the year, biggest prize pool in history of CSGO (1 mill for winner).

They already upset the clear #1 team in the world in group stages. Pretty solid underdog story going on so far.

Broadcast for semi's tomorrow starts around 10, but Liquid's match shouldn't be until 3:00 EST. Dunno how many people here follow GO but probably worth checking out if you ever played CS. (can watch it on MLG's twitch channel or MLG's official page)

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(roughly past 45 days, lost other phone which is why it says all dates)

Last time I blogged I had lost a bit and had dipped 37k. Took some time off. Since then bought a car, 2011 nissan sentra, increased roll to 50k, and have been focusing on mix games.

Ive made money over this time but i havent played alot of poker and instead did a lot of uber...like alot while I wasn't playing. I'm not sure how I should feel about that it is somewhat cheating but I mean part of being good at poker is managing your money and I do feel like I am good at that. The way I figured was that I could just grind money anytime I wanted while being able to shot take freely / while getting better at poker. I just wanted a business plan to get to high stakes as soon as possible. No idea if cop-out.

Anyway, if you want to know why I'm so upset Superhighroller event has been going on at Aria. Anyway I decided to do an uber ride and sure enough it's insert millions hendonmob crusher and to boot 22 years old and I just felt like a huge idiot to be honest.

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Preface:

+ Show Spoiler +

Here's the problem:

You're drawing a pythagorean triangle for a group of aliens who just landed in your back yard to demonstrate human cognitive capability. Using only whole numbers, what's the smallest number you can put on each side of the triangle to fulfill a^2+b^2=c^2 ?

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Anyone following it? Got into it a bit lately. Team Liquid so close to being a top tier team...

Can NA CS BE SAVED?

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Comments (9)

Just managed to luck box a sports bet. I guess I've used up my luck for the remainder of this year.

TLDR = Bet ~$5 turned into ~$5,000

LOL - Sweden's biggest newspaper even wrote an article about it.



The bet

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Here are my May stats. It was really frustrating overall I was doing okay and on pace for ~190 hours at 2/5 but an incident where I broke my glasses made me uncomfortable playing long without good vision. I realized that 200 hours probably is unsustainable long term for me and I decided with the world series generating traffic it would be a good time to try to make 5/10 my main game long-term. I think the world-series has definitely given me some drive to take shots overall. Seeing huge games of all different types run has alot of allure. I have a feeling that the sky is the limit and I feel that there is a certain level of glamor associated playing the bigger games around in Vegas (although different people might have different opinions about this). My plan was to take a few days to ease into it by playing short sessions but unfortunately today's session did not go well at all. No idea if I am ever going to get out of low-stakes and build a decent net-worth.




UTG woman opens to 3x to 30. UTG+1 Calls. Hero 3-bet small from MP with KK to 100. CO cold calls, folds to BB who 4 bets to ~750 with 80 or so behind. Hero all-in, CO Folds. Axxxx lose to AK.

Hero ~1350, Villains both cover
UTG+1 opens 4x to 40, MP Calls, Hero SB with AcAs 3-bets to 140, Call-Call. Flop 9s7c3s Check-Check-Check. Turn 2c Check-UTG Bets 260, Folds, Hero raises to 520, Calls. Hero announces all-in (blind) with ~1500 in pot and ~700 behind, river comes Club and villain takes it down with Kc9c

Anyway I'm not entire sure what my play is at this point. Around 45k at this point.


Poll: What's my play?
(Vote): Try to keep grind 5/10
(Vote): Venetian 2/5, Wynn 2/5, Aria 2/5
(Vote): Other

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boinggg

I first came out here basically because I had nothing better to do having very little experience with actually playing poker for a living, and any sort of plans despite having been really interested in poker as a hobby. I actually started off playing 1-2 1-3 out here but switched to playing 2/5 per the advice of people and have done at okish at that for a while. I mostly play softer games at Bellagio, MGM Grand, and Venetian, have avoided the 1500 deep at Wynn, and dislike the lighting at Aria as it intimidates/throws me off my natural comfort zone. Right now I have around mid 40k to my name and am trying really hard to get better at managing my expenses, improve at poker, and get better at other aspects of life.

So I've been reading the old Matt Moore thread on twoplustwo a bit and I suppose he is a paragon of recent success in the livepoker scene out in Vegas. Since I am not a twoplustwo guy and I am a liquidpoker guy, I'm going to try and use my blog here to put myself out there by writing more, and take bettering and challenging myself to a new level. With the wsop coming around in a few weeks I think it is a great time to start. I am going to focus mainly on poker, but I'll try to actively blog about anything else interesting or noteworthy that I am doing, so nothing really is out of play.

WSOP 2015:

First order of business I guess, since it is one of the biggest events in poker of the year. I don't really have much to say about it actually and am planning to just do alot of really boring shit. For the WSOP I intend on playing strictly cash games and zero tournaments. So that means no Colossal, no Aria event, no millionaire maker, etc. I just don't see much of a reason to just punt away buy-ins when my tournament game isn't great and my hourly would probably be higher in cash games. I've been playing mostly cap 500NL but I think I'll venture a bit this series, try my best to zone in and my plan to start the series is to play the Venetian 2/5 1000cap and go from there. If I run good I'll play the Wynn 2/5 or Bellagio 5/10, and if there happens to be a great game I might hop into the Venetian 5/10. I'll also play a bit on wsop.com probably just 50NL and 100NL during the daytime.

Personal finance, Budgeting, Bankroll Building.

I guess this is boring stuff, but really its the way to keep score in poker and ultimately a big part of the reason we play and the ultimate way of keeping score.

Its simple really, save more than you spend. Right now I'm trying to reduce food expense from $600 to around $250. For just myself $600 is way too much. I also switched to a 49cc scooter a few months back which saves me alot on gas/insurance and I recently installed a trunk on that so I should be able to buy groceries and stop eating out. I might just chronicle this on a monthly basis, but I am not sure how great revealing income and expense information with 100% transparency will be from a legal perspective. I would however like to have a great deal of transparency in this regard and not just with my revenue but also spending. Rent is high for vegas at $1100+utilities but the location and facilities are just what I need (great location, no-roommates, nice/clean/secure, good community, no roaches or anything like that). I think right now total expenses I think if I am entirely GTO with my current set-up I can leave expenses at somewhere in the range of <$1,800 which I think is pretty reasonable.

Considering More Options:

Traveling for live poker.

-bay101, Commerce, MarylandLive! Florida, Parx/Sands, Borgata, Foxwoods, Winstar, etc
Not only is this a good idea to see the country, would be great for improving my game, meeting new people, and getting better at game selecting so as long as you can manage to keep expenses low. I do however think Vegas is probably the best home base overall if you are playing live poker. I would also like to venture somewhere like Playa del Carmen or Rosarito or just Latin America in general. Latin America offers low-cost of living that places like Vancouver simply does not imo. Also helps that women are probably a lot lower maintenance. I'd be going to just get better at poker probably and be able to play more varied game selection but long-term and overall the money in live poker is a lot easier for most people. Still think with traveling that its important to keep expenses low.

Fun Stuff

For the most part I kept things about "business" stuff only. Just happened to be that way I guess but I'll try to blog about more varied things as they occur while I am out here. Here's a pic of what I look like and my scooter thing for fun/in case you run into me somewhere.

+ Show Spoiler +

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Introduction to Spin&Go tournaments(skip that if you know how they work)
When Spin&Go tournaments were introduced there was an enormous migration of recreational players from normal Sit&go tournaments to Spin&go format - it's a perfect format to attract that kind of players.
If you don't know how they work - each tournament is 3-max, winner-take-all, hyper turbo Sit&go with a random prize pool. Buy-ins range from $1 to $60, and each tournament has a randomly drawn prize pool that will award between two and 3,000 times your buy-in. The highest multiplies are obviously super rare (1 of 100,000 for the 3,000xbuy-in, even the 240x multiplier have a chance of just 5 out of 100,000).

The games are insanely fast, give a thrill of emotion through the random prize pool and that's what recreational players were looking for. Jackpot was hit by PokerStars.

The migration of fish
With the introduction of Spin&Go most of the recreational players moved to the format - nobody who plays for fun cares if the rake is a bit higher.
However, that had serious impact: killed some of the less popular formats (and made the most popular WAY less profitable) for regular players.

Of course, there was a ton of complaining due to two facts:
1. Spin&Go were considered unbeatable and unprofitable by almost every reg in the world
2. They were heavily marketed by PokerStars

Math behind Spin&Go'es
The rake is as following:

7% exact at the 1$ Spin&Go
6% for $3 and $7 Spin&Go
5% for $15, $30 and $60 buy-in

However, this accounts for the overall numbers and an INSANELY long-term play. Yes, you will be paying 5% rake at $60 Sping&Go, but 70,518 of 100,000 tournamnets will have $120 prize pool, which is literally one buy-in gone in the space.

What does that mean in reality?
Top payout levels (which are obviously the best, no need for explanation) are going to happen around 1 in 1000 games (0.1%). But also, in that 0.1%, due to payout structures, the total of 4.2% of all the money in the structure is distributed here. The absolute highest level is as following: 0.005% chance to hit it, while 2.1% of the money is distributed here. See where the problem lies? The rake doesn't seem INSANELY high, but the variance is - you can go for YEARS without hitting (yet alone winning) the highest multiplier game and that effectively increases how much you have to win regularly to even make money.

So, if you think you can get at least 5% ROI, then I guess you could expect results. However, if you are a marginal winner you can go for a year or longer and not make money if you don't hit the highest rolls on the prize pools.

Bighusla and his prop-bet
While every reg though spins are not beatable, there was one that took a prop-bet and showed some new light on the facts.
Bighusla started the propbet with the intention to (1) play 5,000 $30 Spin and Go's in a month, and (2) maintain a chip expected value ("cEV") of 8.5%. In the end he played 5,054 spin&go'es and ended up with a cEV of 8.8% (profit of almost $11,000).

His graph:


That got regs interested in the format.

The transition to Spin&Go
Let's be clear here: the format has INSANE variance and if you would like to play it professionally - expect to put an enormous amount of volume into the game. However, with all the rake calculations, one thing wasn't accounted for: the fish in the sea.
Basically, the games are hilariously easy, to the point where professional Hyper HU sng players are comparing them to post-Moneymaker level of cash games.

There are also players who are showing quite good results:
Image 1 (click on the spoiler tag) :
+ Show Spoiler +

Image 2 (click on the spoiler tag) :
+ Show Spoiler +

Image 3(click on the spoiler tag) :
+ Show Spoiler +

Image 4(click on the spoiler tag) :
+ Show Spoiler +

So, are the games beatable or not? For the moment, I would say yes, as shown by multiple sources all over the web.

However, I would say it's still too early to make decisive calls - the format is so young and the professionals are switching to play it as we speak. Like I said, it was considered for the format to be not-profitable for regulars in long-term and that view changed just recently. It might turn out that in 6 months the level of the games will rise so drastically they will no longer be any good (or will be marginally profitable) for long-term grinders and will serve the main purpose they were designed for.

I'm curious to see your point of view - I'm pretty sure there are some players learning the format with the intentions of making bank.

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In Search of Strange Brew... by Chuck Mindenhall


Ten years after the original Ultimate Fighter television show put the UFC on the map, one of its cast members fell off. So … whatever happened to Jason Thacker, the quirky Canadian that trained out of the old abandoned truck stop?

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I’ve long been fascinated with Jason Thacker. It’s very possible I’m the only one. Why? It’s sort of complicated. I suspect it stems from overthinking a word like "belonging." In the short history of the UFC, he was a person that ended up in the exact wrong place at the exact right time. Or maybe it was the right place at the wrong time. Whatever it was, man did he catch a lot of hell just for being there. And back then, being there meant something. Remember that?

The original Ultimate Fighter began airing in January 2005, and has long since been accepted as the jolt the UFC needed to break through. If Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin hadn’t had that rapturous, go-for-broke brawl on April 9 in the finale, there might not be a UFC today. That fight hit the broader living room like a magic potion. It was the culmination of something, but it doubled as a real-time epiphany — suddenly mixed martial arts was being translated for people who didn’t speak the language. All at once, it was as if light broke over the taboo.

People got it. Dana White later called it Zuffa’s "Trojan Horse."


Full article here: http://www.mmafighting.com/2015/3/24/8259545/in-search-of-strange-brew

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This is a great piece of MMA related content that took a long time to write. It's worth reading the entire thing, imo.

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Despite success in season long football leagues for the past few years, I was pretty unsuccessful playing DFS. I would deposit a few hundred bucks at the beginning of football, swing up and down a bit, and eventually lose it by the end of the year. I tried out basketball last season, but I knew basically nothing and lost some more money.

Roothlus (the poker player) convinced me that I should give NBA DFS another shot this season. It's more fun, predictable and beatable than other sports. For instance, if Lebron scores 20 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds thats a pretty bad fantasy game while 30 points, 7 assists and 7 rebounds is a great game. the variance in game to game results is much smaller than other sports like football or baseball.

So at the beginning of the season I threw another $250 on both fanduel and draftkings with the intention of treating it just like poker when i started. I was essentially starting as a .05/.1 NL player and trying to work my way up without ever shooting my roll and using safe BRM.

It turns out DFS is just like poker. You play other people in a variety of cash games and tournaments and the site makes money off rake. The most common cash games are 50/50s (half the field cashes for 1.8x) and HUs (1 on 1 with another player). And tournaments work the same way as in poker, with 10-25% of the field receiving money with top heavy prizepools.

I tried to never put >20% of my roll into play on any given day and split my action between a few lineups to reduce variance. Fanduel went great right from the start. I was winning in cash games and I got 2nd place in a tournament for $1500 early on which allowed me to start playing a bit bigger. Draftkings...not so much. Basically lost every day there until my $250 deposit was gone. I didnt care too much because I could get all the action I wanted on fanduel and i was doing well over there.

Since that initial tournament cash, I have not cashed in another tournament for more than $700. Despite this lack of big scores, I have run up my roll on fanduel despite still not really being an expert on basketball. After the all star break, I redeposited $500 to DK and have run it up there, and started playing on victiv and am winning there.

Fanduel results since early november, provided by a really cool tracking site similar to PT and HEM built by liquidpoker's Panorama:


if you notice, I made a lot of my money in very low buyin 50/50s. its very easy to enter a lineup you like into tons of contests and just let it go to work.


Graph:


The tracking site is a little buggy for draftkings, but i've deposited $750 this season and have my roll up to $4k, and on victiv ive run a $1k deposit up to about $3k in the past week. So overall, including some bonuses and FPPs im up about 26k this season, all started from $500. I've basically grinded up from micros to midstakes in 4 months without any prior knowledge of NBA.


tips if you want to start playing:
-trust your projections. if your optimal lineup is 290 points, and a lineup you personally like better with players you trust more is projected at 275, throw it in the trash. It's ok to audible a pick over machine projections occasionally, but make sure your lineup is as close to the optimal projections as possible. In general I dont like to give up more than 1% in points for lineups i like. Those points add up over the season and they are where you get your edge.

-use good BRM and start smaller. most poker players who come into DFS just shoot it like they are playing the same stakes in poker/DFS, yet their DFS skill is much lower than their poker skill to start.

-play lots of smaller buyins. It's better to enter your 1 lineup into 100 $1 cash games than to enter it into two $50 cash games. players get better at higher stakes and the only downside to playing more lower stakes games is the time it takes to register them.

-a lot of edge in NBA is due to injuries. its a long season and rough sport, there are often tons of late scratches and random rest days. if a starting player goes down, and his cheap backup is slated to get 30+ minutes, he will often do well. minutes = money. stay on top of the injury news, know the depth charts/rotations, and who to plug in when starters miss a game.

-treat it like a job. i work all day on registering, tinkering with lineups, reading injury reports, figuring out where the projections may be off and which players i should trust/not trust, etc. it's a lot of work, but its not quite as intense as poker. from 9am to 2pm I basically spend 5-10 minutes out of every 30 minutes checking news, registering for more contests, tweaking lineups and the rest of the the time i am free to do other things like run errands, walk my dog, beat off, take a shower, whatever. then from 2-4 i am working really hard on lineups since lineup lock happens at 4pm PST, and then from 4-6pm i check if there are any changes i need to make for the sites (draftkings only for me) that allow changes to be made after the first games started. i dont really even have to watch the games but i do because basketball is a fun, high paced game with the most athletic people in the world.


if you want to sign up i suggest playing mostly on fanduel and draftkings. by far the biggest sites with the most players and largest contests offered.



theres a month left in the NBA season, and probably a 1-2 playable weeks of playoffs after that. i will be working hard for that time, and theres still time for everyone else to play too. and if NBA isnt your thing, baseball is starting soon, and there's also NHL, MMA, golf, soccer, and college sports. something for just about everyone.

good luck to anyone who plays and anyone who decides to give it a shot.

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Comments (23)

Despite success in season long football leagues for the past few years, I was pretty unsuccessful playing DFS. I would deposit a few hundred bucks at the beginning of football, swing up and down a bit, and eventually lose it by the end of the year. I tried out basketball last season, but I knew basically nothing and lost some more money.

Roothlus (the poker player) convinced me that I should give NBA DFS another shot this season. It's more fun, predictable and beatable than other sports. For instance, if Lebron scores 20 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds thats a pretty bad fantasy game while 30 points, 7 assists and 7 rebounds is a great game. the variance in game to game results is much smaller than other sports like football or baseball.

So at the beginning of the season I threw another $250 on both fanduel and draftkings with the intention of treating it just like poker when i started. I was essentially starting as a .05/.1 NL player and trying to work my way up without ever shooting my roll and using safe BRM.

It turns out DFS is just like poker. You play other people in a variety of cash games and tournaments and the site makes money off rake. The most common cash games are 50/50s (half the field cashes for 1.8x) and HUs (1 on 1 with another player). And tournaments work the same way as in poker, with 10-25% of the field receiving money with top heavy prizepools.

I tried to never put >20% of my roll into play on any given day and split my action between a few lineups to reduce variance. Fanduel went great right from the start. I was winning in cash games and I got 2nd place in a tournament for $1500 early on which allowed me to start playing a bit bigger. Draftkings...not so much. Basically lost every day there until my $250 deposit was gone. I didnt care too much because I could get all the action I wanted on fanduel and i was doing well over there.

Since that initial tournament cash, I have not cashed in another tournament for more than $700. Despite this lack of big scores, I have run up my roll on fanduel despite still not really being an expert on basketball. After the all star break, I redeposited $500 to DK and have run it up there, and started playing on victiv and am winning there.

Fanduel results since early november, provided by a really cool tracking site similar to PT and HEM built by liquidpoker's Panorama:


if you notice, I made a lot of my money in very low buyin 50/50s. its very easy to enter a lineup you like into tons of contests and just let it go to work.


Graph:


The tracking site is a little buggy for draftkings, but i've deposited $750 this season and have my roll up to $4k, and on victiv ive run a $1k deposit up to about $3k in the past week. So overall, including some bonuses and FPPs im up about 26k this season, all started from $500. I've basically grinded up from micros to midstakes in 4 months without any prior knowledge of NBA.


tips if you want to start playing:
-trust your projections. if your optimal lineup is 290 points, and a lineup you personally like better with players you trust more is projected at 275, throw it in the trash. It's ok to audible a pick over machine projections occasionally, but make sure your lineup is as close to the optimal projections as possible. In general I dont like to give up more than 1% in points for lineups i like. Those points add up over the season and they are where you get your edge.

-use good BRM and start smaller. most poker players who come into DFS just shoot it like they are playing the same stakes in poker/DFS, yet their DFS skill is much lower than their poker skill to start.

-play lots of smaller buyins. It's better to enter your 1 lineup into 100 $1 cash games than to enter it into two $50 cash games. players get better at higher stakes and the only downside to playing more lower stakes games is the time it takes to register them.

-a lot of edge in NBA is due to injuries. its a long season and rough sport, there are often tons of late scratches and random rest days. if a starting player goes down, and his cheap backup is slated to get 30+ minutes, he will often do well. minutes = money. stay on top of the injury news, know the depth charts/rotations, and who to plug in when starters miss a game.

-treat it like a job. i work all day on registering, tinkering with lineups, reading injury reports, figuring out where the projections may be off and which players i should trust/not trust, etc. it's a lot of work, but its not quite as intense as poker. from 9am to 2pm I basically spend 5-10 minutes out of every 30 minutes checking news, registering for more contests, tweaking lineups and the rest of the the time i am free to do other things like run errands, walk my dog, beat off, take a shower, whatever. then from 2-4 i am working really hard on lineups since lineup lock happens at 4pm PST, and then from 4-6pm i check if there are any changes i need to make for the sites (draftkings only for me) that allow changes to be made after the first games started. i dont really even have to watch the games but i do because basketball is a fun, high paced game with the most athletic people in the world.


if you want to sign up i suggest playing mostly on fanduel and draftkings. by far the biggest sites with the most players and largest contests offered.



theres a month left in the NBA season, and probably a 1-2 playable weeks of playoffs after that. i will be working hard for that time, and theres still time for everyone else to play too. and if NBA isnt your thing, baseball is starting soon, and there's also NHL, MMA, golf, soccer, and college sports. something for just about everyone.

good luck to anyone who plays and anyone who decides to give it a shot.

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Comments (23)

Its always worth a chuckle reading some of your comments on here to my blog. If it was spam I would do it more often....think about it guys.....anyway... let us look at the three main online poker tracker metrics of VPIP/PFR/AF stats. These stand for “Voluntarily put $ into the pot” (VPIP)….. “Pre-flop raise percentage” (PFR) and “aggression factor” (AF). The VPIP stat measures how often you place money into the pot by way of limping, raising, calling a raise or completing the small blind. In short then it measures how loose or tight your online poker style is. The PFR statistic is pretty obvious regarding what it means but the aggression factor measures post flop aggression.

Some years ago when tracking software first came into vogue then there was a greater disparity in opponent types in online poker than there is today. There is a big and very important reason for that and it can be summed up in two words…….better education! Your average online poker opponent will be well versed these days in all of the basics and advanced basics of the game. This means that their VPIP and PFR stats will be similar to other players at the same level. For example in full ring games then most players fall into a very narrow band of VPIP and PFR which kind of makes these stats much less effective.

The aggression factor is a metric in online poker that measures vital post flop aggression. As a rule then the average tight-aggressive or loose-aggressive player will be more aggressive post flop. However this is a metric that has less significance in no limit hold’em than limit because it is often correct to go into pot control in no limit and so checking and calling is often the right line to take. The AF metric is of much greater use in six max games than full ring where more players are aggressive post flop.

So the bottom line is that if you play online poker and you are not necessarily statistics orientated then you would be much better off playing full ring games than perhaps six max games or heads up games. Because you will be doing much more folding in full ring then it will take your opponents far longer to get meaningful sample sizes on you and this is especially the case when it comes to play on the river for example.

If you game is heavily statistics based then you will find that six max may be where your greatest strengths are because this is where you will be able to get the biggest edge over your opposition.

One key set of metrics in online poker that are just as important whether you are playing full ring, six max or whatever are your 3/bet stats along with those of your opponent. This can also be tagged along with your fold to 3/bet stats as well which indicates how often you raise and fold to a re-raise. The key reason why this is important in games like no limit Texas hold’em online poker games is because play in and around the blinds is far more aggressive. So the bottom line is that you need to learn which metrics and statistics are important in online poker and which are of lesser importance and then focus on the more important ones.

Carl Sampson plays online poker at www.888poker.com

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Comments (2)

Let us start this post off by looking at a very common example taken from a $0.50-$1.00 game that I play in. It had been folded around to the cut-off player who raised to $3.50. Now in online poker you need to have as much information as is possible to form your decisions but in this hand then my opponent was new to me. I held the Qc-Jd on the button which was clearly a hand that I would have raised with had my opponent folded.

They had a stack of $98.50 having gone through the blinds once after buying in for 100bb. My stack was 117bb on this table and my choice here is between calling the raise, folding and three betting. I do not know my opponent but I have a hand that fares well against what is probably an average range of a position stealer. At the level of online poker that we are playing at which is NL100 then most players are pretty strong as a rule and will open their ranges from position to steal.

The best players use a piece of software that is absolutely free called PokerStove although I use and prefer Equilab. This helps you to visualise the hand by way of equity. We need to put our opponent onto a range of hands and then find out how our hand stacks up against that range. I think that my opponent would raise with any pair and certainly any Broadway hand. They would also raise with suited aces and many suited connectors and kings. Using PokerStove allows us to see that this is around 30% of their total range as a minimum in online no limit Texas hold’em.

So entering my Q-J hand allows me to see that against a 30% range that my hand has around 46% equity against that range which is very good considering that I also have position. That is simply too much equity to fold even though folding isn’t really all that bad in a vacuum. You at least have to make your opponent feel uncomfortable about raising with too wide of a range because they will deny you many opportunities to make money. Three betting is also an option but you can see how having a fair indication of our opponents ranges allows us to see what a good play is here but more importantly to know why we are making the play that we are.

In online no limit Texas hold’em poker then it is often remarked how “any two cards can win”. This is true but only when looked at within the confines of a single hand. Unless you begin to look at the long term profitability of poker hands rather than the short term then you will find it very difficult to become a winning online poker player.

To know that you have 46% equity against your opponents estimated range is to know where you stand in the hand or to go some way towards understanding where you are. You could three bet them as part of your short term poker strategy with a hand like 7-2o but what happens if your raise gets called? The profit potential of your hand is so low that it is difficult to win money by any other way other than bluffing and this makes playing the hand in the first place a long term mistake in no limit hold’em.

Carl Sampson is a professional poker player who plays online at www.888poker.com

User was banned for this post.

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Comments (4)

I just played 9/18 mix and I got crushed really hard. Played a really long session and am stuck 50 Bbs. Been trying to learn bit by bit but also jumped into it against regulars. Really torturous, experience. I got owned and have no idea what happened.

Mix was badugi, baducy, badacey, holdem, pineapple razz, pineapple stud8, 5 card o8, triple draw, two flop Omaha, pineapple stud Hilo standard.

I'm not sure how to feel about the session. I've been playing some o8, limit holdem,, and mix somewhat often like this to learn and mix up my routine. Overall I am down not insanely down but down a decent amount in my limit/mix sessions. I had a bad 20/40 limit holdem session and this mix session both really bad. I have read a bit but for the most part have not studied these games a ton and I guess I could do things but I'm not sure how worth it it'll be.

I have been doing ok at 2/5NL the past few months I think averaging 4-5k a month with ok volume. But I ventured into limit/mix because I feel like just grinding 2/5 is really not an end game sort of thing. I am not sure how I will fare being a regular at 5/10 nl, and I guess the 40/80 mix game/playing mix games&o8 on pokerstars kind of was this exotic backup type of idea that would make me feel better about myself and my options to move up in the food chain, but right now I feel naive about the whole thing and somehow feel like I am the lemon type that will never be able to beat the big (5/10nl and 40/80 as "big" ) games at all, never get the courage, talent etc.

Long term i know i need something outside of poker, but right now I could use the money. If i can manage to increase my earnings it would help me immensely. Sustaining current winning is also important. So, Not really sure where to go from here. It would be nice to be a winner in the 5/10 games at Bellagio as a start, but it's hard to muster up the courage to change something that has been working ok. I took a shot a few months ago but was playing short and won a half buyin in 2 sessions and then got nervous and lost a full buyin the third. I've ben playing the softest 2/5 in town which is the Bellagio and it is a big jump from a 500cap to 1500cap and i would be curious about the difference in play. I could move up to the deeper 2/5s in town at aria/Wynn. I could also just stick with where I'm "winning" right now, swallow my pride/ego and just try my best to be a lame 2/5 grinder guy.

feedback is welcome. thanks.

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Comments (6)

>be me
>go play live poker
>act socially awkward
>this puts people on massive tilt
>especially when i win
>be one of ten players
>the other nine are playing to specifically stack me
>mfw i steamroll the SHIT out of them



>yfw you thought patrick was retarded, not actually smarter than squidward or whatever his name is

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Comments (15)