Something that I actually learned from High School was in my AP Environmental Studies class called the Tragedy of the Commons. Since this was a while ago and I did terrible in that class I'm just going to copy/paste the Wikipedia definition for this which articulates it much better than I could: The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen.
E.g. imagine there are 5 fishing companies which reside over a lake. For simplicity's sake, let's say their ability to catch fish is dependent on how big of a net they cast into the lake. It soon becomes evident that as each company competes against one another to develop bigger nets, fish are being mined out of the lake at a rate faster than they can reproduce. How does the entire fishing industry remedy this problem? It would involve all 5, not one less, fishing companies to mutually agree to stop developing such bigger nets and/or to limit how much fish they take out in a day. Acting out of financial self-interest (or the interests of their stock holders), either there would be no companies willing to do this, or there would never be a unanimous consent. Even if there were 4 companies consenting, the fifth company now sees the ample financial opportunity, keeps developing bigger nets, which directly results in greater returns, which motivates them to build even bigger nets to mine out the lake until it's depleted.
While the number of fish will never be completely depleted in online poker, it's evident that we're witnessing a similar situation - my point is that no one should be complaining about it. The reason for that is mostly because no one can do anything about it. You will never get a consent amongst every bumhunter in online poker to stop bumhunting. The argument against training sites have died down, the poker community at large has accepted them as part of the reality of the industry. So why isn't it the same with bumhunting?
I'm a believer that every reg, besides the absolute sickos, is a bumhunter himself, just to varying extents. The true bumhunters I refer to here are the ones who make an active effort to never play regs and only play fish as their sole source of income. In the fishing analogy above, the companies have obligations towards their employees and stockholders to pay them sufficiently, and to themselves so that they can improve the quality of life for themselves and their families. They have no ecological obligations that I know of (maybe some weird legalities here and there but we'll ignore that), no obligation to be compassionate towards the fish themselves or fish rights' advocacy groups. The richest company will simply be the one that can build the bigger net so that they can mine out the lake at a faster rate than the others, all whom wouldn't hesitate to do the same if they could.
The true bumhunter has no obligation to keep in the poker economy in check. The very practice of bumhunting is a shortterm practice in and of itself, so they have no obligations towards the future (i.e. longterm). The true bumhunter wants to cast his net and try to acquire the fish as effectively as possible, before his opportunity is taken by others. It's a sad thing for the poker economy and the game itself, but it was an inevitable consequence, especially as the games got tougher (previous article: Pivot to save your poker career).
I do think that the bumhunters who regularly do scummy things like grim your big blind HU, hit and run for a few bbs HU, sit out and seat-block, break games by mass sitting out when the fish is sitting out, use illegal software to identify/auto-sit etc. should be berated because it's just a disrespectful thing to do against any other human being. Besides that, since no one can do anything to particularly change this tragedy of the commons situation, one shouldn't expend any mental resources worrying about it. Accept it as part of the reality of the games, just like when everyone pretty much just HAD to accept shortstackers on their tables (until table buy-in changes came in of course) - you just adjust to their presence and play accordingly. If you truly view them as being unskilled, you should be able to exert some sort of edge over them for some positive winrate over the time they're still seated at the table.
Here are some quick tips/tricks to adjust to bumhunters. Like I mentioned, I believe we're all bumhunters inside, just some moreso than others, so this will apply to a lot of people but some not so much as others.
1. If acting after the mark and the bumhunter, re-iso their iso raises and 3bets. A re-iso 3bet size (or 4bet) ends up being very tricky to deal with and often threatens stacks to be put into play, tighter players trying to iso light but not comfortable tangling with regs should play straightforward here. Obviously it works better when IP rather than oop, as with pretty much anything in poker.
2. If acting before the mark and the bumhunter, open more which tends to make the bumhunter play more straightforward. He might peel more speculative hands hoping the fish comes along but that's something most people are probably comfortable with dealing with by now.
3. If acting between the bumhunter and the mark, you can 3bet or flat a lot here, both of which is going to give you a weird relative position to the mark but will give you direct position against the bumhunter who likely can't or isn't willing to do much to play back against you.
4. If acting between the mark and the bumhunter, just iso a lot more than you normally would knowing that the bumhunter will just try to wait for hands and won't do anything like re-iso you light (like a tricky, aggro reg would).
I think online poker is shifting towards the direction of just accepting bumhunters like we've eventually accepted training sites (a tragedy of the commons scenario itself - the less training sites the less competent regs there would be, meaning less money taken out of the poker economy each year), shortstackers, mass multi tablers, etc. Inevitably you just have to find your own niche within the industry and base your adjustments and mentality towards the game from there.
Thanks for reading the article, in other news I've decided to pick Sanai for coaching. Thanks for all the applications, I got a lot more than I expected and read every single one of them.
I'm pretty embarassed to write this but about 3 weeks ago I went busto. I had ~$400 on FTP and hit a really bad run of cards along with playing poorly and dropped to ~$300 in a session. To get the money back I loaded up a 100NL table and of course lost QQ to A5 on a turn wheel card that caught me off guard. This dropped me to ~$200 and I loaded up a 2/4 9-max and got dealt KQss in the SB with 6 called a 3x raise I raised all in and got called by 66 and TT flop came 344 with 2diamonds turn was a 6 so busto.
I wish it was over there but it wasn't I was really upset and the next day I added another $100 and lost it in about 20 mins. My RB came back for the week at $87 and I lost that within an hour as well. I then flew back to NY for a week with my girlfriend to visit my family which was nice and relaxing and took my mind off of financial issues for awhile.
I came back to Portland about 2 weeks ago and had $30 from Rakeback in my account and this time set limits and just wanted to grind it out. I got a free $50 from FTP to clear and set my mind on that. Played a few $1 and $2 STT's and got my BR up to $60 in a couple days. Then I started to grind $5NL the past 9 days with good success. I also cleared the $50 bonus as well which was nice.
So my BR is at $204 right now and taking a shot at 10NL again. I feel as though my game is a ton better from where it was before and am looking forward to taking a shot.
running about 12 bi below e.v. nothing terrible you don't have to tell me. small sample size. ok you're right.
been working part time waiting tables while finding my kid brother a foster home. it should be finished by the end of this week. been getting really tired of my part time job waiting tables at a Vietnamese restaurant. I guess life is getting pretty serious for me and really fast. Been going through some pretty bad mood swings/depression concerning my p.o.s future.
I've never really played poker "full timE" and only really play like 50-60 hours a month tops. But I guess to force myself to play more I'm gonna issue a last 30 day challenge. My goal is to avg 1 buy in every day (lol, semi-pathetic). I play nl100 so it should be fine and amount to 3K. I work about 30 hours a week and will also be finalizing some details with my kid brother and foster care.
Anyway if i can't win a measly buy in/day I think I should just quit poker and go back to school or find a different path to success.
Although good luck to me, my heart feels benevolence to everyone. so good luck everyone.
Anyone in Vegas who can transfer?by vasoline73, September 19
So, I'm turning 21 tomorrow (the 20th) and going to Vegas on the 24th and I was wondering...
I have 700$ on FTP and want to know if anyone trustworthy can meet up with me somewhere in Vegas and we can transfer FTP$ for actual cash. Not sure if this is a common kind of transfer or how it would be done... (meet up with a laptop and transfer then you hand me cash? I go to your place to transfer... then you give me cash...? uhhhhhhhhhhh I dunno.) Ideally I could meet you at the end of the weekend, give you cash (hopefully I have more than what I started the weekend with ^^) and get a transfer back on FTP.
If no one can do it, it's not a huge deal.
Anyways, I'll be blogging about my NL10 results at the end of the month sometime, so yeah ^^. Feel like I'm learning a lot.
Normally it downloads within a minute. I just started using a new laptop, and now after 20+ minutes it is only 3% complete. Anyone else ever experience or hear of his?
Reworks is a music festival taking place at my hometown Thessaloniki once a year.
This year Parov Stelar and band was AMAZING , im a huge fan anyway..
Later on we moved to next stage Agoria and then sven vath played some~~
Suturday there was another huge concert in town by Prodigy ...they destroyed 3 or 4 guitars while playing lol.
Super cool weekend , will post pics next time
Pokerwise , im doing ok , trying to find some sort of soft site with rakeback to play
when there are no games at the eurodonk site i play atm.
I read today on PTR that partypoker is like REALLY softer site comparing to ps back i think its no that accurate..? http://www.pokertableratings.com/blog/2010/09/which-site-is-the-softest/
Ok so honestly, wtf is the conditions to a table change. I have been moved 5 times in less than 2 hours in a large tournement in the first 2 hours of play. This is retarded
I'm not completely new to poker, I enjoy it. But I am pretty terrible at it. So far I think I have lost around $700, from playing at the casino or playing online. My main problem seems to be my emotions and bankroll management. I go on tilt quite easily and will just blow my bankroll. I also get cocky after winning a bit and would bump to higher stakes sit n goes and lose all my money. I have a lot of fun, but am just not responsible enough.
So I went ahead and read some poker books, and found that bankroll management is important to being a successful poker player. I am going to try and abide by this and only play at limits that won't bust me if I lose. I started up an account on Full tilt and loaded $100. I am only play 0.05/0.10 nl holdem 6 max, and so far have been doing well. Since I can't lose much doing this, I haven't gotten angry when I get bad beats. My game has definitely improved.
I also downloaded Poker Edge. It's pretty good and has helped me quite a bit. Seems pricey though, having to pay monthly. Is there a good free alternative or perhaps a cheaper one to check out that will have database of hands as well as have a good HUD?
Thanks for reading, I look forward to posting regular updates on here :D
As of this moment, I feel that I should be a break-even or a slightly winning/losing player. I estimated that the rakeback I get from converting points (which you earn while playing) into cash is around 30%. I think I'll make it to the next VIP level this month, so in October it will be a little less then 40%. Still a long way to go before taking shots at NL100, both money and skill-wise.
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