Poker
Revolutionary Rush Poker
Jan 21st
Rush Poker
It isn’t too often that you get to experience the day an entire industry changes. It’s even rarer that you get to experience the months of work that go into the day that it gets launched, feel the surge of excitement when it goes live and suddenly thousands of people are using it and saying things like “This is the best thing ever”. Okay, so maybe if you work for Apple you might’ve got used to this sort of thing, but I’m certainly not used to it!
On Tuesday morning, we pushed a new version of the Full Tilt poker software with several new features. Each release generally comes with a big feature, but this one felt extra special. In this release, we pushed Rush Poker. In Rush Poker, instead of picking a table to sit down at, you join a pool of players. The server automatically seats players at tables, and a new hand starts. As soon as you are done with the hand, either by folding or the hand ends, the server picks you up and seats you at a fresh table with other players from the pool. There’s one key twist: Quick Fold allows you to fold out of turn. So if you aren’t happy with the hand you got dealt, you hit the quick fold button and you get picked up and moved to a new table.
The pace of this game is incredible. On average, players are seeing somewhere between 250-300 hands/hour. To put this in perspective, at a normal 6-max ring game you’d be happy to get something on the order of 90-100 hands/hour, and at a 9-max ring game the pace would be slower yet. If one rush poker table is not enough for you though, you can even multi-table it. So you can open up a table or two to really play a lot of hands.
The reception for the update has been phenomenal. People on 2+2, the largest poker forum on the internet, are normally extremely negative about changes. But with this release, the forum went through a very short stage of dislike posts from the people who hadn’t tried Rush Poker yet before exploding into a several-page-long string of posts with reactions ranging from “huh, this is surprisingly fun” to “holy crap this is like poker crack”. While not *all* the posts are positive, the tone of the forum is incredibly different from the norm of whiners and complainers claiming they’ve waited far too long for the things they want to be implemented (not realizing, that it takes a lot of work to implement even some of the “simple” features).
Releasing something like this on the world is an interesting experience. With something like this, you really have no idea whether people are going to love it or hate it. In this particular instance, we really did feel like we had something special going out. Perhaps the biggest innovation since the Sit and Go tournament. I think that like sit and gos, Rush poker is at the very least going to occupy a niche that attracts its own audience of players. It feels like it would be extremely addictive and fun to play, and for those reasons I think it will be a mainstay.
It is amazingly exciting to be part of the online poker industry and observe it through this stage of innovation and competition. The industry is quite young, with online poker really only starting in the late 90′s. This is a very exciting time. The top poker sites are starting to reach maturity in terms of basic feature sets and base games. It will be a very interesting year this year, followed up by probably a couple more interesting years as the sites start to experiment.
I must say though … I’m very jealous of the people playing these games since I am not allowed to play.
Kitchen Games Poker
Aug 22nd
Two nights ago, I got a chance to go to a kitchen game poker night that a coworker was putting on. The whole idea for the night was to play dealer’s choice poker from the set of crazy games that people have come up with over the years. We weren’t allowed to choose the casino standbys of hold’em, omaha, or 7 card stud. Instead, we played a series of games like Chicago, 727, Midnight Baseball, Mexican Sweat, etc.
It’s been a long time since I’ve played games like this. I’ve been playing Texas Hold’em pretty seriously for a couple of years, so it’s kind of interesting to revisit some of these silly games to see if there is anything of interest. We played quite a few games, actually, that I’d like to note down for future reference because they were all quite fun. So here’s the rules for some fun kitchen games that have a little depth to them.
- 727: Players get two cards down, and one up. The aim of the game is to be the closest to the total of 7 or 27. Face cards count either ten points or half a point. An ace counts either 1 point or eleven. On each round, players are asked one at a time if they want one more card added face up to their hand, followed by a round of betting. If all players pass on a card, then the game is over, but otherwise another round is dealt. The game can last quite a few rounds! After the last round, players then simultaneously indicate whether they are attempting to win by being closest to 7, by being closest to 27, or to both. Half the pot is awarded to the closest to 7 (who indicated they were trying to win that side), and half is awarded to the the closest to 27 (who indicated they were trying to win that side). To win both, the players who indicated so have to be closest on both sides.
- Auction: Each player is dealt two down cards. Then a card is turned up in the middle of the table for each player in the hand. Players then make a blind bid. The person who bids the most chooses the card they want. The next highest bid chooses the next card and so on. When all the cards are gone, another set of cards is dealt in the middle. This is repeated until all the players have 7 cards each. A round of betting happens after that. The person with the best high hand takes half the pot and the person with the best low hand takes the other half.
- Ten Card Regrets: There are 5 rounds to this game. The object of the game is to partition 10 cards into two 5 card poker hands: one that is a low hand and one that is a high hand. On each round, players get two cards and must decide whether to put them on the left side to be part of the low hand, or on the right side to be part of the high hand. At the end, the person with the best high hand takes half the pot and the person with the best low hand takes half the pot.
- Tic-Tac-Toe Hold’em/Omaha: Players are dealt two or four cards depending if they are playing the hold’em or omaha variant of the game. The key difference is the community cards are dealt in a 3×3 grid of cards. First, the flop is the four cards that form the sides of the grid. The turn is the four corner cards, and the river is the middle card of the grid. Players then make the best poker hand they can from the cards in their hand and any of 8 sets of three cards from the board. These sets are the three horizontal lines, three vertical lines, and the two diagonals. You can play Hold’em, Omaha High, or Omaha High Low.
These were my favourites from the night. Do you have any fun kitchen games I can deal next time?
Heraldk
Updates from Vegas
Jul 9th
Polaris Wins!
Our computer poker program took on some of the best poker pros and came out on top!
Sorry for the lack of updates here. If you haven’t figured out, my travel blog has moved over to minoragenda, so if you want to read about our adventures in detail, please head on over there. I forgot to post a message like this earlier, so sorry about not letting you know.
I have a big todo list of stuff and not much time to do it. I want to get around to posting photos and post poker reports for the couple of live sessions I’ve managed to squeeze in. But that will have to wait for a little while.
Hope all is well with you!
Heraldk
On Variance
May 24th
Something every poker player has to learn is to cope with variance. At times, variance can be your best friend, but at other times it can be your villain that not only kicks you in the crotch, but then slams you with a baseball bat to the head while you’re down.
Case in point, my latest downswing. I had thought I had made a successful leap to $200nl. After all, I was up a couple grand and was feeling pretty good about how I was doing. Some of that was undoubtedly positive variance, but I figured I could sustain some bad luck.
Little did I know that the fates had it in for me and my bankroll plummetted over the course of just a few days. That’s what provoked my previous post about taking an extended break.
I played a short session at 100nl today. I had some free time and thought I’d take a shot and see how I did. This session went a whole lot better, and despite running QQ into KK preflop for a stack, I won two stacks (the small blip at the right edge of the graph above). I don’t know how much time I’ll have to play over the next two weeks what with the wedding and all, but I’m gonna take it pretty easy still. There’s lots of other things to do. Still, it’s good to be able to get a nice winning session in after getting my ass handed to me the last time I played.
Heraldk
Downswing
May 14th
Well it’s been awhile, but I haven’t played through a big downswing in a little while. That all changed over the last couple days.
I had been running super hot playing 200NL for a couple of weeks. That seems like the past now that I dropped 7 stacks at 200nl last night, and another 6 stacks at 100nl tonight. Ouch.
I think it’s time for an extended break. I should probably concentrate on other tasks anyways. Going through a downswing puts me in a foul mood. Which is why I don’t think I could ever play pro. I don’t mind losing a stack now or again, but extended and brutal beatings are a little hard to get used to.
Heraldk
Dinner and Edmonton Tweetup
May 10th
Last night after I finally had to give up on the UPS guy coming with the RAM for my Mac Pro, I went to go pick up Diane on our way to her coworker An’s place for dinner. An had spent the entire day cooking up a storm. When we got there, her entire kitchen was filled with lots of food! We started our dinner off with salad rolls — they’re kind of like not deep fried spring rolls. Next were some freshly deep fried spring rolls, and then a bowl of wonton soup. After that the other two guests arrived and we continued to eat. There was grilled pork ribs, shrimp and chicken skewers, shrimp and squid stirfry (I’ve never had squid so tender and non-rubbery before!), and a bunch of other great foods as well. I ate so much that I didn’t eat anything all day until dinner.
Today was the Edmonton Tweetup. A while ago, I joined twitter and blogged a bit about the experience. To put it quickly – I was a bit bummed out that I was the first of my group of friends to join the twitter experience. Well that’s changed a bit, thanks to @mastermaq who found me using twitter local. After just a couple of weeks, I had several twitter friends and the service became useful for me. Not long after that, Mack started organizing a twitter meet, which apparently is affectionately called a tweetup. The planning and organizing ended up with today being the day for the tweetup.
I showed up with Diane and we had a great turnout. We had at least 14 or 15 people there, and it was great to meet everyone. There was quite a large range of people who showed up — young people, older people, and a fair range of fields (although most were tech related in some way). It was quite a fun time actually. I spent a lot of time chatting with @bruceclark since we shared an interest in photography, but I also chatted with quite a few other people. It was a most enjoyable afternoon.
After the party seemed to have waned a little, I returned home for a short time before heading out to the airport to pick up my parents who were in Europe on holidays for a month. I took them out for supper as a mother’s day thing since the actual Mother’s day involved driving my sister to a couple of gigs. I got to hear a little about their trip, and it was good to have them back in town 
This evening I played a bit of poker, having my first real downswing at 200NL since an early downswing when I first moved up. Downswining 7 buyins is not my idea of a fun time. All sorts of crap happened to me that I had somehow avoided for the most part over the last little while of playing. Oh well, it can’t all go my way. I’m still up playing those limits, it’s just unfortunate that I couldn’t continue the trend that’s been lasting for the past little while. I guess it brings my winrate down to a much more sustainable level. It just sucks for it to happen all at once like this.
So I’m off to bed. I’m taking Megan to her first of two gigs tomorrow at the Radisson Hotel (formerly the Coast Terrace Inn) tomorrow morning. If you’re in the mood for some fancy brunch with some harp music for entertainment, feel free to stop in between 10:15 and 2:15.
Heraldk
Dublin Poker Report
Apr 22nd
I recently got back from Dublin for a job interview. For a full trip report visit minoragenda.com … but this post will summarize my experience at a Dublin casino for some poker.
On Saturday night, Aaron and Darse were thinking about going to play some poker so Diane graciously let me join them instead of returning to the hotel right away to sleep. So we ventured to the Dublin Sporting Emporium to play some 1/2 Pot Limit Hold’em.
The first stage in the process was to get a membership to the club which involved filling out a form and paying a 20 euro membership fee. To sweeten the deal a little (and encourage you to get some money into play), they gave each of us a 10 euro action chip to use at the tables. Once the process was over, we were admitted into the place. It had quite a classy feel, which was pretty cool. My experience at most casinos has been a feeling of cheap thrills, so it was pretty welcome to be in a place that didn’t make me feel that way. Maybe it was the whole membership process that helped it out, or maybe that casinos in Europe are just classier places?
Anyways, Darse and I had our play chips to attempt to convert into real money. So we went to the roulette table and each put a bet on a colour. I won my bet and let the action chip ride another two spins before losing it. So between us, Darse and I broke even at converting the action chips to real money. Woohoo!
The three of us went up a floor to the poker room where there was one 1/2 pot limit hold’em game going. Only two seats were open, so we played odds and evens to see who would get the first two seats. Darse was the odd man out, so Aaron and I bought in and sat down at two adjacent seats at the table. I started with 100 euros, but would later top up my chips for another 50 euros before I started to win.
Early on I didn’t get any hands which left me some time to watch how other players were doing. I’ve never really played pot limit before, although it’s not all that different from how I want to play no limit anyways. I picked out that most of the players really didn’t know how to play very well, although their play varied a little bit.
Apart from limping every so often or calling small raises with good pot odds from the button or the blinds, I didn’t play very many hands for the first several orbits. After a little while, Darse joined in with us and sat next to Aaron so there were three of us sitting in a row with Aaron on my left, and Darse on his left. Not long after that, I got my first hand: pocket twos! I made a raise and got three callers and flopped a set! Unfortunately, no one called my flop bet but it was good to win a pot.
The very next hand I picked up pocket eights and made an UTG raise once again getting many callers. The flop came A22. I made a continuation bet and got just one caller: a woman that seemed to be pretty solid. I checked the turn and folded to her pot sized bet. Well, I’m one for two now.
I continued to play pretty tight, although that was more of a function of the cards I was getting. A few hands later though I picked up aces and once again put in a raise. I got called by just a couple players. This time though I got some action from the guy to Darse’s left. He called my flop bet, but folded to my turn bet.
An orbit or two passes and I pick up aces again. Again I raise preflop, and the same guy who gave me action last time calls along with a few other players. The flop was all undercards to my aces and not particularly connected. I bet the flop, but this time I get raised by the same guy. At this point that wasn’t much more to me so I put the rest of my chips in – a raise of only 40 euro more into a pot totalling over 200 euros. He tanks for awhile before deciding to fold. Chalk it up to aces. I like aces.
We played on for a little while longer, and it seemed to me this guy was starting to take a dislike to me. There was a couple times where he squeezed me out of the pot – I would’ve liked to play against him, but I didn’t really feel like trying to do battle with my KJ-suited to his squeeze raise. A little more I think and I would’ve been able to play.
My next big hand was AK – and again my preflop raise was called by the same guy. I flopped top pair of kings on a KQx board. This time the guy raises me allin – so I call and after showing down my AK, he mucks his cards. I probably took close to 200 euro just from that guy alone!
I had one last big hand where I had QQ and got some action. I don’t remember the details, but I distinctly remember tossing three 25 euro black chips into the pot and getting folds. That was a pretty good sized pot to take down.
All told, I ended up over 240 euros to the good, which is officially my first winning session in any casino session I’ve ever played in (poker or otherwise) that wasn’t a tournament. Admittedly, I’ve only ever played cash poker games in the casino twice before. Once at foxwoods when I went to Boston and New York a couple years ago, and once when my friend Mike stopped by and we played at the casino closest to my house. So really, I haven’t had many data points – but if felt good to be up and up a good amount! It’s pretty intimidating to play live even though I know a lot about poker these days after playing so much online. So it’s good to get a victory under my belt.
All told, I think the trip to Dublin turned out to make me money instead of cost anything. The company paid for the flights and the hotel and most of the meals, and we’ll soon be settling up the cab fares. So aside from some small expenses, I didn’t really spend any money, but made a decent profit at the casino. Sweet deal!
I hope to hear back from pocket kings about the interview within the next week. I’ll let people know what the result is as soon as I know!
Heraldk
Poker Night
Mar 29th
Last Night, the CPRG met up for a poker night. We got a great turnout. 15 people bought in for ten bucks, and we played a NL freezeout. We had most of the members of the CPRG, a few people from Biotools, and a special guest: Bryce Paradis. Bryce is an amazing heads-up limit player who made 2.6 million dollars last year playing his game of choice. While he might’ve run hot at times, his profit graph is a beautiful exponential curve. It’s been really cool to meet him and chat about poker related things.
I did pretty well in the tournament, although I got shortstacked before the tables merged, and when they did I had to get lucky to double up a couple of times. I doubled through Bryce when my K9 rivered a pair against his AQ. Sorry, Bryce. Once I doubled up a couple times I managed to last until we passed the bubble. A few hands after everyone made the money, I got down to just 2K in chips with the blinds being 500/1000 and I had to post the big blind. The button called, and so did the small blind so I pushed my T9. The flop came QJJ, but I couldn’t hit my straight against Duane’s top pair of queens. Oh well, that’s how it goes.
It was a great night, and I’m glad we got such a great turnout.
Heraldk
Updates
Mar 18th
It’s been quite awhile since my last general update, so I figured I’d give a quick update.
The interview process is still underway. I’m not entirely sure what the status is, but it looks like I might be scheduling a visit for Diane and I over there to check out the office and have a chance to meet people and show off what I can do. It’s a little nerve wracking not knowing whether I’ve got a job or not, but it should be cool to meet some of the people face to face.
Outside of that, the poker group is gearing up its significant resources prepping for the upcoming AAAI poker bot competition. We’ve got a couple new tricks up our sleeves which hopefully will be enough to secure some more first place finishes. We’re also hoping to put together another man-machine challenge. There’s some tentative support here, so it might actually happen, but I don’t really know the details. As soon as I can share details about that, I will. I’m really hoping it happens. In my ideal world, I’d get a nice job offer from FT so I could breathe easy about that. Then the man-machine match would go ahead and we’d play some high profile players in Vegas during the WSOP. Then I’d get a bit of holiday time to honeymoon with Diane before moving to Ireland to start work at FT. It seems plausible to me!
Speaking of honeymooning and wedding stuff, the wedding is getting close to two months away. That’s a bit scary … the time has never gone slow that’s for sure. There’s probably a bazillion little things we should be organizing for the wedding, but it feels like we’ve got most of the important details done. Probably the biggest remaining thing is to arrange a list of volunteers for various tasks at the wedding. We’ll probably be compiling a list of things that need doing and call for volunteers over at minoragenda.com.
I’ve been pretty busy working, so I haven’t had much time to put into poker. My 200NL experiment went pretty well, although I’m pretty sure I was running hot. I’d like to get a chance to play some more soon, but my evenings seem to be full of too many things. In other poker related news, I’ve been playing in the World Rec.Gambling Poker Tournament (WRGPT). This is a large play-by-email poker tournament that predates online poker. This is the first year I’ve competed in the tournament since I only learned of it last year but I missed the registration that time. I’m doing not too shabby in this tournament, although I’ve gone pretty card dead over the past couple rotations. Then this hand happened. Woohoo flush! I now sit in ~60th or so place of ~180-ish remaining players. I still have a shot!
So that’s a pretty decent update of what I’ve been up to. Lots of stuff going on, not a lot of time to update the blog. Hopefully I can get more regular updates in the next little while.
Heraldk
Stepping Up
Mar 1st
It has been awhile since I last seriously tried to move up in limits at Poker. I’ve only really done it a handful of time. From my starting ground of 0.5/1 full ring limit I moved up twice to 1/2 and 2/4 limit. Then I started playing 6max no limit at 50nl, and moved up once from there to 100nl which is where I’ve been at for awhile.
This past week had been very good to me. I got a Party Poker reload bonus emailed to me, so I decided it was time to go back there and try and clear it. Well, I did rather well playing 100nl. I was up over 7 stacks in 4 or 5 days playing a couple hours per day. I felt confident and on top of the world. So it occurred to me — what about moving up again? I had been playing 6max 100nl for quite a long time and had made a few grand at those stakes.
A few nights ago I gave it a shot. The first night I had 2 tables open and made about half a stack at 200nl. Not too shabby, but it was a short session. The next night was terrible. I dropped 4 stacks, and it just didn’t feel like anything clicked. It seemed like every time I raised preflop I’d get called by people who would call my continuation bets — but I wouldn’t flop anything. I know I made a few errors, and I think I got a bit flustered. But even if I played perfectly, I doubt I’d be better than down 2 stacks.
The next night went quite a bit better. I was down a stack fairly early, but I got pretty comfortable and in the end managed to win a stack and a half or so. That brought me to last night where I thought I played alright, but for the longest time couldn’t dig myself out of the one-stack whole I had got myself in. I had a great table with two incredible fish who were just asking to give their money away. It took me several hours to finally get one of them for about a stack and a half to finally draw even for the night.
It’s interesting — I don’t think the game is that much tougher than the one I’m used to playing. I think it’s just that the size of the swings is a little daunting. Like I said, it’s been awhile since I tried moving up. So far, the experiment seems to be going alright even though I’m down a little bit so far. I’ve got a bit of a bankroll to sustain some loss, so it’s not like I’m risking all that much. If I succeed in moving up, then I think my win rate in dollars goes up a fair amount which was the whole reason to move up.
Wish me luck!
Heraldk
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