One of the first things people ask me about online poker is whether I’m concerned about possible cheating. In short – I’m aware of the possibility, but I’m not concerned about it. There was a large cheating scandal at one of the poker sites (UB/AP) a year ago. An employee of the company had access to everyone’s hole cards and cheated a number of high stakes players out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is in the poker site’s best interests to make sure the games are on the level. I estimate Full Tilt makes hundreds of millions of dollars in rake every month – and they are only the second largest poker site. It would be completely illogical for them to jeopardize such an income stream by having cheating run rampant. There was a mass exodus from UB/AP after the scandal and they have had a tough time (re)gaining customers. Poker is a trust business – once a site loses the players’ trust, it’s basically finished. That’s why I’m “comfortable” that the sites will do all they can to protect the player’s interests.

Of course this does not mean there is no cheating at online poker. There are many ways to cheat, including: using illegal software, running automated poker programs (“bots”), using opponent statistics from hands that you did not participate in (“datamining”), sharing hold card information with someone else at the table, etc. Some sites are better than others at detecting cheating, and from time to time, you hear about accounts getting banned and the cheaters’ funds confiscated.

And as with any other industry that deals with large sums of money, you have people trying to scam others. A notable recent incident involved a coach at one of the poker training sites, who allegedly didn’t know how to play poker but took tens of thousands of dollars in coaching fees and squandered $100K in his students’ money. There are also scams involving hacked MSN/AIM accounts of high profile players, and hacking of the poker accounts themselves. A lot of players keep tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on their poker accounts. There are a handful of people who keep over a million dollars on the poker site.

Considering the millions of people playing online poker and the billions of dollars involved, there are bound to be a few bad apples. I don’t let this bother me – probably because the checks keep coming in.

This probably wraps up the last of the answers to major questions I’m frequently asked. I’ll cover some other basics as they come up. Starting next week, the next phase of the blog begins!

WHAT’S FOR DINNER? (two days ago)

Below is Mrs. Fly’s take on jambalaya:

The most noticeable change is she used smoked sausage instead of andouille sausage, because let’s face it, andouille sausage tastes like an old sock. No offense intended to the Creole/Cajuns out there – maybe I’ve just never had good andouille. Anyway, it was outstanding – I blame this meal, the McDonald’s run and the wedding banquet for my recent weight gain. My voracious appetite and lack of restraint had nothing to do with it.

My cousin is getting married later today! Well, officially, they’re married already, but the reception is tonight. There’s something about passed hors d’oeuvres and open bar that just kicks ass. We got a babysitter for D, so it should be a fun evening. Man! That kid can be a real buzz kill at times.  But I love that little guy!  Please don't report me to Social Services.

Aw crud! I just realized I have to wear a suit. After living in a t-shirt and shorts for the better part of two years, I can’t think of anything more uncomfortable than wearing a tie, stiff shoes and a monkey suit. One of the best things about poker is I never have to dress up to go to work. Ugh! I just realized that I look like a hippy because I’m way overdue for a haircut.

One day a week, I let Mrs. Fly sleep in and I take the boys to McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. The “boys” love going out for breakfast at McD’s or DD. So today, D goes to my office and is staring at the Gatorade on my desk, so I let him have some and put the rest in a sippy cup for him to take to McDonald’s. At McD’s all he wants to eat is the hash brown – no egg, no sausage. It would not surprise me if there was a secret division of McDonald's that focuses solely on making their potato products super addictive - sort of like how the tobacco companies had those labs to make cigarettes even more addictive.  Anyway, under my brilliant supervision, he’s had like 400 calories this morning and zero nutritional value. Doh!  Maybe Social Services may be pay me a visit soon after all.

POKER

Poker is a zero sum game – that means for me to make money, someone else has to lose that money to me. In fact, it’s a “negative sum game” from the point of view of the players, because the casino takes a portion of every raked pot. This may seem obvious, but thinking of poker as a negative sum game has some interesting ramifications about table selection:

If the 9 best players in the world were all “equally” skilled and they sat to play against each other, they would all lose money. In the long run, the casino would be the only one making money, via the rake.

Even if you are one of the “best players in the world”, you still need to occasionally table select to win money - theoretically (caveat later).  There’s an old poker saying “if you don’t see the fish at the table, you’re it.” Most games, especially the higher stakes games, revolve around one or more weaker players. At midstakes (2/4 thru 5/10), which is usually what I play, the games are soft enough (meaning there are enough weaker players to go around) where you don’t *have to* table select, but I would still say 1/3 or so of the tables are of questionable quality – they may be +ev (expected value) to play if you are a good player, but not by much (as the table still has to overcome the rake). The rake at 2/4 is aproximately $12 per 100 hands per player.  For the table as a whole, that's $108 per 100 hands (not including rakeback).  That money has to come from somwhere - make sure it's not you.

All this “looking around for good tables” may make poker sound really lame. But what makes poker challenging and fun is that there is no such thing as “equally skilled”- people have different playing styles and there are hundreds of billions of different card combinations that people have to maximize value on. Some styles work better against certain types of players, so there are always matchup issues involved. It’s definitely challenging to play some of the better players, and it could take tens, if not hundreds of thousands of hands to see who is better than whom. For someone playing for a living, you need to balance  playing for the challenge with making the most money possible.

I have two main goals this year.

The weight loss one is easier to explain so I’ll start with that one. When I was in college, I weighted 200lbs. I now weigh 260lbs. I did not grow taller or gain any additional muscle mass since college – in fact, I probably lost some muscle mass. The “I’m big boned” excuse pretty much went out the window 40 pounds ago. I think it’s obvious what the problem is.  I'm fat!!!

As for poker, I have a lot of developmental goals, which I may elaborate on in a future post. But in a nutshell, I want to continue making money. There are two main components to “money”: actual poker winnings and rakeback (including rake races). Poker winnings are self-explanatory – I’m pretty much trying to make $30K a month. Over 125K hands a month, this translates to a 3ptbb win rate @ 2/4, which is considered “very good.” The amount of rakeback and all other rake promotions on 125K hands is approximately $5K a month. So assuming I take 1 month off during the course of the year, that gets us very close to $400K. Of course, if I keep progressing, start playing more 5/10 and continue to do well, there is a lot of upside.

I think the numbers might be a little lofty, but I like to aim high. Unfortunately, due to some game changes implemented by Full Tilt last week, there seems to be a shortage of full ring tables to play on (see below). There’s a real possibility I may have to change my main game (from full ring to 6max or Rush), and that could derail some of my income goals for the year. The other possibility is that I can move to PokerStars (the largest poker site), but I hate their software.

I also want to start playing online tournaments regularly starting in the spring or summer, and I’m hoping for several good cashes. Hopefully, all the research I did on playing with a short stack will come in handy in those tourneys. To reach my 500K goal, I need to get a little better than I currently am, or need about $100K in tournament winnings.

POKER

Last week, Full Tilt Poker made two huge changes to the game: (i) they increased the minimum buy-in to 35 big blinds (from 20), and (ii) they introduced Rush Poker, a new variation on traditional poker. I’ll talk about the buy-in changes (and short stacking) in a future post.

Rush Poker is played the same as regular poker, except when you fold a hand, you get sent to a new table and are dealt a new hand immediately – so no more waiting for hands to finish. You get to play with a new group of people every hand, and so no one has a great handle on how you play. For the novice / casual player, I think it’s a lot more entertaining, because it involves less skill. The problem as I see it is that the “fish” (very bad players) have started migrating over to this game, which means many of the mediocre regulars will also start migrating over to this game. We now have a situation where there are about 50% less full ring tables than before – perhaps 25% fewer from the buy-in increase (removal of short stackers) and the rest from the Rush Poker drain. So now at FT, we are starting to come dangerously close to not having a critical mass of full ring tables. Since I look to play 12-16 tables at a time, I need there to be that many tables available to me – preferably more so that I can have a small degree of table selection (more on a future post).

Hopefully, the player drain from the new game will go away after a few weeks as the novelty wears off. There have been some signs of improvement the past two days in the number of tables.  Otherwise, I may have to revisit my development and income goals.

You might be wondering how I go about playing so many hands a month. That's my 2+2 avatar btw – a goofy middle-aged guy getting confused by multi-tabling.  I play between 12 to 16 tables at a time. This may seem onerous, but it's not as overwhelming as it sounds. I generally only play 15% of the hands dealt to me (the rest are folded preflop). So on average, I have an active hand on a little over two tables at one time. That probably sounds more manageable, but less impressive.  The poker tables that require action just pop up to the front, and I have keyboard shortcuts that "fold," "call," or "raise," and shortcuts that type in my bet amounts, so all I have to do is click one button per table. I'm not sitting there feverishly moving my mouse all over the screen and typing in bets all the time on the keyboard.

I actually find playing poker very RELAXING. I used to watch TV (usually prerecorded football or late night talk shows) while I was 12+ tabling, but I decided I should focus more on the hands and trying to get better. So now, I'll usually have a glass of wine and listen to music on the Bose SoundDock I recently got from FT. 8-10 hours may sound like a lot, but it goes by super-fast. It takes me back to when I was younger, and my brother and I would play computer games 16 hours a day all summer – those summers whizzed by. My previous job, trading, was also just a big computer game. I guess I'm just a big kid who likes computer games.

POKER

Below is a photo of my computer set-up. It takes up about half of my desk. The other half is hidden because that's where I deposited all of the clutter from the left half of the desk I took a photo of. But there's nothing to see on the right half - I have another computer with a 24" monitor that I use for non-secure uses (itunes, etc), a space for G to do his homework, and a minifridge and fax/copier underneath. The wall unit on the left contains my war provisions (later post).

The left monitor is 24" and has all of the various software I run with my poker client (Holdem Manager, TableNinjaFT, Explorer, FT lobbies, etc). The right monitor is a 30" and just has the 12-16 tables I play, full size but overlapped. I like being able to see which tables I have cards on, but unfortunately, I couldn't fit more than 12, so I had to "double up" in the corners to fit 16. That little gadget to the left of the keyboard is a gamepad (Belkin n52te) that can control all the keyboard shortcuts. So I can play solely with my left or right hand (with the mouse) for long stretches of time. I have 4 different mice, but settled on the lightweight Logitech wireless that came with my computer and the Tracman tracball as a backup (in case the battery on the wireless dies). The Performance MX and Evoluent ergonomic mice were too heavy for me (I have this habit of lightly picking up the mice as I use it), so my hand would start cramping after 5+ hours. I also have a playstation controller I can use to play poker, but I haven’t used it yet. The mousepad is an oversized one from Razer. $30 may seem like an absurd amount of money to spend on a mousepad, but other than the n52te, it’s my favorite accessory. The TV above the computer is mostly for when I'm not playing poker but doing "work" on the computer.  I also have a laptop that I'm going to start using for Rush poker (later post), regular poker when I travel, and for blogging.

I also do a lot of poker research. There are random papers all over the place with things like theoretical starting hands, stack to pot ratios by street, postflop hand ranges, Short Stack optimal shoving and reshoving ranges, optimal jam hands, interesting articles, etc. My big focus lately has been on starting hands, as I don’t think I play enough hands preflop. It's funny I've been playing so long and I'm still revisiting starting hands. It just speaks to my n00bishness.

My typical “work” day starts around 8PM and ends around 6AM, but this varies from day to day depending on my mood and the tables. Most days, I try to mix in an 8-10 hour play session with watching some instructional videos or other “work.” Some weeks, I’ll play four 10 hour sessions and take a day off during the week. I’ve played as long as 16 hours straight on several occasions, so my hours aren’t set. A few players actually keep a bottle next to their desks in case “nature calls.” If you play 16 tables at a time (as many multi-tablers do), it could take 5 minutes or so to sit out of all your tables and another 5 minutes or so to get back on. So rather than go through the hassle, some people turn to the bottle.  I’m pretty sure Mrs. Fly would throw me out of the house if I resorted to that. And then there’s the whole issue of washing your hands, accidental spillage, and of course the even more catastrophic... accidental drinkage!

When my “work” day is over, I may have a light snack with G (my son, not "the bottle"), as he’s usually the first to get up. When the rest of the family gets up, I usually go to sleep – usually until 12-3PM or so, depending on what’s on the calendar.

G usually has an after-school activity 2 days a week. This semester, he has an art class on Tuesdays and ice skating on Wednesdays. Mrs. Fly usually arranges for 2 play dates during the week and sometimes 1 on the weekends. So I usually have some free time until dinner. Sometimes, like today, I may start playing early. Otherwise, its an afternoon of lightsaber fighting, Wii games, board games, playing outside, etc.

Around 5:30PM, we’ll have dinner together and then I help G with his homework. The homework really only takes like 15-30 minutes, so it’s just an excuse for us get away from D and putz around in my office until he has to get ready for bed. And then comes the nightly “ordeal” of reading him a book. He likes “reading time” so much he just keeps dragging it on and on and on – asking questions, asking to reread passages, making peanut gallery comments about the illustrations, etc. Finally I had to put a 30 minute time limit on it – because “reading a book” was taking over 40 minutes and I’m just a lazy parent.

POKER

If you told me I would play 8300 hands and be flat, I would be pretty disappointed. But not today… My sessions usually aren’t that volatile, but this unbelievably bad player took three stacks off me @ 3/6.

Tomorrow’s a new day.  And I'll start talking about poker soon.

For those who do not know me, I play mainly as “DoubleFly” on Full Tilt Poker. When I was working, I used to trade a lot of butterflies and double butterflies on the interest rate yield curve, so “DoubleFly” seemed like a good name, as it also means “doubly fly.”

I play mostly $2/$4 full ring (nine players) no limit holdem (this is the game that’s shown all the time on TV), and I’ll play as low as 1/2 and as high as 10/20. "2/4" refers to the sizes of the small and big blind respectively. If you have no idea what that means, it just means most people sit down at the table with $400. So some of you may be saying to yourself… “Holy crap! You’re going to try and make $500K by winning $2 - $400 at a time?!?” In short – Yes (more on my goals in a later post). The tables go as high as 1500/3000, which means the standard buy-in at those tables is $300,000 – there is a ton of money flying around in online poker.

Misconception #1 that people have about online poker is that poker income is unstable because it’s “gambling.” In fact, I’ve been up all 17 months I’ve been playing poker – and I was not particularly good many of those months. In fact, I’m still not *that* good now. When I was trading, it would be very common to have 8-9 up months and 3-4 down months – and that was considered very good for the type of trading I did. Some successful traders were only up 6 or 7 months out of the year – their up months were just much bigger than their down months. There are plenty of jobs out there where the income stream is not as stable as poker – pretty much any sales job that’s commission based, whether it’s real estate, car sales, or whatever. Obviously, if you’re terrible at poker, making no money a month is better than losing money.

What I have working for me is the Law of Large Numbers. The last few months, I averaged around 125K poker hands a month (playing 40 hours a week). To put that in perspective, if you go play at your local casino (or home game) you probably only get 25 hands an hour. So I play as many hands in a month as most people can play in TWO AND A HALF YEARS of 40-hours a week live play. Over that many hands, you expect “bad luck” and “good luck” to even out – somewhat. Since last June (when I started getting better), my worst full month was $17K and my best $32K. So there’s some variability, but not nearly as much as one would think from a “gambling” occupation. Of course, part of this is how I approach the game, which I’ll discuss in a future post.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

This section may seem odd to you, but a while back, I mentioned on the 2+2 Poker Forums that Mrs. Fly makes the best sandwiches. Probably because she saves the bacon drippings and fries the bread in it (she’s from the “South”). It sounds gross, but once you take a bite you’ll agree it's just awesome. Anyway, the guys in the forums are always jokingly asking for pics of sandwiches (and Mrs. Fly, but that’s another story). I only have sandwiches like once a month, and actually it’s probably been over a year since the last fried sandwich - maybe the Whale Watch has something to do with it. Anyway, in lieu of sandwiches, I present to you… last night’s dinner: BBQ chicken, mac & cheese, some spinach crap from Costco (it was terrible the first time; they only sell stuff by the case there so she added some ingredients and it tasted much better this time), and laxative (the green stuff on the top that’s taking up way too much of the plate imo).

I’m 40 years old and I’ve been playing online poker professionally for almost 17 months. Whenever I meet someone new, they inevitably ask what I do for a living. When I tell them, they are always surprised and genuinely seem interested in what I do. Most people raising a family in the suburbs have probably never met someone who plays poker for a living. The image that “pro poker player” conjures up is that of a grizzled degenerate gambler in a smoke-filled room, about three days past needing a shower badly. I enjoy thinking about and writing about poker, and a blog seemed to be a good way not only to express myself, but to shed some light on what it’s like raising a family and playing poker.

My goal is to make $500K this year playing online poker. That's a lot of money, especially for someone who was called a "muppet luckbox" on the poker forums just last year. My best month last year was only $32K, but I’m constantly trying to improve my game and feel like I can continue to improve. I’ll discuss my goals in a later post. My favorite muppet by the way is the Swedish chef. I know he’s not really politically correct, but maybe it has something to do with my love of food.

My previous job was trading at an investment bank – as a proprietary trader focusing on interest rate curvature. Or as my wife likes to say “a bleah bleah bleah trader.” I took a huge hit from the market turmoil in 2007. I basically had one of those Wile E Coyote moments where I was riding high, and before I knew it, I was falling off a cliff... And then a huge boulder falls on me.

I took some time off after work to be with my wife while she was on bed rest with our second son. The job markets were pretty bad, so during my time off, I decided to pursue one of my life goals, which was to get to the final table of a major poker tournament. I started playing online, and in my first month of part-time play made $8K. It was then that I realized that this may be something I enjoy doing for the rest of my life. Turns out that the top online poker players make MILLIONS a year.

I could have tried to go back to work, but I really enjoy spending time with the family. I have a fantastic wife (“Mrs. Fly”) and two great boys (“G” & “D”), and poker allows me to spend more time with them than a job at a bank would. I still can’t believe my oldest is 6 already, and I feel like I’ll blink and he’ll be off to college. My youngest will be 2 in March. He used to be a pain in the ass, but now he’s at that age where he’s just super fun to be around. My wife and I really enjoy spending time together, and working from home allows us to go out for lunch, run errands together, “etc.” The big bonus about the poker lifestyle is that when the kids get older, I can actually take the family somewhere great for the 2 months of summer vacation. All you really need to play online poker is a laptop and a reasonable internet connection – and you can get that almost anywhere in the world.

Because a lot of people may not be avid poker players (no limit holdem in particular), I decided to have most blog entries in two general parts: (i) a more general section for non-poker players, and (ii) a more poker-specific section for players. Since I have my goals for this year (both monetary and weight), I will also discuss results on a weekly basis, with a monthly summary on the sidebar. I’ll probably add some other sections as the blog progresses.