Work Sucks

I wish I had something more to post about my progress with EVmaSTTer, but unfortunately I haven't had any time to work on it. My day job has gotten in the way. :-(

I've actually been thinking about writing a different program lately, something that has nothing to do with EV. Of course, if I have no time to work on one hobby project, I can't possibly expect to have time for a second.

BTW, I was reading back through earlier posts and decided that some cleanup was in order. Read the (new) first post for more info.

Filter Fun

Been making some good progress on the project. Mostly UI stuff, now that the core of the processing code is done. I wanted to show off the many filtering options that will be available when you view an individual tournament or your overall dataset. As you'll see in the image below, I've come up with a name for the program: EVmaSTTer. The "STT" is a not-so-subtle reference to the fact that this program is designed to work with Single Table Tournament data.



As you can see, there are 11 different filtering options:

• Last Games - the most recent games in your dataset (select from 5 - 100 games)
  
• Site - which site the game was on (PokerStars only for now)
  
• Description - as defined by the site, usually the type of game played
  
• Level - blind level (as defined by the site)
  
• All-In Hands - if Yes, the graph will include an "expected" line with the results
  
• # of Players - obviously, how many players are left
  
• Hole Cards - you can see how well certain hands have fared for you
  
• VP$IP - whether or not the hero Voluntarily Put $$$ In the Pot
  
• Showdowns - whether or not the hero took the hand to a showdown
  
• Last Action - on what street was the last action taken by the hero
  
• Seat # - if you really want to get superstitious, you can see how you've fared in each seat at the table
  

Of course each of these filters are optional, and you can toggle them on and off with the checkboxes.

Beat: You're reading this

As long as you're in the middle of a life-beat by coming to this blog, you may as well stick around and read the rest of this post. There are a couple of things here that may apply to you.

BTW, if you're expecting to see a new Gene's Blowing Up post right now, put your pants back on and calm down. That's not what this is. I've just been thinking about some posts by other people regarding this blog, and something occurred to me that I felt like writing about.

For all of the times that people have told me that I need to lighten up and not take things seriously, it appears that nobody has applied their own advice when reading this blog. I think you guys are convinced that I really do believe I'm the unluckiest player ever.

More on that in a moment, but first let me back up for a bit and talk about the genesis of this blog. You may recall that when Drome was made an ~Admin, one of the first things he did was to ban poker beats from the Beats section. Kinda dumb really, but what can you do when it's an ~Admin Playground over there now. Anyway, I started a thread entitled "Can I just have my own beat thread or something?", because I was in the mood to vent about a 2-outer that killed an otherwise great game.

One of the first responses was from WC: "Thats what blogs are for, start one and vent there"

It actually sounded like a good idea. I personally hate blogs, but at least it would give me some small amount of space on the internet for when I'm tilting from some of the nastier beats. And if someone was interested in watching the carnage, they could just come here. Keeps everything nice and neat and out of the forum.

When I came up with the "King of Bad Luck" title and description, I was just trying to be a little over-the-top. I figured hey, if I'm going to have a bad beat blog, I may as well go all out with it. I also decided to post hands from every game I play instead of just selective beats, for three reasons:

1. It would appear less misleading that way.
2. When I did win, I could look back on it to study key hands.
1. It would show how absurd it is to consider yourself "unlucky".

Did ya catch that last one? This is where the "don't take me seriously" part comes in. Of course I don't really think I'm that unlucky. As you can see in the hands that I have posted to this point, there have been some times when I got caught making a move, and there have been times when I was behind and sucked out. Shit happens, and even though it has happened a lot more lately (last 6 months) than usual, I know that I'm just in a bad run that will hopefully turn around soon.

I truly didn't expect that anyone would read it, and I don't know now why they did. Maybe it was because it was linked in my sig. Maybe it was because Zack linked to it in his blog. It was probably because of Zack. Anyway, it has become clear that everyone has misunderstood my reasons for starting this blog, and the reason why I'm writing all of this about it now is because it has directly affected how people read my forum posts. I won't go into the Annette discussion again, but suffice it to say that it had nothing to do with her running good or me running bad.

So, this blog is going to change slightly. I still hate blogs, and I'm tired of going through the effort to post every single game anyway, so it's a welcome change for me. The really nasty beats are still getting posted... that's why this thing was started, after all. But I'm going to focus more on my new code project, which is essentially a SNG version of PokerEV. Obviously it still ties in to the luck theme of the blog, so that works out pretty well.

There you go. Now you can go back to your normally beat-free life. :-)

Graphing Fun

Here are a couple of visuals from the project I'm working on. This is from a $5 SNG that I won a while back (the same one that I posted about with the roller coaster of heads-up hands). The first graph is my chipsEV (calculated using ICM formulas) tracked from start to finish in that one game. It's tracking the deltas, so even though I started with $5 in equity and ended with $22.50, it shows up on the graph as starting with $0 and ending with $17.50.



The second graph takes advantage of the filters, which are really the most useful part of this tool. I filtered out only the hands from the game that ended in an all-in showdown with cards to come. The red line shows how my equity would have progressed on average based upon the odds. The blue line shows the actual result. When the blue line is below the red, you're "running bad". When it's above the red, you're "running good". The last 9 of those hands were after the bubble burst, including the 8 hands that I originally posted about.



So you can see from the second graph that I was running bad pretty much all the way until the money, and then my luck turned around. This is exactly what I said in my original post about that game, but now I have statistical proof to back it up.

EDIT: Beat: I just noticed that the images get cut off. Not cool. Check the image URL to see the entire thing.

The Extended Abbreviated Version

If you're looking at this blog and wondering what happened, the short answer is that 26 posts have been compressed into 1. The long answer is that I've decided to take out all of my previous "bad beat" posts, in the spirit of further preventing anyone from interpreting this blog as something that it isn't. I did, however, preserve the posted hands, which are listed below. You'll see that there is a wide variety of hands. Some where I won with the better hand, and some where I lost with the better hand. Some where I was behind and sucked out, and some where I got caught making a move. Some were coinflips, and some weren't even close. Maybe seeing them all together like this will reinforce the idea that this was never something to be taken seriously.

Remember, these hands are posted for entertainment purposes only. Do not attempt to play poker like I do, or you will regret it.

52% 33 > KQ
47% QT < 77
34% 89 < QJ, KT7 board
18% QQ < KK < JJ
Disgusting Split Pot
48% KhKc < 4h6h, 3s5hTh board
3% 6s8c < KcJc, 6c3c2c board
63% AQ < KJ
44% AT < 88
24% A8 < AJ
34% 27s < AQs
38% K9o < A7s
27% A7s < AJs
12% 27o < QQ
0% (16% tie) Q7 < K3, 4675 board
77% KJ > TT, AQ2T board
21% (50% tie) A3 > A4
61% A8s < Q6c
22% 68s < JT, AT8 board
99% AA > A6, K93 board
18% KJ > K9s > QQ
59% T7 > 84s
41% 95 > T4
70% 88 > A4
34% K2 < A4
26% QJ < AJ
69% ATs < 94
64% JJ > AJs
59% A8 > Q9
33% A5s < KK
19% TT < QQ
27% AJs < AQ
38% Q3s > AJo
Turned Straight > River Trips
2% TT < AA, AT72 board
64% KhQh < 6h7h
72% QQ < AJ
80% KQ < A8 < AT, KT7 board
65% AJ < A8
80% 77 < 55
63% 99 < A9
32% T9 < KJ on a J84 board
62% AA < 66 on a 789 board
89% AA < 66 on a Q53 board