THE GOOD GRIND: 20k hands, $0.25/hand donated
08-11-2019
, 05:16 PM
DAY 1 | 8.10.19
Hands: 789
Donation: 789*($0.25) = $197.25
I don’t like talking about poker. But I want to like talking about poker, hence the conception of this project. My goal is simple: play 20,000 hands of online poker, and donate $0.25 to charity for every hand played. That’s 5,000 big ones, assuming I don’t wimp out.
Yesterday was my first day of playing for charity (the organizations are TBD, and I’ll probably split it up into four $1,250 donations to four different charities). I don’t want to donate a percentage of my winnings, because it’s certainly possible that I’ll lose over a sample size of 20k hands. It also seems risky and unnecessary to reveal how much I’m winning or losing. To keep things interesting, I’ll be sharing at least one hand from every session, with real dollar amounts, so you’ll at least get a taste of the stakes I’m playing.
Over the last 4 months, I’ve played about 25k hands, and have sustained a win-rate that is well above $0.25/hand. For those who are unfamiliar with the online poker landscape in the United States, things have been pretty quiet since 2011, when the federal government accused the three largest online poker companies of money laundering. A few states (Nevada; New Jersey) have wisely created their own legislation to allow online poker, and are reaping the tax benefits (just like Cannabis). The rest of us are forced to play live poker at casinos, and/or play on ‘underground’ websites and apps.
I’ve found myself swimming in a sea of fish, thanks to my good friend Jeremy (a professional poker player) introducing me to a very niche online poker club. Yes, Jeremy is his real name. All names throughout the rest of this story will be changed for security reasons. Anyways, he quit his job as a web developer to play in this online club, so I figured it was worth trying, despite the buggy software and disgusting user interface.
Fast-forward four months, and I’m planning to donate $0.25 for every hand I play, for the next 20,000 hands. Yesterday, I played 789 hands, and had the swingiest session of my poker career, finishing the day a loser. But that’s $197.50 raised for charity, with only 19,211 hands to go! As promised, here’s an interesting hand from my session:
Game: Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO)
Blinds: $1/$2 with mandatory $4 straddle
Players: 6
Stacks: Button ($1,460) | SB ($534) | BB Hero ($1,273) | Straddle ($2,221) | UTG ($429) | CO ($1,205)
Hand:
CO raises to $14. Button calls $14. Hero calls $14 from BB with A
K
T
9
. Straddle folds.
Flop ($48)
9 3 2
Hero bets $36. CO calls $36. Button folds.
Turn ($120)
8
Hero bets $90. CO raises to $315. Hero reraises to $1,065. CO reraise all-in for $1,154. Hero calls.
River ($2,428)
7
CO wins with J T 9 7
Analysis:
Preflop is pretty standard, so let’s just skip ahead to the flop. We elect to bet the flop as a semi-bluff, with the intention of calling most raises. It’s hard for anyone to have a set or two pair here, as there’s only one combination of 99, and it’s hard to have 93 or 92, assuming our opponents have reasonable standards for their starting hands. We are betting to get overpairs like TT, JJ and QQ to fold, while also taking initiative in the hand, should we want to value bet a good turn card (any 9, T, K or A). When the CO calls our flop bet, we assume he has mostly overpairs, with some 9xxx combinations.
On the turn, we elect to continue betting, as we can still get overpairs to fold, and there are still plenty of decent rivers for our hand. We’re also deep, and the SPR (stack-to-pot-ratio) is very low, so we’re not committing ourselves to the hand by betting the turn. The raise on the turn from CO is surprising. What hands can he represent here? The only hands that really makes sense is 98, with a tiny possibility of 88, given that most 88 hands don’t really connect with the flop. And even against 98, we’re not totally dead–we still have about 18% equity.
So what does he have? At the time, it felt mostly like an overpair trying to raise for protection, in an attempt to get hands with good equity (like my hand) to fold. And even when we call his raise, he has the best hand, so he’s getting some value in the long run. He can also have a lot of combo draws, which would make sense to raise, as it’s really hard for me to continue on this board, as I rarely have more than a pair. So we decide to reraise pot (basically an all-in), as he will fold his overpairs, and might even fold some combo draws as well. We also get value from hands like the one he had (on the turn, our hand has 60% equity vs JT97).
___________________
Let's get back to grinding. I'll post again tomorrow with updates.
Hand Total: 789
Donation Total: 789*($0.25) = $197.25
Hands Left: 19,211
Hands: 789
Donation: 789*($0.25) = $197.25
I don’t like talking about poker. But I want to like talking about poker, hence the conception of this project. My goal is simple: play 20,000 hands of online poker, and donate $0.25 to charity for every hand played. That’s 5,000 big ones, assuming I don’t wimp out.
Yesterday was my first day of playing for charity (the organizations are TBD, and I’ll probably split it up into four $1,250 donations to four different charities). I don’t want to donate a percentage of my winnings, because it’s certainly possible that I’ll lose over a sample size of 20k hands. It also seems risky and unnecessary to reveal how much I’m winning or losing. To keep things interesting, I’ll be sharing at least one hand from every session, with real dollar amounts, so you’ll at least get a taste of the stakes I’m playing.
Over the last 4 months, I’ve played about 25k hands, and have sustained a win-rate that is well above $0.25/hand. For those who are unfamiliar with the online poker landscape in the United States, things have been pretty quiet since 2011, when the federal government accused the three largest online poker companies of money laundering. A few states (Nevada; New Jersey) have wisely created their own legislation to allow online poker, and are reaping the tax benefits (just like Cannabis). The rest of us are forced to play live poker at casinos, and/or play on ‘underground’ websites and apps.
I’ve found myself swimming in a sea of fish, thanks to my good friend Jeremy (a professional poker player) introducing me to a very niche online poker club. Yes, Jeremy is his real name. All names throughout the rest of this story will be changed for security reasons. Anyways, he quit his job as a web developer to play in this online club, so I figured it was worth trying, despite the buggy software and disgusting user interface.
Fast-forward four months, and I’m planning to donate $0.25 for every hand I play, for the next 20,000 hands. Yesterday, I played 789 hands, and had the swingiest session of my poker career, finishing the day a loser. But that’s $197.50 raised for charity, with only 19,211 hands to go! As promised, here’s an interesting hand from my session:
Game: Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO)
Blinds: $1/$2 with mandatory $4 straddle
Players: 6
Stacks: Button ($1,460) | SB ($534) | BB Hero ($1,273) | Straddle ($2,221) | UTG ($429) | CO ($1,205)
Hand:
CO raises to $14. Button calls $14. Hero calls $14 from BB with A
K T 9. Straddle folds.Flop ($48)
9
3 2Hero bets $36. CO calls $36. Button folds.
Turn ($120)
8
Hero bets $90. CO raises to $315. Hero reraises to $1,065. CO reraise all-in for $1,154. Hero calls.
River ($2,428)
7
CO wins with J
T 9 7Analysis:
Preflop is pretty standard, so let’s just skip ahead to the flop. We elect to bet the flop as a semi-bluff, with the intention of calling most raises. It’s hard for anyone to have a set or two pair here, as there’s only one combination of 99, and it’s hard to have 93 or 92, assuming our opponents have reasonable standards for their starting hands. We are betting to get overpairs like TT, JJ and QQ to fold, while also taking initiative in the hand, should we want to value bet a good turn card (any 9, T, K or A). When the CO calls our flop bet, we assume he has mostly overpairs, with some 9xxx combinations.
On the turn, we elect to continue betting, as we can still get overpairs to fold, and there are still plenty of decent rivers for our hand. We’re also deep, and the SPR (stack-to-pot-ratio) is very low, so we’re not committing ourselves to the hand by betting the turn. The raise on the turn from CO is surprising. What hands can he represent here? The only hands that really makes sense is 98, with a tiny possibility of 88, given that most 88 hands don’t really connect with the flop. And even against 98, we’re not totally dead–we still have about 18% equity.
So what does he have? At the time, it felt mostly like an overpair trying to raise for protection, in an attempt to get hands with good equity (like my hand) to fold. And even when we call his raise, he has the best hand, so he’s getting some value in the long run. He can also have a lot of combo draws, which would make sense to raise, as it’s really hard for me to continue on this board, as I rarely have more than a pair. So we decide to reraise pot (basically an all-in), as he will fold his overpairs, and might even fold some combo draws as well. We also get value from hands like the one he had (on the turn, our hand has 60% equity vs JT97).
___________________
Let's get back to grinding. I'll post again tomorrow with updates.
Hand Total: 789
Donation Total: 789*($0.25) = $197.25
Hands Left: 19,211
Last edited by DaYu; 08-11-2019 at 05:40 PM.
