I hope my step-brother never finds out

[frob23]

I hope he never finds the site poker table ratings. I won't link to it because some of the ads on it directly compete with this site. But the main use of the site doesn't. And it attempts to do for cash games what sharkscope has done for sit and gos.

The reason I hope my step-brother never finds it is because he is in deep denial about his ability. For all the sites and all the hands tracked by PTR, my step-brother is down several thousand dollars. If you combine his sit and go stats from sharkscope, it's probably a total of $8k down. I showed him his sharkscope stats a while back. His response was to change to a new account and insist that it was just bad luck.

But his ROI of -21% over 1,200 games tells me that bad luck probably played only a small role in that.

So I don't want him to see his cash game stats. He'll just change his name to make it harder for me to follow his exact losses. I've told him that he is losing money but he insists that he is winning. And it won't work. So it's better to just have one spot where all his numbers are, in case we reach a point where he will listen.

[phaul]

But his ROI of -21% over 1,200 games tells me that bad luck probably played only a small role in that.

This.

Wow, that's actually awful. He'd be losing even without rake. What kind of time period is it? At what point would you try to intervene again?

[frob23]

June 2007 -> December 2008... so about 18 months.

As for when I will try again, it will be when he asks for money again. The last time he asked for money, I told him that I can't keep giving him money if he loses everything in his account all the time. He played it off as that he'd just made a withdrawal or something. I never sent him any money. If he asks for money, I'll use that as an excuse and point out the stats and ask him if he'd send me money if I was losing as steadily as he was.

As it is, he manages to pay his bills and other stuff. So it's just him losing his "entertainment" money. That's a lot of money to spend on entertainment but I'm not going to tell him how he can or can't blow his cash. If he started to be unable to afford the basics and still insisted on playing, that would be another time to step in.

I've already made it clear to his mother, my step-mother (sort of -- she married my father after I was an adult), that he isn't making the money he claims. And told her that if she sees a need to step in and talk to him, I would get her exact numbers. I think she's of the same opinion as I am right now. So long as he manages to do what he needs to do, there isn't a need to stop him from spending his money as he wants.

[RAW_FORCE]

I'm just playing devils advocate here but table ratings is not very accurate to my knowledge. Personally it has counted less than half of my profit on full tilt and my winrate is off by a rather large margin. From what I've heard from friends and people on the 2+2 forums theirs are inaccurate as well. That said, its very unlikely hes a winning player if it registers -$8k.

[frob23]

Inaccurate or not, if we assume it represents only a random sampling of his hands... the win-rate will eventually come close to approximating his true win-rate. Even if the number of hands and total amounts are off.

Sure, with a small amount of hands it may be off but that margin of error will improve with the number of hands. It becomes harder and harder to make the claim, "They only record my losing hands and not my winning ones," when you're into the tens of thousands of hands.

I have heard some of the same things about the accuracy though. There are some things to be said about those claims. But it is certainly possible for a winning player to be "losing" on their site because they might actually be losing at the present moment. Even the best players have downturns. I think we'll see how it plays out in the long term and see if the accuracy improves or not. It is still very interesting.

[pokerbucket]

It is funny... I think poker on tv has glamorized poker in certain ways. You see all these pros on tv and you think anyone could make a living playing poker. Not only is it difficult to make a living it... it is difficult just to be a winning player. The truth is that most people lose at poker. I think sharscope says that 2/3 players they track are losing players. There are a lot of mediocre players out there that would probably break even if there wasn't rake...but as we all know the rake will never go away. I have been playing poker seriously for about 7 years. In the first year or two I would say my perception on the game and my own poker abilities were skewed. It is very easy for a poker player to blame their losses on bad luck. This is what is so deceiving about poker. Yes you can go through some bad luck and lose but most of the time that you lose is because you suck or you are up against better competition. People blame their losses on "bad luck" too often. You can never say you lost a chess match because of bad luck. At the same time... if you are a losing player but you love playing and you play a lot... I understand why he claims to be a good player. Nobody likes to lose... Unfortunately like the saying goes... the house always wins (and so does rakeback)

[frob23]

There is nothing wrong with being a losing player if you love the game and are comfortable with the amount of money you're losing, then that's fine. I am not sure he really accepts how much he is losing though.

For the year of 2008, I made a net amount of $376.45. I actually know the amount to the penny for everything (costs and all) because I am a little OCD about recording everything. A pittance when compared to the amount of time I played. Was I a winning player? Yes. And I was playing $2NL-$10NL (mostly on the lower end of that). So that was not bad for what I was playing. But it wasn't enough to sit around and claim I was crushing the game or was awesome.

But as for an hourly rate? I was making like a quarter per hour. Not enough to have dreams of playing for a living. But I enjoyed the hell out of it. It's a hobby and a pastime for me. Not many hobbies will give me $400 a year to play them. I'd play even if I was a break-even player. I don't know if I would play if I was a losing player though. It's not a bunch of money. But I can't complain.

This years is much better but it's still not enough to consider this anything but a hobby and a fun pastime.

With that said, I can't judge how someone else likes to spend their time. And, a lot of hobbies cost a lot of money. So I can't really look down on my step-brother (I do a little though). Mainly because he thinks he's an awesome player but he's clearly not.

[frob23]

It's not as bad as it seems with my step-brother. He's down less than a grand with the tournaments. I've grabbed a snapshot of his current numbers. I've cut his name off here -- to protect his innocence. I don't want everyone looking him up and hunting him down to get his money.




The sick thing is... this is nothing compared to his cash game play. That is where he is really being killed. We're talking almost $6,000 down just for the hands that have been tracked by that site. And the site is new and obviously is missing a lot of his games.

[DeadBabySoup]

he's not a poker player. he's a gambler. once you are losing that kind of money, it's an addiction. maybe you could try coaching him a little and making a player out of him. get him to start a fresh account and play lower limits. convince him not to play cash. and teach him about bankroll management. if he's starting fresh, he'll be less likely to chase his losses. which realistically, he's never going to recoup. and teach him a better understanding of the basics even. with that roi, he's not playing solid poker. i'd try this rather than trying to get him to quit. getting any addict to quit whatever they're doing is nearly impossible.

[pokerbucket]

I agree with dead baby soup... Is he the type of person that can't take constructive criticism? It sounds like he might be if he is in denial but I don't know him. I think anyone can become better at poker. He needs to realize that what he is doing isn't working. Maybe you should suggest he watch some of the videos at the fulltilt poker academy. I found some of them helpful. If he wants to win he needs to become a student of the game.

[frob23]

He thinks he is a good player. But he does take occasional bits of advice from me. I'll watch him play a hand and then I'll try and get him talking about it. And I'll try and get some things through. When it comes to NL, I've at least gotten him to cut his early opening range in half. I've convinced him that I am "ok" with him playing whatever cards he wants from late position and that he can go nuts there... but to avoid doing it from up front.

It's hard to get him to accept advice.

[DeadBabySoup]

print out his sharkscope graph. tell him it's a company your friend owns that you're investing in. ask him if he'd like to chip in $1000 and see what he says.

[C8H10N4O2]

Just going to throw it out there even though it's already been said, but that ratings site is terrible. It's actually a really shocking graph looking at it now... I just started playing regularly on FTP in June as well, so the "new" excuse doesn't seem to be that valid. The lowest point I've ever been was $-55.59, and the highest I've ever been was +$105.08. I'm currently +$90.35, over 5,868 hands. this brings me to the most shocking aspect... the ratings site has me sitting at 5k hands, yet the graph I'm looking at and the graph from their site are way different. The site currently has me down $-1 atm as well. Since hand 3366 I have not been in the red, and the graph shows me considerably down over the entire 5k hand period except for one tiny little peak near the 5k mark and then it drops again. It also has overestimated my rake by $30. Not huge since HEM is sitting at $75 and the site has me sitting at $105. They also might compute it differently than HEM, but the site definitely does have some pretty major discrepancies.

I know I'm not talking $1,000's... or really even $100's... but my hold'em manager graph vs my graph on that site are very considerably different. If you'd like to look at it yourself let me know.

[phaul]

print out his sharkscope graph. tell him it's a company your friend owns that you're investing in. ask him if he'd like to chip in $1000 and see what he says.

This .