The Story So Far...

Here's my attempt at consolidating the first two years of my poker career into a brief history. Hopefully this will be the last big update to get all my backlogged info puked out so I can concentrate on smaller more fun updates from here on. I think I covered everything from the first day I put money online to the present. Enjoy!

Baby's First Deposit (July 2007)

Almost 2 years ago today I made my first deposit into a poker site. Since several of the major sites weren't accepting deposits for US players at the time I needed to take an odd approach. I signed up to www.Bodog.com (best known for their sports-betting) using phone cards purchased online. I had read a little bit online about basic strategy and had purchased my first poker book and was ready to take my first shot.

Playing small $3-$5 tournaments and .05/.10 cash games I ran about even over 6 months or so. I knew I was making mistakes and was getting frustrated with some of the results I had. I needed to stop jumping around from Sit-N-Gos (SNGs) to cash games to Multi-Table-Tournaments (MTTs) and just concentrate on one type of game that I liked. Between the frustration of not making any initial progress and the stress of buying a house I put poker on hold for a bit.

I Love 2+2 Publishing

After we got settled into our house, I revisited poker with new priorities: Take what I learned from my short break even stint and study a hell of a lot more before trying again. I bought SEVERAL poker books, most of them from 2+2 publishing, and read constantly. Various online reviews had recommended them as the poker bibles as opposed to many of the books you may see on racks at B&N saying "WINNING MILLIONS MADE EASY THROUGH POKER!" or other catchy crap. These were books written by pros with years of math and practice behind every tidbit of information they wrote. I encourage anyone interested to visit their forums. It's the premier poker strategy discussion forum on the web. I've learned just as much there as I have from books.

Here's the current collection
















While visiting these poker sites and forums, I started a business relationship with someone online who works as a poker affiliate. I was hired to design a website for him and the website revolved around his affiliate program reporting rakeback figures from various poker sites online. We've become great friends since then, but one of the bonuses at the time was his Canadian residency and willingness to help me transfer funds into some of the more popular sites online that I didn't have direct access to.
With new focus on my game and a much larger list of sites available to me I was ready to take my second shot.

The Experiment Begins (March 2009 - Present)

Four months ago I had my friend transfer money to a few poker sites in lieu of one of my payments from him for website work.

• www.CakePoker.com - A small site recommended by a few friends from the forums. The site has several gimmicky promotions and thus attracts HORRIBLE players. Even though the population is smaller on this site, playing here is basically the equivalent of printing money in your basement. It's where I play the majority of my cash games.

• www.FullTiltPoker.com - Probably the second largest poker site online behind Pokerstars. Great interface, tons of players at any time and fantastic promotions. Also, I can use my HUD on their site, but I'll save that topic for another post because it's so dang cool. I play here to mix things up, practice using my HUD and when Cake doesn't have a lot of tables running.

• www.bodog.com - I still had my original deposit on Bodog.com from my first shot. I play here very rarely now and use it to play in the occasional tournaments when the field looks juicy.

• www.cellsinopoker.com - This was for fun with some people I play with online. I only played a couple tournaments there and won some money but the majority of the players are from Europe so the tables are dead when I play during my prime time.

Following some advice from other players I set some goals for the first few months.

• Stick to cash games as my primary game
• Try to play 3,000 hands per month
• Post hand histories of difficultsituations for advice
• Don't tilt or be results-oriented
• Get comfortable playing 3-4 tabes at a time
• Maintain proper bankroll limits and move up in stakes when applicable

I've been quite successful with all of my goals thus far having played just over 11,000 hands now. The amount of money I'm winning isn't anything to write home about for now, but the consistency with which I am winning is. I've had several pros tell me already that being able to beat NL4 and NL10 as I am now pretty much means that I would be successful at any level up to NL100 since there's such a slow increase in skill level until you get up into the nosebleed limits.

Here is my current lifetime graph of winnings over time (click for big)


Like I said, the money's not much, but I love the consistency. Around 10,000 hands is the point where it's statistically improbable that any consistent winnings can be attributed to luck. I'm incredibly confident that I can beat these lower stakes and my first few shots at some of the next levels up have been met with similar success. The only thing holding me back right now is my bankroll, but I want to keep polishing my game up while it grows and also keep to the original plan of building my entire bankroll from a small deposit.

Currently I'm beating these levels at about 15 Big Blinds/100 hands. Playing 4 tables at once at 60 hands per hour per table makes me around $1.50 an hour. That's nothing. BUT! If I can keep moving up at this rate and stay successful, that hourly rate will increase each time I move up until it hits about $36 an hour at NL100.

I like the sound of that.

Online Poker F.A.Q.

I've fielded these questions a lot from a bunch of people that I've talked to about poker casually. Hopefully this answers a lot of common questions people may have about online poker or poker in general.

Isn't playing online poker illegal?
Short answer: Nope!

Long answer: In late 2006 the UIGEA title was passed into law contained within the Safe Port Act. It stated that it was illegal for financial institutions to transfer funds to and from internet gambling sites. In November 2008 the rules were put into place and the law went into effect days before the start of Obama's term.

Despite this:
- No off shore companies have been prosecuted because they lie outside the US's jurisdiction
- No players have been prosecuted because the act targets financial institutions and the law isn't defined well enough for any sort of conviction to be possible

So while this act has been translated by most to be "Internet Poker Is Illegal", the reality is "It Is More Difficult To Get Money To And From Poker Sites".

Luckily, through things like phone cards, player transfers from those outside the US, debit cards through payment processing companies etc, the direct tie from banks to poker sites has been removed and play has continued as normal, though with a smaller population.

Congressman Barney Frank currently has an online gambling bill waiting for approval which is currently backed by 30 other representatives. Many poker players have confidence that the dwindling economy could help have the regulatory bill passed since untold amounts of money could be made from the gov't taxing poker sites that operate within the US.

Not one single online poker player in the US has ever been arrested or harassed by the government and there are literally tens of thousands that play each and every day without fear.

How can you beat a game based on luck?
With games like craps, slots, roulette etc you are playing against the house. The house has a statistical edge which over time guarantees them a winning game. Players may win money in the short term but any long term expectations should be negative.

In poker, you are playing against other players and the edge is up for grabs. While there is a factor of luck in poker, the vast majority of your success or failure is based on decisions that require skill.

What does my opponent have?
Do I have odds to call this bet?
How can I maximize the gain of this hand?

By consistently playing better than other players, I ensure myself the same kind of edge over other players that the casino has. While I may lose over the short term, I know I will win in the long term.

And I have. :)

What sites / stakes do you play at?
While I have bankrolls on 4 sites now, the main ones I play at are Full Tilt Poker and Cake Poker. I play cash games mostly with the occasional tournament to break things up.

Full Tilt has a huge player base and allows something called a HUD which allows you to keep details stats on all of your opponents to help influence decisions during play. I play .02/.05 or .05/.10 no limit holdem at this site.

Cake Poker is a smaller site but the players are horrible on it so it's worth the wait. I play very similar stakes here of .02/.04 and .05/.10 no limit holdem.

The X/Y values are the small blind (x) and big blinds (y) during that cash game. The buyin for these games is 100 times the big blind. So I am usually sitting with between $4 and $10 when I sit down at these tables.

It doesn't seem like much, but I've started at the very bottom and even then it can add up quickly since I play 3-4 tables at a time during a session.

What prevents the online casino from cheating?
Two things.

1. They have no reason to.

The casino makes it's money without actually playing against you. This is called "rake". In cash games, the casino takes a small (usually about 5%) percentage out of every pot as their fee. In tournaments, the same kind of percentage is taken out of the tournament buy-in to act as income. Online casinos are making BILLIONS of dollars a year off this money alone so the consensus is that there is no need to do anything underhanded to make more.

2. They get caught if they do.

There have been times where players have outed either bots or disgruntled former employees who decided to write code that allowed them to see other players hole cards. Poker players by nature take ungodly amounts of statistics against all players they play against. There was actually a story recently on 60 minutes about a site called UltimateBet.com which had one of these cheating employees. Several players compiled tons of reports showing that there was no statistical way this player could be acting the way they do and making the kind of money they were without being able to see their opponents cards. The code was fixed, funds were reimbursed to the players who were taken advantage of and everything went back to normal.

So in short, I feel more safe playing in an online casino than I do going to one in Vegas.

What does "Nit" mean?
A nit is someone who plays really tight poker but used in a derogatory manner to describe someone who never has the balls to gamble on big hands or make huge bluffs. That's me. I play squeaky tight poker with the "when in doubt, fold" motto. Brave? No. Profitable? Yes. :)

I hope this helps clear up some misconceptions about poker and gives you some more info about it's workings and history. If you have any questions feel free to add them in a comment and if it's a juicy one I can add it to the FAQ.

The McFarland Nit - Alan's Poker Diary

Hurray for the first post in my blog!

For the past year or so I've been studying poker and playing it online for real money. It has always been an interesting game to me and as many of you know I love logic problems, probability, applied math and game theory.

So last year I began what I'm calling an "experiment" of trying to build a bankroll up from a minimal deposit by consistently beating different stakes and hopefully one day have a roll large enough to play in some of the bigger tournaments or at least make some decent extra income.

I've created this blog for three main reasons:
- To keep myself motivated to play poker and continue to improve
- To keep friends and family updated on my poker progress
- To occasionaly use as a dumping ground of random junk on my mind when I'm bored

For those few of you that read this, I hope it gives you some insight into this self-imposed fun challenge of mine.

Hopefully tonight I'll have my first real update posted along with a sort of FAQ to handle the usual "OH GOD POKER IS THE DEVIL" questions.

Thanks for reading, and here goes nothing...