This morning I went on a long twitter rant about how party poker had screwed its customers over in 2013 (shameless plug to my twitter https://twitter.com/rcdaut ) 140 characters at a time isnt enough to describe what party poker has done to its customers in the past 12 months. I've made short rants about them before, but I wanted to go into more detail here so people could get a better idea of what has happened.
CLIFFS:
imagine if stars got rid of supernova elite on short notice, removed every bonus above the 100k VPP level, changed the $1600 for 100k fpp bonus to $8k for 500k FPP and gave it a long play through requirement, segregated their player base and started charging a 3% flat fee on cashouts using the most popular cashout method. That is what party did in an 8 month period.
Decreased bonuses and made them harder to clear with very little notice
I started grinding party in December 2012. I was having a pretty rough month on stars and decided to try party out looking for better games. The first thing I did after depositing was study the VIP system party had. It was all based on their version of frequent player points. Every dollar paid in rake gets you 2 party points. Accumulating a certain number of party points in either a month or 3 month period put you into VIP levels. In order to reach the highest level of Palladium Elite, a player would have to earn 20,000 points in a 3 month period which equates to $10,000 paid in rake. The second highest level was Palladium which could be reached with 9,000 points in a 3 month period ($4500 rake).
Being in the higher VIP levels had advantages, particularly being able to purchase bonuses that returned a higher percentage of rake. Their top bonus was a 300,000 point bonus worth $75k. This equates to 50% rakeback since it takes $150k rake paid to accumulate 300k points. I dont remember the exact details on how long it took to clear old bonuses, but I believe they were released in 5 installments of $X for X points. i.e. for each $15k installment of the $75k bonus, a player would have to accumulate 15k points ($7500 rake paid). This bonus takes a long time to reach: about 83.33% of the volume of reaching Supernova Elite on stars to buy the bonus, and another $37500 in rake paid to fully clear the bonus.
If you didnt want to wait that long to clear a bonus, they had smaller bonus options that you could clear more often at a lower rate. You could also buy bonuses that didnt require any points to clear at a lower rate. I used the way back machine to find their old bonuses:
As you can see, there were lots of options to receive 30%+ rakeback, and the 30% option took $10k rake paid to buy and (i believe) another $1500 rake paid to clear.
Early in 2013, with very little notice, Party announced it was doing away with all bonuses that gave greater than 30% rakeback out. As a new customer this didnt affect me as I had very points accumulated at that time, but there were players who were working towards the larger bonuses and were sufficiently far away that they would not be able to reach it before the bonus was removed from the point store.
Really gotta feel for the party grinders who were halfway to reaching those big bonuses and had to settle for 10-20% less rakeback than they were working towards.
Fast forward to today, the bonuses are significantly worse. To buy a 30% bonus now you have to pay 100k points for a $15k bonus which takes 90k points to fully clear in 2 installments. So lets compare the old 30% rakeback bonuses to today's side by side:
old bonus: 20k points to purchase 3k bonus, five installments of $600 cleared after $300 rake paid for each installment. Under this system it takes $10300 rake paid to start seeing money back. current bonus: 100k points to purchase 15k bonus, two installments of $7500 after $22500 rake paid for each installment. So it takes $72500 rake paid to see any money with this new system. Under the old system you could have purchased a 40% rakeback bonus and received YOUR ENTIRE $20k BONUS quicker than you would receive your first $7500 under the new system for a 30% rakeback bonus.
Removed Monthy Promotions
This part isnt really a shady management decision, its their prerogative on what promotions they will offer their customers, but its definitely made it much less enticing to put volume in on party. The first month I was on party, they were running a promotion called Advent Calender.
I dont remember the exact details of it, but basically you would receive little gifts after a certain number of points accumulated. So if you were the lowest VIP level, you would receive a very small gift every say 25 points cleared. These gifts would be something like entry to a freeroll or a $1 bonus. If you were the next VIP level you would receive those gifts AND a slightly better gift (sometimes $3 bonuses or 5 free points) every 50 points for your level. This went up all the levels, so if you were palladium elite you were receiving all these gifts all month long. I only reached the 3rd highest VIP level that month, but I think I ended up receiving over $250 extra back in points and bonuses for maybe $3k paid in rake that month. An extra 10% rakeback was really nice.
The following months they ran a few other really nice promotions.
World domination: http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/partypo...ves-world-domination-promotion-23226/
This one was really great. Sure it was pretty much impossible to get certain cities, but even clearing a country or continent gave nice extra bonuses. I paid >$250 in rake almost every day i was able to play that month trying to get new cities.
Fast Forward Promotion:
fast forward is party's version of zoom/rush poker. They didnt run PLO or bigger than .25/.5 NL, but you could earn up to $100 extra a week in this promotion.
Since WSOP I dont remember party running any worthwhile promotions. They give away tickets to freerolls, but thats about it.
Player Segregation
Not gonna go too into detail on this because apparently it was eventually reversed in November, but basically if you were a high winrate player they made certain games with fish invisible to you. Proof of it happening:
Instituted 3% flat cashout fee to skrill/neteller and other e-wallet sites WITHOUT NOTICE
This was a big one. One day party just started charging 3% on all cashouts to skrill and other sites like neteller and webmoney. I had no other withdrawal options. I dont have player transfers on party, RBC closed my canadian bank account for being a poker player, and the same happened in other banks to other players, and I no longer have an apartment in Canada. After initially moving there for 6 months to get set up on sites, I just travel to Canada to grind online and rent places on airbnb. Skrill was my only option, and instituting this effectively stole 3% of the money I had on the site.
All in all Party is no longer a place I wish to grind due to all of these changes which is sad because for the first few months last year it was my favorite site to play on. The first few months on the site I was probably averaging about 50k hands, 6k profit, 6k rake paid. Basically I was making 6k + 2k rakeback = 8k a month + an extra $250-500 in their nice promotions. Assuming the same winrate, that would now decrease to 6k profit + 1200 rakeback (i bought the 20% bonus to clear my points and get off the site) = 7200*.97 = 6984, a decrease of ~1250-1500 for the same amount of volume. For higher limit players that made more money or guys that put in significantly more volume than me, this was definitely much much worse.
Releasing new software and in exchange wrecking the bonus system, no longer offering good promotions and taking 3% of every cashout is not a fair trade. I realize party will never offer the bonuses they used to, but in order to make right with customers they should cease charging the 3% cashout fee, start offering better monthly promotions than virtually worthless freerolls and to give reward bonuses to customers who put in lots of volume last year while they were busy screwing everyone over.
Note: This has nothing to do with party poker NJ. All of these changes were put into place before party was even up and running in NJ.
weird things happening
jan 22 I was going crazy from my badrun so I decided to travel with my gf to unwind and chill a little, maybe when I return my badrun is gone
so I came back yesterday, and when I enter my apartment there's a letter from the management company of the building, they are threatening to fine me if I continue to disturb other people from my building, they said I keep dragging furniture overnight and making noises, disturbing the other residents
WTF ? I WASN'T EVEN AT HOME
and also, there was handwritten paper from the building manager saying something like this:
"I went to your apartment as we agreed, and you weren't at home
manager "
LOL, wtf ? with who that bitch spoke to ???
also, still getting stolen at the tables playing retards, sickest bad run ever
another thing:
some dude offered me a stake to play higher limits,
I still have bankroll to play nl200 ( not confortably ) but I think the good thing is that I wouldn't feel all this pressure of going busto and not having money to pay the rent, and I probably will be able to learn /move up much faster
tbh don't know anything about staking, the guy said it would last until I make 50 or 100k of profit, and initially it would be 50/50 because of the risk and then it would be something like 70/30 for me, this is a fair deal or what ?
anyway, I went to Rio de Janeiro, the women there are ugly as fuck compared to where I live, and the whole city smells like piss, follow my advice and don't go there
going to post some pics because people don't like to read whine blogs without pics:
I'm going to try to make a little blog entry every Wednesday since it is the biggest NBA fantasy day of the week. I get off work at 4 and rosters lock at 7, so I spend most of that time researching and making lineups, so I'll try to keep this breif.
The first question today is whether to take LeBron/Durant tonight or not. I honestly don't think it's much of a question at all. They both have terrible matchups. OKC is a -15% defensive matchup vs SF's and MIA is a -11% matchup. That is an extremely severe decrease. Unless you're putting your money on the stars coming to play in the big game, the math doesn't add up for taking either of these guys.
PG:
MCW (8300) - Slightly negative matchup (-3.5%) but that number was generated with Avery Bradley in the Lineup. I think this is a +% matchup without Rondo and Bradley. Close spread is a plus as well.
Lowry (8100) - Slightly positive matchup. Spread is large, probably only playing him if DeRozan is out.
Knight (6500) - Positive matchup, but spread is high and minutes are questionable. Not a bad play though.
Augustin (6500) - Good matchup (+5%). If Hinreich misses Augustin will probably be in my lineup.
SG:
Ellis (7200) - Positive matchup (+3.5%), close spread, worried Beverly might guard him a good amount. Will be in my lineup in all liklihood.
Henderson (5700) - Positive matchup (+2.5%), should be getting more shots with Kemba out. Not many people will have him and he has a nice floor.
SF:
Green (5900) - You have to force a few Celtics into your lineup and Green seems to have the most stable role. Huge positive matchup (+17%) and a close spread.
Marion (5100) - His season average(24.3) is almost at his price value, close spread and a slightly positive matchup.
PF:
Davis (9700) - Averaging 2 more FP's than Love over the last 10 games and has a nuetral matchup. I like him over love for 1k less.
Nowitzki (8000) - Good plus matchup (+9%), and a close spread.
C:
Jordan (7500) - He's averaging his price value over the last 10 (37.1), but the matchup is slightly negative and the spread is big.
Turiaf (3500) - Plug him in. Minimum salary, great matchup, proved that he will get good numbers last game when Pekovic got hurt.
A lot can change in the next 2 hours, these are my picks as of now. I registered for some golf this weekend. Let me know if you guys have any picks for that. I plan on doing a little research tonight.
EDIT:
*****Lot's of crazy inactives today. Here's my lineups
FD
MCW
Lowry
Ellis
Gordon
Marion
J Green
Love
A Johnson
Steimsma
DK
MCW
Ellis
Marion
Turiaf
Steimsma
Lowry
Love
Ajinca
How to follow your LP posts and HH commentsby Joeingram1, January 29
Wanted to write a little liquid poker psa that it took me about 6 years to figure out. I never knew how to do this for the longest time and I would end up commenting on something and forgetting what I commented on and then never reply or engage in any sort of conversation. Last week I discovered if you go to My Blog and then My Posts, the posts you commented on all come up and it tells you who had the last response and takes you right there. Really wish I knew about this a long time ago.
Also for PLO Hand Histories being posted on here. I've been posting on some HH's lately but the guy who posts the hand never comes back to it, which is a problem I used to have because I never knew how to track if something got commented on or if a new comment was posted. I'm more than happy to comment on PLO HH's that are posted but pleaseeeeee reply back lol, my last comments on hands were 3 questions just to see if anyone ever came back to check what they posted
my roommate i keeps eating these chips making maximum noise, i can hear them not just crunching but swishing and swirling inside his mouth as he loudly prepares to swallow them, then he smacks his lips, and it never stops because the second he's done lip-smacking he starts crunching, and it's so fucking loud i am going to suffocate him in h is sleep
nsa - snowden - interview jan 27 2014by Highcard, January 28
Interview bullets points from this week. Full video at bottom Apparently in the USA this is being censored or blacked out - unknown source
Here are some of the other interesting points he made in the interview:
"There have been thousands of violations of the National Security Agency and other agencies and authorities every single year."
Every time you pick up the phone, dial a number, write an email, make a purchase, travel on the bus carrying a cell phone, swipe a card somewhere, you leave a trace and the government has decided that it’s a good idea to collect it all, everything, even if you’ve never been suspected of any crime. Traditionally the government would identify a suspect, they would go to a judge, they would say we suspect he’s committed this crime, they would get a warrant and then they would be able to use the totality of their powers in pursuit of the investigation. Nowadays what we see is they want to apply the totality of their powers in advance - prior to an investigation.
"When you are on the inside and you go into work everyday and you sit down at the desk and you realise the power you have - you can wire tap the President of the United States, you can wire tap a Federal Judge and if you do it carefully no one will ever know"
"But what (the review boards investigating the illegal NSA programs) found was that these programs have no value, they’ve never stopped a terrorist attack in the United States and they have marginal utility at best for other things...The National Security agency operates under the President’s executive authority alone. He can end of modify or direct a change of their policies at any time."
I can track your username on a website on a form somewhere, I can track your real name, I can track associations with your friends and I can build what’s called a fingerprint which is network activity unique to you which means anywhere you go in the world anywhere you try to sort of hide your online presence hide your identity, the NSA can find you
However, it’s no secret that every country in the world has the data of their citizens in the NSA. Millions and millions and millions of data connections from Germans going about their daily lives, talking on their cell phones, sending SMS messages, visiting websites, buying things online, all of this ends up at the NSA and it’s reasonable to suspect that the BND may be aware of it in some capacity.
So realistically what’s happening is when they say there’s no spying on Germans, they don’t mean that German data isn’t being gathered, they don’t mean that records aren’t being taken or stolen, what they mean is that they’re not intentionally searching for German citizens. And that’s sort of a fingers crossed behind the back promise, it’s not reliable.
The problem there is you end up in a situation where government policies are being influenced by private corporations who have interests that are completely divorced from the public good in mind. The result of that is what we saw at Booze Allen Hamilton where you have private individuals who have access to what the government alleges were millions and millions of records that they could walk out the door with at any time with no accountability, no oversight, no auditing, the government didn’t even know they were gone.
If I am a traitor who did I betray? I gave all of my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason I think people really need to consider who do they think they’re working for. The public is supposed to be their boss not their enemy.
What he doesn’t say is that the crimes that he has charged me with are crimes that don’t allow me to make my case. They don’t allow me to defend myself in an open court to the public and convince a jury that what I did was to their benefit. The espionage act was never intended, it’s from 1918, it was never intended to prosecute journalistic sources, people who are informing the newspapers about information that’s of public interest. It was intended for people who are selling documents in secret to foreign governments who are bombing bridges who are sabotaging communications not people who are serving the public good. So it’s I would say illustrative that the president would choose to say someone should face the music when he knows the music is a show trial.
So I started out the month very well, mostly running good, and then I found out the hard way that playing 4zoom tables + 8 normal ones and running bad is a very bad combinations. Thus about 20k or something like that went up in smoke. Although, I've already made well over 100k VIP-points this year so that's something.
Gonna make sure to get some confidence back by playing 1/2 for 100k hands (ie, a month or so) and cut down on tables a lot. I think it'd be somewhat hard to lose on 1/2 if I actually play few enough tables so that I can pay a little bit of attention. Going to try and get hold of a really braggy 1/2 graph
On a more positive note the gold price and the miners (measured as the HUI) shows some signs of life. As I understand it gold actually broke out of a tightish trading range by closing at 1270 last Friday and the HUI has gained some 10% this year. This almost makes up for my crappy multi-tabling skills.
I'm still not convinced that this is the point when gold breaks up again, I'd rather venture to guess that it'll still be range bound between ~1180 and maybe 1350 or so for another few months but after that I feel there's a decent chance it'll break up again.
Starting to get the itch to play some donkaments too. A bunch of good ones tonight, maybe I'll try to ship on.
Oh, and the knives I bought. Apparently it's the ones they use on Masterchef: Australia, on of my favourite TV-shows. They're dope.
How much do you guys pay in rent? Curious what most pay in terms of fixed amount, % net worth, and % Income. How much value do you guys place in a nice/flashy/baller house, apartment, and neighborhood?
I am looking for apartments right now and I am not sure if I should do it like LemOn or Joeingram1. Someplace in between for sure but curious what your strategies are. Obviously it's a bit different for homeowners...you can still post your reasoning as it is still similar unless you have it primarily for investment/rental income purposes.
Is there any interest in daily fantasy sports here? I deposited $200 3 months ago and currently have ~$4400 playing mainly NBA, with some NFL and College Football as well. My edge has to be atleast 20%, if not more, I haven't actually sat down and calculated my stats yet though. If there is a decent amount of interest I will start posting a few times a week with some of my NBA plays, and the reasoning behind it.
Also, started playing live poker again now that I have a good job and can afford it. My local place has this WSOP qualifier thing that runs for 20 weeks, seems like pretty good value. Plus it's always been one of my goals to play in the main event.... I would be interested in some live staking for some larger events(~$200-$500), but I have never done that before and don't know all the specifics. I haven't posted since black friday, but I had a ~25% ROI with 20k in profit in tournaments. I can post the stats if there is any interest in staking. Let me know guys!
This week I've been on a trip to Vegas and have been enjoying myself thoroughly so far. I planned the trip not only to get away from the stress of everyday life but to see what it would be like to grind a ton of poker for a week with no restrictions on time or place. While I have enjoyed playing at many of the venues down here, I haven't been super successful. I regularly play 1/2 around the Chicago area and have had no problems there, though I feel people are slightly better down here in Vegas. The fact that you get so few hands per hour really eats at me. I feel like I'm getting a pretty small sample size as to how i'm doing and when I think about my sessions I find it difficult to pinpoint spots to improve. I don't know if it's just running bad or I just suck or maybe a little of both. I'm not going to go on about specifics with bad beats either because nobody gives a shit and understands its part of the game. I find it extremely tilting though when you play great for 5-6 hours and lose a massive pot later due to some random bullshit that is poker.
Anyone that plays live professionally is nuts in my opinion. Out of curiosity to any live pros out there, what are some things you do to keep yourself together mentally? Any activities or things you engage in that keep you motivated and inspired to grind? I find it difficult to pull out motivation.
Do you regularly log your sessions and review each one critically? How do you know when to stop while ahead or keep going? Do you set stop limits/earning limits on your sessions?
I am only asking this things out of interest from people who choose to do this as a profession. From my simple experience, it seems a lot more stressful and difficult than I imagined and I can only believe the difficulty probably escalates when you play stakes like 5/10 or 10/20.
So today I'm playing live 1/2, and to summarize I'm in a pot vs villan when he leads out for something like 12 in something like 120+ pot when I only had like 25 behind on the river where I binked the nuts. So obviously I go all in, but when I pushed my stack in the middle I kind of dragged my smaller stack behind my bigger stack so even though I pushed with one motion one could argue that it was kind of a string bet and I instantly regretted being lazy with that.
Anyways villan argued that it was a string bet since both stacks didn't cross the betting line at same time, but the dealer said that it was ok since she said it was one motion, but the guy still argued and started to ask for floor. So the dealer asked me if it was a big deal, and since I didn't want the hassle of getting a floor over and since I thought it was my fault for being lazy I just said it was fine and took my bet back from a shove to a call.
Then for some reason, in my head I thought he had folded before showing his hand, and was only showing what he folded and I threw my hand into the muck since before I realized that I just threw away the winning hand. That moment when you realize you just went full retard -_-. Anyways I just looked at the table at utter disbelief at what I just did, and didn't even bother trying to get my cards back because I knew once it hit the muck it was dead anyways. When the guy asked me what I had, I told him I had the nuts and probably from the way I reacted he believed me because he gave me $10 , after instantly leaving after the hand. Not really sure if he planned to hit n run, or if he felt bad and didn't want to play anymore but I didn't even care because it was my fault.
Anyways to cheer myself up I went to the food court downstairs to get myself a smoothie and while in line some random black dude taps me on the back walking by and says "it will be alright" so I must have looked heartbroken lol. I guess a lot of live players have done this before since the players next to me all said that they have done it and just said forget about it any keep playing, but it being my first time made me so angry and frustrated with myself I found it impossible to do so and I just got up and left from being so tilted. ughh
Contact Users: 988 Active, 1 Logged in - Time: 23:55
,
,
,
,