x-posted @ http://www.vincewille.com

I was recently listening to an entrepreneurship podcast entitled PreneurCast, which discussed the concept of the 7 Levers of Business. Basically, the idea of the 7 Levers of Business is that a company's profitability can be broken down into 7 components which affect it. These components include Traffic (people in your store/on your website) Opt-In Rate (people who try on clothes, test-drive car, sign up for e-letter), Conversions (percentage of people who purchase a product after Opting-In), Average Sale Value (how much an average person spends), Average Transaction Per Customer, and Profit Margin.

This is pretty simple, and intuitive, but one thing that they talked about, which struck me as particularly interesting is that, you will see more results lifting all levers by x percentage rather than one lever by 7*x percentage. Furthermore, it is almost always much easier to lift all levers by that small percentage (say 10) than to increase your traffic 70 percent or your profit margin 70 percent. You can see the numbers work using their calculator here: http://www.7leverscalculator.com/

Beginner poker players often have the misconception that the best player wins the most money or that if you just "work on your game" as much as possible, then it will lead to the highest amount of winnings. This isn't really the case, and I think it's well explained in a model I have constructed, which I call the 7 levers of successful poker. These levers aren't as as arithmetic (i.e. don't work together) as much as the 7 levers of business, but 5 of the 7 are going to be very similar to what you find in the 7 levers of business, and the other 2, I think, are too important to leave out. It's actually interesting that some of my variables are parallels to the levers in business (winrate = profit margin, number of hands = traffic, stake = average sale value).

Thus my formula is:

PROFIT= RWR*TLT*GS*STK*HNDS +CCH +SWP

Variables explained (on per month basis):

RWR (real winrate)

This variable represents your poker knowledge. It's going to be you vs. the poker community when you are at your best. It's represented in bb/100 hands.

TLT (tilt)

This variable is a coefficient that represents how often you play your A-game, i.e. at your real winrate. It's a number between 0 and 1 (this assumes people can either play 100 percent their A-game down towards a point where they are no longer winning)

GS (game selection)

This variable represents how good are the games you are playing. It's represented from 1 through infinity, but almost always will be in the 1 to 1.5 range for an online player (just too easy to click sit as opposed to live where there are some incredible invite-only games). Basically, since RWR is represented as you vs the poker community (in general), even if you have bad game selection, you still will have a coefficient of 1 because you are still up against the community in general. However, people with good game selection will have sometimes 1.25, 1.5, or 2x as many opportunities to make money in easy spots.

STK (average stake)

Self-Explanatory. Will tell you what your bb/100 means in terms of dollars.

HNDS (hands)

How many hands do you play in a month. Obviously this changes based on how many tables you can play, and how quickly you act on them. This is told in /100 hands to balance out the winrate.

CCH (coaching)

A significant portion of income for some.

SWP (swapping/staking/selling/buying action)

Also Self-Explanatory. You could probably also include prop betting here.

How do my numbers look for a month? I'll offer some estimates

RWR: 6 bb

TLT: .8

I don't tilt, but I play too many tables to be playing my "a-game".

GS: 1.5

I have excellent game selection.

STK: 1.50 (150nl)

HNDS: 2,000 hundred (i.e. 200k)

What do my real numbers look like?

so according to my estimates, i should have ~7.2bb winrate, and should be winning close to 14,400bb a month $21,600, or 480bb per day for $720 dollars.

in truth, i'm 7.29bb on the trip, up 34,400bb in 87 days (400bb per day) for $58,400 (670 dollars).

And what can I conclude?

I'm not playing as many tables as I used to. Games are very finicky (incredible during some parts of Saturdays, non-existent during some parts of weekdays). I'm also playing shorter sessions than I used to (having to prepare food for myself, an do lots of errands that I didn't have to in Florida).

In the future, I'll hopefully set up systems to help increase my Hands/Hour, and as always I will be looking to slightly improve my game, table selection, and hopefully, gradually move up.

x-posted @http://www.vincewille.com

So I recently spent a couple days skiing at Whistler with brtnboarder + GF and takesix. I'm pretty fucking terrible, but was able to take a few photos and I've added a video of brtn carving it up. Overall, I wouldn't recommend Whistler for relocation over Vancouver (much worse food and weather), but it's definitely a fun visit if you like skiing.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g36V-...ature=youtu.be

Poker's been going well. Here are two more graphs. I'll make sure to use a different hosting site, as they've gotten taken down pretty quickly (NSFW obv). I'm definitely tired of the grind, and have found myself having stretches of poor play. I think i'd be ~5pt if I could play my a-game the entire time, but I would rather maximize my hourly than go for the biggest winrate possible. The plan is to just do the best I can for the next 4 weeks, and head home with all the monies I can make.






I had kind of a fun hand today vs a 60/0 (obv 1k euro pots are often fun hands when your average stake is 150nl). Villain is 60/0, and a unique 60/0 at that--he doesn't really change his preflop ranges too much based on what raises are in front of him (i.e., he calls a lot to large raise sizes and opens/3bets in front of him). Preflop is obviously standard. The flop, I think, is a pretty easy bet-call (he could have worse Ax, and pairs im priced in against). Turn is an interesting spot, though, in my opinion. I ended up choosing value shove > check back turn and call or check river > check back turn and fold or check river. Basically, I decided that he has quite a few combos of Ax in his range, and betting against a range of those and pairs, and some Ax that have paired up and have me crushed is slightly better than checking.

Overall, I think this spot illustrates an important concept: you want to bet as thinly as possible, and on as early of a street as possible vs fish. If I don't extract value with my very marginal holdings here, then I'm sort of letting my opponent freeroll me when he decides to value shove 99 on the river, but check/fold random high cards. All things considered, it's hard to say whether or not this play is best, but in my experience shrug calling and shrug value shoving have made me a lot of money.

PokerStars Hand #79857797660: Hold'em No Limit (€2/€4 EUR) - 2012/05/03 16:17:07 ET

Table 'Felicia IV' 9-max Seat #7 is the button

Seat 1: EliElezra (€538.32 in chips)

Seat 2: tFORCEiwME (€431.15 in chips)

Seat 3: mcIaren f1 (€400 in chips)

Seat 4: SobraoBoY (€160 in chips)

Seat 5: vinivici9586 (€467.85 in chips)

Seat 6: JVL_STARRR69 (€693.86 in chips)

Seat 7: IntenseDawg (€400 in chips)

Seat 9: PSÄ! (€441.48 in chips)

torowe will be allowed to play after the button

PSÄ!: posts small blind €2

EliElezra: posts big blind €4

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to vinivici9586 [Ks As]

tFORCEiwME: folds

mcIaren f1: folds

SobraoBoY: folds

vinivici9586: raises €8 to €12

JVL_STARRR69: folds

IntenseDawg: raises €28 to €40

PSÄ!: folds

EliElezra: calls €36

vinivici9586: raises €60 to €100

IntenseDawg: folds

EliElezra: calls €60

*** FLOP *** [2d 4c 3h]

EliElezra: checks

vinivici9586: bets €100

EliElezra: calls €100

*** TURN *** [2d 4c 3h] [4h]

EliElezra: checks

vinivici9586: bets €267.85 and is all-in

EliElezra: calls €267.85

*** RIVER *** [2d 4c 3h 4h] [Jc]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

EliElezra: shows [Th Ac] (a pair of Fours)

vinivici9586: shows [Ks As] (a pair of Fours - Ace+King kicker)

vinivici9586 collected €975.55 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot €977.70 | Rake €2.15

Board [2d 4c 3h 4h Jc]

Seat 1: Jabe1975 (big blind) showed [Th Ac] and lost with a pair of Fours

Seat 2: tFORCEiwME folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Seat 3: mcIaren f1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Seat 4: SobraoBoY folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Seat 5: vinivici9586 showed [Ks As] and won (€975.55) with a pair of Fours

Seat 6: JVL_STARRR69 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Seat 7: IntenseDawg (button) folded before Flop

Seat 9: PSÄ! (small blind) folded before Flop

x-posted @ http://www.vincewille.com

It's going by so quickly now. I've definitely gotten into a routine, and feel very comfortable here. There's some chance I stay beyond June 1st because it's a great city and the games are great on stars, but I think I'll be homesick and want some relaxation before vegas and the main event. I've been working really hard, and will hopefully be going to whistler for some skiing next week. Hopefully I'll upload some pictures here.

I have some graphs. The higher stakes have been a bit swingy, overall, but I included my BB results to show that my game is still steady.

x-posted @ http://www.vincewille.com

I've run extremely well this month. I started off with a 2.5k bankroll, and had a bit of a stumble out of the blocks, but since have been doing very well. I'm pretty much playing poker in 90 percent of my free time, which will change next month, as I plan on visiting Whistler, and perhaps trying to have a social life



My night time session (after midnight eastern) started off a lot like last month's results, but then I quickly saw what losing a few flips at midstakes can do.

x-posted @ http://www.vincewille.com

I have a friend studying for his PhD in cognitive sciences at MIT, and he recently showed me an article about optimal strategy in rock paper scissors. I actually noticed quite a few similarities between different rock/paper/scissors strategies and different poker strategies.

http://www.worldrps.com/index.php?op...=256&Itemid=37
http://www.wikihow.com/Win-at-Rock,-Paper,-Scissors

Basic cliff notes are as follows: against a very new opponent, you want to play paper to counter their rock. Rock is seen as a forceful throw, and the average rookie will throw it more often than the other options. Against people who have a little experience in rock paper scissors and are thinking about ways to beat you, you want to play rock to counter them playing scissors to counter them expecting you to throw paper. There are other little tips and tricks here and there that will get you to exploit your opponent as much as possible, but I'm not really interested in them, and they don't really prove my point.

The most interesting point to me is that against the most advanced players possible, and when two opponents are playing exactly GTO solved strategy, they both will be throwing rock/paper/scissors at complete random. Basically, the logic behind this is that if your opponent deviates from throwing rock/paper/scissors at complete random, and you are throwing it at complete random, you will have an edge.

These two facts combined are kind of cool. I think one of my strongest poker qualities is the ability to discover imbalances in my opponent's (both regs and fish) games. These aren't imbalances that are terribly difficult, like my opponent folds to turn c/r x percent of time, so I can c-bet flop, and c-raise turn a lot. These are basic imbalances that show up in hand reading. In general, I know the spots where your average 100/200nl player bluffs, and I know the spots they have it, and I know the spots where they're generally pretty balanced.

Aaron Jones says (somewhat tongue and cheek) that he often tells himself that really good opponents are so balanced that you can't go wrong with a call or a fold in a certain spot. He's kind of right. 5/10+ regs are so good at this rock/paper/scissors game (leveling wars) behind poker that there shouldn't be a huge amount if imbalances to exploit. There still are, though, and until there are computer programs that solve the game, there always will be, and that's what makes poker profitable. So I guess the lesson behind this is try and exploit your opponents weaknesses and imbalances, and when in doubt, be balanced yourself.

I added a graph of my hands here in Vancouver. I've been playing since the 9th (10 days total), and have put in good volume, and have been rewarded with great results. I'm lucky that I've run so well because I only had an initial 2.5k loan, and have played mostly 100nl in the beginning, with some 200nl about 1/2 through, and some 2/4+ last night.

x-posted @ http://www.vincewille.com

So I just got word from pokerstars that I should get a call today for an interview, which is the final step in getting my account unlocked. It's certainly been a bit of a process, and these first 5 days in town have probably been the hardest part about waiting.

Right now I'm staying at least for the next 3 months in Yaletown (a hip area of Vancouver). Other than the weather and the price, it's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for--lots of great places to eat nearby and lots of people around my age.

I've been hanging out with Joeingram1 (aka ChicagoJoey on 2p2). His move here has been a huge success story. He came here under-rolled for .50/1 PLO, moved up to 2/4 as he chased a SNE prop bet in December, and now is up ~150k in the new year playing high stakes. I've sweated his games a little, and PLO looks like Hold 'Em in 2008. Hopefully he saves up some of these winnings because he can be a bit of a degen.

I'm going to be a bit under-rolled myself. I'm planning on getting a 2.5k loan (i have the money myself, but it's annoying to get into Canada and then onto stars), and am going to use that to play 100nl. I'm going to update my personal blog a bit with hands/graphs to keep myself motivated to play well because I really can't afford a downswing. I'll be playing fewer tables (9-16 instead of 16-24), game selecting harder, and probably playing tighter as well as a result. I think playing tight might actually be optimal metagame, as i expect people will try and give me a welcoming present .

I'll leave you guys with some pics from areas around my apartment. It's pretty cool, and hopefully I get on enough of an upswing to start that I can enjoy it once the good weather comes around.

x-posted @ http://www.vincewille.com

Oops...lesson learned: don't move to third (not specifically defined as third, but has some third/second/first characteristics) world countries without visiting first. I moved to the Bahamas because it was nearby, and I could easily commute home on a ferry. I didn't expect to have much of a social life, but was okay with that because I was planning on playing like 60 hours a week, and going home for a week per month.

Unfortunately, there was just no way to get good food and supplies to my place without a car. Even then, the supplies were pretty low quality compared to what I was used to. Also, the Realtor said they had a gym and the apartment was fully furnished, but the gym was un-airconditioned, had about 5 random dumbbells and some dusty treadmills, and my place was missing toilet paper, towels, and the oven wasn't working. The pictures of the place looked beautiful online, but they really just took them in perfect lighting, and ignored photographing anything that looked mediocre. False advertisements are the worst.

I booked my ticket home within 6 hours of being there, and am back at square one. I think my best bet is to just go to Canada. It's the closest thing to the states, and even though I wouldn't be able to come home nearly as much, it would probably be my best option for putting myself in a position to succeed (healthy food, quality supplies, convenient gym).

I was really looking forward to getting back on the tables, and definitely producing at least a few live videos at micros, 100, and 200nl. I was also considering a dual 6max/full-ring video, and possibly a beginner's guide. However, this will all have to wait, at least for the time being.

x-posted @ http://www.vincewille.com

Well, it's that time. i'm finally going to be moving to the Bahamas next Tuesday. I'm a little nervous about things going smoothly, and really hope i can get on stars ASAP.

A lot of people have asked me why it's taken so long to get back online. To break it down, I decided that I would wait until at least after the WSOP to consider moving. First, I was expecting to final table (epic fail), and second, I thought I needed some time off, and some time to let the dust after Black Friday settle.

It did settle, and so I had to decide what I wanted to do. I first pursued an entrepreneurial idea, which I ended up having to abandon, due to a lack of technical skills, and a lack of confidence and knowledge in the field. Instead, I decided to apply to graduate school in England (I'm a Belgian citizen, so can move there easily), and recently got into a Masters program for entrepreneurship (for next September). Throughout this time, I kept busy by putting in a little volume live, doing a bit of coaching/video making, and working on my poker stable.

The entire live poker thing was a weird experience. In the end, I came to one conclusion, and was left with one question.

1. Conclusion: People often try to equate a certain level of online poker to a certain level of live poker, but they're really so different that it's not really fair. I'd guess that 25nl is about as hard as 5/10 at Florida casinos, but in reality some regs at 5/10 couldn't beat 25nl, and probably even more 25nl regs couldn't beat 5/10 live. It's just different playing super multiway pots with deep stacks, and it's definitely an adjustment to be playing 30 hands/hour as opposed to 1000. Finally, I think tells are a bit overrated when people aren't very good, but I'm sure I gave off more information than I should have, and was overall too lazy to balance my mannerisms and timing in certain spots. A side note to this conclusion is I realized that soft skills such as game selection, tilt control, and overall managing your image and career are so much more important live than online. I think the key to live success is to run good in tourneys and have a fun image at the tables a'la Antonio Esfandiari.

2.. Question: I can't tell if young live pros have a lot of money or no money at all. I would hear about guys making 100k tournament scores, but a lot of them (even some excellent players) were in make up, so they saw like 20k of it after they chopped with their backers. They would wear 4 figure watches, listen to music on dre beats, and sports gambool on the side, but I couldn't help but assume half of them were a bad downswing from busto If anyone has any insight in the comment section as to what the average live pro (grinding 5/10+ and hitting up the tourney circuit) makes from year to year, I'd be really curious. I asked in 2p2 once if it would be something like +200k, even, -100k +1m, +100k (for a 5 year stretch), but people didn't really seem to know.

So back to what I was doing since Black Friday. It took me about four months to figure out that merge/coaching or entrepreneurship or live poker wasn't right for me, so I decided to move to Canada in about September. At first, I was going to go with a few grinders from 100nl+, but then talked to a few of my buddies from high school about getting a place in Whistler to go skiing. Definitely an incredible idea, and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I would have been really excited to blog about some of my adventures and take lots of pictures/video. However, they had jobs, and couldn't do anything in September or October, so we pushed it back to December. It really was only 2 months of waiting, and I was okay with this. Unfortunately, one of my friends ended up busting his knee right at the end of November, and he was going to bring the car to Whistler, and I was put in a really tough spot. He couldn't go, and ultimately, I thought I would be unhappy alone, so I bailed on plans, and unfortunately had to eat a few K on the property as well.

So I was back at the drawing board. I knew I had to get back on stars before I started school in September, but couldn't figure out how to do it in a way that made me happy. Thankfully, one of my friends showed me that a new company is offering high speed ferries from my local Fort Lauderdale to Grand Bahama. This was a really good opportunity because I can live alone, but easily shuttle back and forth every couple of weekends and see my family and friends in South Florida.

It took me a bit of time to find a place I liked, but I finally got one, and will be moving in Tuesday of next week. I'm going to make a point to go all out and enjoy the super bowl on Sunday because it's GG USA for me.

Just a heads up. I'll stop taking new students this Friday (10/14/2011).

x-posted @ http://www.vincewille.com

This is going to be one of my most interesting blog posts, so I hope you have the chance to read it.

If you were to ask me (or for that matter most highly successful poker players) what the key to my success is, I would say "be one level ahead of your opponent." This answer usually affects people in one of two ways. Weaker players will be disappointed because they want a process or an end result (Fold offsuit aces UTG. Call with small pairs when you have 15-1 implied odds on someone's stack. Play 12/10 ftw. etc.). Stronger players will chuckle, realizing that while my answer is 100 percent truth, it is completely useless without a deeper understanding of poker. However, there is no way to really succinctly explain the nuances to this game or any competition with a fair amount of complexity, and even if I gave specific pieces of advice, they could certainly be easily misinterpreted or missapalied.

I've recently been thinking about what poker concepts I can apply to finance. A fair amount of my friends are working in that field, and I have a large percentage of my winnings invested, so it is a subject that is relavant to my interests.jpg. I've come up with the following analogy that I think demonstrates a possible link between poker players, investors, and levels of thinking:

0th Level
Poker (The Poker Fish): Do I have the best hand?
The live poker fish looks deep into his opponents statuesque form. If they're lucky he'll say something like "I'll show if you fold" (in which case fold immediately, lol), but more than likely there will be no information, and this player makes a call or fold somewhat arbitrarily. If they make a thin call, win the hand, and get berated, the common response is "I won the hand...didn't I"; if their aces get cracked on j10964sss, then they have a bad beat story for the ages.

Investing (The Investing Fish): Is the stock going to go up?
These are the kind of people who invest based on their gut feeling of trends. They take stock tips from friends. They invest in products that they use. They buy their grandchildren shares of disney. If they double up, they're sure to let everyone know about the ez game. Being an investing fish myself, I played a game with my friend where I tried to guess whether the market would go up or down for the first week after US Bonds got downgraded to AA (and was right 4/5!). I told all my finance friends that they better watch out because someone just figured out how to have no variance investing in the stock market.

1st Level
Poker (The FPP Grinder): There is no money in poker--everyone is solid. We're all nut-peddling a .5 pt edge. I hope VPP rates don't go down.
By no means are these grinders bad poker players. They understand almost all fundamental concepts that every successful poker player must comprehend including proper bankroll management, pot odds, implied odds, and tilt control. They have the skills to beat up on 0th level players, but beyond that they're a bit too easy to read.

Investing (The Small-Time Financial Advisor): Markets are effecient. They self-correcting and self-adjusting. You can't 'outsmart' or 'outguess' it because information is free and readily available.
The first thing I learned in Money and Banking in College was that there was no such thing as arbitrage. Arbitrage is the opportunity to buy a huge amount of shares of a stock and immediately flip it for a for a higher price in a different market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage). Because of this concept, one theoretically can never predict whether the market will go up or go down. The best thing an investor could do is invest in a balanced portfolio which is only exposed to systematic risk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_risk) and not residual risk (the chances of a single company failing).

These concepts sound strikingly similar to some sayings in poker. Arbitrage = no money in poker, everyone solid. Systematic risk/balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds = bankroll management and tilt control. Analyzing stocks through quarterly reports and P/E ratios = implied and direct odds.

2nd Level
Poker (The Poker Legend): Do I have the best hand?
In either live or online poker, this player will go through the hundreds or thousands of hands they've played versus their person. They'll think to themselves how often is he bluffing based on every street of action and what they think he thinks of every street of action. If they're really stumped, it might just come down to a game of rock-paper-scissors, and if he bluffed last time, then he's definitely not bluffing this time. Unless he knows that you know that...

Investing (The Hedge Fund Manager): Is the stock going to go up?
These are the type of people who have the ability to use their vast knowledge to attempt to predict the future. The late Steve Jobs often quoted the great Wayne Gretzky, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been", and this type of thinking drives innovation, financial markets, and even poker.

As you can see, the 2nd level of thinking reverts to the 0th level of thinking, but with much more analysis and with the knowledge of concepts learned at the 1st level of thinking. It sort of reminds me of Daniel Negreanu in that a recreational player will think that Daniel makes good reads (Do I have the best hand? I put him on a flush), but in reality he's many levels behind (Do I have the best hand? What do I lose to? Fuck it I call anyways).

Obviously this analogy is not perfect, but the idea that there could be a lot of fishy psychology behind market swings is something that really interests me. Apparently I'm not the only person who feels this way, as this article was published recently in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/bu...?_r=1&emc=eta1). These quotes in particular struck a nerve with me:

"John Maynard Keynes supplied the answer in 1936, in “The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money,” by comparing the stock market to a beauty contest. He described a newspaper contest in which 100 photographs of faces were displayed. Readers were asked to choose the six prettiest. The winner would be the reader whose list of six came closest to the most popular of the combined lists of all readers.

The best strategy, Keynes noted, isn’t to pick the faces that are your personal favorites. It is to select those that you think others will think prettiest. Better yet, he said, move to the “third degree” and pick the faces you think that others think that still others think are prettiest. Similarly in speculative markets, he said, you win not by picking the soundest investment, but by picking the investment that others, who are playing the same game, will soon bid up higher. Keynes didn’t say where and when he saw this beauty contest. The New York Times ran one very much like it in 1913. It was called the “Girl of To-Day Contest,” and readers were asked to submit a photograph of a young woman that they deemed “most typical of the American girl.” A panel of artists was asked to select a winner from these pictures."

"We see such dismay among stock market...