Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks

Originally posted by UPAY4DINNER
The DE regulations were much worse at the beginning and they've rowed back on some significant stuff since the beginning but yes any form of regulation tends to be baffling.

At least the "panic button" was toned down a little, it was pretty crazy when it was first introduced, being plastered around every table and effective immediately without warning. I'm still a bit nervous about that button because its location in the lobby is close to where I would click if I tried to open Pokerstars from the task bar after focusing on another window.

Here's hoping that we will all continue to be able to play for a long time, wherever we are, without anyone throwing a wrench in our works.

Tonight's session ended about as quickly as it started with a bad suckout earlier on in Badugi. I'm starting to get a little nervous whenever I see pat 8-Badugis predraw, they tend to let me down a lot, it seems.

More importantly, though, check it out: The mixed SNGs are all back.

Not included are the $5 games, but that doesn't matter, they never ran anyway.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Well, German regulations are rarely supposed to make sense.

No — OK very few — government regulations ever make sense.
Keep in mind that these rules are made by people who usually know nothing about the environment to which the rules apply.
Also the purpose of the rule is (usually) to make it appear that the government actually cares, which is usually wrong.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
No — OK very few — government regulations ever make sense.
Keep in mind that these rules are made by people who usually know nothing about the environment to which the rules apply.
Also the purpose of the rule is (usually) to make it appear that the government actually cares, which is usually wrong.

As usual, Vorpal knows what's up.

The account migration at Pokerstars was a bit of a momentum killer for sure, but I'm slowly finding my way back.

Badugi is on a worrying cold streak, I think I have had six complete bricks in a row now. At least I got my chips in good in many of those situations. Winning MTT graphs usually look like a set of steps, not like a trending line, so I know that patience is key, but I'm still a lot behind expectations.

Five Card Draw SNGs are starting to look better, with a bunch of cashes and two first places in a row recently. Also a pretty cool Hand of the Day, in case you haven't seen it yet.

I have a new non-poker side challenges to be introduced soon, but first, let's get to an older one:

I haven't been playing a lot of mahjong lately, but there was one gameplay related issue to be dealt with.

I mentioned before that when I was playing, winning hands were automatically declared by me, whether I drew the winning tile myself or had an opponent deal in. This is not ideal. There are certain situations where you would like to turn down a win, for example in order to draw to a better hand, or because you need a certain player to deal in, or because you want to keep another player from busting out and ending the game.

Is there a way to change that option? There must be, but it's tough to see how, if I cannot copy/paste the text in the settings menu.

Let's try the opposite approach, maybe. What does "automatic" mean in Japanese?

I see. Do we see those symbols anywhere in the settings menu?

I think so, take a look at the highlighted option:

Let's just switch this one to whatever the other choice is, and see what happens.

It works! I'm getting a choice to take the winning tile here, after my opponent dealt in:

I'm getting a similar choice when I draw the winning tile myself, though that one looks different:

Some knowledge of katakana can come in handy here, when there are several choices. Here is a situation from yesterday's freeroll. The middle choice takes the win, the one on the right turns it down, and the one on the left takes the triplet without taking the win, which would be a very bad move that gets you into a lot of trouble.

It resulted in a good hand that allowed me to advance to Round 2, though I couldn't get any further than that.

.

Were you playing the Japanese version too, or one of the more simplified Chinese versions?

The room I am playing at used to have freerolls for the "official" Chinese version a few years ago, when the lobby was still in English. That version may be even more complicated, it came with a huge list of possible hand combinations.

I assume you are talking about "real" mahjong, of course, not the solitaire.

It seems like no matter how long your little vacations and extended weekends are, they are always just one day too short...

I was able to regain on some sleep, at least, and managed to deal with some chores and personal projects that I otherwise didn't manage to get to. Also, I saw the first game of my former American football team this season on Saturday, they were playing the Frankfurt Universe at home, who were still playing in the first national league last year. They brought a lot of fans too, it was tough finding both a parking space and a seat in the stadium.

It was a rough start for the Golden Dragons (my former team), and in the end, they couldn't quite close the gap, though they fought well. Unfortunately, I was only able to see the first half. I only heard about the game on short notice, so we had already made dinner plans at that point and needed to stick to them.

No poker today, or during the extended weekend. I mentioned that I had a new non-poker challenge to share, but I think I will get to that one in the next few days. I will have some negotiations at work tomorrow about a possible extension of my work hours, which may have an impact on the grind and some of my other projects, depending on what we can agree on, though I already have a reasonable proposal in mind. Let's get this out of the way first, and deal with everything else later.

The Golden Dragons obviously needed you!

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
The Golden Dragons obviously needed you!

Honestly, I doubt I even would have gotten any playing time if I had been there, given my experience with how things were usually going when we were facing really tough opponents.

But thanks!

Originally posted by Harrier88
I will have some negotiations at work tomorrow about a possible extension of my work hours, which may have an impact on the grind and some of my other projects, depending on what we can agree on, though I already have a reasonable proposal in mind. Let's get this out of the way first, and deal with everything else later.

Right, about that: Everything will keep going as usual for the upcoming month. My proposal has been accepted, which means that starting in July, I will work one day per week full-time and otherwise simply add half an hour to my usual shifts. That way, I will increase my monthly work hours a little while still keeping a flexible schedule, among other things allowing for plenty of time for poker. I have yet to sign on the dotted line, but this is definitely something I can live with.

Poker is continuing along the same lines as before, with good success in 5CD SNGs, but terrible results in Badugi. My motivation is still not quite at pre-migration levels, and as followers of the Troll Challenges blog may know, I'm also engaging in some more sporting endeavors lately, which can lead to being physically tired in the evening too, as another obstacle.

A proper weekend may be just what I need to start getting things back on track.

Not much to report... still no more mahjong, not even my usual Saturday freeroll, because I overslept. Only by a couple of minutes, but that was enough to miss the start - there is no late reg in mahjong. There were no major cashes to report in poker either.

As intended, I finished the month, but it is pretty clear that there is not much point to this series, now that it has been confirmed that there won't be any more OFC on the only crypto site that had acceptable traffic. Mahjong alone is simply not on an even playing field compared to poker.

The mahjong freerolls will continue, and the odd cash game too, I expect. Exciting moments and freeroll cashes will still be posted under my Big in Japan series, and I will present a new side challenge soon to take the place of East vs. West. At least it had a cool logo.

Poker stats coming up tomorrow.

Oh, and I forgot: The Dragons had an away game vs the Fursty Razorbacks, losing 25-49 with what was said to be a decimated squad.

Unlucky, boys. Next game will be at home again, maybe I will watch.

.

It's the weekend. When I regain on sleep, I can last a little longer too.

Stats Time

Can you believe that I still haven't properly set up my MTT stats spreadsheet? That's because I wanted to reform my old one a little, but didn't have a lot of time for it between Christmas and New Year, which is when I usually deal with this stuff. Instead, I set up a rudimentary early version so that I can at least keep tracking my results, intending to deal with the rest on another day.

Today was that day, and after spending more time on it than I would have liked, partially due to troubleshooting and several crashes, most of the data should be in order now, with a spreadsheet that should hopefully be somewhat "future proof" - though next year is a leap year, which is always a bit of a challenge when it comes to converting old tracking calendars.

The MTT data is ready, but the graphs are not properly set up yet, so let's deal with the SNG stats first today:

It has been a mostly successful month when it comes to SNGs, after the failure in April.

We had quite a downswing before, but maybe we can now start a trend in the opposite direction.

Most of the SNGs last month were Five Card Draw, and we can definitely see some improvements there, as I had sometimes mentioned in my previous posts too.

We had to deal with some heavy swings this year, but hopefully, we are back now.

Five Card Draw is now clearly the top contributor to SNG success again as well.

It could go much better, though, because the amount of bubble finishes in 3rd place is still woefully high. At least we are making some progress.

Here are the updated results, which also include the few games from June:

MTT Stats

I'm not quite done yet with all my poker spreadsheets, but they still refuse to cooperate, with crashes galore today again. I can present some MTT stats and graphs now, though - for the first time this year, so we have a lot to get to.

Let's start with the plain results:

Not looking so good so far, even though we're winning, but only with an ROI of 13.33%. That's the kind of ROI you would prefer to see in SNGs instead.

Badugi is also not performing as well as it should.

8-Game is more like it, though that is mostly due to one shared 1st place which skews the stats.

HORSE is included for reference, though I only really played as part of the Troll Challenges with Primrose, and they are now on hold too, after Prim left Stars.

I took some shots at 5CD this year, and even though the results don't look good now, I think that there might be potential there. Note that my 2022 results do not include my 4th place in the MicroMillions for $199.62.

No luck so far in the few Stud8 tourneys I tried.

Courchevel had some cashes in the handful of games, at least.

Only two PLO8 games this year, with no results yet to motivate me to stick around.

Overall, like with the SNGs, May went a little better already:

More detailed graphs coming up later.

Here's how it is going overall:

Badugi is going steady, but seems to be slowing down lately. And as you could see in my last post, the stats this year are not great.

The weekly graph illustrates it further: I am actually in what is so far my worst downswing in this game this year.

8-Game had a nice bink.

HORSE from the Troll Challenges is included once again for reference:

Five Card Draw has little to show so far. It can be tough to gain a foothold at those higher buy-ins.

One new thing I introduced in my new spreadsheet version was the tracking of bounties. So far, bounties account for a little over a third of this year's PKO winnings...

...and a little over a quarter of my total MTT winnings, including games that don't have any bounties.

Hooooo boy... working with that last spreadsheet was like playing Jenga. With every tiniest change, you had to worry about the entire thing breaking down.

I lost count of all the crashes, but my new Combined Poker Stats spreadsheet is now ready, so I can present a breakdown of all the formats: MTTs, SNGs, and even OFC, despite it using a separate bankroll and being practically dead by now - but as you can see, it was a decent earner.

And because we made a profit in each format, I can even present a pie chart about it:

Here are the combined results, starting in 2022, which was the first year where I started playing a sizable number of SNGs:

Looks nice and is tough I think to make profit in 3 type of poker games. Most people are good in 1 format and not as good in the other 2. You need to adjust to the format and that could be tough.

It has been a while since I have last been at the tables. When I haven't been working on spreadsheets in my spare time, I have usually been exercising the body rather than the mind. But I have been teasing another non-poker side challenge, and it is time to introduce it now:

Can Harrier Backgammon? - "Season 2"

I have tried something similar two years ago with very limited success, but I am going to reintroduce it now with some changes. I am using a free and open source backgammon training software called GNU Backgammon, which lets me play practice games against AI opponents while analyzing my moves in real time and giving instant feedback.

Unlike last time, I will now only play single point match games, so there will be no doubling cube involved, this is all about pure chequerplay. All of my moves are final - while the software would inform me via a popup whenever I make a not so good move and allows me to reconsider, I am not allowed to do this, though I may check what the optimal solution would have been, for reference. My results and errors will be tracked using another one of my spreadsheets.

This little exercise has several purposes, which may also be useful for poker:

- It should take me out of the mindset of results-oriented thinking. Since my moves are being analyzed, I am mostly trying to find the mathematically best plays, rather than aiming for wins. It's what we should do in poker as well. And like in poker, I may often win backgammon matches despite playing poorly, or losing them despite playing well or even flawlessly. It can be useful to train your mindset to accept that reality.

- Mistake-tilt is real, and can be a serious problem for players like me. This software points out my mistakes instantly, and it can be a tough pill to swallow at times, just like in poker. This challenge can train me to accept my mistakes as part of the learning process, and to deal with the frustration of having not played well. It may also help me identify common triggers for mistakes, or any patterns that may arise when I get off my A-game.

- By simulating a proper match environment while having games constantly available, it creates a similar atmosphere to a poker grind, and can help me learn when it's best to avoid playing and what I can do to hit the tables in a good state of mind for playing.

- The games are being tracked by me, including their starting times. Over time, this may allow me to collect some useful data about at what times and weekdays I am typically at my best and at my worst.

- It is supposed to train logical and strategic thinking in general.

I have already played a bunch of games, so I will be able to present some stats and results soon.

Okay, so I have played 122 backgammon practice matches against an "advanced" AI opponent so far, which should play a solid game. 71 of those games have been lost, but we're not here for that. We are mostly interested in the error rate, which is calculated mathematically, so greater deviations from the optimal play will have a much bigger impact than smaller ones. It doesn't matter how easy or hard any move was to find - if a much better move exists, it counts as a big mistake.

The software gives you a player rating whenever you run a full analysis, which I always do at the end of a match. Once again, the deviation matters, so one big mistake can easily offset many perfect decisions, and may be enough to get you stuck with a very bad rating, even when everything else was good.

I have prepared a graph of my error rates per game with the thresholds for the ratings included. The red dashed line would be my overall error rate, which currently puts me at the upper end of "Casual Player". It would be nice to get it up to "Intermediate", at least.

Wild fluctuations, as you can see - but that's because single big mistakes, which can happen quite easily from time to time, have a very big impact on your rating, as I explained above, resulting in those sharp single game downward spikes.

A breakdown can be found below. "Intermediate" is still the most common rating, but it gets dragged down by the bad games.

Here is a breakdown of my unforced moves, all the moves where I was left with a decision to make. If it doesn't hit the thresholds for "doubtful", "bad" or "very bad", I will consider it "acceptable", regardless of whether it was perfect or just not enough of a deviation to hit the thresholds, and also regardless of how difficult it was to find - some of the acceptable moves may have been no-brainers anyway, others may have been very strong plays.

Back to the results: I am losing, for what it's worth, but I am playing against strong opponents and the outcomes do not matter anyway.

Here is a graph that assigns a value of +1 for every win and -1 for every loss, further illustrating the way things are currently going results-wise:

So it is not going very well so far, but not terribly either. Many mistakes have been avoided, some difficult strong moves have been found. Besides, it is mostly supposed to train me for poker situations, rather than turning me into a great backgammon player. I should already be able to hold my own in casual games, at least.