Take a look at the hand, and then sound off on the question I’ve got for you at the end:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($1570)
MP ($1124)
Button ($2200)
Hero (SB) ($1000)
BB ($1017)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7, K
3 folds, Hero bets $40, BB calls $30

Flop: ($80) 6, 8, 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $55, BB calls $55

Turn: ($190) K (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $150, Hero calls $150

River: ($490) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $772 (All-In)

Suppose that you were going to have to make this decision. I tell you that he is a winning regular at these stakes, and I offer to give you just ONE of the following statistics that I have on him, based on a sample size of 397 hands played in 6-max games. Which would you choose and why?

Voluntarily Put Money In Pot (VP$IP)
Pre-Flop Raise (PFR)
Three-Bet Percent (3B%)
Aggression Factor (AF)
Fold to Continuation Bet (FCB)
Flop Aggression Frequency (FAFq)
Turn Aggression Frequency (TAFq)
River Aggression Frequency (RAFq)

I want to wait a few days to give everyone a chance to comment, so I’ll post my thoughts on Sunday.

If you aren’t yet a member, now’s a great time to sign up for a 7-day free trial!

Please be sure to let me know what you think of the videos.

The latest scandal to rock the online poker world is Nick “Stoxtrader” Grudzien’s admission that he has played under multiple screennames on both Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. According to his post in the 2+2 thread on the subject:

In the last few days various allegations have been made that I have played on multiple accounts on FTP and Stars and that by doing so I have violated the terms and conditions of the sites and also cheated in ways including colluding. The relevant facts are:

(1) At no point have I ever colluded. This is a categorical denial without exceptions.
(2) I played on a single account on FTP and a single account on PokerStars for the previous four year period through January 2010. The only exception to this was when I made instructional videos.
(3) In January 2010 I created one new account on FTP and one new account on Stars. I played on these accounts for roughly one month and have not used them since. During that time these were the only accounts on which I played at these sites. I have not played poker since March 7th, and will not play again until I receive communication from a pokersite that I am able to do so.

Since I have admitted to breaking the TOS of stars and ftp I don’t plan on playing any poker until I receive communication from the pokersites that it is ok to do so, and at that time I can share the details of any information I recieve from them. FTP and pokerstars are aware of the allegations and I have encouraged them to do a full and thorough investigation to confirm that what I say is completely accurate. I would like to have the opportunity to continue to be a contributing member of both stoxpoker and 2+2, I ask for your patience while these matters are sorted out over the next few days.

As Grudzien’s post suggests, there are at least three issues here, which I’ll address separately.

I have little to say about the allegations of collusion. Smarter people than I agree that the evidence looks pretty damning, and should they prove true, I don’t think there’s any question that this would be unethical.

Is it ethical to maintain a separate account for the purpose of making instructional videos, either to avoid providing potential opponents with information that can be used against you or to ensure that people do not play differently against you because they know you are recording the session? I would argue no on both counts.

Both Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker forbid players to play on more than one account. Lee Jones, the former poker room manager at Poker Stars, once suggested that online poker would be better off if everyone played under a new screenname every session, insuring anonymity for everyone. Regardless of what you think of the one-account-per-player policy, though, it is currently the rule and must be followed. To do otherwise is to gain an unfair informational advantage over opponents who play by the rules. In the current online poker environment, players have a right to know who they’re playing against.

Loss of anonymity is to some extent the price you pay for the opportunity to earn money as a coach or instructor Grudzien could have simply obscured his screenname in post-production, as I used to do in my videos. While this doesn’t provide total anonymity, it solves the worst of the problem without harm to one’s actual opponents in the video. Moreover, Full Tilt Poker provides special “educational” tables where its affiliated Cardrunners pros are allowed to make videos pseudonymously, and all players there understand in advance that this is a possibility. Given Stoxpoker’s relationship with Cardrunners, this ought to have been an option available to Grudzien as well.

Even obscuring one’s screenname in an instructional video is not entirely beyond reproach, though, which is part of why I stopped doing it. Grudzien’s customers and students deserve full information about the person they are paying. I don’t consider the practice downright unethical, because ultimately students can choose not to hire Grudzien if he refuses to disclose his screenname and results, but even this requires that they at least be aware that plays under another account than the one they know from his videos.

In Grudzien’s case, the problem is particularly acute since it seems his primary account was actually a well-known ratholer (ie, a player who buys in for the minimum, plays almost exclusively pre-flop poker, and quits if he doubles up). Regardless of what you think about ratholing, students paying for poker instruction have a right to know that the person they are hiring engages in the practice, as this potentially limits his experience and authority regarding post-flop play.

Thus far, Grudzien has been cryptic about why he changed screennames in January:

There are online poker players who have used 2nd screenames for the purpose of deceiving others into giving them action, evading taxes, collusion, entering multiple times into the same tournament, ghosting, to obscure previous results and stats, to clear extra bonuses, to circumvent affiliate CPA or rakeback rules, to bypass the pokersites shortstack buy-in time limitation, to teamplay, to share action with others at the same table, to chip dump or otherwise engage in underhanded actions I do not know about. I have never done any of these things. Beyond that I cannot and will not comment on the screename issue, nor can I say why I cannot elaborate further other than to say that my reasons for that are serious and personal.

Contrary to the demands of the bloodthirsty mob, Grudzien does have a right to privacy and does not have to out his “serious and personal” situation to anyone. Even without knowing the situation, however, I feel comfortable stating unequivocally that changing screennames is not an ethical response.

Regardless of Grudzien’s intentions, playing under a new account provides him with an unfair advantage over his opponents. He knows who we are and have data on their play, but we do not know who he is. I say “we” because, if Nick really is 40putts/bulltf0rdtuff on FTP and Knockstiff/gr3atvlewbr0 on Stars, as is widely believed, then I myself had a good deal of experience with all of these accounts. In fact, there’s some unintentional in “Dominating Short Stacks”, the most recent video I’ve published on Poker Savvy Plus, in which I play against a table full of short stackers on Poker Stars. One of the players was gr3atvlewbr0, who at the time was unknown to me.

At one point, I say, “bballjim and greatview, to the best of my knowledge, are not professional short stackers…. [T]hey very well might be recreational players”. I go on to contrast them with Littlezen and hibachi41, who are professional short stackers, and explain what I expect to be the differences between them. I specifically talk about adjusting my open raise sizing to gr3atvlewbr0 in a way that I wouldn’t against a professional short stacker because I don’t expect him to be able to exploit it as well. I talk through a hand where I lead the flop instead of going for a check-raise because I don’t expect a recreational player to continuation bet a missed flop as often as a professional would.

All of this indicates the kind of informational disadvantage I was at against this new account, while Grudzien had access to all the data and experience he had on my foucault82 account, the only screenname I’ve ever used on Poker Stars. No matter how serious the mysterious problem facing Grudzien may have been, he has no right to a solution that comes at the expense of myself and everyone else who played regularly with his old accounts.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed yourselves responsibly last night (and last year, for that matter), and that you are striding confidently forward into a new year.

Yesterday, I revisited my 2009 poker resolutions. Now, it’s time to make some new resolutions and set some new goals for 2010.

Resolution One: Play NLHE Cash Games

Particularly in the big games, virtually everyone is good and getting better. It’s not enough to be better than they are at the start of the year; if they keep improving and I stagnate, then they’ll be owning me by year’s end. So this year my focus will be on putting in hours at and away from the table.

Goal 1: Average 15 Hours/Week Playing My “Regular” Games

If I wanted a job, I’d get one. I want to have plenty of time for other things that are important to me: friends, family, travel, volunteer work. Then again, most of those things require (or at least benefit from) money, too.

I’ve found that 15 hours/week enables me to earn a pretty healthy income, far more than I could make at any real job I could get, without impeding too much on my lifestyle.

I consider my regular games to be anywhere from 2/4 NL to 50/100 NL as well as big tournaments like the Sunday Majors, the FTOPS, and the WCOOP; time spent playing any of these will count towards my goal.

Goal 2: Earn $X in NLHE Cash Games

It’s very tough to predict or control what I will earn playing tournaments. With cash games, though, it’s mostly a question of game selection and putting in hours. It’s not something I’m going to announce publicly, but I am going to set a target, and I am going to put in extra hours towards the end of year if I’m on pace to come up short.

Goal 3: Earn Supernova status on PokerStars

I gave up on this goal last year, largely because Stars doesn’t have deep stack or ante tables. I don’t want to sit in bad games just to get VPPs.Poker Stars is continuing to sweeten the deal, though. In addition to the cash bonuses that can be purchased with FPPs, they’re now offering up to $1000 in bonuses just for earning VPPs.

My plan for this is to table select as usual in the beginning of each month, and then assess my progress towards the end of each month. If I’m on pace to come up short, I’m going to put in extra hours above and beyond my weekly goal just grinding 9 tables of $1/2 NLHE (or smaller) until I hit my VPP target for the month. Hopefully this is something I can do relatively stress-free, just an hour or two at a time, when I’m not in the mood to put in a proper session in higher stakes games. To be honest, my hourly rate should still be quite good multi-tabling SSNL, so hopefully this will incentivize me to make a little money in what would otherwise be downtime.

Resolution Two: Diversify My Income Streams

This has been a long-term goal of mine, and I feel like it’s well underway now. Not only is it nice having some guarantee, variance-free income, but it’s a fun and rewarding break from grinding to coach aspiring MSNL players, write for Two Plus Two Magazine, or make videos for Poker Savvy Plus. It even helps me to cultivate and demonstrate other skills, like writing, teaching, and marketing, that would prove useful should I ever decide to seek proper employment.

Goal 4: Monetize This Blog

I know I keep saying it, but sooner or later I really am going to look into making money a little more directly from this blog. I feel like it’s right on the cusp of being pretty profitable. That doesn’t have to mean ads, though it might. Maybe I’ll…

Goal 5: Write a Book

I’ve talked about this before, but this is the first time it’s ever been an explicit goal. I’ve already got some downtime sketched out in the next few months to work on this and have been kicking around some ideas in my head. Rather than trying to write one big, expensive e-book as a lot of people have done, I’m thinking of doing a series of smaller, modular works that could be purchased separately or as a set. Those of you who read this blog regularly are going to be a big chunk of the target audience, so keep an eye out for posts in the next few weeks soliciting your input about what you’d like to see in a poker book authored by yours truly.

Goal 6: Average One Blog Post Per Day

I know it’s been a little quiet on here of late. Part of that is the holidays, and part of it is just laziness. I want to get back to posting once a day. There will probably be more non-poker content, and not all of the poker stuff will be equally in-depth, but overall you can expect to see more and better content here.

The other part of the problem is that fairly often during the week, I’m staying somewhere where I don’t have a reliable internet connection. I’m pretty sure it’s possible for me to write stuff in advance and schedule it to post on a particular day, though, so that’s really not an excuse.

Goal 7: Average Five Hours of Coaching Per Week

Coaching was extremely fun and rewarding for me last year. So far, except for my group seminars, I haven’t done much to market myself as a coach or actively solicit students. I’ve mostly just worked with students as they’ve come to me, and so so far that’s kept me just about as busy as I’d like to be with coaching. I want to ramp it up a bit this year by setting a monthly goal and actively soliciting students if necessary to ensure that I’ve got a regular stream of students.

By the way, if you’re interested, check out my poker coaching information.

Resolution Three: Improve My NLHE Skills

There are so many good reasons to make an active effort to improve my NLHE. In addition to the obvious benefit of getting better and winning more money, studying can give me new material for blog posts and book reviews, introduce me to new coaching and video producing techniques, help me to monetize what would otherwise be downtime, restore my focus and confidence during a downswing, and help me keep up with what my opponents may be learning and trying at the tables.

Goal 7: Average an Hour a Day of Dedicated Studying and Improvement

I’m going to be very broad about what this can include: reading books, watching videos, reviewing hands in Hold ‘Em Manager, talking poker with a friend, and even blogging (when it’s related to reviewing my play).

I may even hire a coach. It’s funny: many of my students expressed some concern about the cost of coaching when we first discussed working together. After a few hours with me, though, these same students have always told me that coaching was far more valuable than they expected and that in retrospect they considered it a very good investment.

Yet, cheapstake that I am, I still balk at paying hundreds of dollars an hour for a high-stakes coach. I probably ought to just suck it up and purchase a few hours. To be fair, though, I do charge less than most comparable coaches. Plus, I don’t have the option of hiring someone who coaches as well as I do :-).

Goal 8: Use Hold ‘Em Manager

I switched from Poker Tracker to Hold ‘Em Manager last year. PT2 is great, but HEM is just better. For the last part of the year, I was playing without it on my laptop. It does get in my way sometimes, but I’d rather learn how to work with it than insist on playing without it.

Goal 9: Finish the Year with a 4BB/100 Win-Rate at 5/10 NL and/or Higher

Same goal as last year, since I didn’t achieve it but still think it’s very viable. It might be cheating a little, but I’m going to allow myself to count my results from bigger games towards this goal or not depending on whether I do better in them than I do in 5/10 (this was the cast last year). Basically, if I am at 4 BB/100 over a big sample at 5/10, then I don’t care how I’m doing in bigger games. If I’m not doing quite that well at 5/10 but am at 4 BB/100 if I also count bigger games, then that’s certainly a fine result as well.

Goal 10: Play 50,000 Hands of Heads Up NLHE at 5/10 and Higher

Last year, my win rate at heads up was twice what it was at ring games. Plus, it’s a great way to improve poker skills in general, and at stakes above 10/20, it’s often the only way to get action.

The only problem is that I can’t play as many tables at once, so my hourly rate isn’t necessarily better, plus it’s tough to get action from people I actually want to play. Unlike with my other goals, I don’t want to resort to playing smaller stakes just to hit this goal. I will try to be more diligent about starting tables and maybe even playing some people against whom I don’t necessarily have an edge, since part of the point here is to get better.

What About You?

How did 2009 treat you? What are your goals, poker or otherwise, for 2010?