Monthly Update: February

If you like my blog please click the BlogTopList vote button to the right. This will give my blog a better ranking & help increase traffic to my blog. Thanks.

To signup to play at Lock Poker:
1. Clear cookies & internet history
2. Either click the banner above or 1 of the following links:

http://refer.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard

http://download.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard

After signing up please make sure jhub3000@hotmail.com is listed as a safe sender in your email. You can also email me with any questions. Before you begin playing on Lock, or even if you already do play on there, you will probably want to read this post about optimizing the software: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-most-out-of-lock-pokers-software.html

For daily updates & other ramblings please follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/jhubpoker


Please like my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jared-Hubbard-Poker/221586851240049

February took a bad turn.  After making over $47,000 in profit pre rakeback in January, I lost almost $22,000 pre rakeback in Fenruary.  March has been no different.

Here's my February adjusted EV graph.

As you can see in my adjusted luck graph, my EV was still good.  As you will see on my sharkscope graph, the HEM average stake is a little off, but my adjusted profit in February was $19,443, so I ran over $41,000 below EV on the month.  This is the frustrating part of playing a wide range of stakes.  Your overall profit is heavily influenced by a small sample of games at your highest stakes.  This can bring much higher than normal swings.  Thankfully, I think my mental game is pretty strong.  While I think everyone's game is at least slightly affected by huge downswings, the goal is to still play at a very high level.  I think I have done that, and my EV graph reflects that opinion.  I've certainly had worse downswings, and I'm sure I will have more that are just as bad or worse.  

I always hear of pros breaking laptops and other things when the cards go bad.  I've never even come close to doing such a thing.  In reality, variance is what makes the game so profitable.  If it weren't for variance, the bad players would never win, and would probably just choose not to play.  I think it's important to remind yourself of that when going through a downswing.  Thinking you don't deserve it isn't going to get you anywhere.  You need to worry about what you can control, and that's playing your best.  People always ask me how I deal with the emotions of the game.  That pretty much sums it up.  That said, it's still frustrating as a competitor, but the goal is to not let that frustration affect your play.

My sharkscope stats for February and for the year, as of today, as well as my 2012 sharkscope graph:

In March I'm down another $23,000 so far, so it's more of the same.  However, my luck adjusted yearly profit is almost $55,000.  That would be good for a $14K lead on the 2012 Merge any game by network leaderboard right now.  Thinking in terms of adjusted EV, rather than actual money won or lost is the best way to look at things.  It should all even out in the long run.

Here's my HEM 2012 adjusted EV graph.

Again, the HEM average stake is a little off but you get the picture.  The graph also understates how far I am running below EV, because it is based on average ROI, not total ROI.

I have talked in my blog a lot about how sitting other winning regs in HU SNGs can be very beneficial if you can get good enough and learn to beat them.  I still hear regs complain all the time when I sit them, claiming that neither of us is making any money and that I just have a big ego.  Well that simply isn't true.  Proof that sitting other winning regs in HU SNGs can be a +EV move is below.

HEM adjusted EV graph of other winning regs when playing me:

In HEM I created a global alias of every HU reg I can think of that I have ever played on Lock.  The global alias then combines the stats of all of these players.  I've certainly forgotten to include some people, but if I forgot a player I probably haven't played them much, and they're also probably a very low tier reg, meaning that including them would likely only make the results of the alias worse.  As you can see, I have played 2,471 HU SNGs against these winning regs this year, which is over 46% of my total games.  The regs have combined for a -3.9% ROI against me.  Considering that these stats include rake of 1.5%, this means that my adjusted ROI against them is 2.4.  My total adjusted ROI on the year is 2.6%, meaning that my adjusted ROI against non regs is probably somewhere around 2.8%.  That's only a 0.4% drop in ROI from playing randoms.  You may be thinking, well why would you want to play regs if your ROI is lower against them than against randoms?  The answer is simple, you don't have to wait to play regs.  They're sitting 1st and you just sit them.  This brings a huge increase to your games/hr, and ultimately to your hourly rate, which is what it's all about.  So far this year I'm getting in about 26 games/hour.  Considering my average stake is $400 and a lot of the time I will only be 1 to 2 tabling $500s or $1Ks because I don't sit lower while playing them and most people don't want to play more than 1 or 2 tables of them, I think that's a pretty high games/hr.

I'd also like to talk about why I think there's such a small difference between my ROI against randoms and my ROI against winning regs.  A simple assumption would be that I play very well against regs, but don't always maximize my equity against fish.  That may very well be true, but I think there's at the very least other reasons behind it.  When you play randoms you usually don't get to play them for very many games.  Often you play them once and then never see them again.  When this is the case you usually aren't able to develop very good reads on the player, and you're forced to go off of population tendencies.  Well, the range of styles and plays that a random will make in any given hand is pretty drastic, and going off of population tendencies isn't usually going to allow you to maximally exploit that each player individually.  

Then there's regs.  You are usually able to play regs in a lot more games, increasing your sample size of hands on them, therefore increasing the confidence that each play you make is correct against that player.  As two players play each other over and over the more skilled player is likely to gain an even bigger edge because they can get better reads and adapt their play to maximally exploit their opponent.  Even if a reg always declines a rematch and you don't play them much, the range in differences of style and play from one reg to the next is much smaller than it is of a random.  Many have pretty similar styles.  Therefore, going off what you consider to be the population tendency for a reg in any given play is going to be much closer to the 100% correct play than going off the population tendency for a random will be.

Another factor to consider when playing regs is that you are often playing them at multiple tables.  Playing one player at 3 tables is a lot easier than playing 3 different players on 3 tables.  Playing against only one player will allow you to focus a lot more and get better reads, which you can then use to maximally exploit them.

That brings me to another point.  Most of my HU SNGs I have played while 4-6 tabling.  Sometime in December I decided that I would try to usually play no more than 3 tables, considering that my average stake had increased, increasing the skill level of my average competition.  I felt that 3 tables was the optimal number for increasing my hourly rate.  However, I'm sometimes willing to make an exception.  One case where I'll make an exception is if a reg will 4-6 table me at reasonable stakes.  There's a couple reasons I will make an exception in this case.  As I have already stated, it's a lot easier to focus playing 1 player on 3 tables than 3 players on 3 tables.  Second off, in this case your opponent on every table is at the same disadvantage, that being a lack of focus, as you are.  I think I multi table about as anyone on Merge in HU SNGs, but I still would cap the number of tables I would play any given reg at 5 or 6 unless the games were $500+.  This is because I would always like to  stay registered for the $500s and $1Ks, considering how valuable they are.  Also, I'd obviously have to be pretty certain that I have a good edge on the reg, as I wouldn't stay registered for games under $500 if I was already playing 4 or more tables against a reg.

Hopefully this brought up some things you hadn't thought about or you at least found it interesting.

Lock has kicked off their first ever tournament series this month with great success.  The tournament series is called Poker Maximus and the schedule can be found here: http://thepokermaximus.com/poker-tournaments.html If you don't already have a Lock account, you can sign up here https://twitter.com/#!/jhubpoker for VIP benefits (http://jaredhubbard.com/lock%20vip.htm).  Also, be sure to enter the code LOCK150 for a 150% deposit bonus up to $750.  Lock accepts U.S. players.  We also recently launched our own cashier, separate from the Merge network so that you can withdraw and receive your money quickly.  Lock is running a rake race this month as well: http://lockpoker.eu/promos/rally-for-riches-race/

I plan on playing the $100+ Sunday Poker Maximus events when I can.  Last Sunday I played the $109 $175,000 guaranteed and the $215 $80,000 guaranteed high roller.  They didn't go too well.  In the $109 I lthink we were about 3 hours in and I 3bet an aggro button raiser with JJ.  He 4bet all in for 19BBs, which is obviously a snap call for me whether he's aggro or a nit.  He woke up with QQ and held.  A short time after I raised in MP with QJs and got 2 callers.  I'm thinking I probably had 15-20BBs.  The flop came something like J83 with 2 diamonds, giving me a monster with top pair, an overcard, and a flush draw.  I bet the flop and got 1 caller.  The turn was a brick.  I pushed all in for what was about a pot sized bet and got snap called by K8.  I was about an 80% favorite when we put the money in.  Unfortunately he rivered an 8 and I was out.  This play illustrates how soft the fields were though so sign up for Lock now!  #ShamelessPlug

In the $215 high roller I 3bet a very aggro MP raiser in the CO with 97.  He flatted out of position with J4s.  On the flop I hit middle pair and he check/called a gut shot.  The turn was checked and the turn and river came running 4s.  He led into me on the river for a large bet near the size of the pot.  Knowing what I knew about this player I expected him to almost always bluff a missed draw in this spot.  He also represented very little for value.  The only hand he really repped well for value was a flopped straight or trip 4s.  Both were pretty unlikely, especially the trips considering he would have had to call a 3bet out of position with a 4 in his hand & then check/call the flop with a 4 in his hand.  He also couldn't expect me to have a big hand considering how the hand played out but I wasn't sure if he would actually think that through.  I decided that the vast majority of his range was missed draws, and I was getting a great price on the call at about 2:1 considering the makeup of his range.  I called and lost a large chunk of my stack.  Later I picked up in the CO with a stack of about 18BBs.  Considering there were antes in play, I think this would be a reasonable spot to just open shove in an MTT.  However, the 3 players behind me were all aggressive 3bettors and I was 90% sure that none of them would flat if I made a standard raise of 2.25x the BB.  Considering this info, the clear play was obviously to 2.25x raise/call instead of open jam.  If I open jam I will never get a better hand to fold, but I will often fold out hands I dominate like smaller pairs, and hands like 76s & A5s.  If I 2.25x the small pairs are reshoving almost every time and considering the players behind me, I expect some other stuff I dominate to reshove as well.  I opened to 2.25x and just as I expected the button 3bet me.  He and the blinds had larger stacks so 3bet shoving would have been an overbet for him, but making a standard 3bet does the same thing vs me, since he knows I'm never going to flat a 3bet at that stack.  I shoved and the button showed up with 99 and held.  GG

Hopefully the hand analysis made things a little more interesting.  It's something I'm willing to do with MTT hands since I play so few MTTs, but not something I'm willing to do with HU SNG hands.

I will be playing the $1,000 Minnesota State Poker Championship this Sunday at Canterbury Park.  It will be the first live poker tournament I have played since winning the Canterbury Fall Classic Main Event for $70,769 (http://www.mnpokermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/NovemberIssue2.pdf).  Back to back live tournament wins?

I wrapped up my February promotion (http://www.easiestpokersites.com/lock-poker-elite-pro-jared-hubbard-challenges-fans-to-heads-up-battle) with success.  I was 26-10 in the HU matches for the promotion.  My favorite answer to the trivia questions goes to Mikey Vee on facebook.  The question was: What injury was I rehabbing from when I started my first online poker account?  He replied with "swollen vagina."  Well played sir.  Well played.

Below is a review of all of the daily trivia questions from the promo and a list of the people who beat me in the HU games at the bottom:

What was my online profit in 2007? ($251,388.84)

What is the name of my dog and who is he a fan of? (Gunnar – Twins)

Where was my most recent Live Tournament win? How much did I take down? (Canterbury Fall Classic - $70,769)

When did I turn pro? (2007)

How much have I earned in rakeback to date? ($640,000)

What is the symbol of my sponsor Lock Poker?

diamond

What did I say in my interview with DALEROXXU about what my first deposit was when I started? ($50)

Feb 8 Trivia ?: In 4 years of playing 6 man SNGs, how many years did I lead the world in total profit pre rakeback?

3

Feb 9 Trivia ?: Who won most of my money in my last losing #poker session?

Mrvenom

Feb 10 Trivia ?: What was my screen name on Absolute Poker?

Cutiepie85

Feb 11 Trivia ?: What's my favorite TV show of all time?

Dexter

Feb 12 trivia?: What players were #1 & #2 on 2008 sharkscope any game 5 to 6 players any stakes lb? List screen name & site.

1.     Jhub3000, Pokerstars 2. Jhub3000, Cake

Feb 13 trivia?: What injury was I rehabbing from when I started up my 1st online #poker account?

Torn Achilles tendon

Feb 14 Trivia ?: What's my wife's name & when did we get married?

Paula: August 8^th, 2009

2/15 Trivia ?: Name 1 real life example I compared the tyraak situation to in today's blog.

Dropping a wallet on the street, etc…

2/16 Trivia ?: What company designs my website & created this trivia promotion?

PokerFacePR

2/17 Trivia ?: What stakes did I say start playing #poker at online in my Poker verdict interview? 

$1 & $2 SNGs

‎2/18 trivia?: In my interview w/ PokerUpdate what did I say is the main difference between online & live?

Online is much more aggressive

‎2/19/12 Trivia?: Before becoming a professional #poker player, what was my major in college?

Business administration

2/20 Trvia ?: In my Interview w/ PokerLizard how many SNGs did I say I play at a time?

10-16

2/21 Trivia?: In my interview w/ PokerWorks how did I say I handle bankroll management? 

100-200 buy-ins online

2/22 Trivia?: Fill in the blank: In STTs I stated: After 3,000 games you are x likely to be within x of your true ROI

90%, 5%

2/23 trivia?: In my interview on Tourneyblog what did I list as my interests outside of #poker ?

Sports, fantasy football, camping, fishing, working out.

2/24 trivia?: What city did my US Poker Bowl team represent? hint: PokerVerdict

San Diego (meaning a whales vagina according to Ron Burgundy)

2/25 trivia?: In my PokerVerdict interview what book did I say revolutionized the way I play #poker?

Harrington on Hold em

2/26 trivia?: Who was on my US #Poker Bowl team?

Alex Jacob, Shaun Deeb, Thayer Rasmussen, Peter Feldman, Jordan Morgan

2/27 trivia?: What games did I mostly play on Pokerroom? Hint: PokerNewsBoy

5 handed SNGs

2/28 trivia?: In my interview w/ #Poker Verdict what 5 adjectives did I say best describe me?

Sarcastic, motivated, loyal, easy going, dedicated

‎2/29 trivia?: In my Parttime #Poker interview name 1 player that I said reviewed my games as I was learning SNGs.

Atomicdog239, MikeMcQ1, Newt_Buggs, BigJoe2003

Realchaser74

WannaSnuggle

CAN_D_MAN

Lilstealth

@joeaugie

Matt Miller

Erik Heights (2 wins)

Marc Alioto

@j_lude_obv

Mark Hoke

I had a question about labels on blogspot.  If you know the answer just let me know.  I was wondering if you put spaces in a label if it still works.  For example, does the label online poker work, or do you need to put onlinepoker?  I couldn't find the answer on google.

Thanks & GL,

Jared

http://www.jaredhubbard.com/

http://twitter.com/jhubpoker

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jared-Hubbard-Poker/221586851240049

http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/

Weekly Interview Series: Bryan "PrimordialAA" Pellegrino

If you like my blog please click the BlogTopList vote button to the right. This will give my blog a better ranking & help increase traffic to my blog. Thanks.

To signup to play at Lock Poker:
1. Clear cookies & internet history
2. Either click the banner above or 1 of the following links:

http://refer.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard

http://download.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard

After signing up please make sure jhub3000@hotmail.com is listed as a safe sender in your email. You can also email me with any questions. Before you begin playing on Lock, or even if you already do play on there, you will probably want to read this post about optimizing the software: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-most-out-of-lock-pokers-software.html

For daily updates & other ramblings please follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/jhubpoker


Please like my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jared-Hubbard-Poker/221586851240049

Fellow Lock Elite Pro Bryan "PrimordialAA" Pellegrino is my next interviewee for my new weekly interview series.  You can read the interview below.

How did you get started in poker?  How old were you?  What did you play?  How did you progress through the stakes and different games?

I got started at poker kind of randomly, when I was 15 on some trip for a highschool thing where the top X students go to DC for a week, my roomate (who I had never met) showed me poker, and I crushed some 5c / 10c / 25c poker game for like $50 and I was insta hooked. Was pretty amazed I won $50 and bought a hoodie with it, thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and then when we left he told me about a site called Pokerstars and told me I could play this online... that started it all

As soon as I got home I made my dad create me an account and got him to deposit $50 for me... lost it over about a week playing $5 Sit n Gos. rinse/repeat, ran it up to $100 and then took shots at 10s and quickly busto'd it and was so mad at myself for playing higher stakes... this was my first run in with BRM. I was really frustrated, $100 was a ton to me then... I bought a book, read a few chapters, and put in 'my last $50', I said if I lost it I would take a few months off and read through a bunch of books. I ran it up a little, binked a small $1 or $3 MTT for like $800 and never looked back :).

After that I played a ton of sit n gos, and eventually moved into cash. At age 17 I was 4 tabling 5/10 NL (highest stakes on PS at the time), but after a big downswing I cashed out most of my money and went back to grinding smaller. In college I started getting a bit more serious, playing a ton of MTTs, and I won the HU MTT like 5 times in a couple of weeks, it was a $20 64 man early and 128 man later (2x / day) , and shipped both the early and the late one one of those days, so I thought I was decent at HU but stuck to MTTs for a while longer. It wasn't until I did a semester abroad in Budapest that I was kind of forced into switching to something else due to how HORRIBLE the MTT schedule was for anyone living in Eastern Europe. This is when I started to move into HU, and a year later I was playing 200s+ regularly and left school to play full time and never really looked back since.
 

What has worked best for you over the years in regards to improving your game?

For a long time I was the guy who played all the time and spent very little time studying. I came up via 2p2 though so I had that standard/logical mindset, which I think in a ways held me back a lot, despite giving me a really solid foundation. Now as the games have progressed I find it much more important to focus on your game and improving and my best methods have always been keeping a very strong network of good / smart poker players to bounce ideas off of and double check your game, and also self-HH review. I try to do this once a week when I can, where I just pull 3-5 of my own HHs at random and go through them, I think it gives me a good snap-shot of what I play like on a daily basis, and seeing some of the occasional glaring errors that sneak in there keep me level headed and help me remember there is always more to work on, so I find it pretty motivating and enlightening.
 

How old are you now?

I'm 24   

How many tables do you usually play online?

 

2-6 for HU, pretty much as many as I can get. I usually do something like I'll sit 1k, 500, 300, and when I had 3 tables stop regging 300's, 4 tables stop regging 500s, and pretty much never stop regging 1ks as long as I can get action.
 

When you were playing the most poker of your career, how many hours per week did you usually play?  How many hours did you usually spend total on poker-related activities? 

At my volume peak I would play probably minimum 8-9 hours per day, 7 days a week, so right around 60 hours, with some weeks being way way more, but during that time I pretty much never took days off which wasn't really ideal. Outside of actually playing I would spend another 5 to 10 weekly coaching and studying,
 

How many hours per week do you usually play now?  How many total hours a week do you usually spend on poker-related activities now?

Due to how tough it's become for me to get decent action my play has dropped off a lot, I probably spend 10-15 hours per week now with everything mixed in, including coaching, studying, and playing, but i'm hoping to increase that in the near future, especially with WSOP coming up.
 

What kind of a computer setup do you have for playing?  Do you use any poker software?

I have a PC I built myself for gaming, so pretty high quality, with 2 monitors, a 30" and a 24". I only use hold'em manager for poker software.   

What are your short term & long term poker goals?

Short term I don't have a lot of goals, just putting in volume when I can and enjoying it, long term i'd really like to focus a bit more on playing less of the 8 hours a day every day grind, and more focused on traveling a bit to some tourney series and playing REALLY focused for a couple weeks, and then break again outside of that. I've been playing for a really long time now and finding myself wanting to add increasing amounts of balance to the poker aspect of my life.
 

At this point in your career does poker feel more like a hobby or a job?  Do you still enjoy the game as much as you used to?

Definitely more like a job, i'm outside of the place in my life where i'm living in a cheap apartment with some friends and outside of basic living expenses it wouldn't be the end of the world to me if I busted a roll, or just stopped playing, etc., I have a wife, house, and so on, so I really feel the pressure of needing to do well and succeed to support my family and keep up a decent life, so it definitely feels like a job and I try to take it really seriously.
 

You have had some nice live scores, including a top 8 finish in the 2009 $10K WSOP HU event for $92,580 and 143^rd in the 2010 WSOP Main Event for $57,000.  Were those your biggest scores ever and how did it feel to go so deep in such prestigious events?

Those were my biggest cashes (along with a follow up similar cash in the 2011 WSOP Main Event as well), These all were really unique experiences, in the 10k HU I played suchhh sick draws leading up to the final 8 and had such a big lead there that it was pretty devastating losing to the player I did (someone who wasn't very good). The 2010 Main Event I was like top 10 in chips for days 2 - 5, so it was pretty crazy, got a lot of coverage, a few feature tables, and was just really exciting the whole way through. Lost a huge hand (my 3rd place vs his 6th place chip stacks) vs James Carroll late day 5 to make a HUGE Chip Leader, and then just kind of floated through to day 6 until I busted. Then last years Main Event I never had a great stack or got anything going, just kind of survived until Day 6 and lost a flip there for like 1.8M or so, so 3 super different experiences in all of the tournaments, but all were really amazing. There really is nothing quite like going deep in a big live MTT, one of the best and most exciting feelings there is.
 

You recently attended a poker training camp held by Daniel “jungleman12” Cates, who is widely regarded as one of the best NL players in the world.  Could you tell us more about that experience?

It was great, tons of great guys there and I learned a bunch. We basically all stayed at a really nice hotel in Vienna and were in the conference room 6-8 hours a day reviewing slides and discussing high level theory. Nights were set aside for going out and having fun, and although it was only a couple days I really feel like I learned a ton. The instructors were great and the setup really was a lot more focused than most things in poker. It was well worth it imo. 

You have been focusing more on the affiliate business and also your new fantasy sports site buzzdraft.com.  Do you still plan to play a lot of poker in the future or start to focus even more of your time on those projects?

Yea, black friday was a pretty big eye opener for me on just how fragile some things were. This kind of caused me to re-evaluate some things and start to spread myself out a bit more. I do plan to play a lot of poker in the future, especially with big events like the WSOP coming up, but I have really enjoyed working on some of these new projects so that's something i will definitely continue to pursue in the future.    

Speaking of buzzdraft, could you tell us more about it?  How did you get the idea for the site? 

 So there is a really big industry of Fantasy sports, traditional fantasy sports where you draft a team and stick with that same team throughout the entire season. It takes a ton of time and dedication to keep up with it (especially in BBall and Baseball) and if 1-2 of your stars get injured your totally #!@)$(d.

Take that and run it daily now, more like a poker site where you go on, draft a team for THAT night, enter it into a sit n go or two, and then sweat the games on TV as they happen in real time and see how you do vs your competition and then win money based on your result. The upside is that it's 100% legal in the US and Canada, paypal and all major cc's accepted, etc., so no bad stigmas, accepted by a very wide audience, etc.

I actually didn't end up coming up with the idea, I came into the project after that were already underway and development had started, so I came in a bit late, but I feel like i've had a lot to offer, and the industry parallels the poker industry so much I think it's very easy for me to see where some of the other major sites are making similar mistakes to poker sites in the early days.

If you never got into poker, what do you think you would be doing for a living right now?

   
Probably would have finished my Computer Science degree and been working on some startups, I don't think I would have ended up at a 'normal' job, at least not for long. It just was never something I could really see myself doing.

How did you go about getting a Lock Pro Elite contract?  How has your experience at Lock been so far?

We had talked a long long while back, when they were still on Cake, but never really finalized anything. So then a few years later when Black Friday happened they got in touch with me and I was really honored they still wanted to work with me. My experience with lock has been nothing but great, the owner Jen has been amazing. I'm thankful every day I got involved when I did and try to do everything I can to help them out, so nothing but good things to say about working with Lock.

 

What do you like to do in your spare time besides poker?

pretty typical stuff, I watch a bunch of movies and TV shows, play video games, work on my two other companies i'm running (BuzzDraft and Coder Den), hang out with my wife and dogs, and travel a bunch.   

What are your favorite movies and TV shows?  Who are your favorite bands/musical artists?

Movies it's way too tough I watch a TON, my favorite movies i've watched in the last couple of months would be Drive, Ip Man, and The Warrior. Really really enjoyed all of them. Bands is tough too, i'm a huge music guy, my favorite band had been Tool for a very very long time, on a daily basis lately though I find myself listening to a lot of Drake, Florence and The Machine, Lil Wayne, Adele, Foo Fighters, Metallica, and Mac Miller, so pretty weird mix
 

What’s your favorite food?

   
Wow all the questions I find oddly difficult to answer. I'd say some of my favorites are a really good filet, chicken cordon bleu, and fettucini carbonara. 

What’s your favorite place you have traveled to?

Really really enjoyed my time in Europe, Budapest, Cyprus, UK, France, really love all of them for totally different reasons.   

Thanks for taking the time to do this & good luck at the tables.

Thanks a lot for having me, much appreciated and much respect to your game jhub :). GL and thanks again.
 

For more on PrimordialAA you can follow him on twitter @PrimordialAA and watch his training videos at http://www.pokerstrategy.com/.  He is also starting up a new blog at http://bryanpellegrino.com/ 

You can sign up for Lock Poker here http://download.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard for a 150% deposit bonus and VIP benefits (http://jaredhubbard.com/lock%20vip.htm)

In case you missed the past weekly interviews, here they are:

Jeff Romano: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/02/weekly-interview-series-jeff.html

Mike Drummond: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/02/weekly-interview-series-mike.html

Pedro Oliveira: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/01/weekly-interview-series-pedro-skyboypt.html

Greg Tiller: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/01/weekly-interview-series-greg-hokiegreg.html

Matt Stout: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/01/weekly-interview-series-matt-stout.html

Stevie Devlin: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/12/weekly-interview-series-stevie.html

Marc Alioto: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-interview-series-marc-alioto.html 

Ethics in Poker

If you like my blog please click the BlogTopList vote button to the right. This will give my blog a better ranking & help increase traffic to my blog. Thanks.

To signup to play at Lock Poker:
1. Clear cookies & internet history
2. Either click the banner above or 1 of the following links:

http://refer.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard

http://download.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard

After signing up please make sure jhub3000@hotmail.com is listed as a safe sender in your email. You can also email me with any questions. Before you begin playing on Lock, or even if you already do play on there, you will probably want to read this post about optimizing the software: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-most-out-of-lock-pokers-software.html

For daily updates & other ramblings please follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/jhubpoker


Please like my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jared-Hubbard-Poker/221586851240049

There seems to be a lack of ethics in poker.  I'm going to cover a couple topics: sitting other regs/professionals HU and registering for another player's game with the intention of blinding them down when they aren't there.  I will use this new Merge reg (reg wannabe might be more accurate) tyraak for both examples.

I've recently read posts on forums from players who think it's unethical to sit other regulars/professional players.  This is absolute nonsense.  We're all in competition together.  Being able to sit first in a HU SNG is a privilege that must be earned, not a right.  Hehasrisen said it best "If I can't hold my own against other regs that's my problem, not theirs."  I couldn't have said it better myself.  Me letting weaker regs open sit the same lobbies as me without sitting them is like Apple saying to Dell "You know what, why don't you just take 1% of our sales."  Do you realize how ridiculous that is?  I'm sitting you and beating you fair and square in competition.  When Kobe drives the lane Lebron doesn't move out of the way and say "you know what pal, you have this bucket."  If you don't like playing other regs then either move down in stakes to where you are left alone, or don't play when those particular regs are on.  It's that simple and there's plenty of regs who follow that strategy.

That brings me to tyraak.  I'm only using him as an example for this to tie into my next story.  The first time I sat tyraak he said "sorry I only fish."  He then proceeded to time down every single hand in each game we played.  Some people have a problem with the ethics of timing down.  It's kind of a grey area but I don't really have a huge problem with it.  He knows I am a better player and is probably timing down for a couple of reasons.  First off, my edge will be smaller as the blinds increase.  Second off, he probably thinks I'll get so annoyed that I won't sit him anymore.  He's 100% wrong on the second part, but that's besides the point.  Ethically, I don't think I really have a problem with it.  That doesn't mean I think he's smart for doing it.  Basically, all this strategy is going to do is piss off other regs and get him "sat for life."  Also, the fact that the game against him is moving so slow really allows me to play an extra table that I normally wouldn't.  With 4 tables running, 1 of them against him and his stalling tactics, it's really more comparable to 3.25 tabling, since I have far less decisions in his game than the average game.  Tyraak only sits $250 HU SNGs.  He doesn't sit higher or lower.  That brings me to my next point.

Yesterday I forgot to unregister for a $500 and a $1K.  I often don't unregister for them until my last game is actually over, simply because the games are so valuable that I'm usually willing to play overtime if one goes off.  However, this also makes it easier to forget to unregister for tthe games since you aren't doing it at the same time as all of your other games.  That may cause me to re-evaluate this process of unregistering from games.  Anyway, I ended up coming into my office at the very end of these games that I  forgot to unregister from.  Tyraak was sitting me in both games and I had pretty different chip counts, meaning he registered for one game significantly later than the other.  I pushed all in with about 6BBs on 1 table and lost, while I was on my last chip at the other table and lost.  I tried to get his attention in the chat, which I'm sure he probably saw, but he didn't respond.  I'm guessing either one of two things happened:

1. Since tyraak started playing HU I had never been registered for only the $500 and $1K lobby with 0 games running.  He may have noticed this and suspected that I had simply forgotten to unregister for these games.  He decided to sit the $500 and find out.  Once he knew I wasn't at the tables, he sat the $1K and simultaneously blinded me down on both tables.

2. Tyraak misclick registered for one of the games.  Once it became blatantly obvious that I wasn't there, he sat my other game with the intention of blinding me down at both tables.

Regardless of how it happened, one thing is clear: Tyraak sat at least one of my tables, knowing that I wasn't there, with the intention of blinding me down.  Before I get into this more, let me first state that I am well aware that this unfortunate situation is my own fault.  I forgot to double check my lobbies before leaving my office.  That's something every poker player needs to get in the habit of doing.  Had I done so, none of this would have happened.  Having said that, tyraak is still a complete scumbag for what he did.  I'm appalled that some poker players are actually defending his actions, which is what motivated me to write this blog.  I think this is very similar to other real life situations and I'll give a couple examples.  In the first example a business owner forgets to lock up his store when he leaves.  This is certainly his own fault, but that doesn't mean it's ethical to rob the guy when you find out that the door is unlocked.  In the second example a man drops his wallet on the street.  The wallet contains his identification, some cash, and some credit cards.  It's his own fault for dropping the wallet.  It's a careless mistake.  However, if you pick the wallet up you know who it belongs to, and keeping the wallet and/or the belongings is 100% unethical and I would call you a piece of shit if you chose to do so.  The right thing to do is to give the wallet to the police or return it to the owner's address.  

I really don't think anyone in their right mind would argue the ethics of those two examples.  However, since we're hiding behind a computer screen all of a sudden otherwise intelligent people don't see what's wrong with a similar situation.  If I were tyraak I would have also sat my second game with the intention of blinding me down.  However, I would be doing this so that another scumbag didn't have the opportunity to come along and blind the player down, keeping their money.  I would then transfer the buy-ins back to the player, minus the rake I paid so that the games didn't cost me anything.  If you want to argue for a small finder's fee I would probably be fine with that.

I reimburse people all the time who disconnect from their internet while playing me.  It's what I believe is the right thing to do.  However, that's a little more of a grey area than the tyraak situation.  In the internet disconnection situations we are already playing the game.  In the tyraak situation he clearly went out of his way to knowingly take money from somebody he knew wasn't there, at games he normally doesn't even play.

Situations like this are part of the reason why poker gets such a bad name sometimes.  There are many great people in poker, but there are also pieces of shit like tyraak who bring the reputation of the rest of us down.  I would say to the poker community: stop being greedy, unethical scumbags and have some morals!  Money isn't everything.  Think of other people for once.

I would like to start putting together a better compilation of my popular blog posts.  If there is a particular blog post that you really liked, please feel free to let me know by commenting on here, emailing me, tweeting me, or sending me an IM on Skype or AIM.

Thanks & GL,

Jared

http://www.jaredhubbard.com/

http://twitter.com/jhubpoker

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jared-Hubbard-Poker/221586851240049

http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/

Weekly Interview Series: Jeff "hurricanejeff" Romano

If you like my blog please click the BlogTopList vote button to the right. This will give my blog a better ranking & help increase traffic to my blog. Thanks.

To signup to play at Lock Poker:
1. Clear cookies & internet history
2. Either click the banner above or 1 of the following links:

http://refer.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard

http://download.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard

After signing up please make sure jhub3000@hotmail.com is listed as a safe sender in your email. You can also email me with any questions. Before you begin playing on Lock, or even if you already do play on there, you will probably want to read this post about optimizing the software: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-most-out-of-lock-pokers-software.html

For daily updates & other ramblings please follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/jhubpoker


Please like my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jared-Hubbard-Poker/221586851240049

Fellow Lock Pro Jeff "hurricanejeff" Romano is my next interviewee for my new weekly interview series.  You can read the interview below.

How did you get started in poker?  How old were you?  What did you play?  How did you progress through the stakes and different games?

 I started playing in college (UMass Amherst), we had some really good players.  The game was usually just $1 $2 no limit but the players were some of the highest caliber.  A lot of the guys were high stakes online players even playing up to $25 $50 No Limit on pokerstars, so it was a great way to learn from them.  I used to crush that game and then deposit it all online and lose it, or spend the rest I made on beer.  I was 18 at the time and pretty much just degened my way up stakes.

What has worked best for you over the years in regards to improving your game?

 Learning from past mistakes, and donating to better players.  Losing is a huge part of the game, and probably the fastest way to learn.  I used to watch the WSOP on t.v. but I think that made me worse.

How old are you now?

 26

Jeff doing a little wine tasting in France for the Lock Pro retreat:

How many tables do you usually play online?

 I play a lot of different types of games, but when I play sit n goes I try to get as many games going as possible up to 30.

How many hours per week do you usually play?  How many total hours a week do you usually spend on poker-related activities?

 Well it’s funny because I put in my highest volume last month and lost the most I’ve ever lost.  I was playing 70 hours a week, which is way above my normal 30.

Over the years you have played a lot of 6 man SNGs, HU SNGs, DONs, & MTTs.  What’s your current mix of games like and what do you focus on the most?

 I’ve played everything.  I break even at just about every game except for MTTs which I crush.  However, playing 15+ tables of sit n goes rakes a lot of money, and breaking even is very profitable. 

What is your favorite game to play?

 2-7 lowball with bigdogpocket5s

What kind of a computer setup do you have for playing?  Do you use any poker software?

 Laptop and 27inch monitor…HEM2

What are your short term & long term poker goals?

 Break even for life.  I don’t plan on playing poker for a very long time.  It would obviously be awesome to win a WSOP bracelet or whatever, but it just doesn’t matter to me.  I get into these arguments on the felt with players, they all say I’m terrible at poker and that I’m a rakeback whore.  Then I look them up in the forums and it turns out they are backed to play all of their games…well good one guys.  They don’t understand that playin 20 tables at break even poker isn’t easy, but its very profitable.  Last month I raked about $9,000…how many players are capable of that?

Do you plan on getting into any other games in the future?

 Yeah I plan on getting into “Game of Thrones” season 2 coming out in April.

At this point in your career does poker feel more like a hobby or a job?  Do you still enjoy the game as much as you used to?

 A job right now, I hate playing.  Well actually I hate grinding, I love getting deep in a MTT.  But playing in June at the WSOP is extremely fun.  So I look forward to that every single year and it gets me through the online grind.

How long do you plan on playing poker professionally?

 I will be applying to grad school in the fall, hopefully able to buy my way into Harvard. I’ll probably play throughout my educational career, and then try to open a business of sorts. 

If you weren’t playing poker for a living what would you be doing as a career?

 Working for a startup company in Boston.

How long have you been a Lock pro and how has your experience at Lock been so far?

 Well, since the first day the site opened.  I was one of the sites very first sign ups, legend status I think.  I hated playing for the site while they were on cake, but that’s because I hated cake.  

What do you like to do in your spare time besides poker?

 Eating, cooking and drinking.  I’ve thought about going to culinary school many times, you can impress just about anyone on this earth with good cooking, it’s a timeless skill.

What are your favorite movies and TV shows?  Who are your favorite bands/musical artists?

 Clint Eastwood and older Nick Cage movies are great, and probably my “go to’s” when there is nothing else on.  I like a ton of music but despise dub step, I think its trash and I don’t care if it’s the future of music.

Thanks for taking the time to do this & good luck at the tables.

You can sign up for Lock Poker here http://download.lockpoker.com/jaredhubbard for a 150% deposit bonus and VIP benefits (http://jaredhubbard.com/lock%20vip.htm)

In case you missed the past weekly interviews, here they are:

Mike Drummond http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/02/weekly-interview-series-mike.html

Pedro Oliveira: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/01/weekly-interview-series-pedro-skyboypt.html

Greg Tiller: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/01/weekly-interview-series-greg-hokiegreg.html

Matt Stout: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2012/01/weekly-interview-series-matt-stout.html

Stevie Devlin: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/12/weekly-interview-series-stevie.html

Marc Alioto: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-interview-series-marc-alioto.html