Shabbir's Diary

The completion of my difficult hand: Red Queens in early position

[This is the final stage of my analysis hand.  I'll restate the action.]

I wake up with red queens in early position and I raise it immediately to $7.  For this table that's a notable raise.  $11 is the high end.  Seats 4 and 5 fold.  Seat 6 makes it $15 to go with about $275 left.  He's slightly unhappy with the fact that he's only about $30 up for the night.  He's sober and has been stealing small pots with $10 bets on raggedy flops all night.  Something about this raise seems unusual.  He's likely to get callers, but with what is he holding that makes a min raise correct?

Seat 8 cold calls the raise.  Seat 8 is a talented and very drunk player.  His tight aggressive game while drunk is better than mine sober. I've been watching him steal small pots all night, as well as smelling traps and folding.  He has about $270 after calling the raise.  I think this is a loose call on his part, as his MO is about stealing the pot when the flop misses everyone.  He has position on the raiser (me).

Seat 9 folds, and Seat 10 (the button) looks down at his cards at a pair of red fours.  His stack is about $250.  He is a generally tight player who is terrifying in that he'll pay big to draw, which means it's dangerous to give him free cards.  I do not think this is a good habit.  He also plays his good hands strongly, forcing you to pay heavily to draw against him, which is a good habit.  He's not drinking.  Everything about him suggests he's a talented player, very comfortable thinking through his decisions before acting.  He's not a young aggro, but about 35 or 40, accomplished, and completely in control of his game.

Seat 10 cold calls the raise with his red fours.  The blinds both fold.  There is $55 in the pot and it's $8 more to me.  I can fold, call, or re-open the betting with a raise.

Question #2: The pot stands at $55, offering me about 7 to 1 as I consider seeing a flop with three other players.  I have $330 more and every player covered.   What should I do?

I push my entire stack.  The re-raiser folds immediately.  Seat 8 folds quickly, and seat 10 holds his red 4's for a full minute.  He really want to call, but he eventually folds.  I take down the pot.

WSJ: "A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy"

The must-read article this week was in the Wall Street Journal.  "A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy"  talked about how the use of social networking is introducing people under 35 to non-profits, both through innovative giving tools like Kiva.org, as well as innovative tools like Facebook being utilized by very traditional brands.

"Joe Alamo didn't set out to become a do-gooder. But late last year, when the Geneva, N.Y., Web designer was surfing on MySpace, he chanced onto the profile of Kiva.org, a nonprofit that allows people to make zero-interest "microfinance" loans over the Internet to needy entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Soon after, Mr. Alamo not only became a lender through Kiva, but he also started a new Web site, Kivafriends.org, devoted to Kiva enthusiasts. He also now volunteers to run Kiva's MySpace page. "This is the first time I've ever gotten so involved with a charity," says Mr. Alamo, now 30 years old."

We're not in a land rush, you shouldn't be rushing to social networks because all the supporters will be gone soon if you don't, but you most certainly should have a strategy in place.  Even if that strategy is "I'm going to start with the following pilots this year", you should be well on your way to have some evaluatable experiments by the end of calendar 2007.

A hand at Harrah's $1/$2 NL: Answer and question #2

Here's the continuation of the previous hand analysis, "How should he play his 44?"

Pushing or re-raising is completely out.  With two raisers in the pot his fours are almost certainly dominated by a big pair or a slight underdog in a coin flip to unpaired overcards.  So the applicable question seems to be fold or call and hope that I don't reopen the betting to make this whole thing more expensive.  In my opinion, I fold the 44 here.  If I call it, I feel that I'm just tossing $15 into the wind.  Sure, I might hit a set, but there are cheaper ways to hit that set.  Here's the argument for calling.

The pot is offering him 2.6 to 1.  Hitting his set is at least 7 to 1, so it doesn't make any sense to call this without considering implied odds.  If he hits his set on the flop, he'll need one person to stay in the pot with him with a second best hand.  Around the table he knows his opponents have between $270 and $330 available, making the total potential pot odds $310 to $370, or a range from 20 to 1 all the way up to about 24 to 1.  There's a chance that his opponent may also hit a higher set, but even if you discount half the odds, 10 to 1 is still good enough to call.

Note that I think this strategy works because the pair of fours is easy to get away from emotionally.  The flop, if it misses him, will almost certainly contain three overcards, defining his hand clearly as the weakest one at the table.  Even if it comes J 9 8, even a weak holding of AJ or JT is crushing him, and he can easily release the hand.

He explained to me later that the above described logic, complete with ease of a flop fold, was his thought process.  I like his play, though not for my own low-variance game.  Let's look at the next question.   I'll restate the action:

I wake up with red queens in early position and I raise it immediately to $7.  For this table that's a notable raise.  $11 is the high end.  Seats 4 and 5 fold.  Seat 6 makes it $15 to go with about $275 left.  He's slightly unhappy with the fact that he's only about $30 up for the night.  He's sober and has been stealing small pots with $10 bets on raggedy flops all night.  Something about this raise seems unusual.  He's likely to get callers, but with what is he holding that makes a min raise correct?

Seat 8 cold calls the raise.  Seat 8 is a talented and very drunk player.  His tight aggressive game while drunk is better than mine sober. I've been watching him steal small pots all night, as well as smelling traps and folding.  He has about $270 after calling the raise.  I think this is a loose call on his part, as his MO is about stealing the pot when the flop misses everyone.  He has position on the raiser (me).

Seat 9 folds, and Seat 10 (the button) looks down at his cards at a pair of red fours.  His stack is about $250.  He is a generally tight player who is terrifying in that he'll pay big to draw, which means it's dangerous to give him free cards.  I do not think this is a good habit.  He also plays his good hands strongly, forcing you to pay heavily to draw against him, which is a good habit.  He's not drinking.  Everything about him suggests he's a talented player, very comfortable thinking through his decisions before acting.  He's not a young aggro, but about 35 or 40, accomplished, and completely in control of his game.

Seat 10 cold calls the raise with his red fours.  The blinds both fold.  There is $55 in the pot and it's $8 more to me.  I can fold, call, or re-open the betting with a raise.

Question #2: The pot stands at $55, offering me about 7 to 1 as I consider seeing a flop with three other players.  I have $330 more and every player covered.   What should I do?

Comcast: Caught faking it in the Big 10

One of the big stories this week is that Comcast was accused of hiring an advocacy firm to fake public outrage over their object to the Big 10 moving games to their own channel from free tv.  Helping to organize a coalition as a large corporate funder is certainly nothing new, and if done transparently, nothing inappropriate.  In fact the astroturf website they put up, "Putting Fans First", acknowledges that their major funding comes from Comcast.  Although an ineffective tactic at creating outrage, this is not what people objected to. 

What drew the penalty flag was the fact that someone from Comcast's public affairs firm (Martin-Waymire advocacy) is running around message boards pretending to be a fan and complaining about the Big 10 and promotion the Putting Fans First website.  Although you can occasionally get away with a tactic like that, it never works under any level of scrutiny, and you can't use it to jump-start a movement.

Now that multiple message board owners for Big 10 fans have caught wind of this, the faking of the fan messages is likely to detract from Comcasts' arguments, making their job that much harder.  Do we really need to learn this lesson repeatedly?  Apparently so.  One observer who frequents these message boards was clear why this strategy is not a good one:

"I guess they felt all the Big 10 fans would blindly follow their lead like a bunch of lemmings. I'm insulted that they tried to manipulate me, "the average Big 10 fan" with this crap. I don't have the time to sort through all the Comcast vs. BTN details, but I don't like it when people try to disguise their true intent with BS."

Analyze a hand through my eyes: Question 1

[Unrelated poker thought: I use Poker Academy to practice cash game play when I'm not on a net connection.  It's AWESOME, but I'm good enough at reading my table now to tell that it doesn't model the mood of the table at all.  When 9 or 10 people first sit down to play, they're on their best game, and the weakest ones deteriorate as the session grinds on, playing poor hands and calling raises they shouldn't because they've lost money and are tilting, or because they've sat too long and gotten bored.]

In this description I'm going to refer to the players defined by their seats in relation to the button.  Assume the dealer button is in Seat 10, and the blinds are Seat 1 and 2.

I'm first to act (Player 3) at a 10 handed $1/$2 no limit table and am dealt a pair of red queens.  I have about $330 or so in my stack, and I have every player at the table covered for chips.  The table thinks I'm tight.  The table is moderately talented, and generally if two people call a moderate raise, a couple more call it "just for odds", even if they know they are behind.  (Note that I think this is a high variance mistake for my style of play.)

I raise it immediately to $7.  For this table that's a notable raise.  $11 is the high end.  Seats 4 and 5 fold.  Seat 6 makes it $15 to go with about $275 left.  He's slightly unhappy with the fact that he's only about $30 up for the night.  He's sober and has been stealing small pots with $10 bets on raggedy flops all night.  Something about this raise seems unusual.  He's likely to get callers, but with what is he holding that makes a min raise correct?

Seat 8 cold calls the raise.  Seat 8 is a talented and very drunk player.  His tight aggressive game while drunk is better than mine sober. I've been watching him steal small pots all night, as well as smelling traps and folding.  He has about $270 after calling the raise.  I think this is a loose call on his part, as his MO is about stealing the pot when the flop misses everyone.  To his credit, he has position on the raiser (me).

Seat 9 folds, and Seat 10 (the button) looks down at his cards at a pair of red fours.  His stack is about $250.  He is a generally tight player who is terrifying in that he'll pay big to draw, which means it's dangerous to give him free cards.  I do not think this is a good habit.  He also plays his good hands strongly, forcing you to pay heavily to draw against him, which is a good habit.  He's not drinking.  Everything about him suggests he's a talented player, very comfortable thinking through his decisions before acting.  He's not a young aggro, but about 35 or 40, accomplished, and completely in control of his game.

Question #1 : The pot stands at $40.  What should he do with his 44?

Why I'm playing nickel/dime Pot Limit Omaha Hi

This weekend I've been spending at home with my mom.  She doesn't have a lot of energy and in the evening when she falls asleep, I head over to the largest local poker room in St. Louis and play $1/$2 No Limit Texas Hold'em.  I've done well there, mostly due to the poor quality of play and the fact that my game is in pretty good form, earning about $60-$70 / hour.  Nothing I can live on, but certainly useful feedback.  Here's what I've learned:

1. I'm a decent player, but I still have a long way to go.  This makes me feel good, as I need to know there is room to improve or I get bored.  The two players I admired most at my table last night were a guy I constantly referred to as "Seat 1", even after he told me his name, and "South Dakota, who sat on my right.  Seat 1 was smashed, and even smashed, played a tight aggressive game all evening.  Though he was drunk and slurring, (I personally witnessed the alcohol intake while cold sober myself) he played a tight game (like mine) with good hand-reading skills (better than mine) and a level of aggression I aspire to.  (way better than mine)  Dakota played a sober, tight aggressive game with great profiling.  While avoiding these two players I ran over most of the table, eliminating two full player stacks by myself.  If he can play that well drunk, imagine what he's like sober?  I aspire to the sober version of this talent.
2. Given that I'm not the best poker player in the world, my results are often determined by the quality of players at my table.  Over the last year I have started to recognize that about my tables.
3. When I call, I'm an idiot.  There really is no reason to ever call in No Limit unless you're strategically limping (something most people do without being strategic), trapping, or taking the last few dollars of an all-in from your opponent.  And calling raises?  No way.  I make raises, I don't call them.  I used this rule all night and it served me extremely well.
4. I play poker because I love the thrill of competition.  I secretly love to best someone else at the poker table, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, though I understand that some people find it offensive.  (See this description of me, I'm labeled as the "predatory businessman")
5. I play poker for the intellectual exercise  We all need to use our brains like a muscle, or it deteriorates.  Some people read.  My stepfather Darryl obsessively does every form of Sudoku he can find. (I love him for this).  I play poker, in all it's forms and variations.  Probability, concentration, emotional control, keen observation, and empathy are all intellectual and emotional traits required at the table, and how cool is it that one game lets you use all of that?
6. I don't play poker for the money.  Seriously. 

This last point is my main point for today.  If you are familiar with my results, you know that if I just set aside the money I would have played poker with in previous years, I would do better (even without interest).  It's slightly cheaper than an expensive golf habit.  In previous years I have been chided by my poker colleagues that because I chose to play poker on sites that only worked with my analytics learning tool, I was missing out on making a lot of money.  (See this post, I'm the "losing poker player" referenced in the bullets.)  My response was, "I don't play poker for the money".  Years later, of course, I would be vindicated by this same person who burned out.

I'm not immune to losing though, so I'm happy to be over a grand in the black this year so far.  But I'm becoming intrigued by a new game, so I'm taking Chris' advice that learning new games helps hone your poker skills.  I'm going to try my hand at Pot Limit Omaha Hi.  Of course the benefit of the Internet poker boom is that you can learn PL Omaha for literal nickel dime stakes.  The concept that I can use this as my training ground and not have to play for live casino stakes is wonderful.

Kubler-Ross haiku

Stupid eulogy
Why must I deal with this now?
Waste of precious time.

Spock, it's not logical at all

There's a lot of chatter amongst the digerati about Spock, the beta people search engine that aggregates things online and tries to tag and describe people without human intervention.  Note that I said "beta".  This thing is clearly not fully baked yet. As computers often do, it has made plenty of mistakes in it's descriptions, including labeling a colleague of mine a pedophile, merely because he wrote an article about the Mark Foley scandal.

Wired News has some notes about the foibles of Spock here, and you'll probably see a lot more in the coming days from people unhappy with their profile.

As for me?  Well I'm not even in there....my dad is though.

New data from Harris Interactive / Mindshare Interactive

Harris Interactive (a polling firm) and Mindshare Interactive (us!) are about to release data about Americans' attitudes towards giving and nonprofits.  The survey, which comprised hundreds of questions about prospective and existing donor's patterns and beliefs about nonprofits should be useful information for any organization crafting a fundraising strategy over the next twelve to eighteen months.

If you'd like to get a slot at the presentation on August 22nd, 2007 @ 11am Eastern time, please register here.  Here's the description:

A one-hour webinar featuring a review of findings of the quarterly DonorPulse survey, a national survey of non-profit and charitable organizations’ donors and volunteers. Among other things, the survey explores motivations for individuals engaging with and supporting organizations and identified supporters’ preferences for types of communications from those organizations.

Participants will see our recent findings regarding the most effective communications channels that can be leveraged to gain new donors and retain existing donors. A targeted discussion following the data presentation will help identify how organizations can put these insights to use right away to enhance donor and supporter engagement.

Speakers:
Michele Salomon, Harris Interactive
Dan Solomon, Mindshare Interactive Campaigns

Maximizing your results by trading direct mail for e-mail

In a recent non-profit case study published by Marketing Sherpa, the National Philanthropic Trust's Breast Cancer Day compiled two lists, one for direct mail and one for e-mail, sent both similar creative, and then measured the results.  The results?

• The Trust sent three e-mails to each person on the e-prospect list, and two direct mail pieces to each person on the direct mail prospect list.  The conversion rate for e-mail recipients was three times higher than that for direct mail recipients.
• The open rates for their e-mails averaged 6.5% (As a comparison metric, this newsletter is sent only to people I have a direct relationship with and has an open rate of 35.8%, and Constant Contact reports a client base average of about 37%.  The nonprofit's clickthrough rate for their campaign was 18%.  Total clicks for my newsletter are 53.7%, and Constant Contact reports a client base average of about 8.9%.
• The overall ROI for the campaign increased 30%.

Over time the Trust should engage an analytics firm to help them determine which people in their supporter list are direct mail people, and which ones are e-mail people.  We work with a brilliant set of PhD's in Chicago that do this for our clients, modeling responsive and non-responsive prospects and using that knowledge to increase campaign ROI.

Over time a good analytics engagement will show which people respond to which channel, so you can reach them in the most cost effective way.  People may respond to one channel and not the other, and while you want them to respond to the cheapest channel possible, it's certainly true that if the cost of getting their financial participation is two direct mail pieces, then so be it.

Clearly, this is a good time to be working in e-mail fundraising.