Zero Sum Minus Some

I just discovered Tommy Angelo's poker article archive (via Iggy). Now maybe I should know who Tommy Angelo is, but I have no idea. What I do know after spending some time at the link above, is that he's written some damn fine articles on poker.

Folding is a brilliant echo of a mantra I've long held: "Fold to win." Eerily familiar, Kay Knows Poker explores the subject of poker wives. But so far in my reading, perhaps the most striking article has been Zero Sum Minus Some.

In theory, poker is a zero sum game: "a situation in which a participant's gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant(s)." Sitting around your kitchen table (or one of these beauties), it still is. But as everyone knows, playing poker online or at a B&M card room, means a house rake or seat fee of some kind. Angelo has this to say:

Then one day while playing I was watching the money swirl around and down and it occurred to me that the poker table is like a huge punch bowl. Each of us pours liquid (money) into the bowl (onto the table). Then we each get a straw, and we sit around the bowl, and we suck. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the bowl, is a hole.

And the effect of the hole looks like this.

The chart linked above is very telling... but mainly it shows how in a true zero-sum poker game, roughly 50% of the players will be long-term winners and 50% will be long-term losers (the left-hand distribution). (Of course it's also possible for a few of the players to win most of the money, with the majority being losers... but in the long run, generally speaking, it's probably much closer to 50/50.)

Now looking at the right-hand distribution, the "zero sum minus some" part... it looks like about 70% of the players are long-term losers (a figure which I've heard quoted many times as being widely accepted to be true, especially online). The implication is obvious: to be in the 30%, and a long-term winner in raked games, you not only need to make moves that are profitable enough to beat the other players, but also the big drain at the bottom of the punch bowl. Indeed, that's what Angelo's article is all about.

Beating raked poker is tough. Seasoned players know this of course, but even they, as well as beginners, need reminded of how tough it can be to outsuck the rake drain. The real problem here is that the rake drain is a deceptive device; it has a habit of looking more like an inconsequential pin-hole rather than the 10" profit-negating conduit that it really is. Ten cents here, a buck there, does in fact add up quickly and eat into your earn rate.

Anyway, I've been beating the players and the rake at PokerStars for a while now... but I'm moving 1/3 of my bankroll over to the much talked about World Poker Exchange, offering weekly rebates of 100% of your contributed rake... essentially rake free poker. We shall see how a few weeks there pans out.