Monthly Archives: June 2014

New Techniques I Discovered That Doubled My Poker Potential … And Income 27

This entry was posted in Insight and tagged Poker strategy on by

For the first time ever in public, I detail exactly what decisions led to my success.  Some of these techniques are so good, I kept them a secret until retirement.

“This was pretty tough and I ended up 50 tabling. […]  I was getting 6k vpp an hour.  This is completely insane, if you cough you are done.

In general, for high-count tabling there is extreme stress induced on the body, I think my practice with exercise beforehand has helped me sleep and play more comfortably …. I probably sweated an entire bucket through my hands over the last couple of days — talcum powder, gloves, and many towels didn’t help.”

This is what I said January 2nd, 2013 before winning the trophy that I am most proud of — after playing poker nonstop for most of 40 hours, at an insane speed for high stakes that has never been attempted before or since.  I won $5,100 on the table, plus another $12,700 in rakeback, and $3,100 in special awards for winning the contest, for a total of $20,900.  That year in total, I ended up profiting over $500,000.

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The Solution To Frustrating Time Controls 34

This entry was posted in Insight and tagged Gamedev Hearthstone time time controls on by

Many turn-based games have different systems for allocating time to players.  Sometimes, these systems result in very negative experiences.  Looking at Hearthstone, Magic Online, Poker, Chess, and Prismata, we analyze the effectiveness of these games at producing positive experiences through their time control systems.

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In Hearthstone, there is a 90 second increment, with no timebank.  (A timebank is time you can choose to spend on any turn.) This overly simple system is easy to understand, but has consequences for players.  There is no future penalty for spending time now, and there is no reward for playing faster as you cannot save any time into your timebank.  This is detrimental to the game for a few reasons.

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New Formats That Would Improve Tournaments 1

This entry was posted in Insight and tagged Hearthstone tournament tournaments on by

Tournament formats in gaming events have remained largely unchanged for a long time. As E-sports progresses, tournament organizers will frequently copy formats from past events, often selecting formats that are not optimally suited for their needs. In this article, we’ll take a look at 4 examples of actual tournament structures used in past Hearthstone, League of Legends, and Starcraft events, and we’ll suggest changes that would have made these events better.

Getting the format right is principally important to every element of a tournament. Having a proper format can dramatically improve the quality of the experience for both the viewers and competitors. For the viewers, a good format can create a more exciting and competitive finals by being much more likely to match the best two teams together. For the players, it makes the distribution of prize money more legitimate, ensuring that the earnings are deserved. It’s very important to understand that choosing a better format that optimizes for its goals will produce a better overall outcome on average.

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