Grinding daily on ICE Poker

One of the resolutions this year was to create income streams. On the 14th of January I was lucky enough to buy one of the NFTs on Decentral Games' Ice Poker. The first few rounds were minted at 0.25 ETH but unfortunately my round was 0.5 and the most recent drop was 0.75 a piece. However on Opensea the floor is at 2.3 ETH. If you have no idea what I was just talking about, well I bought something that allows me to play in the fishiest poker room that I've ever seen!

Welcome to the ICE poker room

The way it works, everyday you're given 3000 chips for free, and three tasks you have to complete to get rewards called ICE tokens. These tasks range from "Seeing the flop 20 times" to "Getting fullhouse 1 time" etc. Each task will award you 25, 100 or 200 ICE depending on difficulty. And the kicker is ICE is worth real world money. If you complete all your tasks for the day, you will earn 330 ICE. But if you are a winning player on the day, you can get up to 660 ICE because of the 1.35, 1.5, 1.75 or 2x multipliers. If you lost for the day you might also get less like 0.75, 0.5, 0.4, 0.35 multipliers. So there is an incentive to play well to win. 

My recent results daily

You must be thinking that's easy, crushing fishes all day. Well my recent results have proven that to be kind of true. HOWEVER most of these guys play without much of any poker logic and it is sometimes frustrating to play against them. Some of them are vomit inducingly bad where they can call 6bb with K2o with 2bb behind, or call all the way with A high and spike it on the river. The game is 10/20 and it allows a maximum buy in of 2000, however a lot of players buy in for the minimum 400 which is unseen in any poker game I know. But in the last week or so I have adjusted my play to be profitable in this game. 

Contrary to normal logic, the goal is not necessarily to win pots. For example if you flop a set on a wet board, in a normal game is to bet for value and protection. However in ICE poker, if your top task is to get a full house, it is more profitable to slow play in hope to see a turn and river for the house to fill up. This task for example will gain you 200 ICE which at the moment is worth about $30. Doesn't seem like much but coupled with the multiplier, and hopefully the value of ICE increasing over time, and doing this consistently everyday, it adds up. 

Ever since owning this NFT on January 14th, I've played 18 sessions, each session taking me between 2-4 hours a day. So far I've earned 6074 ICE worth roughly $880 in today's prices. The floor price for one of these NFTs is now at 2.23 ETH which means for now I am up 1.73 ETH and that's worth $4700 at the moment. Since I have nothing much to do anyways, I will continue to play and hold until I get bored of it. But even if I do, I can still delegate it for someone else to play on my behalf and get 40% of their earnings. 

Joker shirt, kinda suits me don't you think?

If you're interested in getting one of these, there will be a drop tonight. However to qualify for this one is a bit more complicated than usual. I definitely will try to mint one tonight if possible. Metaverse poker, maybe that's the future. 

Cutthroat Poker Industry?

Of all my blog posts since 2015, this is the one that I might regret writing as some of my friends are still involved in the companies that I am writing about. However the purpose of this blog is to tell the real life journey of an aspiring poker player, trying to make a living however I can, and the experiences I had along the way. I would be a hypocrite if I just shared the warm fuzzy stories and hid the ugly ones. 

I have been an affiliate of many poker companies over the years, including PokerStars, FullTilt, Bet365 and Natural8. I joined Natural8 in 2016. At the height of my involvement I recruited 300+ players. I still remember meeting one of their representatives at a Macau casino to collect their All-in buttons and Dealer buttons which I put to use at two Hong Kong live poker clubs. Me and my friend proudly wore their badge at tournaments and my friend made the final table. Designed and printed business cards that I distributed wherever I played live poker. I even wrote 7 related articles on my blog. (now removed) I got active again recently prior to the WSOP 2019 but I just found out that my affiliate account was deleted in February 2021, even though I was still actively promoting the site. I guess I am upset and hurt by that decision after all my effort. Kudos though to their affiliate staff who wrote me a beautiful email and was very diplomatic in responding to my disappointment. I never made a lot of money from doing it but it was still nice to be able to check my players' progress from time to time and the occasional commission check here and there. To remove me completely like that for me feels really cutthroat. Just a comparison, I joined PokerStrategy.com as an affiliate in 2009, bringing them 1371 players. I logged into my affiliate account before writing this post and my account is still there, everything intact. 

In 2018 Upoker entered the poker industry basically a copy cat of PPPoker but was struggling to gain any traction. They offered me a position as their consultant and thanks to me, I came up with the idea of merging with an established poker union (AU) that was run by my friends. About a month after their agreement was signed, my services was no longer required even though I was promised an account management role. I felt really sore about it because without my ideas and network, they would have disappeared like many poker apps that came and gone. Instead of what Upoker is today and how their business has continued to evolve since. But I comforted myself knowing that my friends are benefiting from that success because of me. 

The last story you guys know very well already so I won't repeat the same details. Basically me and my friend built a poker club from nothing into a successful business. We were in the profits on day 4 of operations and never looked back. At the peak of our success we were raking $70,000-80,000 a month consistently. Not bad for a one-table club. 3 months in my friend was almost forcibly removed from the business. I should have seen it coming as I was too after 9 months. He was smarter than me to sell his shares and got out on his own terms. 

Me taking a nap at the poker club

I don't know if Poker is a more cutthroat business than others but I have not had similar experiences in any other industries. Everyone knows each other in this tight knit community and yet I have heard many stories of betrayal, misunderstandings, hostile takeovers, unsportsmanlike competition. As one guy once said (and I am super paraphrasing here), "in poker, no one remains friends forever, but no one remains enemies forever either". For now I am grateful that these are now in my past and hopefully I won't need to get involved anymore in the future. 

I am addicted to OFC Pineapple Poker!

How do you know when someone is a OFC Poker addict?

When you ask him what is his wildest fantasy and he replies........ trip aces on top!

What's amazing about this hand was it was in Normal play, was not in Fantasyland!

Recently I am hooked on OFC. If you think PLO is addictive and have a love hate relationship with it, wait till you've tried OFC. OFC stands for Open Face Chinese poker and over the years the rules have evolved greatly making it both a skilled but swingy game. In the last month alone I think I have played more than 20000 hands and mind you, each hand takes like 2-4 minutes to play out. I have also won 4 trophies in OFC so I like to think I know what I am talking about.

I wanted to write a few articles about OFC strategy here and the more I wrote the more I realized how much there is to write about. I have now about 15 pages of strategy so I thought maybe I will hold out and write a book! I love writing but writing a book is a totally different animal. It requires a lot of focus and time, which I have neither. But nevertheless I will continue on this little project (probably take super long) but who knows, maybe I will have a product on the shelves!

Obviously double straight flush will have lots of points!

For those who do not know what OFC is, you should really try it. There are lots of apps that you can play without money online. It is a combination of skill and luck of course but it does not have the stress of bluffing and calling and every hand is exciting and something happening. If you know the game you can skip the stuff below.

53 points in royalties, that's the best I have ever gotten. If you beat this please let me know and send a screenshot

The objective of the game is to get as many points as possible by having a better hand than your opponent and gain bonus points from royalties from special hands like trips, straights, flushes etc. You have to build two 5-card hands on the bottom and middle and a 3-card hand on top. The bottom level has to be the same or stronger than the middle, and the middle the same or stronger than the top. Obviously if you put a better hand on top you will get more bonus points (royalties) but it is harder because you have to beat that hand in your middle and bottom rows. Hence the skill of the game comes into play. You can foul your hand if you do not fulfill this requirement and that's an instant additional 6 points for your opponents. However if you can have QQ or better on top, you are guaranteed a non fouling hand because you will get what's called Fantasyland where you get all your cards in one go and you can arrange them any way you like. Although I have seen one guy accidentally fouling his fantasyland but he was still learning at the time.

It's fun when you don't have to scratch your head about your hand. Obviously the additional 2 card from Aces fantasy helps!

Now the game has evolved into a monster with ultimate mode and jokers. In ultimate mode, you get more cards in fantasyland if you get KK or better. But if you stay in fantasyland (needing quads or better on the bottom row or trips on the top row), you get the bonus cards that you received when entering fantasy. Throwing in a couple more jokers into the mix and the game can be super wild!

Let me know if you have any questions, or love the game yourself but want to improve, drop me a message at happyriverpoker@gmail.com! Love to hear from you.

OFC (open face chinese poker)

If you're reading this I assume you already know the basics of this game. If you don't, pokernews wrote a great article about how it's played and the rules here

Recently almost all the poker I play is OFC. The game is gaining in popularity and there are tournaments at the WSOP. I'll explain a bit why I think many love the game so much.

Lifetime best hand out of fantasy (Trip queens, quads, quads)

1. Every hand is fun

Most of the time you fold your Holdem or even Omaha hands so it can get a bit boring. But in OFC, you play every hand, every draw is exciting, you're almost never drawing dead until the last card.

2. Less stressful without the bluffing element

Poker can be very stressful as you're put to the test. OFC you just play what's dealt to you and hope for the best.

3. There are lots of fish

There are so many videos and books about Holdem and Omaha but not many on OFC. Even though it is hard to say what is the right way or wrong way to play, but there are definitely better ways and worse ways. I have seen some fish do really stupid stuff.

Recent best hand out of fantasy (Trip Aces, full house, full house) 

I have now started a Youtube Channel dedicated to Poker and with the main section on OFC. Since the beginning I kinda wanted to keep my identity secret until the right time, but now you can hear me on my videos. I share my gameplay videos so you can watch me as I explain how I play the game and why. I might be wrong but I want to create a platform to promote this game and also to encourage sharing of strategies and tips.

What is Pppoker?

Pokerstars, Full Tilt, Partypoker, we all know them well. But recently you must have heard about PPPOKER. What the hell is PPPOKER? How is it different?

Well, let's compare it with something like Pokerstars.

Pokerstars is owned by Amaya Inc. They have staff running the site opened to anyone who can deposit. PPPOKER is an app, created for anyone to host their games online. Pokerstars earns money from the rake. PPPOKER makes money from hosts and players who buy "diamonds" in game for VIP stats, excel reports etc.

Let's get to the main point. Why is PPPOKER better?

1. PPPOKER is accessible to players where Pokerstars is banned or illegal. Meaning these are countries where players are newer to the game, fishier in general

2. PPPOKER clubs are run by hosts who invite their known friends to play, unlike Pokerstars is opened to the world and professional grinders play to make a living.

3. PPPOKER you can only play 1 table at time, which means pros hate that. So most players who play there are playing for fun.

So how can you get involved?

(contact me at happyriverpoker@gmail.com if you are interested to join as a player or agent)

Asian Poker Union is one of the biggest Union Clubs on PPPOKER with over 5000 players. That is bigger than many poker sites nowadays. We have 30-40 tables running 24/7 with players from mainly Asian countries with fat bankrolls. Games available are NLH, PLO and OFC with daily MTTs. Stakes start from USD 0.35/0.7 to USD 1.75/3 (so pretty small)

If you are interested to play, or even become an agent, please email me at happyriverpoker@gmail.com

My latest update

Sorry guys I haven't been writing much. But April/May has been a really busy time for me. Work wise, business wise and poker wise. Just thought I dropped you guys an update as not to disappoint, and one of the new year resolutions for 2017 was to maintain a blog and post regularly.

If you haven't yet, you can follow me on Instagram where I am more regular in my posts (search for HappyRiverPoker) I have a twitter account but I rarely use it.

In April I got involved in a new platform called PPpoker. It is a club based game platform where you can play poker with friends within your club. I am involved in a club called APL (Asia Poker League - ID 11111) and we have about 850 players since it's inception 5 weeks ago. Our players come from different countries around the world, mainly Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, UK, USA and Canada. However the best part about this platform is the players are fishy as hell!

(update Feb 2018, now we have 5000 players and counting)

I have been doing really well here and now I am more of a PLO player where I find value games to play and grind it out. Since the club started 5 weeks ago, I am a good amount. I am not going to mention how much, but I must say it has made me consider quitting my job.

The problem is, many people want to play PLO but they don't know how to. What are good hands, power of position, ranges, blockers, etc. If you have the time, and the patience, and bankroll to handle the variance, you can make a killing. Out of the 850 players in the club, I am the top winner of the list.

The games are fun and available almost 24/7, action is fast and furious, fishes are plenty and fat, time for some omega 3 I say!

If you are interested to know more, please contact me on happyriverpoker@gmail.com, or add me on Instagram (happyriverpoker) or Facebook (peternegreanu@gmail.com - don't send email to this address though)

Pot Limit Omaha is like a hot bitch!

Players who have played PLO (Pot Limit Omaha) will tell you they have a love hate relationship with the game. I describe it as having a relationship with a hot bitch. Sometimes you're in heaven and you feel like the luckiest guy in the world, but at times you hate yourself for loving her. (*singing* I hate myself for loving you... can't break free from the things that you do....)

Recently I have been playing more PLO on a pppoker club (id: 11111). Things have been going okay but last night I had the biggest score.

That's me, wobuhuiwan (it means "I don't know how to play" in Mandarin) Here I'm up 4061 chips in one session. Sorry I haven't been posting much cause I have been involved in so many projects lately but having a good time. So far I have had a good month. I am up about USD 8k in poker profits and rakeback in April. I will write an Omaha article later this month I hope. I can't say I'm a good player in Omaha, but on this club, it is quite easy to win for me.

Anyway, just wanted to write an article as I recently heard that some people regularly check my blog for updates. Sorry to have disappointed you lately. I will try to write more posts when I can. This coming weekend I will be playing the main event at the Pokerstars Platinum Series in Macau. It has been a while I've played in a tournament. Hopefully I can do well and break my duck in Macau! If you know me personally, I am selling my action as well. Let me know if you're interested to buy.

Remember you can reach out to me on Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook by adding Happyriverpoker.

Latest updates, Self Ban, Online Scores, etc.

It has been a while since my last post. One of my resolutions was to keep this blog live and active. Sorry I have been really busy with life, work, poker and play. So let's get into it.

Live games: Still doing well on 5/10 but as soon as I venture to the other side and also bigger games, I got crushed. So I gave myself a ban from playing anything bigger than 5/10 until the 27th of August 2017. Haha. I have stopped for almost a month now, but let's see if I have the discipline to stay away.

Recently I played on Natural8 again. First week I did really well, I booked a USD 3k profit week and after rakeback the grand total was around USD 3600. 3rd day into the second week and I'm up USD 700 with another USD 500 or so in rakeback. This week has been grindy and rollercoaster like. This morning I was up USD 300, then down to negative 800 for the week, but I grinded it back in 4 hours and booked a 700 profit.

The games are really soft, but you gotta find your groove in it. First of all I think you need a decent bankroll. There are some pros playing as well so you gotta recognize who they are and stay away. There are so many betting patterns to pick up, after a while, it is almost playing face up against some players. There are fishes and boy they are bad! Let me share with you one of them. I am sorry to name names but the pictures show the nick clearly. I guess I can edit it out but I suck at photo editing and I really don't have the time. So please forgive me Zizon007.

Soon after playing with Zizon007, I quickly realized that he was playing really badly and I think he was tilted too. Just from playing 1/2, he lost 2-3k in one hour or so. So I targeted him. Isolated him whenever I can.

First one was this hand. He raise pre UTG and I called with 99 on the small blind. I flopped top set with 3 clubs. I check raised him, he calls. Turns I boat up. So I checked to him. He shoves on me! Jack high flush draw, I showed super strength check raising the flop. Anyways I obliged and boom. $414 pot.

 Soon after he was pretty tilted I suppose. Preflop he raised on the sb, I reraised with my queens. He shoves, I snap. Pretty standard steam play I guess! Thanks Zizon007

Today I played this hand and I think I played it reasonably well. Villain is an aggressive player, likes to make moves so I elected to just flat his 3b in position. Flop I hit top pair. He bets pretty small, I just call. turn I boat up so I check behind. River he checks. I thought the best way to extract maximum value is to shove and hope for a call. And he did! Quads baby!

Anyway, pretty good 2 weeks so far. I hope it goes on. I am playing fearless poker and I think I might have found my online style. Let's not get too excited just yet, but I will keep you guys updated!

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