Why not to play on Cake, continued

Wow, I thought this was over. I was done with Cake, so I transferred my cash to someone else and he shipped to me on Full Tilt. Now he just tried to cashout...and here is the response from Cake....

Hello XXXXXXXX,

Please be advised that we will not be able to process your current withdrawal request as the funds in question were derived from an inter-player transfer. Transfers are for the funding of friends and families accounts who would not otherwise be able to play. They are not meant as a method to re-pay debts or cashout funds for other players who wish to circumvent the cashout process. The funds must be transferred back to the account of origin in order to be cashed out. Sorry for any inconvenience.


Kind Regards,
CakePoker Cashier Department

"Circumvent the cashout process"? Seriously. If you would like to make your cashout process SOMETHING REASONABLE, you know, like other sites, maybe people wouldn't try to "Circumvent the cashout process".

What a crock. I guess I'm stuck back there until I can run my roll up to $500. I'm not gonna re-deposit and pay a 5% fee. I'm tempted to sit down HU with the guy and lose it all, just so he can cashout (or I can) and we can just re-ship somewhere else. That would be less than the rake....so maybe I'm onto something.

Or maybe Cake could get their heads out of their asses and let people cashout at the same levels that they allow deposits. What a novel concept! I can deposit in $50 increments and cashout in $50 increments! Not 10X!

Gah. I had another post in me as I hit the Hollywood today. Now I can't get past this crap.

I'll cya at the tables.

Why NOT to play at Cake

Welcome back, friends. Today's topic: Why NOT to play on Cake Poker. What? A negative post about a poker site? Look back. This is a first, so you know it has to be a doozy.

Cake is trying to compete with the "big boys" (Party, Stars, Tilt, and that AB/UB monster). Therefore, they are trying to offer better "perks" to get you to switch. That sounds great! I'd love to get some other site into the mix, and what a better way than to offer up rakeback (33% instead of 27%!) and bonuses (110%)! I'm in!!

Issue #1 - the "International Transaction". What? You can't set up a US Bank account and now I have to pay 5% juice to the credit card company ? Seriously?

Issue #2 - the "rakeback account" only receives points at HALF (that's right, HALF) of the rate of a non-rakeback account. Ummm...why? I asked your customer service and they had no answer. I get to release my rake at HALF the rate of everyone else for a lousy 6% extra RB? It's going to take me 2 YEARS to get my bonus cleared. No thanks.

Issue #3 - the "$500 rule". So let's get this straight...I have to pay 5% to my CC company to load up, and then I can only cash out via check (the only option available to US players, might I add) when I have $500 or more? Really?

Three strikes and you're out! Why would anyone play here? There are never any games big enough to make the rakeback worth it for non-HE players. Not to mention that they have spots for Stud and Stud8 with NO GAMES.

Sorry Cake, not everyone is a HE junkie. GL with the business. I will no longer be giving you mine.

So, if you play on any of the other big names, I'll cya at the tables.

If you play on Cake, GLWT. I won't ever again.
Welcome back, friends. Today's topic: Why NOT to play on Cake Poker. What? A negative post about a poker site? Look back. This is a first, so you know it has to be a doozy.

Cake is trying to compete with the "big boys" (Party, Stars, Tilt, and that AB/UB monster). Therefore, they are trying to offer better "perks" to get you to switch. That sounds great! I'd love to get some other site into the mix, and what a better way than to offer up rakeback (33% instead of 27%!) and bonuses (110%)! I'm in!!

Issue #1 - the "International Transaction". What? You can't set up a US Bank account and now I have to pay 5% juice to the credit card company ? Seriously?

Issue #2 - the "rakeback account" only receives points at HALF (that's right, HALF) of the rate of a non-rakeback account. Ummm...why? I asked your customer service and they had no answer. I get to release my rake at HALF the rate of everyone else for a lousy 6% extra RB? It's going to take me 2 YEARS to get my bonus cleared. No thanks.

Issue #3 - the "$500 rule". So let's get this straight...I have to pay 5% to my CC company to load up, and then I can only cash out via check (the only option available to US players, might I add) when I have $500 or more? Really?

Three strikes and you're out! Why would anyone play here? There are never any games big enough to make the rakeback worth it for non-HE players. Not to mention that they have spots for Stud and Stud8 with NO GAMES.

Sorry Cake, not everyone is a HE junkie. GL with the business. I will no longer be giving you mine.

So, if you play on any of the other big names, I'll cya at the tables.

If you play on Cake, GLWT. I won't ever again.

Rumbling, Grumbling and 2010 goals....

Okay, so I've neglected you all for too long. I didn't know I had that much of a following, but the German called me out. I'll try to do a post a week here for a while. Let's see how it goes.

Today's topic is my 2009 year. Let's look back and see how I did, shall we? I don't play anywhere near enough for anything here to be statistically significant, but we can at least review....

MTT ROI +58%. HELLO! I played 78 total MTTs for the the year and cashed in 22. Total ITM of 28.2%. This tells me two things. I should play MORE MTTs this year, and I tend to do well, getting deep. Breaking it down, I played in the Stars PLO8 $10 rebuy and was HOT. 198.9% ROI just in rebuys. I managed to win this (OPR says 2nd, but I took 1st in the chop with a HUGE chip lead) I guess we know what IF will be looking at for next year. Variance was good to me here!

SnGs ROI -8.3% BLEH! 34.6% ITM here, and a decent distribution ,with 61 wins, 40 2nds, and 33 3rds out of 382 games. The issue here is that I had a SERIOUSLY bad run at the end of the year in the 16 PLO8 SnGs on Stars, resulting in a -19.2% ROI in those for the year, and that was my major tourney with 137 games. Compare that to my 12.73% ROI in the 6.5s and we can most likely call that variance. I'd be a bit more worried if I hit 1000 of each and had that number in the 16s. This will be a focus for the year again.

Cash. This is a slippery thing to calculate ROI in. I know people who do it all kinds of ways. I personally take the cash I put in play, subtract the cash out, and then divide that by the total cash put into play. I have a -6% ROI for 2009 in 23057 hands. But overall, I have a big loss here. If I use my End-of-year Bankroll in the denominator (instead of cash into play) it drops to a - 76.8% ROI. Ugly. I just don't play a good cash game. Putting it into bb/100, i had a rate of -9.52bb/100 hands. Not. Good.

So I have 2 things I could do. I could just drop cash altogether, and focus on MTT and SnG play, as this is where I seem to do well. As a preview for 2010, I'm not too far in and I have only played a few cash sessions, and I'm already -4.6% for the year (by my calc). I have yet to cash in an MTT, 0/3 and have a +3.6% ROI in 39 SnGs. Or, I could decide to sit down and work on the cash game, as it is easier to get in and out of those.

In fact, looking at my cash play, that might be my biggest leak. I play short sessions, and don't spend the time being patient. Looking now at my stats for 2009, I was putting money in the pot voluntarily (VPIP) 23.1% of the time. My preflop raises were going in at 9.9%. I am a bit loose (GO FIGURE!) and need to tighten up my starting requirements. I need to increase my PFR%. I was a bit lower in full ring (22.8/9.9) versus 6-max (24/8.6). I need to get the PFR up in 6-max and the VPIP down in full ring. But my biggest leak, by far, is my aggression. I'm weak as hell. I should have a PFR of 16-17% if I'm going to play a VPIP of 18-20%%. My postflop aggression (the times I made an "aggressive move", such as 3-betting or check-raising) was horrible, at 26.1%. this needs to be more like 33-36%. I also was a calling station, going to 34.6% of showdowns. My % of showdown wins was okay, at 50%, but my win rate would be positive if I would just throw those losers into the muck without calling and "being the sherriff". By mucking, and seeing 25% of the showdowns, I'd make a huge impact.

So, I'm still not sure. I was going to bonus chase on Cake, and needed to play cash to do that, but I'm done with Cake (next weeks topic!). So for now, I'm going to play some MTTs and SnGs on Stars and Full Tilt, and maybe some cash to help speed the release of my EOY Iron Man bonus on Tilt. So look for the Illinifan there.

I'll cya at the tables.