Table Finder
The Great Wall of China was built on the bones and blood of millions of laborers. The poker economy isn’t much different – it’s built on the bones of fish (bones is American slang for dollars – tell me someone got that?) and the blood of regulars. Fish deposit at all levels. Regs win money from fish and bleed money when they take shots at higher stakes. Low-stakes players take shots at mid-stakes, mid-stakes players take shots at high-stakes, and high-stakes players take shots at nosebleeds. The money flows upwards until there’s no place higher to go. There, at nosebleed stakes, the titans of poker battle out their small edges to the delight of railbirds. And no nosebleed saga was quite as epic as Isildur1’s.
The Great Wall of China was built on the bones and blood of millions of laborers. The poker economy isn’t much different – it’s built on the bones of fish (bones is American slang for dollars – tell me someone got that?) and the blood of regulars. Fish deposit at all levels. Regs win money from fish and bleed money when they take shots at higher stakes. Low-stakes players take shots at mid-stakes, mid-stakes players take shots at high-stakes, and high-stakes players take shots at nosebleeds. The money flows upwards until there’s no place higher to go. There, at nosebleed stakes, the titans of poker battle out their small edges to the delight of railbirds. And no nosebleed saga was quite as epic as Isildur1’s. Let’s take a look at how money flowed into and out of Isildur1’s account. Here are the top 5 players he won money from (the green lines) and the top 5 players he lost money to (the red lines):
He crushed durrrr for $5.5 million and won relatively modest amounts from David Benyamine, jungleman12, Haseeb Qureshi, and UgotaBanana. He lost huge to Brain Hastings ($3.8M), Phil Ivey ($2.9M), Patrik Antonius ($2.2M), and Brain Townsend ($1.3M).
But let’s take this graph to the next level so we can get a better look at the poker economy. Who fed into the bankrolls of Isildur1’s opponents?
From the graph, we can see that durrrr destroyed Patrik Antonius for $2.6M, but also donated over half of that amount to David Benyamine ($1.7M). Let’s kick it up a notch and take this graph even deeper…
Here we can start to see a pretty comprehensive picture of how money flowed into and out of Isildur1’s account and where all that money came from.
If you take the graph thousands of levels deep, you’ll get a pretty complete picture of the poker economy. But the amazing thing is that it doesn’t matter what player you start from – if you go deep enough, you’ll see that we’re all connected. Some players will be “hubs”. The hubs have won and lost money to countless players and are probably regs. The ones that are poorly connected are probably fish – they’ve played relatively few opponents in their poker careers. Isildur1’s rise and fall may have been particularly epic, but if you take a step back (or rather, a few thousand steps back), you’ll really begin to see the big picture and how even small stakes grinders do their part in laying the foundation of the Great Poker Economy.
J
J
OMFG
This is awesome !
Wowzer. This is something I would do for the fun of it. So sick! Thanks!
how about PTR start working on an ALLIN EV stat and then we can start looking at the fish…to call isildur a fish (or at least imply it) is just ludacris (who has some amazing songs).
Does this article have a purpose? I think not. How about you guys talk about poker in such a way as to make it helpful? Not sure any of the writers on PTR have actually played poker. Pretty sure they just watch durrrr play and say wow man that guy is losing his mind, he just lost a lot of money, that guy should quit poker…PTR writers are the fish, who give the opportunity to real writers to actually work for real publications. This is great stuff guys, keep up the good work!
Nice job! But yeah, the fish pay the “pros” or the regs on the sites…. if they wont bring their money, which they earned in a “real job” (better than beeing a “pro” or lets say gambler) then there wouldnt be action at the tables. Pretty simple system and the real winners, who gain the big money, who are they? Yes, the pokersites, because we, the fools pay the rake ;-)
lol sick graphs
[...] Analisis de los High Stakes por PTR imperdible! Asi se reparten el dinero: Muy por arriba: Un poco mas de detalles: Detalladamente: Fuente: isildur1 y la economia del poker [...]
Awesome. Is this going to be a possible feature?
I want to see my graph (depth 2 !)
Also note that this site does not take anything but holdem and PLO into account of the wins and losses, so some of these guys are killing games not data mined. The 2k/4k 7 game is a perfect example, Durrrr could lose 1.5 mil to a player on HU NL, but beat them for 2.6 m in a game not mined. If you want to be legit, you need to have all big games data mined, not just what you feel like.
sgm317: Plus recently durrrr challenged Isildur1 to a live game, so really we’re going to need to go watch that game and take notes too. If we don’t do that, we might as well not do anything.
One of the most awesome blog posts I have ever read.
frinxor: Yes this is actually planned as a feature down the road :)
I wonder if PTR could to a straight line of the money as it comes from 1/2 NL. Just each person’s biggest contributor from one level below. 1/2 to 2/4 to 3/6 to 5/10 to 25/50 to 100/200 to 1000/2000 to a top pro. (Even lower if possible .01/.02) This is a huge over simplification but i’d like to see it.
I wonder which pro is getting my money.
wpcmba: That is a very interesting idea, I’ve been exploring possibilities with doing mutating graphs that sort of show the evolution of the economy over days/sessions, but I never considered doing a downward trend graph. I’ll look into it.
This is cool.
A wonderful job, Mr. Gugel.
Thx for it!
P.S: You have forgot FullTilt Inc. in the graph. Pay no one, get paid by all :-D
(if we forget about the money they pay the pros to become members of their Pro’s team)
Brilliant!!!!
lol, nice
Wow very very nice work thats so sick nice job it must have taken a while very impressive
@jonstermonster it doesnt seem to me at all like the writter is calling isildur a fish
Am I reading that 3rd graph right? $11m from Durrrr lifetime?
The large graph is interesting, but has numbers over 10 million exchanging hands, which would have to be wrong. For example, Isuldur is shown to have won 88,294,294 from durrrr which can’t be right.
If that’s wrong on the big graph, what else is?
What a sick sick graph.
Hrm, you guys are right, the last graph has numbers that don’t make sense. There appears to be a problem with my algorithm past the 2nd level, I’m looking into it.
Yep new graphs being generated, think I found the issue. Have them up tonight hopefully. Good eye guys!
Dameon
Awesome work.
But what about the rake? We’re missing one awfully big bubble there…
great
“But what about the rake? We’re missing one awfully big bubble there…”
ye, add the rake bubble
haha alright guys I’ll put the rake on my list, maybe I can come up with something. No promises :)
LOL. Perfect demonstration of the universal law of nature “if the amount of matter decreases in one place, it increases elsewhere”.
Nice article, love the graph
gj
This is massively interesting, thanks for taking the time to make this.
Go Get Em Ivey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[...] I suggest you go over and have a look at this blog post on PokerTableRankings.com. This is an incredible analysis of the flow of money resulting from the action created by Ilildur1. This following flowchart is just a taste. [...]
so even thought i have never played over the NL200 talbes I can tell my friends and family that I have lost money to Phil Ivey with out it being a lie. :) since in a round about way my lose works its way up the ladder and into his pocket.
i would love to see as an addition to these graphs a table including all the players in the analysis, and aggregate numbers in terms of moniez won and lost to see how much the differentials are in terms of rake paid and people depositing. This would give us an idea of at least a part of the poker economy.
awesome flowchart.. i expected to see more of a pyramid with pwnership by the elite the reality is rather humbling and reinforces my true heros the mid stake grinders
This is without a doubt the best article I’ve ever seen. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for putting in the time to gather all this great information for us degens to drool over.
WTF no Ziggy on the graph, they had MASSIVE session VS each other, whats with the omission?
[...] economy graph around isildur1 PokerTableRatings Blog Isildur1 & the Poker Economy [...]
HAHA i love how u called it like it is, Isildur is a fish for 1 main reason..how do u let yourself lose 34 buy ins in a ring game before just stopping? any pro wouldve stopped somewhere around 15 or 20..especally since the buy ins were 100k lol…
Well done Michael! Cool Report!
epic food chain!!
Oh boy, you really need a girlfriend :D Very good article.
When is the poster going to be available?
lol zenmaster lotta time and energy went into that graph, i always thought about where all the money goes……. like any crime, follow the money and it will lead you to the crooks.
turn it into a nice poster and i buy one :)
[...] PokerTableRatings Blog Isildur1 & the Poker Economy __________________ Chunks of oxigen ftw.. [...]
How did you do that? What software program creates graphs like that? Fascinating.
justanotherdonk: Custom software we wrote in house, but it uses the graphviz engine to render the graphs.
Very cool.