I was going to post today about how my best-laid plans to hit the playing and studying hard this week had already gone astray. We have my wife's W-2, so now I need to get my poker information together, then do our taxes. But I can't even get the information together.
Last year, I downloaded a Played Audit Support spreadsheet from PokerStars, and I used information from that spreadsheet on Schedule C (Self-employment Income) of my tax return. I had some problems figuring out how to deal with a spreadsheet that size (something like 40 columns by 2,000 rows), but I figured it out, and I was ready to go this year. I thought that I could go through the spreadsheet and get everything that I needed in about three hours--except that I can't even get the spreasheet to download. And I have no idea what to do about it.
This is almost unbelievable. Twenty years ago I created and managed a database for a county political party, now I can barely keep my poker database working. Last year I downloaded a spreadsheet, and now I can't download the same report this year. It seems that the more computers can do, and the more sophisticated that software gets, the harder is is to get everything to actually work. I guess the concept of being "user-friendly" is, like home phones and wristwatches, quickly becoming obsolete. All I want to do is download a file! Now even that's hard.
Below is the letter that I sent to PokerStars support about an hour ago. I also posted on the Computer Technical Help forum on twoplustwo.com. I hope there is an answer for me when I get up this afternoon. It's 1:56 A.M. now, and since nothing else seems to be working, at least I'll try to salvage part of my work shift and get a couple sit 'n goes in.
Dear Sir or Madam,
After several tries, I am unable to download my Player Audit report.
After a few tries, I thought that Google Chrome was hijacking the file somehow. I deleted Google Chrome and tried again, and it still didn't work. Then I realized that the E-mail from PokerStars had said that when I started the download, I would be asked for a password when I tried to download. I was never asked for that password.
After a couple more tries, I was trying to figure out what was happening to the file, and while looking around in the computer to find it, I got this error message:
Windows cannot complete the extraction.
The destination file could not be created.
Then I checked 7-zip [an extraction/unzipping utility recommended by PokerStars], and it showed the file, but when I clicked on the file name, I got a message that the file was empty.
Any help would be appreciated.
Clifton Martin, Jr.
"Poker Clif" on PokerStars
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Results for week of 1/23-1/29
HOURS
Administrative 1.75
Study 4.00
Play 24.50
-------
Total Hours 30.25
I'm really emabarassed by this. For some reason, I thought that last week I was working harder than I in fact was. When I'm not making a contribution to the family income, there is no excuse for letting this happen. There should be very few weeks when I'm not able to work an absolute minimum of 40 hours a week. This week I will be spending an 8-hour shift watching my grandchildren while my son works second shift. That might mean that I don't go much over 40, but I better plan to put in enough hours the other days that I get at least 40.
Next week I will mark in my planner times that will be committed to studying or playing. I said in an earlier post that I didn't need to schedule as closely when I wasn't playing MTTs (which require the setting aside of large blocks of time). Clearly that was the wrong approach.
I am also making another change. From now on, every week my goal will be to get at least 30 hours of playing time, and at least 5 hours of study. Playing time is obvious, but I have to keep a long-term perspective--I have to rack up the study hours to stay sharp and put more weapons in my arsenal. Five hours will be set aside for studying, because if I want to be a pro, I need to start acting like one.
The top pros spend up to 50% of their time studying. I've been aiming for 10% study, and that's not enough. By getting 5 study hours in every week, I'll be upping that percentage, and training myself to act like the professional poker player that I claim to be.
I will keep very close track of my hours throughout the week, and administrative tasks will be done only if I'm on track in the other two categories. Administration will be in addition to the 30 + 5 hours playing and studying, not instead of those hours, and it will have to add up to at least 40 hours at the end of the week.
PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll 1/23 $43.84
Ending bankroll 1/29 $50.96
--------
+$7.12
I was hoping for a little more, but I'm not too upset with that number. Percentagewise that's a decent bankroll jump for one week. Also, I was getting back in the swing of concentrating on single-table tournaments. I switched my book study to Sit 'n Go Strategy by Collin Moshman, and I learned a a lot about the current situation regarding places and times to find the softest STTs. Also, I had to get the feel of which STTs were the best for playing more than one table.
I'm getting settled into my new routine now, and unless I get very unlucky, I expect next week to be even better, especially since I'll be putting in a more hours.
Administrative 1.75
Study 4.00
Play 24.50
-------
Total Hours 30.25
I'm really emabarassed by this. For some reason, I thought that last week I was working harder than I in fact was. When I'm not making a contribution to the family income, there is no excuse for letting this happen. There should be very few weeks when I'm not able to work an absolute minimum of 40 hours a week. This week I will be spending an 8-hour shift watching my grandchildren while my son works second shift. That might mean that I don't go much over 40, but I better plan to put in enough hours the other days that I get at least 40.
Next week I will mark in my planner times that will be committed to studying or playing. I said in an earlier post that I didn't need to schedule as closely when I wasn't playing MTTs (which require the setting aside of large blocks of time). Clearly that was the wrong approach.
I am also making another change. From now on, every week my goal will be to get at least 30 hours of playing time, and at least 5 hours of study. Playing time is obvious, but I have to keep a long-term perspective--I have to rack up the study hours to stay sharp and put more weapons in my arsenal. Five hours will be set aside for studying, because if I want to be a pro, I need to start acting like one.
The top pros spend up to 50% of their time studying. I've been aiming for 10% study, and that's not enough. By getting 5 study hours in every week, I'll be upping that percentage, and training myself to act like the professional poker player that I claim to be.
I will keep very close track of my hours throughout the week, and administrative tasks will be done only if I'm on track in the other two categories. Administration will be in addition to the 30 + 5 hours playing and studying, not instead of those hours, and it will have to add up to at least 40 hours at the end of the week.
PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll 1/23 $43.84
Ending bankroll 1/29 $50.96
--------
+$7.12
I was hoping for a little more, but I'm not too upset with that number. Percentagewise that's a decent bankroll jump for one week. Also, I was getting back in the swing of concentrating on single-table tournaments. I switched my book study to Sit 'n Go Strategy by Collin Moshman, and I learned a a lot about the current situation regarding places and times to find the softest STTs. Also, I had to get the feel of which STTs were the best for playing more than one table.
I'm getting settled into my new routine now, and unless I get very unlucky, I expect next week to be even better, especially since I'll be putting in a more hours.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Differences when playing only STTs
While playing only STTs (single-table tournaments) while I do some bankroll building, I'm discovering that it changes a lot of things in my poker routine.
First, my hours don't have to be planned as carefully. When playing a large MTT (multitable tournament), I have to have a large block of time (5 hours or more) available. Playing an STT, I can sit down and play any time I have about 90 minutes free.
Second, I play on PokerStars, so frequent player points (FPPs) come into play. When I play a tournament entry fee, most of that money goes into the tournament prize pool, but a small percentage (often around 10%, sometimes more or less than that) goes to PokerStars. I don't want to get too detailed, but a percentage of what I pay PokerStars to play is returned to me in the form of FPPs.
FPPs can be used for a lot of things, from merchandise in the PokerStars store to cash rewards. The key here is that STT players turn tables over (enter new tournaments) a lot faster than MTT players, so I'm getting a lot more points than I used to. From studying the FPP system, I've learned that there are ways to maximize the number of FPPs you can get.
The PokerStars FPP system counts points by the month as well as by the year. This determines your VIP level, which has an effect on your total amount of points. For example, if you get 750 points in any one month, you get a multipler in the following month. If I was to get 750 FPPs in February, my March points would be multiplied by 1.5, so my 750 FPPs would actually become 750 X 1.5 = 1,125 points. So, it might pay for someone to spend one month doing a lot of studying, and another month mostly playing, so that he can hit a certain VIP level and increase the multiplier. I've done the math, and figured out that if I did something like this, I could probably get 750 in a one-month shot if I spent 90% of my time playing, and saved up most of the studying and administrative work for the next month.
Income taxes are coming up, so having a playing-only month in February isn't realistic, but it's something to think about for the future. Even as an MTT player, I might consider an STT-only month sometime in the future, just to get a quick infusion of points, plus the multiplier for the following month.
Even playing nothing but STTs for a month, I wouldn't get a huge number of points. Points grow with the hours you put in, the number of simultaneous tables you can play, and the dollar amount you are paying to enter a tournament. I don't play a lot of tables, and I'm only playing at the $1 level.
However, as the stakes get higher and/or you play more tables, the VIP rewards can get pretty interesting. A few years ago Dario Minieri, a player from Italy, was the first to play enough high-stakes STTs in one year to win a free Porche.
I don't have aspriations like that, especially since I still plan to play mostly MTTs once I boost my bankroll a bit. But still, while I'm playing STTs, it's a consideration. I got two $10 bounuses last year, playing mostly at the $1 level and playing a mix of small and large tournaments, and I don't see any reason why I couldn't get 3 or 4 bonuses next year. Even as an MTT specialist, smaller tournaments will probably always be a part of the mix, when I want to play and I don't have a 5-6 hour block of time available.
First, my hours don't have to be planned as carefully. When playing a large MTT (multitable tournament), I have to have a large block of time (5 hours or more) available. Playing an STT, I can sit down and play any time I have about 90 minutes free.
Second, I play on PokerStars, so frequent player points (FPPs) come into play. When I play a tournament entry fee, most of that money goes into the tournament prize pool, but a small percentage (often around 10%, sometimes more or less than that) goes to PokerStars. I don't want to get too detailed, but a percentage of what I pay PokerStars to play is returned to me in the form of FPPs.
FPPs can be used for a lot of things, from merchandise in the PokerStars store to cash rewards. The key here is that STT players turn tables over (enter new tournaments) a lot faster than MTT players, so I'm getting a lot more points than I used to. From studying the FPP system, I've learned that there are ways to maximize the number of FPPs you can get.
The PokerStars FPP system counts points by the month as well as by the year. This determines your VIP level, which has an effect on your total amount of points. For example, if you get 750 points in any one month, you get a multipler in the following month. If I was to get 750 FPPs in February, my March points would be multiplied by 1.5, so my 750 FPPs would actually become 750 X 1.5 = 1,125 points. So, it might pay for someone to spend one month doing a lot of studying, and another month mostly playing, so that he can hit a certain VIP level and increase the multiplier. I've done the math, and figured out that if I did something like this, I could probably get 750 in a one-month shot if I spent 90% of my time playing, and saved up most of the studying and administrative work for the next month.
Income taxes are coming up, so having a playing-only month in February isn't realistic, but it's something to think about for the future. Even as an MTT player, I might consider an STT-only month sometime in the future, just to get a quick infusion of points, plus the multiplier for the following month.
Even playing nothing but STTs for a month, I wouldn't get a huge number of points. Points grow with the hours you put in, the number of simultaneous tables you can play, and the dollar amount you are paying to enter a tournament. I don't play a lot of tables, and I'm only playing at the $1 level.
However, as the stakes get higher and/or you play more tables, the VIP rewards can get pretty interesting. A few years ago Dario Minieri, a player from Italy, was the first to play enough high-stakes STTs in one year to win a free Porche.
I don't have aspriations like that, especially since I still plan to play mostly MTTs once I boost my bankroll a bit. But still, while I'm playing STTs, it's a consideration. I got two $10 bounuses last year, playing mostly at the $1 level and playing a mix of small and large tournaments, and I don't see any reason why I couldn't get 3 or 4 bonuses next year. Even as an MTT specialist, smaller tournaments will probably always be a part of the mix, when I want to play and I don't have a 5-6 hour block of time available.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Results for week of 1/16/-1/22
I'm more or less back in my regular routine now. I'm done fighting Holdem Manager, at least for a while. And the improvements in my recordkeeping system seem to be working well. I still have income taxes to deal with, but I learned a lot last year, and I'm hoping that I can get all of my poker numbers together in just 3 or 4 hours.
Since so many poker players (and those in other cash businesses) underreport, I throw in extra information on my tax return to try to head off an audit before it starts. I'm not at all worried about being audited, but if I can give some extra detail about where I got my numbers, it decreases my chances of an audit.
The main thing that I do to discourage an audit is to put down the number of tournaments played. Instead of just saying that I made X during the year, I break it all down, something like this:
Profit from 143 net win online tournaments
+ Profit from 2 net win live tournaments
------------------------------------
= Total profits from poker
Loss from 277 net loss online tournaments
+ Loss from 2 net loss live tournaments
--------------------------
= Total losses from poker
Those numbers (many more tournaments than in my example) are plugged into my schedule C (self-employment income), and I'm all set. Then I'm hoping that because I list the exact number of tournaments (a lot more than in my example), the IRS will understand that I didn't pull those numbers out of the air.
Enough about all the admin stuff, time for the weekly results.
POKER HOURS
Administrative, 13.25
Study, .75
Play, 34.25
--------
TOTAL HOURS 52.25
I'm not happy with how that turned out, but it guess it couldn't be helped. I got the 30 hours at the tables that I always shoot for. And I got more than 40 total hours for the week. But I didn't even get close to study being at least 10% of my time--that pretty much got overwhelmed by all the administrative hours (mostly dealing with Holdem Manager). For most pros, they consider time spent on study as at least as important as time at the tables, and less than 1 hour of study in a week is pathetic.
POKER PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll, 1/16 $45.80
Ending bankroll, 1/22 $43.94
--------
-$1.86
Another breakeven week in a way-too-long breakeven stretch. Now that I've started my switch to playing only STTs for a while, I'm hoping to grind my way up slowly but surely such that I have a little bit of a bankroll to play with again. Once that is accomplished, I will gradually transition from spending most of my playing time in STTs to spending most of that time in MTTs.
Since so many poker players (and those in other cash businesses) underreport, I throw in extra information on my tax return to try to head off an audit before it starts. I'm not at all worried about being audited, but if I can give some extra detail about where I got my numbers, it decreases my chances of an audit.
The main thing that I do to discourage an audit is to put down the number of tournaments played. Instead of just saying that I made X during the year, I break it all down, something like this:
Profit from 143 net win online tournaments
+ Profit from 2 net win live tournaments
------------------------------------
= Total profits from poker
Loss from 277 net loss online tournaments
+ Loss from 2 net loss live tournaments
--------------------------
= Total losses from poker
Those numbers (many more tournaments than in my example) are plugged into my schedule C (self-employment income), and I'm all set. Then I'm hoping that because I list the exact number of tournaments (a lot more than in my example), the IRS will understand that I didn't pull those numbers out of the air.
Enough about all the admin stuff, time for the weekly results.
POKER HOURS
Administrative, 13.25
Study, .75
Play, 34.25
--------
TOTAL HOURS 52.25
I'm not happy with how that turned out, but it guess it couldn't be helped. I got the 30 hours at the tables that I always shoot for. And I got more than 40 total hours for the week. But I didn't even get close to study being at least 10% of my time--that pretty much got overwhelmed by all the administrative hours (mostly dealing with Holdem Manager). For most pros, they consider time spent on study as at least as important as time at the tables, and less than 1 hour of study in a week is pathetic.
POKER PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll, 1/16 $45.80
Ending bankroll, 1/22 $43.94
--------
-$1.86
Another breakeven week in a way-too-long breakeven stretch. Now that I've started my switch to playing only STTs for a while, I'm hoping to grind my way up slowly but surely such that I have a little bit of a bankroll to play with again. Once that is accomplished, I will gradually transition from spending most of my playing time in STTs to spending most of that time in MTTs.
Friday, January 21, 2011
A change in emphasis
I have to change it up for a while. What I'm doing now isn't working.
The symptom is that I'm not doing very well in mulit-table tournaments. I like them better, and I think that MTT strategy fits the way that I think strategically better than any other kind of poker. But the underlying, undeniable issue is that I don't have the bankroll to have that as my specialty. Instead of grinding away at what is supposed to be my specialty, I'm constantly looking for bargains--look, that's a cheap tournament! And look, that one has a great structure, I'll do that one next! Now what should I do?--nothing good for the next 4 hours!
I'm not settled into any kind of rhythm or structure, and it's not working. That, and the fact that my bankroll is so small that I'm worried about losing more than I'm concentrating on winning. This is an untenable situation, so I'm going to have to switch back to my original specialty, STTs (single-table tournaments), at least for a while.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Official Poker Rankings had me at 96 in 2008, the year I played $5 and $10 STTs almost exclusively. The 96 is a percentile number, meaning that against all of the players playing the same tournaments at the same stakes, I was better than 96% of that player pool. So, you ask, why am I not still doing that? That has to do with the different ways in which poker players make a living.
When I play mostly MTTs (multitable tournaments) I can be in tournaments as large as many thousands of players. MTT players make their money from a few, very large cashes. A player might make a lot of small cashes, winning between 2 and 10 times his tournament buy-in. (In a $5 tournament, between $10 and $50). But 2 or 3 very large cashes during the year will usually make more money than 100 very small cashes. Making it to the final table can yield a cash equal to several hundred tournament buy-ins. A first place in a large MTT might pay 500 buy-ins, $2,500 in a $5 tournament.
STTs are almost the exact opposite. They are 1 table, 9 or 10 players, the top 3 players cash, and a good player will be in the money at least 50% of the time. So the small cashes are easier to get, and you can get a lot of them. Of course, in such a small tournament, the prize pool is much smaller. Third place in a $5.50 PokerStars STT is $9.00 (just 1.6 times the buy-in).
So, how do STT specialists make a living player poker? Well, they usually play at higher-buy-ins than $5, but that's not the real secret--people make a living playing $10 STT, and there is a German player that made $4,000 in 2010 playing $1 STTs! The main way that STT players make money is by multitabling, that is, they train themselves to play 4 tables, then 8, 16, 24, or in the case of that German player, over 100 simultaneous tables.
Let's use sales as an analogy. An MTT player is like a realtor. She can make a living with a few big prizes, that is, by getting a sales commission on one or two houses a month. An STT player is like a convenience store owner. He makes a small profit hundreds of times a day by selling inexpensive items such as fountain pops, candy bars, and packs of cigarettes.
What it comes down to is that I made the switch from STTs to MTTs, because the income that I can make playing STTs has a pretty low ceiling. There is a very low limit to how many tables I can play at one time, for several reasons:
1. Hardware limitations. Without a bigger monitor and/or a second monitor, I don't have to add very many tables before I can't see the numbers on the table (pot size, player statistics, etc.).
2. ADD limitations. I am unable to handle input from several sources at the same time. And when playing STTs, every table is a final table, which means that almost every decision might be an important decision. Playing an STT and losing concentration during one hand out of 90 is a much bigger deal than playing an MTT and losing track of one hand out of 300 or more.
3. ADD distractibility. I often play late at night, when it's quiet and distractions are minimized. But distractions don't completely go away. The neighbors still get drunk and fight, and cats still want attention. The cat distractions usually aren't that big a deal--Vanessa Rousso brings me a fetch toy once or twice a minute, I throw it, and she's happy and excited. No problem. But if I was trying to conentrate on more than a few tables, it just wouldn't work.
I can't imagine being the typical 24-tabler with several tables down to 4 players are less, trying to deal with even the slightest distraction. If I was locked in a soundproof both, or playing in an office somewhere (yes, some poker pros do that), maybe I could handle up to 12 tables, but I think my natural limit would probably be around 8.
Tournament players multitable, but it's a much different situation. The don't play nearly as many tables as STT players, and most of the situations are much less critical. When starting a micro- or low-stakes MTT, at the beginning most of the players aren't very good, and there are not a lot of tough decisions. Final table decisions, if a player gets that far, might not happen until playing for 5 hours of more.
I can at some point see myself playing up to 8 MTT tables without much trouble given the right technology. With STTs, where the tough decisions come faster and more often, I think that my natural limit would probably be 4 tables, possibly up to 8 if I had that situation with absolutely no distractions--no drunk and loud neighbors, no phone call, no cat vists. But in the real world, most of us don't have a situation like that. So for a while, until I have a bankroll and a little breathing room, the MTTs are going to have to wait.
The symptom is that I'm not doing very well in mulit-table tournaments. I like them better, and I think that MTT strategy fits the way that I think strategically better than any other kind of poker. But the underlying, undeniable issue is that I don't have the bankroll to have that as my specialty. Instead of grinding away at what is supposed to be my specialty, I'm constantly looking for bargains--look, that's a cheap tournament! And look, that one has a great structure, I'll do that one next! Now what should I do?--nothing good for the next 4 hours!
I'm not settled into any kind of rhythm or structure, and it's not working. That, and the fact that my bankroll is so small that I'm worried about losing more than I'm concentrating on winning. This is an untenable situation, so I'm going to have to switch back to my original specialty, STTs (single-table tournaments), at least for a while.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Official Poker Rankings had me at 96 in 2008, the year I played $5 and $10 STTs almost exclusively. The 96 is a percentile number, meaning that against all of the players playing the same tournaments at the same stakes, I was better than 96% of that player pool. So, you ask, why am I not still doing that? That has to do with the different ways in which poker players make a living.
When I play mostly MTTs (multitable tournaments) I can be in tournaments as large as many thousands of players. MTT players make their money from a few, very large cashes. A player might make a lot of small cashes, winning between 2 and 10 times his tournament buy-in. (In a $5 tournament, between $10 and $50). But 2 or 3 very large cashes during the year will usually make more money than 100 very small cashes. Making it to the final table can yield a cash equal to several hundred tournament buy-ins. A first place in a large MTT might pay 500 buy-ins, $2,500 in a $5 tournament.
STTs are almost the exact opposite. They are 1 table, 9 or 10 players, the top 3 players cash, and a good player will be in the money at least 50% of the time. So the small cashes are easier to get, and you can get a lot of them. Of course, in such a small tournament, the prize pool is much smaller. Third place in a $5.50 PokerStars STT is $9.00 (just 1.6 times the buy-in).
So, how do STT specialists make a living player poker? Well, they usually play at higher-buy-ins than $5, but that's not the real secret--people make a living playing $10 STT, and there is a German player that made $4,000 in 2010 playing $1 STTs! The main way that STT players make money is by multitabling, that is, they train themselves to play 4 tables, then 8, 16, 24, or in the case of that German player, over 100 simultaneous tables.
Let's use sales as an analogy. An MTT player is like a realtor. She can make a living with a few big prizes, that is, by getting a sales commission on one or two houses a month. An STT player is like a convenience store owner. He makes a small profit hundreds of times a day by selling inexpensive items such as fountain pops, candy bars, and packs of cigarettes.
What it comes down to is that I made the switch from STTs to MTTs, because the income that I can make playing STTs has a pretty low ceiling. There is a very low limit to how many tables I can play at one time, for several reasons:
1. Hardware limitations. Without a bigger monitor and/or a second monitor, I don't have to add very many tables before I can't see the numbers on the table (pot size, player statistics, etc.).
2. ADD limitations. I am unable to handle input from several sources at the same time. And when playing STTs, every table is a final table, which means that almost every decision might be an important decision. Playing an STT and losing concentration during one hand out of 90 is a much bigger deal than playing an MTT and losing track of one hand out of 300 or more.
3. ADD distractibility. I often play late at night, when it's quiet and distractions are minimized. But distractions don't completely go away. The neighbors still get drunk and fight, and cats still want attention. The cat distractions usually aren't that big a deal--Vanessa Rousso brings me a fetch toy once or twice a minute, I throw it, and she's happy and excited. No problem. But if I was trying to conentrate on more than a few tables, it just wouldn't work.
I can't imagine being the typical 24-tabler with several tables down to 4 players are less, trying to deal with even the slightest distraction. If I was locked in a soundproof both, or playing in an office somewhere (yes, some poker pros do that), maybe I could handle up to 12 tables, but I think my natural limit would probably be around 8.
Tournament players multitable, but it's a much different situation. The don't play nearly as many tables as STT players, and most of the situations are much less critical. When starting a micro- or low-stakes MTT, at the beginning most of the players aren't very good, and there are not a lot of tough decisions. Final table decisions, if a player gets that far, might not happen until playing for 5 hours of more.
I can at some point see myself playing up to 8 MTT tables without much trouble given the right technology. With STTs, where the tough decisions come faster and more often, I think that my natural limit would probably be 4 tables, possibly up to 8 if I had that situation with absolutely no distractions--no drunk and loud neighbors, no phone call, no cat vists. But in the real world, most of us don't have a situation like that. So for a while, until I have a bankroll and a little breathing room, the MTTs are going to have to wait.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
It's all about the database.
I've been putting if off, but it's time to get it done. The Holdem Manager tech guy, Fozzy (yes, his avatar is the famous bad muppet comedian) thinks that my database is corrupted. I could wind up spending several hours dealing with this, so it's the first thing on my agenda when I get up later today. (It's 12:45 A.M. and I've slept about 2 hours of the last 24, so it's off to bed soon.) I've been working through all the things I wanted to get done to start the new year, and I will be very happy when this is done.
Every step in this process will be something I have never done before, so I'm going to have to do everything slowly and carefully. I haven't looked at the instructions for a few days, but if I remember correctly, I have to create a new database, move the hands from the old to the new database, then delete the old database.
That sounds straightforward enough, but with HEM technical problems, it's never easy. Each of those three steps is itself a multi-step process, and some of those substeps probably have subsubsteps as well.
The really fun part is that, as with many of the newer software programs, there is no manual. HEM uses forum threads, links and FAQs to dispense their information. That is a horrible way to organize reference material, and it took me over an hour of poking around to find everything that I need. I guess having a table of contents and an index is just so 20th century.
I have no idea how long this will all take, or for that matter, even if it will solve the problem. I had three Teamviewer sessions in 2010 during which Fozzy remotely took over my computer, and everything isn't solved yet.
This is not going to be a fun day.
Every step in this process will be something I have never done before, so I'm going to have to do everything slowly and carefully. I haven't looked at the instructions for a few days, but if I remember correctly, I have to create a new database, move the hands from the old to the new database, then delete the old database.
That sounds straightforward enough, but with HEM technical problems, it's never easy. Each of those three steps is itself a multi-step process, and some of those substeps probably have subsubsteps as well.
The really fun part is that, as with many of the newer software programs, there is no manual. HEM uses forum threads, links and FAQs to dispense their information. That is a horrible way to organize reference material, and it took me over an hour of poking around to find everything that I need. I guess having a table of contents and an index is just so 20th century.
I have no idea how long this will all take, or for that matter, even if it will solve the problem. I had three Teamviewer sessions in 2010 during which Fozzy remotely took over my computer, and everything isn't solved yet.
This is not going to be a fun day.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Administrative changes
I apologize again for not being a regular poster. I'm working on a lot of things, and one of them is being more systematic in the things that I do, including posting to this blog at least every other day.
I've learned a lot over the past year. I'm learning a lot about playing poker, and even though it's not showing in my results, I know that I'm getting better, and I see proof of that almost every day in my playing. Just today, I picked up the blinds in a move that I never would have considered making as recently as a week ago. By "never would have considered" I don't mean that I was too timid. It just never occured to me before today that it was a good spot to try to pick up the blinds with little or no resistance. It was one more thing falling into place, and I'll be looking for that situation in every tournament that I play.
I'm constantly tinkering, learning new things, and working on applying one or more of those things at the poker table. This post, however, isn't about my playing. It's about some administrative changes that I have made.
I've changed a lot of my paperwork and procedures, which is already making things run much more smoothly. I've changed the format of my raw data worksheets, so that when I check my tournament results against my Holdem Manager database, the columns on both my paper and my monitor will be in the same order.
Another change has to do with me having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). It's been common for me to get ready to play poker and find out that I don't have a pen, haven't opened a program that I need, or that I've forgotten something else. I fixed that with a checklist that I look at shortly after I get up, whatever time that might be.
Here is that checklist:
Open iTunes
Ruler
Pen
Pencil
Stopwatch
Beverage
Check my calendar
Check my wife's calendar
Armrest/notebook
A.M. Drugs
P. M Drugs
Check Facebook
Check E-mail
Open PokerStars
Open Holdem Manager
Open PokerStove
Open AOL
Open Open Office
Poker Hours spreadsheet
Poker to-do list
Top n% of hands
Blog entry
Study—2+2
Study—Flash Cards
Clean desk area (weekly)
Shovel snow and/or PT
In case you're looking at that list and wondering if I have OCD, the answer is no. There is a method to my madness. I'm not just a poker player, I'm self-employed and running a business, and I have to keep that in mind in everything that I do, from playing poker to filing my US income tax return.
Opening iTunes is at the top of the list so that I can listen to a Twoplustwo.com PokerCast while I get everything else ready. Having ADD makes it almost impossible to divide my attention between the poker table(s) and the PokerCast, so I open the PokerCast first thing, and listen to it while I'm getting everything else ready.
Checking calendars isn't because I usually have somewhere to go. There are all kinds of jokes about online poker players not getting out much. There are true stories about players doing things like grinding for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week; or playing 100 tables at a time (that last was verified by someone from PokerStars who traveled from the Isle of Mann to the player's home in Germany to watch him play). In a recent 2+2 Poker Forum thread, someone said, probably only half-joking, that the only time he went outside was to get groceries. That got a quick, one-word response: Delivery.
I may not get out much, but I made my own custom calendar this year. Most days I just look at the list of tournaments on PokerStars and decide what I will play next. But I'm going to start using that calendar (actually a planner, but I made it myself with a loose-leaf notebook and saved $50) to start scheduling certain times and tournaments that I will play.
Some items on my checklist are to make sure that I have all of the office supplies that I need. There are a few things on the list that are not poker related, like taking my drugs (all legal and perscribed) when I need to. When I get involved in a long poker session, it can be an easy thing to forget.
The last item on the list is to make sure that I get my exercise almost every day. That will often be by going out for a run, but vigorous snow shoveling for 30 minutes or more certainly counts as exercise in my book. We are in the process of getting a 3-4 inch snow dump, so I know what my exercise will be tomorrow.
Many of the programs or filesyhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuyhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that I have to open are in themselves memory aids. [Psalty The Amazing 20 Year Old Poker Cat, my faithful desk companion for several hours each day, edited that previous sentence]. I won't forget to post from my raw data papers to my online spreadsheets when those spreadsheets are open right in front of my face.
Some of the items, such as "Top n% of hands" are tables, charts or other information that I have not yet memorized. "Top n% of hands" tells me which hands make up the top 10% of hands, or which hands are a favorite against 2, 3, or 4 random hands. Once I start putting in regular time with my flashcards (another item on the list) I won't need to open some of those charts and tables.
Checking E-mail and Facebook is on the list so that I will get all of the non-poker online obligations out of the way first thing. Then I can play poker whenever I want for the rest of the day, as soon as I sit down at my desk.
My checklist is working very well. My set-up prior to playing is much faster, and once I've started, I don't have to make any changes until a cat wants to join me--then I might have to rearrange my desk space a bit. And now that "Blog Entry" is part of that list, I will be doing this much more regularly.
Now I have to turn off the PokerCast so that I can proofread and post this entry.
I've learned a lot over the past year. I'm learning a lot about playing poker, and even though it's not showing in my results, I know that I'm getting better, and I see proof of that almost every day in my playing. Just today, I picked up the blinds in a move that I never would have considered making as recently as a week ago. By "never would have considered" I don't mean that I was too timid. It just never occured to me before today that it was a good spot to try to pick up the blinds with little or no resistance. It was one more thing falling into place, and I'll be looking for that situation in every tournament that I play.
I'm constantly tinkering, learning new things, and working on applying one or more of those things at the poker table. This post, however, isn't about my playing. It's about some administrative changes that I have made.
I've changed a lot of my paperwork and procedures, which is already making things run much more smoothly. I've changed the format of my raw data worksheets, so that when I check my tournament results against my Holdem Manager database, the columns on both my paper and my monitor will be in the same order.
Another change has to do with me having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). It's been common for me to get ready to play poker and find out that I don't have a pen, haven't opened a program that I need, or that I've forgotten something else. I fixed that with a checklist that I look at shortly after I get up, whatever time that might be.
Here is that checklist:
Open iTunes
Ruler
Pen
Pencil
Stopwatch
Beverage
Check my calendar
Check my wife's calendar
Armrest/notebook
A.M. Drugs
P. M Drugs
Check Facebook
Check E-mail
Open PokerStars
Open Holdem Manager
Open PokerStove
Open AOL
Open Open Office
Poker Hours spreadsheet
Poker to-do list
Top n% of hands
Blog entry
Study—2+2
Study—Flash Cards
Clean desk area (weekly)
Shovel snow and/or PT
In case you're looking at that list and wondering if I have OCD, the answer is no. There is a method to my madness. I'm not just a poker player, I'm self-employed and running a business, and I have to keep that in mind in everything that I do, from playing poker to filing my US income tax return.
Opening iTunes is at the top of the list so that I can listen to a Twoplustwo.com PokerCast while I get everything else ready. Having ADD makes it almost impossible to divide my attention between the poker table(s) and the PokerCast, so I open the PokerCast first thing, and listen to it while I'm getting everything else ready.
Checking calendars isn't because I usually have somewhere to go. There are all kinds of jokes about online poker players not getting out much. There are true stories about players doing things like grinding for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week; or playing 100 tables at a time (that last was verified by someone from PokerStars who traveled from the Isle of Mann to the player's home in Germany to watch him play). In a recent 2+2 Poker Forum thread, someone said, probably only half-joking, that the only time he went outside was to get groceries. That got a quick, one-word response: Delivery.
I may not get out much, but I made my own custom calendar this year. Most days I just look at the list of tournaments on PokerStars and decide what I will play next. But I'm going to start using that calendar (actually a planner, but I made it myself with a loose-leaf notebook and saved $50) to start scheduling certain times and tournaments that I will play.
Some items on my checklist are to make sure that I have all of the office supplies that I need. There are a few things on the list that are not poker related, like taking my drugs (all legal and perscribed) when I need to. When I get involved in a long poker session, it can be an easy thing to forget.
The last item on the list is to make sure that I get my exercise almost every day. That will often be by going out for a run, but vigorous snow shoveling for 30 minutes or more certainly counts as exercise in my book. We are in the process of getting a 3-4 inch snow dump, so I know what my exercise will be tomorrow.
Many of the programs or filesyhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuyhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that I have to open are in themselves memory aids. [Psalty The Amazing 20 Year Old Poker Cat, my faithful desk companion for several hours each day, edited that previous sentence]. I won't forget to post from my raw data papers to my online spreadsheets when those spreadsheets are open right in front of my face.
Some of the items, such as "Top n% of hands" are tables, charts or other information that I have not yet memorized. "Top n% of hands" tells me which hands make up the top 10% of hands, or which hands are a favorite against 2, 3, or 4 random hands. Once I start putting in regular time with my flashcards (another item on the list) I won't need to open some of those charts and tables.
Checking E-mail and Facebook is on the list so that I will get all of the non-poker online obligations out of the way first thing. Then I can play poker whenever I want for the rest of the day, as soon as I sit down at my desk.
My checklist is working very well. My set-up prior to playing is much faster, and once I've started, I don't have to make any changes until a cat wants to join me--then I might have to rearrange my desk space a bit. And now that "Blog Entry" is part of that list, I will be doing this much more regularly.
Now I have to turn off the PokerCast so that I can proofread and post this entry.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
First post of 2011--Administrative tasks, and dealing with the IRS.
I haven't closed out 2010 yet. I'm working on several things at once. I just spent an hour redesigning my raw data worksheet, putting colums in a different order, adding another column (which meant I had to adjust all the column widths to make everything fit on the page), and just in general making everything for this year a little more efficient.
It's ridiculous that I should even have to mess with paper records like this, but the IRS is always a little suspicious of "gamblers"--with good reason. In any cash business , whether it involves poker winnings, or a waitress and her tips, almost everyone underreports. I have never done that.
Silly, logical me, when the Bible teaches that we are to obey the governing authorities (Romans 13) and to "give to Ceasar that which is Ceasar's", I never saw much wiggle room in those instructions. I have reported, and will contine to report, everything. In 2010 I earned two $10 frequent player bonuses from PokerStars, and they will be reported on my schedule C, along with my other wins and losses.
I could just order a giant spreadsheet from PokerStars and send it directly to an IRS auditor without unzipping it. Believe me, that sheet will tell them everything that I ever did on PokerStars, right down to the date, hour, minute and second that I earned every FPP (frequent player point). I'm sure that an auditor would have fun with it--if I remember correctly, my PokerStars spreadsheet for 2009 was about 100 pages (on my monitor, the pages were not numbered) long and 50 columns across.
There is one reason that I can see why they might want paper records, rather than (or perhaps in addition to) electronic records. Many players, myself included, play both live and online. When you play online, you're back to the problem of dealing in a strictly cash business. Unless you take money out of an ATM at a casino, there are no electronic records when playing live. You buy your chips with cash at the casino, and you turn in your chips, or your tournament result, for cash when you are ready to leave. (The only exception is that a casino can give you a check, and is required to issue a tax form, if you win several thousand dollars in a tournament).
Of course, there are still ways that the IRS can check you out. They can talk to people at a casino (or in my case, the local charity poker rooms) to see how often I am there, whether I usually win or lose, etc. But it's much like the case of the waitress and her tips--there are no records other than the ones that the players are supposed to keep, so the IRS can never know for certain.
I'm not really worried about any of that. With my good records, plus my history of reporting my cash income ever since I first started filing tax returns, I don't expect any problems, and I'm not the least bit afriad of an audit.
It's ridiculous that I should even have to mess with paper records like this, but the IRS is always a little suspicious of "gamblers"--with good reason. In any cash business , whether it involves poker winnings, or a waitress and her tips, almost everyone underreports. I have never done that.
Silly, logical me, when the Bible teaches that we are to obey the governing authorities (Romans 13) and to "give to Ceasar that which is Ceasar's", I never saw much wiggle room in those instructions. I have reported, and will contine to report, everything. In 2010 I earned two $10 frequent player bonuses from PokerStars, and they will be reported on my schedule C, along with my other wins and losses.
I could just order a giant spreadsheet from PokerStars and send it directly to an IRS auditor without unzipping it. Believe me, that sheet will tell them everything that I ever did on PokerStars, right down to the date, hour, minute and second that I earned every FPP (frequent player point). I'm sure that an auditor would have fun with it--if I remember correctly, my PokerStars spreadsheet for 2009 was about 100 pages (on my monitor, the pages were not numbered) long and 50 columns across.
There is one reason that I can see why they might want paper records, rather than (or perhaps in addition to) electronic records. Many players, myself included, play both live and online. When you play online, you're back to the problem of dealing in a strictly cash business. Unless you take money out of an ATM at a casino, there are no electronic records when playing live. You buy your chips with cash at the casino, and you turn in your chips, or your tournament result, for cash when you are ready to leave. (The only exception is that a casino can give you a check, and is required to issue a tax form, if you win several thousand dollars in a tournament).
Of course, there are still ways that the IRS can check you out. They can talk to people at a casino (or in my case, the local charity poker rooms) to see how often I am there, whether I usually win or lose, etc. But it's much like the case of the waitress and her tips--there are no records other than the ones that the players are supposed to keep, so the IRS can never know for certain.
I'm not really worried about any of that. With my good records, plus my history of reporting my cash income ever since I first started filing tax returns, I don't expect any problems, and I'm not the least bit afriad of an audit.
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