I got my bankroll back up to around $200, and when yesterday I found an MTT with a good structure, I spent $5.50 on a fairly large tournament (by post-Black Friday standards). I'm still learning how to do many of the things in Little's book, and I won't even remember most of the ideas, let alone understand them deeply, without at least two more readings. I'm currently going through the book for the third time.
I started out fast, and spent most of the first half-hour in the top 10 (at one time I was second). Then my chip stack slowly dwindled until after about 75 minutes I was out in 169th place, not even close to the money.
It's going to take a while to get used to a new playing style, and I made a lot of small mistakes that added up to a big chips loss. There was one spot where I played it safe and it was clearly a spot that called for a semibluff shove. The thing is, I remembered that from his book, and it's a pretty simple concept. When you have a less-than-great hand, but the hand has draws that make it likely to improve on future streets, going all-in is mathematically correct. The chance that your opponent will fold to the shove, plus the chance that you will improve to the best hand, makes the semibluff shove a play that wins a lot of money over time.
I don't know why I didn't make the play. I made a classic poker mistake, waiting for a better spot to get my chips in when I had a good spot right in front of me. I didn't make a lot of crazy plays that lost chips, I failed to make the plays that win chips.
Still, I can see improvement. I'm getting a lot better at adjusting to different players and to table dynamics. I can usually tell in the first five minutes whether the two players on my immediate left are going to be easy to run over, or whether they will fight back and force me to adjust the range of hands that I open with from my now-usual 50% range on the button, or to change the size of my raises, or make some other adjustment.
I'm definitely going in the right direction. I just have to keep working at it.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Update on bankroll discrepancies and other matters
I reconciled my Americas Cardroom numbers with my consolidated poker spreadsheet, and they were the same, showing my bankroll at $180.53. I will keep doing this every day until they don't match, and then I should be able to find out what's going on.
I've been narrowing the possiblities. I thought at first that it could be a difference in when bonus or rakeback is counted, but it can't be the bonus. Bonus is released in $1.00 increments, so since the cents of the two bankrolls sometimes don't match, it can't be that, or at least, it can't be only that.
The problem I have this week is that I'm not getting my hours in. When I said that I wanted to put in 50 hours this week (if I'm serious, I should be putting in more than that every week), I forgot that our granddaughter might be staying overnight.
I had a long session last Saturday night, and wound up sleeping for 11 hours on Sunday, so I didn't get much in then. Yesterday (Monday) I worked for a few hours before my granddaughter came over. Today is Tuesday, it's 8 P.M. and my granddaughter left just a couple hours ago, after keeping me up past midnight last night. With 4 days and 4 hours left, I only have 6 hours in, with 44 more needed to get 50. Certainly not impossible, if I can avoid being Available Guy for the rest of the week.
I've been narrowing the possiblities. I thought at first that it could be a difference in when bonus or rakeback is counted, but it can't be the bonus. Bonus is released in $1.00 increments, so since the cents of the two bankrolls sometimes don't match, it can't be that, or at least, it can't be only that.
The problem I have this week is that I'm not getting my hours in. When I said that I wanted to put in 50 hours this week (if I'm serious, I should be putting in more than that every week), I forgot that our granddaughter might be staying overnight.
I had a long session last Saturday night, and wound up sleeping for 11 hours on Sunday, so I didn't get much in then. Yesterday (Monday) I worked for a few hours before my granddaughter came over. Today is Tuesday, it's 8 P.M. and my granddaughter left just a couple hours ago, after keeping me up past midnight last night. With 4 days and 4 hours left, I only have 6 hours in, with 44 more needed to get 50. Certainly not impossible, if I can avoid being Available Guy for the rest of the week.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Results for week of 6/17-6/23
Something very wierd is going on with my results. They don't match what Americas Cardroom is showing in the cashier window. A week ago my spreadsheet showed less of a profit than did ACR, and this week I showed more profit than ACR does. I'm using the ACR numbers for now.
The problem can't be the way I set up my spreadsheet, because there is no formula that would show too much profit one week, and too little the next. I don't think it's my data entry, as I went though the results of all 38 tournaments that I recorded in the last week.
I suppose it's possible that I wrote something down incorrectly on the paper raw data sheet, but it's hard to believe that I would make that mistake two weeks in a row. Besides, most of the numbers are always the same, for example, a 6-player $5.35 DON always pays out $10 to the top three, and portions of the bonus are always cleared one dollar at a time. That makes it even more unlikely that I would write the wrong number down.
I'm going to start reconciling my numbers against ACRs every day, and perhaps I can figure out what's going on. It's definitely possible that ACR can't count or add. Recently I used a stopwatch while playing, and documented on 2+2 that ACR can't correctly time a tournament with 10-minute blind levels and one hour of play before the first break. The answer I got when I pointed out the timing glitch was that it was impossible, even though I gave the tournament number and listed several timing errors, some down to the second. That is just one of many glitches in the software that I, and others, have uncovered.
So, as far as I know, these are my results for the week:
Poker Hours
29.75 tournaments
4.75 study
6.50 administrative
-------
40.50
I'm happy that I put in my 40 hours, but once again I'm short on study. I didn't expect to put in so many administrative hours last week, and this week it's going to be even worse. It's the first day of the week and I've already spent an hour trying to figure out what's wrong with my results. And now that I will be reconciling daily, that's even more administrative time. To get the 30 hours of play and 10 hours of study that I'm shooting for, I might have to put in 50 hours this week. I probably should be doing that anyway. After all,
"I know a lot of millionaires, and I never knew anyone that got rich working 40 hours a week." -- Dave Ramsey"
Poker Profit or Loss
$3.29 profit from tournaments
2.25 rakeback
2.00 bonus
-------
$7.54
I have no idea whether those numbers are correct, but they should be somewhere in the neighborhood. I knew it was going to be close to a breakeven weej. If my bankroll numbers were going totally wacky, I would have noticed it before now. The differences have been small, but it's still strange.
It wasn't exactly a big week, whatever the real numbers were, but any week that my bankroll goes up is a good week. The current bankroll number, as far as I know, is $171.23. It would be nice if I could get it back over $200 by the end of the month.
The problem can't be the way I set up my spreadsheet, because there is no formula that would show too much profit one week, and too little the next. I don't think it's my data entry, as I went though the results of all 38 tournaments that I recorded in the last week.
I suppose it's possible that I wrote something down incorrectly on the paper raw data sheet, but it's hard to believe that I would make that mistake two weeks in a row. Besides, most of the numbers are always the same, for example, a 6-player $5.35 DON always pays out $10 to the top three, and portions of the bonus are always cleared one dollar at a time. That makes it even more unlikely that I would write the wrong number down.
I'm going to start reconciling my numbers against ACRs every day, and perhaps I can figure out what's going on. It's definitely possible that ACR can't count or add. Recently I used a stopwatch while playing, and documented on 2+2 that ACR can't correctly time a tournament with 10-minute blind levels and one hour of play before the first break. The answer I got when I pointed out the timing glitch was that it was impossible, even though I gave the tournament number and listed several timing errors, some down to the second. That is just one of many glitches in the software that I, and others, have uncovered.
So, as far as I know, these are my results for the week:
Poker Hours
29.75 tournaments
4.75 study
6.50 administrative
-------
40.50
I'm happy that I put in my 40 hours, but once again I'm short on study. I didn't expect to put in so many administrative hours last week, and this week it's going to be even worse. It's the first day of the week and I've already spent an hour trying to figure out what's wrong with my results. And now that I will be reconciling daily, that's even more administrative time. To get the 30 hours of play and 10 hours of study that I'm shooting for, I might have to put in 50 hours this week. I probably should be doing that anyway. After all,
"I know a lot of millionaires, and I never knew anyone that got rich working 40 hours a week." -- Dave Ramsey"
Poker Profit or Loss
$3.29 profit from tournaments
2.25 rakeback
2.00 bonus
-------
$7.54
I have no idea whether those numbers are correct, but they should be somewhere in the neighborhood. I knew it was going to be close to a breakeven weej. If my bankroll numbers were going totally wacky, I would have noticed it before now. The differences have been small, but it's still strange.
It wasn't exactly a big week, whatever the real numbers were, but any week that my bankroll goes up is a good week. The current bankroll number, as far as I know, is $171.23. It would be nice if I could get it back over $200 by the end of the month.
Friday, June 22, 2012
It's been a wild week
I mention variance so often that I sometimes wonder if it's too much. I also wonder if I do it, at least in part, to remind myself. Then this week happened.
It's Friday night, with just one more day left in the week. Last week I ended with a bankroll of $163.69 and now it's $166.09. That doesn't sound like much variance, except that I started the week with a downswing of over $40, and now I'm back to even. I lost, and regained, about a fourth of my bankroll in the same week! And that's while playing nothing but one-table SNGs, which by definition (1/3 to 1/2 of the field gets paid) are low variance.
A few days ago I was listening to the 2+2 Pokercast, and a young and very successful tournament player (I regret that I forgot his name, and I deleted that podcast) was being interviewed. He talked a lot about money management, and he said that it took him three years to get his bankroll up to $20,000. He is considered one of the top online pros.
While other pros are touring the world playing $10,000 tournaments and going broke, he makes a very nice living playing online playing tournaments that cost at most about $200 to enter. He said that he hasn't done anything really expensive except "a little travel.'
That player understands variance, and he understands bankroll management. He'll still be playing a year or two from now, while still more millionaire tourning pros will have gone broke.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Balancing Play and Study
After I thought about what I might do differently when scheduling my time, I decided that I should get my playing in first. Not because studying isn't a priority, but because I don't want to play when I'm tired. I can't lose money because I'm tired when I study. I can, and I have, lost money because I was playing tired.
What I'll probably do is stop playing after I have 25 or 30 hours, and switch to study time. I'm going to try very hard to hit at least 30 hours of play, and at least 10 hours of study, every week. If I feel myself getting tired during a tournament session, I can shut it down and study for a while.
Many very successful players spend half of their time studying, but that's not an option for me. I have to get my bankroll high enough that I can make a contribution to the family finances. I can reevaluate after that.
What I'll probably do is stop playing after I have 25 or 30 hours, and switch to study time. I'm going to try very hard to hit at least 30 hours of play, and at least 10 hours of study, every week. If I feel myself getting tired during a tournament session, I can shut it down and study for a while.
Many very successful players spend half of their time studying, but that's not an option for me. I have to get my bankroll high enough that I can make a contribution to the family finances. I can reevaluate after that.
MTTs, Variance, and Secrets of Professional Tounament Poker
I just realized something. The large-field tournaments on Americas Cardroom (large by post-Black Friday standards at least), even the best ones, don't have very good structures. That much I already knew. What I realized is that knowing that must necessarily greatly effect how I play those tournaments, even moreso than I realized.
In his book, Little talks about how long you have before the blinds get too high and you have to start tightening up and being more careful. For a one-day tournament, live or online, this is usually the first few hours. But the blinds in fact go up so fast on ACR (the antes start at level 4!), that depending on exactly how fast the structure is, I have an hour or less to play the way Little recommends. That's it. The tournament structures on ACR are so bad that it's almost impossible to play optimally. Wow.
What that means practically is that I can't miss any opportunities, and that I will have to be ruthlessly agressive during the short period when I have the chance to do so. But I'm still learning how to play optimally, and I'm going to be pushed way beyond my comfort level, plus, loose poker is high-variance to start with. And that's not the only issue. Being forced to be so agressive so early, when I'm not really used to it (essentially, learning on the job) is going to increase variance, even more than is already the case in MTTs.
The other thing that I must consider is what this means for my bankroll.. I have to strike a very delicate balance between playing enough MTTs to learn how to play loose poker optimally, while at the same time protecting my bankroll. I expect reaching that comfort level with a new way of playing will take about 100 MTT hours.. If I could work on optimal play during most of the tournament that number would probably about 50, but the way the tournaments are structured, that isn't possible. There are a few good touraments on ACR, but they are way above my bankroll, starting at around $30.
The bottom line is that I can no longer play any MTTs until I grind my bankroll up to at least $200 playing the smaller, mostly one-table tournaments.
It's going to be a long slog. I sure miss pre-Black Friday poker.
In his book, Little talks about how long you have before the blinds get too high and you have to start tightening up and being more careful. For a one-day tournament, live or online, this is usually the first few hours. But the blinds in fact go up so fast on ACR (the antes start at level 4!), that depending on exactly how fast the structure is, I have an hour or less to play the way Little recommends. That's it. The tournament structures on ACR are so bad that it's almost impossible to play optimally. Wow.
What that means practically is that I can't miss any opportunities, and that I will have to be ruthlessly agressive during the short period when I have the chance to do so. But I'm still learning how to play optimally, and I'm going to be pushed way beyond my comfort level, plus, loose poker is high-variance to start with. And that's not the only issue. Being forced to be so agressive so early, when I'm not really used to it (essentially, learning on the job) is going to increase variance, even more than is already the case in MTTs.
The other thing that I must consider is what this means for my bankroll.. I have to strike a very delicate balance between playing enough MTTs to learn how to play loose poker optimally, while at the same time protecting my bankroll. I expect reaching that comfort level with a new way of playing will take about 100 MTT hours.. If I could work on optimal play during most of the tournament that number would probably about 50, but the way the tournaments are structured, that isn't possible. There are a few good touraments on ACR, but they are way above my bankroll, starting at around $30.
The bottom line is that I can no longer play any MTTs until I grind my bankroll up to at least $200 playing the smaller, mostly one-table tournaments.
It's going to be a long slog. I sure miss pre-Black Friday poker.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Results for week 6/10-6/16
Poker Hours
26.75 play
5.00 study
3.00 admin
-------
34.75
I'm not happy with those hours, which should total at least 40. I'm especially not happy with the study hours. I had no idea that it was only five hours. I try to study ten hours a week, but I probably should be doing more than that. I'm trying to learn a totally new style of playing, using as my text Secrets of Professional Poker, volume 1, by Jonhathan Little.. I'll be getting volume 2 as a Father's Day present, and I'm sure I'll talk about the book, and some of the changes I'm making, in future posts.
I'm on my customary third reading of the book (I study it a little more deeply each time), and I thought that I was understanding it, and starting to incorporate what Little teaches into my game.
After a few MTTs, I realized that I was playing a hybrid style, taking some of his concepts to heart, but not others. It's important that I get comfortable with a loose style, even if I don't use it all the time. The players who have a different gear, who can change styles as circumstances dictate, have a huge advantage, and I really need to be able to do this.
Poker Profit and Loss
$-45.78 loss from tournaments
1.00 bonus
0.90 rakeback
-----------
-$43.38
Bankroll: $163.69
It was a really bad week, and I need to change some things, but it's not about how I played. I played a lot of MTTs, some with fields in the hundreds, and variance was not my friend. In two consecutive tournaments I lost hands where, if I had won, I would have been in the top ten and almost certain to cash.. In one of them I had a pair of queens against a pair of jacks, which I should win 82% of the time. It was like that in tournament after tournament, which of course, in poker, is perfectly normal.
Variance happens in poker. I'm going to have days or weeks when I'm on the wrong side of vartiance, and that's just the way it is. But until I get my bankroll back up a little, I'm going to have to back way off the larger tournaments, maybe playing one a day. My bankroll isn't big enough to stand the variance that comes with MTTs, so I have to back away from those for a week or two. It's hard, because I'm trying to learn a new way of playing, and I can't practice it. But if I don't protect my bankroll, nothing else matters.
My plan is to play a lot of 6-player double-or-nothing SNGs. They turn over fast, often takng less than half an hour to play, and since half of the field cashes, the variance is low. An added benefit is that the fast turnover means that I can play a lot of them in one day, and probably double or more the amount that I'm getting in bonus and rakeback. I still have $39 of my bonus left to clear.
So the next week or two will be about grinding out as many DONs as I can, which should stabalize my variance somewhat and let me grind out a small but consistent profit in those mini-tournaments. By then my bankroll should be over $200 again, and I can reevaluate. Of course, I could get a big cash in one of my occasional MTTs. Or I could have a big downswing in DONs, and lose some ground. Poker can't be predicted.
26.75 play
5.00 study
3.00 admin
-------
34.75
I'm not happy with those hours, which should total at least 40. I'm especially not happy with the study hours. I had no idea that it was only five hours. I try to study ten hours a week, but I probably should be doing more than that. I'm trying to learn a totally new style of playing, using as my text Secrets of Professional Poker, volume 1, by Jonhathan Little.. I'll be getting volume 2 as a Father's Day present, and I'm sure I'll talk about the book, and some of the changes I'm making, in future posts.
I'm on my customary third reading of the book (I study it a little more deeply each time), and I thought that I was understanding it, and starting to incorporate what Little teaches into my game.
After a few MTTs, I realized that I was playing a hybrid style, taking some of his concepts to heart, but not others. It's important that I get comfortable with a loose style, even if I don't use it all the time. The players who have a different gear, who can change styles as circumstances dictate, have a huge advantage, and I really need to be able to do this.
Poker Profit and Loss
$-45.78 loss from tournaments
1.00 bonus
0.90 rakeback
-----------
-$43.38
Bankroll: $163.69
It was a really bad week, and I need to change some things, but it's not about how I played. I played a lot of MTTs, some with fields in the hundreds, and variance was not my friend. In two consecutive tournaments I lost hands where, if I had won, I would have been in the top ten and almost certain to cash.. In one of them I had a pair of queens against a pair of jacks, which I should win 82% of the time. It was like that in tournament after tournament, which of course, in poker, is perfectly normal.
Variance happens in poker. I'm going to have days or weeks when I'm on the wrong side of vartiance, and that's just the way it is. But until I get my bankroll back up a little, I'm going to have to back way off the larger tournaments, maybe playing one a day. My bankroll isn't big enough to stand the variance that comes with MTTs, so I have to back away from those for a week or two. It's hard, because I'm trying to learn a new way of playing, and I can't practice it. But if I don't protect my bankroll, nothing else matters.
My plan is to play a lot of 6-player double-or-nothing SNGs. They turn over fast, often takng less than half an hour to play, and since half of the field cashes, the variance is low. An added benefit is that the fast turnover means that I can play a lot of them in one day, and probably double or more the amount that I'm getting in bonus and rakeback. I still have $39 of my bonus left to clear.
So the next week or two will be about grinding out as many DONs as I can, which should stabalize my variance somewhat and let me grind out a small but consistent profit in those mini-tournaments. By then my bankroll should be over $200 again, and I can reevaluate. Of course, I could get a big cash in one of my occasional MTTs. Or I could have a big downswing in DONs, and lose some ground. Poker can't be predicted.
Monday, June 11, 2012
My wings are clipped
We are a one car family now. Someone ran a red light and got me as I entered an intersection. As my wife and I are working on becoming debt-free, and don't have the funds right now to pay cash for another used car, I will be sticking pretty close to home. I'll probably take my wife to work once a week, keep the car and try to take care of any necessary errands that day. Since I'm stuck at home most of the day, I don't have any excuse not to get my time in this week..
I'm inching closer to the magic number of $228, which is the largest bankroll I've ever had. I'm at $210.04. $228 will be a huge psychological milestone for me, the first time I've actually taken the time to grow a real bankroll.. I made just a few dollars yesterday, with two mincashes: a 3rd in a $1.50 SNG for a net of $1.05, then I got the bottom cashing spot, 12th place, in a 60-player MTT, for a net of $3.87.
I could have been cautious and finished a lot higher, but I did what I'm supposed to do to make the most profit, that is, always go for first place. I went all in against the big stack with a chance to double up, got the money in good (my 22 against villian's AQo, which made me 52% to win), but he hit one of his high cards and I was out. You have to be willing to take those chances with even a slight edge if you want to make more money in the long run, it just didn't work out that time. I know it was the right play, and if I make the right plays over time, I'll make a lot of money, so I have no regrets.
I'll probably be playing a lot of DONs today. They are usually done in around half an hour, so I can watch the radar on weather.com and fit them in between the "scattered" thunderstorms in the forecast for tonight.
During the storm I can study. I would like to finish the second reading of Johnathan Little's book tonight, then I can start with the third reading, which is when I go through the book very slowly, like I'm studying a textbook (which the book in fact is), stopping to write down things to work on, working through the math in some of the examples, and generally starting to apply all of the things that I'm learning.
There aren't any good MTTs that I can play after the strorms pass tonight, so I'll probably just play as many DONs as I can for the VIP rewards, to get my rakeback and bonus amounts up..
I'm inching closer to the magic number of $228, which is the largest bankroll I've ever had. I'm at $210.04. $228 will be a huge psychological milestone for me, the first time I've actually taken the time to grow a real bankroll.. I made just a few dollars yesterday, with two mincashes: a 3rd in a $1.50 SNG for a net of $1.05, then I got the bottom cashing spot, 12th place, in a 60-player MTT, for a net of $3.87.
I could have been cautious and finished a lot higher, but I did what I'm supposed to do to make the most profit, that is, always go for first place. I went all in against the big stack with a chance to double up, got the money in good (my 22 against villian's AQo, which made me 52% to win), but he hit one of his high cards and I was out. You have to be willing to take those chances with even a slight edge if you want to make more money in the long run, it just didn't work out that time. I know it was the right play, and if I make the right plays over time, I'll make a lot of money, so I have no regrets.
I'll probably be playing a lot of DONs today. They are usually done in around half an hour, so I can watch the radar on weather.com and fit them in between the "scattered" thunderstorms in the forecast for tonight.
During the storm I can study. I would like to finish the second reading of Johnathan Little's book tonight, then I can start with the third reading, which is when I go through the book very slowly, like I'm studying a textbook (which the book in fact is), stopping to write down things to work on, working through the math in some of the examples, and generally starting to apply all of the things that I'm learning.
There aren't any good MTTs that I can play after the strorms pass tonight, so I'll probably just play as many DONs as I can for the VIP rewards, to get my rakeback and bonus amounts up..
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Results for week of 6/3-6/9
New thing that I learned
People in the US are definitely getting fatter, but I knew that already. What I didn't know is that diet may not be the main reason. When we began as a country, 98% of Americans were farmers. Now, 80% of Americans work in offices. The correlation between less physical work and expanding waste size is so strong that it is probably more determinative than diet.
SOURCE: "United Stats of America" on The History Channel.
---------------------
Results for week of 6/3-6/9
$60.97 profit or loss from tournaments
2.39 rakeback
0.00 bonus
--------
$63.36 Total profit
Hours for week of 6/3-6/9
16.75 play
3.50 study
0.00 bonus
-------
21.25 Total hours
I'm very pleased with what I made during a short week. Because of Psalty (see 6/5 post) I didn't get many hours in, but I made them count. I'm going to start posting my hours again, because it's really easy for me to get lazy and/or distracted, and I need a reality check from time to time.
I didn't play enough to clear another dollar of my bonus, but I should have no trouble doing that this week.
The big news is that my bankroll is now $208.82, so I'm in sight of my largest ever bankroll, which was $228. As mentioned in a previous post, I never grew a proper bankroll, because I always had to take money out to help play the bills.
I have more latitude now, and my plan is to get my bankroll up to $500 before I start taking anything out. The amount that I take out could be anywhere between about 10% and 40% of what I make, depending on when I'm making enough that I will have to escrow funds to make quarterly estimated income tax payments.
People in the US are definitely getting fatter, but I knew that already. What I didn't know is that diet may not be the main reason. When we began as a country, 98% of Americans were farmers. Now, 80% of Americans work in offices. The correlation between less physical work and expanding waste size is so strong that it is probably more determinative than diet.
SOURCE: "United Stats of America" on The History Channel.
---------------------
Results for week of 6/3-6/9
$60.97 profit or loss from tournaments
2.39 rakeback
0.00 bonus
--------
$63.36 Total profit
Hours for week of 6/3-6/9
16.75 play
3.50 study
0.00 bonus
-------
21.25 Total hours
I'm very pleased with what I made during a short week. Because of Psalty (see 6/5 post) I didn't get many hours in, but I made them count. I'm going to start posting my hours again, because it's really easy for me to get lazy and/or distracted, and I need a reality check from time to time.
I didn't play enough to clear another dollar of my bonus, but I should have no trouble doing that this week.
The big news is that my bankroll is now $208.82, so I'm in sight of my largest ever bankroll, which was $228. As mentioned in a previous post, I never grew a proper bankroll, because I always had to take money out to help play the bills.
I have more latitude now, and my plan is to get my bankroll up to $500 before I start taking anything out. The amount that I take out could be anywhere between about 10% and 40% of what I make, depending on when I'm making enough that I will have to escrow funds to make quarterly estimated income tax payments.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Poker without Psalty
In my previous post, I mentioned that as one of her final acts, Psalty purred me to first place in a ~200-player tournament. That was not even close to correct. I played a 585-player tounament and did not cash, but immediately after that I cashed for $66.00 in a 30-player $3.30 buy-in tournament. For a tournament that small it had a pretty good prize pool, because it had an optional $3 rebuy and $3 add-on, so a lot of players were putting extra money in the pool.
A tournament can be more or less attractive for many reasons, such as: prize pool, strength of players, blind structure, speed, buy-in, overlays (extra money sometimes contributed to the tournament by the poker site), guarantees (a minimum prize pool guaranteed by the site, no matter how many players enter), how long it takes (someone may not have time to play for several hours). and various other considerations. In the case of the 30-player tournament, I decided that the less-than-ideal structure was outweighed by other considerations. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but a tournament is never just a tournament.
Playing without my poker buddy is certainly different. It's lonely. On the other hand, I can put something wherever I want on my desk, I don't have to plan around taking care of a sick cat, and multitabling is now an option.
As I have ADD, having fewer distractions is a big plus. Even so, it will be a long time before it feels right.
A tournament can be more or less attractive for many reasons, such as: prize pool, strength of players, blind structure, speed, buy-in, overlays (extra money sometimes contributed to the tournament by the poker site), guarantees (a minimum prize pool guaranteed by the site, no matter how many players enter), how long it takes (someone may not have time to play for several hours). and various other considerations. In the case of the 30-player tournament, I decided that the less-than-ideal structure was outweighed by other considerations. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but a tournament is never just a tournament.
Playing without my poker buddy is certainly different. It's lonely. On the other hand, I can put something wherever I want on my desk, I don't have to plan around taking care of a sick cat, and multitabling is now an option.
As I have ADD, having fewer distractions is a big plus. Even so, it will be a long time before it feels right.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Psalty, my faithful poker buddy, is ill.
On June 3rd I said that I would put up a post the next day, but something happened. Our oldest cat, Psalty, is 21 years old, and she is very ill. She was with us when we adopted our 3 children, and she was here when all 3 left to be on their own. My youngest son is married and has three children, and I have taught them how to be gentle with her.
Psalty is my faithful poker buddy, who cries and stares at the closed office door when I'm not playing, and if I leave the office, she cries for me to come back in. Lately, she has even been eating in the office. She gets on the filing cabinet (her "I want food" signal), and I have to run to the refrigerator and get her food after I fold a hand. She loves being in he office with me, and 30 seconds of petting is enough to get her purring for 5 or 10 minutes before she falls asleep. As she started to fail, I could keep an eye on her while she would claim one of her two favorite spots, either on the desk to the left of the monitor, or on top of a blanket that I put on top of the printer.
But it's almost over now. I can't have her in the office any more, because I can never tell when she might get sick and damage something in the office. She is sleeping in the living room right now, and before she wakes up, I'll be there with her. Psalty can't come to the office, so I go to Psalty. There will be no more poker until Psalty is gone, and I can't imagine what it will be like to play without her. My wife and I are spending every minute with her that we can, and she won't be alone during the time that she has left.
We are going to have her put down on Thursday, 2 days from now, when my wife and I will both be with her for the last time. Psalty is still purring, more cuddly than ever, and happy. She is losing function, but so far is not in a lot of pain, and there doesn't seem to be any organ failure. We're not going to wait for that to happen. There is no reason that she should suffer.
I'll be back to playing, and posting, when Psalty no longer needs us. It is fitting that the last day that she was with me in the office, we won a 200-player tournament.
Psalty is my faithful poker buddy, who cries and stares at the closed office door when I'm not playing, and if I leave the office, she cries for me to come back in. Lately, she has even been eating in the office. She gets on the filing cabinet (her "I want food" signal), and I have to run to the refrigerator and get her food after I fold a hand. She loves being in he office with me, and 30 seconds of petting is enough to get her purring for 5 or 10 minutes before she falls asleep. As she started to fail, I could keep an eye on her while she would claim one of her two favorite spots, either on the desk to the left of the monitor, or on top of a blanket that I put on top of the printer.
But it's almost over now. I can't have her in the office any more, because I can never tell when she might get sick and damage something in the office. She is sleeping in the living room right now, and before she wakes up, I'll be there with her. Psalty can't come to the office, so I go to Psalty. There will be no more poker until Psalty is gone, and I can't imagine what it will be like to play without her. My wife and I are spending every minute with her that we can, and she won't be alone during the time that she has left.
We are going to have her put down on Thursday, 2 days from now, when my wife and I will both be with her for the last time. Psalty is still purring, more cuddly than ever, and happy. She is losing function, but so far is not in a lot of pain, and there doesn't seem to be any organ failure. We're not going to wait for that to happen. There is no reason that she should suffer.
I'll be back to playing, and posting, when Psalty no longer needs us. It is fitting that the last day that she was with me in the office, we won a 200-player tournament.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Results for week of 5/27-6/2
I had a strong start at the beginning of the month, winding up ahead $15.75 for June 1 and 2.. That made me profitable for the week, and got me off to a good start for this month.
Results for week of 5/27-6/2
$5.35 Profit or loss from poker
1.00 Bonus
------
$6.35 Net weekly profit
I'm finally making some major changes in my playing style, something that I've been trying to do for a long time. More about that in tomorrow's post.
Results for week of 5/27-6/2
$5.35 Profit or loss from poker
1.00 Bonus
------
$6.35 Net weekly profit
I'm finally making some major changes in my playing style, something that I've been trying to do for a long time. More about that in tomorrow's post.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Results for May 2012
May didn't go as planned, but it sure illustrates the ups and downs of poker. After a good two weeks I went into a nasty downswing, and I was happy to get through it, still up for the month.
Results for May, 2012
$33.15 5/1-5/5 (partial week)
40.47 5/6-5/12
-10.91 5/13-5/19
-24.38 5/20-5/26
-10.40 5/27-5/31 (partial week)
---------
$27.43 May profit or loss
Poker players all talk about the long term, and about short-term results meaning nothing. So I decided to do a little math and figure out exactly what long-term means to me.
Some players insist that to reach a long term that has any statistical meaning would take a million hands or more. For many players that would take 20 years or more, so it's not a very practical number. I decided to use 10,000 hands. When beginners post statistics on the 2+2 poker forums and ask for a critique, they are often told something like, "Small sample size. Come back when you have at least 10K hands." So I'll take that number as a minimum definition of the long term.
Counting hands is easy. Playing online you play about one hand a minute, and playing live you get about one hand every two minutes. Almost all of my play is online, so I'll use those numbers to keep the math simple.
Let's say that I play 25 hours a week, study about 10 hours, and the other 5 hours are administrative. If I play 25 hours a week, that's 1,500 minutes, which comes to 1,500 hands. (That number is actually a little high, since tournaments have a 5-minute break every hour, but I'm keeping things simple.)
If I'm playing 1,500 hands a week, it will take me close to 7 weeks to play 10,000 hands. So the absolute minimum time for my results to have any statistical meaning is 7 weeks. So when, in a recent entry, I was spouting off about stringing a couple $100 months together, that could happen at my current level (tournaments up to $5) but I certainly can't count on it. To put it another way, I could string several good months together, but I could also have several bad months is a row.
The bottom line is that with the number of hands I'm currently playing, assuming that I have an edge over the people I'm playing against, I could with some confidence expect to profitable over the course of a year. Over a shorter time period, there are no guarantees,
Isn't variance fun?
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