As already stated in my last post, this week was a big loser. There was nothing that I could play except MTTs, and I didn't have the bankroll to be doing it, so missing a cash in even a few MTTs was a bankroll killer. Also, since I couldn't play nearly as much as I would like, I didn't get much in rakeback or bonus.
As bad as this week was, the good news is that when SNGs came back I started to turn it around. I will post the results for 8/19-8/25 tomorrow.
---------------
Work Hours, 8/12-8/18
Play 15.00
Study 1.50
Admin 4.00
-------
20.50
---------------
Profit and Loss, 8/12-8/18
Tournaments -$32.95
Rakeback 2.88
Bonus 1.00
---------
-$29.07
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
12 days since my last post
It is often said that poker bloggers stop posting when they are losing. I've definitely done a lot of losing in the last couple weeks. But the main reason I haven't posted is that I've barely been playing, Besides all the schedule disruptions, I was put in an untenable position as far as my poker playing, once the Americas Cardroom SNGs collapsed.
When the SNGs disappeared, my bankroll instantly became inadaquate. My strategy had been to play a misxture of SNGs and MTTs. With no SNGs to balance variance, the least expensive MTTs were too expensive for my bankroll. One should never play only MTTs without at least 100 buy-ins. Since the least expensive MTT is $6, I shouldn't have played at all without a bankroll of $600 or more. A couple weeks ago I considered not playing and instead concentrating on studying, but I had no idea when or if the SNGs would be back, so I wasn't sure that waiting would make a difference. I decided to keep playing.
Then, the question was what to play. The cheapest tournaments? The ones in which I would have the best chance or at least cashing? The ones with the biggest prize pools, so that the risk of playing outside my bankroll would be balanced by the possible reward of a very large cash?
There was no correct answer. I did all of the above, depending on my mood that day. I had a few tournaments with very small cashes, and a lot of tournaments where I just missed, for example, several tournaments of around 100 players when I missed cashing by 5 spots or less. Missing 20 times in a row isn't a big deal when working with 100 or more buy-ins. That's the point of having an adaquate bankroll. But with my tiny bankroll, even going 0 for 3 was a huge hit. I finally shut it down.
Meanwhile the craziness in my personal life continues. At one point we didn't have a car. My car was recently totaled in an accident, and now my wife's is in the shop. I had to rent a car for a couple days so that my wife can get to work. Everything is getting more and more complicated, with no end in sight.
I have jury duty next week. Since my wife has to drive to work, and the courthouse is only two miles away, I'll probably walk. It will be quicker than getting back and forth on busses that run only once an hour. Either way I'll have little control over my schedule, not knowing when or if I'll be assigned to a trial that day.
The good news is that Americas Cardroom finally got some SNGs back up, so I once again have something that I can afford to play. It's going to take some time to dig out of this mess, and I still don't know from day to day what kind of time I will have to work on that. The SNG situation isn't great, as I sometimes have to wait 15 to 30 minutes for mine to start. But it's better than nothing, and I can do other things while I'm waiting.
When the SNGs disappeared, my bankroll instantly became inadaquate. My strategy had been to play a misxture of SNGs and MTTs. With no SNGs to balance variance, the least expensive MTTs were too expensive for my bankroll. One should never play only MTTs without at least 100 buy-ins. Since the least expensive MTT is $6, I shouldn't have played at all without a bankroll of $600 or more. A couple weeks ago I considered not playing and instead concentrating on studying, but I had no idea when or if the SNGs would be back, so I wasn't sure that waiting would make a difference. I decided to keep playing.
Then, the question was what to play. The cheapest tournaments? The ones in which I would have the best chance or at least cashing? The ones with the biggest prize pools, so that the risk of playing outside my bankroll would be balanced by the possible reward of a very large cash?
There was no correct answer. I did all of the above, depending on my mood that day. I had a few tournaments with very small cashes, and a lot of tournaments where I just missed, for example, several tournaments of around 100 players when I missed cashing by 5 spots or less. Missing 20 times in a row isn't a big deal when working with 100 or more buy-ins. That's the point of having an adaquate bankroll. But with my tiny bankroll, even going 0 for 3 was a huge hit. I finally shut it down.
Meanwhile the craziness in my personal life continues. At one point we didn't have a car. My car was recently totaled in an accident, and now my wife's is in the shop. I had to rent a car for a couple days so that my wife can get to work. Everything is getting more and more complicated, with no end in sight.
I have jury duty next week. Since my wife has to drive to work, and the courthouse is only two miles away, I'll probably walk. It will be quicker than getting back and forth on busses that run only once an hour. Either way I'll have little control over my schedule, not knowing when or if I'll be assigned to a trial that day.
The good news is that Americas Cardroom finally got some SNGs back up, so I once again have something that I can afford to play. It's going to take some time to dig out of this mess, and I still don't know from day to day what kind of time I will have to work on that. The SNG situation isn't great, as I sometimes have to wait 15 to 30 minutes for mine to start. But it's better than nothing, and I can do other things while I'm waiting.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
I'm struggling with ADD
It's been nine days since my last post. A lot has been going on, I've been very disorganized--and that scares me. I've turned into Bad Clif, that guy who was so disorganized and confused that I tried and failed three times, at two different colleges, to get my bachelors degree.
My Attention Deficit Disorder wasn't officially disanosed until age 40, and it took several years after that for me to come to terms with it, find the right medication, and work on replacing many of the bad habit that I developed over 40 years. I'm still probably less organized than the average person. I've made a lot of progress, but it will always be something that I need to work on. Lately, however, I let things get out of control.
I haven't been updating my calendar. I stopped planning my day. I've almost completely stopped studying. I had (and have) a lot going on, and I let outside forces get the best of me.
It's getting very close to the time when our granddaughters (ages 3, 4 and 5) move to Germany for three years, so we are having them over a lot, including staying overnight at least once a week. That's the right thing to do, but never having had children that young (we adopted ours at ages 6, 8 and 9) it didn't occur to me how disruptive they would be to my playing poker, or even planning to play it.
The distractions that would come with trying to play while they here made playing out of the question. I couldn't get involved in an MTT within a few hours of when they would be coming over. And it's almost always true that at least one of them can't sleep when they are here, and she/they keep me up until well past midnight, so my sleep patterns have been disrupted.
Add to that that Americas Cardroom, despite my repeated warnings starting several months ago, has total messed up SNGs. They are dead. Not dying, dead. There are lots of times when literally no one is playing them, not one SNG tournament running. So I can't play SNGs in between the MTTs with good structures, and I can't balance the variance of MTTs with relatively low-variance SNGs, which in turn means that I can't manage my bankroll effectively.
So, my tournament choices are very limited, I don't have good options for practicing good tournament selection, my bankroll is way too low to be playing just MTTs (it should be at least 100 buy-ins), and it's very hard to plan my schedule, or even know when or how much I'll be sleeping.
I'm always at risk of losing my grip on things, so any one of above issues would be a challenge. I knew it would be busy with the kids around, but with all of the other issues, it's close to overwhelming. It's like an alcoholic expecting his friend to have a beer while they watch a football game at the friend's house, but instead the "friend" takes him to a sports bar to watch the game.
I haven't been planning my playing at all. I stopped updating my planner. I've ignored my checklist of all of the things that I have to do every day so that I can concentrate on poker for the rest of the day. That behavior has to change.
Americas Cardroom said that some of the decent SNGs would be back today, but today has less than three hours left (ACR servers, while in Europe, are set to US eastern time). I'm thinking about not playing at all until they come back. It certainly wouldn't be a bad idea to make up on some of my lost study time.
Whatever I decide, I need to get some control of myself and my situation. I've still been playing some MTTs, and I will get back to updating and posting my results in the next few days.
My Attention Deficit Disorder wasn't officially disanosed until age 40, and it took several years after that for me to come to terms with it, find the right medication, and work on replacing many of the bad habit that I developed over 40 years. I'm still probably less organized than the average person. I've made a lot of progress, but it will always be something that I need to work on. Lately, however, I let things get out of control.
I haven't been updating my calendar. I stopped planning my day. I've almost completely stopped studying. I had (and have) a lot going on, and I let outside forces get the best of me.
It's getting very close to the time when our granddaughters (ages 3, 4 and 5) move to Germany for three years, so we are having them over a lot, including staying overnight at least once a week. That's the right thing to do, but never having had children that young (we adopted ours at ages 6, 8 and 9) it didn't occur to me how disruptive they would be to my playing poker, or even planning to play it.
The distractions that would come with trying to play while they here made playing out of the question. I couldn't get involved in an MTT within a few hours of when they would be coming over. And it's almost always true that at least one of them can't sleep when they are here, and she/they keep me up until well past midnight, so my sleep patterns have been disrupted.
Add to that that Americas Cardroom, despite my repeated warnings starting several months ago, has total messed up SNGs. They are dead. Not dying, dead. There are lots of times when literally no one is playing them, not one SNG tournament running. So I can't play SNGs in between the MTTs with good structures, and I can't balance the variance of MTTs with relatively low-variance SNGs, which in turn means that I can't manage my bankroll effectively.
So, my tournament choices are very limited, I don't have good options for practicing good tournament selection, my bankroll is way too low to be playing just MTTs (it should be at least 100 buy-ins), and it's very hard to plan my schedule, or even know when or how much I'll be sleeping.
I'm always at risk of losing my grip on things, so any one of above issues would be a challenge. I knew it would be busy with the kids around, but with all of the other issues, it's close to overwhelming. It's like an alcoholic expecting his friend to have a beer while they watch a football game at the friend's house, but instead the "friend" takes him to a sports bar to watch the game.
I haven't been planning my playing at all. I stopped updating my planner. I've ignored my checklist of all of the things that I have to do every day so that I can concentrate on poker for the rest of the day. That behavior has to change.
Americas Cardroom said that some of the decent SNGs would be back today, but today has less than three hours left (ACR servers, while in Europe, are set to US eastern time). I'm thinking about not playing at all until they come back. It certainly wouldn't be a bad idea to make up on some of my lost study time.
Whatever I decide, I need to get some control of myself and my situation. I've still been playing some MTTs, and I will get back to updating and posting my results in the next few days.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Results for week 7/29-8/4
It's been crazy. Things are getting very busy, as my son's wife and children continue to jump through the army hoops so that they can move to Germany. The girls are going to be here a lot, we are pretty much on call, and we are glad to do that, since we want them to get over there, and get them out of a bad living situation here, as soon as possible. Poker has to take a back seat. I only played one tournament yesteday, and none the day before.. I didn't even think about running, even missing my weekly weigh-in, so I don't have any results as far as my efforts to stay in shape.
---------------
Profit and loss for 7/29-8/4
-$36.21 tournaments
1.35 rakeback
1.00 bonus
---------
-$33.86
I played 3 MTTs August 1-3, and I cashed in one. It was a big field, and I went deep, coming close to a nice cash. I played for three hours, finishing 55th of 594, for a net cash of $4.89. This is one of the tournaments where if I had lasted even half an hour longer, I would have won some serious money. The prize pool was around $3,000, and first place usually gets about 1/4 of the prize pool. Even just making it to the final table would have at least doubled my bankroll.
That didn't happen, but it's one of the very few chances that I've had to play for serious money since Black Friday, and I'm pleased with how I did. Of course, one small cash didn't offset not cashing in the other two MTTs. I was also 1 for 3 in DONs (my cashing rate is probably around 65%).
The result wasn't good, but I played so few tournaments that the sample size doesn't mean anything, and I'm starting to get really comfortable incorporating a loose playing style into my tournaments. I'm encouraged, even though the numbers don't look good.
I'll have to make it a point to play as many DONs as I can. I win those consistently, and doing that will jack up the rakeback and bonus numbers, which will at least partially fill in the gaps between my good MTT cashes.
---------------
Poker Hours, 7/29-8/4
12.75 tournaments
3.00 study
9.00 administrative
-------
24.75 Total Hours
I'm surprised by that total. I didn't expect to be anwhere near 20 hours. It's probably because I'm playing so few tournaments that it doesn't seem like I'm doing much. But I'm going deep pretty often, and spending 3 hours in one tournament jacks the total hours up pretty quickly.
I'm disappointed (again) by the study hours, but I guess it couldn't be helped. I'm dealing with a lot of administrative issues regarding Americas Cardroom. I'm spending time going through all the tournament listings (for the 3 or 4 hours that they show), scanning the tournaments, coming up with a short list of those that are really worth playing, and putting it on a spreadsheet. That's going to take a while, because to cover the entire 24 hours per day ACR tournament listings, I would have to be awake once every three hours for a week, and even if I wanted to do that, it would be impossible right now.
Getting that all straight, then going through it again, checking it to see which tournaments are regularly on the schedule and not just some special even or promotion, is really going to be a pain. And since I don't control my own schedule right now, it's almost impossible.
I hate Americas Cardroom, but many who have played elsewhere say that it is by far the best of a lot of really bad options. As Donald Rusfeld said, you go to war with the army you have.
---------------
Profit and loss for 7/29-8/4
-$36.21 tournaments
1.35 rakeback
1.00 bonus
---------
-$33.86
I played 3 MTTs August 1-3, and I cashed in one. It was a big field, and I went deep, coming close to a nice cash. I played for three hours, finishing 55th of 594, for a net cash of $4.89. This is one of the tournaments where if I had lasted even half an hour longer, I would have won some serious money. The prize pool was around $3,000, and first place usually gets about 1/4 of the prize pool. Even just making it to the final table would have at least doubled my bankroll.
That didn't happen, but it's one of the very few chances that I've had to play for serious money since Black Friday, and I'm pleased with how I did. Of course, one small cash didn't offset not cashing in the other two MTTs. I was also 1 for 3 in DONs (my cashing rate is probably around 65%).
The result wasn't good, but I played so few tournaments that the sample size doesn't mean anything, and I'm starting to get really comfortable incorporating a loose playing style into my tournaments. I'm encouraged, even though the numbers don't look good.
I'll have to make it a point to play as many DONs as I can. I win those consistently, and doing that will jack up the rakeback and bonus numbers, which will at least partially fill in the gaps between my good MTT cashes.
---------------
Poker Hours, 7/29-8/4
12.75 tournaments
3.00 study
9.00 administrative
-------
24.75 Total Hours
I'm surprised by that total. I didn't expect to be anwhere near 20 hours. It's probably because I'm playing so few tournaments that it doesn't seem like I'm doing much. But I'm going deep pretty often, and spending 3 hours in one tournament jacks the total hours up pretty quickly.
I'm disappointed (again) by the study hours, but I guess it couldn't be helped. I'm dealing with a lot of administrative issues regarding Americas Cardroom. I'm spending time going through all the tournament listings (for the 3 or 4 hours that they show), scanning the tournaments, coming up with a short list of those that are really worth playing, and putting it on a spreadsheet. That's going to take a while, because to cover the entire 24 hours per day ACR tournament listings, I would have to be awake once every three hours for a week, and even if I wanted to do that, it would be impossible right now.
Getting that all straight, then going through it again, checking it to see which tournaments are regularly on the schedule and not just some special even or promotion, is really going to be a pain. And since I don't control my own schedule right now, it's almost impossible.
I hate Americas Cardroom, but many who have played elsewhere say that it is by far the best of a lot of really bad options. As Donald Rusfeld said, you go to war with the army you have.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Resuits for July, 2012
Poker Profit or Loss
-$8.59 July 1-7
-11.37 July 8-14
-5.12 July 15-21
23.50 July 22-28
-15.55 July 29-31 (partial week)
----------
-$17.13
This month came down to two tournaments, on July 26 and 28, where I won a net $92.71. If I failed to cash in those two tournaments and the rest of my results for the month were unchanged, I would have been down $109.84 for the month, which, given the size of my bankroll, would have come close to wiping me out. In fact, I came very close to not playing the second tournament. It was a great structure for me, but I couldn't really afford a $13 buy-in. I wrestled with it for a while, sat and stared at the tournament list for two minutes, and finally decided to play. I won the 4th place cash of $72.96. Welcome to variance.
Of course, I didn't have a lot of options. The SNGs were dead, so I couldn't mix those in to mitigate variance. I don't want to be in that position again. Fortunately, the $5 six-player double-or-nothing SNGs are back. Now I have at least a few options.
Since I have SNGs that I can play, I can be more selctive about playing MTTs. Instead of trying to play whenever there is a halfway decent MTT, I can pick my spots and play the ones that work best for me. In fact, I'm typing this at 8:41 P.M., when I would normally be playing an MTT with a tolerable, but not great, structure. There is one at 10 P.M. that suits me better (more starting chips), so I will wait for that one.
I will be playing fewer MTTs, and I will use that free time to study, keep up on administrative work, or play DONs to lower overall variance. I should be able to grind out enough SNGs to give myself at least $10 a month in bonus and rakeback starting this month, a bit of steady income to further smooth out the variance.
A combination of SNGs and MTTs was my plan all along, and my bankroll management formula was based on that assumption. When Americas Cardroom killed their SNGs, that put me in a corner. Now I have a bit of room to maneuver.
I've already started August out right, with a deep run in a 594-player MTT. More about that in my next post.
-$8.59 July 1-7
-11.37 July 8-14
-5.12 July 15-21
23.50 July 22-28
-15.55 July 29-31 (partial week)
----------
-$17.13
This month came down to two tournaments, on July 26 and 28, where I won a net $92.71. If I failed to cash in those two tournaments and the rest of my results for the month were unchanged, I would have been down $109.84 for the month, which, given the size of my bankroll, would have come close to wiping me out. In fact, I came very close to not playing the second tournament. It was a great structure for me, but I couldn't really afford a $13 buy-in. I wrestled with it for a while, sat and stared at the tournament list for two minutes, and finally decided to play. I won the 4th place cash of $72.96. Welcome to variance.
Of course, I didn't have a lot of options. The SNGs were dead, so I couldn't mix those in to mitigate variance. I don't want to be in that position again. Fortunately, the $5 six-player double-or-nothing SNGs are back. Now I have at least a few options.
Since I have SNGs that I can play, I can be more selctive about playing MTTs. Instead of trying to play whenever there is a halfway decent MTT, I can pick my spots and play the ones that work best for me. In fact, I'm typing this at 8:41 P.M., when I would normally be playing an MTT with a tolerable, but not great, structure. There is one at 10 P.M. that suits me better (more starting chips), so I will wait for that one.
I will be playing fewer MTTs, and I will use that free time to study, keep up on administrative work, or play DONs to lower overall variance. I should be able to grind out enough SNGs to give myself at least $10 a month in bonus and rakeback starting this month, a bit of steady income to further smooth out the variance.
A combination of SNGs and MTTs was my plan all along, and my bankroll management formula was based on that assumption. When Americas Cardroom killed their SNGs, that put me in a corner. Now I have a bit of room to maneuver.
I've already started August out right, with a deep run in a 594-player MTT. More about that in my next post.
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