Live Tournaments

I am definitely struggling to stay focused, and to spend time studying and keeping my records organized.  When I don't really have any kind of goal, it's much, much harder for me to stay focused.  I shouldn't feel this way, but it is nonetheless a fact when I don't have any study goals such as topics to work on during the week, or a certain number of hours, it's very easy for me to, in true ADD fashion, just not get around to it.  I've been doing a lot of that lately.

Fortunately, I do have one thing that I can focus on.  My wife and I talked about the car situation, and we agreed that with tournaments running seven days a week at the Big Game Room, I can get the car at least one night a week to play live.  I'm really excited about that, and it's given me one aspect of my studies to focus on.

I'm constantly tweaking something, and lately it's been how many hands to play from each position (from first to last to act in the hand.)  Since most of the live tournaments are deep for at least an hour or two, all of the options that I'm reading and learning about are open to me.  If I want to semibluff with small pairs or suited connectors, I can open those hands from any position.  If table or tournament conditions change, I can switch back to what has been my usual default tight style.  I can switch back and forth at will, making me nearly unreadable to my opponents.  To that end, I've come up with some new hand charts, where I could be playing up to 10% of my hands in first postion, and up to 53% of my hands when last to act.  Almost no one does that except at the highest levels, but it's mathematically correct to raise that often when last to act, even with a hand as weak as 97o. And coming from an old white guy known to be a tight player when he played live a couple years ago, it will be completely unexpected.

Playing a bunch of hands is definitely a high-variance strategy, which could get me knocked out pretty quickly  It could also get me first place a lot more often.  When fourth place is $90 and first place is $360, as was the case in one of my recent tournaments where I won the $90, that's a risk worth taking.

I will still have to be somewhat careful.  My live bankroll is only about 5 buy-ins, and I would rather not have to add more to get it going, so I have to be at least a bit risk averse.  I really can't start to relax until I have around 20 buy-ins, and I'm not really safe until I have at least 100, but -ins, which would mean a live bankroll of around $4,000.  But I can start mixing things up in spots and get used to playing more hands, which in the long win should be a big winner for me.  From what I've seen in my first four live tournaments, the fields are weaker than in a $1 online SNG.  I need to make sure that I push every advantage that I have.

I Give Up

No, I have not given up on poker.  I have given up the idea of  having any kind of plan.  The technical problems with online poker are too great, my schedule is too uncertain, and when and how much I will be able to sleep can change from day to day.

I am no longer aiming for a certain number of hours playing or studying.  So many things are outside my control that numerical goals have no meaning.  I have no idea how long it would take me know to finish my usual three readings of a new poker book.  I have no idea what I should be studying, for how long, or if I can be awake enough long enough that particular day to give a study topic any significant time.

In my world, there isn't much that is scarier than having ADD and not having a plan.  Goal setting keeps me focused long-term, and organization and structure keep me going short-term.  But there are no goals on which I can focus, and no structures that I can impose, that have any practical relevance.

It's very scary, and more than a little ironic.  The discipline required to become a good poker player from scratch, and being able to pull that off, have mean an awful lot to me.  Poker has helped me to learn good habits, and to have more confidence.  I feel all of that slipping away.

I'm very scared that I will become Bad Clif again.  The Clif that couldn't try out for the wrestling team because I misremembered the date and missed the required physical.  The Clif that showed up for a Boy Scout campout, only to find no one at the meeting place--they left the previous night.  The Clif that damaged his military career due to being disorganized and overwhelmed.  The Clif who failed to graduate from two colleges because I couldn't stay focused long enough to study or write long papers.  I did all of that, and much worse.

That said, I'll reuse a popular saying that has already been beaten to death--It is what it is.  All I can do is hang on, remember what Bad Clif was like, and do my best to never be that person again.

I hope I can pull it off.  I'm not sure that I can.

The Importance of Tournament Structure

Today is the first day that I received applause for one my posts on the twoplustwo.com poker forums.

There have been some players on the forums complaining about tournaments that can take as long as eight hours.  A few players countered that we need those tournaments, and I agreed.  Here is my post on the forums on 10/1/2013:

I agree as well. Half of the stuff that I study in advanced poker books doesn't even apply if everyone is short-stacked early in the tournament. I love playing with an M of 100 and being able to stay there for at least a little while. I can do that in my local poker room, and I would love to be able to do that, or something close to it, online.

When I look at a tournament, I ask three questions:

1. Am I bankrolled for it?
2. How many starting chips do I get?
3. How fast is the blind structure?

If I don't like the answer to any of those questions, I usually won't play. For example, I won't play on demand or bounty tournaments on WPN because the blinds go up much faster than those in scheduled tournaments.

As far as deep tournaments going too long, if someone else doesn't like that, that is their choice. I always play as deep as I can, because that's where I have an edge. I am prepared to play all night.

When I enter the $5.50 with a $3,500 guarantee and three hours of late registration, I know exactly what I'm getting into. I know that if I go deep I could be playing for seven hours or more, and I prepare accordingly, from when I eat to how much sleep I get. Deep tournaments give me a big edge over the field.

The deeper the tournament, the more I like it, and I'm sure that many in this thread feel the same way. Who wouldn't want a good structure and a chance to win 200 buy-ins?


Here is the post immediately following mine:


Well fkn said Clif.

Why I Have Not Been Posting

It's been over a month since I last posted.  I don't have a reason, just an excuse.  There has not been much to write about, but I could have at least posted that information.

Poker has come to an almost complete stop, for reasons beyond my control.  I'm working on a transition to playing more live poker, and depending less on the availability of online poker.  I will keep you updated on that.

People in church have been wondering where I've been lately.  My attendance has been sporadic at best, so I sent my pastor an E-mail explaining what's been going on.  Most of what I put in that letter affects poker as well as my church attendance.  Names have been replaced by descriptions, for example, "my brother-in-law." Here are portions of that letter:

----------

Pastor,

 

I apologize that this is long.  I can be verbose, but in this case, there is a lot to explain.

A couple months ago, [church officer] said that he had not seen me in church much lately.  It was just before the start of church, and I didn't really have time for a long explanation, but I intended to send him an E-mail, with you copied in, so that you would know what was going on.  In the great tradition of those of us with Attention Deficit Disorder, I never got around sending that letter.  My wife said that I really should let you know what's going on, so here it is:

First, we only have one car.  A teenage girl with no sign of impairment ran a red light and totaled my car a few months ago.  (My wife thinks that she was probably texting.)  We are working hard on becoming debt free, and we have not had a car payment for several years.  We had some other unexpected financial "challenges" recently as well (which took care of our emergency fund) and we are waiting to get a second car until we can pay cash.

Second, my wife has been required to work one weekend a month.  That might be changing soon.

 Third, Sunday is prime time for poker.  There are more players and more tournaments online Sundays than any other day.  For a time there were Sunday tournaments with prize pools of over a million dollars on two different online poker sites.

 

At first, I would stay home and play poker on the weekends that my wife had to work.  Then both of us became torn.  Sometimes she wanted me to go to church with her, and other times she wanted me to stay home, play poker and make some money.  But she really didn't like going to church by herself. 

Fourth, we are in a family rotation to spend time with her 91-year old mother who has Alzheimer's Disease.  We are helping her to stay at home as long as she can, both because she doesn't want to leave her home, and because it will save her a lot of money if we can put off assisted living or whatever the next step is for a little while.  This has been going on for a few months, and that time at home could make the difference in her money lasting the rest of her life. 

I should explain at this point that one of the problems with being a poker player is that you become Available Guy.  I don't have regular work hours, and everyone knows that.  My wife and her brother have 40 hour a week jobs where they have to go to the workplace.  That leaves me and my brother-in-law's wife to cover most of the hours. 

It gets tricky with one car.  Usually weekdays I take my wife to work at 5:30 A.M., then I try to get a little more sleep before I go out to see her mother around 9 A.M. and bring her breakfast.  I leave around 2 P.M. and pick up my wife at work at 2:30.  Then my wife makes supper and we eat with her mom around 4:30 P.M., watch the evening news, and generally keep her company for a while.

 

My sleep patterns get very disrupted (I have the kind of insomnia where I sleep soundly, but have trouble getting to sleep) and I'm often too tired to do much with poker.  My goal of a minimum 40-50 hour work week has turned into about 15 hours a week.  I've done a lot of jobs where the hours were weird, but with poker, unlike other jobs, I can lose money if I work when I'm tired.  So I don't like to play tired if I can avoid it.

 

My wife has the opposite problem  She gets her 40 hour work week in, starting at 6 A.M., five days a week.  So by the time we get home from taking care of her mother, she's worn out.  There are times when we talk about just one of us doing the night shift, but which one stays home?  I know that she's already worn out by evening and I don't want her to do it by herself.  She knows I'm not getting much poker time in, so she would rather do it by herself sometimes and let me stay home and play poker.  Usually we just wind up doing it together. 

We have a family schedule where my wife and I usually take care of her mom either Monday through Wednesday, or Thursday through Sunday.  When we take 3 days, and my brother-in-law and his wife take 4, and vice versa.  So at a minimum we will miss church half of the time.

 

----------

 

Of course, I'm not just missing church, I'm missing poker.  If I play tired, I'll lose money.  So many days I just don't play.

 

I will add to the above that I've been having horrible technical problems trying to play online poker:

 

Every time I close Americas Cardroom, the next time I want to play I have to uninstall and reinstall it.  No error message, it just won't open.

 

Americas Cardroom is having a nasty problem with servers crashing.  It used to happen around once a month, but it's getting much worse.  It crashed several times last week, and one of those crashes was when I had been playing in a tournament for about two hours.

 

In general, nothing about the site works like it should.  The mistakes and problems, both big and small, are way too numerous to list.  In a tournament I played today, late registration was supposed to end after three hours.  Around 30 players registered between the three-hour mark and about 15 minutes later.

 

I'm having no luck at all getting my poker database program working.  I haven't even been able to download it, though with everything else going on, I haven't tried in the last three weeks.

 

The only good news is that I've started playing live poker in a local charity room that runs a tournament every weeknight, and two or three tournaments on both Saturday and Sunday.  With one car, transportation is an issue, but I'm trying to play at least one day a week when I'm not too tried after MIL duty, and when I can get the car.  With two cashes in my first three tournaments, I'm starting to build a separate bankroll for live poker, and I hope to play at least twice a week in the near future.  It's great to play with real people, and I love not having to deal with all the technical issues. I can just sit down and play.  I'm really excited about it, and I'm looking forword to my next outing on Saturday.

Results for July 2013

I'm still fighting a lot of tech battles.  I got my computer back from the shop yesterday.  It was an entirely new problem than the one before.  I wasn't losing control of my computer.  It was more like a series of small problems that were gradually causing enough problems that I had to take the computer back in.

I kept getting a message that said "SOS.messaging", whatever that is, is not working.  I finally got tired of seeing it, I googled it, and found out it was a registry error that would eventually cause significant system problems.  I was unable to download a new version of AOL.  There were a lot of other little problems that were adding up to be a pretty big annoyance.

Because of dealing with all that and other tech issues, helping to take care of my mother-in-law, and other things that were going on I didn't get to play much.  I didn't reach my goal of 100 hours last month, but at 90.5 hours, it was a good try.  I hope to do better in August.

Here are the numbers, with comments:

Hours (goal of 100)
 32.50  play
 31.75  study
 26.25  administrative
--------
90.50   TOTAL

The high number of administrative hours is because of all the issues I'm dealing with.  When I'm trying to get Holdem Manager to work, I'm not playing or studying.  I'm happy with the study hours.  I'm learning a lot, while still being almost overwhelmed by all there is to learn.  I know that once I have the bankroll to play MTTs on a regular basis (assuming enough of them are running on Americas Cardroom), there's going to be a big breakthrough sooner or later.

Profit and loss: -$17.54
Bankroll: $142.84

Not a great result, but only having played 32.5 hours in July, it doesn't mean much.  Besides, I wiped out that loss with one MTT on 8/3:

$5.50, 5th of 189, cash of $31.35, net $25.85

I know that MTTs are where I belong, but I'm not really bankrolled to be playing them on a regular basis.  I if played 10 $5.50 MTTs in a row without cashing (a very likely short-term possibility) it would cost me 38% of my bankroll.  That's not a risk that I can take.

More Tech Issues--Poker Has Ground to a Halt

July 22, 2013

I wrote this yesterday, but it seems that I forgot to post it.  So here it is:

I'm not going to post another long list of instructions for things that I have to do to make things work.  What I'm going to do is give you a timeline.  That doesn't solve anything, and you probably won't even find it interesting.

That said, there are people that I've been telling, for a long time, that I was going to make a go of this no matter what.  So, what follows will be a timeline of some the technical fiasco that I seem to be in the middle of.  I'm stuck for now, and for those of you to which I consider myself accountable, here is a timeline of recent events:

7/15/2013--Holdem Manager support gave me a long list of instructions on how to install the PostgreSQL database separately from the database, since I was unable to install them as a unit.  (Postgre works together with Holdem Manager to provide statistics and information via heads-up display and other methods.)

 

7/20/2013--I posted the following on the Official Americas Cardroom Help Desk thread on 2-2.

 

I am currently unable to play on Americas Cardroom.

I downloaded the major update, and that worked fine for one day. The next day, nothing worked, so I uninstalled and reinstalled ACR, and that worked for one day. Now it's not working at all.

Today, I once again uninstalled ACR and then attempted to reinstall.

I should mention that when I did the two uninstalls, I didn't uninstall everything. I used Revo Uninstaller, and when I got to the list of additional files that I had to check before they could be unistalled, I left those files alone. Some of the files were hand histories, and I didn't want to lose those.

Now ACR is not installed on my computer it, I can't play, and I get error messages that ACR can not be downloaded. What do I do now?

 

7/20/2013--No response from Americas Cardroom.

 

7/21/2013--Still no response from Americas Cardroom.

 

7/21/2013--While working my way through a long list of instructions on how to get the PostgreSQL database (see 7/15) installed separately from Holdem Manager 2, I found a list of files.  I was supposed to enter all of the file names into Comodo Antivirus as execeptions to files that could be blocked.

 

I was scanning the list of files when I saw, "C:\program files\holdemmanger2,", as well as several other Holdem Manager files.  I had been told that I could install PostgreSQL first, then Holdem Manager 2 after that.  (See 7/15.)  Since Holdem Manager 2 isn't installed yet, I don't have that file or two other Holdem Manager files that are listed.

 

Now I'm completely stuck, and waiting for further instructions from both Americas Cardroom and Holdem Manager. 

 

7/21/2013, 1952--This is frustrating not only because I can't make anything work, but also because it's taking a huge chuck of my time.  I'm on MIL duty 4 days this week (Thursday through Sunday), so if I do manage to solve some of these problems early in the week, I won't have much time to play.  The week is gone as far as playing poker.

 

I will get my records up-to-date (I am a few days behind), do some flash card work and reading, and look around online for fee poker training videos.  But I have to admit that as much as I try to stay disciplined, it's hard to keep fighting when week after week I have very little time to play.  I was hoping that I would be sitting on four days in a row, today (Sunday), Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, when I would have no obligations and lots of time to play a lot of poker.

 

Robert Burns had it exactly right:

 

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
(The best laid schemes of Mice and Men
oft go awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!)

 

Holdem Manager: The Fun Never Ends

Chris, see my comments below

 

In a message dated 7/10/2013 3:36:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, hm2support@holdemmanager.com writes:

Hi, my name is Chris.

- If your windows user name has any unique 'cyrillic characters' you may need to create a new windows user with a single EN-US name without any special characters.

- Uninstall HM2 (and HM1 if it is installed)

- Create a new windows user in the Control Panel > User Accounts.  Make sure it is an Administrator account and has no unique characters in the name (only characters from EN Alphabet)

- Reboot the PC

- Log in to the new windows user account

- Now Delete C:\ProgramData\XHEO INC\SharedLicenses\ Holdem Manager 2.lic (XP Users can find the file at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\AppData\XHEO INC\SharedLicenses\ Holdem Manager 2.lic)*

- Reinstall HM2 - http://www.holdemmanager.com/downloads/Holdem_Manager_2_Setup.exe

- and try to register again.

Hi, my name is Chris.

- If your windows user name has any unique 'cyrillic characters' you may need to create a new windows user with a single EN-US name without any special characters.

- Uninstall HM2 (and HM1 if it is installed)

- Create a new windows user in the Control Panel > User Accounts.  Make sure it is an Administrator account and has no unique characters in the name (only characters from EN Alphabet)

- Reboot the PC

- Log in to the new windows user account

- Now Delete C:\ProgramData\XHEO INC\SharedLicenses\ Holdem Manager 2.lic (XP Users can find the file at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\AppData\XHEO INC\SharedLicenses\ Holdem Manager 2.lic)*

- Reinstall HM2 - http://www.holdemmanager.com/downloads/Holdem_Manager_2_Setup.exe

- and try to register again.

 

I got through all of the above steps, and everything went fine until I tried to install Holdem Manager (I use HM2 Small Stakes).  I got to the window labeled Holdem Manager Setup, where I was asked to choose my components, but I didn't have a choice.  Holdem Manager was already checked, and PostgreSQL was unchecked, with the notation:

 

"PostgreSQL (already installed".)

 

Postgre is not already installed.  Prior to going through the steps listed above, I uninstalled both HM2 and PostgreSQL, using Revo Uninstaller.  Now I'm not sure if I should go ahead and install HM2 by itself.  I think there is a standalone version of Postgre that I could install separately.

 

How should I proceed?

 

Micro Approach To Time Management

I wish that I could get settled into some kind of routine.  I don't necessarily mean working the same amount of hours, starting at the same time, every single day. There are a few players that do that*, but it's not an option for me.  For better or worse (and there is some of both), I will always be Available Guy.

I'm really fighting to keep some control of my time and schedule, and a big part of the problem is where I play.  The online sites available after Black Friday all have their problems.  One might be very slow in getting players their money when they make a withdrawl (2 weeks or more.)  Another might have clueless service representatives, or buggy software, or poor tournament choices, or a small player pool (which makes it hard in general to get a tournament or cash game started.)

Americas Cardroom is good with cashouts, but they have every other problem listed above.  Many players consider Americas Cardroom the only real choice, because as bad as it is, "At least I know I can get my money."

What does this have to do with time managment?  MTT and SNG options are poor, and the few tournaments that are running are sometimes unplayable because of a poor blind structure or other issues.  So, for example, I might finish a SNG, open another one, and wait half an hour (or more) for it to start.  When I played on PokerStars, it was unusual for a SNG to take more than five minutes to fill up, and during peak times (nights, weekends and US holidays) it sometimes took less than a minute.

When I open a SNG on Americas Cardroom, I never know how long I'll be waiting for it to start.  So what should I do while I'm waiting?  I don't want to get involved in a book or study topic where I want to take some time, go slow and really try to understand the things being taught.  If the SNG fills up in a few minutes and I'm working on my records, it's a pain to save my work, change what I'm looking at on the computer, move my papers around, and start the tournament.

A few days ago I was alternating data entry with playing SNGs.  The time between my first and second SNG was 32 minutes, but between the second and third it was only five minutes.  The five minutes didn't even make it into my records, because I round my time to the nearest quarter hour.  And for someone like me who struggles with staying focused, switching tasks every five minutes is not a good plan.

Switching between administrative and playing time as much as I do helps fill the time between SNGs, and it helps me make the most of my available poker time.  It's not a great solution, but, like America's Cardroom, it's probably the best option available.

I sure miss PokerStars.

---------------

*Many of those players have school-age children, so they work while their kids are in school, or otherwise schedule their time so it does not conflict with family activies.  Most professional poker players prefer flexible hours, and the idea of "being my own boss" is very important to them.

Macro Approach To Time Management

My macro approach to my work hours is still the same.  I want to weight my time toward playing, but with an emphasis on study as well.  When I was able to work 40 hours a week, I tried to play at least 25 hours, study for at least 15 hours, and work as many administrative hours as necessary to keep things going.

I sill would like to keep the same percentages, so cutting everything in half, I would be aiming for at least 12.75 hours of play per week, and 7.5 hours of study.  That hasn't changed, but I'll try to balance that over a month.  With such small numbers, weekly goals are hard to hit.  A few extra hours wrestling with an administrave problem could make it almost impossible to hit my weekly goals. 

Given those realities, and adding a little administrative time for all of the technology issues that I want to fix, solve, or learn, I'll be happy if by the end of the month I have a total of at least 100 hours, with at least 50 play hours and 30 study hours.  As with my financial results, from now on I'll be looking more at monthly numbers, and not worrying too much about what happens in one week.

So, new goal for time management:

100 total work hours per month
50 play hours per month
30 study hours per month.
Adminstrative hours as necessary

I will report on this periodically.

Report on the Previous Week

I don't like to detail results for a week, especially since I will only be able to play part time for at least a few more months.  But I said in my previous report that I would report back to my readers, so I'll do so in detail.

Profit or Loss
-$13.33  SNGs
      1.48  Rakeback
 --------
-$11.85

Work Hours 6/30-7/6
  9.00  SNGs
  1.25  Study
  8.75  Administrative
------
19.00

I'm not worried about the $12 loss.  I only played for 9 hours, so statistically those results mean nothing.    When I was too tired to play or to study, I mainly worked on administrative things, including solving the issues with Holdem Manager.

I'm still working on those issues.  I have to write to the sales department and ask them why I received an E-mail entitled "License Key Has Been Reset by Admin!"  After receiving that mail, I once again tried to do a clean install of Holdem Manager.  I got an error message stating that my license was invalid.

I want to average 25 hours a week (100 hours a month) and I only worked 19 hours during a week when we only had MIL duty for 3 days (we alternate every week between 3 days and 4 days.)  This week we're on duty for 4 days.  I hope that I can keep my sleep regulated well enough to be able to work at poker) at least 25 hours this week, but it won't be easy.  I am finallly caught up on my sleep, and I hope that it stays that way.

Part of my plan is to solve one technological issue each week.  That obviouly didn't happen, and the Holdem Manager saga continues.

It's Time to Have a Plan

I used to have a plan.  I was trying to work at least 40 hours a week, which included playing for 25 hours and 15 hours of study.  With all of the things that have happened recently (thunderstorms, sleep issues, virus problems and family committments, among other things) it's been difficult.  The hardest part was that I no longer had a plan.

One thing is certain.  No one who has Attention Disorder should "wing it." We can't.  Depending on our jobs, we might have to have a work envirnment with few distractions.  We definitely need to have goals and a plan to reach them.  I've been playing when I'm not too tired, which isn't a plan.

It's time to go back to having structure and goals.  Here is my plan.  It may need to be adjusted, but not much, I hope:

My goal, starting this month, is 100 work hours per month.  That's just under 25 hours a week, as there are 4.2 weeks in a month.  It's ambitious, but I let myself get lazy.  This is my job, and I can't make real money unless I put in the hours to learn to play better, and play enough to grow my bankroll more quickly.

Also, I am going to try to solve one technological issue each week.  This week's task is finally getting Holdem Manager installed and working.  It's ridiculous that other players might be tracking me, but I have no statistics on them.   I have communicated with a Holdem Manager tech who will correspond with me on a daily basis so that we can get the problem solved.

The current time is 2325.  I got a couple hours in this afternoon.  Then, except for a 45-minute dinner break, I've been in the office since 1616.  Of course I can't do that every day.  I have mother-in-law duty for the next three days, which means, since we have one car, I will be taking my wife to work at 0530.  But when I am able, I need to get those hours in.

I will report on how things go this week.

 

June 2013 Results

It was a rough month.  My profit was $13.10, with my end-of-month bankroll at $160.70.  It started out a lot better than that.

I was fighting a lot of battles in June:

1.  Losing the computer several times for several days put me way behind in keeping up with my records.

2.  I barely played for several days because I was in a fog from taking my wife into work at 5:30 A.M., not being able to get back to sleep for a few hours before mother-in-law duty, then not being able to get to sleep before midnight.

3.  The technology issues are ongoing.  I spent some more time on getting Holdem Manager to install tonight.

But the main reason that my profit was so small this month was a lack of work hours leading to small sample size.

Besides the issues I'm facing, I'm trying to do a lot of things without a lot of hours.  I'm working on multitabling.  I have to study.  I'm learning how the SNGs play at the $3.30 level.  I'm trying to implement new concepts that I learn from my studies.  All of those things are important, but it was hard to give everything the proper attention in a month when I worked no more than 60 hours (that's an estimate, I'm still not caught up on my records.)

My numbers took a big dive the last two days of the month, because I spent a lot of that time two-tabling $3.30 SNGs.  I was playing twice as high as in May, and playing twice as many SNGs in a sitting, which made it inevitable that bankroll swings would be much larger.  Two days of bad results erased most of my profit for the month.

I understand the sample size and variance issues at play.  I know that a month is nothing, especially with the small number of hours that I've been working.  But to be honest, it's embarrassing to report a profit of $13.10 for the month when this is my job.

Time Management Adjustment

I'm playing quie a few $3.30 SNGs now, and it's going OK.  There is a small but noticeable increase  in player skill levels compared to $1.65, so I have to make sure that there aren't a lot of distractions when I'm multitabling them, especially since I'm not that good a multitabler yet.

Today I was playing two $3.30 SNGs when the construction noise got pretty obnoxious.  I live less then 100 feet from a major road that is being resurfaced.  Old pipes are being replaced as well.  I usually leave the front door open so that the cats can look outside and catch a breeze.  But I had to close the door when I was down to 4 players at each table.

The strategy adjustment has to do with playing MTTs.  I need to stop for a while.

I've been playing an MTT every few days so that I can work on the things that I'm learning.  If I don't cash in any $5.50 MTTs over a week or so, my bankroll drops down, and I have to work it back up playing only SNGs.  I'm still right around my $165 bankroll requirement (50 buy-ins) for $3.30 SNGs,  My current bankroll is $162.55.

I've decided that I need to build my bankroll up a little more before I consider mixing in some MTTs.  I need to practice all of the things that I'm learning from my studying and reading, and many of the new (to me) concepts don't apply to SNGs.  That's a big deal, but proper bankroll management is an even bigger deal.

I'm done with MTTs until I get my bankroll over $200.  Americans Cardroom should have their new tournament schedule posted soon.  Then I can take another look at the management of my playing time.

Analysis of America's Cardroom Tournament Schedule

Americas Cardroom is supposed to have a new tournament schedule in a week or so.  This has been promised many times, including when several months ago on 2+2 I expressed my concerns about the tournament lineup.

Since a new schedule is (supposedly) imminent, I decided to take another look at the current schedule.  This is my analysis, posted on 2+2 on 6/23:

I just took a lot at the MTT schedule for today, 6/23/2013, from 1200 to 2000, US eastern time, for MTTs < $20. I excluded satellites and private freerolls.

This is the schedule for MTTs with entry fee between $10 and $20:

1200/$10+.80/bounty tournament.
1300/$12+$1/$200 GTD turbo deep stack
1400/$12+$/$500 GTD deep stack
1500/$12+1/$250 GTD deep stack

Comments: Not a bad lineup, and there are different types of tournaments. The structure of the 1300 is a little strange for an MTT--assuming just enough players to meet the guarantee, first place is only 15 buy-ins.

My concern is the way that the tournaments are spaced. Why four tournaments in four hours, then nothing?

This is the schedule for MTTs with entry fees under $10:

2000/$5+.50/$3,500 GTD

Comments: Player pools are built from the bottom up. If someone has a few bucks to put on a site (I started with $50 on PokerStars), wants to try online tournaments, and takes a look at that schedule, he could easily conclude that he can't afford it. Or, he could play $10 tournaments and lose his bankroll in one or two weekends.

Of course that player could play $1.50+.15 SNGs, but one-table tournaments aren't what people really think about when the watch the WSOP or WPT on television.

I know that a new tournament lineup is coming. I hope that some thought has gone into it, and that the spacing of tournament times is addressed. (I brought that issue up months ago, and evidently nothing has changed.) But is is absolutely necessary that a decent lineup of micro tournaments be added. One $5 tournament at the end of the day doesn't cut it.

The Technology Battle Continues

I recently installed Komodo security software on my computer, (the paid version, what I had was a free trial) which is why I no longer have virus issues.  But it took 6 hours to do it.  That includes several tries by myself, talking to their online help while I tried to do it, and finally, one of their techs taking over my computer for another hour.

It turns out that the main problem was Internet Explorer 10, which has a lot of bugs.  The tech took IE 10 off the computer, reinstalled IE9, and that finally solved the problem.

I have also been working on getting Holdem Manager to work, so far without success.  I have certainly spent at least 10 hours on that problem.  First I couldn't make a connection between Holdem Manager 2 and the database, then when I tried to reinstall it, my license wasn't recognized.

I solved the license problem a few days ago, and sometime this week I'll try one more time to do a clean install of both HM2 and the database., and make it work.  I'm going to document everything that I do, step-by-step, and if it doesn't work, I'll send the documentation to the HM2 techs, and maybe they can figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Quick Update

Wow, it's been two weeks since I last posted.  There has been a lot going on, much of it having nothing to do with poker.  Some of it is relevant however, and I have enough material that there is no reason I shouldn't be able to post just about every day.

I won a major battle in the virus wars.  I have new antivirus software that has given my computer back to me.  Since installing Comodo, I have lost contol of the computer for a total of two minutes in the last two weeks or so.

My bankroll is now over $165, giving me the 50 buy-in bankroll to play $3.30 SNGs.  If all goes as planned, I should be making almost twice as much playing SNGs as when I was playing at $1.65.

Updates on these topics, and others, will be coming soon, and a lot more regularly.

Virus Wars

A few days ago, I got my computer back from the shop.  It was the third time in a month.  Talking to the techs, I learned a lot of things that I didn't know about computers. The second time I got it back, I thought that I could fight the virus wars by myself, but I eventually had to once again leave it to the professionals.

Armed with what I already knew, and supplemented by what I learned from talking to the techs, I fought a three-day antivirus battle.  I alternated between scans using Microsoft Security Essentials and McAfee Scan, doing both quick scans and full scans.  A full scan took about six hours.

After I thought I had zapped all the viruses, I tried a theory that with less open on the computer, there would be less for viruses to attack.  But 10 minutes into a SNG, I started getting more virus warnings, with nothing open but Americas Cardroom, Holdem Manager and Windows Calculator--none of which required me to open a browser.  My side of the computer locked up a few minutes later.

I spent most of one day running scans, getting a report of three or five or eight new viruses, cleaning them out, getting control of my side of the computer for a while, then losing it again.

I think it's going to be OK now.  I learn a few new tricks every time this happens, about how to in general maintain my computer, and in particular how to deal with viruses.  Also, this time Crashmasters set me up, at no charge, with Comodo, which they consider the top-of-the line computer protection and antivirus suite.

They said that they wouldn't recommend Comodo for most people, because it's a very complicated suite of options that most people wouldn't want to deal with.  Also, it's very intrusive, constantly asking for permissions and stopping anything that it hasn't seen before. But they thought I knew enough to handle it, and that given my situation, it was my best option.  I completely agreed.

So far it's working very well.  I played two SNGs each of the last three days without incident. It's a big relief.  I'm not on mother-in-law duty the next three days, so I should be able to put in some serious time, including a lot more than two SNGs per day.

An Example of When Studying Matters

My bankroll has been inching up toward the $165 (50 buy-ins) that I feel I need to move up to $3.30 SNGs.  But while that's been going on, I've been increasingly uneasy about not playing any MTTs, even though I'm not quite bankrolled to do it.

I'm still studying almost every day, even if my hours are necessarily more limited than was the case a few months ago.  Nearly all of that study is geared toward MTTs, but I have been getting no chance to practice what I learn.

I finally decided to play one or two MTTs a week, just to keep in practice, and to better understand how the things that I'm learning apply in actual tournaments.  I was going to wait to play against a large field of 1,000 or so entries tonight, but I got antsy and played a small one (51 players) yesterday morning.  Entry was $5.50 and I finished 4th of 51 for a cash of $24.22 (net $18.72) which puts my bankroll at $153.31, very close to the $165 bankroll I've been aiming for.

One of the things that I learned from all that studying was largely responsible for my success in that tournament.  A few months ago, I asked Johnathan Little about something in his book, Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1.  Here is the question that I posted on the 2+2 forums on December 31:

In SOPTP1, Kindle location 2718 of 3469, first page of:

"Chapter 11: When you have between 60 and 40 BB",

you talk about the need to be willing to go all in with 60BB or less. Here is one sentence from that page:

"If you raise before the flop with hands like A-Q+ or 10-10+ and are reraised, go all in unless your opponent is extraordinarily passive."

My questions is about online tournaments where your starting stack is that small.

Here are the early levels of the standard MTT structure on the Winning Poker Network:

LEVEL BLINDS ANTES
--1-------15/30
--2------20/40
--3------30/60
--4------50/100----10
--5------75/150----15
--6 ----100/200---20

Starting stacks in these tournaments are as low as 1,500 chips, with either 10 or 15 minute blinds. Some deeper stacked tournaments start with 2,500-5,000 chips, but with a blind structure that fast (blinds starting at level 4) the number of big blinds blinds that you have in these tournaments isn't an accurate measure of how soon you are playing shortstacked.

So, from the first hand of some of these tournaments, and soon afterward with deeper stacks, you can be playing with less than 60 BB. How does playing with online stuctures like the one above change how soon you should be ready to get it all in as your describe in the first page of this chapter of your book?

 

And here is his answer:

 

The structure of the tournament should not define what "short stacked" is. For example, if you start with 10,000 chips at 600/1,200 blinds, you are going to push or fold basically every hand you play. Just because a tournament starts you with some amount of chips does not mean you must have some amount of "play" in it. Obviously if your opponents are playing tight because they think they are supposed to have some "play", you should adjust your game, but hands like QQ+ and AK should basically always be played for stacks, especially online against overly aggressive opponents.

 

I remembered that answer when I was playing yesterday.  It never occured to me that some tournament structures almost force playing all-in-or-fold very early in a tournament, but as I thought about it, it made perfect sense.

 

When I played that tournament yesterday, about 30 minutes in I was one of the top ten stacks, but by any poker definition, I was still short-stacked.  I started looking for spots to be more agressive, including going all-in.  While a lot of other players were protecting their top 10 stack, I was agressive, taking chances to build my stack.  I was probably all-in at least 5 times the first hour, and I was the chip leader at the end of the hour.

 

Without reading Little's book, and getting that answer, I would not have played that aggressively.  I knew something that most of the field clearly did not know--a great example of how studying gives one an edge over other players.

Poker And Technology

I'm still fighting with Holdem Manager.  After once again going through a list of disagnostic steps from one of their techs, I found a problem in one the Windows Services settings, but I don't know what to do to fix it.  Once again, I'm waiting for a response to another of my "what do I do now?" twoplustwo.com forum posts.  I'm spending so much time messing with Holdem Manager that I'm barely playing.

I was studying yesterday, doing my first readthrough of a new poker book, and it mentioned some of the tools that poker players use to study.  It really hit me how dependent poker players are on technology:

1. Being a successful poker player is, at least in part, a technology arms race.  If you can't compete, you're at a serious disadvantage.

2. If you're don't use technology, even if you're a strictly live player, you have almost no chance to be successful.

A lot of studying is done on online poker forums, or using digital tools. Those tools include:  poker equity calculators, databases, player blogs, player ranking sites, and online videos (or live streaming) of poker tournaments. A year ago I purchased my poker books at Barnes and Noble.  Now I get them at amazon.com, sent to my Kindle via wireless connection, often after reading online reviews of the book.

As far as actual play online, of course a computer is necessary.  But some players go way beyond that.  There are online players that play 30 or more simultaneous games or tournaments, on multiple monitors, with a mouse specially designed for poker players.  A few have massively redundant systems in place in case something goes down: multiple ISPs, cable and satellite connections, backup power supplies, and a generator.

That may seem ridiculous, but for some players, it's really not.  An online pro who plays in several big events (such as the World Championship of Online Poker) every year is literally playing for millions of dollars.

By now, some of you might be thinking that, especially for a live player who plays only at his local casino, most of this isn't necessary.  That's not really true.  Sure, if Joe wants to study before his next trip to the casino, he can still get a poker book at Barnes and Noble.  But those books rapidly become outdated.

My latest book states that at the highest levels, poker lines and strategies change every three months or so, and that if you don't keep up, you're at a disadvantage.  The only way to keep up with that rate of change is by keeping up with the poker forums and other online information.

Finally, I haven't mentioned one the most important poker tools--Google.  It's increasingly common for players to scout each other online.

I hate all the time that I spend trying to manage Holdem Manager and other poker technology.  But I have no choice.

Time to tackle the BIG problem.

I made some headway with Holdem Manager.  I can download and install it,  but I have a few more things to work on.

I played several SNGs yesterday, and did reasonably well.

I'm chipping away at reducing the clutter in my office.  I'm naturally disorganized as it is and I don't need a mess in my office making it worse.  I need more empty space, especially when my loyal poker cat Vanessa decides to stretch out and take a nap on the desk

There is one problem that keeps getting bigger--me.  On my 30th birthday I weighed about 140.  A few days ago I weighed an all-time high of 194 pounds.  I don't look right, I don't feel right, my clothes don't fit, and my energy level is way below where it should be.  If I don't have the energy to play poker (or do anything else), the other things don't matter very much.

I've cut back a little on what I'm eating, but I've been here before (at least within a few pounds) and I know my body well enough to know that dieting doesn't do much for me.  If I run every day, the pounds fall off.  If I stick with the running, and increase the mileage as it becomes comfortable again, I'll be losing ten pounds a month by fall, while eating whatever I want.

I once ran a marathon.  80-year-olds run marathons.  I'm 57, and today it was hard work to run one mile.  I will never let myself go like this again.

More Problems With Holdem Manager

I spent time with my mother-in-law today.  That went well, but it was all downhill after that.

I came home, played one SNG, then started working on the Holdem Manager issue.

I finally decided that it was best to delete everything that I had done before, and do a clean install of Holdem Manager 2 with a new, empty database.  I managed to get all of the old stuff deleted, but I had problems after that.

I went to the Holdem Manager web site, and I couldn't figure out how to do the download.  None of the options seem to fit.  I didn't need to pay for the upgrade from HM1 to HM2, I already did that.  I didn't need a free trial.  I finally posted my question on the Holdem Manager thread in the 2+2 poker forums.

After I played that SNG (2nd place) I checked back, and there was a link for the download and installation.  That went OK, but now I can't figure out how to do anything--even though I used an earlier version of the same program a couple years ago.

The program has a lot of bells and whistles and functionality, or so it seems, including free poker coaching videos.  But like Facebook and a lot of other recent technology, it is neither logical nor intuitive.  I was expecting a way to designate the site on which I play, such as a dropdown list, but there was nothing.  Nowhere in the program can I find a list of the supported poker sites, even though there is such a list on their web site.

Also, there was something in the program that I was trying to figure out, and I was directed to set up an account.  Why?  I already paid for the program.  It is registered, and I have a license number. Why should I have to do something else to get the full functionality of the program?  That makes no sense, and anyway, I couldn't figure out what I would gain by setting up that account.

I put my newest question (how to designate a poker site) up a couple of hours ago.  There is no answer yet, so I guess I'll get back at it tomorrow.  I have to get this thing solved somehow.  I just checked my records, and I have played exactly two SNGs this month.  One on the 14th, when I got my computer back, and one today.

Now it's 11 P.M. and I'm tired (I've been sticking with getting up fairly early every morning.)  I didn't get very far with Holdem Manager, and I played one SNG for a profit of $2.40.  Not exactly a productive day.

I Feel Stupid, Frustrated, and Angry

Feel free to skip, or quickly skim, most of the blue text in this post if you wish.

I should be blogging more often, but there hasn't been much to say.  My computer was in the shop for a while, and now I have it back.  But while my computer was in the shop, something good happened.

Holdem Manager, my tracking program, now works on the site where I play.  The program tracks every hand that I play online and keeps a boatload of statistics on everything that happens.  For example, if I want to know what percentage of the time a certain player raises, then folds to a reraise, there is a statistic for that--and I can see it on a HUD (heads-up display) while I'm playing.

This is a very big deal for me, because I have a lot of trouble moving information from short-term to long term memory.  I understand strategic concepts easily, but remembering small details is very difficult.  Some players can remember important hands that they played 10 years ago.  I can not tell you the details of one hand that I ever played.

Tracking software helps me to reduce that disadvantage.  I can see statistics on other players, so even if I don't remember any details, I at least have an idea how they play.  Perhaps more important, some of those players are tracking me, which puts me at a great disadvantage when I don't have that capability.

I tried to upgrade from Holdem Manager 1 (which is being phased out) to Holdem Manager 2 (which works with Americas Cardroom, the site on which I play.)  I was unable to successfully install the software.

I sent mail to the folks at HM2, they asked me to send them a crash log, and I did that.  Here is what I got back:


This email was sent because we received a crash log from you recently. I am sorry to hear you're experiencing issues with Holdem Manager but If you follow these instructions below it should fix the issue.

Solution Instructions:
Step 1: Restore Default Settings:
First try restoring your default settings, often some settings files can become corrupt and cause these issues:
http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/questions/2511/Create+a+Backup+and+restore+default+settings
NB: If this step is successful it is very import you send us the backup files as detailed in no.2 of that FAQ otherwise the problem may come back and we need those files to reproduce it and fix permanently.

Step 2: Set files to run as administrator
1 - Go to C:\Program Files\Holdem Manager 2 (Program Files (x86) for the 64bit version)
2 - Right click the HoldemManager.exe and choose "Properties".
3 - Go to the Compatibility Tab and select "Run this program as an Administrator"
4 - Repeat Steps 2 and 3 for HudFuncsApp.exe, ThirtyTwoBitIPC.exe and tablescannerdllloader.exe

If this option is greyed out it is because the UAC is disabled.
Enable UAC - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-user-account-control-uac-the-easy-way-on-windows-vista/
Reboot and complete Step 3 and 4.
UAC can be turned off again if desired.

Step 3: Update Windows
Often the issue can be caused by a conflict with another program or utility on your PC. Windows may have released an update to fix this issue. See here for details on how to run windows update - http://www.update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/thanks.aspx?ln=en&&thankspage=5
It is important to make sure to check windows update after it completes the previous update to make sure it says "No More Critical Updates Available" because it often does the updates in stages and does not always complete them all at once.

Step 4: Uninstall and reinstall HM2 with Revo uninstaller:
Other times critical system files may not have been installed on previous updates and it can also cause these types of errors or in some cases antiviruses may have removed files that it mistook for unsafe. Doing a revo uninstall also removes old registry file information which might have become corrupt. You can download the free version here: http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html and there is a useful tutorial how to use it here: http://www.guidingtech.com/457/revo-uninstaller/

Uninstall Holdem Manager 2 via Revo unistaller and then reinstall this version: http://www.holdemmanager.com/downloads/Holdem_Manager_2_Setup.exe

Step 5: Add exceptions to firewall
Some firewalls detect HM2 as a threat because of the way it interacts with different poker software, as a consequence they can block HM accessing files it needs to and in turn cause a crash. Please follow the instructions in the FAQ carefully.
http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/questions/1011/Software+Security+Problems+%28Firewall%29

Step 6: Set correct permissions on files and folders HM2 use
Please follow the instructions in this FAQ: http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/questions/2561/Set+Correct+Permissions+on+files+and+folders+HM2+use

If these solutions do not work please email us back and well be happy to help.

Thanks
Holdem Manager Support Team..http://forums.holdemmanager.com/forum.php

Then, I went to this page, as directed in step 1:

http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/questions/2511/Create+a+Backup+and+restore+default+settings

That link gave me four pages of instructions on how to do that part of step number one.  And I seem to be stuck on that step.

If I go through all these instructions, step-by-step (and I really don't have any choice) I'll eventually get it figured out, but it's going to take a lot of time.

Besides the problems with installation, from what I do have installed, it looks like I'll have to devote many more hours to figure out how to use the program.  Version 2 of Holdem Manager is very different than Version 1, and after briefly looking at the interface and all of the options, I don't know how to do anything that I was doing when I used Version 1 while playing on PokerStars.

This makes no sense.  I used to be a member of MENSA (I stopped paying dues when the local group folded.)  I took three semesters of computer science in college--it was a long time ago (1980s), but I try to keep up with developments, especially in software.

I estimate that it will take me somewhere between 10 and 30 hours to figure all of this out.  It could actually take a week or more, because there are several steps along the way where there might have to be E-mail communications between myself and Holdem Manager.  For example, they might want me to send them certain files, or the exact wording of an error message.

How can this be so hard?  Can most poker players, confronted with something like this, really figure it out fairly quickly and easily?  I don't see players in the twoplustwo.com poker forums complaining about it.

I'm supposed to be smart, but I feel stupid, frustrated and angry.

April 2013--Brief Summary And Addtional Information

There is a lot going on, and a lot of new things are happening.  I apologize for not posting in the last 11 days.  You'll understand why as you continue reading.

First, the money part.  Even though my hours are down, I'm slowly but surely grinding my bankroll up.  It's now at $135.50, getting closer to the $165 that I want before I move up to $3.30 SNGs.

I recently changed my time goals from working at poker at least 40 hours a week to 105 hours a month (25 hours a week times 4.2 weeks per month.)  I didn't hit that either, finishing with 96 hours in April.  My profit was $25.58, which I can't be unhappy with, considering how few hours I worked.

It will probably be even fewer hours this month.  There are still four of us taking turns spending time with my mother-in-law, but it's turning into a situation where eventually I will have to be the lead person.  My wife and her brother have full-time jobs outside the home, and they show signs of getting burned out already.  Besides being in the rotation, my wife is handling all of the medical issues, and my brother-in-law is handling all the money issues, including writing all of his mother's checks.

That leaves my sister-in-law and I.  My sister-in-law has physical limitations and as this situation continues, more will probably fall on me, and that's as it should be.  I usually don't like being Available Guy, but this is what you do for family.  Also, there are financial reasons why it makes sense for me to take more of this on myself.

First, I'm protecting the two people that have full-time jobs outside the home.  They both make significant incomes, that must be protected.  I'm not making much yet, and my sister-in-law is physically limited and can't work much, so the two breadwinners have to be protected from burning out.  Also, if we can keep this going (at least until winter, which is the current plan) we will save my mother-in-law thousands of dollars that she would otherwise have to be spent for assisted living.  A lot of money is on the line if I don't hold up my end.

So, no more predictions about my hours. To add to everything else, I have to take my computer into the shop tonight, so I won't get to play at all for possibly a week or more. I'll do what I can and try to get a lot of studying done.  I'll get my bankroll up, but it might take a while.

I said that a lot has happened, but this is already getting long, so I'll end with a preview of future posts:

There are two pieces of very good news:

1. The first explicitly legal and regulated online poker has been dealt in Nevada, and other states are taking a close look.

2. Holdem Manager 2 will be working with America's Cardroom soon.

Getting in shape

I said a while ago that I was going to get in shape, but doing that got shoved way down the priority list.  To put in another way, I'm fat and lazy.  I weigh almost 50 pounds more than I did on my 30th birthday.

My energy level is way down.  I sleep a lot, and even when I'm awake, I'm often tired.  My wife reminded me that when I'm forcing myself onto a daytime schedule, I'm always tired, and she's right.  But even factoring that in, I would get a lot more done if I was the old Clif who weighed 140 pounds and ran a marathon.

I planned to get some hours in yesterday (Friday) but instead, we went out for our anniversay dinner (33 years), then I took a long nap--not exactly romantic.  I finally started playing at 2301.  This can't go on, and getting in shape needs to be my #1 priority, even above playing.

The math is both simple and undeniable.  If I spend an hour a day running or otherwise working out, I'll have more energy, I'll be more alert when I play, and I'll probably sleep at least 10 hours less per week (which of course will give me more time to play poker.)

So, I'm fat, tired and lazy.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that I'm getting closer to that bankroll magic number of $165, which will let me move up and play some $3.30 SNGs and start making money a lot faster.  My bankroll is now $124.05.

I might still play some $1.65s even when I move up.  One reason would be to keep busy, playing at least two SNGs at a time, even if the $3.30s aren't running.  The other reason is that I've taken a lot of notes on some of the players in the $1.65s.  I probably should start making a list of the weak players for whom I have good notes, and keep them in the mix for a while.

Working 25 Hours a Week

This post was almost done, but I had to completely rewrite it.  I was way too optimistic about how much poker I would be able to play this week.

In my 4/11 post I said that given the realities of my situation, especially my part in the family rotation to help take care of my mother-in-law, my goal of getting at least 40 hours of poker play or study every week was unrealistic, and that the new goal would be 105 hours a month.  (105 hours is an average of 25 hours per week times 4.2 weeks per month.)

I thought that, given the situation, I had set some realistic goals.  I knew that there would be times when I could not work 25 hours in a week, but I thought there might be other weeks when I can get 30, so overall it seemed doable.  I started today with only 5.5 hours this week, but I already spent 3 days with my mother-in-law, so I thought that the last part of the week would be mostly available.  I played some SNGs already today, and Saturday looks completely open for poker, so I hope I can get at least 20 hours in this week.

I thought I had a chance to get at least 25 hours in this week, but new things have been added to my schedule just in the last hour.  For example, I have to leave a one-hour window open for my son to call from Germany tomorrow.  The longest SNG that I have played this year was about 100 minutes, which means that I have to stop playing more than 1 1/2 hours before that 1-hour phone call window.

I could use that "down time" before the phone call to study, but the plan (it almost seems ridiculous to use that word) was to deemphasize study for a bit, so that I could play more, get my bankroll up to $165, be bankrolled to play $3.30 SNG, and make money a lot faster.

There is just no getting around it.  When you "go to work," you're there to work, and nothing else.  When I'm at home, I'm always going to be Available Guy.  For the first time, I really understand why many novelists and other writers go to a cabin in the woods to do their writing.

I have read the books of some poker players who have a written play and study schedule and stick to it, while working at home.  I have no idea how they do that.

Poker Hours update for April 2013

As stated in my previous post, I've changed my goal from 40 hours per week to a more realistic 105 hours per month.  I just updated my records, and I'm a little behind that, but not too much. With half the month gone I'm at 47.75 hours.  I'll have to make sure that I hit it hard when I have the chance.

I'm pretty much on a daytime schedule now.  The plan this week to be out in the morning to help my mother-in-law three or four mornings this week, then go to church on Sunday.  The times I'm up in the morning and free to play poker and there isn't much running, I'll have to be sure that I jump on that time right away and do some studying or admin work.  I would love to concentrate on playing, but weekday mornings are not exactly prime time, especially Tuesdays, including today.

I've done some studying and admin work today, while I've been trying to get a regular-speed SNG running, at either $1.65 or $3.30, for the last two hours..  It looks like I'm going to have to give that up and play some turbos, which seem to be running pretty regularly.  I'm not as good at turbos, but I can probably at least break even at the tables, and pick up a few cents in bonus and rakeback for my trouble.

It's even possible that if I play a lot of turbos, I might get a better feel for them and start playing them better.  I might even modify my opening hands to adapt. I'll just have to see how it goes.

Realistic Goals and Outcomes

It might be a while before I can reasonably expect to get in 40 hours a week of poker playing and studying.  I have much room for improvement as far as time management, but I need to set some kind of goal now.  Here's how I see it:

1. 25 hours per week is a realistic goal for now.  I thought about a goal of 30 hours a week, but since family has to be the priority, I need to be realistic and set a goal that I have a reasonable chance of reaching.  25 hours every week might not be possible, but I think that I can average that much.  Since an average month is 4.2 weeks long, my new time goal is 25(4.2) = 105 hours per month.

2. After careful analysis of my situation, I'm temporarily dropping my goal of spending at least 25% of my poker time studying.

My current bankroll is $111.70.  I'm playing $1.65 SNGs.  I should have a bankroll of at least 50 buy-ins to play SNGs, and my bankroll is 67 buy-ins, so I'm fine there.  But as I thought about it, the next step up in SNGs is $3.30, and if I was playing at that level I would have 33 buy-ins--only 17 short of the 50 that I need.

If I temporarily cut down on studying and concentrate on playing, and if I run reasonably well, I could have the bankroll to play $3.30 SNGs in about a month.  When that happens, almost everything doubles.  Every time that I cashed in a SNG, I would be making almost twice as much profit as I was before.

Playing $3.30 SNGs:

If I cashed in third place, my profit would double from $1.05 to $2.10.
Second place cash, profit would go from $2.40 to $4.80.
First place cash, profit would go from $5.10 to $10.20.
Bonus would double, from about 2 cents per SNG to about 4 cents.
Rakeback would double, from 4.5 cents per SNG to 9 cents.

I said that almost everything will double, because my win rate will go down a bit when I move up to $3.30s, at least until I get some information on the regulars and figure out what adjustments I need to make, the most important of which is the percentage of my hands that I play.

I don't think that the ROI (return on investment) drop will be big. I estimate that my ROI will go down from about 13% at $1.65 to about 10% at $3.30, at least until I get used to the new level.

So, with a $1.65 SNG and a 13% ROI, I make 21.45 cents per SNG.
With a $3.30 SNG and a 10% ROI, I make 33 cents per SNG.


Adding it all up:

For each $1.65 SNG
Profit based on 13% ROI          0.2145
Bonus                                           0.02
Rakeback                                     0.045
                                                    --------
                                                     0.2795 ~ 28 cents per SNG

For each $3.30 SNG
Profit based on 10% ROI          0.33
Bonus                                           0.04
Rakeback                                     0.09
                                                   --------
                                                      0.46 = 46 cents per SNG


The medium-term goal is to have at least 100 buy-ins to play MTTs at the $5.50 level, which is the least expensive MTT on Americas Cardroom.  100(5.50) = $550.  When I move up from $1.65s to $3.30s, and if I play 50 SNGs a week (a realistic goal of 10 per day, playing 2 at a time, for 5 days) my expected profit per week should be 50(0.46) = $23.  With 4.2 weeks in a month, that's a profit of  4.2(23) = $96.60 per month.

So playing 50 SNGs a week, my profit should average around $100 a month, which means that I would be fully bankrolled to give MTTs a go sometime this fall.  I think that all of my numbers are both realistic and attainable, but there are other ways that this could play out:

1. If the $3.30 SNGs go well, I might move up to $5.50s as soon as I have the proper SNG bankroll of 50(5.50) = $275.

2. Americas Cardroom could start offering MTTs as low as $1.  If that happened, I would be bankrolled to play them right now.  I think that is unlikely this year, though it has been mentioned by players and the site as a possibility.

3. I could decide to stick with SNGs for a while.  If it's going well I night keep grinding away at them for a while, perhaps working on playing more than 2 tables at a time and giving myself a little extra in my bankroll.  A bankroll of 100 buy-ins is, in my opinion, the absolute minimum needed to play MTTs.

4. We could wind up moving some time this year.  This is quite likely, and as we want to do it on the cheap, I will do most of the packing and moving of small items by myself--especially if we move right next door, which is one of the two most likely options.  In the long run this will improve our situation and save us a lot of money, but in the short run it could cut my poker time way back for as much as a month, given that not only would we be moving, but we would be also having a yard sale to get rid of some things (which might happen this year whether we in fact move or not.)

I'll close by saying that I didn't run the above numbers until I typed this post.  To the two or three people who might take the time to go though all of this, including the math, thanks for your help.  Putting this in writing, in a form that you can go through and understand, has helped me to think the situation through, including some of the alternative scenarios that I had not thought about until now.

Results for March, 2013

It's been more than a week since my last post, and I apologize.  As with many of my ADD weakness, in this case, letting things slide, I've come up with a fix.  As usual, that fix involves imposing structure on myself.

There are certain sites or pages that I always open when I get online.  For example, I always open several Open Office spreadsheets, including Poker Hours and Comprehensive Poker Worksheet, as a reminder to keep those things up to date after I play poker.  I've added a new one, Blog Ideas.

Now, as part of my regular routine when I first get on my computer that day, Blog Ideas will be open, not only to remind me to make regular entries, but also to put things down that I might want to blog about, before I forget my brilliant idea of the moment.

There is no excuse for my not posting almost every day.  Even if I don't have anything new to say (which would be very unusual for me) I post on the 2+2 poker forums nearly every day, so I can crosspost one of those posts on here.

---------------

I have been trying, so far without success, to post a Holdem Manager graph of my results.  I'm not sure why I can't make it work, but I'll keep trying to figure it out.  Since I don't like my thinking to be too short-term, looking at a graph of the last 60 or 90 days (or more) helps me to see the big picture of how I'm doing.  I hope sometime soon to be able to do the same on here.

Last month went fairly well, considering that I've given up on being able to get my 40 hours a week in under the present circumstances.  My first full week was 48 hours, and the others were between 20 and 25 hours.  More about that in a future post.  But I made some money last month.  As often seems to happen, the month had a rough strart but ended well:

   Dates            Profit or Loss
  3/1-3/2                 7.53
  3/3-3/9             -10.94
3/10-3/16            -14.19
3/17/3/23             19.07
3/24-3/30            17.80
    3/31                     1.20
                            --------
                            $22.54

Month ending bankroll: $108.02 

Sleeping In Pieces

When a lot is going on during the day, my schedule, and my sleeping, becomes a total mess.

My sleep patterns are wierd to start with.  I am a very sound sleeper, and once I'm sleeping, I'm out.  I don't hear sirens, thunderstorms, the drummer next door, or anything else.  When I'm really tired, it's not unusual for me to sleep for 12 hours.

Getting to sleep is another matter.  There comes a point when I'm playing poker that I get tired and start making mistakes.  When I'm done with poker I might just sit and watch TV for four hours, because I'm too tired to play poker or study and make any sense of it, but I'm unable to get to sleep.  If a new World Poker Tour episode is on, I watch that, and try to learn at least a little bit from it.  That's the best that I can do.

I prefer to play and study poker with hours something like 4 P.M. to 2 A.M., but in reality doesn't happen very often lately.  What I would like to do is get up around noon, take care of a few things, then play poker until I get tired, but it never seems to work out that way.  And right now, the combination of being Available Guy, and being a one-car family, is really messing with my sleep.

A few days ago I got to sleep around 3 A.M, got up at 5 A.M., took my wife to work at 5:30 A.M., came home, couldn't get back to sleep.  I finally slept for two hours, got up, spent some time with my mother-in-law, and picked my wife up from work a little after 2 :30 P.M.

Yesterday Safelight was coming to repair our windshield, so the car had to be here.  The appointment window was between 8 A.M. and noon.  I took my wife to work at 5:30 A.M. then slept on the couch while I waited for Safelight to come.  I woke up around 9 A.M to go to the bathroom, and I was able to get back to sleep.

The rest is a little fuzzy, but the timeline was something like this:

Safelight called around 9:30 A.M. to confirm the appointment.  Then they called around 10 to give me another time estimate.  Around 11, they called my wife's cell phone, and she called me, to tell me that they were close.  The left around noon, and I picked my wife up from work at 2:30 P.M.

After getting my sleep in little pieces for the last few days, I went to sleep around 4 P.M. yesterday, I slept until midnight, and I finally feel like I'm caught up on my sleep.  Now it's 2 A.M. and I'm typing this because there aren't many SNGs running.

For someone like me who wants to plan, who in fact needs to plan to keep from falling back into bad habits, this has been difficult, but I've had to accept that I can't change it.  My wife makes more than I do, and I have have to protect her income by doing things during work hours so she doesn't have to.  I sometimes have to take her to work and pick her up, because we're a one-car family.

At least for now there can be no planning, in the sense that I know when I'm going to play, or for how long.  I have to sleep when I'm tired and can get to sleep, no matter what time that is.  How much I sleep has become more important then how much I play.

That goes against everything I know as a poker player.  Many of the pros talk about the necessity of using volume of play to overcome short-term variance.  Others say that either you should have a schedule, or you should always be available when the games are good, which usually means nights and weekends.

I hope that I can function reasonably well in a situation where, once again, I don't have much control of what happens.  This time it's not me being out of control, it's about that control being taken from me.  It's not a good situation when someone with ADD is unable to plan and be organized.  I'm scared that things are slipping away.  But I have to make it work.

Fewer hours, but more money

I only worked 22 hours last week, but I made them count.

At one point I got my bankroll over $100.  About three weeks ago, it dropped all the way down to $71.  That downswing included 10 straight SNGs without a cash.  Now my bankroll is $102.   I've cashed in 10 of my last 12 SNGs, including four first places.

My plan was that once I got back over $100, I would decide if I wanted to change anything.  I'm going to keep things the way they are.  The least expensive MTTs are $5.50, and I certainly don't have the minimum 100 buy-ins to play those, so that's out.

A solid bankroll for SNGs is more like 50 buy-ins, so when my bankroll is up to $165 I'll move up to $3.30 SNGs, and keep doing what I'm doing.  Once I'm grinding SNGs for twice the stakes I am now, the bankroll building will seem a lot less tedious.

My Hours Will Be Cut For A While

Anyone who has read this blog more than once or twice knows how obsessive I am about planning and staying organized.  I don't want to be that guy any more--the guy who wasn't diagnosed wth ADD until age 40 and made a mess of his life along the way.  Because of that, I overcompensate and put a lot of systems in place to make sure that I never again am that confused, overwhelmed person that didn't even know how to be organized (though for a long time, I thought I did.)

There is going to be a big change.  My goal of devoting a minimum of 40 hours to poker every week, including at least 15 hours of study and 25 hours playing poker, is on the shelf for a while.

There are two things going on, and I knew that they were going to happen.  But a lot could happen all at once, and very soon.

I have a 90-year old relative who needs some extra attention, and that's no surprise.  We all knew it was coming.  I understood that at that point, her needs would come first.  That time has come, and four family members are on rotating duty, with each of us taking a day to spend time with her to keep an eye on her, and determine how much longer she will be able to continue living by herself.

Thing number two, which I also knew was coming, is that we could be moving soon.  We've been close a few times, and the house we were going to move into is conviently next door.  Moving day depended on when the owners moved to a farm with their horses.  They are now facing a deadline to have their horses moved, so that might be a live option soon.

There might be another option as well.  It's not conveniently next door (which would make the move much cheaper and easier) but it's still local, and the rent would be a lot less than we're paying now.  Eventually owning whichever home we move to is a live option as well.

So a month or two from now, it's very possible that we will be moving, which will put poker on hold for a while.  I will be the packer-in-chief so that my wife doesn't have to take much time off from work.

The disruption of poker will be temporary, and getting a new place, and getting my relative's situation resolved, are both good things.  If we have to decide between two options for moving, either way it will be a better situation, and less costly, than where we are now.

I will still keep track of my hours, just to keep my records straight, but unless I think I'm goofing off, I'm not going to worry too much about what those numbers are.  I would love to work 50+ hours per week every week for the rest of the year, but as Dave Ramsey is fond of saying, just when you think you have it all figured out, life happens.

Why A Bankroll Matters: A Practical Example

On Saturday Night Live Chevy Chase was playing the role of Gerald Ford when he was asked a question during a presidential debate.  In response to a budget question, "Ford" said, "I wasn't told there would be math involved."

Warning: There will be math involved!

What follows will, I hope, be instructive.

Most people don't understand randomness.  If a flipped coin will be "heads" 50% of the time, that doesn't mean that if it has been tails 10 times in a row, it is any more likely to be heads on the 11th try.  A coin doesn't have a memory, and evey trial is independent of the others.

Randomness can by messy, which is why very good poker players can have long winning streaks, but also long losing streaks.  Those long losing streaks are the reason that poker players need a bankroll of many times their tournament buy-in.  The numbers that I usually see tossed around* for a sufficient bankroll are something like this: 25 buy-ins to play cash games, 50 buy-ins to play SNGs (single-table tournaments), and between 100 and 300 to play multi-table tournaments.

Here is a practical example from my play on 3/15 and 3/17 (I didn't play on the 16th.)  It's a small sample size that mathematically proves nothing, but it shows how important a bankroll is.

Starting on 3/15 at 1845 and ending at 0317 on 3/17, I played 15 SNGs.  In general one has to cash in about 50% of SNGs played to make money.  I did not cash in the first ten, so I lost 15 buy-ins at $1.65 each.  Then I cashed in 3 of the last 5, including one 1st place cash (which is worth about 4 buy-ins.)

So, I need to cash (finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd) about 50 % of the time, but I failed to cash 10 times in a row, so I must be really bad, right?  No, that's just randomness.

If I'm capable of cashing 55% of the time, that doesn't mean that I'll necessarily cash more than 5 times out of 10, or more than 25 times out of 50.  But if play 1,000 SNGs, I should cash pretty close to 550 times.

Remember, I said earlier that a good SNG bankroll amount is about 50 buy ins.  The use of a proper risk or ruin formula would mean that while I'm dealing with those downswings, my risk of ruin (the chance that I will go broke and lose all of my bankroll due to variance) is probably something like 3%.  All other things being equal, the bigger the bankroll, the more cushion one has against variance, and the smaller the risk of ruin.  If I kept increasing my bankroll without moving up to more expensive tournaments, the risk of ruin would eventually be close to zero.

So, let's look at the numbers for those 15 SNGs.

My SNG buy-in was $1.65, and I lost 10 straight, so that cost me (1.65)(10) = $16.50.

In the last 5 SNGs I placed 3 times:  one 1st place, one 2nd, and one 3rd.  First place paid $6.75, 2nd place paid $4.05, and 3rd place paid $2.70, for a total of $13.50 in cashes.

For SNGs 11 through 15, I paid 5 buy-ins and cashed 3 times, so my profit for those 5 SNGs is:

(total of 3 cashes) - (5 buy-ins)
= (6.75+4.05+2.70) - (1.65*5)
= 13.50 - 8.25 = 5.25

Now, bringing it all together, I no-cashed 10 SNGs, then made a profit in the last 5, which comes to:

-16.50 + 5.25 = -$11.25.

I lost $11.25 overall playing those 15 SNGs  But lets look at the numbers a little more closely:

$11.25 is 6.8 buy-ins, so my bankroll covered that loss.  I'm not in any danger of going broke.

The 1st 10 SNGs, of course, cost me 10 buy-ins before I finally cashed.  Again, not a problem, because I have the bankroll to handle streaks like that.

Also keep in mind that in any poker tournament, including SNGs, a cash is always worth more than the buy-in.  In this case, my 3 cashes were worth a total of $13.50.  The 15 buy-ins cost me:

(15)(1.65) = $24.75

So I paid $24.75 in buy-ins and my total cashes were $13.50.  Just three cashes covered 54.5% of my buy-ins. ( It helps a lot if at least 1/3 of your cashes are for 1st place.)

Since I have a decent bankroll, losing might be frustrating, but it's not scary.  I know that there will be downswings.  I know that there will be upswings.  I've had times when I played 10 SNGs and cashed in 7 or 8 of them.  That's positive variance, just as failing to cash 10 straight times is negative variance.

Someone who doesn't understand these concepts will never be good at poker.  There are players who won millions of dollars on national television and are now broke.  I hear about a new one about once a month.  You have to be able to manage your money, both when you're playing poker and when you're not.

As long as I keep studying and improving, and as long as I keep a decent bankroll, I'll be fine.  I lost one of those 10 SNGS with my pair of queens against a pair of jacks, and my opponent got a third jack on the river.  Queens beat jacks 82 % of the time--but not every time.  When I lose as big favorite, and it seems to happen over and over, I know that it's just variance.  I take a few seconds to shake it off, then I open another SNG.

I know that I'm smarter than most of my opponents.  I know that I study more than just about all of them.  I'm learning to fix my mistakes and weaknesses, and I'm constantly learning how to better manage my ADD.  That's a winning formula, and it will pay off.

---------------

*There is a lot of math involved in coming up with buy-in numbers, using mathematical concepts like standard deviation and risk of ruin forumlae.  I could study the math and do my own risk of ruin calculations if I wanted to spend the time (I took two college statistics courses) but since those buy-in numbers are generally accepted and they tell me what my bankroll should be, I haven't bothered to investigate the math behind the concept.  I might at some point.