A SNG Night

I am playing very few MTTs now.  My last one was on the 25th.  I will probably play nothing but SNGs in February.  They aren't exciting, they aren't what I'm studying to do, and there isn't much glory (or money) in being the best at a table of 9 players.  But it's a steady way to build a bankroll, assuming that I'm good at it.  And I am, the variance that clobbered me on the 26th notwithstanding.

I finished playing six of them earler this morning.  I played them one at a time, starting at 1818 yesterday and ending at 0216 today. I cashed in 3 of 6, one first and two thirds, which made up for what happened on the 26th (see previous entry.)

 I didn't do any multitabling last night and this morning because I wanted to concentrate on playing my best and making a profit.  My bankroll was about $65 a few days ago, now it's $72.58.  I want to get it back up over $100 before I even think about playing any more MTTs.

The number of players is growing on the Winning Poker Network, at least during prime time (nights, holidays and weekends.) I don't have to wait long for a SNG to fill up.  But there is a time managment issue with which I have to deal.

I thought that west coast players would keep things going well past midnight on a Saturday.  I was doing fine, playing one right after the other, and the longest I had to wait for a new one to start was 10 minutes, usually it was about five minutes.  But when I finished one at 0029 and registered for another one, it didn't start until 0113--a 44 minute wait.  That caught me completely by surprise, and raises some interesing time management issues.

I use the time between SNGs (or entire sessions, if I'm mutitabling) to go to the bathroom, get some pop and/or food, and be ready play again.  I don't want to get involved in anything else when I'll be playing again in a few minutes.  So that 44 minutes was lost time while I waited, expecting the table to fill soon.

I track my time by quarter hours for a reason--to keep myself both honest and dilligent about how I use my time.  It's very easy for me to get distracted by a bunch of different things, so if I'm not doing something for at least 10 minutes (most of a quarter hour) I don't count it.  I don't want to be jumping back and forth doing something like 5 minutes with flash cards, then 5 minutes with recordkeeping.  I know myself well enough to guard against that.

So, since I don't know how much time I'll have between SNGs, from now on I'm going to use that down time to get something out of the way that is not poker-related, such as checking my E-mail or Facebook.  If the times between SNGs are short, I'll count all of my play as a single session and put it down as 4.25 hours, or whatever is the case.  If the waits between SNGs get longer, I'll just keep working on non-poker things until it's time to play again, and my next session will be logged on my spreadsheet as starting at whatever is the nearest quarter hour.

I know that reading someone's poker blog and so much of it being about process is boring to some of you, so let me quote Dusty Schmidt in his book, Treat Your Poker Like A Business:

"Being process-oriented is a trait possessed by every successful poker player, businessperson or athlete I've ever met.  Bottom line:  If you put in quality time, money will follow."

I couldn't have said it better.