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.