Monday, March 10, 2014

Making The Technology Pieces Work Together

I have been undergoing a long, very slow process of getting all of my new technology to work together.
 
I have started my new Windows 8 computer, installed a couple online poker sites, and watched a hand on each to site to make sure that everything works.  That doesn't mean that I'm ready to use it.
 
I recently purchased another piece of technology, a one terrabyte external hard drive, to be used both for backing up data, and moving data from the old to the new computer.  After a lot of my own reseach and posts in both poker and computer forums, I still wasn't satisfied with the answers.  I finally went to my local computer shop, and one of their techs told me how to go about it.
 
This isn't about turning things on and making sure they work.  They have to work very well, and I have to do the right things in the right order.  For example, I have to partition the external drive before I use the drive for backup, because data can be lost during partitioning.
 
Everything has to work seamlessly, and there are a lot of moving parts.  I have to transfer my antivirus subscription to the new computer.  I need to install my poker database and heads-up display.  I need to partition the hard drive, back up the Windows 7 data and move the hard drive data to the Windows 8 computer.  I have to move files around on the Windows 8 computer, so that my data (mostly business) and my wife's data (mostly family and home related) will be stored under different master folders.  I have to get my hand histories from the poker sites, and put them in my database.
 
I also have to make sure that all of the different parts work together.  I have to make sure that the database and heads-up display work together.  I need to make sure that my very aggressive antivirus program recognizes and allows both poker sites, the database and the heads-up display.  And all of these steps have to be done in the right order.  I just got an idea that will make this simpler--I'm going to flowchart everything, so that at a glance I can see how everything fits together!
 
You get the idea. I said in a previous post how important it is to make sure that all of the technology works well, all the time.  I keep running into new problems, both small and large.  Last night it took me 20 minutes of googling to find an online manual for my external drive.  The picture on the brochure didn't look anything like what I saw when I opened the drive's dashboard display.  The URL on the little brochure that came with the didn't take me to a manual.
 
I've been working on this for quite a while, but everything has to be right.  If it takes me another month, then that's what it takes. I certainly hope that that is not the case.
 
 

Friday, March 7, 2014

Growing My Live Bankroll

I've said many times in this blog that to play MTTs (multi-table tournaments) I should have a bankroll of at least 100 buy-ins whenever I enter a tournament.

That wasn't hard when I was playing $1 online tournaments on PokerStars.  I put $50 on the site, which didn't give me 100 buy-ins, but it gave me something to work with, and eventually I started growing my bankroll and working my way up.

I would occasionally play a live tournament with a buy-in between $30 and $60.  I didn't have the bankroll for that, but it didn't really matter.  I was just playing live once every few months, and I would do it when a tournament was available and I had the money to do it.

Now I'm taking live poker more seriously, and I try to play once a week at my local charity poker room.  I started playing the cheapest tournaments available, $35 or $40, with no bankroll.  I got some small cashes and was about breaking even, but I quickly realized that I was in effect starting with a bankroll of one buy-in (what I paid to enter my first live tournament at the Big Game Room) and it was going to take forever to build a $4,000 bankroll to play comfortably at that level, let alone move up to higher levels (the largest buy-in tournament at the Big Game Room is $200.)

I get a stipend for living with my mother-in-law an average of  3 or 4 days a week.  She is 91 years old and has Alzheimer's, and she can not live by herself.  I'm saving a lot of that stipend and deciding what to do with it, and eventually a large portion will go toward poker.

I'm investing a little of that money in growing my live bankroll.  Every time I'm about to enter a $40 tournament, I add $60 to my poker bankroll.  When I cash, my bankroll is up $20 plus whatever I win.  When I don't cash, I've still added $20 to my bankroll.

This month I will be playing four live tournaments:  Wednesday the 10th, 17th and 24th and Saturday the 29th.

My current live bankroll is $190.  I have a very long way to go.