A Big Tournament Weekend

It's finally happening.  I am free to make my own schedule and play live poker almost any time I want.  This weekend I will be playing three tournaments: one tonight, one tomorrow afternoon and one tomorrow night.  They will all take place at my favorite room in Grand Rapids, about 30 miles from where I live in Michigan.

It's an interesting setup.  I will be playing at a room that is inside a bowling alley that is inside a country club.  In 2015 I had a lot of problems getting there because of road construction, but in January that's not an issue.

My only problem with the 30-mile drive is that I haven't figured out the best and cheapest way to listen to audio books.  I hate to waste a one-hour round trip when I could "read" one of the Great Books or learn something.  I would like to listen to The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which seems fitting when I'm on my way to a poker tournament.

Ideally, I would like to find an audio book solution that costs no more than Kindle Books, which are usually around six dollars.  I don't have an audio jack or USB connection in my car.  There is a CD player, but do companies even sent those by snail mail?  I guess this isn't an area where I'm up on the latest technology.  I'm certainly not afraid of technology.  I play poker online incorporating a statistics tracker, database and heads-up display.  I was a computer science major for three semesters--in the 1980s.

If you have an idea about the cheapest and most efficient way to listen to audio books on my way to and from tournaments, please help me out and post something in the comments.

Mixed Feelings

I'm home, for good.  For several years I have been helping care for my mother-in-law in one way or another.  I now have control of my own time and schedule, for the first time in a very long time.  Starting with delivering meals, and ending with being a live-in caregiver as many as four days a week, I have been taking care of my mother-in-law for several years.

I'm relieved, I'm excited and yet I'm sad.  I won't be spending that time with Norah any more.  It was hard physically and mentally, and it took away any chance to play poker on a regular basis.  At the same time, it was an honor and a privilege to be there with her and for her.  I cried a lot yesterday, knowing that the next day would be the last spent with her.  Norah is 93 and has Alzeheimer's Disease.  Soon I won't have any more chances to have a meaningful conversation with her.  Sure, I will still see her from time to time, but very soon it won't really be her any more.

Earlier today she asked me, "Am I in the right place?"  She doesn't always know that she is in her own home.  A few times recently she has called me "Tootsie," which perhaps meant that she thought I was her late husband, or an old boyfriend.

I have to move on. This is my chance to play poker full-time, to make a decent income doing something that I love, something that I've wanted for a very long time.  I can't look back.  I need to play as often as I can and to run my bankroll up high enough that I never have to play with "scared money" again.

BIG NEWS!

I have, for a long time, been spending a few days each week as one of the family live-in caregivers for my mother-in-law.  Most of the caregivers have, in their own words, "burned out."  The family has decided to hire a full-time live-in caregiver.  I'm free to concentrate on poker as my full-time job!

It was an honor to take care of her, and we shared some very special moments.  I sometimes felt guilty that I spent more time with her than my wife did.  But at the same time, I'm 60 years old and in my head the clock has been ticking while I wondered how old I would be before I could spend the time playing and studying poker to really turn it into something.

Two days from today, my time as a caregiver will be over.  All of the excuses will be gone.  And I'm ready!

Live Tournament Tonight, Using Videos for Study

I will be playing live tonight at a fairly new room about 35 miles from my house.  I've played there a few times.  I might do a room review on here an/or on the twoplustwo.com poker forums, where I do a lot of my studying.  The forum has a regional thread for West Michigan.

For a long time most of my studying has been done with a combination of poker books and poker forums.  In the last few months that has changed.  I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year 50% or more of my study time is watching videos.

There has been an explosion of "how to" videos online on just about any topic and subtopic you can think of.  I just typed "how do I fix a toilet" into Google and I got this:

how do I fix a toilet
how do I fix a toilet that won't flush
how do I fix a toilet that won't stop running
how do I fix a toilet that rocks

I can do the same thing with poker.  I subscribe to a poker coaching site (a bargain at $10 a month) run by a two-time World Poker Tour Player of the Year.  He and other pros have videos on a variety of topics.  Most of the videos include recordings of actual online tournaments at every level from beginners to top pros, showing part or all of a tournament with commentary on what the players are doing right and wrong in different situations.  I can go to other places, such as Google, YouTube, Poker News or Poker News Daily and watch poker videos there as well.  I just typed "How often should I bluff" into Google, then clicked on "Videos."  These are a few of the vidoes in a ten-page list of results:

How to Bluff--Bluffing Tips and Lesson
Should I Bluff C-bet in a 3-Bet Pot?
The Triple Barrel Bluff
Possibly the most RIDICULOUS Poker Bluff EVER
Matt Affleck on Why Poker Players Should Bluff and Value Bet

As mentioned in my previous post, I am now using a HUD (heads-up display) when I play online.  I watched several vidoes on how to get the most from that software and I plan on watching a lot more.  One video discussed some of the many statistics (hundreds) available on the display, what they mean, and how to use them.  It's easy to design your own set of statistics for tracking.  A typical player might use anywhere from 3 to 20 statistics to watch for each player.  Right now I'm using five.  My learning style is to break up what I'm learning into small pieces.  I make sure that I can walk before I try to run..

That video on the statistics changed my mind on which to use. I dumped two of the five statistics that I was using and replaced them with two others.  The three that I kept are used by most players and I have used them before.  For those who care about such things, the two statistics that I dumped were Preflop Agression and Fold to 3-Bet.  I replaced them with C-Bet and Fold to C-bet.  If you want to know what that means or you have questions about anything, go ahead and post a comment.

Setting Up The New Process

It's January 12 and I'll still tweaking my systems and procedures, but things are starting to fall into place:

1. My mother-in-law has three caregivers now.  For a while we were down to two, myself and another family member, who each stayed with my mother-in-law three to four days a week.  Now we have a third caregiver and I will only be a live-in two days a week.  That will make it a lot easier to plan, study and play.

2. After 15 years of driving the same car until it died, we now have a new(er) car that is safe to drive out of town.  That gives me access to six charity poker rooms within 40 miles instead of just one in my city.

3. I'm watching less TV, which gives me more time for poker.  I have also time shifted a lot of my viewing, watching some of my favorite shows On Demand when I come home and unwind, often after midnight, after playing a live tournament.

I also work at making the time with my mother-in-law count.  When we are watching TV together I often watch one of my on-demand shows if I think she will like it.  When she is asleep I use some of that time to study, or to play SNGs or an occasional small MTT.  I can definitely do more of that than I have been, as she sleeps about 13.5 hours  a night.

4. After years of frustration I have finally solved a problem with tracking software,  The problem was that antivirus programs interfere with Holdem Manager, a database/statistical tracker/heads-up-display that tracks hundreds of statistics on your play and that of all of your opponents.  This information can be used in real time at the table, or studied later.

Until now, the choice was to play poker without antivirus software, or get a separate computer just for poker, where antivirus software would not be needed.   That is no longer an issue.  I played about 50 SNG hands with Avast antivirus in Gaming mode, and another 50 hands when it was in Silent mode with no issues either time.

I still have a lot of things to figure out and implement, but it's a good start.

A New Year

It's a new year and I'm reviewing and reevaluating everything.

I didn't win anything, in fact, I was down for the year. I've thought about that a lot, and it's not enough to make me stop playing, for several reasons:

1. The poker options were really bad. I live more than 100 miles from the nearest casino that deals no limit holdem tournaments. The Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) has done all they can to eliminate the charity rooms that they are supposed to be regulating. To give just one of the many egregious examples, one of the room owners was told that:

he could not advertise

he could not list the tournaments, or even mention them on his web site

he could not have the phone number on his web site

That is such an obvious assault against freedom of speech that I'm trying to stir up some publicity that will shame the MCGB into rescinding many of those rules.

2. Small sample size. Statistically, playing a few tournaments means nothing. Anything less than a few hundred tournaments is not a statically valid sample size, and says nothing about the ability of the player.

There were times when I could play live no more than twice a month. As with any job, someone's chances of making an income as a part-time player aren't good.

3. Outside factors and changes in my situation. I am still a caregiver for my mother-in-law. I agreed to do it, and I'll stick it out, but no one dreamed that it would go on this long. Starting with bringing meals and building from there, we have been in some way helping with her care for seven years.

That takes away time that I can play or study, but it's not the only problem. When I play poker my schedule is geared toward staying up late at night. If I go deep into a tournament that starts at 7 P.M. I could be playing well after midnight, then I come home and unwind for a few hours.

When I'm at home I try to sleep until noon so I will be completely rested before a live tournament. When I'm with my mother in-law I have to be up whenever she gets up, and the change is difficult. It's not unusual for me to sleep for just two hours each of my first two nights there.

I could go on, but this post isn't about whining, it's about taking a hard look at what I can do and what I can change. I have significantly cut my television time. If I have four hours free, I can't sit on my butt and watch TV the whole time. I need to put hours in, both studying and at the tables, both live and online.

A year ago I would have watched every minute of the two football playoff games on TV. Last night I watched about an hour of the first game and half of the second one. I used the three hours or so that I wasn't watching football for study.  I like to watch TV as much as the next person, but if I have to cut back my viewing even more, I will do that.  I can live without television.  I can't have another poker year like the last one.  There are some things that I can control, and I need to do that.

I'm sure that much of what I'm changing will be mentioned in future posts.  When I write these posts it helps me think about what I'm doing, and it's a good way of holding myself accountable.  I've been thinking about what things I should be doing every day.  Posting here probably belongs on that list.