A Much Harder Adjustment Than I Expected

In 2014 and 2015 I was a live-in caregiver several days a week, and a very part-time poker player.  That all changed in late January and I'm now a full-time poker player.  I love poker and thought it would be an easy adjustment, but there are a lot of things to figure out.

The first big change is that I'm on a regular sleeping schedule.  I set my alarm for noon almost every day because that's what poker players do.  A lot of the pros that you see on TV sleep in late.  As one poker author put it, "Poker is a nights and weekends business."  That is as true for me as it is for the top pros.

The tournament rooms within 40 miles of my house offer tournaments that usually start around 6 P.M. and can go well past midnight.  That's why I sleep in almost every day.  When other players are getting tired and grumpy around 11 P.M. I'm ready to go for a few more hours.

My daily schedule is in place now, but filling 50 hours a week is trickier than I thought it would be.  I am carefully building my live bankroll by being very choosy about what tournaments I play, which for now means playing only one, sometimes two, tournaments a week.  Until I have more money to work with, I am playing only the tournaments that fit best with my playing style and other considerations.  When I have a bigger bankroll to work with I can be less picky and play pretty much whenever I want as long as I keep my my average buy-in around $50.  When I have a bankroll of 100 buy-ins ($5,000) then I can think about the next step, building a bankroll that allows to me to play at higher buy-ins and make more money.

That's the plan, but I have to deal with the situation as it is.  I got a stipend for being a family caregiver.  I don't get that stipend any more so I have much less room for mistakes or mismanagement of my poker time and dollars.  I thought that I would play at least three live tournaments a week, but I quickly realized that without a decent bankroll I have to be a lot more careful.

The big question became this: If want to work 50 hours a week and I only play one live tournament a week, how should I fill the rest of the time?  I can and do study of course, but if more than half of my poker time is spent studying, I'm not getting much of a chance to play and try out the new things that I'm learning.  Spending more than 1/3 of my poker time studying is not a good plan.

There are of course administrative things I can do..  I have my new recordkeeping system laid out.  I just need to tweak a few of the details  I can improve my technology so that I can play more and better online.  I'm doing that, reluctantly.

Online poker is not a great option.  I play on Americas Cardroom, and it's considered one of the best sites available to American players--when the tournaments don't lag or completely shut down.  I need to get the hours in, so I'm going to have to take my chances.  I played online for about 2,75 hours tonight.  I track and record my time by quarter-hours.

I'm working on the admin stuff, I've increased my time studying flash cards from about 0.25 hours a day to 0.75 hours.  Along with the poker coaching videos, I watch videos on how to use my HUD (heads-up display) more efficiently when I play online.  I spend time online exchanging ideas with other players on a poker forum.  I stay in touch with the owners of two of the charity rooms so that I can stay informed on the business aspect of Michigan charity poker rooms and how I could be affected.

[Hmmm,one of my cats just knocked my pen on the floor, laid down on my planner and started purring.  She clearly doesn't understand the sanctity of uninterrupted poker time.]  Writing this goes under administrative time, and I find it quite useful.  When I am telling someone else about how I manage my poker time, it helps me to think through what I'm doing.

I haven't totaled my hours yet, but I know that this week I won't spend 50 hours on poker.  The number will be a lot closer to 25.  I don't want to do things just to do them, and I don't want to overstudy and underplay. It's really hard to make it all work, but I can play a lot more hours online than I have been.  The online tournaments that I've played so far this year, mostly $1.65 single-table tournaments, have been more about tweaking the technology than about making money.  I will definitely play more and/or longer tournaments next week.

I am scheduled to play a live tournament Saturday night, and I hope to get a nice cash and bump my bankroll up by a few buy-ins.