Laying The Groundwork

Once again it's been a while since I've posted.  That is one of the many things that is about to change.

Nothing exciting has happened, in fact, my sleep schedule has been more than a little weird, to the point that I knew I would be too tired to play my favorite tournament in Grand Rapids on each of the last three Saturdays.  I will do my best to be on the right schedule this weekend.

This is still another one my those posts that won't be exciting.  I don't talk much about how much I'm winning, or the great bluff that I made the night before.  That's not my style.  The word "grinder" describes me perfectly.  I'm not a quick learner, but I will put in the work, slog through the difficult times and do what needs to be done.

Now that the groundwork has been laid, I'll soon start talking about results, which is most most of you probably care about.  I care about that too but I know that only if I do the work will the results follow.

I have been playing a lot of tournaments (mostly online SNGs) and putting in more hours toward poker than ever before.  I've also made some decisions, which is always the case.  I'm always tweaking or changing something.  I'm always working to improve my playing, studying, time management and records.  I want to work on the physical part as well, and get back to the energy level that I had when I was running a lot of races, including a marathon.  I remember serving with soldiers in their late 50s who were in terrific physical shape.  There is no reason that I can't do that at age 60.

So, I'm the opposite of flashy, any my posts aren't very exciting.  I don't have even my picture on my blog, but I'll get to that soon.  I promise.  My new motto, which I'm stealing from Marcus Lemonis,* is Trust The Process.

Here's what I've been working on.  Try not to get too excited.

1. I'm adding a lot more online poker to the mix. I'm playing at all hours, day and night.  There are several days a week when what time it is is irrelevant.  I work on poker until I'm too tired, I unwind by watching TV for an hour or two and then I go to bed.  Whether I go to bed at 0300 or 2000 doesn't matter.  As long as there aren't any appointments that I have to plan around, I just play as much as I can and quit when I'm too tired to continue profitably.

2. I'm not making much money now, but I'm planning for the long term.  It is only in the last few months that I've really been able to play poker full-time.  For the previous two years I've been a family caregiver.  Something always got in the way.  Now that I'm finally read to make it happen, the transition to being a full-time poker player is much more complicated than I expected.

3. A much larger percentage of my playing time will be spent online. When I made that decision I didn't have a lot of money sitting on Americas Cardroom so I started grinding a bankroll playing $1.65 SNGs.  I have enough money on the site now that I've started mixing in some $3.30s, then I'll move up to $5, $10, etc.  That process should be pretty fast, as I have played at the $10 level before.  As my bankroll grows I can play multitable tournaments online as well**, Those tournaments are my area of expertise, especially live, but online as well.

4. I'm being very careful with my personal and poker bankroll decisions related to live tournament selection.  I set an absolute limit on tournament buy-ins and that limit is $50.  If I play lower than that, the tournament structures don't match my skill set very well.  If I play higher then $50, it really squeezes my small live tournament bankroll.  When I have a bankroll of $5,000 ($50 times 100 buy-ins) all that means is that I can play comfortably at that level.

Poker players don't play well when they're worried about going broke (the term is "scared money") and math (statistical variance and risk-of-ruin probabilities) and psychology both teach us that a large bankroll is necessary to play well.

5. I will be setting up my home office soon.  Right now it's just a spare room with a lot of stuff in it, and I've put off tackling that job. I'm putting in about 30 hours a week at poker, and that's probably close to my ceiling until I get a better work situation.  I'm already doing some of my studying in the bedroom.

The problem is that my work area and where all my poker stuff is basically the dining room.  My wife would like her table back, and because having ADD makes me easily distracted, I can't concentrate well anyplace that I can see or hear a television.  I need to be in an office, with the door closed, and wearing earplugs if necessary.

6. I have improved my time management.  Because I'm have ADD and am easily distracted, I don't count the time between 1400 and 1500 as a work hour just because I'm sitting behind a desk (or a dining room table.)  I time individual events, rounded to the nearest quarter-hour, and I put it all on a time sheet.  If I play a SNG that starts at 0240 and ends and 0353, I record 1.25 hours.  If the next tournament doesn't start until 0410, then 0410 when I'm "on the clock" again and the time is counted.

I soon realized that if it takes 15 minutes for the next tournament to start and I'm playing a game on the computer while I'm waiting, I'm wasting a lot of time.  Now I make sure that I have something to do when I'm sitting at that table.  In fact, as I type this while sitting at that very table, I'm waiting for the next tournament to start.  If I don't finish my data entry or spreadsheet work or study subject or blog post before the next tournament starts, I'll just finish it when that tournament ends.  Now when my tournaments end I always have something to work on.  I study my flash cards, or tweak my spreadsheets, or I answer the questions frombeginning players on a poker forum.  When I finish a tournament I'm working on something else in less than five minutes.

7.  I'm working at balancing my time.  Now that I'm developing a good work strategy and ethic, the next step is to make sure that I'm doing the right things in the right proportions.  I need to play, I need to study, and there will of necessity be administrative time.  The majority of my time is spent playing.  Administrative time takes what it takes. Study time has to be significant and consistent, and that's the number that I need to watch.

I post my efforts on weekly time sheets which have totaling columns for work, study and administrative time.  I would like study to be about 25% of my poker time.  Last week it was at 20% and I certainly don't want it to get any lower than that.  The more that I study, the more I realize how many things there are that I don't know but other players do.

Well, there you have it, the glamorous life of a poker player.  Memorizing flash cards so I know that if I have two overcards to the flop I have six outs, which means that the odds against me hitting on the turn are 6.83 to 1.  Working on time management.  Studying at least ten hours a week.  Carefully choosing which tournaments to play.  Dropping more than half of the TV shows I was following six months ago.

Now it's time to sink or swim.  I've been trying to make money playing poker for a long time, with limited success--but all of my excuses are gone.  My ADD has been diagnosed and I know what I'm dealing with.  I'm no longer a caregiver.  I have a supportive wife.  My time is my own.   There are four tournament poker rooms within 35 miles of where I live, so I can play both live and online. Failure is not an option.

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*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Lemonis

**The suggested bankroll for playing SNGs is usually 50-buy-ins.  The suggested bankroll for multitable tournaments (MTTs), which have much higher statistical variance (fewer but larger cashes than SNGs) is 100 buy-ins.