Why Live Poker is Better

I will be playing a live poker tournament in a few hours.  I don't do that very often.  I have money on two poker sites, so I have an online bankroll.  I had a big live downswing and I don't have a strong bankroll for live games.  I wanted the majority of my play hours to be live, but it hasn't worked out that way.  Until I can grind my bankroll back up I have to be very careful with my tournament selection, only playing those with a structure that best plays to my strengths.  If that means only playing live once or twice a month, so be it.

Live poker is fun because it's a different experience every time, with a different mix of players every time.

I have played in lots of different poker rooms in different cities all over Michigan.  I have played in a Masonic Temple and in a Catholic church.  I have played in bars, restaurants and bowling alleys and in a standalone poker room in a strip mall.  I've played against people young enough to be my grandchildren and old enough to be my father.

I play against men and women, highly educated people and high-school dropouts, geniuses and those with below average IQs.  Poker accepts every race or type or kind that you can imagine.  Most are at least reasonably nice nice people--but not all.

Sometimes there will be an obnoxious drunk at my table.  There are gentlemen and there are men who like to stare at breasts (and to be fair, women who enjoy displaying them.). About a month ago I knocked a guy out of a tournament and he spent two minutes yelling that I was the worst player in the room.

If you can't deal with that, you're playing the wrong game.  If you are a champion of diversity, enter a live poker tournament and you'll be right at home.

Poker is the ultimate meritocracy.  My age doesn't matter as long as I'm at least 18 (21 in some casinos.)  My resume doesn't matter.  My education or income doesn't matter.  Either I cash or I don't, and usually only 10-15% of the players cash.  Live poker tournaments don't give participation trophies.

Playing online just isn't the same.  You don't see or talk to anyone.  When I played on PokerStars I described live poker as more fun because, "I'm playing against a real person, not an avatar from Uzbekistan."*  I often spend over an hour playing an online SNG with no one typing anything in the chat box.

One more thing.  If I want to cash out after an online win I have to jump thought a lot of hoops.  The site on which I play is not located in the United States.  Getting money out involves foreign banks, payment processors, and sometimes issues with US credit cards or banks.  The first time you cash out you have to send a bunch of paperwork to prove that you are who you say you are and that you live where you say you live.  Receiving the money can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.**

If I cash for $500 in my tournament tonight, all I have to do is walk over to a table and pick up an envelope which contains the cash.


Next Post: Why Online Poker is Better

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*PokerStars at that time accepted players from all over the world.  I really did have someone from Uzbekistan at one of my tables.

**The main site on which I play, Americas Cardroom, has some very quick payout methods, for example, money sent to your special debit card--but the fees are significant.  On the other hand, I can ask for one free paper check a month (minimum $100) to be mailed and it's free, but it can be a week or more before I receive it.

How Much Did You Win?

Poker players get asked about their money all the time:

How much did you win? 

How much money to do you make? 

What if you lose all your money?

Are you rich?

Recently a woman found out what my job was and she asked if I was rich.  She was really excited.  She had obviously watched one of the poker shows where six or seven figures in cash is dumped on the table when the tournament is down to the last two players, with the winner getting all of the cash.*   I thought it was about time to talk about how much money poker players make.

Here are some things you should know about poker players and their money:

1. Poker income is irregular.  In his first season on the World Poker Tour, Jonathan Little lost about fifty thousand dollars.  The next year his profit was over a million.  For the average player the numbers aren't as big, but for any player it's a wild ride.

I don't cash in every tournament.  I don't cash in most of them.  No one does.  I can go to my local poker room, sign up for a $50 tournament, and compete with 60 other players for the $1,000 first prize  It's likely that if that tournament runs on ten straight Sundays there will be ten different winners.  Places 2-5 will win smaller prizes.  The other 55 players go home with nothing.

2. Poker work hours are irregular.  We play when and where the tournaments are running  That might be an online tournament starting at 0900 or a live tournament that starts at 1800 and ends around midnight.

3. Poker players work for their money.  The top players work at their job more than 40 hours a week. I study poker books. I play both online and live.  I use flash cards to memorize hand ranges, for example, I know that the offsuit hands that are in the top 10% of all hands are AJo+ and KQo.  I study coaching videos and poker books.  I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my time in quarter-hours, just like I'm punching a time clock.

4. Poker incomes vary.  As with any other profession, some poker players make a lot more money than others.  For some players it is their full-time job.  Some make a million dollars or more in a year.  Some make 5- or 6-figure incomes. Others play part-time for a side income.  Some go broke because they aren't good enough, or don't study, or didn't mange their money well.

Don't be like this guy:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/42/two-plus-two-magazine-forum/going-broke-1436641/

My response to this player is post #7. 

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*Other options such a check or wire transfer are usually available.

I'm Still "Available Man"

I realize now that the Available Man problem has not gone away.  As mentioned in an earlier post, I became the one available to be a caregiver to my mother-in-law because I was the one in the family that "doesn't have a job."  I will never let someone say that to me unchallenged again and I am no longer a caregiver, but the problem persists.

I have two family members that might need that kind of help at some point, possibly soon. I know that at some point I will be asked to do more than my share.  It's not that they will want to take advantage of me.  The problem is that some point someone will be needed and I will be called because John and Jane Doe are "at work," It already happened once, when the family members who were "at work" were much closer to a family member that needed a ride to the hospital than I was. I've thought about this a lot, and I'm still not sure how to handle it.

I will agree to be part of any caregiver rotation just as I was with my mother-in-law.  But I won't let my job be messed with.  Poker is just like any other job in that very few people get rich doing it part-time.  I will insist that my job be treated with as much consideration that of any other family member.

To a lesser extent, this happens at home.  If something has to happen during "normal work hours" my wife has employers that expect her to cover the scheduled hours.  If I plan to be at my computer playing online poker in the afternoon and she plans to be working on her computer at home at the same time, I will have to be the one to change my plans if a 2 P.M. appointment has to be handled, My wife has no choice, that's just the way it is.

I've thought about this a lot, and there are some things I can do.  When I play a live tournament, which can take six hours or more, I always have my phone turned off.  I'm thinking about doing the same thing when I play or study at home.  I don't want to be disturbed when I'm playing for a $1,000 first prize at my local poker room, and I need to treat playing at home (or studying so I can make that money) the same way.

Online prizes of a thousand or more are available online more that you might think, in fact, as I have mentioned on this blog, most tournament pros don't make their money from a a lot of small cashes.  A large part of their income comes from a few large cashes.  How big the potential cashes are depends on the amount of the buy-in and the number of players. For example, a $5 online tournament with 800 players would have a first prize of about a thousand dollars.  The math is simple:

$5 X 800 players = $4,000 prize pool.  First place usually gets about 25% of the prize money.

Some online tournaments with thousands of players can run for eight hours or even longer--and that's part of the problem.  I don't have scheduled hours.  When a tournament ends, I might study, or play another one, or watch TV.  My tournaments can be online or live, in a poker room two miles from my house, or in another city.  Some of my live tournaments start at 1500, others start at 1800 or 1900.  Online tournaments are available 24 hours a day.  I don't care when I play, but I'm making some changes to get my work week up to 50 hours a week.

Tournament selection drives my schedule, and it's crucial that I carefully decide what, where and when to play.  Among the things I might consider when choosing a tournament is:

Will I be rested enough to play at the scheduled starting time?
What percentage of my poker bankroll does it cost to enter?
How big will the prize pool be?
What is the level of competition?
What are the incidental costs such as travel, food and drink?

I consider those things every single day before I start my work day.  I don't have anything like a regular schedule that I can put on a piece of paper so everyone knows when I'm not available.  I need to be free to choose my tournaments on a day--by-day basis if necessary.  I am for the most part free to do that.  But that very freedom can make others think that I'm available on demand--and therin lies the problem.

Math Keeps Me Sane

It would be easy for me to get discouraged.  Lately, I'm playing poker but not making any money.  I'm building up small amounts of money that I had sitting on two online poker sites, so that I can get my bankrolls big enough to make some money.  In live tournaments I haven't cashed in several months.

There are good explanations for this.  First and foremost, after several tries at being a full-time poker player, this year is the first real chance that I've had to make it happen.  In 2014 and 2015 I lived with my mother-in-law every week, 3-4 days a week, as her caregiver.  The family started with a rotation of two or three people doing that job, and two years later I was the only caregiver left standing because all of the other family members were, in their own words, burned out.  I never signed up to be doing it by myself and I quit.  Someone outside the family is now doing that job.

What really made that situation hard to deal with was that I wound up spending all of that time as a caregiver because a family member said I should do it because "I didn't have a job"  and I didn't speak up.  I should not have been silent.  I should have said that poker is my job.  But once I said yes, I was going to fulfill that commitment.  I had no idea I would be doing it for two years, but once I commit myself to something I don't quit.

Starting in February of this year, poker was finally my one and only job--but I'm starting all over again, after not getting the proper play or study time in for the last two years.

So, what does math have to do with this?  It tells me that this is normal.  Some players start out as big winners, then the reality check comes and they don't get anywhere for a while.  Some are just the opposite.  Like me, they do the studying and the other work, but they don't get results right away.

There are two mathematical concepts at play here, statistical variance and sample size.

Statistical variance says that over a small sample size a player's results do not indicate how good that player is.  A good player can play ten or more tournaments, sometimes many more, and not cash in any of them.  That's called negative variance.  A bad player can, over those same ten or more tournaments, cash in several of them, because he got a good run of cards or for other reasons.  That's positive variance.

To put in simply, poker is a long-term game.  It takes a while, a statistically valid sample size, for the cream to rise to the top.  To give an extreme example, in his first season on the World Poker Tour, Jonathan Little finished down fifty thousand dollars.  The next year, he was up over a million.  Little is now a two-time WPT Player of the Year.

That's pretty extreme variance, but I'm not competing against the best players in the world. so my edge over the field won't be as small at Little's.  As I have the chance to play more and more live tournaments, which is my main focus, after 25 or 50 or 100 tournaments, at some point the results will be there.  I spend 25% of my poker time on study every week.  I watch coaching videos.  I read and study poker books.  I make flash cards to memorize different hand ranges and other things that I need to memorize, for example, which hands are in the top 20%.  For those who want to know, those hands are:

66+,A4s+,K8s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo

A few of the people that I play against are probably doing that kind of studying.  Most aren't.  Very few have poker as their only job,  My last two tournaments I finished 26th of 72 and 8th of 34.  I'm going deep enough often enough that I know I'm close to making things happen.  Even more important, every tournament that I play I can see where I've improved and where I need to improve,  I learn from every tournament and the more I play, the better I'll get.  It's only a matter or time, or to put in another way, playing enough tournaments that I have a large enough sample size that short-term variance is not an issue.

Today's Live Tournament

I played a live $50 tournament today.  Lately I have played a lot over in the next county, but this was my second straight tournament in Muskegon.  The room is conveniently located 1.8 miles from my house.

It would have been a nice one to win.  There were 72 players, which means that first place would probably be over $1,000.  Unfortunatey my downswing, both live and online, continues.  I can't seem to win or cash anywhere.

Of course I know that much of it is negative statistical variance.  I'm spending a lot of time doing some serious studying..  Almost every week I hit my goal of at least 25% of my poker time being spent on study.  I had some small cashes ($250 or less) a few times in late 2015 and in January 16. I have no live cashes in the last three months, even though I know I'm a much better player than I was a few months ago.

Eventually I'll start cashing again, but it's always tough riding out the downswings.  I played pretty well and at one time today I had a very large chip stack.  Then something happened that was a big blow to my chances of cashing.

I had about an average stack when I was dealt pocket aces.  I raised with them and got two callers, always an exciting situation when holding aces.  I was about to make a big bet that would have caused the other players to make a tough decision--there was enough money in the pot that I would be happy if they folded.  Then the dealer said something, and I thought she was telling me that I forgot to post the blind (I know,it doesn't make any sense, I had a major brain fart) so I put the chips in the pot.  What she was telling me it was that it was my turn to play, and since the chips I put in the pot were more than the minimum bet, that automatically forced me to make it a raise.

Since I had raised, I had to bet enough more chips to make it a minraise. I put in the chips that completed the raise.  I had intended to make a big bet and put my two opponents to a decision but I never got the chance.  Both of those players bet big (a raise and a call) and I had to consider the possibility that one of them had flopped something better than top pair.

I lost the initiative.  With half of my chips already committed to the pot, I decided to fold.  I eventually got my chip stack up to where it was before that fiasco and it stayed there for a few minutes as we got down to four tables. I had rebuilt my stack until it was above the tournament average, but it didn't hold up..  I was unable to keep up with the rising blinds, I got all it all in, my AQ lost to AK and I was out in 26th place--far short of the final table finish that I needed to get into the money.

I'll probably take another shot at that tournament next Sunday.