Exactly as Planned

Yesterday I talked about grinding up small bankrolls and about how I should deal with the very small amount that I have on Americas Cardroom, saying the following:

"If I have to grind up this one up with a bunch of 20 or 40 cent cashes, that's what I'm going to do.   There is no room to maneuver without a bankroll of at least 100 buy-ins."

I did exactly that last night.  I played the 11 cent tournament, came in 24th out of 725 players, and cashed for 44 cents.  Of course I would have rather made it to the final table and won dollars instead of cents, and those cashes will happen, but I'm not going to fight my way through over 700 players and make it the final table every other day.  A 44 cent profit is 4 buy-ins, and I'll take that.

I did get a surprise as I was playing  I thought that the tournament would end in 3-4 hours, but I played for 4 hours and 20 minutes and was knocked out with 23 players left.  I did not expect it to take that long.  That's a lot of playing time for 44 cents.

Maybe on I should play more on Juicy Stakes, where I can generate more dollars, and only on Americas Cardroom only once in a while.  I'm not sure.  I need at least two sites going.  I need options.  The two sites offer very different things and I need to be able to choose a tournament from either depending on the situation.   I'll have to give it some thought, but it will all come together.

The one thing I'm sure of is that I learned my lesson.  I will never play with a short bankroll again.

Changes--Bankroll Management

I said in my previous post that I was making fixes or changes in a lot of areas.  One of those areas is bankroll management.  That change is part of the reason that I'm winning, but it's also the reason that I'm increasing my bankrolls very slowly.

I concentrated on live tournaments last year and that didn't go well.  I was playing without a bankroll, taking $50 from the family budget once or twice a month.  I seldom cashed, none were big cashes and I never had a bankroll of more than 5 buy-ins.  We all know how that story ends. A small bankroll equals little chance of success, and I lost money playing live in 2016.

Everything changed when we moved out of the hood.  We said goodbye to neighborhood gangs, constant noise and the bullet hole in our house.  We moved to a much quieter neighborhood.  Instead of playing on the kitchen table, I had my own office in a room where I could shut the door.

Having a quiet place to play and study makes a huge difference.  When you have ADD, limiting distractions is an absolute must.  I can do that now.  Given what a disaster live poker without a bankroll was and given that I now had an office, it made sense to concentrate on live poker.  I have done exactly that in 2017.  I have not played one live tournament this year and I'm not sure if I will. My mission in 2017 is to have decent bankrolls on multiple poker sites.

I started 2017 with $35 that had been sitting on Juicy Stakes Poker for two years.  I played $1.10 tournaments, the cheapest that I could find.  Even so, I only had 31 buy-ins, so I had to be really careful and stick with the $1.10 MTTs.  I made it work, slowly but surely grinding up my bankroll up to $175.  I need to keep grinding it up so that I have the 100 buy-ins necessary to play at $2.20 and beyond.  I have also been playing on Americas Cardroom, where I was also going to grind up a small bankroll, but that didn't go so well.  I lost it all.  Statistical variance happens.

I made the minimum deposit to keep playing on ACR, but just as with Juicy Stakes, I'm starting over with a very small ($25) bankroll.  There was a tournament running every night that was less than a dollar so, as ridiculous as it might seem, I started playing 11 cent tournaments on Americas Cardroom.  I played live poker with a very small bankroll and went down in flames.  If I have to grind up this one with a bunch of 20 or 40 cent cashes, that's what I'm going to do.   There is no room to maneuver without a bankroll of at least 100 buy-ins.

The bottom line is that I made a huge bankroll management mistake with live poker, and I'll never do that again.  I'm making very little money, but I am making money, with 4 winning months out of 5 and more than tripling what I started with on Juicy Stakes Poker.

There will be a lot more in future posts about all the changes that I'm making to put myself in a much better position in 2018.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

May 2017 Results

I should have posted this earlier.  I had a lot going on, and I guess posting that I lost money last month wasn't an exciting priority.  I will endeavor to be more timely in future posts.

May was the first month this year that I was in the red.  It was bound to happen sooner or later.  That's the nature of poker, a long-term game than can have some wild ups and down in the short run.  May wasn't a big hit, just the one month out of five that I didn't make money so far this year.

Here are the numbers, from the two sites where on which I am now playing:

Juicy Stakes Poker, May 2017
17 tournaments played
5 net win tournaments,   +$9.90
12 net loss tournaments, -$19.90
                                                ---------
                                               -$10.20

Americas Cardroom, May 2017
11 net win tournaments,    +$35.88
37 net loss tournaments,   -$64.35
                                                   ---------
                                                 -$28.47


Total results for May 2017, -$38.67.

No one likes to lose, but with only one losing month so far and the many changes that I've made in many areas, I'm reasonably happy.  For some perspective, here is a list of monthly results:

January              35.70
February            40.77
March                17.70
April                    8.79
May                  -38.67
                       ----------
2017 to date  $64.29

That's not a lot of money, but strange as it may seem, that's not the point.  Everything that I'm doing this year is planned to set myself up for success in 2017.  I'll be talking a lot about that in future posts. I'll go over some of the things that I've fixed or changed, as well as all of the obstacles that I've had to face, and in many cases, that I'm still facing.

I said in January that this was all aimed at breaking out in 2018.  That is still the plan.  Sooner or later I'll break through with a really big month, but for now I know where I'm heading and how to get there.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.