My Aces Got Cracked

Nothing upsets poker players more than getting their aces cracked.  It happened to me last night.  My chip stack was below average but I was pretty close to a cash.  I don't remember all of the details, but I think that if three more players were knocked that would have put me in the money.  Of course, the real money in poker is making it into the top three, and ideally, winning.

I started counting that money when I bet, villain raised, I shoved preflop with aces and he called with kings.  Mathematically I couldn't have been in a better spot.  With no suits in common I win that one 81.26% of the time.  Of course, poker is a game of probabilty, not certainty.  Over the long term, I win in that situation often enough to make a profit.  In one tournament anything can happen..  The kings in that spot win 18.74% of the time, and this time they did.

Unlike most players, I don't freak out when that happens.  Poker is referred to as a "volume game" for a reason. I play often enough (I almost 500 tournaments this year) that losing with aces is a glitch, not a disaster.

I lost most of my stack in that hand.  I hung on and looked for a good spot to shove, but I missed again and was knocked out.  As Doyle Brunson famously said, "That's poker folks."*

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

The Rest of 2017

I mentioned recently that I was going to try again to get some STTs (single table tournaments, also called SNGs or sit 'n goes) running  It didn't happen.  (See 12/13 post, Other Playing Options.)  I opened an 8-player table on a Saturday night, poker prime time, and nothing happened.  More than an hour later I was still the only player registered.

It is still the case that I'm not going to be concerned about how many hours I work, or when, for the remaining days of 2017.  There are too many things coming up for the rest of the year that I can't control.  The updates that I want to make to my recordkeeping system for 2018 will take a few hours.  I won't worry about whether I am able to study for 10 hours or work 40 total hours this week.

I have gone back to flash card memorization and that will help me a lot.  Some of it is review of things that I've learned or memorized before, but it gets a little hazy after a while if I don't review those cards on a regular basis.  For example:

If I have 11 outs, I need to know immediately that the odds against hitting one of those outs on the river are 3.27 to 1.  Knowing that it's "about" 3 to 1 isn't good enough.  I need to know the exact odds and the pot size to know whether it is profitable to make that call.  Poker is like chess, in that there are many situations that have to be memorized so that when I'm looking at that situation, I know exactly what to do.  Unless chess, online poker moves fast and I have seconds, not minutes, to consider my next move.

I will be more comfortable playing online next year.  I just got a new office chair.  I can set a height and it doesn't slide back down on a regular basis as did the old chair.  I had to completely cover the new chair because one of our cats immediately put a few claw holes in it.  I tied a blanket onto the front and back and I taped towels onto each arm rest so that all of the soft parts of the chair are covered.

There is one thing happening this year that's a pretty big deal.  In a few days it will be December 26.  Why does that matter?  Because it's the best poker day of the year.   More recreational (weak) players, bigger prize pools, and often special tournaments offered by the sites.  Once I see the tournament lineup I'll plan when (or if) I'll be getting any sleep for those 24 hours.

Thoughts on Recent Topics

Thoughts on topics covered in recent posts:

1.  Total weekly study hours.  I might have to accept racking up fewer study hours during the rest of the year and add some administrative time to my schedule.  I track my poker time in three categories:  playing, studying and administrative (a catch-all for everything that is not studying or playing.)  I want to improve my recordkeeping system for next year.  I also want to make better use of the spreadsheet tools so that I can put my results on graphs and post those graphs in this blog.  I also want to track the financials, both income and expenses, more efficiently.



2.  Total weekly work hours.  My total work hours might fall short of 40 hours per week for the rest of the year.  Church and family activities around the Christmas season will eat into some of my time.  Also, the snow is hitting us pretty hard, which means I am and will be spending significant time dealing with the snow.  We've been in a winter storm watch or warning several days in a row.



3.  Not getting enough sleep.  I think that part of the reason for my lack of energy and not sleeping well is because I haven't been keeping myself in shape.  Until a few months ago I was running at least every other day as well as doing push-ups, sit-ups and other exercises every day.  Now I've become a coach and office chair potato.

If I get my act together I should easily drop 30 pounds next year, from my current 180 to 150, and I know that I will feel a lot better than I do now.  I have run one marathon (I weighed 140 then) and a lot of shorter races of between 3 and 15 miles.  I know what it takes to get in shape and I have no excuse for not doing it.

Other Playing Options

Being tied to a rigid schedule of two tournaments a night, with the first starting at 1829 and the second at 2214, is causing a lot of problems.  I've mentioned this before many times.  The main issue is that I start my work day a little before 1829.  That means that I need to get a decent amount of sleep during what most people would call normal work hours, or first shift.  That isn't working very well lately.

My granddaughter spent the night recently, which kept me out or the early tournament, but I was prepared to just play the 2214, then catch up on my sleep.  She woke up around 0330 and we wound up spending several hours watching videos together.  I was pushing hard to get my poker hours in that week.  The total was 37.75.

I admit that some of it was laziness and/or getting distracted by something else.  I wasn't diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder until I was 40.  That's a long time to build bad habits and I'll be fighting against that until the day I die.

It isn't going to get any easier.  This is December and I live in the Lake Michigan snow belt, where over 100 inches of snow is always possible. The seasonal record for the city of Muskegon, Michigan (I live in Muskegon Township) is 240 inches (20 feet).

Now I have two things that I have to do at a certain time: play the evening tournaments and make sure that the driveway and all of the exits are clear of snow.  I have to play poker when the tournaments are running and I have to deal with the snow when it falls.

Part of the problem has been daytime appointments which cut into my sleep time. In the last week and a half I had appointments with my doctor and my optician.  I also had to go to the local poker room because I'm the one who puts their schedule online.  The room had stopped communicating with me, and members on the area poker forum threads were asking if it was still open.

To top if off, this is the Christmas season (sorry, I'm going to be a grinch here.) There is more church activity than normal and more family gatherings.  It is also prime time for online poker, with the most players, the most casual (weak) players, the biggest prize pools, and special promotions from the poker sites.

This wouldn't be such a big deal except that the year is almost over and I'm ready to move up from bankroll building to making some real money. When everything is set up the way I want it and I'm making a decent income, missing a few tournaments or some sleep won't be such a big deal.  I'm 62 years old.  I don't want to be 80 years old, saying that someday I'll be making a lot of money playing poker.  The clock is ticking and it's loud.

I know that this isn't a permanent situation.  It won't always be snowing and I'll have some weeks that my schedule is clear for poker.  I'll have yard work to do in the spring, but at least I can do it when I want, not whenever the snow falls.

I'm always trying to figure out how to improve this situation and I have an idea that might work.  It's not a great solution, but it might be a reasonably good one.  I'm going to take a shot at playing some sit-n-goes.

I've considered that before, but there are some drawbacks:

1. It's takes a long time to get one running, usually a half-hour or more to get eight players to register..

2.. The rake for $1 SNGs is very high.  When I play an MTT I pay a 10% rake.  For a $1 SNG the rake is a ridiculous 29%.   That explains why they don't run very often. The best players in the world would have a hard time making money playing those.  I've even heard the word "impossible" used my some of the top players.

3. I am a deepstack tournament specialist building a bankroll to set myself up with options in 2018.  My focus and study should be on that.  Being a good SNG player requires a solid knowledge of ICM* but that's still on my list of things to study.  ICM is part of MTT poker theory, but it comes into play much more often in SNGs.

Here are the reasons that I think it might work, compared against the problems above:

1. It takes a long time to fill one up, but I can always wait while I'm at my desk studying.  If it takes an hour to open, then that's what it takes.  When it starts I can l put my study aside and play the SNG, which should take an average of something like 45 minutes.

2. I was thinking about SNG rake this morning (it's 0211 as I write this) and I remembered hearing in a webinar that usually the higher you go in SNGs, the smaller the rake is as a percentage.  I checked it out and for a $3.50 SNG the rake is only 12% of that amount.  That's a manageable number.

3. I should be able to make at least a small profit playing these.  I had a 14% ROI (return on investment ) playing them at the $11 level on PokerStars.  Even though I'm rusty and haven't kept up with the new developments in SNG theory, I should be able to hold my own without a lot of ICM study.

This might not work if I can't play enough of them to make it worth my trouble.  On the other hand, with an average profit of 14% (49 cents) those cents would slowly but surely turn into dollars.  This whole bankroll building effort has been about turning cents into dollars. If I can find enough of them I think I could play two at a time, if I overlap them so one is starting about the time I'm half way through the other one.  The thing that scares me the most about multi-tabling, whether it's a SNGs or an MTTs, is being heads-up in two tournaments at the same time.  I am definitely not ready to deal with that.

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*Independent Chop Model

http://www.thepokerbank.com/strategy/tournament/icm/what/

Sometimes Everything Goes Wrong

I said in yesterday's post that I often have trouble getting to sleep.  I also said that I shouldn't have any problem getting my 40 hours in this week. Some of that plan is going well  Other parts are a mess.

My wife knew that I was scrambling to get hours and playing time in this week.  Even though my granddaughter was here, my wife suggested that I talk a nap before I played the 1829 tournament.

I put earplugs in and went to bed.  About an hour it was obvious that I wasn't going to be able to sleep, so I got back up.

Strike one!

I tired again an hour or so later. I got some sleep. woke up at 2255, and felt pretty good about the upcoming tournament.  Granddaughter was sleep in a recliner.

I played the tournament and half an hour in, I had one of those hands that "plays itself" because both players have a hand that is too good to fold.

On a very wet board I flopped a backdoor flush draw and open-end straight draw (which was also the nut straight draw.)  Villain bet and I called.  On the turn I flopped the second nut flush draw.

This was an easy decision.   I had a boatload of outs.  I was in 10th place with 8 cashing, so if I folded I had a decent chance to make some money.  If I won the hand villain would be knocked out, we would be down to nine players and I would be in second place with a great chance for a big cash.  You never ignore any reasonable chance to move into the top three.

All the chips went in, and the ace of diamonds hit the board, giving villain the nut flush. I was out in 31st place.

Strike two!

So, here I am a little past midnight and the only thing on my list that I can accomplish is to hit my weekly numeric goals.  I need to work 9.75 hours today to get to my 40 for the week.  I would like to play one or both of my tournaments tonight, but study comes first.  The study hours are just too important.

For the next 12 hours I'll either be spending time with my granddaughter or studying.  There isn't time for anything else.  To get my study in I will have to plan carefully.  I did some math and it comes down to this:

If I wind up with 40 hours total, at least 25% of that time, or 10 hours, needs to be study.  I'm only at 3.25 study hours now, so if all I do is study I'll be in good shape.  If playing one or both tournaments puts me over 40 hours, then my study time today would have to be more than that, at least seven hours.

The bottom line is that I front-loaded my weekly schedule to get hours in, but too few of those hours were study.  I will watch that next week.
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Updates: Sleep Problems and Work Hours

Someday I'm going to make a list of rules like the ones Agent Gibbs has on NCIS.  I won't always carry a knife but I'm sure that two rules will be on my list:

1. Don't miss a hand.
2. Never play tired.

I'm mentioned number one before, and it's pretty obvious.  I don't want to come back to my desk just in time to see my big pocket pair folded because my time ran out.  It's happened to me and it's a sick feeling.  One hand like that at the right time can be the difference between missing the money and making it to the final table.  I watched my queens get autofolded with only 12 players left.

I've mentioned trouble sleeping more than once.  It really hit me today how big a deal it is.  I knew how important it was to get enough rest, but last night I really felt it.

I was really tired when I played the 1829 tournament last night and it was a mess.  I didn't make any huge mistakes, but just a few small ones can make a big difference. If I don't pay attention to the stack size of someone sitting next to me, I'm missing valuable information on how he might react if I make a big bet.  A very short stack might be forced into going all-in regardless of what I do.  I made a couple inattention mistakes like that and I was knocked out pretty quickly.

I took a nap of a little over an hour before the 2214 tournament.  When I sat down to play I felt like a different person.  It really emphasized the difference between playing rested and tired.

I cashed in that tournament  (10th of 55), but more important, I felt great.  It was the first time in several days that I wasn't tired while I was playing.  I had so much energy and focus that I was disappointed to get just the minimum cash.  I was fired up and ready to play for a few more hours.

Regarding my work hours, it looks like I'll hit my goals two weeks in a row.  My granddaughter is spending the night tonight (Friday) but I planned for that and got a lot of work in early in the week.  As I type this its 0330 on Friday and I've worked 28.25 hours so far. Even considering my granddaughter's visit, I shouldn't have a problem getting the last 11.75 hours in, because I'll get some time in today before she comes over, and Saturday is completely open.

I'll have to hit the studying hard this weekend to make sure it's at least 25% of my time. That number is really important, in fact, it's just as important as getting my total hours in.  Many of the pros that you see on TV study all the time.  Jonathan Little, the co-author of Bluffs, has his own coaching site, to which I am a subscriber.  Even so, Little has subscriptions to five other coaching sites.

Little is one of the top players in the world but he often talks about all of the things that he learns from other players.  Study is that big a deal.  If the guy sitting across from you at the poker table has a good grasp of the math and theory and you don't, as the little girl on Full House used to say, "You're in big trouble mister!"

I will be playing the 2314 tournament tonight.  My granddaughter will be asleep by then.  It's the best available tournament and runs only once a week.  I try to never miss it.  Other than that, when I'm not sleeping today I'll mostly be studying.  I need to make sure that I get my 25% (at least 10 hours) of study time.

This weekend I'll be working on two things

1. Math (flash cards for review and memorization of different situations)

2. Bluffs, concentrating on the chapter on continuation betting.  I already have a C-betting cheat sheet on a clipboard, ready for the 2314 tournament tonight.

By no means am I limiting myself to 40 hours a week, or to 25% study.  I've had plenty of jobs (or more than one job) where I worked more than 40 hours a week.  For now, since my sleep problems are messing me up, I'm happy with the twin goals of 40 work hours with at least 25% study.  Those two numbers are an acceptable minimum.

As always, your questions and comments (see the box below) are always welcome.

Professional Poker Doesn't Always Mean Setting Your Own Schedule

Sometimes I envy my wife.  She has a job and an employer and she knows what her work hours are.  When someone asks her to do something, she can decline because "I have to work."  Those are her hours and no one can mess with them.

I thought that one of the best things about poker would be that I could make my own schedule.  I didn't want a boss. I wanted freedom to run my Schedule C poker business however and whenever I wanted.  It hasn't worked out that way.

I said in my previous post that most of the time I haven't hit both of my weekly goals, which are at least 40 work hours with at least 25% of that time studying.

My plan was always to work about 6 hours a day, seven days a week, but I'm losing a lot more days than I expected.  When I have to go to the doctor or deal with some other business that happens "during the day" that can throw my schedule off.  When one of our grandchildren spends the night, that knocks out or more of my evening tournaments.

All of this messes up my sleep.  I'm an insomniac (I sleep soundly but have a lot of trouble falling asleep) so this is definitely an issue.

My best-laid plans often go astray.  That's not going to change.  To make sure that I put in my time  each week I need to front-load my schedule.  Besides the things I've already listed, sometimes there are surprises, like being asked to babysit our grandchildren without much notice.  I love spending time with them, but it is, in a way, bad for business.

I can no longer assume that I have enough time left to get everything done. Instead of working about six hours every Monday through Wednesday, I'll make it seven or eight.  It's not an ideal solution.  As someone said in the twoplustwo.com poker forums, if poker is going to be your profession you have to accept that it's a nights-and-weekends business, because that's when the biggest and best tournaments run.

I can't add more tournaments early in the week.  I'm very careful with my tournament selection, and the fewest players, and therefore the smallest prize pools, are always on Tuesday.  The best tournaments are always on Friday and Saturday.  I can't say "I have to work" when weekends are the usual time that my grandchildren can visit.

On another topic, I've been studying Bluffs, by Jonathan Little and Albert Hart.  It turns out that there are a lot of different aspects to bluffing.  One of those is opening pots with a wide (loose) range of hands and I've improved a lot in that area..  During my early-in-the-week study time I'm going to start working on another facet of bluffing.  I have to decide whether it will be continuation betting or check-raising. I'm weak in both areas.

As always, your questions and comments (see box below) are always welcome.

Hitting my Goals for the Week

Despite my efforts (I'm not sure that I can call them my best efforts) until now I had never hit my two weekly goals at the same time.  Those goals are  at least 40 hours of work time, with at least 25% of those hours being study.  I finally did both in the same week and I hope to make that a regular event.

I have the details of last week in front of me so I decided to give you an idea of how I spend my time.  I tried to copy and paste the spreadsheet.  It worked fine in a E-mail, but when I did the same thing here everything was scrambled, so I'll write it out.  This is how I spent my work week from Sunday, November 26 through Saturday, December 2:

Playing Online Poker Tournaments (27 hours)

I play two tournaments a night, six or seven nights a week.  I pick from the three tournaments that I think will be the most profitable.  Those tournaments start every night at 1829, 2214 and 2314 on Juicy Stakes Poker.  It's not always the same tournament at 2314, so some nights I play that one and other nights I play the one at 2214 instead.  I play the 1829 tournament almost every night.

Studying (11.5 hours)
I read and communicate with other players in an online poker forum.  I watch and study televised episodes of the Heartland Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour, where I learn at lot from the expert commentary.

I also read and study poker books.  I have read my most recent book, Bluffs, by Jonathan Little and Albert Hart, three times.  I typed out some of the ideas from that book and put it on a chipboard so that I can see it while I'm playing.  Sometimes it's just a reminder, but often I have it in front of me so that I can memorize the information while I'm playing..

I have a subscription to an online coaching site.  I watch videos where Jonathan Little, a World Poker Tour Player of the Year, shows a video of a tournament, or hands from several tournaments. There is analysis of his play and the play of his opponents.  I also get to participate in a poker webinar once a month.

Administrative (1.75 hours)
Most of this time is spent  keeping records, for myself and for the IRS.  Blog posts also go under this category.  Sometimes I will visit or correspond with area poker rooms (even though I'm only playing online for now) so that I can keep in touch with the rest of the area poker community.  I hope to be playing live and on two online sites sometime in 2018.


As always, your comments and questions (see box below) are welcome.

November 2017 Results

The month started out well, but the last three weeks were pretty bad.  I was card dead for several weeks, then I started getting a lot of good hands that didn't hold up.  I don't think that I made a lot of mistakes.  Sometimes variance just happens and there is nothing that can be done.

I did not play on Americas Cardroom and I will not be doing so until sometime in the first quarter of 2018.  I was hoping to announce that my bankroll hit the $300 mark, but it didn't happen.  Below are the November results.  I guess some profit is better than none.  Poker players call it grinding for a reason.


Juicy Stakes Poker, August 2017, 56 tournaments
15 net win tournaments:   +$126.57
41 net loss tournaments:    -$112.10
                                                 ----------
                                                +$11.47


As always, your questions and comments are welcome (see box below.)