Nothing much happening with my poker bankroll this week. I'm in a very weird breakeven stretch where my bankroll has barely moved. I've played around 20 tournaments this week, ranging from 9 players to 6,424. I started the week at $82.73, and now I'm at $87.62. Those are also the low and high numbers for the week so far.
----------------------
The main topic of this post, and the next, will concern a debate in the twoplustwo.com poker fourms about the morality of poker. It seems odd to me that someone would bother to play poker, as well as post in a poker forum, if they thought it was immoral. But I suppose that people make all kinds of compromises for money.
The post that follows was my general answer to the question, "Is poker immoral?" Tomorrow's post will be longer, and is my response to a specific topic which came up in the thread--Does is say in the Bible that poker is immoral?
------------------------
Re: Is playing poker immoral?
Here is how I deal with the morality question:
I run in 5K and 10K races. I pay an entry fee, and the best runners win cash prizes.
I play chess tournaments. I pay an entry fee, and the players with the most points after a few matches (1 point for a win and 0.5 points for a draw) win cash prizes.
I play poker tournaments. I pay an entry fee, and the players that last the longest win cash prizes.
Why is there a morality issue involved in poker, but not in running or playing chess?
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
8/16/2010--Why large tournament fields can be frustrating
Here are the results of my play in a very large tournament (over 6,000 players). I played for 2 hours and 39 minutes, finished ahead of 5,851 other players, and cashed--for a net win of 89 cents! First place was $990.
PokerStars Tournament #326010341
No Limit Hold'em Buy-In: $1.00/$0.10 USD ($1 goes to the prize poll, 10 cents to PokerStars.)
6424 playersTotal Prize Pool: $6424.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/08/16 11:00:00 ET
Dear Poker Clif,
You finished the tournament in 573rd place. A USD 1.99 award has been credited to your Real Money account.You earned 36.73 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/leader-board/
Congratulations!Thank you for participating
PokerStars Tournament #326010341
No Limit Hold'em Buy-In: $1.00/$0.10 USD ($1 goes to the prize poll, 10 cents to PokerStars.)
6424 playersTotal Prize Pool: $6424.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/08/16 11:00:00 ET
Dear Poker Clif,
You finished the tournament in 573rd place. A USD 1.99 award has been credited to your Real Money account.You earned 36.73 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/leader-board/
Congratulations!Thank you for participating
Sunday, August 15, 2010
8/15/2010--Results for week 8/8-8/14
WORK HOURS
Administrative, 2.00
Study, 1.75
Play, 23.75
----------------
TOTAL HOURS, 27.50
I'm not thrilled with those hours, but there were things going on that week. My wife is president of the neighborhood association, and we got invovled (and still are involved) with an issue that went before the city planning commission that week. Plus, I was generally dragging, and seemed to be tired all the time.
I still think that I could have done a lot better, and I'll have to be more focused this week. After all, my wife managed to put in her 40 hours at her job and still deal with the city issue.
PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll 8/8, $29.79
Ending bankroll 8/14, $83.73
+$53.94
That's more like it!
I had to spend most of my frequent player points to do it, but at 220 FPPs each, I played 5 satellites to the Sunday 1/4 Million tournament, won 4 tickets, and cashed them out for $11 each, which was most of my profit for the week.
I'm down to about 50 FPPs, so I can't pull that rabbit out of my hat for a while. But at least now I have some breathing room. Under my consolidated bankroll management rules, I need a bankroll of $114.40 to play $2.20 tournaments, so that goal is in sight.
Except for the satellite wins, nothing dramatic happened during the week. I won 4 of 5 satellites, I was up a little in the other tournaments that I played, and now I'm back in the game.
Administrative, 2.00
Study, 1.75
Play, 23.75
----------------
TOTAL HOURS, 27.50
I'm not thrilled with those hours, but there were things going on that week. My wife is president of the neighborhood association, and we got invovled (and still are involved) with an issue that went before the city planning commission that week. Plus, I was generally dragging, and seemed to be tired all the time.
I still think that I could have done a lot better, and I'll have to be more focused this week. After all, my wife managed to put in her 40 hours at her job and still deal with the city issue.
PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll 8/8, $29.79
Ending bankroll 8/14, $83.73
+$53.94
That's more like it!
I had to spend most of my frequent player points to do it, but at 220 FPPs each, I played 5 satellites to the Sunday 1/4 Million tournament, won 4 tickets, and cashed them out for $11 each, which was most of my profit for the week.
I'm down to about 50 FPPs, so I can't pull that rabbit out of my hat for a while. But at least now I have some breathing room. Under my consolidated bankroll management rules, I need a bankroll of $114.40 to play $2.20 tournaments, so that goal is in sight.
Except for the satellite wins, nothing dramatic happened during the week. I won 4 of 5 satellites, I was up a little in the other tournaments that I played, and now I'm back in the game.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
8/13/2010--Time to change my schedule
I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to check a 24-hour period and see when the $1 MTTs with a good stucture were going off. After doing that, I decided that I'm going to have to start playing (and getting up) earlier in the day, at least for a while.
The conventional poker wisdom is that the best time to play online is evening (in the United States), US holidays and weekends. That's because the biggest group of players comes from the United States. When the US players aren't working or in class (18 is the minimum age to play online) there are more players, which means more tournaments are running (with bigger prize pools) and there are more options for those who, like me, care about table/tournament selection.
The other reason is that there are more weak players during those hours. A lot of U.S. pros do much of their playing during the day, especially parents whose kids are in school at that time. But at night and on weekends, the amateurs come out to play.
The two best times to play are Saturday nights, or during college vacations. On December 31, 2008, player traffic briefly overwhelmed the PokerStars servers.
But since I'm limited to $1 MTTs, I have to play when they are available. I can still find some good games nights and weekends, but if I really want to concentrate on MTTs, which can take 6 hours or more to finish (my longest so far was 5 hours and 53 minutes, finishing 5th out of 2,200 players), I have to play when they are available, and that's during the day.
Here is the daily schedule of when the $1.10s go off, and whether the structure is a good fit for my playing style:
0600 yes
0700 yes
1100 yes
1220 yes
1720 yes
1800 no
1900 no
2100 no
I generally get up around noon, which gives me one or two shots at it. I don't want to stumble out of bed and eat at the desk while I'm half awake for a 1220 tournaments, so really I have to be up in the morning. The earlier I'm up, the more chances I'll have.
For example, if I play at 6 or 7 A.M., by 1100 I'll either be knocked out of the early tournament, or I will have cashed. If I've cashed (it usually takes about 3 hours to get "in the money") and I'm still still playing, of course I'll stick with that tournament, and what follows won't really matter. When I finally get knocked out, I'll look at the schedule again and decide if I want to get in another long one. If not, then I'll play a SNG, study, or use my time some other way.
For now, I'm setting my alarm a little earlier every day. It's not going to be any fun. I'm naturally a night person, I've worked second or third shift at least as much as first, and when I don't set any alarms I fall into my natural pattern and I wake up at noon or a little later. But for a while, I'll have to be a morning person. When my bankroll gets bigger (and it's going very well so far this week) I'll have more options.
Until then, I'm a morning person. I won't like it and neither will my cats, who like coming in the office at night and watching me play poker (or in Vanessa's case, eating my papers).
The conventional poker wisdom is that the best time to play online is evening (in the United States), US holidays and weekends. That's because the biggest group of players comes from the United States. When the US players aren't working or in class (18 is the minimum age to play online) there are more players, which means more tournaments are running (with bigger prize pools) and there are more options for those who, like me, care about table/tournament selection.
The other reason is that there are more weak players during those hours. A lot of U.S. pros do much of their playing during the day, especially parents whose kids are in school at that time. But at night and on weekends, the amateurs come out to play.
The two best times to play are Saturday nights, or during college vacations. On December 31, 2008, player traffic briefly overwhelmed the PokerStars servers.
But since I'm limited to $1 MTTs, I have to play when they are available. I can still find some good games nights and weekends, but if I really want to concentrate on MTTs, which can take 6 hours or more to finish (my longest so far was 5 hours and 53 minutes, finishing 5th out of 2,200 players), I have to play when they are available, and that's during the day.
Here is the daily schedule of when the $1.10s go off, and whether the structure is a good fit for my playing style:
0600 yes
0700 yes
1100 yes
1220 yes
1720 yes
1800 no
1900 no
2100 no
I generally get up around noon, which gives me one or two shots at it. I don't want to stumble out of bed and eat at the desk while I'm half awake for a 1220 tournaments, so really I have to be up in the morning. The earlier I'm up, the more chances I'll have.
For example, if I play at 6 or 7 A.M., by 1100 I'll either be knocked out of the early tournament, or I will have cashed. If I've cashed (it usually takes about 3 hours to get "in the money") and I'm still still playing, of course I'll stick with that tournament, and what follows won't really matter. When I finally get knocked out, I'll look at the schedule again and decide if I want to get in another long one. If not, then I'll play a SNG, study, or use my time some other way.
For now, I'm setting my alarm a little earlier every day. It's not going to be any fun. I'm naturally a night person, I've worked second or third shift at least as much as first, and when I don't set any alarms I fall into my natural pattern and I wake up at noon or a little later. But for a while, I'll have to be a morning person. When my bankroll gets bigger (and it's going very well so far this week) I'll have more options.
Until then, I'm a morning person. I won't like it and neither will my cats, who like coming in the office at night and watching me play poker (or in Vanessa's case, eating my papers).
Monday, August 9, 2010
8/10/2010--The cat ate my homework
I use a worksheet (an actual piece of paper) while I'm playing. I write down my raw information, a line for everything I do. If I make a deposit or withdrawl, that's an entry. If I buy a poker book, that's an entry. Every tournament, or study session, or administrative session is an entry. Later, all of the information is entered on different Open Office spreadsheets which track my profit and loss, work hours, bankroll status, and expenses.
I had one side of the page filled, and I turned over my August 2010 worksheet so I could write down this administrative session (this blog entry and whatever other administrative things I do in the next half-hour or so). But there is nowhere to enter the date--because our kitten (just turned one year old) will not be ignored.
She will do whatever she has to do to get my attention--knaw on whichever of my appendages is handy, slap me, knock my pen off the desk, or in this case, eat my paperwork. I grabbed the paper before she got it off the desk, but the top part of the date column is missing.
An ignored kitten can be very naughty when trying to get attention. You would think that little Vanessa Rousso (the namesake of the Two Plus Two Pokercast 2010 player of the year) would have a little more respect for what I'm doing. But when a kitten needs to play, nothing else matters.
I had one side of the page filled, and I turned over my August 2010 worksheet so I could write down this administrative session (this blog entry and whatever other administrative things I do in the next half-hour or so). But there is nowhere to enter the date--because our kitten (just turned one year old) will not be ignored.
She will do whatever she has to do to get my attention--knaw on whichever of my appendages is handy, slap me, knock my pen off the desk, or in this case, eat my paperwork. I grabbed the paper before she got it off the desk, but the top part of the date column is missing.
An ignored kitten can be very naughty when trying to get attention. You would think that little Vanessa Rousso (the namesake of the Two Plus Two Pokercast 2010 player of the year) would have a little more respect for what I'm doing. But when a kitten needs to play, nothing else matters.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
8/8/2010--Results for week of 8/1-8/7
HOURS
Administrative, 3.00
Study, 2.25
Play 19.50
-------------------
Total Hours, 24.75
I hardly played at all for 2 days because I was too tired. In fact, one day I quit 45 minutes into my second tournament. I was more tired that I thought I would be, and half an hour into late registration I could see that the tournament would be much larger than I anticipated (it wound up with 6,410 players) and I knew there was no way I would be thinking straight after several hours.
This is a week that got a away from me, one of those things that doesn't happen if you have to go somewhere and physically report for work. "Going to work" tired is different. In most cases, even if your performance is off, as long as you can stay awake, you still get paid.
Poker, of course, is not like that. If I had tried to finish that 6,410 player tournament I almost certainly would not have cashed (the entry fee is a sunk cost whether I play for one hour or four) and I would have wasted that time playing badly and just fighting to stay awake.
My schedule got a little wierd last week, once I was awakened by a noise outside after sleeping for about two hours (I'm a very sound sleeper, so it must have been very loud.) Unfortunately, I have the type of insomnia where I have a very difficult time getting to sleep, and there were other things going on that day, so it was a lost poker day.
PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll 8/1, $57.62
Ending bankroll, 8/7, $29.79
-$27.83
A little scary, but I think I have a strategy figured out now.
Most of the $1.10 MTTs have a horrible structure, and I need to skip them. I now have my tournament listtings set to show everything starting withing 24 hours, so I can pick out the ones with good structures for me, and skip the rest.
With the rest of my playing time, I'll go back to my old specialty, STTs (single table tournaments). I won't make a lot of money with those, because the entry fee, at 20%, is so high at the $1 level ($1 to the prize pool and 20 cents to PokerStars), but even with that entry fee I'm a proven winner at the level, so I'll make something, even if it's only a net 40 cents for my third place finishes. The STTs will keep me from sliding backward until I hit a good score in one of the few MTTs that I can spend my time on at this level.
One of the wierd things about online poker tournaments is that in a way, it gets easier at the higher levels. The competition is tougher, so in that sense it's not easier. But as you move up in levels there are many more choices. There are mixed games (tournaments for players that like to play several poker variants), a great range of tournament sizes and prize pools (including a few tournaments a year that last several days with top prizes of up to a million dollars), and tournaments as small as two players (called "heads-up" tournaments).
Paying attention to "tournament selection" (knowing what tournaments best fit your skills and playing style) can yield a lot more profit. Most of those choices aren't avalable at all playing $1 tournaments, so I have to carefully pick my few good choices and slog my way out of this mess. As I type this it's 4:10 A.M. and the next $1.10 MTT with a good structure starts at 6 A.M., so I'm filling the poker time with other things until then.
Administrative, 3.00
Study, 2.25
Play 19.50
-------------------
Total Hours, 24.75
I hardly played at all for 2 days because I was too tired. In fact, one day I quit 45 minutes into my second tournament. I was more tired that I thought I would be, and half an hour into late registration I could see that the tournament would be much larger than I anticipated (it wound up with 6,410 players) and I knew there was no way I would be thinking straight after several hours.
This is a week that got a away from me, one of those things that doesn't happen if you have to go somewhere and physically report for work. "Going to work" tired is different. In most cases, even if your performance is off, as long as you can stay awake, you still get paid.
Poker, of course, is not like that. If I had tried to finish that 6,410 player tournament I almost certainly would not have cashed (the entry fee is a sunk cost whether I play for one hour or four) and I would have wasted that time playing badly and just fighting to stay awake.
My schedule got a little wierd last week, once I was awakened by a noise outside after sleeping for about two hours (I'm a very sound sleeper, so it must have been very loud.) Unfortunately, I have the type of insomnia where I have a very difficult time getting to sleep, and there were other things going on that day, so it was a lost poker day.
PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll 8/1, $57.62
Ending bankroll, 8/7, $29.79
-$27.83
A little scary, but I think I have a strategy figured out now.
Most of the $1.10 MTTs have a horrible structure, and I need to skip them. I now have my tournament listtings set to show everything starting withing 24 hours, so I can pick out the ones with good structures for me, and skip the rest.
With the rest of my playing time, I'll go back to my old specialty, STTs (single table tournaments). I won't make a lot of money with those, because the entry fee, at 20%, is so high at the $1 level ($1 to the prize pool and 20 cents to PokerStars), but even with that entry fee I'm a proven winner at the level, so I'll make something, even if it's only a net 40 cents for my third place finishes. The STTs will keep me from sliding backward until I hit a good score in one of the few MTTs that I can spend my time on at this level.
One of the wierd things about online poker tournaments is that in a way, it gets easier at the higher levels. The competition is tougher, so in that sense it's not easier. But as you move up in levels there are many more choices. There are mixed games (tournaments for players that like to play several poker variants), a great range of tournament sizes and prize pools (including a few tournaments a year that last several days with top prizes of up to a million dollars), and tournaments as small as two players (called "heads-up" tournaments).
Paying attention to "tournament selection" (knowing what tournaments best fit your skills and playing style) can yield a lot more profit. Most of those choices aren't avalable at all playing $1 tournaments, so I have to carefully pick my few good choices and slog my way out of this mess. As I type this it's 4:10 A.M. and the next $1.10 MTT with a good structure starts at 6 A.M., so I'm filling the poker time with other things until then.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Results, week of 7/25-7/31
HOURS
Administrative, 2.00
Study, 3.75
Play, 41.50
-------------
Total Hours, 47.25
I'm pretty happy about this, things are definitely going in the right direction. One of things that I've finally figured out is that I do better in a few long sessions than in a lot of short ones. As I have ADD and I'm supposed to have trouble staying focused, this would seem counterintuitive. But the truth is that it's like running--once I actually start doing it, I enjoy it, and it's not a chore. But it's easy for me to get distracted: I watch a news story on TV, get a drink, check my E-mail, and generally mess around, and before I know it an hour has gone by. So fewer but longer poker sessions seems to be the way to go.
I recently had a nine-hour session, probably my longest online session this year. I might be close to reaching one of my goals, which is to at least occasionally put in a 60-hour week.
PROFIT AND LOSS
Staring bankroll, 7/25, $116.22
Ending bankroll, 7/31, $57.62
-$58.60
This looks like a disaster, and that's what I thought at first. I knew that I had come just short of the money in a lot of tournaments. I looked at my Holdem Manager graphs, and noticed that my usual cashing rate in tournaments, about 20%, had dropped way down. I thought for a minute, and that I got it--that's what's supposed to happen!
I've been trying to convert from being a SNG player (one or just a few tables) to a multi-table tournament player, who playes tournaments with thosands of players. And that's what I'm doing--I've finally internalized that mentality. I am now a fearless, risk-taking, high-variance player who understanda that most of the money is at the final table, and especially in the top 3 places.
I'm now play like Dr. Chris Ferguson (doctorate in computer science with an emphasis on artifical intelligence), who went an entire year on the World Poker Tour, playing tournaments with entry fees of $10,000 and only cashed 3 times--but they were all final tables, 6-or 7-figure cashes!
I'm going out just before the money, because in a way, that's what I'm supposed to do. When everyone else is playing it safe and hoaring their chips so that they can be sure of cashing, I'm supposed to respond to the timidity of those timid players by trying to push them around, put them in tough situations, and generally make them give up and give me their chips.
That's the good news, and it absolutely will pay off. Intellectually I've known that I needed to play that way for a long time. But for someone like me--methodocal, plodding, tortoise rather than hare, step-by-step--whatever you call my personality, it was the opposite of an MTT personality. But now I'm there.
Of course, the problem is that I'm running out of money. So until I have a lot more leeway with my bankroll, I'm going to have to take some time away from my MTT playing and mix in a lot of SNG low-variance playing to at least keep my bankroll from going any lower until I hit a big score in an MTT.
It's wierd. I had a financially horrible week, but at the same time I've arrived, at least in my mindset and playing style, as a multi-table tournament player. Now all I have to do is turn that mindset into some action, and pretty darn soon.
Administrative, 2.00
Study, 3.75
Play, 41.50
-------------
Total Hours, 47.25
I'm pretty happy about this, things are definitely going in the right direction. One of things that I've finally figured out is that I do better in a few long sessions than in a lot of short ones. As I have ADD and I'm supposed to have trouble staying focused, this would seem counterintuitive. But the truth is that it's like running--once I actually start doing it, I enjoy it, and it's not a chore. But it's easy for me to get distracted: I watch a news story on TV, get a drink, check my E-mail, and generally mess around, and before I know it an hour has gone by. So fewer but longer poker sessions seems to be the way to go.
I recently had a nine-hour session, probably my longest online session this year. I might be close to reaching one of my goals, which is to at least occasionally put in a 60-hour week.
PROFIT AND LOSS
Staring bankroll, 7/25, $116.22
Ending bankroll, 7/31, $57.62
-$58.60
This looks like a disaster, and that's what I thought at first. I knew that I had come just short of the money in a lot of tournaments. I looked at my Holdem Manager graphs, and noticed that my usual cashing rate in tournaments, about 20%, had dropped way down. I thought for a minute, and that I got it--that's what's supposed to happen!
I've been trying to convert from being a SNG player (one or just a few tables) to a multi-table tournament player, who playes tournaments with thosands of players. And that's what I'm doing--I've finally internalized that mentality. I am now a fearless, risk-taking, high-variance player who understanda that most of the money is at the final table, and especially in the top 3 places.
I'm now play like Dr. Chris Ferguson (doctorate in computer science with an emphasis on artifical intelligence), who went an entire year on the World Poker Tour, playing tournaments with entry fees of $10,000 and only cashed 3 times--but they were all final tables, 6-or 7-figure cashes!
I'm going out just before the money, because in a way, that's what I'm supposed to do. When everyone else is playing it safe and hoaring their chips so that they can be sure of cashing, I'm supposed to respond to the timidity of those timid players by trying to push them around, put them in tough situations, and generally make them give up and give me their chips.
That's the good news, and it absolutely will pay off. Intellectually I've known that I needed to play that way for a long time. But for someone like me--methodocal, plodding, tortoise rather than hare, step-by-step--whatever you call my personality, it was the opposite of an MTT personality. But now I'm there.
Of course, the problem is that I'm running out of money. So until I have a lot more leeway with my bankroll, I'm going to have to take some time away from my MTT playing and mix in a lot of SNG low-variance playing to at least keep my bankroll from going any lower until I hit a big score in an MTT.
It's wierd. I had a financially horrible week, but at the same time I've arrived, at least in my mindset and playing style, as a multi-table tournament player. Now all I have to do is turn that mindset into some action, and pretty darn soon.
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