My recent results remind me once again of the reality of variance in poker. On February 1st I started online play with a $50.05 deposit on Americas [sic] Cardroom. Here are my results so far this month. All but three tournaments were nine-player sit'n gos.
February 1-4: -$3.06
February 5-11: -$6.46
February 12-18: +$1.39
Febraury 19-25: + $18.73
-----------------
Month so far: +$10.60
So, one profitable week made up for the net negative results for the first 3 weeks. But if we look at my results in the three $2.20 MTTs (multitable tournaments) from this month, it gets really interesting:
2/19, 12th of 65, +$1.70
2/23, 2nd of 56, +$17.27
2/24, 23rd of 59, did not cash, -$2.20
I played 86 online tournaments, and if you take out that one tournament on 2/23, I'm down for the month. Results for a week, or a month, or sometimes even a year, can be greatly affected by the results of just one tournament.
If you're going to play this game, you better have the stomach for it.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
I'm back!
A lot has happened since my last post almost seven months ago. The bad news is that a lot of the top online players (my wild guess is that it's about 500) left the United States and established residence in other countries. Canada, England and Thailand are among the most popular choices. The good news is that slowly, but most think, inexorably, the legal climate for poker in the United States is changing for the better.
Regarding the bad news, even if the president signed a favorable poker bill next week, it wouldn't help most of the expatriates. Those players were and are playing on big sites like PokerStars with hundreds of thousands of players, and millions of dollars to be won. I know of one player on PokerStars who had both net win and net loss days of over one million dollars in 2010.
Yes, you read that correctly. There was so much money flying around, and games available at such high stakes, that a player could win or lose a million dollars in a single day.
But even if President Obama signed a favorable poker bill this week, it wouldn't help the poker expats. The new US regulated sites will start from scratch with small player pools, other-than-US players might not be allowed on the sites (at least right away), and there would be a lot of competition, that is, a lot of casinos and other companies wanting to cash in on the next online poker boom. Given all that, it would take a while for the competition to shake things out, and for fewer but larger sites to emerge..
Until this works itself out, few players making six or seven figures playing on PokerStars and "sharing a sick house in Thailand with my poker buddies"* will come back to the US.
Now for the good news. Online poker is already explicitly legal and regulated in Washington, D.C., and the state of Nevada is writing regulations to do the same thing. A few other states are looking into the possibilites, and at some point there could be interstate poker compacts. An interstate system wouldn't have to be designed from scratch, as there is already a model in place--multistate lotteries.
At the federal level, congressional hearings have already been held on poker bills, and members who were against online poker are mostly on board, in exchange for regulatory concessions such as income tax reporting by the sites and strict regulations to block underage players. However, this is an election year, when almost nothing gets done. In fact, President Obama has actually stated that extending the Bush payroll tax cuts is his only legislative priority in 2012, so we're almost certainly looking at 2013 before federal legislation can happen.
A personal note here. A lot of poker players are very nervous about the income tax reporting requirements because, as with most businesses and professions that deal with cash income, underreporting is rampant. My response to that is twofold:
1. We are all required to pay income taxes, and those players who are breaking the law aren't doing anything to help the image of online poker when we're working to get state and federal legislators on our side.
2. I have always paid taxes on all of my income, including something as small as getting paid $50 for playing my clarinet in a restaurant band. The change to mandatory reporting by the sites would actually help me a lot. If I could get a W2-type document from a poker site, it would save me a lot of time and effort. I wouldn't have to keep records of my hours (necessary if my pro status is questioned by the IRS) or keep track of net wins and net losses for thousands of individual poker tournaments (though I must say that the latest version of my spreadsheet is a work of art.)
So, that's where things stand. As of February 1 I'm playing on Americas [sic] Cardroom, a US-facing state (a site based outside the US but catering to US players.) More about that in future posts.
-------------------------------
*A phrase from a iconic commercial for a poker coaching site, where a poker player (a real one not an actor) describes the results of improving his game by using a poker coaching site.
Regarding the bad news, even if the president signed a favorable poker bill next week, it wouldn't help most of the expatriates. Those players were and are playing on big sites like PokerStars with hundreds of thousands of players, and millions of dollars to be won. I know of one player on PokerStars who had both net win and net loss days of over one million dollars in 2010.
Yes, you read that correctly. There was so much money flying around, and games available at such high stakes, that a player could win or lose a million dollars in a single day.
But even if President Obama signed a favorable poker bill this week, it wouldn't help the poker expats. The new US regulated sites will start from scratch with small player pools, other-than-US players might not be allowed on the sites (at least right away), and there would be a lot of competition, that is, a lot of casinos and other companies wanting to cash in on the next online poker boom. Given all that, it would take a while for the competition to shake things out, and for fewer but larger sites to emerge..
Until this works itself out, few players making six or seven figures playing on PokerStars and "sharing a sick house in Thailand with my poker buddies"* will come back to the US.
Now for the good news. Online poker is already explicitly legal and regulated in Washington, D.C., and the state of Nevada is writing regulations to do the same thing. A few other states are looking into the possibilites, and at some point there could be interstate poker compacts. An interstate system wouldn't have to be designed from scratch, as there is already a model in place--multistate lotteries.
At the federal level, congressional hearings have already been held on poker bills, and members who were against online poker are mostly on board, in exchange for regulatory concessions such as income tax reporting by the sites and strict regulations to block underage players. However, this is an election year, when almost nothing gets done. In fact, President Obama has actually stated that extending the Bush payroll tax cuts is his only legislative priority in 2012, so we're almost certainly looking at 2013 before federal legislation can happen.
A personal note here. A lot of poker players are very nervous about the income tax reporting requirements because, as with most businesses and professions that deal with cash income, underreporting is rampant. My response to that is twofold:
1. We are all required to pay income taxes, and those players who are breaking the law aren't doing anything to help the image of online poker when we're working to get state and federal legislators on our side.
2. I have always paid taxes on all of my income, including something as small as getting paid $50 for playing my clarinet in a restaurant band. The change to mandatory reporting by the sites would actually help me a lot. If I could get a W2-type document from a poker site, it would save me a lot of time and effort. I wouldn't have to keep records of my hours (necessary if my pro status is questioned by the IRS) or keep track of net wins and net losses for thousands of individual poker tournaments (though I must say that the latest version of my spreadsheet is a work of art.)
So, that's where things stand. As of February 1 I'm playing on Americas [sic] Cardroom, a US-facing state (a site based outside the US but catering to US players.) More about that in future posts.
-------------------------------
*A phrase from a iconic commercial for a poker coaching site, where a poker player (a real one not an actor) describes the results of improving his game by using a poker coaching site.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Another domino has fallen--Full Tilt Poker closed by regulators.
This isn't a a U.S. shutdown, as happened with PokerStars. PokerStars still takes customers from almost every country in the world (I once had a player from Uzbekistan at my table) except the US.
This is a worldwide shutdown, and unlike PokerStars, where all of the players got their money back, none of the millions of dollars of United States player's money on Full Tilt has been returned, not to mention all of the accounts of non-US players that are now frozen as well.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...706602490.html
And here is the response from PokerStars:
http://www.gov.im/gambling/
This is a worldwide shutdown, and unlike PokerStars, where all of the players got their money back, none of the millions of dollars of United States player's money on Full Tilt has been returned, not to mention all of the accounts of non-US players that are now frozen as well.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...706602490.html
And here is the response from PokerStars:
http://www.gov.im/gambling/
Sunday, June 19, 2011
BLACK FRIDAY--April 15, 2011
I haven't posted in this blog for quite a while. And I have hardly played at all since April 15. There is a reason for that.
On April 15 PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, which were the three largest sites available to US players, became off-limits to US players. All three sites were charged by a US federal prosecutor with bank fraud, money laundering and other crimes,, and some individuals affiliated either with the sites, or with their payment processors, have been arrested. The domain names of all three sites were seized as well.
The bottom line is that now there are very few good online options for US players, and I'm not bankrolled to regularly play the live tournaments in my area.
This is a very complicated issue with national and international implications (none of the three sites are US businesses), and many feel that most of these charges are questionable at best, since some of the charges have to do with involvement with an illegal enterprise. There is no law making online poker illegal in the United States, in fact, it is legal by law in the District of Columbia. Nevada is looking very closely at "legalizing" online poker as well.
I will have more about how I'm reacting to this situation in future posts, and I will have more information on the situation in general as well. For now, if you want to know the basics of the situation, check out this thread in the twoplustwo.com poker forums:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/trouble-online-poker-web-sites-seized-fbi-stars-tilt-included-1020617/
On April 15 PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, which were the three largest sites available to US players, became off-limits to US players. All three sites were charged by a US federal prosecutor with bank fraud, money laundering and other crimes,, and some individuals affiliated either with the sites, or with their payment processors, have been arrested. The domain names of all three sites were seized as well.
The bottom line is that now there are very few good online options for US players, and I'm not bankrolled to regularly play the live tournaments in my area.
This is a very complicated issue with national and international implications (none of the three sites are US businesses), and many feel that most of these charges are questionable at best, since some of the charges have to do with involvement with an illegal enterprise. There is no law making online poker illegal in the United States, in fact, it is legal by law in the District of Columbia. Nevada is looking very closely at "legalizing" online poker as well.
I will have more about how I'm reacting to this situation in future posts, and I will have more information on the situation in general as well. For now, if you want to know the basics of the situation, check out this thread in the twoplustwo.com poker forums:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/trouble-online-poker-web-sites-seized-fbi-stars-tilt-included-1020617/
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Weekly results for 3/27-4/2 and 4/3-4/9
It has been quite a struggle to get myself back on a daytime schedule. I was a zombie all of those two weeks, way too tired to play much poker, or even to study anything and make sense of it. I didn't get a lot of hours in, and twice when I did push myself to play I was so tired that I had to abandon the tournament.
When I am fighting to stay awake while playing a tournament that won't be in the money for at least two more hours, there isn't much point in continuing. When I get really tired, I get impatient and try to make something happen, usually by going all in when I have plenty of time to wait for a better spot.
So with two abandoned tournaments during those two weeks, plus one more that I cut short due to storm warnings and thunder, I basically lit a match to three buy-ins.
For a two-week period in which I didn't put in much time, here are the results, such as they are:
HOURS, 3/27-4/2
Administrative 4.75
Study 10.25
Play 19.75
-------
34.75
Those hours aren't too bad considering that I started changing my schedule around the end of March. And a 2 to 1 ratio of play to study isn't too bad. I would like to have had more play hours, but I'm glad I got the study in. In the medium- to long-term, study matters, a lot.
PROFIT AND LOSS, 3/27-4/2
Starting bankroll, 3/27 $85.90
Ending bankroll, 4/2 77.35
---------
-$8.55
Most of the above loss happened in March, and so has already been accounted for in my month ending post.
HOURS 4/3-4/9
Administrative 1.25
Study 1.50
Play 8.50
-------
11.25
I spent all of that week fighting to get myself on a morning schedule, getting up a little earlier each day, and it was quite a battle. I'm not there yet, but I am at least able to function in the morning. I went to church this week, and to a morning dental yesterday (one cavity) and stayed awake and lucid both times. But I'm up typing this at 2 A.M., so obviously I'm not there yet.
PROFIT AND LOSS, 4/3-4/9
Starting bankroll, $77.35
Ending bankroll, 77.12
---------
-$0.23
I was about even last week, and the same is true so far for this month. Yesterday I thought I was ready for a large MTT, and I started one at 1916. I lasted less than an hour and went right to bed. I fell asleep almost immediately, which for me is unusual. But for some reason the alarm on my phone went off two hours later (the alarm was set as an event reminder on my calendar, but the event (my dental appointment) was the previous day.
I couldn't get back to sleep, and I didn't think it was smart to play, so here I am, catching up on my administrative work. Even so, I expect things to go a lot better the rest of this week.
When I am fighting to stay awake while playing a tournament that won't be in the money for at least two more hours, there isn't much point in continuing. When I get really tired, I get impatient and try to make something happen, usually by going all in when I have plenty of time to wait for a better spot.
So with two abandoned tournaments during those two weeks, plus one more that I cut short due to storm warnings and thunder, I basically lit a match to three buy-ins.
For a two-week period in which I didn't put in much time, here are the results, such as they are:
HOURS, 3/27-4/2
Administrative 4.75
Study 10.25
Play 19.75
-------
34.75
Those hours aren't too bad considering that I started changing my schedule around the end of March. And a 2 to 1 ratio of play to study isn't too bad. I would like to have had more play hours, but I'm glad I got the study in. In the medium- to long-term, study matters, a lot.
PROFIT AND LOSS, 3/27-4/2
Starting bankroll, 3/27 $85.90
Ending bankroll, 4/2 77.35
---------
-$8.55
Most of the above loss happened in March, and so has already been accounted for in my month ending post.
HOURS 4/3-4/9
Administrative 1.25
Study 1.50
Play 8.50
-------
11.25
I spent all of that week fighting to get myself on a morning schedule, getting up a little earlier each day, and it was quite a battle. I'm not there yet, but I am at least able to function in the morning. I went to church this week, and to a morning dental yesterday (one cavity) and stayed awake and lucid both times. But I'm up typing this at 2 A.M., so obviously I'm not there yet.
PROFIT AND LOSS, 4/3-4/9
Starting bankroll, $77.35
Ending bankroll, 77.12
---------
-$0.23
I was about even last week, and the same is true so far for this month. Yesterday I thought I was ready for a large MTT, and I started one at 1916. I lasted less than an hour and went right to bed. I fell asleep almost immediately, which for me is unusual. But for some reason the alarm on my phone went off two hours later (the alarm was set as an event reminder on my calendar, but the event (my dental appointment) was the previous day.
I couldn't get back to sleep, and I didn't think it was smart to play, so here I am, catching up on my administrative work. Even so, I expect things to go a lot better the rest of this week.
Monday, April 4, 2011
This will be a lost week
I continue to be amazed that even though I am self-employed, and, one would presume, in charge of my schedule, it never seems to happen that way.
My wife and I talked, and agreed that rather than change from a daytime, church-friendly, schedule to a nighttime, poker-friendly, schedule every two weeks, I will switch once a month. The plan was that I would go to church the rest of April, starting April 10, then switch back to the poker-friendly schedule in May. I didn't switch for the first Sunday in April, because my wife had to work and so couldn't go to church anyway.
The reason for switching less often is that I am a natural night person. I have had a lot of jobs where I worked second or third shift (third is my preference). When I get up around noon, a pretty standard schedule for a poker player, my body likes that schedule, a lot. I naturally fall into that schedule in a day or two.
But when I go the other way, switching away from the night schedule, it's a real fight to get my body to go along. If I don't do it gradually, over the course of a week or so, there are going to be at least a couple days when I'm too tired to play poker intelligently, or even to study anything and have it make sense.
I'm in the middle of that process now, and I can already see that it's not going to be a week where don't get a lot of time in. Sunday was already a mess. We had thunderstorms that I didn't expect on Sunday, and I had to bail out two hours into an MTT, rather than risk losing the computer.
My sleep was irregular last week, and even with gradually adjusting my schedule over the rest of this week, I'm going to be tired more than normal at least part of that time. And our grandchildren will be here for a few hours on Saturday, so this week is pretty much blown up.
There is also another problem. I just realized that I can't switch back to the poker-friendly schedule in May. I am on call for jury duty May 9-13, so I have to be available during the day for at least that week, more if I am assigned to a trial that goes into the following week.
Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing my grandchildren, and I don't really begrudge spending that time. But it's frustrating that no matter how hard I try to get control of my schedule, I can't seem to make that happen. I consider myself outstanding at problem-solving, and at thinking outside the box. But so far, I haven't been able to solve something as simple as keeping a schedule that works for me.
My wife and I talked, and agreed that rather than change from a daytime, church-friendly, schedule to a nighttime, poker-friendly, schedule every two weeks, I will switch once a month. The plan was that I would go to church the rest of April, starting April 10, then switch back to the poker-friendly schedule in May. I didn't switch for the first Sunday in April, because my wife had to work and so couldn't go to church anyway.
The reason for switching less often is that I am a natural night person. I have had a lot of jobs where I worked second or third shift (third is my preference). When I get up around noon, a pretty standard schedule for a poker player, my body likes that schedule, a lot. I naturally fall into that schedule in a day or two.
But when I go the other way, switching away from the night schedule, it's a real fight to get my body to go along. If I don't do it gradually, over the course of a week or so, there are going to be at least a couple days when I'm too tired to play poker intelligently, or even to study anything and have it make sense.
I'm in the middle of that process now, and I can already see that it's not going to be a week where don't get a lot of time in. Sunday was already a mess. We had thunderstorms that I didn't expect on Sunday, and I had to bail out two hours into an MTT, rather than risk losing the computer.
My sleep was irregular last week, and even with gradually adjusting my schedule over the rest of this week, I'm going to be tired more than normal at least part of that time. And our grandchildren will be here for a few hours on Saturday, so this week is pretty much blown up.
There is also another problem. I just realized that I can't switch back to the poker-friendly schedule in May. I am on call for jury duty May 9-13, so I have to be available during the day for at least that week, more if I am assigned to a trial that goes into the following week.
Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing my grandchildren, and I don't really begrudge spending that time. But it's frustrating that no matter how hard I try to get control of my schedule, I can't seem to make that happen. I consider myself outstanding at problem-solving, and at thinking outside the box. But so far, I haven't been able to solve something as simple as keeping a schedule that works for me.
Friday, April 1, 2011
March 2011--Results and comments
PROFIT AND LOSS
March 2011 starting bankroll $48.04
March 2011 ending bankroll $82.87
----------
+$34.83
That's more like it! $35 isn't a lot of money, but it's a 72% boost to my bankroll. If I can put together a couple more months like that, my situation will be a lot different.
I'm getting closer to the $114 bankroll that I need to play $2.20 tournaments. But it's about more than just moving up. Having plenty of wiggle room at my current ($1) level gives me the flexibility to put some large MTTs into the mix and/or play multiple tables. Bigger bankroll always equals more options.
The financial plan for the rest of the year
Once I start making some real money, the first financial step will be to start taking 10% of my monthly income as owner's capital, which is the accounting term for money that the owner takes out of the business.
Once I can comfortably do that and still build my bankroll, step 2 will be to take an additional 10% out for reinvestment in the business. That could be used for software, poker books, office supplies, subscription to a poker coaching web site, or anything else that will keep things going and help me make more money.
Step 3, once I'm making enough, will be to take an additional 30% of my winnings to put in escrow for quarterly estimated income tax payments, which are required for anyone who is self-employed and makes a profit of at least $450 in a calander quarter. 30% is the recommended amount of escrow to make sure that taxes are covered.
I doubt that we will be in the 30% tax bracket when I do our taxes next year, but it doesn't hurt to be careful. That money will be sitting in an escrow account, and if, as I expect, I have lot left over at the end of the year, I can go one of two ways.
I could take most of the money out of escrow, and divide it between owner's capital, reinvestment, and building my bankroll. Or, I could just leave it there and take out a smaller percentage for next year's estimated taxes.
The importance of study
March is when it really hit me--There is so much to study. There are so many things that I need to know, but don't. It's almost overwhelming.
I misplayed a hand yesterday and threw away a few hundred chips. I checked my opening hands chart (a list of the increased number of hands that, in various situations, I'm trying to get comfortable playing). I looked at the chart, my cards were good enough, I played them, and I lost the hand. Something was bothering me, and I realized what it was. I had forgotten about another new chart that I made.
That chart showed that my hand was too weak to play against that particular player, because it wasn't in the top half of my opponent's range (it didn't fall in the top 50% of the hands that he had been raising with).
The situation was interesting because a month ago, I wouldn't have been trying to work those two things (playing more hands, and playing against my opponent's range) into my playing. Two months ago I was considering playing more hands, but hadn't done much about it. Six months ago, I had seen a few references on twoplustwo.com to playing against an opponent's range--but I thought that it was some kind of super-advanced concept that only the math geniuses who played for millions of dollars used.
But something kept bringing me back to chapter 6 of The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition, edited by Michael Craig. Eventually it dawned on me that it wasn't that complicated at all. If villian rasies with the top 10% of hands, I call or reraise with the top 5%. That's it. It doesn't take any math at all.
There is a mathematical explanation of the concept, but I don't have to understand it, at least not yet. All I have to do is know what hands are in the different percentiles, so I ran that on PokerStove. It was tedious, asking for the list of the top 1%, then the top 2%, all the way up to 60% (which should be all that I need, at least for now), and typing it all up.
And the reason that I need to play more hands, which is where I started all this, is not what I thought it was. I thought I needed to loosen up my play so I wouldn't be predictable. That was true, but it was not the whole truth.
I need to play in the top half of villian's range. It's all one concept--play more hands, so I can play in the top 50% of villian's range. It goes together! I must have read that chapter 10 times before I finally caught on. The chapter author, Andy Bloch, the M.I.T. blackjack guy, didn't explicity make that connection, but it was obvious when I thought about it.
Where does that leave me? I have to get more comfortable playing all those hands. I have to pay attention to the ranges of my opponents. I have to play in the top half of those ranges. And of course, that 50% number isn't absolute (almost nothing in poker is), as there are tournament situations where it would be correct to play slightly more, or fewer, hands.
One implication is that I'll need to hit the memory work harder. I can't have charts all over the place for every new thing I learn. That didn't work out well yesterday. I'll have to commit those ranges to memory. And when I start playing live again, I can't use the charts, it will have to be memorized. Local live players are usually bad enough that I should come out at least a little ahead, but putting in some extra work could make live games very profitable.
I won't be reading any more poker books soon, and I'll be spending a lot less time on the poker forums. I have enough to do trying to assimilate and incorporate one chapter of one poker book that I already have. I have to be mindful of how easy it is for me to get lazy, let my ADD take over, and do something halfway. What I'm studying now is too important to let that happen. It's like a musican learning his scales. I have to work on it until it's automatic.
There are other concepts in that chapter that I eventually want to work on, and I might have to work through it one page per day, trying to get it all straight. But the potential rewards will make it well worth the effort.
I guess I have my study project for the entire month of April. I might even consider playing fewer hours and studying more hours. After all, many of the top players spend 50% of their time in study. I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger on that yet, because I really do need to get my bankroll up high enough to make a contribution to the family finances. I'm a long-term thinker, but as my wife often reminds me, in the short term, the bills still have to be paid.
March 2011 starting bankroll $48.04
March 2011 ending bankroll $82.87
----------
+$34.83
That's more like it! $35 isn't a lot of money, but it's a 72% boost to my bankroll. If I can put together a couple more months like that, my situation will be a lot different.
I'm getting closer to the $114 bankroll that I need to play $2.20 tournaments. But it's about more than just moving up. Having plenty of wiggle room at my current ($1) level gives me the flexibility to put some large MTTs into the mix and/or play multiple tables. Bigger bankroll always equals more options.
The financial plan for the rest of the year
Once I start making some real money, the first financial step will be to start taking 10% of my monthly income as owner's capital, which is the accounting term for money that the owner takes out of the business.
Once I can comfortably do that and still build my bankroll, step 2 will be to take an additional 10% out for reinvestment in the business. That could be used for software, poker books, office supplies, subscription to a poker coaching web site, or anything else that will keep things going and help me make more money.
Step 3, once I'm making enough, will be to take an additional 30% of my winnings to put in escrow for quarterly estimated income tax payments, which are required for anyone who is self-employed and makes a profit of at least $450 in a calander quarter. 30% is the recommended amount of escrow to make sure that taxes are covered.
I doubt that we will be in the 30% tax bracket when I do our taxes next year, but it doesn't hurt to be careful. That money will be sitting in an escrow account, and if, as I expect, I have lot left over at the end of the year, I can go one of two ways.
I could take most of the money out of escrow, and divide it between owner's capital, reinvestment, and building my bankroll. Or, I could just leave it there and take out a smaller percentage for next year's estimated taxes.
The importance of study
March is when it really hit me--There is so much to study. There are so many things that I need to know, but don't. It's almost overwhelming.
I misplayed a hand yesterday and threw away a few hundred chips. I checked my opening hands chart (a list of the increased number of hands that, in various situations, I'm trying to get comfortable playing). I looked at the chart, my cards were good enough, I played them, and I lost the hand. Something was bothering me, and I realized what it was. I had forgotten about another new chart that I made.
That chart showed that my hand was too weak to play against that particular player, because it wasn't in the top half of my opponent's range (it didn't fall in the top 50% of the hands that he had been raising with).
The situation was interesting because a month ago, I wouldn't have been trying to work those two things (playing more hands, and playing against my opponent's range) into my playing. Two months ago I was considering playing more hands, but hadn't done much about it. Six months ago, I had seen a few references on twoplustwo.com to playing against an opponent's range--but I thought that it was some kind of super-advanced concept that only the math geniuses who played for millions of dollars used.
But something kept bringing me back to chapter 6 of The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition, edited by Michael Craig. Eventually it dawned on me that it wasn't that complicated at all. If villian rasies with the top 10% of hands, I call or reraise with the top 5%. That's it. It doesn't take any math at all.
There is a mathematical explanation of the concept, but I don't have to understand it, at least not yet. All I have to do is know what hands are in the different percentiles, so I ran that on PokerStove. It was tedious, asking for the list of the top 1%, then the top 2%, all the way up to 60% (which should be all that I need, at least for now), and typing it all up.
And the reason that I need to play more hands, which is where I started all this, is not what I thought it was. I thought I needed to loosen up my play so I wouldn't be predictable. That was true, but it was not the whole truth.
I need to play in the top half of villian's range. It's all one concept--play more hands, so I can play in the top 50% of villian's range. It goes together! I must have read that chapter 10 times before I finally caught on. The chapter author, Andy Bloch, the M.I.T. blackjack guy, didn't explicity make that connection, but it was obvious when I thought about it.
Where does that leave me? I have to get more comfortable playing all those hands. I have to pay attention to the ranges of my opponents. I have to play in the top half of those ranges. And of course, that 50% number isn't absolute (almost nothing in poker is), as there are tournament situations where it would be correct to play slightly more, or fewer, hands.
One implication is that I'll need to hit the memory work harder. I can't have charts all over the place for every new thing I learn. That didn't work out well yesterday. I'll have to commit those ranges to memory. And when I start playing live again, I can't use the charts, it will have to be memorized. Local live players are usually bad enough that I should come out at least a little ahead, but putting in some extra work could make live games very profitable.
I won't be reading any more poker books soon, and I'll be spending a lot less time on the poker forums. I have enough to do trying to assimilate and incorporate one chapter of one poker book that I already have. I have to be mindful of how easy it is for me to get lazy, let my ADD take over, and do something halfway. What I'm studying now is too important to let that happen. It's like a musican learning his scales. I have to work on it until it's automatic.
There are other concepts in that chapter that I eventually want to work on, and I might have to work through it one page per day, trying to get it all straight. But the potential rewards will make it well worth the effort.
I guess I have my study project for the entire month of April. I might even consider playing fewer hours and studying more hours. After all, many of the top players spend 50% of their time in study. I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger on that yet, because I really do need to get my bankroll up high enough to make a contribution to the family finances. I'm a long-term thinker, but as my wife often reminds me, in the short term, the bills still have to be paid.
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