A humbling change in bankroll strategy

In my previous post, I said,

"One of the problems I've been having with poker is that I'm doing it on a shoestring. I haven't had some things that would help me a lot. I started with a $50 deposit to America's Cardroom (which is very inferior to the site on which I played post-Black Friday.) Since I should have a minimum of 100 buy-ins to play MTTs, and most of them have an entry fee of at least $5.50, that's a big problem. I know that I should just play poker and not worry about the size of my bankroll, but it's hard not to factor it in when I'm making decisions about how much risk to take in a tournament, or which one I should enter. I'm careful and tentative, and as much as I try to fight against that, I guess it's natural in my situation. More about that in the near future."

I have considered grinding my way up with SNGs with an entry fee as low as $1.65, and I have played a few, but that wasn't a real option, because there were so few SNGs running that I might wait half an hour, or longer, for one to fill up.  Two important things have changed since then, and one has changed a little.

First my bankroll is getting really low.  Currently it is $31.40.  To play $5.50 tournaments with that bankroll is absolutey ridiculous.  If I get a run of bad cards (or any other kind of negative variance) I will be broke in a few days.

Second, I have a monitor that actually works.

Third, SNG traffic has picked up a little, but there are still times, for example, around 5 A.M. weekdays, when nothing is running.

It's time to bite the bullet.  I need to play nothing but $1 SNGs for at least a week while I grind my bankroll up a bit. Once I have some wiggle room, I might move up to $3 SNGs and mix in an occasional $3 or $5 MTT if the structure and prize pool are especially attractive. It's humbling to have to drop back down to $1 SNGs--on PokerStars I had a 14% ROI (return on investment) playing $10 SNGs. I'm frustrated and embarrased that it's come to this. But it's my only option now.

A new monitor

One of the problems I've been having with poker is that I'm doing it on a shoestring.  I haven't had some things that would help me a lot.  I started with a $50 deposit to America's Cardroom (which is very inferior to the site on which I played post-Black Friday.)  Since I should have a minimum of 100 buy-ins to play MTTs, and most of them have an entry fee of at least $5.50, that's a big problem.  I know that I should just play poker and not worry about the size of my bankroll, but it's hard not to factor it in when I'm making decisions about how much risk to take in a tournament, or which one I should enter.  I'm careful and tentative, and as much as I try to fight against that, I guess it's natural in my situation.  More about that in the near future.

I also don't have a lot of the tools that winning players use.  I can't subscribe to a poker coaching site or to poker magazines.  I don't have a real office chair--the chair that I'm sitting on has wood slats on the back.  I don't buy poker books, even though I know that in any field it's important to keep up with the literature.  At all levels, the games play a lot differently than they did 10 years ago.

My wife gets me a poker book for special occasions like my birthday or Christmas, and I don't want more than that when the money is coming out of family funds.  Finally, until a few days ago, I was using a monitor that wasn't helping me at all.

The monitor flickered a lot.  It needed a new screen (which I was against paying for because one can almost buy a new monitor on sale for the cost of a screen).  The way that the glare from incandescent light acted on the monitor was so disconcerting that sometimes I would sit in total darkness, and have a flashlight in case I needed to type or read something on paper.

I don't feel right using family funds to fix these problems when I'm not making any money.  My wife finally insisted that we get a new monitor, and I found a good price online.  Now I can see the tables in any light or no light, there is no flickering, and I can actually read the names of the players when I have two tables on the screen.

It will make a big difference, and I hope, help me to finally get this enterprise on the right track.

Report on my Monday flash card work

In my previous post, I said,

" . . . I'm blocking out some serious time to work on flash cards--this should be fun. I'll let know you how it goes."

It didn't happen.

Sunday after church I knew I would be too tired to play the big 8 P.M. tournament, so I decided to take a nap first.  I think that I slept for about 5 hours.  After the tournament, I was tired, but not able to go to sleep.  I'm a very sound sleeper (my wife said that I didn't wake up when a cat was jumping up and down on me) but I often have a lot of trouble falling asleep.

I was too tired to play or study, but unable to sleep, from late Sunday night well into Monday afternoon. Once I got my sleep schedule somewhat straightened out, I was facing the Wednesday morning city deadline to have all of our leaves bagged and raked.  As soon as the weather cleared I had to take care of that as well.

Today (Wednesday) was a family meeting about a serious medical issue, and on it goes.  My wife keeps telling me that the problems that I'm having getting my hours in are unavoidable.  That may be true, but on the other hand, when we still had three children at home I often worked 60 hours or more per week between my "regular job", overtime, and the National Guard.  For some reason, when I can in theory control my hours, that never seems to happen.

It's incredibly frustrating.  I have to stop reacting and start planning again, but it never seems to be possible.

Part of the problem is that I don't really control my schedule, or much of anything else.  We have one car right now, and my wife needs to take it to work (with her hours varying quite a bit lately.)  She also has additional obligations, such as breakfast meetings, taking care of her aging mother, and being a tour guide for the local historic homes.

Under different circumstances, when I finished a study session or there was a break between tournaments, I could jump in the car and do my errands.  I have tried to plan, and save all of my errands for the one night a week when I usually get the car, but that night changes just about every week.  It's very difficult when I'm fighting to conquer my ADD and be organized, and I can't really plan or schedule anything.  Lately the only that times I put anything in my planner are the times that I know that I won't be able to play or study.

I don't want to end this on such a pessimistic note, so I will say that one of the major handicaps to my making this work has been taken care of.  Read about it in my next post.

Another change in my study strategy

If you have been reading my blog for any time at all, you know that I'm always tweaking something.  That seems to be my learning style-- I break everything down into little pieces, and work on one thing at a time.  That approach is probably much of the reason that my poker playing doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere.

Once when I played clarinet in the 126th Army Band we were working on an Alfred Reed piece, and not surprisingly, it was technically difficult. I would take one line or phrase of music, take out my metronome, and practice the music at a slow speed. When I could do it perfectly at least three times in a row, I would set the metronome four beats per minute faster, and work on it some more.  I might have spent as much as an hour on just eight bars of the piece.  That's how I work on a project, big or small.

I started with a very small poker bankroll and some other handicaps, and the damage that even slight varinace can do to a small bankroll is huge.  But I've survived that so far, and I have no doubt that a lot of the little things that I'm learning will all come together.  At some point (soon I hope) I'll make a big jump, get a bunch of good MTT cashes, and move up quickly.

So, now I'm teaking my study strategy again.  It's a small change.  I'm still aiming for at least at least 25 play hours and 15 study hours every week.

I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out, but if weekends, for a variety of reasons, are the best time to play poker, then I should pound my study hours early in the week, so that I have the weekends free to play.  As long as I get all the hours in, there is no reason that I have to play every day.

If something comes up on the weekend and I don't get to play for 25 hours that week, that's bad.  But shorting myself on study hours is worse.  The best players spend at least half of their time studying.  I'm not ready to go there quiet yet, but if I don't take study seriously, I'll never be able to move up and win against better players. Next week the plan is to study for at least four hours on Monday.  I've really been slacking on my memorization (flash card) work, nut as boring as flash card work is, it has to be done.

I have ADD, and therefore trouble concentrating on something that I find boring.  I also have trouble moving information from short-term to long-term memory.  And I'm  blocking out some serious time to work on flash cards--this should be fun.  I'll let know you how it goes.

The Leaf Police and Other Distractions

My wife just reminded me that Thursday will be Thanksgiving.  I had forgotten all about it.  I'm going to my parent's house for that, which is nice, but I didn't plan very well.  I'm going to have to rethink when to get my hours in during the rest of the week, because there is another demand on my time.

All of the leaves in my yard have to be raked and bagged by the end of the month, or the city leaf police will come over and fine us.

I keep thinking that it should be easy to get my hours in, and somehow it never is.

Results for Novermber 11-17

In my previous post I had the wrong month in the post title.  My wife caught it, and it has been fixed.

Until I signed on to write this post, I had no idea that I had not posted since my previous weekly results..  I'm ending the weekly posts anyway. A week is such a short period of time, and poker is so much about the long term, that it's silly to even talk about results in such a short-term context.

I'm going to post about whatever is on my mind that day, and I'll try to do it more frequently.  That could involve how I did that day or week, or what I'm thinking about in general, but the formal weekly posts are out.  The results posts will be monthly from now on.

Your comments or questions are always welcome.

---------------

It was once again a close to break-even week  Nothing dramatic, just a few small cashes that didn't quite make up for the times I didn't cash..  Here are the numbers:

Poker Profit or Loss
-$14.67   tournaments
     1.66   rakeback
     1.00   bonus
---------
-$12.01


Poker Hours
28.00   play
  8.25   study
  4.50   administrative
-------
40.75

That's two out of three weeks that I put in at least 40 hours, which shows that I'm starting to get control of my time and my schedule.  But there is always room for improvement.  I need to get more serious about hitting my weekly goals of at least 25 hours of play and 15 hours of study.  I have to start hitting that study number--I don't think I've done it yet.

As does any player, I have my strengths (tenacity and very high intelligence) and weaknesses (problems moving information from short-term to long-term memory, and all the issues that go with having ADD.)  Poker is like just about anything else--the people that make it to the top are usually the ones that work the hardest to get there.  The best players study, a lot, and I need to take that more seriously.

Once I'm meeting my play and study goals, I'll set new goals for my total hours, probably 45 hours per week.  My 25 play hours and 15 study hours would already add up to 40, and I will always need at least an hour or two of administrative time.  If I take care of the smaller goals, the 45 hours should be there.

Results for November 4-10

Last week was one of my worst ever.  I'm not talking about the numbers.  I just didn't play well.  I was putting myself in way too many bad situations.  My main problem was not having a plan for the entire hand before I would bet.

Way too many times I would make an intial bet, play the hand, and suddenly I was down to such a small chip stack that my only choices were all-in or fold, and I shoved way too often.  I probably booted at least five $5 tournaments where I could have had a decent chance of cashing.

Fortunately, I did have one tournament that went well, 3rd of 52 for a cash of $36.22 (net $26.92.)  That kept the week from being a total train wreck.  When entering a pot, having a plan for the entire hand is basic.  I think I was just tired, nentally and physically.  I took a day and a half off, and I've felt a lot better since.


Poker Hours
19.25   Play
  7.75   Study
  3.25   Administrative
-------
30.25   Total Hours


Profit or Loss
-$25.63   Tournaments
     0.99   Rakeback
     0.00   Bonus
---------
-$24.64