The Month So Far

I thought that I would have most of Saturday to play, as stated in my previous post, but most of the day got blown away.  Even so, I put 44.25 hours in last week, so I'm not too upset about Saturday.  I was very upset at the time, but I'm over it.

I'm about breakeven for the month and the year.  That doesn't sound like I'm getting anywhere, but I've fought through a lot of problems in the last few weeks, and  I've solved some of them and mitigated the others.  There should be much clearer sailing ahead.  Here are some of the changes:

I waa able to go to church yesterday.

I've largely adapted to being online when SNGs are most likely to be running.

I typed a "cheat sheet" of what hands to play in a SNG, which is much different than in an MTT.

I've decided to play only SNGs (no MTTs) for the rest of February, and maybe longer.

I'm rereading Sit 'n Go Strategy: Expert Advice For Beating One-Table Poker Tournaments,  by Collin Moshman.

I'm getting more comfortable with watching a lot less television.

I'll talk about at least some of these adjustments in future posts, and unless something important happens, my next post will be about designing my cheat sheet.

Watching Television

I'm fascinated by television, more than I ever have been.  With the choice of cable channels, and all the informative and educational programming available, there are usually several shows that are, in my opinion, worth watching every day.  If our package included the Science Channel, I could easily become a TV zombie.  But I don't have time for that.

My work week has been based on working about six hours a day, seven days a week, so I will get at least 40 hours.  But it almost never happens.  Entire days somehow get blown away.  As long as my wife is making most of the money, my plan isn't going to work, and it has to be that way.  I am Available Guy, and I have to deal with that.

Recently we had a weather forecast for almost a foot of snow over 24 hours.  My wife had to be at work at 6 A.M., and there was a good chance that our road would not be plowed in time (it wasn't.)  That night and the next morning, I spent a lot of time shoveling snow.  I played poker in between shoveling sessions.

I stayed up until my wife got to work, then I couldn't get to sleep for a couple hours.  I had been getting up every morning so that I would be on the "church schedule," but as often happens, my schedule and sleep patterns were completely disrupted.

It's not the pre-Black Friday world any more.  I can't play online whenever I want.  There isn't something worth playing 24 hours a day.  I tried to do a little studying but I was too tired to make sense of anything, and I'm not going to record hours when I'm not doing anything useful.

I can't control my schedule, and that's very frustrating.  We have one car, my wife usually has it, and I can't do what I want, where I want, when I want.  I'm Available Guy at home while she takes care of business (including checking on her 90-year old mother who lives alone), and it has to be that way.

The situation isn't going to change until I contribute enough to the family income to pay cash for a second car and/or pay someone else to do things like snow shoveling and/or buy the technology (such as a new snowblower) to do things more quickly and easily.

What I can control is how much televison I watch.  One by one, I've stopped following my favorite shows.  I've dropped more than half of those shows, while only adding a couple shows that are new this season.  It's making a big difference.

As I type this, it's Friday night and I have already worked 42 hours this week.  I'm going to do some studying tonight, and I still have most of Saturday free, as far as I know.  I'm considering completely giving up television for a while.*  I would love to get some 200-hour months in and really get things going.

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*Except for poker shows where I can learn something by watching them.  But a lot of those shows, at least when shown from start to finish, are moving online.  Most TV poker shows are highlights, but online I can watch live streaming of a tournament final table and see every hand, even if takes 12 hours.  That makes it much easier to follow the flow of a tournament and understand how the players adjust to each other and to changing tournament conditions.

Update On The Legal Status of Poker

Things are finally starting to move.  Getting online poker licensed and regulated has been a long tough road.  We aren't there yet, but things are happening.

The first site licensed by the state of Nevada (for intrastate poker) is scheduled to roll out in March, with a few others close behind.  New Jersey has been working on it for a while.  Both states have a good poker infrastructure and expertise in their casinos, so I expect the sites to roll out without too many problems (unlike the site on which I currently play.)

All that has been in the pipeline for a while, but there are new developements.  Most important for most US players, the Nevada governor has announced that he wants the state legislature to act on regulations for online poker, including interstate games, within 30 days.

Finally, officials in Iowa have expressed interest in online poker, including interstate games.  This is really big news, and could lead to better sites, more players, and ultimately a second poker boom and a much larger player pool.  I know that it's going to take some time, but it's exciting to see things finally starting to happen.


http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/feb/05/nevada-governor-urges-state-lawmakers-clear-way-on/

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/14885-iowa-retrieves-online-poker-bill-from-muck

Conversations in 2 different forums--Holdem Manager and America's Cardroom

I complain a lot on here, but some of it,  especially when it regards Americas Cardroom, is certainly justified.

I haven't been able to use Holdem Manager, my database and tracking program that keeps track of every hand I play and every hand that my opponents play against me.  It also has hundreds (literally) of statistics that I can use to keep track of very specific things, for example:

How often does this opponent fold to continuation bets?
Playing from middle position, with what cards am I winning (or losing) the most money?

It's great software, but there's one big problem.  I haven't been able to use that program on America's Cardroom.  ACR has been saying for at least six months that it will be the next site that they support, but they still can not even estimate when that will happen.

As I do in all of my posts, when I am quoting multiple people, for clarity I will use a different color for each. My questions or comments are in black.

About a week ago, a representative from one of America's Cardroom's sister sites on the Winning Poker Network started it out with this:

HEM compatibility: I don't have an ETA on this but I don't expect it will be ready for at least another 3-4 months, minimum.

[Posted in the Holdem Manager thread]:  I currently play on Americas Cardroom (Winning Poker Network.) BlackChipRep recently posted that Winning and HEM wouldn't work together for "3-4 months minimum." Is that the estimate from your end as well?

This information has just come from them earlier this week. We will be evaluating the next step. Their hand history files are a complete mess.  

[Posted by me in the Americas Cardroom Support thread]: A Holdem Manager update for everyone:

In the Holdem Manager thread I asked if they agree with the estimate of BlackChipRep that it would be "3-4 months minimum" before HEM works with the Winning Poker Network. One of their reps responded with this:

"This information has just come from them earlier this week. We will be evaluating the next step. Their hand history files are a complete mess."

 

[Finally, responses in the Americas Cardroom thread to all this]:

 

Yeah it's like they decided to make the most retarded and difficult hand history files they could. Completely different than anything anyone else is doing. Seems pretty typical on WPN, since their programmers can't seem to get much of anything right.

 

Yes, the hand histories being an abortion is why ACR hands don't compute perfectly in PT3 and PT4, too.

 

Well, there you have it.  Poker players, along with one of the best companies in the business of player support, agree that I play on a horrible site.  I'm hoping that there will be better options soon.  If I can keep my head above water dealing with this mess, I should do very well when I play on a site that actually works.  There is a chance that it will happen sooner rather than later.  See my next post for an update.

Playing Online SNGs--Time Management Issues

I'm playing only SNGs now, so that I can reduce variance and live within my bankroll.  I'm having to change the way that I manage my time, including when I play.

I don't want to wait 15 minutes or more for a SNG to fill up, and the times where there isn't a long wait present a small window of opportunity.  SNGs don't start filling up quickly (in Black Friday time) until after 6 P.M., and on weekdays, they slow down around 8 or 9 P.M.  On weekends they might or might not be fairly steady until around midnight.

When I was playing MTTs the selection wasn't great, but at least I knew when I could play.  MTTs are almost always scheduled tournaments, so I didn't have to wait, or guess, to find out when I can get a game started.

I'm a natural night person, and it has been said that being serious about poker means that you're going to be working nights and weekends, so that fine with me.  But for now the MTTs that I used to play starting at 10 or 11 P.M. aren't a good option, and it's almost impossible to find a SNG running that late on a weeknight.

Before this it was already complicated enough figuring out when to play, because the busiest times on a poker site are usually late Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon.  So sometimes I go to church on Sunday morning, and sometimes I don't.  Part of me thinks that I should be going to church more often.  The other part says that I have to work when I can make the most money, just like anyone else, and I shouldn't feel guilty about it.  Either way I have to sleep sometime during the weekend.

I'm going to church about half the time right now, but since even on Saturday the SNGs usually don't run much past midnight, I might start attending more often.  I'm already making other adjustments.

I was never a good multitabler.  I know I could be decent if I worked at  it, but there would definitely be a learning curve.  When I'm trying to build a bankroll is not the time to learn a new skill.  [break here to play a SNG which took 18 minutes to get all nine players.]  But it's better to register for the next one before the one I'm playing finishes, and be playing two tables part of the time,  rather than having ten or more minutes of down time.

The first state-regulated poker site is scheduled for Nevada sometime in March.  The sites that are available now definitely need some serious competition.

A SNG Night

I am playing very few MTTs now.  My last one was on the 25th.  I will probably play nothing but SNGs in February.  They aren't exciting, they aren't what I'm studying to do, and there isn't much glory (or money) in being the best at a table of 9 players.  But it's a steady way to build a bankroll, assuming that I'm good at it.  And I am, the variance that clobbered me on the 26th notwithstanding.

I finished playing six of them earler this morning.  I played them one at a time, starting at 1818 yesterday and ending at 0216 today. I cashed in 3 of 6, one first and two thirds, which made up for what happened on the 26th (see previous entry.)

 I didn't do any multitabling last night and this morning because I wanted to concentrate on playing my best and making a profit.  My bankroll was about $65 a few days ago, now it's $72.58.  I want to get it back up over $100 before I even think about playing any more MTTs.

The number of players is growing on the Winning Poker Network, at least during prime time (nights, holidays and weekends.) I don't have to wait long for a SNG to fill up.  But there is a time managment issue with which I have to deal.

I thought that west coast players would keep things going well past midnight on a Saturday.  I was doing fine, playing one right after the other, and the longest I had to wait for a new one to start was 10 minutes, usually it was about five minutes.  But when I finished one at 0029 and registered for another one, it didn't start until 0113--a 44 minute wait.  That caught me completely by surprise, and raises some interesing time management issues.

I use the time between SNGs (or entire sessions, if I'm mutitabling) to go to the bathroom, get some pop and/or food, and be ready play again.  I don't want to get involved in anything else when I'll be playing again in a few minutes.  So that 44 minutes was lost time while I waited, expecting the table to fill soon.

I track my time by quarter hours for a reason--to keep myself both honest and dilligent about how I use my time.  It's very easy for me to get distracted by a bunch of different things, so if I'm not doing something for at least 10 minutes (most of a quarter hour) I don't count it.  I don't want to be jumping back and forth doing something like 5 minutes with flash cards, then 5 minutes with recordkeeping.  I know myself well enough to guard against that.

So, since I don't know how much time I'll have between SNGs, from now on I'm going to use that down time to get something out of the way that is not poker-related, such as checking my E-mail or Facebook.  If the times between SNGs are short, I'll count all of my play as a single session and put it down as 4.25 hours, or whatever is the case.  If the waits between SNGs get longer, I'll just keep working on non-poker things until it's time to play again, and my next session will be logged on my spreadsheet as starting at whatever is the nearest quarter hour.

I know that reading someone's poker blog and so much of it being about process is boring to some of you, so let me quote Dusty Schmidt in his book, Treat Your Poker Like A Business:

"Being process-oriented is a trait possessed by every successful poker player, businessperson or athlete I've ever met.  Bottom line:  If you put in quality time, money will follow."

I couldn't have said it better.

From Where Did All These Good Microstakes Players Come?

I ended the day playing SNGs.  The last one ended at 11:43 P.M. (about an hour ago.)  I understand variance, but last night was rough.  I believe that I played some of my best poker in a long time, with nothing to show for it, and that's very frustrating

A SNG often finishes in an hour or less.  But the last three were pitched battles with a lot of very good players.  Many of you probably know that a SNG is one-table tournament that pays the top 3 places.  This is how I did in those 3 SNGs:

93 minutes, finished 3rd of 9.
63 minutes, finished 4th of 9.
97 minutes, finished 4th of 9.

Where did these people come from?  Usually at this level, after more than an hour someone gets impatient and starts making mistakes.  All three SNGs had 5 players left after an hour.

How can there be that many good players at $1 SNGs?  Pre-Black Friday I made money playing $10 SNGs, and almost all of the guys and girls last night were at least as good as that competition.  Maybe all of Doyle Brunson's grandchildren got on line at the same time and ganged up on me.

I did make one serious mistake.  I was so caught up in both the battle at the tables and on getting used to playing more tables, that I forgot to take notes on all of the good players that I faced.  I will try not to repeat that mistake in the future.