I Feel Stupid, Frustrated, and Angry

Feel free to skip, or quickly skim, most of the blue text in this post if you wish.

I should be blogging more often, but there hasn't been much to say.  My computer was in the shop for a while, and now I have it back.  But while my computer was in the shop, something good happened.

Holdem Manager, my tracking program, now works on the site where I play.  The program tracks every hand that I play online and keeps a boatload of statistics on everything that happens.  For example, if I want to know what percentage of the time a certain player raises, then folds to a reraise, there is a statistic for that--and I can see it on a HUD (heads-up display) while I'm playing.

This is a very big deal for me, because I have a lot of trouble moving information from short-term to long term memory.  I understand strategic concepts easily, but remembering small details is very difficult.  Some players can remember important hands that they played 10 years ago.  I can not tell you the details of one hand that I ever played.

Tracking software helps me to reduce that disadvantage.  I can see statistics on other players, so even if I don't remember any details, I at least have an idea how they play.  Perhaps more important, some of those players are tracking me, which puts me at a great disadvantage when I don't have that capability.

I tried to upgrade from Holdem Manager 1 (which is being phased out) to Holdem Manager 2 (which works with Americas Cardroom, the site on which I play.)  I was unable to successfully install the software.

I sent mail to the folks at HM2, they asked me to send them a crash log, and I did that.  Here is what I got back:


This email was sent because we received a crash log from you recently. I am sorry to hear you're experiencing issues with Holdem Manager but If you follow these instructions below it should fix the issue.

Solution Instructions:
Step 1: Restore Default Settings:
First try restoring your default settings, often some settings files can become corrupt and cause these issues:
http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/questions/2511/Create+a+Backup+and+restore+default+settings
NB: If this step is successful it is very import you send us the backup files as detailed in no.2 of that FAQ otherwise the problem may come back and we need those files to reproduce it and fix permanently.

Step 2: Set files to run as administrator
1 - Go to C:\Program Files\Holdem Manager 2 (Program Files (x86) for the 64bit version)
2 - Right click the HoldemManager.exe and choose "Properties".
3 - Go to the Compatibility Tab and select "Run this program as an Administrator"
4 - Repeat Steps 2 and 3 for HudFuncsApp.exe, ThirtyTwoBitIPC.exe and tablescannerdllloader.exe

If this option is greyed out it is because the UAC is disabled.
Enable UAC - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-user-account-control-uac-the-easy-way-on-windows-vista/
Reboot and complete Step 3 and 4.
UAC can be turned off again if desired.

Step 3: Update Windows
Often the issue can be caused by a conflict with another program or utility on your PC. Windows may have released an update to fix this issue. See here for details on how to run windows update - http://www.update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/thanks.aspx?ln=en&&thankspage=5
It is important to make sure to check windows update after it completes the previous update to make sure it says "No More Critical Updates Available" because it often does the updates in stages and does not always complete them all at once.

Step 4: Uninstall and reinstall HM2 with Revo uninstaller:
Other times critical system files may not have been installed on previous updates and it can also cause these types of errors or in some cases antiviruses may have removed files that it mistook for unsafe. Doing a revo uninstall also removes old registry file information which might have become corrupt. You can download the free version here: http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html and there is a useful tutorial how to use it here: http://www.guidingtech.com/457/revo-uninstaller/

Uninstall Holdem Manager 2 via Revo unistaller and then reinstall this version: http://www.holdemmanager.com/downloads/Holdem_Manager_2_Setup.exe

Step 5: Add exceptions to firewall
Some firewalls detect HM2 as a threat because of the way it interacts with different poker software, as a consequence they can block HM accessing files it needs to and in turn cause a crash. Please follow the instructions in the FAQ carefully.
http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/questions/1011/Software+Security+Problems+%28Firewall%29

Step 6: Set correct permissions on files and folders HM2 use
Please follow the instructions in this FAQ: http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/questions/2561/Set+Correct+Permissions+on+files+and+folders+HM2+use

If these solutions do not work please email us back and well be happy to help.

Thanks
Holdem Manager Support Team..http://forums.holdemmanager.com/forum.php

Then, I went to this page, as directed in step 1:

http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/questions/2511/Create+a+Backup+and+restore+default+settings

That link gave me four pages of instructions on how to do that part of step number one.  And I seem to be stuck on that step.

If I go through all these instructions, step-by-step (and I really don't have any choice) I'll eventually get it figured out, but it's going to take a lot of time.

Besides the problems with installation, from what I do have installed, it looks like I'll have to devote many more hours to figure out how to use the program.  Version 2 of Holdem Manager is very different than Version 1, and after briefly looking at the interface and all of the options, I don't know how to do anything that I was doing when I used Version 1 while playing on PokerStars.

This makes no sense.  I used to be a member of MENSA (I stopped paying dues when the local group folded.)  I took three semesters of computer science in college--it was a long time ago (1980s), but I try to keep up with developments, especially in software.

I estimate that it will take me somewhere between 10 and 30 hours to figure all of this out.  It could actually take a week or more, because there are several steps along the way where there might have to be E-mail communications between myself and Holdem Manager.  For example, they might want me to send them certain files, or the exact wording of an error message.

How can this be so hard?  Can most poker players, confronted with something like this, really figure it out fairly quickly and easily?  I don't see players in the twoplustwo.com poker forums complaining about it.

I'm supposed to be smart, but I feel stupid, frustrated and angry.

April 2013--Brief Summary And Addtional Information

There is a lot going on, and a lot of new things are happening.  I apologize for not posting in the last 11 days.  You'll understand why as you continue reading.

First, the money part.  Even though my hours are down, I'm slowly but surely grinding my bankroll up.  It's now at $135.50, getting closer to the $165 that I want before I move up to $3.30 SNGs.

I recently changed my time goals from working at poker at least 40 hours a week to 105 hours a month (25 hours a week times 4.2 weeks per month.)  I didn't hit that either, finishing with 96 hours in April.  My profit was $25.58, which I can't be unhappy with, considering how few hours I worked.

It will probably be even fewer hours this month.  There are still four of us taking turns spending time with my mother-in-law, but it's turning into a situation where eventually I will have to be the lead person.  My wife and her brother have full-time jobs outside the home, and they show signs of getting burned out already.  Besides being in the rotation, my wife is handling all of the medical issues, and my brother-in-law is handling all the money issues, including writing all of his mother's checks.

That leaves my sister-in-law and I.  My sister-in-law has physical limitations and as this situation continues, more will probably fall on me, and that's as it should be.  I usually don't like being Available Guy, but this is what you do for family.  Also, there are financial reasons why it makes sense for me to take more of this on myself.

First, I'm protecting the two people that have full-time jobs outside the home.  They both make significant incomes, that must be protected.  I'm not making much yet, and my sister-in-law is physically limited and can't work much, so the two breadwinners have to be protected from burning out.  Also, if we can keep this going (at least until winter, which is the current plan) we will save my mother-in-law thousands of dollars that she would otherwise have to be spent for assisted living.  A lot of money is on the line if I don't hold up my end.

So, no more predictions about my hours. To add to everything else, I have to take my computer into the shop tonight, so I won't get to play at all for possibly a week or more. I'll do what I can and try to get a lot of studying done.  I'll get my bankroll up, but it might take a while.

I said that a lot has happened, but this is already getting long, so I'll end with a preview of future posts:

There are two pieces of very good news:

1. The first explicitly legal and regulated online poker has been dealt in Nevada, and other states are taking a close look.

2. Holdem Manager 2 will be working with America's Cardroom soon.

Getting in shape

I said a while ago that I was going to get in shape, but doing that got shoved way down the priority list.  To put in another way, I'm fat and lazy.  I weigh almost 50 pounds more than I did on my 30th birthday.

My energy level is way down.  I sleep a lot, and even when I'm awake, I'm often tired.  My wife reminded me that when I'm forcing myself onto a daytime schedule, I'm always tired, and she's right.  But even factoring that in, I would get a lot more done if I was the old Clif who weighed 140 pounds and ran a marathon.

I planned to get some hours in yesterday (Friday) but instead, we went out for our anniversay dinner (33 years), then I took a long nap--not exactly romantic.  I finally started playing at 2301.  This can't go on, and getting in shape needs to be my #1 priority, even above playing.

The math is both simple and undeniable.  If I spend an hour a day running or otherwise working out, I'll have more energy, I'll be more alert when I play, and I'll probably sleep at least 10 hours less per week (which of course will give me more time to play poker.)

So, I'm fat, tired and lazy.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that I'm getting closer to that bankroll magic number of $165, which will let me move up and play some $3.30 SNGs and start making money a lot faster.  My bankroll is now $124.05.

I might still play some $1.65s even when I move up.  One reason would be to keep busy, playing at least two SNGs at a time, even if the $3.30s aren't running.  The other reason is that I've taken a lot of notes on some of the players in the $1.65s.  I probably should start making a list of the weak players for whom I have good notes, and keep them in the mix for a while.

Working 25 Hours a Week

This post was almost done, but I had to completely rewrite it.  I was way too optimistic about how much poker I would be able to play this week.

In my 4/11 post I said that given the realities of my situation, especially my part in the family rotation to help take care of my mother-in-law, my goal of getting at least 40 hours of poker play or study every week was unrealistic, and that the new goal would be 105 hours a month.  (105 hours is an average of 25 hours per week times 4.2 weeks per month.)

I thought that, given the situation, I had set some realistic goals.  I knew that there would be times when I could not work 25 hours in a week, but I thought there might be other weeks when I can get 30, so overall it seemed doable.  I started today with only 5.5 hours this week, but I already spent 3 days with my mother-in-law, so I thought that the last part of the week would be mostly available.  I played some SNGs already today, and Saturday looks completely open for poker, so I hope I can get at least 20 hours in this week.

I thought I had a chance to get at least 25 hours in this week, but new things have been added to my schedule just in the last hour.  For example, I have to leave a one-hour window open for my son to call from Germany tomorrow.  The longest SNG that I have played this year was about 100 minutes, which means that I have to stop playing more than 1 1/2 hours before that 1-hour phone call window.

I could use that "down time" before the phone call to study, but the plan (it almost seems ridiculous to use that word) was to deemphasize study for a bit, so that I could play more, get my bankroll up to $165, be bankrolled to play $3.30 SNG, and make money a lot faster.

There is just no getting around it.  When you "go to work," you're there to work, and nothing else.  When I'm at home, I'm always going to be Available Guy.  For the first time, I really understand why many novelists and other writers go to a cabin in the woods to do their writing.

I have read the books of some poker players who have a written play and study schedule and stick to it, while working at home.  I have no idea how they do that.

Poker Hours update for April 2013

As stated in my previous post, I've changed my goal from 40 hours per week to a more realistic 105 hours per month.  I just updated my records, and I'm a little behind that, but not too much. With half the month gone I'm at 47.75 hours.  I'll have to make sure that I hit it hard when I have the chance.

I'm pretty much on a daytime schedule now.  The plan this week to be out in the morning to help my mother-in-law three or four mornings this week, then go to church on Sunday.  The times I'm up in the morning and free to play poker and there isn't much running, I'll have to be sure that I jump on that time right away and do some studying or admin work.  I would love to concentrate on playing, but weekday mornings are not exactly prime time, especially Tuesdays, including today.

I've done some studying and admin work today, while I've been trying to get a regular-speed SNG running, at either $1.65 or $3.30, for the last two hours..  It looks like I'm going to have to give that up and play some turbos, which seem to be running pretty regularly.  I'm not as good at turbos, but I can probably at least break even at the tables, and pick up a few cents in bonus and rakeback for my trouble.

It's even possible that if I play a lot of turbos, I might get a better feel for them and start playing them better.  I might even modify my opening hands to adapt. I'll just have to see how it goes.

Realistic Goals and Outcomes

It might be a while before I can reasonably expect to get in 40 hours a week of poker playing and studying.  I have much room for improvement as far as time management, but I need to set some kind of goal now.  Here's how I see it:

1. 25 hours per week is a realistic goal for now.  I thought about a goal of 30 hours a week, but since family has to be the priority, I need to be realistic and set a goal that I have a reasonable chance of reaching.  25 hours every week might not be possible, but I think that I can average that much.  Since an average month is 4.2 weeks long, my new time goal is 25(4.2) = 105 hours per month.

2. After careful analysis of my situation, I'm temporarily dropping my goal of spending at least 25% of my poker time studying.

My current bankroll is $111.70.  I'm playing $1.65 SNGs.  I should have a bankroll of at least 50 buy-ins to play SNGs, and my bankroll is 67 buy-ins, so I'm fine there.  But as I thought about it, the next step up in SNGs is $3.30, and if I was playing at that level I would have 33 buy-ins--only 17 short of the 50 that I need.

If I temporarily cut down on studying and concentrate on playing, and if I run reasonably well, I could have the bankroll to play $3.30 SNGs in about a month.  When that happens, almost everything doubles.  Every time that I cashed in a SNG, I would be making almost twice as much profit as I was before.

Playing $3.30 SNGs:

If I cashed in third place, my profit would double from $1.05 to $2.10.
Second place cash, profit would go from $2.40 to $4.80.
First place cash, profit would go from $5.10 to $10.20.
Bonus would double, from about 2 cents per SNG to about 4 cents.
Rakeback would double, from 4.5 cents per SNG to 9 cents.

I said that almost everything will double, because my win rate will go down a bit when I move up to $3.30s, at least until I get some information on the regulars and figure out what adjustments I need to make, the most important of which is the percentage of my hands that I play.

I don't think that the ROI (return on investment) drop will be big. I estimate that my ROI will go down from about 13% at $1.65 to about 10% at $3.30, at least until I get used to the new level.

So, with a $1.65 SNG and a 13% ROI, I make 21.45 cents per SNG.
With a $3.30 SNG and a 10% ROI, I make 33 cents per SNG.


Adding it all up:

For each $1.65 SNG
Profit based on 13% ROI          0.2145
Bonus                                           0.02
Rakeback                                     0.045
                                                    --------
                                                     0.2795 ~ 28 cents per SNG

For each $3.30 SNG
Profit based on 10% ROI          0.33
Bonus                                           0.04
Rakeback                                     0.09
                                                   --------
                                                      0.46 = 46 cents per SNG


The medium-term goal is to have at least 100 buy-ins to play MTTs at the $5.50 level, which is the least expensive MTT on Americas Cardroom.  100(5.50) = $550.  When I move up from $1.65s to $3.30s, and if I play 50 SNGs a week (a realistic goal of 10 per day, playing 2 at a time, for 5 days) my expected profit per week should be 50(0.46) = $23.  With 4.2 weeks in a month, that's a profit of  4.2(23) = $96.60 per month.

So playing 50 SNGs a week, my profit should average around $100 a month, which means that I would be fully bankrolled to give MTTs a go sometime this fall.  I think that all of my numbers are both realistic and attainable, but there are other ways that this could play out:

1. If the $3.30 SNGs go well, I might move up to $5.50s as soon as I have the proper SNG bankroll of 50(5.50) = $275.

2. Americas Cardroom could start offering MTTs as low as $1.  If that happened, I would be bankrolled to play them right now.  I think that is unlikely this year, though it has been mentioned by players and the site as a possibility.

3. I could decide to stick with SNGs for a while.  If it's going well I night keep grinding away at them for a while, perhaps working on playing more than 2 tables at a time and giving myself a little extra in my bankroll.  A bankroll of 100 buy-ins is, in my opinion, the absolute minimum needed to play MTTs.

4. We could wind up moving some time this year.  This is quite likely, and as we want to do it on the cheap, I will do most of the packing and moving of small items by myself--especially if we move right next door, which is one of the two most likely options.  In the long run this will improve our situation and save us a lot of money, but in the short run it could cut my poker time way back for as much as a month, given that not only would we be moving, but we would be also having a yard sale to get rid of some things (which might happen this year whether we in fact move or not.)

I'll close by saying that I didn't run the above numbers until I typed this post.  To the two or three people who might take the time to go though all of this, including the math, thanks for your help.  Putting this in writing, in a form that you can go through and understand, has helped me to think the situation through, including some of the alternative scenarios that I had not thought about until now.

Results for March, 2013

It's been more than a week since my last post, and I apologize.  As with many of my ADD weakness, in this case, letting things slide, I've come up with a fix.  As usual, that fix involves imposing structure on myself.

There are certain sites or pages that I always open when I get online.  For example, I always open several Open Office spreadsheets, including Poker Hours and Comprehensive Poker Worksheet, as a reminder to keep those things up to date after I play poker.  I've added a new one, Blog Ideas.

Now, as part of my regular routine when I first get on my computer that day, Blog Ideas will be open, not only to remind me to make regular entries, but also to put things down that I might want to blog about, before I forget my brilliant idea of the moment.

There is no excuse for my not posting almost every day.  Even if I don't have anything new to say (which would be very unusual for me) I post on the 2+2 poker forums nearly every day, so I can crosspost one of those posts on here.

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

I have been trying, so far without success, to post a Holdem Manager graph of my results.  I'm not sure why I can't make it work, but I'll keep trying to figure it out.  Since I don't like my thinking to be too short-term, looking at a graph of the last 60 or 90 days (or more) helps me to see the big picture of how I'm doing.  I hope sometime soon to be able to do the same on here.

Last month went fairly well, considering that I've given up on being able to get my 40 hours a week in under the present circumstances.  My first full week was 48 hours, and the others were between 20 and 25 hours.  More about that in a future post.  But I made some money last month.  As often seems to happen, the month had a rough strart but ended well:

   Dates            Profit or Loss
  3/1-3/2                 7.53
  3/3-3/9             -10.94
3/10-3/16            -14.19
3/17/3/23             19.07
3/24-3/30            17.80
    3/31                     1.20
                            --------
                            $22.54

Month ending bankroll: $108.02