Time Management Adjustment

I'm playing quie a few $3.30 SNGs now, and it's going OK.  There is a small but noticeable increase  in player skill levels compared to $1.65, so I have to make sure that there aren't a lot of distractions when I'm multitabling them, especially since I'm not that good a multitabler yet.

Today I was playing two $3.30 SNGs when the construction noise got pretty obnoxious.  I live less then 100 feet from a major road that is being resurfaced.  Old pipes are being replaced as well.  I usually leave the front door open so that the cats can look outside and catch a breeze.  But I had to close the door when I was down to 4 players at each table.

The strategy adjustment has to do with playing MTTs.  I need to stop for a while.

I've been playing an MTT every few days so that I can work on the things that I'm learning.  If I don't cash in any $5.50 MTTs over a week or so, my bankroll drops down, and I have to work it back up playing only SNGs.  I'm still right around my $165 bankroll requirement (50 buy-ins) for $3.30 SNGs,  My current bankroll is $162.55.

I've decided that I need to build my bankroll up a little more before I consider mixing in some MTTs.  I need to practice all of the things that I'm learning from my studying and reading, and many of the new (to me) concepts don't apply to SNGs.  That's a big deal, but proper bankroll management is an even bigger deal.

I'm done with MTTs until I get my bankroll over $200.  Americans Cardroom should have their new tournament schedule posted soon.  Then I can take another look at the management of my playing time.

Analysis of America's Cardroom Tournament Schedule

Americas Cardroom is supposed to have a new tournament schedule in a week or so.  This has been promised many times, including when several months ago on 2+2 I expressed my concerns about the tournament lineup.

Since a new schedule is (supposedly) imminent, I decided to take another look at the current schedule.  This is my analysis, posted on 2+2 on 6/23:

I just took a lot at the MTT schedule for today, 6/23/2013, from 1200 to 2000, US eastern time, for MTTs < $20. I excluded satellites and private freerolls.

This is the schedule for MTTs with entry fee between $10 and $20:

1200/$10+.80/bounty tournament.
1300/$12+$1/$200 GTD turbo deep stack
1400/$12+$/$500 GTD deep stack
1500/$12+1/$250 GTD deep stack

Comments: Not a bad lineup, and there are different types of tournaments. The structure of the 1300 is a little strange for an MTT--assuming just enough players to meet the guarantee, first place is only 15 buy-ins.

My concern is the way that the tournaments are spaced. Why four tournaments in four hours, then nothing?

This is the schedule for MTTs with entry fees under $10:

2000/$5+.50/$3,500 GTD

Comments: Player pools are built from the bottom up. If someone has a few bucks to put on a site (I started with $50 on PokerStars), wants to try online tournaments, and takes a look at that schedule, he could easily conclude that he can't afford it. Or, he could play $10 tournaments and lose his bankroll in one or two weekends.

Of course that player could play $1.50+.15 SNGs, but one-table tournaments aren't what people really think about when the watch the WSOP or WPT on television.

I know that a new tournament lineup is coming. I hope that some thought has gone into it, and that the spacing of tournament times is addressed. (I brought that issue up months ago, and evidently nothing has changed.) But is is absolutely necessary that a decent lineup of micro tournaments be added. One $5 tournament at the end of the day doesn't cut it.

The Technology Battle Continues

I recently installed Komodo security software on my computer, (the paid version, what I had was a free trial) which is why I no longer have virus issues.  But it took 6 hours to do it.  That includes several tries by myself, talking to their online help while I tried to do it, and finally, one of their techs taking over my computer for another hour.

It turns out that the main problem was Internet Explorer 10, which has a lot of bugs.  The tech took IE 10 off the computer, reinstalled IE9, and that finally solved the problem.

I have also been working on getting Holdem Manager to work, so far without success.  I have certainly spent at least 10 hours on that problem.  First I couldn't make a connection between Holdem Manager 2 and the database, then when I tried to reinstall it, my license wasn't recognized.

I solved the license problem a few days ago, and sometime this week I'll try one more time to do a clean install of both HM2 and the database., and make it work.  I'm going to document everything that I do, step-by-step, and if it doesn't work, I'll send the documentation to the HM2 techs, and maybe they can figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Quick Update

Wow, it's been two weeks since I last posted.  There has been a lot going on, much of it having nothing to do with poker.  Some of it is relevant however, and I have enough material that there is no reason I shouldn't be able to post just about every day.

I won a major battle in the virus wars.  I have new antivirus software that has given my computer back to me.  Since installing Comodo, I have lost contol of the computer for a total of two minutes in the last two weeks or so.

My bankroll is now over $165, giving me the 50 buy-in bankroll to play $3.30 SNGs.  If all goes as planned, I should be making almost twice as much playing SNGs as when I was playing at $1.65.

Updates on these topics, and others, will be coming soon, and a lot more regularly.

Virus Wars

A few days ago, I got my computer back from the shop.  It was the third time in a month.  Talking to the techs, I learned a lot of things that I didn't know about computers. The second time I got it back, I thought that I could fight the virus wars by myself, but I eventually had to once again leave it to the professionals.

Armed with what I already knew, and supplemented by what I learned from talking to the techs, I fought a three-day antivirus battle.  I alternated between scans using Microsoft Security Essentials and McAfee Scan, doing both quick scans and full scans.  A full scan took about six hours.

After I thought I had zapped all the viruses, I tried a theory that with less open on the computer, there would be less for viruses to attack.  But 10 minutes into a SNG, I started getting more virus warnings, with nothing open but Americas Cardroom, Holdem Manager and Windows Calculator--none of which required me to open a browser.  My side of the computer locked up a few minutes later.

I spent most of one day running scans, getting a report of three or five or eight new viruses, cleaning them out, getting control of my side of the computer for a while, then losing it again.

I think it's going to be OK now.  I learn a few new tricks every time this happens, about how to in general maintain my computer, and in particular how to deal with viruses.  Also, this time Crashmasters set me up, at no charge, with Comodo, which they consider the top-of-the line computer protection and antivirus suite.

They said that they wouldn't recommend Comodo for most people, because it's a very complicated suite of options that most people wouldn't want to deal with.  Also, it's very intrusive, constantly asking for permissions and stopping anything that it hasn't seen before. But they thought I knew enough to handle it, and that given my situation, it was my best option.  I completely agreed.

So far it's working very well.  I played two SNGs each of the last three days without incident. It's a big relief.  I'm not on mother-in-law duty the next three days, so I should be able to put in some serious time, including a lot more than two SNGs per day.

An Example of When Studying Matters

My bankroll has been inching up toward the $165 (50 buy-ins) that I feel I need to move up to $3.30 SNGs.  But while that's been going on, I've been increasingly uneasy about not playing any MTTs, even though I'm not quite bankrolled to do it.

I'm still studying almost every day, even if my hours are necessarily more limited than was the case a few months ago.  Nearly all of that study is geared toward MTTs, but I have been getting no chance to practice what I learn.

I finally decided to play one or two MTTs a week, just to keep in practice, and to better understand how the things that I'm learning apply in actual tournaments.  I was going to wait to play against a large field of 1,000 or so entries tonight, but I got antsy and played a small one (51 players) yesterday morning.  Entry was $5.50 and I finished 4th of 51 for a cash of $24.22 (net $18.72) which puts my bankroll at $153.31, very close to the $165 bankroll I've been aiming for.

One of the things that I learned from all that studying was largely responsible for my success in that tournament.  A few months ago, I asked Johnathan Little about something in his book, Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1.  Here is the question that I posted on the 2+2 forums on December 31:

In SOPTP1, Kindle location 2718 of 3469, first page of:

"Chapter 11: When you have between 60 and 40 BB",

you talk about the need to be willing to go all in with 60BB or less. Here is one sentence from that page:

"If you raise before the flop with hands like A-Q+ or 10-10+ and are reraised, go all in unless your opponent is extraordinarily passive."

My questions is about online tournaments where your starting stack is that small.

Here are the early levels of the standard MTT structure on the Winning Poker Network:

LEVEL BLINDS ANTES
--1-------15/30
--2------20/40
--3------30/60
--4------50/100----10
--5------75/150----15
--6 ----100/200---20

Starting stacks in these tournaments are as low as 1,500 chips, with either 10 or 15 minute blinds. Some deeper stacked tournaments start with 2,500-5,000 chips, but with a blind structure that fast (blinds starting at level 4) the number of big blinds blinds that you have in these tournaments isn't an accurate measure of how soon you are playing shortstacked.

So, from the first hand of some of these tournaments, and soon afterward with deeper stacks, you can be playing with less than 60 BB. How does playing with online stuctures like the one above change how soon you should be ready to get it all in as your describe in the first page of this chapter of your book?

 

And here is his answer:

 

The structure of the tournament should not define what "short stacked" is. For example, if you start with 10,000 chips at 600/1,200 blinds, you are going to push or fold basically every hand you play. Just because a tournament starts you with some amount of chips does not mean you must have some amount of "play" in it. Obviously if your opponents are playing tight because they think they are supposed to have some "play", you should adjust your game, but hands like QQ+ and AK should basically always be played for stacks, especially online against overly aggressive opponents.

 

I remembered that answer when I was playing yesterday.  It never occured to me that some tournament structures almost force playing all-in-or-fold very early in a tournament, but as I thought about it, it made perfect sense.

 

When I played that tournament yesterday, about 30 minutes in I was one of the top ten stacks, but by any poker definition, I was still short-stacked.  I started looking for spots to be more agressive, including going all-in.  While a lot of other players were protecting their top 10 stack, I was agressive, taking chances to build my stack.  I was probably all-in at least 5 times the first hour, and I was the chip leader at the end of the hour.

 

Without reading Little's book, and getting that answer, I would not have played that aggressively.  I knew something that most of the field clearly did not know--a great example of how studying gives one an edge over other players.

Poker And Technology

I'm still fighting with Holdem Manager.  After once again going through a list of disagnostic steps from one of their techs, I found a problem in one the Windows Services settings, but I don't know what to do to fix it.  Once again, I'm waiting for a response to another of my "what do I do now?" twoplustwo.com forum posts.  I'm spending so much time messing with Holdem Manager that I'm barely playing.

I was studying yesterday, doing my first readthrough of a new poker book, and it mentioned some of the tools that poker players use to study.  It really hit me how dependent poker players are on technology:

1. Being a successful poker player is, at least in part, a technology arms race.  If you can't compete, you're at a serious disadvantage.

2. If you're don't use technology, even if you're a strictly live player, you have almost no chance to be successful.

A lot of studying is done on online poker forums, or using digital tools. Those tools include:  poker equity calculators, databases, player blogs, player ranking sites, and online videos (or live streaming) of poker tournaments. A year ago I purchased my poker books at Barnes and Noble.  Now I get them at amazon.com, sent to my Kindle via wireless connection, often after reading online reviews of the book.

As far as actual play online, of course a computer is necessary.  But some players go way beyond that.  There are online players that play 30 or more simultaneous games or tournaments, on multiple monitors, with a mouse specially designed for poker players.  A few have massively redundant systems in place in case something goes down: multiple ISPs, cable and satellite connections, backup power supplies, and a generator.

That may seem ridiculous, but for some players, it's really not.  An online pro who plays in several big events (such as the World Championship of Online Poker) every year is literally playing for millions of dollars.

By now, some of you might be thinking that, especially for a live player who plays only at his local casino, most of this isn't necessary.  That's not really true.  Sure, if Joe wants to study before his next trip to the casino, he can still get a poker book at Barnes and Noble.  But those books rapidly become outdated.

My latest book states that at the highest levels, poker lines and strategies change every three months or so, and that if you don't keep up, you're at a disadvantage.  The only way to keep up with that rate of change is by keeping up with the poker forums and other online information.

Finally, I haven't mentioned one the most important poker tools--Google.  It's increasingly common for players to scout each other online.

I hate all the time that I spend trying to manage Holdem Manager and other poker technology.  But I have no choice.