Micro Approach To Time Management

I wish that I could get settled into some kind of routine.  I don't necessarily mean working the same amount of hours, starting at the same time, every single day. There are a few players that do that*, but it's not an option for me.  For better or worse (and there is some of both), I will always be Available Guy.

I'm really fighting to keep some control of my time and schedule, and a big part of the problem is where I play.  The online sites available after Black Friday all have their problems.  One might be very slow in getting players their money when they make a withdrawl (2 weeks or more.)  Another might have clueless service representatives, or buggy software, or poor tournament choices, or a small player pool (which makes it hard in general to get a tournament or cash game started.)

Americas Cardroom is good with cashouts, but they have every other problem listed above.  Many players consider Americas Cardroom the only real choice, because as bad as it is, "At least I know I can get my money."

What does this have to do with time managment?  MTT and SNG options are poor, and the few tournaments that are running are sometimes unplayable because of a poor blind structure or other issues.  So, for example, I might finish a SNG, open another one, and wait half an hour (or more) for it to start.  When I played on PokerStars, it was unusual for a SNG to take more than five minutes to fill up, and during peak times (nights, weekends and US holidays) it sometimes took less than a minute.

When I open a SNG on Americas Cardroom, I never know how long I'll be waiting for it to start.  So what should I do while I'm waiting?  I don't want to get involved in a book or study topic where I want to take some time, go slow and really try to understand the things being taught.  If the SNG fills up in a few minutes and I'm working on my records, it's a pain to save my work, change what I'm looking at on the computer, move my papers around, and start the tournament.

A few days ago I was alternating data entry with playing SNGs.  The time between my first and second SNG was 32 minutes, but between the second and third it was only five minutes.  The five minutes didn't even make it into my records, because I round my time to the nearest quarter hour.  And for someone like me who struggles with staying focused, switching tasks every five minutes is not a good plan.

Switching between administrative and playing time as much as I do helps fill the time between SNGs, and it helps me make the most of my available poker time.  It's not a great solution, but, like America's Cardroom, it's probably the best option available.

I sure miss PokerStars.

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*Many of those players have school-age children, so they work while their kids are in school, or otherwise schedule their time so it does not conflict with family activies.  Most professional poker players prefer flexible hours, and the idea of "being my own boss" is very important to them.

Macro Approach To Time Management

My macro approach to my work hours is still the same.  I want to weight my time toward playing, but with an emphasis on study as well.  When I was able to work 40 hours a week, I tried to play at least 25 hours, study for at least 15 hours, and work as many administrative hours as necessary to keep things going.

I sill would like to keep the same percentages, so cutting everything in half, I would be aiming for at least 12.75 hours of play per week, and 7.5 hours of study.  That hasn't changed, but I'll try to balance that over a month.  With such small numbers, weekly goals are hard to hit.  A few extra hours wrestling with an administrave problem could make it almost impossible to hit my weekly goals. 

Given those realities, and adding a little administrative time for all of the technology issues that I want to fix, solve, or learn, I'll be happy if by the end of the month I have a total of at least 100 hours, with at least 50 play hours and 30 study hours.  As with my financial results, from now on I'll be looking more at monthly numbers, and not worrying too much about what happens in one week.

So, new goal for time management:

100 total work hours per month
50 play hours per month
30 study hours per month.
Adminstrative hours as necessary

I will report on this periodically.

Report on the Previous Week

I don't like to detail results for a week, especially since I will only be able to play part time for at least a few more months.  But I said in my previous report that I would report back to my readers, so I'll do so in detail.

Profit or Loss
-$13.33  SNGs
      1.48  Rakeback
 --------
-$11.85

Work Hours 6/30-7/6
  9.00  SNGs
  1.25  Study
  8.75  Administrative
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19.00

I'm not worried about the $12 loss.  I only played for 9 hours, so statistically those results mean nothing.    When I was too tired to play or to study, I mainly worked on administrative things, including solving the issues with Holdem Manager.

I'm still working on those issues.  I have to write to the sales department and ask them why I received an E-mail entitled "License Key Has Been Reset by Admin!"  After receiving that mail, I once again tried to do a clean install of Holdem Manager.  I got an error message stating that my license was invalid.

I want to average 25 hours a week (100 hours a month) and I only worked 19 hours during a week when we only had MIL duty for 3 days (we alternate every week between 3 days and 4 days.)  This week we're on duty for 4 days.  I hope that I can keep my sleep regulated well enough to be able to work at poker) at least 25 hours this week, but it won't be easy.  I am finallly caught up on my sleep, and I hope that it stays that way.

Part of my plan is to solve one technological issue each week.  That obviouly didn't happen, and the Holdem Manager saga continues.

It's Time to Have a Plan

I used to have a plan.  I was trying to work at least 40 hours a week, which included playing for 25 hours and 15 hours of study.  With all of the things that have happened recently (thunderstorms, sleep issues, virus problems and family committments, among other things) it's been difficult.  The hardest part was that I no longer had a plan.

One thing is certain.  No one who has Attention Disorder should "wing it." We can't.  Depending on our jobs, we might have to have a work envirnment with few distractions.  We definitely need to have goals and a plan to reach them.  I've been playing when I'm not too tired, which isn't a plan.

It's time to go back to having structure and goals.  Here is my plan.  It may need to be adjusted, but not much, I hope:

My goal, starting this month, is 100 work hours per month.  That's just under 25 hours a week, as there are 4.2 weeks in a month.  It's ambitious, but I let myself get lazy.  This is my job, and I can't make real money unless I put in the hours to learn to play better, and play enough to grow my bankroll more quickly.

Also, I am going to try to solve one technological issue each week.  This week's task is finally getting Holdem Manager installed and working.  It's ridiculous that other players might be tracking me, but I have no statistics on them.   I have communicated with a Holdem Manager tech who will correspond with me on a daily basis so that we can get the problem solved.

The current time is 2325.  I got a couple hours in this afternoon.  Then, except for a 45-minute dinner break, I've been in the office since 1616.  Of course I can't do that every day.  I have mother-in-law duty for the next three days, which means, since we have one car, I will be taking my wife to work at 0530.  But when I am able, I need to get those hours in.

I will report on how things go this week.

 

June 2013 Results

It was a rough month.  My profit was $13.10, with my end-of-month bankroll at $160.70.  It started out a lot better than that.

I was fighting a lot of battles in June:

1.  Losing the computer several times for several days put me way behind in keeping up with my records.

2.  I barely played for several days because I was in a fog from taking my wife into work at 5:30 A.M., not being able to get back to sleep for a few hours before mother-in-law duty, then not being able to get to sleep before midnight.

3.  The technology issues are ongoing.  I spent some more time on getting Holdem Manager to install tonight.

But the main reason that my profit was so small this month was a lack of work hours leading to small sample size.

Besides the issues I'm facing, I'm trying to do a lot of things without a lot of hours.  I'm working on multitabling.  I have to study.  I'm learning how the SNGs play at the $3.30 level.  I'm trying to implement new concepts that I learn from my studies.  All of those things are important, but it was hard to give everything the proper attention in a month when I worked no more than 60 hours (that's an estimate, I'm still not caught up on my records.)

My numbers took a big dive the last two days of the month, because I spent a lot of that time two-tabling $3.30 SNGs.  I was playing twice as high as in May, and playing twice as many SNGs in a sitting, which made it inevitable that bankroll swings would be much larger.  Two days of bad results erased most of my profit for the month.

I understand the sample size and variance issues at play.  I know that a month is nothing, especially with the small number of hours that I've been working.  But to be honest, it's embarrassing to report a profit of $13.10 for the month when this is my job.

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.