Making The Technology Pieces Work Together

I have been undergoing a long, very slow process of getting all of my new technology to work together.

 

I have started my new Windows 8 computer, installed a couple online poker sites, and watched a hand on each to site to make sure that everything works.  That doesn't mean that I'm ready to use it.

 

I recently purchased another piece of technology, a one terrabyte external hard drive, to be used both for backing up data, and moving data from the old to the new computer.  After a lot of my own reseach and posts in both poker and computer forums, I still wasn't satisfied with the answers.  I finally went to my local computer shop, and one of their techs told me how to go about it.

 

This isn't about turning things on and making sure they work.  They have to work very well, and I have to do the right things in the right order.  For example, I have to partition the external drive before I use the drive for backup, because data can be lost during partitioning.

 

Everything has to work seamlessly, and there are a lot of moving parts.  I have to transfer my antivirus subscription to the new computer.  I need to install my poker database and heads-up display.  I need to partition the hard drive, back up the Windows 7 data and move the hard drive data to the Windows 8 computer.  I have to move files around on the Windows 8 computer, so that my data (mostly business) and my wife's data (mostly family and home related) will be stored under different master folders.  I have to get my hand histories from the poker sites, and put them in my database.

 

I also have to make sure that all of the different parts work together.  I have to make sure that the database and heads-up display work together.  I need to make sure that my very aggressive antivirus program recognizes and allows both poker sites, the database and the heads-up display.  And all of these steps have to be done in the right order.  I just got an idea that will make this simpler--I'm going to flowchart everything, so that at a glance I can see how everything fits together!

 

You get the idea. I said in a previous post how important it is to make sure that all of the technology works well, all the time.  I keep running into new problems, both small and large.  Last night it took me 20 minutes of googling to find an online manual for my external drive.  The picture on the brochure didn't look anything like what I saw when I opened the drive's dashboard display.  The URL on the little brochure that came with the didn't take me to a manual.

 

I've been working on this for quite a while, but everything has to be right.  If it takes me another month, then that's what it takes. I certainly hope that that is not the case.

 

 

Growing My Live Bankroll

I've said many times in this blog that to play MTTs (multi-table tournaments) I should have a bankroll of at least 100 buy-ins whenever I enter a tournament.

That wasn't hard when I was playing $1 online tournaments on PokerStars.  I put $50 on the site, which didn't give me 100 buy-ins, but it gave me something to work with, and eventually I started growing my bankroll and working my way up.

I would occasionally play a live tournament with a buy-in between $30 and $60.  I didn't have the bankroll for that, but it didn't really matter.  I was just playing live once every few months, and I would do it when a tournament was available and I had the money to do it.

Now I'm taking live poker more seriously, and I try to play once a week at my local charity poker room.  I started playing the cheapest tournaments available, $35 or $40, with no bankroll.  I got some small cashes and was about breaking even, but I quickly realized that I was in effect starting with a bankroll of one buy-in (what I paid to enter my first live tournament at the Big Game Room) and it was going to take forever to build a $4,000 bankroll to play comfortably at that level, let alone move up to higher levels (the largest buy-in tournament at the Big Game Room is $200.)

I get a stipend for living with my mother-in-law an average of  3 or 4 days a week.  She is 91 years old and has Alzheimer's, and she can not live by herself.  I'm saving a lot of that stipend and deciding what to do with it, and eventually a large portion will go toward poker.

I'm investing a little of that money in growing my live bankroll.  Every time I'm about to enter a $40 tournament, I add $60 to my poker bankroll.  When I cash, my bankroll is up $20 plus whatever I win.  When I don't cash, I've still added $20 to my bankroll.

This month I will be playing four live tournaments:  Wednesday the 10th, 17th and 24th and Saturday the 29th.

My current live bankroll is $190.  I have a very long way to go.

I'm Back

This if my first post since October.  I was barely profitable in 2013, and most of the year was a mess.  The main online site on which I play crashes often, has a lot of timing errors (10-minute blinds levels can go for 11 minutes or more) and it generally doesn't work well.  I had lots of computer problems, and virus attacks like I've never seen before.  I think it was in November that I had my wife watch while I played a SNG, and in 5 minutes I got 4 popups from my antivirus program telling me that it had handled an attack on the computer.

It's been very hard to set goals.  I don't know how many hours a week I'll be working, because I'm living half of the time with my mother-in-law as part of a family rotation to keep her home as long as possible, and I never know what the day (or night) has in store.  When I come home from that, my first priority is usually to catch up on my sleep.

We had some unforseen family expenses in the last year or so, and $300 that I had set aside to build a live poker bankroll had to be used for those expenses.  We got a letter from a lawyer about an old debt.  We've been working hard on paying off all our debt, but that one got by me.  My car was totaled by a teenager that ran a red light, and being down to one car limits my freedom to go to live tournaments.  The car that we have required a $600 repair.  We had an emergency fund in a savings account, but that, along with my poker bankroll, took a big hit and we're slowly building it up again.

Losing most of my live bankroll was a huge blow.  For a poker player, money set aside for a bankroll is both business capital and inventory.  The business can't function without it.  To make a long story short,  most of my live bankroll was gone, and I'm down to playing $1 or $2 SNGs and MTTs online  Several years ago, I was playing $11 SNGs on PokerStars, with a 14% return on investment.  According to one of the player rating sites, my results were in the 97th percentile at that level.

Most important, as stated in an October post to this blog, the combination of everything that happened threw me for a loop.  I was trying to be organized about my playing and studying, and about managing the whole thing, but it got away from me.  Having ADD means having a very strong tendency to be distractable and disorganized.  That was me for a couple months. When I'm unable to plan, organize, and impose some structure on my life, things go badly.

Now I'm adjusting to the new normal, with a small bankroll and much less time for poker.  As the saying goes, it is what it is.

There is one thing that's been going well.  I am now playing a live tournaments about three times a month, and I would like to boost that to at least once a week.  That might not be realistic, and I already feel bad about taking time away from my wife when I'm already gone half of the time--but it is my job.  That's a priority decision that my wife and I will probably have to discuss from time to time. I'm learning a lot and making a small profit, and that's more than I expected at first.  Even when I don't cash, most of the time I'm only a few places out of the money, better results than I expected.  But I have to keep three words in mind--small sample size.

Still, while I am doing well consistently, I'm going to enjoy it.  I didn't expect much from live poker for a while, and it's still new to me.  I would have been happy to break even over a few months.  I have played maybe 20 live tournaments over several years, which is nothing considering that online I've probably played over 1,000.  Live vs.online tournaments require different skill sets, but it's coming, slowly.

It took me a couple months to get my head together and deal with all of this.  I took a step back, and I decided to reevaluate everything.  I'm writing a formal business plan, and these are some of the areas I'm working on, many of which will be discussed in further posts:

Playing more tables.  Volume matters in online poker, and those who can play a lot of tables at once can generate a much higher income.

Playing more hours.  I don't have nearly as much time to play, so 40-60 work hour weeks aren't going to happen in the near future.  But I can use the time I have more wisely, and establish realistic, scaled-down goals for both playing and studying.

Playing vs. studying.  Before all of this happened, my goal was to work a minimum of 40 hours a week, with at least 10 hours spent studying.  If I decide that a more realistic total is 15 or 20 total hours, I'm not sure if I still want to aim for something like 75% play and 25% studying.  With limited resources available (in this case, my time) I need to reconsider my priorities.

Managing technology.  I've been steadily upgrading my poker technology.  In the past year or two I've taken steps toward going wireless, including getting a new keyboard and mouse, playing a few SNGs on my wife's laptop while my mother-in-law was sleeping, and upgrading to a 30-inch monitor.  It really hit home recently how important that technology is.

In an E-mail to my father discussing some of these issues, I wrote the following " . . . getting knocked out of just one large tournament when I'm at the final table could cost me as much money as the total cost of my printer, monitor and external hard drive."  I looked at that sentence, and I was stunned at how important and profound it was.  When I start making some serious money, I have to make certain that some of it goes to regular maintenance and upgrading of my technology.  It is absolutely essential for playing online poker at a high level.  As I said to my father, online poker is a high-tech business.

Growing a bankroll.  To play live or online tournaments comfortably (not worrying about going broke, and not playing badly due to playing with "scared money") I need a bankroll of at least 100 buy-ins.  I'm playing at the $40 starter level for live tournaments, which means I should get my bankroll up to $4,000 just to be comfortable playing where I am now.  Moving up can't even be in the discussion.  I will talk about growing my live bankroll in my next post.

Live Tournaments

I am definitely struggling to stay focused, and to spend time studying and keeping my records organized.  When I don't really have any kind of goal, it's much, much harder for me to stay focused.  I shouldn't feel this way, but it is nonetheless a fact when I don't have any study goals such as topics to work on during the week, or a certain number of hours, it's very easy for me to, in true ADD fashion, just not get around to it.  I've been doing a lot of that lately.

Fortunately, I do have one thing that I can focus on.  My wife and I talked about the car situation, and we agreed that with tournaments running seven days a week at the Big Game Room, I can get the car at least one night a week to play live.  I'm really excited about that, and it's given me one aspect of my studies to focus on.

I'm constantly tweaking something, and lately it's been how many hands to play from each position (from first to last to act in the hand.)  Since most of the live tournaments are deep for at least an hour or two, all of the options that I'm reading and learning about are open to me.  If I want to semibluff with small pairs or suited connectors, I can open those hands from any position.  If table or tournament conditions change, I can switch back to what has been my usual default tight style.  I can switch back and forth at will, making me nearly unreadable to my opponents.  To that end, I've come up with some new hand charts, where I could be playing up to 10% of my hands in first postion, and up to 53% of my hands when last to act.  Almost no one does that except at the highest levels, but it's mathematically correct to raise that often when last to act, even with a hand as weak as 97o. And coming from an old white guy known to be a tight player when he played live a couple years ago, it will be completely unexpected.

Playing a bunch of hands is definitely a high-variance strategy, which could get me knocked out pretty quickly  It could also get me first place a lot more often.  When fourth place is $90 and first place is $360, as was the case in one of my recent tournaments where I won the $90, that's a risk worth taking.

I will still have to be somewhat careful.  My live bankroll is only about 5 buy-ins, and I would rather not have to add more to get it going, so I have to be at least a bit risk averse.  I really can't start to relax until I have around 20 buy-ins, and I'm not really safe until I have at least 100, but -ins, which would mean a live bankroll of around $4,000.  But I can start mixing things up in spots and get used to playing more hands, which in the long win should be a big winner for me.  From what I've seen in my first four live tournaments, the fields are weaker than in a $1 online SNG.  I need to make sure that I push every advantage that I have.

I Give Up

No, I have not given up on poker.  I have given up the idea of  having any kind of plan.  The technical problems with online poker are too great, my schedule is too uncertain, and when and how much I will be able to sleep can change from day to day.

I am no longer aiming for a certain number of hours playing or studying.  So many things are outside my control that numerical goals have no meaning.  I have no idea how long it would take me know to finish my usual three readings of a new poker book.  I have no idea what I should be studying, for how long, or if I can be awake enough long enough that particular day to give a study topic any significant time.

In my world, there isn't much that is scarier than having ADD and not having a plan.  Goal setting keeps me focused long-term, and organization and structure keep me going short-term.  But there are no goals on which I can focus, and no structures that I can impose, that have any practical relevance.

It's very scary, and more than a little ironic.  The discipline required to become a good poker player from scratch, and being able to pull that off, have mean an awful lot to me.  Poker has helped me to learn good habits, and to have more confidence.  I feel all of that slipping away.

I'm very scared that I will become Bad Clif again.  The Clif that couldn't try out for the wrestling team because I misremembered the date and missed the required physical.  The Clif that showed up for a Boy Scout campout, only to find no one at the meeting place--they left the previous night.  The Clif that damaged his military career due to being disorganized and overwhelmed.  The Clif who failed to graduate from two colleges because I couldn't stay focused long enough to study or write long papers.  I did all of that, and much worse.

That said, I'll reuse a popular saying that has already been beaten to death--It is what it is.  All I can do is hang on, remember what Bad Clif was like, and do my best to never be that person again.

I hope I can pull it off.  I'm not sure that I can.

The Importance of Tournament Structure

Today is the first day that I received applause for one my posts on the twoplustwo.com poker forums.

There have been some players on the forums complaining about tournaments that can take as long as eight hours.  A few players countered that we need those tournaments, and I agreed.  Here is my post on the forums on 10/1/2013:

I agree as well. Half of the stuff that I study in advanced poker books doesn't even apply if everyone is short-stacked early in the tournament. I love playing with an M of 100 and being able to stay there for at least a little while. I can do that in my local poker room, and I would love to be able to do that, or something close to it, online.

When I look at a tournament, I ask three questions:

1. Am I bankrolled for it?
2. How many starting chips do I get?
3. How fast is the blind structure?

If I don't like the answer to any of those questions, I usually won't play. For example, I won't play on demand or bounty tournaments on WPN because the blinds go up much faster than those in scheduled tournaments.

As far as deep tournaments going too long, if someone else doesn't like that, that is their choice. I always play as deep as I can, because that's where I have an edge. I am prepared to play all night.

When I enter the $5.50 with a $3,500 guarantee and three hours of late registration, I know exactly what I'm getting into. I know that if I go deep I could be playing for seven hours or more, and I prepare accordingly, from when I eat to how much sleep I get. Deep tournaments give me a big edge over the field.

The deeper the tournament, the more I like it, and I'm sure that many in this thread feel the same way. Who wouldn't want a good structure and a chance to win 200 buy-ins?


Here is the post immediately following mine:


Well fkn said Clif.

Why I Have Not Been Posting

It's been over a month since I last posted.  I don't have a reason, just an excuse.  There has not been much to write about, but I could have at least posted that information.

Poker has come to an almost complete stop, for reasons beyond my control.  I'm working on a transition to playing more live poker, and depending less on the availability of online poker.  I will keep you updated on that.

People in church have been wondering where I've been lately.  My attendance has been sporadic at best, so I sent my pastor an E-mail explaining what's been going on.  Most of what I put in that letter affects poker as well as my church attendance.  Names have been replaced by descriptions, for example, "my brother-in-law." Here are portions of that letter:

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Pastor,

 

I apologize that this is long.  I can be verbose, but in this case, there is a lot to explain.

A couple months ago, [church officer] said that he had not seen me in church much lately.  It was just before the start of church, and I didn't really have time for a long explanation, but I intended to send him an E-mail, with you copied in, so that you would know what was going on.  In the great tradition of those of us with Attention Deficit Disorder, I never got around sending that letter.  My wife said that I really should let you know what's going on, so here it is:

First, we only have one car.  A teenage girl with no sign of impairment ran a red light and totaled my car a few months ago.  (My wife thinks that she was probably texting.)  We are working hard on becoming debt free, and we have not had a car payment for several years.  We had some other unexpected financial "challenges" recently as well (which took care of our emergency fund) and we are waiting to get a second car until we can pay cash.

Second, my wife has been required to work one weekend a month.  That might be changing soon.

 Third, Sunday is prime time for poker.  There are more players and more tournaments online Sundays than any other day.  For a time there were Sunday tournaments with prize pools of over a million dollars on two different online poker sites.

 

At first, I would stay home and play poker on the weekends that my wife had to work.  Then both of us became torn.  Sometimes she wanted me to go to church with her, and other times she wanted me to stay home, play poker and make some money.  But she really didn't like going to church by herself. 

Fourth, we are in a family rotation to spend time with her 91-year old mother who has Alzheimer's Disease.  We are helping her to stay at home as long as she can, both because she doesn't want to leave her home, and because it will save her a lot of money if we can put off assisted living or whatever the next step is for a little while.  This has been going on for a few months, and that time at home could make the difference in her money lasting the rest of her life. 

I should explain at this point that one of the problems with being a poker player is that you become Available Guy.  I don't have regular work hours, and everyone knows that.  My wife and her brother have 40 hour a week jobs where they have to go to the workplace.  That leaves me and my brother-in-law's wife to cover most of the hours. 

It gets tricky with one car.  Usually weekdays I take my wife to work at 5:30 A.M., then I try to get a little more sleep before I go out to see her mother around 9 A.M. and bring her breakfast.  I leave around 2 P.M. and pick up my wife at work at 2:30.  Then my wife makes supper and we eat with her mom around 4:30 P.M., watch the evening news, and generally keep her company for a while.

 

My sleep patterns get very disrupted (I have the kind of insomnia where I sleep soundly, but have trouble getting to sleep) and I'm often too tired to do much with poker.  My goal of a minimum 40-50 hour work week has turned into about 15 hours a week.  I've done a lot of jobs where the hours were weird, but with poker, unlike other jobs, I can lose money if I work when I'm tired.  So I don't like to play tired if I can avoid it.

 

My wife has the opposite problem  She gets her 40 hour work week in, starting at 6 A.M., five days a week.  So by the time we get home from taking care of her mother, she's worn out.  There are times when we talk about just one of us doing the night shift, but which one stays home?  I know that she's already worn out by evening and I don't want her to do it by herself.  She knows I'm not getting much poker time in, so she would rather do it by herself sometimes and let me stay home and play poker.  Usually we just wind up doing it together. 

We have a family schedule where my wife and I usually take care of her mom either Monday through Wednesday, or Thursday through Sunday.  When we take 3 days, and my brother-in-law and his wife take 4, and vice versa.  So at a minimum we will miss church half of the time.

 

----------

 

Of course, I'm not just missing church, I'm missing poker.  If I play tired, I'll lose money.  So many days I just don't play.

 

I will add to the above that I've been having horrible technical problems trying to play online poker:

 

Every time I close Americas Cardroom, the next time I want to play I have to uninstall and reinstall it.  No error message, it just won't open.

 

Americas Cardroom is having a nasty problem with servers crashing.  It used to happen around once a month, but it's getting much worse.  It crashed several times last week, and one of those crashes was when I had been playing in a tournament for about two hours.

 

In general, nothing about the site works like it should.  The mistakes and problems, both big and small, are way too numerous to list.  In a tournament I played today, late registration was supposed to end after three hours.  Around 30 players registered between the three-hour mark and about 15 minutes later.

 

I'm having no luck at all getting my poker database program working.  I haven't even been able to download it, though with everything else going on, I haven't tried in the last three weeks.

 

The only good news is that I've started playing live poker in a local charity room that runs a tournament every weeknight, and two or three tournaments on both Saturday and Sunday.  With one car, transportation is an issue, but I'm trying to play at least one day a week when I'm not too tried after MIL duty, and when I can get the car.  With two cashes in my first three tournaments, I'm starting to build a separate bankroll for live poker, and I hope to play at least twice a week in the near future.  It's great to play with real people, and I love not having to deal with all the technical issues. I can just sit down and play.  I'm really excited about it, and I'm looking forword to my next outing on Saturday.