How am I doing this?

I said in a recent post that I'm good at analyzing my strengths and weakness.  What's happened in the past week is giving me pause.

My caregiver duty schedule was changed, at the request of my sister-in-law, who is the other primary caregiver for my mother-in-law.  She wanted to do something with some friends, and the days she wanted me to cover lined up perfectly for me able to play poker every day of the week (I wound up missing one day.)

The continuity of playing almost every day helped me a lot.  It's hard to stay focused and have my mind in the right place when I'm constantly jumping in and out of poker mode.  There are weeks where I'm not even home for more than three days, and one of them is often lost to catching up on my sleep.

The other factor that makes it tough for me to stay in poker mode is the difference in caregiving and poker schedules.  As a caregiver, I have to be up in the morning to make breakfast.  As a poker player, I want to sleep so that I'm ready for tournaments that start at 6 P.M. and sometimes go past midnight.

The thing that I'm confused by is how well I'm doing.  In the live tournaments that I've played in the last week, I had a $310 cash ($230 net after expenses) and two tournaments where I missed cashing by one or two spots.  I made the final table almost every time.

I know that I'm getting better, this isn't just short-term variance.  People regard me differently.  I'm getting a lot more respect, and even a little fear from time to time.  But it doesn't make sense.

I know the background of some of the regulars that I play against in my main poker room.  One worked with a poker coach/backer every day for a year.  The coach was paid with a percentage of her winnings.  Other players have played on the Heartland Poker Tour, or gone to Chicago to play a big tournament there.'

I don't have any of those advantages.  I've never played at a high level, or satellited into a major tournament.  I haven't played in a casino, and given the combination of the nearest casino that deals poker being 100 miles away, my caregiver duty and my wife and I sharing one car, that's not going to change soon.

The other problem I have is that, to put it simply, the top players in my local room know things that I don't.  They can look at two hands and know, within half a percent, what the chances are that each hand will win the pot.  Some of them can read tells well.  I could list about 10 things that those people can do, but I can't.

I've read enough poker books to know what all those thing are, and that I have to learn them.  I also know myself well enough to know that I learn best in very small chuncks.  When I watch for tells, I pick one person to watch.  I can't handle more than that because I'm just starting to get good at keeping track of the pot size as the hand evolves.  Keeping track of the pot size is the one thing that I've really concentrated on in my last 10 or 15 tournaments, and I'm getting pretty good at it.

That's fine as far as it goes, but I've only been working on keeping track of the pot size, to the exclusion of almost all else.  But now I'll be back to 3-4 tournaments a month, and most of the things I need to learn will be put on hold, probably until sometime in 2016.

So here I am, trying to make something out of poker.  I know less than a lot of the good players. I have less experience, I play less often.  I don't study as much.  I'm not a big winner.  I'm old (half of the top players in the world are under 30.)

Yet, I'm getting better.  I just don't know why or how, and that bothers me.

My tournament schedule, blown up again

I try to play a live tournament once a week.  I can't play this week, because the other caregiver got sick and I was called in to cover two extra days.  The way that the schedule was going, I knew there was a good chance that I wouldn't get a chance to play this week in any case.

Next week my wife is going out of the country, I'm only scheduled as a caregiver for two days, so I've been counting on playing at least twice.  One of those poker days just got knocked out.

My wife leaves on Tuesday.  I will be driving her to the airport, which is out-of-town but near the a poker room in another city where I was going to play.  Then I got a call from my state National Guard headquarters, offering to help me expedite the paperwork for my military retirement pay, which I am scheduled to receive starting in September.

He made me an offer I couldn't refuse, but it complicates poker once again.  On Monday I will be on my fourth day of caregiver duty, which is always tiring and messes my poker schedule up.  The more consecutive days that I'm on duty, the more tired I am..  I usually need a day to catch up on my sleep before I try to play.

My plan was to sleep late before I took my wife to the airport for her afternoon flight.  Now I have a morning appointment with the sergeant, my wife has to be at the airport in the afternoon, and I have to be register by 1600 to get a seat for the tournament at 1800. Not much chance there to grab some extra sleep.

I thought I was all set.  My time was my own, I had the car.  What could go wrong?

This.is is the recurring problem about which I can do nothing.  When I'm not on caregiver duty there are things at home that don't get done.  After I get my day to catch up on my sleep, the few days that I'm home often get jammed full of things that have to be taken care of at the expense of poker, which is supposed to be my job.  The sergeant is going to be in my part of the state.  Given my schedule, I don't know when I would get that opportunity again.  I had no choice but to say yes.

I have referred to this by the title of a very good book, The Tyranny of the Urgent.  The idea is that we let so many things become urgent that we don't deal with what's important.  That's what's happening to me, over and over.  The appointment with the sergeant is urgent, because I don't know when he'll be in the this part of the state again when I'm free to meet him.  My job is important, and it loses again.

Computer programming has a word for cycles like this..  A poorly written program can cause a computer to run the same routine over and over. It's called an "infinite loop."  It feels like I'm one now.

Multiplication tables

I cashed in my last live tournament.  It was a small cash (about two buy-ins) but it's better then not cashing.

One of my strengths is that I'm very good at honestly analyzing my play.  I know that when I sit down for a live tournament, there are areas where I'm very weak, such as reading tells.  There are other areas where I'm always one of the best players at the table, especially at final tables or any other time that blinds are high.

There is one area where I need to improve. I've never seen it mentioned in any poker book, or on any forum or coaching site, but I know what needs to be done. I need to work on my multiplication tables.

Poker requires doing a lot of math at the table. I've been working on keeping track of the pot size.  If I'm in a pot with four other players, that's a lot of betting.  With betting and raising on multiple streets, someone could put money in the pot 10 or more times during a hand. I have to keep a running total going in my head.  That's a lot of addition.

Many players, including me, often bet in fractions of the pot size.  My standard bet in many situations is 1/2 of the pot. I can't make that bet unless I know how much is in the pot.  I'm always doing addition at the table, and I'm much better at keeping track of the pot size than I was a couple months ago.

When blinds are high, everything changes.  At high blinds, half of the pot might be a significant portion of my stack, so I need to use a different metric. How much of my stack I'm willing to commit matters a lot more than the percentage of the pot.  That's where multiplication comes in.

I need to know my M, the number of orbits that I can play before I run out of chips.  For example, if the blinds and antes total 20,000 and my stack size is 200,000, my M is 10 and I need to be looking for a good spot to shove.  I will shove with an M as high as 30 in some circumstances, but with an M or 10 or less a shove is often the only option.)

Keeping track of my M is as important as keeping track of the pot size.  If I know my multiplication tables into the twenties and beyond things get a lot easier.  If I have 16,000 chips, the blinds and antes total 275,000 and I know my multiplication tables, I know that 16 X 17 = 272,  My M is 17, no math required.

I'm with my mother-in-law now.  Studying or working on anything is very difficult here.  I can lose my train of thought very easily.  Remember, because I have ADD and am easily distractable my ideal study environment is total silence.

This is the second day of a five-day stretch with her and I try to maximize the use of my time while making sure that her needs, including companionship, are taken care of.  Even with half-concentration when we're sitting in the living room together with the TV on, I don't have to worry about losing my place or forgetting what I was doing when I have a flash card in my hand.

Having a profitable year

For purposes of discussion now and in the future, let's define "small cash" as any tournament where I cash for less than five times the buy-in.

Yesterday I placed 4th of 59 for a cash of $115.  That's a pretty interesting number.  If I played 200 tournaments in a year (200 days is considered a standard work year*) my cashes for the year would total $23,000.  That's close to the median national income in the United States, which is just over 26 thousand.

Of course, poker doesn't work that way.  Tournament players fail to cash more often than not, and most of the cashes are small.  A few large cashes are usually most of a tournament player's income.

I thought about all of that for a minute, then I realized something.  $115 was a the gross amount, not the net.  The entry fee for the tournament was $60, which means my profit was only $55.  Oops!

If my average daily profit over a 200-day work year was $55, my annual profit from poker would be $11,000.  That's a nice supplementary income, but not a real income when it's my only job.

I often think about the income issue and what I could reasonably expect to make, even though it could be a while before I can play full-time.  We will probably be moving shortly after my caregiver duties are over.  When everything settles down it could be 2016 before I'm playing full-time.

I looked up the median income number a few months ago when one of the many "How much can I make playing poker?" questions appeared again on the 2+2 poker forums.  I mentioned that $26,000 number and said that there are lot of poker players who will never be famous or be a poker millionaire.  They just play tournaments several days a week or grand cash games for six hours a day and support their families.  Let's not forget study--some of the top pros study for 20 hours a day,  I'll probably be studying about 15 hours a week and playing about 30 hours when I can get back to full-time.

If I am full-time on January 1, 2016, I think it's realistic that I could end the year with a profit of $10,000,  I would like it to be more, but I'm not laying the groundwork to make that happen. I can't be improving a lot playing three live tournaments a month and studying only a few hours a week.

I would expect to make above the median income in 2017--but that would be working more than 300 days, not 200 or less.  I'm trying to get a business off the ground.  Vacations and long weekends off are not part of the plan.

I'm looking forward to the day when I get the "poker isn't a real job" line and I can say "I make more than the median national income."  That will be very satisfying.

*This is of course an oversimplification of the schedule of a tournament player.  A player in a poker room or casino could play more than one tournament in the same day..  A live tournament with thousands of players could take several days to finish.  Threre would probably be online tournaments in the mix, in fact, some online players play 10 or more online tournaments simultaneiously (see the link, below.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLh_DrQ3Uw

My last three tournaments

In this blog I often write about process.  When you think about it, everything is about the process.  Professional football players practice plays and study film of the other team.  Doctors typically go to school and train until around age 30.

Poker players are no different.  We ready and study poker books.  We subscribe to online poker coaching sites. We bounce ideas and strategies off other players.  A two-time World Poker Tour player of the year answered some of my questions online.

That said, ultimately it's about what happens at the poker table.  I usually schedule one live tournament each wee.  Here's how my last three tournaments came out.  All were $50 tournaments that usually have around 60 players:

Two weeks ago.  I surprised the table by calling raises with some speculative hands, including flopping the nut straight when I called a raise with suited connectors.  I was one of the chip leaders for much of the tournament.  The cards dried up and my stack dwindled at the end, but I still made it to the final table.  After playing from 1800-0045 I cashed for $300.

One week ago.  The switch from the schedule with my mother-in-law where I get up with her every morning, to a poker schedule where I try to stay up late and sleep in late before I play a tournament that could go past midnight, didn't work.  An hour before the tournament I decided that I was too tired to play and I stayed home.  I'm not going to waste a buy-in when I'm too tired to play well.

Yesterday.  Instead of the usual 55-60 players, there were only 25.  I didn't get many good cards, and my play wasn't horrible, but not my best.  I made the final table, going out in sixth place, but since there were fewer players than usual (and therefore a much smaller prize pool) only the top three got paid.  I went out in fifth place, again playing until after midnight, but didn't cash.

Those are the ups and down of a poker player.  Most full-time players would just play another tournament (or more than one) the next day, either live or online.  As I can't play full-time for now, the times that I don't cash are a little more painful.  I have to wait a week or more for another chance.

Making More Time for Poker

I'm constantly trying to carve out more time for poker.  About a week ago, after my mother-in-law fell asleep, I played on online tournament from 2030 to 2330,* and I finished 4th of 42 for a net cash of $6.20.  (It was a $2.20 tournament and I cashed for $8.40  It was the only tournament that I could find that I knew wouldn't take four hours or more.)

A few days ago I got the bright idea to study coaching videos while my mother-in-law and I were sitting in the sun room together watching the action at the bird feeder. Sometimes we sit in the living room together and she is so engrossed in her puzzles that she barely knows what I'm watching on TV.  But she gets upset when I turn the TV off because "you should be able to watch it."

It follows that if someone talking on TV doesn't bother her, someone talking about putting a player on a range during a coaching video shouldn't bother her, right?  Wrong.  She watched the birds for a while, then became engrossed in her word searches.  But when I turned the coaching video on, several times she asked me something like, "Who's that talking?"  Around 1400 she switched to her favorite topic--supper:

"When are we eating supper?  Is somebody bringing supper?  Should I make supper?" And many variations on that theme.  Supper came up about twice every five minutes.  I record of all my poker time (playing, studying and administrative) by the quarter hour, but I recorded no study time for that afternoon, even though the video was more than an hour long.

I've mentioned before that sometimes I play or study at home while wearing earplugs.  I can't study unless it's quiet.  I will sometimes read a poker book during commericals when I'm watching TV, and I learn a little that way.  But I don't count that as legitimate study time.

My ADD makes it almost impossible for me to get much out of studying when other things are going on around me.  A simple question like "Who's that talking?" can cause me to lose my train of thought.  But when I'm in my office, wearing earplugs, with the door closed, I sometimes get so "locked in" to what I'm studying that I forget I'm sitting in an office.  It's almost like I'm inside the book, video, or online poker forum.

I can't figure out why a voice on TV doesn't bother my mother-in-law, but a voice on the computer does.  I'm a logic-driven person, but as my wife often reminds me, life isn't always logical.

The next time I'm sitting in the living room with her and she's engorossed in her puzzle, I'm going to try something different.  I will turn the TV on with the sound muted, then start my coaching video, and maybe she'll think I'm watching something on TV (which seems to be very important to her) and I will able to study--at least until she gets hungry.  I'll give it a try and report back.

----------

*I find myself using military time more and more, because poker tournaments can run any time of the day or night, and the same is true when I study.  As I type this, it's 1:29 A.M. (0129).   I might start an online tournanent at 10 P.M. and finish at 2 A.M.  I also play live tournaments that start at 6 or 7 P.M. and often end after midnight.  When I keep track of my results and record my time, it makes sense to me to think of a day as both starting and ending at midnight.

I'm Not Taking It Anymore

When it comes to poker, I am usually in one of two moods:

1. I am mad at my situation, because I don't have a lot of opportunites to play.

2. I'm mad at myself for not doing something to play more, play better, and make some money.

I know that I am doing the right thing.  I also know that I should not have been in this position, or more correctly, I should not have allowed myself to be put in this position.  My wife and brother-in-law have "real jobs", so it was decided that by some family members that I should do half of the day-to-day caregiving.

I agreed to this, and a year later, I'm still doing it, living with my mother-in-law three or four days a week.  I can't let anything like this happen to me again.  My father and/or my sister might need that level of help very soon, and I will gladly do my part if I am not too tied up with my mother-in-law..  But I will insist that my job be treated the same way as anyone esle's, and that more won't be expected of me than anyone else in the family, just because I don't get a paycheck.  I learned a tough lesson, one that I will NEVER repeat again.

This week I was with my mother-in-law from Sunday night through Wednesday night.  Today (Thursday) I had a dental appointment.  I got on the computer around noon to see when the online tournaments were running, and I was excited to find one with a very good structure.  I haven't been able to fit one of those into my schedule for at least two weeks.  It starts at 1315 and if I made it to the final table, I could be playing for about eight hours or more..

Then I came back to reality.  I had the car for my dentist appointment, so I have to pick my wife up from work at 1430.  After that, we have to go to the bank and the grocery store and run a couple other errands.  Besides, since I had to get up for a morning dentist appointment I'm not yet caught up on my rest.

It's not easy getting up in the morning with my mother-in-law for a few days, then switching to a schedule where I sleep in so that I can play live tournaments that run past midnight.  I won't waste time and money trying to play tired.

I spent four days this week with my mother-in-law.  This is day five, leaving Friday and Saturday open.  Except that Saturday we are going to a wedding.

This is the pattern every week.  It's my mother-in-law, maybe a rest day, then we jam our family business or other important things into what time is left.  I try to play a live poker tournament (aka do my job) once a week, and about three times out of four I'm able to do that.  My wife and have started scheduling time to see a movie together- once a month.

With a schedule like that, something as simple as a heavy snowfall requiring a lot of shoveling time can knock out that week's poker tournament, or cause our movie night to be rescheduled to another week.

I'm in a horrible box.  My wife plans to retire in seven years.  I'm trying, with very little success, to get my career off the ground.

The more I think about it, I'm not mad at my situation.  I'm not mad that I can't make something happen in spite of my situation.

I'm mad at myself.  I let this happen.  I'm went along with some family members who made plans based on the assumption that my job didn't matter.  If I don't turn playing poker into a decent income, I have no one to blame but myself.  I'm an a horrible box.  My family built that box, I agreed to jump in that box for as long as necessary, and there is no way out.

Never again.  I'm sick of people not believing that poker is my job.  I'm sick of my state goverment trying to close local charity poker rooms, while being all for the casinos that offer poker (which are all more than a 100-mile-drive from me.)  I'm tired of people who should know me better thinking that my poker playing is juvenile, or stupid, or unrealistic, or degenerate gambling.

I'm looking for another bank for my poker funds, because even though the complicance department of my local bank agreed with me when I brought there attention to the Justice Department Ruling that the Wire Act applies to sports betting, but not poker, the don't want anything to do with my poker business.*.  After a lot of back and forth correspondence, my local banker told me that Iwas right, but "they just don't want to mess with it."

I'm sick of the way I'm regarded and treated because I play poker.

In the last two months I've been reading a lot about how game theory concepts can be applied to poker.  I learned that it I have 40 percent equity in a hand, that equity plus my fold equity makes it mathematically correct to go all-in even when I don't have the best hand or great odds.  I also learned that when stacks get below a certain level, it can be mathematically correct to go all-in in certain situations even when I don't have a lot of equity in the hand.

In that tournament two weeks ago I was in a spot where both of those concepts came into play, I went all in, and I wound up at the final table, eventually cashing.  If I had not been studying, I would not have known to make such seemingly counterintuitive plays. If you don't think poker is a game of skill, you're wrong.

In litigation concerning "illegal poker games" several state judges have ruled that poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance, and therefore it is not gambling.  The International Skill Game Association lists poker, along with Chess, Go, and other games, as a game of skill.

If you still think poker is gambling, I suggest that you find a slot machine or roulette player, or someone who buys lottery tickets on a regular basis, and ask them what they do to get better at their game, and how many hours a week they study. Then I can direct you to a forum post from a single mother who supports her family by playing online poker while her kids are in school.

Then talk to me about what's gambling and what isn't.

---------

*According to the IRS, a Professional Poker Player (my Department of Labor job classification) is a self-employed owner of a Schedule C business and must file the appropriate income tax forms.