July Poker Results

I'll start with the numbers:


Juicy Stakes Poker, July 2017
37 tournaments played
14 net win tournaments,   +$64.29
23 net loss tournaments,   -$38.35
                                                ---------
                                              +$25.94

Americas Cardroom, July 2017
4 tournaments played
1 net win tournament,    +$0.19
3 net loss tournaments,   -$0.55
                                              ---------
                                           -$0.36

Combined results for July 2017: +$25.58


The current situation:

As poker is a game of winning and losing streaks, I suppose that any winning month is a good month, but I have to do better.  I need to start putting some $50+ months together.  I need to have more than $500 on Juicy Stakes Poker by the end of the year, so that I am eligible to make a withdrawal if needed.

Money right now is just too tight, in both the poker and household budgets.  We got behind the 8-ball when we moved out of our old house later than planned and didn't get our security deposit back. Our landlord said OK when we asked for more time to move.  We had no idea that the security deposit was at risk.  That wasn't the only surprise when we moved, but it was a big one.

We actually have a decent net worth but almost all of our money is in retirement accounts.  We're cash poor right now and it's taking a lot more time to dig out than we thought it would.  My wife is putting in a lot of overtime right now and I need to do the same.  I guess the couple that grinds together stays together.

Juicy Stakes Poker:

I know that the small numbers must look strange to most of you. The explanation follows:

I am on the horns of a dilemma, a classic short-term vs. long term problem. Things on Juicy Stakes Poker, which by all accounts is the far inferior site, are going reasonably well.  Americas Cardroom is a different story.  I'm -$35.45 for the year.

That's not exactly shocking.  Variance happens and losing $35 isn't the end of the world--but it puts me in a bind because:

1. My Americas Cardroom bankroll (money on the site) is $0.98.  It's hard to do much with that.

2. There is only one tournament that I can afford to play. The buy-in is $0.11.

3. I need to have as many options as possible, which means two online sites and adding live poker next year.

3. The best tournament on Juicy Stakes poker starts at 1829. The 11-cent tournament on Americas Cardroom starts at 1915.  They overlap and I can't play both.  I would have to play the 11-cent tournament a lot of times to build any kind of bankroll.  I miss out on a lot of equity when I'm not playing at 1829.

When I started playing poker I knew that it wasn't going to be an easy way to make money.  That doesn't make facing the reality any easier.

Milestone--Juicy Stakes Poker

A few days ago I got my bankroll on Juicy Stakes Poker up to $200. The current amount is $206.24.

There are times when it seems like it's going to take forever to build significant bankrolls on two online sites, but the last couple weeks, and the month of July in general, have gone pretty well.  I can tell that I'm improving.

There are things I can do at the table that I wouldn't have been able to do a couple months ago.  I know the math better and I'm better at applying it.  I'm more aggressive when it's called for and in general  I have a better grasp of the game and it's various situations.

That doesn't mean that I consider myself a good player compared to some of those that I've played with, especially live.  I'm still weak in a lot of areas and I'm still working on it.  I am, as mentioned in earlier posts, a plodding learner who absorbs information or learns new skills in little pieces until I eventually put it all together.  The last two weeks I could feel some of those pieces starting to come together.  It's a very nice feeling.

Milestone--Bankroll Building

My profit this year on Juicy Stakes Poker to date is $101.67.

That's just a nice number because it's more than $100.  The point is that I broke through the $100 profit mark for that site this year and can, with enough play and study, go higher.  It's not just that I can probably get that profit number up to $150, $200 and  beyond sometime this year.

Think of it like compound interest.  The bigger my bankroll gets, the more money I can afford to spend on a tournament.  The mathematical way to put that  is that I have decreased my risk of ruin. When I have a bigger bankroll I can play more expensive tournaments, and I can win more money.

The cycle builds on itself.  If I win a big top three cash at a bigger buy-in, most or all of that money will be reinvested into the business, which will grow my bankroll faster, which means I can play even higher soon.

I'm really looking forward to watching that happen.

June 2017 Results and Comments

Once again I've been lazy and didn't get around to posting last month's results.  My life is a neverending battle against Attention Deficit Disorder.  I formed a lot of bad habits over a period of many years before my ADD was diagnosed.  It will always be a battle to fight against more than 40 years of bad habits and to build good ones.

I used to write in my planner, in considerable detail, what I wanted to get done in the next day and the next week.  I stopped doing that and I obviously need to get back to it.

To use a  word popularized in the last few years, June was a nothingburger.  I didn't get to play very much compared to other months.  I was negative for the month, but not by much.

Here are the numbers, from the two sites on which I am now playing:

Juicy Stakes Poker, June 2017
17 tournaments played
8 net win tournaments,   +$10.95
12 net loss tournaments, -$18.65
                                                ---------
                                               -$7.70

Americas Cardroom, June 2017
5 net win tournaments,    +$4.23
13 net loss tournaments,   -$9.13
                                                ---------
                                            -$4.90


Combined results for May 2017: -$12.60.


I decided early this month that once again I had to make some changes.  The problem was simple.  I wasn't playing enough.  I erred on the side of caution in order to have good bankroll management, but it's obvious now that I can't be that picky about what I play.  I need to play more tournaments for more hours.  I need to play a variety of tournament types and structures.  I need to be willing to play at all times of the day and night.

I no longer choose from my standard block of tournaments that start between about 1900 and 2300.  Some of those tournaments don't run every day, so there were days where I found myself playing only one or two tournaments.

Having a somewhat regular schedule every day was convenient, and playing lower risk tournaments was certainly good bankroll management--but that wasn't enough.  It's time to play enough tournaments for enough hours to get some serious practice in and to starting turning this exercise into dollars.  This month (July) I am doing exactly that.

Starting near the end of June and continuing into July, I've been playing more types of tournaments and accepting the variance that goes with that.  I'm no longer avoiding the tournaments with very small fields, or that don't have structures as good as I would like.  Even more important, I'm playing at all different times of day and night.  Now that I'm playing more tournaments, I discovered that once I figured the the implications of the different types of tournaments I  can do pretty well in tournaments that don't fit the way that I usually play.

Instead of going into my office at 1900 every night, now I play almost whenever I want.  No more regular schedule of working from about 1900-0200 six or seven days a week, watching TV for a few hours, then going to bed. I play at whatever time is convenient when tournaments are available.  I sleep when I'm tired and when it's convenient. I often take naps before tournament sessions.

Now I have no schedule and despite my needs  for structure and discipline, it's actually working better that way.   When I played yesterday, July 13, I played tournaments starting at 1925, 2047 and 2214. Then I took a break before I played one today (July 14) starting at 0229.

I'm halfway through July and I'm up for the month, with most of my winnings coming from tournaments that I avoided the first half of the year.  I hope to have good results to post when I have my July numbers.

Exactly as Planned

Yesterday I talked about grinding up small bankrolls and about how I should deal with the very small amount that I have on Americas Cardroom, saying the following:

"If I have to grind up this one up with a bunch of 20 or 40 cent cashes, that's what I'm going to do.   There is no room to maneuver without a bankroll of at least 100 buy-ins."

I did exactly that last night.  I played the 11 cent tournament, came in 24th out of 725 players, and cashed for 44 cents.  Of course I would have rather made it to the final table and won dollars instead of cents, and those cashes will happen, but I'm not going to fight my way through over 700 players and make it the final table every other day.  A 44 cent profit is 4 buy-ins, and I'll take that.

I did get a surprise as I was playing  I thought that the tournament would end in 3-4 hours, but I played for 4 hours and 20 minutes and was knocked out with 23 players left.  I did not expect it to take that long.  That's a lot of playing time for 44 cents.

Maybe on I should play more on Juicy Stakes, where I can generate more dollars, and only on Americas Cardroom only once in a while.  I'm not sure.  I need at least two sites going.  I need options.  The two sites offer very different things and I need to be able to choose a tournament from either depending on the situation.   I'll have to give it some thought, but it will all come together.

The one thing I'm sure of is that I learned my lesson.  I will never play with a short bankroll again.

Changes--Bankroll Management

I said in my previous post that I was making fixes or changes in a lot of areas.  One of those areas is bankroll management.  That change is part of the reason that I'm winning, but it's also the reason that I'm increasing my bankrolls very slowly.

I concentrated on live tournaments last year and that didn't go well.  I was playing without a bankroll, taking $50 from the family budget once or twice a month.  I seldom cashed, none were big cashes and I never had a bankroll of more than 5 buy-ins.  We all know how that story ends. A small bankroll equals little chance of success, and I lost money playing live in 2016.

Everything changed when we moved out of the hood.  We said goodbye to neighborhood gangs, constant noise and the bullet hole in our house.  We moved to a much quieter neighborhood.  Instead of playing on the kitchen table, I had my own office in a room where I could shut the door.

Having a quiet place to play and study makes a huge difference.  When you have ADD, limiting distractions is an absolute must.  I can do that now.  Given what a disaster live poker without a bankroll was and given that I now had an office, it made sense to concentrate on live poker.  I have done exactly that in 2017.  I have not played one live tournament this year and I'm not sure if I will. My mission in 2017 is to have decent bankrolls on multiple poker sites.

I started 2017 with $35 that had been sitting on Juicy Stakes Poker for two years.  I played $1.10 tournaments, the cheapest that I could find.  Even so, I only had 31 buy-ins, so I had to be really careful and stick with the $1.10 MTTs.  I made it work, slowly but surely grinding up my bankroll up to $175.  I need to keep grinding it up so that I have the 100 buy-ins necessary to play at $2.20 and beyond.  I have also been playing on Americas Cardroom, where I was also going to grind up a small bankroll, but that didn't go so well.  I lost it all.  Statistical variance happens.

I made the minimum deposit to keep playing on ACR, but just as with Juicy Stakes, I'm starting over with a very small ($25) bankroll.  There was a tournament running every night that was less than a dollar so, as ridiculous as it might seem, I started playing 11 cent tournaments on Americas Cardroom.  I played live poker with a very small bankroll and went down in flames.  If I have to grind up this one with a bunch of 20 or 40 cent cashes, that's what I'm going to do.   There is no room to maneuver without a bankroll of at least 100 buy-ins.

The bottom line is that I made a huge bankroll management mistake with live poker, and I'll never do that again.  I'm making very little money, but I am making money, with 4 winning months out of 5 and more than tripling what I started with on Juicy Stakes Poker.

There will be a lot more in future posts about all the changes that I'm making to put myself in a much better position in 2018.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

May 2017 Results

I should have posted this earlier.  I had a lot going on, and I guess posting that I lost money last month wasn't an exciting priority.  I will endeavor to be more timely in future posts.

May was the first month this year that I was in the red.  It was bound to happen sooner or later.  That's the nature of poker, a long-term game than can have some wild ups and down in the short run.  May wasn't a big hit, just the one month out of five that I didn't make money so far this year.

Here are the numbers, from the two sites where on which I am now playing:

Juicy Stakes Poker, May 2017
17 tournaments played
5 net win tournaments,   +$9.90
12 net loss tournaments, -$19.90
                                                ---------
                                               -$10.20

Americas Cardroom, May 2017
11 net win tournaments,    +$35.88
37 net loss tournaments,   -$64.35
                                                   ---------
                                                 -$28.47


Total results for May 2017, -$38.67.

No one likes to lose, but with only one losing month so far and the many changes that I've made in many areas, I'm reasonably happy.  For some perspective, here is a list of monthly results:

January              35.70
February            40.77
March                17.70
April                    8.79
May                  -38.67
                       ----------
2017 to date  $64.29

That's not a lot of money, but strange as it may seem, that's not the point.  Everything that I'm doing this year is planned to set myself up for success in 2017.  I'll be talking a lot about that in future posts. I'll go over some of the things that I've fixed or changed, as well as all of the obstacles that I've had to face, and in many cases, that I'm still facing.

I said in January that this was all aimed at breaking out in 2018.  That is still the plan.  Sooner or later I'll break through with a really big month, but for now I know where I'm heading and how to get there.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.