The Vegas Gameplan

With Vegas only one week away, it's time to set out my gameplan for the 3-week duration. First off, let's be clear that this is more or less a make or break trip. Since September I have only managed to earn £2k from live cash-game poker. I've learnt loads and appreciate I've made some big mistakes but this is just not going to be enough to sustain a healthy lifestyle should I carry on at the same winrate over the next year. Unfotunately, although I still have the bankroll to plug on into January and February (and possibly March and April as well), if Vegas proves to be unfruitful it looks increasingly likely I'll be looking for part-time work come the spring of next year. Now although we shouldn't really slap on results-orientated or monetary goals, I think it necessary in this instance.

As such, with a 20-day trip to Vegas and complete freedom to play $1/$2 and $2/$5 cash-game poker whenever I want, my target is to make $3000 by my return to the UK on the 15th December. This is my goal. This isn't to say I will stop when (or if) I hit $3k, but this is what I wish to make if I am to consider the trip to be a proper success. $2k will be satisfactory but $3k is what I'll need to confidently carry on with the business. Let's move onto the plan and how I'm going to attempt this... This chart shows the venues and stakes along with the minimum and maximum buy-ins:

Now unlike my last visit in 2011 where my goal was to visit all 20 poker rooms, this time round is more about winning dollars. From top to bottom and in groups of four they are: Group A, B, C and D. My aim is to play a minimum of 40 sessions (around 1-5 hours per session) by building up from playing the $1/$2 game at Group C and D venues at first (10 sessions), then moving to playing $1/$2 at Group B venues (10 sessions) before graduating to playing $1/$3 and $2/$5 at the Group A locations (20 sessions). Of course, my system will allow fluctuating between the groups (depending on mood and how well I'm doing) but this is generally how I see the campaign going.

As for buy-ins, it'll be max buy-ins at the $1/$2 and $1/$3 games with a $700 buy-in at the $2/$5 games (~£400) which may rise to a full $1k buy-in when (or if) I get the confidence to do so.

One more week to go...

Week 1: Review

The phrase "crash and burn" is often bandied around in the poker world these days but it's fair to say that it describes my week perfectly. So much so that I was so deflated last night, making my way back from The Vic Loyalty freeroll, that a two week break from the game is now needed before my trip to Vegas on the 25th. Rewind back to the 5th November and I'm playing good, solid poker and looking at a £850 profit for the month; everything is rosy and I feel like a proper professional player doing the biz.

Fast forward to Friday 7th and I'm looking at my aces being cracked on the river by a straight in a £2/£5 game and seeing about £400 going south, then another £300 going the same way after I find it difficult to fold top pair top kicker to a guy who also makes a straight. Couple all this with being bluffed while holding AK on a raggedy board by someone holding nine high - and you get the picture.

Now yesterday, while £150 down for the month after my disastrous £2/£5 session, I'm at The Vic's loyalty freeroll. There are about 35 players left and 30 get paid with the min-cash being £482. I look at the electronic screen and see that 10th on the final table gets £1700 - nice. Anyway, the blinds are at 1500 / 3000 with 500 antes and I look down at 10 10 in early position. There's around 10k in dead chips there and so with about eight big-blinds left I decide ship in 25000 chips into the middle. The old fella in mid-position wakes up with KK, the board bricks out and I hit the rail. Out on the bubble table. Close but yet so far!!

We're now at the 10th November. I've made just £2k since the beginning of September which is just not good enough. I know that my basic strategy is fairly sound but that I'm falling short through a lack of discipline... so I've come to a very important crossroads and I've made an important decision. It all hinges on my trip to Vegas...

As mentioned, I intend to lay off poker for 2 weeks. I shall study my balls off by watching training videos and reading up avidly over the next fortnight. The idea is that by the time I land in Vegas I'll be hungry and ready to play top-quality poker. Now one thing I've learned while playing fairly profitably over the last six months is that a man in my position cannot earn a decent living while playing £1/£2 live cash-game poker. A little bit of extra income: yes. But a decent monthly wage to support a family of four? No. In Vegas, I plan to play a lot of $2/$5 just to see if I've got what it takes. If it all goes tits-up... well, I guess I'll be done with trying to make a living out of poker and my four month experiment will most likely come to an end. Furthermore, it'll probably be a case of looking for a job (at least part-time) in 2015. However, if I can make a good go of it, I'll take this as a green light to mix in a lot more £2/£5 games when I get back in the UK.

In my next post, I'll go into a little bit more detail on my Vegas campaign. 

October Review

This is going to be brief as I pretty much summed everything up in my last post. October, like September, has been all about sorting out early teething problems and learning lessons. I basically need to think the big hands through more thoroughly and be on my guard in not calling off big bets when, in retrospect, there's a huge chance that I'm beaten. This usually occurs when I'm card-dead and getting a tad frustrated and it's really just about turning the discipline up a notch or two when the going gets tough. That's all I need to do. As I mentioned in my last post, if I had just stopped to think in the three biggest hands that I lost last month - and they really were stupid, basic errors - then I would have saved myself around £1k.

As it is, with a very modest £2.1k in earnings thus far, I'm putting the first two months of the business down to the building the foundations phase. From now on - with me being off to a flying start to the month of November -  it's about discipline, focus and controlled aggression all the way. One other point of note about October is that I put in 133 hours which is exactly the same as what I did for September. That's £7.89 per hour which smashes the minimum wage - hurrah!!

Anyway, as I say, November has started off really well with Sunday and Monday sessions yielding  reasonably good payouts; let's just hope I don't fuck up and end up writing about big losses on Sunday when I'll do my week 1 round-up. Anyway, until then - so long!!

Week 4: Review

With the month of November knocking on the door, I'd say that I've kick-started my business satisfactorily into action and that I'm limbering up nicely for Vegas on the 25th. October has been ok so far. I've not exactly smashed my monthly-nut but feel confident enough in taking things forward. This last week, I've been chugging along snugly and earnt £700 at the cash-game tables. This may only put my monthly earnings for October at little more than £1k (£2k for September and October combined) but I've put in enough volume to have learned some vital lessons; lessons which will stand me in good stead for Vegas and the new year.

The first, major lesson is to be extremely wary of card-dead phases that start creeping up and going beyond the three-hour mark. There definitely seems to be a point where receiving shitty cards for three hours or more activates a trigger whereby I'm hit with entitlement-tilt. This invariably involves "finally" looking down at premium hands (QQ, KK or AA) or hitting a good flop - and then refusing to believe that my opponent has it for the simple reason that I believe I'm due. This happened twice in quick succession last week:  (1) QQ losing to trip 8s on an 8 8 x board and (2) hitting a set of 4s on the flop then failing to hand-read properly and refusing to believe my opponent hit his nut-flush on the river when the third heart came in. Result? Villains being handed over £800 which should really still be part of my bankroll.
 
What I tell myself is that if I can manage to keep my discipline (up and leave after a three hour card-dead session) then I should be able to protect myself from that particular variety of tilting. In effect, had I heeded the warnings that were ringing in my head during those two hands, I would be merrily writing about a £2k monthly-wage this month and not merely a £1k one. Let's face it: £2k can pay all the bills and enable me to live a comfy lifestyle, £1k cannot.  

The other lesson is that as the games get tougher, I need to be raising more often and getting money into the pot early in the hand so that I get paid big rather than medium or small. As I review hands at the table, this seems to be a common theme and a mistake that I definitely intend to put right as we get to the new month.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll write up a full October review as we get to Friday. 

Week 3: Review

They say that in poker, you learn your biggest lessons when you lose and I feel this has never been more true than during this last week. On Monday I was sitting pretty with a £1k balance for the month and on cruise control; seven days later and although I haven't exactly crashed completely I've certainly been badly burned - and once again, I'm back wondering how on earth I can make this a viable business. Well, I do know... it's having the focus to implement disciplined control at all times - that's the difficult part. Still, determination and the urge to succeed is a powerful thing and I still think I can make this at least a year-long thing if I can avoid those darn pitfalls.

The first blip occurred on Thursday night with two massive fish at the table and after being card-dead for three and a half hours. I then "finally" looked down at a premium hand (QQ). The word "finally" is in inverted commas because there should be no feeling of finality in poker at all. Anyway, I call down three streets against the table donk who flips over 8 10 on an 8 8 4 x x board and I part with around £500 on that hand alone. The real annoying thing about this one is that I told myself that he must have had the 8 after the flop when his betting tell indicated that was the case.

When card-dead I should have done what has always worked for me in the past; just leave.

Anyway, on Friday I manage to claw back £400 after a successful spin at a £2/£5 game at The Hippodrome, only to fall back into the same routine later on a £1/£2 table at The Empire. i.e. I become card-dead for five and a half hours (yes, I kid you not, five and a half hours) and then "finally" flop a decent hand of a set of 4s, only to refuse to believe that my villian has hit his flush when the third heart falls on the river. Result? Another £300 goes south.

When card-dead I should have done what has always worked for me in the past; just leave.

Now, as we enter the fourth week of October, I'm looking at a £300 return on my investment of 90 hours at the table. With a lot more decent players coming in (from the online game it seems), I can see that I need to be a lot more aggressive and definitely need to start raising with much more frequency on the flop and the turn. Neglecting to do this has been my main leak. This will be what I'll be working on over the next seven days; that's if I manage to be alert enough after my jury service stint which begins tomorrow.

As always, I'll let ya know how I get on...

Week 1-2: Review

Right, despite one particularly poor evening where I donked off £650, October has been generally OK so far. The loss in question was more a result of self-induced bad play (mistake tilt) brought on after playing a hand really badly, rather than anything else. I hesitate to recall it because it's quite cringeworthy and goes completely against my resolution to play more aggressively on the flop and turn but I'll recount it nevertheless just to give myself the proverbial slap round the face.

In short, I call a £10 preflop raise with 99 and fail to raise on a raggedy board that is 10 high on the turn and after my nitty opponent fails to c-bet or make any effort to take the pot down. A King hits the river, hitting my oppponent's range smack bang in the middle and I actually read him for an AK as he makes a £30 river bet. What do I do? I make one of the worst calls I've made in a long time and see him flip over the AK that I predicted he had from the off! Result? I drive to the Hippodrome and proceed to play card-dead £1/£2 poker for a few hours until the tilt-monster insidiously worms itself into my head.

I inevitably get given the only decent hand of the evening (a set) as a four-flush board starts to roll out. I miss my full-house on fifth street, refuse to believe my villain has it and proceed to pay him off his £100 bet on the river in the most ignominous fashion. A visit to The Empire and a drunken £2/£5 game helps a tiny bit as I eke out a £50 profit after making a mild hero call to a river bet made by a huge whale - but back at The Hippodrome afterwards I donk off another £200 when the red mist comes over as I hold 10 J on a 9 10 J x x board. Yes it was obvious to all but me that the villain had K Q and, yes, I paid them off.

With my wallet depleted to the tune of £650 it was time to go home... but it was definitely a very good lesson in controlling the ol' mindset when making a mistake and when the card-dead monster pays you a visit. Discipline, discipline, discipline.

Other than that stupid blip (and a £170 half-hour losing session where I played weak/passive versus some pretty competent aggressive oppponents) the month has been quite good. One other thing I have also learned - in connection with that £170 losing half-hour session - is that I will no longer sit in on a game where 3 or 4 people know each other well and are bantering with each other in a way where they're obviously trying to make out that they're bad; particularly if they clearly have a large bankroll and seem like they don't care. I'll not touch those games with a barge-pole anymore. If you play in those types of games and you are losing or getting stuck their banter will only serve to tilt you - get out while you can!  

Thankfully, as I was saying, other than those blips, October hasn't been too bad thus far and I'm heading for a decent monthly-nut. I've not encountered any serious bad-beat that's cost me anywhere near a full buy-in and I've generally been chugging along nicely in a fairly snug way. I've only missed one day of the month thus far, am on schedule to qualify for both The Empire and The Vic's loyalty/cash-race MTT freerolls, and I have put in a fairly respectable 65 hours. The real test will come when I have to do jury service next week and will need to find enough time to play.  

September Review

With the first month over and with just £950 to show for my efforts, September will have to go down as a disappointing month overall. Monday night was encouaraging to start with as I netted £320 following a solid £1/£3 dabble and a mildly successful £1/£2 session at The Vic but seven hours of card-dead frustration at both The Empire and The Hippo in the early hours later that night and last evening has meant the month has ended more with a whimper than the trumpet-blaring fanfare that I'd hoped for.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of positives to take from my inaugural month of business:

1. I achieved the target days and hours played 
I managed to get out and play for 25 days of the month and clocked up over 130 hours of play. This is fine for the first month.

2. I qualified for The Empire cash-race MTT freeroll
With a gauranteed prize-pool of £25k and around 50 to 60 runners, this tournament has an effective buy-in of around £450. This will be on Sunday 5th October.

3. Soft tables and poor players abound
I'm still encouraged by some of the sub-optimal plays and downright bizarre moves by many players at the tables. It is equally encouraging to know that usually, I can count the number of other decent players at the table on just a couple of fingers.

4. Bad-beats will even out
I had three brutal bad-beats in a short space of time: (1) AA < J6 when we get it all-in on a 9 9 6 flop. He hit his full-house on the river. (2) AA < AQs all-in preflop when the villain hit his flush and (3) 99 < KQ when all-in on the 7 2 10 flop after I knew I was ahead. These pots cost me around £600. In future, being ahead when getting it all-in should work out in my favour.

5. I made mistakes I will learn from. 
A recurring mistake I feel I've made this month is not being aggressive enough. The biggest was holding 22 on a 2 10 Q board (two clubs), not re-raising on the flop and allowing an 8 to hit the turn which filled the villain's straight. Additionally, this meant I had to make a difficult decision to call an all-in turn bet. (£250 to win ~£1.1k when I put my villain precisely on the J9).  

6. £2/£5 is not a shark pool.
£2/£5 continues to be good to me. I should play more at this level during October.

7. Bankroll is stable.
If someone had said to me back in April that I'd be sitting on the bankroll that I presently have, I would have thought it far-fetched. Thanks to my April epiphany and around £6.6k in winnings, poker has been good to me. September is the only month in all of this that I haven't received a steady monthly wage - so in the wide scheme of things I'm doing ok.

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The main negative are those card-dead sessions that makes it seem like making a living from the game has to be impossible. Sitting down for hours and hours on end while receiving trash after trash in starting hands and where your cards never (and I mean NEVER) connect with the board when you do decide to see a flop, can be close to soul-destroying at times. But battle on we must.

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And so we arrive at a fresh new month with the slate wiped clean. This month will be hampered somewhat as I need to carry out civic duties in the form of jury service! In the last two weeks of October I have to attend court during the day and listen to lawyers and witnesses burbling on. (Why I couldn't get the summons while I actually had a "proper" job I don't know - I guess we all have to take our bad-beats in life as well as at the poker table.) Thankfully, a special event will make up for this in November when I'm off to Vegas!! Exciting stuff to be related later.

My main goal for October will be to clock up 150 hours and to generally play much more aggressively post-flop.

Onwards and upwards.

Week 4: Review

With a losing one and a half hour session at The Hippo just now that cost me £500, I suppose I have to be pleased that I've ended the week in the black to the tune of about £600. With two days to go before the end of the month, this gives me a monthly total, thus far, of £880. Not exactly a monthly-nut but at least it's a profit for the week this time round.

The week started satisfactorily enough with a few reasonable wins and some minor losses but it really took off after a £700 winning session at a £2/£5 table at The Hippo on Friday night. This, thanks largely to a ~£1k pot where my trip Queens with a King kicker held up against my villain's trip Queen with a Two kicker after we got it all-in on the flop. Cruising along with a monthly profit of £1.4k (and a £1.1k profit for the week), I went into the Sunday sesssion confident that I could build on this.

Alas, it wasn't to be as I pondered calling an all-in turn bet of £400 while holding 2 2 on a 2 10 Q 8 board and with £250 behind. Yep, I read the villain for the J 9 all right and with the pot swelling to around £1.2k after I'd make the call, I was getting very marginal odds to make it profitable. After a long tanking session, I did finally make the call but seeing the river hit a Six, failed to make the full-house I'd hoped for. He did, indeed, show the J 9.

In retrospect I only have myself to blame for not properly raising the flop which did show a couple of clubs and which obvioulsy meant it was extremely draw-heavy and crying out for me to bring it in for a hefty raise. An expensive mistake and a bit of a shame. Had the board paired, I'd proudly be announcing that I'd made my monthly-nut and be feeling very comfortable and confident indeed; as it is, I'm falling around £1k short of my target and know that next month is going to be a real slog to generate that extra income. As I've stated before, unless I pick things up in October and November, it looks like the business is going to be a 4-month experimental dabble rather than the long-term business venture I envisaged.   

On a positive note, I did manage to put in 30 hours for the week. This means I'll have put in around 125 hours for the month come Tuesday which is satisfactory. Next month, I intend to put in more. I'll do a monthly round-up on Tuesday to sum up how things have gone and then we're off again for the month October!!

Week 3: Review

This week has been all about getting the money in good against donks... and then losing hands to appalling oppoonents who seem to get rewarded time and time again. The last three days have been brutal. I know bad-beat stories are boring but here's a few of the worst ones that have happened over just the last three days:

1) I hold AA as a huge fish is spewing badly. I get him to make a huge all-in call for about £200 on a 9 9 6 flop. The turn comes a Queen and the river delivers him his Six as he turns over J 6 for his full-house.

2) I get it all-in pre for my opponent's £150 stack while holding AA. He fancies his chances with AQ of hearts. The board gives him the three hearts he needs.

3) We're at The Vic at a ridiculously juicy £1/£3 table. I hold 99 on a 7 2 10 board and the maniac villain has made it clear that he doesn't like his hand and missed the flop. I raise it up to £75 and he goes all-in for £200. I make the call. The turn is a blank and the river is a King. He shows KQ and I lose about £300 on that hand alone.

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How can you get it in so good, so many times yet still lose so much damn money!? The result is that despite a £600 winning session at The Hippo on Tuesday evening and getting in a good 32 hours of live play for the last six days, I'm down £180 for the week and back to wondering how on earth playing live cash-game poker for a living can ever be a sustainable proposition. For the first 20 days of my business I've earned a measly £270 and I'm getting just a little bit cross! 

The upshot is that I'm starting to see this business more as the "four-month experiment" that I hoped it wouldn't be and less as the more long-term investment that I'd hoped it would be. It isn't as if it's many bad-beats, it's just that when they happen repeteadly while playing intense, disciplined poker they end up being very annoying.

With £1k lost over the last three days, tomorrow will be a day off as will Monday in all likelihood. If Week 4 proves to be a similar story I might despair!

Week 2: Review

The main focus this week was to move away from logging few hours based on good, short-term results and to move more towards staying on soft tables for longer periods of time. The good news is that, due to said soft tables being in abundance, I smashed this task by increasing my measly 16 hours from the first week to a grand 41 hours in this second week. That's the back of the net right there! The bad news is that after all those hours of play, I made a £20 loss! Not so good.

The main reason for the increase in hours played has definitely been putting myself in the mindset of treating the whole poker thing less as a recreational stab at making a few quid and much more as a serious job that I need to actually "work" at. I've even slipped into a steady routine whereby I've been leaving at around 10PM to start playing at around 11PM in the evenings. I've then stayed until about 6AM, and then walked back to the car to get out of the congestion charge zone by 7AM. I'd then have breakfast, sleep from about 8AM until 3PM to enjoy the main part of the day before heading off to repeat the process again. I'd say that the routine has suited me quite well.

Unfortunately, as mentioned, despite running at an acceptable £360 weekly profit by the end of Friday night, Saturday and Sunday proved extremely heavy-going as the dearth of getting any decent starting hand or hitting any board whatsoever started to set in. My second session at The Empire on Saturday (after a small £90 loss at The Hippo) was really when my hard work started to go out the window. This was when I sat at a fairly straightforward table but with a very loose and fishy French player who I had played against the night before. After playing in and attempting to isolate this French player in many spots - for two and a half hours - he continued to have the winning hands against me time and time again (including AQ < J6 when the board came Q x J J x). The final straw came when my baby-flush lost to his better flush and I left that session £260 poorer.

A quick half-hour visit to a £2/£5 table at The Vic allowed me to spin my bankroll back up another £200 (the table broke up due to players leaving) and I started to see the light again. At 3AM, I then returned for two more sessions at The Hippo and The Empire but just couldn't hit any cards. The former session saw me at a serious table where I was forced to fold QQ on a 345Q2 board after the villain threw in a massive river bet and the second session saw me on a table with a maniac table captain where I just couldn't hit any decent cards.

Sunday offered a glimmer of hope after I left The Hippo at 5AM, £80 to the good after a tough five hour session - but the encouragement proved short-lived. I tottled over for a one hour session at The Empire with the reason being that I needed to clock-in to earn Sunday points for their cash-race MTT freeroll (and to get swiped at 6AM for the Monday points as well).

It's early-doors and I really don't want to get involved in any serious pots but I soon find I've got it all-in on the turn for about £100 while holding 10 10 to a very low 8 9 2 4 board. The river brings a 3 and my villain... yep, you've guessed it... shows 33 for a 2-outer rivered special!

I don't like to admit it but from then on I play a little too loose for the short time that I'm going to be there and chuck away another £100 - probably due to tilt, thus turning my Sunday of poker from a mildly acceptable £80 win, into a morale-sapping £120 loss; a result that turns the whole 40-hour week into a losing one!

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Still, there are consolations: 

1) The tables continue to be soft overall and although this doesn't gaurantee success, I'm postively looking forward to starting the third week tomorrow (Tuesday), to crack that monthly-nut.

2) The entertainment value that these characters supply is enorm. My last session during Saturday night had an assortment of three nutters (two drunk) who helped to make the live poker experience the special thing that it truly is.  

3) It beats teaching hands down. Seeing a teacher trudging to work in the morning while I return from working on a business I abslolutely love, means I never ever ever want to go back to full-time teaching again.

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In Week 3, my main focus will be in attempting to play more aggressively in order to extract maximum value from my opponents.

Also, as I made the odd poor fold on more than the one occasion, I will be attempting to read my opponents with more depth and not to fold so easily or quickly to their aggression.

I'll let you know how I get on...

Week 1: Review

So we're one week into running our business and despite not putting anywhere near the right number of hours in and it being extremely "early-doors", it's nice to report that at least things are running satisfactorily on the financial front. On Saturday I was even ahead £900 for the week and considering locking that up and quitting until Monday. Needless to say, after dropping around £150 during that session and another £250 on Sunday, I'm now looking at a more humble £500 win for my first week. That's a "monkey" to yer cheeky cockney chappy...

Weekly-Nuts, Monthly-Nuts, Monkey-Nuts. I'm nuts, you're nuts!!

Anyway, we'll move on...

As mentioned in my last post, my main leak has been allowing results-orientated thinking to seep too easily into my game. Backing off or ducking out of tricky spots while ahead in a session (where I feel I would need to put in large amounts into the pot) has been the main cause for concern. I locked up winning sessions - and effectively hit and run - after just an hour and a half in my first three sessions! Consequently, with just 16 hours clocked up in the first week, this is really not enough time that a "proper" low-stakes pro should put into the £1/£2 live cash-game. Still, although the first week has thrown up these little things to work on, it's a ridiculously small sample size to get worked up over things like profits or falling short on hours played per week. We'll start to get a clearer picture of how the business is going after the first two or three months; until then, of course, it's about upping those hours, sticking to my A-game and not being results-orientated.
  

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Closely linked to hours are the days that I've spent playing and with six days played out of the seven, I can't really complain about not getting off my arse to play. 

With five jogging sessions completed out of seven days this past week, the exercise regime has been going great and because music is a must for me while jogging, this is thanks largely to the purchase of this set of sport-headphones:

Bose ® SIE2i Sport Headphones

Every set of in-ear headphones that I've bought this far has caused discomfort. These on the other hand sit very comfortably, are irritation-free and pack a pretty good wallop in the sound department. Couple this with their sweat-resistant and weather-resistant capability and you've got a pair of sport-headphones that I'd recommend to anyone. I've even increased my jogging distance from 2.75km to 3km and will probably increase that further still.

The diet has been a bit of a mixed bag. I remain alcohol-free and have drastically decreased the intake of red meat. I continue to drink plenty of water and eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. My weakness though is that after exercising discipline at the poker table for hours on end, I tend to reward myself with a bag of crisps or a sugary snack. I also snack on biscuits and cheese too often so this will be something I'll need to sort out.

Studying is vital in poker and this is something I should do more of. In the first week I watched and made notes on three Bart Hansen videos while devoting myself to just two hours of reading. Presently, I'm mainly aiming to go through one or two hands a day from this poker book:

My studying time really needs to increase.

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And that's it. With the parents arriving today for a visit until Wednesday, this may mean I might have to knock poker on the head for a couple of days. Still, regardless of what happens, I'll keep you posted as to how I'm getting in a Week 2 round-up next week - particularly when it comes to getting those hours in. 

The First Few Steps

We've all heard the cliche about new businesses opening up and having teething problems in their infancy. Well, after just four days and three poker evenings since the opening launch, I'd like to tackle a teething problem that needs to be addressed. Despite being pretty well-disciplined in the exercise, diet, study and days department - I have to say that getting the hours in has been my shortfall. I know it's very early days but there is something to be said for the phrase "starting off as you mean to carry on."

The issue is falling into the amateurish trait of injecting results orientated thinking during a session; specifically, in my case, locking up a medium-sized profit after just one and a half hours while at a fairly soft table. This has been the story of all three of my poker evenings so far. Personally, my thinking has been all about "getting a good start" but I know that from a professional point-of-view where a decent winrate is important I should definitely be staying longer and biding my time while waiting to pounce on the weak loose aggressives.

To sum up, I should be less like this:

And more like this:

The Journey Begins...

I've had lots of journeys in the past but, as stated previously, they've merely been a series of training sessions for the big one. (Either that or lessons for something greater.) With 1st September just around the corner and the stall finally set out and ready for business, it's time to embark on the most important journey of them all thus far and to launch my career. I'm giving it a four month "soft launch" to see how things go - I might well scurry back to the safety of getting a part-time job of things don't lift-off well enough - but after all is said and done the idea is to make this a proper living.

It just leaves me to dot the Is and to cross the Ts. This is what it's all about:

1.  £1/£2 live-cash game poker.

2.  Moving to £2/£5 if or when the time is right.

3.  Playing mainly at The Empire and The Hippodrome.

4.  Generally avoiding The Vic and Aspers.

5.  Buying-in for £300 to £400.

6.  Playing mainly Thursday to Sunday inclusive.

7.  Playing Monday to Wednesday only when the A-game is ripe.  

8.  No MTTs whatsoever apart from The Empire cash-race freeroll. 

9.  No online poker.

10. Aim for an average monthly-nut of around at least £1800-£2000.     

Let battle commence!!

The Pitcher Plant

In my last post I highlighted ten dos and don'ts that are generally known by half-decent players yet ignored by the majority. I noted, prior to writing the list, that repeatedly ignoring these tips or not following them regularly enough is partly, precisely why poor players exist. Why do poor players fall into the same trap time and time again and why are they happy to stew in their ignorance?

Above is a picture of a pitcher plant. A pitcher plant attracts a fly or an insect by the enticing smell emanating from its pores. The fly lands on the rim of the plant before feeding on the sweet nectar further down on the inside of its funnel. As the fly laps it up, it moves further down inside the plant gorging away. At some point the fly will attempt to lift-off back into the wild - but of course, it can't. The nectar has done its work. It was merely a trap that caused the fly to become stuck and which will, eventually, cause the fly to be dragged deeper and deeper to the bottom and to be consumed in a stewy pit of filth.

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This explanation is actually the way Allen Carr illustrated why so many people get drawn in to the allure of alcohol. Alcohol is not "the elixir of life" that many think it is; seen at its most sinsister, it is an insidious poison that entices and traps people, and once caught by the spell, never lets them go. The fly, of course, is the innocent youngster attracted to the alcohol while the alcohol itself is represented by the nectar. The whole trap itself is constructed by the media and marketing men who work their seductive charms by selling us the whole spiel.

Losing / break-even poker players and even the marginal winners who take home peanuts are the flies that get caught in a web and who are unable to escape from the chains. Like heavy drinkers who believe nothing is wrong, they'll carry on regardless happy to play poker in their mediocre, treadmill-like way. They have been sold a strategy, a way of playing and ultimately a mindset that is dragging them down and which will continue to mark them out as average players for the rest of their lives. 

The successful poker player might land on the rim of the pitcher plant when he first starts out but will see what is going on down below beforehand and fly away to freedom well before the damage has been done. He'll see the usual ABC lines, the usual tried and tested strategies along with the typical run-of-the-mill attitudes of the masses and he'll want no part of it. True, he might feel superior, get the odd rush of arrogance and may even think himself super-human on the odd occasion but this is the small price to pay for this type of freedom.

Personally, I know I was way down there stewing with the rest of them both in terms of my struggle with alcohol and my average poker-playing skills. Thankfully, after my spring-time epiphany I like to think I've reversed the trend and have finally escaped from the dreaded pitcher plant. Sure, it's taken me up to my mid-forties to see all this and I'm doing the whole thing in reverse (quitting the career and then playing poker seriously rather than playing poker seriously and then getting the career) but I really, really don't want to go back.

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The pitcher-plant analogy signifies not how we get better and better at poker (that's a different analogy altogether and for another time) but why most of us seem happy to shuffle along in our blinkered way, accepting the tried-and-tested routes and formulae that the masses have been fed over and over again by popular wisdom. True, it is "wisdom" that has been passed down by experts but it's a path that too many players are cureently on and which just ain't gonna cut it in today's modern game.

Action Plan (At The Tables)

In my last post, I described five very large cogs in the machine that should be well-oiled and kept turning at all times. I believe that any self-respecting poker player who earns a regular living from the game should be monitoring these areas continually. They are essentially, the external part of the game that players should work on away from the table in order to help give them that all-important edge while at the table.

While at the live poker table there are so many different variables occuring that it's practically impossible to enumerate them all. However, recurring scenarios are so common and repeatedly crop up time and time again that certain rules or guides can be applied almost without fail. In many respects, these rules and guides (or dos and don'ts) are obvious, yet they are so often broken by the recreational and average players that they become precisely the main reason why these players are average and recreational in the first place - and why they'll remain so for years to come. (See The Pitcher Plant analogy in my next post.)

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The 5 Dos

Do...

... play at the right time. A meta-game leak whereby players choose to play while fatigued or jaded resulting in tired poker. That needs to be the reserve of the wannabes or casual and recreational players. 

... quit at the right time. Never play when you find yourself playing sub-optimal poker. Never play loose or too many hands to try to "catch-up" during a stuck session. Just leave! 

... think the hand through and go with your read. Put the other fella on a hand and make the right decision! Go with a move if it's not an "ABC" line but has a high chance of working.

... Leave tough tables. Been playing for 30 minutes and struggling to figure out where the money is going to come from? Get up and leave; it's probably your best move.  

... value-bet, value-bet, value-bet. Live cash-game poker is not really about trapping, it's about getting the money in with your good hands and getting paid off. Don't let them go lightly; get them to pay you!

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The 5 Don'ts

Don't...

... forget that most money comes from the fish. Your money generally comes from the weak players. Good players don't tend to pay you off; that's why they're "good." 

... make marginal calls versus short-stackers.  Never give the parasites the implied odds they're looking for and never call light preflop. Never pay these leeches off.

... overvalue premium starting hands.  Getting married to KK or AA after being card-dead for fucking hours can be a disaster but should only happen to lesser mortals. As always: play the villain's range and not your hand strength.

... play loose or force the issue when card-dead. Best to default to tight play rather then turning into a spewtard when things are going wrong. Never gamble it up if the action gets a little crazy. Discipline, discipline, discipline.

... call off light on the river when the villain never bluffs. Again, when you're stuck and desperate to turn things around don't get suckered into this one. Put them on a range and don't pay off the passive fish when they hit the board and suddenly actually start betting and raising! 

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Don't...

...play online poker ever again!!   My own little personal one.

Business Plan (Away From Tables)

Apart from needing bucket-loads of patience, optimum poker also involves a huge dose of discipline both at and away from the table. Before we go into the ground-rules of what's required while we play at the table (which we'll postpone for a later post), we'll first record the aims and objectives that are needed away from the table for the time being. The details below are not really categories that fall under a "business plan" as such but do highlight the five main areas that are vital for success when considering playing live poker for a living. 

Diet
Out need to go the sugary and fatty snacks along with the processed foods. There'll be a dramatic reduction in burgers, crisps, biscuits, cakes, and desserts etc. My aim is to go for three meals a day consisting of vegetables and healthy ingredients with fish being thrown in now and again or, failing that, A regime that's as close to that as possible. Fruit will be the only option when it comes to in-between snacks. Playing sans alcohol goes without saying so the routine of water only at the table - with a maximum of two coffees - will remain firm. At other times it'll be tomato juice and fruit juice with the occasional coffee and water.

Exercise
I'll be jogging around the circumference of my local park (one and a half miles) for three to four times per week. (This is looking like it'll increase to an extended two to two and a half miles in total as I'm getting more into it.) I'll keep to my routine of walking for 15 minutes to the venue when I arrive for a poker session. On the days I don't jog or play poker, I'll need to make sure I get out of the house and do some form of exercise. 

Study
Studying is vital to keep up with the leaders in this ever-evolving game. Personally, I find the videos of Bart Hanson to be sparkling diamonds when it comes to tackling live poker and my aim will be to study four or five of his videos per week. On top of this, I'll attempt to fit in around six hours of reading. This will include works from the following reading list...

How To Read Hands at No Limit Hold 'Em by Ed Miller
Playing the Player by Ed Miller
Poker Plays You Can Use by Doug Hill
Red Chip Poker by Doug Hill et al
Easy Game by Andrew Seidman
Reading Poker Tells by  Zachary Elwood

Keeping track of the 2+2 forums and tackling hands from the Insta Poker app will also be a necessary part of my studying routine. 

Days
Choosing the right time to play is a strategy in itself when it comes to looking for an edge. Casual and recreational players in full-time employment play in the evenings. For practical reasons, Friday and Saturday are the days when these players choose to play. The action does tend to build from Thursday with Sundays also being quite popular with the tourists on some occasions. 

Therefore, from Monday to Wednesday I've decided to play just once or twice per week (depending on how well I feel). From Thursday to Sunday I'll play three or four times per week. Again, this will depend on how things are going but I envisage these days to generally be easier and, hopefully, more friendly on the wallet. Overall, I'll be playing 4-6 days per week.

I've decided not sit for any longer than 30-40 minutes at a tough table. This doesn't necessarily have to be versus tricky opponents, just tables where I feel it's not +EV for me.

Hours
An hourly winrate of £15ph seems to be the figure bandied about by the experts when it comes to £1/£2 live cash-game poker. With an absolute minimum monthly-nut of around £1600 - £1800, I'll need to put in around 120 hours a month which is roughly 30 hours per week. Now in poker you're not paid a sustained, cosy regular rate so at times I know I'll need to put in anything from around 30 to 50 hours per week. No worries: after working the nightmare that is full-time teaching, putting in 40-50 hours a week playing a game I love sounds like heaven!!

I intend to travel into central London at around 7PM to 8PM and to play into the night up until around 6AM the next morning if need be. I'll be driving into central London by car - I have grown to detest public transport - and will travel when the congestion charge doesn't apply. (Another positive about playing live cash-game poker for a living.) Of course, I may only need to put in a four or five hour session but it all depends on how things are going. Sometimes it's necessary to keep your butt on the chair to wait for your moment. I'll also endeavour to qualify for The Empire cash-race MTT freeroll which takes place on the first Sunday of the month.

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Thus ends the aims and objectives that I'll be putting in place while away from the table. In my next post I'll record the 10-point plan that I'll put into place while at the tables. 

Credentials

In my last post, I outlined how I intend to sustain myself financially over the next year or so. To some it may all seem like a mad and deluded pipe-dream or a hair-brained scheme that a doomed businessman might pitch in the Dragon's Den. Fear ye not, for here are a number of reasons that may help to convince you that I have a fighting chance...   

Solid Long-Term Experience
I've been playing poker pretty regularly for around 10 years now and although I've been prone to long-term break-even stretches, I've had a small degree of success over the long haul. This includes a huge amount of online play as well as live. In fact, I've paid around $25K in rake alone on the online poker sites.  

A Teetotal Existence And A Healthier Lifestyle
Up to mid-April of this year I'd often view poker as a social and recreational game with little edge going to the better players. As such, I'd often drink heavily during poker evenings and treat sessions in a casual way. My wins and losses would often be so evenly matched that I thought a little beer here and there, to lighten the mood, would make absolutely no difference to my bottom-line.

In actual fact, although this attitude may be perfectly fine for someone on a steady income and who's out for a social weekend once in a while, I've learned that excessive drinking was precisely the reason why I'd never shown a sustained, seriously decent profit. From mid-April I have stopped drinking, exercised regularly and made changes to my diet. The effect it has had on my results has been striking (see below).   

A Necessity To Improve
Quitting a job would make anyone feel a little insecure about their future. As I gave eight months notice to quit mine last year, I've had every reason to study and to read up on the game in the interim. Poker is like any competitive sport or any dog-eat-dog business environment. It's the survival-of-the-fittest and if you don't keep learning and studying at a high level, you're going to get swallowed up. Rest assured, although I've taken the foot off the pedal study-wise recently, I'll be back with a vengeance come September.

A Love of the Game
At a live poker table so much is unfolding before your eyes that there is always interesting and revealing information to digest and absorb. This could be to do with anything from the way hands are played, comments made about the hands by other players, the way a bad-beat is taken to the way players behave when up or down. Many players explicitly or implicitly express boredom while playing but it's precisely this lack of interest and apathy that prevents players from improving. This game is deep and beautiful in so many different ways. Embrace it with open arms!

A Reasonable Bankroll
Don't get me wrong. I don't have a six-figure bank balance, live in a mansion, swan off to exotic locales every few months and drive around in a stunning Ferrari. I'm not exactly a baller (as the youngsters would say). However I do own and run my own car, live in a pleasant neighbourhood in London and have saved a reasonable amount from teaching. So, yes, I have a decent bankroll. You tend to make the good decisions when you have the peace of mind.    

A Disciplined and Patient Approach
Being successful at poker is a very, very long-term proposition and most poker players do not see this. Many of the so-called "good" players will play reasonably efficiently for a time - perhaps even for as long as six months to a year - and then get hit with the inevitable downswing. A great many will leave the arena right there and then while the hard-headed and persistent may weather the storm for a bit, come out on the other side, and carry on. However, the second or third or fourth wave will sweep most of them aside. Some will carry on "recreationally" without the desire to improve ("it's mainly luck innit?") only for a new batch of wannabes to take their place.

Only the emotionally strong will be able to see the bigger, long-term picture and appreciate the long haul for what it really is: a massive, uphill struggle full of heartbreak, setbacks and frustration - but ultimately an incredibly rewarding vocation. I like to think that I've developed the right discipline and the correct patient approach to the game.

Promising Short-Term Results
Let's not kid ourselves, it's hard to convince anyone that you're genuinely good at any game or sport if your results show you're a loser. True, if my results this year had me in the red then I'd be thinking seriously about getting a proper job like the rest of us. Fortunately, since my epiphany in mid-April my results have been encouraging to say the least. Here is my track record since the epiphany...

April      + £1000
May       + £1400
June       - £500
July        + £2200
August   + £1600

They're not exactly figures to rival the income of a typical full-time professional person on a decent monthly wage in London but you have to remember that these are my results as a "part-timer." From April to July I played in the evenings while working full-time as a teacher and in August I kind of eased off a little bit due to family commitments and... well, just chillin' too much really. From September, we're gonna get serious! We're talking poker as a full-time business baby!!

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Anyway despite all that, here's my official and genuine certificate that's appoved and stamped by a reputable authority, that proves 100% that I'm great:  

Opening For Business

Tomorrow my job as a full-time teacher of English will officially end. I'll no longer be employed by Lewisham Borough Council or doing the job that I've been doing for the past 19 years. Needless to say, I won't be scooping in the half-decent accompanying monthly wage either. To some, this may be a time to mourn but for yours truly, I say good riddance! For I am now on an altogether different path!!

Full-time teaching in a state secondary school, in this country, can be hell on earth. You're crammed into a confined space and trapped with around 25 to 30 hormonally unbalanced juveniles for around 50 minutes at a time. With half the kids usually not really caring about what they're supposed to be doing and the teacher expected to educate them to the highest standards, the experience soon boils down to becoming an exercise in survival. With ever-increasing pressure to perform and the constant reminder that kids must progress (or else) it's little surprise that an alarmingly high number jump ship after one or two years. That I lasted for 19 is a bloody miracle!

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In November 2013, the demands got too much and I decided to quit. I asked for my contract to be terminated at the end of the summer-term and although this meant I had to work for another eight months or so, right up until mid-July, I soldiered on. I must confess that as I felt pretty much beaten down by a soul-less senior management team obsessed by results and Ofsted inspections, I practically ceased to care.

From around January 2014 I started to put more energy into the real passion in my life... poker. I'd been playing semi-seriously for about 10 years and managed to do reasonably well at the game to such an extent that by January 2014 the idea that I might be able to play the game for a living began to simmer and brew. By mid-April (after a life-changing epiphany - see below) the idea took root and I sought to make it a reality. On 1st September 2014, thanks mainly to the money that I've saved from the job that I grew to hate, I am now going to live the dream and open my new business!

Of course, the business is live cash-game poker!

Now, since my epiphany in mid-April which came to me soon after I lost the most money that I'd ever lost in one night, I have become a changed man. I am teetotal, I exercise more regularly, eat a better diet and I seek to study the game on a more consistent and serious level. The outcome is that I believe I'm on a sturdier road to cracking the game; a road which I hope will allow me to play the game to the point where I'll not have to look for another job for a long time. This blog is going to act as a journal chronicling this new venture and I invite you to join in me in the ride. It will be bumpy and it will be turbulent - that's the nature of the beast - but it'll be an experience which I don't want to regret as the thing I should have done when I was younger. Compared to the stress of teaching kids for a living and jumping through the hoops that a brutal education system has thrown at me (and continues to throw at downtrodden teachers up and down the country) I suspect it may prove to be heaven on earth.

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As mentioned, as I am still technically employed by Lewisham Borough Council (and received a monthly salary from them for the month of August), I am not going to declare my business officially open until 1st September 2014. From this date, I'll know that there will be no regular salary to rescue me if I have a break-even or losing month. I won't be on benefits, awarded any form of income support from the governement or receive any other form of income from elsewhere. In effect I'll be on my own with the safety-net well and truly removed with the only form of income being gained from the profits I make from live poker.

-- The padlocks are coming off the shutters boys and girls and they'll be raised up very soon. We'll soon be open for business!