anomaly16

It is a depressing statement but statistically inevitable. I prefer the other version which is also true
I know of good players who have been breakeven for 300,000 hands, some who run 100BI below EV (Expected Value) and all sorts of other horror stories. The fact that this is possible, even if you are playing a reasonable A-game, means that someone could fail to make it work playing full-time. I'm sure a lot of people with potential to succeed at poker have been crushed before they ever really had a chance. Running like this can have huge consequences for tilt and it is inevitable that it will affect your game in some way, especially if it goes on month after month.

The "All-in EV" stat in HEM/PT3 is a useful guide as to how you are running, but it doesn't tell the full story and shouldn't be obsessed about. Running into the top of a villains range or getting most of the money in when you are ahead also comes under running bad. In fact it is possible for almost every element in poker to have some kind of EV value.. getting good seats, getting AA when someone else has KK rather than the other way around, being at the tables at the right time of day and how marginal the decisions you face are etc...

I think it is really important to focus on your awareness of all these things and how it is affecting you - it can only lead to improving the decisions you make, be it when to quit and take a break or which areas of your game or attitude could do with some attention. Preparing yourself for worst runbad of your life could be one of the most critical things you do as it could be bad enough to end your poker career.

I've been lucky that I haven't hit one of these really bad patches this year and that I'm still playing. As I've said before I don't downswing much at all compared to others (yet!). When you start out it is hard to know how good you are and it is possible that good early results are just some rungood, but as you put in more volume it becomes easier to evaluate your ability. In the first few months I really didn't know where I stood, but having done almost 500k hands now I can feel more comfortable. We all play for the long term, but that is still much more than we can measure in a few months or even a year. There is a handy online EV simulator that can give you a feel for the possible statistical variance.

The last 15k hands have been about as close as it gets to a downswing for me... only 6.5BI below EV and other hidden coolers but in the scheme of things it is nothing.


I'm hoping it turns around so I can finish the year strong. As for practical things you can do to deal with it other than just putting volume in and making good decisions you can

• take breaks when you are aware it is affecting you
• talk to others and discuss hands to make check your decisions
• do some sweats
  
• get some coaching
• study something
• watch a training video
• play something else that can't hurt your BR but give you some satisfaction of finally winning some flips!
  

Bankroll management is critical if you are going to make poker your primary income.

When I played recreationally I was happy to play with a BR of 20-30 BI, but it is important to have a deeper BR when it is your job and stick religiously to it for 2 reasons:

• It protects you from going busto.. you can't make money if you lose all your BR
• It protects you from unnecessary mental anguish and pressure if you go on a downswing

The common wisdom seems to be a 100BI BR if you play full-time. You must also be able to drop down stakes if your BR takes a bad hit and try and rebuild it from there. Taking shots with less BI at higher stakes can be ok too (say 50BI) if you pick the moments the games are softest. Some people also use a stop-loss limit for a given day but numbers seem to vary a lot depending on the person and their tilt control.

I actually started the year with about 150BI for 50 and I was taking a few shots at 100 too. As the year has progressed as I've made withdrawls my BR has fluctuated between 100BI at 50 and 140BI at 100. I don't seem to go on as many downswings as others and when I do they aren't very severe (yet?!). Hence, I'd feel pretty comfortable playing 100 with only 50BI now and might even take some shots at 200 on 25BI. I recently played a few hands at 400 on 25BI but its not going to be a regular occurrence. I will always strive to get my BR up to 100BI for the main stake I'm playing and right now thats 100BI at 100, taking a few shots at 200. Fortunately, I haven't been forced to move down at all, but I mix different stakes and might only play 50 one day depending on how I'm feeling and how the games are. If it comes to it I know I'm prepared and able to play lower stakes if my bankroll dictates it. As I don't downswing much I haven't felt the need for a stop loss and instead focus on making good quitting decisions.

The point is, that BR requirements are going to be quite different for everyone depending on their style and games they play and how they handle it mentally. Setting the limits generously to start with should give you the flexibility to adjust things at a later date if you feel it still gives you the protection that BR management is there for.

EDIT: I forgot to add that I also had some contingency in a savings account when I started - enough to survive a few months if there was no other income. I didn't want my career to end before it even got started due to variance, and I knew I'd need some time to improve my game to win enough each month.

I've not needed to use any of the contingency this year which I'm really pleased about, other than borrowing a bit from it around Vegas for cashflow reasons, but it was repaid soon after I got back.

As a full ring (9 seats) cash player, most of my experience and comfort zone is with 7 or more players. Playing with less opponents is definitely harder and higher variance due to everyone having wider ranges of hands and therefore decisions being much more maginal. However, it can also be very profitable and should not be ignored or passed up.

It wasn't until I felt competent at full ring that I felt I could try to play with less people. Some of the hardest things become much more important - understanding ranges, bet sizing, lines, hand reading and villain types for examples. However, there are 2 great side effects of trying it and working on all these areas

• We get better as a player and can bring a better A-game to full tables
• Villains play worse than they might full ring as it is harder and will make more mistakes and therefore it can be a great source of profit

Heads-up with just 2 players is obviously hardest but is still great for your game and profitable. Starting tables also has other great side effects because as the table fills up the villains are generally weaker - casual players just want to play so they fill find a seat as soon as they can rather than wory about waiting lists or game selection. Often these kinds of opponents are there for a quick gamble so will stack off much lighter than usual. Regs are usually busy multi-tabling they don't always have the time to see new tables starting and will take some time to find them so you can generally get at least a few orbits before the casual players start to bust and leave and be replaced by regs. Taking notes on villains and their HU play is extremely useful and I need to do it more as often there will be opportunities to get your stack in within a hew hands. Generally, the biggest winners at each stake are table starters so the cycle of getting better and playing in profitable situations definitley pays off.

In these short-handed situations its important to keep your eye on how profitable a situation it is as the dynamic can change much more quickly than at a full table. You also need to be ready and be aware of when it is +EV to change seats as again it can make a huge difference. There are times that I will choose not to play against a certain collection of or single villain becuase they are good (or just plain lucky!) or it is hard to get into good spots with a weak player due to seating options. However, it is also important to recognise when there seems to be an appetite for seats at your stake - a few hands HU with someone who you wouldn't choose to play for profit as your edge is tool small or negative is worth it if you can get a full soft table running quickly.

In the situation where there are a few regulars and only one or 2 weak players or as tables start there are obviously some strategic manouverings going on between the regulars.. either in seat choice, range adaptation or in simply choosing when to sit in or sit out. There are some fine lines between making the situation the most profitable it can be and table etiquette and each reg seems to have a different opinion of where these lines are drawn... I'll post more about this under "Table Etiquette".

I can understand why some regulars only want to play full tables - usually as they require more attention than you might have when multi-tabling or they simply don't feel as comfortable. However, as tables are breaking up it is worth keeping an eye on the changing dynamic and it can often become a very profitable situation again within a few hands. I can't sometimes believe when a regular leaves after a couple of seats become free when there is still a really bad fish at the table, especially when they have a deep stack. I'm happy that they are leaving easy money on the table, but the times it causes the bad player to leave because there aren't enough players makes me sad :(

If you are playing for a living its important to maximise your earnings and take advantage of as many bonuses, offers and promos as possible.

Rakeback is common to most sites and essential to get so that you can get back a percentage of all the rake you pay to the poker room. It can be problematic on some sites depending how you first signed up, but although my full tilt account is old I must have just downloaded it via their website so was able to get rakeback. If you are unable to get it at your preferred site you should seriously consider changing where you play.

For a while at the the beginning of the year I was taking advantage of bonus offers at both Absolute Poker and Full Tilt, but as the year has gone on I've stuck primarily with Full Tilt. It is worth being aware of the offers on other sites if you play enough to meet the requirements for their promotions. At times your chosen games at your main site may not be running or just not be very good so you might want to consider what else is available and take advantage.

The requirements for some promotions can be quite complicated and often require you to opt-in rather than being given to you automatically. The poker rooms need to have these to compete with each other, but they obviously would prefer if they didn't have to pay out to everyone. Full Tilt's "Take 2" and "Iron Man" promotions are good examples of this in that you have to elect to participate. Hence, its important that you take the time to read emails, promotion pages and research what is available.

Full Tilt has a number of schemes that it is worth taking advantage of if you play cash games:

• Rakeback - 27% of rake paid back weekly
  
• Iron Man - worth up to $600 of bonuses every 6 months, plus more from "iron man medals"
• Black Card - double full tilt points, exclusive store with cash bonuses and a little more
• Take2 - extra full tilt points during promo period
• Happy hours - extra full tilt points for playing specific games at specific times of day
• Rush week - bonus for playing rush (rigged so I wouldn't recommend it!)
• Miscellaneous one-off or seasonal bonuses
  

I think its important to keep in mind that these are all just bonuses and not get too attached to any of them. The poker rooms will makes changes and suffering from losing one just isn't worth it. There has been a lot of hate directed at Full Tilt after their recent change from dealt to weighted contributed rakeback and the Black Card scheme which many had over-hyped for themselves by expecting it would compete with Pokerstars. If many regulars leave for Pokerstars as they are saying they will, then Full Tilt games should become a little softer, so it isn't all bad!

One danger of getting bonuses and trying to achieve or clear them is to rush through the extra volume required. A few times I've managed to lose more than a bonus is worth by playing more than I should or games that I shouldn't.

Full Tilt have just started a promo where you can get up to $100 bonus if you spend 140k ftp in their store. Yesterday I bought a $500 Black Card bonus for 125k pts and plan to buy another cash bonus to make it up to the required 140k ftp spend. With the volume required to clear these, plus the $100 bonus when it comes, plus working off the Iron Man $600 bonus in January I need to put in quite a lot of volume over the next 8 weeks. I was definitley affected by this yesterday and played some things I shouldn't and effectively threw away some of the bonus that I was trying to get.

I play some torunaments now and again and treat these in a similar way to bonuses - if I can win some extra then great but no problem if I don't. Spending iron man medals or full tilt points on tournaments can achieve a much higher rate of return on them in you are competent. I also find playing tournaments can be a great motivator to put in some good volume at cash while the tournament is running or just to take a mental break from cash games. Swapping some % of yourself or buying a % of others in torunaments can help smooth out the variance too and make a return more likely (especially if it is with Gary! - he won me $900 the other day while I was asleep.. definitely a nice bonus :)).

One of the dreams of going to Vegas was to be able to play in the World Series. A shot at the $10k main event was well beyond my bankroll, but one of the $1k events was affordable if a rather extravagent compared to my usual live tournament buyins.

There were several $1k events so I decided to play one of the later ones so that I could get used to being in Vegas first. We took an early trip to the Rio and the sheer scale of everything was pretty awesome. I managed to get some poker celeb pics while wandering around.



Gary had a great run at the $1k Event #24 and I was as ready as I would ever be and registered for $1k event Event #47.

I was pretty nervous as it began.. my biggest live buyin ever, biggest live field ever and first multi-day event ever. There were no celebs (that I recognised anyway!) at my table but Chris Moneymaker was just a couple of tables away from me. As it was the cheapest wsop event the structure wasn't the greatest with not too many chips to start.

I was quite active in the first few levels but there were only a few small pots going backwards and forwards - not getting any action with a flopped set in a 3bet pot was a bit sad in Level 2, but it allowed me to settle down and get more comfortable. A few players came and went in what was quite a mixed field of ability.

After the 2nd break level 5 began and I picked up AK. A shorter stack opened before me and we got it in preflop after I'd 3bet him. However, his QQ held on a QJxxx board and I couldn't bink a T. I lost quite a few chips but certainly wasn't out of it yet. A few hands later another shortstack went allin and it was an easy shove for me with KK. Again, luck wasn't with me and his A4 hit an A on the flop to leave me crippled. The very next hand I had 88 and shoved my few chips in.. there was a quite a lot of action behind me and I was knocked out by TT in the end.

I haven't worked out what I'm going to play in the series in 2011, but I'd like to put together a package of a couple of WSOP events and a couple from the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza and try and sell some action on 2+2 to make it affordable and give myself some more chance to find some rungood.

Long before I started playing poker I'd always wanted to go to Vegas. I'd only been full-time a couple of months when the threads went up advertising spots in a house for summer 2010. As much as I wanted to go, I was still getting myself established as a pro and didn't really have the bankroll to be able to commit and know I would be able to pay for both the trip and bills at home. I knew it was going to be a trip of a lifetime and I wanted to be sure I could afford to go without financial pressure and be able to enjoy myself properly so reluctantly delayed my decision.

By chance in April, with only really one spot left in the house, I was contacted out of the blue and offered a contracting job with a company I had worked with on some projects when I was at the bank. I wasn't thrilled about doing 9-5 again and playing less poker, but the length of contract and day rate was enough for me to feel safe committing to the trip. It felt like fate pushing me to go so I promptly took up the last spot in the house and booked my flights, to leave on June 8th in time for Gary's birthday and the start of the world cup and fly back on July 14th.

I won't go into all the details of the trip but it was awesome! - I made some posts at the time if you want to read more - Vegas #1, Flu in Vegas and I shot a zombie with a Glock 9mm.

I had a list of things I wanted to do while I was there and managed most of them including

• play a wsop event
• play lots of poker
  
• shoot handguns
• roll dice at a craps table
• play slots
  
• see the desert
• see the grand canyon
• play golf
  

We had an epic last night and in the end I was really sad to be leaving the good friends I'd made and Vegas itself. Even if poker doesn't work out as a long-term career for me, it will have been worth it for being able to fulfil one of my dreams.

There were a few things I didn't get round to doing so I guess I'll have to endure the hardship of going back! I haven't booked any flights yet, but I plan to be there for the whole of June and July 2011. There should be a good number of us back from last year - Gary, Dip and Darren and perhaps DJ and Tim. Gary is already lining up a house for us and it should be way better than the one we had last time. The idea of having an outdoor pool is a tough concept from someone from Scotland but I'm sure I'll cope :)

There isn't a huge amount to say on Ego other than there is no room for it in poker. You should be humble, accept that you are fallible, accept that you have a lot to learn and never let an inflated perception of your abilities affect your decisions. If you don't, you are just setting yourself up for a fall at a later date and risk developing FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome).