Something Like Poker

The trials an tribulations of an aspiring poker professional.

As can be seen in my prior blog post, my bankroll has been hurting lately as a result of a continuously bad run of cards with (I’m sure) at least a bit of poor play mixed in. This bad run of cards has resulted in my being rivered continuously, which has in turn left me feeling stressed. It also made me take a step back to see what I can with regards to my bankroll management at this point in time.

Because I need to pay bills, I still need to take out funds from my bankroll for a self-payment, as I’ve done for the past two months as well. After taking this into account and tallying my losses for this month, I see that my bankroll is at about $2,000, which is substantially lower than it had been for awhile. Furthermore, this amount is significantly lower than it should be for playing 1/2 NLHE comfortably (about half as much as it should be) — especially considering the fact that I basically don’t have any other form income, meaning I must withdraw funds from my poker bankroll for bills each month.

Further compounding my problems is the distance from home to the casinos (and back) — not only the travel time, but also the cost of gas and toll expenses.

With these thoughts in mind, I clearly need to reevaluate my current approach to the game with regards to my bankroll. As such, I’ve decided to take my online play much more seriously than I have in the past. Previously, I’ve made deposits online, and I end up playing tournaments for much higher dollar amounts than my bankroll can truly afford — especially considering that my tournament play is far worse than my ring play.

After reading about Chris Ferguson’s approach to bankroll management in his $0 to $10,000 challenge in this month’s CardPlayer magazine — in addition to reading the first several chapters of Professional Poker: The Essential Guide to Playing for a Living — I deposited $400 onto Full Tilt Poker.

I’m almost primarily going to stick to cash games, specifically $0.50/1 LHE. This means I’ll be starting with 300 big bets, a comfortable amount for these limits. I’m going to attempt to play at least 6 hours per day (ideally 8 if possible, just like a “real” job), breaking my sessions up into two 3- or 4-hour periods if necessary.

Similar to Chris Ferguson, I may also play some very small tournaments, making sure that the buy-in does not represent more than 5% of my bankroll for 1-table SNG’s, or 2% of my bankroll for multi-table tournaments. As of my initial deposit, this means I can play $20 SNG’s (I personally won’t play higher than $5+0.50 at this point in time due to my lack of experience in them) and $8 tournaments (though again I probably won’t play higher than $3+0.30 or perhaps some $5+0.50 tournaments due to the high variance). Furthermore, I won’t allow myself to put any more than 5% of my bankroll towards multi-table tournament buy-ins per day, meaning that I’m still limited to $20 per day at this point.

I strongly believe that defining these figures and keeping them in mind when deciding what to play throughout the day will have a significant impact in how my bankroll grows on the site.