How I Make My Schedules

January is half way over and thus far it's been pretty uneventful. I've played 194 MTTs and I'm down a marginal amount. Nothing special. I thought I'd do an update and let my readers know what my current schedule is and what my plans are.

I was playing exclusively on FT up until last week then I spread out to UB. I took a look at Star's lowstakes schedule and tomorrow I'm gonna get some funds over there. Tonight I came up with a two-hour loading block on all three sites that I'm satisfied with. Click to enlarge.

The bold number in parentheses at the end of each tourney indicates its actual buyin amount (i.e. I estimate a 3r will cost $12 on average). Adding up these bold numbers is what gives me the total cost of the schedule.

The three $8.80 tourneys at the very bottom are on Full Tilt. Full Tilt runs these odd $8.80s (180-player max) every 50 minutes. Their start times vary from day to day but within a two-hour loading block I usually end up squeezing three in. I love the $8.80s as the players are horrible, the fields are small, and they aren't turbos which make them an excellent choice for variance control.

So how did I come up with this schedule? Well my roll is about 3k right now. So when I decide what my schedule will be I usually take my roll and divide it by 200. This gives me a good idea of what my average buyin should be. My ABI is somewhere in the $15 range. So now what I do is come up with a schedule where my ABI ends up coming out to around $15.

As you can see from my schedule my ABI is $12.21. That may seem a little low but I like to play it safe. The extra cushion allows me to really play my A+ game and be confident about every tourney I enter and every decision I make. For me, confidence is a big deal when I'm playing so it's worth it for me to have that extra cushion.

The other important factor in the bankroll/schedule equation is to make sure you mix in some tourneys where the fields aren't huge. This variance control factor is really important. It helps keep you sharp when your FTs from large fields are few and far between and helps keep your bankroll from fluctuating too wildly. I've talked a lot about this concept in previous blog entries. I feel (now more than ever) this is very important for the non-staked player who can't replace his/her roll.

As the sessions go by I'm always reevaluating my bankroll and schedule. If I'm on a downswing I adjust my schedule accordingly so that I'm back in my comfort zone. If I'm hitting a tourney(s) then I look to adjust my schedule in the upward direction. This is the exciting part for me as I love to come up with "imaginary" schedules that I know I will be playing soon.

For example, tonight I made up this schedule for when my roll reaches the 5K range:

Making  up these futuristic schedules is a huge motivating factor for me. For some people this may not be important but for me it always has been. It really gives me something very specific to work towards and when it comes to goals it turns out people who work towards very specific goals are much more likely to get there.

For example, if you wanna lose some weight you can't just say "OK I'm gonna lose some weight". You've gotta set very specific numbers and say something like "OK I'm gonna lose 15 lbs". The person who works towards the actual number is far more likely to achieve his/her goals. The ability to measure how far you've come and far you have to go is very important. Abstract goals just don't make any sense.

So anyway that's whats up right now. It's not much but as soon as I catch a heater or two at this level and the next then I should be back to my former midstakes glory ha. Also hopefully some players struggling with their schedules and bankrolls are able to take something away from this post.

Lots of Work

ahead of me. It looks like I'm just gonna play on my own again and it looks like I'm starting from the very bottom (exactly where I started the year).

I'm feeling pretty awful right now about the way everything has happened over the last four months. Several things went wrong during the same period of time. I just simply shouldn't be in this situation, yet I am. It disgusts me a lot to think about it right now and the sooner I forget about it the better.

I'm not sure what my update status will be on the blog. I expected I would have shipped something significant by now but I haven't. And whats worse is I'm starting completely over.

To be completely honest, I feel really really sick about poker right now. I'm not 100% sure I'm gonna dive back into the micros full steam ahead like I have a couple times before. I know it will yield success and move me up again to midstakes but the excitement of all that is lacking in the moment.

As usual, with me, who knows how I'll feel at a certain point in time or why. I can't see myself doing anything other than poker (in terms of income) so it's not like I'm gonna quit. I just don't know if I'm gonna put in the necessary volume to crush micro and roll into low/midstakes. No matter what, meh, I'm not sure I care as much as I used to.

Hope all your Holidays have been going great so far. Merry Xmas in advance :)

Backer

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Sundays

I've technically had three winning Sundays in a row though this last one hardly counts.

I finished 14th in the $55 500-cap tourney on Stars
9th in the $26 33k KO tourney (with 3600+ entrants and 14.6K to 1st place sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh)
and like 350th in the $640 FTOPS Main Event for 1.2K.

It was a Sunday with some major major potential and I capitalized on it just enough to come out +350 on the day. Ya. Wow. Phew. I really tore it up.

The one thing I feel right now is that I might be coming closer to being the player I want to be. Playing closer to the stakes I should be playing and possibly learning to deal with/accept the downswings that come with those stakes.

One thing I noted on my blog at the beginning of this year about last year (that I wanted to improve upon) was learning to focus more on maximizing my winnings rather than minimizing my losses. I've done better with it this year but I'm not really on the level I want to be on with that. I think I am getting closer though.

Well, even though these last three Sundays haven't even gotten me out of makeup they are a much-needed breath of fresh air into what was an almost lifeless corpse.

Much Needed Win

QQ < JJ deep in the $322 FTOPS and KK < A8o for a huge pot w/ four tables left in the 10r on Stars.

Coulda just as easily been all the way out of makeup today and then some. Whatever. Just gotta keep on grinding. For the first time ever I can say I've had two winning Sundays in a row.

Dent

I got 3rd in the morning $75 KO on Full Tilt today for $4,145. Being a Sunday, the prize pool was bloated with extra money (more than double it's usual 17.5K guarantee).

It took me nearly three months and 647 tourneys to accumulate 11.4k in makeup. I cleared 31% of that in just one tourney. Had I won this tourney (9k) I would have cleared just under 80% of makeup in one shot. This is the power of MTTs.

Post

I'm getting so so sick of updating my graph in the same ridiculous direction it's been going. I'm not trying to draw a mountain here ffs.

Sunday was a complete disaster. Standard.

Early morning Tuesday session yielded a final table in a $109 on stars with like 120 players. Obv I finished 9th. Tonight I got 8th in the $77 turbo 6max on stars.

It's so absurd how many 7th through 18th place finishes I've had. I'm so hungry for this nonsense to end.

I played more tourneys in October than I have any other month all year (except January when I was grinding the micro sched). October turned out to be the only month where I played 250+ tourneys and DIDN'T show a profit.

I'm really frustrated right now but I think this may all be for the best. If I'm going to make it in poker and in Vegas for at least the next few years then I need some harsh lessons and hard times to make me strong.

The only good news I've had recently was finding out tonight that the tea party kook running for Senator here in Nevada got her ass kicked. I'm not a huge fan of democrats anymore but I'll choose them any day of the week over people who want to close their eyes and ears and brains to the world around them and pretend like humans don't face major issues. Seems like politics right now is all about choosing the lesser of two evils. Idk, w/e, I'll figure it all out someday.