Short Term Stress
So for those of you that don't know me personally, I make my living playing online poker.
Specifically, playing what's known as Sit and Go tournaments. The way this works is, ten people sit down, and buy in for a specified dollar amount. These ten buy-ins are collected to make the prize pool. Everyone starts with the same number of chips, and you are not allowed to add or subtract any chips, other than winning or losing them in the game. As players lose all of their chips, they are knocked out of the tournament. The Last Player Standing is declared the winner, and gets 50% of the prize pool. The player that went out next-to-last is second, and gets 30%. Finally, the third place finisher gets the last 20% of the prize pool. These games take between 5 minutes and an hour, depending on whether you come in first or last.
So me, I play at the $100+9 level. What that means is, for every tournament I enter, I pay $109... $100 goes into the prize pool, and the other $9 goes to the site that hosts the game (this fee they take is called the rake). This means first place is worth $500, second place $300, and third place $200. It also means that every loss costs $109. And I play eight of these simultaneously. Which means during a losing session, I'm dropping close to $1000 an hour.
Now, I wish I could say this was uncommon. But even the best players only finish "in the money" (first, second, or third) a little over 40% of the time. My average is slightly less than that (in the 37-39% range). That means I'm losing MOST of my tournaments. And even if I don't lose all eight that I play simultaneously, I often lose 3, 4, or even 5 in a row.
OK, so wah wah for the big baby. Losing is part of poker, which I voluntarily chose as my profession. I'm not saying it isn't, and I'm not saying I don't understand it... analytically. The tought part of my day is usually the beginning, before I've cashed any wins, when the first few results I get back are loss, loss, loss, and I suddenly find myself $500-600 poorer than when I woke up.
Today for example, I lost 6 of the opening eight, and finished 3rd in the other two. Not the worst start I've had to a day by far, but it still meant I was down $472 before I'd even finished my cereal. I started bitching to a friend about it, and was fortunate enough to have him put me in my place. Screwing my head back on, I plugged for another hour or so, and am currently sitting on $720 profit for the day... in great shape to book another thousand dollar session.
Moral of the story? My friend is right. If I'm really going to keep doing this for a living, I need to learn to deal with the downs better than I deal with the ups. Because losing is going to happen... roughly 62% of the time. I have to keep reminding myself... I CHOSE this. This is what I want to be doing. Because honestly, if you offered to reduce my variance in exchange for reducing my hourly win rate... I'd probably laugh at you.
Basically, I just need to have confidence that a) my poker skill is there, and b) my money management strategy is sound. Records indicate that, at least for the moment, in the games I'm in, the poker skill is there. I'm consistently beating these tournaments over a sample size of about 1000. As far as money management, only time will tell, but I know I'm being conservative, and I know I'm dedicated to keeping things that way.
I guess I just need to pick up a few bottles of Clear Edge.
Specifically, playing what's known as Sit and Go tournaments. The way this works is, ten people sit down, and buy in for a specified dollar amount. These ten buy-ins are collected to make the prize pool. Everyone starts with the same number of chips, and you are not allowed to add or subtract any chips, other than winning or losing them in the game. As players lose all of their chips, they are knocked out of the tournament. The Last Player Standing is declared the winner, and gets 50% of the prize pool. The player that went out next-to-last is second, and gets 30%. Finally, the third place finisher gets the last 20% of the prize pool. These games take between 5 minutes and an hour, depending on whether you come in first or last.
So me, I play at the $100+9 level. What that means is, for every tournament I enter, I pay $109... $100 goes into the prize pool, and the other $9 goes to the site that hosts the game (this fee they take is called the rake). This means first place is worth $500, second place $300, and third place $200. It also means that every loss costs $109. And I play eight of these simultaneously. Which means during a losing session, I'm dropping close to $1000 an hour.
Now, I wish I could say this was uncommon. But even the best players only finish "in the money" (first, second, or third) a little over 40% of the time. My average is slightly less than that (in the 37-39% range). That means I'm losing MOST of my tournaments. And even if I don't lose all eight that I play simultaneously, I often lose 3, 4, or even 5 in a row.
OK, so wah wah for the big baby. Losing is part of poker, which I voluntarily chose as my profession. I'm not saying it isn't, and I'm not saying I don't understand it... analytically. The tought part of my day is usually the beginning, before I've cashed any wins, when the first few results I get back are loss, loss, loss, and I suddenly find myself $500-600 poorer than when I woke up.
Today for example, I lost 6 of the opening eight, and finished 3rd in the other two. Not the worst start I've had to a day by far, but it still meant I was down $472 before I'd even finished my cereal. I started bitching to a friend about it, and was fortunate enough to have him put me in my place. Screwing my head back on, I plugged for another hour or so, and am currently sitting on $720 profit for the day... in great shape to book another thousand dollar session.
Moral of the story? My friend is right. If I'm really going to keep doing this for a living, I need to learn to deal with the downs better than I deal with the ups. Because losing is going to happen... roughly 62% of the time. I have to keep reminding myself... I CHOSE this. This is what I want to be doing. Because honestly, if you offered to reduce my variance in exchange for reducing my hourly win rate... I'd probably laugh at you.
Basically, I just need to have confidence that a) my poker skill is there, and b) my money management strategy is sound. Records indicate that, at least for the moment, in the games I'm in, the poker skill is there. I'm consistently beating these tournaments over a sample size of about 1000. As far as money management, only time will tell, but I know I'm being conservative, and I know I'm dedicated to keeping things that way.
I guess I just need to pick up a few bottles of Clear Edge.
posted by J at 4/17/2005 04:45:00 PM
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