Preparing to play online micro-limits for a living Week 1

[ThrillFactor]

Well, vacation is over so back to the old bump-n-grind for me today. Spent my entire morning and most of the afternoon tracking down my asst. mgrs' paperwork mistakes so that I could prepare my P&L. I had a feeling that when I returned everything would be a total disaster and I was certainly not disappointed. There were lots of bookkeeping errors - those were easy enough to track down and remedy - but inventory is a lost cause. It's going to take me a couple of weeks to get that back in line. Now I remember why it's been so long since I left for more than just a day at a time.

Poker last week ended up just as predicted, though it did get there in a roundabout way. Final numbers for the week were 36.0 hours on 3 tables, 4875 hands, +623BB, for 5.75BB/hr/table or 4.25BB/100 hands/table. I had not planned to play that much going into the week, but after some of the doubtful responses to my original post I wanted to see not only if I could reach my $$$ goal, but also how long it would take me to get there. Now I realize this is only one week and anything can happen the next, but these results are right inline with those I've seen over the last 6 months. This was also BY FAR the most I've ever played online in 1 week and I was interested to see what sort of mental drain that much time in front of the monitor would have on me. I did catch my attention lapsing from time to time, but I believe that I can certainly acclimate myself to the new "job" demands rather quickly. I also plan to break my days down into 2 four-hour sessions. This seems to work well for me and I feel that I am still pretty fresh at that mark. We'll have to see how it unfolds.

The week began hot and heavy with me jumping up 300BB in 15 hours. Then over the next 15.5 hours, I managed only 105BB. During this strech I only won about 7% of my total hands and there was one 600 hand session where I won only 5%. My average seems to be about 11% when I am on my normal pace. Point is it was really slow for two and a half days and I just had to sit back and wait for the streak to break. That happened Saturday evening. After a long afternoon session that was only slightly profitable, I broke for supper and a shower. I sat back down a couple hours later and in 1 hour won 65BB. I hit nearly every flop and every draw in that hour, and everything held up for a change. Sunday took up where Saturday left off and in a 4 hour afternoon session I won 130BB giving me my $600 for the week [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Just for good measure I jumped back on last night for 20 minutes while talking with a friend on the phone and promptly won another 23BB [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

The bankroll is now at $723 and I'm not going to touch any of it. Actually, I'm going to transfer $400 to my existing Empire account to take advantage of a 25% bonus offer they emailed me (haven't played there in a couple of months - just on Party). Between now and the end of the year I hope to build the BR to $1500ish in limited playing time. I also plan to add a fourth table to the mix so that by the new year I'll have all my guns loaded and a nice little cushion to boot.

Books to order: HPFAP, TOP, and WLLHE. Anything to add? Any suggestions on the order to tackle these in? Where can I purchase the Jones book? Again, I don't plan to start any of these until after the first, but I do want to have them handy and ready to go. My focus for now (in the poker world anyway) is to learn to play a 4th table and to pad the BR as much as possible.

C'ya at the tables...

-w

[lefty rosen]

Well at least you are playing multi tables, I would shudder to think you could think you could live off of 1 .5/1 table in any western industrialized country(second or third world countries you could be earning more than an average worker) .

[Some_Guy]

[ QUOTE ]
Where can I purchase the Jones book?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you don't want to buy online I found it had Borders Bookstore. Never could find it in stock at Barnes and Noble.

I would start with WLLHE and then TOP and HEPFAP. Actually I have HEPFAP and don't feel I'm ready for it although I have read the other 2 books you mentioned as well as HEP.

[Alobar]

Yeah, borders seems to have a really good selection of poker books. With the exception of HEFAP all I ever see at barnes and noble is helmuths book and like 20 copies of Ken Warrens book. I've never heard anyone mention Warren, is it any good??

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
During this strech I only won about 7% of my total hands and there was one 600 hand session where I won only 5%. My average seems to be about 11% when I am on my normal pace.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless you constantly play against weak-tight opponents, or against 7 or fewer opponents, a long-term win rate of 11% is not realistic for a winning player. 7%-8% is more like it.

[thirddan]

Warrens book was the first i ever read on holdem, and i lost a lot. I met him at a casino and saw him win a pot with A3o under the gun. Now that i have been playing longer his book might be more useful, but i wouldnt waste the money.

[ThrillFactor]

thanks for the input though. See my update posted today.

-will