How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

Over the past 8 weeks I have played 100 hours. I have averaged 12.5 hours/week. I do not have another job and I don't have any responsibilities. My hourly goal for each week has fluctuated from 20-25 hours, but I have probably met it only once or twice in that time period.

I'm looking for ideas on how I can consistently put in more hours. My short term goal is 25 hours/week. When I was at school, I was regularly putting in 30-50 hours a week while completing senior year for a physics degree. I know that I can competently play many more hours than I am.

Here are some ideas I have on how I can play more hours:

1. Use the tilt blocker program and setting Pokertracker to update once/minute.

The former to prevent me from knowing how much money I have at the tables and the latter to prevents me from looking through my results in PT without dealing with lag every minute. Both of these will make poker less stressful and I should have less reason to procrastinate.

2. Reduce the time I spend watching Television and web surfing with parental controls.

I'm not sure how to implement a fail-safe solution to this problem. My general idea is to lock myself out of watching television or surfing the web during certain hours of the day(20-21 hours/day). Anyone have specific ideas how I can accomplish this?

3. Maintain greater emotional control while playing through mindfulness.

I was making progress on this issue by using basic Zen mindfulness techniques. I need to get back to mindfulness and meditate daily to keep me centered.

4. Self-accountability through written records.

This worked moderately well for me in the past. Earlier this year, I kept a calendar on my dresser and mark down how many hands I played on a given day. I plan to resume this practice and I will evaluate how well I adhered to my regimen.

Thanks you for listening to my long, introspective post. I appreciate any advice you can provide. There is no better time than today to begin righting the ship.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

I've done both 1 and 3 personally. 1 was done in combination with 3 for the beginning of August, This made me a far better player and increased my winrate drastically.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
1. Use the tilt blocker program and setting Pokertracker to update once/minute.

The former to prevent me from knowing how much money I have at the tables and the latter to prevents me from looking through my results in PT without dealing with lag every minute. Both of these will make poker less stressful and I should have less reason to procrastinate.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the second post today I've read of people checking their PT stats while they play. I had no idea people did this. I think you should do both Tiltblocker and the 1-2 min update, I do both. I'm about to be back to being unemployed and want to put in 20-25 hours per week also. Maybe we can set-up a challenge or some sort of thing to keep eachother in check?

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

Sometimes the only way you can get yourself to play more hours is to just do it. This past week I averaged 10 hours a day 4-tabling... completely on autopilot... while watching TV... posting on 2+2... and reading The Intelligent Investor...

If I played 10 hours straight paying complete attention to the tables I'd go crazy.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
This past week I averaged 10 hours a day 4-tabling... completely on autopilot... while watching TV... posting on 2+2... and reading The Intelligent Investor...


[/ QUOTE ]

I will quote from King Yao's Weighing the Odds in Poker...

"If you are playing online poker as you read this, STOP. Either play the game or read the book. Don't do both at the same time!"

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

lately i've been doing 50-60 a week. a good way to do this is written records. the feeling of chalking up 11 hours in the book and xls file the doing the data analysis and financial moving at the end of the day is great.

fim

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes the only way you can get yourself to play more hours is to just do it. This past week I averaged 10 hours a day 4-tabling... completely on autopilot... while watching TV... posting on 2+2... and reading The Intelligent Investor...

If I played 10 hours straight paying complete attention to the tables I'd go crazy.

[/ QUOTE ]

This may sound stupid but in April my winrate started suffering, I just thought I was going through a downswing, etc, etc. Anyway I was thinking about it last week and realized that was about the time I got my laptop and wireless router. I started playing in the living room instead of the computer room, watching tv and dealing with the kids, etc.

So this week it was back to no tv and alot more focusing
on my game while I am playing, so far this week is the best I have had in a few months and I am sticking to the computer room for now on.

Oh yeah, I also discovered the blackhole of 2+2, oot. Its kinda like having to slow down to see a car wreck. I quit wasting my time there and started spending more time in the strategy forums.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

I've recently started trying out your first suggestion and I like it. I don't need TiltBlocker because I'm always jumping around tables so much that I forget how well I'm doing anyway. I just use the little computer clock on the bottom right of the screen and tell myself I'm not allowed to look at results until a certain time x hours in the future.

For you Tilt Blocker users, does it tell you when you get low on chips and need to reload?

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

just buy in for 75-100BB

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
For you Tilt Blocker users, does it tell you when you get low on chips and need to reload?

[/ QUOTE ]
No, but I buyin with 50BB and I've never been in a hand and ran out of chips.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

50-60 a week? goodness........how!?

I have a similar problem to Jeff's, I really cannot put in more than 13hours a week. Just can't...:(

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
lately i've been doing 50-60 a week. a good way to do this is written records. the feeling of chalking up 11 hours in the book and xls file the doing the data analysis and financial moving at the end of the day is great.

fim

[/ QUOTE ]

50-60 hours a week without crack?

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

I can totally relate to the OP. This summer I had about a 3 week period where I actually put in a good number of hours. I was able to do it because I set a schedule of playing 9-12AM and 2-5PM 5 days a week, and forcing myself to play these exact hours, no more, no less.

Sometimes the games were not great, but it was by far the easiest way for me to put in 6 hours a day. It was also a great feeling to be "done with work" at 5PM and hang out with my friends like a normal person.

Some events happened that threw this schedule out of whack, but as soon as I get settled down again I will try to get into the habit again.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

Ban yourself from posting until you've played the required number of hours for the day.

chez

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

Something you can do with Pokertracker that I do. Mine never lags so I just resize the window from the right to the left until all I can see is how many hands I have played for the day. I've stopped looking at daily results recently, I just look at weekly and monthly. When I have finished playing I just shut the "stats" window down and do something else.

You can check your VPIP, went to sd, won at, pfr easily, but you have to use the horizontal scroll fast so you don't see your results.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

I find this thread to be quite interesting. For you guys who can't get in more than 15 hours a week, i'm curious what you find yourself doing for the rest of the week. If i didn't have a job and that's all the time i spent playing, i would probably be bored out of my mind.

I found i averaged about 25 hours/week last month, but felt i wasn't playing as much as i could be.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
If i didn't have a job and that's all the time i spent playing, i would probably be bored out of my mind.

[/ QUOTE ]
Here's some of the activities I did while not working and playing less than 15 hours/week:

-Went to gym
-Went to beach
-Riding my bike
-Riding my skateboard
-Watching TV
-Reading
-Getting drunk
-Shopping
-Walking around with no set agenda
-Getting drunk

I can't wait to get back to it.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

Sheesh, I have a regular 40 hr/wk job and manage >20 hrs/wk.

Do you hate money?

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

I'm not following the PT train of thought. What exactly are you doing with PT? You're checking your PT results more frequently? Isn't this counter to the Tiltblocker concept?

I must be stupid, but I'm not getting what you are getting at. Can someone clarify for me what it is that I am not understanding?

Nigel

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

Let me guess. You've gone thru a downswing, poker is painful, you're not playing, etc. Drop down a level, grind it out. Just do it. Stop whining. You dont need inspiration, you need perspiration.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Let me guess. You've gone thru a downswing, poker is painful, you're not playing, etc. Drop down a level, grind it out. Just do it. Stop whining. You dont need inspiration, you need perspiration.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where in my post did I whine or mention a downswing? I wrote a positive, constructive post outlining 4 changes I will implement to better myself as a man and a poker player.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not following the PT train of thought. What exactly are you doing with PT? You're checking your PT results more frequently?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I'm setting my PT to update 1/minute while adjusting it's CPU priority to below normal. This makes looking at stats unbearable because the program freezes constantly while it imports.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not following the PT train of thought. What exactly are you doing with PT? You're checking your PT results more frequently?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I'm setting my PT to update 1/minute while adjusting it's CPU priority to below normal. This makes looking at stats unbearable because the program freezes constantly while it imports.

[/ QUOTE ]

But why are you looking at your stats constantly? Doesn't that go against the whole tiltblocker concept? Why not just import to PT at the end of each session?

Sorry Jeff, I feel like I might just be missing entirely what you're trying to say on this one.

Nigel

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
But why are you looking at your stats constantly?

[/ QUOTE ]

Compulsion. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I'm going to stop doing it.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

1. Prop bet. Currently, Madtown and I have one running where we have to average 1k hands/day/week. At the end of the week, if one of us is under quota, we have to shell out $10 for every 100 hands under.

2. Come up with a schedule. TimM and Krishan have posted about their schedules.

3. Read Mastery by George Leonard.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
I was regularly putting in 30-50 hours a week while completing senior year for a physics degree.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is ridiculous. Amazing too. I wonder if it doens't skew your definition of long hours a bit. I think 30hrs is very very good for a pro. Anything above is phenomenal.

12.5 on the other hand is a bit weak.

Krishan

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not following the PT train of thought. What exactly are you doing with PT? You're checking your PT results more frequently?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I'm setting my PT to update 1/minute while adjusting it's CPU priority to below normal. This makes looking at stats unbearable because the program freezes constantly while it imports.

[/ QUOTE ]

But why are you looking at your stats constantly? Doesn't that go against the whole tiltblocker concept? Why not just import to PT at the end of each session?

Sorry Jeff, I feel like I might just be missing entirely what you're trying to say on this one.

Nigel

[/ QUOTE ]

He's saying he's taking measures to make sure he doesn't look at his stats. He probably needs to continuously import while playing so that Playerview can update.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not following the PT train of thought. What exactly are you doing with PT? You're checking your PT results more frequently?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I'm setting my PT to update 1/minute while adjusting it's CPU priority to below normal. This makes looking at stats unbearable because the program freezes constantly while it imports.

[/ QUOTE ]

But why are you looking at your stats constantly? Doesn't that go against the whole tiltblocker concept? Why not just import to PT at the end of each session?

Sorry Jeff, I feel like I might just be missing entirely what you're trying to say on this one.

Nigel

[/ QUOTE ]

He's saying he's taking measures to make sure he doesn't look at his stats. He probably needs to continuously import while playing so that Playerview can update.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup, gotcha. I just thought from his post there was some de-tilt strategy he was using by checking PT more often, and that sounded backwards, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was missing that may be a good idea to incorporate myself!

Nigel

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

I don't use an overlay or keep PT running while I play, but I do obsessively look at the cashier to see how much I have on the tables. If I change tables I always buy in for the exact amount I took off the previous table. I'm not sure I could stop if I wanted to.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here's some of the activities I did while not working and playing less than 15 hours/week:

-Went to gym
-Went to beach
-Riding a stolen bike
-Riding my skateboard
-Watching TV
-Reading
-Getting drunk
-Shopping
-Walking around with no set agenda
-Getting drunk

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

this is one of the most amazing FYPs ever

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

Are you planning on playing for a living for a long time? If you can't get motivated to play, maybe you should think about whether you really want to be a pro.

I work full time and still play as much as you.

Some people need struture. I might have the same problem that you are experiencing if I played for a living.

Why dont you schedule your playing time?

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Are you planning on playing for a living for a long time? If you can't get motivated to play, maybe you should think about whether you really want to be a pro.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see that I have any choice. Even at 12 hours/wk, I'm making way more than I would make at a 40+ hour/wk job. I think that if I can reduce the emotional swings of the game and make a commitment to myself to put in hours, I will be fine.

This isn't so much a problem with playing poker as it is a problem with self-discipline and self-esteem. Hopefully I can use poker as a platform for fixing these issues.

[ QUOTE ]
Some people need struture. I might have the same problem that you are experiencing if I played for a living.

Why dont you schedule your playing time?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm going to give it a shot starting tomorrow. I will make a 25-hour schedule for this week(Monday-Friday) and I will stick to it. I will update my progress next weekend.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm going to give it a shot starting tomorrow. I will make a 25-hour schedule for this week(Monday-Friday) and I will stick to it. I will update my progress next weekend.

[/ QUOTE ]

Looking forward to it.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

i play 40-60 hours per month and i have a full-time job, twinkle toes.

i have my PT window open while i play and it updates every minute as well. i don't see the problem with it.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
i play 40-60 hours per month and i have a full-time job, twinkle toes.

i have my PT window open while i play and it updates every minute as well. i don't see the problem with it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, we all can't be Mr. Perfect.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

What the heck is the tilt blocker program?

BTW, I too play about 10 to 12 hours a week. Much of this is because I have a busy law practice, family, other past-times etc. But even if I were jobless, single and a couch potato, I am not sure that I could play more than 20 hours online a week. Too friggin' boring, man. If you are kicking ass at 12 hours a week and having fun doing other things in your life...well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

You need to examine why you aren't playing enough hours. Somehow, that is completely absent in this thread. Are you not playing at all on many days? Averaging only three days a week where you actually play? Are you playing as many days a week as you think is appropriate, but your average session is too short? If so, is it because you consistently play short sessions, or do the lengths vary a lot but average out to something too small? If you are playing sessions that are too short, why do you stop? Is it because you often start without having eaten first (maybe first thing in the morning) and you need to stop after a couple hours for lunch and then don't get started again? Is it because you procrastinate starting a session and often don't until late at night so you have to quit after a few hours because you are tired and want to sleep? And so forth.

"I'm not playing enough hours/week" is very vague. I think that you should stop thinking in those terms and figure out what the specific problem is and tackle that.

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

If he's like me...it's because he's spending too much time dorking around on 2+2 and not getting around to opening the tables.
Seriously, it's a stupid addiction and I need to grow the hell up.

Like him, I need to be playing more hours (although I'm more than 12 per week thankfully).

Re: How do I put in more hours/week. (Long/Introspective)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Ban yourself from posting until you've played the required number of hours for the day.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd like to officially encourage Jeff not to do this [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].