has anyone lost motivation at their day job?

[Blarg]

Here's a bit of a rant on school these days. Couldn't help it.

In California, things are tightening up some but you used to be able to teach public school under a "temporary" emergency provision without a college degree or any teaching credentials. Being bilingual was especially a plus, as California adopted programs in which you could go to school for years and never learn English. Learning English would damage the self-esteem, dontcha know.

Anyway, these emergency provisions let people go on for years without any real credentials or training, and as these teachers filtered into the system by many, many thousands, there was a turn from learning phonics and punctuation and breaking apart and diagramming and understanding sentences, and a turn toward touchy-feely "natural" language theories. Such theories found a receptive audience in teachers uneducated and unqualified to teach language, and the schools and unions that wanted to keep them employed. Learning language became a lot of talking about uplifting stories and how you felt about them, and doing art projects about them, and California's test scores plunged the first rank in the nation to at or near the worst as children were taught to try to "recognize" words by the way they looked instead of actually be able to read unfamiliar words step by step, sounding them out and recognizing them letter by letter.

This happened to my little brothers and sisters in Hawaii, too, where these teaching methods took over. They would "guess" at words but had no idea how to sound them out, so each new word was a new threat to them, and initimidating. Whereas, children taught phonics can take pride in "solving" the riddle of any word by merely approaching it systematically and sounding it out. I was never intimidated by the encounter with a new word and didn't spend any time guessing about it; my brothers, who both have high IQ's, were, and a guess that drew on previously learned words that looked similar was the only tool in their language arsenal.

Very few people these days read anymore, and I think the reason is that to people not properly trained in language, every new book is a new threat and a new implied humiliation, and slow going. When phonics-based learning was standard, people read much more, and while new books might look boring, they didn't have near the off-putting intimidation factor they do for so many people today.

[sonny black]

about 3 years ago, unfortunately I got married about 5 years ago, now with 2 children and a dog(not my wife) to support.

[MicroBob]

This is why I have WAY more than a 300BB bank-roll for whatever level I'm playing at.


FWIW, if you are hitting a really bad-streak you should be able to fight your way out of it reasonably quickly thanks to the magic of multi-tabling.

If I need to I can bear down and play 10k hands a week or more by sitting at 6 tables instead of 4.


When I have a big day or big week or something I just look at it as a positive fluctuation that hopefully has me covered for a couple weeks of total crap cards if it should come. I'm always thinking in terms of "how long am I covered for if I just stop winning".

For a little while in there, I thought I likely couldn't handle much more than 4-6 total crap weeks before I'd have to say "well, my roll is getting pretty slim AND i've got bills coming up again. time to re-assess."


But I hit some wins and now I have SEVERAL potential crap-weeks covered to the point where I feel very comfortable.


So, if my goal is 1.8BB/100 and I have a 6k hand stretch where I've been hitting all my straights and full-houses and won 8BB/100 I don't just run out and spend the cash (well, I guess a nice dinner for me and the GF is appropriate...but I don't get super-crazy....I still have my 96-chevy with 162k miles).
So if I go on to lose 4BB/100 over the next couple weeks then I'm still break-even.


I think that's where some could potentially get into trouble.
Taking the winning runs and spending some of it and ignoring the possibility that the next 10k hands could be a total nightmare.
When you're winning it is extremely EASY to not see this possibility.


But, the bigger point is that via multi-tabling you approach the long-ish run much more quickly.

Of course, this doesn't even include bonus-chasing and rake-back stuff too which is more 'certain' income.


There were some threads, perhaps in the probability forum a few months ago, on what kind of roll do you need if you are paying your bills off of it. Obviously you need way more than 300BB.
If you lose 100BB and then pay the rent and then have some sort of unexpected expense like an auto-repair or something then all of a sudden you're down to 45BB or so and you're totally screwed.


One possible way to do it which is kinda similar to how i look at it:
If your monthly nut is $2k, then you need $6k in your bank-account that is completely NON-POKER.
Whatever you have left-over above and beyond that is your poker bankroll and it would be wise to keep 300-500BB around for whatever level you are playing ($1800-$3000 for 3/6 multi-tablers for example).
So for a 3/6 multi-tabler who has no other source of income I am actually recommending something along the lines of $7k-$9k (depending on your monthly nut).

It is probably excessive, but it's pretty freaking nice to not have to sweat about every 50-100BB downswing you will have....because you KNOW that you are more than covered to give you enough time for the swings to turn around. There's no hurry.
$4k may seem like a lot for 3/6.....but if you play long enough you WILL have a 200BB down-swing. And if you drop $1200 when you only had $4k to start with then you certainly are going to feel it. Add in a stack of bills that are all due and all of a sudeen that $1200 down-swing pretty much wiped-out your $4k 'roll'.


if you somehow are minus 400BB over the course of a 3 month stretch (where you are spending your 3 mths worth of monthly-nut savings) then you certainly shouldn't have been trying to do this to begin with. There's "variance" and then there's "maybe you just suck".


I think within the worst-case scenario realm of possibility you might be able to drop 400BB over a week or two if you were running really really bad.
So this pretty much wipes out your poker-roll and now you are dipping into your monthly-nut savings.

My plan at this point would be to drop back to 2/4 (actually, I probably would have done this before it got to that point) and play for additional hours through the week if necessary while I grind my way back. I would do this after giving myself a day or two off to unwind, refocus and un-tilt-ify.

I don't WANT to play more than 40 hours a week....but I look at it as something that I really have to do if I get absolutely clobbered.


I perhaps have gotten unnecessarily bothered by those who post here and say "i just lost 50BB to total morons and it's really upsetting me."
For whatever reason, when I sit down I am ALWAYS aware of the possibility of dropping 50BB to the most idiotic of suck-outs. I don't even think I purposefully do this....I just am aware of this naturally. But it helps to go out of your way to remind yourself of this too.
EVERY time you sit down be aware that you might drop 50BB to complete morons. That way, when it actually DOES happen, you're not that bothered or surprised. You KNEW that was a possibility the whole time.


those are some thoughts on how I view the different aspects relating to variance.

in short:
- be super-sufficiently bankrolled
- don't get over-excited about your big wins
(but you can take some of that cash and look into climbing to the next level if you feel comfortable)
- be comfortable with the possibility of dropping 100BB on any given day
- discipline discipline discipline (something I wish I had more of.....but I think I'm doing okay overall)
- have fun. a lot of people think you are living a dream-life and it seems really whiny and silly to disagree.



I'm glad you brought up these issues....it was helpful for me to take all of my scattered thoughts on this stuff and write it all out.

[Sponger15SB]

MicroBob you are the man.

Nice post.

[Blarg]

Yeah great post Bob. I think the idea of having more than one full bankroll is a very good one, and pretty essential really. Heck, if your bankroll gets wiped out, what are you going to do if you don't have another one? And rent money does not count as another one.

[Il_Mostro]

[ QUOTE ]
like kicking back and watching 10 hours of football on a Sunday afternoon

[/ QUOTE ]
Dunno about the depression thingy, but wanting to watch 10 hours of football has to be a sign that something is not right
[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Dilbert]

[ QUOTE ]
Mine has gotten to the point where Jan. 1st Poker will be my only job.

[/ QUOTE ]

This could be Bad or Good for us in the zoo.

It will be bad if TT uses his extra non-stop online poker time to smack us with more of his "humour" and his alias circus.

It could be good if he did something constructive like sharing updates on his dismal weekly poker performance, and contributing real poker advice.

I wonder which it shall be. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
I am aware of what you are saying, but in a real life cash flow situation, it doesn't do you much good to have a 1.8 BB/100 win rate if you have a long losing streak when you need money for living expenses. Not to mention if you have a sustained bad run and go broke. To be fair, MicroBob mentioned risk in his posts and how if one can help it at all one should have something to fall back on.

[/ QUOTE ]

No matter what you do for a living you should REALLY strive to have one year salary in your bank account. I bet your home insurance doesn't cover it when the toilet seat from MIR crashes into your roof and it looks like the US precision bombed your living room. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

I think most small business owners suffer larger risks than most of the rounders here do, mostly because their risks are so hard to quantify. Risks in poker on the other hand is really easy to quantify.

All that said, the world is still full of morons who disregard risks.

[Pokeraddict]

I lost my motivation in my day job 1 1/2 years ago after I got hurt in a car accident on the job that wasnt my fault. Good thing for poker, I got screwed by the company I gave 10 years to and since I got stable enough playing poker I even bought <their companyname>sucks.com to tell the world what a piece of crap they are.

What a great combo, online pro poker player and getting to tell the former employer to F off 24/7 on the net.

[Header]

Great Post Bob i have just completed a 220 BB down turn luckily ihad the bank roll to cover it, but it hurt me greatly in an emotional way suck out after suck out. I broke my laser mouse in temper. I have just turned the corner I multi table 3-6 occasionally 5-10 Full games.