Monday, 5 January 2009

Protecting Wins

Now that I am playing semi-professionally there are a couple of things that I will to need to do more often:

Play Poker!
Make withdrawals from my Bankroll

Number 1 seems pretty obvious but I have not played as much poker as I would have liked to in the last few months due to non poker life.

When I do get time to play I do focus on short term variance a little and this sometimes stops me playing.

I completely buy in to the theoretical ‘long run’ and know that it makes no difference whether I am up or down for the day (or month) yet I still find that when my first session of the day turns a profit I am less inclined to play again. I feel I want to protect my winning day.

The exact opposite happens when I lose my first session and now I want to grind and grind and grind until I am unstuck for the day.

This is ok (but not ideal) when poker is a hobby but my semi pro budget relies on me playing a certain number of hours per week in order to hit some supernova milestone bonuses and it was obvious to me that I needed to find a way of putting the hours in.

What I have decided to do brings me nicely on to point number 2 of making regular withdrawals.

From now on I will be paying myself an hourly wage of $25 when at the tables. This a fair bit below my actual and projected hourly rates but still a decent amount to ‘earn’ and 20 hours poker per week on top of my part time office job will be more than enough for all the family to live on.

At the end of the week I will withdraw my poker salary (eg 20 hours * $25 = $500) and any additional winnings will help my bankroll continue to grow.

Now regardless of whether I am up or down for the day I will still have made money :)

1 comment:

Marc said...

I've read from several people, pro and hobbyist alike, who withdraw a certain amount at the end of the month, minimum. I like your idea a little better. It's the same concept of reducing the focus on short-term variance, but adds a little more incentive to log the hours. Nice one.