An appropriate/manageable day playing plan ? Please, help needed !

Hey!

Actually, the answer is more simple than the question. You can't, you simply can't view your games like that, not if you plan on playing poker seriously, with a professional mindset. In poker, the thing that you need to set as goal is volume. Whether you say "I'll play an X amount of SnGs today" or "I'll play an X amount of hours today" doesn't really matter but this is what you should be doing. And you definitely shouldn't be looking at your results _at_all_ during your session.

IF you are truly resistant to tilt, then you don't need a stop-loss or stop-win limit. These exist because people tend to play worse when they win or lose a lot. Also, "bad days" and "good days" don't exist. If you tend to loose more when you start running bad then you are prone to tilt. Please note that tilt is not "being angry about something". Tilt is any state of mind which prevents you from playing your A-game. Example: You have been losing all day so you'll skip this resteal because you are not 100% sure. Yet, when checking the hand afterwards you see that the resteal (it can be shove as well) would've been easily profitable against that player, and thinking about it now, you can clearly see that you should've made the move. That means you were tilting.
If this happens, then you need a stop-loss and/or a stop-win limit.

But, regardless of that, you should be setting volume goals for yourself. In number of SnGs played, or in number of hours spent playing. Number of hours is a bit better because if you feel that it'd still be better to stop then you can finish up the remainder of the session with some handreview/posting some hands on the forums.

Hope I helped!

akrammon

Hello, akrammon !

Thanks for your answer! It did help me a bit, but not exactly what I was seeking here for ...

First of, I should completely agree with you on the "volume". That is something I was actually wondering myself about, but then again, so far it is just a "thought" here as we have a sentence with just X's in them. What I need an advice on, or like a "starting point", as to WHAT these X's represent in actual numbers [and please just don't say something like "as much as you can" and etc. - really not that kind of stuff which helps a beginner ... ]

And secondly, I completely disagree with you on non-existence of "good and bad days", but I guess it's just a difference of opinion, nothing much to discuss about it then, if you really believe that they don't exist? I also hope to get an answer here from someone who do not deny them, and has a valuable advice on how to spot them on time and save some chips

Or do you say that also the whole luck factor in poker is non-existent too? Because what I am talking about here, is not these days when you loose 7-8 flips out of 10, get sucked out on few times more than you can do it yourself, it really happens, and as a matter of fact it should happen, and oh well, no big deal, BUT these days where it is clearly visible that the lack of luck is definitely involved, when you are loosing flip after flip, almost and if not ALL of them, loosing being 60-70% ahead, not completing ANY draws, and even if you have premium holdings, you some how end up being with the second best hand. I know that 30% of time you have to loose them, I know and I even admit that yeah I guess this was THAT time that I had to lose these 5% or whatever, and I move on, BUT do you really not know what am I talking about here when all these losing percentages that are supposed to happen at certain times just comes ALL at the same time, summing up to almost 90% losing rate despite your A+++ game? And do you really say that in spite of everything that you see is going around you, you should still continue playing your A game, and just ignore this luck factor, while you COULD easily admit that today thing's just doesn't go how they are usually supposed to, and just quit playing for this day and save some chips? And continue my A-game tomorrow, when I could actually win at least some flips. Wouldn't it be a wise thing to do? So my question being here, is actually for an advanced players I guess, who over time might have developed some kind of a feeler on how to spot these days on time, and "quit while you're ahead", or one that may refer to stop-loss limit, which I believe could really be useful not just when someone's capable of tilting, but because the existence of the luck factor, that could clearly one days have a severely bigger impact on your results than others. And I mean, in very simple words put that I have already said, if you really clearly see that today you are loosing in many MANY more spots than you're mathematically supposed to, why to be so stubborn in denying it and continue playing even though your "A" but unfortunately today "A-losing-game", why not to call it a day, and start over the next? And obviously I am not talking about a solution here neither as to "after 5 hours play when you are down much much more than you're supposed to even having played your A-game, you can clearly say that yeah this was not my day indeed, I should have stopped earlier" nor "after losing few flips, getting sucked out on hard few times in a row, or your aces being cracked by garbage twice I think I should stop for today", nothing like that, but something in between, which has already been tested, and works for someone, and is reasonable.

God, this is becoming a long post again, and I'm not sure if I'm being very understandable here and not starting to repeat myself .... I hope at least there is ONE person besides me who has any clue what I am talking about here, and can give some kind of an advice to me here, or maybe we could generate something here together ...

Cards don't have memory.

Even if you lose/win 10 (or for that matter 100 or 1000) flips in a row, that doesn't mean the chances in the next flipping situation will be any different than 50/50.
And if situation requires for you to take a flip, or 60/40 you must not look at previous x number of results in simmilar situations. Every one is a story for itself and is not dependant on previous results.

So...there are no "good"/"bad" days, every hand is an individual event and odds do not change just because we lost/won more/less than we should that day.

Totally agree with Akkramon.

What I do is set an X amount of tables for the day. Lets say 100 and then I have a +- 20 tables. So when I sit down for my session I know I will be playing bettween 80 and 120 tables.

Also I have a set goal for the end of the month. I found out it helps me and motivate me to play.

Hope it helps,

Nicolas

Originally posted by akrammon
Hey!

Actually, the answer is more simple than the question. You can't, you simply can't view your games like that, not if you plan on playing poker seriously, with a professional mindset. In poker, the thing that you need to set as goal is volume. Whether you say "I'll play an X amount of SnGs today" or "I'll play an X amount of hours today" doesn't really matter but this is what you should be doing. And you definitely shouldn't be looking at your results _at_all_ during your session.

IF you are truly resistant to tilt, then you don't need a stop-loss or stop-win limit. These exist because people tend to play worse when they win or lose a lot. Also, "bad days" and "good days" don't exist. If you tend to loose more when you start running bad then you are prone to tilt. Please note that tilt is not "being angry about something". Tilt is any state of mind which prevents you from playing your A-game. Example: You have been losing all day so you'll skip this resteal because you are not 100% sure. Yet, when checking the hand afterwards you see that the resteal (it can be shove as well) would've been easily profitable against that player, and thinking about it now, you can clearly see that you should've made the move. That means you were tilting.
If this happens, then you need a stop-loss and/or a stop-win limit.

But, regardless of that, you should be setting volume goals for yourself. In number of SnGs played, or in number of hours spent playing. Number of hours is a bit better because if you feel that it'd still be better to stop then you can finish up the remainder of the session with some handreview/posting some hands on the forums.

Hope I helped!

akrammon

This.

From what I read (and I have to admit I didn't read the whole post), you are really results oriented. You should get past that point. You say that you are always free of tilt, so you should try and use that to your advantage and play your A game as much as you can. I would suggest to play untill you feel like you are getting tired, regardless if you are on a downswing or an upswing. Just put in a LOT of volume. I also do not agree that there are "good and bad days". However, if you wanna look at it that way, wouldn't it be logical to continue playing on your "good day" rather than stop after a good run in 4 SNGs? I don't think Akrammon was saying that there is no luck involved in poker, just that you could be running bad all day and then get lucky at the end of your session. It's not like you're gonna be losing for 24h if you get sucked out on in the first few tournaments. Conlcusion: play untill you feel like you are playing your A game and ignoring the result, stop the moment you get tired/tilted/whatever.

Hope it helps.

Hey

Lot of nice discussion going on, that's good

@wIcKeD
I think you should start with trying to play 2 hours a day. If you can do it for a month (not every day, but on average) and you feel it was easy, then raise it up to 2.5, etc. I have very little time now so I'm playing 2 hours a day.

good/bad days: of course there are bad days. When you sit down a little bit more tired to play, that's a bad day because you will be playing A- or worse.
But if you sit down relaxed and focused every time, then no: there are no bad days. There are winning days and loosing days, yes, but that is not pre-determined. You can't tell at the beginning of a session whether you will win or not.
Also, don't forget that in poker you want to play a +EV-game. All you have to do is play it as +EV as you can do, and then grind enough (thousands of games) so your EV will be at the same point as your money.

Think about it this way: toss a coin. It's heads. Would you bet with worse than 1:1 odds on tails for the next toss?

As for the luck: I already said it 2 paragraphs above. There is luck on the short run, there is no luck on the long run. Also, luck is not pre-determined. RNGs don't have days against you and days for you

When you have insanely big loosing days, when you feel you actually had a "bad day" with your terms, you can try tossing up coins once again. Toss it up 10 times, then repeat, then repeat, then repeat again. Eventually there will be a group of 10 tosses when there are 10 heads. It just works like that. Even the lowest probabilities happen from time to time, and in SnGs we are usually just slightly ahead (talking about range vs range) and not crushing any of our opponents. At least not in push/fold.

If you are in a downswing, it won't stop simply because you call it a day and continue the next day. The only way to be through it is to grind through it. That said, breaks can help you settle lost and win $s psychologically.

As I've said: put in a big volume with your A-game. If you start fearing that you will loose the next hand because you have lost so many that day - this is definitely a form of tilt, and you should call it a day. Also make sure that you are not on "scared money" - you can always use more comfortable and conservative BR if that's better for you psychologically (I'm a BR nit for example). I don't want to feel the weight of $ won or lost in each session.

Also, TiciBoy said big truths in his post

Regards,
akrammon

There were some threads on this on 2+2.
One professional SNG player found a system he was comfortable with, and was explaining how bad the 'grinder' mentality was, that advocates "grind grind grind" until loss of motivation.
Instead he gave himself a full day in a week without playing at all, starting the week with low volume, having a schedule etc...

Originally posted by deVall3y
There were some threads on this on 2+2.
One professional SNG player found a system he was comfortable with, and was explaining how bad the 'grinder' mentality was, that advocates "grind grind grind" until loss of motivation.
Instead he gave himself a full day in a week without playing at all, starting the week with low volume, having a schedule etc...

Now this sounds much more useful Thanks for sharing it here ! But do you have any ideas [or even better links ?? :rolleyes:] on how to find this? Cause I'm really not familiar at all with the 2+2 ...

Wicked: There are a number of different ways you can go about a schedule, depending on how serious you are. What Akrammon said about the cards and about sessions and tilt and all that is 100% spot on, exactly what I would have said only better, so I'll leave that.

The best way, in my opinion, to decide how much to play is to set goals, then reverse-engineer them to figure out how much you need to play to get there. For example:

My BR is 100 dollars. I would like to move up from the $1.50 SNG's to the $3.50 SNG's, using a 65 BI BRM, in 3 months.

Therefore, my bankroll needs to be at 3.50 x 65, or 227.50, in 3 months. That means I need to increase my bankroll by $42.50 every month.

Now you need an ROI. You can't know your ROI without playing a LOT of games, like, thousands. So pick a solid winning ROI for your limit, and go with that. Let's say 8%.

If your ROI is 8% on $1.50 SNG's, you earn 12 cents per SNG. At that rate, earning $42.50 is going to take you 354 SNG's. If we round it up to 360 SNG's, that's 12 SNG's per day. If you play 4 tables, that's 3 sets daily. When I play the turbos, I find a set takes me around 40 minutes. 3 x 40 minutes is 2 hours.

Thus, in order to achieve my goal, I must play 2 hours per day.

Now, a very important thing to note here: Thanks to variance, you may not reach your goal. That's not important. What's important is getting the volume necessary to achieve your goal given average luck: If luck screws you over, that's out of your control. Just keep playing for a fourth month, you'll get there.

So figure out where you want to go, and figure out how much you need to play to get there. If it turns out you need to play 30 hours a week to get to your goal, consider learning to play more tables or just picking a less ambitious goal!

Good luck!

Originally posted by Salivanth

If your ROI is 8% on $1.50 SNG's, you earn 12 cents per SNG. At that rate, earning $42.50 is going to take you 354 SNG's. If we round it up to 360 SNG's, that's 12 SNG's per day. If you play 4 tables, that's 3 sets daily. When I play the turbos, I find a set takes me around 40 minutes. 3 x 40 minutes is 2 hours.

Thus, in order to achieve my goal, I must play 2 hours per day.

Now this is some good stuff, thanks! Even though it's quite simple and logical calculations, but as a matter of fact I haven't thought of them myself so, definitely going to use them now, thank you