The Freedom Of "No Bankroll" Poker

Before taking my first steps on this journey, I made a big deal about my bankroll and my bankroll management strategy. I wanted to make sure I was doing the "right" thing in the "right" way and as such drew up a bankroll chart and put strict rules in place as to which stakes to play at and on how many tables to play on according to how much I held in my PKR account.

Come February, just as everything fell apart, I concluded that sticking to these rules so rigidly was just too restrictive as it meant being far too preoccupied with keeping score rather than just playing "A" game poker. I put these observations up on the PKR forum (I know, what's wrong with 2+2 eh?) and it was a fella calling himself Dunbar who really struck the right chord when he wrote that a bankroll is actually "the money you have to play poker." This really hit home to me the fact that a "bankroll" is really spare money you have from any source that can be used and accessed to play poker and NOT "however much you currently have in your online poker account(s)."

As a semi-serious player who plays just 5-6K hands on average per month this idea really liberated me and now, as long as I have a reasonable amount of buy-ins ready to hand, I just don't consider myself as having a proper bankroll in the traditional sense anymore. To me, I now just have an unfixed amount of money which I can use to play poker with. Of course it's still important to keep track of profit and losses but THE most important thing, as ever and always, remains that I sit at the table with my "A" game firmly in place. As long as I do this I think I am doing the "right" thing.

Re-reading "Elements Of Poker"

Back in December of last year, I posted my "Top 10 Poker Books (Plus 2 More)" and wrote short reviews next to each to explain why I liked them. One book that I left out was Caro's "Most Profitable Hold 'Em Advice" which I think I could have put into the "General Strategy" section of that post. Another one I left out is called "The Elements Of Poker" by Tommy Angelo which I'm rereading now after hearing it being mentioned a few times recently in a favourable light. After finishing the first section on "Universal Elements" today, and even picking it up for the second time, I'm still undecided about this book:

 

As an old student of philosophy (and trying hard not to disappear up my own arse) the style of writing reminds me of good old Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" where little nuggets of information are sprinkled around and where the occasional bright lights really do make you stop and ponder at length on the depth of what has been said. The book is not so much about strategy but more on the mindset you need to have when sitting at the table - well, the first sections cover this quite comprehensively anyway.

What I like about it is that the writer has a strong live, bricks & mortar, background rather than having stronger links with the internet game. The section following "Universal Elements" is called "Table Poker" and focuses exclusively on live poker. Looking at the second half of the book, it appears to get a little too maths/stats heavy for my liking which is possibly why it didn't make my Top 10. Nevertheless, I'll delve into the "Table Poker" section over the next few days and see how the book pans out.

PKR Hand Histories - Gone!

Way back in January, I bought myself the full version of Holdem Manager for around £60. From the off it just didn't import my PKR hand histories properly and I never got to see an accurate graph of my progress or got to mess around with stats and stuff. Today, in an effort to get this bloody thing working I started importing hands into HEM from all sorts of sources but still no up-to-date accurate graph appeared.

At one point I downloaded and installed the updated version of HEM but think I might have left the PKR client open while doing so. It may have been as a result of this but somehow ALL of my PKR hand-history files have been wiped!! This means that neither Holdem Manager or PokerOfficer can find any files now before 12th March 2011.

With everything back to zilch, and my 5-year old laptop only having its operating system re-installed the once, AND with a lot of things just "chugging" at the moment on this computer, I think that a complete re-install of the operating system is now in order. Of course, this means that any graph I post from now, from the laptop, will not show any results prior to March 12th 2011.

Jesus.

Flippin Heck

It's always nice to win a coinflip when it's a full buy-in versus another full buy-in and as I continue to run quite well at the ol' online poker game I just feel like posting this hand cos it doesn't happen THAT often and I actually won the bleedin' flip for a change!

 

I didn't expect an all-in call to be honest cos waffle was playing super-loose and it looked like a light 3bet move on the button from smudgie.  By the way, just to make it more interesting, note the flush draw that the RNG decided to throw in on the turn.

 

Actually, this sort of thing is less of a coinflip than one might think according to poker stove:

This next one is a lot closer but still has the pocket pairs ahead:

Clear evidence, perhaps, that AK may be nice but not all it's cracked up to be?

Recovery Complete

Yes, I know we still have over nine and a half months to go but I'm happy to report that I've managed to steer things back on course after our little "detour" at the start of the year. Last night I managed a small winning session on the PC - which means I have managed to reach... break-even point for the year - HURRAH!

Below is an image of my PokerOfficer chart for the year. It only shows my laptop results (I've played around 3K hands on my PC) but gives a clear indication of the way things have generally gone for the year so far:

For psychological reasons, I guess it's better to have the trough in the middle at the bottom of the graph rather than a peak in the middle at the top. Of course, anything can happen now. I could go and plummet all the way down again, continue heading into the stratosphere or just trundle along in mediocrity. Who knows what the rest of the month will bring?