Part 3

Advice if you are of Average Ability

This is where most of us should fall. This is not to say that there are not large variations in ability even among average players. But, by definition, most poker players are of average ability. Remember the guidelines listed below are for the middle of the road average player. If you feel that you are closer to below average, adjust the numbers down a little. If you feel you are closer to above average, adjust them up a little. Just remember to read the advice section for players in the other skill ranges also, so that you do not adjust your numbers too much. We are, after all, talking about fractions of a percent here.

For the math challenged, there is a handy table at the bottom of the article changing percentage values into an easy division problem. Just remember this simple fact though – the numbers you are dividing your bankroll by are also the total number of sessions you can lose before burning through your entire bankroll. So, if you are playing at 2% of your bankroll and dividing your roll by 50 to get your money per session, you can only lose 50 sessions in a row before you are broke.

Another important point is that sngs and cash games typically have a lower variance than mtts. In layman’s terms, variance is the swings up or down that, from a math standpoint, are a normal part of random chance. For instance, one decent mtt win will throw your entire bottom line way over towards the positive. This means that if you play only mtts you need to give yourself more chances to win one than you do at sngs or cash. For players who play only mtts I suggest halving the suggested percentages. My golden rule here is that even an expert should only play mtts for 1% of his bankroll.

Use the guide in the section on Donk guidelines to help you convert your money per session into the appropriate cash game level.

1. A losing average player who plays to make money – Any time a player is not achieving his goal there is a problem to be addressed. Before we even talk about percentage values we need to find a way for you to become a winning player. The first step is one you have already taken as an RPT member, get help :o) Any losing player who wants to be a winning player needs to work on their game.

Spend up to 25% of your time and money on improving your game. Continue to play also, as experience is invaluable as a learning tool, but make sure you do everything you can to get your results in line with your goals.

As for your game level, you should try to play as cheaply as possible until you start booking more than a few winning sessions. If you can play less than 1% of your bankroll, so much the better, but do not play more than 1%. Once you start improving your bottom line you can adjust your percentage up, but only by a quarter of a percent at a time. So your first move is to 1.25%.

2. A losing average player who plays for fun – In many ways your case is similar to the one above. If you can have just as much fun playing cheaply, then please do that and stay at 1% of your bankroll maximum. If you really want to move up to higher limits to “make the game more exciting”, I still suggest not exceeding 1.5% at the highest.

The safest way for you to make the transition to higher limits is through improving your game. By now it should be clear that I feel investing in proper training is the best move for anyone playing poker. Even experts can benefit from good instruction. Once your game has improved enough to book more winning sessions, your level will naturally rise with your bankroll.

3. A break-even average player who plays to make money – It’s 7:00 am as I write this so my usual beer and cheesesteak have been replaced by a Burger King meatnormous omelet sandwich and a coffee, and I am struck by two things. One, my diet really needs work. And two, it’s funny how the largest class of players is also the hardest to give guidelines for.

As a general rule of thumb, truly average players should not exceed 2% of their bankroll per session. The real interesting thing is just how much those quarter percents between 1% and 2% change a player’s outlook. From the table below this article you can see that a player who plays sessions at 1% can lose 100 sessions before going bust. Bring that up to just 1.25% and the same player can now lose only 80 sessions. At 1.5%, 66 sessions can break you and at 2% that number goes all the way down to 50 sessions!

If you are following along with me you may be thinking that since 100 is much better than 50 you should just stick to 1%. The problem is that your goal is to make money and the higher levels you play, the more money you can make. So there are two fairly incompatible forces here that need to be weighed and balanced. If you are still with me here you now understand the reason why money management is not an exact science and the true meaning of “risk vs. reward”.

I strongly believe that poker is a game of skill and that, in the long run, the more skillful player will win the money. So my thought is that you should reward greater skill by taking more risk. But in general I am still very conservative. A good friend of mine and well know professional player believes that my numbers are almost twice as high as they should be. But even he agrees that better players should play higher limits.

My answer then is still conservative. Keep working on your game and adjust your percentages up as you get better. Start with no more than 1.5% and until you get to be an expert do not go over 2%.

4. A break-even average player who plays for fun – I hope you already read case #3 above because I am not going through all that again ;o)

The big difference here is your motivation. If you are playing strictly for fun then you do not have that pressure on you to move up so you make more money. The best advice I can give players who play for fun is this – play as cheaply as you can while still enjoying the game. Anywhere from 1% to 1.5% is probably optimal. As a teacher I also suggest you work to improve your game, but always keep your goal in mind and make it fun.

5. A winning average player who plays to make money – Please read case #3 above to get a better understanding of risk vs. reward.

Now that you have won some money and grown your bankroll a few interesting things happen. First of all, your increased bankroll automatically increases your play level. This is because I base my session amounts on a percentage of your bankroll. 2% of 10k is twice as much as 2% of 5k. I designed my system purposely to do this as I feel it rewards winning without increasing your risk.

Second, you can put aside some money for training and still grow your bankroll. Usually when you pay for things out of your bankroll, there is a trade off. Money spent is money not available for poker. Once you win enough though, you can set aside a portion and still have more than what you started with.

Third, both of the first two things lead directly towards growth in your confidence and ability. So the old saying that success breeds success is very true. So, you get to keep your play at 2%, use a portion of your winnings for training, and still move up in play level. Congratulations!

6. A winning average player who plays for fun – You should also start out by reading case #3 above.

The difference in your case is that, while you still enjoy all the benefits of case #5, you can make some other choices about your windfall. My suggestion is to take an amount equal to your original bankroll and either bank it or use it to buy yourself something. Then, if you are interested in improving your game, take at least the same amount and set it aside for training. You should now still have a lot more money to use for playing than you started with.

Since you are playing for fun, you can also start to explore the various other poker games. Many players find a game of 7 card stud to be very calm and relaxing after the crazy action of no limit holdem. Those who are cardsmiths at heart sometimes prefer omaha, as you need to play your cards much more so than in holdem. Whatever you decide is fine as long as you continue to have fun ;o)

How to figure out a percentage of your bankroll

1% - divide your total bankroll by 100
1.25% - divide your total bankroll by 80
1.5% - divide your total bankroll by 66
1.75% - divide your total bankroll by 57
2% - divide your total bankroll by 50
2.25% - divide your total bankroll by 45
2.5% - divide your total bankroll by 40
2.75% - divide your total bankroll by 36
3% - divide your total bankroll by 33

Part 2

Advice if you are a Donk (below average ability)

First of all congratulations are in order. Anyone who has the courage to admit, even to themselves, that so far they seem to be a donk, is already on the road to becoming a winner. After all, the hardest person to teach is the one who thinks they already know everything. If, using the questions from the intro to money management article, you fit into one of the categories below, here are some general guidelines.

1. A Losing donk who plays to make money – Obviously this is a worst case scenario. You are a losing player with below average ability yet you desire to earn money playing the game. As with all players of below average ability, this case calls for the less than 1% rule.

First set aside at least 25% of your bankroll for training. As an RPT member you have taken a big step in the right direction. Continue your poker education by spending at least as much time watching the videos here and reading about the game as you do playing. Time management is intimately connected to money management. Hence the old saying – time is money.
When you do play, if it is at all possible, always play with less than 1% of your bankroll only. As an example, if you have an $8000 bankroll, first set aside $2000 for training. That leaves you with $6000 for playing. $6000 divided by 100 = $60, so do not put more than $60 into a session. Your best case scenario is to play as cheaply as you can, even going down to $10 or $5 sessions until you feel the training has begun to take your game at least up towards average. Once you have booked more than a few winning sessions and an objective analysis tells you that you are playing average poker, you can move up to the guidelines presented in that article. Use the table at the bottom of this article to convert your money available per session as figured above to the appropriate cash game. If you are a sng or tourney player just make sure your buy-in plus fee is less than your money available per session.

1. A losing donk who plays for fun – I actually know more than a few folks who fit into this category. As long as you are achieving you goal, meaning you are having fun playing, and you have enough EXTRA money to enjoy yourself, no harm no foul. People spend their entertainment money on all sorts of things I think are incredibly bizarre and even dangerous. Poker is relatively harmless and can be a lot of fun. If you are truly happy, then knock yourself out. But from a strict money management standpoint, you should still follow the less than 1% rule, as set out above, if you can.

The fact that you are an RPT member leads me to believe that you also are interested in improving your game. If that is the case then you should also follow the above guidelines for time and money management and put some of your money and time into training. I find the videos here entertaining as well as informative, so hopefully this will keep you enjoying yourself as you learn.

1. A break-even donk who plays to make money – As you remember from the first article “An Introduction to Money Management”, this means that over a period of at least 100 sessions or more you are ahead or behind only about ten times your average buy-in. If all the information you have used to place yourself into this category is absolutely true, meaning you are indeed a donk and that you have done the math correctly and have at least 100 sessions of data to do the math with, then go ahead and follow the advice for case #1 above.

However, allow me to get you to question your category. First of all, just how many sessions have you collected correct bottom line information from? If you have barely 100 sessions or less then it is true that short term luck may be the only factor in your results. If you have more like 500 or even 1000 sessions logged, then there may be another reason.
Remember the human capacity for delusion? Well, for some of us that works towards the negative as well as the positive. Just because you are not Doyle Brunson or even Todd Arnold does not make you a donk. After 26 years into the game and coming up on 21 years of documented wins I still feel like I have a lot to learn about poker. I read constantly, watch the videos here, and review and criticize my game daily. All I’m saying is that it is possible that you are a better player than you give yourself credit for – perhaps even average ability?

1. A break-even donk who plays to have fun – Let me start by saying that I firmly believe that the less than 1% rule should apply to any player who truly is playing at a below average skill level. But as above in case #3, there are some things to consider.

First of all, and most importantly, are you achieving your goal? Are you truly having fun playing? If your answer is anything but an emphatic yes, then, as above, you should consider expanding your efforts to improve your game. If you are motivated to do so, read the guidelines listed above in case #1 and #3.

1. A winning donk who plays to make money – Start by reading case #3 above. Even more so than in that scenario, you should be questioning your category. Are you really just a lucky donk or do you have some skills? Do you really have enough winning sessions logged to class yourself as a winner, or is all your winnings due to one big lucky win? Please try to make sure you are being honest with yourself here.

Whatever the truth may be, you still have some extra money to manage now. Before you do anything else, set aside some of that money for training. Whatever your actual level of skill is now, you can always improve. The single best investment you can make in your long term poker finances is training. If you have won enough money, I’d even suggest hiring a private coach to both assess your current ability and work to improve your play. After setting aside some money for training, follow the guidelines from case #1 until your level of play improves to at least average.

1. A winning donk who plays for fun – Even though I rarely bet on anything outside of a poker table I’d be willing to bet you are achieving you goal. It is always fun to win and if your results show a nice overall win so far, well whoopee!

Still, I would read all the cases listed above and make some decisions. Do you want to improve your game? Are you happy with your donkeyness? Do you think you could have even more fun as a better player?
If you decide to improve, you are in a great spot to do so. You have the extra money to hire a good coach and also continue to watch the videos here and even buy a few good poker books if you like to read. Just stay within the guidelines and don’t squander your good fortune.

Minimum Money Available to Cash Game Conversion Guide

$20 = .50/1.00 limit game = .10/.25 blind nlhe or plo
$40 = $1/$2 limit game = .25/.50 blind nlhe or plo
$100 = $2/$4 limit game = .50/$1 blind nlhe or plo
$200 = $3/$6 limit game = $1/$2 blind nlhe or plo
$400 = $5/$10 limit game = $2/$4 blind nlhe or plo

Introduction to Money Management

Part 1

It never fails. Inevitably, the first day of my lifeskills class on Money Management at Brookdale Community College somebody will ask me - What is Money Management? Instead of asking them why they signed up for a course about something unknown to them, I usually answer the question this way. In the broadest possible sense, money management is setting income against outflow and creating a budget. In some way we all deal with money. Some comes in (income) and some gets spent (outflow) and how we deal with it is money management.

So why is dealing with something as seemingly simple as this, hard enough many people who think they need it don’t even know what it is, and most people just cannot do it? The key word in that question is people. In a factory, if Robot A costs you $500 a day to operate and makes enough poker chips each day for you to sell for $450, then Robot A is losing you $50 a day and once you realize this, Robot A is history. In life, if your friend, Smilin Bob borrows $50 a day from you and never pays you back, well that’s a whole different story. First you tell yourself that one day he will pay you back. Next you remember that he is the guy who turned you on to Enzyte and natural male enhancement. For one reason or another people are very good at ignoring the truth when it suits them.

As an example, how many of us feel that we are good drivers? I raised my hand, did you? Well, if we are all good drivers then please explain to me just who are the idiots we all yell at in those other cars when they cut us off going 90 in a 45 zone while doing their makeup in the mirror and talking on their cell phones?
The truth is that we all delude ourselves. The golfer who puts down a 4 on his scorecard because the one that went into the water “didn’t count”. The dieter who eats the off limits brownie because she “was good all day”. The poker player who spends $500 on rebuys in a $50 tourney, squeaks into the money to win $200 and tells his friends only that he won $200. Try, for one minute to think of a time when you stretched the truth because it made you feel good. Way too easy, wasn’t it?

Now don’t get all mad at me. I’m not trying to tell you that making yourself feel good is a bad thing. Heck, I’m sitting here eating a cheesesteak and drinking a beer while I’m writing this, even though the doctor tells me I need to lose weight. What I am trying to tell you is this. If you want to be a long term winner as a poker player, you have to start by at least being honest with yourself. Lie to your friends, lie to your wife, lie to the dog if it makes you feel better, but be honest with yourself.

Let’s start with some honest record keeping – not the kind where a $500 buy-in and a $200 cash = a $200 win. For the purpose of keeping honest records, only the bottom line matters. Just take the amount you took out of a poker session and subtract the amount you put into that same poker session to get your bottom line for that session. So a $200 cash minus a $500 buy-in = a $300 loss for that session. Now do this separately for every poker session you play from now on and keep all your bottom lines either on paper or in a spreadsheet. Either weekly or monthly take a minute to get a running total.

One thing you should keep in mind as you do this is that this is not an indictment of your poker playing ability, this is only keeping track of your money. Just as 1, 50, or even 100 winning sessions does not make you a long term winner, the same number of losing sessions does not make you a long term loser. In math, the “long term” is a much bigger number than you can imagine. Poker skills are about making the correct decisions based on all your available information every time you act. Money management is about keeping track of your money.

We are now up to defining money management specifically for a poker player. To put this in layman’s terms, the ups and downs that are a part of poker for everyone, NO MATTER HOW GOOD THEY ARE, force us to follow certain guidelines so we don’t go broke easily. Even if you follow these guidelines to the letter it is still possible to go broke, but you will have much less chance of it. So money management for a poker player is being able to follow a set of guidelines when deciding how much money you can invest in poker with the least possible chance of going bust.

These guidelines differ depending on a few factors. Things like your level of poker expertise, your bankroll level, your disposable income, and even the reason why you play poker all affect what levels you should be playing. So quickly, while you are still being honest with yourself, take a moment to answer a few questions.

1) If you have been keeping honest financial records for over a year, is your yearly bottom line positive or negative? Then take this a step further and do a little math. Add up all your buy-ins and then divide the total by how many sessions you’ve played. For example, if my total buy-ins over 100 sessions is $25,000, then I divide $25,000 by 100 sessions to get an average buy-in of $250.
If your yearly bottom line is less than ten times your average buy-in, either positive or negative, then for our purposes you are a break-even player. In our example with an average buy-in of $250 this means you ended your year anywhere from $2500 down to $2500 ahead.
If your yearly bottom line is closer to fifty times your average buy in than it is to ten times, then you are a winning or losing player. In our example with an average buy-in of $250, this means you ended your year closer to $12,500 up or down than you were to $2500 up or down.
If your yearly bottom line exceeds fifty times your average buy in by a lot, I sincerely hope that it is positive or you are wealthy. But for now, go ahead and place yourself as a winning or losing player.

2) Now, try to objectively judge your ability. Remember doing this will not brand the word “Donk” on your forehead. Nobody will ever know what is in your mind, so please try to be honest. Then, after you have labeled yourself as either Expert, Average, or Donk, get a few second opinions. Ask a few of your fellow players what they think of your ability. Try not to ask after you just sucked out with a 26 off against rockets, but do try to form a fairly objective opinion of your current ability.

3) Go over your finances carefully. Do you have money in savings or are you in debt? Are all your credit cards maxed out or all paid in full? After you pay all your monthly bills, do you have money left over or are you constantly wondering how you are going to make ends meet? Do you have a steady income from sources outside of poker or are you otherwise unemployed?
The truth is, most of us fall somewhere between these extremes. If, after going over your finances, you find that you can comfortably say you have some money left over for the year, call that your bankroll. If you have been honest in going over your finances, your bankroll will be the amount of money you can play with for the year.
Note – If you are a professional who plays for a living with no other source of income then that is a special case and, unless you are starting off in debt, you should skip this step.

4) Now complete this line “I play poker because …” If your answer is “to make money”, then your total bottom line had better come out positive. If your answer is “to have some fun” then you should make sure that you are having fun playing. After all, setting goals and then achieving them is one of the things that makes life rewarding. If you are not achieving your goal, then start working on it. Read some of the excellent poker literature, join an online training site, or find a mentor or private teacher to help you work on your game.
You should now have a basic profile of yourself complete. It might say be something like, average break-even player who plays for fun with a $5,000 bankroll, or losing donk who is desperately trying to win enough money to get himself out of debt (hands off – that profile’s mine!). The next step is to read all the specific suggestions in the upcoming articles, but pay the most attention to those for your profile.

In poker your outs are the unseen cards that will complete or improve your hand to make it the winning hand. Each additional card or “Out” will improve your percentage of surviving the hand and coming out a winner. If the flop is QJ2 and you have 10 9, you want a king or an eight to complete your straight. There are 4 kings and 4 eights in the deck, so you have 8 total outs.So you have to count the cards that you can catch to give you the best hand and then refer to the chart below to calculate your odds on catching it. The Odds chart below shows the percentage and odds of making your hand based on your number of outs.You will be able to tell if the pot is laying you correct odds by using the number of chips in the pot divided by how many you have to call. If you have 10.9 to 1 odds against catching your hand and the pot is only laying you 3 to 1 odds then you should definitely fold. Try to make sure that the pot is giving you the odds it should for you to try to catch the card(s) you need.

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At 1st sight there it was.
Notice how we hide to blush
Tried sumhow to deny whats true
Only why i saw with u.
Nyt and days, sun and rain.
I’ll live a life of a promise made.
Only with you my love ’till end.

FIREFLIES

Glittering … Sparkling….

I’m under a spell

It shines, it shimmers

Captivating flare

Glittering … Sparkling…I saw love shiningHappiness is thereFlashing… Alluring… Glittering … Sparkling….

Calling me like magicI’m running…

I’m chasingMy love and happiness is waving I’m catching….

I’m takingWhat was I chasing?

Love and happiness I thought callingA magic that is spell binding

Captivating flare

Glittering … Sparkling….

I saw love shining

Happiness is there

Flashing… Alluring…

Glittering … Sparkling….

Calling me like magic

I’m running… I’m chasing

My love and happiness is waving

I’m catching…. I’m taking

What was I chasing?

Love and happiness I thought calling

A magic that is spell binding

It glitters, it sparkles!

The Fireflies dancesBeautiful and captivatingFireflies dancing I’m smiling…

I’m cryingI’m chasing fireflies dancingTears are fallingGlittering …

Sparkling …It glitters, it sparkles!

The Fireflies dances

Beautiful and captivating

Fireflies dancing

I’m smiling…I’m crying

I’m chasing fireflies dancing

Tears are falling

Glittering … Sparkling …

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