To Raise; To Fold....and other New Year's Resolutions

Hello everyone and welcome to the first post of the New Year. I hope you all had a very profitable time over the holidays and have started 2009 with a pack of good intentions.
With that in mind, I thought we could add to the weight of material posted at this time of year and think about Resolutions for a Poker Player.

We’ll start with a list of the Top Five New Year's Resolutions, according to building society in the UK (although they could have spared their researchers some cold calls, as the list of resolutions in any Western country invariably has the same content each year, whereas for people unfortunate to live in one of the world’s hell-holes, it rarely progresses beyond ‘Please, God, keep me breathing’).

Anyway, without further ado:

1. Take regular exercise
2. Lose weight
3. Cut down on spending
4. Save more money
5. Learn a new skill

What we’ll do now is creatively re-interpret these goals so they suit the life of an online poker player. New Year’s Resolutions are examples of what is known as a ‘rolling forecast’: plans are made for the short/medium term and there is only a rough idea for the long run. They are therefore ideal for poker players who tend to have the attention span of a pig in a truffle field.

Today I will do the first three resolutions and then complete the article on Wednesday.

Take regular exercise: I am very keen to endorse this one. Although I incorporate a regular exercise routine into the non-poker parts of my life, as I walk for an hour a day and play badminton, I also need to boost the pulse rate during a long session. So, in 2009, I pledge that after approximately every ninety minutes at the online tables, I will punish the sit up bench in an effort to keep my in-game mental equilibrium stable. The surge of energy is invaluable: multi-tabling and dodging breaks is a recipe for disaster.

Lose weight – a tricky one to creatively interpret – i.e make highly tenuous connections to the world of poker – but, if you are conscious of excess Christmas padding, making an effort to flatten it out is likely to help you cream off the profits at the poker table. Although poker is not a physical sport, a weight loss regime that produces a healthy body will also help create a healthy mind. Consider top level chess professionals: they are rarely overweight. My weight is OK at the moment but, in 2009, I will endeavour to keep the same waist line.

Cut down on spending – now this one I can manage without having to consult the tomes of tenuous connections that line my bookshelves. In poker terms, we could equate this to boosting ROI. ROI is Return on Investment and is specific to tournaments. In short hand, if your ROI is falling, you are making too many bad calls – i.e. you are spending too much money.

Any of the shrinks that offer suggestions about how to successfully achieve resolutions will tell you that you need to set small achievable goals that will engender feelings of success. So, with that in mind, consider this example of what not to do: ‘Hapless’ has a BR of 500, and plays .25-.50 NL Hold ‘em for about ten hours a week. He takes out his little crayon and writes: This year, I will end the year with a 10k bank roll.

Please, do not do anything like that. It is not going to happen. It is a prediction that makes Nostradamus look like an actuary. Not only will you not get there, but you will feel tense and will not enjoy the minor sense of achievement that keeps you on track. Instead, and if you are a tournament player, try to achieve a higher ROI.

If your ROI is currently about 5%, you could set a goal to make it consistently 6% by the end of January – it may sound small, but that has just boosted your earnings by 20%. Focussing on ROI instead of BR is also far less likely to engender massive emotional mood swings – watching one’s bank balance become a roller coaster is not a good way to keep on track. Moreover, your ego can become so inflated after a good day that you play poorly because you are cocky; similarly a bad day can so heavily dent your confidence that you don’t display the necessary aggression. However, ROI can keep you consistent as one day’s play never causes a great deal of difference.

It is hard to become too excited about ROI because it is far less tied up with social status and perceived sexual desirability. Don’t believe me? Next time you are around the cider barrel sharing a chin-wag with your cronies, instead of saying ‘Hey, I won/lost 500 last night’, simply throw in ‘Hey month on month ROI has increased by three quarters of a percent’ and watch the difference in emotional reaction. You’ll probably end up face down in alcohol and hear the words ‘How do ya like them apples?’

If you want to keep to your poker goals, you’ll need a feeling of progress and to minimise the amount of emotional disturbance you feel after a day’s play. It is has to be ROI. Also, by concentrating on something that has absolutely no cachet in your social circle, you can be confident that you want to improve for the right reasons; to be a better player and make more money. So, if you achieve your goal of 6% ROI by the end of January, you will feel quietly confident and can set another achievable goal for February. I will leave you to work that one out.
At the moment, my sit-n-go ROI is 14% and so I will try to make 15% by February.

If you stop by David’s Corner again on Wednesday, I promise more ill-conceived plans for a better future and you may even get a return on your investment.