Planet Mark's Blog. Thoughts, News And Strategy For Poker Tournaments Of All Size

View From The Tables #1 – My Plan For 2011, By Paul G

Marks Intro: Happy to introduce our first ‘View from the tables’ article today, from Paul G from the UK. This concerns a big plan for 2011, and was written partly in to motivate himself and partly to motivate others! My job is sh1t, I work in an insurance office, in the finance department and stare at spreadsheets and databases full of meaningless numbers all day.

I’m usually thinking about poker and using it as an escape route from work. I’m hoping to turn pro by half way through 2011 and leave this job behind. I have played Sit N Goes for a couple of years already and knew about ICM and push & fold. The  Sit N Go Blueprint course was still a great refresher and definitely increased my motivation to work on my game and multitabling skills. I play 3 nights a week solid and as much as possible at weekends, I am currently playing the Pokerstars $6.50c Turbo 9-mans, usually 6 at a time and will be moving up to 8 tables in the new year. One thing that has really frustrated me is the amount of stupid calls on the bubble at the $6 level. Idiots calling off their stack with king-ten or ace-four when they need to have a top 10 hand even to break even. I have learned to adjust my shoving ranges a bit, but really want to start taking shots at the $15+$1 turbos and then the $25+$2 turbos, if I can maintain a 10% ROI at the $25+$2 level then this will be enough to tell my boss to stick those spreadsheets.  

I have just over $500 online at the moment, and also about 21k in player points as a backup too. At the moment I play 4 hours 3 days a week, plus most of Sunday and sometimes a few hours Saturday, say 25 hours per week dedicated to Sit N Goes. I average about 9 per hour, which is 225 games a week. My ROI over the last 1000 games is 9.4% which works out as 61 cents per game which is around $550 per month. This is not including FPPs.  What I like to do is work out the same score for 40 hours per week, in the UK gambling winnings are not taxed, so this would be my total income. At this rate and going up to 8 tables would give me 12 per hour at 40 hours which is 480 games a week or 1920 games a month. With 61 cents a game profit this is $1171 per month – not enough to live, well, not in North London at least. My aim is to build up a bankroll to 100 buy-ins at the $15+$1 level and go from there, since I can not just quit my job I need to do this in the 25 hours available, if I can maintain a 10% ROI at these games and play 2000 each month that would be $3500 in profit. This is enough to live, though not enough to bring any peace of mind, I would like to build up a bigger cushion first and have a healthier monthly income so that if a downswing comes and destroys half of my income in a month then I will still have enough to pay the rent and eat.  Before I quit my job I want to get to $5k a month potential when multiplying the buy in, ROI and games played. I recon that the $25+$2 9-man turbos should do the job, even if I just manage to get a 8% ROI and maintain the 2000 games a month this is $2.16c or $4320 a month, a few more hours here and there, or a few more games, 10 tabling for example, and I would be there.  I plan to have 2 solid months on my evenings and weekend system at the $25+$2 turbos before quitting – and will be working really hard on my game in 2011 to make sure this happens. After I have enjoyed the freedom of poker for a while I will make the next plan, maybe move over to cash or take some shots at the bigger tournaments.  Hope this helps to motivate other players who are stuck in crap jobs, I enjoyed writing out my goals! 

Marks Note: Sounds like a solid plan Paul with some solid contingencies built in – thanks for the article and best of luck with moving up the levels. I’ll be happy to publish any updates on your progress.  If anyone else would like to contribute a ‘view from the tables’ (can be strategy, personal or just a run-down of your favorite games) then let me know – I’ll pay you for any that I print. 

GL at the tables, Mark

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