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

How To Get To Next Year’s Main Event – Make $12k, Slowly!

Woke up this morning thinking about an article I wrote a couple of years ago. It contained either 5 or 10 ways to get to next years WSOP main event… by focusing on making $1k a month for the next year. Well, I can not find it – and Google has no idea what I am looking for either. So, here we go again!Just a quick reflection on the satellites first. Each year I think to myself that I must play a bunch of satties… after all I do a lot of research into them for this (and other) sites.

Same pattern happens over and over, I play a couple of the cheaper sub-qualifiers, get bored with them and then forget about it until the Main starts. This year was no exception, the biggest I played was a $120 sub-qualifier to the qualifier (was on Full Tilt, though that is another story). Note to self – going to have to make the effort next year Mark, no more excuses! Back on topic – I wanted to make a post with some ideas for making $12k from poker between now and next year’s Main Event (entry + expenses).

Of course, that same money can be spent in many other ways too! Breaking it down that is $1k extra a month from online poker – should be achievable, even for those of us who only play evenings / weekends.

Idea #1 – Play 667 SNGs A Month! Back of an envelope calculation time! I’ll give you a ROI of 10% and an average buy-in of $15.If we play the Turbo versions then 12 games an hour should be achievable, (2 sets of 8 or continual depending on taste!). That’s 56 hours a month, or just under 14 hours a week – and we have not even included bonuses or loyalty schemes. Shameless Plug: My $16 Per Hour SNG Blueprint shows you the strategies and methods to make this happen!

Idea #2 – Become A Poker Bonus Whore Before the days of rakeback and competing loyalty schemes, going from Bonus to Bonus through the poker sites used to be popular. It still works, especially where you get those little extra incentives to sign-up at a site! Back of an envelope time again, lets say you clear 2 bonuses a month worth a total of $500. I’ll assume as a SNG Planet reader you are a profitable player, and double up each $250 investment while you are clearing! My estimate is 20 hours a week for this – and there are enough bonuses out there to keep you going a long time!

Idea #3 – Plug Some Leaks Leak plugging, getting better at the game, finding your weak spots and working on toughening them up – however you put it we can all get better at the game. I’m going to hazard a guess that 95% of players are aware of certain situations which they find frustrating or unclear at the tables – yet have never saved the hand history and gone through the numbers or possibilities afterwards… There are so many ways of plugging leaks, peer reviews, join a training site, post hands on forums, or just go through with a tool such as SNG Wiz or Poker Calculator Pro. Profit from this kind of discipline is harder to work out – assuming you get more profitable and get to move up the levels as the year progresses, there is no reason why some good old fashioned hard work on your own game should not bring in that extra $1k per month.

#4 – Specialize In A Game, Any Game! Admission time… I suffer (badly!) from a short attention span when it comes to poker sessions. I’ll start off with some SNGs, get bored with them and try PLO (Rush used to be especially temping), get bored with that and try 7-stud and then heads-up games and so on. With so many people using tools and training sites to specialize in their chosen games, ‘flitters’ like me are never going to have a significant edge. I’ll suggest that picking a game (the Pokerstars 180 SNGs? 6-Max PLO Cash? 1-Table SNGs? Heads-Up PLO8?... you name it) and working on finding your edge, the weaknesses of your average opponents, identifying and avoiding the good regulars and analyzing your own hand histories – you could easily make $1k more a month. Not only will your current game become more and more profitable, you’ll move up levels faster too.

#5 – Invest Poker Tools There are so many variations of software tools for poker players these days that it almost seems wrong to lump them together under one heading. These can work in various ways, depending on the game(s) you play. For cash game players a HUD (heads-up-display) of opponent stats is invaluable, for MTT players a table add-on like Tournament Shark (from the excellent poker pro labs) will let you differentiate the fish from the regulars, SNG Players MUST have an ICM calculator – or you are throwing away money. While it might be hard to reason that $1k a month could come from poker tools alone, there is certainly an incremental value… Combined with bonuses, specializing and working on your game – that $100 (or whatever) investment could quite easily turn into enough cash for next years Main Event.

So, get combining those ideas and taking more money from the poker tables! Whether we see you playing the World Series next year or not – I am sure that an extra $12k would be welcome!

GL at the tables, Mark

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