oh lol. for some reason i thought you lived in south florida.

I like how Robfarha refers to hisself in teh 3rd person

As bad as the players are in FL, they have nothing on the pool of Foxwoods fish.

Lol. Phil Galfond attended college here in WI too. Idk where he is from though.

Awesome thread, just read all the way through.

What was your BRM coming right out of college? I'm planning on taking a similar shot when I graduate and it seems like you handled yours really well, any advice you could give?

Thanks man.

I don't discuss my finances specifically on here so I can only give advice in a general sense.

I'm a bankroll nit. Psychologically it just helps me to have more of a cushion than I probably need mathematically.

Always keep a life roll separate from your bankroll. I'm a money management nut so I keep very good financial records and put away living expenses 6 months at a time. For me this takes away the stress of feeling like I'm playing for my rent on a day to day basis because even if I lose, all the bills are paid. Keeping this separation will make it easier to make the high-variance, but necessary winning plays at the table that are tough to make if you're thinking about what you could buy with that $200 river bluff or $300 thin value bet you're thinking about making.

How much each individual needs in a nominal sense is so situationally dependent that even if I told you what my specific BRM was it wouldn't really help. Its more than just what game/stakes you're playing. It also depends on your living expenses, other income sources you may or may not have, what kind of safety net you have, etc.

Experience plays a roll as well. I would feel comfortable playing 2/5 on a significantly smaller roll now than when I first started because I'm a proven winner there and don't really need a cushion beyond what is mathematically necessary since I know what to expect from that game.

Hope that gives you an idea of what to be thinking about. Above all it comes down to comfort level. If you want you're welcome to PM me your specifics and I'd be happy to give you my thoughts.

I think in this regard some people are just built differently than others. I too work a full time job...in my case it's thu-sun 9pm - 7am. I play almost 100% of my poker on mon-wed nights, and dating back to 1/1/12 I'm averaging 28.x hours/week. I am pretty confident that if I were playing full time I'd consider 35/week to be a little light. I'm using that time period because I started that work schedule about 7 or 8 weeks before that.

Also, I'm 46, with 2 young kids and a wife at home. If that weren't the case (I start my tue and wed sessions after 9:30PM...mon is my 'poker night I'd be in the mid-30's for sure.

Now that said, I am not, as you mentioned, including time to review hand histories nor studying, and that definitely counts. I am just adding a different perspective is all. I think the important thing here is that the right number is going to be different for different people. The most important thing is to play when you're 100% 'on' and not play otherwise. If that means 5 hours is the limit for a sesh, then that's what it means. For me, I'm a slow starter, and don't typically feel in tune fully with the game most nights until I've been sitting for at least 2 hours.

Anyway...thanks so much for the thread...would love to buy you a drink sometime when I'm out there. Cheers!

I like that.

I think the having 6m life roll tucked away is definitely +EV for poker.

Not having to worry about the actual real life dollar value of a bet, you can play with a clear mind and have the proper level of aggression.

So glad to see you are continuing to do well on your adventure!

Cheers,

S

^ you know... I brought that up quite some time ago (many many moons ago) in an old BR thread, and I got thread hammered by many of the local high post count posters, that no longer seem to be around any more.

I am glad to finally see that, over time, the truth still rings true.

Let's put it this way.

My poker skills literally improved by 19.37% when I got a promotion at work.

Because if I needed to make a $150 bet, I go and make a $150 bet. The promotion / pay raise allowed me to stop thinking about what the $150 would buy in real life.

Cheers,

S

Sounds good, I don't think I've ever turned down a free drink

Thanks man, good to see you back on these boards. Any Vegas trips planned in the near future?

You know it took me a while, but around the time I started this thread I realized that number of posts has no correlation whatsoever to that person actually knowing what the **** they're talking about.

This Thursday actually. You in town? Or home for thanksgiving

I'll be in town, not going home until Christmas.

Last couple weeks have been pretty uneventful on the felt. This week was a slightly losing one and last week was about break even. The games at Bellagio were pretty marginal early this week so I spent a bunch of time at the V playing 2/5 with mixed results. Took a big loser there Monday but also had a couple good winning sessions.

I'm still not playing my A-game nearly as much as I know I can. I've just not been focused while playing but the last couple sessions have been much better. I've not been able to get much going which leads to me not paying as close attention.

Volume has been good as I'm on pace for my goal for the year. I have an hours prop bet with Rob that covers the rest of it, need to get 115 hours from Dec 1st-22nd, failure to do so costing a smooth hundo. My focus is going to be making those hours count by playing my A-game as much as possible.

Speaking of prop bets, the 500 hour winrate prop bet with rob, squid and the other V reg is finally over now that the V reg finished his 2/5 hours. Finishing order was myself, squid, rob, V reg. Looking forward to enjoying a free steak dinner soon

Tomorrow starts another week and another month as I look to the home stretch before the holidays. There's only one more college football saturday, after which I'll go back to playing Saturday's and likely get on a bit of a later schedule.

Oh Ya Cush!

Not only looking foreword to free steak but expensive free steak! Prop capped at 150/head and looking foreword to getting my eat/drink on. Outstanding work on achieving your hourly goal for the year as well as combining it with kick ass poker. See you this weekend...keep killin it!

I would call the 35 hours the equivalent of "billable" hours in professions like architects, attorneys, CPAs, etc. As a professional I can tell you that this is an excellent billable hour pace.

I getting hungry just reading this . . . nothing beats a free, expensive steak. Enjoy !

Two free expensive steaks

Had the steak dinner at Cut last night and man, it was incredible. Nicest restaurant I've ever been in by far and also the best steak I've ever tasted. All the sides/apps/desserts were amazing also. Had a great time eating and shooting the shyt with Squid, Rob and the other guy in the bet. Rob posted a picture of the bill in lvl low content thread but the tab was 566.45 with tax, the biggest 4 person tab I've ever been a part of.

Poker-wise its been going pretty great this month as I've been on a pretty nice heater and playing much more focused as of late. Booked a few solid wins at 5/10 early, capped by my 2nd biggest 5/10 win ever, coming short of my biggest by about $100.

I've been playing V 2/5 the last few days for a couple reasons. At first it was because it was pretty much impossible to get on a game at the B with the WPT in town. There would be 1-2 games and 30-50 people on the list because of lack of tables. So for a couple days I hung out a V for that reason. Then I came down with a bit of a cold and wasn't feeling great, so I stuck at V not wanting to deal with a bigger/tougher game while not feeling my best. There were 1 or 2 days I probably wouldn't have played at all if not for the hours prop bet with Rob. Luckily is was pretty mild and never got to the point where I absolutely couldn't play because of it, though I certainly was not playing my A-game and basically had to resign myself to playing a pretty standard game for a few days.

My heater followed me to the V, resulting in 2 small losses and 3 substantial wins including my biggest 2/5 win ever, breaking my previous record by about 100bb.

I've still got a week and a half left until I leave for Wisconsin and 62 hours left on the prop, which based on how I've mapped it out will be completed on the 21st. Until then my focus will be on avoiding winners tilt and staying hungry. Its not talked about as much as downswings, but getting complacent when on a hot streak when it feels like all you have to do is show up is just as bad as tilting when on a downswing. Its important that I stay focused on playing my A-game and try to ignore results because when things start to even out my mind needs to be ready to take the losing sessions in stride. I have found this to be much harder coming out of an upswing when my mind has gotten so used to winning than in an average/bad run. Short term variance just sometimes tricks my mind into thinking its impossible to lose. The fix is to just remind myself that the reality of poker is that I'm going to lose sometimes, that way my mind isn't surprised or confused when it happens, which can cause tilt. It sounds simple, but its pretty easy to forget how to lose when on an extended heater.

Are you going to play here in WI when back? Poto, Oneida?

I doubt it. There are a lot of family and friends I want to see and spend time with so won't be making time for poker. My family does go to the casino a fair amount so if they go I would probably tag along but that would most likely be just a few hours. If we go it would be Poto.

"Its not talked about as much as downswings, but getting complacent when on a hot streak when it feels like all you have to do is show up is just as bad as tilting when on a downswing. Its important that I stay focused on playing my A-game and try to ignore results because when things start to even out my mind needs to be ready to take the losing sessions in stride. I have found this to be much harder coming out of an upswing when my mind has gotten so used to winning than in an average/bad run. Short term variance just sometimes tricks my mind into thinking its impossible to lose. The fix is to just remind myself that the reality of poker is that I'm going to lose sometimes, that way my mind isn't surprised or confused when it happens, which can cause tilt. It sounds simple, but its pretty easy to forget how to lose when on an extended heater"

Taylor, this is spot on and exactly where I am right now. It feels too easy right now...as I once heard "it sometimes feels like you are walking around collecting $100 bills"- I am playing great but 100% on the right side of short term variance and whenever I have been on the wrong side it has been vs a short stack (even more run good that people don't realize at times)- my set over set cost me 75bbs instead of the 400bb I'm sitting on....

Things we can do:


Look at poker journal and realize over a ton of sessions I only win about 2/3 of the time. Try not to think about being "even" or "up" for a session. Quit as soon as we catch ourselves playing less than A game. Make sure still putting in time studying outside of poker which improves are winrate and our edge. Focus on playing position based tilt free intelligent poker.

Good luck man, keep it up..

Both of these +1000

These is all super great advice to keep the mind focused on the task at hand. I try to remind myself to take it session by session, like a pitcher or place kicker or soccer goalkeeper(the latter I played for many years). Forget winning and losing sessions $ results of the past and focus on the lessons I need to improve.

Yo Taylor, Just wondering if you are still playing mostly the day shift. I think you mentioned that you were experimenting with a later playing schedule at times.

I was curious what you thought about the differences between the day and night games and if it's worth playing night games and sacrificing a "normal" day work schedule

Enjoy the holidays!

Thanks man you too.

Yea I tried playing later and for a while got my schedule shifted a few hours but because my body was used to daytime schedule I have reverted back to daytime, mostly by accident. Thus its hard for me to comment on differences between games but I've said for a long time that Vegas is different than other cities and daytime is often as good/better than nighttime. Even assuming games are better on average, for me its not worth being on the vampire schedule, for some it is.