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Poker

The Grind

If you start playing poker for a serious part of your income, you will often start to feel different about the game than you did when you first started. Although the exact things that change are very subjective and person to person, two common themes seem to occur - the boredom of having to constantly play lots of tables and hours constantly, and the loss of the emotional thrill once a player starts to use proper bankroll management.

I never really felt that bad about the hours or the number of tables, but using proper bankroll management to this day causes me problems. This is because the first thing I ever gambled on was games of pool - where the variance is very low and you can easily get away with gambling up to about 30% of your bankroll at any given time. Gambling like this quickly gets your brain hooked on these sort of percentages (this is also a classic point about wealth in general - this phenomenon seems to simply apply to the percentage of the money that someone has to gamble with - be it $10 or $10,000,000). I always found it extremely hard (and actually often very boring) to only be gambling with only 3-5% of my bankroll.

The best advice I can give you about this is to remember that you will always lose over the long run if you do not stick to adequate bankroll management - it is just a mathematical fact of the game. If you find it dull playing with slim percentages of your roll then possibly serious poker is not for you.

In terms of coping with the hours and monotony of playing many tables for long periods, two key things can really help. First, get a good routine to any day you are playing. Try to get in a work out, decide what hours/tournaments you are going to play and stick to it, then have a way of relaxing afterwards. Experiment with what works best for you and try to find a good balance to your day. Secondly, look to have breaks in the routine whenever it starts to feel boring. Go on holiday, go play a couple of live events, anything to get you away from lots of tables and a monitor.

Always remember that poker is as much a battle with yourself as it is with those around you - by being honest and getting to grips with your own flaws you will drastically increase your ability to win.

27 October 2008 / About Marcus Bateman

Tags: Bankroll management, poker percentages, The Grind /