Savings and Compound Interest (Not a Poker Post)

I've been very foolish over the years when it comes to money. The number of pointless things that I've wasted it on is just unbelievable. This is just a short post encouraging anyone who reads not to make the same mistakes that I did.

Since I left school at 18 I've spent most of my time getting into debt and then repaying it; a cycle that I'm only just breaking.

Before I go any further, I'd like to draw your attention to a mathematics article that explains the value of saving and compound interest:

have-we-caught-your-interest

My girlfriend and I have begun to discuss mortgages. The problem is we have jack shit in savings so we are going to have to wait until such time that we can afford a deposit. If I hadn't been such a pleb when I was younger and had put up say, £1000 a year for the last ten then using the equation from the article I'd have about £12.5k (assuming I had invested wisely enough to get 4% interest on average), nearly enough to pay for a mortgage deposit. If I'd put up £2000 per year I'd now have £25k, more than enough.

And just to demonstrate how much my hapless spending may have cost me, consider the following two scenarios. 

1/ I started saving £2000 a year when I was 20, and managed to get 4% annual interest; and I continued until I retired at 70 (assuming retirement ages have risen by that stage). I'd have £317,547.53.

Note that only £100k of that is savings, the rest is compound interest!

2/ I started saving at 33 years old and put up £2000 a year and managed to get 4% annual interest; and I continued until I retired at 70. I'd have £169,940.67. About half of what I could have saved. 

These are very reasonable assumptions. I have probably cost myself a six figure sum in interest earnings through pure foolishness!

If you are in your early twenties, I encourage you not to fall into the same pitfalls of spending that I did and to try and invest for your future. If you are older like me, then we must make the best use of the time we have left. I estimate that I can still just about double my savings through compound interest in the remainder of my working life (providing interest rates climb again in the near future), and I'm going to strive hard to make sure I don't return to my old ways. Good luck!

Opportunity Knocks

Hi.

I may have mentioned before but I'm currently studying accounting and I'm working in an accounting assistant position. The course that I've been doing thus far is the AAT certificate, and the plan had been to finish and then begin the ACCA chartered accountant training next year. However an opportunity has arisen and I might be starting with ACCA immediately.

If I do, and as a condition of the opportunity that I have been offered I will need to pass the exams in quite a short space of time. Maybe within 3 years. The down side of this is that for the next three years I'm going to have to work really hard. The up side is that I could probably expect to add 10k to my yearly earnings for the next 25 years or more if I qualify. So essentially the rewards are huge for this work investment.

The other down side is that those spare periods of time when I'd often play cards will likely be very few and far between. I will always enjoy playing and I'll strive to fit in the odd session but this post is mainly a message that blog posts are likely to be pretty rare from now on.

So that's where I'm heading, and I feel very lucky that in the current climate these opportunities are being presented to me. I always was a bit of a luck box.

This isn't the end, but until I blog again good luck!

Good Evening

Hi there.

I've played nearly 5k hands at 50NL Zoom so far and I feel like I've settled in now. In truth it plays very similarly to 25NL (or at least it has over that very small sample). There are plenty of fish, and a range of regulars from decent to terrible.

I played just two tables for a while, but have now increased it to four. I'm really pleased with how I've adjusted to the new limit. I began by making a couple of mistakes but now I feel that I'm playing as well as I was at 25NL. With the larger bet sizes I was concerned that the increased risk might make me play sub-par but that hasn't happened at all. Although I suppose it's easy when you flop quads in three bet pots.

So yeah, I've had a bit of a heater today. I dropped a handful of buy-ins in the first 3-4k hands but have more or less made that back now. It's obviously very early days and over the next few weeks I'll find out if I've really got what it takes to beat this limit too. Pleased so far though.

Among the changes I've made to my game recently is an effort to fold very marginal pre-flop spots rather than open raise, or to raise rather than call in places where the EV is close. I mentioned this a long time ago in the Rush days, but it's pointless wasting time in close to neutral EV spots because folding actually has some equity... This is hard to explain but the easiest way is that you could get dealt aces in the same time span that you just wasted raising QJo UTG and seeing three streets to showdown. Obviously this equity is offset somewhat by paying the blinds tax but I definitely think that the time factor should lead to a different style of play. I believe that it enhances fold equity; calling adds more time to the hand (on average) and therefore in close spots I believe that the more aggressive option should always be taken.

But this is just a belief, and I have no proof mathematical or otherwise. I just think that time should be a consideration when playing this format of poker.

Right, I think I've waffled enough. I'm shattered (who'd think that the weekend has finished?!) so I'm going to pop a tinny and head to bed. GL all!

Time for a Riskier Approach?

I've been thinking lately that it might be time to adjust my obscenely nitty bankroll strategy and bring a greater element of risk into my global poker strategy. If I include the money that is returning from Full Tilt's reopening then my 'roll stands at around $4000 and I'm still playing $25NL. 160 buy-ins seems very over the top to me for these limits. If you consider that I'd likely move down to 10NL if I ever dropped below $1k, this gives me a total of 220 buy-ins.

Why?

At one point (I'll admit it) I harboured ambitions of turning poker into a profession and leaving the world of real work behind. That was back when I earned less and had no real career to speak of. Now that I do have a fledgling career, and now that I'm undertaking professional training that may increase my earning capability beyond what poker can currently offer I don't think that I need to be so risk averse with my bankroll.

I also think that I'm ready for a bigger challenge. I think it is time that I tried conquering the small stakes limits.

How Much Risk?

Providing that I'm happy to move up and down limits (and I believe that I would be based on my history) then I wouldn't be taking on too much extra risk by moving to a mixture of 50NL and 100NL from now on.

I've also considered returning to HUSNG as returns in that field still look good. The problem is that I'd need a lot of game work to get my self into winning shape at that format. However the potential hourly would be better than I expect at cash despite it being my strongest area. I could perhaps begin at the $50s and see how I get on.

The long and short of it is that I feel that I should take slightly bigger risks in order to allow myself the potential for some bigger rewards. I'm happy to move back down limits if it doesn't go well. So wish me luck!

Progress (plus Zoom graph)

Hi there. Apols for the lack of recent blog updates, the new job and other life changes are not leaving me too much time for poker any more and when I do get a moment I prefer to use it playing! Never the less, I'm long over due a detailed post so I'll provide one in the near future.

The purpose of this was just to give a little update as to where I am with my game and my recent results. I've just come through a rather nice heater but that seems to have ended now (dropped 5 buy-ins yesterday). But I'm not bothered, the great thing about getting towards a million life time hands is that variance affects me less and less as I can just look at my life time graph and know that it is almost certain that I'm beating the micros - even though my win rate doesn't seem that impressive (a little under 3bb/100).

In general I feel like my game is improving a lot. The most recent progress I've made is to be cold calling less in the blinds; and by this I mean that in situations where it's probably close between a call and a 3-bet I'm tending to favour the 3-bet a little more - especially in the small blind. I think that this is the best approach even though in pure game theoretical terms it means I'm probably a little unbalanced. I'm also squeezing a lot more than I used to. I don't think I truly ever comprehended how profitable a play it can be and I'm certain it has got me winning more dead money.

I think that I've also improved my play in those situations where I do cold call out of position. I used to play the check/call/check line almost exclusively, but there are so much more effective lines available. Donking against players who rarely c-bet should be routine strategy but was never part of my arsenal before, and the check/call/donk line is perhaps the most under-rated line I've come across in my poker life time.

But I must also mention areas where I think I could improve. I've obviously worked on my OOP play quite a lot this year, but I don't make enough money on the button. My winnings hover around 22-23 bb/100 and I think that this number should be in the high twenties at least. So this is where I'm going to focus my study for the forseeable future. I'll work on my opening, 3-betting and flatting ranges as well as which boards smash my range versus blind callers (because I don't double barrel nearly often enough). If I can move this win rate up I think it will have a really positive affect on my game.

Finally, I deposited a little money in order to take advantage of the recent Stars bonus and so my bankroll is currently large enough to move to 50NL which is something that I haven't done yet. I'm working on clearing the bonus, which I'll best acheive four tabling 25NL Zoom in my opinion but as soon as it is cleared I'll be mixing in some 50NL tables and hopefully make that limit my new home by Christmas.

I hope you're all running well. GL

Simon

P.S. I've played over 100k hands at Zoom poker now, and I do believe it to be beatable (graph included). This isn't an especially brag worthy graph, but I think it's semi decent evidence to back up my claim.

Intriguing Hand

Apologies for no updates for a while, I've actually been playing quite a bit but just not got around to posting. I'm trying to clear the WCOOP bonus at the mo so I doubt I'll post much for a bit as I'll be busy playing but I thought I'd post an interesting hand. I actually time out folded on the river so unfortunately we'll never know what villain had.


http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $0.25(BB) Replayer Game#85795121236

mag2012P$ ($33.57)
Genius4832 ($27.53)
Recazy ($26.25)
Stolarr ($25)
BOGEC73 ($35.16)
BankoBet ($47.98)
Mr.KALABS ($38.07)
Szwejoslaw ($25)
Dzhigurda ($32.64)

mag2012P$ posts (SB) $0.10
Genius4832 posts (BB) $0.25

Dealt to BankoBet Qh  Th
fold, fold,
BOGEC73 calls $0.25
BankoBet raises to $1
Mr.KALABS calls $1
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold,
FLOP ($2.60) Js  Kc  As
BankoBet bets $1.75
Mr.KALABS calls $1.75
TURN ($6.10) Js  Kc  As  Qs
BankoBet bets $4
Mr.KALABS raises to $8.25

Villain's stats are 14/12/5. When he raised it really suprised me because I can't think of any hands that would do this... think about it. Villains with stats like those will not often call with much other than pairs and good broadways pre-flop. I think raising JJ here is too thin; I think he has to have a flush or maybe a straight (if he's not full of shit). But what flush hand calls in MP? KTs gives him the royal flush.... Maybe some weird suited connector? TT with a spade?

If he'd been a bigger fish I'd have called down but I just got the impression from his bet timing that he was really serious about his hand. I soooo wanted to call on the river, just because I couldn't think of hardly any hands that would play it this way.

BankoBet calls $4.25
RIVER ($22.60) Js  Kc  As  Qs  9c
BankoBet checks
Mr.KALABS bets $14.25
BankoBet folds
Mr.KALABS wins $21.58

Meh we'll never know. If his stats suddenly converge on 57/37 I'll be kicking myself.

Double Barrelling. Edited 27/08

Edit: I've been thinking further about this, and I think some things need clarifying and a more thorough and well written blog post should be provided and I'll do that in due course.

My main concern is that I didn't stress that the flop bet was negative EV. The turn bet was profitable which is what made the play +EV overall. Anyway I'll do a thorough post on double barrelling and update within the next fortnight. Hopefully that will make things much clearer. GL!