This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.
We live in an incredibly fast paced world, and sometimes it feels like there’s just not enough hours in a day.
Between your day job, family, friends, chores and increasingly shorter leisure time, it can be hard to find the time to play poker, let alone make it a profitable side hustle.
You already know that poker is a long term game, and it takes months, years, and even decades to achieve great results and have something to show for all the invested time and effort.
And to get to that mystical and elusive long term, you need to put in volume.
And lots of it. But how can you do it with a myriad of real-life commitments
that constantly compete for your limited time?
This article will hopefully help you find the time to play poker without
taking away from your other responsibilities or even your leisure time.
1. Define What You Want
In order to successfully put in more volume, it’s crucial you define why do
you do it in the first place. It’s not so much about the end goal (i.e.
earning a certain amount of money), as it is about what motivates you to reach
that goal.
You should take the time to reflect on why you play poker in the first place.
Doing so will help you figure out what you want out of the experience.
When people say they don’t have the time to do something, what they are really
saying is it is not their priority. We all have the same amount of time in a
day, and it’s up to us to decide how to best use it.
This is something that BlackRain79 discusses in his latest video on
how much money poker players make.
Now, some people have more responsibilities than others, of course, but oddly
enough, the more responsibilities you have, the more you actually
accomplish.
It all comes down to time management. Time is a resource like any other,
except it’s non renewable.
You can always make more money, but lost time is lost forever. That’s why the
most accomplished and successful people value their time above all else.
If you say you don’t have enough time for poker, or anything else for that
matter, you’re saying that it’s not high enough on your list of
priorities.
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Poker Doesn't Have to Be Your Top Priority in Life in Order for You to Succeed
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Like they say, poker is life, but life
ain’t poker.
Poker is a hobby for most people, and it won’t come as high on the list of
priorities for most people. It usually comes after family, friends, and work
(in no particular order).
Take some time to talk to yourself (or better yet, write down) where poker
fits into your life.
Ask yourself why you play it in the first place.
Do you play it to pass the time or unwind after a long week? Do you like it
because of the social aspect or do you enjoy the competition?
Do you play it for the excitement or because it’s intellectually challenging?
Or do you just want to make money?
There’s no right or wrong answers here. We do the things we do for a number of
different reasons, and you might realize your motivations run way deeper than
you first expected.
What’s important here is that you’re honest with yourself, and articulate what
really makes you tick, instead of coming up with motivations that are more
socially acceptable.
If you play poker because you like gambling, there’s nothing inherently wrong
with that. It’s better than playing slots, anyway.
All hobbies cost money, so why should poker be any different? But unlike other
hobbies, you can actually make money playing it. It sounds like a
rationalization, but it’s true nonetheless.
The point being is that people have different motivations, and some people’s
goal isn’t actually to win playing poker in the first place. They don’t mind
when they do, of course, but it’s not their primary concern.
And it shouldn’t be. Not everyone can become a professional poker player, and not everyone can be a
winning player by default.
It’s like a professional sport. Everyone can play, but not everyone can make a
living out of it. If I enjoy playing pick-up basketball, it doesn’t mean I
want to play in the NBA.
Poker is no different.
If you like playing it, but don’t feel like studying ranges, math, doing hand
analysis and so on, by all means, just play the game and have fun.
Just be aware of the fact that your results will be directly correlated with
the amount of effort you’re willing to put in.
If you want to actually make money playing poker, you will have to put way
more effort than the majority of the player pool you’re up against.
Continuing with the basketball analogy, nothing’s stopping you to play it
recreationally, but if you want to actually earn money, not only do you have
to be exceptionally talented, but you also have to train for an ungodly amount
of hours over years and years, and have the right amount of good fortune at
the right time for your talent and effort to be recognized.
And most still won’t make it to the NBA.
This was a somewhat long-winded rant, but it’s meant to show that it’s
important for you to realize what goals you want to achieve playing poker, and
how much time and effort you’re willing to put in to actually achieve those
goals.
After you figured out where poker comes in your list of priorities and what
personal goals you’re trying to achieve, the next step is deciding how much
time you can realistically set aside each day, week or month to actually sit
down and play.
2. Designate Specific Times to Play
When trying to figure out how much time you’re willing to invest in playing,
it’s better to err on the conservative side.
It’s easy to say something along the lines of: I can spare 2 hours to play
every day, so that amounts to about 60 hours a month. That’s thinking in ideal
circumstances, and life is anything but ideal.
It doesn’t take into account the countless obstacles you could, and will
encounter. Something can always come up. A family emergency, working overtime, getting invited for a beer on a Friday night, you name it.
And some days you simply won’t feel like playing.
You’ll be tired, distracted, in a bad mood etc. You’d rather just watch Netflix or do nothing at all.
And some days you simply won’t feel like playing.
You’ll be tired, distracted, in a bad mood etc. You’d rather just watch Netflix or do nothing at all.
The problem with planning ahead is we often think about current circumstances, and fail to take into consideration how things could be different in the future.
For example, you plan for something when you feel optimistic and motivated,
but when it comes to actually following through in the future, you’re just not
as hyped anymore.
It’s like when you’re in a good mood and someone invites you to a party next
weekend, you accept the invitation, and when the day comes, you’re overworked,
tired, and would rather stay in, and you ask yourself why the hell did you say
yes in the first place.
So when you’re planning your play time, take into consideration all the
distractions that might come your way in advance, and try to work around
them.
This might mean that you won’t be able to set aside the time you originally
planned, because some higher priority might come up. This is where the
previous point of articulating why you play will be so important.
If you play poker for the social aspect, for example, and your friends invite
you over for a beer, it doesn’t really make sense to turn them down in order
to grind the lower stakes online alone in your room all weekend.
If you’re trying to make money in order to save up for a vacation for your
family, on the other hand, you might want to take a rain-check on that beer.
When you’ve realistically assessed the number of hours you’re willing to set
aside for poker in a given week or month, it’s time to actually follow through
with it. Put it on your schedule like you would any other commitment, and
honour it.
Physically writing it down in your calendar will prevent you from defaulting
to “I’ll play when I have some free time” mentality.
This kind of amorphous thinking simply won’t be compelling enough for you to
actually follow through, because you would rather play video games, watch TV,
or what have you.
The better way is to commit specific time on a specific day and treat it like
you would a business meeting. This means showing up, and no excuses.
See BlackRain79's popular post 10 years as a poker pro for more on this mentality of a pro.
Here’s an example:
I will play online from 9 PM to 11 PM every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and
I will play in my local casino every Sunday from 7 PM to 10 PM.
How many hours you set aside doesn’t really matter. It will depend on your
individual circumstances, your other responsibilities and priorities. What
matters is that you value and respect your own time, and protect it like your
life depends on it.
If you don’t, something will always come up, and you won’t have any time
at all.
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3. Talk to Your Friends, Family and Significant Other
If you’re a single guy in your twenties, finding the time to play cards will
be significantly easier to you than to a 50-year old married man with a 9-5
job, three kids, two mortgages and a golden retriever.
However, a man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the
creatures of men.
The 50-year old might be exceptionally gifted in time management, extremely
driven, and has a deep passion for poker, so he finds time to play even with
all the other responsibilities.
The 20-year old plays poker when he’s not busy partying, sleeps till noon, and
likes poker somewhat, but he’s more enticed to it for the prospect of making
an easy buck here and there.
For example, making $50 a day from poker as BlackRain79 talked about in a recent video.
Which one’s side hustle has the better prospects of succeeding?
Now, I’m not saying this to disparage the 20-year olds, as I myself steer
closer to that degen category than to an upright model citizen in the example
above.
The point is while your personal circumstances do play a role in your time
management, they aren’t the decisive factor to determining your success or
failure in any endeavour, poker included. It’s not about the hours you put in
the effort, it’s about the effort you put in your hours.
So make every minute count, and be sure you always bring your A game to the
table. And you can only do so by having complete focus.
It will be much easier for you to focus if you talk with your loved ones
candidly beforehand. This is why the previous steps are so crucial.
You will make a much more compelling case if you articulate to yourself first
what it means to you, and then reassuring the people dear to you that they are
still your priority.
Tell them the goals you are trying to accomplish, and where they fit into
them. People are much more likely to accept something that benefits them
directly, so they don’t feel left out or neglected.
Your wife will be more accepting of you playing cards if you say you’re trying
to save up for that dream vacation she’s always wanted. Your buddies won’t
mind you skipped out on a night out drinking if you invite them over for a
barbecue next week instead.
Designate specific times to spend with them as well. This way your personal
life won’t spill over to your game and vice versa.
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4. Remove All Distractions
This one might sound like a no-brainer, but it’s important to emphasize it
nonetheless.
When you sit down to play poker, make sure you are 100% focused on the task at
hand.
This can only be achieved if you followed the previous tips of defining your
priorities and making sure they’re taken care of, designating specific time to
play during which you won’t be disturbed in any way, and having a candid
conversation with people close to you so they respect your playing time as
well.
But removing the external distractions is only a part of the equation. You
have to keep yourself accountable as well.
This means no multitasking.
This means no multitasking.
Human beings are incapable of multitasking, because we can’t actually perform
more than one activity at the same time, as we can only focus on one thing at
a time.
If we are highly skilled in those activities, we can do them at the same time
(like driving and listening to an audiobook, for example), but what we’re
actually doing is shifting our focus back and forth between them.
This means that you would retain less information from an audiobook while
driving than you would by only listening to it.
Multitasking makes you more prone to making mistakes and missing vital pieces
of information. Just like texting and driving is ill-advised, so is texting
and playing poker.
If you can manage doing something else while playing, like checking email,
scrolling through social media, reading news and what have you, you should
rather fire up another table or two if you play online.
If you’re playing live, you’re better off observing the action if you’re not
directly involved in the hand.
You are far more likely to pick up on a tell from your opponents because you
can evaluate your opponent’s actions more objectively than you would if you
were directly involved in the hand.
What’s more, you have far less information to consider when you’re not
involved, so more of your brain’s processing power is available, so to speak.
The bottom line is that if you want to play poker as a part time job, you are absolutely going to need to remove all distractions.
5. Play Online Cash Games
Online cash games are the best format to play if you’re strapped for time.
Not only do you save yourself the time from having to actually physically go
to and from the casino, you’ll also be able to put in bigger volume, as online
games play incredibly fast as opposed to a brick and mortar casino.
While you can play only about 30 hands an hour in a live game, you can play
three times as much in an online 6-max cash game.
And that’s only playing a single table.
You can multiply that number by playing on multiple tables simultaneously.
While at first it may seem daunting to play 8 tables at once, for instance, it can easily be achieved with a bit of practice.
However, just because you can multitable, it doesn’t mean you should just fire up as many tables as your software and hardware allow.
However, just because you can multitable, it doesn’t mean you should just fire up as many tables as your software and hardware allow.
You should start slow, and progressively add up tables over time. Add them at
a pace you’re comfortable with, and if it gets too overwhelming, scale down to
the pace that allows you to make the best decisions possible. If it means only
two tables, start there.
Poker is a long term game, and slow and steady wins the race. By the way, if
you want a complete guide on how to multitable like a pro,
Blackrain79 has you covered.
There are a number of advantages of cash games to other formats (like
tournaments and sit-and-gos).
First of all, the games are practically running 24/7, so you can always get
action regardless of your schedule.
You can sit down, take a break, and up and leave any time you want. Other
formats simply don't offer that flexibility.
What’s more, you often don’t know in advance how long a tournament might last,
so they are a bigger time commitment than cash games.
If anything comes up, you can always leave a cash game with no consequences.
Other formats, not so much.
6. Consider Playing Zoom Poker as Well
Another format you might want to try is fast fold poker.
Most online poker sites offer this option, and they call it differently (Zoom,
SNAP, Zone poker, just to name a few), but they all have the same concept in
mind.
When you fold your hand, you’re automatically seated at a new table and dealt
a new hand instantly.
This way you can play an insane amount of hands in an hour (more than 200, or
even more if you multitable.
The action is lightning fast, as you don’t have to wait around for other
players to complete their actions, and just get a new hand in seconds if
you’re not involved in the current hand.
Check out this recent BlackRain79 video for more Zoom poker strategy.
So if your goal is to put in a big volume in a limited amount of time, Zoom
poker might be a solution. However, there are some serious downsides you’ll
want to consider if you opt for this format.
First of all, Zoom games tend to play tighter than the regular cash games, as
players don’t need to wait around for long to get a good hand, so they can
just fold their marginal holdings and wait for a better spot.
Even recreational players (aka the fish) will play tighter on average.
One of the reasons they play too loose is because they primarily play for fun,
so they tend to get bored and impatient quickly, and that’s why they play
hands they shouldn’t be playing, chasing draws they shouldn’t be chasing and
so on.
That’s simply not the case in Zoom poker, as you can just spam the fold button
until you get a decent hand.
Another downside to Zoom poker is the inability to table select and seat
select. You’re randomly tossed to a new table every hand, and you don’t know
in advance who’s going to be on your left and on your right, and this can
impact your winrate dramatically.
The best money making situation in poker is to be seated to the direct left of
the fish, as you’ll be able to play in position against them most often,
isolate them preflop and take advantage of their mistakes postflop.
Finally, the third downside to Zoom games is that you will be up against a
huge player pool, so it’s virtually impossible to get any significant reads on
your opponents.
To get an accurate read on a player, you need a big enough sample size of
hands, and if you’re playing against new random opponents every single hand,
it’s harder to figure out their tendencies and the best ways to exploit them.
On the other hand, this can also work in your favour, as the anonymity goes
both ways. You can’t get reads on your opponents, but neither can they get
reads on you.
All in all, zoom games can be profitable if you employ the right kind of
strategy and use the characteristics of the format to your advantage.
The bottom line is that your winrate will in fact be lower in Zoom games, but
the sheer amount of volume can more than make up for it.
For example, let’s say that Bob has a winrate of 4 big blinds per hundred
hands in a regular 6-max cash game, and Joe has a winrate of 2 BB/100 in a
6-max Zoom game.
Both players play NL10. After 10 hours of play, Bob will play
about 900 hands, and will earn on average 36 BB, or $3.6. Joe will play about
2000 hands in the same time, earning on average 40 BB, or $4 in total.
So your winrate is only a part of your overall profitability formula, and a
bigger volume can make up for the lower winrate.
However, it’s important to mention that lower winrate also means more
variance, so if you do decide to play Zoom, for example, you should be certain
that you are already a profitable long-term winner at the stakes you play.
Otherwise, you should dispense with calculating your average hourly wage
altogether and focus on fixing your leaks and improving your game first. If
you do that, the money will take care of itself eventually.
Summary
Poker is a long term game, and your true results will be visible only after
months, years or even decades of play, and learning plenty of advanced poker strategy.
The long term is far longer than most
people realize.
And to get to the long term, you need to put in the volume, which can be quite
a challenge in the crazy fast paced world we live in.
So to find time to play poker, it’s worth asking yourself why you do it in the
first place. What makes it compelling?
Be honest with yourself, and try to
determine where poker fits into your life and what it is you’re trying to
achieve with it.
Having done that, think about how much time you can realistically set aside
for it. Put it in your schedule like you would any other commitment, and
honour it. The more specific your plan, the more likely you are to follow it
through.
When you’re in total agreement with yourself, talk to your loved ones. Share
with them what you’re trying to achieve, why it’s important to you, and how
they fit into your plan. Let them know they’re still your priority, and
designate specific times to spend with them as well.
If your time is limited, online cash games offer the most flexibility and the
best time to volume ratio. You can play them regardless of how tight your
schedule is. You can play them any time, leave any time, and pants are
optional.
If your time is extremely limited, you can try Zoom poker for lightning fast
action. You can put an insane amount of volume in a limited time, but you
should be aware of the disadvantages, namely the lower winrate.
Lastly, if you want to know the complete strategy to crush small stakes poker
games, make sure you grab a copy of the
free BlackRain79 poker cheat sheet.
