Questions for Full Timers

[Vi-Zer0Skill]

I hope by January of next year to be playing poker as a career. It isn't a long term plan (probably 2-3years), but i am thinking about how i ought to be planning my "work" schedule. It seems clear to me that since i am restricted to U.S. sites i should be spending the bulk of my time playing in the evenings/weekends. How do current pro players balance their schedules to maximize your time at the tables? Any other sort of information would be appreciated as well.

1). How many of you pro players mass multitable? Is there any value in playing 4-6tables well, or should i work on successfully managing 12tables?

2). How much time do you spend studying? This would include going through old hands and reviewing opponents, but atm i spend a lot of time reading articles and watching videos. It is making a huge difference for me now; do you find watching videos and reading articles is something you still find very valuable?

[JeffreyGB]

1). How many of you pro players mass multitable? Is there any value in playing 4-6tables well, or should i work on successfully managing 12tables?

I'm not in it near full time, so I can't answer myself. Speaking from what I've heard...
-Rizen has said that he usually runs 4-6 tables when he's playing tournaments and that he actually plays fewer tables when playing cash than when playing tournaments.
-scrugby has said that one of the things he looks for as an avenue to exploit is players playing too many tables, because their play becomes predictable since they can't focus enough to get the same level of reads.
-Nick Brancato recommended to me starting with 2 tables and getting 20k-50k* hands at a given level with a set number of tables to find your expected winrate before adding more tables. Rinse and repeat as you add tables to see about where your breaking point is. I suppose this could be applied the other way too - start with as many as you can and remove one until you hit the point that the increased winrate isn't as much as the decreased volume.

*He actually followed this with "I'd rather tell you to play 100k hands, but I know that's going to sound ridiculous and take forever at 2 tables."

[larsmars]

Good luck! I can't really say I play poker full time, since I still work a bit on and off. However, I spend more time (and defineately make more money) playing poker than I do at my job at the moment.

It seems clear to me that since i am restricted to U.S. sites i should be spending the bulk of my time playing in the evenings/weekends. How do current pro players balance their schedules to maximize your time at the tables?

This is a matter of personal preference. I don't play any U.S. sites, but if they're anything similar to their European counterparts you shouldn't have any problems finding good games at most times of the day. Personally I just play whenever I don't have anything better to do (which is most of the time ).

1). How many of you pro players mass multitable? Is there any value in playing 4-6tables well, or should i work on successfully managing 12tables?

I guess if you asked ten pro players you would get ten different answers to this one. There's defineately value in playing 4-6 tables well (I think srugby said he played only 2). I've actually moved down from playing 9 to playing 6 tables. If there's something really important going on, like a final table in a big tourney, I guess most people just play that table.

2). How much time do you spend studying? This would include going through old hands and reviewing opponents, but atm i spend a lot of time reading articles and watching videos. It is making a huge difference for me now; do you find watching videos and reading articles is something you still find very valuable?

Even though the marginal benifit of studying probably decreases the better you get, there's always something you haven't thought of, and there's always value in knowing the mindset of other people. So the short answer would be yes, but I would assume you'll spend less time at it, partially because you'll be able to recognize situations and analyze your decisions faster.

[Penfold]

there is plenty of value playing 4-6 tables, just play however many you are comfortable playing. afternoons/nights/weekends are the best times to play depending on how high you play, at low stakes it doesnt really matter when you play.

[Grndr101]

Im no full timer but i think ive improved quite a bit over the last few weeks and i 3 table at the lowest stakes on bodog, which gives me 20$-40$ an hour, which is pretty nice i think when you compare to the recommended 100$ an hour if you wanna go full time.
I definitely think that if the games you play in are fishy enough and you can handle the pressure, eight tabling can be pretty managable and profitable. I would recommend full table (not 6-handed) though for eight tables as shorthanded play requires much more attention than a full ring game.
As for studying you might want to check www.cardrunners.com for their videos, theyre pretty useful in mastering the shorthanded game. Or if you dont want to spend any money on those you can still check http://www.pokertips.org/videos/videos.php which contains some nice videos too.
That kind of material helped me improve my play a great lot because they show actual sessions without cutting out the bad plays and boaring moments you get when you actually play. I usually read poker articles if im bored or just want to chill with a full ring game in the background, it cant make your play worse to study other people's look on the game.
Hoped it helped you gl and see you at the table.

[Halv]

You should really wait until you're there before starting to think about these things - for all we know the conditions might have changed alot by january.

With that out the way, here's what I do:
I play whenever I feel rested and focused enough, usually this means one session after breakfast and one after dinner. I'll swap things around a bit if there's something else going on, hanging out with friends etc. Somewhere in between the sessions I try to review the last one, though I am a bit too lazy in this respect.

I usually play for 1.5-2 hours, and play 6-8 6-max tables depending on how many good tables I can get on. I seat select hard so I usually end up with a MT factor of ~6 due to waitlisting. Lately I've started running a MTT along with my cash games, obviously this leads to longer sessions when I don't bust early. I tend to close down most or all of the cash games when the third hour of the tournament starts.

I read strategy posts all the time, I usually read some on my laptop in bed both in the morning and the evenings. When I don't feel focused enough to play a session I browse the forums instead. I don't post in strategy discussion as much as I should though. I also watch alot of poker videos. I talk poker with my poker playing friend irl, and on MSN/AIM. I also spend alot of time trying to keep on top of non-strategy poker stuff like software etc. I am somewhat of a computer geek so I spend alot of time on the web anyway, might as well make alot of that time poker-related .

Cliff notes: to quote 'rilla (?I think?), I "eat, drink and shit pokerchips".