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Finding Your Sweet Spot
By "Gank" Jungblut
Playing poker is like running your own business. It involves making short-term decisions that eventually translate into making or losing money. The decisions you make will ultimately decide whether your business will be a success or if it will fall short. With this in mind, it is important to approach this game with a plan.
I will give you some insight into some important factors that I continuously apply to my poker business strategy. At the top of my list is bankroll management. In poker, money is the tool we use to play; if you don’t have any, you can’t play; so protecting your bankroll is imperative to survival. I have seen many very talented players who have everything except a grasp on bankroll management. Most of these players have short careers and never realize how preventable their demise was. I recommend having at least 300 big bets to move up to a particular cash game level, and at least 30 times the buy-in for tournaments and sitn- gos. Also, just because you have enough money to move up to another level does not necessarily mean that you are ready to.
Another important factor is to play in a game that you know you can dominate. The Peter Principle is a business term meaning to rise to a level of incompetence. In corporations, people will continue to be promoted as long as they do a great job at the position they are in, but eventually they get to a position where they have been promoted over their heads. They will not get another promotion because they are unable to excel at this level. In reality, they would be better off going back down a level, where they will be more effective. When we play poker, we want to win, and so we find ourselves climbing the poker ladder, promoting ourselves to higher positions. Well, eventually, we will find that we have moved up too much, and that we are out-classed by our opponents. We may be able to tread water and break even, but if we stepped down a level or two, we would surely dominate at that level, and at the same time put less risk to our bankroll.
So where do you fit in? In this day and age, especially with internet cardrooms that offer stakes as low as $0.01/$0.02 blind cash games and $1 tournaments, it’s more affordable to find out where you belong. It is important to keep in mind that poker is a skill game, and that experience and learning will make you better over time. There is nothing wrong with playing small stakes and building up; it’s better than not playing at all. So remember: when you decide to sit down at a table, your business is now open. The decisions you make will reflect how profitable your business will be. Take your time and watch your business grow slowly and steadily; and maybe one day, you will wake up to an empire.
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