How to Create a Poker Calendar for the Year (Travels, Goals, Bankroll)

Understand how to set out your poker calendar and schedule for the year in this blog post. You need to make a poker schedule that takes into consideration five things:

  • Your travel expenses.
  • Buy-ins.
  • Poker goals.
  • Nankroll.
  • EV of each event.

Here's a five-step checklist to create your poker calendar.

Step 1: Make a Big Goal for Yourself.

  1. Make sure your aim is both motivating and achievable.
  2. It is just exactly in that sweet spot where it is thrilling enough to compel you to act but realistic enough to feel plausible. That is exactly what you are after.
  3. The likelihood of achieving your goal improves.
  4. You will be able to better prepare financially and comprehend the hazards involved as a result of this.
  5. Estimate critical parameters such as his return on investment, variance, probability of losing, win rate, and, ultimately, the likelihood that he would win using a 'Poker Variance Calculator.'
  6. Knowing the figures allows you to plan for the future, determine how much money you can make per hour, and determine whether poker is a realistic full-time or side-hustle choice.
  7. Unfortunately, I have seen far too many players, even those who are skilled, fail to achieve because they lack a strong basis on which to grow.
  8. It is like having magnificent artwork but living in a bamboo house. This is an important step. If you want to avoid a headache, read on.

Step 2: Make a Travel Plan.

  1. Make your poker calendar and itinerary for the year after you have a clear goal and a greater grasp of the hazards involved.
  2. Gather everything in one place using a simple excel spreadsheet.
  3. Add anything you like or think you would like to do to the list.
  4. Later, you will have time to amend your list.
  5. To obtain the year's schedules, start by checking major event websites such as the India Online Poker Championship, WSOP, WPT, and EPT, as well as news publications.

Pro Tip: Not all tournaments will be featured for all events. Use the schedule from the prior year as a guide to help you plan what you'll do this year.

Step 3: Establish a Bankroll

  1. Add a new column in the same spreadsheet to record the buy-in per event and the expenses you will incur for each trip.
  2. Keep the buy-ins and expenses separate so you can better assess:
  • Costs.
  • Risk/Reward.
  • The overall return on investment.
  1. It does not have to be elaborate; in fact, the less complicated the better.

Step 4: Go Over Your List Again.

  1. Once you have written down all of the trips for your poker calendar and timetable, as well as the total bankroll required, the sum of your buy-ins, and projected expenses, go back through your list and eliminate the lowest value events, which are often the bottom 20%.
  2. Anything that will cost you much more in expenses and accommodation, will be a low-value event.
  3. You are seeking places where you can play several events as well as cash games on the side.
  4. Those are the high-value events you should concentrate your efforts on.
  5. It is important to remember that numbers and worth are not everything.
  6. It is not recommended to play cash games and tournaments at the same time because it is best to focus on one, you can arrive a few days early, grind some cash games, and then switch to tournaments for the remainder of your trip. Alternately, when you are done with tournaments, do the opposite.

Step 5: Separate your funds physically

  1. When planning your poker calendar and timetable, keep in mind that it is crucial to approach it like a business, and all businesses demand some level of investment.
  2. The money you invest may originate totally from you, but it should always be kept separate from your finances if done appropriately.
  3. This is especially critical in poker, where the stakes are so high.
  4. Furthermore, the costs are certain, implying that you will have a 'burn rate,' or running costs.
  5. Simply segregate your finances by opening a separate checking account dedicated solely to poker.
  6. Begin a savings account for expenses and get a separate credit card for it, one that rewards of course.
  7. You could go a step further and open two checking accounts, one for tournament money and the other for cash games, but this is not required.
  8. Just make sure you do not play any real poker until you have physically transferred that money to a bank account you would not touch again.

These were the five steps of making a poker calendar.

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