I was in math class today spacing out, when my teacher began to lecture on cost efficiency. So then she gave us a problem where we had to find out how many hotdogs some vender would have to sell to make the maximum profit using a quadratic equation. It ended up that he had to sell 38 hotdogs to make $1500 or something... I guess he sold Ferraris or crack as a condiment. Anyways, this got me thinking about optimal conditions for poker playing. <READMORE>

Playing under optimal conditions mean this: your bottom line (or hourly rate) is the absolutely highest it can be while controlling risk and having minimal variance. First you have to figure out your goals. If your goal is to make a lot of money and you’re willing to go broke or lose your bankroll then your optimal condition will be different than someone who wants to have a minute risk of ruin, and is willing to take a smaller hourly rate/bottom line. After you choose your goals, you then can figure out what game to play. If you’re a better NL player than you are at limit, play NL… If you’re playing for the money pick your best game and stick with it.

Next, figure out what format is most profitable for you… be it ring, (6 max/10max), sngs (turbos, heads up), mtts, you get the idea.... This again should correlate with your goals. (If your goal is to make the most money then pick the one with the highest hourly rate.)

Now here comes the hard part. How many tables should you play? This really depends on what stakes you’re playing and how many tables you can play effectively in your game/ format of choice. If you’re playing limit cash games, you should be able to play a higher number of tables than in no limit cash games etc. You need to determine the right number for you based on your ability to comprehend information, your reaction time, and how well you know your basic strategy. When you stop watching the players and the action, solely playing your cards this may be an indication that you’re playing too many tables. The more tables you play the lower your ROI (return on investment) will be, this is a given. But, you have to figure out the optimal number to run in order to raise your hourly rate without a serious drop off in your consistency and play. Then again, I’ve heard of people 36 tabling tiny money sngs and making some nice profit but this leads to the next point. You have to assess how much you can play in a day before your play starts to slump. How good must the conditions be in order to keep you in the game? After you get a good feeling of your limitations you have to have the correct state of mind.

In order to be a successful poker player, you have to have a healthy frame of mind and a healthy body. If you give yourself a heart attack playing 250 sngs a day then even though you may have been making good money at the time, those hospital bills add up. Plus the time you can’t play during your recovery. While this may not be the most realistic example more plausible ones might be back pains… or need for corrective eye surgery. If you play too much you might burn out, lose focus and cause yourself to make less money.

The last thing you have to do to increase your bottom line is to ignore short term results. Everyone takes bad beats; everyone has variance. It’s simply unavoidable. In the long run, everyone is dealt the same cards. The profit comes in playing them better than your opponents. It’s all about how you view it. You need to be impartial with your results, at least while you’re at the tables. Be happy when you play well, and look to improve when you don’t. If you worry less about your short term-results, and more about playing correctly and finding your optimal conditions, the profit will inevitably follow.

In closing, the most important thing to note is this: you can’t profit if you don’t keep yourself in the game. So remember... settle on a goal, find your niche, ascertain amount of tables you can play optimally, find out how long you can play good poker before your play deteriorates, have a positive state of mind, and a long-term view of your results. Enjoy.
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