As the saying goes in Physics, there is no free lunch.
I knew the beginning of this challenge/journey/shot is going to be very hard and this is the 'phase' that is a bit risky. Ideally, you want to have a big enough bankroll where you can pay yourself and manage all your expenses with relatively little impact on your bankroll.
My reality is that i'm not there yet. I had to dip into my bankroll to take care of life costs, namely, rent, utilities, food, and things of that sort.
The good news is that i'm paid through for the next month, so I won't have these expenses again for a while and by then, I will have a much better cushion built up (knock on wood)
The bad news is that I had to dip into my bankroll and it was unavoidable. :(
No poker today.
Lastly, I added a new line to my graph, ROI Objective. That line is essential where my bankroll needs to be in order to hit my objective of paying back my backer 300% ROI.
As long as my bankroll is above that line, I'm okay, if I fall below that line, I'm not okay.
In the beginning (like now) there is risk, i'm a lot closer to that line than I want to be.
But with time, I should trend up and away from that line.
Lastly, I bought the book Zen and the Art of Poker. by Larry Phillips.
I read the first 30 pages last night. It seems decent although a little overwritten in some parts.
How can one live in the Bay Area on $500 a month?
ReplyDeleteYou should get a PT job to mitigate your cost of living.
Consider it like this, If your a good player and you earn 14%ROI(which is both ridiculously high and not the standard measuring stick for live players) a month you would make about $4200. And that's with a total reinvestment. You have living expenses and a contract with a backer.
So you have to ask yourself some questions about how you are going to reach your goals.
Most important (in life as well as gambling) is how you are going to realize your goals. Do you honestly expect to pop between 300-500 dollars a day 6 days a week for a year? If not, then what are your expectations? How many BB out of a hundred are you going to have to hit just to cover your cost of living and make good with your backer?
Are you going to play differently knowing your quality of life is on the line? Are you being honest with yourself about the way you handle the constant up and down swings of gambling professionally? Do the people that surround you support you? Will they support you if things start to go South? Will you be able to deal with going broke?
And before you get up in arms realize I only ask these questions because I doubt you ask them yourself.
But maybe you do, in any case this would be a much more interesting blog if you talked more about these issues/
First, I don't mind the questions.
ReplyDeleteThe quick answer to your question is that my total expenses are more than $500 a month, the -$500 is just the portion that had to come out of my bankroll.
I was hesistant to talk to much about my personal life in this blog as I thought that might bore some people. Instead, I just decided to focus more on poker.
Hmmm... I'll put together another page tab about my personal life stuff and for those who are interested they can read/follow that as well.
thanks for your comments and suggestions
Knowing a little about your personal life, as it pertains to your poker goals, would actually make the blog more interesting. I'm guessing that some who read your blog are in a similar circumstance (like myself). So, for me, knowing how you balanced the numbers, expenses and time with your life outside of poker would be very interesting. Currently I play small stakes (1/2 NLHE) and only once or twice a week. As I build a bankroll while making sure my bills are paid, I would like to eventually play 5-6 nights a week and in higher stakes. So I'm very interested in your progress.
ReplyDelete