The Road To $5k

Some of you reading this already know me through the online poker world. Those same people have seen my trials and tribulations of the last few years. Those that are new, well the basic wrap-up is that over the last four years my poker career has been stuck in neutral. I have been a consistent winner, but due to financial needs on the home front, money earned from poker went there.

Also due to the downright infuriating difficulties American poker players seem to have to endure these days the last year has seen me take a few long breaks from the online poker world, but due to my 7 day a week work schedule and the nearest casino more than 60 miles distant, I have been virtually forced back to the online world, but I am still uncertain just how safe my money may or not be, so I have developed a system or financial plan if you will. I am not happy about withdraws sent by check being my ONLY option, but I have to live with it. I don't have any real choice.

I am starting over, starting fresh and have made a deposit of $50. Spent a couple of days before my official start just playing various games and ended up with the original $50........ so be it. I am going to work my bankroll up, but am going to try to keep the majority of it offline and in a separate bank account, making deposits as needed. The maximum I will allow myself to keep online is $300. Once $300 is reached I will withdraw anything over that magic $300 amount and have them send me a check. The days of keeping several hundred dollars online are history.

I need $5000 to play full time. My wife, Becci and I are moving to Washington State in one year and I have that amount of time to earn $5k. Washington State has nearly 100 places to play poker, so availability will be no problem. $5k may seem a small amount to have to play full time, but with that, plus the money my wife brings in each month, plus credit cards and the money we will have saved for the move itself, $5k should be just fine. Now to earn it.

I no longer multi table. I can play 9 tables at a time and even 12 on a good day, the fact is I am best geared to single tabling when I play poker. The swings 9 tabling are wild and also I cannot get reads on my opponents multi tabling and even only 2 or 3 tables it is difficult. My analytical personality shows me that single tabling is the way to go. I will play 2 tables in the fact that I will have a cash game and 1 tournament, but that is the extent of it, no further.


I can play 3 hours a day. In the past I have tried to set and achieve a certain amount of hours at the tables, but life keeps interfering with those plans. Things like errands, food shopping, doctor's appointments, etc. keep getting in the way so I will be playing my 3 hours each day in the early morning hours, after I get home from work. This should solve the problem of not getting the hours at the tables played.


365 days.

9/01/08 to 8/31/09

$5k Bankroll


Obviously traditional bankroll rules are not possible. If I went with the standard bankroll rules of 300 big bets per level, even with a 1.5bb/hr earn rate I wouldn't come close to $5k, so the approach needs to be adjusted for the current situation, but at the same time not going broke as money will be tight in the coming year saving for the move. How to do it is the big question.

A start at .10/.20 is reasonable and careful entries to the $3.30 stud tourney as I have proven successful with that in the past. So, the plan is to play whatever stakes I have a buy-in for provided it is above that minimum $50 mark. For Example a bankroll of $70 will give me a $20 buy-in to the .25/.50 limit game. A bankroll of say $55 will give me an entry to the $3/.30 stud tourney and a session of .10/.20. Like I said not exactly traditional bankroll management, nut a necessary evil if I am to have any chance at $5k in a year's time.

9/1 is my official start but I have been poking around here and there online playing this and that. Kind of trying to give myself a head start. So far I have a final stable in the stud tourney and overall decent results at the cash table except for a small 3 day period where I just could not win a session, but even at that the losses I was taking were small and manageable.

That's it for now. Take care. be well and play well.