Question for parttime/fulltime players

Hello all.

Just got me thinking when iv been reading about bankroll management and starting out then gradully building a bankroll how you then progress to higher stake tournaments when you have the funds to do so.

My question is for people who play it as either fulltime income to pay their bills or even just a second job and part income.

When would you determine to withdraw any winnings accumlated from playing? I say this because many people say you must continue just building your bankroll and as say for example someone started with $100 and over time they got a bankroll of like 20k, by this point they will of upped their game and decided to play higher stake tournaments. Obviously there is going to be a point where someone wants to treat themselves to something and buy maybe a car or holiday or whatever and say for example withdraw half their money. Would you then just drop down stakes again? It seems quite a painful thing to do..

The other example, a top high stake tournament player who has a bankroll of 100k and needs to pay their bills every month. Do you just withdraw a standard wage or what? Then drop down in stakes to accommodate it?

I can actually only see people who are multi millionaires (which cant be many) who would be able to live a good life outside of poker by being able to pay their bills, have holidays, buy a new car and still be able to afford the big stake buy-ins.

Any views on this would be good, thanks.

I imagine they cash out a percentage of their BR based either on profits or on volume.

There will be all sorts of ways to do it. One of the simplest, I imagine, would be to simply cash out whatever you make as profit each month / week / quarter / whatever. Then you're still rolled to continue playing at the same level and you've got your money to spend on bills / etc.

I have played for years and never paid a bill!!!!!

If you are playing for an income, i would say that you need to build your bankroll first, and keep upgrading your stakes to maximize profits until you find the stakes that you are the most comfortable at. (Both playing at, and living at) From there I would continue to use the bankroll that you have to skim profits off the top.

Thats how i would do it, but im sure there will be a response to this soon saying why I am wrong, and then I will change my mind. LOL. luckily I am not a pro by any means.

I suggest this.

Just with taking out a pre-determined wage rather than your profits. Just treat the game like a business and keep your operating funds growing.

Oh and whatever you do, don't get into playing poker for a living because you want to make a lot of money, it's not going to happen in the first couple of years.

Thanks for the replys.

It isn't my intention to play poker for a living, definitely not yet anyway iv still got a hell of a lot to learn, maybe in the future if i think i gain that edge lol.

It was more of just a curiosity question than anything else as i was wondering how they worked it.

I have never ever even thought about using poker money to live on.
I think once you do that, it becomes more of a grind than a bit of fun, and I want my poker to be fun!

As for the top pro's paying themselves a 'wage'. That isn't really an issue as they are usually on 100% rakeback online and will quite often find their entry fee's to live games 'mysteriously' paid for them, as casino's will just be happy with the publicity of having Ivey, De-Wolfe and, yes, even Philly Phil Helmouth show up.
I think maybe the high stakes cash game grinders may find themselves withdrawing cash to live on, but when you're shipping 6 figure pots, a couple of grand every month doesn't break the bank. Also, most of the 'decent' players will be hitting the live circuit too, which pays cash in yo' hand.

Basically, I try not to have any disillusions of becomming a pro/fulltime player. I'm very happy grinding away my $50 every month and being one of the 95% of losing players who pay the winning 5%'s buy-in's!

I know people who would cash out a percentage of their profits for the previous month. So if they made $300, they might cash out $100. If they made $1,000 they might cash out $333.

If you do *not* plan on moving up a level then you can just keep cashing out your entire profit each month.

Establish a BR and then start with a small percentage every month, say 10%.

So if you start with $100 and double it to $200, you should consider $20 (although you can't take out less than $150 at FTP) your profit and put it aside.

Once you have enough to satisfy your percentage you can start withdrawing money.

Unless you get to 20K in your BR, I doubt you can live on the profits but you can certainly make enough for a decent night out.

Hope this helps

Once my bankroll exceeded $5k, I began withdrawing $100 from each additional $200 won. This has the effect of providing me with some profits while also continuing to build my bankroll.

I keep detailed "accounts" and, when I go through a downswing, I don`t withdraw until I have again built back up to the former level. This means that my income from poker is quite variable (some months = none), but it doesn`t matter because I have a good day-job in any case. Poker provides my "rainy days and holidays" fund.

I remember a blog post by Jennifear on P5s that talked about bankroll management. For a decent player, she recommended cashing out based on volume. The full post can be found here.