How do the pro's do it?

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DenverDave

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I have often wondered how the pro's play online/live, and use winnings for paying bills?

I know if you hit a big MTT payday, if you budget your money, you can make it last. But I know most pro's make their living with cash games.

I had read Sklansky saying you should never take money out of your bankroll. No? How do you pay the electricity Mr. Mad Genius?

Do they always have 100 buyins and regularly take payouts to live on? Maybe splurge every now and then?

I would love to hear from any of the pro or semi-pro's here that are using online poker to make a living and their strategies for doing so.

Thanks
Dave
 
Four Dogs

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DenverDave said:
I have often wondered how the pro's play online/live, and use winnings for paying bills?

I know if you hit a big MTT payday, if you budget your money, you can make it last. But I know most pro's make their living with cash games.

I had read Sklansky saying you should never take money out of your bankroll. No? How do you pay the electricity Mr. Mad Genius?

Do they always have 100 buyins and regularly take payouts to live on? Maybe splurge every now and then?

I would love to hear from any of the pro or semi-pro's here that are using online poker to make a living and their strategies for doing so.

Thanks
Dave
Click to expand...

Mike Caro is the Mad Genius. Sklansky is The Mathematician.
 
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JLuv81

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You have a life roll and a bank roll, that's what Sklansky means when he says don't use money from your bankroll (BR)to pay bills. To pay the electric, water, cable, rent, etc you use your life roll; when you enter tourneys and cash games, the BR is used. They are to remain separate.

Back when I was doing this, I was a Corporate Analyst and my expenses were only 40% of my income. The additional money I had left over was used to build a BR and play live cash. Since I was still employed I used my job as my life roll, and my earnings from poker to continue to build a BR.
 
bullishwwd

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BR Management and Discipline are Key

And, of course, playing poker well helps build a poker reserve (contingency fund) for the lean periods of play. DO NOT combine the two funds ... always maintain 2 separate accounts.

Bankroll Management techniques and budgeting discipline are key. Review some books on these subjects and develop the discipline to implement. This may well "require" you to actually take some 'forced breaks' from playing poker when necessary from time to time....discipline is key to preventing 'tilt'.

GL, Wally
 
Nathan Williams

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Just like a lot of regular people who live paycheck to paycheck many of the big name "pros," even the ones that you see on TV, are terrible at money management. They are in debt and go from one stake to the next. The ones that are actual consistent winners of course manage their money a lot better segregating poker funds from life funds.
 
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BlackRain79 said:
Just like a lot of regular people who live paycheck to paycheck many of the big name "pros," even the ones that you see on TV, are terrible at money management. They are in debt and go from one stake to the next. The ones that are actual consistent winners of course manage their money a lot better segregating poker funds from life funds.
Click to expand...

I think this might be it...
 
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DenverDave

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Thanks for all the replies!

I agree that bankroll and liferoll need to be separated.

Wally: Any suggestions?

My main question was if I am playing at some level, and have a 100 buyin roll, and have a good winrate for that stake, usually 3+bb/100(feel free to correct me if my data is outdated here) and you get up to 120 buyins, do you take 10-20 buyins out to live on? And if you cash well, or even FT or win a MTT, does the entry go back into your bankroll and the rest into liferoll?
 
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I can't speak for true pros, but back in college I paid my way through a semester and summer playing poker. I was a 1/2 reg and making enough to cover living expenses, the meager expenses that college students seem to get by on :)

Anyways, I had a rule that every month I would withdraw 25% of that months profit for expenses. The rest would stay in my BR. I contemplated 50% but wanted to build to support playing 2/4 regularly. This was my way of separating BR and living expenses while using poker to pay the bills.
 
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I was planning to do what rw11687 essentially did. Play poker but only pull a portion out ... and place in the BR. However, the goal is to have the BR continually grow so ideally you want to pull as little as possible.

I still work full-time which pays the "real life" expenses easily enough for now while I get better at Poker. Poker winnings simply built up at this point until I can "wean" myself of of working full-time :)
 
bullishwwd

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DenverDave said:
Thanks for all the replies!

I agree that bankroll and liferoll need to be separated.

Wally: Any suggestions?

My main question was if I am playing at some level, and have a 100 buyin roll, and have a good winrate for that stake, usually 3+bb/100(feel free to correct me if my data is outdated here) and you get up to 120 buyins, do you take 10-20 buyins out to live on? And if you cash well, or even FT or win a MTT, does the entry go back into your bankroll and the rest into liferoll?
Click to expand...
My suggestion is to keep the poker and life FUND completely separate, but establish a reasonable % (monthly) that you are willing to 'withdraw' from either and 'transfer' to the other without establishing any "economic or emotional tilt". Never "ROB" monies from either fund...stay with your established plan.

EXAMPLE:

Let's say you live on an annual income of $24,000 (Net) ... the amount available for charities, expenses, bills, entertainment, etc .... disposable or discretionary income. That is $2,000 per month. Establish a reasonable %, say 15% per month, that you can easily (and are willing to) devote to POKER ... that is $300/mo. Budget that amount, no more and no less, every month to POKER (This % will vary for each person based on what amount is available). NOTE, this is a monthly BUDGETED item just like mortgage, rent, food, auto loan, etc.

In the POKER Fund, you have only $300/mo in income + any earnings from playing poker only....once this is gone, you necessarily STOP PLAYING until the next month. Assuming you have a great month with Poker, say you win/ITM for several MTTs and "net" an additional $1,000 from poker playing, establish a reasonable % of this (say, 30 to 50%) that you are willing to "transfer" back to your "Life Fund" for future "contingencies"...may want to keep this in a separate 'sub-account' of the Life Fund, say a Bank Savings Account. The growth of this sub-account will be a good gauge of your overall success or failure.

The above is only my suggestion ... adjust the percentages per your own situation and availability of funds. You can be flexible, but develop a plan and use discipline or you'll likely never achieve a goal if you are not aware of it.

GL, Wally
 
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JLuv81

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DenverDave said:
My main question was if I am playing at some level, and have a 100 buyin roll, and have a good winrate for that stake, usually 3+bb/100(feel free to correct me if my data is outdated here) and you get up to 120 buyins, do you take 10-20 buyins out to live on? And if you cash well, or even FT or win a MTT, does the entry go back into your bankroll and the rest into liferoll?
Click to expand...

You should already have a life roll separate from your BR at that point. Based on your example you should have your 100 BIs for your BR and 6 months of personal expenses saved elsewhere.
 
A2345Razz

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DenverDave said:
I have often wondered how the pro's play online/live, and use winnings for paying bills?

I know if you hit a big MTT payday, if you budget your money, you can make it last. But I know most pro's make their living with cash games.

I had read Sklansky saying you should never take money out of your bankroll. No? How do you pay the electricity Mr. Mad Genius?

Do they always have 100 buyins and regularly take payouts to live on? Maybe splurge every now and then?

I would love to hear from any of the pro or semi-pro's here that are using online poker to make a living and their strategies for doing so.

Thanks
Dave
Click to expand...


This....they play a lot of volume and use rakeback /VIP cashback on Stars to pay for their monthly nut(rent/mortgage, car, gas, food and other assorted bills).

Also, if you arent multitabling at least 100NL, you really are pretty marginal as a pro imho. You might make it for awhile, but....busto is looming.

So if you play 8-12 tables of 100NLH 6 handed 35 hours a week to allow for vacations and taking off time...you are pulling in well over 45k/yr pretax in just effective 30% rakeback.

Hit supernova elite or something and it gets much more lucrative, but that would take much more or higher staked play.

calculations can be made here:

http://www.rakeback.com/rakeback-calculator/
 
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the bankroll and liferoll need to be separated, you can lost everything if not.
 
pokertroll

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Some Pro's have more than 1 career for example Liz Lieu is a humanitarian,Model,Business Owner plus a World Class Poker Player
 
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rw11687 said:
I can't speak for true pros, but back in college I paid my way through a semester and summer playing poker. I was a 1/2 reg and making enough to cover living expenses, the meager expenses that college students seem to get by on :)

Anyways, I had a rule that every month I would withdraw 25% of that months profit for expenses. The rest would stay in my BR. I contemplated 50% but wanted to build to support playing 2/4 regularly. This was my way of separating BR and living expenses while using poker to pay the bills.
Click to expand...

That makes sense. Are you still grinding out at 2/4?
 
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Dammit I can't live on $10 a week.
I notice they don't have pokerstars on their calculator, probably because it is variable (12% to 74.45% dependent on VIP level), Dammit I can't live on $5 a week.
Still interesting to get a rough idea.
 
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Maintaining a good BRM is the key to success in online/live poker.
It just like an investment.
 
wanderingthehall

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The important thing is to keep your poker br and your life br separate. You can pay yourself a regular check out of your poker br, but you don't just dip into whenever you feel like. There a few different strategies for how you pay yourself out if money management is important.

1. Pay yourself a percentage of your winnings.

2. Figure out your hourly rate, and pay yourself something under that, so treat yourself like an employee in your own business. If you make 8 bb/hr, pay yourself 2 bb/hr. You'll have to figure out what is realistic for your situation on how much you want for your life roll vs. building a poker br to play higher stakes.

3. Only pay yourself the rakeback you earn. Therefore, you're poker winning only add to your bankroll. You'll cashout based on how many hours you spend playing and the stakes. This is the most accurate reflection of the time you put in vs. stakes you're playing.


My personal withdrawal strategy as a micro stakes player is to withdraw 10% of every MTT or SNG cash. I play cash occasionally, but don't keep track of wins/losses or factor that in for withdrawals. I keep track with an excel spreadsheet and cashout whenever the total meets the minimum cashout requirement, am eligible for the next free check, or my current bonus has expired or cleared.
 
Arjonius

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At least a few factors that haven't been mentioned can come into play. For instance, the number of buyins in your BR isn't the only factor affecting the probability of going broke. Your degree of advantage vs your opponents matters. So do the degree to which you play a higher- or lower-variance style, and the degree to which you play in higher- or lower-variance games.
 
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