Poker Articles

“We shouldn’t be spending $100 on dinner again,” she says.

“It’s one big blind, I think I can afford it,” I reply, rolling my eyes.

And though I don’t make enough money that $100 should mean so little to me, I see enough money on the table every day that the $100 has lost its meaning. Every professional player I know has a problem holding on to cash for the same reason. We spend money like it’s got an expiration date, and our understanding of the value of a dollar is basically non-existent.

People seem to think that the biggest hazard of being a poker pro is the risk of going broke. Most pros have gone broke, many of them more than once, and honestly it’s not a big deal. Going broke just isn’t that tough to recover from. The biggest hazard, at least from a financial standpoint, is probably winning a lot and moving up levels. It kills your perspective on money forever.

Let’s start with an anecdote involving Cal from Pocketfives.

You see, Cal and I met up in Vegas last summer, along with a bunch of other players and webmasters. We ended up at a party that a site was throwing for us at Treasure Island.  Within an hour we had collected $900 in cash to try to get one of the guys from PokerShares to jump into the bay from the bar. I had nine $100 bills in my hand: four from me, three from Cal, and two from one of the guy's coworkers. We were not drunk. Well not THAT drunk.

No we weren’t drunk, we were just stupid. Our perspective on money was ruined long ago, and when there are a few of us together, it can get out of hand. Any place that a bunch of pros gather will turn into a crazed carnival of money being spent everywhere. The things we do with money and the things they will bet on are amazing. Read the Off Topic forum once in a while for some stories from some of the big names in online poker, and learn about the crazy things they do with money. 

Not many people know that I once won $20 from Cal betting on the number of nail clippers he had in his desk drawer. Cal and I are pretty conservative people, to be honest. At least we used to be. I don’t know what happened.  

I once paid a waitress $80 to grab a friend's... Well you don’t need to hear all these stories anyway. Let’s just see if I can find a point in all this.

When you play poker for a living, you see money flying across the table constantly. You  will see fortunes come and go so quickly on the wings of fate that it can be a real challenge to keep a perspective. A player who makes $50,000 a year might see $2,000,000 move across the table and through his chip stacks in that year. I used to think that great players were people who started off with no regard for money and a very strong competitive streak, but I have learned differently. It’s the game that brings out these traits.

Poker steals your respect for money.

Whatever level a pro plays, they are seeing more money move around than they are actually making, by a few orders of magnitude. I sit down at a $50-$100 Omaha table where every pot is over $300 every day. I play $50-$100 heads up games where a buy-in costs me $5,000. I win or lose a thousand dollars in an hour very frequently; and I play fairly low for a working pro. I hate to think what happens to the guys playing $1,000-$2,000 or even higher.

How do you write a budget or try to save up some cash with such a rotten attitude toward financial matters? How do you get some perspective back and start to behave wisely with your money? Is it even possible?

The only way I find that I can care about money is to separate poker from the rest of the world. I have money in my bank account, and that money is limited. I transfer myself a certain amount of cash every month, and that’s all I get. This forces me to spend money at a reasonable rate and not blow through my bankroll betting that somebody can’t throw a playing card over a power cable.

Keep your bankroll separate from your personal life--the two are not connected. Your bankroll is a separate entity that you may never be able to see as normal money. Even if you could see that money the same way, it wouldn’t be good for your game, because pushing chips in the middle is very different from pushing a new car into the pot. If you realize that you have just bet a wide screen TV or a vacation to Greece, your game will suffer.

It’s an inherent hazard of the job, and one that will always be there, but if you keep that money separated, you’ll be a lot better off.  Don’t forget to pull some out and have fun, but just make sure it’s something you plan to do and that it’s worth the money you’re spending.  Get yourself some medical insurance and a 401k; you’ll be glad you did.

Online poker may not last forever. You may decide you can’t take it anymore, or you may need that bankroll for something. Most people who are playing poker for a living right now will not be doing it for the rest of their lives, so think about what life will be like after poker. You’ll have nothing to put on a resume and work experience that doesn’t apply to very many jobs. Your regard for money will be shot all to hell, and no one who hires employees is going to be impressed with your previous career as a “big balla.”

If you are smart with money now and study hard, you could have a lot of money in the bank when you decide you are done playing poker for a living. You can go to college without having to have a job, or buy a business that can keep you comfortable for the rest of your life. Or you could go out and buy a $200,000 car right now and sell it for half that once you are really broke, leaving yourself with almost nothing for all your hard work.

That’s the end of my rant, and I suppose I should take a little of my own advice here. Anyone know how a professional poker player can get some good medical insurance? Or exactly what a 401k is and how it works? Anyone up for Roshambo at $100 a throw?