#721 – Cry Poverty, or, An Invitation to Messrs. Ivey, Lindgren, Seidel, et al.

The World Series of Poker is just two months away. Because Full Tilt asked me to come back to cover the Series for The Blog, I’ll be there and I’m looking forward to it. For the first time in several years, however, it is pretty likely that I WON’T be playing much – or maybe not at all. I am not bringing this up to complain, but rather to illustrate the difficulties in making a living playing poker.

Let me also make clear that I’m not begging for someone to stake me in the World Series – Unless your name is Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Phil Hellmuth, Erik Seidel, or any other Phil or Eri[c]k with more dollars and sense.
CUE THE SAD MUSIC

This tale starts in 2003, though I will try to get us into 2009 ASAP. I was living the life of leisure, a retired Chicago lawyer playing golf in the Arizona sun four times a week, freelancing articles for men’s magazines and trying without success to sell a book for big dollars. Having invested my money a couple stock-market crashes ago when the Dow was near 12,000 and the NASDAQ was near 5k, I was living in a fool’s paradise, but it was a paradise just the same. My golfing buddy Ted became interested in poker – on the internet, at the local Indian casino, in Vegas – and wanted company. I played recreationally a decade earlier and figured it couldn’t be more frustrating than my seemingly hopeless attempts to sell a book proposal to one of the Majors.

Fast forward: I made a little money, had some fun, kicked writing to the curb, heard a story about the still-secret Andy Beal Game, revived my writing career, wrote for magazines, got fired from magazines, hooked up with Full Tilt for the Strategy Guide, started playing tournament poker, and started writing this Blog.

Unquestionably, the world thinks of me as a writer who plays poker, not a poker player who writes. I’ve considered the matter unresolved for nearly two years. Editing the Strategy Guide and learning poker from the likes of Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Howard Lederer, and Ted Forrest gave me tremendous confidence as a tournament player. I made a pair of final tables at the 2007 World Series, then made six figures playing tournaments on Full Tilt in 2008.
“MAKING A LIVING” AT POKER VS. “MAKING MONEY” AT POKER

During that period, the money I’ve made playing poker (along with what I’m paid for this Blog) has given me the luxury of putting off a return to the working world. (And that’s where I was 100% headed, thanks to the dot-com bust, the September 11 crash, and a what-me-worry? lifestyle.) Although most of my poker career has been played in the confines of my home office, I consider myself a professional in the truest sense of the word: I make my LIVING from poker. That is, I pay the costs of living from money I make at poker.

When you look at it from that angle – that I’m using money I make playing poker for things OTHER than playing poker – you can see why I have under $500 in my Full Tilt account, little more in my cash playing-bankroll, and few prospects for boosting either in the next sixty days.

Most of the money I made online in 2008 was (a) earned in the first six months, and (b) spent paying bills and entries into 2008 World Series events. I think I played 19 events in ‘08 and cashed just once. It was bad but not a disaster: I won my seat to the Main Event and was playing with “house money” (winnings from the ‘07 Series and ‘08 Full Tilt tournaments). I won $20,000 in my last tournament of 2008, but that was the end of four bankroll-draining months. Apart from financing poker losses, I was withdrawing money from Full Tilt to pay bills. I was also drawing on my cash-bankroll for petty cash and some bills.

The weird thing about this story is that I have been very profitable for the past two years. But not profitable enough. I won three tournaments on Full Tilt in Jan/Feb 2009, worth $14k, $8k, and $4k. I withdrew a chunk to pay bills, and then had to liquidate nearly all of my cash bankroll (to which I’ve been withdrawing since last year’s Series, for WSOP-Europe, bills, and petty cash, without ever replenishing it) to pay taxes.

[Why someone who is broke owes so much in taxes is beyond me; I'm happy as it is because, for the first time in ten years, I gave my accountant the tax preparation materials before September.]

So at the start of the month, I had money to pay my bills and money to pay my taxes, several thousand dollars in my Full Tilt account, and an aching cash bankroll. March has been a losing month online, made worse by all the losing $216 and $322 shots I’ve taken at World Series seats.

I’m now in a position where I don’t have the money online to play the big tournaments where I’ve made my best scores in the past. A busy Sunday can cost $1,500-$2,500 in tournament entries and I’m down to just a fraction of that. That’s okay. I’m willing to play the bankroll management game.

In fact, I’ve been playing very well and am confident my next big score is just around the corner. The problem is, however, that a profit of several thousand dollars, say, tomorrow, wouldn’t allow me to play at the World Series. It’s what I need to play a full schedule on Full Tilt in the coming weeks.

A second big score? Damn, the bastards at Bank of America, Mercedes Benz, and American Express expect payments monthly, so I have to make allowance for what I owe (and will owe) in April and May.

A third big score? Now we’re talking World Series dough. But that’s why I’m starting to assume that I won’t be playing much at this year’s Series. It’s going to be different, but I’m fine with it, especially because it wasn’t LOSSES that ate up my bankroll, so much as it was LIFE.
POSTSCRIPT

OK, if you’re Ivey or Lindgren or Juanda or Grinder or Negreanu, forget all that. E-mail me at mrchaotic@aol.com and we can discuss whether you want to back a thoroughbread horse at the Rio.

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