bdk3clash
12-12-2004, 10:51 PM
My TiVo informs me of upcoming programs with "poker" in the description, so I just watched an episode of the show "Radical Sabbatical" (where people quit their jobs and pursue their dream job or whatever) where a guy quits his job as a vitamin salesman to become a professional poker player.
Anyway, he was entirely fixated on qualifying for a World Poker Tour event--his measure of success or failure was whether he could build his $4,000 bankroll into $10,000 so he can play in a WPT event in 3 months. This struck me as pretty weird because I would think a "professional poker player" with a wife and 4 children would want to:
A) earn more than $2,000 per month
B) paying for stuff (food, shelter, clothing) with his poker earnings
C) be knowledgeable enough about bankroll/variance issues to realize that playing one tournament for your entire bankroll is probably not a good idea
Anyway, I think the very first thing he did was play a $500 buyin event at the Bicycle, which he shockingly did not place in. After that he "won $2000 on the Internet" (I'm skeptical), then flew to Las Vegas (flight and hotel costs were not deducted from the bankroll, of course) and played in like a $4-8 Omaha game or something.
(Of course, this is just what was shown, maybe he was busy crushing the Mirage $40-80 and socking that money away off-camera or something.)
Anyway, 1 day before the WPT event he was trying to qualify for his bankroll was at like $9500 and then he lost like $3000 and had to watch from the sidelines. No, the producers did not step in and pay for him to enter the tournament.
All in all, a good study in self-delusion and bankroll mismanagement.
Anyway, he was entirely fixated on qualifying for a World Poker Tour event--his measure of success or failure was whether he could build his $4,000 bankroll into $10,000 so he can play in a WPT event in 3 months. This struck me as pretty weird because I would think a "professional poker player" with a wife and 4 children would want to:
A) earn more than $2,000 per month
B) paying for stuff (food, shelter, clothing) with his poker earnings
C) be knowledgeable enough about bankroll/variance issues to realize that playing one tournament for your entire bankroll is probably not a good idea
Anyway, I think the very first thing he did was play a $500 buyin event at the Bicycle, which he shockingly did not place in. After that he "won $2000 on the Internet" (I'm skeptical), then flew to Las Vegas (flight and hotel costs were not deducted from the bankroll, of course) and played in like a $4-8 Omaha game or something.
(Of course, this is just what was shown, maybe he was busy crushing the Mirage $40-80 and socking that money away off-camera or something.)
Anyway, 1 day before the WPT event he was trying to qualify for his bankroll was at like $9500 and then he lost like $3000 and had to watch from the sidelines. No, the producers did not step in and pay for him to enter the tournament.
All in all, a good study in self-delusion and bankroll mismanagement.