Down to the felt

[STLantny]

This is to all you old farts on this site (im 22).....here's my situation....im playing 3/6 right now, making a good earn, 2.78bb/100 over not that many hands (30k) etc. I think im decent, i study and read about the game, etc, but I am evolving. Now, Im off of "work" and have nohting to do till around march, I have money saved up etc. Im hoping to play a crap load of hands in jan/feb. Around 80k. I will turn "pro" while im in college, as in, I want to have no other means of income other than poker (and some bartending, for "social" activities hehe). That is my plan until march, when my job starts back up again, ill re-evaluate, and decide if i should take the "risk", as i can always go back to the crappy 14$/hr job. My goal is to give my dad the present of paying off school in 2 years or so, when Im finished, buying a really expensive car etc. I pay no rent because my apartment is free if I do some maintnence for my uncle on it....NOW after that life story is completed... When you guys say that everyone goes broke, are you talking statistically, standard dev, etc, or are you talking emotionally/tilt factor & blowing the cash? I really respect the views of people who are older, and have gone through it already. IMO there is no better teacher than experience.

[Buckshot]

Being broke is a misnomer nowadays or so I've been told. My definition of going broke isn't really relevant. It's like having a bankroll is not really having a bankroll. One could use his/her paycheck to replenish their bankroll and theoretically never go broke. To me that's sort of cheating and defeats the purpose of having a poker bankroll.

I have been broke playing poker. That's to say I've begged or borrowed (never stolen) to play after the money I had set aside to play with was gone. I had aspirations to be a pro before the poker explosion and that didn't go well either. But things are different now.

Since April 2003 I haven't been broke. In fact, I won two pokerroom freeroll tourneys to start my current bankroll and haven't looked back since. My poker bankroll is just that, it's my bankroll for poker. I use it for poker and that's that. I have a default amount and I take a draw from it every week. I'm sure there are many, many others who can say they've never replenished their roll (Dynasty comes to mind) but IMHO if you've used any other means besides poker to add to your bankroll then you've been broke.

~stephen