Does anyone here stake?

[Emoney]

This is my first post, but i've been reading here for quite a while. i'm in the process of looking for a stake to solidify my bankroll. a friend of mine said that people here will stake on occasion so i figured there's no harm in asking. i'm in a bit of a unique situation. i had just built up my bankroll to a little under 5,200 but had some big expenses come up rather quickly that forced me to take 3000 out. my situation doesn't make sense without some back story. it may get long so hopefully you can bear with me.

i'm 22 and in my last year of college at the university of washington. i've been playing for about 4 years now, but only seriously for about 15 months, with only 8 of those months as a winning player. i had spent last fall going to school in my hometown of anchorage, ak rather than in seattle to help my parents out a little bit with the business and to help my sister in her first year of college. i was slated to go back to uw in january to start winter quarter, but my parents wanted me to stay and finish in anchorage. this wasn't what was agreed upon earlier and it led to pretty big disagreement between me and my parents. they tried to force me to stay by playing the money card. so if i wanted to go back to my school and finish then i would not only have to pay my own way, but also pay off the 20K in student debt i had already accumulated. so i went ahead and paid off the debt using my savings as well as the 11k i had won playing in the party 10/20 game. this left me completely broke, but gave me freedom to do what i felt i needed to do.

i was able to borrow a few thousand from some friends of mine to get a lease started in seattle and keep me on my feet until i could find work. i found work pretty quickly, doing clerical work for a friend of a friend who is a lawyer. they call it clerical, but i'm really just the office go-fer. but it pays decent enough to pay the bills. but just paying the bills wasn't getting it done. i needed to be able to put money away to furnish my apartment and pay for later tuition. i added 25 hours on the weekend at the local golf course after a few weeks.

65 hours a week wasn't all that much fun, but it wasn't killing me. what i really wanted to do was play poker, but i couldn't put any money into starting a bankroll because every dollar i made was earmarked for something like a couch or table for my extremely bare apartment. even currently there's little more than my futon. not to mention that i had to pay back the 3 thousand that i had borrowed to get started with.

so after a few paychecks i was out of the hole with my friends and i wanted to play poker. i looked for a stake in a lot of different places including asking my favorite pro. you can imagine my surprise when he said yes. he started me out with 1500. with all the hours i was working i didn't have a lot of time to play, along with the fact that i didn't have a computer much less internet access at home. but in the limited hours i had i got myself to the campus computer labs and played as many hours as i could. a few successful weeks later i quit the golf course job while keeping the 9-5er. the extra hours allowed me to make enough money to pay the staker back as well as build up my bankroll to the previously mentioned 5200. playing 3/6 then 5/10 then 10/20 and taking occasional stabs at 15/30.

unfortunately i got notice from school that my lab access would be ending because i wasn't registered for fall quarter. so i had to buck up and get a computer for home, along with internet. since the cable company here packages the internet and cable tv and i had planned to get cable tv in future anyway i decided to just do it now rather than later. so i had to take a good chunk of change out of my bankroll to pay for a nice comp, a tv, the startup costs of the cable tv/internet, and of course the added bill.

so now my bankroll sits at 2300. under 300BB at the 5/10 level. i wanted to find out if there's anyone out there who can help me out and give my bankroll the stablity to play where i'm the most comfortable (10/20). i've gotten and given a 100 percent return to my last stake and feel i can do the same for anyone else. i don't want to ask the same person again because i want to keep that person as a mentor and don't want to alienate him when he was nice enough to go out on a limb for me.

i don't really want to keep playing the low limit game. it's forumulaic and a grind, but more because of the time i'll have to put in again. i have good results but the variance can be so irritating. staying at the 3/6 or 5/10 level would mean that i would have to spend quite a while building my bankroll again before i had any serious income potential. and i don't really want to go through it again since i had just gone through it recently.

if anyone feels compelled to help me or want to know more about me then let me know. you can post or private message me. i'm a solid 10/20 player. i've had some decent results when i try 15/30, but the sample size is admittedly small. i've put in my time being a fish, learning the game and building myself a roll. i've read more than a few of the standard books. other than working 9-5 i'm pretty much going to be playing all the time since i've devoted the rest of this calendar year (and probably more) to saving money to finish school. i may try to become a pro when i'm done with school, but i don't want to make that decision now. part time seems to work well.

if this isn't something that's done here then just disregard with my apology. but i had heard that it was. so i figured i would ask. this forums has really helped me look at a lot of hands from different angles and i think that's an important part of the game. so maybe it can help me in a different way. anyone?

[Schneids]

You will run into one major problem here: You're new and have no longterm credibility, both in terms of honesty and skill-assessment.

I would recommend beginning by at least revealing the alias you play on in Party. If it is Party 10/20 6-max then I have probably played with you plenty and could at least make a statement about your skill level, as could many other posters.

Being realistic, it probably won't help you get any backing. However, it is a starting ground if there are in fact willing individuals out there willing to help you and willing to put up a risk to earn some more money -- since it is in fact true there are some individuals on this board who have staked other posters.

[TrickyTree]

i really think you should just concentrate on building your own bankroll back up. if you are a winning player then this will be no problem at all to you. As far as i can see you have more than enough money, baring something really unfortunate, to start at 5/10 and build your way back up to 15/30. You should be able to do this in a couple of months or so. Why be indebted to others?

[steamboatin]

I am a cynical old poop, if this board has helped him so much why us this his first post?

Maybe I should stay out of it, because I'd stake a vampire but no one else.

[dogmeat]

Welcome to the Forum. Glad to have you. Good luck in your poker playing future. Now:

You are NOT in a unique situation, 99% of all players (winners and losers) have situations that come up and force them to deplete their bankrolls. That is called life. Welcome to the real world after college.

You have a bankroll of $2300? What's wrong with playing 3 tables of $3/6? If you are such a terrific player, you should make between $10 and $15 per hour per game, or $45 per hour total. Whats the problem? 200 hours gets you up to $11K. No problem.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[J.A.Sucker]

2200 is plenty of money for the 5/10 6 max tables if you're an excellent player. You can build back up from nothing in a pretty short time these days - trust me, I know.

[Tosh]

You run a decent chance of ruin with that low a bankroll at 5/10.

[J.A.Sucker]

Not me. You might, however.

Edit: Besides, this isn't very much money, anyway. If he goes broke, he can easily work a second, crappy job and make some extra dough to build back up. Likewise, he could step down in limit. At the 5/10 level (6 max), if you're an excellent player, the swings are not very big, and much smaller than the 10/20 swings, which has a smaller proportional edge and higher aggression from your opponents (i.e. higher variance). If you play very well, then 2500 is plenty of money in this game. Most people don't play as well as they think.

[Tosh]

In fact, forget it.

[Emoney]

hey everyone,

thanks for the responses so far. i understand that it's my first post so it'll naturally draw skepticism. if i had a way to verify myself i would surely do it. but i can't really think of a way. perhaps have another 2+2er that i know vouch for me. my party name is edkim2, but you likely have not seen me at the 6max tables. i almost always play the full games. i didn't want to deal with the 6-max variance while i was building my roll. and my knowledge of shorthanded play isn't as complete as i'd like it to be relative to my knowledge of full game play.

i'm not making claims to be a fantastic or terrific player, but i am on average a winning one. my issue isn't that i need the money per se, because as some of you mentioned, i do still have some roll left. but rather that i'm anxious to move out of this portion of my life. i've lived broke for the last 8 months for the first time in my life and if i have to build my roll again then i'll see none of the profits for quite a while. a few months is a long time when you're turning 23 in a few weeks and want to graduate college before too much time goes by. i guess you could say i saw the light at the end of the tunnel and got excited.

i understand that my situation may not be completely unique. but if you guys saw my apartment before last week you would laugh. it was no more than my futon and some things for the kitchen. i've sacrificed a lot in the last year to get to my goals. but now it just looks like it's going to take longer.

i figure relative to some amounts, it's not that much money. maybe someone could help me. the worst thing that could happen would be me being in the same situation as before, so i might as well try.