Treating Poker Like a Business

[bunky9590]

Heres my contribution for a Sunday Morning, and it goes out to pretty much everybody. It covers those with lack of motivation, concentration, and tilt tendencies.

Treat poker as a business that you own. Every decision you make regardless of the outcome of the hand needs to be a good decision. Decisions regarding games you sit in whether they be bankroll % decisions, +EV seats (and games for that fact), and mental factors (whether your too tired, upset, or drunk) should be made on a case by case basis.

As far as income, you need to set goals for the number of hands you want played/day and per/month.

I break it down to day, 10 days, and month. It gives me a better structure to track my play.

Calculate rakeback when you receive it and put it in a seperate account. If you are playing poker for income, you should be able to beat it sans rakeback anyway. Use the rakeback to build a seperate account for other investments and savings.

Bankroll protection. I personally recommend at least a 500BB roll for play. Now, I play part time because I own my own business. I keep the poker $$ completely seperate from regular funds. I will pull from poker $$ every now and then for certain expenses so I don't touch regular savings, but it is largely for expenses where I don't want to touch the "household" money.

Track your results based on $$ obviously but your basic checkover on your session is the quality decisions that you make, check yourself and check it over like an evaluation you would receive. Check your mistakes even during you good session and your bad sessions and I highly recommend posting 1 hand a day to the forum you frequent for analysis.

Check your results at the end of the month from what you projected for the month. For example, I will post my projections for the month right now and we'll see how close I get at the end of the month.


May 2005 (Bunky Poker)
15,000 hands of 5-10 (6 max)
4 MTT tournaments (1 per week) $20.00 and up

Income for the month (not including rakeback)
$3000.00

Projected rakeback
$1200.00

Total projected total income for month $4200.00

Personal spending money withdrawls $400.00 ($100.00/week)
and DSL/Internet fees $50.00.

Total projected expenses: $450.00

Total projected net income: $3750.00


Now my true results may be higher or lower than this but I will be able to have a basic idea of what my income (long term) should be.

Now I've been running hot for a couple months so we'll see if the variance monster comes back to rear her ugly head.

But, in closing, set goals by day and month. Stay focused, and eveluate your play and above all MAKE GOOD DECISIONS regarding your stakes selecetion, table selection, SEAT selection, and decisions through the hand.

Thanks for the read and feel free to post your thoughts.

[greg nice]

the two times ive tried setting monetary goals, i found myself overplaying hands in order to reach the goals.

[bunky9590]

[ QUOTE ]
the two times ive tried setting monetary goals, i found myself overplaying hands in order to reach the goals.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its not necessarily a monetary goal, its a hands played at your BB/100 earning rate goal.

If I play 15k hands in a month, I'll earn that money whether I do it this month or not. 15k hands at 2BB/100. So, I don't necessarily worry if I hit the monetary goal, but its obviously the easiest way to track results, no?

This last month I maybe played 4k hands and made close to 3k, so I'm running really hot but disapointed in my hands played results, so I need some work on my game. Even though Ive been playing well.

[JTrout]

Very useful post, Bunky.

Thanks for taking the time to post it.

[bunky9590]

[ QUOTE ]
Very useful post, Bunky.

Thanks for taking the time to post it.

[/ QUOTE ]

My pleasure actually.

I treat my decisions I play at the tables and games selection etc. very seriously and its probaly the strong point of my game, but I'm going to start my "poker business" this month. Very detailed notes, rakeback in seperate account, and I'll be playing in other games as well, but my hand requirement for the 5-10 is 15k hands. It keeps me focuses on a day to day basis.

I'm calling it a "risk analysis company"

[Luv2DriveTT]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm calling it a "risk analysis company"

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny you should say that, when people I don't want to share my passion for poker with ask me what my hobbies are I tell them risk analysis and probability.

[ QUOTE ]
Calculate rakeback when you receive it and put it in a separate account. If you are playing poker for income, you should be able to beat it sans rakeback anyway. Use the rakeback to build a separate account for other investments and savings.


[/ QUOTE ]

I have never considered that before, thats a very good point Bunky. At the same time I'd like to point out the obvious (which may not be so obvious to some of the newer readers at 2+2), rakeback is a source of income, and therefore is taxed the same as all other earnings (which includes gambling).

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[Simplistic]

awesome post.

[bunky9590]

[ QUOTE ]
awesome post.

[/ QUOTE ]

TT's or mine? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Sunshine]

Great post, this may be an overly-simplistic question, but I play PartyPoker ALOT and do not get any rakeback...how does one go about getting rakeback?

[TheBusiness]

Good use of "sans." I like it.