The First Blog Entry

I definately need to be able to write about my daily life. This is why I'm starting this blog. I'm going to tell whoever wants to read about everything that happens to me. One reason I wanna do this is because there has to be some way to express my daily poker ventures and most people I know don't like poker enough to really understand what I'm saying. And I want some kind of public forum to discuss my daily wins or losses so that there is more of a reason to keep winning. I consider myself a superb poker player however maintaining a consistent flow of income relying solely on poker is very difficult. It's really easy to get burned out and not play well, keeping your A game day after day is the most difficult part of it, and one bad day tends to take you on a downward spiral than lead to a significant financial hit. However there are steps you can take to avoid such disaster. The most important is bankroll management. You need to have a poker bankroll in one bank account and and use another bank account for spending money, or expense account. You must only use 5% of your bankroll each day. Right now I don't really have an expense account cause I need to keep all my money in my poker bankroll because the 5% rule must be followed! I try to spend as little as possible, my money pretty much goes toward poker, but I do spend a lot on so much other stuff. Well the goal is to run my poker account up to 12 thousand and then stick some money into my expense account and start really living it up. But until that happens I'm not to interested in buying myself a bunch of stuff I want. Anyway I have now been a full time professional poker player for 5 months. There's good news and bad news. The bad news is I have roughly the same amount of money in my bankroll that I did 5 months ago when I started. The good news is I have spent so much money! So however much I've spent is how much I've made. However this is not good enough, the only way to be successful is to be making moeny, spending money, and saving money. The whole point of being a poker player is to increase your bankroll, which increases your wealth, which improves your life. As your bankroll increases, 5% increases, and then you can play higher and higher stakes comfortably! So I need to be more consistent, or spend less? Well I don't wanna spend less so I need to make more. All in all let's try to keep a positive outlook, I have enough money to live on my own, I've been without any source of income besides poker for 5 months and I'm living well enough, obviously I wish I was saving also and making more. But thats what this blog is all about, writing to vent my frustrations to someone so I can do well in my chosen occupation. I feel things will keep progressing and I will eventually get my bankroll up to 12k and have a few more thousand in an expense account. I am about halfway there anyway... And anyone who knows me Frank at 21, 22 is alot different then the Frank of today. If I tried being a professional poker player back then I would of been broke in a short period of time. Poker gets better as you get older, part of being a solid professional at anything comes with maturity and understading all the talent in the world does not make you a pro. So in the past 5 months I've had a couple of downswings where my confidence was shaken and I couldn't seem to win for a week or so. But they always wind up in my rearview mirror as I'm back to my winning ways. Downswings aren't really as big a deal as I thought, they happen but I always recover. So anyway it's my job as a professional to stay focused and just stick to money management principles, since I don't play with over 5% of my bankroll (example: 250-300 dollars) my only goal is to increase my bankroll each day by that same amount, anything more is a bonus. And obviously if I lose more than 5% in a day I also stop, losing this much in one day is rare though. If you are want to be a successful player listen to my advice, don't try to get rich over night that will just make you broke. I'm going to start playing online in a little bit, going to make 250-300 and then quit. If I increase my bankroll by 5% each day imagine where i'll be in 4-5 years? When my bankroll reaches something like 100thousand dollars and I'm struggling to make 5 grand a day, the way right now I struggle to make 250 a day but usually get there after enough hours, and then I'm upset if I only make 150 in a day, imagine being upset cause i only made 3 grand for the day? Sticking to the system, being mature and professional, not gambling foolishly, and staying off tilt is the way to do it, take it slow, day by day and I'll be there eventually. Hey and there's always that off chance that you go deep in a big tournament and skyrocket your bankroll with minimum risk!