It's Time to Pull the Trigger

Since 1/1/2017 I've spent most of time building up a bankroll, starting with $40 on Juicy Stakes Poker.  It's time to take some of that money out so that I can, as cash game millionaire Dusty Schmidt says in the title of his book, Run Your Poker Like a Business.

The minimum withdrawal is $250 but after a lot of thought I decided to make it $300, even if my online bankroll will be a little smaller than I would like.  It will be apportioned as follows:

1. $100 for owners capital.*

2. $100 for a poker bank account.

3. $100 to start a live bankroll.

A few words about each of the above:


1. For most of the past 1.5 years I've had money in a poker account but none in my pocket.  That was my choice because I didn't want to take any more than I had to out of the family budget.  Still, it gets old not having walking-around money.  I hope that now or in the very near future that money will come only from poker.

2. The reason for a business bank account is to make recordkeeping easier.  If I buy a poker book or something for my office it will be with a debit card tied to my poker account.  Every expense will wind up on one bank statement so that I will know exactly what I spent, and so that I can prove that to the IRS if necessary.

3. I need more than one place to play.  I might be awake at almost any time of the day and night (this will be posted a little after midnight) but that doesn't mean that there will be something good to play when I want to open Juicy Stakes Poker.


Another consideration is that most good players make more money playing live tournaments than playing online, because there are more really bad players live than online.  An average player in a $10 online tournament is a much better player than an average player in a $50 live tournament.

I had to make some tough choices. I really wanted to get into Jonathan Little's Poker class** but that will have to wait until my second or third withdrawal.  My starting balance for poker expenses will only be $100.  If I take $37 a month out of that account, those numbers don't work.

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*"Owners capital" is an accounting term for money that the owner takes out of a business.
** See 6/12 post, paragraph 4.