Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeStarr
I dont know how that math works. How bad was the downswing? You went from $20K to $10K including or not including the hospital bill?
How would you be 2 months in debt for rent if you had 4-6 months life expenses saved up? If you have that money saved you pay the bills no matter what happens with poker. If you have a downswing you still pay your bills. I dont see how 4 months or 12 months saved affects that at all.
If your downswing AND hospital bill was a total of $10K out of your roll, so what? It sucks big time but its not devastating. Move back down to 1/2 for a while. Your bills are still paid out of your life roll and your poker roll is still fine as well. (Not to mention I wouldn't pay a large hospital bill in one shot. They will take payments over a very long time frame. Also, what about insurance?)
Clearly the more money saved the better. I'm just saying 4-6 months in life expenses and 30 buy ins for a long term winner should be fine. If you're trying to determine if you "could" make it as a pro, maybe not. Especially for a 1/2 player with a track record that's not all that long though. If you expect to beat 2/5 for 8BB+ you should be massacring 1/2 for 12-15BB+
I'm not laying out a spreadsheet of my expenses but it's not that complicated. 4 months life roll would have run out mid November. In late November I'm hospitalized.
So at this point I have half a month's living expenses plus hospital bills up to 25k (that I got reduced but still left with several thousand in bills plus expensive prescriptions I must take for two months). This money has to come out of my bankroll since my liferoll is gone. But my bankroll is around 20k at this point so suppose I take the expenses out. Fast forward to early January when my downswing ended. At this point I have a couple thousand more in expenses that have to be subtracted from the bankroll. And I went on a 10kish downswing.
I haven't worked out the exact numbers since it's a hypothetical but this scenario leaves me busto or extremely close. And if my hospital bills had not been reduced it's busto period.
And I did move down to 1/2 to grind my roll back but that would not have been possible if I hadn't saved far more than 4 months living expenses. And I know you said 4 to 6 mo tha and it's possible I might have been fine with 6 but I would not have been able to move up to 2/5 again and could have been stuck making 20 dollars an hour at 1/2 forever.
Just saying, stuff happens and most people going pro do not have health insurance or social security or any income besides what they have saved so better to err on the safe side so you're not one minor disaster away from busting. I didn't even have any operations. Can't imagine my bill if I had required my lungs drained or cardiac surgery.
Your main income may be poker but you have other income and benefits like health insurance from your former job, right? Not like that for young guys like me doing this.