Back to the Bottom

Despite the fact that that I have cleared about $100 in the NYC clubs, my bankroll remains too small. I realized yesterday that I am at risk of going broke on my meager $800 bankroll. As I mentioned in previous posts, I had to raid my bankroll for moving expenses, on top of existing heavy losses this year. I realized that I simply don't have enough bankroll to play in any of the live games that are spread here in New York, the smallest being $1/$2 NL with a $200 buy-in and $4/$8 limit.

My bankroll is really only enough for $1/$2 limit HE, if I want to be sure I don't go broke. So, that's what I'm playing. It will probably take me four or five months before I'm able to play at the highest limits I can regularly beat. Here's to working my way back up through the limits.

It's not merely the crime of raiding the bankroll for "real expenses" that I have to blame here. I've had a bad year, with few winning sessions. I read recently that many pros (even those playing primarily cash games) have actual all-out losing years, where they don't show even a gross profit for the year. Four months in, I'm down a few thousand (aside from the few thousand I took out for expenses, and the amount for my 2004 taxes). Now, I'm forced to play at stakes where I am highly unlikely to recover those losses this year. I guess I'm headed for a losing year, no matter how well I rock the $1/$2 limit games.

But, I still have bankroll, and I'm still playing, albeit in the high variance $1/$2 limit HE on Pacific. I doubt I'll post much, because, frankly, I doubt $1/$2 limit HE play is of interest to my readers.

I still promise to post about the few additional visits to NYC clubs that I made before I got realistic about my bankroll risks. I want to finish that tribute to Greg's game, too. I'll space those out over the next few months, so I expect only sporadic posting.

There's an irony here of my personal history repeating itself. I totally missed the dot.com boom, because while my friends went and took high paying jobs, I went to graduate school because I was so sick of the computer industry. Now, as poker's own "dot.com boom equivalent" keeps the NL games rocking with lots of loose money, particularly at these games I've seen in NYC, I'm without the bankroll to actually invest in these very profitable games. This poker craze won't last, and I'll surely have missed it by the time I move up again. Get rich, guys. I'll see you at $10/$20 limit HE on the back-end in a year or so.