In my last blog I made a comment about retiring in under 6 years if I can save 80% of my income every year. This isn't an estimation, it's simple math and anyone who can save that much will have enough saved up in that time period to live off of the money they've saved for the rest of their lives. Here's a chart of savings rate versus amount of time working assuming a starting point of 0 savings: http://i.imgur.com/CpPoo.jpg
So I decided to do a more detailed breakdown of my specific situation and the amount of money in expenses I will need to cover at the time of retirement to determine what my "number" is. That is, the amount of actual money I will need to have saved up so that my wife and I can quit working and defeat the game of life. To keep things simple I'm not going to break things down into individual categories. Instead I'm going to keep things pretty general.
Current Expenses: ~7,000 per month. Let's assume that it stays at 7,000 for the rest of this year and then becomes lower for the years following to make the math easier.
Estimated Expenses after 2012 (cutting out everything we don't really need i.e cost of living after retiring): ~4,500 per month (probably more like 4,000, and significantly lower once we pay off the house, but 4,500 seems safe).
So the goal now is to determine how big of a ball of money can generate an annual income of 4,500 per month. That actually isn't that hard. First you multiply 4,500 by 12 to get 54,000 in annual expenses. Then you take 54,000 and divide by .04 and you get the number: $1,350,000
Then there is the time factor. How much time will it take me to reach that number? This is the cool part because you have the power of compounding on your side.
Let's take my current savings rate for 2012 of 50%. So if I hold on at 50% for the year with 7k/month in expenses, I will have saved up 84,000 (7*12). Now assuming that I don't put any of that into my poker bankroll and invest it into something risk-averse we can assume that the money will generate about 5% on average from investments. So by the end of the year that money will be worth 88,200, not bad. So for years 2-5 let's assume that I can still save 7k per month. By the end of the 5th year my nestegg will be worth 487,360.676. Here's what the year-over-year breakdown would look like:
Now let's add some stuff. Right now my wife isn't getting paid much as a substitute teacher, and will be a full time teacher for next year. She will probably get about 35,000 in after-tax pay. So if I add in her 35,000 per year as savings and also add the 2,500 per month in savings after we are down to 4,500 per month in expenses next year, it brings our total up to 149,000 for years 2-5. Wow! what a difference cutting out 2,500 a month can do; it adds an extra 30k per year in savings, effectively doubling my wife's 35k per year income! Here's what it looks like over 5 years:
year 1: 88,200
year 2: 249,060
year 3: 417,963
year 4: 595,311.15
year 5: 781,526.71
That brings us to 57.8% of our "number" in just 5 years assuming that I can make no more than what I'm making now at 5/10 after expenses/taxes each year. Not bad. Now, let's assume that after the first year I decide that I have enough of a buffer to play 10/20 about half the time that I play poker. And let's assume that I win 1.5x as much as I win at 5/10 even though it's double the stakes and you can buy in for more. How does that affect the numbers?
Well, let's see how much more I would make from playing. If you take the 114k that is saved from my income in years 2-5 and multiply by 1.25 (remember we're only making 1.5x as much as we were half of the time) you get 142.5k. Add in my wife's 35k and we're at 177,500 in savings PER YEAR. Here's the final 10 year breakdown to retirement:
year 1: 88,200
year 2: 278,985
year 3: 479,309.25
year 4: 689,649.71
year 5: 910,507.20
year 6: 1,142,407.56 year 7: 1,385,902.93 Oh yeaaaaaaah beer me we're retiring!
year 8: 1,641,573.08
year 9: 1,910,026.73
year 10: 2,191,903.07
It's pretty sick when you break down the numbers and look at them laid out like this, but I think that retiring in 7 years or less, given that we have some money saved already, is a very likely scenario for me and my family and I'm pretty damn excited about it. What's your number?
note: this is assuming that we continue to make 2k in mortgage payments for the rest of our lives. If I factor in that with minimum payments the mortgage will be paid in 27 years, and assume we live another 50 years after that, the amount of money we actually need to retire will be much MUCH lower. This seems like the best way to do it for now though, since I'm not accounting for future expenses like children's tuition and higher health care costs when we're older so I figure it all balances out this way.
If any of you sickos wants to stake me for MTTs this weekend, PM me. 80/20 in your favor, no makeup obvs. Obv Sunday Million/Warm-up and Bigger 55, but if there's anything else that I'm not thinking of, feel free to mention it. http://imgur.com/NZpzEhttp://imgur.com/NZpzE
From top to bottom: 180 stats, mtt stats, overall stats
Post in here, or PM to confirm. http://imgur.com/NZpzE
Sun mil:
Warm-up:
Bigger 55:
I'm messing around with play money games as of late since stars and FT are still in limbo with legal shit... anyway... thought I'd go ahead and tell you about this hand and be lazy and not import it since I'm at work.
Pot limit game, I get dealt QQ... raise... get called by a few
Flop comes and it's got a Q, raise again, get called by 1 guy
Turn and river come and I can't think of any cards this guy could be holding to beat me (since I was sure my raises got rid of any long shot straight draws)
Take him all in, we flip em... son of a bitch had A-3 off and made a straight on the river
Luckily it was just play money so I didn't really rage that much but I was still wtf-ing.
Considering how poorly I've been running these last 2 days, I am very happy with my results. I've put in 10k hands already and I don't feel like stopping at all. I lost 5 bi's in a matter of minutes today but I just kept on going and won back 3 of them. I just gotta keep on going and toughen it out, I am confident it will swing back in my favour
So that's why the next song I'ma post is Bone Thugs N Harmony - Ready 4 war. This was the first Bone Thugs song that I listened to and it was the first song of theirs I really liked. I would like to recommend any of their records for everybody and especially you hip hop cats out there, if you haven't heard any of it just download that shit, smoke a jay (or not) and put on any of their records. I can say (without a doubt in my mind) that the Art of War album by Bone thugs is one of the top 3 albums in hip hop history (word is bond). Their harmonic, melodic, fast-paced style or rapping is at its best here and DJ u-neek is really making the best beats (blending hiphop with rnb) of his career. So here's the track, hope you get hooked as well. Oh, and here's my graph as well. GL and CU!
I've been hearing talk for the last year about Bodog/Bovada and how incredibly fishy it is all the way up through midstakes, and figured surely they jest, else all reg's would be playing there. Supposedly Bovada went out of their way to make the software as uncomfortable for regs as possible so that they simply would refuse to play there. Being a single-table rec player I decided it's time to see what all the talk is about, and put some money on there through a ridiculous process of $100 deposits via some check card I had to get from a gas station.
I must say, the games do seem good. Hardly anybody is ever fullstacked, lots of limping and mind-boggling calls and otherwise total chicanery. This is all at NL200 mind you. And I can see why the regs will never play here, the software is simply the most painful thing you can ever imagine. For starters, the only way to top off is to do it manually after every hand, there is no auto-reload. Furthermore, you must topoff immediately following a fold, otherwise the game ignores your request and you will continue to sit there with $43 for the next hand.
If you stand up from a table you cant sit back down for 5 minutes, no matter what. This means you cant switch seats to gain position on a fish. You stand up, you're basically out. There are no waiting lists, so you can never tell which tables are the juicy one's. You cant even see full tables. The only tables in the lobby are tables with open seats.
Multi-tabling is rage inducing. The game does not do much to notify you in the way of active tables. There are no hotkeys for betting, everything must be done manually. The bet-slider and bet-sizer feel awful. The entire process of multi-tabling just feels gross.
Now you've probably heard about the new hand history feature, whereby you can see everyone's holecards, even without showdown after 24 hours. Aside from the fishpool, this is one of the more fascinating features. The HH's are stored on bovada's server and accessed through a search tool, like browsing PTR to see a hand on someone. It's been very interesting going through yesterday's sessions trying to learn the bluffing frequencies of fish, their true limping ranges, what an UTG minraise means, etc. Since most fish all have a similar playstyle there's plenty to study here.
For instance, I find even the worst players arent really stealing your blind that much. Limping ranges are always trash. Calling ranges are trash, preflop and postflop. Stuff most of you already know. But it's still good to have it reinforced since sometimes we convince ourselves to play -EV because you just cant quite ever be sure if you never see their hand. I find myself playing a much more relaxed game now that I have reviewed 100 hands or so where I just had to know what someone had, and feel much better now about making the correct folds and not getting too spewy.
Do I recommend Bovada? Absolutely for any thinking recreational player, no matter how bad you are. Do I recommend it for grinders? It's hard not to since it's free money, but I can never imagine any grinder putting up with this interface. You thought merge skins were annoying? You've never seen anything like this. I'm sure anyone who plays 12+ tables can make up the difference in EV on Stars vs Bovada's 4-table cap.
Looking for a partner who likes bananasby whamm!, April 03
gay title lol
This is still in exploratory stage but Id feel more comfortable if I dealt with people here.
I'm planning on selling banana chips, powder, or even bananas and I'm looking for buyers or middlemen residing in countries who regularly consume or use these. I find it easier to deal with LPers (if any) since it's a lot better than dealing with random foreigners in B2b networks like alibaba and the like. As long as there is any sort of profit to be had for both parties I'm all up for it.
Facts:
- the philippines has a shitload of bananas and it's byproducts
- I can personally go to you in your location so talking to potential buyers will not be a problem for us. If it would help jumpstart things to fruition.
- I've had some business experience in importing goods, none yet in export but Im really dedicated in learning if there is money to be made.
- I live in a mostly agricultural region, the economy is run by agri based business, most particularly bananas
- The risk will mostly be on my end since i will be the one purchasing here. So as long as you don't get greedy with pricing and are resourceful enough to do local research, this definitely has potential.
- Banana chips, powder , flour is a very versatile commodity used in a very wide variety of ways e.g. ketchup, soap etc. Table bananas like cavendish obv are great to eat.
- Afaik developed asian countries and even arab countries import philippine bananas, with regards to banana flour/powder Im not too sure but I know some who have dealt in korea, malaysia
Like I said these are all plans for now, but I have some money to get this into motion eventually, for now I am still doing some research on suppliers/growers so this probably wont start till next year if ever. For now Im just looking if anyone within the respectable LPer circle, but not necessarily ballers.
We will start very small, but this is what I love doing and this can grow a decent rate as long as both of us are dedicated enough and obv dont get greedy, that being said I prefer dealing with someone within a community I know since it's damn tough doing it with a random guy (did that before and its just super stressful)
I dunno if doing this on the side is possible, but if you have a ton of free time and hang out at LP, you're probably smart enough to be reliable imo. Nothing to lose really.
Here's a poker article I wrote in 2010. Times have definitely changed after two years though. I welcome your comments!
January 26, 2010
The Poker Life by Alex Krapivinsky
There it is. You’re sitting down at your local casino’s 2/5 No Limit Hold’em game, up a few buy-ins, when all of a sudden you run into a myriad of bad beats and unfortunate coolers that drop you down 500. Variance. Bad luck. It can shroud your mind with thoughts such as, “this game is rigged” or “life hates me” but as the games’ oldest poet will tell you: “That’s Poker, Folks.”
Well, that’s easy to say. If you’re not careful, it’s really not that hard to slip into a frustrated poker-absorbed existence where the world goes on without you. And how’s your stress-level? Is there anything you can do to have any control over that at least? Hours spent hunched over your keyboard, not daring to move anything but your carpal tunnel, your optical nerves and occasionally a brutal assault on your vocal chords. Ah. But “That’s Poker, Folks” and if you get it, you love it. If you can end the day up, you love it. But keeping an even keel – knowing how to manage these three taps – is the difference between, well, being a winner and being a loser. It’s about keying in and concentrating in the three aspects of life: Mental, social and physical.
Variance
Whether you’re a beginner, a solid player on the side or a full fledged poker whiz, dealing with variance is an art, but it is arguably the hardest most demoralizing side of poker to master. After hundreds of thousands of hands, it is still the demon that crushes my spirit -- and my game -- when it doesn’t go my way.
Recognizing that losing is an integral part of winning, is as funny as it sounds. When you’re winning, you’re on top of the world. You get cocky. When you’re losing, you wish you had never heard of the game in the first place. You have to dig deep and remember that variance is just that. Variance. You have to focus on the game and persevere, having faith that the game you love will smile on you again. It’s not an easy frame of mind to hang on to.
Often, friends who are amateurs tell me about the run that made them think they were the next hot thing; those dreams quickly dashed by the other side of variance rearing its ugly head. The common factor with these players is that when times get tough they quit. They blame poker for “hating them,” or God for giving them the “unlucky” trait. They don’t see the positive in the negative. Losing should give you time to think about what you could have done better to minimize the damage. Losing should teach you to be better. The tilt that comes along with it is the hardest part to beat but with each losing session, if you approach it with this philosophy, your defences to tilt get stronger.
The most practical advice when you’re on the bad side of variance is to work on being a better player. Study up and follow a strict bankroll management strategy. Read up on the game. It may sound like a cliché, and the last inclination you have at the time, but its true, and it works. These are the most important factors of getting in control if you
want to be a profitable poker player. Mastering these two elements helps put you in more the driver’s seat mentally when things are not going your way.
Unfortunately, after those two huge building blocks come, there are others that separate the good players from the great players and ultimately, the truly elite.
Social
Poker is very time consuming. Tournament poker can take whole days at a time, and if you get into a habit of playing a lot of tournaments, it can really take over a part of your life. You can somehow forget where your life is. The friends you know and love, who might not understand or appreciate poker like you do, can empathize when you vent, but it can seem ignorant and inconsiderate – they just don’t know. Take a break. Keep a balance by getting out there, maintaining a social life and improving yourself socially. It’s pretty important. If you’re playing cash games and are on a huge downswing, you might not want to talk to people for a week. A bad social dynamic doesn’t only hurt you, it takes a major toll on your poker game. Having a life is an important aspect of your well-being, and in turn of your success at poker.
Physical
One of the biggest personal improvements I’ve made to my poker game has been getting into the routine of going to the gym and really getting healthy and strong. If you were to ask the top professional poker players how they get ready for a big tournament, or just a night of playing, it’s by pumping iron and doing some cardio. A probable misconception would be that it would just tire you out, but it’s the exact opposite effect. It makes you more mentally prepared for the heavy lifting of a poker game.
Since I started going to the gym regularly a year and a half ago my profits have doubled playing the same game. Of course I’ve learned through downswings, and gotten smarter, but getting a quick workout between sessions has helped my stamina and the way I think through hands. When you play a lot of poker, especially tournament poker and getting in a lot of hands, you tend to go into robot-mode. Physical stamina helps you through it.
Focusing on the three aspects of life – proper attitude with the task at hand, friends, and your own physical well-being will only benefit your game and increase profits -- even if means cutting into the number of hands you play.
The obvious draw is that poker is about the money involved, but it’s also about the love of the game and the competition. Poker can teach you about life and life can teach you about poker. There are ups and downs, and but those with a negative attitude and bad work ethic, those who put their friends and themselves aside, are usually the fish at the tables.
Should I try for live wsop satellite?by ynot, April 02
I just wanted to add a little 1/3 beat I had the other day before talking about the wsop satellite, dont mind me. :-p
If you have read my little blogs about my adventures swimming among the fish in my live 1/2 games you would know I have been on a successful streak lately. Yesterday was another decent day with leaving with 740 stack after buy in for 200. My bank roll for 1/2 has almost doubled since i began and I'm feeling pretty good. I really haven't had a bad day minus one day about 3 days ago and it sort of went like this:
10 minutes into session: Bought in for 200, 1/3 game, not even through first orbit yet...
Ks,Qs, on the button. Two limps to me and I make it 18 to go.
Both blinds fold, one limper calls. Flop comes 9s,Js,4s. Not bad right?! I have no info on the limper as I have just sat down.
He checks to me and I make a 35$ bet. He calls.
Turn, Ad. He checks again and I bet 75, a little small perhaps but I'm bad. He shoves over the top and I sadly call. I thought he might have the As but needed another spade as most fishies love chasing.
River was a blank (no spade or board pair) He flips over As,2s. FML FML FML
My only joyful moment in that night was going to take a leak with the song "car wash" playing on the speakers and the guy in the urinal next to me was moving his hips from side to side to the beat of the song until I heard "damnit!" I think he got a little too excited with swaying his hips and pissed outside of the urinal. It made me smile.
Anyways!! The Horseshoe Casino that I play at is having a wsop satellite every Monday. A 120$ rebuy, 200$ add on after the second or third break. Start with 800 in chips and can add on for 2000 more. A little awkward I thought but they usually have 150 people and a prize pool of over 60k.
The reason I want to play is I have had decent success playing at Horseshoe tournaments taking 10th, then 6th at my last 2 events. I am in much better form than I was when I previous entered and have a great coach from liquid poker to help me get ready. The few people I have seen make it into the money are complete DONKS. No exaggeration to the word. People who blow through at least 1k when they play 1/3. I feel good about joining but what do you guys think?
Let me know and thanks for taking the time to read this!!
Deucescracked videoes recommendations by aCa_, April 02
Lately I feel like I hit a wall in my poker skills and I don't feel like I'm improving at all.Been playing 10nl for a while and even though I've taken shots at 25 and 50nl usually it was more because of tilt and not because I was ready for it. I've always played casually but I really do want to improve my game and start moving up stakes and have been taking poker a little more seriously by analyzing hud stats more, writing more notes on opponents, and reviewing hands after sessions. Because of this I signed up for a subscription at deucescracked and hopefully I can improve my game from it because as of now I don't think I can improve on my own. It never really made sense for me to sign up for one of these sites because as a microstakes player i feel like theres no point of getting coaching if you just suck on the basics. Kind of like in sc2 theres no point of getting coaching from a GM if you are in silver because there is a lot of foundational information you need to know before using the higher level advice. Anyways if anyone could recommend some videos from deucescracked or some good authors for 6max nlhe let me know.Thanks
Didn't get enough volume in March I only got in 15k hands and down around 300$ but I still have around 12bi before I have to move down again from 100plo. I was smoking way too much weed again and watching antiques shows I'm obsessed with antiques now.
Dropped out of uni because the guy who I got to write my essay disappeared. I missed the first hand in so 2nd one was final and I handed in a piss poor excuse of an essay.. oh well.
Moved back to my country don't know what I'm going to do but damn it feels good to get away from London ... the air, the water and food is so much better everything except weather but I hate when it gets too hot anyway.
Some pics I took since getting back (damn I missed that dog) + Show Spoiler +
Haven't received the full set of pictures from the company yet. It is common in Taiwan to make a wedding picture "photo-book" - everyone about to marry usually goes and has one made. I received a modeling coaching session from Tutz before the shoot so I am confident the final product will turn out OK. Enjoy!
I've been on these forums for a long time, may not really be well known but I've been around since the golden years (started 2008 i think). I have been playing on and off, online and offline, cashgames, tournaments and sngs. I've been a breakeven not so serious player for the last year or so and I haven't really been serious nor consistent enough to be a longterm winner.
Anyway, enough bullshit, I'ma start playing again cause I have the time and I think this game is still pretty profitable if you work hard enough and I'm not dependant on poker for income. I'm starting with a roll on Victor Chandler with about 400€ and my goal for nl20 this month is simple:
40k hands
25 bi's profit (500€, not counting with rb)
Also, I'm a huge music lover so I'll be posting some sweet tunes as well. Here's an awesome soul/funk track from Earth Wind & Fire, cause I wanna start out positive. It's from their album I Am (1979) which is dope from start to finish. Enjoy, and wish me luck!
Well this month had a rough start but ended up being respectable. Here's a snapshot of how I'm doing overall, stacked up next to how March went. http://i.imgur.com/iV9Cp.jpg
My hourly was $17 lower than my average has been so far this year, which I attribute to running poorly on the weekends during March Madness when the games were great and then the games being sub par on the weekdays in between. If I can get in 160 hours per month for April and May at my current hourly I would finish up around 67k. To get to 100k I need 691.45 more hours at the current hourly. If I expect to achieve that number by the end of May I will need to average about 190 per hour for the next 2 months...Nothing a little run-good can't cure.
Regardless, I am satisfied with the amount of hours I got in this month. I managed to take 2 days off per week in-keeping with my schedule and felt like I had a really good work-life balance for the month and am looking forward to maintaining my schedule for April.
-----
Budget Stuff.
Now that the month's over I can add to my previous post that my savings rate (Expenses/Income after taxes) for the year is now 49.57% (-30% Jan, 70% Feb, 50% Mar). My goal for the end of the year is to have a 65% savings rate as an average and, as the expenses get lower, hope to improve on that next year. With a 65% savings rate and non-changing expenses you will be "retired" in 17 years assuming nothing saved up. With an 80% savings rate you can retire in 5.5 years. I'm hoping to clear 80% over the next 3-5 years so I can just be done doing stuff. Or bink a WSOP event and be done this year .
If any of you sickos wants to stake me for the Sun Mil tomorrow, PM me. 80/20 in your favor, no makeup obvs. http://imgur.com/NZpzEhttp://imgur.com/NZpzE
From top to bottom: 180 stats, mtt stats, overall stats
Post in here, or PM to confirm. http://imgur.com/NZpzE
Edit: Forgot to mention that third time's a charm :D
It was being another standard month and then I met Serkules and MOCA CHOCA89 there around game 1800. They talked me into moving up and now being backed for 200s/300s, hopefully soon some 500s. Crushing it easily so far, if only hadn't run so bad that one day where I dropped 28bi with a breakeven EV lol
The sky is the limit, really wanna start sitting those 1k's because I feel like I am so much better than every single player in the world. I'll prove that soon.
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