Packing for LA right now. Heading out there for a few days with Brett(mynameishov) to play some cash games and party. After LA I head back out to Arizona(I'm in NJ right now.) Supposedly the Commerce will send a limo to pick you up from the airport if you're playing high stakes, so I'm going to call them to see if I can have them do that so that I won't have to pay lots for a cab through LA.
Haven't updated in a while, but will update soon as I get back.
The investing post I made yesterday was written a while back(6 months or so?) but I re-read it and seems to have good info for beginning investors if you wanna check it out. Have heard it was helpful for a bunch of people.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Investing info for beginners
I wrote this a while back for some poker players who didn't really know much about investing, so this post is really basic/simple, and geared towards beginners. Thought it might be helpful to some people starting out or who haven't started investing yet:
I’m going to gear this post towards “small stakes” investing. I’ll talk about pretty basic things for the most part, but will hopefully open up new ways of thinking for investing for some of you. I know that some of you are probably making good money, and maybe don’t have any idea about investing. I’m not an expert by any means, but have read/experienced a decent amount with investing. I’ve also networked with quite a few investors, and tried to learn from/with them. I wouldn’t recommend one certain type of investment to any one person; basically invest in what’s best for you, and what your goals are. There are obviously some investments where you can make a lot of money(real estate, businesses, etc...), but may have to put some work in to make it a successful investment(active investing), and some that you won’t make a lot of money(savings accounts, bonds), but you also won’t have to do anything, and your money will grow by itself(passive investing), allowing you to do other things with your time.
First when investing, you need to decide what type of investing you want to do. Do you want to actively invest, putting in a little work to make your money grow, or do you want to passively invest, sitting back and watching your money grow without having to manage your investment at all. That’s something you definitely need to think about before you decide to jump in.
The ultimate goal for investors for the most part is to become a passive investor. The reason I say that is, because you can’t really retire if all you do is actively invest. When your passive income exceeds your expenses, you can retire if you wanted to. Many people’s incomes come from jobs, and they invest what’s left over passively, and they retire when they are old. Pretty standard for the most part. A number of people here will have the opportunity to retire pretty young if they invest wisely starting now.
Let’s talk about some of the different types of investing. You can obviously put your poker earnings in the bank, and maybe get around a 4% return on them.(note: rough figure, don’t know the current rate, just using it as an example.) The return you will get from your bank will be very low in comparison to other investments you could make. This is an investment that will not lose money. It’s insured and safe, but you aren’t going to make very much of a return. Another investment along the same path is cds. The rates will be a little higher, the difference is you may have them for a certain length of time(6 months, 12 months, 2 years, etc...) Your return will be a little higher than your bank, maybe around 5.5%.(again, rough number, as I haven’t looked at the current rates) You can invest in stocks. You can probably expect your return in stocks to be higher than either of the previous options. You might expect returns to be 8-10%.(again, estimate, not exact number) With the stock market, the big difference between this and a savings account or bonds, is that the return is not fixed. So you could have an annual return of 20% or more one year, but you could also potentially lose money. Also, you may have fees if you use a broker. I wouldn’t advise picking your own stocks. It may not be worth it to use a broker though, as they will charge you fees for using them, and 95% of them won’t be making you any more money than you could make yourself just putting it in a Vanguard or something along those lines. There is a joke that they are called stock”brokers”, because they are broker than you are. If they could really make a lot of money trading, they would probably not be a stockbroker.(note: to any stock brokers reading, please don’t take offense, not talking about all stockbrokers) Mutual funds are another option. They are a longer term investment for the most part, and diversified to reduce risk.
On to some active investments. These investments will produce higher returns if done correctly, but will have more risk. Kind of like poker. If you play small stakes you know what type of money you will make, and for a lot of you it won’t be very risky. If you try some higher stakes to make a lot more money, you may lose, but the potential for greater returns are there.
One active investment is obviously starting your own business. If you start a business, and it becomes successful, you can definitely make a lot of money. You could do this on a small scale, maybe just buying and selling things for profits, or on a much larger scale. There’s a million different types of businesses you could start, so I won’t get into all of that. If you do start a successful company, and decide you would like to do something else, but still want to keep the business, you could always hire someone to run your business, turning it into a more passive investment. Many of you are going to school and playing poker, or working and playing poker, so could take a good amount of time to build a big business from scratch also. Internet businesses are often a good way to get started, often using a lot less money to get started, and instead using your own personal time as your main investment to build your business.
The next investment I’ll talk about is easily the topic I can talk most about: Real Estate. Like having your own businesses, you can make a LOT of money in real estate. Along with the ability to make a lot of money in real estate, you can also lose money if you make mistakes.(done that too) Many of the other topics(savings accounts, stocks, bonds, etc....) people at least know a bit about. Real estate is one aspect I don’t think a lot of people here know about. It’s something you can build your money with a lot faster than most of the other investments, but is a lot “scarier” to get involved with since a lot of people don’t know much about it. I’ll give a lot of examples to explain some of the different types of investing in real estate. In real estate you can invest actively or passively.(note: even passively, like business, doesn’t mean you will never have to do anything. You still want to know what’s going on with your properties even if you are investing passively) Active investing is often referred to as investing in properties to fix and flip, etc... You buy a property for $100k, hire contractors to fix it up for $20k, and sell for $150k, and make a little money.(note: you wouldn’t make $30k on this deal, because there are a lot of other expenses involved- taxes, realtors fees, closing costs, insurance, title, holding costs etc...) “Flipping” as it’s often referred to is getting a lot harder to do these days. You can still find deals to make money from like this, but it’s definitely not easy to do like it was 5-10 years ago. This is often what people do to build capital in real estate. That was my original plan, to flip a few houses, and then invest the profits into an apartment building for passive income, and then repeat. I have since changed my plan a bit, since I have different financial goals, and different ways I want to do things.
One thing that can happen during a flip, is it can take longer than you initially thought, and the market can change. I was lucky enough to run into both of these things on a house I bought late last year that I intended to flip.
I bought the property for $240k. The guest house was completely gutted. I planned on putting about $15k into doing the guesthouse. After talking to a handful of realtors, and reviewing comps, I thought I could sell after it was completed for about $300k. After all expenses, holding costs, and realtor fees($18k), I hoped I could make $15-20k. Well, the fix-up took a little longer than I had hoped, and the market softened a little bit more since I bought the property. With the increased holding costs, and the lower sales price I would sell at, I would barely make anything at all if I decided to flip it. If I was lucky I would have made $5k. Maybe I would have made nothing. I decided to hold the property and rent it out since it’d be around breakeven cashflow. I’ll probably hold the property for a couple years, and sell it once the market picks up again. So despite this example of what turned out to be a not so great flip, it will not turn out to be a bad deal at all for me since I bought right. The tenants will be paying my mortgage for me on the property, while slowly paying down some of it, and I’ll get tax benefits worth a few thousand dollars each year. Also, since I’m in no rush to sell it, when I do decide it might be a decent time to sell it a couple years down the road, I can talk with some other investors, or advertise to homeowners myself and save around $20k on realtors fees. So if the house appreciates some over the next couple years, some of the mortgage is paid down, etc... I could make a good profit(maybe $30-$50k if I sell without a realtor+ all tax benefits I receive while I own it that save poker profits come tax time) without a whole lot of work on my end.(note: not exactly passive, because it can be a pain to rent it out if doing it yourself)
Another property that I bought late last year, would have been a great flip, even though the market was slow. I got a great deal in a nice neighborhood. I used a “bird dog” to find this property.(Think poker tracker for real estate investors)- not really but kind of. A bird dog is someone who finds good deals, but isn’t going to invest in the deal themselves for whatever reason.(maybe not enough money, not enough time, etc...) The bird dog I used had too many deals going on at the time, and didn’t live in the area, so threw me the deal. If I closed, I paid him $1,000 for the lead. Well, did my homework on the deal, turned out to be a steal, so closed it right away.(actually drove 2 hours in the middle of the night to meet the owner to sign a contract with her before someone else got it, then 2 hours home- soooo worth it) After some expert negotiating, I bought the house for $170k. I thought the house was worth about $215k. It only needed about $5k worth of work, if that. Real simple stuff, that could have been finished in a week or so without much trouble. After the $1k I paid the bird dog, realtor fees,etc...I could have easily made $10-$20k, in a couple weeks time. Well, I liked the neighborhood so much I decided to move in. So decided against flipping it for the time being, but will realize the profits when move out and decide to sell.(note: might not be actual “profits” left when I move out, since I’ll be paying my mortage while living in the house, and not having renters pay my holding costs for me. Depends what the market does)- but I need to live somewhere, so it’s all good.
I’m currently talking with an investor I know about partnering on a deal that would be on a much larger scale than the two I mentioned, and we could potentially be looking at making 7 figures on that one deal.(obviously no guarantee, we’re just starting to look at everything involved with it) It would take a couple years to complete, but could be well worth it.(it would be a deal where we are adding value to some commercial property) The possibilities are really endless with real estate. I’ve obviously only invested in smaller deals up to this point, but once you learn, and are comfortable with the risks involved, there are much bigger deals out there, and much more money to be made if you find real estate is something that you like.
Anyways, enough about some of the deals I’ve invested in, just wanted to give some real life examples, good and bad. Here are some things you might not know about real estate. It’s not as hard to get into as you might think. You don’t have to buy a property cash. You can put a certain % down, and you take out a mortgage on the rest. This is a HUGE factor to consider when investing in real estate. This is why this is one of the main investments I choose to try and get ahead financially, because of the power of leverage. The reason is if you buy a $200k property, you don’t need $200k to invest in it, you can leverage your money and buy more properties. Let me give you an example:
Let’s say John buys a house for $200k. He’s a baller so he pays straight up cash for this place. He rents it out for $1500/month. Tenants pay all utilities. John’s taxes are around $100 per month, making his total cashflow $1,400 per month, since he doesn’t have a mortgage. John holds the property for 5 years. The property appreciates roughly 5% each year that John owns the property. John finds some very high stakes poker games that he wants to play, and decides he wants to have a good bankroll behind him, so he decides he wants to sell his house. He could just take a home equity line out on the property, but decides he just wants to sell it, since his long term tenants are moving out in a couple months after their lease ends.
John’s investment:
$200k invested
$1300/month= $16,800 per year cashflow
X 5 years= $84,000
appreciation: roughly $50,000
John sells his house for $250,000
Average profit per year: $26,800
He made around a 67% return after 5 years
Roughly 13.4% per year on his investment.
He profited $134,000 from the deal.
Tay also decides to invest some of his poker earnings. He has $200k to invest as well. He decides he wants to buy multiple properties though. Tay decides to invest in the same neighborhood as his friend John. He works out a deal with an investor who is getting out of residential real estate, and sells Tay 10 houses. Tay puts 10% down on each of his properties. They are worth $200k each. So roughly $20k on each property he has invested. Each of the houses are rented out for $1,500. Tay has a mortgage on all of his properties, and pays $1,300/month. He also has taxes of $100/month, so he only cashflows around $100 per month. He has 10 properties though, so total he cashflows $1,000 per month. After 5 years, Tay decides it’s time to sell his houses and buy an apartment complex. Tay can sell his houses for $250k each, just like John.
Tay’s investment:
$200k invested
$100/month cashflow per property
X 10 properties= $1000/month cashflow
$12,000 per year cashflow on his houses
X 5 years= $60,000
appreciation per property: $50,000
total appreciation: $500,000
Average profit per year: $112,000
Return: 280% over 5 years
Tay made 56% per year on his investment
Total profit: $560,000
These are obviously just examples, but you can see how big of an impact using leverage to your advantage in real estate can be. Obviously there is a lot more included in deals like these(vacancies, something in one of your houses breaks, etc...) If someone wants an in depth example of how to break down a deal, based on vacancy rates, etc... I can do that. Just kind of winging this post, and it’s already pretty long so trying not to ramble about every detail and make it really long.
One other huge benefit in real estate is that you can roll over your profits into other deals and not pay taxes on them(1031 exchange.) Meaning in this example, if Tay decided to buy an apartment complex with the profits he made from these houses, he would not pay taxes on those profits. That’s another HUGE benefit to real estate. You can keep rolling over your profits and not paying taxes on them(LEGALLY.) This is the one of the main reasons, along with the ability to leverage, why real estate is one of the easiest, if not the easiest way to become rich. (I think something like 80% of millionaires in the United States made their money in real estate.) You do have to pay taxes if you do not re-invest your profits.
One case where you can keep the profits of appreciation, AND not have to re-invest is where you live in a property for 2 years.(actual law I think is 2 of the last 5 years) This is one of the reasons why owning is often much better than renting.(definitely exceptions though) When you rent, and decide to move out, you walk away with nothing. Maybe your security deposit back if you are lucky. Someone who helped me learn a lot of what I know in real estate actually uses this to his advantage big time. He buys a house, lives in it for a couple years, and sells it. While he’s living in it, he does things to increase it’s value so that when he sells he’ll be able to sell it for more than he paid, regardless of what the market does. He’s also been fortunate enough to own houses in areas that have done very well appreciation wise, so he’s sitting on a lot of extra money these days thanks to the ability to keep his profits from the houses he lives in tax free.
Couple other things I wanted to mention before I wrap up this post: Roth IRA- you guys should definitely look into this. You do need earned income to be eligible to invest here though.(so poker money doesn’t count) You can invest up to $4,000 a year, and the profits you make on the money from stocks/ mutual funds or whatever is tax free for LIFE(pretty much). Probably a good idea to look into for many of the guys who maybe have a little earned income from jobs at school, or whatever. Good thing to invest in for retirement. I broke the numbers down for my younger brother one day and figured his Roth IRA would be worth around $2 million by the time he was eligible to start withdrawing for retirement.(based on putting the max in each year: $4k, or a little more as you get older)- compound interest is HUGE. Definitely something to look into. There are also other types of IRA’s for people who are self-employed(poker players). Different types, but HUGE tax advantages, so worth checking out.
Hard money lending: another way to make money passively. You can lend to someone who needs money. Your money is tied to an investment(real estate, a business, a car, etc...) You just need to make sure whatever it is that it’s tied to is worth at least as much as your money, because if they default you get the property, business, or whatever it is that you get. I got an offer from some investors who were in need of capital for 37.5% annual. They needed $40,000, because all their money was tied up in other investments. They would give me $7,500 to use my money for 6 months. I turned it down because they were highly leveraged, and my investment would be tied to a highly leveraged property.
To wrap this up, there are a lot of different ways to invest. I talked most about real estate, because I know more about it than I do the other things, and there’s a lot more to expand about in that too, in comparison with the other things mentioned, especially since many people know a bit about some of the other stuff(stocks, bonds, etc...), and most of you that I’ve talked to didn't know as much about real estate. Real estate is my main investment choice right now, but when investing, choose what is right for you. Real estate might not be the best option for you. Maybe you want to start your own business. Maybe you want to just get some mutual funds and not worry about managing your investments too much. Maybe you are interested in doing something I didn’t mention.(day trading) There’s so many ways to invest. I think it’s important for people playing poker and maybe making a lot more money than other people their age, to think now about investments. You can get WAY ahead financially if you start now. Just because most of people don’t retire until their 50's or 60's doesn’t mean you can’t retire in your 20's or 30's. Hopefully I didn’t ramble too much throughout this post. Hopefully it was helpful for some people, and to the guys who haven’t invested, things like Roth IRAs, etc.. are definitely things to look into. To the guys who are looking to make money with their poker profits, hopefully this post at least gives you some ideas of some things you can do. I was pretty basic/general with things, couldn’t really go into tons of details on everything since this post would be way longer than it already is. If you want me to go into detail about something I said, just reply with what you want me to talk more about and I’ll do the best that I can. Hopefully some people can pick up some things from this post.
I’m going to gear this post towards “small stakes” investing. I’ll talk about pretty basic things for the most part, but will hopefully open up new ways of thinking for investing for some of you. I know that some of you are probably making good money, and maybe don’t have any idea about investing. I’m not an expert by any means, but have read/experienced a decent amount with investing. I’ve also networked with quite a few investors, and tried to learn from/with them. I wouldn’t recommend one certain type of investment to any one person; basically invest in what’s best for you, and what your goals are. There are obviously some investments where you can make a lot of money(real estate, businesses, etc...), but may have to put some work in to make it a successful investment(active investing), and some that you won’t make a lot of money(savings accounts, bonds), but you also won’t have to do anything, and your money will grow by itself(passive investing), allowing you to do other things with your time.
First when investing, you need to decide what type of investing you want to do. Do you want to actively invest, putting in a little work to make your money grow, or do you want to passively invest, sitting back and watching your money grow without having to manage your investment at all. That’s something you definitely need to think about before you decide to jump in.
The ultimate goal for investors for the most part is to become a passive investor. The reason I say that is, because you can’t really retire if all you do is actively invest. When your passive income exceeds your expenses, you can retire if you wanted to. Many people’s incomes come from jobs, and they invest what’s left over passively, and they retire when they are old. Pretty standard for the most part. A number of people here will have the opportunity to retire pretty young if they invest wisely starting now.
Let’s talk about some of the different types of investing. You can obviously put your poker earnings in the bank, and maybe get around a 4% return on them.(note: rough figure, don’t know the current rate, just using it as an example.) The return you will get from your bank will be very low in comparison to other investments you could make. This is an investment that will not lose money. It’s insured and safe, but you aren’t going to make very much of a return. Another investment along the same path is cds. The rates will be a little higher, the difference is you may have them for a certain length of time(6 months, 12 months, 2 years, etc...) Your return will be a little higher than your bank, maybe around 5.5%.(again, rough number, as I haven’t looked at the current rates) You can invest in stocks. You can probably expect your return in stocks to be higher than either of the previous options. You might expect returns to be 8-10%.(again, estimate, not exact number) With the stock market, the big difference between this and a savings account or bonds, is that the return is not fixed. So you could have an annual return of 20% or more one year, but you could also potentially lose money. Also, you may have fees if you use a broker. I wouldn’t advise picking your own stocks. It may not be worth it to use a broker though, as they will charge you fees for using them, and 95% of them won’t be making you any more money than you could make yourself just putting it in a Vanguard or something along those lines. There is a joke that they are called stock”brokers”, because they are broker than you are. If they could really make a lot of money trading, they would probably not be a stockbroker.(note: to any stock brokers reading, please don’t take offense, not talking about all stockbrokers) Mutual funds are another option. They are a longer term investment for the most part, and diversified to reduce risk.
On to some active investments. These investments will produce higher returns if done correctly, but will have more risk. Kind of like poker. If you play small stakes you know what type of money you will make, and for a lot of you it won’t be very risky. If you try some higher stakes to make a lot more money, you may lose, but the potential for greater returns are there.
One active investment is obviously starting your own business. If you start a business, and it becomes successful, you can definitely make a lot of money. You could do this on a small scale, maybe just buying and selling things for profits, or on a much larger scale. There’s a million different types of businesses you could start, so I won’t get into all of that. If you do start a successful company, and decide you would like to do something else, but still want to keep the business, you could always hire someone to run your business, turning it into a more passive investment. Many of you are going to school and playing poker, or working and playing poker, so could take a good amount of time to build a big business from scratch also. Internet businesses are often a good way to get started, often using a lot less money to get started, and instead using your own personal time as your main investment to build your business.
The next investment I’ll talk about is easily the topic I can talk most about: Real Estate. Like having your own businesses, you can make a LOT of money in real estate. Along with the ability to make a lot of money in real estate, you can also lose money if you make mistakes.(done that too) Many of the other topics(savings accounts, stocks, bonds, etc....) people at least know a bit about. Real estate is one aspect I don’t think a lot of people here know about. It’s something you can build your money with a lot faster than most of the other investments, but is a lot “scarier” to get involved with since a lot of people don’t know much about it. I’ll give a lot of examples to explain some of the different types of investing in real estate. In real estate you can invest actively or passively.(note: even passively, like business, doesn’t mean you will never have to do anything. You still want to know what’s going on with your properties even if you are investing passively) Active investing is often referred to as investing in properties to fix and flip, etc... You buy a property for $100k, hire contractors to fix it up for $20k, and sell for $150k, and make a little money.(note: you wouldn’t make $30k on this deal, because there are a lot of other expenses involved- taxes, realtors fees, closing costs, insurance, title, holding costs etc...) “Flipping” as it’s often referred to is getting a lot harder to do these days. You can still find deals to make money from like this, but it’s definitely not easy to do like it was 5-10 years ago. This is often what people do to build capital in real estate. That was my original plan, to flip a few houses, and then invest the profits into an apartment building for passive income, and then repeat. I have since changed my plan a bit, since I have different financial goals, and different ways I want to do things.
One thing that can happen during a flip, is it can take longer than you initially thought, and the market can change. I was lucky enough to run into both of these things on a house I bought late last year that I intended to flip.
I bought the property for $240k. The guest house was completely gutted. I planned on putting about $15k into doing the guesthouse. After talking to a handful of realtors, and reviewing comps, I thought I could sell after it was completed for about $300k. After all expenses, holding costs, and realtor fees($18k), I hoped I could make $15-20k. Well, the fix-up took a little longer than I had hoped, and the market softened a little bit more since I bought the property. With the increased holding costs, and the lower sales price I would sell at, I would barely make anything at all if I decided to flip it. If I was lucky I would have made $5k. Maybe I would have made nothing. I decided to hold the property and rent it out since it’d be around breakeven cashflow. I’ll probably hold the property for a couple years, and sell it once the market picks up again. So despite this example of what turned out to be a not so great flip, it will not turn out to be a bad deal at all for me since I bought right. The tenants will be paying my mortgage for me on the property, while slowly paying down some of it, and I’ll get tax benefits worth a few thousand dollars each year. Also, since I’m in no rush to sell it, when I do decide it might be a decent time to sell it a couple years down the road, I can talk with some other investors, or advertise to homeowners myself and save around $20k on realtors fees. So if the house appreciates some over the next couple years, some of the mortgage is paid down, etc... I could make a good profit(maybe $30-$50k if I sell without a realtor+ all tax benefits I receive while I own it that save poker profits come tax time) without a whole lot of work on my end.(note: not exactly passive, because it can be a pain to rent it out if doing it yourself)Another property that I bought late last year, would have been a great flip, even though the market was slow. I got a great deal in a nice neighborhood. I used a “bird dog” to find this property.(Think poker tracker for real estate investors)- not really but kind of. A bird dog is someone who finds good deals, but isn’t going to invest in the deal themselves for whatever reason.(maybe not enough money, not enough time, etc...) The bird dog I used had too many deals going on at the time, and didn’t live in the area, so threw me the deal. If I closed, I paid him $1,000 for the lead. Well, did my homework on the deal, turned out to be a steal, so closed it right away.(actually drove 2 hours in the middle of the night to meet the owner to sign a contract with her before someone else got it, then 2 hours home- soooo worth it) After some expert negotiating, I bought the house for $170k. I thought the house was worth about $215k. It only needed about $5k worth of work, if that. Real simple stuff, that could have been finished in a week or so without much trouble. After the $1k I paid the bird dog, realtor fees,etc...I could have easily made $10-$20k, in a couple weeks time. Well, I liked the neighborhood so much I decided to move in. So decided against flipping it for the time being, but will realize the profits when move out and decide to sell.(note: might not be actual “profits” left when I move out, since I’ll be paying my mortage while living in the house, and not having renters pay my holding costs for me. Depends what the market does)- but I need to live somewhere, so it’s all good.
I’m currently talking with an investor I know about partnering on a deal that would be on a much larger scale than the two I mentioned, and we could potentially be looking at making 7 figures on that one deal.(obviously no guarantee, we’re just starting to look at everything involved with it) It would take a couple years to complete, but could be well worth it.(it would be a deal where we are adding value to some commercial property) The possibilities are really endless with real estate. I’ve obviously only invested in smaller deals up to this point, but once you learn, and are comfortable with the risks involved, there are much bigger deals out there, and much more money to be made if you find real estate is something that you like.
Anyways, enough about some of the deals I’ve invested in, just wanted to give some real life examples, good and bad. Here are some things you might not know about real estate. It’s not as hard to get into as you might think. You don’t have to buy a property cash. You can put a certain % down, and you take out a mortgage on the rest. This is a HUGE factor to consider when investing in real estate. This is why this is one of the main investments I choose to try and get ahead financially, because of the power of leverage. The reason is if you buy a $200k property, you don’t need $200k to invest in it, you can leverage your money and buy more properties. Let me give you an example:
Let’s say John buys a house for $200k. He’s a baller so he pays straight up cash for this place. He rents it out for $1500/month. Tenants pay all utilities. John’s taxes are around $100 per month, making his total cashflow $1,400 per month, since he doesn’t have a mortgage. John holds the property for 5 years. The property appreciates roughly 5% each year that John owns the property. John finds some very high stakes poker games that he wants to play, and decides he wants to have a good bankroll behind him, so he decides he wants to sell his house. He could just take a home equity line out on the property, but decides he just wants to sell it, since his long term tenants are moving out in a couple months after their lease ends.
John’s investment:
$200k invested
$1300/month= $16,800 per year cashflow
X 5 years= $84,000
appreciation: roughly $50,000
John sells his house for $250,000
Average profit per year: $26,800
He made around a 67% return after 5 years
Roughly 13.4% per year on his investment.
He profited $134,000 from the deal.
Tay also decides to invest some of his poker earnings. He has $200k to invest as well. He decides he wants to buy multiple properties though. Tay decides to invest in the same neighborhood as his friend John. He works out a deal with an investor who is getting out of residential real estate, and sells Tay 10 houses. Tay puts 10% down on each of his properties. They are worth $200k each. So roughly $20k on each property he has invested. Each of the houses are rented out for $1,500. Tay has a mortgage on all of his properties, and pays $1,300/month. He also has taxes of $100/month, so he only cashflows around $100 per month. He has 10 properties though, so total he cashflows $1,000 per month. After 5 years, Tay decides it’s time to sell his houses and buy an apartment complex. Tay can sell his houses for $250k each, just like John.
Tay’s investment:
$200k invested
$100/month cashflow per property
X 10 properties= $1000/month cashflow
$12,000 per year cashflow on his houses
X 5 years= $60,000
appreciation per property: $50,000
total appreciation: $500,000
Average profit per year: $112,000
Return: 280% over 5 years
Tay made 56% per year on his investment
Total profit: $560,000
These are obviously just examples, but you can see how big of an impact using leverage to your advantage in real estate can be. Obviously there is a lot more included in deals like these(vacancies, something in one of your houses breaks, etc...) If someone wants an in depth example of how to break down a deal, based on vacancy rates, etc... I can do that. Just kind of winging this post, and it’s already pretty long so trying not to ramble about every detail and make it really long.
One other huge benefit in real estate is that you can roll over your profits into other deals and not pay taxes on them(1031 exchange.) Meaning in this example, if Tay decided to buy an apartment complex with the profits he made from these houses, he would not pay taxes on those profits. That’s another HUGE benefit to real estate. You can keep rolling over your profits and not paying taxes on them(LEGALLY.) This is the one of the main reasons, along with the ability to leverage, why real estate is one of the easiest, if not the easiest way to become rich. (I think something like 80% of millionaires in the United States made their money in real estate.) You do have to pay taxes if you do not re-invest your profits.
One case where you can keep the profits of appreciation, AND not have to re-invest is where you live in a property for 2 years.(actual law I think is 2 of the last 5 years) This is one of the reasons why owning is often much better than renting.(definitely exceptions though) When you rent, and decide to move out, you walk away with nothing. Maybe your security deposit back if you are lucky.
Someone who helped me learn a lot of what I know in real estate actually uses this to his advantage big time. He buys a house, lives in it for a couple years, and sells it. While he’s living in it, he does things to increase it’s value so that when he sells he’ll be able to sell it for more than he paid, regardless of what the market does. He’s also been fortunate enough to own houses in areas that have done very well appreciation wise, so he’s sitting on a lot of extra money these days thanks to the ability to keep his profits from the houses he lives in tax free.Couple other things I wanted to mention before I wrap up this post: Roth IRA- you guys should definitely look into this. You do need earned income to be eligible to invest here though.(so poker money doesn’t count) You can invest up to $4,000 a year, and the profits you make on the money from stocks/ mutual funds or whatever is tax free for LIFE(pretty much). Probably a good idea to look into for many of the guys who maybe have a little earned income from jobs at school, or whatever. Good thing to invest in for retirement. I broke the numbers down for my younger brother one day and figured his Roth IRA would be worth around $2 million by the time he was eligible to start withdrawing for retirement.(based on putting the max in each year: $4k, or a little more as you get older)- compound interest is HUGE. Definitely something to look into. There are also other types of IRA’s for people who are self-employed(poker players). Different types, but HUGE tax advantages, so worth checking out.
Hard money lending: another way to make money passively. You can lend to someone who needs money. Your money is tied to an investment(real estate, a business, a car, etc...) You just need to make sure whatever it is that it’s tied to is worth at least as much as your money, because if they default you get the property, business, or whatever it is that you get. I got an offer from some investors who were in need of capital for 37.5% annual. They needed $40,000, because all their money was tied up in other investments. They would give me $7,500 to use my money for 6 months. I turned it down because they were highly leveraged, and my investment would be tied to a highly leveraged property.
To wrap this up, there are a lot of different ways to invest. I talked most about real estate, because I know more about it than I do the other things, and there’s a lot more to expand about in that too, in comparison with the other things mentioned, especially since many people know a bit about some of the other stuff(stocks, bonds, etc...), and most of you that I’ve talked to didn't know as much about real estate. Real estate is my main investment choice right now, but when investing, choose what is right for you. Real estate might not be the best option for you. Maybe you want to start your own business. Maybe you want to just get some mutual funds and not worry about managing your investments too much. Maybe you are interested in doing something I didn’t mention.(day trading) There’s so many ways to invest. I think it’s important for people playing poker and maybe making a lot more money than other people their age, to think now about investments. You can get WAY ahead financially if you start now. Just because most of people don’t retire until their 50's or 60's doesn’t mean you can’t retire in your 20's or 30's. Hopefully I didn’t ramble too much throughout this post. Hopefully it was helpful for some people, and to the guys who haven’t invested, things like Roth IRAs, etc.. are definitely things to look into. To the guys who are looking to make money with their poker profits, hopefully this post at least gives you some ideas of some things you can do. I was pretty basic/general with things, couldn’t really go into tons of details on everything since this post would be way longer than it already is. If you want me to go into detail about something I said, just reply with what you want me to talk more about and I’ll do the best that I can. Hopefully some people can pick up some things from this post.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
our house caught on fire
Last week our house caught on fire.............
I live at the beach house with my brother for the summer, but this weekend the house was pretty packed. My parents were here for the month, and my sister and niece had come down for the weekend, along with my sister's friend and her little girl. My brother was out of town for the weekend, so my sister's friend Gale, and her daughter Macy slept in my brother's room.
I went to bed early, I was extremely tired. I fell asleep at around 12:30 AM, which if you know my schedule is realllly early for me. At around 4 o'clock I woke up. I was wide awake for some reason. I was tired but was sitting up wide awake. I tried to get back to sleep. 4:20, I'm laying in my bed kind of still awake, and the fire alarm goes off. The fire alarm had gone off a few times earlier this summer because of the batteries. Sometimes it would go off in a minute by itself, or else we'd change a battery or something. So I layed there in bed for a second getting ready to get up and go see what battery needed to be changed. All of the sudden I hear, "SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP US, THERE'S A FIRE!!!!" It was Gale. I jump up from my bed and sprint down the hall. When I got to the room I could see it was filled with smoke. Macy, Gale's little girl was crying. My dad had gotten there just before me and was helping Gale put out the fire. A battery pack for a DVD player that was charging had overheated and exploded, and set on fire. It was real smoky but Gale had pretty much gotten the fire out. I went over to the window to open them up since the room was filled with smoke. All of the sudden there was a huge BANG! The other piece of the battery pack exploded and set off another fire that shot up about waist high and set the carpet on fire. I grabbed the blankets/mattresses and pulled them away from the fire so they didn't all set on fire. My mom yelled for me to call 911. I ran in the other room and grabbed the phone to call 911. I picked it up to dial and it says, "searching...". I hung it up and tried again, "searching...." WTF. For some reason the phone wasn't working. I sprint down the hall and grab my cell. I dial 911 and literally as soon as I finished saying our address to the operator I can hear sirens. Ridiculously fast response time. I run back in the room to see if my dad needed help with the fire but he'd kind of started to suffocate it when I went to call 911 and he'd been able to put whole thing out by the time I got back in, but we weren't sure if anything else was going to blow up or catch on fire, so we took the kids outside.
Luckily there wasn't another fire after that. The firemen came in with some sort of device to make sure nothing was hot behind any of the walls since some of the stuff that went shooting across the room from the battery pack could have gotten in a wall or something, and also the wiring could have been affected. The head fire guy stuck around for a while to take pictures, etc... After everyone finally cleared out, my dad and I spent the next 3-4 hours cleaning out the entire room. We had to move and clean everything since soot was everywhere. The damage could have been a lot worse, but the carpet was ruined and the wall was pretty messed up, so the carpet had to be replaced, walls painted, etc... The closet door actually had plastic from the battery pack that had shot over and melted onto the door. There were pieces of it all across the room. After we got done cleaning I blew my nose and soot came out.
It was around 9 am or so. I thought maybe I'd try and get a couple hours of sleep, but the adrenaline from the fire was still kind of going, so I figured I might stay up for the day. Nothing like a small house fire to start off the day. At some point while we were cleaning Macy wanted to come in and look again at the damage. Since we were in the middle of cleaning and there was still soot we didn't want her to walk around in there since she might get soot on track it around the house. She started walking in and I told her to wait a while.
Macy: "why"
Me: "we're cleaning in here"
Macy: "why are you cleaning"
Me: "because it's still dirty in here"
Macy: "why is it dirty"
Me: "because there was a fire, we're still cleaning it up in here. you can come check it out in a little while"
Macy: "why was there a fire"
Me: "because the battery pack exploded"
Macy: "why did it explode"
Me: "i dunno, good questions though, I like where you're head's at."
Macy(looking confused): "thanks"
and then she walks away.
Luckily no one got hurt. I was gonna send my brother a text message that said, "hope you're having a good time. p.s. your room caught on fire." My mom told me not to though since she thought he'd stress out.
I live at the beach house with my brother for the summer, but this weekend the house was pretty packed. My parents were here for the month, and my sister and niece had come down for the weekend, along with my sister's friend and her little girl. My brother was out of town for the weekend, so my sister's friend Gale, and her daughter Macy slept in my brother's room.
I went to bed early, I was extremely tired. I fell asleep at around 12:30 AM, which if you know my schedule is realllly early for me. At around 4 o'clock I woke up. I was wide awake for some reason. I was tired but was sitting up wide awake. I tried to get back to sleep. 4:20, I'm laying in my bed kind of still awake, and the fire alarm goes off. The fire alarm had gone off a few times earlier this summer because of the batteries. Sometimes it would go off in a minute by itself, or else we'd change a battery or something. So I layed there in bed for a second getting ready to get up and go see what battery needed to be changed. All of the sudden I hear, "SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP US, THERE'S A FIRE!!!!" It was Gale. I jump up from my bed and sprint down the hall. When I got to the room I could see it was filled with smoke. Macy, Gale's little girl was crying. My dad had gotten there just before me and was helping Gale put out the fire. A battery pack for a DVD player that was charging had overheated and exploded, and set on fire. It was real smoky but Gale had pretty much gotten the fire out. I went over to the window to open them up since the room was filled with smoke. All of the sudden there was a huge BANG! The other piece of the battery pack exploded and set off another fire that shot up about waist high and set the carpet on fire. I grabbed the blankets/mattresses and pulled them away from the fire so they didn't all set on fire. My mom yelled for me to call 911. I ran in the other room and grabbed the phone to call 911. I picked it up to dial and it says, "searching...". I hung it up and tried again, "searching...." WTF. For some reason the phone wasn't working. I sprint down the hall and grab my cell. I dial 911 and literally as soon as I finished saying our address to the operator I can hear sirens. Ridiculously fast response time. I run back in the room to see if my dad needed help with the fire but he'd kind of started to suffocate it when I went to call 911 and he'd been able to put whole thing out by the time I got back in, but we weren't sure if anything else was going to blow up or catch on fire, so we took the kids outside.
Luckily there wasn't another fire after that. The firemen came in with some sort of device to make sure nothing was hot behind any of the walls since some of the stuff that went shooting across the room from the battery pack could have gotten in a wall or something, and also the wiring could have been affected. The head fire guy stuck around for a while to take pictures, etc... After everyone finally cleared out, my dad and I spent the next 3-4 hours cleaning out the entire room. We had to move and clean everything since soot was everywhere. The damage could have been a lot worse, but the carpet was ruined and the wall was pretty messed up, so the carpet had to be replaced, walls painted, etc... The closet door actually had plastic from the battery pack that had shot over and melted onto the door. There were pieces of it all across the room. After we got done cleaning I blew my nose and soot came out.
It was around 9 am or so. I thought maybe I'd try and get a couple hours of sleep, but the adrenaline from the fire was still kind of going, so I figured I might stay up for the day. Nothing like a small house fire to start off the day. At some point while we were cleaning Macy wanted to come in and look again at the damage. Since we were in the middle of cleaning and there was still soot we didn't want her to walk around in there since she might get soot on track it around the house. She started walking in and I told her to wait a while.
Macy: "why"
Me: "we're cleaning in here"
Macy: "why are you cleaning"
Me: "because it's still dirty in here"
Macy: "why is it dirty"
Me: "because there was a fire, we're still cleaning it up in here. you can come check it out in a little while"
Macy: "why was there a fire"
Me: "because the battery pack exploded"
Macy: "why did it explode"
Me: "i dunno, good questions though, I like where you're head's at."
Macy(looking confused): "thanks"
and then she walks away.
Luckily no one got hurt. I was gonna send my brother a text message that said, "hope you're having a good time. p.s. your room caught on fire." My mom told me not to though since she thought he'd stress out.
Monday, August 13, 2007
lil tourney action, lil sidebet action
There's a March Madness style heads up tournament that I'm involved in right now. 64 players, $250 entry. It's pretty cool since a lot of the players in the tourney know eachother, so it's more of a fun tourney than anything else. Here's the bracket:
http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=236092&tclass=SSNL%20HU%20Tourney%202007
I've played 2 rounds so far and gotten past my first two opponents, so I'm into the Sweet Sixteen. Each round you play a best of 3. Here's the payout structure:
1st = $5.25k
2nd = $3.5k
3-4th = $1.75k
5-8th = $750
I also have some side action on the tournament. I'll probably end up having around $1,000 in side bets once the tourney's over. One bet is with "gimmetheloot" for $250. We each picked 6 horses for the tournament, both of us keeping ourself, so basically 5 other players. We picked like a draft so once we selected someone they were off the draft board and unavailable for the other person to select. Here's how it ended up:
my horses:
carrotsnake, idonkedyoo, 23act, nirzhar_k, sputnik3000 and myself.
gimmetheloot's horses:
danj, nuggetz87, pbjaxx, nolves, fonkey and himself.
So if one of our guys wins the tournament that person wins the $500. If none of them win then nothing gets paid out.
I have another bet with nirzhar_k that's pretty much the same type of bet. We're betting $200. Here's our guys:
me:
carrotsnake, sputnik3000, pbjaxx, idonkedyoo, 23act, me
him:
0evg0, danj, nuggetz87, mused01, kaz2107, him
I gave him 1.1:1 odds on this bet. He didn't know the guys very well.
Also did a bracket bet where a bunch of us put money in and filled out the whole bracket and based on a points system winner takes all.
http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=236092&tclass=SSNL%20HU%20Tourney%202007
I've played 2 rounds so far and gotten past my first two opponents, so I'm into the Sweet Sixteen. Each round you play a best of 3. Here's the payout structure:
1st = $5.25k
2nd = $3.5k
3-4th = $1.75k
5-8th = $750
I also have some side action on the tournament. I'll probably end up having around $1,000 in side bets once the tourney's over. One bet is with "gimmetheloot" for $250. We each picked 6 horses for the tournament, both of us keeping ourself, so basically 5 other players. We picked like a draft so once we selected someone they were off the draft board and unavailable for the other person to select. Here's how it ended up:
my horses:
carrotsnake, idonkedyoo, 23act, nirzhar_k, sputnik3000 and myself.
gimmetheloot's horses:
danj, nuggetz87, pbjaxx, nolves, fonkey and himself.
So if one of our guys wins the tournament that person wins the $500. If none of them win then nothing gets paid out.
I have another bet with nirzhar_k that's pretty much the same type of bet. We're betting $200. Here's our guys:
me:
carrotsnake, sputnik3000, pbjaxx, idonkedyoo, 23act, me
him:
0evg0, danj, nuggetz87, mused01, kaz2107, him
I gave him 1.1:1 odds on this bet. He didn't know the guys very well.
Also did a bracket bet where a bunch of us put money in and filled out the whole bracket and based on a points system winner takes all.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
golfing
Been golfing a decent amount lately. Trying to become a decent player again. I used to golf all the time one summer in like 8th or 9th grade, and became a pretty good golfer, but over the last 9 years or so have only played a couple times a year on average, so I'm not very good.
I decided I want to become a good golfer. I went to a well known golf store(I think it was called GolfSmith's or something like that) and I spent $1,300 on new irons, driver, etc.... it was sweet cause they have a place set up to test out the clubs, so I got to hit a ton of balls with a bunch of different clubs to see which ones I liked best. My clubs were pretty old and I decided I should have an upgrade if I was going to get back into it. Since I play poker for a living, I have a lot of free time to do whatever I want, and since I live in Arizona most of the year I'll be able to golf all winter, which will give me a chance to become good, especially since there's a golf course a few blocks from my house so I won't have any excuses not to go play.
I went golfing on Thursday with my Dad, and I hit more houses(2) than fairways, so I have a long way to go. I'm pretty sure that was a personal record though; I don't think I've hit 2 houses in one round before.
If I decide I'm definitely going to go all out and get good at this crazy game, I'm going to hire a golf pro for some lessons. Golf is a lot like poker. It's extremely frustrating at times, and very fulfilling at other times. Probably the biggest similarity is both are definitely addicting.
I decided I want to become a good golfer. I went to a well known golf store(I think it was called GolfSmith's or something like that) and I spent $1,300 on new irons, driver, etc.... it was sweet cause they have a place set up to test out the clubs, so I got to hit a ton of balls with a bunch of different clubs to see which ones I liked best. My clubs were pretty old and I decided I should have an upgrade if I was going to get back into it. Since I play poker for a living, I have a lot of free time to do whatever I want, and since I live in Arizona most of the year I'll be able to golf all winter, which will give me a chance to become good, especially since there's a golf course a few blocks from my house so I won't have any excuses not to go play.
I went golfing on Thursday with my Dad, and I hit more houses(2) than fairways, so I have a long way to go. I'm pretty sure that was a personal record though; I don't think I've hit 2 houses in one round before.
If I decide I'm definitely going to go all out and get good at this crazy game, I'm going to hire a golf pro for some lessons. Golf is a lot like poker. It's extremely frustrating at times, and very fulfilling at other times. Probably the biggest similarity is both are definitely addicting.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
vegas: the day at the venetian continued........
I get down to the table and Garrett decides he'll quit for the day and start drinking with me. As I'm waiting for Garrett to finish playing up to his blinds, guess who walks by me. You guessed it........... Jamie Gold himself, 2006 WSOP Champion. He heads in the back room for a 50/100nl game that's going on. A couple other players I recognize back there are Phil Laak and Gabe Thaylor. I walk back and check out the table. Jennifer Tilly(the actress turned poker player) aka Phil's girlfriend is sweating Phil.(she was in "Seed of Chucky"- the crazy doll; and a bunch of other movies) I'm like the only one standing around watching the game. Jennifer looked over and I'm pretty sure she was undressing me with her eyes. I'm not sure. I went to see if Garrett was done cause Phil was there and I didn't want it to get awkward.
Garrett is finished. He cashes out and we go look for some drinks. We walk around, check out some sick, sick photos. They were like huge professional photos of beaches, islands, things like that. They were all lit up and it seemed like you were actually there they were that sick. I'm definitely getting a bunch of them when I get rich. We are walking around drinking, and decide we should play some blackjack. We are just kickin it playing blackjack, talking with other poker players at the table(basically everywhere we went there were other poker players who came to Vegas for the WSOP, so was pretty cool)
Quick interruption/funny story:
We are eating in a nice little place in Venetian earlier in the day for lunch, and we are eating at a table next to some basketball players.(not sure who they were) Anyways, a couple waiters are asking them about basketball or whatever at their table. Our waiter asks us if we play poker. No clue how he knew.(He said he thought we "looked like poker players.") I dunno how you can look like poker players but I guess you can. One minute later we are getting wayyyyy more attention than the basketball players. It was funny/odd. Our waiter told his waiter buddies that we were pros. A bunch of the waiters came over and were asking us about being professional poker players, etc.... Was really weird. The basketball players were left waiterless. Was funny in an odd way.
So anyways, we're hangin out with some other poker players, playing blackjack, ordering drinks every time we see a cocktail waitress. I am ridiculously drunk after a while of this, since I had already drank quite a bit before we started playing blackjack. Fast forward an hour or 2. I dunno what time it is, but some chinese girl sits down next to me and starts playing. It's kind of blurry from there but she tried to make out with me at the blackjack table, and turns out she got kicked out by the Venetian security. Garrett made sure to remind me of this and make fun of me in the morning, and many other times throughout the day. I don't remember getting back to the room.(I left before Garrett) I remember doing really well playing blackjack, but don't remember cashing out my chips at all. Did the chinese girl take them!?!? Did I leave them at the table??????(ohhhhhhhhhhhh shiiitt there was some poor dude who kept celebrating for me when I won hands and asking me for money. he rob me on my way out??) Who knows. When I woke up I quickly looked for my wallet. I opened it up and it was filled with money. Sweeeeeeeet. I was so relieved. As I jumped back into bed ridiculously tired and hungover Garrett starting counting out a bunch of money and handed me a big stack of $100s. Turns out I had lent him thousands of dollars the night before and didn't remember.
Good times.
Garrett is finished. He cashes out and we go look for some drinks. We walk around, check out some sick, sick photos. They were like huge professional photos of beaches, islands, things like that. They were all lit up and it seemed like you were actually there they were that sick. I'm definitely getting a bunch of them when I get rich. We are walking around drinking, and decide we should play some blackjack. We are just kickin it playing blackjack, talking with other poker players at the table(basically everywhere we went there were other poker players who came to Vegas for the WSOP, so was pretty cool)
Quick interruption/funny story:
We are eating in a nice little place in Venetian earlier in the day for lunch, and we are eating at a table next to some basketball players.(not sure who they were) Anyways, a couple waiters are asking them about basketball or whatever at their table. Our waiter asks us if we play poker. No clue how he knew.(He said he thought we "looked like poker players.") I dunno how you can look like poker players but I guess you can. One minute later we are getting wayyyyy more attention than the basketball players. It was funny/odd. Our waiter told his waiter buddies that we were pros. A bunch of the waiters came over and were asking us about being professional poker players, etc.... Was really weird. The basketball players were left waiterless. Was funny in an odd way.
So anyways, we're hangin out with some other poker players, playing blackjack, ordering drinks every time we see a cocktail waitress. I am ridiculously drunk after a while of this, since I had already drank quite a bit before we started playing blackjack. Fast forward an hour or 2. I dunno what time it is, but some chinese girl sits down next to me and starts playing. It's kind of blurry from there but she tried to make out with me at the blackjack table, and turns out she got kicked out by the Venetian security. Garrett made sure to remind me of this and make fun of me in the morning, and many other times throughout the day. I don't remember getting back to the room.(I left before Garrett) I remember doing really well playing blackjack, but don't remember cashing out my chips at all. Did the chinese girl take them!?!? Did I leave them at the table??????(ohhhhhhhhhhhh shiiitt there was some poor dude who kept celebrating for me when I won hands and asking me for money. he rob me on my way out??) Who knows. When I woke up I quickly looked for my wallet. I opened it up and it was filled with money. Sweeeeeeeet. I was so relieved. As I jumped back into bed ridiculously tired and hungover Garrett starting counting out a bunch of money and handed me a big stack of $100s. Turns out I had lent him thousands of dollars the night before and didn't remember.
Good times.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
vegas: the day at the venetian
So we decide to try the Venetian out since we haven't played there yet. Finally we get called into the must move game and it's 5 nits, myself and Garrett(ya, I dunno why they took so long to call us either) So we've been playing for 10 minutes or so, nothing too exciting has happened. Older man who has raised pre-flop before and folded to a 3 bet, decides to try raising pf this time. I have A2 on the button, and I 3 bet him. The sb cold calls $120, and everyone else including the older guy folds. Heads up to the flop:
Flop: K-T-3
He checks. I check behind.
Turn: J
He checks. I bet $150. He calls.
River is a blank. He checks and I fire $300 into his ridiculously obvious QQ. He thinks for a while and finally folds. I flip up my cards and show my bluff, trying to get some action going at this very nitty table. He says, "bet you can't guess what I had." "QQ," I said. He is impressed, strokes my ego and lets me know that I am correct.
Then, instead of pushing me the full pot, the dealer attempts to take $42 out of my pot for a time pot. When I tell her that I just sat down, and that no time pot was announced she called the floor.(Normally when players sit down they either, A. pay the time($6), B. pay half time($3), C. don't have to pay time since they just sat down, and are often allowed to play until the next time) None of these options include paying everyone else's time in an unannounced time pot that we definitely wouldn't have agreed to playing with 5 nits.(self-explanitory, but I'll explain this in a second) So this floor guy comes over(younger guy) He asks what happened and the dealer said everyone was doing a time pot. I tell him that I just sat down and never heard of any time pot/and wouldn't have agreed to a time pot anyways.(when time pots are being done, players either agree to them, or they pay the time- since we had just sat down we did not know any time pot existed- so obviously we wouldn't be a part of a time pot that we weren't there for) He says in a condescending manner, "sir here's how a time pot works- what happens is instead of paying time, the person who wins a certain sized pot will pay the time for everyone. see thats how it works. does that make sense to you?" If I dislike anything, people talking to me like that is definitely up there. I politely explained I knew how a time pot worked, but we were new players to the table, so IF we had to pay any time, it wasn't a time pot for everyone that we knew nothing about. He was still talking to me like I was an idiot, but finally realized that he was actually the idiot and agreed that Garrett and I could pay time.
Quick tip for when/when not to be involved in time pots: the table we were at was full of nits.(nits for those reading who don't know the poker lingo are very, tight players. meaning they don't play a lot of hands, and don't put a lot of money in.) Garrett and I would attempt to run over a table like this, and so this would mean that we would be paying most of the time pots just between us. So instead of paying $6/ 30 minutes to play poker there, one of us would probably end up paying $42-$60(depending on # of players)/ 30 minutes to play there, because we'd be getting involved in most of the pots, and winning the majority of them over the course of a session. So we could easily end up paying $500 in rake instead of like $50. If it's a full table and everyone's doing a time pot it's usually the friendly thing for everyone to do the time pot to keep the game moving, etc... If it's a shorthanded table with guys who are never going to have to pay a time pot because they are waiting for aces it's a horrible decision to be in a time pot. If I were a very tight player, I would love to be in time pots, because it would mean I could play poker for free without having to pay time until I woke up with a huge hand.
I probably explained it way more than I had to.......so anyways..............
Finally we get called from the must move game. I rack up my chips, grab my phone, water, etc... and head over to the other table. I put everything down at my new seat and the player who just left there says he wants to stay there now. Floor says, "okay, you can stay." I have to go back to the must move game. wtf. So I'm repacking up my stuff, and another seat luckily opens up that I can take. So instead of having to go back to the must move the floor person tells me I can take that seat. Sweet. Now some other guy comes over and says, "no this is my seat." Floor guy had told him he could have it first. WOW. They send me back to the must move game. WTF. I had heard good things about the Venetian Poker Room, but seriously these guys are idiots. They probably are good, let's just say it was variance, but wow. Left a bad memory about that room to me.
I'm as close to life tilt as I can get right now. I finally sit down and get my first hand: AA. That's one cure for potential life tilt. Some younger guy raises it up to $50. I make it $200. Folds back around to him and he calls. Flop is: 9-Q-3, 2 spades. He checks. I bet $250. He shoves. arhhhhhhhhhhhhhhg. Live players can have anything, so I really don't have a range for him since it's my 1st hand at the table. He could have a set, KK, AQ, KQ, flush draw, straight draw, etc... I call. he flips over 99. He scoops the $4,000 pot. Life tilt. I get up and go for a walk. You can't walk off life tilt. I decide to drink it off. I find a bar upstairs and ask the lady to make me her strongest drink. She does. I text Garrett and tell him I'm done playing for the day. I come back down to the poker room............
Flop: K-T-3
He checks. I check behind.
Turn: J
He checks. I bet $150. He calls.
River is a blank. He checks and I fire $300 into his ridiculously obvious QQ. He thinks for a while and finally folds. I flip up my cards and show my bluff, trying to get some action going at this very nitty table. He says, "bet you can't guess what I had." "QQ," I said. He is impressed, strokes my ego and lets me know that I am correct.
Then, instead of pushing me the full pot, the dealer attempts to take $42 out of my pot for a time pot. When I tell her that I just sat down, and that no time pot was announced she called the floor.(Normally when players sit down they either, A. pay the time($6), B. pay half time($3), C. don't have to pay time since they just sat down, and are often allowed to play until the next time) None of these options include paying everyone else's time in an unannounced time pot that we definitely wouldn't have agreed to playing with 5 nits.(self-explanitory, but I'll explain this in a second) So this floor guy comes over(younger guy) He asks what happened and the dealer said everyone was doing a time pot. I tell him that I just sat down and never heard of any time pot/and wouldn't have agreed to a time pot anyways.(when time pots are being done, players either agree to them, or they pay the time- since we had just sat down we did not know any time pot existed- so obviously we wouldn't be a part of a time pot that we weren't there for) He says in a condescending manner, "sir here's how a time pot works- what happens is instead of paying time, the person who wins a certain sized pot will pay the time for everyone. see thats how it works. does that make sense to you?" If I dislike anything, people talking to me like that is definitely up there. I politely explained I knew how a time pot worked, but we were new players to the table, so IF we had to pay any time, it wasn't a time pot for everyone that we knew nothing about. He was still talking to me like I was an idiot, but finally realized that he was actually the idiot and agreed that Garrett and I could pay time.
Quick tip for when/when not to be involved in time pots: the table we were at was full of nits.(nits for those reading who don't know the poker lingo are very, tight players. meaning they don't play a lot of hands, and don't put a lot of money in.) Garrett and I would attempt to run over a table like this, and so this would mean that we would be paying most of the time pots just between us. So instead of paying $6/ 30 minutes to play poker there, one of us would probably end up paying $42-$60(depending on # of players)/ 30 minutes to play there, because we'd be getting involved in most of the pots, and winning the majority of them over the course of a session. So we could easily end up paying $500 in rake instead of like $50. If it's a full table and everyone's doing a time pot it's usually the friendly thing for everyone to do the time pot to keep the game moving, etc... If it's a shorthanded table with guys who are never going to have to pay a time pot because they are waiting for aces it's a horrible decision to be in a time pot. If I were a very tight player, I would love to be in time pots, because it would mean I could play poker for free without having to pay time until I woke up with a huge hand.
I probably explained it way more than I had to.......so anyways..............
Finally we get called from the must move game. I rack up my chips, grab my phone, water, etc... and head over to the other table. I put everything down at my new seat and the player who just left there says he wants to stay there now. Floor says, "okay, you can stay." I have to go back to the must move game. wtf. So I'm repacking up my stuff, and another seat luckily opens up that I can take. So instead of having to go back to the must move the floor person tells me I can take that seat. Sweet. Now some other guy comes over and says, "no this is my seat." Floor guy had told him he could have it first. WOW. They send me back to the must move game. WTF. I had heard good things about the Venetian Poker Room, but seriously these guys are idiots. They probably are good, let's just say it was variance, but wow. Left a bad memory about that room to me.
I'm as close to life tilt as I can get right now. I finally sit down and get my first hand: AA. That's one cure for potential life tilt. Some younger guy raises it up to $50. I make it $200. Folds back around to him and he calls. Flop is: 9-Q-3, 2 spades. He checks. I bet $250. He shoves. arhhhhhhhhhhhhhhg. Live players can have anything, so I really don't have a range for him since it's my 1st hand at the table. He could have a set, KK, AQ, KQ, flush draw, straight draw, etc... I call. he flips over 99. He scoops the $4,000 pot. Life tilt. I get up and go for a walk. You can't walk off life tilt. I decide to drink it off. I find a bar upstairs and ask the lady to make me her strongest drink. She does. I text Garrett and tell him I'm done playing for the day. I come back down to the poker room............
Friday, August 3, 2007
more vegas......
Figured I'd post a bit more about the trip in Vegas:
One night we are playing some 5/10nl. Some guy comes up to the table with a girl and says in a really foreign accent, "do you mates mind if the lady watches while I play." We say of course not, and I grab a chair that was behind me for him so his girl can sit down. He says, "thanks mate."- in the awesomest accent ever. I think he was from the UK. A lot of the guys playing the cash games in Vegas were from other countries because they were in town for the WSOP. Often the majority of the table was made up of foreigners, and only a couple people from the US. I start talking to him(David), and he is wasted. Every other word he's swearing. It's pretty funny. Not in a negative way, just randomly in sentences. We are playing at the MGM, and they are the most hardcore poker room ever about not swearing. The dealer mentions to him to stop swearing. "Was I swearing?" he asked. She nodded. "Ahhh fuck, I didn't even realize it," he said. I'm sorry, I'm just so fucking pissed," he said with a big smile on his face. I said, "you seem pretty happy to me." Turns out pissed where he's from means drunk. This guy was the happiest guy ever. Everyone's loving this guy, as he continues to accidently swear a couple times per sentence.
He asks his girl if she wants to play. She wants to. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?," he asks her. "I'm really good," she says. He reached in his pocket and gave her $500 to play with.
So, after the first few hands it's pretty obvious to everyone at the table his girl has no idea what she's doing. "What the fuck are you doing!?!?," he says after she loses some more of the money. He's saying it in a drunkenly friendly manner, but it's pretty funny because anything she does he's doing commentary on it. She limped in every hand, which is pretty terrible as you know if you play poker. "Why are you LIMPING???? Raise!!! I'm going to raise you just to show you how bad that is," as he raises it up. He literally did this like every hand, while swearing at her in his crazy accent. The table was loving it. Since this guy showed up the table was in such a good mood, we decided to order a round of shots for everyone. I'm pretty sure he swore lots to find out where the cocktail waitress was since she was taking a long time. The poker room manager came over and asked him to leave. He pleaded with him to stay, and said he wouldn't do it anymore. He said, "no," and said she had to go. The whole table pleaded with the manager so that David and his girl could stay, cause they were a blast to be around. Finally the manager agreed to give them one more chance . "Fuck, thanks guys. I don't even mean to swear I just do." "Don't fucking swear, or we're going to get fucking kicked out of here," he said to his girl as the manager was walking away. Luckily he didn't hear him.
We finally got our drinks, and I pick up AK. There was a bunch of limpers to me, and I think I made it $100. Somehow I got like 6 callers, one of which was obviously David's girl, who played just about every hand, and somehow still had a bunch of money in front of her. The flop was K-K-6. The pot was around $700 and his girl donked out $50 first to act. David just about falls out of his seat laughing. "What the fuck are you doing!?!? You're not going to scare anyone betting $50!," he says to her, continuing to make fun of her in his awesome accent every hand. There's 2 hearts on the board, so I decide with another 5 people behind I'm just going to bet my hand hard. I reach next to my chips and grab my stack of money. I pull off 7 bills and throw them out into the pot. Everyone folds back around to the girl. She quickly and confidently takes the rest of her chips and pushes them into the middle before flipping up AQ. Obviously this was followed by David telling her how terrible she is and everyone at the table laughing hysterically. The dealer pulls the money into the pot and deals the Turn: T. Burn card. River: J. She hits a straight, and scoops the $1,700 pot as the table goes ballistic. I couldn't even tilt, we were having such a good time. She said, and I quote, "it was woman's intuition." Solid.
No way I could get mad at her. She was very good looking and a lot of fun to be around. She even reached her hand out after to shake my hand. haha. I love these foreigners.
Anyways, fast forward 30 minutes and all the money she had in front of her was gone. She said goodbye, and left. David kind of ran off and talked to her for a minute as she was leaving. He came back and we started talking some more. Turns out, he didn't even know her. He met her in a club that night, and got drunk with her, and decided it'd be a good idea to stake her to play poker.
By far one of the most fun nights of poker I've played.
One night we are playing some 5/10nl. Some guy comes up to the table with a girl and says in a really foreign accent, "do you mates mind if the lady watches while I play." We say of course not, and I grab a chair that was behind me for him so his girl can sit down. He says, "thanks mate."- in the awesomest accent ever. I think he was from the UK. A lot of the guys playing the cash games in Vegas were from other countries because they were in town for the WSOP. Often the majority of the table was made up of foreigners, and only a couple people from the US. I start talking to him(David), and he is wasted. Every other word he's swearing. It's pretty funny. Not in a negative way, just randomly in sentences. We are playing at the MGM, and they are the most hardcore poker room ever about not swearing. The dealer mentions to him to stop swearing. "Was I swearing?" he asked. She nodded. "Ahhh fuck, I didn't even realize it," he said. I'm sorry, I'm just so fucking pissed," he said with a big smile on his face. I said, "you seem pretty happy to me." Turns out pissed where he's from means drunk. This guy was the happiest guy ever. Everyone's loving this guy, as he continues to accidently swear a couple times per sentence.
He asks his girl if she wants to play. She wants to. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?," he asks her. "I'm really good," she says. He reached in his pocket and gave her $500 to play with.
So, after the first few hands it's pretty obvious to everyone at the table his girl has no idea what she's doing. "What the fuck are you doing!?!?," he says after she loses some more of the money. He's saying it in a drunkenly friendly manner, but it's pretty funny because anything she does he's doing commentary on it. She limped in every hand, which is pretty terrible as you know if you play poker. "Why are you LIMPING???? Raise!!! I'm going to raise you just to show you how bad that is," as he raises it up. He literally did this like every hand, while swearing at her in his crazy accent. The table was loving it. Since this guy showed up the table was in such a good mood, we decided to order a round of shots for everyone. I'm pretty sure he swore lots to find out where the cocktail waitress was since she was taking a long time. The poker room manager came over and asked him to leave. He pleaded with him to stay, and said he wouldn't do it anymore. He said, "no," and said she had to go. The whole table pleaded with the manager so that David and his girl could stay, cause they were a blast to be around. Finally the manager agreed to give them one more chance . "Fuck, thanks guys. I don't even mean to swear I just do." "Don't fucking swear, or we're going to get fucking kicked out of here," he said to his girl as the manager was walking away. Luckily he didn't hear him.
We finally got our drinks, and I pick up AK. There was a bunch of limpers to me, and I think I made it $100. Somehow I got like 6 callers, one of which was obviously David's girl, who played just about every hand, and somehow still had a bunch of money in front of her. The flop was K-K-6. The pot was around $700 and his girl donked out $50 first to act. David just about falls out of his seat laughing. "What the fuck are you doing!?!? You're not going to scare anyone betting $50!," he says to her, continuing to make fun of her in his awesome accent every hand. There's 2 hearts on the board, so I decide with another 5 people behind I'm just going to bet my hand hard. I reach next to my chips and grab my stack of money. I pull off 7 bills and throw them out into the pot. Everyone folds back around to the girl. She quickly and confidently takes the rest of her chips and pushes them into the middle before flipping up AQ. Obviously this was followed by David telling her how terrible she is and everyone at the table laughing hysterically. The dealer pulls the money into the pot and deals the Turn: T. Burn card. River: J. She hits a straight, and scoops the $1,700 pot as the table goes ballistic. I couldn't even tilt, we were having such a good time. She said, and I quote, "it was woman's intuition." Solid.
No way I could get mad at her. She was very good looking and a lot of fun to be around. She even reached her hand out after to shake my hand. haha. I love these foreigners.
Anyways, fast forward 30 minutes and all the money she had in front of her was gone. She said goodbye, and left. David kind of ran off and talked to her for a minute as she was leaving. He came back and we started talking some more. Turns out, he didn't even know her. He met her in a club that night, and got drunk with her, and decided it'd be a good idea to stake her to play poker.
By far one of the most fun nights of poker I've played.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
update
more posts on the way. i'll post a lot in august. had lots of family visiting and had other stuff going on like looking for my golf balls in the woods.
i'll post updates soon on poker, the duplex i'm buying/trying to buy, more vegas stories, upcoming trips, etc...
stay tuned
i'll post updates soon on poker, the duplex i'm buying/trying to buy, more vegas stories, upcoming trips, etc...
stay tuned
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