I’ve been talking to a number of my friends who are highly successful tournament grinders lately such as Seabeast, Psyduck, and StevoL about the ‘bigger picture’. What we’re trying to accomplish through poker, what we want to do outside of that, how much money we think we need to accomplish these goals, life style choices, etc. We’ve especially been talking a lot about money management.

The thing that never stops startling me about the poker community, and especially the multi table tournament community, is just how many guys are reckless with their bankroll and general money management. I’m not necessarily a master of either, but I know crazy when I see it. A surprising amount of guys I talk to who are winning regulars have much smaller bankrolls than I’d imagine, especially some of the guys who directly buy themselves into major live events, sometimes with less than 10 buy ins for that event.

The more I think about not only this game but life in general it becomes so clear how the removal of ego is integral to success. There’s so many MTT guys who make awful bankroll decisions, and my best guess as to why is that it’s ego driven. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be confident, I’ve stated before that when you’re playing at the table you should have, as Tucker Max put it, ‘confidence bordering on delusional hubris’.

What is important at this game of ours is a willingness to put in volume with the removal of ego. A lot of guys I know will only play the biggest buy in tournaments. For a few of the sickest guys like Menlo, Andy Mcleod, Randallin who do this, that’s all fine and good. However, there’s a ton of guys who don’t have these players skills or their bankrolls that only bother with the largest buy ins. The problem with this is that leads to massive variance and probably a smaller overall earn than guys who are willing to put in the volume. I understand for some guys that 12 tabling simply doesn’t mesh with their playing style, but for guys who want to make the ascent through the ranks its pretty God damn important that you’re willing to grind your ass off.

Let’s look at some of the math here. Say you’re a good but not great MTT player with an average buy in of $100. That means you’re playing most large tournaments, but now and then you pass up the toughest fields like the weekly 1k’s and the 100 rebuys. Now let’s say you have an ROI of 50%, which is entirely reasonable at that average buy in playing pretty high volume and very attainable with enough work if you’re a guy who’s learning. It’s easy to confirm this because you can look up just about any player on www.officialpokerrankings.com and check their ROI over their entire sample size. In fact, were you curious enough you could basically figure out how much every serious MTT grinder makes, though you couldn’t be exact cause many of them play on European sites that aren’t tracked and OPR isn’t perfect, but let’s get back to our example.

So you play an average buy in of $100, at 50% ROI and play 20 tournaments a day, which can be accomplished in a 7-9 hour work day. Now let’s say you play six days a week because it’s pretty easy and there’s no commute and no homework (although you should study you don’t have to if you don’t want to.) Your average week is worth $6,000. In a fucking week dude. Now let’s say you put in 45 weeks a year, how much do you make assuming all these variables hold roughly true? $270,000. Obviously bad runs happen, good runs happen, etc, but this is in fact your expectation.

Now let’s say you need to spend some, and have to pay taxes of course (if you’re an Australian reading this, go fuck yourself you lucky tax free bastards.) By the end of the year you should still be able to pocket well over $150,000. If you’re careful with your money and put in two years of work like this you can have a large enough savings to never have to worry too much about money for the rest of your life. Sure you’re not rich, but you won’t be eating Ramen noodles three meals a day any time soon.

So when I look at math like this it completely blows my mind that so many MTT regulars don’t have a bankroll worth one years worth of pretty low stress work. Most of these guys probably have a slightly higher ROI at an even higher average buy in. I guess it’s because you have to drop the ego and the chase of the ‘big score’ in order to think along these lines. There’s a bunch of MTT guys I know who have the skills to do this and bank a ton, but instead take a staking deal which includes both online and live play and end up suffering the horrendous variance of live poker while all their online efforts go back to the backer, turning their backing arrangement more into a long term money loan to play live poker at a FUCKING GIGANTIC vig.

See I’ve thought about and discussed all this shit more times than I can count. That’s why you’ll see me in every tournament I can cram in and play comfortable. That’s why you’ll see me in $11 buy ins with a single rebuy add on. You’ll see me in $25 freeze outs. That’s why I work seven days a week and greet anything that derails this with the utmost disgust and annoyance.
“Please Tony, take me to the hospital, I’m bleeding to death. HELP ME.”
“GOD DAMN IT!! Do you have any idea what this is going to cost me in expectation!? FUCK.”

And that’s why I should see all your asses grinding with me. Think long term people. Drop the ego. It’s not about just the money, it’s about the security. You won’t be 23 forever. I should know, my ass get’s older in two weeks, and I’m thinking about it.

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