There has to be someone in the group that has used some type of financing to provide themselves some working capital. I am stuck with a 10K BR so I can only produce about $10 per hour. I know it is considered taboo to take out a loan but I don't see why, other businesses do. I realize it would have to be a personal loan. If one had an offer of financing what would be the appropriate documentation used to create some facsimile of a business plan. I know I am due to get stoned by the group but I can take the blows. BTW please no fighting on my posts.
Financing play
- Thread starter Dopple
- Start date
Nynefingers
Well-Known Member
$10/hr? How bad is the game you are playing? If you can find a game with a SCORE of 50, you’d earn $25/hr even playing at half Kelly. If your bankroll is replenishable at all, even 2/3 Kelly is not unreasonable, which would be $33/hr. I would suggest just playing to your current bankroll (no loans) and adding to it as quickly as you can from outside sources (meaning employment income, etc.)
I am actually doing twice that now but only have about 5,000 hands played. I am being conservative in this assault on the game as I want to bet right. I thought we could expect to win about one average bet per hour. My average must be higher as I wong. The games I play are good and I do depart and enter at the right times. I would just like to structure some funding to be able to play with more confidence. Since you contributed to my post Nyne I will ask you how many times playing 2/3 Kelly will a player lose half his BR as a function of doubling his BR. Make it a SCORE 50 game play all. I appreciate the feedback also.
KewlJ
Well-Known Member
I read through some of your posts trying to figure your situation. Since I don't see anything mentioned that would lead me to believe otherwise, I am going to assume you are playing part-time, recreationally or as a hobby, and don't have immediate plans for anything else. Please correct if this assumption is wrong.
When I first read your OP in this thread, my first thoughts went back to recently discussed stab-(something or other?), stabworld? stab-?? I forget.
Anyway, as discussed he was thinking of financing his play through credit card advances.
He also was young and had a wife or girlfriend who was pregnant, or maybe just had a baby (if I am remembering correctly) and was picking this time to try to play blackjack professionally. Obviously all wrong as far as timing. That is why he got almost unanimous push back on the idea and why he and his situation is even memorable to me.
So this isn't your situation so the topic of financing play through a loan, credit or other financial arrangement is worth discussing as I haven't seen this discussed all that much. I mean if a player really is stuck with a limited bankroll and the inability to add much outside of BJ play there is a bit of a dilemma. Playing what you can reasonable play on your current BR, might mean you are limited to the worst conditions, low limit games that are crowded and sometimes offer worse rules than even moderately higher limits. A player can get stuck at that level and burn out his face and name (if playing rated), playing for peanuts. And even if they tolerate your play, it could have consequences later on when you do attempt to move up in stakes. That was basically my story when I got started.
So financing that would allow you to move up in stakes would allow you to avoid all that. BUT, I just don't like the idea. Generally, what you want to do is Minimize expenses as much as possible not add to them with a loan payment. Even if you are not trying to make a living (in which you must cut expenses to bare minimum when you start), you still want to cut expenses if possible. This will allow you to put more outside money into building your bankroll.
That's my opinion. I think taking on more expense is just a bad idea. It adds extra pressure. I almost think if I found myself in that position mentioned earlier of being stuck at the low level, I would try a quazi - "hell mary" approach, of playing at a higher risk for a short time hoping to catch good variance before you hit real bad variance, which would allow you to grow your bankroll to a point that you could then back off and play more reasonable RoR. But this is adding substantial Risk.
Anyay, I hope others will offer opinions. This is an interesting situation, not that often discussed.
When I first read your OP in this thread, my first thoughts went back to recently discussed stab-(something or other?), stabworld? stab-?? I forget.
Anyway, as discussed he was thinking of financing his play through credit card advances.
He also was young and had a wife or girlfriend who was pregnant, or maybe just had a baby (if I am remembering correctly) and was picking this time to try to play blackjack professionally. Obviously all wrong as far as timing. That is why he got almost unanimous push back on the idea and why he and his situation is even memorable to me.So this isn't your situation so the topic of financing play through a loan, credit or other financial arrangement is worth discussing as I haven't seen this discussed all that much. I mean if a player really is stuck with a limited bankroll and the inability to add much outside of BJ play there is a bit of a dilemma. Playing what you can reasonable play on your current BR, might mean you are limited to the worst conditions, low limit games that are crowded and sometimes offer worse rules than even moderately higher limits. A player can get stuck at that level and burn out his face and name (if playing rated), playing for peanuts. And even if they tolerate your play, it could have consequences later on when you do attempt to move up in stakes. That was basically my story when I got started.
So financing that would allow you to move up in stakes would allow you to avoid all that.
BUT, I just don't like the idea. Generally, what you want to do is Minimize expenses as much as possible not add to them with a loan payment. Even if you are not trying to make a living (in which you must cut expenses to bare minimum when you start), you still want to cut expenses if possible. This will allow you to put more outside money into building your bankroll.That's my opinion. I think taking on more expense is just a bad idea. It adds extra pressure. I almost think if I found myself in that position mentioned earlier of being stuck at the low level, I would try a quazi - "hell mary" approach, of playing at a higher risk for a short time hoping to catch good variance before you hit real bad variance, which would allow you to grow your bankroll to a point that you could then back off and play more reasonable RoR. But this is adding substantial Risk.
Anyay, I hope others will offer opinions. This is an interesting situation, not that often discussed.
Nynefingers
Well-Known Member
I’m not at my computer, but if you initially size your bets to 2/3 Kelly, then don’t resize with wins and losses, your risk or ruin is roughly 5%. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at the math, but that’s the number that sticks in my head. Any serious player should absolutely, without doubt, invest in CVCX and CVData, though. With those, you can run the numbers for yourself.Dopple said:
Side note: SCORE is irrelevant for figuring out risk of ruin because SCORE is already a risk adjusted measure. If you are betting at a fixed fraction of optimal Kelly betting (whether you resize with wins/losses or not), you should expect the same degree of bankroll fluctuations regardless of the SCORE of the game. The only change will be that the timeframe will be compressed on the better games. SCORE and n0 are inversely proportional. Your bankroll will follow the same trajectory on a game with a SCORE of 500 as one with a SCORE of 50, it’ll just do it 10x faster.
Could you talk more about this, and/or do you have some previous posts I should be trying to dig for in your history here?KewlJ said:
I think financing any sort of gambling activity with conventional financial products (loans, credit cards, etc.) is a terrible idea. Compounding your ROR by putting juice onto your bankroll just has to increase the difficulty to an already difficult hobby/profession by an order of magnitude.KewlJ said:
Finding backing, on the other hand, may have some merit -- my understanding of the history behind some of the superteams (especially the MIT-based ones) is that the teams were funded by counters who had gotten burned out, but had the experience to identify potential candidates and money to back them.
Finding backers is probably not without its own perils -- if you end up far enough below EV on somebody else's dime I'm sure that could end poorly for all involved. But at least the backer would understand the risks involved and the deal could be structured so the player doesn't end up buried by debt.