Firstly, sorry for my recent inactivity. Have spent some time to work on my web projects, thecheers.org will be getting a total makeover within the next couple of days and I have also been playing poker.
And from poker there are also my newly found obvious observations. It's all about money management. During the past month I have probably deposited ca $700 to poker. $50 at a time. At some point I got worried - maybe I have an addiction. But then to think about it - I don't believe in addictions, everyone can choose what they do and due to my current life schedule I chose to play poker at nights.
At first I really spent all the deposited money within an evening and then deposited more in the next evening and so on. After saying no to the thought that maybe I have an addiction I started watching my game. And thinking about the reasons why I play. And the reasons were pretty clear. I'm a good player. Yes, overally I lost all the money, but there's two things - cash games and poker tournaments. Plus the issue of when I play and how long I play.
But generally speaking, I'm doing rather good at tournaments. Take rebuy tournament with 3000 people, $3 buy-in and $40k total prie pool. More often than not I finish in the money. Once I finished on 16th place. Thus, considering poker is not gambling but rather a game of skill, this shows I do have what it takes to be profitable in poker. Of course, I need to work on my cash game plus also work more on my tournament play after 4-5 hour play. If someone is interested I can often be found in $3 rebuy tourneys under the name mediacurse in Poker Stars.
When I play for too many hours, especially without a break, I start making stupid things. If I play when I feel shit I play because I have nothing else to do, again a time when I really shouldn't be playing. In addition there's couple of more things I have learning from playing poker.
"Lucky streaks never last"
"When you need it, take a break"
"Take out the profit just a bit too early"
"Money management is the key to making profits"
In order to become profitable at ANYTHING you need to have a great money management plan. And it doesn't matter what we are talking about - business, poker or investing. The four things, including money management matter in all of them.
So now, possibly within a week I will be making bigger deposits to couple of poker rooms including Poker Stars and I will also start trading with forex, just need to decide on a platform first and whether it will be fixed spreads or commission based ECN. Will most likely make a deposit of $5000 to the chosen forex platform. And before I actually start trading the money management will need to be in place. I suggest you the same.