OK, I know the words investing and poker really should not be in the same sentence for any prudent investor, but who said I was prudent!
I play poker occasionally. Mostly small home games where we play a hold’em tournament or a cash game. $10-$20 buy-in’s with re-buys. Small stakes. On very rare occasions I will venture to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to play late night low stakes games. Across the board my results are mixed. I win some. I lose some. But, I have a fun time either way.
Lately, I just haven’t been playing at all. My family has really gotten into playing Settlers of Catan, and well that’s more fun and it costs me nothing. But, I digress.
Enter an acquaintance/friend I’ve known for about 20 years (unfortunately not Daniel Negreanu!). We’re Facebook friends which in this case means I read his occasional updates and he gets bombarded by my pictures of my son and I fishing. Recently he posted a link to his blog. It turns out that over the past few years he’s made a living as a card dealer and poker player in Las Vegas. He’s had good success in tournaments and has made it a practice of taking on backers. In his latest offering, he sold 40 shares at $250 each. Each share entitles you to 1% of his winnings at 12 summer events (mostly $1k and $1.5k buy-in WSOP tournaments) as well as .05% of his main event winnings. The WSOP main event is the huge $10k event that you see on ESPN. Last year, the winner of the smallest tournament he’s playing took home $70k so that would bring me $700. And, obviously if he does well at the main event then I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.
I decided to buy 1 share using some of the profits from this blog. The irony of using money I earned espousing personal finance skills and a conservative investment approach to buy a share in a poker player is not lost on me. However, at least I diversified across tournaments! Who am I kidding, but what the heck, I only live once, and it will be fun to follow him online. His first tournament starts today.
And yes, I will of course update you all on the actual pay out.
