What would you do with an unexpected big win?
When you win more than you ever thought you would, should you play bigger or invest in something other than poker?
This week we reported that one of our own members won €250,000 in a Spin & Go while he was streaming on Twitch. People have won six-figure sums on Twitch before but, because of the nature of Spin & Go, this was a complete surprise and it was fascinating to watch his reaction (which was exactly as we have all fantasised it would be, though I think I probably would have feinted before the first hand was dealt).
Last week we wrote about the surprise retirement of Fedor Holz, who at just 22-years-old had won nearly $10 million in a single summer. I argued that he may well have such a good understanding of variance that he realised he was running better than he ever will again and wisely got out of the game ahead by a huge margin.
This Spin & Go jackpot made me think of that wise retirement from a different perspective. What should you do when you have a completely unexpected windfall in poker? The nature of Spin & Go is such that you could be playing for life changing money with absolutely no preparation. While nobody expects to go on a run like Fedor did, he did at least know the prize pools he was playing for when he entered the tournaments. But lottery style promotions such as Spin & Go, and maybe one off type events like the WSOP, are such a deviation from expectation that winning them is never (honestly) expected.
Lottery fever
There is a lot of data that suggests that many lottery winners end up going back to their original net worth, or worse, because they have not prepared for their millions in the same way that somebody who earned them (and thus respects what is needed to acquire the money) has.
While poker is clearly a game of skill, some players will run so well that they are unfairly rewarded, much in the same way lottery winners are. Good variance takes a massive lead over the skill in terms of producing the positive results, which leads to overconfidence. For example, Jerry Yang, who won $8,250,000 in the 2007 Main Event, fell on hard times. I spoke to mental game coach Jared Tendler about this very topic a few years ago:
One of the reasons people who have sudden big scores go on to lose it is money management. They spend lavishly, give it away, invest badly and don't plan for the future. People who make millions gradually from their own ability also acquire the ability to manage that money along the way. It's a skill, and unless you know it is a skill when you instantly ship a seven-figure score, you will lose a lot of money before you realise how important it is.
Make the money work for you
While I am no expert in what you should do after banking an unexpected score, I can certainly tell you what you shouldn’t do after one, and that is to invest your new found bankroll in $1,000 heads-up hypers or High Roller tournaments. While it makes perfect sense to take a shot and move up in stakes, it should still be within the boundaries of your current level. There are too many skill differentials between every level these days to assume you can jump into a much bigger game because your bankroll say so.
I think Fedor really has shown us the way when he announced his retirement from the game. By doing so he acknowledged that he cannot expect the variance to always be on his side. I therefore think that the wisest thing to do with an unexpected score is to put it into something that will be an investment in the future but doesn’t inflate your expectations to unrealistic points.
Using it to buy a house, train for a new career, get a lot of poker coaching or to use for higher education all seem wise investments that will pay for themselves long after the money is gone. Using it to play in bigger games, quit your job without another lined up, party all the time or buy a car that costs a small fortune to run all seem like surefire ways to make life harder for you if and when the money goes away.
What would you do with the money if you had an unexpected score that was way above expectation?
