The Mission Statement
Who is this Blog for?
This blog is mostly for me.
I know I should say it’s all about giving back to the communities of poker and personal finance, areas in which I’ve had some minor success, but let’s not build this blog on a foundation of lies, right?
The Origin Story
As a kid, I really enjoyed creative writing. Fast forward to now; it’s my final quarter in university studying Management Information Systems, and while I’ve enjoyed the experience (go Huskies!), boy oh boy do they squash the creativity right out of you.

I had the good fortune to obtain a summer internship at a very large professional services firm and one of our projects involved preparing a creative presentation that would reflect my experiences and what I’d learned.
Most importantly, any PowerPoint could only be ten slides. Ten slides!? The sheer trauma of having to give a presentation where I couldn’t parrot words from slides jolted me back to that time I mentioned in 8th grade where I liked to write.
I ended up writing a poem, and recited it to, once again, rave reviews.
I really enjoyed writing that poem. That act of creation has rekindled the love I had as a kid for writing, and thus, Straight Flush Finance was born.
I’m writing it because I really like writing, and I’d like to not have that passion die for a decade or two again.
The Poker
I’ve played a lot of poker.
I mean, a lot.
I spent six years in the Navy, two of those were out to sea, and we played $0.50 — $1.00 pot limit Omaha, uncapped buy-in, for at least 5 hours every night.
We’d pull into port, and if there was a casino within rental car distance, we’d go play there.
This blog is going to be straightforward and factual.
I won many thousands. Not bragging (maybe a little) but it’s a fact.
I AM NOT CLAIMING TO BE A POKER GURU, OR A COACH, OR ANYTHING OF THE SORT.
The facts: I won a lot then, finished my service obligation, continued playing poker while attending university, and continued to win a lot.
I will write about, among other things, my experiences at the table, and you, dear readers, will draw your own conclusions about my strategies and observations.
Let’s flash back to my Navy days.

The Navy
When I wasn’t playing poker, or very occasionally doing work, I was reading about personal finance, and specifically, the FI (Financial Independence) community.
This blog will not be a FI blog, mostly because there are already so many excellent ones out there. I personally read Root of Good, Mr. Money Mustache, and Financial Samurai.
Just know that FI is something my wife and I are zealously striving for.
I feel compelled to cover personal finance in this blog for two reasons: to combat the (antiquated and puritanical) perception of poker players as degenerate gamblers who frequently buy in to cash games and tournaments with their last dollar, and because I really like the topic of personal finance.
Personal Finance Specific Numbers
The best blogs use specific numbers.

I love how Root of Good updates his family’s net worth every month.
I am honestly torn about this. I’m a fairly private person, and that goes double for my wife.
I will certainly post my win and loss numbers for every poker session that I play, but I am much warier about talking net worth.
I will very candidly discuss my investing philosophy, specific investments I hold, and the good, bad, and ugly I’ve experienced in my investing career.
The blog bankroll will also be an open book!
The Blog Bankroll
We want to play some poker! We sit down, and buy into a game for $500.
The first hand we play, we lose it all! We prepared for this possibility, however, and buy in for $500 more.
We just tapped into our bankroll! Our bankroll is our start-up capital; it’s how we can confidently navigate the variance-laden waters of poker, and especially, Pot Limit Omaha.
How big a serious poker player’s bankroll needs to be is a hotly discussed topic.
My opinion, which just became your opinion, is that your bankroll needs to be big enough so that you never consider the amount of money you’re betting; your only concern should be finding the most optimal course of action to take.
A bankroll is expressed in number of buy-ins; for Hold Em players, 30 or so buy-ins might be sufficient. For the great game of Pot Limit Omaha, we need:




100 buy-ins.
We like a $500 game, dear readers, and you are simply asking for it in PLO if you bring anything less.
Publishing Schedule
Above all, I’ll publish at least two posts a week, and sometimes more. I’ve been known to make a trip or two to poker tournament series,

and I’ll definitely do write ups of those trips. During a regular work week and the school year, I typically play poker on Monday and Friday nights, and what I’ll call “Session Reviews” will accompany those outings.
I also plan on including chip stack pictures, because I personally love to see those from other poker content creators!
What this Blog Isn’t
A basic personal finance blog; for the reason that there are superior resources to anything I could ever produce readily available.
Dave Ramsey will help you escape crushing debt. Bigger Pockets teaches you all about buying your first rental property and how to identify overly pushy real estate agents.
Every personal finance blogger will instruct you to save more than you spend.
I am going to write about (what I think) is good asset allocation, alternative investments (Magic: the Gathering reserve list, anyone?) and the struggle to maintain a very high savings rate in a world that bombards with you for advertisements of things that I really want to buy.
An Oculus rig is only $399! A Tesla Model S is only $75,000!
Closing Remarks

I’m stoked to get this going. Consequently, I’ll publish my first Session Review very soon, and we’ll take off from there.
If I can convince one of my readers that poker and sound personal finance practice are not mutually exclusive, outstanding.
If I can’t, I’m still going to have a hell of a lot fun trying to!