As Charles sort of suggested, there's probably some sort of economics-based differential equations that could be used to model return vs risk vs time in various investment activities.While it probably wouldn't be useful in real life (not sure you could tune the inputs well-enough to be meaningful), you could probably play around with various inputs to get a feeling for their sensitivities to one another.If I were smarter, I'd probably be able to apply some of the utility modeling work I used to do as a poker player to real estate investing...Which actually reminds me that I've been meaning to start a really geek thread on a related subject...a bit off the topic (or maybe not), but if you've studied card counting in blackjack or were ever a geek poker player, you may be familiar with the Kelly Criterion...I've recently started thinking about whether there is a way to apply the concept to portfolio real estate investing:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

He makes money playing poker.

Something about video games gives me a gamer high by completing lots of small tasks in an enjoyable way.

That's not a sustainable strategy or a business model because you'll be out of the real estate game real quick - once you're out of cash.

You ever hear that story about the patsy that played poker?

So now its just a tv/poker room.

Just to clarify why I'm looking to flip instead of just buy and hold myself: I'm in a situation where there is very little banks will give me for leveraging rental homes despite having a good amount of assets and excellent credit because I haven't had any income in 4 years (long story short: I went back to school after my previous career as a professional poker player ended due to the online poker shutdown.

If I didn't have 1000 pokers in the fire right now, I would carve out time to do that.

Poker players, musicians, etc.

I hear it is much like Poker, as I know nothing about Poker the real players I hear are not looking at each hand they win or loose on, but what did they accomplish during the whole season or year.