Congratulations on your success.
The one thing you fail to consider is the cost of travel and accommodations.
Obviously you could go on the cheap, ride Greyhound, eat MacDonald's, and stay in hostels or slummy motels, but that doesn't seem very balla to me. To eat and drink what I want, travel comfortably, and stay in a decent hotel, I think I would have to budget between $1000 and $1500 a week, and that would be on the low side. Not to mention what a month or two of runbad could do to your finances. Add in 5k or 10k or more in buy-ins every month, I think it would be pretty easy for a good player to plow through 40 or 50k on the road, with nothing to show for it.

^^ Exactly.And you have to stay on your A-game the whole time,and after all the unsuccessful attempts.This has to be the hardest part.

Tournaments are fun,and sometimes they do make a refreshing change from grinding the cash tables but they should be treated as a hobby/bonus.Anyone who thinks he/she could make it solely as a professional tournament player is laboured under a delusion.

Is Allen Kessler chainsaw one of the rare live tournament pros to do this for a living? He has over 3 million in tournament earnings but we don't know how much his buyins are. But we are going to assume its less than his buys. I recalled he mentioned he got comped rooms and food etc and mentioned something like if he didn't have that, he couldn't do this for a living.


But isn't it true he is also a video poker pro as well?


But besides him, how many live tourney pros are out there? The only other guys that i can think of that have good scores and keep having decent scores are Dan Heilmiller and Eric Baldwin.


The other thing that makes me wonder a bit is why do these guys play live tournaments? The thing is if you play it in a single place like in las vegas, i could understand it. But the issue is you are not going to get much volume. The other issue is how much ROI can one possibly make?


The thing is if you have to keep traveling from vegas to la to borgata to florida and maryland live and all these venues and even make trips to say europe... i mean how is there much profit to be made when you factor in hotel fees and all those things? Its like you are starting out down a lot already due to expenses. But there are still players doing this traveling the poker circuit.


Wouldn't it be more profitable if these guys just played 2/5nl instead at their local casino? I do know most players play tournaments because once they go deep or have a nice score, i read people say you want to play tournaments. I can understand if you play online since you can multitable... but why don't guys like that play online mtt instead? Of course the skill level is much harder but are there really big edges in live tournaments for guys like allen kessler, dan heimiller and eric baldwin to pay these? I even recalled in some article shaun deeb who used to crush online tournaments that he believes he is down lifetime in live mtt. So if thats the case, then im curious why do so many players play live mtt? I can understand playing a big value events but of all those players who travel for poker tournaments... how many of them are profitable? I have to assume like 7 percent or so?

Because people don't play tournaments expecting to run far below expectation?

How many players would you say are even profitable if you look at the hendon mob? Someone could have 1 million in cashes and be down money right? Im guessing it would be hard for someone to have like 3 million in cashes but still be down total overall?


The other thing is what percentage of players actually have 100 of themselves when playing tournaments? Lets just say they play the 300-1500 dollar tournaments. Or lets just say they play the 300-565 dollar buyin tournaments. Would you say there are even 10 percent of players who play on their own money in these tournaments?


The thing that seems very hard about live tournaments is you are basically playing 1 tournament per day... sure you could play 2 if its like the wsop or something. But when you have no cashes for a while... how does one stay afloat? Because you are basically 1 tabling live poker tournaments as oppose to say playing 10 or more online tournaments a day. Because you only play so much live tournaments.. i dont know how anyone does this. Because in live tournaments, doesnt it take at least 8 hours to even cash? I know many live tournaments you dont even get in the money until day 2 or 3 etc. Because wouldnt it seem its better to just play 2/5 cash instead?

because you dont just do that.

Lol

Its such a fine line between success and failure as a donkament player. I busted out of the $22 micromillions main event which had about 85k entrants in 18th place and got $3k but the top 5 finishers all got between 70 and 100k a piece! I've now burned through half that 3k roll playing tournaments so its not looking good whereas if I made that FT I could have at least had a crack at being semi pro. If only my AQ could have held against KQ, still makes me feel like puking every time I think about it. I suppose every tourney player has one hand like that they will never forget.

This might be true if you only played in poker tournaments over the last few years but how about if you been playing in tournaments for 13 years. How about if you travel to play tournaments almost every day of the year and enter big buy-in events. Add up all of the buy-ins to get the ROI. Next calculate taxes and travel expenses. Excluding 50K events do have any idea what it costs to enter 10K, 5K, 3k and 1.5K at the WSOP. You could spend over 100K in buy-ins just at the WSOP alone. I'll bet a serious traveling pro spends well over 200K a year in buy-ins. You can win some satellites here and there but I haven't even taken into account re-buys. Two or three bullets many times. I think you can see how expensive a hobby is playing poker tournaments the year round. Min cashes just don't cut it.

Winning 1 tournament is not how you get a crack at being "semi pro". While a large chunk of money is never a bad thing, if you aspire to getting to a point with MTT's where you can actually earn an income, you need to grind up a roll incrementally by becoming a proven winner at each level, that will allow you earn consistent (for mtt's) roi.

Obviously the way to do it is to be a winning online/live cash game player then occasionally play tournaments an have 100% of yourself so if you actually bink it's worth the lost hours and brutal grind.

I'd hope so otherwise how will they make money? 30% roi on 200k is only 60k, now factor in the travel expenses + man-hours logged, give me a 9 to 5.

Agree with that but I've not played cash for at least 7 years, I've read its full of bots now and the players that are human are using so much stats software i'd have no chance. I'm just a small time mtt player and play the occasional $215 but I would never want less than 100% of myself. Personally I don't know how people can find the motivation to play for other people or backers. I read that the guy who won the wcoop main event this year had less than 20% of himself! So he didn't win it really did he, he finished about 9th in terms of money won. lol

200k doesn't even represent the buy in value for someone at the WSOP who's playing up to $10k buy ins. I also doubt a high stakes live tourney grinder who's opting out of the the big buy in WCOOPs. 1m in buyins is completely doable even without high rollers.

The real problem is that 30% roi is probably not that common in events with tougher field 10ks even among pros. They all believe it. But there's no volume they'll ever play live that will give an accurate approximation of their ROI.

http://pokerdope.com/tournament-variance-calculator/

200k in tournament buyins a year is a lot. But the thing is what percentage of these players who play tournaments are backed? What percentage sell action? The thing is if these players are selling action all the time, how are they even making much profit since if they have a big score, well a good portion of it isn't theres etc. And someone mentioned 30 percent roi on 200k is 60k which is good. But when you factor in all these expenses and taxes... i read if you play tournaments... u cant carry losses etc. I mean all those players that play 5ks and 10ks... their buyins must be close to 750k or 1 million at least?


When you factor in the hotel fees and everything, how can anyone even do this for a living. I could understand someone trying to do this and playing only in vegas tournaments but the issue is all those big tournaments are spread across the country. I read that Allen Kessler always get comps and discounted rooms but even with discounting rooms, isn't that still like 100 dollars plus a day? Imagine you are staying for the entire series or something, unless you have a roommate, you are paying 100+ a day minimum... its probably more like 200 plus daily right? I recall people who play in europe and stay at those hotels... those nightly rates are like 300+ dollars. How can anyone even afford that even if they play 5k, 10k and 25k. That seems to eat almost all your profits if you even profit.


It seems like if you play live tournaments, just play them on your own money when grinding 1/3 or 2/5 or 5/10? The thing is when there are tournaments like a 560 dollar buyin with some big guarantee... well 560 dollars is not peanuts. Thats a 2/5 buyin and thats a good amount of money. But of course for poker, thats considered low to medium tournament buyin. Im really wondering how a guy like Allen Kessler does it. But he is different because he look for comps and those other things. The other thing is those players who grind the circuit events. Like the 365 buyin events. I mean how is it even profitable to grind those events when you have to pay for hotel etc. Im wondering how much percent of live tournament players actually profit who do this for a long time like Allen. Im guessing its must be very litttle. The only other player i can of probably would be someone like Eric Baldwin.

Players who are backed are probably not flying around the country to play a single tournament though. These are the people who're mostly staying put in vegas and probably aren't even playing in all the 10ks, possibly driving to nearby states for a series or two with friends who they'll split hotel costs with. Going to tropical resorts to play in a 10k and a couple of side events i think most would admit is often not worth it from purely a financial perspective but is somewhat of a mix between business/leisure. The fact that you can't carry losses is a great reason to be backed if anything, because the backers are cranking out huge volume and can use losses from one horse to offset the wins of another.

They're also likely playing cash in the interim for a slightly more reliable income and they have not insignificant personal savings to keep them afloat through dry spells.


You're projecting all of the negative aspects without recognizing how people are likely to adapt to the situations they're facing.

If you file your taxes as a professional gambler then any and all gambling losses are written off from all gambling income.

Well a lot don't play for a long time. But in answer to your question, if you sell action you usually sell with markup, so in your example you do 200K face value of tournaments, you sell half yourself at 1.3, so for 130K, so you have a 30K profit on the half you don't own. You then hopefully make your ROI of 30% on the other half of the deal and finish 60K up - if not both you don't have money and also your backers are willing to do it again next year.

With a few exceptions like the WSOP ME, people should just play lower rather than sell at parity.

Obviously it can be done, because at least a few guys are doing it. But for the number of guys making a living traveling the live tournament circuit, what would you put the over/under at? Are as many as 50 guys doing it? who don't have a trust fund, or sponsorships, or they're making a lot of money playing cash or playing online etc?

The real question is why the hell would anyone want to make a living out of playing live mtts. What a truly horrible way to spend your life. Surrounded by scumbags. Insane variance. 99.9% of the time is a huge disappointment even if you devote your life to it and are exceptional. Constant travel and spending time alone in depressing hotel rooms after long hours. And then USA players have to pay taxes on that income if succesful? Lmfao.

Different things appeal to different people I suppose. Travelling the world playing poker tournaments and staying in nice hotels sounds like a dream of a life style to me. I've spent my whole life in a crappy little town in the north of England in a very ordinary job. One small plus side, at least if I ever do win a donkament I won't get taxed on it.

While I am down with getting down all on them MTT's, ya kno what I mean, but only online really.

If I were to ever do a big ass live tourney it would be while on a vacay while traveling and just a small part of the week of fun.

People used to talk that BS on pocketfives everyday 10 years ago, talking about roi's and grinding up incrementally lol. It just takes one bad beat in a donkament and you're out even if you get through 86000 players. Its entirely possible for a tournament player to run below average for their entire playing career. All this 'luck evens out in the long run' is BS. IF you spin a coin a million times it might land heads 500,000 times and tails 500,000 BUT it might land heads 700,000 and tails 300,000. You need to be good at poker to win a tournament BUT you also need at least average luck.

A lot of what you say is true and I think tourmanents are basically a glorified lottery and racket after you factor in expenses how the taxes work and variance.most of these guys are backed/frauds/in make up.

With that said it's the idiots paying over 100 a day for hotels especially in Vegas (with the exception of some history weekends)
If you know what you're doing as I'm sure Kessler does it's pretty easy to game the system to get free or cheep rooms
There are however tons of delusional tournamt grinders who think they can afford to stay at the winner aria etc go to Vegas strip clubs and pretend their Vegas trips on average will be profitable.with any luck they find backers dumb enough to believe them

For that calendar year only in the US

It's entirely possible and likely for even good tourny grinders to have losing years

So then they finally bonk a big score and get ****ed on taxes

Losing 200k one year and making 400 k the next year leaves you with almost nothing vs winning 100k and 100k

Good cash game players aren't having losing years unless they got crushed in some absurdly big game