If you're a self-employed professional player who needs to drive to the casino it is deductible because it's like, part of your business.

I played both online and live last year. I think I deducted like 6K miles or something, + tolls and parking (pretty insignificant).

when i say "be in for 2+ buy ins" i mean have to rebuy once or twice.


and @ Angrist, I agree completely. the players who put in short sessions tend to do so under those optimal conditions, meaning mainly weekend hours, and show a higher winrate for it. for example, my overall hourly is around 7bb/hr right now, but if I only played Saturdays it would be 20bb/hr lol.

Yea, I can't really fault them for that, since game selection is a legitimate skill that we develop as poker players. If the games aren't worth playing during the week, or in a certain room, we shouldn't bother playing in them. But it's just one of those other caveats that goes along with the raw $/hr number, just like the stakes or the min/max buyins.

This is definitely not true if you exclude things like 1) people playing longer sessions are more likely to be playing bad 2) players with short sessions have smaller sample sizes and therefore run less close to true hourly and combined with fact that winners post more often than losers, you have more small sample winners posting.

If sample is the same, two good players should have same hourly regardless of session length.

Explain to me how 1 10 hour session would differ from 2 5 hour session AT ALL?

If what you say is true you should just take lots of breaks or constantly change tables/casinos since you'll magically win more money that way.

News flash: losing 6 buyins in 9 hours results in same hourly as losing 2 buyins in 3 hours.

Similarly if the latter happens 3 times (which will be like losing 6 bis in 9 hours) you'd end up losing the same amount. It's the same.

I guess for me his issue is pretty simple.

Your win rate is the sum of all your wins and losses over all the hours you have played.

Short sessions, long sessions, deep stacked, short stacked, hit and run, etx. None of that is really that relevant to my previous statement.

You are what your results say you are. If you want different results then play differently.

yea...IF you exclude those two largely contributing factors lol. also if you exclude that playing longer sessions means you're playing outside of the optimal hours. someone who plays full time isn't taking 4 or 5 days a week off so he can just play when he's making 20bb/hr. he has to play on the days where he's only making 3bb/hr as well, otherwise he isn't netting enough profit on a weekly basis.

take these two samples for example:

Sample 1 -

Total Hours = 40
Average session = 8 hours
Total sessions = 5
Days Played = Wed-Sun


Sample 2 -

Total Hours = 40
Average Session = 4 hours
Total Sessions = 10
Days Played = Friday/Saturday

They both have the same total hours, but obviously the second example will show a higher winrate. probably even higher overall profit, but it would take him 5x as long to make it.

Obviously this won't hold true for everyone. Some people may play 4 hours a day, everyday. It's just a generalization for samples with short average sessions.

I think *perhaps* a case could be made that playing longer sessions has the potential for a higher winrate because we could then be playing a more profitable deepstack version of the game (vs we`re never playing deepstack in hit & runs).

maybe. that would also assume that our opponents get deep as well, and that the player in question is both experienced and proficient with playing deepstack.

Ok, this clears it up. The bottom line is that the IRS will look at the particular facts and circumstances of your driving and characterize it as either a non-deductible commute or deductible travel.

My original post on the subject was influenced by my situation. I live 3 miles from the Vegas strip, and drive back and forth to a strip casino 5 days a week. My wife and I refer to the casino as "the office," as in her asking "you going in to the office today?" so it's as clearly a commute as self-employed driving is likely to be, and I generalized from my own situation.

This is also very useful information. It's also pretty stupid of the IRS, but I guess that's standard for them.

Thanks again, Russ.

Good points of course.

On the other hand the post I quoted sounded like saying the way to beat black jack is by betting heaters and streaks and hit and running to reduce losses.

?!?!

this makes no sense

average = average

i rarely play sessions longer than 5 hours and if anything it hurts my WR because it decrease the chances of me getting supper deep with weaker players(i play in 100bb BI games mostly)

now you changed variables - of course game selection changes WR

How can playing long decrease the chance of you and a fish getting deep?

It surely increases it.... No?

I'm lost reading this post.

Playing >5hrs is good (provided your not on tilt/super tired etc) because it allows you to use your better developed reads and stacks usually get deeper as the game continue.

Long sessions are preferable if possible. Think about commute and wait times.

Obv there are reasons why you'd quit, but those are non preferred conditions.

i agree 100% - i think you misread my post

You make a compelling case for playing short sessions.

The same argument can be used for leisure players and pro players. Leisure players can play whenever they feel best and only the most profitable game, pros have to play in order to make ends meet.

Naturally leisure players will have higher WR than pros.

lol

Btw my stats are out of date. I might need to repost for a more legit brag.

Anyone know of a good poker App for the Android phone aside from Poker Journal? I can't seem to get that app and it's not available for the Android or is that just me?

Session logger

This is just 2/5 this year since this seems to be the most common stake people discuss winrates.

This is playing at Foxwoods with a 500cap, also probably 80% of my hours are during the week when the game is mostly older regulars. There is about 140 hours in there that account for my Vegas trip which I won 50$/hr when I was out there.

Rake structure is a 4+1, usually 2-4 tables running during the week. 4-6 running on weekends.

If I could play the weekend hours I assume my winrate would be north of 10bb/hr. Or if they made the buy-in 1k (they never will).

What rake do you have at 1/2? We have £10 cap 5% 1bbj. £5 cap for 2/5.

same thing

10% up to 4, 20$+ they take a bbj dollar.