Or move to skc.

2015 Results - 4/1-12/31
Started playing again w/ a trip to Vegas for a wedding (not mine) then migrated to being a weekend player at my home casino.
All 1/2 and 1/3 100 BB Max Buy-In, mostly 1/3.
Fell short of probably too aggressive goal of $10,000 profit.

Sessions: 58
Winning: 39
Losing: 17

Hours: 295h 36m
Profit: $8,902
Profit Per Hour: $30.25
Profit Per Hour (BB): 10.1

Per Hour Std Dev (BB): 76.1

Best Accumulative: +$3,641
Worst Accumulative: -$1,123

By Month:
April: 31h 25m - +$1,032
May: 30h 53m - +$2,048
June: 37h 9m - +1,262
July: 19h 20m - -$829
August:37h 3m - +$3,339
September: 30h 36m - -$1,109
October: 15h 46m - +$268
November: 57h 42m - +$2,400
December: 35h 42m - +$491

Small sample size, but I crushed weekend games (Fri, Sat) and was a losing player on all other days.

Your numbers are very similar to what I've had for the year. Weekend games are the best, that and late in tournaments as the tournament donks are busting out.

+$1,096.00 for 2015, over 547.6 hours ... for a whopping $2.00/hr

Hooray? (Will have to filter out the PLO where I'm not really very good yet.)


Whole year was a really breakeven slog. Lots of long flat stretches and bad beats.

My game selection wasn't very good this year. Not a lot of flexibility in my work/play schedule, so I sat in games that were not really favorable. Weird nitty tables without any money on them, charity games without any chips left where no-one is able to re-buy anymore. A few where there were 2-3 other players I respect as reasonably good. Should just go home and not play those.


Edit: +$3,084 over 451.30 hours at $1/2 NLHE for a still disappointing $6.83/hr.

Conclusion: get better at PLO, or stop playing it.

Yeah, I was in a hurry when I posted, but I know you well enough to know that you are ego free about playing smaller games if you think that is the best decision.

I guess what I meant to say was "congrats on getting the BR up far enough that even with having to pull out your monthly nut you are comfortable playing 2/5."

Outside the PLO this is my year in a nutshell. Move up to $2/5 or find some deeper $1/2 tables when I get to play.

Hey! I'm not that big a fish...am i?

You are probably ahead of 50% of posters in this forum. It feels less because those behind you don't post results.

Winning in itself is really hard, though most are too cool here to acknowledge that.

I you more than Zollie could

2015 Results

Hours: 138h 28m (all 1/2 except 6 hours at a 0.25/0.50 game a buddy ran a few times)
Profit: $659.50
$/hour: $4.76
Sessions won: 16/23 (69%)

BB/Hour Std Dev: 36.38
$/Hour Std Dev: $72.02


Not really a banner year, but positive is better than negative...

Go Johnny go go go!

Been playing live for a living since June (when I left my job), didn't plan on playing this long but it has been going better than expected. Been below $10 an hour the last 150 hours but here is my last 6 months (yearly too, but wasn't playing first half of year). Mostly 1/2 with a few hours of PLO (H/L), 2/5, and 1/1.

Hours: 812.15
Profit: $16,426
Hourly: 20.23
Sessions won: 59/104 (57%)

In a card room that runs 4-5 1/2 games weeknights and 7-13 on weekends. Kudos to anyone turning a profit, it is hard. I know of three players who make over $20 an hour over a large sample size (one makes an astonishing $30+ and he is fantastic, older guy does not frequent these boards). We assume there are maybe 10 others who are skilled enough to break $10 an hour long term (this is including semi-regs who do not play enough for meaningful sample). Congrats to anyone who is near break even, you are most likely top 10% in your pool. Which means your are likely to be the best player on most tables you sit down at.

Man I wish there was no/less rake.

winning consistently is insanely hard. Soooo much goes into it. 2 nights ago I played with a dude who is generally LOCK DOWN. He was vpipping north of 80% and running some insanely ******o bluffs. He torched 3.5k in a couple of hours. Not sure why he uncorked - but recovering from that one is going to take a long time.

point is playing disciplined, focused, and well week in and week out with out going bananas aint ez

I know of 2-3 separate instances where I torched 2-3 buy-ins through bad reads/play and general stupidity. Eliminating those alone would have put me at a solid, respectable win rate.

RP, I appreciate you saying that. Puts things into perspective for me.

Let's wreck **** in 2016.

These guys said what I meant. I was contrasting your obviously truthful post to the manipulated/small sample results we frequently discuss ITT.

ETA: meant to multi quote Squid here, too. Not sure what happened.

I think you meant :thumbup: not . Otherwise what does that even mean bro?

Oh I know, I forgot to add the :winking:

If there's one thing I don't have WRT poker, it's ego. Once you start thinking your **** don't stink, you are ****.

Somewhat true, but there are also a bunch of posters who have extremely strong results but never bother to post their results here.

There is a way to have no rake.
Be the rake.

I've had a pretty terrible last 2 months, not because of run bad but because of life issues and that shows with poker too, I played half the hours in those 2 months I usually play in 1 month. Played today and ran really good and up a lot, not even happy.

dunno what's wrong with me x.x

I made a spread sheet that will help you track your poker results for finances/taxes. Fill in your poker wins, losses, and expenses on the schedule C sheet. It will automatically fill in the data on the report sheet.

The report sheet will automatically tell you how much you owe in quarterly self employment and income taxes. The finance sheet will help you track your spending and show you where your money is going.

Notes:
I already in put some poker results from 2015 for an example of how it works.

Self Employment tax is set to 15.3% for poker pros.

I am in a state that has no income tax so if you want that configured you need to do it yourself.

I am not finished I plan on adding more things as I think of them(graphs once I figure it out). I will be adding a tax deduction section so everything will be easy to fill in on your tax forms.

Please leave some feed back or suggestions.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

^ do you have to pay self income tax plus ordinary income tax? Does that cover social security and all that bull****? That kinda sucks

Self employment tax consists of 12.4% social security tax and 2.9% for medicare. The total equals 15.3%.
After that is taken out of your profit then you pay federal income taxes.
This is only if you file as a pro.

I did not file as a pro last year so I paid half of the self employment tax on my winnings.

If I did file as a pro and poker was my only income, my taxable income would only be $8973 after deductions. I would end up paying $893 in federal income taxes and $2930 in self employment taxes :/.

If I file as unemployed and reported my income as gambling(hobby) I would only pay $1110 in federal income taxes.

Can you start an LLC that makes little to no money and declare that your primary job and then only pay half the self employment tax on winnings?

No

Hmm so what is the upside to declaring yourself a poker pro rather than unemployed?

If your a big tourney player and you have a lot of flight, hotel, meal deductions it would help a lot. As for cash game players IDK. I think it only benefits the IRS if you chose to file as a pro, and once you do I don't think you can switch back. I wonder what the IRS will think if you are unemployed but are making 50-100k gambling.