Are you claiming somehow winning $60k is not meaningful?

The money at stake is the same whether it was a freeroll or not. The winner got $60k more than the loser. If it wasn't a freeroll, the $30k each player put up is a sunk cost the moment they agree to the match and shouldn't factor into their strategic decisions.

I gotta be perfectly honest with you. Winning $60k on a freeroll wouldn't mean **** to me.

BTW, it wasn't a sunk cost when the decision was made to play with someone else's money. If I'm playing with my own money the only way I will agree to the match is if I feel I'm going to make money..which means I'm going to do everything I can to play well because I don't like losing money. If someone offers me a HU match where I put up $0 then I have absolutely nothing at risk and could could care less if I win or lose the $60k which is gonna be taxed to **** anyways because I am risking NOTHING.

Based on the location you show on here, I'm guessing you live in Dallas, Texas, United States, (though that obviously could be wrong). But, if it is correct, then with respect to federal income taxes, this "extra" $60K of income would be taxed at your marginal tax rate. What that is depends on your income and your filing status. The highest marginal tax rate possible would be 39.6%. So in such case the tax on the $60,000 would be $23,760, leaving you with $36,240 after taxes.

In order to be at the highest marginal tax rate described above, your "taxable income" (Form 1040, Line 43) needs to be (i) more than $418,400 if filing as single and (ii) more than $470,700 if filing as married. So, if you are at those levels not including this $60,000, then this whole $60,000 would be taxed at a rate of 39.6% for federal income taxes.

You may also have state taxes to pay. I am not familiar with Texas's income tax system.



EDIT:

I'm also not sure where the match actually took place. The $60K may actually technically be taxable by the state in which the match occurred. In that case, if Texas has an income tax system, it probably gives a credit to residents for amounts taxed by other states, but, as I said above, I am not familiar with Texas's income tax system.

its practically the same thing and you know it. And she absolutely did claim she wouldn't study and seek coach on one of the worst Joe Ingram pods.

The principle Mike is exposing is obvious, stop being so obtuse.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if she's been studying HU and getting coaching since she had her little break down on twitter last year. This match meant way more to her than it did Mike.

I'm in the UK, so we don't pay tax on poker winnings because Her Majesty The Queen knows that gambling ain't a job. Likes a little flutter on the 'orses herself does Liz, she owns a lot of them too and we even call Horse Racing The Sport of Kings over here, even though The Queen's not a geezer.

Anyway, just curious about what the typical USA player's poker tax declaration would look like?
I'm guessing it might look something like this:

2017 Poker Tax Declaration

Dear IRS,

Tournament entry fees and costs: $252,756
Tournament winnings: $422,903
Cash game losses: -$170,147
Net profits: $0

Love you guys. God bless America.

Yours faithfully,

A. D. Generate

pitchforks out because a poker player (can't make this up)

Is that what you mean by, "absolutely did claim she wouldn't study?"

Winning gambling "sessions" (all gambling is the same) are reported on the Form 1040 under "Other Income". Taxpayers have the option to take a "standard deduction" or itemize deductions. If the taxpayer chooses to itemize deductions, then he completes a Schedule A and one of the items on the Schedule A is for losing gambling "sessions".

Some people may make up losing sessions as you suggest. That is tax evasion though and is punishable by fines and prison if ever caught plus you owe the backtaxes and interest.

I'd guess that a lot of people who gamble a little probably just don't report anything; I'd further guess that most of them don't know they're supposed to.


Note that the above method for completing one's taxes with respect to gambling income is for non-professionals. Professionals would report their profits and losses on Schedule C and would also be subject to self-employment taxes, although they can also deduct some business expenses.

I mean I dont like Cate Hall, but goddamn Mike is bad

Cute gimmick. Still wouldn't tip.

Interesting stuff and I guess the IRS look at previous tax declarations from a range of different players to gauge a benchmark of what sort of figures are legit when a pro declares their cash game session results and annual total profits or losses for cash games.

Do you think they have a variance department at the IRS, or maybe a mixed game specialist on their payroll!
Maybe this is where some of these "whatever happened to xxxxxxxxx players" have been!

Wouldn't surprise me if they also use other resources, such as 2plus2! for research
into what is really happening on the ground.

They could be putting some staff into actual live cash games to observe win rates!

"Hey Josh, you remember that woman who was the biggest short stacking nit ever and used to sit in the 2/4 game and limp re-raise JJ+ from EP", "well it turns out she was IRS."

Cash game players in the USA should therefore keep really accurate records and try if possible to create a paper trail of their cash game sessions by getting deposit and withdrawal receipts from casinos etc.

I'm really not sure what ya'll expected really. At least 90% of all players are absolutely terrible at poker. What would have given you the idea that Dentale was among the 10% of non-terrible players? Oh, I am talking about terrible in full ring. Now you take a terrible full ring player and throw him into a HU match and you somehow expect him to be less terrible? I suppose his VPIP won't look as bad HU but still what exactly were you all expecting?!

No, good players dont suddenly become bad when the stakes are insignificant. Yeah they might not play their A game or have full focus, they dont suddenly start calling off 20bb jams with Q5s.

That's not true at all. When the stakes don't matter we do all sorts of stupid ****, especially in live poker because it's boring as ****.

Given their political disagreements I was so hoping Cate's response would be, "Oh, NOW you want to see other people's tax returns?"

That might have gotten the verbal banter going a bit more, but she didn't seem interested in that, which I respect.

Also given that he had already slow rolled her in the match, it was classy of her to pass up perhaps the greatest slow roll opportunity in televised poker history on the last hand. She could have tanked, showed a King to "get a read," called, waited for him to table and then slow rolled it. I've never slow rolled anyone in my life, but if I was in her shoes I might have done it in that spot.

They really needed someone to run down table side to interview them standing next to each other and stir the pot a bit.

That "perfect storm," is going to happen quite a bit in heads up matches with all of the volatility.

So basically, he wasn't prepared, didn't take care of himself the night before, and thus didn't perform well...

Well, that makes one of us. (Playing these spots incorrectly is pretty common among rec players or tournament players who are used to playing very specific stack sizes.)

Pretty sure she got it for free in exchange for wearing his patch, and her strategy wasn't bad given:

A) Her goal wasn't to maximize her hourly in a cash game format, it was to maximize her win % in a freezeout format. (These two strategies could diverge quite a bit with an opponent like Mike.)

B) Her opponent was playing horrifically bad.

She should have asked the floor and/or PNIA people to be clear before she made a tipping decision for sure, but the tip she ultimately gave was pretty generous ($500 for what, four to six hours by cash standards or 30K profit by tournament standards?). Usually in a cash game you tip after each pot won, which can't be done in a freezeout, so it is a bit awkward.

FWIW I disagree with her that PNIA should have tipped on the winner's behalf, assuming there was some compensation (hotels, food, etc) and potentially no rake. In that scenario, I probably would have tipped even if PNIA tipped.

Given that Cate mainly plays tournaments as far as I know, it's possible that she did make an honest mistake here and she probably deserves the benefit of the doubt.

prolly a good idea to add this post to the OP

Sure, it's NOT a sunk cost when you are deciding whether or not to play the match in the first place. In that decision, whether it is a freeroll makes an essential difference.

But that's not the decision we are talking about. Instead, we are discussing the decision about how much to prepare for the match, or how seriously to take the match, once you have already agreed to play it. For the purpose of this decision, the $30k is a sunk cost, and the $60k swing between winning or losing (the same regardless of whether it is a freeroll or not) is all that should matter.

Bro, that **** about about theory may work online but live poker is totalllyyyyyy different bro.

-the "real" jungleman

well I know I don't, but then again I'm fairly competitive, you probably just aren't and it's fine that way

Technically, if the participants didn't actually put up any money, then no gambling took place. She in effect won a $60k "prize" so the income she received wouldn't be characterized as a gambling win, but rather a prize, as if she was on a game show of some sort. I would think that she'll receive a 1099-MISC form rather than a W-2G for the income.

For all I know, prizes might not be taxed either in the U.K., but I thought that the distinction between a gambling win and a prize win under U.S. tax law might be of interest. Although not relevant here since since I would assume that Cate files taxes as a professional gambler, winning a prize as opposed to a gambling win is actually worse tax-wise for a recreational player in the U.S., because you can't deduct any gambling losses to offset the "prize money" won.

That hippy?? Surely you are joking!

What they're really going to do is look at your lifestyle and expenses as compared to your claimed income, and see if you could afford your lifestyle based on what you declared. Could they discover that you made an extra $5k on top of $100k you declared? Possible, but not probable. On the other hand, if you claimed $15k in income and you're paying $2k/month in rent, have car payments, credit card bills, went on a couple of trips, deposited money in the bank, made some investments, etc., it will be clear you have undeclared income.

So much this. Was very surprised I disagreed so often w/ Doug regarding GTO vs exploitative play in live poker and found his conversations w/ Deeb regarding the topic pretty interesting. Even playing in the biggest live NL games, I think exactly everyone is super imbalanced in at least some spots and I strongly believe you are leaving a ton of money on the table by not attacking this. This is true X 100 when playing HU against a mediocre poker player.

I was further surprised by the major differences in relative weight, on average, I apply to stuff like physical tells, gut-feeling, leveling, etc. vs things like card removal compared to Doug. I would be surprised to find that most online converted to live high stakes guys (like me ) fall on Doug's side of the argument here, but I'd be curious to hear from other live guys.

It was amusing to me when he referred to using the above skills as living in the woods vs GTO as living in a civilized society. To me, there's just as much, if not more skill in the above in live poker. And I suspect natural ability/live experience plays a pretty big role in one's success at applying them appropriately. Nevertheless, because very few are actually gifted at these skillsets, I can agree most live players would be best off utilizing GTO play for most of their decisions.

tl;dr: I think a truly great live player can play nearly perfect because everyone kinda sucks, with perfect being defined in this case as making the correct decision against your opponent's exact hand.

Either way, I enjoy the content Doug puts out and find him to be both hilarious and impressive in his work ethic.