Quote:
Originally Posted by borg23
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
This is why backing has the potential to make a lot of sense. If you have 20-30 horses in your stable the likelihood of having losing years goes down quite a bit and the impact of not having the ability to carry losses is of a lessened significance.
And if the players are playing for fixed per tournament percentages (between 5 and 20% depending on the tournament and player) of their net positive results they're not getting hurt by this tax hurdle either and have a much more reliable income stream.
The live tourney donk in endless makeup archetype exists but its not all people who are backed. If you look at WSOP packages being sold you'll see a lot of people are not usually backed. Some percentage of these people are doing the same things at other live events. Impossible to know how many but it's not that difficult to find value in these things both from the perspective of the player and the backer as long as you're diligent about keeping costs low and, from the backers perspective, not being too generous. Of course not many are doing this and ONLY this - but that's because it makes no sense for any poker professional to limit their play to a very narrow area of expertise.