kessler definitely has income coming outside of poker or just has a lot saved up

doing what he does gives him notoriety - look, there's a freakin thread that's derailed to him

he's a known entity in the poker world despite being a loser player

he would not get this kind of social recognition if he just spent his days at a golf course

same exact reason why so many people who don't need money are happy to run small businesses which themselves may not even be profitable

so you can introduce yourself at cocktail parties as an art dealer or librarian or photographer (that's a big one) or whatever instead of saying "i don't do anything"

huge reason for angel investing as well - throw 20k to a tech startup once a year and you can introduce yourself as an investor and if any of them take off then you'll look like a genius

Do people still play poker ?
How does crypto, stocks, social media income, and biz side hustle culture
affect attracting the next gen of poker kids in college/20s ?

10 year old article still being rage debated, LOL
Guy probably does not even remember writing it by now

OP, thanks for posting this...

I guess it comes down to LV and/or L.A. Not having the $volume of tournaments necessary day to day... And if they did, you'd probably need a free stay in the city you don't love in.

I would not that even if the $volume tourneys did exist, it would probably require very irregular work schedule. Some 80 hour weeks and quite a few 25 hour weeks

Taxes are unfair and admin headache I'd also add

Sorry.. A ton of terrible auto-correct in previous message

FWIW a $500 buyin tournament can still net you $15000-$25000 so these guys will play in buyins that small live action. Boski was playing in a $10 tournament on ACR with me last week.

Boski has been playing $11 and $6.6 mtts weekly for the last 10 years

.

amazing bump

Cliffs.

You'll never make a living playing live poker tournaments

I assume he's easy clearing 70-120k in poker over the year and that's his main income and the fact has been grinding since the 90s i assume he has comps all over

he doesn't play much cash and he's been losing in tournaments for at least a decade.

https://x.com/chainsawtracker

in a casual glance, it doesn't look like he's had a winning year in over a decade

Makes sense Kessler would become a big topic within this thread as he's probably the best example we have of what it would look like if someone grinded these things constantly for a long time

Instafollowed

The Deadspin article "Why You'll Never Make A Living Playing Live Poker Tournaments" by Darrel Plant discusses the financial challenges faced by professional poker players focusing on live tournaments. The article highlights that more than two-thirds of top players at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) likely incur annual losses. Among the minority who do profit, approximately five out of six owe their profitability to a single large cash win. This underscores the reliance on infrequent significant payouts to offset consistent losses. Additionally, the article points out that the limited availability of smaller events with higher median payouts makes it difficult for players with a 25% return on investment to sustain a decent living

I think there are some pros now who could live off of Triton events only lol

You know you're old when you remember when this thread was started...

The good thing is Kessler lives dirt cheap between all the free comps and he prob has near zero expenses. The bad is he lights money on fire in poker and other games - not sure where he has the money to sustain this but it's sort of depressing to think about his existence.

Kessler won north of 1 Million on a slot pull late last year.

his sister is worth millions and owns her own company and put him on payroll, he talks about this in an article where he's featured by some poker magazine after having his first ever winning series

found it: https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-new...-allen-kessler

"Long-time poker pro Allen Kessler never had the respect of his peers — but that all seemed to change after the 2010 World Series of Poker"

Well he still doesn't.

Grinding poker seems so 2010's now. Seems quaint like AOL and flip phones.
Where did all your poker grinders go over the years?
I'd think stocks, crypto, sports betting all scooped up the poker degens over the last decade