totally disagree.

totally agree

Without tournaments the cash scene would have dried up years ago.

I like to think that every day I manage to stay alive I am also "prolonging reality".

Alternate title. " It is not easy for most folks to make a living playing live poker tournaments" Not much to argue about for 6 pages.

you make a big big assumption that tourney players would play cash if there were no tournaments. way way different. i know rich people who play 200 dailys who never would come to a casino to play a cash game but might happen to play after a tournament. hitting a tourney score brings alot of people into the cash scene. plus, many people think they are poker geniuses after hitting some big score in a tourney. all in all tourneys are really good for everyone even if you don't play them.

LOL

How are they good for everyone? I think they are only good for the poeple running them.

It brings people into the casino who may not have otherwise came to play cash. It gives really bad players a chance to luckbox a tournament and go dump it all back to the cash players. It is the form of poker that every recreational thinks of when they think of poker. How are they not good for everyone?

Yeah I guess I see that aspect of it, I was just talking value wise. Don't think the rake is beatable in the long run for live tourneys

The rake is higher, sure, but the level of competition is LOL bad. Live MTT players are some of the worst players in poker. It is certainly possible to beat the rake and many people do it.

i would have to agree that the regs in live tournaments at my casino are at least twice as bad as the casual semi-regulars in the cash games. and the casual tournament players are so bad you really wonder how they can even justify paying the buy in every weekend no matter how small

Gambling generally is a bad thing for 90% of those doing it. I certainly regret starting it (even though it made me a couple of thousand bucks). I wasted parts of my best years chasing that dream.

I have a solid job paying me roughly 65k a year, a cute girlfriend, an (albeit a bad one) university degree and a couple of good friends, so I fell loosely. However, the sad truth is that my life could have been a lot more.

Its funny how right mum and dad were when they told me "Dont gamble and dont do drugs". The bad things simply outweight the good things for most people.

People will ridicule me for posting this but then again most gamblers are outright delusional anyway

Been playing 5-10 NL and PLO for 9 years ish, with 100 k to 200 k expenses a year , not a problem for me.

Is it just me? why so few people/articles talk about the tax impact on those tournament players? I am not a tournament player, yet I find that the tax has eaten up quite a bit of my "gross profit" over the years.

Other than skill and BR, the tax issue is probably the most important single factor that prevents a player from being a professional tournament player in a graduated tax system like US.

Did I miss something?

Thanks for sharing 'KingDan' and 'bosox15'. Sats are were it is at as far as I am concerned.

I love playing tournaments. They are exciting and challenging at the same time. It's a lot of fun to chase that big prize in a tournament. But I only take a shot in a few a year. That reason is that if you crunch the numbers even just a little bit, it's clear that only a lucky few come out ahead as winners playing tournaments on a regular basis. There are several factors that make it nearly impossible to profit in the long run:

Rake:
Most tournaments now rake 15-30% and some even take an additional 3% out on top of that for the dealers

Taxes:
All cashes $5,500 above the buy-in result in the winnings being reported for taxes. So if we are chasing that big win (which if the reason for playing tournaments) we will pay an additional 25% (roughly) rake on our winnings to the government!

Tips:
Even if a portion of the prize pool is withheld, most of us still tip an extra 1-5% from our winnings

Variance:
Not only is variance financially draining, it can take a big toll mentally and physically

My local cardroom runs a weekly $200+35 tournament. The 17.5% rake is actually the lowest rake for all of the weekly tournaments -- so this is a best case scenario.

Last week's results:
1: $6,148
2: $4,028
3. $2,968
4. $2,120
5. $1,484
6. $1,272
7. $1,060
8. $848
9. $636
10. $636

Total Payouts: $21,200 (106 entries)

Assuming I could cash in 1 out of 9 tournaments (better than the 10% average), I would play 90 tournaments to cash 10 times. That's a total of $21,150 in entry fees. If I cashed each time in each different position on the payout ladder (1-10), I would be paid $21,200 in "winnings." That's only a $50 profit on 90 tournaments played!

I am assuming a better than average percentage of cashes, not factoring in tips or taxes paid on my 1st place finish. Is it fun? Of course. Is it profitable? No way!

I wonder if Ole Schemion agrees with this article?

The correct reaction to that article is 50% this^^^ and 50% "duh".

The idea that the model uses a single player is simply incorrect.

You don't sound like you are older than mid 30s, so I'm pretty sure you have time to acheive more in life.

The only people who this is news to are people who dont play poker for a living, so I guess yes it does belong in NVG, lol.

Yeah although the article has some flaws, it's definitely not news that making a living playing live MTT's is borderline impossible. It's worth it to play the WSOP because there's a ton of events in a "small" period of time with a very weak player pool, but travelling the world to play all the big live events etc... is not financially viable. If you got loads of money and like the "fun" factor, it can be an OK decision, but definitely not something people should do with the idea of actually making money. Also lolvariance

Let's go back to the first reply

You need to sell and buy a lot of pieces and play a lot of high buy in events to do this without going insane. Also if you share pieces you can collude a little bit here and there to give you an extra edge.

Sure it might matter in small field low buyin tournaments, but fees/tips are not really much of an issue for MTT players.

In fact, the rake/fees are one of two reasons a sane person might consider playing MTTs. The other is that MTTs are generally the softest form of poker.

Rake is so much higher in other forms of poker. You could do okay at MTTs online when I played even without rakeback/VIP. It wasn't ideal, but you could do it. Playing Cash or SNGs without rakeback or a good VIP program was a ridiculous notion(unless you played high stakes cash of course).

What? Live MTTs are extremely profitable. The issue isn't profitability. Its that playing live MTTs for profit isn't very practical.