Of course rake always matters, especially for MTT players. If 30% of the players' buy-ins are raked or taxed away, then the few times that you do cash, there is not enough left in the prize pool to cover your flight, hotel, meals and other expenses.

Wrong again. Even so-called live MTT "pros" have admitted that it is so difficult to be profitable. Very few of the players in my area are profitable in the casino MTTs. Talking to a lot of the rounders and regs, I'm one of the rare ones with a high ROI since last year, but that is because I game-select low-rake beatable MTTs and also because I am running hot.

Not many players are profitable in any form of poker, but for good players rake is far less important in MTTs than SNGs or cash.

Live MTTs being an impractical way to earn money has nothing to do with their profitability. Its mostly expenses and lack of volume that are the problem. Plus the huge variance you have with MTTs period.

This remains me of certain players selling their WSOP action with 1,6-1,8 MU lol

Im curious but how many players out there are actually playing live tournaments for a living solely. I read quite a bit of ppl who travel across the USA to play circuit events etc and many of thee 365 and 550 events but how many of these players actually turn a profit? I can't imagine many of these players even making much a year on average playing live tournaments. From having all those expenses, it doesn't even seem profitable at all. I mean why dont they just play 1/3 or 2/5 instead? Surely they could make more playing 1/3nl than tournaments like the author mentioned here right? Is it b/c these tournament players suck at cash? Or do they want the glory of winning 1st in a tournament?


Also why dont these guys play online tournaments instead? I mean the lowest buyin tournaments typically in these series are $365 at circuit events. Then you have $550 buyins and $1100 buyins which are low-medium size events but obviously if you played a $109 even online... thats considered high stakes on stars. yes i know usa players cant play on stars but even when they could, why did so many ppl play live touranments? Or right now... why dont usa players relocate outside the usa to play tournaments on stars as oppose to playing live tournamnets? I mean if you are playing a $550 tournament live... it cost more than that because of expenses. But online, you could open up 10 tables of $10, $20, $50 and $100 buyins where you would be playing many tables at once and the total buyin for those 10 tournaments could even be less than the $550 tournament which would take 1 whole day at least and many of these take 2days to finish.


Also why doesn't someone like Allen Kessler relocate and play online tournamnets on stars instead since hes a winner in live touranments? I did read he said he didn't get free rooms etc... then he wouldn't be profitable with live tournaments. Is the main reason b/c most of these players would probably not be profitable at all playing on stars/tilt/888/partypoker as oppose to playing live tournament since its really soft? I mean... are live tournaments up to $1100 really that soft where its worth it for them? The other reason I could think of is they want to leave the usa which would make sense.


I still don't know why anyone would play live touranmetns. You could play 8 hours and bust out and not even make the money. If you play 8 hours in a touranment on stars... you are pretty deep or won the tournament arleady. I mean if you bust a tournament online a $55 one... welll you play your other tournaments or open another tournament. I mean those that bust a tournament, what do they usually do? Just leave and go to another city or go home or do they even play cash? I read some thread where a guy mentioned how certain circuit grinders after they bust out of a $365 tournaemnt, they just wait to play tournament next day and dont even bother with cash.

Theres one guy on twitter i saw where all he does is seem to play live tournaments. Name is Matt Marder and he always play live tournaments. Yes he does have over 300k in winnings but of course that doesn't count how much losses he has. I can't imagnie someone like him is even up much since he posts every tournament he plays the receipt on twitter and would bust many times etc that I wonder why doesn't this guy play online poker instead even in the usa. Anyone have opinion on this?


Yes the skill difference is huge between live and online but would most of these live tournament grinders not really be profitable playing low to mid stakes on stars? I did recall one guy mentioned these live tournament pros are the bottom of the barrel playing 365s to 550s because they are not good at poker and only play these b/c there are lot of recreational players.


Im curious how many live tournament pros are there that actually make money playing live touranments year after year in the usa and only plays live tournaments. I can't imagine the number is anything more than 300. But how many of these guys are those that play $1100 buyin and below? I can't imagine theres that many. Only person i could think of would be Eric Baldwin? I mean when a daily $120 live tournament is higher buyin than a stars $109 buyin... that is saying a lot.

Dang! I just quit Engineering school too. Why didn't anybody say this before?

I've only made it this far thru the thread and while I know it's nowhere close to a real contribution: this sucks and is scary as hell

I did recall one guy mentioned these live tournament pros are the bottom of the barrel playing 365s to 550s because they are not good at poker and only play these b/c there are lot of recreational players.[/QUOTE]

Just as a thought experiment, consider what happens if your player pool consists solely of equally-talented expert players? Eventually, some of those expert players will, by necessity and solely due to chance, go broke. Not everyone can be profitable in any single tournament or cash game session, and if everyone only plays with other players of the same skill level, and there is no infusion of new money, money will pass around for a while, but some players will inevitably run out of money. If you take rake into account, eventually everyone will go broke if they play long enough. It's the entropy of the poker universe.

Thank you for that enlightening perspective. Limon said it best when he said "pussy juice"

Good night.

One can make money by playing live tournaments and it is not hard. Lifetime to get to long run. 100 per month can be enough for most people on this planet and no computer needed. 2k per year would be making a living.

They just need more or less local card rooms and casinos that do not rake, juice, western style standards but relative ones.

Still cant believe how little they rake in vegas, less so how people think it tough in those extremely easy games that additionally rake practically nothing when one could tripple it and grind down a table full of tough regs.

The live tournaments are probably pretty close like play money, even well known online fishes like hellmuth and negreanu are the best there.

Good players probably hate tournaments but in a local card room it must be worth it if u need the money.

Even non tournament players turn lifetime profits pretty soon in live tournaments. And beating the cash games there need no advanced skills.

ballin'

Wsop main event

This was like someone taking a coherent post and shaking it to rearrange the words - all the right words are in here but just not in correct order.

I don't consider myself as a pro, but here's my 2¢. I won over $20K in a local casino playing $220-$550 tournaments once or twice a month in 2014. I also won over $20K over a 12-month period in a second casino playing $300 tournaments <= 2x/month. When a WPT series was announced in the area and the satellites started, I grinded in the poker room and again made over $20K. When I wasn't playing those 4 live MTTs per month, I played online, usually cashing out >$1K each month that I had the inclination/motivation to play enough.

While many players in my area whine about not enough tournaments, it is POSSIBLE for a FEW players to make a living as a live tournament pro so the original article is incorrect with the word "never." Here is the calendar of the many government-owned casino tournaments available monthly, which doesn't even include the three non-OLG casinos above that I made the most money from. You do need to have a big enough skills edge against the player pool along with running good.

The article is correct in that even most "pros" lose money from playing live MTTs. It seems that a lot of the live "pros" are begging to sell pieces or are buried in makeup.

Yes, online is generally much harder than live. I have rarely had a losing month online playing tournaments, but my ROI is much higher live. I personally enjoy socializing at casinos, compared to becoming depressed when I was an online hermit maximizing VIP bonuses and promotions.

For an example of a real pro, read the article about Michael "SirWatts" Watson. He plays online two days a week, but he states, "The big money is really the live tournaments. That’s where you’ve got the chance to have the huge scores."

So you've played like 20 tournaments in 2014, then another 20 and then another 4/month and that is supposed to be a big enough sample? Of course anyone can win in tournaments because the variance is so insane, the point is that your expected winnings aren't really that awesome.

My point is that if an amateur like me can be profitable almost every single month since 2009, then it's POSSIBLE for some smart pros to make a living playing live tournaments (especially if you are good enough to win at cash games or online when not playing a donkament).

Lolz reminds me of a thread some traveller posted in a very small local poker forum back in the day . It went a bit like this:

"HEY GUYZ. I'm traveling to your area and want a place to stay near the casino for 3 months. I'm a MTT poker pro you know, so I won't have any problems paying the rent!"

Ok let me try to point out what I was actually saying:

You were incredibly lucky. Actually if you were playing between $200 and $500 and you've only played that small amount of tournaments and got those winnings, you are running hotter than the sun. Realize that your hot streak is in no way representative of a "normal" run.

If you were profitable "every month" playing only 2 of them, then you got at least 50% ITM which is absurdly lucky.

My article didn't say nobody is making a living playing tournaments. The headline, which I didn't write, said "you'll never make a living playing live tournaments," and even though that's not what I said in the article exactly, it's still accurate for most people reading it.

Thoughts?

Didn't know how to post two of them at once so curious. Also is there reason why so many poker players play theses tournaments especially the lower stake ones? Funny how a $365 to $550 is considered small stakes for live mtt when thats considered high stakes for online. Is it because they want to get their names known or heard even for playing these low stakes circuit tournaments?


Also i believe there are a lot of las vegas pros that play those 565 to 2500 dollar mtt like venetian deepstack tournaments. Is there really that much of an edge in live mtt that many choose to play these as oppose to playing online? Yes online is very tough but seems much less risky playing online and you could play tons of mtt versus playing 1 mtt at a time and i know tons of players can easily brick 20 mtt in a row. And not only that, it takes a long time to play 20 mtt.

It's +lifeEV to have a minimum number of live MTTs on your schedule for Hendon Mob cred and usable Facebook Profile/Cover Photos.

Many of these guys are backed and are in so much makeup they have to play non stop, really their backers finance their lifestyle

Heres what most do:

1. Think up a plausible bustout story to tell your backer
1a. Tweet plausible bustout story to your followers 99% of which have you muted (use hashtag #showers)
2. Walk through cash game floor, get in loud conversation with other tourney bustouts about backpack shopping, Sushi and MMA.
3. Dont take open cash game seat, make it clear you "crush" on bovada.
4. Use 35 minutes between tourney flights to beg last weeks circuit winner for money
5. Enter flight 231 day Q of the super duper mega mega bazillions tourney
6. Ship piles or heaps as the case may be.

I subscribed to LATB last night and after not being a fan of yours based on some of your posts on here, I admit I was wrong. Keep up the awesomeness Limon!