Ehm yes they do.

Kessler says he has never played a hand of NL cash in his life

The "caravan" or so van costs a couple of kilos mostly, as used. Needs to be checked in some country/state perhaps, once per year, and fixed. The diesel is not necessarily allowed in the biggest cities. The gas is free only in the US.

The temperature problem during the winters. The place to keep it is on the free spots, as long as allowed, or nowhere, or then you pay like when camping and more. It is just one of the options if one needs a place to live at temporarily, or maybe one makes a summer tour and then sells it.

The taxes in a difficult way (paper-work and the US taxes finally sent to one's bank account) from winnings over 5k (if as so, in Vegas -- can be less somewhere else in the USA). No taxes as so from cash winnings. Playing the bigger tourneys in the USA and so is not a good deal as so (but if moving here to a tax free country for it -- not available for the US players from some part but maybe not impossible but one could stay there and file as a Trumpian).

Not sure it is safe in Spain and elsewhere, as especially the tourney scores are under the radar and possibly taxed sooner or later. And moving the money around can be a problem both online and live.

You don't need to go hunting the cash games all over the continent/world every week or so but one could move periodically and even drag the van there (with a mouse), or buy it from there perhaps, and sell it later.

If taxed, win 100 euros (or 70 net) and lose 200 the next year, you should be up -130 euros (plus pension) but you are not, as only a few countries let you deduct your loses from some past years; like the USA.

So in 2019 any WSOP circuit, WPT Deepstacks, HPT or any other 1500 or less live full time MTT grinders are just wasting their time in the long run. Unless they grind cash games too.

Rake, travel, taxes and lack of volume is pretty much unbeatable to do it full time.
It could be still profitable for local semi pros( with another source of income).

ah yes the poker dream, to travel the wheat fields of the american heartland, living in a van and eating casino chinese food

"Chainsaw Approved" mtt structure royalties obv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Elias

I think he was also in range to take down this years LAPC too? Don't know where that stands.

Maybe it's not a worthwhile endeavor for 99.9999% of the population, but for a few total freakshows who, for whatever reason, have a weird cognitive makeup that is hard to quantify

Boski seems to be doing okay as a tourney grinder. He lives in LV and only travels occasionally I think.

So a guy who started off playing tournaments as high as $10,000 (his second cash was in a 10k) who now regularly plays $25,000 buy in tournaments is your evidence for why playing in 1500 events is worthwhile?

It's not even so clear how lucrative it's actually been for him. I'd estimate based on the number of cashes, even if he cashed in 20% of tournaments for each stake, his total buy ins would be somewhere between 3-4m. Given that he's been doing it for 10 years+ i can only imagine how much he's spent on hotels, airfare and inflated food prices from being in a casino.

He probably has come out ahead and for all i know despite his success he may be running below EV. the point to take away from this, though, is that travel/hotel/food expenses don't drop proportional to the stakes you play.

if this tournament poker hero has netted 250k/y before taxes playing in the biggest games and racks up 25k/y in travel expenses, the grinder playing tournaments that're 1/10th that size might make 50k/y and be racking up 15k worth of expenses. I guess there's a silver lining here for the low stakes grinder in that he'll be making so little that he'll hardly have to pay anything in taxes?

Wow, forgot about this thread. And now, having read back through a few dozen posts, I'm starting to wonder if PaulyJames200x is Chainsaw in disguise.

Agree 0.01% can make it but everybody else... will be busto eventually

He gets referals from RYE and ACR and some royalties from Youtube

Of all the tournament grinders, what percentage would you say on average are profitable in the WSOP? A huge majority of them will go broke or get into huge makeup right? And only a small percentage do very well in it? If so, like how much percentage? Im guessing like 5%? Also if you were to pick say 10 tournament players who would play in wsop events... i assume something like on average 2-3 will be profitable at the most right in a wsop?



I mean if you look at those mid stakes live tournament players who are solid and decent, its hard to imagine 1/2 of them profiting in any wsop right since they pay out such a small percentage?



Also the thing that stood out to me the most was those that are big names and many claim to be fully backed. I understand backing means you don't have to put money upfront but you still have to pay the money back. But when you do this, you seem to only get 50-70% of your winnings. Now making say 50k a year in live mtt is already hard... now imagine you get backed for that... then make 50k... you only get 25k-35k? Also those bigger events like 5k events and up, almost everyone is backed it seems. I mean whats the point of playing those events when you only have a small percentage of yourself if you sell action? Have 20 percent... might as well player smaller tournament buyin with weaker field?

Some of the biggest names in poker today, like Daniel Negreanu for example, got their big break by scoring a big tournament cash. I think DNegs won 200k back in 98 or when it was. To my surprise, even Chip Reese was actually able to become successful first after making a big tournament score. These guys were the smart ones who were able to build on those wins.

99% of the rest of us just won't make it by playing tournaments. It was a big dream after Moneymaker but that's all it remained for most, a dream.

I am mostly an online tourney player but I went to horseshoe council bluffs and played 16k in buyins in one stop. It would not be that hard to play 300k in buyins only playing 400-1700 range.

How long was the stop?

this.
with few exceptions, tourny grinders are basically chasing a lottery type dream.
most are broke, but of course a few each year run hotter than the sun providing false hope for the masses.

tax laws in the us are also terrible for full time tournament grinding.

11 days

It seriously amazes me when I travel for cash games when there's a tourney in the city, and see these grinders playing these $300-$1K tourneys, talking about how they travel the country grinding. I'm thinking, how can they seriously support themselves in these buy-in tourneys with all the car, hotel, and eating out expenses? Not to mention if they also pay rent/mortgage wherever their home is.

In before Chainsaw answers your question.

yea i mean it's basically a joke to grind those for a living
even if you have a 50% roi (lol @ that) it's super high variance and your return is still way less than being halfway good at cash

these grinders are also the most miserable pieces of **** i've ever seen

Those tourneys are boring as **** too.

isn't the real question; IF you could make a living of it, is it a decent one?

Like others ITT, travel, accommodation and rake expenses vs ROI in these crapshoots. doesn't leave much wiggle room imo

Are you just jealous of big c poker gang?

Now that wsop is over, what percentage of the top pros would you guess are up? If you look at those high roller players, i mean can't be more than say 20% max are profitable right?


Does anyone know who else grinds live mtt full time in vegas or travels across the us? Does eric baldwin play in vegas much now still? I recalled he had very good results. Im still curious how allen kessler does it because it seem to be a not so good player.