A large percentage of the "name players" owe lots of money and are "backed" (not counting those with a large outside income- Full Tilt, etc)

Many Big Names, Medium Names, and Small Names are broke or going broke..Even one of the names listed by the poster has been reputed to be upside-down for a long time.

The reasons are many: overspending, playing too high, large negative EV gambles. fewer fish to throw a net over, tougher games in general, getting cheated, the inherently financially-unfriendly nature of tournament poker due to variance and no tax-carry over (if not sponsored or given perks), losing business ventures and investments, basically poor money management, and so on.

Some name players are basically degenerates with a skill for poker.

In the higher limits (and some tell me across the board) poker is much tougher now. Recession, faster learning curve, better info, the bottom-end players being better, fewer fish, and so on. Internet poker has toughened dramatically; even more than live.

HOWEVER,, there are successful pros. Some relevant questions are: is pursuing this life the best choice and do you have what it takes?? Only a small percentage probably can give a double-yes.

Op has an impressive imagination.

you dont know any of the people you're talking about. it's not in most rich people's interests to flaunt it.

using your logic:
nanonoko drives a 1990s toyota. therefore nanonoko is broke. see the problem w/that logic?

obviously OP does not know all the players he named on a personal level to know their financial situations. it's fun to gossip about famous poker players but in the end, OP (and NVG) just does not know.

What I think OP is getting at is that poker is a very stressful game, especially playing above your BR and playing high stakes. This stress would cause the poker player to lose discipline and resort to degenerative ways like playing pit games or sports betting. Makes sense to me

P.S. please tell me PokerStars did not make $1.4 billion in rake last year. If so, OP is right - everyone is busto

Excellent point! Why don't they look annoyed after a big win?

WHY? WHY? WHY? It's a huge mystery!

hansen wears cheap flipflops, so he must be broke right ?

i think i am only winning player in the world - i play nl10 and nl20

Hey OP.

Im bust, have been since 2008. You hiring?

That is all.

Everyone should remember that this problem need not be caused by a good player encountering even better ones. Its almost as bad if he is merely encountering fewer suckers. If your hourly rate is only one third of what it used to be, you not only make a lot less money you are also much more likely to go broke if you don't drop down in stakes. If it was originally three percent that jumps up to about thirty percent.

When you watch Seinfeld, do you expect Jason Alexander to be a big IRL prick too?

Life must be fun being able to come to conclusions with almost zero basis. Like looking at the world through the eyes of a curious child.

I was talking about in cash games. Like after Esfandiari won the WPT he was very comfortable playing pretty loose in cash games as apposed to nowadays. Understand?

cyro, your whole opening post was a bunch of nonsense. you obviously read too much into what people say.

you also believe word of mouth information without having any substantial facts,

sammy farha is VERY rich outside of poker. his $ is tied up in oil and other business ventures, he is very comfortable and is in no way "broke"

doyle brunson may or may not be losing money in the big game but think of all the endorsments and other things hes got going on. just like with a pro athlete the majority of a pro athletes money comes from endorsments and NOT from their salaries playing their respective sports.

to a billionaire 5million is like 500bucks to any normal person, it stings but it makes no difference in the grand scheme of things.

many players do sell of their action, at times only having 25% of themselves, by doing this they minimize their downswings.

sorry cyro but everything you have said is just pure nonsense

1. How do you know that Sam Farha enjoys all these business ventures?

2. Do you really think the endorsment deals of Brunson cover his losses in the games he plays?

3. I quoted Andy Beal himself. Besides, billionaire businessmen tend to be the most careful and caring of their money, let alone $5m

A+ lvl or A+ ******, either way A+

just incase you're clever enough to understand this, OP, the problem with your core claims is this: sweeping statements like 'there are no winning players, i don't care what graphs you show me or what strategy you explain to me' cannot be proven wrong; you've made them/yourself immune to rational critisism. if you would never give up these statements no matter what evidence was provided, then these statements are meaningless.

OP you are making inferences based on very limited and ambiguous data. Your lack of holistic/dimensional approach to the situation makes your argument, while potentially correct, impossible to side with. The limited information you were exposed to, especially the television appearances and the fatigue caused by the long hours of the WSOP isn't exactly unbiased or at all generalisable to the subjects life/bankroll

like most people have said there are nuggets of truth in OP's post, degeneracy at pit games/sportsbetting or poor bankroll management are going to make you a lot more susceptible to going broke ldo

If I were a dealer in vegas, I think I would tell OP everything about everything

do u seriously use a thesaurus in NVG or are you so vain as to actually spend time writing pointlessly arcane terms.

LOL this is funny. Ever heard of bad investments, gambling addicts, and divorce just to name a few reasons? Obviously they can't all go broke at the poker table.

Nice OP. However, I agree that there are a lot of assumptions in that post taken as fact. Still, the overriding point is, I believe, valid: it's terribly difficult to be a professional poker player. For every winner, there are probably 20 losers. And the kind of people who are drawn to that lifestyle often have their own personal demons that make is harder to manage their finances in any sensible way, even if they do consistently win (which few do).

On the other hand, my guess is that many of the top pros make a good chunk of their change beyond the felt. It's all about brand management. Negreanu and Helmuth (among others) know this very well.

For example, Negreanu lost a mega pot to Gus on HSP, probably watched by just about everyone posting here. My guess is that pot was incredibly +EV for Daniel. Why? He took the loss like a gentleman. Pure class. He displayed a ton of personality throughout his time on HSP. Which is why even though overall he has been a big loser on HSP, it's Daniel that heads Pokerstars' stable of pros. And it's Daniel that's in high demand for sponsorships, interviews, appearances, etc. It's Daniel that drives lots of newcomers to poker. And he manages his brand and image well (blog posts, Twitter updates, etc.). Of course, it helps that he's probably more or less what you see: a classy guy.

Helmuth is great at this, too, but in a different way: leveraging his "bad boy" image into many side activities. He plays just enough poker to fuel all his other activities. So, again, his TV losses are like when Coke spends money on marketing to sell more product. A great brand investment. To give one example: I'm sure rich guys pay a fortune to have Helmuth show up at their company poker tournaments.

But there can only be so many Daniels and Phil Helmuths.... Just under them, it must be a tough life for most. I guess the bottom line is that if you're a pro and living exclusively off your poker winnings, then yes, you're probably a few bad beats from being broke. If you're not already there.

The dude you addressed this to is foreign btw. Way to know your target audience.

But i did like the ldo on the end.

Arcane? lol. Everything is pretty standard, maybe not for a forum like NVG but I've been writing a lot of assignments lately and it's hard to get out of that mindset.

Thanks for nitpicking my word choices though,

Fwiw here is the stone cold truth

after the NBC heads up last April I am sitting in the B sports book in one of the big round booths by the sports bar

Gus sits in the one next to me with his back to me and fires up four tables of PLO and plays for about an hour

I am stunned as I can see how/what he plays as he is only a few feet away and I can easily read everything on his screen

btw the red pros can see your hole cards( something I kinda wondered but not really)

so for about an hou I watched him play while not intruding and not too sure if this was ethical on my part but a once in a lifetime opp. Short of being close friends with one of them

to the broke part

I saw him go to a sports betting site comparing lines at B and online making tennis and other bets

he then went to his FT cashier page to reload or a table he busted on and he had

over 13 million in his FTP account!

If that's broke sign me up!!

Those who get rich playing poker, want more... in return doing things they wouldn't normally do. Someone else may have said it but once you change the way you go about things, take different shots at different limits and change your gameplay b/c of the money you lose the advantage you do have on other players.... and that is managing your money