As above. I primarily grind cash and can show graphs which makes her happy to let me carry on playing but she doesn't quite understand how i can be 5th out of 1010 play for 7 hours and make less than i would have done if i had of just played cash...

Does she genuinely want to understand how variance in poker works? Also "to let me carry on playing" implies she doesn't want you to in the first place. The stance of rejecting basically inhibits any person from understanding whatever it is you want them to.

Cash game is steady, tournaments are all or nothing. If she is sprts savvy, cash is base hits, tournaments are home runs or strikeouts.

If you are playing as a hobby, just tell her that the Win big aspect of tournament play is more fun. If you are playing for rent money, you should probably play cash.

I understand all of the above and don't understand why you've grinded 7 hours to place 5th which is obviously very high on your positve variance side and you made less than you do playing cash.

Why are you playing that tournament?

i have never played poker because of the monetary gain element. i play for the same reason i play FIFA, or chess, or pool.. i can just show her a cash graph that makes her realise i'm actually not that bad at the pokerz but my tournament results make me look like an absolute fish out of water without making any key mistakes (variance)

Well to be fair to her, she is right in not understanding why you would play tournaments if a top 0,5% finish gets you a worse result than playing cash. If it isn't about the money then have you told her it takes a long time to win 1 out of 1000? The concept should not be hard to grasp.

Tbh having to justify yourself to a partner is a joke.

Are you using money you need for other things? no
Is it your money that you are using? yes

If those are the answers to the question then absolutely no justification is needed.

About 4 out of 5 tourney sessions are losing sessions, but you tend to make up for the losses in the 1 in 5 where you do alright.
It's kind of 4 steps backwards, 1 giant leap forwards.

Don't go card dead when you are on 20BB or less and win flips.

What is it that she doesn't understand? Does she not understand why you would want to spend that much time for that little return? Or is it simply she doesn't know why you would want to spend that much time playing, regardless of the return? Or does she not understand that the risk/reward ratios are simply completely different for cash than they are for tournaments?

It wouldn't be easy for any of us to give one sentence that would help her understand something, if we don't know what part of it she doesn't understand. I know that I would not be happy if I just played 7 hours and got 5th of 1010 and got almost nothing for it. I would probably be thinking I just wasted a lot of time for little return. So maybe she just thinks that's what you did.

One sentence here it is.

(partners name) I love gambling and tournaments are the ultimate gamble.

Don't need to say no more. Continue playing.

How has no one said lol donkaments?

Maybe you should do it for monetary gain because it enables you to purchase the essentials in life and wanted other stuff.

It might make your girlfriend more happy too.

she just sees that your wasting money and time playing tournaments. You could be making more in cash games she sees. This might be true. or you can run good and make a fortune.

tell her it takes longer to earn money playing tournaments. But potentially you can earn more if you go on a lucky streak.

tell her you might never go on a lucky streak also. see what she thinks about that.

his girlfriend is all about the $. that's what she cares about.

^ This too ^.

Never mind the variance question. Why are you playing a tourney where even if you make the final table, you make less than you would in cash?
Final tables usually award many tens (or hundreds) of buy-ins. It's pretty pointless playing a large field MTT if the stakes are so low that even winning it is barely worth celebrating. The whole point of tourneys is that you can win 100 buy-ins in 5 hours, which is something that is completely impossible in cashgames.

OK one sentence. Poker often kicks your ass, but tournament poker usually kicks your ass.

If you play well and get quite lucky a few times you can win a lot of money in a poker tournament. Of course a lot of that will just cover all the buy ins where you busted out early , out of the money.

The people who earn the most money playing tournaments fail to cash 85% of the time.

I play a lot of MTT, having a good "ITM" rate barely makes up for the buyins if you do not make it to the final table, the money is at the final table, cashing regularly means you are break even or slightly positive at best (excluding final tables). Getting 5th in a 1000 field means you ran like the devil, if you are less profitable than playing cash games, you probably did a freeroll because otherwise this post didnt make any sense. So getting 5th in a 1k man field means about 50buyins, that is 5000bb/7 hours, which means about 700bb/h, so unless you make 70bb/100 while 10 tabling i doubt that you are more profitable playing cashgames unless we are talking freerolls or 1 dollar buyins.