playing live tournaments? or should you play PLO or mixed games cash now?
or even do sports betting.

I don't see much value playing 2-3 live $100 tournies a week. its 150 tournies a year and you can literally make nothing for that year from these games. if ya playing for fun then yeah its ok.

PLO cash and games like pineapple are played in casinos and home games. need a bigger roll to play live PLO cash which needs to be funded by my job.

Can you tell us a bit more about your background, i.e. how long have you been playing, what books have you read, what coaching have you received, do you play live or online (I know you said live just wondering if you also play online) and what casinos/sites you play on and what stakes?

In my casino the people play like they were in a coma for five years so the return on them is pretty good for what they are. You don't get the hourly of cash games obviously but questioning if they are even beatable seems bizarre.

You can defnitely make money in tourneys, but the variance is incredible, which is why you need to be rolled/staked if you are going to grind them as a job.
In the short run, you can play them for fun and hope to bink something early on, so that the pressure is off. A lot of tourney pros today are only around because they luckboxed something early in their careers.

I've heard this called "survivorship bias" and I think that's an apt description. Change a few turn and river cards that hit me hard at homegames and I likely would've just said, "**** this stupid game" long ago.

The rake is high, but live tournaments have the lowest average skill level of any format I’ve ever played. I believe they’re beatable.

Buying/selling shares helps. Sell 50% (or whatever) of your action and use the money to buy other winning players’ tournament shares.

No reason you could not engage in all four activities.

It is unclear what specifically you are seeking in the way of information. Any competent player should be able to be at least close to break-even (or better) on tournament play. Are you going to have spells where you don't cash across a period of time? Sure. It happens. Just like cashes sometimes come in spells.

This sounds like what you want to do is punt the notions of having an actual office/day job and be able to support yourself from poker. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it is something that has a high risk of burnout in addition to the whole 'going broke' thing.

The mental drain is very real. I know my mind was mush at the end of Day 1 of the Marathon. There was also a physical toll the next week when I final tabled one event at Planet Hollywood and ran deep in a different one (Venetian 8-max). Across those four days, I had a day where I played next to nothing anywhere and just chilled.

Cannot speak to pineapple and I don't play much PLO cash or tournament. If you are playing them as a hobby, then you don't need the same level of 'bankroll' as someone trying to make their monthly payments from poker. Beyond basic living expenses, you ALSO need to be looking at managing things like retirement accounts. While I will have enough to get by in the next few decades, I still worry that I will regret not having put more away each month when I was in my 20's and early 30's. Setting aside a few thousand each month now does not come close to catching up on what I lost in those early years of adulting...and that was not something related to poker since I really didn't start playing until a little over a decade ago (as I neared 40).

so basically i gotta luck box something. i see daniel negreanu luck boxed a satty then won a tourny for high 5 figures. is that something you have to do to be able to play tournies for a living?

Same here. I would have quit if I'd lost my first $32 deposit in the first month, but I guess I ran well enough to get 'addicted' to the game. I think 'survivorship bias' is more about feelings like "I'm still here after a few years, so I must be a great player", when if you subtract a couple of big/lucky scores from many tourney regs' lifetime graphs, they would be losers.
It should be stated that there are also some humble tourney players who are the first to admit that their lucky break was going deep in the Milly (or similar) when they were on the verge of quitting several years ago.
Prior to playing and winning the WSOP ME, Chris Moneymaker was down to his last $39 or something, and was apparently trying to lose on the final table of his Main Event satty, as the lower positions paid real cash, and that was more useful to him than a ticket into the tourney. After 'accidentally' winning the satty, I believe he sold about half his action just so he could pay the rent and other debts!
Partly. I think Negreanu admits to going broke two or three times, but he had friends that recognised his talent, so I think they loaned him money, and/or he rebuilt his roll playing lowstakes cash.
There are various staking groups (e.g. BitB for online grinders) and places to sell parts of your action (e.g. StakeKings) that can enable you to stay in the business while going through a bad spell, but to get people to loan/stake you money you usually have to prove your skills with past results. It's one of those catch 22 situations. It's hard to get staked if you're a losing player, but you shouldn't really need to get staked if you're already winning. That said, there are plenty of staked players that should be winning, based on their skills, but they just can't get that lucky break that gets them out of makeup.

Playing PLO and NLH cash is what I am doing, pulling them both up, and that has been hard but I have the theory more or less as clear as it is available. Putting in the hours and it should work out during the next several years and there is always the live games (and MTTs) that are more beatable although extremely slow.

MTTs can add to one's NLH experience (sharpens one's folding skills, IMO) and they could be played daily with up to 100 euro buy-ins in some casinos, plus cash games that might run as PLO at higher limits but there might be enough NLH action also and even the lowest NLH might be worth playing and sometimes they might have 1k stacks, as people win (and lose) and the stack sizes grow. There might be many small stacks also, till they grow if they grow.

In theory, one could travel the globe and play e.g. 500 to 2k MTTs, but the living costs need to be covered (like B&B rather than an expensive hotel) and one needs to be on pension or a professional to do that in a major way or work part-time. The win rate (ROI) is reported as being higher than online (25% ROI), and I have seen the scores from many years of some players and they might have up to 80-90% of winning years but that might be changing as the games are getting tougher if they already haven't, seeing that the late years might be losing.

Being staked costs and might not make it worth it but if it doesn't cost much like being a part of a player pool, sharing variance (also risky) but I know nothing of such.

How one is up or sleeping can be more or less a problem when playing MTTs, but not necessarily too much. Going for it only online is a risk, as you might not beat the variance especially when the entries are like 1.5k or more. Years of break-even are common at some point at 100+ MTTs with that many entries on average. It is up to some big scores if one is a winner or not.

The smaller pool MTTs with 50 buy-ins on average might have only months of break-even periods rather than years.

The type of calculation you are looking for is called 'Risk of Ruin', and as with most anything that is probability based your RoR will never be zero and given an infinitely long time will approach 100%.

Now this doesn't help very much, but you can start by considering that your RoR is influenced by 2 factors:
- your edge over the field
- your bankroll

Obviously if your edge is negative no amount of bankroll will save you. If your edge is positive then you can calculate a probability that you will not go broke within a given interval (e.g. number of hands played over the course of your lifetime at a certain stake).
Also obviously: the larger your initial bankroll the less likely that you will go bankrupt - especially in the early parts of the (near)stochastic walk.
What you can do is select a probability of going broke you are willing to accept (say 5%) and then - given a certain edge - calculate the bankroll you need...or conversely given a fixed bankroll calculate the edge you would have to have to achieve that RoR (or lower)
For a quick intro into the subject: The book "The Mathematics of Poker" has a short part on it (if you want more in depth info then there's any number of game theory/economics papers on the subject)

Note that this is very theoretical approach as how large your edge is is very much a guesstimate (and will change every time you play as you play with different people or even the same people as they get better or worse with relation to you). So any kind of long term calculations aren't terribly reliable.

Here's a serious question. Lets say the US decided to stop taxing gambling income. Would anyone ever be a favorite with a 50% rake?? So wsop main event is 5k+5k?? Could you really see yourself as +ev?

Id love to see people's earnings when you take out 50% for taxes then deduct buy ins. Even if you get extremely lucky and win 2 huge tournies for 3 million combined . that's 1.5 million to live of off for a long time , then all your future buy ins where you won't cash most of the time. Better of getting a job and working up to a 100k salary . The one caveat is if you bink you now have capital to make money in other endeavours.

Cash games on the other hand can be very profitable consistently. Taxes are less because lets face it you report less. Anyone says that's an unfair comparison that's just reality . a good 5/10nl player and maybe 20/40 and 40/80 can do 100k in a year. Obviously that's a great player but its doable. Imo living off tournaments is not. Get great at cash, crush it, and take some shots in tournies

Your example doesn’t make much sense. While it’s true that the winner might pay 50% in taxes (if they are US tax residents) most other players who cash in the main event pay significantly less. Some won’t pay a single cent because they file as professionals but have a really bad year and enough losses to offset their ME cash.

Besides that, in today’s ME field there are certainly people who can beat 50% rake, but with that kind of rake the field would look totally different.

i've read the harrington on holdem 3 books ,elkys book, johnathon littles tourny books, gus hansens book, theory of poker, caros tells book, super systems 1 and 2, tournys for advanced players, stud 8 omaha 08 for advanced players, stud f advacned players, no coaching recieved. did sign up to deuces cracked and watched some plo videos and a couple of nl holdem videos.

I am currently playing online at 888. playing a bit of cash but i enjoy tournies more. not much plo action on 888.

played tournies online from freerolls to $1050 mtts. lots of heads up sngs up to $500. hypers 6max quite a few, alot of sats.

won a few thousands here and there, had AQs and lost to KQs at a $109 big final table when getting it in preflop. would of had the biggest stack if i won that hand and had a shot at winning $15,000. did get lucky during the tourny winning a few flips and hitting quads.

played live and final tabled quite a few tournies with 100 players+. won a few smaller tournies with $60 buyins 20-30 players.

I'm down on pokerstars but if i won that tourny with the AQ hand i would be up. just the way things go. blown quite a few tournies playing badly too. like giving up and not wanting to play anymore and settling for a cash.

live im up. but ive played less than 100 tournies. with buyins from $20 rebuys to $200 freezeouts.

have to go and play PLO on pokerstars if i wanna play. might start at 2plo.

been playing for 10 years on and off. missing months at time due to working 12 hours a day during the week and going out on the weekends rather than playing cards.

I got the time now to play poker. everyday if i like online. could play live too if i move near the casino.

I'm also thinking about retirement which is probably 30+ years away. thinking if if i play poker or go to work and start a business. I think i'd rather play poker than run a business and work 80 hour weeks. work 80 hours a week at poker instead. and treat poker like a business.

Not to sound mean or discredit any of those books, but did you read anything that was written in the last 10 years?

As far as game selection goes, I assume you don’t play HU SNGs or hypers anymore, at least not above micro stakes? Those games are basically dead because they are solved.

I haven't read any newer books. yeah only play husngs up to $20 and not very often in the last 5 years. stopped playing hypers too.

If you file as a professional and your loses off set your winnings you did not "dodge" your taxes, you just made no money and are not required to pay any taxes. I wouldn't consider that a good thing. I have no idea how professionals file their taxes and if they can get a better % based on the fact the winnings are now income , not a casino win which I believe is capital gains. I understand everyone has to pay taxes , but I think it is overlooked when people look at earning potential for tournamets

Casino wins are income, whether filing professionally or as an amateur. Not capital gains.

The HUGE problem for amateurs is the inability to "net" your poker balance (wins minus losses) unless you make enough money from your primary income source to allow itemized deductions. Sadly, being an amateur player who files correctly will often (!!!!) turn a winning year into a losing year....poker-wise.

To calculate your US federal tax properly if you do not make enough to itemize, you total up ALL your winning sessions and add that amount to all other income for the year. Period. There is no place on the 1040 to show your losing sessions. If you "net" your poker income, you are filing incorrectly.

As an example, if you do not file using itemized deductions and have 50 sessions totally $10,000 in wins and 50 sessions with $9,000 in losses...you would think you "made" $1,000 that year. But alas, you add the $10K to income and do not have a line item anywhere to place the $9K losses. On the $10K income, you may be in the 20% bracket and will pay $2,000 in federal taxes. So for the year your personal balance sheet will show:

+10K win
-9K loss
-2K taxes
-1K overall loss for the year

@mttplayer

You can’t compare EV of running a business to playing poker or having a job. Playing poker is caped , the most successful poker players won around 35 millions, how many regulars business make more than that.? After a while you set your business to run without you and can play poker for fun without fear of going broke. If you think you have resources to start a business don’t even think go for it.

No. With +EV wagers your RoR can be small even with infinite time.

Butterfly effect is a crazy thing. There's a very good chance I wouldn't play cards at all if I had graduated college in any time besides 2008 if you trace back my adult history.

Anyway, the question is: is there an advantage in live MTTs?

Hand waving answer: yes. However, a low rolled player will be playing small tournaments, maybe like $100 tops? And you may have a 20% edge in those guys if you're playing a good strategy and your opponents are terrible. In practice, it'll likely be closer to 10% if you're playing well.

So $100 live cash tournament at 10% ROI, taking 6 hours = $1.67/hour. With tons of variance.

Meanwhile, it's totally feasible to make $15-$20 an hour with good fundamentals and decent play at live $1/$2. Also, you'd be way more likely to see positive results sooner, which may help in game enjoyment. But yeah, I couldn't imagine much more expectation than $1-$2k from $15k worth of live $100 buy ins. Playing them for the hell of it can't be too bad, though.