Not if you're playing low enough stakes or a small enough winner. Poor people pay very little in taxes.

he tilts like a boss sometimes

If your bankroll is big enough to play 40/80+ for a living you should be putting the majority of it into liquid investments that will provide additional returns. So in actuality your roll should grow forever if you're winning 80k at poker and spending 80k (including spending on taxes). If your plan is to play professionally for a long time it really pays off to be frugal with your living expenses early on to build a big bankroll which doubles as your investment portfolio. A lot of good players who put way too much emphasis on pure EV take way too many huge bankroll risks at the cost of long term growth.

this is a great post imo. +1

Always taking highest EV has really fked over several of my very close friends. Inclusive of some of the best players in LA.

You know, love or hate Limon, he's given this advice for years. If you're sitting on 6 figures of pure cash (or chips), the lost opportunity cost of investing that money can be big. OTOH, then you're thinking about market/tax impacts of realizing gains when you're going to use your roll. It could change your relationship with your BR to have it invested. Still, worst case you decide to not play poker because your passive income is so much that you don't really want or need to play? Not a huge disaster.
Oddly, there's one situation where poker is really bad tax-wise. It could come up more soon, with talk of eliminating deductions and raising the standard. Our house is about paid off. We can't itemize. Poker then becomes this crazy thing where every winning session becomes income and I can't deduct losses. Even if your marginal tax rate is 15%, you play 2 sessions a week and pay taxes on every win, poker gets expensive. Make that a 30-something % marginal tax rate and you might not be able to win, especially in limit games where you win like 51% of your sessions.

Play the thought experiment where most deductions are eliminated with a special carve-out for mortgage interest (trust me, the banking lobby will pull this off). Then you get some $24K standard deduction, but gambling still remains penalized where losses can only be itemized. Does it matter to poker? I assume most rec players just cheat on their taxes. If not, will having a huge tax burden make gambling less popular?

Religious institutions would probably oppose eliminating deductions in that way.

If only it wasnt for that pesky 25/hr in rake..

I certainly dont think anyone (that is incapable of beating 40 for more) is going to beat 20 for more than 20/hr. Espicially putting those long hours in. People always play well and sit in good games for 10 hours a week then assume it just scales perfectly into the 40 hour work week. Suddenly they find themselves tilting or sitting in bad games with longer hours.

Except he's paying $15 an hour which is an extra 30k a year, all other things being equal

Yeah i was chiefly talking about la 20. I dont know much about the quality of mn 20 games. Maybe with lower cost of living and rake it works, but i sure wouldnt want to do it. Still think you arent ever getting close to 100k/yr playing 20 for a living, even in mn.

LA 20-40 games have high rake but the games are also softer than 20-40 games anywhere else. I don't know what hourly rates would be possible in LA with a combination of high rake/soft games but I know there are other places in the country where >1BB/hr is possible.

You are right that anyone capable of making that is probably capable of beating 40-80 for a higher hourly but many places that spread 20-40 don't spread 40-80 and some people aren't bankrolled for that game.

I'm pretty confident that almost all recreational players are losers and claim no poker income on taxes and lots take the standard deduction. Obviously if you're a breakeven recreational poker player there's no way you should "by the rules" take the standard deduction. But i dont think the IRS is likely to discover, and even in an audit if you don't tell them they have no way of knowing.

Anybody playing for a living gets to net their income anyway before paying taxes, so they'll have no change as far as deductions go.

End result: little effect on the popularity of poker based upon the tax treatment under Trump's plan. I bet that 90% of break even/small losing players even think or understand they're doing their taxes incorrectly when they then take the standard deduction. I don't think they're trying to cheat, they just figure they don't have any poker monies to claim.

Our games vary but usually are higher variance. Our fish like to jam and gamble and our experts are truly expert. The rake is 5% up to 5 plus 1 dollar jackpot when 4 handed and above. I know of only 2 or 3 people that play 20 for a living but I know several who are making a great hourly rate as part timers. I also played 300 hours in LA games last year and confirm the games are way softer there but our cost of living is much, much lower.

Rake is $4 max at the 20

I thought they 20/40 game there didn't have the jackpot drop either. I seem to remember it not being included in some of the promotions.

I was wrong about max rake but they definitely drop one for jackpot.

They drop $1 for jackpot on all games up to 20/40.
They don't drop for jackpot on 40/80 mix or 50/100 mix.
Not sure about 40+ holdem because those games almost never run and I haven't had a chance to play them yet.

The 100 max bet is the best thing in the world for our poker economy. If they removed it you could make stacks on stacks for like a year, maybe 2. Then most everything would suck.

From my understanding - outside of california where poker has been around for much longer than anywhere else... big bet pretty much kills the local poker economy.

The 'survivor' tournament 'cash games' are a wonderful compromise I think.

I'm sure I know who you are at canterbury and I've probably even asked before but I forget... say hi next time I'm up there.

Ha funny - we were having this same discussion yesterday. A terrible player who is pretty much wrong about everything (you know who it is) made this same point and my takeaway is that he must have heard it from someone intelligent because he couldn't have possibly figured it out himself.

Hf

I don't mind the max bet as it has kept our room as a LHE room though those stupid 2-100 spread games remain popular. Who knows why. I played 2-100 once waiting for a 20 seat to open and after watching people agonize over 6 dollar raises tilted me beyond belief. Never again. I'm just gonna play more 10mix as that has run more often lately. It absolutely is not training for the 40mix though as it is mostly super nitty white dudes in their 50s. At least I can learn the basics because I haven't played mixed games since Black Friday aside from a few random experiences here and there.

LA 20 I'm coming for you in 5 days!

Where are you playing? My fiancee is out of town next week so I may swing by one night and incinerate some yellow chips.

I prefer the Bike as I played there almost 300 hours last year and it's where I'm staying but if the action is no good I'm going to play it by ear.

wow is that true? i haven't played there for a couple years, what would you say the hourly rake was before the hike?