[Mr.K]

Having spent some time to read Groetzinger, I found a sentence that comes almost immediately after the one quoted above in the ruling that I think is quite informative: "Constant and largescale effort on his part was made. Skill was required and was applied. He did what he did for a livelihood, though with a less-than-successful result. This was not a hobby or a passing fancy or an occasional bet for amusement."

1.) Demonstrating the fact that skill is integral to being a winning poker player, and that an individual has in fact gained and applied skill will surely help a poker player make a Groetzinger claim to Schedule C eligibility. Participation in the 2+2 forums, reading and applying poker literature like TOP and SSH is surely an element of what might be required to meet this standard. In fact, TOP might be the first exhibit a poker playwe would trot out defending his "skill" claim, as you'd have to explain the concept of expected value and the difficulty of regularly creating scenarios in which +EV is achieved in the course of poker play.

2.) The regularity and scale of the gambling enterprise counts. If you play 6 days a week most every week of the year, and play for a reasonable number of hours each day, you would surely be putting in the "constant and largescale effort" the Court cites. An interesting aside here that is peculiar to online poker is this fact: even an occasional online player might play as many hands in a year as a full time B&M pro. The speed of the games, and the ability to multitable means that online players can, with relative ease, get in 8x as many hands in a given period of time as a B&M player (based on 30h/hr B&M versus 60h/hr x 4 tables online).

3.) Demonstrating that a player plays poker "for a living" will also help one make a Groetzinger claim. Hard to say what this means for those that have other income, whether that income is more or less than the individual's poker income. I suppose if you could reasonably show that your living expenses could not be met without poker money (regardless of what other income you had or didn't have), you'd have an easier time making the Groetzinger claim. But note that Groetzinger LOST money and still was eligible, so clearly his actual ability to live, eat, sleep was not conditioned directly on gambling success.