[Soulman]

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I never judged anyone. I never said people should or shouldn't take a stab at playing poker tournies for a living.

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Yeah I think some people have overreacted here, I didn't think this was your motivation at all.


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For something to be a profession, smart, talented, hard-working people who apply themselves have to have a reasonable chance of making a good living at it.

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If you take Bax as an example, he probably made around $200k from online only last year, and that's a pretty damn conservative number (with 130k coming from Stars alone). That's not a good living? Sounds pretty sweet to me...


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First, you've got to put significant amounts of your own money at risk. It's not an investment. It's a job. Significant amounts of time are required. To make a profit at all, you must be one of the very best.

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You're clearly in the wrong here. There are tons of posters right here who's not one of the very best, yet make good money. I made 30k last year from MTTs, and I was way worse then than I am now. There are lots of examples like that.

Putting your money on the line doesn't make it a profession? Why?

I can't see how you can say it requires a significant amount of time - well duh, if it's to be your livelihood, that's not too weird is it...


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It's kindof like wanting to play in the NBA. That kind of life/career risk. Only the very best make a living at it. For that kind of risk I think you need a serious payoff if you do succeed.

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Personally, I agree with this. It's quite possible I could make a living from playing MTTs, but I have no interest in doing so due to a variety of factors. However, comparing it to the chance of playing in the NBA seems rather out there.


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I seriously wonder whether the majority of profitable players are getting anywhere near a payoff that justifies their time/stress/risk. I think you can analyze by working backwards from the top on down.

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If by profitable you mean pros only, then I'll say that it will depend on the individual in question. Someone like Mike Matusow doesn't seem like he should be playing poker when it mind [censored] him so hard. Rizen, on the other hand, seems extremely well-balanced and laid back.

If you're talking about non-professionals, that's another matter entirely of course, but I assume you aren't.


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And, yes, a large part of the motivation of many to pursue poker tournies is the prevailing mantra that getting expert at tournies equates to enormous amounts of money. And the associated lifestyle paraded about reflects that.

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It is probably overrated to a certain degree. I don't think anyone will argue that you can make a lot more playing nosebleed cash games - there's a lot of reasons someone might choose to do MTTs only though.

I do think most professionals play cash as well though (although you probably have quite a few small-time grinders nowadays).