is there such a thing as an online tournament poker pro ?

[nath]

any chance this is just spam for the linked site?

[A_Junglen]

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Could some of you be in denial ?


[/ QUOTE ]

Is it possible your ignorant?

Bax is exceedingly wealthy.

[Toronexti]

[ QUOTE ]
any chance this is just spam for the linked site?

[/ QUOTE ]

That actually is an awesome site I used to use it when I first started on FTP and didn't know about OPR. It's only problem is that unlike OPR or pokerdb it only tracks FTP so it's use is extremely limited.

[baltostar]

I don't know how wealthy Bax is or isn't right now, or what portion does or doesn't derive from his poker play (independent of other businesses such as PokerXFactor, or his investments).

What I do know is he was trading stocks for many years, notably at one very successful short selling firm. Sheets is also from a trading background. Both of them were probably quite wealthy before they became poker pros.

Yes, variance is expected to be high. But look at the breakdown of games. It's not all $400K guarantees. It's not all swinging for the fences. You'd expect a better showing overall.

This is reminding of my years playing the horses. Gradually I learned that there were almost no truly professional handicappers. Sure, guys who hit it huge one day and then made a career spending the profits for the next 10 years. That's not the same thing as being a pro.

A lot of the famous handicappers who write books, columns, etc. are actually lifelong losers at the racetrack.

[kleath]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know how wealthy Bax is or isn't right now, or what portion does or doesn't derive from his poker play (independent of other businesses such as PokerXFactor, or his investments).

What I do know is he was trading stocks for many years, notably at one very successful short selling firm. Sheets is also from a trading background. Both of them were probably quite wealthy before they became poker pros.

Yes, variance is expected to be high. But look at the breakdown of games. It's not all $400K guarantees. It's not all swinging for the fences. You'd expect a better showing overall.

This is reminding of my years playing the horses. Gradually I learned that there were almost no truly professional handicappers. Sure, guys who hit it huge one day and then made a career spending the profits for the next 10 years. That's not the same thing as being a pro.

A lot of the famous handicappers who write books, columns, etc. are actually lifelong losers at the racetrack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok I'll give you a real answer, 225 tournaments is nothing as far as sample size goes and bax plays mostly on stars, as evidenced by his less than 1 tournament a day over your sample size of 225 tournaments over 9 months.

[A_Junglen]

A few points:

1) The link you provided only shows stats for FTP. Players play more on PS, and it's been around a lot longer. Also, you're completely disregarding live results. To show a link that only shows FTP results and them lament on how a player (who has over $1mil in live winnings and 6 figure profit on PS) "might be a losing player" is very ignorant.

2) Very few people actually come close to understanding the variance in mtts. A sample of 1,000 20/180's MIGHT be a sufficient sample size. But to give a good sample size for a tournament such as the Sunday Million...well...I don't even want to think about how many tournaments it'd take.

3) I don't even want to think about the amount of money team SMD has made from backing.

[WarDekar]

LMAO at comparing betting horses to playing poker

When you're playing a parimutual betting pool and the track takes out 17% LOL

Beating horses is pretty much impossible except for very rare occasions, and anyone that claims they're a professional handicapper (horses or sports, even) is a fraud almost guaranteed.

[baltostar]

Actually, 225 tournies is a pretty good representative sample size. Bax's total tournies for 1st 5.5 months of 2007 is 569.

http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/pok...5A21C072E4.html

Bax is tracking to make $300k pre-taxes from online tournies in 2007. $300K is about the avg starting salary of an options trader on the street. No wonder Strasser is headed in that direction.

[ASPoker8]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Could some of you be in denial ?


[/ QUOTE ]

Is it possible your ignorant?

[/ QUOTE ]

[mlagoo]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, 225 tournies is a pretty good representative sample size. Bax's total tournies for 1st 5.5 months of 2007 is 569.

http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/pok...5A21C072E4.html

Bax is tracking to make $300k pre-taxes from online tournies in 2007. $300K is about the avg starting salary of an options trader on the street. No wonder Strasser is headed in that direction.

[/ QUOTE ]

being an options trader is a lot harder than being a poker player

and bax makes a lot more than just his profit in MTTs