Tax Strategies for professional poker players in the US

I thought it would be a cool idea to start a thread for tax strategies in the US. This seems to be something that isn't really discussed that much or at least finding information on it isn't all that readily available. A lot of stuff out there is about whether you are filling as hobbyist or a professional. Most seems to be geared for the hobbyist, but not as much for the professional. It's my first year filing taxes as a poker player and it is a bit daunting.

A strategy that I plan on using for this year is to use a big buy-in tourney to write off as a business expense. If I cash I get a very nice paycheck and will likely take the standard deduction, but if I bust out then I have the opportunity to itemize for the year and get a bit of a discount on the buy-in. Pretty sure you can't write off buy-ins that you win, but maybe someone more knowledgeable could comment if I'm wrong. Seems like big tourneys could be a great opportunity for cash players. In a way, you're using the variance to your advantage, whereas if you play a bunch of smaller tourneys you are going to even out more often and likely win some of them. In that case you might as well not play any tourneys and just stick to cash games.

I may end up hiring a CPA at some point which will help with tax filling paperwork, but I don't know if they are going to be that helpful in terms of planning in advance hence this thread.