10 years as a live pro, mostly 2/5, approaching $1 million lifetime profit, AMA

Curious if you have noticed the players in your games to be less friendly unpleasant to be around in recent years. Might be rose tinted glasses but pre Covid especially early 2010s I thought playing live was a lot more characters and lively ppl than today. I think a lot of it has to do with recreationals getting sick of losing after all these years.

I know you said your normally friendly and pool generally likes you but do you find the state of the pool these days still enjoyable to be around or does it feel more like a grind and wears on you more year over year?

Would love if you went into motivations, mental game and just more of the little things that take being a successful live pro going for this long because I know it’s not just poker ability alone. Seen many poker prodigy’s get burned out and move onto something else.

Pretty much don’t play online anymore. Did play a few weeks last year and made $5K, but man was it a hard grind! Way easier to make $5K live lol

Most games on the east coast are something like 10% up to $6+2, $6+1, or maybe 5+2 if you’re lucky.

5% up to $20 is super rough, game would have to be deep and very soft for me to want to play in it. Of course, stakes matter a ton. At low stakes that’s a crippling rake, but a juicy 10/20 game, not so bad.

I do think games are less friendly and less lively, yes.

Honestly, this is something that has gotten worse even since the creation of this thread. I think particularly in the last couple years game quality has diminished significantly. Traffic is also down

I still make a good living, and I plan to continue for a while, but I’m in my mid 30’s, and for the first time, I am actually exploring options on what my career could be after poker

I think I have time, and I have plenty of cushion financially to pretty much do whatever, but where I live it’s gotten to the point where sometimes games break really early during the week, or are just super regged up. Now, the regs aren’t amazing, but it’s still far from ideal in terms of what I estimate my hourly to be

And with inflation, having a family now and stuff, making say $100K in a year with no chance to grow is not nearly as exciting as it was 12 years ago

Have you ever been audited by the IRS? Given a lot of non w-2 income flows in and out of your bank account?

Or you already file as a professional poker player s-corp?

Most people in the USA who put in more poker volume then w2 volume during the year probably end up making around what you do in this thread, 50-100k*
^
In addition to their investments from their portfolio

I also figure most of this population demographic are people who are in their 40s/50s/60s

Also do you have anything in crypto?

No I’ve never been audited. I’ve had small discrepancies or errors a couple times where they sent me a letter saying I owed some small 3 digit sum, and I just paid it

I keep pretty good records tbh and I have a lot of incentive to keep my taxes on the up and up, I have assets that I have to account for, and I’ve bought a house very easily. We actually closed on our house in under 3 weeks, incredibly painless, and my preparation and record keeping was a big part of that

I just file a schedule c as a professional gamer, no s corp or other structure

Yeah I like keeping between 5-10% of my NW in crypto. Mostly btc, little bits of ETH and other stuff. I’ve done really well with this approach. My first btc buy was $3400 and my first ETH buy was like $100 or so

I sent you a PM.

***

The solo 401k is huge because you can borrow against it even for real estate, which i didnt know.

Respond to my PM, cant believe you file schedule C, why not switch to S-corp? It is way worth it IMO, did your CPA not run the numbers by you i mean its like counting cards should be able to tell you in a second. Poker players are high liability though.

Crypto got too big, now you got high fees on every exchange and also the 1099-DA which means the IRS will be able to come after you a lot more if you under report stuff

I was advised that an s corp could be risky, it’s purely a pass through and it doesn’t actually have a function, and setting one up would increase my chances of audit substantially.

I’d have to look more at the benefits of the solo 401K. I’m not aware of the employer deduction you mentioned in the DM, when I contributed, I only reduced my tax liability, I didn’t take a deduction.

I’ll admit I’ve been doing my own taxes for the last ~8 years (I did have a cpa a long time ago) so it’s possible I’ve punted some money

Whoever advised you was dumb. Do they know what an S-corp is? I think they are just trying to cover their ass. Were they a CPA? If they are a CPA do they have a tax attorney?

A pass-through entity is a good thing... Why would you want to pay double tax? The only downside with an Scorp is running payroll so just call ADP and ask them to set it up for you or pay a CPA.

You stack a solo 401k with an scorp, thats the combo to maximize EV.

In regards to audit that will probably increase like i said, but if you have a lot of moving parts such as club gg transactions with venmo/paypal or you play at Bill Perkins private home game with VCs, IBs, and Hedgefund guys then it shouldn't matter.

Do you have a lifestyle that supports poker as in you have other streams of revenue hitting your bank?

That makes it less probable that they will scrutinize you, but for someone only making a 100k a year playing 2/5 5/10 or 200nl online even so and nothing else just solely playing poker, it doesn't matter unless you are in the highstakes poker community in the USA.

***

You do you.

Its your money, you do whatever you want with it, and im not even sitting at your table lol.

Poker players are sketchy though like i said

If you have other streams of income like rental properties or another business, then making 50-100k playing poker on the side is nothing the IRS wouldn't care too much.

But if you do have other streams of income you need to factor those in and structure everything properly so you can maximize your EV against their range right? because you only get dealt the nuts to cooler people ever so often.

You can't just bet pot pot pot

But if you are a millionare i wouldn't sweat it. Youre just there to play and not get worried about the details of a couple hundred dollars here or there

It was $7800 down in about 50 hours. I took a five month break and did a lot of studying and attitude/mental-physical health work, and I’m up $7800 in about 60 hours since returning.

Believe it or not, your note above helped, thanks.

i hope you are still here.
so im assuming you have a home base and play wish the same people day in day out. i want to think that its basically a reg war or something to the like. i want to know whats your take on having to battle the same people everyday? the casinos around where i stay would usually only have 1 table running, lucky there might be 2. so its always the same people playing.

Do you visit other casinos for a change of opponents?

I have a few different rooms I can play in that are pretty close, and I do exercise my option to change things up pretty often

The biggest room definitely has a lot of regs, but imo only a few of them are notably solid players.

It’s 2026, there’s gonna be regs everywhere. Being a good pro means being able to make a bit of money off the mediocre regs, and print money off the fish. Just the way it is.

How does my WSOP winnings get linked to my profile? I only have two and the latest one was three years ago. I am using the WSOP app for the first time. Do I have to register for a tournament, cash in another tournament, etc.? Thanks

Why are you asking this in AMAs on completely other subjects? AMA means ask me anything related to my subject, not ask me any random question on the planet.

Try the poker software forum and the thread for whatever app you are talking about. If you are talking about getting them linked to your profile in this forum, we don't do that. If it comes up, usually folks just use the Hendon Mob database.

It's a poker related question for a "pro" poker player. Maybe try not being a douche bag when you're asking the world to ask you questions.

That wasn’t me replying to you my friend, it was a moderator named Garick 😃

Regardless, I don’t know the answer your your question. Like my name and thread imply, I am a crusty live pro 😂

how did you play 10 years of live poker and not go insane?

I’m approaching 13 full years. Why would I go insane? I make good money, I work whenever I want, the swings at this point are minuscule compared to my total net worth, and I get to play a game for a living. Poker has given me everything. I now own a house, I’m a husband and father, and we’re financially crushing it.

I do think I could pivot out of poker eventually, just to do “something else”, but I’m in my 30’s, for now I’m loving it

I sorta wonder too, because there’s some social downsides to live poker like being around certain people all the time. I guess the money makes that worth it for you? Or you never experienced that aspect of the game?

I used to struggle a lot with the toxic personalities of the environment but I handle it much better now than I used to. I could see someone quitting over the antisocial behavior you see all the time though and switching to online poker.

Only the money has kept me going all these years.

Not to hijack the thread but for me live poker has always been way easier for a multitude of reasons; concentration (because it's super slow, one table and I'm there to win), socializing is fun (I like to talk sports and a variety of other topics), how soft it is, etc.

I'm sure Live Pro has some similar reasons.

curious OP- do you think you would play in a game 2/5/10 autostraddle that has 10% up to $20 in rake?

What winrate do you think you can realistically get in that.

What major adjustments would you make to a 2/5/10 game with a $500 cap? In games where most of the hands go 3-4 way.

You must have done well with living a frugal lifestyle, not spending, and investments to hold onto your money. Kudos to you. You seem happy. Good thread.

Do you play PLO? What are you views about PLO?

Did u ever fight ppl at the casino like dumbotrunk does