Confidence at an all time low so playing badly and clueless.

[AlunB]

People that are smart enough to make a lot of money through poker, will probably be smart enough to make way more money in a job in the longterm. Only stipulations obviously would be well educated, live near London and be good with people. I have friends on 200-300k a year at 29/30 who can barely add up, have a bad degree from bad uni but got in the market straight after, are street wise, good with people and have therefore "made it"- their income is on the upswing whilst poker players potential earnings remain capped to an extent barring the 0.01% run good expectation that can happen.

In 5 years time whilst your friends will be looking to buy fancy gadgets, you will be looking to buy the companies that produce them

What do your friends do out of interest? I presume they work in the city. I know literally nobody who fits this pattern.

[mondatoo]

Just my two cents worth...

In my opinion there is no such thing as a 'live tournament professional'. It is simply not a feasible and realistic means of making a living.

There are a LOT of players out there who are definitely +EV in live tournaments. But that is not the same thing as saying they can realistically expect to make regular money. The variance in tournament poker is immense (the vast majority of those who think they know this actually do not fully comprehend it). And the amount of volume that it is possible to put in over a year is tiny. If you grind extremely hard all year you may be able to play 250 live tournaments right? That is a tiny sample size. After 4 years you may have played over 1000 tournaments - still a tiny sample size. A lot of +EV players will be losing money after 1000 tournaments. In fact, quite a lot of the very best tournament players will lose money over 1000 tournaments. It may be +EV, but it is not a viable and realistic way to try to earn a living.

I want to give an analogy. Imagine that you somehow knew that certain numbers were more likely to be drawn in the national lottery, and thus you could select 100 different combinations of numbers every draw and would have a positive expectation. Would you be +EV entering the lottery every week? Of course you would. Would it be reasonable for you to expect to be able to support your family for the next five years through doing this? Of course it wouldn't. By far the most likely outcome after five years is that you would have lost money. There is a small chance that you will win a LOT of money - that's what makes you entering the lottery +EV. But it would be silly for you to hope that this can provide a regular income.

That's basically what live tournament poker is: a +EV lottery. There is nothing wrong with entering live tournaments for the competitive challenge, the sporting drama, and for fun. And if you are +EV in these tournaments then so much the better. If you could live until you were 1000 then no doubt you'll have made money from live tournaments if you are indeed +EV. But to try to 'make a regular living' from live tournaments is completely unrealistic. It is a 'good gamble', that is all.

There are plenty of players who you could point to and say, "well, what about x, y or z... they have been making it pay for x number of years. So it IS possible." That would be missing the point. There will always be players who have been lucky enough to outrun the variance in the short term. And make no mistake about it... your entire tournament life is nothing more than the short term - it is impossible to reach the long-term in a lifetime of tournament poker.

In my opinion the only way to realistically make money in live poker - without needing to 'get lucky' - is through playing cash games. Even in cash games the variance is huge and it is very possible to run below or above expectation for several years in live cash. But you at least have a fighting chance of making a living in live cash without having to get lucky.

The only way tournament poker can be a realistic way to make regular money is if you play online and put in serious volume every week. And by serious volume I mean that you'd play about the same number of tournaments every week as you could do live in a year. If you are +EV in online tournaments you could still expect to have losing stretches that last several months on a regular basis. But you'd have a fighting chance of realising your expectation over the course of, say, a year of online poker.

I have nothing against live tournaments BTW. I play the odd one myself very occasionally and really enjoy them. I just know that anyone who has 'made live tournaments pay' over the last few years has been LUCKY. They may very well be excellent players who have a very high expected ROI in tournaments. But they have still been lucky, because there will have been many players who were just as good as them who have played just as many tournaments over the last few years and are net losers.

If anyone disagrees with what I say, have a read of these three articles:

http://www.thehendonmob.com/alex_rousso/id_rather_be_lucky_than_good

http://www.thehendonmob.com/alex_rousso/brace-aments_are_too_much_of_a_gamble

http://www.thehendonmob.com/alex_rousso/vegas_trip_simulator

You get this a lot but... again, spot on, great post.

I remember talking about this with Julian and he said something along the lines of "I had read all the kids talking about how brutal variance could be but I didn't believe it, until I went through it myself"

And no offence to Julian but I believe his downswing was just the tip of the iceberg. In a lot of cases that is what it takes though, especially with older players, they need to go through it themselves before they will believe it, just like Herbie is now. The beauty of it is, for the liquidity of the game at least, it means all those that were more than just a little bit lucky to have binked a big score can delusionally just put it down to variance since " I must be good, I won x comp for x amount" when really they're just not very good.

[smashedagain]

Good post Ray and you are correct. My heads still spinning this morning and want to post so much more. I am quite aware that I may be leaving myself open to looking like an idiot buy i think the thread running is essential to opening people's eyes to the truth about variance.

[gouty]

What a great thread Jason. So much advice too. I busted the UKIPT Bristol with the same hand up against aq and ak but was happy with my play as I needed a double up so a triple up was a no brainer.

I personally think your fold is perfectly ok in that spot as you still have 35 bb left and you don't really have to take a flip on.

And live cash is a fine way to build a roll matey just remember table selection is key along with leaving any ego at home. Just play the weakest players in the room and build up your confidence again. Bum hunting I believe is the term. Importantly though, be nice to the bums when at the tables and they will be easy to range.

[NEWY]

Good post Ray and you are correct. My heads still spinning this morning and want to post so much more. I am quite aware that I may be leaving myself open to looking like an idiot buy i think the thread running is essential to opening people's eyes to the truth about variance.

How many live tournaments a month do you play? I wouldnt imagine its more than 6 seein as you only play the slightly better structured 1's. Over a period of 2 years that doesnt add up to many and probably doesnt even count as a downswing.  It is very possible this could continue for a while without you even doing anything wrong. Good luck hope things turn around for ya.

[SolarCarro]

Hi Jase

Have just started my way through this thread and have already identified how good a read and what good advice is being given here by loads of respected members of Blonde, I am only on page 2 and I just came across this bit...."Going for 2 years cashing for fun to 2 years of not getting above starting stack is not much fun."

I had never met you till Tighty introduced us at the £1million guaranteed Nottingham UKIPT, I had fluked my way to day 2 and no doubt Tighty was showing me every friendly face he could muster as this was my first buy in game of over £200 (I had won a sat for £56 at DTD to get in)

Amazingly I fluked my way to day 3 as well and there we were....May of this year on the last 4 tables of the UKIPT with £219k up top, I was sat to your right, you had Jamie Dale to your left and you were sat on above average chips. You played some great pots vs Jamie Dale using your wit and banter in a good way I thought, you were very kind to me and made many a comment to keep my spirits up as my chipstack decreased!

4 tables left and eventually I lost a flip, the cash for £2700 was phenominal for me, a micro stakes player online and a £20 casino player live and I attribute a large proportion of that success in that game to your calming influence, your kindness and admiring some of your play, I was literally the fish out of water that day and you put me gently back in the goldfish bowl!

I can't offer any constructive poker advice but I can remind you of this, this was only May or even June 2012, you went on to cash for £3500 which i know isn't life changing but is good for 2 months take home pay and you played fantastic confident poker so once you get the mojo back you will crush again.

Never got to properly thank you for you help over those two days so now is my chance, THANK YOU JASE and hurry up and get your mojo back!!

Dave

[iangascoigne]

Except for the slight derail regarding Hendon Mob and stuff this has been a great thread and a credit to Blondites and Jason.

[MC]

Good post Ray and you are correct. My heads still spinning this morning and want to post so much more. I am quite aware that I may be leaving myself open to looking like an idiot buy i think the thread running is essential to opening people's eyes to the truth about variance.

How many live tournaments a month do you play? I wouldnt imagine its more than 6 seein as you only play the slightly better structured 1's. Over a period of 2 years that doesnt add up to many and probably doesnt even count as a downswing.  It is very possible this could continue for a while without you even doing anything wrong. Good luck hope things turn around for ya.

If you are only playing this sporadically you have to think about how much money it will really yield. When I'm thinking about playing a tournament, I try and consider what I expect to earn from it in the long run (even though it's rightly been established that we never really reach a long run).

Yes you can earn £10k from £150 or whatever, but I think my way is a bit more of a professional way to look at things. I tend to work on a 100% ROI basis, which is probably generally going to be reasonable. So maybe I earn £500 over 2/3 days for playing the £500 deepstack, which means my time is better spent online probably, but I enjoy the odd live outing.

So assuming you have a 100% ROI, I've not played for an extended amount of time with you so I can't really judge how well you play, even then playing a few of the DTD tournaments isn't likely to add up to more than £1k-£1.5k a month in the long run (unless you're Rastafish obv), which isn't very much to those of us with kids to pay for and wives who like to go shopping!

Maybe higher ROIs than this are achievable soft DTD tournies, I'm not an expert on that kind of thing, but I think as has been said, it's incredibly difficult to make a living out of live tourneys in the UK.

[Doobs]

Good post Ray and you are correct. My heads still spinning this morning and want to post so much more. I am quite aware that I may be leaving myself open to looking like an idiot buy i think the thread running is essential to opening people's eyes to the truth about variance.

How many live tournaments a month do you play? I wouldnt imagine its more than 6 seein as you only play the slightly better structured 1's. Over a period of 2 years that doesnt add up to many and probably doesnt even count as a downswing.  It is very possible this could continue for a while without you even doing anything wrong. Good luck hope things turn around for ya.

If you are only playing this sporadically you have to think about how much money it will really yield. When I'm thinking about playing a tournament, I try and consider what I expect to earn from it in the long run (even though it's rightly been established that we never really reach a long run).

Yes you can earn £10k from £150 or whatever, but I think my way is a bit more of a professional way to look at things. I tend to work on a 100% ROI basis, which is probably generally going to be reasonable. So maybe I earn £500 over 2/3 days for playing the £500 deepstack, which means my time is better spent online probably, but I enjoy the odd live outing.

So assuming you have a 100% ROI, I've not played for an extended amount of time with you so I can't really judge how well you play, even then playing a few of the DTD tournaments isn't likely to add up to more than £1k-£1.5k a month in the long run (unless you're Rastafish obv), which isn't very much to those of us with kids to pay for and wives who like to go shopping!

Maybe higher ROIs than this are achievable soft DTD tournies, I'm not an expert on that kind of thing, but I think as has been said, it's incredibly difficult to make a living out of live tourneys in the UK.

mbn to run good enough to think you have 100% ROI in live tournaments.   I remember the days when you could do 100% ROI online.

[redarmi]

Good post Ray and you are correct. My heads still spinning this morning and want to post so much more. I am quite aware that I may be leaving myself open to looking like an idiot buy i think the thread running is essential to opening people's eyes to the truth about variance.

How many live tournaments a month do you play? I wouldnt imagine its more than 6 seein as you only play the slightly better structured 1's. Over a period of 2 years that doesnt add up to many and probably doesnt even count as a downswing.  It is very possible this could continue for a while without you even doing anything wrong. Good luck hope things turn around for ya.

If you are only playing this sporadically you have to think about how much money it will really yield. When I'm thinking about playing a tournament, I try and consider what I expect to earn from it in the long run (even though it's rightly been established that we never really reach a long run).

Yes you can earn £10k from £150 or whatever, but I think my way is a bit more of a professional way to look at things. I tend to work on a 100% ROI basis, which is probably generally going to be reasonable. So maybe I earn £500 over 2/3 days for playing the £500 deepstack, which means my time is better spent online probably, but I enjoy the odd live outing.

So assuming you have a 100% ROI, I've not played for an extended amount of time with you so I can't really judge how well you play, even then playing a few of the DTD tournaments isn't likely to add up to more than £1k-£1.5k a month in the long run (unless you're Rastafish obv), which isn't very much to those of us with kids to pay for and wives who like to go shopping!

Maybe higher ROIs than this are achievable soft DTD tournies, I'm not an expert on that kind of thing, but I think as has been said, it's incredibly difficult to make a living out of live tourneys in the UK.

This is a very good post in a thread full of them.  I try and think this way with my sports betting so if I have a £100 bet at even money which i think I have an ROI of 10% with whether it wins or loses I think of it as £10 earned.  If I want to earn a monkey a week i need to be placing fifty of those bets.  In any given week I could potentially have a cashflow of +£5000, -£5000 or anywhere in between but in reality I have earned £500.  I think you need to apply this thinking to your game.  MC suggests he thinks he has an ROI of 100% which he may he is one of the best players in the UK.  For you it may be that you have a realistic ROI of 20%.  If you want to earn an annual wage of £24k a year or £2k a month then you have to play £10k worth of tournaments a month and unless you are playing very high then you pretty much can't do that playing live.  Most nights the biggest tournament going in the UK would be £50 and I would think the average player that doesn't want to rack up huge travelling costs would struggle to get above about £3k of buyins a month and that is playing almost every night.  At an ROI of 20% that is £600 a month with expenses to come off that.  That is a nice bonus if you have a job but it isn't a salary to support 3 kids and a wife.  Of course my ROI may be wrong for you but even at 50% it is not really a living wage.  Of course sat at home in your underpants you could play £500-£1k of tournaments a night on Stars and a 10% ROI would give you an annual income of £18k-35k.  It isn't glamourous but you woudl get to spend time with the kids and put food on their table.  Anyone that does that is alright by me.

[SuuPRlim]

Really cant stress how tough it is to win online. It's all well and good if you're Pleno with more enthusiasm than a jack russel on pills or a natural sicko like some people, but it's really really hard.

Middy (who I think we can all agree is one of the best online tourney players in the UK) has played tens of thousands of online tournaments, he has notes on nearly every reg, he discusses hands with the best every day and he LOVEs (and I mean LOVES) playing online poker tournaments...he told me recently he thought his ROI in average stuff online was between 20 and 40% - if a player of his calibre can only make $30 playing the big $109 every day then thats testament to how tough online poker is.

Cash games are the same, these days I'm struggling to keep my head in the game cos I'm only playing half the time, a yr or two ago I used to drop in and out and never find myself in trouble, nowadays I take 2 weeks break and I'm feeling like iv never played the game before.

You like the dealers choice games yh? Play live DC, the games usually play shallower (£2/£2 with £50 buyin, or £2/£5 with £100 buyin - there is a game in Leeds £2/£5 £200 buyin that runs weekly) so you dont need to outlay huge and you like, enjoy the games, know all the players well. You can travel out 4 nights a week, make £200 a night on av £800 a week £3200 a month £40k a year no tax, plenty of shoes for Mrs Herbie and punt the spare change at live tourneys so that Hebert Mob page can stay sharp.

You might need to just sharpen up, sit shallower and really focus on the games a little bit whilst you get back into it, but i think you could prolly get to that level comfortably.

Ticks all the boxes, get yourself to live DC games - if you wanna talk about any of the games (except padooki im fkn woeful at that) then hit me up I love talking abut these games as they not widely played I only have Stu B but he makes me feel silly cos he's so much better than me

Stay away from online tourneys imo.

[action man]

you gotta love the game and endeavour to keep learning or getting better

[MC]

mbn to run good enough to think you have 100% ROI in live tournaments.   I remember the days when you could do 100% ROI online.

ROI in that last 3 years is very negative, but I play very few tournaments. I might be a bit optimistic about my ROI in them, I'm not sure tbh, but I only play big field DTD generally.

MC suggests he thinks he has an ROI of 100% which he may he is one of the best players in the UK.

Good follow up post, but fixed it for you

I remember back when I played 180s another reg told me he never fistpumped when he won a 180-man tourney, because in reality he had only earned $2 for winning that game, not $600 or whatever. Monda will tell you this is essentially when he is trying to achieve.

Another way to look at it could be hourly rate. I didn't realise you were playing so few tournaments. If you're putting in 50 hours a month or something, think how much your hourly rate would need to be to earn a living. Say it's £40 an hour. There's just no way to earn that in sub £300 tournaments. I'm sure you've got the gist already from all the excellent advice already, probs don't need to drill it home anymore.

But you def need to put much more time into it if you stick with poker.

[action man]

he has his own business

[easypickings]

Jason, the only time I played with you was some kind of high roller (£2k at UKIPT?) at DTD. Because you were excited by/in respect of the tournament, you hardly said a word. You played great.

I would strongly agree with others that it is really unlikely that you can play as well when you're bantering the whole time.

Pipe down and let your play do the talking, glgl Jase