All fair points but grinders at live poker are generally some of the most depressing people I've ever met.
I think it's to do with the fact that while you can make money consistently, you're essentially guaranteed to go at least a month or two every couple of years where you basically make nothing. A few times in a career you're going to actually lose a lot of money in a short period of time. If you don't have a large buffer, this can wipe you out, and a professional poker player without money to gamble isn't a poker player. I think this uncertainty and variance is bad for your physical and mental health.
Also anyone who works 6PM - 4AM is just not going to have much of a social life, and the incentives of playing more equating to more money means these people are going to have absolutely terrible sleep as they push past 4AM whenever there's a good table, which can turn you into a social zombie.
I don't know exactly what you mean by depressing, but I've definitely met some who seem miserable and nasty and act unscrupulous. Some of it could certainly be what you said. Poker is also a cosmically unjust game, and especially for a professional player, you'll see the mathematically incorrect play get rewarded over and over again. That can definitely be mentally draining when you're the one making the correct play and still losing over and over for months. That's why I said it takes a very specific personality type to thrive as a live poker grinder, and I'd say the depressing guys you're referring to don't quite have what it takes.
Some of it can also be social ineptness that comes part and parcel with the personality type that's successful in that environment, kind of like the reputation tech bros and software engineers have. I've met some excellent poker players who very successfully crush the games, but are too autistic and socially unaware to know how to be cordial to the recreational players or to take a shower before leaving the house instead of torturing the whole table with their neckbeard funk.
You're pretty spot on about the social life, most serious poker players don't have much of one. But it's again less to do with the schedule itself, and more to do with the personality type that gravitates to poker as an income source. Most of them tend to be introverts, a lot of INTJ types. We're not going to have much of a social life regardless, because we just don't enjoy or care about that the way the average person does. We'll definitely push the limits of sleep deprivation to stay in a juicy early AM game. But that's because we care more about the achievement and reaching our personal goals than we do about the social event we're going to miss out on by staying out too late. The incentive to work more hours for more money isn't unique to poker. Plenty of men with the personality type that would play into the early AM don't even play poker, but do the exact same type of thing at their demanding corporate career or their own business.
But that's a choice, not an inevitability. I know a solid minority of serious players who have a very active social life. And if that's actually important to someone, it's just as easy if not easier to achieve as a poker player than as a wagie. If you have a completely flexible schedule, where you set your own hours on a day to day and minute to minute basis, and you don't have much of a social life, it's because that's less important to you than some other things.
All this is why I'm trying to make the point that this lifestyle is going to work for only a very small specific group of men. And to that group, it will make perfect sense. To everyone else it won't be appealing at all.
I did this for a while, and I heartily endorse it. Online used to be a good choice, and it is a very actively bad choice now, poker is solved and bots are rampant.
For the more libertarian among you, casinos automatically hold back winnings for tax purposes, home games do not, and there are generally ongoing home games in most places in the world. As f0xr points out, you really need to choose your environment and game well, because that alone (the players you are playing against) dictates your win rate. The risks of cheating are a little higher, too. If you're sharp enough to win decent stakes poker in a casino, you'll generally notice if it's happening and can find a new home game.
I also second the suggestion for Omaha hi / low, especially if your processing speed is good. There are a LOT more glaring errors and mistakes in live Omaha games, because most people's processing speed isn't that great, and I think it also tends to attract people who just like to be involved in more hands (ie dumb money, ideal environment!).
I haven't played outside the US, but in my experience here casinos only withhold taxes for tournament winnings under certain circumstances. Cash poker games are not tracked at all by the casino. It's all cash income, and responsibility is on the player to make sure and report that income so the government can take a cut to pay Somali scammers and drop some more bombs on Iran.
It depends on the casino and winnings. I might be wrong but from what I remember it's $2,000+. Shouldn't be a problem at 2/5 where most of the drunk tourists play, but I can see it being relevant in 5/10 sometimes.
I imagine they track your. buy-ins and cashouts now with the Casino cards they make you use when you sit down, so I wouldn't be surprised if this changed and they tax you on smaller winnings too.
I've seen a lot of even professional poker players who don't understand how and why casinos track transactions, even saw a poker dealer get fired for trying to "help" a player cash out in a way that would avoid tracking, for something that wouldn't even have mattered.
Casinos track transactions because they're regulated as financial institutions and therefore required to file Currency Transaction Reports for cash transactions totaling over $10,000 aggregate in a day. Those CTRs aren't used for tax purposes at all, they're for anti-money laundering reasons.
The way it works at every casino I've seen is that they keep track of any cash-outs you make over $2,000-$2,500 depending on the casino. The reason they track that is to prevent someone from cashing out a few thousand at multiple different cashiers, or at different times of the day, and avoiding the CTR. So if you cash out for $5,500 at two different cashiers, they'll have record of it and can file the required report.
None of this has anything to do with taxes. The casino doesn't track your wins or losses at poker, and doesn't send any type of tax documents to the IRS. You can cash out $20,000 every other day all year, or whatever amount, and they're not reporting anything to the IRS. They never withhold taxes from cash poker game winnings. And they don't force you to use a casino card, you can play without one, and cash out any amount without one. But the first time you cash out over $10k in a day, they'll ask you to fill out a w9. It's not for tax purposes, it's because they need your name and social security number to identify you for the CTR they're required to file. They'll keep it on file, and in the future they'll ask for either your casino card or ID whenever you do a large cash-out, just to identify you in the system so they can find your information and file the report.
The only place casinos will withhold taxes from poker winnings is for poker tournaments. I've never seen or heard of it being done for cash games in any situation.
All fair points but grinders at live poker are generally some of the most depressing people I've ever met.
I think it's to do with the fact that while you can make money consistently, you're essentially guaranteed to go at least a month or two every couple of years where you basically make nothing. A few times in a career you're going to actually lose a lot of money in a short period of time. If you don't have a large buffer, this can wipe you out, and a professional poker player without money to gamble isn't a poker player. I think this uncertainty and variance is bad for your physical and mental health.
Also anyone who works 6PM - 4AM is just not going to have much of a social life, and the incentives of playing more equating to more money means these people are going to have absolutely terrible sleep as they push past 4AM whenever there's a good table, which can turn you into a social zombie.
I don't know exactly what you mean by depressing, but I've definitely met some who seem miserable and nasty and act unscrupulous. Some of it could certainly be what you said. Poker is also a cosmically unjust game, and especially for a professional player, you'll see the mathematically incorrect play get rewarded over and over again. That can definitely be mentally draining when you're the one making the correct play and still losing over and over for months. That's why I said it takes a very specific personality type to thrive as a live poker grinder, and I'd say the depressing guys you're referring to don't quite have what it takes.
Some of it can also be social ineptness that comes part and parcel with the personality type that's successful in that environment, kind of like the reputation tech bros and software engineers have. I've met some excellent poker players who very successfully crush the games, but are too autistic and socially unaware to know how to be cordial to the recreational players or to take a shower before leaving the house instead of torturing the whole table with their neckbeard funk.
You're pretty spot on about the social life, most serious poker players don't have much of one. But it's again less to do with the schedule itself, and more to do with the personality type that gravitates to poker as an income source. Most of them tend to be introverts, a lot of INTJ types. We're not going to have much of a social life regardless, because we just don't enjoy or care about that the way the average person does. We'll definitely push the limits of sleep deprivation to stay in a juicy early AM game. But that's because we care more about the achievement and reaching our personal goals than we do about the social event we're going to miss out on by staying out too late. The incentive to work more hours for more money isn't unique to poker. Plenty of men with the personality type that would play into the early AM don't even play poker, but do the exact same type of thing at their demanding corporate career or their own business.
But that's a choice, not an inevitability. I know a solid minority of serious players who have a very active social life. And if that's actually important to someone, it's just as easy if not easier to achieve as a poker player than as a wagie. If you have a completely flexible schedule, where you set your own hours on a day to day and minute to minute basis, and you don't have much of a social life, it's because that's less important to you than some other things.
All this is why I'm trying to make the point that this lifestyle is going to work for only a very small specific group of men. And to that group, it will make perfect sense. To everyone else it won't be appealing at all.
Honestly, this sounds terrible.
I'm thinking about it.
I did this for a while, and I heartily endorse it. Online used to be a good choice, and it is a very actively bad choice now, poker is solved and bots are rampant.
For the more libertarian among you, casinos automatically hold back winnings for tax purposes, home games do not, and there are generally ongoing home games in most places in the world. As f0xr points out, you really need to choose your environment and game well, because that alone (the players you are playing against) dictates your win rate. The risks of cheating are a little higher, too. If you're sharp enough to win decent stakes poker in a casino, you'll generally notice if it's happening and can find a new home game.
I also second the suggestion for Omaha hi / low, especially if your processing speed is good. There are a LOT more glaring errors and mistakes in live Omaha games, because most people's processing speed isn't that great, and I think it also tends to attract people who just like to be involved in more hands (ie dumb money, ideal environment!).
I haven't played outside the US, but in my experience here casinos only withhold taxes for tournament winnings under certain circumstances. Cash poker games are not tracked at all by the casino. It's all cash income, and responsibility is on the player to make sure and report that income so the government can take a cut to pay Somali scammers and drop some more bombs on Iran.
It depends on the casino and winnings. I might be wrong but from what I remember it's $2,000+. Shouldn't be a problem at 2/5 where most of the drunk tourists play, but I can see it being relevant in 5/10 sometimes.
I imagine they track your. buy-ins and cashouts now with the Casino cards they make you use when you sit down, so I wouldn't be surprised if this changed and they tax you on smaller winnings too.
I've seen a lot of even professional poker players who don't understand how and why casinos track transactions, even saw a poker dealer get fired for trying to "help" a player cash out in a way that would avoid tracking, for something that wouldn't even have mattered.
Casinos track transactions because they're regulated as financial institutions and therefore required to file Currency Transaction Reports for cash transactions totaling over $10,000 aggregate in a day. Those CTRs aren't used for tax purposes at all, they're for anti-money laundering reasons.
The way it works at every casino I've seen is that they keep track of any cash-outs you make over $2,000-$2,500 depending on the casino. The reason they track that is to prevent someone from cashing out a few thousand at multiple different cashiers, or at different times of the day, and avoiding the CTR. So if you cash out for $5,500 at two different cashiers, they'll have record of it and can file the required report.
None of this has anything to do with taxes. The casino doesn't track your wins or losses at poker, and doesn't send any type of tax documents to the IRS. You can cash out $20,000 every other day all year, or whatever amount, and they're not reporting anything to the IRS. They never withhold taxes from cash poker game winnings. And they don't force you to use a casino card, you can play without one, and cash out any amount without one. But the first time you cash out over $10k in a day, they'll ask you to fill out a w9. It's not for tax purposes, it's because they need your name and social security number to identify you for the CTR they're required to file. They'll keep it on file, and in the future they'll ask for either your casino card or ID whenever you do a large cash-out, just to identify you in the system so they can find your information and file the report.
The only place casinos will withhold taxes from poker winnings is for poker tournaments. I've never seen or heard of it being done for cash games in any situation.
Fishing for fresh fish