[jjxw]

As a part time live tournament grinder who has a full time job it's always sobering to hear from full time grinders who end up quitting due to how tough the grind is. A couple of observations to add:

1) There is absolutely a huge edge to be had playing live tournaments, even for buy ins in the $1k - $5k range. If you are playing outside of Vegas it is very common to end up at a table where at least half the table are "recreational" (i.e. players who are bad and are likely to make large mistakes).

2) The downside to playing live tournaments is that it is difficult to get reasonable volume in and the variance can be brutal. It is not that unlikely to go on a 20+ buy in downswing even with a decent edge.

3) Having an income source not tied to poker is huge and allows you to not have to be conservative with bankroll management. If you're pulling in mid 6 figures from a day job you don't have to worry about selling action or going down in stakes when you go on a downswing because you can always supplement the bankroll with your income. This, obviously, can be taken too far, but you don't have to be as worried about the variance from shot taking a higher buy in tournament where you know you have an edge like the $10k WSOP Main Event which is by far the softest $10k that exists.

As the saying goes, being a professional gambler is the hardest way to make an easy living.

[saiya-jin]

It also sounds like an overall horrible, consistently highly amoral way of life. Plus some form of an addiction. All the details in this discussion point pretty clearly to this. You need to be a proper a-hole to be fine doing this long term.

If one had only choice between being poor homeless or do this I could accept that relativity, but not like this. I can't have any possible respect for smart capable human living like that by choice, sucking desperate horribly sick people of their possessions, ever.

Sure, there are still few humans around worse than that, just look at the news, but its still pretty much the moral bottom. And all I've seen in this discussion just proves that (I don't judge this activity from my experience since I don't play cards, I get my happiness from mountains and extreme sports and that's more than enough, and salary is enough too).

[sneak]

There is absolutely nothing amoral about engaging directly in a fair game with consenting adults.

Nobody can lose anything they don’t choose to play. Consent matters.

We sell cigarettes on every streetcorner (to say nothing of bars), which is evidence that society has reached widespread consensus on the fact that addicts are allowed to choose to be addicted (or not) to things. (The vast, vast majority of people who play poker are not addicted to playing poker.)

[tea-coffee]

What's the profitability of part-time tournament versus part-time cash games?