Analyzing My Play by the Numbers

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ssbn743

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In light of the US 2012 tax season – I just went through the records over 2012 for live poker tournaments and am going to posts my stats – maybe someone can clue me in to what I’m doing wrong!

In 2012 I played in a total of 62 live poker tournaments
My average buy-in was $329.91
My average win was $1249.93
I cashed in 14 tournaments or 22.5%
I took 1st 3 times of those 14 or 21% and 2nd place one additional time; so top two, 6.4% of the tournaments I played in.

Now I think those are some decent numbers, maybe I’m wrong though – yet I still had a gross loss of $1706. That’s not even considering expenses and whatnot, overall playing poker in 2012 cost me $4361.99 and 478 hours at the above stakes. That’s -$9.12 per hour.

This is good in a way because I can now claim loss from a business on my taxes, but my whole goal is to be a profitable player. I understand that tournaments are not the best bankroll builders, but with the above numbers I feel my results should have been much better than this. Additionally there are not too many other options here in Colorado where the betting limit is $100 per bet. There is a common cash game at the $1/$2 to $100 stake – but that’s pretty much a bingo game; it’s not a good bankroll builder either.

Frankly I can’t imagine doing much better than this in 2013; did I just not win enough? Even if I would have won one additional tournament (1st place at my stakes are typically around $4500 - $5,000) I would have pretty much broke even.
 
nitulbhatia

nitulbhatia

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Id like to congratulate you for such a methodical look at your poker finances. Wishing you good luck in 2013 :)
 
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Samweis3

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so you only play only tournament poker? may try to get your feets into online poker aswell, of course its often a grind, but here are a lot of donkeys you will not often find on your buying inn level you actually play live.

Here you will be able to gain some profit on your skills i suppose
 
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ssbn743

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so you only play only tournament poker? may try to get your feets into online poker aswell, of course its often a grind, but here are a lot of donkeys you will not often find on your buying inn level you actually play live.

Here you will be able to gain some profit on your skills i suppose

Sure, I would love to – One problem; I’m an American!
 
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