What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money
Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one.  The variance is just insane, which is why a lot of professional players are backed, or sell some of their action or swap with other players.<p>I played a ton online before the Black Friday days and did pretty well, and will usually try to play a few big live tournaments a year, but these days I mostly just play cash games as a fun hobby and a way to grind out some extra income. There's less variance and the money is more consistent.<p>That being said, as brutal as the swings in tournaments are, cash games have nothing like the rush of running deep in a poker tournament. The intensity and increase in stakes/prizes as the blinds move up and more players get knocked out and you inch closer to the big money is almost like chasing a high. So for me, cash games are the way to go if your goal in poker is to make money, but tournaments are a fun way to chase the dragon from time to time. I personally don't think I would have the stomach to play tournaments full time though.