In Canada as long as you are a recreational player you don't pay taxes on your poker earnings. If you were to play poker full-time and have it be the only thing you do then you have to pay taxes on it. The rules are a bit murky but it's basically based on saying you derive your income as a professional gambler. I understand all this well and my intentions are to play poker as a hobby and try and make as much non-taxable money as possible whilst maintaining a full-time job where I can socialize and do something interesting and challenging.
However just now I was googling Poker Taxes in Canada and came across a rather interesting 2+2 thread about people who do play poker professionally and what kinds of things they can deduct from their taxes. In the thread someone asked whether they could deduct rake or not. I immediately thought why the hell not? Where as a bunch of people in the thread starting yelling at this person like they were some kind of thief and saying that money is already deducted from your winnings. I feel that's completely stupid and I hate stupid things so I decided to blog about it.
Argument Point:
Claiming Rake on Taxes as a Professional Poker Player should be appropriate. You claim it as an expense.
Why/How?:
1. Report earnings from poker in terms of dollars made from playing in the games.
2. Report earnings made from rakeback
3. Use database to find out how much rake you were charged that was not returned through rakeback
4. Report the amount in #3 as an expense
There is nothing wrong with that and it's not any form of fraud. The important point is that you need to report your rakeback as part of your earnings from the game.
Example:
1. Player X earns 100k playing poker, and 50k in rakeback on individual paid rake of 150k
2. Player X submits earnings as a professional gambler and pays taxes on 150k
3. Player receives 100K worth of tax credit back for expenses paid
This is how it should work if a Poker Player is going to be taxed. The rake absolutely has to be included as an expense. If the rake is not included then Countries should have no right to tax the players at all because otherwise it's a losing circumstance for the players as a group. If 100k is passed around by 100 players and by the end only 85k is left because 15k was taken in rake then the players lose overall. Rake must be 100% returned before the government has any right to tax poker. Even when all rake is returned 100% it is still sketchy to be taxing players on poker winnings because the net result is zero. There is still no profit for the group of players as a whole. I can accept being taxed if the net result is zero just because that's how things work but no way in hell would I ever accept not having rake included as an expense. The only thing I have to do on my end to make that fair is include the money received as rakeback so that my rake isn't returned twice which is fair.
As poker players if we allow ourselves be raked AND taxed it's basically bending over and allowing ourselves to be screwed. As a group the players had a net loss of 15k in rake payments but sure government wants to come along and take a big cut of that 85k they think that would be a neat thing to do. Hell no. Rake must be included. If you're an American player reading this I encourage you to keep good track of your rakeback earnings and report the remainder rake as an expense to be deducted from your taxes. Don't screw yourselves out of your hard earned money.
Where the fuck are my creative writing skills?
Why the hell are all my blogs boring as fuck?
Why do I prefer the ROFL thread and level 1 humor before the complex joke essays I always loved?
Why can't I focus on an article longer than 2 pages in the Economist unless its REALLY super interesting?
I can't even bloody focus on a movie unless its something super epic like Lord of the Rings without checking LP, news or other BS on the net.
The only book I read from start to finish during the last year was Ace on the River...with like 200 pages half of them pictures.
I suffer from huge multitasking overload. It was ok when I was playing Starcraft because I was...well playing Starcraft and that was what I focused on. And I was always taking long hours to write reports and complex hoax forum posts with my clan.
But now? My job IS multitasking. I am an admin support to 3 different teams, and I hardly ever see medium term project from start to finish. I manage 3 busy shared mailboxes and have 6+ things on my agenda daily.
And when I come home? lol...
Yesterday I asked my GF if she can see that rash on my back...Well those were just spots from my PC chair where I was sitting for 16 hours on Sunday.
Conclusion
What the hell do you expect? There is none. I am an Internet kid - you tell me. Even now, I am watching the documentary, writing a blog, checking sports news and thinking about what movie I will watch (while not really focusing on it and doing 4 more things)
I put 10.00 on tilt last night played a couple heads up untill I got to 50.00 then put 10 on 5 different 25nl tables of rush. Got it up to 475.00 thinking about putting this on minted.
I wanted to take advantage of the 400 deposit bonus and high rakeback to build a fast roll.
Anyone that played there have any input on the site? Also it doesn't take my visa what should I do as a us player?
Im busto at the moment, real busto. I would like to win some donkaments to rectify this situation. I would like to sell around 50% of my action for 60% of winnings after stakeback. My OPR link is below
This week is the house grind week. I aim for 10k (inc a 3k bonus) which will be enough to move into a new house with my friend and pay 4 months bills up front. I reckon I need about 4ptbb/100 which is below my long term rate and I've had a good start already. Yay a motivation to grind!
how can I Try so hard for over a month and this keeps going and going and I don't know where I keep folding away my money in nonshowdown either, I mean every player isn't some kind of super sicko who's shoving over my 3rd barrels 100% of the time with air or turning a weaker TPTK into a bluff or something what the fuck? SERIOUSLY.
lol did you enjoy that ramble? that's my brain now.
After taking a small week break from micros, I decided to simply look for every leak I had, talk to a few fellow LP'ers about playstyles, research/read through various poker sources, and basically evaluate my current game and attempt to improve on it.
Biggest leak by far was playing on Cake Poker. Good site, but with a lack of HUD, it was really owning me trying to keep track of various aggro euros shoving very light, while others playing the standard game. I have since switched to pokerstars, sadly without rakeback, but I feel will work out much better in the end.
Well, results have been good over the past 4-5 days. I know these results are not going to be typical, but it has been a while since I could believe I could beat the tables I was sitting at. Really only one big loss from a 200bb river suckout, but meh w/e
My postflop play has really improved by leaps and bounds. I actually have found myself wanting to 3bet much less because I am so confident my play is much better than those at my current .05/.10 limit. I realize this is not the greatest of ideas, and I do not act on it, but I'm sure you understand what I mean
I want to thank Collegesucks, Ethsmurf, Proctor998, Frinkx, and I'm sure there are more I am forgetting. Really helped me out. Thanks!
I played 100 hu sngs recently to work on tilt control and see if I could build a roll off them. There were a few times I wanted to post one of the many suckouts but I just thought eff it, I made the correct decision so I think I made some progress in having the right mindset.
Still, losing a lot of times when I'm the favourite takes it toll (br-wise mostly) and I'm not really keen on the sng structure means I'm back to cash, starting at nl5.
Now onto the idea: I've noticed that with rush poker there's enough action so I get about $2 in rakeback per hour at nl5. If I was 4 tabling normally then that would be say 400 hands optimistically in an hour so $2 would actually be 5ptbb/100.
Some people might say that one should have a higher winrate at nl5 but tbh I'd be quite happy to have 5ptbb/100 in terms of hourly rate compared to normal 4 tabling. And that's just at breakeven rakeback so I should be able to make some more on top of that even with a mediocre winrate.
Lesse what happens this month as I put in some effort at nl5 rush pokers. I haven't given up poker despite losing constantly in the past cos one day in about 4 years time I do wanna go somewhere in Asia and grind even nl50 6 max for a few months and see what it's like.
Tried some small multi table SNGs because i got temporarly tired of cashgames.
Got SNG wizard and put in around 4h of work to give myself decent push and calling ranges for different situations.
Players left / Blind Levels / chipstack.
Figured out quite a few nice things and allthough my game is by far not perfect i think i have worked out a very decent edge
against 90% of the guys playing these who just try to gamble up a big stack early by calling and pushing with all kinda KJs/KQo/44-77 stuff etc.
So far however i am doing pretty medicore
------------------------------------------------------------------
SNG 18man 6,50$ Stars record
6 -> one 3rd place - 17.40$
6-> one 1st place + 4.20$
6-> one 1st one 2nd + 36.60$
8 -> all busted - 52$
6 -> 1st 2nd 3rd + 58,2$
6 -> 1st two 4th + 25,80 $
6-> 3rd - 17.40
6-> two 4th -17.40
6 -> 1st + 4.20
6-> one 4th one 3rd - 6.60$
summary
62 SNgs -> five 1st / two 2nd / four 3rd / five 4th
46x busted before money
= + 18.20 $
Well i definitely had more fun than playing cashgames
bad thing is i didnt make any money and kinda brekevent after putting in 11h of playing and 4hours of theory work.
However 62 is a small sample for 18man SNgs and i think i would have made so much more money if just a few times
my AK < AQ
KK < 22-99
QQ < AQ
AKs < 88-JJ
and stuff dindt happen so frequently in almost all the important situations.
Neighbours dog barking all dayby TalentedTom, April 04
Been barking all day today(since 830 am) for the last few weeks ****ing pissing me off / waking me up 2-3h early. I was gonna go to his home today and settle this, but pav told me to write a note and leave it on his door, since he could potentially be a psychotic. the dog is really loud (one of those deep barks) and and outside 8h+ daily
BTW its not my direct neighbour, its a a house maybe 70m from me across the road, what would you guys do here
FU 6Max
It sucks, I will play much more HU from now on - this stuff is so much fun.And I feel like I am in control. HU
First match I played I got run over. I lost some 7 BI to one dude - he ran like Thor on Steroids.
I did however adjust to HU play, and went on crush a couple regs and a fish or two.
The only downside is one tilting thing - table selection.
There are like 50 tables open, and I have to open like 30, sit down 20 times before I get action for 10 minutes
-Should I open 50 billion tables myself and wait for joiners?
Gym
I am starting to get into fitness again.
During a brisk visit of a local supplements shop, which I have entered in order to acquire a mere plastic bottle, I have been persuaded by a very strong, but very, very dumb salesman (I got a sweet spot for Hulk -and the resemblance was truly there)to acquire not only the bottle, but also Protein shake and Amino Acids, totaling $50.
On Friday I woke up all motivated at 6:30 in the morning (Where I have never ever been up before 8 past 2years), and attended a spinning class.
Spitting blood and almost passing out 6 times I went through it (I can't give up in front of a sexy female instructor now can I, despite my arse hurting so badly from the small, female-suited saddles they got on the spinning bikes), and also went on being half asleep the entire day at work after that.
On Saturday I don't know why, but I went to the gym. Luckily I was the only one there, so nobody heard my crying when I was benching 50KG (I used to bench 70kg when my weight was 72. Now I weight 100kg and 50kg on bench press knocks me out for a week).
This madness will continue next week, where I have football on Monday, Accumulator (weightlifting with an instructor or sth) on Wednesday, and spinning on Friday morning before work AGAIN.
This probably still won't be enough - The Hulk suggested that working out twice per two weeks is not enough, and I should workout (like weightlifting stuff) 4 days per week AND have cardio on top of that lol.
Well, maybe some day, lets start with small steps.
Marvel Animation
I got hooked to it so much
After seeing real-life Hulk I became the biggest fan
I saw Ultimate Avengers I&II, Hulk VS Thor and Wolverine and Planet Hulk.
UFC 112 - A Viking in the UFCby DustySwedeDude, April 04
So in a week it's time for the next UFC event, UFC 112: Invincible, in Abu Dhabi. Obviously the fights for various titles (lightweight and light heavyweight) will be interesting but both Maia and Edgar would have to pull off a huge upset to be anywhere near winning. If Maia gets it to the ground he has a good chance but I have no idea how he'll do it.
There's a few cool fights at the under card and I'd recommend people to check out Phil Davis vs the Swedish fighter Alexander "The Mauler" Gustafsson. The American freestyle wrestler was really impressive in his last fight when he destroyed Brian Stann in a fairly entertaining fight which he dominated for 3 rounds. He's also a favoured at the book makers with a line set at about -500 while Gustafsson is about +350. In "The Mauler's" last fight he knocked out Jarad Hamman in just 41 secounds which I at that time just figured had a lot to due with the other guy having a weak chin and crappy boxing, but after watching Hamman fight a war (and winning!) against Rodney Wallace at UFC 111 I'm convinced that the power of Gustafsson's hands should not be taken lightly.
I guess the most likely outcome is that the Sweede will spend a few rounds on his back due to the, in all probability, superior wrestling of Davis but with a little luck this fight will be really intense and if the Swedish fighter can get a few minutes standing up it'll be really exciting.
But fighters are undefeated, young and with a ton of potential and my guess is that the winner of this fight will get some kind of lower level gatekeeper in their next fight.
A couple of really interesting video blogs about how Gustafsson prepares for this fight can be found (in Swedish) over at http://www.kimura.se/. They'll follow him all the way up to his fight and even though the guy initially struck me as someone with a fair bit more muscles then brain he's really growing on you when you listen to him and he seems really down to earth and overall a good guy.
i'm pretty sure that by nature i'm a pretty leaky player. what i mean by this is, if i were sitting 500x all the time, everything that i do would be perfect, but sitting 100x effective my tendency is to want to play far more often than is mathematically correct.
a better way of putting it would be that i seek out confrontation in all forms at the table constantly, because i like poker and i like the socially acceptable form of fucking with people that is pokar.
this is not a bad thing. the problem is that when i start to add tables, the counterbalancing mechanisms that i use to keep myself in check and to play more mathematically correct than is in my instinctive game mode start to break down. over time, this leads to significant leaks.
now, it's fine that i'm physically able to handle 15+ tables and play 10k+ hands in a day whenever i feel like it. there are certainly circumstances in which these skills become useful. last month for instance, i faced imminent bankroll death and this was the best way out, so i did it. it's no big deal.
if i want to continue to build upon what i've learned lately i think that it would be best if i continue to 4 table, stay aware of what i'm doing at all times and why, and try to maintain an aggressive mindframe in terms of taking shots and minimizing my general expenses, with the goal of accelerating my stakes progress as rapidly as possible while also inhibiting general leak formation; alextexe1ra and wcgrider and that other guy showed me alot and i want to build off of what i learned, not regress and have to plug leaks for the sake of playing alot of tables just because i can as i go nowhere fast.
going to play lots of mtts today and see how i do in those...if anyone is playing a lot of the sun mtts and wants to swap a % or anything i would be down. I used to swap all the time in MTTs with Drakk on here but he no longer plays MTTs atm so i need someone new that wants to swap PM me
and if anyone wants to stake me in the higher buy in MTTS i would also be down for that
OK, so my desktop shit the bed after a grand total of 10 months. It just randomly shuts off. I love it when it happens in the middle of SNG sessions imo.
Anyways, it happened during a session yesterday and I tilt bought a laptop. I got a laptop because I'm at my girl's place a lot and it's easier to move than a desktop obv.
So it's been 6.5 days since I issued the challenge and seeing as how I'm going to vegas later this morning, I won't be PSing. So here are the results... 800-1600 are HU, so is 13k-16k. 600nl.
Actual is about 8.2k. I wasn't able to complete it but I think had I run better or played more hands (there were a couple days where I didn't play at all) I would've made it. By no means am I disappointed in the results though.
If you haven't yet, check out my new song! (updated)
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