Between December and April, a gambler named Don Johnson, playing single blackjack hands of up to $100,000, reportedly walked away from Atlantic City's tables with a cool $15 million. This hand came about in 2018 as part of the Triton Poker Super High Roller cash game in Jeju, South Korea, featuring a $1 million buy-in. The game is played using the Korean Won, and there was plenty of cash 'won' in this one.
If you're considering becoming a professional poker player or are just love watching pros win stacks of cash, let Daniel Negreanu give you a reality check.
The legendary poker pro wrote a year-end blog with his results from 2017, revealing he had won over $2.7 million last year. That seems like a ton of money, right?
Not quite, per Negreanu:
Well, the truth is, if a player plays the full high roller schedule and cashes for $2 million, they are all but certain to have had a losing year, and that's before expenses.
I felt like I had a decent year in terms of results, but when you break down the numbers into an actual profit vs loss, I essentially broke even!
Buyins: $2,874,164
Payouts:$2,792,104
Profit: -$86,140
Crazy, right? His $2.7 million didn't even cover all of his buy-ins into events. Although he said most players don't fund everything by themselves, he does pay his own way into events despite sponsorship deals.
Negreanu also broke down how he did this year in terms of cashing out in tournaments: He said he played in 71 events and cashed out in JUST 21 OF THEM! The previous year he went 10-for-49 and 11-for-49 in 2015. Yet when he tallied up his five-year total, he went 68-for-291 and made an $8 million-plus profit.
What does all that mean? If you can stomach all the losses and balance them with occasionally cashing in, all while affording the expenses, you could be a pro.
Most Money Ever Won In A Poker Handheld
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