It was a holiday for some this past weekend, but not for GGPoker Ambassador Kevin Martin as he embarked on a marathon poker tournament streaming session. Martin's self-imposed challenge – dubbed the War Room Challenge – saw the streamer vow to shave his head if he finished the weekend at a monetary loss.
Throughout the challenge, Martin put up just under $30,000 in buy-ins over a 60-hour period and the cameras captured all of it – including the hours he spent asleep between sessions.
Rakeback to the rescue
While you might think the challenge sounds simple on the surface, keep in mind that Martin didn't shy away from tough fields and big buy-ins. It would have been easy enough to play low stakes tournaments against less-studied opponents, but Martin wanted to test his skills against high-level opponents. And, with a potential head shaving in the balance, the stakes went beyond the monetary realm.
Within the first 11 hours, Martin found himself stuck around $5,000, but had plenty of time to battle back. On Sunday, a third-place finish for $9,949 in the $1,050 High Rollers Sunday Closer marked Martin's high score and set him back on track to retain his luscious locks. With about four hours remaining in the challenge, the fate of Martin's hair hung in the balance as his buy-ins totaled $29,171 while his cashes lingered at the $26,211 mark.
Then, a technicality of sorts came into play: the rakeback. Throughout the challenge, Martin and his stream team carefully tracked each buy-in – and the resulting rakeback that was earned. When Martin added the $3,065 of rakeback to his profit total, it tipped him over the edge by $11. Martin went on to close out the challenge in style with a $613 first-place finish in a $54 Bounty Hunters event, but without the added rakeback he would have almost certainly faced the clippers – leading us to wonder, should the rakeback count in Martin's final tally?
In all fairness, it was a self-imposed challenge with no actual rule book on how Martin had to calculate his profits. With that being said, rakeback typically doesn't factor into profit tallies when players do challenges of this nature. Similarly, in end-of-year results videos, most content creators separate rakeback from winning sessions and treat it as its own entity.
What do you think? Should Martin be walking around sans hair right now? Or, was he in the right to include his rakeback?
Check out the entirety of Kevin Martin's War Room Challenge on his YouTube channel – and keep an eye out for a highlight video recapping the marathon streaming session.
