Life as a poker professional
Although many people assume it will, playing poker for a living doesn’t mean you aren’t still working full time. To do it, and do it well, you’ll need to be putting in similar hours – you’ll just get to choose when you do them. It’s a typical grandiose notion that professional poker will release you from the shackles of the rat race, but you still put in the hours, you still have to be wise with your money and accounts, and you still have to pay taxes. Essentially, you put on a new set of shackles – provided you see normal life as being chained down.
Before you consider playing poker for a living, make sure you really love the game. You may think your job is repetitive now, but multi-tabling poker all day can be just the same. You should also take into consideration what future opportunities you have in your current position – is it really worth giving up a potentially good long-term career for what could possibly be short-term money and freedom?
However, if you have strong self-discipline, and the ability to critique yourself (this is a particularly handy skill for post-flop match reviews), then poker may just be for you.
So you’ve played a few hundred hours of poker online, have an established win-rate over a large number of hands (250,000+), and want to take a shot at becoming an online poker professional? Where do you go from here?
First of all, think about how much money you would be comfortable with having in reserve. Now double it. Having far more money at your disposal than you need not only decreases your risk of ruin, but will help you cope with those inevitable ‘down days’ that much better. You’re not going to profit every day – and if you don’t know this before you start, you should reconsider your decision – and having a large amount of cash in reserve is nothing but a good idea.
Secondly, what are your expectations? How much money do you want to make, and how many hands do you plan to play each month? When you first go from having a 9-5 job to what may start out feeling like an endless weekend, it’s very easy to start slacking off and not playing as often as you should. Have some goals to help keep you focused.
Third of all, what are your pre-session and post-session routines? When you were working you presumably had a routine. Whether it was the drive to work, or a morning coffee, you would have had something which mentally prepared you to work. As a poker professional, having a pre-session routine will help you to mentally prepare to play your absolute A game. A good example of a pre-session routine would be to wake up, have a shower and breakfast, grab yourself a bottle or glass of water and then start locating good tables. Post-session routines aren’t that different – this could be opening a video site, such as StoxPoker or Deucescracked, and watching some videos, or posting hands from the day on TwoPlusTwo. Either way, your post-session routine should help you to close off your day until you start again tomorrow.