You may have dreamed of quitting your job to play poker full-time if you are good at it.
After all, it’s an attractive proposition. Who wouldn’t love to do what they enjoy for a living.
Poker is not for everyone. It’s a demanding career.
We’ve done the work for you and weighed all of the pros, cons, and other factors for professional poker.
Let’s get started.
Three benefits of being a poker professional
1. Love what you do
Anyone who has ever played poker professionally is motivated by this. One of the biggest aspirations for people in modern times is to be able turn their passion into a living. This could be through poker, or even something totally unrelated.
Professionals may have said that they are in it for the money. While this may be the case, if these professionals didn’t love playing poker they wouldn’t be doing it. It’s too difficult to be a poker player if you don’t love it.
Successful players are not just interested in winning poker, but also enjoy the strategy and complexities involved.
2. Freedom and flexibility
Setting your own hours can be a great perk for any job. You’ll be encouraged to play poker during certain times, based on the player pool, but it will ultimately be up to you. This freedom will help you stay motivated and avoid poker fatigue.
Professional poker offers a high level of autonomy. It’s important to note that this does not mean it will be an easy job. It will be just as difficult as any other job. You won’t be screamed at by anyone.
3. Earning Potential
It’s possible to earn enough money per hour to live on if you have a high level of skill. It’s not as easy as it used to.
Micro stakes players have a difficult time achieving a good win rate because of the high rake.
For skilled players, live poker has and will continue to be a profitable endeavor. However, the average player in live poker is weaker than an average player online.
It could be that live poker is played at casinos and therefore attracts more people to play poker for gambling than for their skill. It could be due to the social aspect of live poker. Most likely, it’s a combination. 홀덤온라인 ‘s not going to change anytime soon, no matter what the cause.
The downsides of professional poker
1. Variation
Variance, or the lack of it, is what prevents anyone who has mastered a particular game from playing it full-time.
There are two challenges:
• First, and perhaps most obviously, there is the financial aspect.
If your bankroll is decimated, you can’t play. If you want to be a successful professional, then managing your bankroll is crucial. Financially insulated, you need to be able to handle downturns. Later, we’ll go into more detail.
• Second, it is emotional.
It can affect your ability to play and even your motivation. Doug Polk shares his experience with this.
Downswings will always be emotionally difficult; we cannot avoid that. The best thing we can do is mentally prepare ourselves for them, much like we prepare our banks to absorb these downswings. Accepting that downswings will happen makes it easier to cope with the variance.
The second most important disadvantage of being a pro poker player is the variance.
2. It is difficult to assess your winning rate
Any poker player will benefit from knowing their own win rate. You will be unprepared for a downswing if you do not know what your win rate is.
The negative variance for a win rate of 2bb/100 is compared to that of 5bb/100.
What are these numbers? Start with the red boxes.
• The downswings that Player A will experience are over 300 BBs.
• The downswings that Player B will encounter will be more than 300 BBs.
Only 16% (or 36%) of the downswings of Player A will be below 300 BBs.
Now the blue boxes.
• 82.41% will have a downswing stretch that lasts over 5000 cards.
• 60.18 % of the downswings of Player B will last more than 5000 hands
So, for example, only 18% (or fewer) of the downswings of Player A will last less than 5000 hand, while 40% (or more) of Player B’s are shorter. A downswing is the number of hands required to return to the top of your graph.
You can see that Player B has a higher win rate, which means his downswings are shorter and more shallow.
It is difficult to find out how many hands you need in order to get a good sample size, especially if there is no tracking software.
Tournament players online face the same problem. Due to tournaments having a much higher variance than cash games it is difficult to determine your win rate, even with tracking software. The problem is made worse by the fact tournament players are making decisions based on chips that have no real value.
Live players and players of online tournaments should be very careful to determine if they are ready to commit to full-time play.
3. Initial capital required
To play poker professionally, you’ll need a bankroll large enough to withstand a loss. You’ll have to decide how many buy-ins you need depending on the type of poker that you play and whether or not you want to play in cash games or tournaments.
According to the general consensus, your bankroll for No-limit hold’em should consist of at least 25-40 purchase-ins.
Pot-limit Omaha players should start with at least 60-80 buy-ins. PLO players need to start with 60-80 buy ins.
Multi-table tournaments have a much looser set of rules, as the format is prone to extreme upswings or downswings. Many recommend starting with 100 BI. However, if you regularly play online tournaments with over 1,000 entrants it is wise to increase to 200 or 300 BI.
Some debate exists over the extent to which these numbers should be lowered if you play live poker instead of online poker. Arguments are made that because the pool of players is smaller, your edge is greater. If you are a live player, you may be able to manage your bankroll more aggressively.
4. Fatigue
You may get bored with poker no matter how much fun you find it. It is the same for online and live poker.
When you spend your entire time in a casino, the pace can be frustrating. Sitting in front of the computer all day, making thousands of micro-decisions is also exhausting.
Like most things in life, your passion for poker will ebb. If you notice that it is ebbing, it may be a good idea to take a break from the felt. You’ll often find that you are back to yourself and enjoying poker more when you return.
The conclusion of the article is:
This article should have left you feeling informed about the pros and cons of playing professional poker.
Don’t be afraid to increase your playing time and then see how it makes you feel. If you are still unsure, keep playing as an interest.
Poker doesn’t have to be a full-time job. Poker can be both financially and emotionally rewarding without having to be a full-time job.
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