To any poker player thinking of turning pro...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…Don’t.

Get good, keep your real job, and play poker on the side for a little extra income.

I went pro (which is to say my income came primarily or entirely from poker) about a year ago.

It’s stressfull as all fuck. You have to be completely focused, all the time. Your edge over other decent players is small enough that you could spend hours earning a few bets and have a mere one or two lapses and judgements ruin everything you’d just spent the last several hours doing.

You’ll have nights, many nights, when you’re playing extremely well, but every idiot at the table that you’re better than is going to take a lot of your money. It happens. When you don’t have any income coming in, and a really bad run, despite playing well, starts eating into your bankroll - basically all of the money you do have - it can be very stressful. Especially night after night, week after week. You might already be pretty stressed by this stuff - but having it be your only source of income makes it a whole lot more stressful.

It sounds like an easy, romantic job, but it requires a level of focus that few jobs do, but can be agonizingly boring at the same time. Doing this night after night will burn you out, but you have to keep playing.

You have to maintain the utmost discipline through this, no matter how stressed you are, or how many beats you take, because a lapse in discipline can cost you a week’s pay pretty quickly. That also takes a mental toll.

You don’t get any sort of regular paycheck. You may have a terrible month and erase all the progress of the last three, putting you in a nasty financial situation, adding even more stress to the abundance you already have.

You have to deal with strangers, even friends and family, sneering at what you do, if you don’t make up a fake job. Many, many will call you an addict - because anyone who does anything gambling related all the time must be, right?

You have to deal with the fact that what you do produces nothing valuable for society, and is preying on weaker players than you. When someone else loses it - maybe they’re drunk, maybe they’re supremely pissed or depressed, or maybe all of them - you pretty much have to try to take advantage of that and victimize them even when they’re already feeling pretty shitty.

I remember one night a guy was losing a ton of money at the table I was at, and it eventually thinned out till it was just him and I, and it was about 6am by this time. He was clearly losing it - majorly on tilt.

I absolutely demolished him. I was simply a much better player, and he was desperate to win and played even worse. He rebought multiple times… I was draining this guy of money. At one point he even left the table for a few minutes and came back - I think he emptied out his account and had to make another deposit. My gain came from this guy’s suffering. But I had to do it. If it wasn’t me, he would’ve given the money to someone else. The nature of the job forces me to be predator… push edges where I can get them. I know what it feels to be in his position, and I was doing the same thing to him that I resented people for for doing to me. It can be brutal.

Sounds easy, romantic… and you might just think I’m bitter from failing at it, but that’s not true at all. I actually made over 100k in my first year (not that I expect that every year), so you’d think I’d be pretty happy. But the toll it takes on you is pretty severe.

2

I thought about turning pro as a chess player.
Although there are sponsored tournaments, only the World top 10 get rich, while perhaps the next 100 players earn a reasonable living. (Not like golf or tennis, which are much more popular.)

Having several chess professional friends, I think most of your post applies to chess as well. It’s true you can’t lose huge amounts of money in a single game, but only the leading finishers make money. And there’s the incessant drain of travel and accomodation.

One thing I would like to ask - where does the money come from?!
I realise that a big televised tournament has sponsorship, but there usually seem to be entry fees as well. So presumably you need to survive quite a long way to get your money back, and even further to make a decent profit.
As for private games, it can’t all be poker pros playing. So you must have several players at the table who put up their bankroll for the fun of playing with the pros. I can understand the excitement of this (I’ve played Kasparov!), but presumably they tend to lose a lot of money. Why do they keep coming back?

3

I honestly believe that happiness is the most important goal in life. No amount of money is worth it if earning it is weighing on you, making you feel guilty, diminishing your self-esteem, making you feel ashamed, stressed-out, etc. There are people who thrive in every profession, even gambling, porno, televangelism, etc. But they are in the minority, by far. And they don’t feel the effects of the down side the way you (and most other people) do.

Clearly this line of work is making you miserable, and to my mind it wouldn’t be worth it if you were making a million dollars a year. A lot more goes into making a job (and a life) satisfying and rewarding than income. Do you really want to wind up at sixty or seventy years old looking back on that you could have done and enjoyed in life if only you hadn’t been sitting at poker tables all the time being miserable?

I hope I don’t sound like a know-it-all, but these are things I’ve learned through my own life’s experience. But best of luck to you, whatever you choose. You sound like a good guy with a good conscience and I hope you’ll find whatever it is that will make life happy and rewarding for you.

Regards.

4

Starvers, you are in rare form tonight!

Actually, we get a thing called, not very humbly - which is a bit odd, considering how one is meant to walk with your God - the GOD Channel on cable (part of the basic package, I hasten to add). And it’s so awful, it’s actually quite amusing.

“Ooooooooooh! Haaaaleylujah! Prrrrrraaaaise the Lord! Mmmm…I just sense God moving among you and prompting you to release your finances…”

5

This is the part that would kill me. I like playing poker just for fun, and I could probably be good at it if I practiced, but I couldn’t handle knowing that my winnings often came from some guy who pawned off his car for extra money (I met a man once who was such a pawnbroker).

6

I’ve always suspected that what you say is true. Once you start doing anything all the time it’s going to cease to be fun.

In answer to glee as I understand it the money comes from the players in the games and the tournaments. Why do they do it ? Well it’s not always the same people losing money, some do it just for the hell of it, some of these people can afford it and some can’t. I would suspect that there’s not too many people that play and constantly lose, people’ll win every so often and that’ll keep them coming back.

Some people look at it as ‘money spent for a good time’, I’d rather play poker in a casino than any of the table games or the slots, I just find it more fun and I sometime make money, when I lose I lose less than I would’ve dropped on Roulette or Blackjack. The exact over/under amount tends to depend on how many drinks they’ve managed to serve me.

And some people, as you say, play simply to be playing at the big event or with the big players.

Enough rambling, SenorBeef a few questions if you don’t mind ? Do you play just cash games ? Or do you do tournaments ? Where do you play ? Do you need to travel a lot ? How often do you play ? Do you have a backup plan (if you go through an extended dry spell) ?

Sorry that’s quite a few questions, sorry for being nosey it’s just my nature and it’s a subject that interests me.

SD

7

Not at all. Turn this into the “ask the pro poker player” if you want.

Do you play just cash games ? Or do you do tournaments ? Where do you play ? Do you need to travel a lot ? How often do you play ? Do you have a backup plan (if you go through an extended dry spell) ?

[/quote]

I play primarily cash games, although most of my winnings have come from tournaments. I don’t really like them, but my natural skill set fits them better.

I play primarily online… there’s not much good poker here, and I play it for novelty rather than profit. If I travel somewhere with poker, I’ll play, but I don’t travel just to play poker.

I don’t really have a backup plan, but my mom would probably support me in a worst case scenario.

No problem, I don’t mind.

8

A slight hijack, if I may:

There was a Dateline NBC episode the other night about televangelist Benny Hinn, roger, that would make you want to just slap the shit out of him. The gall of people like that is amazing. One clip showed him explaining to his followers why he refused to be interviewed for a previous Dateline episode in order to answer questions about the healings he had supposedly performed and how he justified his expenditures. His performance went something like this:

Hinn, standing on stage at some sort of podium and looking quite smug and self-satisfied, says…

“Some people have asked why I wouldn’t go on the Dateline program about this ministry. Very simple. God said: ‘Don’t.’ I obeyed.”

The camera cut away as he looked indignantly and arrogantly out into his throng of admirers who were no doubt applauding raucously.

How that guy can look himself in the mirror is a mystery to me.

9

Tournament sponsorship is just advertising dollars for the televisor - players aren’t compensated like in golf.

They fork over their own cash.

People play poker because it’s fun, or they have a big ego and think they’re better at it than they are.

Pro poker players aren’t going to be recognized, generally… it’s not like we have to wear a mark, or something, it just happens to be our job.

So they go into the game figuring they can beat everyone else, or have fun… simple enough.

10

I CONSIDERED trying it.

I built up a a bankroll of only a few grand (not enough to play in games where you can make real money).

So, one year I was unemployed, played probably 600-800 hours, probably made about $4/hour playing at a mix of limits in a mix of game. That sounds pretty shitty, and it is pretty shitty, and it’s probably also better than about 98% of people out there would make.

And, on a lesser scale, I went through every thing that Beef mentioned. I never had to claim it was “what I did”, but being stressed out, going through a streak where you’ve lost 100-150 big bets and you KNOW you’re playing well, and you wake up in the middle of the night and the first thing in your head is “how did that guy stay in that hand and catch that card” and you start thinking it’s rigged, and you start thinking people are using advanced software, and it just makes you nuts.

And bored.

And I had a cash game in real life that I was crushing, and I realized that they didn’t like me too much, and I didn’t like them too much, and they were all otherwise good guys, but i’ts just the feeling you develop.

And I really burnt out. I loved the game, and still do on some levels, but I hardly ever play anymore.

11

I love the game, and consider myself pretty good at it. I derive some extra income from playing online and once a week in a local cash tournament. That being said, being a full time pro player is about the last job I would want. Poker is fun in moderation, or as something I do on the side while playing with my dog or chatting with my wife. I would never want the stress or the crushing boredom of playing all the time.

Some questions for Senor Beef. Do you play almost exclusively online? Do you routinely play other pros, or did you avoid them like the plague and concentrate on playing poor players? How many BBs per hour do you average and at what limits?

12

Thanks for that!

I think pro poker players should have a mark - perhaps a bottomless pit symbol… :confused:

13

Most of them have several. Heh.

I doubt there are many players who’ve scooped a pot who haven’t fleetingly fantasized about turning pro. I know I have on more than one occasion and more than once thought about the feasability of going semi-pro when my skills get a little sharper. Usually shortly after I start thinking about it I start taking bad beats and dropping 60% of my bankroll in a night and spend the next week grinding it back up.

The thought of this gives me no qualms whatsoever. I don’t feel any responsibility for how someone chooses to spend his money or conduct his business. Whatever job I’m working I expect to be paid for it. I look at someone like Scotty Njuyen who’s been broke more times than I’ve had haircuts, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for him if I take his last chip? No one made him put those chips in the pot.

14

It never bugged me either except when it was my friends.

As a matter of fact, I used to love taking a guy’s last chip and seeing him have to get more money, or quit.

I think if you don’t feel like that, you won’t necessarily be a great player.

That’s part of it, though. Poker can make some of your ugly parts come out. That’s part of the attraction and part of why you don’t want to do it all the time.

On the 'net it’s easier to play like a surgeon. IRL, I always felt a little more ruthless.

15

That’s a good attitude.

Yes… poker around here only comes at charity events, with a huge rake… or private home games that get robbed. I sometimes play the charity events just for the novelty of playing live poker…

If I’m in a town with poker, I’ll usually play to kill time.

At the limits I play, it’s pretty much impossible to avoid pros. I try to seek out those I play best against…

Game selection is actually a really weak part of my game. When I was learning poker, I was playing exclusively for the challenge. The money I earned was nice, but it was never about the money… that formed some bad habits for me… I’ll often stay at a game that’s not any good because I want the challenge of beating really good players… and often lose.

It’s a big leak in my game, but I’m still having trouble playing exclusively for profit and not as much for the challenge.

I’ve actually been losing pretty heavily lately whenever I play over the last few months… I’ve been burned out on poker, and I’ve had some life issues that are making me extreme stressed. So I’ve mostly been not playing…

Before that, I was playing mostly 30/60 on pokerstars (which is a bad game - tons of really good players, I should seek something softer, but there’s that ego/challenge thing again), and was making about 3.5 BB/hr, but not over too long a time, playing heads up and shorthanded almost exclusively. I moved up from 5/10 and 10/20, and $2/$4 or $3/$6 nl, or $100-$200 sit and goes, when funded by a big tournament win, and did pretty well for myself, until my discipline began to break down due to burnout and other life stresses.

16 
                           William Shakespeare,
                                    The First Part of King Henry the IV
17

Hell SenorB, it doesn’t sound that bad a job, although I can see that it is obviously a pressured job. I don’ t play cards (apart from being a badass at gin rummy :slight_smile: ) , so don’t know how things work; is it possible to be creative when playing poker? If there’s no possibility to be innovative at work then I could see that being a major problem.

A couple of questions:

You mention “nights” of playing. Is it possible to play in the daytime?

You’re working from home, so it must be hard to maintain disciplined working hours, right? Do you manage to "clock on"and off to a poker session, or are you constantly having a look at t’internet?

How intense are the sessions in terms of taking your undivided attention? Can you play listening to music, watching a DVD, reading a book etc?

18

It requires a lot of focus and figuring people out and changing to beat them… so there’s creative processes involved, certainly.

Yes, but you often get better players in the day, so I avoid playing then.

I just did it whenever I felt like it. No need to put in X hours.

Pretty intense. I listen to music… I also read web pages and stuff sometimes, and it costs me a lot of money. It’s a terrible habit to get into, but sometimes you can get really bored. It really requires all your attention - you need to watch and analyze every little thing everyone does, and commit to memory, even when you aren’t in a hand.

19

They have those “charity” events here in Baltimore too, although it seems that, on some occasions, very little money actually ends up going to charity.

Also, such games are still illegal in Maryland, and sometimes end up getting raided.

20

Here’e something I’ve been wondering about.

At…

http://www.acespade.com/texas_holdem_poker.htm

…they advertise that their Texas Hold 'em software can be used as a crutch when you’re playing on the net.

Here’s a bullet - my bolding.

I**nternet play: It is a great tool for players playing Internet poker. You specify what hand you have, what the community cards are, what actions the other players made, the program will give you advise on whether to call, or raise, or fold.
**

How the software company can morally advertise this capability, is beyond me, but they do.

I don’t know how good the software is, but it’s a given that you’re playing against people who are using this program, and others who are using software that’s much, much better.

I think playing online is a bad bet. You’re swimming with sharks.