By
Fox |
Published
Aug 03 2009, 11:18 PM
If I told you that you could be a professional poker player and make a good living doing it, would that interest you? Enough has been written about the reasons why you shouldn't be a full time pro that I won't worry too much about that, and this series of articles won't be encouraging that sort of thing anyway, they just provide information for those of you who think it may be the right choice for you. What I can do is tell you why most people don't make it, and give you a fairly simple set of instructions for becoming a professional poker player.
Notice that I said "simple" in that last sentence, and not "easy." Digging a ditch is a simple task, but it is not necessarily easy. Becoming a professional poker player, even as a part time gig for extra income or as a serious hobby, is much the same. If you put in the work most people can accomplish the task, but a typical player just wants to sit down and play and win hands. Glory, fame, etc. come soon after and life is awesome. This is why so many people fail.
If you want to make a living doing something with your brain, what do you usually do? You go to college. At least a community college for a few courses and for most professions you would need a degree. If someone told you they wanted to be an engineer, and the first thing they did was start trying to get people to hire them to design bridges, you wouldn't be at all surprised when they failed miserably, because it takes years of school, a tough certification test, and a few years of working under another engineer. If it was your dream to become an engineer and you just started having business cards printed up and trying to get people to hire you to design bridges, everyone would think you were nuts.
This is exactly how I look at poker players who decide they want to go pro and just start playing $20/40 at our local card room here in Minnesota, or players who want to play tournaments for a living and immediately start playing in satellites to World Poker Tour events in hopes that they can get that big score that will get them started. They aren't even sure if they are consistent winners in $5 rebuy tournaments, and they want to play for a living without any further education. These players might as well be designing bridges with a set of crayons, they would be just as likely to succeed.
I've written other articles on why this is, mostly attributing it to the kind of people who want to play poker for a living and the impression people have of the skills it takes to succeed, and I won't go in to all of them now. Let's just assume that you know that the vast majority of people who would like to be significant winners at the tables fail to do so. Somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of players are long term losers depending on which set of statistics you use and where you get them, but it's an established fact that the number is at least eighty percent and many of the remaining winners don't make much.
What I want to do here is provide some information about picking your major, enrolling yourself in poker college, and how to approach your course of study. In part two I will provide an outline for each major and part three will help you with creating courses for yourself, but in this article we'll stick to how and why you should enroll yourself in poker college if you are serious about the game.
The first problem I see frequently is a lack of financial commitment. People who have lost thousands at the tables are unwilling to spend hundreds to prevent it from happening again and become profitable players. The majority of my students want to take one lesson a month and wait for poker to pay for the rest of the lessons. The first lesson or two usually gets them to the point where they could make a few hundred dollars a month very consistently and pay for lessons with that money so that they can continue to improve. Most of them don't take this option. They take a few lessons, become slight winning players, and think they can handle it from there. A few of them are correct and have actually made it on their own after a few lessons and continued study in other formats. The rest languish at the lower limits, playing games they can barely beat and making bad bankroll decisions when they get frustrated because their win rate is not increasing.
The students that are successful, some of them full time pros at this point, are those who take a lesson once a week, ask for more homework, and have it all done by the next lesson. They spend a few dollars on training sites, buy books, and pay for lessons, knowing that a real education is the only way to be serious about the game these days. The game has advanced too far for most people to learn simply by playing hands and paying attention like the stories the old-timers tell. There weren't any good poker books years ago, and there certainly weren't training sites helping your opponents to improve quickly while you try to figure it out on your own.
Would you expect to go to college and be able to pay a few hundred dollars and then have college pay you to keep coming to class? Sign me up for law school if that's how it works, I want to be making $100,000 a year after my first three classes. Actually, you can scratch that. I've just been informed that lawyers often have to get up early in the morning and I am no longer interested. And I've already gone to college for poker and it's working out nicely. The point is that if you are going to study the game, be committed to it and be serious about it. If you can only study part time because you have a job and a family, then treat it like study time. People get degrees while working a full time job every day.
In fact my dad earned his Master's degree over a few years of night school in his thirties, while working and raising a family and I don't even remember him being gone that much. And I wouldn't guess that he had the passion that so many people email me about when referring to playing poker for a living. If it's your "dream", then it's worth more than two weeks of studying and a few hundred dollars investment. If not, then continue to enjoy your hobby, but stay at the lower limits where you won't get crushed by the serious players who are actually pursuing a career and treating it as such. You'll be much happier.
Where will the money come from? Well the initial courses are very inexpensive. If you can't invest two or three hundred dollars in your dream, then it's not a dream, and you have very little chance to compete with the people who are serious. Once the first few courses are complete, you should be able to beat low-limit games consistently and use that money to pay for the rest of your poker education if you are truly dedicated. Building up a $1,000 bankroll and then blowing it on a television or a few bad bankroll decisions is not an option. Eat
Ramen noodles like a real college student if you must, but that money is your college fund, and you only spend it on education and wise poker decisions that help it to grow. If you can do that, you can easily pay for the rest of your education with winnings.
This means that you won't have any winnings to spend for awhile. Luckily it won't be many years like a real college, and it won't require nearly as much money as a typical college education. I know people who graduate from PhD programs that are $100,000 in debt when they get out of school. Think about that before you whine about spending a few thousand on a serious poker education that has you set up to make a nice living within six months to a year. At the moment poker players have it easy compared to most professions.
And how about the time? Where will that come from?
Where does anyone find the time to study a new profession? How do college students survive? How did my dad pull it off while working full time and raising a rambunctious son? Make the time. Your poker education will be primarily done at your own pace and on your own schedule, so make it work. If you can't turn off South Park reruns and go study, then you wouldn't make it in a regular college either and you just aren't ready to launch a new career yet. It's okay, Wendy's will always be hiring, and you can work there until you develop enough discipline to launch a new career and approach it in a serious way. And free soda while you are at work! Hard to argue with that.
When I was studying the game, I was driving a cab. I had a poker book on the front seat of my cab at all times, and most weeks I worked six twelve hour shifts. Sometimes it was very slow, so I really only spent about nine hours working and the rest of the time I sat in my cab and studied. I read, highlighted, and took notes on around twenty poker books the summer that I decided to learn about poker, most of it while I was at work. I also had The Theory of Poker in my bathroom, a few books in my personal car, and I read the chapter on Stud in Super/System while I waited at the DMV one day. If you want to learn, you will find the time. If you really don't have time to study then how do you find time to visit PocketFives and play poker?
Once you have time and money, the last thing you need is motivation. I can't give you an easy answer to that one, but it may help you to know that you can make more money per year of education than any other job I know of, you can set your own hours, and you can do it all playing the game you love. If you really want to do this, then motivation shouldn't be a problem.
Dedication might also be a problem because there will be rough patches, and until you get used to them they can be really hard on your psyche. There may come a time when you have studied for six months and been slowly winning and building up your bankroll while you study and suddenly you can't win. It can go on for a month or two, just getting crushed, losing to every four outer, and getting outflopped over and over. You can play hundreds of tournaments and still be down for the month, and cash games can run bad for so long you forget what winning feels like.
When it gets really ugly, you will find out if you really want to be a professional poker player, or if it's just something you think looks like fun. I think it would be neat to be a rock star, but I'm not playing guitar for eight hours a day and enrolling in music school, so I don't actually expect it to happen. In fact I think it would be neat to be a lot of things, but the only thing I really need to be is a poker player, and I wanted it badly enough to make it happen.
That's really it, everything you need to decide if you want to try to go pro or just keep having fun and maybe make a few bucks. If you think you have the dedication and the right attitude, then read part two where I help you choose a major and future articles (there may be two or three more) where I help you create your own courses and outline some of them for you. Remember that there's nothing wrong with playing poker for fun, it's a great game. I just want you to be realistic about what you are doing and what your goals are and how you will accomplish them. --
Part 2
I'll see you at the final table,
Chris "Fox" Wallace
* Check out Fox's new site at pokerwhip.com---
Scouting Report for FoxIn April 2005, Chris "Fox" Wallace wrote his very first article for
PocketFives. He would go on to become one of the most respected
internet poker authors in the world and has contributed quality,
entertaining content that has inspired many players to give online
poker a try. His Basic Bankroll Management article is among the most popular in this site's history and won the 2005 Presto Award for Article of the Year.
Fox is currently an instructor at www.pokerxfactor.com,
where he specializes in cash game instruction. He is also the editor of
pokerwhip.com. Although he doesn't play online tournaments as much
these days, he still has a Dec '08 final table appearance in the Full
Tilt Poker $90k Guaranteed for $5,600.Related ArticlesVote for Poker 2008 Nov 02, 2008Chris Wallace to Attend PPA Fundraiser at RNC Sep 01, 2008Articles by FoxTaking the Plunge Jun 23, 2005Wax On, Wax Off Jun 14, 2005A Damn Fine Week for the Fox Jun 06, 2005A Quick Update Jun 02, 2005Thanks to Beanie and Annie May 27, 2005Killing the Single Tables May 17, 2005Playing Multiple Tables May 12, 2005Meeting Beanie and Feldliss May 09, 2005Still Chasing Bonus Dollars May 06, 2005A Frantic Week May 02, 2005Party Bonus This Week Apr 22, 2005I Learned Something Today Apr 16, 2005Put On Your Tin Foil Hat... Apr 12, 2005Whipping the Entire Field Apr 08, 2005Introduction to Fox Apr 05, 2005---
I'm awesome. You would like me. Really. Come join me at the tables at http://www.pokerprosnetwork.net/chriswallace.html I'm always happy to chat and I'm at one of my named cash game tables most evenings.