Playing poker for a living is absolutely not the dream it may seem. Even at the moment I can’t imagine playing poker and being able to make a living from it.
There are two parts to playing poker for a living as I see it. The parts that make me a professional gambler. The parts that make me a business owner.
The pro is aware of the following:
There is a significant emotional element to all of this. You have to be able to adapt your mindset on the fly as your bankroll changes. There is one thing that is unique to poker, and that is that no one can actually tell what you are holding.
You are never going to have a good bracket if you do not participate in the races for spots. You are never going to have a good tournament if you do not go at it with a zillion dollars in your pocket. You are never going to have a good website if you cannot pay for it.
Admittedly it is a lot. But, you had better think big. If you had a few hundred thousand behind you, you might consider it a small investment. The really big times you are going to be setting yourself up for massive pots and you are going to require a lot of different skills and a lot of capital.
What I see a lot of people doing is they just open remipoker accounts, deposit a hundred or two hundred dollars, and then think that they are going to get some lucky poker playing and they will win a couple hundred dollars. This is not how it works.
If you can go into a sit and go or cash game with fifty buy ins it doesn’t mean you can play for free. It doesn’t mean you won’t lose a couple hundred if you take a couple of bad beats. You are going to have bad beats, you are going to have hot streaks, you are going to be on that losing streak, and you are going to be anything but patient.
If you had a one hundred buy in bankroll and you were going up three hundred on the day then you might feel like you could handle it, but you are going to be in for a bit of a shock. If you are ten buy in the bank and you are up three hundred then most likely you are not going to last that long. Bankroll needs to be managed properly or it will kill you.
There are a lot of opinions on what is a good bankroll to play with. The answer is not set at fifty buy ins. It is somewhere in the middle. Two hundred is a good rule of thumb. If you have done your homework and you think you can handle two hundred buy ins then I say you take a shot at it. It is one thing to dream about being a pro and it is another thing to make the dream real.
There are a lot of resources out there about poker online and you need to make sure you find out who is reputable and not. Reputation means a lot on this game.
Any questions you have to ask your self a follow up. Like how did they pass their qualifying rounds? Are there cash outs? What are the pro’s going to say about my poker website? It is hard to find but you need to fight through the information and get what you need.