You can be a poker pro!

Poker has never been more mainstream and high profile than what it is now. Televised poker and the invention of under the table cameras all those years ago on The Late Night Poker series on Channel 4 really did wonders for the game. As did an increase in the number of people who had access to the internet! So television coupled with the internet made online poker what it is now.

The obvious knock on effect of this was that more and more players desired to become “poker professionals”. This was now the new glamorous job in town and everybody wanted to be a poker player. But just how easy is it to become a full-time poker player in 2009?

Well obviously there are a lot of variables to this question and much of it depends on if you want to play live poker or online poker, tournament poker or cash games. Online poker makes playing for a living more achievable in that there is no travelling involved to and from card rooms.

You can multi-table to increase your earn rate and earn rakeback and other such bonuses that all contribute to facilitating your income. The drawback is that online poker is a tougher nut to crack than live poker. Also, I wouldn’t recommend to anyone who starts out with the intention of playing the game for a living that they play poker tournaments.

The luck factor in these is very high and although you can play them professionally, it is a tough way to earn a crust I can tell you. I have a saying when it comes to poker and it is “tournaments for show, cash games for dough” and this statement sums it all up quite nicely in my opinion.

There are major differences between tournaments and cash games and most players especially at the lower levels cannot successfully make the transition. But playing poker for a living also depends on the level of income that you want. For instance, it isn’t difficult for even a novice player to be able to make $20 per day playing online using basic systems at micro stakes.

However this isn’t anywhere near enough money to be able to play the game for a living! But a good solid low-stakes cash game player who plays at NL50 for example could well make $4000/month playing 40hours a week on a decent site with rakeback. I have proved this to be the case recently in what I dubbed my “Poker Pro Challenge”. In this I attempted to prove that a player could make a living wage without much of a bankroll and make a “living” from online poker.

But what one person may call a good “living”, another may find that level of income very poor. When you also take into account that playing poker for a living has certain handicaps in that you won’t have a pension scheme or be able to take sick leave or paid holidays! Also acquiring a pay rise won’t necessarily be straight forward either as moving up a level will mean that you are encountering better players on average.

A lot comes down to how modest your goals are and for anyone who found that $1000 a week was “mega bucks” then becoming a pro may just be within your reach. You then also have to consider that if you are going to play full-time then you need to offset what you may earn playing poker to what you are currently earning in your day job.

There isn’t much point in leaving a $60,000 a year job to play online poker to only earn $40,000 per year. Or maybe even $60,000 a year wouldn’t be enough to pack your current job in when you consider that playing online poker entails sitting behind a computer all week. There are serious health issues as well with regards playing full-time poker that may not readily be apparent. But the bottom line is that it is achievable as long as you don’t expect to get mega rich.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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