Is it possible to make a living playing poker
Get Rich Work And Study / / December 20, 2019
This question was asked on the resource Quora and I received a lot of feedback in the form of personal stories of players. We decided to publish a story that has become the most popular among the 16 published, because from it you can gather a lot of useful information about poker as a profession.
Responsible professional poker player Michael Shinzaki.
The game of poker - it is like a roller coaster
I've been playing poker professionally for about 7 years. Of course, this is not the only thing that I was doing all these years. During this time I received a bachelor's degree, visited 45 countries, worked on his book, consulted several online startups, but poker has always been the main source of income. At that time, I have experienced many ups and downs, both materially and morally. Poker has helped me in a relatively short period of time to get a great experience, including very inappropriate moments for the 20-year-old boy.
When the hands begin to pour in money, everything seems possible
I saw at the poker table are changing emotions and feelings of the players. I have often noticed how he was at different points in the seventh heaven, in full gloom. I saw tears of joy, and saw the people who were at risk of poverty, began to pay six figures only in the form of taxes. I saw how people fail and get into huge debts. The game of poker - it's like a roller coaster. It makes you feel like ecstasy and depression. Poker puts on show the best and worst of each player at the table.
Poker - a strange profession
This is similar to the process of converting water into wine. There is no fixed salary, you can not simply successfully pass the interview and get to work on Monday. You will need a huge amount of operating time (a foundation), to at least try to turn this hobby into a source of income.
An aspiring poker player can be unsuccessful for a long time (if not forever remain so), until it reaches any progress. It is also very volatile and very difficulty level of the game, and this process does not always have the time dependence. You can earn an annual state for only a few hours (I've done it many times), and can play a month away and stay in the red (and it has happened many times with me).
At first it was just a game
When I started playing poker, I have not thought about how to make it a profession. The game is designed for communication, and when I was 18 years old, it was very interesting and exciting. Poker is intriguing. I enjoyed the competition and creativity that is needed in the game. It is like chess or scholar, but with additional elements. I liked the feeling of celebration, I love intellectual games. I even loved the moments of despair when you feel stuck and think for hours on strategy. For me it was akin to compete in athletics, but without physical exertion.
Further more
In the end, after a series of losses, which forced me to play at the lowest rates online, I began to analyze your mistakes and improve the skills of the game. I started reading books on poker strategy, playing games on ESPN, to understand where, when and why I lost. You may consider yourself a genius, but a genius of each such there are thousands of other players discussing the strategy of the game for 10 hours a day.
In poker, you need to constantly adapt. You can not get a patent, and then just to make a profit before the end of his days. Remember, when at stake is money, your opponents will start to develop very quickly.
Need time
After a few $ 100 bet, then a credit card my father, and many sleepless nights of the game, I suddenly realized that I was starting to make progress.
Over time, you begin to see what worked and what - no, pay attention to the game and tactics of your opponents to determine the recurring situations and different approaches in the game for each player.
Poker is not always perceived as a reality
Sometimes it seems certain loopholes that do not notice most around you.
I earned his first six-figure sum for the year, when I was 19 and 21 I gained so much in one day.
Some people never get even half of that one year of work. And what am I to do? Just to practice in a game of cards. At my previous job at Baskin Robbins, I earned $ 6.75 per day. And suddenly I found myself in a whirlwind of events around the world, I began to meet interesting people, stay in expensive hotels, eat in cool restaurants and buy all that I could wish for. This activity has allowed me to travel. And, most importantly, I had the opportunity and time to do things in parallel, which I liked, including blogerstvo, sports, and spend enough time with loved ones and family.
Everything comes to an end
But poker addictive, and also has a significant drawback - it does not allow to be satisfied. Some players find it in the ever-present challenge, while others feel the same dissatisfaction. In addition, one of my main critic of the poker community is that, when I looked around, I saw a lot of smart and talented people who just play cards, instead of leaving his mark on the life and create something really necessary and useful for the society. This was one of the main reasons I decided to end his poker career and start a new phase in life.
In addition to the story of Michael, another professional poker player Chris Sparks decided to summarize by highlighting positive and negative aspects of this profession.
poker pros
- Money - a very small percentage of players are earning significant money (enough to make them world-renowned professionals), and in modern games is almost impossible to get rich. Your opportunities are rather limited compared to other professions, but with the help of poker, you can secure a comfortable existence.
- Autonomy - Only you decide when, where and how you play. At the end of the day you are responsible only to themselves. For most of the lack of structure could be a disaster, but for the self-confident and motivated people a way of expanding opportunities and rights.
- Flexibility - play when you want it. Sometimes, when things are going well, I can play a few days in a row. If I have no luck or simply no inspiration, I can safely leave the game and, for example, to fly on holiday to another country.
- Call - you play to live, which in itself is amazing. I was very passionate about poker and loved it competitive component. Many successful people talk about the need to love my job and poker that was true. I rarely felt poker work.
poker cons
- Stress - I think that you can yourself imagine how tense moments of victory and defeat, when it involves large sums of money. When you play online at once at multiple tables, you are doing more than 1000 "hands" in an hour, that is, manipulating large enough amount of money. Add to that the fact that short-term results are largely dependent on luck. Therefore, in poker a lot of balding 20-year-old players.
- Difference - you are always in a very small isolation from other players (in my career I won only 52% of its sessions), so it is very difficult to estimate, as you play. In my experience it was a three-month period during which I lost quite a lot of money, and my friends - even more.
- Balance - in poker there is no end of the day, and it can absorb all of your life, if you let it. Extreme levels of concentration and discipline required to achieve any level of success, as one bad decision can destroy hundreds optimal. Therefore 8:00 play at multiple tables online are more intense and stressful than the normal working day. Not surprisingly, I ceased to be interested in other things in my life other than poker, and it took me a lot of effort to regain balance.
- predators - most of your winnings come from unskilled players, and the better you are able to hunt them, the more money you earn. You can also become a victim of a predator.
- You do not create anything - the lack of games for the purpose of earning a living. At the end of the day you are working hard to increase the number on the screen. You are useless to society, and after reaching a certain well-being of poker is not able to satisfy you.
- cultural acceptance - this area has advanced significantly due to excessive poker on TV, but many people remain ignorant of poker as a profession. To avoid condescending attitude, I often omit the subject of poker in communicating with new people.
- inconstancy - the most successful poker players have a similar business and always have something on the side. However, a large number of professionals have never worked on any other work, and many of them even dropped out of college for poker. And when fortune turns away from them, they find themselves with nothing with no fallback.
These are some stories suggest that because poker can be a profession and earn money for your life, but here there is a very fine line that can turn success into a complete failure.
And you've played ever in poker or have considered this activity as a possible profession for yourself?