Going Pro?

[theMONARCH 0]

Hey everyone. I'm somewhat new to the forums, have read articles for a few weeks, just finally made an account. Anyways I was wondering what would be the best way to approach tackling poker full time? I don't plan on it anytime soon, but if there is anything i could do now to prepare for that in say 2 years timewhere should i start?

[custom36 4]

Learn bankroll management. Sign up for video instruction - I'd reccomend DeucesCracked. Learn tilt management. Learn the math of poker. Implied odds, EV, equity, etc.Understand that in all likelihood you're not going to go pro. Not in 2 years anyway. But getting really good at the above can make it a valuable supplemental income.

[CorvairShaggy 5]

Hey everyone. I'm somewhat new to the forums, have read articles for a few weeks, just finally made an account. Anyways I was wondering what would be the best way to approach tackling poker full time? I don't plan on it anytime soon, but if there is anything i could do now to prepare for that in say 2 years timewhere should i start?

GOOD LUCK and WORK HARD!!Don't know what your background is, but I have played online and live off/on for 10 years. In March 2010 decided to take it seriously, and joined PokerVT and here, watched videos, chatted with folks, play $10 and under SNGS; mostly 3-4 tables at a time, and play after work, on weekends, and get about 20 hours a week in, and I have played this way all year. I think I am about $500 in the hole for the past 9 months, so not too bad. If you have never played before, I think I saw on a PokerVT video by Charley Swayne where he says you need to play 200k of play hands before you deposit for the first time. Don't know if I agree with that, but he's the professor, and I am a nobody. Good luck on your journey tho!!

[HighwayStar 8]

Play lots and lots and lots of handsAlso, don't do it.

[BellaireDrew 2]

Also, don't do it.

THIS!!

[Suited_Up 2]

Impeccable timing.Wait till it's legal (if ever). So... what Highway and Drew said.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

Impeccable timing.Wait till it's legal (if ever). So... what Highway and Drew said.

Why do you assume the OP is talking about online poker ?Why do you assume the OP isn't in a country where playing poker online is legal ?

[FCP Bob 1,312]

Play lots and lots and lots of handsAlso, don't do it.

Basically this.Poker is like anything else and requires a lot of work to be good at and even if you work hard there's no guarantee of success. I love tennis and I played a lot and worked hard at it when I was younger to be the best player that I could be but that was a long long way from being able to play professionally. Tennis is a great recreation for me and that's how you should look at poker. Something that you enjoy doing as a recreation but please don't start playing with the intention of making it a career.

[nutzbuster 7]

Hey everyone. I'm somewhat new to the forums, have read articles for a few weeks, just finally made an account. Anyways I was wondering what would be the best way to approach tackling poker full time? I don't plan on it anytime soon, but if there is anything i could do now to prepare for that in say 2 years timewhere should i start?

Knock it off Daniel. These joke accounts really aren't that funny.

[wsox8 10]

I actually play the Negreanu Open as my full time job and I'd like to give you a few tips if you are actually going to go through with it.

• Don't let the donks get you down. Take for example superjeff/outsider and kingtanner. These donks will play garbage and try to beat your aces. If they beat you, move on and curse them out in a PM at a later time, but live in the moment.
• Never fold suited connectors. There's a 57% chance that you'll hit a straight or flush or straight flush with suited connectors.
• Practice tilting just so you can work your way out of it. Have someone punch you and don't get mad or lose your cool. Scratch yourself until you bleed but keep calm throughout the whole process.

These three tips will help guide you in your professional experience. If you have any questions, you know where to reach me. Buy my book and donations will be accepted to the screen names below.Thank you for your time.

[mrpaddyx 13]

Dedicate yourself to the craft of playing poker.

[Suited_Up 2]

Why do you assume the OP is talking about online poker ?Why do you assume the OP isn't in a country where playing poker online is legal ?

Because I'm currently on the internet, and I live in America, and it's what we do.

[mtdesmoines 3]

Hey everyone. I'm somewhat new to the forums, have read articles for a few weeks, just finally made an account. Anyways I was wondering what would be the best way to approach tackling poker full time? I don't plan on it anytime soon, but if there is anything i could do now to prepare for that in say 2 years timewhere should i start?

Most pros I know of started with a second mortgage, put it all online and start playing the higher stakes games because that's where the real money is.

[DiamondDixie 12]

Don't do it! Seriously it's tough. I was working towards playing full time and hoped that about this time next year I would be there. Life and a bitch I worked for had other ideas and I got my start playing full time a year sooner than I had planned. Thank God for the unemployment supplement and a husband with a good job or I'd be in big trouble. I have had a positive year and will hopefully finish the year up a few (very few) thousand bucks up but I wasn't ready financially or mentally for the full time grind yet. But we play the hands we are dealt to the best of our ability so wish me luck. Remember they don't call it grinding for nothing. It is a grind and there will be bad downswings no matter how well you play. Downswings are hard to push through but to play full time for a living you have to push through them. So a few to things to get good at before you take the plunge:1. Join a good training site or actually 2 if you can. I recommend PokerVT, Deepstacks for tournaments and Deuces Cracked or Bluefire for cash.2. Don't jump into staking/coaching deals - there are a lot of people out there offering these and while some are good many are not.3. Learn to detach all emotion from your game. In the long run this is one of the most important things to learn.4. Learn proper bankroll management and stick to it - take shots once in awhile but only once in while not often and never blow your BR on a shot, stick to what you learn and don't ever stray from it.5. Learn disciplined play. Find a game you like and stick with it until you've mastered it. Figure out how much time you can play stick with it. 6. Practice, practice, and more practice. 7. Love the game of poker very much. If don't love it you won't stick with it. 8. Don't even think of going pro until you've played at least 10K tournaments with a decent ROI for your game type or 100K or many more hands of cash (don't play cash so not as sure here) with a good bb/100 winrate. Everyone has heaters and some last quite awhile so make sure you are really winning consistently and not just on a heater before you give up the day job. Good luck, you'll need it!One more thing: One of the hardest things I've found since I've been playing full time is sticking to a schedule and treating poker like my job. I think this is very important and I'm working hard at getting to the point I need to be at with this.TBH if you're in the US the legality thing is an issue to be considered.

[kepper 0]

I think you should go for it!!

[theMONARCH 0]

Thanks everyone for their views on thisAs much as everyone says don't do it, I will basically have a year free pass after the next couple yearsto try it out so i figure why not. Secondly thanks for the good advice.I think I will be joining a training site or two beginning of this next year. Other than that the emotion of losing streaks doesn't bother me, I don't reallyget too emotional. Except when I make a bad move, even just losing a BB or two from my own mistake Iwill get mad, but if a donk takes me for my stack 5 times in a row, I usually am fine telling him how good he is playingand hope to sit down with them again. Also I have played at least 100k- 200k hands of play money poker over the last 2 years, since I wasn't able to play for real money until just recently, of which i have been playing only micro stakes and re figuring out the game. I have also probably spent as much time watching poker hands, pro poker sessions, and reading books on poker as i probably have played. My goal right now is turning 10$ into 1000$ (Setting my goals high to make myself realize how unlikely it is, yes I understand thats odd but it helps me) on FTP by end of next august. I chose 10$ because I think playing super micro stakes and working up from there, plus dealing with bankroll management at that level will be helpful later on. that will be starting in January. Also in January I just recently found out about a free poker league in my area that plays every weekend, And where you place each weekgives you points. the leader at the end of the season gets a free buy into some big tournament. Will be trying my luck out at that as well.But anyways I will keep everyone updated as i progress and might start another feed for my challenge. thanks everyone

[wsox8 10]

Don't do it! Seriously it's tough. I was working towards playing full time and hoped that about this time next year I would be there. Life and a bitch I worked for had other ideas and I got my start playing full time a year sooner than I had planned. Thank God for the unemployment supplement and a husband with a good job or I'd be in big trouble. I have had a positive year and will hopefully finish the year up a few (very few) thousand bucks up but I wasn't ready financially or mentally for the full time grind yet. But we play the hands we are dealt to the best of our ability so wish me luck. Remember they don't call it grinding for nothing. It is a grind and there will be bad downswings no matter how well you play. Downswings are hard to push through but to play full time for a living you have to push through them. So a few to things to get good at before you take the plunge:1. Join a good training site or actually 2 if you can. I recommend PokerVT, Deepstacks for tournaments and Deuces Cracked or Bluefire for cash.2. Don't jump into staking/coaching deals - there are a lot of people out there offering these and while some are good many are not.3. Learn to detach all emotion from your game. In the long run this is one of the most important things to learn.4. Learn proper bankroll management and stick to it - take shots once in awhile but only once in while not often and never blow your BR on a shot, stick to what you learn and don't ever stray from it.5. Learn disciplined play. Find a game you like and stick with it until you've mastered it. Figure out how much time you can play stick with it. 6. Practice, practice, and more practice. 7. Love the game of poker very much. If don't love it you won't stick with it. 8. Don't even think of going pro until you've played at least 10K tournaments with a decent ROI for your game type or 100K or many more hands of cash (don't play cash so not as sure here) with a good bb/100 winrate. Everyone has heaters and some last quite awhile so make sure you are really winning consistently and not just on a heater before you give up the day job. Good luck, you'll need it!One more thing: One of the hardest things I've found since I've been playing full time is sticking to a schedule and treating poker like my job. I think this is very important and I'm working hard at getting to the point I need to be at with this.TBH if you're in the US the legality thing is an issue to be considered.

you could have just QFT'd my post because we basically said the exact same thing.

[nutzzcase 0]

If you can 5-bet k3 suited, you are a pro.

[kazor 0]

Its a lot tougher mentally and physically then people realize.

[king_tanner 84]

[*]Don't let the donks get you down. Take for example superjeff/outsider and kingtanner. These donks will play garbage and try to beat your aces. If they beat you, move on and curse them out in a PM at a later time, but live in the moment.

talk to the hand

[nutzbuster 7]

nit it upwait for the nutsshove profit and complain about every bad beat at every conceivable moment

[Darth Maple 0]

Thanks everyone for their views on thisAs much as everyone says don't do it, I will basically have a year free pass after the next couple yearsto try it out so i figure why not. Secondly thanks for the good advice.I think I will be joining a training site or two beginning of this next year. Other than that the emotion of losing streaks doesn't bother me, I don't reallyget too emotional. Except when I make a bad move, even just losing a BB or two from my own mistake Iwill get mad, but if a donk takes me for my stack 5 times in a row, I usually am fine telling him how good he is playingand hope to sit down with them again. Also I have played at least 100k- 200k hands of play money poker over the last 2 years, since I wasn't able to play for real money until just recently, of which i have been playing only micro stakes and re figuring out the game. I have also probably spent as much time watching poker hands, pro poker sessions, and reading books on poker as i probably have played. My goal right now is turning 10$ into 1000$ (Setting my goals high to make myself realize how unlikely it is, yes I understand thats odd but it helps me) on FTP by end of next august. I chose 10$ because I think playing super micro stakes and working up from there, plus dealing with bankroll management at that level will be helpful later on. that will be starting in January. Also in January I just recently found out about a free poker league in my area that plays every weekend, And where you place each weekgives you points. the leader at the end of the season gets a free buy into some big tournament. Will be trying my luck out at that as well.But anyways I will keep everyone updated as i progress and might start another feed for my challenge. thanks everyone

Good luck with this bro. These are the sort of challenges that I really really enjoy. Funny enough, I cashed out the majority of my roll at the end of November and was convinced that the $11 I had left was enough to make it to a 4 figure bankroll by the end of 2011 (similar to your challenge). To date I'm sitting on just over $80 at the minute so the challenge is going really well. If I could give you some advice it would be:Start with $10 and grind $0.25 and $0.10 SNG's until you hit $30. Sit down at $0.01/$0.02 NLHE cash games with $1.50 per table.With your FPP's play 70 fpp satellites to Sunday Quarter Mill and when you win unregister, keep the T$11 and go back to the SNG's as above to turn your T$ into cash.When you hit every 750 fpp's take the $10 Stellar Reward bonusStart playing $1.10 SNG's when the bankroll hits $80 - 70+ buy ins is plenty.Thats the best advice I can give you on a micro stakes challenge like this. Good luck!As for going Pro, I wouldn't turn anyone away from doing this as you should always follow your heart and follow your dreams, life really is too short, however, only when you really are making more at poker than your day job should you consider doing this full time. Be true to yourself. Good luck and Merry Christmas!

[Arsenic 0]

Win a tournament.....Simple as that. Otherwise you'll forever be a poker palooka, another chump on the grind, dreaming of the big times.

[babylondonks 5]

I also suggest you don't do it, but you remind me a lot of myself two years ago so I'm guessing you're going to do it anyway and you're gonna put a lot of work in. That's a great start. Playing lots of hands/studying a ton is a great foundation, but from experience I suggest you also try and keep things as fun as possible. The grind can really get to you but poker is much much easier when you find it enjoyable. That's something I found this year (when I 'turned pro') and my inability to deal with this is one of the biggest reasons I've struggled over the last 12 months.I wish you luck in your journey and suggest you immerse yourself as much as possible, watch videos, read the strategy forums on here, ask questions, absorb knowledge, try to understand the underlying thought process behind an action. It can't guarantee you success, but it can put you in as good a position to be successful as possible.

[rcgs59 15]

nit it upwait for the nutsshove profit and complain about every bad beat at every conceivable moment

wtg Scott nice talking about yourself thereseriously , listen to Dixie, FCPBob, and most of the others here. It takes hard hard work, studying and playing. Join a learning site, deepstacks , PokerVt, what ever school. Play a million hands. and after a few years hire a good coach. :)glbut I am still a donk after 35 years of playing so what do I know lol, nothing