So you've decided that you want to give playing
poker professionally a shot. Ok, now what? Before you stick it to the
man and quit your day job there's a lot to consider...even though
there's only so much you can control at the tables, you still need a
solid plan in place to succeed. I want to offer my advice on how to make
the transition from whatever you're currently doing to playing poker
full-time. I'll draw upon my own experiences of how it all started and
share how I've been able to make a living playing cards going on five
years now...
1. Build up an adequate bankroll and do it by playing part-time.
I know you are probably feeling hasty and eager to start playing poker
full-time but building up a bankroll on the side of your regular job or
studies can do a few great things to improve your success rate when
turning pro. First and most importantly, you'll have some kind of idea
about what to expect when you turn pro. You still won't know exactly how
your results will turn out but you will have a fairly good idea of how
you'll perform at the tables. You'll also gain the confidence to succeed
knowing that you've been able to beat the limits that you want to play
at a higher volume up to this point in time. Finally, it's fairly
obvious but by starting out your career with an adequate bankroll (think
100 buy-ins for cash games), you're giving yourself a much better
chance of surviving any negative variance that may come your way.
Instead of just throwing a few thousand dollars online and not really
knowing what you're getting yourself into, take the time to grow a
bankroll after work or school and sharpen your skills along the way.
Remember that there's no quick, easy way to be successful at poker in
the long-term and it's going to take a lot of work so be patient.
I
started playing cash games at the micro-stakes in the later years of my
time at university and it really doesn't take that long to move up
limits and be bankrolled for the games that you eventually want to play.
I think that it only took a few months before I had moved up to 100nl,
had my bankroll locked and loaded and was confident that I could beat
the games with some consistency.
2. Plan for the worst case scenario.
This has got to be my most important piece of advice because although
you want to be full of enthusiasm and optimism, especially at the start
of your career, you also need to be realistic and understand that no
matter how skilled of player you are you're not bigger than the variance
that comes along with the game in the short term. Even if you're
adequately bankrolled for the limits that you want to play, you've never
done this full-time before and you don't know how your results will be
affected by numerous factors-including increased hours, tables, tilt,
real life emergencies etc. You just want to have a backup plan in place
and be honest enough with yourself that you consider the fact that
failing is a possible outcome. I don't mean to scare anyone away or
sound like I'm deterring them from turning pro...if anything planning
for the worst case scenario had a tremendously positive affect on the
start of my career. Once I had my backup plan in place, I was able to
play with nothing holding me back! I didn't let the daily swings get to
me as much and was really able to just go for it and if it didn't work
out, well then it didn't work out and I'd be just fine.
To give
you a clear example of what I'm talking about, for me, I had steadily
built up a $10,000 bankroll while playing casually over my years at
university and during the summer before my last semester at school I
wanted to do a trial run of going pro. That bankroll was basically all
of my money at the time, as my bank accounts usually got pretty dry by
the end of the school year and I'd typically refill them over the summer
by working a random summer job. Needing about $5,000 to cover my school
expenses for my last semester, I decided that I'd give playing poker
full time a shot but if my bankroll ever dropped to $5k I'd stop right
there and quit, withdraw the money to use for school and re-evaluate
poker at a later time.
3. Treat poker like a day job and set goals. Even
though poker can offer you tremendous freedom and flexibility, you're
not going to achieve financial success by playing a couple of hours a
day (well, depending on your stakes I guess ;)). You probably need to
plan on playing 4-8 hours a day at least to ensure that you're putting
up consistent results. I would recommend setting VPP targets every month
to keep you on track and take the emphasis off of results and back on
things that you can control-the hours that you put in. Starting out with
a year-long VPP target is a very good idea and that will let you know
how many VPPs you're going to need to average monthly/daily/hourly etc.
to hit the year-end number. Especially when you're just starting your
career, having a bunch of smaller goals to supplement your year-long
plan will be helpful to keep you on track and give you an idea of how
much you should be playing.
When I started playing poker
full-time, I was all-in and fully invested. I was playing tons of hours
and hungry to succeed. Having an empty bank account will do that for
you. My social life still existed but was largely scaled back...I was
playing poker, thinking about poker and dreaming about poker at night. I
was probably playing too much, as there's always a point where your
play becomes much worse with increased volume but when you're that
focused on succeeding it will bother you to not be playing. If I could
go back and do it over again, I would just try to have more of an
organized playing schedule in place but my hours would still be heavy.
Anyway,
if you have the passion for the game and want to give turning "pro" a
shot then hopefully you'll find my advice helpful and maybe I'll see you
at the tables in the near future.
If you have any more questions, I'm always available on twitter (@frosty012), Facebook Tyler "frosty012" Frost), or right here on my blog.
gl at the tables!
