How to Get Started As a Pro Poker Player
More than 60 million people play poker in the United States alone, but only a few take it to the professional level. There are around 30,000 semi-professional poker players in the US, with only 3,000 poker pros. What will it take to upgrade from a beginner or semi-professional to a poker pro who makes money and bluffs their way to the top?
It’s certainly about more than watching televised bluffs. Becoming a pro poker player means treating the game like a job, which is a process that starts long before you quit your day job. Discover how to become a pro poker player with consistent, deliberate practice.
Practice Decision-Making
The main difference between casual and pro poker players is that the latter can make decisions on a whim thanks to tons of practice that made it feel like a second nature. Professional poker players focus on consistent, well-informed decisions based on patterns, experience, and probability. They avoid relying on guesswork or instinct.
One of the most effective ways to sharpen decision-making under pressure is by playing on top ranked anonymous poker sites, where freeroll tournaments offer a low-risk environment to build skills and experience.
The fact that players can partake anonymously allows them to confidently experiment, test new strategies, and take risks while gaining experience. They also get to enjoy the freeroll tournament without spending money while you can win it.
Build a Good Bankroll
You’ll need more than talent to play full-time and gain enough experience to go pro. You need money. It protects you from variance more and gives you access to play more games. Poker is also a game with short-term swings and long-term edges.
You’ll need around 40 to 50 full buy-ins for live cash games. That means $8,000 to $10,000 minimum for $1 to $2 games. Meanwhile, tournaments are volatile, requiring at least 100 buy-ins to survive possible dry spells.
An important reminder is that chasing losses when you’ve tilted or jumping stakes after a few wins is the fastest way to kill the pro poker player status. Treat a bankroll like it was a business expense account. You aren’t gambling. You’re slowly exploiting long-term profit.
Master a Format
Our poker notes from last year have a saucy tip: MIT offers free poker courses, which is the ideal sweet spot to start practicing a single format until you master it. New players often make the mistake of jumping between sit & go, cash games, and MTTs before they learn how to master one.
Professionals typically start by focusing on one game until they can identify patterns, edges, and weaknesses others would miss. No-limit Hold’em is the ideal beginner’s choice. It’s the most widely-played format with the most accessible games. You could choose tournament or cash games, but stick to the variant. The learning curve will flatten as you narrow your focus.
Track Every Detail
Data is where the real story lies, whether playing online or live poker. You might think you’re winning, but a proven and tracked win rate reassures you. You measure wins in big blinds per 100 hands in cash games or track the return on investment (ROI) in tournaments.
Online players use hand trackers and HUDs to see opponent tendencies and weaknesses within their own game. Live players write session results down using hand notes. Numbers that show consistent profit with time highlight the potential for a career in poker.
Stay Strong Through Swings
Mind your mindset during downswings. Every poker player has bad runs, even the pros. Professionals simply handle it better. Variances can be brutal, particularly in tournaments that have seen perfect play unrewarded for weeks. Realistically, poker will tear you down if you tilt easily or fail to handle extended downswings.
Master your mindset like you do your skills. Use focus exercises, breaks, and strict stop-loss rules. Stop playing when you know you’re too tired to perform at your best. Poker carries no badge of honor for grinding through exhaustion if your win rate drops.
Treat Poker Like a Career
Poker stops being entertainment when it becomes your income. You start playing, even when you don’t feel like playing. You’ll continue studying when results are low, and you’ll surround yourself with people who still treat poker like a hobby.
Take notes, show up on time, build routines, and track the sessions and hours. Poker isn’t an identity. It’s a job. Any job has good and bad days, weird clients, and longer hours than desired. Players who make it long-term are those who stick to the process.
Adjust to Every Opponent
A play-to-win strategy used by elite players worldwide is to converge on a player archetype for every opponent the moment you sit down. Avoid the trap of trying what you saw some famous high-stakes streamer doing, and focus on your opponent in the moment. The streamer’s strategy is designed for $10,000 games, so don’t think it will work on a $55 MTT.
Players tend to bluff too little or call too much at lower-stakes games. Exploit what’s in front of you as soon as you sit at any table. Never assume all players are the same. Then, adjust your strategy to those around you.
Use Sessions as Tests
Treat every single poker session as a test of wits, strategy, and a full-blown psychological battle. Set goals before you start, whether it’s value betting thinner, folding to more 3-bets, or playing tighter out of position. Review them after the session, and adjust as necessary.
Start seeing mistakes as feedback. Each good fold is another win, even if you lost the pot. A professional poker career is developed one session at a time. Each session makes you adjust your strategy and instill the right habits.
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