Turning Professional Slots Gambling

Turning Professional

September 22, 2011

Regular readers will be more than aware that my last post was on me having motivational problems. This post is more to do with me talking about playing professional poker full stop. Now before we continue then I need to point out that I used to play the game full time previously a few years ago but I simply struggle to motivate myself now to play forty hours a week anymore. I think the problem of constantly motivating yourself to play poker is a bigger problem online than it is live. However it is online where I feel that a player needs to be because of the ability to be able to play more tables and the faster pace of play means that you can play far more hands per hour. But you have to remember that when you sit and play poker online then you are sat in a room doing nothing more than stare at a computer screen.

If you play live then you obviously do not have this problem but then you have the problem of travelling to casinos, far less game selection and far slower action. I think that playing full time professional poker is a difficult way to make a living long term. I am aware of many players who are full time pro’s but I am not aware of many who are full time and have been that way for ten years or more. In my mind then you are a full time pro if you have to be one simply because your income is coming from poker and nothing else. But there are very few people who can be said to fall into that category. Most people have income from other non-poker sources or sources that are poker related but do not involve actually playing. These sources can be writing, coaching, staking, reporting or whatever.

I think the best way to approach poker is in a semi-professional capacity as a player. Playing twenty hours per week as and when you actually want to play them is far superior to having to grind for forty hours per week on a set rota. That is too much like having a job and once a job becomes mundane then this is where you start to have mental problems. Many novice players or serious short term players find that difficult to comprehend because in their mind then winning money is the Holy Grail and Nirvana. But any long time pro knows about the grind of playing poker week in, week out, month in month out and a few get to be year in and year out. But not many are decade in and decade out. You look at all of the people on all of the forums who play poker and nearly 100% of them fall into the category of either losing players and break even players who can’t play full time anyway, people who play part-time and a small percentage who have been full-time and don’t do it anymore or some that are full time but haven’t been that way for a long time. I am yet to hear of someone who has been a full time pro either online or live for ten years and that tells its own story.

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