Professional Online Poker Players
The recent poker boom
spurned on by television coverage of tournament poker
as well as the ability to play online
has introduced the world to a new career path: that of the professional poker player. Players such as Phil Hellmuth
Gus Hansen
Phil Ivey
Johnny Chan
and others have become true media superstars. And from watching these tournaments
where thousands of dollars are at stake based on the turn of a card
many see poker as the road to a life of riches
thrills
and glory.
But the reality of professional poker is far different. Indeed
there are many people
including myself
either solely playing for a living or supplementing their income by playing cards. But you’ll never see most of us under the lights of the World Series of Poker or the World Poker Tour. While a select few do make money solely from playing the large buy-in poker tournaments
the vast majority are grinding out a few dollars per hour in the cash games. And with the advent of online poker a new type of professional has arisen: the online multi-table pro.
For those of you not familiar
in online poker it is indeed possible to play more than one table at a time. Most of the top online professional poker players do so. The number of tables one can play is limited by the individual poker sites
but it is not uncommon for one player to play eight
twelve
or even sixteen games at once
often spread across multiple sites
limits
or even different games. For example
I personally like to play a mix of four to six sit and go tournaments (a type of online tournament involving five to ten players that lasts around an hour) and four to six no limit hold’em cash games. The benefit of playing many games at once is fairly obvious: if one is a winner at one table
why not play ten more and win at those too?
There are thousands of poker players out there making a living doing just this
at widely varying stakes. While in the past
it was necessary to play for a relatively large amount of money to simply pay the bills
these days someone can play games as low as $.50/$1 blind no limit hold’em and make far more than what is possible in most vocations. Furthermore
since lower stakes games require a smaller starting bankroll to be successful
professional poker has become a very accessible goal for many young hopefuls. If one is willing to put in long hours in the smallest stakes games
it is certainly possible to start a poker career from as little as $1000.
Still
most fail in their dream of gambling for a living. The rake
a fee taken out of each pot by the online poker sites
ensures that only about ten percent of all players win over the long run. Only the most talented
dedicated
and disciplined players rise to the level of being able to play professionally. And given their intelligence and skills
many of them would be far wealthier had they chosen to pursue other fields. But professional poker
especially when played online
offers something that most jobs cannot: the ability to choose your own hours
be your own boss
and know that over the long run
your success is based only on your own ability.