Michael Gracz Explains How to Become a Professional Poker Player
If you want to play poker for a living, you have to eat, breathe, sleep, bleed poker. If you don't know whether you really love it, I suggest going to Las Vegas a few times, playing poker with the locals and see how you do against them.
If you do well, and it's something you can do every day for 12 hours a day, take a shot, but make sure you have the financial freedom -- don't come out to Vegas with $7,000 and expect to turn it into a million. Vegas was built on a bunch of hometown heroes, coming out here and going broke.
I played poker throughout high school and got pretty serious about in college. I started paying my tuition and my rent with poker winnings. I was working as a waiter at the time and realized I was making more money playing poker, so I just walked out of my restaurant one night and decided "I'm going to go play poker for a living."
After school, I won a $250,000 tournament in Atlantic City, getting about 40 percent of that. From there I said I always wanted to be a pro, I've gone to Vegas for a number of years and done well, but with $100,000 in winnings, I finally had the financial freedom to take a few chances and it worked out.
Depending on what kind of lifestyle you want to lead -- if you are a 21-year old college kid coming into the real world to play poker, you can move out here with $50,000 and take a shot at the $15/$30 and $30/$60 cash games. Remember, you are going to have to pay about $1,000 in rent and utilities; you have a car, food and expenses, so that $50,000 will take you through that first year. You also have to play off that money you bring out.
Now if you want to play the tournament circuit and fly around the world in places like Aruba, the Caribbean, Australia, Monte Carlo and all the different World Poker Tour stops, you are going to need at least a half-million dollars.
The most consistent way to build a bankroll is definitely playing in the cash games. If you are a good player, you probably win 70 percent of the time. In a poker tournament, Amarillo Slim said, "You are trying to build a toothpick into a lumberyard." You've got to have a lot of character, a lot of resilience and a lot of heart.
When you are playing tournament poker for a living, 95 percent of the time you are coming home empty handed. In the cash games, you can get up at any time, where in a tournament, if you take a bad beat, you have to deal with that right then and right there and not let that affect the rest of your game.
There is a lot of work to being a professional. You have to put in a lot of time at the tables and spend the time away from the tables improving your game. Then you have to deal with the financial swings that aren't present in any other profession in the world.
June 30, 2006
Posted By Tom Jones
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
Previous Page | Internet Gambling | Top Online Casinos | Submit News!