- How many of you guys Actually make a living playing poker? How much do you make a year? Do you enjoy playing poker for a living? Do you see yourself playing poker for a career for the rest of your life? Ended up winning a satellite to the main, building a big stack into day 2, and donked it all off before the money.
- One that illustrates the complexities involved in making a living gambling. You don’t want to come from, “It’s not possible,” because obviously it is. There are thousands of professional poker players in the world, but I can’t think of a handful of pros that are successful today that are not treating it.
You have a good life.
You have a supportive family, a nice set of friends, and a decent job.
How much money can you make playing online poker in 2020? Among other things, visitors will find a daily dose of articles with the latest poker news, live reporting from tournaments, exclusive.
Is It Possible To Make A Living Off Online Poker
Whenever you find free time, you play poker with your friends and relatives and for some strange reason, you get to kill the game and win almost every time.
Although it’s impossible to win each hand you’re dealt with (even Phil Ivey has to fold a hand from time to time), you have a sense of what’s going on at the poker table.
When we play, we must realize, before anything else, that we are out to make moneyYou think you have the steel to win poker matches, especially in your home games, but have you ever thought about earning a second income from poker?
If this is the first time you’ve heard of playing poker as a source of secondary income then you’re in for a treat. A fair warning though, I don’t suggest that you gamble your lifesaving’s away.
All you need to do is be smart about it and plan in advance.
Start off with the extra cash that you have and make sure you don’t blow your hard-earned money away.
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Don’t give poker a bad name
Bull going all-in!You’ve cards flying up in the air together with limped bodies and cowboy boots.
Poker is often associated with cowboys and westerns thanks to much Hollywood movies we’ve seen.
If not westerns, poker (and other card games) is often played in sleazy and dingy card rooms.
Rats won’t stand a chance in these filthy places much less you, the poker player.
Whether we like it or not, that’s the poker environment we’ve grown accustomed to: polluted, covered with cigar smoke, and dangerous.
Let’s thank the poker gods (and ESPN) because the descriptions above aren’t close to real card rooms and casinos.
You don’t see dudes from the ‘hood with guns toting at you. Instead, you’re more likely to find businessmen, math professors, MBA degree holders, and more plain average Joes.
Of course there are sharks (professional poker players who make a living out of the game), but with the right preparation and steady bankroll, the idea of earning a second income from poker is very possible.
The Reality of Poker: Gambling versus Sport
A scene from the movie Rounders.“Guys around here will tell ya, you play for a living, it’s like any other job. You don’t gamble, you grind it out. Your goal is to win one big bet an hour, that’s it. Get your money in when you have the best of it. Protect it when you don’t. Don’t give anything away. That’s how I paid my way through half of law school. A true grinder. You see, I learned how to win a little at a time” – Mike McDermott.
Are those lines familiar to you?
If they’re not, they’re from the opening scene of the movie Rounders.
We can get a lot of card philosophy from the movie if you’re considering earning a second income from poker.
The debate whether poker is gambling or sport remains unresolved and to the uninitiated, poker players are often frowned upon.
But one thing should be clear: Poker only becomes gambling if you play with reckless abandon like a boxer who throws punches with his eyes closed. What goes on at the poker table – how you you’re your cool, how you react, and how you decide – is a microcosm of real life.
Poker is no different from a sought-after business deal. It’s no different from war (or the threat of it) and brinkmanship is crucial. And just like the many aspects of our professional and private lives, poker is about making decisions.
Poker is not for the faint of heart. It’s for adventurers, thrill-seekers, and especially those with entrepreneurial spirits. It’s about taking risks and calculated chances.
You must have the heart and soul to appreciate victories and the humility to accept defeat without going crazy.
Earning a Secondary Source of Income FROM POKER: How to Prepare
The Art of Poker“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” – Sun Tzu, Art of War.
It’s a scary thought, but I have to admit that poker’s a tough sport.
What’s easy these days anyway?
With that in mind, in wouldn’t hurt if you prepare before you rush into the sport.
Here’s another tip: treat poker as an investment.
If you look at poker as an investment, you won’t squander your cash in casinos and online card rooms like you have a cash flow that never runs out. Every investment has risk and to keep that always in mind will help you protect it.
Play within your means. Don’t be blinded by a pipe dream. Sure, it’s sweet to see yourself at the final table of the World Series of Poker with Phil Ivey on your left and Tom Dwan on your right.
Don’t mistake the money you win for fame, glory, and wealth. Think of your winnings as windfalls that could help pay the bills or the vacation you’ve been longing for.
What’s important is to play the blinds that won’t hurt your wallet.
Remember: your objective is to make poker a source of secondary income, not make you poorer. You have to grind it out.
Set Targets
Set your target.Set yourself a goal each time you play.
Put a reasonable monetary target.
There’s no shame if your goal is to win $100 per four or five hours of playing poker every day.
The point is to build your bankroll big enough to augment your current income to support your family’s or friends’ financial needs.
Here’s another Rounders treat for you: “You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle.”
Be wise when you play poker and make it a source of secondary income.
All the other players sitting with you at the table are out there to take your money, too.
Variance and bad beats will show their terrible heads from time to time, but you can control your losses if you leave yourself outs.
Who knows? Maybe the next time you re-read this article in front of you – this article that spawned your desire to consider earning a second income from poker – your monetary target is no longer $100 per night, but $5,000 or $10,000 or more!
I don’t know where you live or from which part of the world you come, but there are plenty of places you can go to find a good poker game.
- Search for local card rooms within your vicinity.
- Check out the tables and their swings.
- Observing how the regulars play will give you an idea how strong the players are.
You can use what you observed and assess whether your game is good enough to play head-on with the veterans of the card rooms. You can have a feel of what’s going on around you by playing face-to-face with other poker players.
However, live poker games in card rooms and casinos have disadvantages.
Here they are:
Online Poker Games
Not as good as live but still…How To Make Money Off Online Poker
If you can’t handle the distance and you want to avoid additional cost, don’t worry.
Online poker games abound it’s like choosing from live card rooms, too. Below are three examples of online poker sites that you can try if you prefer to save more money:
Learn More Poker
Learn more poker.Finally, learn from the masters of the game.
Sure you can beat your buddies at home even when blindfolded. You can rip them off and take their barbecue money.
However, when you go pro – at least from earning a secondary income standpoint – it wouldn’t hurt to read about the game.
Chess grandmasters would spend thousands of hours playing. They also spend loads of time reading and studying chess books to up their game.
Go grab a poker e-book. Read Doyle Brunson’s Super System. My personal favorites, for some strange reason, include Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book of Poker and Daneil Negreaneu’s Hold’em Wisdom for All Players. You could also try the books of Phil Helmuth, Barry Greenstein, and Gus Hansen.
They’re all worth reading.
Watch videos how the pros play and bluff their way. Watch Ivey, Dwan, Esfandiari, Mizracchi. Sooner or later all else will become clear and you’ll have an arsenal of tricks that could help you increase your bankroll.
Besides, when you’re just starting with the game, you learned the rules and felt it as you went along.
This time, you have to be smart. Really smart.
That’s how you prepare if earning a second income from poker is what you want.
I will leave you with an inspirational video from Doyle Brunson and after you can start playing some real poker.
Be honest, how many of you reading this article have wanted to be an online poker pro at some point since discovering such a thing was possible? I know I have — and on more than one occasion.
Being able to play poker for a living seems like the perfect job — for someone who loves poker at least. But it’s harder than you would like to believe. How to be an online poker pro? We have six quick poker tips for you to set you on your way to your dream job.
How to become a professional online poker player in one easy step would be to quit your job and use poker as your sole source of income. While this instantly makes you a poker pro, it is not advised, not even a tiny amount, for reasons that we’ll cover shortly.
1. Study all aspects of the game
Studying the game of poker is crucial if you want to learn how to succeed as a professional online poker player. When you think you have learned all there is to learn about poker, you need to study and research even more. In fact, you should never stop learning because standing still in this game means you’re going to be left behind.
Read articles on PokerNews, check out the 10 most important poker strategy books ever written, join a training site, or hire a coach. Any edge you can create for yourself will eventually lead to profits.
You can also practice playing no limit hold'em and pot limit Omaha cash games and tournaments for free at WSOP Social Poker. The games are completely free to play, meaning you can play poker for fun, try new things and never risk any of your bankroll.
2. Prove you’re a winning player
Remember how we said that handing in your notice and jumping straight into being a professional poker player isn’t a good idea? This is one of the main reasons why: you need to prove to yourself you know how to be a profitable online poker player first.
Many people bag a big score in a tournament, or win the equivalent of two months’ wages at the cash tables and start thinking that this game is an easy way to make a living. Wrong!
You need tens of thousands of cash game hands and tournaments (if not hundreds of thousands) to prove you’re a winning player. If you’re not a winning poker player over the long term, you’ll soon be heading back to your old boss cap-in-hand hoping to be reemployed.
Is This Your First Step To Becoming a Poker Pro?They say practise makes perfect and what better way to improve your online poker skills than by doing so without any risk at all to your poker bankroll? This is possible at WSOP Social Poker because it is a free-to-play online poker site that has cash games and tournaments running around the clock.
Try out new strategies completely free at WSOP Social Poker and set yourself on the way to becoming a professional poker player.
Play Now3. Be realistic
Once you’ve ascertained that you’re a winning poker player, it’s time to begin trying to figure out how many hands or tournament you’ll need to play in order at least to match your previous salary. Here’s where many people fail.
When you have a salaried job, you are usually paid on the same date every month regardless of how productive your week or month is (within reason). You’re almost certainly paid while on vacation, or if you’re sick.
Are you really going to sit grinding for 60 hours every week?
The fact you have to go to work five days per week is probably enough to make you get out of bed and go to your job. But what if none of that was true?
You may have aspirations of making $150,000 a year
, and that may be possible. But make sure you factor in at least three full weeks “holiday.” You should also plan for being sick and unable to play for a couple of weeks per year. Also, ask yourself — are you really going to sit grinding for 60 hours every week? Do you think you can make enough money at $0.25/$0.50 to warrant giving up your job?How many online poker pros are there who wake up at 12:00 p.m., play online poker for two hours, and then swan off enjoying life to the max. The answer is not many, and those who do generally don’t succeed as professional online poker players for any meaningful length of time.
4. Give playing poker professionally a trial run
Even if you have done all of the above, you should at least give playing for a living a trial run, so you have experience of how to play online poker professionally.
Take a week’s holiday from your job and spend the next five working days doing nothing but playing poker (at least you’ll be getting paid even if you have a bad week!). You may surprise yourself at how difficult it is to motivate yourself to play poker non-stop for a week. Or how after four hours grinding you suddenly lose all concentration. Or how after losing 15 buy-ins during the first three days you no longer want to get out of bed at 7:00 a.m.
It’s best to find out you’re not cut out for the life of a poker pro before you take the plunge into playing for a living.
5. Build a big bankroll and liferoll
You haven’t gone through all the previous steps but still think you know how to be an online poker pro. That’s fine, but do you have a bankroll and your other finances in order?
Most poker pros like to have at least six months’ worth of life expenses tucked away in a separate bank account in case things go pear-shaped. Dipping into your poker bankroll to cover your bills is a big no-no.
Your bankroll should be larger than a recreational player would have because you never want to drop down in stakes. Doing so, dropping down that is, makes it harder to reach your monetary goals — much harder. It’s better to be a bankroll nit than it is going broke.
6. Act professionally
Professional poker players often cite the freedom it gives them for playing for a living, but that’s not to say you shouldn’t have a professional attitude towards the job. Some of the best poker players in the world are extremely disciplined and in their approach every single day.
You wouldn’t rock up to work and put your feet on the desk or lounge around on the sofa with your laptop, so don’t do it as a poker pro. How to become a professional poker player? Starting acting like one, a professional that is.
This article was originally published on Jul. 5, 2017. Last update: Jun. 20, 2019.
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