The Poker Mentality
If you only play poker for FUN, then making the jump to poker for a living may not be for you. Because to be successful, you must be able to play at DULL tables… against BORING players… and sit patiently for hours waiting for the right times to “make moves”.
The best players treat poker like a BUSINESS… not a hobby. It’s a way to make money. Period. Sure… poker pros love the game and respect it, but they aren’t playing for pride. They’re playing to pay the mortgage, car payments, and win more MONEY. Do you ever get TIRED of waiting for good cards? Do you get annoyed by quiet… slowmoving
tables?
If you’re going to win money consistently, you’ve got to be able to play ten hours at a time… at a BREAK EVEN rate… as you patiently wait for the BIG OPPORTUNITITES to rake in large pots. Of course, besides being patient and ignoring that “itch” for excitement, you must also be able to handle LONG HOURS and LATE NIGHTS every day. When you hear “poker professional”, what do you think of? Lots of people think of the guys who win the World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour and take in multi-million dollar purses.
But only a SMALL FRACTION of pros win those tournaments. Hell… not all pros even ENTER most tournaments, depending on their preferred game. And most importantly, the WIN RATE of even the best pros is very small. Just because you see someone on TV a lot one season doesn’t mean he always makes the final table for every tournament he’s in. What you DON’T see is all the frustrating losses he’s had to GET to this point. For every final table, there’s five… ten… twenty… maybe FIFTY… “bad” tournaments.
Most of the money that you’ll MAKE as a pro doesn’t come from that BIG tournament win. Instead, it comes from “grinding it out” at the casinos and card rooms. Try playing poker for a 12-hour session… FIVE DAYS IN A ROW. If you find yourself getting too tired, you’re not ready for the pro life. There are lots of players who have a DEEP PASSION and LOVE for poker… but they don’t have the PERSONALITY needed to play full-time. That’s why many of the greatest players just play SEMI-professionally… which may be a viable option for you too.
Bluffing
A bluff is a bet or raise that if called has very little chance of winning. Bluffing is an important part of Limit Hold’em but it is not nearly as important as most people think. In fact, people who do not play poker very much often think bluffing is the most important concept to the game. This wouldbe a mis-characterization of the game. People probably overestimate the importance of bluffing in poker because bluffing as a strategy is fairly unique to the game of poker. Bluffing cannot be used in many other competitive games. The concept of bluffing does not exist in craps, billiards or chess. Often people will refer to poker when they discuss bluffing in other aspects of life. For example, during the 2004 NFL Draft, Chris Mortensen of ESPN described the discussions of the trade between the New York Giants and the San Diego Chargers for Eli Manning as a game of poker in that they were both trying to bluff and not show their hand.
To use the bluff successfully, one needs to know the right time to use it. In many low limit games, bluffing is often pointless since most players will call with weak hands. In the middle and high limit games, where players are more willing to fold hands, bluffing becomes an effective tool and can be used strategically at times. The value of bluffing will change depending on the players and the situation. For some opponents, they will not care about how you play because they have already predetermined whether they will call or fold based on their own holdings, they have not made the second step of trying to analyze what you have. Against those opponents, your decision to bluff or not should be based solely on what you think they have. Against other opponents who play better and who will try to deduce your cards given the play of the hand up to that point, it becomes a little more difficult. Not only do you need a good handle on the cards that they hold, but you also need to have a good idea of what they think you have.
A bluff does not need to be successful a majority of the time for it to be a worthwhile venture. It only needs to be successful more often than the pot odds provide for it to be a winning strategy. If the pot holds ten big bets, risking one big bet to try to win the pot is worthwhile even if the chance of a bluff being successful is only 15%. In that case, the expected value of a bluff would be
Expected Value of bluffing = (15% x 10 big bets) + (85% x -1 big bet) = +.65 big bets
If your opponent calls 85% of the time, you will be showing down a bluff bet and look foolish during those times. It is the 15% of the time when he folds a better hand than yours that you will take the money and no one else will know what you just did. An activity like bluffing can be quantified, even if much of the time, it is a skill of “feel” or intuition.
Poker Personalities
Playing poker for a living requires skill… patience… and perhaps most importantly, NERVES OF STEEL! When you work at a “real job”, you get a regular paycheck. Every two weeks or so, a check shows up on your doorstep… like clockwork. Hell, you may even get a BONUS from time to time.
BUT NEVER will your boss call you in his office and say: “You know, your work lately hasn’t been that great… so we’re going to KEEP your paycheck this week, AND we’re going to take $3,000.00 from your bank account…sorry.”
As a professional poker player, you can literally work your ASS OFF all day… only to leave thousands of dollars POORER! There’s no other job like this in the world. It takes an incredibly strong stomach to deal with the intense up’s and down’s… and the different “swings” of luck you’ll encounter. It’s difficult to be able to PREDICT if you’ve got what it takes to handle the emotions of being a pro. The only real way to “know” is to experience it first hand…
To be successful, you’ve got to have an ungodly amount of POISE. Pretty much every successful career player has poise… (despite what it looks like on TV). This means the players are in CONTROL of themselves at almost all times. They don’t get impatient and make silly moves at the table… if they don’t like the way a certain table looks, they WAIT for a new opening. They are LOGICAL about each decision and REMOVE EMOTION from their game.
Let me ask you this simple question:
When is the last time you went on “tilt”?
If you still go on TILT (or within the last 10-15 playing sessions), then you’re NOT ready for a career as a poker pro. Because tilt at the poker table is just a “microcosm” of the “tilt” you’ll feel in LIFE as a poker pro. If three consecutive bad beats sets you off… then just wait for THREE MONTHS of cold cards!
Poker Skill Levels
Just about every poker player OVER-ESTIMATES his own poker ability. If you asked every player in the world if they were “good” or “bad”, I’d guess about 90% would claim to be GOOD. This is IRONIC… of course… because about 90% of all poker players will end up LOSING money with the game.
As an example, just think about how many players LOVE to tell their “bad beats” stories. Ever wonder why that is? I think a big part of it is that they need an EXCUSE… so that they DON’T have to say, “Wow, I was totally outplayed!” Ego plays a huge role in poker… from amateurs to pros. But when you’re considering making the jump to playing poker for a LIVING, the stakes are too high to let your ego get in the way. You need to separate FACTS from VANITY.
Here are three initial steps to take to “get the facts” about your own poker playing ability:
1. Ask Around
Ask those people you PLAY WITH what THEY think of your poker skills. Don’t just ask your buddies either… talk to strangers at the casinos, chat with other online players, and have a friendly talk with your table “nemesis” if you have one. The point is to seek out opinions from OTHER parties about your skill level. Get a consensus. If nine out of ten people say, “You suck”… you probably do.
2. Track, Track, Track
Are you truly a WINNING player? How much money have you won this month? This year? What’s your “hourly rate”? What percentage of games do you win? Before assuming you have what it takes to be a poker pro, you must be able to answer these questions effectively and a have a clear history of tracking your play. Cold hard numbers don’t lie. After you log a solid 250 hours of poker, you’ll be able to get the REAL picture of your poker playing ability. You can’t really fool yourself by saying, “Oh, I caught bad cards” or “I had the WORST luck” because after 250 hours, your cold cards are equaled out by the hot streaks. If you are a loser after 250 hours, there is a good chance that you are going to be a loser at 2,500 hours.
3. Play A Variety Of Players
Sure, you might be able to DOMINATE the card game at the local pub with your DRUNK friends… but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to compete with strong players at the higher limits… the kind of games you’ll be playing as a PRO. Pros play a majority of games against players they know they can beat. But at higher stakes than what you’re probably used to. So before thinking about poker full-time, be sure to get a WELL-ROUNDED and complete picture of how you fare against the competition out there. Try out different games, try out different stakes online, go to different casinos, and so on. See if your previous success was your SKILLS or just BAD OPPONENTS.