If you’re already an ace at the amateur tables, it might be time to go pro and learn how to become a professional poker player. But hold on—there’s more to it than just stacking chips and calling bluffs. Becoming a pro poker player requires honing your skills, managing your bankroll, and building connections. Also, you must know the poker world’s legal ins and outs.
This guide covers everything you need to know to make that leap. We’ll discuss how to master the poker game, manage your money, network, and stay on the right side of the law. If you’re serious about it, read our tips straight from the pros who’ve been there, done that, and lived to tell the tale.
How to Become a Professional Poker Player Step by Step
To make a living from poker, there are certain steps you’ll need to take and things you’ll need to be aware of. This guide will explain everything you need to know before considering turning pro.
1. Adopt a Pro Poker Mindset
The first order of business is to make sure you’re in the mindset of being a professional. That means treating the game seriously, and like a job.
The Importance of Discipline and Patience
- Discipline is the most important skill in poker. You’ll need to make folds and bluffs that are strategically correct, be responsible with your bankroll, and dedicate yourself to studying properly.
- Patience helps you succeed at the game, and you’ll need to consistently make the most profitable decision in each situation. Sometimes, in live games, that might mean not playing a hand for hours. The payoff may come later, when you’ve stayed alive long enough to catch a strong run of cards.
Stay Motivated in the Long Run
- Poker is a game that can have severe swings, and staying properly motivated at both extremes is crucial for professionals.
- When you’re in a downswing, you’ll need to trust your own game and routine and keep trying to find the most profitable plays.
- When you’re on an upswing, you need to ensure it doesn’t go to your head, keep playing your game and stay within your bankroll.
2. Build a Strong Foundation in Poker Skills
To succeed, you’ll need to be stronger than the players in your games. That requires a solid foundation of knowledge to build from – make sure you’ve got a high level of baseline play before moving on to more advanced concepts.
Master the Basics
- Firstly, when considering how to become a good poker player, you need a solid foundation. You should be familiar with all of the fundamental concepts of the game, and have a solid, proven approach to all of the most common spots in poker.
- Thankfully, it’s now easier than ever to find resources to help you. There’s plenty of free content online to get you started, and for more advanced learning, subscriptions to training sites and solution libraries are easily affordable for the average player.
Bluffing: When and How to Execute It
- The old strategies of tight-aggressive poker and waiting to maximize profit with value hands won’t cut it in 2024. As the game progresses, players who don’t study will get left behind, and aggressive play including bluffs is essential to succeed.
- Consider your opponent’s range, and how many hands they’re likely to fold to different sizings. Most analysis of databases shows that players overfold in most spots, so find out how you can punish them.
3. Manage Your Bankroll Well
Managing your money is a core skill in poker, and the game is littered with stories of great players who went broke due to neglecting it. Being disciplined with your bankroll will ensure you stay in the game.
Set Up Your Poker Bankroll
- Establishing and maintaining a bankroll is one of the most fundamental keys to success as a pro. Your bankroll will be money set aside solely for poker, separate from your personal finances.
- The size of your bankroll will depend on the games you’re playing in and your level of risk tolerance. You may prefer an aggressive strategy early on in your career when the money is more easily replaced outside of poker, but a more conservative plan once your bankroll grows.
Manage Variance and Stay Afloat
- Maintaining a healthy bankroll can help you survive downswings mentally as well as financially. If you’re playing above your bankroll, a run of bad luck can be devastating for your mental game, creating a vicious cycle.
- When you’re comfortably rolled, it’s much easier to accept the variance of poker and play your best game.
4. Choose the Right Games and Tournaments
Game selection is half the battle in playing poker profitably. A mediocre player will be successful in a game against poor opponents, but a great player will lose if the other players at the table are world class. Here’s how to make sure you’re always in the right games.
Identify Profitable Games
- Be prepared to try new casinos, play at different times of day, and experiment with different sites to find the softest games available. As well as the skill of your opponents, you should also take into account the casino’s rake, which can often be decisive.
Online vs. Live Poker
- For live poker, you may only have one available casino in your area, but in online poker, you’ll have many sites to choose from. Online, you’ll also be able to instantly leave a game and sit down at another if the table dynamic changes for the worse.
5. Diversify Your Gameplay
No Limit Hold’Em is still by far the most dominant game in poker, but focusing on it entirely might lead you to neglect other profitable opportunities. Keep an open mind and experiment with other games.
Explore Different Poker Variants
- As well as trying different cardrooms, you should also explore different game types. You may be a better player at Hold’Em than Omaha, but if the Omaha games at your local casino are significantly softer, then they may be more profitable.
- Other formats can also be explored, although by playing more obscure variants such as mixed games, you may suffer from a lack of available tables. When trying a new game, start at smaller stakes than you’d usually play to get the basics first.
6. Continuously Improve Your Skills
Professional poker players don’t just play all day—they need a robust study routine as well. This will help you increase your edge and stay ahead of the field to gain even more profit at the tables.
Study Poker
- A solid plan of studying is what separates the average player from those who can consistently turn a profit. Many players focus on their biggest hands of the last session, but these are often unusual situations which rarely occur. Instead, work on the things that happen multiple times every session – continuation betting, check-raising, reraising, and other common situations.
Seek Mentorship and Joining Communities
- In poker, you never want to be a lone wolf. When considering how to become a pro poker player, you should look to join or start a group of players who can help each other out in your progression towards the highest stakes.
7. Treat Poker as a Business
As a pro, you are basically running a one-man business, and it should be treated as such. A store owner will get up and go to work every day, track their profits and losses, and always be looking to maximize profits. You should be no different.
The Business Mindset
- Setting achievable goals is a great way to ensure you keep progressing in the game, but you should start small and make sure they’re attainable. Always track your performance, even if you’re playing live and have to do so manually.
- Keep a note of all your expenses and profits, and take out as little as possible from your bankroll as you can in the early stages of your career.
Legal and Financial Considerations
- Make sure you’re well aware of the legal situation in your jurisdiction around professional poker. This can also get more complicated when local government taxes and pensions are factored in.
- Consider talking to a financial advisor, and always ensure you keep records of your expenses.
8. Use Technology to Improve Your Game
Technology is a key factor in how to become a better poker player. New poker apps and solutions are appearing on the market every year, changing how the game is played at a quicker pace than ever before.
Use Poker Tools and Software
- Tracking your play is easy for online players thanks to tools such as PokerTracker and Hold’Em Manager, but even for live players, there are apps available to record session results.
- When it comes to actually playing, you should make use of solution libraries and training apps like DTO Poker to help you increase the amount you learn from studying.
Stay Updated with the Latest Tech Trends
- In the solver era of poker, it’s important to keep on top of technological trends. A few years ago, there were no good solution libraries to subscribe to, whereas now there are several available.
- Use these to help you fully understand certain situations by changing the board or stack sizes in similar spots – don’t just use them to review an individual hand.
9. Learn from Others and Analyze Your Play
Poker is a social game, and there will always be players who are better in certain situations than yourself. By paying attention to other successful pros, you’ll be able to improve your game more rapidly.
Study Successful Players
- As well as your own circle, you should also be paying attention to what other successful players are doing. This could be a crusher in Triton high rollers, or it might just be someone who has success in your local cardroom.
Reflect on Your Losses: The Bad Beats
- When you look at other successful players, you’ll also notice that they have bad runs of luck and make mistakes just like any other player. Focus on how they react to these situations so that you can evaluate your own bad runs in a more objective manner.
10. Handle the Psychological Aspects of Poker
Tilt can cost several sessions’ worth of profit in just a couple of hours if you’re not in the right mindset. Mental resilience is the difference between how to become a great poker player and a mediocre one.
Deal with Tilt
- Poker can often feel like an unfair game, so it’s crucial to remember that bad beats happen to everybody, and will occur constantly throughout your career.
- Recognising tilt is the first step to beating it. You should know when to step away, and consider setting a stop-loss if you lose a certain number of buy-ins.
Stay Emotionally Balanced
- Try to not become overwhelmed by poker, particularly during downswings. Sometimes it can be worth taking a day or two off, or even a longer hiatus to recollect your thoughts and return fresh.
- Try to maintain a healthy social lifestyle outside of poker and give yourself time off rather than suffering burnout.
When to Transition to Professional Poker
Once you’ve understood what’s required to go professional, you’ll need to decide when you’re ready to make the leap. Here are three key things you should establish first.
1. Recognize the Signs
When considering how to become a poker player for a living, you should first be a winning player in games that you regularly play. Ensure that you have a long sample size before deciding this.
2. Test the Waters
A good step is to make the transition gradually, such as moving to part-time rather than leaving your job entirely. You should also set aside several months’ living expenses as well as a bankroll.
3. Make it Official
Once you’re ready to make the leap, you’ll have to make sure you’re recording all of your incomings and outgoings, and set up your legal framework with taxes to make sure everything’s above board. Reaching out to other professional players for advice is hugely important, not just for strategy advice, but also about any legal or financial questions about being a pro.
Key Takeaways
Becoming a professional poker player has some downsides, but it also has considerable upsides. You may earn more money than you can outside of the game, have considerable freedom, and in the long run, the game is almost a pure meritocracy.
By starting with the tips included in this guide, you can consider whether poker is truly for you.
You may also embark on a professional career to find out that it’s not well-suited to your lifestyle and prefer to keep poker as a hobby. But if you’re committed and motivated, and take the right approach, you can certainly turn your passion into a great career.