What’s Life as an Online Poker Pro Really Like?

What is playing professional poker really like? It’s something a great many amateur online gamblers have thought about.

Big bankrolls, glamorous locations, huge payouts… the appeals are seemingly endless! Is it really as glamorous as it seems?

On the surface level, the answer seems to be yes.

Few normal jobs afford workers the many comps today’s pros get to enjoy – free nights in some of the world’s most exclusive hotels, comped drinks, meals, even air travel – to say nothing of the exhilarating thrills that come with big wins.

Even visiting the beautiful locations of many top casinos – Macau, Monte Carlo, the Bahamas – seems like a dream!

But when you read interviews with top players, a different story emerges.

Let’s look underneath the surface to discover what the life of a pro is really like.

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Separating Fantasy from Reality

For recreational players, gambling is a primarily something done for fun. Even when it’s taken seriously – as it should be, when serious money is at stake – there’s a special kind of thrill to the game.

For a professional, it’s a different matter entirely!

Gambling is how the pros make their living. If the game is fun, so much the better – but the most important thing, by far, is the bottom line.

This one central difference makes all the difference.

Consider the aforementioned perks of travel, staying in fancy hotels, and enjoying free drinks. These are all things that recreational players tend to love. In the Hollywood movie version of pro gambling life, these are just some of the icing on the cake!

But when viewed from a pro perspective, the whole thing seems turned on its head: travel to a casino is part of their commute, the hotel is just a part of the establishment at which they’re working, and drinking on the job is a recipe for disaster.

(Fun fact: the word ‘amateur’ comes from the latin root “amatore…” meaning ‘lover.’ So an amateur is literally someone who loves the game! By this logic, calling someone an amateur is far from an insult! One would hope that even the most hardened veteran professional would still be an amateur at heart.)

The Daily Grind

While it’s fun to imagine a glamorous life of big win after big win, when professional players describe their working life, one word that comes up again and again is unglamorous.

A big part of the reason why is that, in order to win enough money to exceed their living expenses, pro poker players need to log a lot of hours at the tables.

Pros keep records of their winnings and losses, just like any other business. After playing for a few months, it’s relatively simple to calculate an average hourly winnings rate.

In practice, this rate is just like an hourly pre-tax wage at any other job! And the player has to log enough hours to exceed expenses.

And it doesn’t matter if the player feels like hitting the tables that day or not! Bills have to be paid, so hands have to be played.

It doesn’t matter of those hours are played at brick-and-mortar casinos or online. Any way you slice it, there’s a workmanlike quality to pro play.

The Well-Oiled Machine

In many ways, a top-tier poker player has more in common with an elite athlete or classical violinist than she or her does with your average ant, sales rep, or office manager.

Why?

Because playing poker against the best in the world ( that pros are very often playing against other pros) requires constant focus and attention to detail.

Losing focus for even a single hand – even a single bet – can wipe out a bankroll that took months or years of to build! Alternatively, in can mean the difference between reaching a tournament’s final table or finishing out of the money.

That’s why professional poker players have to take their self-care very seriously indeed. Playing after a bad night’s sleep, or with a nasty hangover, is a major liability!

On tournament days, it’s not uncommon to find top players at the gym before play starts, taking care of their bodies so that their wits can be as sharp as possible at the tables.

Similar attention must be paid to diet, sleep, even meditation and mental health. A player who can’t stay sharp is a player who will soon be separated from his or her stack.

The River

It’s very understandable that those who play poker for fun would imagine life as a professional player to be pure pleasure.

But as we’ve learned, the reality is quite far from the fantasy!

There are different types of gamblers out there, and that’s part of what makes the game so beautiful. And there are definitely real advantages to life as a professional player.

With that said, playing professionally requires hard work, perseverance, and tremendous attention to detail. It’s not for everyone, and it’s definitely not all about the perks!