Guide to Becoming a Professional Poker Player
and you’re thinking about becoming a professional poker player, but you don’t know what to do. We’re going to spend some time today going through some questions you need to ask yourself if you’re contemplating on becoming a professional poker player.
* The most important thing you need to ask yourself is what your bankroll is for poker and also for your expenses. If you’re single then your expenses are probably pretty low and you might be able to afford trying to become a professional poker player, but if you have a family it’s much more difficult and stressful. You also need to make sure you can handle some losing streaks at the poker table and still have enough money to bounce back.
* Playing poker on TitanPoker as your job can make it a lot less fun and a lot more stressful since you need to make money when you play. It’s important you have friends and family who know what you’re doing and who you can rely on for a support system. There is no doubt you’re going to run into some rough times in the early months of your career, and it’s great to have some family and friends who can help you through the rough patches.
* If you want to play poker everyday on PokerStars as your career you need to make sure that you absolutely love playing poker. If you don’t love playing the game then you’re going to quickly become bored of playing the game everyday and then you’re going to be jobless. When you’re not playing for fun and you’re playing for your job the game becomes a bit different and it isn’t the same as sitting down on a weekend to play for fun.
* You’re going to have enormous amounts of pressure on yourself and especially in the early months of your career while you’re building up your savings. When you have this much pressure on you a lot of people can’t handle it and collapse under the pressure. If you can’t handle the pressure then you shouldn’t try becoming a poker player for your career.
* You need to keep taxed as a poker player and every three months you need to cut a check for the IRS or else they might come after you which isn’t worth the hassle since it’s a felony. Typically you should hire an accountant to take care of your taxes for you throughout the year so that they’re ready to be sent out every three months to the IRS.
* Playing poker for a living on PokerStars.com is going to be long and tough hours as well and you might end up spending more time at the poker table then you did at your old job. Some days it will take 12-15 hours to make a small profit and you can’t do anything about this except deal with it. Your social life is going to need to take a hit and your health can even become in jeopardy due to the long hours needed in the poker room.