Is it possible to make a living playing poker? Absolutely, but just like the game itself, it requires strategy, patience, and hard work.
The difficulty of transitioning to a career as a professional poker player depends on three personal variables:
- Cash games vs tournaments — which format or poker games are your speciality?
- Live vs. online — are you going to play on the computer or at the casino?
- Bankroll management — what do your finances look like?
Where you fall under these factors will determine how hard becoming a professional poker player will be.
Let’s break each one down individually.
How to Become a Professional Poker Player — Cash Games vs Tournaments
When thinking of becoming a professional poker player, you want to stick to cash games or tournaments. Very few pros specialise in both.
Take world-renowned professional poker player Phil Hellmuth, for instance. He is one of the most accomplished WPT Poker Tour tournament players of all time.
He has won more World Series of Poker bracelets than any other person in history.
But when it comes to cash games, he is considered to be a weaker player, better known as a “fish”!
You must determine your speciality — it will change your gameplay mechanics and budget.
Tournament poker is high risk, high reward. Professional poker players can go for YEARS without hitting a big score. You can spend long stretches net-negative.
But on the rare occasions that you do win, one major score can keep you financially secure for a long time.
Case in point: The Main Event at the World Series of Poker has a $10,000,000 prize for first place!
Cash games are much more stable. As a matter of fact, many cash game pros are referred to as “grinders” — people who grind at the tables day in, day out. Cash game poker is less swingy and more sustainable.
When you sit down at a cash game table, you’re rarely going to win more than 3x your buy-in, but it’s still a profitable pursuit when executed correctly.
How Hard Is It to Become a Professional Poker Player?
In discovering how to become a professional poker player, the key difference here is payouts.
Cash games are one chip = 1 dollar.
If you buy into a cash game for $100 and leave with $150, you’ve profited $50 for the day. It’s essential to understand that you won’t win every time, but you will win more frequently and consistently than in tournament poker.
The payout structure for tournaments is much riskier.
Only the top 10-15% of players finish a poker tournament with any profit at all. If 100 people enter a tournament, the top 10% will get paid. That means the top 10 players will make money, but the people who finish in places 11-100 get zero.
Still, some players naturally gravitate towards tournaments. You should lean into the format where you are most skilled.
How to Become a Professional Poker Player — Live vs Online
Next, decide whether to play live or online. Live poker tends to be easier with more players willing to gamble with any poker hand. There are also more recreational players coming for a night out.
However, the financial barriers to entry are much higher, and there will be more variance. Live professional tournament players also need to be able to cover travel expenses.
Finally, live casinos and home games tend to take a higher “rake” — house cut — so they can be harder to beat. Even if the players are easier to exploit, the casino isn’t.
We recommend beginners start learning poker in an online environment.
Here’s why.
- Faster learning: On average, you will see 3x as many hands per hour at an online poker table vs live. You will be able to familiarise yourself with the game drastically quicker. Online casinos also allow you to play multiple tables at once — compounding and accelerating the rate at which you face more situations.
- Tougher competition: Online poker tends to attract more studious, skilled players. Fewer players will be drunk and shoving their chips in the middle just for fun. You’ll have a better barometer for what’s ‘normal’ — like hitting a standard VPIP.
- Lower financial barrier to entry: Live casinos tip dealers and literally keep the lights on — making the games more expensive. Online tournaments typically take around a 10% house cut, compared to 20-25% when playing at a live casino. You can also play both cash games and tournaments online for just a few dollars. Live casinos can require hundreds of dollars to sit down at a standard table.
Look at this graph (credit: Jonathan Little’s poker coaching).
This professional poker player tracked his results after 23 days of online poker. He made a whopping $58,422, mainly playing $3/$6 and $5/$10 online.
How long would it take to play the same number of hands live? If you were to treat it like a job and play for 40 hours per week, getting in this same volume would take you close to one year.
For this reason, so many young kids in their 20s can catch up to people who have played poker for decades.
While online may have a tougher player pool, you will be able to see as many hands in months as it historically took people years. You will have a much greater ability to fine-tune and perfect your play this way.
You can track and measure your results on a technical level, experiment with bluffs from the privacy of your computer screen and mitigate luck better.
After all, a person can get lucky playing poker for fifty hands but not 50,000 hands.
How to Become a Professional Poker Player — Bankroll Management
The financial barrier makes it hard to become a professional poker player. You are probably going to need a much larger starting sum — “bankroll” — than expected.
These are recommended bankroll requirements for cash games and tournaments, although some pros will find these numbers much too risky.
The numbers here also assume that you are a skilled and winning player. No amount of money will turn a losing player into a winner.
- Cash game poker: 20 buy-ins.
- Tournament poker: 100 buy-ins.
A buy-in is the entry fee. So, if a cash game has a $300 buy-in, you will want at least $6,000 for a financial cushion or a high risk of going broke.
Many professional poker players will even think 20 buy-ins for cash games is not enough – especially if your desired location is where to play poker in Vegas.
Tournament buy-ins vary by how many people are in the field. If you’re playing online ‘sit-and-go’ style tournaments with only 6-9 players, you won’t need nearly as many buy-ins.
But if you’re playing against thousands of people in a live event, you’ll want more than 100 - a rough estimate.
Remember that these numbers only apply if poker is your only income source. If you have money coming in from other places, you can choose to take greater risks since your finances will still get replenished.
How to Become a Professional Poker Player — Staking/Satellites
Many people can’t afford these price points — particularly for tournaments. You may be surprised to learn that most professional tournament players have investors called ‘stakers.’
Getting ‘staked’ for an event means that someone will put up a portion of your buy-in for you in exchange for a share of any winnings.
Let’s say a $10,000 tournament was out of your price range. You could put down $2,000 and sell 80% of ‘your action’. The investors/backers/stakers would receive 80% of the potential winnings, less the markup.
Another option for aspiring professional tournament players is to enter satellites. These are online events where the prize is a ticket to a much larger tournament.
Perhaps you play a $10 satellite, and the winners all earn tickets to a $100 tournament. If you score, you gain entry into the $100 event for just $10.
A critical barrier to becoming a professional poker player is diligently separating your poker bankroll from your life bankroll.
Prepare for downswings, start small, and be honest with your win rate. If you manage your finances wisely and genuinely outplay your opponents, you can make a living as a professional poker player. Many people do – no poker cheat sheet required.
How to Become a Professional Poker Player — Conclusion
Cash games are the stable choice for aspiring professional poker players. You’ll often earn small but steady profits, as the payout structure is straightforward — each chip equals real money.
With tournaments, only a small percentage of players finish in the money (about 10-15%). This situation makes tournaments more volatile, but the potential payouts can be huge.
- If you're aggressive and prefer high-risk, high-reward scenarios, tournaments might be for you.
- Cash games, on the other hand, are ideal for "grinders" who prefer steady, consistent returns.
Whichever format you choose, set yourself up to be financially prepared. Start by playing online rather than at a casino. You’ll get more opportunities to play more poker combos that will accelerate your learning and sharpen your skills.
Live poker will be a piece of cake if you can beat the tougher online arena.
