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What’s the difference between a professional poker player and an amateur?

You can come up with many different answers to this question. A pro might be defined simply as someone who’s good enough to make a living playing poker. An amateur player might be defined as one who plays for fun.

Poker tournaments are not played with real money. When signing up to a tournament, a fixed sum of money is exchanged for chips that can be used to play the game. A player is eliminated from a tournament if they run out of chips and a real-money prize is only awarded if they place within the prize pool. Average Poker Players Yearly Income. Depending on what stakes they play, professional poker players can make as little as $10,000 a year up to $1,000,000 or even more. We’ve gotten some real numbers from real pros in Florida and found that a semi-top tier live poker pro playing $5/10 NLHE can make $100,000-$250,000 a year.

But the truth is, if you’re reading this, you’re probably an amateur.

The good news is you can learn how to start playing like a professional poker player by learning about things they do that you don’t.

Here’s a list of 7 things professional poker players do that amateur players don’t:

1 – Don’t Leave Profitable Games

Finding profitable poker games can be challenging, but with patience and determination it’s possible. You can learn more about finding profitable tables below. When you find a profitable game, be prepared to stay in the game for as long as it remains profitable.

Amateur poker players tend to play for a few hours at a time. A playing session of six to eight hours is a long one. But a professional player might play 12, or even 24, straight hours in a profitable game. A professional poker player takes advantage of every possible profitable situation.

To be able to keep your mind sharp so you can play well, practice and keep your body in good shape. When you start getting tired and make mistakes, any game can quickly become unprofitable.

Other reasons a game can change from profitable to neutral or unprofitable include poor players leaving or busting out and players tightening up their starting hand requirements.

When you find a profitable game, plan to play for as long as it remains profitable.

But be aware of when you start getting tired. Start building your stamina, improve your diet, and exercise more so you can take advantage of profitable situations as long as you can.

2 – Treat Poker as a Job, Not a Hobby

If you want to be a professional poker player start thinking of it as a job, not a hobby. If you’re not willing to dedicate 100% of your energy to becoming the best player you can, the odds of being a long term winner are almost nonexistent.

Amateur players play whenever the mood strikes them and often have their mind on something else while playing. A professional poker player plays when they have a profitable opportunity, whether or not they feel like playing.

Amateur players don’t track their progress or their opponents and don’t study the game to improve. A pro poker player constantly studies the game, their opponents, and everything else that can give them an edge.

If you haven’t read the top books on poker strategy, read the leading online resources, and don’t learn something about multiple opponents each time you play, you’re never going to be a pro.

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The good news is this is an area where you can start acting like a professional player today. Starting right now, dedicate a set amount of time each day to improving your game. Read books and find some good online resources you can use and follow.

Every time you play poker, pay attention to what’s going on every second. Even when you aren’t involved in the hand, try to learn something about your opponents. Start tracking your play, including time, location, and results.

Treating poker like a job instead of a hobby is as much about your mindset as your actions. Once you decide to do it, get started immediately.

3 – Understand and Protect Their Bankroll

Amateur players rarely have a set bankroll for poker. They take money from their pocket and start playing. If they bust out they take more money from their pocket. When they run out of money, they wait until they get paid again so they can play more poker.

When an amateur has a winning poker session, they just put the money back into their pocket and spend it like the rest of their money. They also don’t consider the level they should be playing at based on their bankroll.

Professional poker players have a poker bankroll and understand what risk of ruin means. The simplified concept behind risk of ruin is this:

Even if you’re a winning poker player, short term variance will create fluctuations in your bankroll. If you risk too much of your bankroll in one game, you have a chance to go broke.

Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:

“Risk of ruin is a concept in gambling, insurance, and finance relating to the likelihood of losing all one’s investment capital or extinguishing one’s bankroll below the minimum for further play. For instance, if someone bets all their money on a simple coin toss, the risk of ruin is 50%. In a multiple-bet scenario, risk of ruin accumulates with the number of bets: each repeated play increases the risk, and persistent play ultimately yields the stochastic certainty of gambler’s ruin.”

For Example

If you have a total bankroll of $10,000 and enter two tournaments, each with a buy-in of $5,000, you have a much higher chance of going broke than if you enter 10 tournaments, each with a buy-in of $1,000.

Your risk of ruin is even lower if you enter 100 tournaments each with a buy-in of $100. When you think this through, it makes perfect sense.

But many players play in tournaments or cash games with a large percentage of their available funds.

If you want to be a professional poker player, you need to set aside a bankroll and only play in games or tournaments using a small percentage of your total.

Your playing ability and your ability to add funds to your bankroll from outside sources comes into play, but here are a few rough guidelines to help you:

Never enter a tournament or buy into a cash game with more than 5% of your bankroll. 2.5% is better, but until you grow your bankroll to a large amount, 2.5% may keep you from playing at a large enough buy-in level to grow quickly.

I sometimes play in a larger game–with up to 10% of my bankroll–and many professional players do as well. As you improve as a player, you’re probably going to do the same. This is called “taking a shot.”

But I follow a few guidelines when I take a shot at a higher buy-in.

The game has to offer a high chance at profit. A table with many players I’m familiar with and who aren’t as good as me is an example.
I never risk more than 20%, including buying back in if I take a bad beat. Even if the game is profitable in the long run, I won’t risk too much of my bankroll. I know short term variance can go against me no matter how good the game is.
I only play my strongest game in these situations. My best game is pot limit Omaha, so I won’t play Texas holdem above my bankroll.

Here are some specific numbers to help you understand what 5% of your bankroll means:

For cash games, if your bankroll is $2,000, you should play in games with a $100 buy-in or lower. The same is true for tournaments; buy-ins of $100 or less with a $2,000 bankroll.

With a bankroll of $10,000, you can buy-in to cash games or tournaments for $500 or less.

Don’t be too proud to play in smaller games. Playing at a $200 buy-in game may be more profitable than a $500 game, even if you have a $10,000 bankroll.

4 – Don’t Chase Unprofitable Draws

The biggest mistake I see amateur poker players make is playing too many hands. The professional player understands if they enter the pot with a better starting hand than their opponents they win more often. Legit s

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