• Position matters.
• It’s not about winning the most hands, it’s about winning the most money.
• Pot odds and equity.
• The difference between high card hands, speculative hands, and monster hands.
• You read people by how they make their decisions, not by how they look or act when they make their decisions.
• Passive play leads to big pots when you lose and small pots when you win.
• The importance of the board texture in how the hand will play out.
• Folding early is very often the best strategy.
• Raising early is usually the other best strategy.
• The sunk cost fallacy.
• Anyone can play a monster hand. You’re a winning or losing player by how you play your middling hands.
• Third-level thinking - based upon your decisions up to this point, what does your opponent think you have?
• How to size bets. How to avoid becoming pot-committed.
• You’re a winner as long as you’re in good position versus players who are worse than you.
• No matter how good you are you’re a loser if you’re in poor position relative to players better than you.
• No one can play at their peak level all the time. Know when you’re playing your B game and be willing to stop.
• Position matters.

They know that nothing means anything in an individual situation and if they do everything correctly it'll all work out in the end.

They know not to get upset by bad beats when AA is cracked by 55. They realize luck goes both ways.

They also realize it doesn't matter how good you are as a player, unless the other players are significantly worse than themselves then it's a gambit to sit down and play.

They also know playing poker for a living is a horrible way to live. They know how much they regret getting into it, how hard it is to get employed elsewhere without any real skills and suspect background. They know how badly they need to find a way out - why do many pros offer coaching services is because it's their first step out the door.

As an amateur player who regularly play w/ semi-pros and constantly being exploited, here’re a few of my observation:

1. Subtle details matter. Like in any craftsmanship, the perfection lies in articulating finest details. E.g. when you raise, how much is optimal? at the highest level games, 45 vs 50 makes a lot of difference.
2. level of reading ( The Levels of Thinking in Poker ), most amateur stays at 3–4, while highest level games is at 6–7.
3. Updating opponents’ image. Most amateurs either have a uniformly distribution for all his opponents, or (slightly better amateurs) have a static image for each opponents through the entire day of play. Pros can quickly perceive one particular opponent’s aggressiveness using the track records of how he plays, they record key hands in their mind for continuous updating opponents’ images.
4. Know how to capture maximum value. When you have nuts or v/ strong hands, sometimes you’ll capture 100BB, 200BB or 300BB, either way you’re kinda happy coz you win. For Pros, they could accurately read opponents’ hand range, and bet a very close to the maximum amount the opponent are inclined to call with his hand. Remember in one day, you can only have so many nuts hands, how much value you can capture w/ those hands will almost determine the overall performance.
5. They know the value of folding big hands. At WSOP, the best highlight I liked is “epic folds”, nuts flush to full house, bottom straight to top straight, etc. These folds require laser precision reads. Most amateurs including myself find it hard to fold 2nd nuts.
6. They’re aware and can avoid most behavior biases (that’re well taught in investment classes), such as loss riding, localization, confirmation, etc.

the list can go on….

Casual players for the most part do not worry about variance, for them it is just luck good or bad. For a pro it sometimes can be the difference between having a bankroll and going back to the process of rebuilding bankroll. Going bad and losing your whole bankroll is a legitimate concern for pros, casual players do not have that concern. That's why many poker players reinvest thier winnings in investments outside of poker, stocks, rental properties,crypto currencies. An old saying goes like this, money removed from the poker room should not be brought back to the poker room. Trust me every poker pro has gone bust at least once and it sucks.

Around 2006, I had been playing poker to try grind my way up the stakes. There was a platform called Pokerchamps, which offered free rolls. You could win real cash. Literally a few cents. If you finished on top the prize was around 20 cents. So having made a tiny amount I managed to grind up from the micro limits starting at $0.01/$0.02 NL $2. Eventually I just couldn’t get past $0.50/$1.00 NL $100. I played a lot, however I still had uni and I certainly was not fully committed. My study was my main priority and I did fear becoming a losing degenerate gambler. I also didn’t analyse my game to the extent that I should have. The grind was draining me hard.

Back in the day there was another player who was grinding up from micro stakes. WCG Rider. He had played Warcraft III competitively prior to then sacrificing his studies to focus on poker full time. On Pokerstars, he would be on a lot of tables and play for hours, working extremely hard.

WCG Rider once ran a prop bet to try and win $10,000 at $0.15/$0.25 NL 25 within one month. Now he got a lot of props for his crazy effort, but also some people online thinking that he was kind of cocky.

279,892 hands over 21 days. That’s 13,328 hands per day, multi-tabling 18-24 tables. He won $3,631. Ultimately he fell behind the run rate and withdrew early, failing the bet. Now try playing online poker for eight hours a day on just 6 tables. You would only average around 4,000 hands per day.

WCG Rider experienced struggles like many players out there, going broke plenty of times, and having to climb back from the brink. He did not let his ego get the better of him and humbly sought out advice, recognising that he had many flaws in his game. The mindset necessary was to always find the value from any possible play or loss.

This is one of his posts on the 2+2 forum one time in 2007 when he was close to giving up for good:

The holes in your game must be identified through careful analysis and you must find out and fix all of your leaks. However even if you learn all your leaks and what is the correct play should be, which most poker coaches can help you identify, you may not even become a winner.

In order to move to another level, it takes a much deeper understanding of the game and certain awareness about yourself, as you need to know how to translate such strategic concepts and ‘correct plays’ into actions on a day to day, consistent basis over the long term. You must continuously improve your game to keep ahead of the curve because people are always adapting. The landscape always changes. This requires the highest level of persistence. The edges over opponents have gotten small because players are always looking for an edge. The strategic nature of the game is fluid.

You must frequently re-evaluate everything you are doing, which includes yourself. Poker can be very deceiving. Even if you are good and play great, you can still go through long periods of loss due to the variance of the game. You can push through with the right game and gradually come out with an edge over others. On the other hand, if you are a donk, yet you believe you are good, you are screwing yourself hard without even knowing it, by not evaluating yourself or your play correctly. You will still have winning times, which will validate your belief that you are ‘good’ but you will have the tendency to overlook certain mistakes. Have a look at Gus Hansen over the past ten years, now is he still good or what? I cannot say, but he is reportedly down tens of millions online.

This random graph showing the expect value (top line) vs actual result (bottom dark line).

Nearly 14,000 big blinds lost over around 300,000 hands. However this guy has been playing well enough such that he should in theory be much closer to the top line at around 5,000 big blinds up. That is a -19,000 BB swing from due to variance. This does depend on play style and stack sizes however try coming back from this.

You need to develop your mental toughness like no other and how you manage your own state so you can handle anything that poker throws at you. Try playing poker online for 8 hours every single day for a few months. You will go through every bad beat and bullshit and you will have to learn to take it and stick to your game un-phased. Now imagine doing this over years.

Online poker is so fast, that you can gain much more experience in understanding all the different game elements, how to execute and how every hand plays out, compared to live poker, without of course the physical reads. This experience enables you to then adapt your game into a live poker tournament.

I hadn’t kept up with what was going on poker wise for some time and a couple of months back, I happened to bring up the awesome prop bet story about WCG Rider with a friend of mine in conversation. A couple of weeks later I happened to see some news.

Joe Giron Photography | Poker Photo Archive.com (used with permission from Drew Amato)

WCG Rider is Doug Polk. He had just won the One Drop tournament for a $3,686,865 first prize. His live tournament winnings currently exceed $8,800,000.

This picture shows a success, without the journey. The amount of time and commitment involved, at the risk of failing completely like a degenerate and losing your future career, sacrificing many other things you could have done in the meantime. Doug Polk took the hardest possibly poker route you can take by grinding up from micro stakes over years and years, failing time and again, to bounce back enough times to then reach huge successes in online and live poker.

While I am by no means a professional, I have played in many tournaments and won my fair share, and cashed in a bunch. And, I never play ring games—so this observation applies only to tournaments.

Many amateurs wonder while watching TV, “how could Gus Hansen (for example) play that hand/make that call/raise with that?” What they don’t understand is that top players are MUCH better than guys like me with big stacks. They can dominate the table in a way that amateurs can’t. So, it is worth it for them to risk early to get a big stack than it is to play with a small stack. Hansen will call/raise big bets often with 2 rags, hoping to win big stacks—this allows them to control the rest of the tournament. You can use many of your skills with a large stack, and cannot with a middle or small stack. They would rather get knocked out early than not play with a big stack. This applies to many of the players amateurs think of as “wild” players. They’re not wild…just smart.

“What is the most surprising thing about being a professional poker player?”

It sucks.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. It was *awesome*. I loved almost every second of it. But it also totally sucked.

I started playing cards in college, and started playing online senior year (this is 2001-02). I put $50 on Paradise Poker and lost it, put on another $50 and lost it, and on the third $50 I just ran it up – that was the last time I contributed external funds to my bankroll. By graduation I had a very modest online bankroll ($500-600?) that I used to play $5 SNGs, single-table $.10/.$25 NLHE, etc. The next year, I worked for my alma mater in a largely residential position, which didn’t pay a ton but I basically had no expenses (and thankfully no loans), and on nights and weekends I kept the grind going until I had maybe $2500-$3000. Then I moved to Boston to live with some college friends, one of whom had just quit his “something financial and boring” job to play cards professionally, so I figured I’d do that to.

It was a bit rough at the beginning, because I had absolutely NO liquid assets when my poker bankroll was basically all the money I had to my name after I made my initial rent/deposit payments. My poker playing roommate had money in the bank, so he would usually write my rent checks while I transferred the money to him in-game (thus minimizing the time involved when my bankroll dipped). But from September through December of that year, playing mostly $1/$2 NLHE, I made somewhere in the range of $15-$20K, which was more than enough to start doing some 6- to 8-tabling and eventually to move up limits.

Here’s something for consideration: in particular because I had no loans at the time, and because I was still able to coast on my parent’s health insurance for a few years, I had virtually no requisite life expenses other than rent/utilities, food, and car. I can’t recall the exact amount, but let’s say a total of maybe $15K/year. Even after all of the extra tax burden caused by my income bracket and self-employment addons, imagine having poker net you even $30K over the year. $15K of pure “mad money” as a 23 year old might as well be half a million, in particular if you’re not someone who cares much about flashy clothes, clubbing, etc. Now, realize that my income after taxes was notably more than that $15K. I was able to do basically whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, but also to continue building my bankroll – which enabled me to expand my multi-tabling and continue to move up limits, which then just meant even more income.

By early 2005, I was 15-tabling the $5/$10 NLHE on PartyPoker, and would always add on the $25/$50 or $50/$100 LHE games on PokerRoom when they ran (because oh my f-ing god, that was the most lucrative game I’ll ever play in my life!!!). I would get up at noon, leisurely eat something and hopefully shower, then by 1:30 or 2 I’d sign in and play until 6ish when my roommates got home from their sucker day jobs, grad school, etc. I’d dick about with them until 9, maybe 10, then grab a bunch of beers and go back to my computer and bang out a few more hours. I’d usually get involved in a tournament or two (the PokerStars $11 rebuy was a popular option), and depending upon how those went would stay up until I finished. If I was getting a little drunk, I’d usually get out of all of my “regular” cash games and fire up UltimateBet, where I had once randomly discovered about $27 on there that I had never cashed out, so it would be by “drunk fun fund” where I’d play at 3am, until I ran that up to $10K or so and had to start taking it a bit more seriously (I kept meticulous records no matter what, which were useful when I discovered that – with no memory whatsoever – I had made $3500 in 12 minutes playing $25/$50NL while blackout drunk one night). Then, if I was still up when it was getting near 5am, I’d go scare the crap out of my one roommate who got up early to work out, then go to bed. Rinse and repeat. It was a great life.

Except, as I say, it sucked.

My life had absolutely no structure. That sounds amazing for people who feel crushed by structure, but it gets old *really* fast.

I had virtually no responsibilities. That sounds amazing for people who feel overwhelmed by their responsibilities, but it gets old *really* fast.

I was basically fortunate beyond belief to be in a semi-long distance relationship at the time, because I’d never have been able to maintain a proper one with my schedule.

I didn’t need to “work” every day to make ends meet, avoid “losing my job”, etc, which meant there were times when I didn’t play for a week or maybe just played 1-2 days, which meant that I was making *way* less money than I should have been if I had any work ethic whatsoever…but I never needed to have one, and so I never did.

And so on.

Basically, it was damaging to me as a person in absolutely every way, but I was too young and too immature to realize this. And then on top of that, unfortunately I am in possession of something of a conscience. Poker is the only legal vocation (of which I’m aware) where income is derived without helping anyone, anywhere, in any way. Nobody benefits from me “doing a great job”, and objectively people suffer. I was more or less ok with taking people’s money, since they were most definitely going to lose it to someone, and at that point I was just as good of a recipient as anyone else. But what really put the poison ever so slowly into my soul was that I didn’t contribute a damn thing to the world.

Playing poker professionally has this same basic impact on everyone, though some are better at dealing with it than others. I guess for those who don’t mind the soul-attrition, or the fact that the game becomes overwhelmingly less fun with every million hands they play, maybe it doesn’t quite “suck” for them as much. And for those who win, it really is quite good money.

But basically, everything that made it amazing when I was 25 years old also made it suck. Which, in reference to the question, was most certainly the most surprising thing for me.

“What is something that a professional poker player knows that would be beneficial for an average person to know?”

There’s no such thing as a bad beat.

[I wish I could say that *all* professional poker players know this, but sadly that isn’t the case.]

There are two types of hands that people call “bad beats”:

1 -- They were a marginal favorite, like 55-45 or the like, but they lost a huge pot, or got crippled/eliminated in a tournament, or whatever, and now they’re just very frustrated and want you to hear all about it.

(1a – They weren’t even a favorite at all, but they’re clueless and didn’t know that, and now are very frustrated to have lost)

2 – They were a significant favorite when the bulk of the money went in, and their opponent got very fortunate with subsequent cards and wound up winning.

For 1/1a, those are at most “bummers”. Being frustrated is fine, in the same way that getting to the train platform just as the doors are closing (but another will be along in 20 minutes) is a fine reason to be a bit frustrated. Maybe you even text a friend or family member to say that you’re frustrated. But it’s not something that makes for a story that you should tell more than once, nor more than an hour after it happened.

For #2, this is what you want to have happen. The cornerstone to winning poker is getting your money in when you’re either ahead or you have the appropriate price/odds ratio to call. In this type of scenario, you got a lot of money in when you were way ahead – that’s winning poker. Sure, you didn’t *technically* win this particular hand, but if you could do the exact same thing again…you would, right?

It’s a good thing. It can be infuriating as f***, certainly. It can ruin your day even. But it means that you’ve massively outplayed someone, because they’re so bad and/or because you’re so good. That means you’re in a good game, and should keep playing better than that player (/the others, if applicable).

Full stop.

1. Passion for poker - if you don't play poker yet, passion for strategic games in general. If it's not fun for you, you won't become good.

2. Self-discipline - you need to be disciplined to keep a good balance between learning and playing. And you need the mental strength to take a bad beat as a natural, random thing and not let it influence your game negatively (very important, which is why 'tilt' is the #1 word in online poker ;)).

3. Self-reflectiveness - in poker, it's easy to fool yourself because the variance is so high. Means you can mistake a downswing for faults in your play and vice-versa. Asking others for feedback & critics is also important, but I'd also put it under self-reflectiveness, as normally self-reflection & the will for input from others goes hand in hand.

4. Experience - you need to play a lot. That's why online poker changes poker so much: now, you can gather the experience of 10+ years of live poker within less than a year.

5. Curiosity - you need the will to consume ideas & concepts written by others & engage in dialogues with other players. You need to learn from articles, forum discussions, books. If you are not curious, this is hard work. If you are curious, this learning can be a lot of fun.

I am not a professional poker player, but I have played against many, some I can quickly recognize as much better then me, some as about the same, and some few as not having many career prospects.

I have developed many of the traits professionals use, though since I play less, not to the same extent. Some of these are:

1. Peripheral vision. The best tells are the ones when the other guy thinks he is unobserved, and may only last a fraction of a second. The ability to look straight ahead and down at the table and still catch the tell is quite valuable

2. Physical tells are not as reliable as betting tells. The betting habits when the opponent has a draw, a pair or a monster hand are much more reliable than physical tells.

3. Many people have read Caro's Book of Poker Tells. Some people try and give false tells thinking to fool their opponent. Sometimes these are easy to spot, sometimes not.

4. A drinking or tired player will give off many more true tells. I know I leak tells like crazy when I am tired.

5. When all else is lost, look for a dealer tell. Especially if you are a visitor to a place, playing against regulars. The dealer probably knows all the regulars by name, and has seen thousands of hands more than you. If you can't get anything from the other player, try looking at the dealer. Sometimes their expression can be an indicator of what the other player is up to.

But at the end of the day, what separates the true professional from a recreational player like me is hundreds and hundreds of hours of playing time. Plus the practiced endurance to stay sharp for 16+ hours at a time at the poker table.

Do not get into a protracted conversation after you pushed all in. People do this in negotiations all the time. You put a decision to someone, make them decide. Talking makes it sound like the negotiations are still open.

Keep your cards close to the vest. No one should know what you are thinking until you decide to tell them.

Know your nits and handle them accordingly. When someone is inexperienced, do not help them beat you.

If you can't calculate the cost-benefit of a decision, you should not be in that decision and you need to fold. In the real world, if you don't see the downside or you don't see the benefit of the calculated risk, you need a new job.

1. Over valuing top pair
2. Set mining without sufficient implied odds
3. Calling draws at a bad price
4. Varying bet size based on hand strength
5. Calling a preflop open bet of 3 big blinds a ‘3-bet’
6. Assuming I am going to be interested in hearing about that time he had a really good hand, but still lost to a better hand
7. Believing that large gold chains and big rings are a good look
8. Falling in love with your flopped set and calling when every draw in the world gets made by the river
9. Calling a dealer ‘Honey’
10. Thinking that I want to hear about your crypto trading expertise. Spoiler: You have no idea what you are doing

Each hand in poker is in a newly shuffled deck . . . so maintaining a count isn't helpful like it is in black jack. In Blackjack several hands can be dealt from the same deck or (far more likely) six or eight decks all mixed together in a “shoe” so they don't have to shuffle every hand.

In poker, this just isn't relevant. You do have to know and keep track of things to do well such as

1. If you're behind, your “outs” . . . how many cards (unseen by you) are in the deck that will give you a hand with a very high or certain chance of winning versus how many cards in total remain or are unseen
2. What is the current pot size and bet size?
3. Using #1 and #2 together to calculate whether it's profitable to draw or not
4. How much more money will you likely be able to get in the pot if you make your hand (implied odds includes probable future behavior of opponents in #3 in addition to current price to stay in hand vs size of pot)
5. If you are ahead, how likely is it that you'll end up paying someone off if they make their draw (reverse of implied odds), how to control the pot size given the strength of your hand
6. What do your opponent's betting patterns and behaviors tell you about the range of their possible holdings
7. What do your opponents think your behaviors and betting patterns reveal about your range and holdings and how can you get them to make wrong assumptions so you can profit

So, figuring out your direct pot odds (#3 without considering ##4 and 5) is the closest to counting that poker players do. In Texas Holdem where the amount of seen and unseen cards is always the same each round, this is fairly simple and doesn't require very much effort. In games like 7 card stud, where you see a lot more cards and how many are seen and unseen changes based on how many players started out in the hand and how many folded each street, you have to pay very close attention and remember a lot, during the hand.

In all forms of poker I know, however, each hand is a completely independent event probability wise. Thus, once a hand is over, maintaining a count into the next hand is pointless and counterproductive.

In my experience, most happy professional poker players are in transition. The ones who stay in poker for long periods are mostly unusual people and it’s hard to say if they’re happy or not.

One qualification is for about ten years during the poker boom, you could make a lot of money as a poker celebrity. This is very different from being a poker pro at any other time. The money was much better, attention was favorable rather than unfavorable and risk was low. Lots of people could be happy living like a movie star with sponsors to pick up your tournament entries and expenses, while you got to keep any prize money; with steady income from endorsements, books, appearances and interest in an on-line poker site.

Another important distinction is between a casino pro and and old-school private game pro. The former needs mainly poker skill, the casino sets up the game and protects against cheating, arrest, non-payment by losers and violence. The latter needs mostly people skills, if you can get invited to good games—or host them—you can win steadily without being a great player; but you’re on your own in terms of cheating, arrest, collecting from losers and violence.

Poker has tremendous appeal for a certain type of disaffected person (I was one at one point in my life). You’re independent, no boss, no fixed hours. You make your own money. There is an informal credit economy that sustains you. You can always find a game, anywhere in the world, and once you’re known as a good player, you can always get a stake. A single guy without expensive tastes can live pretty well, and you don’t need to spend any money on front like a nice house, car, clothes, possessions. There’s also the satisfaction of competition.

Most people work through these advantages and start noticing the downsides. You can’t easily leverage your skills, and income tops out at a level that sounds high for a guy who crashes on couches and lives on pizza and beer, but is far less than you can make taking similar gambles in finance or as an entrepreneur. You’re trapped in a social system that seems comforting and exciting at first, but begins to seem depressing.

So the happy people usually move on, having worked through their demons, built up some general skills, and gained maturity and confidence.

Some people do not move on. In some cases they push the envelope of professional poker with activities like writing books, teaching classes, coaching, getting into poker businesses and so on. In other cases, they remain in the poker subculture forever. These people do not seem particularly happy, but my sense is they would be less happy anywhere else.

1. Bluffs don’t happen as often as you might think. Most of the time, a person will have something like what they’re representing.
2. Tells are overrated. Your opponents cannot “look into your soul” and know what you have. It’s possible you have an obvious tell, but you probably don’t. You’ll figure out whether you’re beat by your opponent’s betting patterns and your observations about what those patterns usually mean with this player, not whether or not he tugs on his ear after he bets.
3. You can’t say “I’ll see your X and raise you Y.” This is called a string bet. Once you announce “see” or “call,” all you can do is call the bet. If you want to raise, you have to just say raise, or say the amount you’re putting in, or just put in the full amount. By the same token, you can’t put in chips to call and then go back to your stack, you’ve got to put the full raise in all at once.
4. Most games are “Table stakes,” meaning you’re only responsible for what you have on the table. If someone bets more than you have on the table, you can still call for the amount you have. You don’t have to, in fact, you can’t, go into your pocket for the rest.
5. If you always get caught bluffing, you bluff too much (assuming you don’t have a tell). If you never get caught bluffing, you don’t bluff enough.
6. Don’t worry about whether you’re up or you’re down, quit when you’re tired, not playing your best, or have had enough. Life is just one long poker game and the periods in between sessions are just breaks.
7. The most common mistake new players make is playing too many hands.
8. If you make a great but well-disguised hand, don’t get greedy and immediately shove all your chips in the middle. Yes, you’ll win big if they call, but you’re encouraging them to fold, potentially costing you a big pot. Make callable bets and reel them in.
9. Get a reputable poker book and learn basic odds and the mathematics of poker. Nothing too fancy, but you should understand concepts like “pot odds.”
10. And the classic poker maxim, if you can’t spot the sucker in the first five minutes at the table, it’s you.

Poker is a tough profession to stay “happy” in. Although there are exceptions to everything, let’s simply refer to what is common. Having spent a few years playing full-time (and part of which I was traveling throughout the US), there are several elements working against one’s happiness in the “full-time profession” of being a poker player:

• Negative people - many folks are gambling addicts who are chasing their losses, or otherwise negative people, with short tempers and bad attitudes..
• Variance - it is very difficult to take bad beats, but when they pile up during a “bad run” of variance, it can really beat a person down. When I was a salesman, I had some rough days, but rarely came home “shell-shocked” and distraught, which is not uncommon as a full-time poker player..
• Criminal element - it’s hard to ignore the “criminal element” that poker attracts. Everything from drug dealers, to scam artists, to money launderers, and more, float in and out of the poker games. No matter how bright your light shines, sometimes it’s challenging to not let the darkness dampen it..

So although one can be a generally “happy” person, playing a game full-time (which has to be better than punching a clock for a living, right?), maintaining a positive and “happy” demeanor will often be put to the test - even it you are quite profitable. If you’re losing money, it is virtually impossible..

Hope that helps!

Most common mistakes in no particular order:

• Not folding pre flop / Playing too many hands. Patience grasshopper patience!
• Not buying in for enough Not betting enough - 1–2x pot bets / raises
• Not raising in position or not raising after the flop
• Folding when pot odds are in your favor to see the flop or turn.
• Playing pocket low or middle pair
• Believing in AA, top pair or two pair- aka blinded by them and ignoring all other possibilities.
• Bluffing too often and continuing a bluff
• Not studying the game. Read a book or two. Super System
• thinking online free poker site success will = live pay to play success
• thinking pot limit successes = no limit or tournament success. Each type of game has unique strategy to succeed.
• thinking their is glamour and immediate return - it’s a grind. Just like minor league baseball, small circuit racing, golf and tennis. Pay your dues learn your craft and work your way up the ranks.
• Not acknowledging a bad day before your go broke. Get up from the table avoid tilt and stop throwing good money after bad. Is it entertainment money or investment money. Amateur play is entertaining professional play is investment. Professionals exercise discipline and control and cut losses.
• Not properly assessing risk - probability and statistics.

That is such an open-ended question, but I'll try to throw in a few that might not be obvious.

First, putting aside all the posturing and noise, and I'm sure others will jump up and down and say otherwise, but poker is still largely a game of luck. Yes, learining odds, betting strategies, etc makes a genuine difference in your fortunes. But. Speaking as someone who has won a fair number of tournaments, and played in hundreds, if I'm being honest, it's the cards I was dealt rather than any epiphany of poker skills that carried me on those days.

Second, in tournament play at least, look ahead. The acceleration of the big and small blinds plus antes means your bleeding commences regardless of how conservatively you play. Recognize that before you have no choice but to go all in with your pocket 3s.

Third, don't let the bullies get you down. Often you get aggressive bettors, pre and post flop. They can easily throw you if you are not experienced in dealing with them. Don't let it affect your betting strategy. Since it's rare that you get five or six good pocket cards in a row, someone raising consistently is likely testing the will of the other players .

Hope this helps.

There is only one case in which poker players would do something that could be thought of as counting as one done in Blackjack. The deck is shuffled between every hand, unlike Blackjack. (Yes, I know some casinos now have continuous shufflers.)

In stud games, like seven-card stud and Razz, each player has a hand which consists of some cards dealt face down, but others dealt, and kept, face up. Except that when you fold your hand, you turn your upcards over.

Thus, anyone who is trying to play a stud game well needs to remember which cards have been exposed but then hidden after folding. It is widely agreed that this adds to the difficulty and stress of playing stud games, as compared to other games that either don’t expose cards (draw games) or always keep them exposed (hold ’em games).

So in the games where one is motivated to “count”, the pros do. Otherwise, they don’t have to, because there is nothing to “count”.

I think professionals tend to pay more attention to betting patterns than tells, which can often be misleading and / or hard to interpret. For instance, a player might get visibly nervous in a situation, but that could either be because they have a strong hand and are anticipating a confrontation, or a weak hand and they're worried about losing money.

In general people are pretty good at not giving away information based on body language, but a few things I remember from when I used to play a lot were people feigning disinterest in a hand by looking away (indicates strength, but really only when their conscious actions are inconsistent with actual disinterest), or pretending to get ready to make a bet and then checking (indicates weakness, the person is trying to seem stronger than they are in an attempt to prevent you from betting). Or if a person you're in a hand with is staring at you, this sometimes means their hand is weak and they're thinking about yours, since they're less concerned with what you have when they have a strong hand. These are some of the ones I remember, but for the most part I think experienced players put more effort into understanding the betting decisions their opponents are making than deciphering unconscious physical movements that might mean different things for different people.

I assume you are asking how bad a person can be at poker while still making a living at it. I further assume we’re not talking about cheaters, or people who make livings hosting games or running internet sites, or writing bots, or things like that.

Reversing the question, it’s hard to make a living from pure poker skill. However good you are, you can’t count on consistently winning tournaments, or beating the highest stakes games against a casino rake. At one time there were sponsor and other opportunities for top competitive players, but that has declined steeply.

Therefore, most pros combine poker skill with some ability to get into games at which they can be consistent winners. One method is to be well-known so tourists don’t mind losing at your table. Another is to find games without many other pros, or where you’re the best pro. Or you can host or get invited to private games.

The better you are at poker, the less work you have to put into finding the right game. If you’re not very good, you have to look for very easy games. You might find them at low stakes, but it’s hard to make a living that way, even if you play all the time and have simple tastes. You might find them at mid stakes late on big weekends when the other pros are playing at higher stakes. If you are particularly good at networking and have some charm, you can get invited to soft private games.

But even in the easiest games you need some ability. You need the discipline to play at least basic ABC poker while noticing other players’ styles and, more important, have the money management skills to maximize your opportunities without going broke. You need to recognize better players and avoid them. If you’re outside a casino, you need to be able to protect against cheating, non-payment and in some places, robbery or arrest.

So when this first popped up on my A2A list, I figured I’d give it a pass. It has been almost 15 years since I was a poker pro, and while my game is still sharp, I assumed that the masses would have caught up to a lot of what was effective strategy “back in my day”.

However, I literally just got back from a stay at a casino, and the people I played against on both nights were almost startlingly terrible, so I guess there’s an answer for me here after all. Here are two things just from last night:

- Vocabulary. It is clearly the case that poker broadcasts are getting better, because they used to have fairly unbearable commentary that was devoid of quality poker information, strategy analysis, etc. However, as he said to me the one time I spoke with Daniel Negreanu (it’s a bit of a shameless name-drop, but I felt he deserved to be cited since I’m quoting him) “there is a big difference between knowledge and execution” and that couldn’t be more evident than when I hear people using terms incorrectly. As an example, I heard multiple people mention “showdown value” when referencing a play they made, but very specifically after having made a play where the only value to their actions existed in bluff value.

If you have a hand like A3, and you make a sizeable over the top all in on an AJ5 board against someone who has shown a ton of strength, you should assume one of three things will happen:

1) opponent was bluffing and folds to your all in
2) opponent is insane (and/or thinks you’re insane) and calls with a hand that can’t beat A3
3) opponent has a hand like AK/AQ

In #1, the showdown value of your A3 is irrelevant. In #2, I guess showdown value is relevant, but this is by MILES the least likely of these three scenarios. In #3, if your opponent calls you then by default you lack showdown value since you have the inferior hand; if your opponent folds then your value was bluffing value, again because you had the inferior hand.

If you’re going to learn terms/concepts and weave them into your gameplay, you need to be sure you understand what they are and how to work with them. Otherwise you’re like the dummy in the above (real) hand that got called by AK.

- Bad beats are good. I’ve written about this in numerous other answers that I’m too lazy to look up right now, but I’ll recap – the circumstances of any “bad beat” come in 2 flavors:

1) While the person called with a hand that had a lower win %, they had the appropriate pot odds (/implied odds/etc) to do so, which means that their call was correct.
1a) The person’s hand might have looked worse, but actually had a greater win %. This is particularly common with people who play aggressively with strong draws. For example, if you hold 44 on 8h7h2c and I hold 9h10h, I’m a favorite to win the hand, even though you have a pair and I am “just drawing”. So in this case, it’s even less accurate to say that you took a “bad beat” because I would be the actual favorite, without even needing to factor in the pot odds.
2) Your opponent made an incorrect play, and got lucky.

In #1/1a, you’re wrong to call it a bad beat because your opponent played correctly – you just look like an idiot when you whine in those spots (assuming the people listen to you know that you’re wrong, which I suppose is not often enough the case…uggh).

In #2…what exactly do you want to happen when you play poker?? Literally, LITERALLY, you want people to make incorrect decisions against you. That’s how you win, dummies!! So while I absolutely acknowledge the outrageous frustration that can occur in the moment, particularly if it knocks you out of a tournament or costs you a huge pot in a cash game, you are an idiot for not being pleased that people made such bad plays against you.

To put it very bluntly – if after you get your money in, you could run 100k trials of that same situation and be happy with the long-term results, then you need to suck it up on the times that you lose, because they’re an inevitable part of what makes you win.

There are a lot more things that I could add to this list, but the answer was getting long (I am compulsively thorough at times, sorry?) so I’m stopping there.

“What is something you know about poker that most people don't?”

What is the most important thing to know before becoming a professional poker player?

Just one?

Like many other industries, there is a wealth of knowledge that you would want to acquire before becoming a professional poker player. I’ll give you my personal top 5.

1. You are most likely romanticizing the job.
2. You aren’t as good as you think.
3. You’re going to have (a lot) of break-even and losing sessions.
4. No one will believe or support you.
5. You’re going to be doing more planning than partying.

You’re most likely romanticizing the job.

Hollywood, ESPN, and even your own personal experience have lied to you. There are very few Teddy KGB personas or Degree All-In Moments out here in the streets. A lot of people have this idea that you just show up, play for a couple of hours, cash out and go home. Nothing is further from the truth. My average live session is 11.43 hours. While I do play longer sessions than most, I’m not sure I know very many pro-players that have less than 9 hours on average. On tv and in the movies they don’t show you the countless hours between action pots. Rest assured that for every exciting hand on a show like HS Poker or Poker After Dark, there’s countless others that never make it past the flop. This primarily applies to cash game players like myself, but what about the tournament guys?

Most tournaments, unless they’re a big production like: WSOP, WPT, ToC, Bellagio Diamond Series, etc, aren’t trying to have long tournaments. Mainly because the casino doesn’t make any money after the original buy-in/rebuys. Essentially the blinds go up faster the cheaper the buy-in (you know, so you leave the tournament and hit the cash table/slots.) That’s going to cause you more variance because you’re going to have to play more aggressively to compensate for the blind structures. Which means… You’re going to go longer in between cashes. Actually, becoming a tournament player is probably the worst way to go pro. Some of the guys, and I won’t mention them here, are actually broke. Guys that you see on ESPN. Guys that cash in tournaments for $1mil+. Some of them are even on the top 10 money list. Why?

Because it costs a lot of money to win those tournaments. Most of the major organizations only come to Vegas once a year. Which means if you’re a pro tournament guy/gal, you’re going to be chasing tournaments. So you’ll have a week long tournament in Oklahoma, a couple in California, maybe some overseas… All that takes travel. Quick, what’s more expensive than a slot machine? Casino hotel rooms. Especially when you get out of Vegas and into some of the tribal casinos. Some of those rooms can run you $200-$300 a night+. Multiply that by 7 and then add your flight. Unless you’re water-fasting, you’re going to need to add your food to that. Then there’s the fabled variance and the buy-in to the tournament.

So… Typically as a pro, you’re not going to want to travel to a tournament that has a low buy-in, because the prizes aren’t going to be high enough to warrant traveling. A key point to remember is that those numbers on the all-time money list aren’t including the buy-in to the tournaments. The statistics vary from person to person but an elite pro, meaning an expert-level player, is going to have significant cashes (10x buy-in+) somewhere around once every 35 tournaments. All the other tournaments are going to be $0 or min-cashing (basically winning the buy-in +change).

Taking in all of that information, considering that most high-level pros have turned to either selling action or being staked and taxes, it becomes really easy to see how someone could have $750k in cashes in a year, but only show $35k in profit (maybe even a loss.)

You aren’t as good as you think

Most people that ask about poker as a living, and even some that pursue it as a career, don’t critically evaluate their own play. I’ve seen more solid players go broke trying this job than you can imagine. These weren’t just guys that were okay at poker. They just underestimated certain aspects of the game. I won’t go into strat because, let’s face it, we’ve been here long enough already and aren’t showing signs of slowing down.

You’re going to have a lot of break-even/losing sessions

Most newcomers think that they’re going to be okay because they’re usually winners when they play for fun. As I’ve discussed in other Quora posts, the world changes when it’s your rent money on the table. For some, the game becomes less fun. For others, the game becomes unbearable. This leads to poor decisions both on and off the table. One of the biggest problems is spending money and bankroll management. Again, I won’t go into detail, but this is where the majority of people go astray. Everything is cake when you’re winning. Then there’s that first real losing streak. Then there’s the proverbial get unstuck phase, which extends the losing streak. Before you know it, you’ve borrowed from your roll to pay the rent etc, and then you’re playing on a couple of buy-ins… Then you’re done. But you have an awesome story. A gap on a resume, but a cool story nonetheless.

Most people who get this brilliant idea to go pro, are usually on the good side of a win streak. The truth is, it’s not going to last. I’m not a doomsday variance preacher, but it simply isn’t possible to win every session. That doesn’t mean that if you have 60 losing sessions in a row you can just say, “F-it man, it’s just variance…” Because it probably isn’t. It does mean, however, that you are going to go to the casino, do everything right, and still lose a couple of buy-ins, periodically. A lot of aspirants aren’t prepared for this. These are going to be the guys that think they only need 4 or 5 buy-ins to their preferred game because, hey, they’ve never had a downswing like that before.

No one will believe or support you.

No matter what kind of support network you think you have, it’s going to have it’s limits. I’m not saying that you don’t have people who support you (how could I?) But, in no uncertain terms, it’s going to be really difficult for them to support you. This is mostly due to the misunderstanding the majority of people have about poker. Sometimes, even to people who love you, it’s going to sound like you’re saying, “...instead of college or a job, I’m just going to play slots at the casino…” As I mentioned above, the process is easier when you’re winning. But you’ll have stretches where, even when you are winning, it won’t seem that way. Like when you make $6k this week and make -$2k next week. Technically you’re on track to make over $100k this year… I’ve yet to see someone successfully sell that to a spouse towards the end of the second week. My wife notwithstanding.

You’re going to be doing more planning than partying.

This one’s my favorite. Everyone has this idea that poker gives you all sorts of freedom. Somehow a rumor got around that playing at the table was all the work required… That is so far from true, I’m struggling for an analogy. When people tell me they want to become a pro, I always ask them what they think it looks like. It’s almost always similar to this:

“Wake up, ya know, like whenever. Throw on whatever’s on top of my laundry hamper, jump in the Benz and head over to the casino, profit about $3k in 3 hours. Then I’ll pick up the girls and head to the club for the rest of the night. Get back home blacked-out-drunk. Rinse and repeat.”

I missed the part where our hero spent hours analyzing his game and studying. All too often people seem to be under the (false) impression that because they’re winning today, they’ll continue winning. Friends, that’s not how this game works. As a matter of fact, that’s one of the biggest flaws in everyone’s favorite movie to misquote, Rounders. We never see Mike work on his game, we just see him having the ability to pick up and play his A game every session. Even after taking (what must have been) a year or two off, we see him just jumping right back into the game. While I realize that having half a movie about hand analysis would put most audiences to sleep, at least give me a montage.

“Strategy Honorable Mentions:”

1. Pot odds and how to calculate them
2. Equity and how it works
3. What it means to have dirty outs.
4. What WAWB means, and how it should affect your bet/check frequency
5. Bankrolls and how to use them effectively
6. Different player stereotypes and how to handle them
7. Opening ranges
8. When to fold pre
9. How to log sessions
10. How to know when you’re “done” with a session

Generally like me. This is not a troll thing either. We British are not use to tipping and when we do tip it’s probably not the average tip either. But there’s also another reason.

If you win a tournament for instance, they ask would you like to tip the dealers. Now, poker rooms charge a fee (the rake) and it’s normally 10% of the cost to play the tournament. That rake pays for everything and so when it’s for instance, £500 to play and then £60 rake, you are now paying more than 10% and that’s just wrong. But they still ask for a tip to the dealers. They say, the rake doesn’t involve the dealers etc etc. That’s not my fault, why should I have to pay and it’s quite a bit of cash to, say you won £3200 like I did in my last Vegas trip. I was basically forced to give the £200 for the tip. They didn’t know I was already sharing with my two poker friends for 10% and so I was left with just £2400.

Its the same with cash games. They charge about 12% rake and you are still expected to tip the dealer after every hand you win. So unless you are extremely talented, the only winners are the guys who organised the tables.

If you calculated your yearly poker earnings, the rake paid will either make you a breakeven player or worse, a losing player.

I know you asked Pro players, but all Pro means is, you play poker not for a living but what you spend the most hours doing in a week. I was a professional driver, why, because I spent most my time driving, that’s just it. You don’t have to be any good at all, just play more hours than anything else.

Thats why I’m a bad tipper and I’m sure there are others like me, particularly in the U.K. were we don’t tip everything.

The first thing you have to have is a bank roll. If you play in a game where the big blind is $3, then you need to buy in for $300, and you need to have three buy ins. Yes, that’s $900. You are most likely going to need more than that because you won’t be good at playing poker until you’ve gained some experience playing poker. If you are just starting out, play the low limit games. You won’t win any significant amount of money there, but that’s the best place to learn the rules.

Learn the ranks of the hands. Learn about “pot odds”. There are a lot of rules to the game of poker that most people don’t know, and don’t start learning, until the first time they sit at a casino poker table. Always act in turn. If somebody bets $20, you can’t raise to $25, you have to raise to at least $40. Any raise has to be equal to, or greater than, the bet or raise in front of it.

The most popular poker game is Texas Hold’em. This is a game for people who like to gamble. A great player only has a 17% advantage over a lousy player. I can tell you from personal experience that playing poker for long hours can get to be very boring. Playing poker is only fun if you are winning, and there are going to be days when you can’t win no matter what you do.

The best time to play is on the weekends. Friday evenings, Saturday afternoons and evenings, and Sunday afternoons. That’s when the poker room are the most busy, and have the most recreational players playing. There are some players who are in there every day. If you go in on a Monday morning, those are the people you’ll be playing against. If you manage to win anything against them, it won’t be much.

When you sit down at a table, watch the habits of the other players before you start playing any hands. Let the button go around the table a couple of times, and be observant, so you know what kind of players you are up against. Some will play tight, some will play loose, some will be bullies, some will never bet their own hand, but let you bet it for them. Some will check and raise. Some will raise when you bet just to see how strong your hand is.

Never show your cards unless you have to, because doing so gives away free information. If you have the best hand, and your bet gets called, you have to show your cards to get the pot.

If you win a huge pot, which takes two or three players out of the game, and the table then breaks. Take your winnings and leave. You don’t have to keep playing. If you win a huge pot, and you want to leave, sit there and pay the blinds two or three more times while mucking every hand, so people don’t complain about you doing a “hit and run”.

There is a lot to know about playing poker, and I can’t go over every rule in this space. You wouldn’t read the whole list if I could.

Best of luck to you.