Poker for profit is not for everyone. It is time consuming, often frustrating, and can turn into a drain on your money instead of a profitable hobby if not done well.
My book, my videos, and this website are not intended to convince you to play poker for profit. They are for the purpose of helping you develop your skills and bankroll more quickly once you have decided to play poker for profit.
If you are considering poker for profit, but have not decided either way, this article may help you organize to your thoughts. If you are here, my assumption would be that you at least have some interest in earning money by playing poker. But, you may not have made up your mind whether it would be worth the time and money invested.
Before I talk about when you should play poker for profit, let me say when you definitely should not play poker for profit:
You should not play poker for profit if you need additional money to maintain your current financial situation.
In other words, if you work two jobs, one full and one part, to make ends meet, you should not quit your current part-time job to play poker – and not your full time job, for sure.
The Plan to go from beginner to winner can take a matter of weeks, but at the end of the plan, you will only be starting to profit significantly from poker. In that respect, it is more hobby business than part-time job.
You can and likely will make money, but it will take time to see it.
If you have a full-time job and a part-time job and get laid off from either job, do not take that as a sign from the Poker Gods that you should stop wasting your time punching a clock and go get rich at the poker tables. That is almost sure to end in disaster.
I was working full-time as a teacher, plus ride share driving on weekends when I stumbled onto poker. I kept driving while I learned so that my income was not interrupted. In fact, I ended up working extra hours in my car so that I could replenish my bankroll two different times before I turned my winrate around.
Poker beginners who follow The Plan will often not have to replenish their bankrolls after their initial $100 investment.
I didn’t stop ride share driving until it became clear that I could make more per hour playing poker, than through ride share (with no wear and tear on my car). I still stay up-to-date as a ride share driver, in case the cash flow I now see from poker should be interrupted by a downswing.
Downswings happen.
You should not play poker for profit if you do not have time for it.
If you are a family person and are working that full-time job and maybe a part-time job, it will be difficult to play poker when your family needs your attention more than the fish at the tables do.
If you are a serious student in college, especially graduate school, your academics have first claim on your time.
If you are a charity volunteer, a political activist, if you are in search of a relationship, if you are writing a book, or any number of other time consuming but worthwhile pursuits, think carefully before adding another one.
Still, some people are uniquely suited for taking a shot at becoming a profit-making poker player. If you are one of them, you should not miss this opportunity. So, here are my top 4 indicators that for-profit poker may be for you:
If you are are already playing poker – poker is for you! (most likely)
If you are already playing online or especially if you are already playing live, but you are not happy with your win rate, you are at the right place. Your decision is not whether to make money by playing poker (as opposed to some other way), but whether to make money while playing poker (that you are already playing).
You already know you enjoy poker, so all you need to learn is how to play it for profit and whether playing it for profit is still enjoyable enough to continue.
This one may sound like a no-brainer – if you are already playing poker, then of course you want to play it for profit. But that is not necessarily true for all. Everyone would like to win more, of course. But if you are playing poker as a fun gambling game, you may find that playing for profit takes the fun out of it.
Poker for profit requires discipline and constant development of skills. If you just want to keep playing for fun, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You will experience thrilling wins and heart-breaking losses, that is what gambling is for. You, as a recreational player, are welcome at any table anytime. You have a better chance of actually winning money than any casino games and the seats are more comfortable.
But if you already know the rules, you already enjoy playing, and are willing to make the effort to develop your skills and bankroll, you can turn your leisure activity into a profit center.
If you are already spending hours playing other games online, playing with a game console, or other electronics-based leisure activity, poker may be for you.
If you are playing World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, Fortnight, online chess, Half-life, etc, for at two hours per day or more, then you are already investing the time. But you are not earning the money, so you may want to consider spending that time playing poker instead. Poker may not be as much fun as shooting the headcrab controlled zombie scientists, or mating in three moves, but it can generate income. In years of playing Half-Life, and computer chess, I never made a dime.
I believe that chess players, and people who enjoy online strategy games are uniquely suited to for-profit poker as they are already used to thinking steps ahead and deducing the plans of others.
I also spent a huge amount of time debating on internet forums, communicating with people that I would not have chosen to spend more than five minutes at a time with in real life. That was shortly after I gave up watching television which also used to consume hours of my life.
None of those is a “waste of time” if you enjoy it. But, with poker you may also be able to have fun and earn money.
If your leisure time activities are health-enhancing ones such as exercise, sports, gardening, yoga, etc, I will not recommend you replace them with poker. Not unless you are willing to invest time, risk money and sacrifice your health.
However, to be blunt, if you are already a couch potato with a vitamin D deficiency, the hours of online poker will harm you no further. I mean that with no judgement; I am the same way. Whatever harm the sedentary lifestyle may be doing is not poker’s fault if you switch from channel surfing to online cash games.
In fact, you could pull your computer close to a sunlit window, move an exercise bike in front of your computer and pedal while you play and catch sunshine. That way, you can make money and improve your health. Then, as so often in poker, you have two ways to win!
If you have tried “gambling systems,” and are looking for another one, poker is for you.
This is the one that I am most sure about. If you have tried card counting at blackjack, some form of progressive or regressive betting system or any other gimmick to win the unwinnable, this is for you. You have the desire to win and the willingness to learn a system and apply it. They didn’t work for you because you tried to outsmart professional gambling mathematicians who know way more than a regular person ever can about their games.
If you are looking a “system” that can actually work, try the plan. The Plan is not a system, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that you should follow the plan instead of trying yet another system. Poker cannot be won through a system. Rote following of the default 30BB strategy here is the closest plan possible to a “poker system” but it is just the beginning of your learning.
The default strategy is your start point. It is a way to plug leaks in your game and bring you quickly to break-even or slight winner. It will then be up to you to learn the math and psychology you need to be a consistent significant winner.
When I finally found out that poker could actually be profitable – that real people earn real money from playing poker – it was natural for me to try it. I studied and played at micro-stakes so that I could afford to lose until I started winning. Neither of those is realistic for any other gambling game.
As far as I know there are no “micro-stakes sports books,” “micro-stakes horse handicapping,” or “micro-stakes blackjack.” There are certainly no “micro-stakes day trading.” Even if there was, I do not believe a typical person could practice and study enough to make those profitable.
Poker only requires simple psychology and middle school math. Anyone with patience and reasonable intelligence can learn to earn. Thanks to the micro-stakes, we no longer have to spends thousands of dollars learning before we can win.
If time is no object for you, you may be suited to for-profit poker.
If you are retired, if you are unable to work due to a disability, If you are an empty-nester suddenly finding yourself bored around the house, if you are a trust-fund baby who watches a lot of TV during the day, or if you are a divorced former trophy spouse who lives off the settlement, poker can be a profitable way to spend your plentiful time.
What is the Money For?
Even after you go from beginner to winner, poker is not a reliable income in the same sense that working part-time is. You might only make a hundred dollars per week working weekends at McDonalds, but that hundred will be there, week to week.
In poker, you will sometimes have downswings that not only prevent you from paying yourself from your winnings, but which force you to put future winnings toward rebuilding your bankroll.
When you do start winning, be very cautious about incorporating poker income into your monthly budget. If you needed the hundred dollars per week you made at the poker tables to make rent this month, what will you do next month when you have one losing week and one break-even week?
This is not to say that you should leave all your poker winnings in your online poker account or in your bank account set aside for poker. There is no prize for dying with the biggest bankroll and no prize for going the longest without a withdrawal.
In my poker life, I take excess bankroll out and use it for one-time optional expenditures. This keeps me from relying on poker income as a steady part of my budget. At first, I used it to take my own trophy wife out to dinner or otherwise treat her to life’s little luxuries. “You’re at the winner’s table now, baby!”
I also used it to pay off credit cards and other smaller debts. Paying off a credit card with 18% interest is a guaranteed 18% annual return on investment. Try getting that with a certificate of deposit. I also use it to add to vacation savings, and plus up my cash savings.
Hopefully, by now you get that I am not selling a get rich quick scheme here. I’m selling very little. Just one book, which is avalable on Amazon for 19.99 paperback, 9.99 Kindle or in the shop for 5.99.
If you are sure you do not need the book, you can also buy just the default strategy for 100NL. The cost for that is one big blind. But if you misapply that strategy instead of using it as I describe in the book, I would expect it to cost you more than the extra five big blinds you pay for the book and the default strategy.
For profit poker is not for everyone. If you think that it might be for you, I suggest you preview the book on Amazon and decide whether the plan might be for you.
Keep Calm and Re-Buy!
Frank
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay