How much study it takes to become a pro poker player
The amount of time it takes to become a professional poker player varies greatly depending on a person’s ability, level, skills, work ethic, etc. But even the most ordinary person can easily become a pro. But first the question arises: who is a professional poker player?
The financial component
A professional poker player is simply someone who pays all or most of their bills and expenses through their winnings at the poker table, rakeback and any other endorsements or income related to poker. All smart professional poker players these days have realised the need to create multiple sources of income through the game. That’s why you can see many poker professionals streaming live on Twitch these days.
Essentially, it’s killing two birds with one stone. Players make money playing poker and at the same time create a revenue stream through Twitch subscriptions/sales/affiliate deals. The same principle applies to someone who is a “sponsoring pro” on a poker site. For example, famous poker pro Daniel Negreanu was sponsored by PokerStars for a long time. The poker site paid him to promote his brand while he was playing poker.
Most poker professionals these days make a substantial portion of their income outside of the poker tables. Many people don’t realise this. A professional poker player is someone who gets most of his income from poker related activities, including playing poker, as well as sponsorship, branding and so on. Those who don’t expand and simply try to succeed in today’s (often difficult games) solely through their winnings at the poker table usually don’t stick around.
A bit of theory
Smart poker pros have more than one source of income, not just the game. Putting that definition of a poker pro aside, let’s move on to the topic of how long it takes an average person to become one these days.
It takes the average person at least a year to become a professional poker player. This is the amount of time it will take both to learn the game at world class level and to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are a consistent winning player.
These days many people rush to become professional poker players because they’ve been playing at poker tables for weeks/months, and in some cases they also hate their day job. It’s not the smartest idea, because a few weeks or even a few months is not enough to finally prove that you’re capable of winning at poker.
So you need to play a minimum sample size of 100,000 hands before drawing any conclusions about your results in poker. A lot of people don’t want to hear that. The long term perspective in poker is much longer than most people think. For many who play online poker, playing 100,000 hands will take a few months, but for those who play live, it can take an entire calendar year.
