Be honest, how many of you reading this article have wanted to be an online poker pro at some point since discovering such a thing was possible? I know I have — and on more than one occasion.
How many online poker pros are there who wake up at 12:00 p.m., play online poker for two hours, and then swan off enjoying life to the max. The answer is not many, and those who do generally don. In recent times we have seen more and more people taking an interest in playing Poker from Pennsylvania and as such many of these Poker players want to play Poker online, so we have put together the following guide which will enlighten you on where, when and how you can play Poker online from within the US State of Pennsylvania. Is Playing Poker Online Safe in Michigan? Yes, it is safe to play online poker in the state. As mentioned above, the laws that govern gambling in the state relate to operators, not individuals. Thus registering, depositing and engaging in online poker activities for those residing in Michigan is legal without worry of penalties from the state.
Being able to play poker for a living seems like the perfect job — for someone who loves poker at least. But it’s harder than you would like to believe. How to be an online poker pro? We have six quick poker tips for you to set you on your way to your dream job.
How to become a professional online poker player in one easy step would be to quit your job and use poker as your sole source of income. While this instantly makes you a poker pro, it is not advised, not even a tiny amount, for reasons that we’ll cover shortly.
1. Study all aspects of the game
Studying the game of poker is crucial if you want to learn how to succeed as a professional online poker player. When you think you have learned all there is to learn about poker, you need to study and research even more. In fact, you should never stop learning because standing still in this game means you’re going to be left behind.
Read articles on PokerNews, check out the 10 most important poker strategy books ever written, join a training site, or hire a coach. Any edge you can create for yourself will eventually lead to profits.
You can also practice playing no limit hold'em and pot limit Omaha cash games and tournaments for free at WSOP Social Poker. The games are completely free to play, meaning you can play poker for fun, try new things and never risk any of your bankroll.
2. Prove you’re a winning player
Remember how we said that handing in your notice and jumping straight into being a professional poker player isn’t a good idea? This is one of the main reasons why: you need to prove to yourself you know how to be a profitable online poker player first.
Many people bag a big score in a tournament, or win the equivalent of two months’ wages at the cash tables and start thinking that this game is an easy way to make a living. Wrong!
You need tens of thousands of cash game hands and tournaments (if not hundreds of thousands) to prove you’re a winning player. If you’re not a winning poker player over the long term, you’ll soon be heading back to your old boss cap-in-hand hoping to be reemployed.
Is This Your First Step To Becoming a Poker Pro?They say practise makes perfect and what better way to improve your online poker skills than by doing so without any risk at all to your poker bankroll? This is possible at WSOP Social Poker because it is a free-to-play online poker site that has cash games and tournaments running around the clock.
Try out new strategies completely free at WSOP Social Poker and set yourself on the way to becoming a professional poker player.
Play Now3. Be realistic
Once you’ve ascertained that you’re a winning poker player, it’s time to begin trying to figure out how many hands or tournament you’ll need to play in order at least to match your previous salary. Here’s where many people fail.
When you have a salaried job, you are usually paid on the same date every month regardless of how productive your week or month is (within reason). You’re almost certainly paid while on vacation, or if you’re sick.
Are you really going to sit grinding for 60 hours every week?
The fact you have to go to work five days per week is probably enough to make you get out of bed and go to your job. But what if none of that was true?
You may have aspirations of making $150,000 a year
, and that may be possible. But make sure you factor in at least three full weeks “holiday.” You should also plan for being sick and unable to play for a couple of weeks per year. Also, ask yourself — are you really going to sit grinding for 60 hours every week? Do you think you can make enough money at $0.25/$0.50 to warrant giving up your job?How many online poker pros are there who wake up at 12:00 p.m., play online poker for two hours, and then swan off enjoying life to the max. The answer is not many, and those who do generally don’t succeed as professional online poker players for any meaningful length of time.
4. Give playing poker professionally a trial run
Even if you have done all of the above, you should at least give playing for a living a trial run, so you have experience of how to play online poker professionally.
Take a week’s holiday from your job and spend the next five working days doing nothing but playing poker (at least you’ll be getting paid even if you have a bad week!). You may surprise yourself at how difficult it is to motivate yourself to play poker non-stop for a week. Or how after four hours grinding you suddenly lose all concentration. Or how after losing 15 buy-ins during the first three days you no longer want to get out of bed at 7:00 a.m.
It’s best to find out you’re not cut out for the life of a poker pro before you take the plunge into playing for a living.
5. Build a big bankroll and liferoll
You haven’t gone through all the previous steps but still think you know how to be an online poker pro. That’s fine, but do you have a bankroll and your other finances in order?
Most poker pros like to have at least six months’ worth of life expenses tucked away in a separate bank account in case things go pear-shaped. Dipping into your poker bankroll to cover your bills is a big no-no.
Your bankroll should be larger than a recreational player would have because you never want to drop down in stakes. Doing so, dropping down that is, makes it harder to reach your monetary goals — much harder. It’s better to be a bankroll nit than it is going broke.
6. Act professionally
Professional poker players often cite the freedom it gives them for playing for a living, but that’s not to say you shouldn’t have a professional attitude towards the job. Some of the best poker players in the world are extremely disciplined and in their approach every single day.
You wouldn’t rock up to work and put your feet on the desk or lounge around on the sofa with your laptop, so don’t do it as a poker pro. How to become a professional poker player? Starting acting like one, a professional that is.
This article was originally published on Jul. 5, 2017. Last update: Jun. 20, 2019.
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Small stakes online poker tournaments are fantastic fun. They can be frustrating at times — I’ll give you that — but for the most part, it is difficult not to enjoy yourself while competing in one.
They are also potentially lucrative beasts, not least because they tend to attract players in droves. On some sites — in particular PokerStars — tournaments with buy-ins as small as $1-$10 may see several thousand hopefuls take to the virtual felt in the hope of turning their tiny investments into much more meaningful sums.
As you can imagine, the majority of these huge fields are populated with recreational players and therefore the standard of play is, as a rule, very poor. That’s not to say navigating your way through the crowds and winning one of these things is an easy task, because it isn’t. In other words, don’t think you’re going to deposit $200 online, play a bunch of these tournaments, and suddenly be rolling in cash like Scrooge McDuck in Ducktails. It’s not going to happen.
What is going to happen, or what should happen, is that you continue reading this article — and others you find in the Strategy section — and once you’ve armed yourself with the weapons of knowledge, you go out there and apply that learning to do more than just enjoy these tournaments, but to profit from them as well.
Here are five tips designed to help you both prepare for and find success in small stakes online tourneys.
1. Be Prepared For a Long Session
Most of these low buy-in, big field tournaments take several hours to complete, so you need to be prepared to play for a long time. Be patient as always, but also be ready for a lengthy grind should you go deep in the event.
I’ve been fortunate enough to chop the $3.30 rebuy on PokerStars twice. On both occasions the tournament started at around 7:00 p.m and we finished at 6:30 a.m. This is all well and good if you are a poker pro who can sleep the next day, but you have to take into consideration work commitments if you have a job. Know what you’re potentially getting yourself into when registering for these events.
That said, the tournaments available at WSOP Social Poker do not take hours to complete, making them great to play when you have a little spare time from the daily grind.
2. Be Prepared For Some Crazy Swings
The variance in small stakes poker tournaments is huge because of the sheer number of opponents you have to get through and the fact many of these opponents can be nearly impossible to put on a hand. Also of significance when playing against a large field full of recreational players is the possibility of players calling your raises — even your all-in ones — with some ridiculous holdings, adding further to the unpredictability of outcomes.
While this situation is very favorable in the long run, over the short term you can often find yourself running worse than you ever thought possible. Make sure therefore you have an ample bankroll to fall back on when times are hard — something in the range of 200-300 times of your average buy-in (I’d recommend).
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Play Now3. Keep it Simple and Value Bet Your Hands to the Max
DO NOT try to run an elaborate bluff at any stage of the tournament because it will only lead to tears of sorrow. A lot of your opponents only care what cards they have in their hand and won’t realize from your actions that you’re representing a specific hand — they just want to get to showdown and hopefully win.
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More often than not in these events you will want to keep matters simple, playing “ABC poker” and letting the cards fall how they will.
Along the same lines, make sure you get the maximum value from your made hands. Higher-stakes tournament grinders may routinely fire 1/3 pot-sized bets at their opponents, but that’s because it is more difficult to get paid off at those stakes. At the lower end of the spectrum, you can get away with betting more. Because so many of your opponents will love to call your bets, you may as well take advantage with your strong holdings.
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4. Listen to the Betting / Prepare to Lay Down Some Big Hands
How often have you heard poker players bemoan their luck and come out with some rubbish such as “I can’t beat these donkeys, they always hit the nuts on the river.” What they don’t tell you is that “these donkeys” often play their hands in a manner that allows you to get away from pots should you need to.
For example, if a weak player has limp-called preflop, called the flop, called on the turn, and then leads into you on the river when the flush comes in, guess what? That player almost certainly has the flush. The same is often true for raises on the river. Even if the only hand that beats you is , if an obviously weak player raises you on the river, you have to consider that he or she probably has !
5. Don’t Worry About Playing a “Balanced Style”
If someone tells you that you have to play a “balanced style” of poker inlarge-field small stakes poker tournaments, laugh and walk away. While you have to do this higher up the poker food chain, you are highly unlikely to come up against the same players ever again in a field of 3,000-10,000 foes, so you can be as unbalanced as you wish.
That means not worrying so much about not revealing certain patterns with your play, such as always betting big with strong hands. While against stronger opponents you should balance your play by varying your bets and actions so as not to be read so easily, against large fields of less skilled opponents this isn’t as great of a concern.
Obviously, the five tips above are not all you need to be successful in small stakes online tourneys, but they should at least help you in your quest to turn a little into a lot!
This article was originally published on Feb. 14, 2017. Last update: Jun. 18, 2019.
Finding a trustworthy room to play online poker can be a monumental burden. That's all the more true if you're just looking for a place to play poker for free. We've listed five of the best play-money poker sites to enjoy and help hone your skills.
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