Texas Holdem Tips

March 18, 2007 at 12:09 pm · Filed under Online Poker

Think Texas Holdem is just about luck? Think again! If anything the game has to do more about strategy than luck. How else can you explain the top ten poker players who keep winning all the various poker tournaments? If it were luck that list would be dominated with rookies and casual poker players. Hence in this article we will examine tips on how one could improve their Texas Holdem Poker game.

Improve Your Poker Face
In Texas Holdem you are only good as your poker face. If an opponent sees you getting excited, or upset, when you read your cards, you are as good as beaten. Therefore, in order to win you have to trick your opponents and this means you should avoid showing any emotion at the table.

Be Patient
Patience is a virtue, and it is an essential one to have when playing Texas Holdem. Many players too easy become impatient and immediately start making careless betting which leads to careless play and eventually to loosing the game.

Don’t Count On Your Bluff
Don’t waste your time going all in, or placing large bets, if all you have is a bad hand. Sure you can bluff but what happens when an opponent calls you out? Ideally you should keep your bluff play to no more then 20% of your total game play.

Learn To Read Your Opponents
In Texas Holdem is it vital that you learn how to read your opponent. Observe your opponents body language. Examine their expression when they look at their cards. Do they look excited? Do they look shocked? Try to find anything that would give them away. If you can get a read on what your opponents are thinking, or feeling, you have gained a massive advantage.

If you can master these poker strategies, you will become a force to be reckoned with on any poker table.

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Online Poker Tools - Increase Your Winnings

March 9, 2007 at 2:24 am · Filed under Online Gambling, Online Poker

If you are serious about online poker, owning online poker tools such as a statistics tracker and an odds calculator are essential. Almost every winning online professional poker player has both of these tools running at an given time.

Even though they are well worth their modest cost (roughly $70), it is possible to get these online poker tools for free ! All you have to do is to sign up to a new poker room, deposit some money, possibly play a few hands, and the poker tool is yours for free!

Do not make the mistake of getting the wrong poker tools. I have paid hundreds of dollars trying out every poker tool available. Read my reviews to make the best decision.

My Recommendations:

I recommend running at least three tools when you play poker. I run Poker Edge and Poker Office always in the background, they provide immensely useful information on your play and your opponent’s play. I always have a poker calculator working, Holdem Indicator is my favorite for general use, but when I can I also use Holdem Hawk (when the poker room allows me!

Poker Office is a sophisticated online poker tool that I use instead of Poker Tracker. Used in conjunction with Poker Edge, I have a very powerful online poker statistics set up. It allows you to view the other player’s betting patterns and their statistics, as well as analyze your own play (like in Poker Tracker) so you can find weaknesses in your game. There are win rates, statistics reports and graphs and the ability to replay any hand, tournament or session. As far as I am concerned it is absolutely essential for online poker playing.

Poker Edge: There are a number of different tools which do a broadly similar job, but this is my favorite. The others are too difficult to set up and not reliable enough. Poker Edge tracks the play of a huge number of players so you can see statistics of everyone on their enormous database. This can tell you which players you want to avoid and who you want to play against - very important factors in making money at the table. I run this software every time I play poker and it has been very very helpful. Almost every poker professional has software like this set up! You are giving away a huge advantage if you do not have it. Like the others its free if you sign up for a new poker room!

Holdem Indicator: This is one of the very best tools out there. I recommend this completely. The free license is available when you sign up to many poker rooms listed below. The HUGE benefit of this program is that it enables you to see your opponent’s mucked cards at showdown! This is not illegal and you are entitled to see you opponents mucked cards at showdown, but some rooms choose not to allow this. This is very useful information as it can tell you what your opponents are willing to call you down with. It has made me a lot of money! Holdem Indicator also has a basic players tracking guide for classifying player that you are playing with. All in all this is probably the best poker odds calculator on the market.

At the very least I recommend that you get Poker Edge, Poker Office and Holdem Indicator. When I can, instead of running Holdem Genius, I run Holdem Hawk which is a more powerful tool, but unfortunately it is so good that Poker Stars ban people from using it. It works with many other rooms though! If you play at rooms which allow it

Remember these are all free so you obviously have nothing to lose in getting them all.

A Word on Other “Tools”:

You may have heard about many other tools that you can buy. Be warned that most of these are scams.

Poker Bots: As well as being illegal in poker rooms, these are very easily detected. Once the poker rooms find out that you have been using a poker bot, they will ban you for life!

Hole Card Predictors: These are just plain scams. They do not work. Whatever the makers claim, there is no way to beat the random number generators that the poker rooms set up as the billion pound poker rooms hire the best mathematicians in the world to set them up and they are constantly changing!

View Your Opponent’s Hole Cards: In this scam, they send you software (for a large fee!) that you have to install on your opponent’s computer without them knowing, and have running whilst you both play. Then you have to dodge the poker room as they have tracking software and this tool is VERY illegal!

These “systems” are not worth your money. You are much better off getting the tools below for free!

Good luck at the tables!

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Video Poker Slots - The Only Slot Game You Can Beat Consistenty

March 1, 2007 at 3:42 am · Filed under Online Gambling, Online Poker, Online Slots

Video Poker slots are fun and are the only online slot game where you can use a degree of skill to tilt the odds in your favor.

Fact is, it’s the only slot game where you win consistently and here we will look at video poker slots and how you can win.

How to play Video Poker slots

Video Poker is a form of draw poker and has the same rules. The only difference is that you are not playing against any other players, just the machine.

The classic five card deal.

After you are dealt your orignal 5 cards, you have the option to take up to five new cards if you wish.

You keep whatever cards you want by pressing the “hold” button for the individual card shown.

After you have decided what to keep and what to discard, you press the “deal” button, and the cards discarded are replaced.

At this point the game is over, and the result is determined by the outcome shown. If you have won, how much you won, is then indicated on the paytable on the front of the machine.

The Real Meaning of the Pay Table

Video poker slots main advantage over other slot machines is that the return of the game can be calculated by reading the pay table on the front of the machine. This needs some explanation.

Most video poker slot games use the combinations of hands that can be made from a single 52-card deck. The number of combinations that can be made from the cards determines the payout. There are 2,598,960 possible hands from a 52-card deck.

The computer chip in a video poker slots program is set to simulate the probabilities of drawing any of these combinations.

However, as this is a fixed set of possibles, the casino operator always adjusts the pay table of the online machines to produce the house odds advantage in their favor.

But if you know how to read a pay table, you then can pick a machine with the best return and best odds of success.

As a rule, the payouts for all online video poker slots machines are the same except for the for a flush, a full house, or a royal flush.

For example a comparison of payouts on a ‘Jacks-or-Better’ video poker slot game

Payback Machine Payback with Strategy

9 for a full house 6 for a flush 99.5%

8 for a full house 5 for a flush 97.4%

7 for a full house 5 for a flush 96.3%

6 for a full house 5 for a flush 95.2%

Statistically a 9 / 6 will bring a royal flush once for each 40,000 hands. The 8 / 5 odds are once for each 45,000 hands etc – So try and play 9 / 6 machines only.

How To Bet Rright. Play Max Coins

Betting the right way will help you win consistently by getting the odds in your favor.

By betting five coins, all winning hands are paid out by a factor of five, except for the royal flush. This is a sort of incentive to get you to put five coins in play.

You also have to know that by playing less than max coins, you will just be contributing to a royal flush prize that will be won by another player.

The only way to beat video poker slot machines is to make sure that you win the Royal Flush so you must play maximum coins

Strategy Play A Must

The odds in video poker slots are improved if you play with a strategy.

These strategies you can get free on the net and vary depending on the game you play. What you should do is play the machines with the best payouts and then follow the strategy for the given game.

Hasten Slowly!

What’s the rush? Playing online Video Poker slots on a computer should not a hurried event, and certainly there is no more money for playing quicker.

Take your time, the machine is in no hurry when you play video poker slots so check that each hand is played correctly with optimal strategy and don’t make any errors.

You need to play for a long time

You can win at video poker slots but you need to play for a long time.

Don’t expect to win in just a few hours it can take hundreds but if you persevere and play with strategy you will end up expanding your bankroll and that’s what its all about.

The odds of winning in video poker games are much better than normal slot machines and in addition you get fantastic graphics, making it a very excting and enjoyable gaming experience.

If you love slots and want to tip the odds in your favor, try playing video poker and get the odds on your side.

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Poker Etiquette

February 26, 2007 at 2:26 am · Filed under Online Gambling, Online Poker

You would be forgiven for thinking that no etiquette applies in online poker. Many, many times online poker players reach the depths of vulgarity simply because of a perceived bad beat inflicted on them by another player, or even because another player is just playing badly. Or maybe even for no obvious reason. Some players will be abusive and rude to other players simply as a playing style. This type of player seems to think that being rude to others at the tables will put their opponents on tilt and therefore give them an edge.

Well, in that respect, they are correct. Sometimes, anyway. It can be very infuriating to have abuse heaped on you for the way you play, or for your lack of ability or obvious mistakes you may have made. To have a player heap abuse on you after you won a hand from them can be more than annoying; to have your play questioned in front of the whole table can affect your confidence, especially if you are not a very confident player to begin with. Should you catch a winning hand from poor starting cards, and then be abused when you show your winning 7 2 off, it might make you think twice before playing poor cards again. You dont want to be ridiculed in front of the whole table again, after all.

That might sound helpful, but sometimes its ok to play poor cards. Sometimes you can be in the big blind and get to see the flop simply because no one raised you. More importantly, advanced play would suggest that you play poor cards every now and again just to vary your game and hinder the other players that may be getting a read on you. But if your confidence is dented because you were abused in an earlier hand, you may not play cards, bad cards, that maybe you should play.

Aside from that, it is not, and should never be, acceptable, for anyone to abuse any other player at the table. It just isnt on. If the other player is the absolute worst player in the world, it still isnt ok. Even if you take the worst bad beat in the history of poker, you are not entitled to be abusive to anybody. Ever. Period.

A simple guide would be that you never say anything to another player that you would not say to your Grandmother. If you are the type of person that would be abusive to your Grandmother, then that guide doesnt apply to you. The best thing to say when your temper is rising and you feel that the other player is a complete donkey is … nothing. If you are on tilt because of a bad beat - say nothing. Just leave the table.

Those players that still think its ok to abuse other players might someday realise that it doesnt make them look like great players. It just makes them look like what they are - rude abusive people. And some day they may come to see themselves the way the rest of us see them. Hopefully, that day will be soon.

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How To Know Your Poker Odds

February 23, 2007 at 7:12 am · Filed under Online Gambling, Online Poker

Hand odds
Poker odds can be defined, in the simplest terms, as the odds of making your hand in the remaining cards to come. Though this is important, it is not the only thing to consider when trying to work out the odds on a particular hand.

The easiest way to calculate the odds on a particular hand is to count the number of outs that you have to make your hand. Outs are the number of cards left in the deck that will make or improve the cards that you already have. To work out the odds just subtract the number of outs from the unseen cards to come and the answer will tell you what the odds are for that particular situation.

A good example of this would be, in a game of Hold’em, where you hold two cards to a flush and the flop brings two more, so that you have four cards to the flush. There are nine more cards that can complete your hand and there are forty-seven unseen cards left. If you subtract nine from forty-seven this gives you thirty-eight. So your odds are thirty-eight to nine, or roughly four to one, against making your hand.

You will be most concerned with the odds when you are drawing to a straight or a flush. The easiest way to remember this is that a straight is a 5 to1 underdog when only 1card is needed to make it, if it is an open ended straight. A flush is a 4 to 1 underdog when only 1 card is needed to complete it.

Pot Odds
You must also compare the odds of making your hand with the odds the pot is offering pot odds for the bet that has to be made. If the odds of making your hand are xx/1, is the pot offering those or better odds? If it is then this is a good bet, if not then it is a bad bet.

Another consideration to think about is the chances that you will be beaten even if you make the hand you are drawing for. If this is a possibility then the pot odds have to be greater than the odds of just making your hand to make up for those times you are beaten.

Implied Odds
An important consideration, that you need to look at, is the implied odds that the table is giving you. Implied odds are the additional bets that you will collect on later betting rounds if you make your hand. This is mostly a judgment call based on what you know about your competition and how they have been playing the hand so far.

With practice and experience you will be able to estimate what the odds of winning the most from each of your hands are.

Good Luck

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Follow These Poker Rules in Playing Texas Hold’em

February 22, 2007 at 2:41 am · Filed under Online Poker

There are certain rules you should keep in mind when playing Texas Hold’em in a card room. First of all, you must “buy in” to join a game. That means you must meet the table’s minimum buy-in, or the minimum amount of chips required to play. The usual minimum buy-in for a low limit game is $50. You buy the chips from the dealer. These are color coded, the color indicative of a chip’s value: $1 for white, $5 for red, $25 for green, and $100 for black. You purchase your chips from the dealer. Sometimes players can buy chips from each other, but this is often not allowed. Ask your dealer first if you are uncertain.

Be aware that games are generally played “table stakes” - that is, you can only bet with the playing money you placed on the table at the beginning of a hand. You cannot add to it money from your pocket or anywhere else, and you cannot withdraw it from the game either, during the course of a hand. However, you are allowed to buy in - put more cash on the table or buy more chips - between hands.

You can join a game that is already in progress, but in most cases you will be required to “post” - meaning that you must place in the pot a bet amounting to the small and big blinds combined. Otherwise, the dealer will not give you any cards. When you post, you automatically get to see the flop unless a player raises and you do not call. On the whole it is advisable not to post; instead, you should wait until you can take a blind position and join the game as a regular blind.

There are a number of rules of conduct that you should always take care to follow. If you don’t, you may be asked to leave the card room - and you may even forfeit whatever money you have in play! So take care to follow the correct conduct.

One very important rule is that you should never pick up your cards. Card rooms often have rules against players taking the cards off the table, and other players will see it as the sign of a novice player - exposing your weakness. When you are dealt your two pocket cards, just leave them lying face down on the table. To look at them, cup your hands around the cards and slightly turn up the corners so you can see the pips.

Players often do not verbalize their actions in poker. If they want to fold, they simply return their cards to the dealer without exposing them. To check, they tap the table with one hand. To call or raise, they set out chips or money, stating the amount if necessary.

Remember that in poker, actions speak just as loud as words. Even if you do not say anything, your actions will be construed as binding, and you cannot take them back. Therefore, be careful with how you act at a card table.

Never act out of turn. Aside from flouting conduct, you are giving yourself away to the other players. Wait until it is your turn before you call, fold, or raise. If you call out of turn, others may choose to fold - players who might have bet money into the pot before you made your bet.

Never splash the pot, or place your bets directly into the pot. Let the dealer place the bet in the pot for you. Otherwise, there may be questions about whether you put in the correct amount, and the dealer may have to pause the game and check the amount of money in the pot, causing unnecessary delay.

Never expose your cards or give out information unnecessarily, even after folding. This can alter the dynamics of a game after you have left it, and unfairly damage other players’ strategies. They may get rightfully angry with you for such an action. Sometimes cards do get exposed by accident, though. In such cases, every player has the right to see the card that was revealed. If you let one player see a card that you hold, all the others may ask to be shown it as well.

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Laying Down a Big Hand

February 20, 2007 at 7:40 pm · Filed under Online Poker

Fixation - Definition: an unhealthy and compulsive preoccupation with something or someone. (Dictionary.com)

Fixation happens. I’ve seen players with pocket aces not notice that someone at the table has possibly received a flush on the flop. After the river, they confidently flip over their aces only to realize they have lost the hand.

I have got caught in the act of not laying down a big hand. I was in a tournament at Catfish Bend Casino in Iowa and was dealt pocket Queen’s. I wasn’t paying enough attention to the other players at the table and went “All In” before the flop. Had I been paying attention and simply made a small bet instead of going all in, I would have noticed that the posture of one of the other players had changed. He leaned forward and placed his hands differently on the table. I realized later that this signified he had a good hand. He ended up beating my pocket Queen’s with pocket King’s. It’s very rare but it happens. Thankfully, I was able to buy back into the tournament at that point and ended the tournament in 5th place.

Knowing when to lay down a big hand is part of playing quality poker. Being able to read the other players at the table and determine what hands they will typically play will give you this edge. It also relies on your ability to estimate the cards that the other players have as well as the cards that will likely come on the flop, turn and river. This is estimated through probability. See my article “Its all about the cards,” for more information about this subject.

I was watching a poker tournament on TV and it was heads up play. The TV did not show the cards they were playing with. Simply by watching the way one of the players was acting (he was unsure) and the cards in the flop, it told me he had a low pocket pair. My father asked me to guess what he had and I said pocket nines. I was right on the money.

I’ve also prevented myself from losing a hand as well. I had determined that one of my opponents had pair their 10 on the flop and the other I wasn’t concerned about because of their previous betting pattern. I had paired my 9 on the flop and I was able to determine after I saw the turn that he had a pair of 10’s. The only reason I knew this is because I watched how he played and how he bet in hands that I wasn’t playing. I subsequently folded the hand and he beat the other player by showing his pair of 10’s.

Overall if you do not become fixated on your hand and pay attention to the whole table, you will become a more successful poker player. Poker is not only about the cards you have in your hand, but it is also about being able to confidently determine, through probability and psychology, that you have the best hand.

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Student Pays Off $60,000 student Loan Playing Online Poker

February 19, 2007 at 1:38 pm · Filed under Online Casino News, Online Poker

I thought this might be an interesting article to list since I only started this new site less that 2 weeks ago. This site is all about debt and everything that goes along with it. I barely had this thing up and going and i was getting emails from people telling me their debt stories and I have no place to put them so I figured I would add them on here until im ready for them so here it is:

To: whom this may concern,

I noticed you started this new site and wanted to hear about debt and all the stories people have whether good or bad. Well I have an interesting story for you not one that alot of people would agree with but one that I did and paid off in a big way. I graduated from Ohio state in 2005 and had no idea what i wanted to do in life. I had around $60,000 in student loans and was being “killed” sorry but I didnt know what other word to put there by the interest on the loans as you know many of us students are. I worked my butt off and tried to pay this down during school and didnt have much luck with the cost of living.

So one day I was surfing around on the net and saw all these articles about online poker and I said what the heck lets try it out, one site was offering 100% match on my deposit. Now im from a very religious home and gambling is not tolerated.

So here goes I deposited $800.00 it was the last of my student loan money and well I was up $500.00 in the first 10 minutes, I thought AWESOME here I go. I played for several hours and didnt move very much that day. So the next day I woke up and played again I went UP $2500.00. I was darn near rolling over on the floor. So I figured I would go grab something to eat and came home and played again. Now im thinking I have issues with gambling. So I figured if I went up anymore I would quit. Well that never came I went down $600.00

On to the next day a Sunday gods dayhahah I thought ok im gonna win today. I wasnt playing for 20 minutes and I was broke. I LOST it ALL I didnt know what to do talk about depressed. So back to the drawing board. I started mowing lawns and was making ok money but the thrill of winning that money playing poker never left my head.

Now that everyone thinks I have a gambling problem I went on and played again FOR FREE this time and went into a FREEROLL tournamentis a tournament you can play and win small amounts of money or entries into bigger tournaments so I play about 20 tournaments lost them all and started to give up. There was one more tournament at 9:30pm for a free entry into a big tournament. The problem was there were 2500 people playing for this. Well I played and 8 hrs later I won the tournament and I was in to the big tournament.

So the following Saturday is the big day. Well I was late by 30mins I was down big time but I was still in the tournament just sitting out every hand. 7 1/2 hours later I was the winner of $100,000.00 Yes I could not believe it and I still do not believe it but here I am today debt free of $60,000 and off to the wonderful game of life.

Till this day I have not played online poker or any type of gambling. I figured My wish was granted

CHEERS

GOOD LUCK WITH THE SITE LOOKS GOOD

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Bankroll and How to Keep Your Risk at a Minimum

February 15, 2007 at 11:25 am · Filed under Online Gambling, Online Poker

Poker bankrolls should protect your emotional well being as much as your financial well being. In other words, your bankroll should prevent you from playing scared when you’re going through the inevitable, everyone has them every once-in-a-while runs of bad luck.

Luck is an important factor in poker, equal or almost equal to skill, so you’re bound to have days that your most sterling, brilliant play ever just can’t stop the hemorrhaging of your cash.

To keep your risk at a minimum, you must make sure you have enough money to keep you sane during a downswing. Money management is should be ranked up there as a top priority when you’re playing in a tough game because good bankroll management can get you through the swings and keep you from going broke.

Beginner to intermediate level players should be particularly careful about how they manage their money when they play. Most of the time, newcomers go broke at the table because they become too excited. Playing high limits with insufficient bankroll and insufficient skills is going to lead to problems. That said, as we’ve mentioned, even the best players go broke because they play limits that are too high when they’re clearly having off days.

To avoid these problems and to avoid playing scared – an inevitable result of a depleted bankroll – you should watch your limits like a hawk. If you’re playing too high with too little money – a common occurrence – you’ll be at a major psychological disadvantage through out the game. Before you’re conscious of how you’re thinking, you’ll be bluffed out of your money by playing cheap.

If you decide to play for no limits, you should start the game with at least 100 times the bind. If you want to play $0.25 to $0.50, for example, you should have at least $50 to start.

When you’re experiencing a swing in the wrong direction, be aware that most downward swings, if properly managed, trail off at about 100 points – whether it’s 100 of $0.10 or 100 of $100,000 value depends on your game but take it into consideration. Remember also that you can find your bankroll depleted by 200 points, even 300. What this means is, you need to have the starting bankroll to cover such eventualities. Not only do you need to cover the possibility that you might loose up to 300 points at whatever the value you’re playing, you also need to have enough money in your stack to keep playing with a cool head – easier said than done.

Minimizing your risk depend on understanding the stakes in a particular game. Your method for understanding the stakes could be based on any one of a hundred strategies that have been developed by professional gamblers and enthusiastic poker players alike. The trick is to find the method that works for you – check out a couple of weighty books on poker and you’ll soon come across a few.

However, when it comes to risk minimization and bankroll management, regardless of your game or stakes, these are the rules you should always follow:

Never play scared: a fundamental principle of good poker playing and, incidentally, good gambling. Never play with scared money (your rent, grocery money, or children’s college funds). Never play with more money than you were planning to: do not exceed your initial bankroll because if you have a run of bad luck, you’ll soon find yourself playing scared and loosing.

A widely accepted practice amongst gamblers is: never bet more than 5% of your bankroll on a given wager. Poker players often advocate this rule. Again, it’s another method of preserving your sanity during a downswing to minimize the risk. If you can limit your scared play, you may begin to fall into that small percentage of online poker players who make money in the long-run. It’s a sad fact that as many as 90% of online poker players lose money in the long run, primarily due to bad money management.

Here’s some tips on how to manage your bankroll online by controlling your stakes:

All players: Never open an online account with less than $150.

Limit players: If you have $200 or less as your starting bankroll, your stake limit should be around $0.5-1.00 and around $5 if you’re playing Sit and Go Tournaments.

If you have between $500 and $900, you should still play $0.5-$1.00 as a safety. Only when you know the competition and have a few hundred in your pocket should you start playing at $1.00 -$2.00 limit; Sit and Go Tournaments you can play at $10.

No-limit players: To play no-limits online and manage your bankroll properly, you should buy into a game at 100 times the Big Blind (BB) and your bankroll should be at least 20 buy-ins of 100 BBs. If you’re playing $0.10-$0.25, you should buy in for $25 and your bankroll should include 100 x 20 x $0.25 = $500.

To play $0.5-$1.00, following the same guidelines, you should enter the game at $50 and have a bankroll of at least $1000.

Sticking to these guidelines should help you play safe and will thereby reduce the risk you’re playing at.

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So You Think You Can Be a Professional Poker Player?

February 13, 2007 at 6:23 pm · Filed under Online Gambling, Online Poker

Being a professional poker player looks like it would be a fantastic job. On the televised poker tournaments, you are always seeing professional players walking away with huge winnings, sometimes as much as a million dollars. That is a lot of money for basically winning at a card game. Watching one of those tournaments, I’m sure that the thought crossed your mind that you could easily be a professional poker player. Well, maybe not easily, but with a little training and experience, what’s to stop you? And it would sure beat working 9 to 5 at the office.

I’ve had such thoughts myself. I even had big dreams of being this superstar poker player riding around in a limo on the streets of Las Vegas, splashing huge wads of cash to everyone around me. But before long, I snapped out of it. Because it’s just a dream, after all, and a ridiculous dream at that.

Of course, it’s not a totally impossible dream. There are, after all, real-life professional poker players. But believe, me, they don’t go around with their heads in the clouds, filled with dreams of glitz and glory. In fact, all of the successful pros I know are very down-to-earth people. That’s because they don’t treat poker playing as a game, but as a career, and like any other career, you have to work hard to get “promoted.” The do enjoy some of the glories and perks you would imagine, but on the whole, their lifestyles are a lot less glamorous that you might imagine.

First of all, professional poker players need to be very disciplined. Except for a few occasions playing with friends and family, they cannot afford to play poker for fun. Of course, they must enjoy playing poker, or why else would they do it, but they have to take each game very seriously. And given such an approach, playing poker can actually turn out to be quite tense and stressful, as the player has to be patient, alert, and controlled, and must avoid making mistakes.

And then, playing professional poker is costly, especially in the beginning. In poker, everyone starts out as a novice player. To develop the experience required of being a professional, you have to play hundreds of thousands of poker hands. You simply cannot win them all, so you will certainly lose money in the process. Eventually, you may earn enough to make up for any losses, but that could take a long time. And you also have to consider related costs, such as travel, food, drinks, and other expenses you may incur at a casino.

Wanting to be a professional poker player is a lot like being a musician or a stage actor. If that is your dream, then by all means go for it. But until you start tasting true success, don’t quit your day job.

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