How Much Experience Do You Need To Become A Professional Poker Player?

Probably the hardest decision you will ever make in your poker career is if you should quit your day job and turn to poker as a source of income. There are many logical and strategic reasons for taking the plunge: How much money you earn from poker compared to your regular job: The size of your bankroll/savings: Availability of games in your area, and so on.

However, there is another factor that is just as crucial as any other: your experience.

I recently read a terrific book by noted author Malcolm Gladwell, titled Outliers, which takes an in-depth and unique look at what makes people successful. In one very interesting section, Gladwell examines the practice time successful people put in before achieving their success. The conclusion he came to was that it took 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert; and this is the number a poker player should use before deciding to become a professional player.

So what constitutes ‘practice’ in the poker world? Practice is the act of playing cards: Reading books and articles, messing around with PokerStove and PokerTracker, and browsing around the Internet poker forums are not actual practice. The 10,000 hours of practice time you need to put in must be hands-on, when you are actually playing poker.

So, if you want to turn professional -by professional I mean a top-notch poker player competing in the biggest tournaments and upper-middle to high stakes cash games– you will have to put in close to 50 hours/week of poker over four years!

Of course, very few people working full-time jobs are going to be able to find the time to play 50 hours of poker each week, and some youngsters with no bills/job/responsibilities may be able to put in more hours: This is why you have such an influx of young poker superstars in the high-stakes games. The Tom “durrrr” Dwan’s, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond’s, and Di “URInDanger” Dang’s of the world have more time and effort to concentrate on poker than a married middle-aged player with a full-time job.

I would all but guarantee, that before they became a consistent winner in the high-stakes poker games every single one of today’s top players put in 10,000 hours at the poker tables. And that would be in addition to the countless hours spent studying and discussing the game away from the tables.

So, don’t think that a decent sized bankroll, and reading a couple of poker books is going to prepare for a life at the poker tables. If you decide to take your shot, and are not ready, it’s quite likely you will find yourself back working 9-5, and probably with a lesser paying job!

My advice is this: Put in the time to see if you really have what it takes to be a pro poker player. If you’ve never gone through a protracted losing streak you don’t know how you will handle one when it arrives (and yes you will suffer through many of these in your poke career): Conversely, some players get a little too giddy when they are on a hot-streak, thinking it will never end, and end up blowing a lot of their profits. Just make sure you have seen it all, before you decide to swim with the sharks.