The Stages of a Prospective Professional Poker Player

Who among us hasn't thought about becoming a professional in the game? I think everyone has.

The idea of easy money, glamour and wealth has certainly figured in the minds of many of us, but the reality is much harsher and undermines the motivation of many beginner poker players.

One fine day someone introduces “Zé” to the game and he has the well-known “beginner’s luck”. What is the first thought that comes to mind for our hypothetical beginner player?

– I'm going to get rich!

Because in light of psychology, we always overestimate our cognitive abilities and since we are certainly above average, it will be easy to take money from the less intelligent.

And we start with some money in some poker room, either by deposit or by free bonus of $8 dollars, which Poker Dicas even has with 888Poker (check this link).

What happens in most cases? We take what we think are “bad bets”, post the hands as “whining” on our forum and think the room is having some kind of conspiracy against us.

In other cases, $8 turns into $60 in a few hours and our greed speaks louder, and instead of playing the micro buy-ins of $0.02 to $0.10, we start to climb the bigger buy-ins in a few hours, something that good players took months and even years to get there.

And I ask you: What is the result of this whole story? Be honest!

Exactly! We go broke, and then we enter the phase that I call the poker munchies, where you start to think that you were unlucky in some crucial hands. That your opponent couldn't have called out of position with A3, or KT, or anything like that.

After all, to err is human, to find someone to blame is divine.

You spend a few weeks feeling bitter about your “bad luck” until you actually decide to start studying poker superficially, because you consider yourself above average and with a little study, you will be unbeatable.

At this stage, you can already start to have a minimal conversation on poker forums, using their traditional jargon. For example, someone in EP limps, Joe in Cut off beta, BB shoves and everyone folds… And so on.

And then in the study you realize that there is more involved in the game of poker than just cards. There is a determining factor that makes the game of poker fascinating: THE HUMAN BEING.

So you watch a famous poker movie and are ecstatic with the phrase: “If in 30 minutes of poker you don’t figure out who the idiot at the table is, the idiot is you.”

Then you catch your breath and start to really actively participate in the forum, read books, study the most basic strategies, and start to define the specialty you want to follow, cash, mtt, stg, and so on.

At this point you already know the tools we use in a tournament, or those who play cash have, and then comes the harsh reality, the money that was initially easy, you end up discovering that it is one of the most difficult to get.

And one of the maxims that you, who aspire to reach the poker elite, learn is:

To be successful at poker, for every hour of play, at the beginning of your learning, quadruple the hours of study, as it is an easy game to learn and very difficult to master.

Do you agree? Want to pay to see?

A big hug to everyone.

Prof. Anselmo Mendes