What does it take to go pro?

We all know professional poker players have to know how to play poker, and know how to play it very well. We all know you need a bankroll that will see you through the up and down swings. But is that enough? No.

Your bankroll will be your playing capital, your investment. Making the decision to become a professional poker player is much the same as making a decision to open your own business. You have to have capital to run your business (bankroll) and enough besides that to live off while you get your business off the ground.

Typically the rule is that you need to be able to operate a new business for 3 years at a loss. That means you need to be able to cover all the business expenses and all your living expenses for 3 years in order for your business to be able to be successful. You will find some suggestions that you only need to cover your business for 2 years to be successful, this is because the typical business requires about 2 years to begin to turn a profit. But if you don't turn a profit after two years and don't have the capital to continue to operate at a loss then your business goes under. So having enough to cover 3 years is pretty critical.

Going pro in poker is much the same I believe. You are starting your own business, and poker is your business. So you need a bankroll that will last you three years. That includes the money you play with, travel expenses, hotel expenses, tournament entry fees, etc. But one thing that I think is often overlooked is you need to continue to have living expenses as well.

Maybe your first year as a professional poker player you make the final table in the WSOP main event. Well, that would be nice and would certainly make life easier. More likely is that you are going to have some serious dry spells as you play against tougher competition then you have ever faced and as you play more poker then you ever have in your life. And these dry spells will eat big chunks out of your bankroll.

When a person wants to become an independent contractor, a common formula to make up for the benefits you lose by working for a company is to take your annual salary and multiply it by 2 and divide by 1000 to get the hourly rate you need to charge. So if you made 50000 a year, you would need to charge 100 dollars an hour to break even as an independent contractor. This covers taxes, insurance, training, unbillable hours, etc.

As a professional poker player you are much like an individual contractor, you work for yourself, set your own hours and how much you earn is based on how hard you work and how good you are at your profession. So if you earned 50000 a year before going pro and decided to make the leap, I would recommend besides your bankroll, that you have $300,000 set aside for living expenses to get you through.

Now that seems like an awful lot, I mean how are you going to be able to put 300k together PLUS a bankroll when you only make 50k a year??? Well, think about what you are doing, you are going into business for yourself and you need to give yourself a chance to be successful.

I know many of the members here have dreams of making a living at poker some day. And many of the members here have the talent to make that a reality. I just wanted to make sure that when someone decides to make that leap, they have thought it through. It's easy to watch the tournaments on TV and say I'm better then that guy and think you can do it. And you might be right, you might be better then that guy, but that doesn't mean you have everything in place to be able to make that move.

For me, the only way I would consider going pro is if I won enough large tournaments to put together a bankroll and a living expense fund large enough to last me three years. If after 3 years I wasn't making a solid profit then I'd have to go back to finding a job to support myself. You just can't leave yourself without any outs.

Now there are people who take different routes. Jennifer Hartman was flat broke after losing her bankroll. She borrowed 50k from a friend and hit a hot streak and paid it back in short order and now makes a nice living playing poker. Do you have a friend you can borrow 50k from? If you lose your bankroll is really the best thing to borrow money anyway? In most cases, probably not. It doesn't mean you can't go pro, it probably just means not quite yet.

Even if you don't have a family that depends on you for support, things like water and electricity are nice to have. So if you want to go pro, think it through and make sure you have yourself in a position that you can succeed. Otherwise your adventure into professional poker may become nothing more then a very expensive vacation from work.