Matthew "mindcircus" Wheat is professional poker player. He successfully made the transition from NLHE to PLO and reached the final table in 2010, playing in the WSOP Event #55, $10,000 PLO Championship.
Most people think of a poker pro as a guy who sits in a casino and makes loads of money.
The reality is a little different, and it is probably best described by the often heard saying: 'It's a hard way to make an easy living'.
To make it clearer what this means, I like to ask people, "Do you have any idea how it feels to work hard all day and lose $10.000 at the end of it? It happens to me all the time".
The feeling of putting in a lot of work and still losing a lot of money is something you can't understand until you've experienced it yourself. Playing high-limit poker is as nerve-wracking as piloting an aeroplane under extreme conditions.
Another problem for poker players is that they are not respected by the public because of their profession. Most parents are horrified when their child tells them they want to quit their job or studies to become a professional poker player.
It is true that there can be different approaches from a moral perspective: taking money at the table from weaker players and using intelligence and hard work to become an elite player.
Anyone with any familiarity with high-limit poker and higher education will understand that the game requires more intelligence and study than a PhD.
It is essential to spend a lot of time on it if you want to make a living from this activity
In the early days of online poker, it was easy to make a lot of money without a lot of experience or knowledge. Today, however, you have to put in a lot of time and be talented if you want to make a living from this activity.
Anyone who wants to become a good player, is prepared to put in the time and work, and has virtually unlimited possibilities, both in terms of earnings and work.
However, when poker is considered a profession, certain circumstances arise, i.e. money takes on a completely different value. A lawyer earning $500 per hour values that money very differently from a poker player earning the same $500 per hour.
The explanation is quite simple: a lawyer receives $500 for each hour of work. If he wanted to buy something for $1000, he would have to work for two hours to get it.
The average poker player earning $500 per hour must play at really high limits, where he can easily lose between $10,000 and $100,000 in the same hour. With money coming in and out so quickly, it becomes extremely difficult to exercise restraint in these situations.
If a player is constantly improving and learning from his mistakes, he will eventually get better at controlling the money, but the problem does not go away, so you have to remain cautious.
Important: find your poker format
Anyone who wants to make a basic income from poker must constantly consider which Types of poker game brings the biggest wins. This means constant variation. I have seen more than one poker player make the mistake of staying in the game after a win.
The game of poker is constantly changing, and where it used to be easy to win money, it has become much harder. For example, in August 2007 I was playing 20 tables of $1/$2 NLHE. Then I was winning, like other good players, an average of $15.000 per month. And I managed to achieve this with skills and knowledge that would now be considered scarce.
I continued playing the same type of game until my income started to decline and in the last year it became unbearably difficult.
I only recognised the progress of poker players at the beginning of 2009. That's when I started spending a lot of time learning 6-max Pot Limit Omaha. At first I didn't do so well and kept losing money, but as time went on I started to win more than I did playing NLHE.
Today, 6-max Pot Limit Omaha is just as hard to play as NLHE. Even though I'm still one of the best players and I'm making a lot of money, I'm still learning other types of the game so that when the time comes, I'll be ready for it.
By Matthew Wheat, cardrunners.com Borrowed from http://www.pokerzeit.com/leben-als-pokerprofi-1
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