Professionalism

Every now and then a player will announce on the forum that now he will "go pro" and will keep the forum updated on his progress. Usually he keeps updating for a while until he loses interest, either because he didn't make it, or because he found out that grinding it out from 9 to 5 stops being all that exciting after a while.

As some of you might know I have made my living from poker for two years before I decided to go back into the "real" world and get a job earlier this year. I have not quit poker, but I have rejected poker from the central place it occupied in my life when it was my sole source of income.

Being back as a recreational player again, it seems worthwhile to share some of my thoughts on the pros and cons of playing professionally. But let me start out by posing a question: What is the purpose of the water in the river? Is it to reach the ocean or is it just to flow? Somehow most wannabe pros think of professionalism as a goal. To me professionalism is a state of mind and a way of life. It is not a static goal - as everything that is static is dead! - in poker as in life.

Being a professional player only makes sense as an adjective and not as a verb. In my experience, it is crucial for your success in the poker world that you adopt a professional attitude towards the game and towards yourself. Many well known pros are pretty much hustlers because they fail to maintain a professional state of mind, whereas quite a few recreational players could easily make a good living from poker should they so desire.

My good friend and editor Leigh Lightfoot-Martin once gave me a compliment that I have never forgotten. She told me that she thought that I possessed a unique combination of hubris and humility. Apart from the beauty of this observation, I think it expresses something very crucial about poker. One the one hand you must have ambition. You must study the game and learn from your mistakes. You must muster the courage to challenge players above your current skill level in order to learn how to play against tougher competition. Yet you cannot set out fixed goals. Many players seem to fail from the sole reason that they are trying too hard. You cannot control poker, and you have to accept the fact that you must go with the flow of the game. You must have the humility needed to back down when the going gets tough. You will need the ability to forgive yourself for not always being able to play your A-game, and the discipline to take a break or at least move down limit when you've got other things on your mind that prevent you from playing your best.

Also the range of skills you will need as a poker player is a lot wider than most people realize. You must train your intellect on a daily basis so you keep improving your analytical skills. You must learn to know what you are, and work on getting rid of whatever habits and emotional blockades that prevent you from being what you truly are. Most people seem to have "issues" of one kind or another - anger management, low self esteem etc. When I discover such issues in an opponent I also know how to trigger a certain emotional reaction in him. Do not expose such weaknesses, because they will be utilized. Personally I have worked with this through therapy and through acknowledging my emotions and their right to be a part of me, focusing instead on avoiding the things these emotions involuntarily tend to make me do.

You must exercise your body, because without a fit, well fed and well rested body your brain will function sub-optimally. Also I have come to realize that being physically fit has the added benefit of improving your mental strength substantially. You must also allocate your time, money and attention in such ways that you will get your social needs filled. No human can live in isolation - yet many poker players tend to get consumed by the game to such a degree that there's nothing left but poker. This will severely damage your mental strength.

Finally, you will need a strong sense of empathy - the ability to see a situation through the eyes of your opponent. This is how you learn to "get into his head" and furthermore, it helps you to learn from mistakes that other people make instead of just from your own. When I look through my poker career I think that all of the above has contributed to my success. Yet as advice for others who are serious and professional with their poker, I would like you to think of the following:

� Knowing is not important - learning is.

� YOU are responsible for deciding what is right and wrong for you. Don't let anyone else tell you what to do for this will force others to make decisions on your behalf when you fail to make timely decisions yourself. Trust your gut feeling and do what feels right to you, and act when it doesn't feel right anymore.

� You are not the center of the universe. Whenever you feel really high or really low, you should take a look at yourself from a point high above. If you look at yourself seen from a satellite, you will realize that the world looks just like itself even though you are not there on the picture!

This spring I decided to stop playing poker for a living. I did so for three reasons:

� I was a winning player on all limits up to $50-100, but had taken some substantial hits at the top limits. Nonetheless I had come to realize that no matter what I had learned what there was for me to learn from poker, and that it was time for me to move on and find new challenges. Knowing is not important - learning is ?

� I was starting to feel burned out, as it is a considerable pressure to know that you will have to perform your very best every day in order to survive.

� I was running short on meeting new people, and was really starting to miss having normal colleagues to have normal fun with. In short, my gut feeling told me that it was time for me to go on, and so I did. I took a short term vacancy as an office clerk and have now been working for the last half year. And even though the pay is low, and the work is monotonous and not exactly prestigious, I feel more happy and balanced than I have felt for a long time. I still play poker a couple of hours every evening, but I enjoy it a lot more now than I did as a full time pro. And as it turns out, I seem to play a lot better because of it, and have now graduated at all limits they spread online. Somehow this is just another example of how you must go with the flow in life as in poker, and you can't make it by determination alone. Sometimes letting go is the right way to get unstuck in poker as in life.

I would like to dedicate this article to those of you who have the guts to try and live out your dreams whatever they are. Some people will tell you that you are bound to fail, yet it is better to fail while trying then it is to not try at all for fear of failure. Because it is on the road towards a distant goal that you learn what carry with you through life that can be of use in reaching other goals in your life. Goals are over when they are reached, whereas the process of reaching a goal usually entails valuable lessons that can be drawn upon in reaching other goals later in life.

Thanks to Leigh Lightfoot-Martin for proof reading this article.

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