By achieving these standard requirements, you can be able to play like other pros who even writes their own autobiography. Pros like Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott talks about his autobiographical movie in WGE:MAG.
The Luck v Skill debate analysed- Plus Annie Duke and Marcel Luske join the Advisory Panel. Click here for more details.

If you’re interested in becoming a poker pro, you’re not alone. While there was a time where poker was looked down upon as a profession, in the 21st century, poker has become associated with a glamorous lifestyle, with players jet-setting from country to country and being treated like rock stars everywhere they go. Since clearly playing cards all day is a lot better than working at a nine-to-five desk job, many players are wondering how they too can join the ranks of poker professionals.

The Poker Pro Grind

Your first tip is to get that rock star lifestyle idea out of your head. While a handful of poker players can obtain fame and fortune, the large majority are grinders, toiling away at their laptops in relative obscurity, pushing small edges hour after hour, day after day, to make their nut. Sound dull? That’s because when you are a poker pro, poker is your job. It can be a good job and a lucrative one, to be sure, but to be successful, you’re going to have to work. If it doesn’t feel like work, it’s going to be tough for you to last.

The Poker Pro Honesty

Once you’ve come to grips with the reality of what being a poker pro is like, you have to find out if you have the right stuff. This means record keeping. It’s not good enough to think you’re a consistently winning player. We tend to remember our wins and forget our excuse our losses. If you’re going to play poker for a living, you need to know you’re a long-term winner. That means recording every session, the time, duration and how much you won or lost. You’ll need to do this for months and show a consistent profit before you should consider dumping your day job.

The Poker Pro Bankroll

Once you’re sure you’ve got what it takes, you need a bankroll. This bankroll should be separate from your household expenses. However, since you’re going to be a pro, you’re going to have to pay your expenses out of that roll, so you need to calculate exactly how much you will need to beat the variance of the game and pay all your bills. Your current bankroll should enable you to do this for three months even if you break dead even at the tables. If it doesn’t, you’re not ready yet, or you need to find lower stakes games.

Once you’ve got your skills and your bankroll, you can go to work. Good luck! Remember there is no shame in going down in stakes and no shame in keeping poker as a profitable hobby if you don’t have quite what you need to make it a full time occupation.

Dan Harrington was already a legend when he wrote “Harrington on Hold’em,” a three volume series revealing secrets for winning tournament no limit Texas hold’em. Once these books came out, however, he assured his place in poker history forever.

These three books became must reading for any no limit tournament poker player. The ideas that Harrington crystallized in the volumes are ideas that nearly every poker player can now recite by heart.

“Harrington on Cash Games”

For his next work, Harrington brought his expertise to the world of cash games. “Harrington on Cash Games,” a two volume set, was written to help players apply the same analytical approach that Harrington advocates for tournaments. Following this approach, anyone should be able to become a strong player.

“Harrington on Cash Games” Volume One

In volume one of Harrington on Cash Games” he discusses the basic ideas and elements that you need to know to be successful at poker. Ideas such as the basic principles of poker, why to bet, how to determine how much to bet and what it means when others bet. He then moves on to discussing the finer points of aggressive pre-flop and flop play.

“Harrington on Cash Games” Volume Two

In volume two, tight-aggressive turn and river play are analyzed. Harrington then goes on to explore the different kind of game situations that a player might face, such as whether or not to play a loose aggressive style, how to beat weak games and what to do about physical tells.

Using These Books

What’s nice about Harrington’s work is that the books are peppered with problems taken from real life examples of cash game play. Readers can play along with great (and not so great) players, trying to figure out what they would do in a given situation and then seeing the results. This can be of great benefit to the reader.

The books do not contain the kind of game-changing concepts that “Harrington on Hold’em” offered. However, they do provide a rich source of poker information for any reader that cares to give them a shot.

What is Durrrr Land? Durrrr Land is where nearly every pot is contested, where aggressive raises and re-raises are around every corner and where millions of dollars are won and lost in a matter of minutes. Durrrr Land is wherever Tom Dwan, known as Durrrr online, decides to play.

Welcome to Durrrr Land

Durrrr Land is usually the highest stakes tables at Full Tilt Poker, the popular online poker site. On any given day, you might find Durrrr multi-tabling both pot limit Omaha and no limit hold’em games, taking on all comers, although these tables are usually shorthanded due to the nosebleed stakes and the fact that so few players are willing to go up against Durrrr.

Phil Hellmuth in Durrrr Land

In 2008, Phil Hellmuth got a rude introduction to Durrrr Land in 2008 during the National Heads Up Poker Championship. On the third hand of the first round, the aggressive Durrrr got it all in with pocket tens against Hellmuth’s pocket aces. When a ten arrived to save Durrrr and give him the win, Hellmuth went on one of his usual tirades. Since Durrrr was barely old enough to legally play live games in the United States at the time, few players knew him well, and Hellmuth, as usual, failed to give his opponent enough credit. He has since acknowledged Durrrr’s skill, although both agree he got lucky on that particular hand.

Barry Greenstein in Durrrr Land

Barry Greenstein also got an unsettling taste of Durrrr Land when Durrrr was invited to play on GSN’s High Stakes Poker. In the critical hand, WSOP champion Peter Eastgate raised the pot to $3,500 with AK off suit, and Greenstein re-popped it to $15,000 on the button with AA. Durrrr, in the small blind with KQ of spades, decided to call. Eastgate called behind. The flop came 4s 2s Qh, giving Durrrr top pair and the second nut flush draw. He led out for $28,700, and Greenstein, with his aces, reraised to $100,000. Durrrr reraised to about $245,000, and Greenstein, perhaps putting Durrrr on the flush draw, top pair, or a bluff, moved in. Durrrr quickly called, to create a pot of nearly a million dollars. In a particularly cruel twist of poker fate, it was not a spade, but a second queen on the turn that crushed Greenstein.

One of my poker heroes is Jennifer Harman.  Not just because she is a woman, but also because I admire her play and how hard she has to work to get to  where she is.  You go girl!!

She is the only woman in the world with two WSOP bracelets in the open events, now thats not bad.  Known to favor cash games, but has played in all the big tournaments.  She co-authored the book Super System 2 and is a Full Tilt Poker Pro.  Check out her own website if you want to know more, and Wikipedia has a good page on her.

Do you like Jennifer Harman?

Here is some more from inside the mind of Jennifer… take care though, it makes you want to cry…