Online poker rooms offer many different types of player the opportunity to participate in many forms of poker. You can play in Stud, Texas Hold ‘em, HORSE and Omaha in a variety of different limits. The higher limits you play the more money that you can win (and lose) by playing online poker. Those that want to make a living playing professional online poker must play at a level where this is possible and work to improve their online poker game so they can achieve this goal. You must also have the right mental approach.
Coping with swings of up to $100,000 in a day used to be essential tolerance for a high stakes poker player. The high stakes online poker games today have developed into super stakes games where it is possible that you can lose or win up to $1 million in one day, often more. Isildur1, the unknown poker player from Sweden, was in profit by $5 million within ten days of beginning to play the high stakes games, lost it all and then made another $3.5 million very quickly. A quick check of his statistics shows him now showing a loss of $500,000 overall, meaning that he has lost $4 million again in a matter of days.
Many online poker players’ bankrolls were swelled by Guy Laliberte, the founder of Cirque De Soleil, who lost around $28 million playing high stakes online poker in 2008.
As a lower stakes poker player who likes to make a bit of money from poker enough to bolster my standard of living and income a little I struggle to imagine how a poker player carries on playing when they amass such a life changing sum of money. The high stakes poker games are verging on being too high where all value of money is lost. This is worrying for a young person to move into adult life thinking that earning money is very easy.
In the global climate to which we now live, having $5 million would be enough for a full life of luxury with the right investments. Working in traditional businesses it is very hard to make this sort of money. Perhaps the wrong message is being sent by this irresponsible approach to money by the top online poker players who are happy to win and lose millions each day.
A better message is being sent by many of the top live players. Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey and Chris Ferguson invested their expertise into developing Full Tilt Poker, which now earns them in excess of $1 million per month each in earnings. This is just a reported figure and the actual figure may be higher. Daniel Negreanu has lots of outside interests that earn him money and Phil Hellmuth is reported to be a co-owner of Ultimate Bet and has his own brand of poker clothing and accessories.
Poker players currently grinding often do not aim to reach the ultra high stakes online poker games. Many are content to grind their way through many hours of lower stakes games knowing they earn more than they could in Industry. There are very few players making a healthy living from the highest stakes games, even Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan and Cole South (all known as top players) are showing heavy losses for 2009. The question must be asked on why they do not drop down and crush the slightly lower limits.
The answer is because the action is what dictates their involvement. Antonius is part of Full Tilt now as is Dwan, so it is others like Benyamine, Townsend, South, Dang and Ziigmund and others that are the big gamblers playing simply to participate in online poker. Are they simply out of control gamblers who happen to be good at online poker? We all know that assessing our own poker game is the hardest thing to do in poker.
I would recommend that you enjoy watching the high stakes games, but never forget the value of proper online poker bankroll management and an ongoing appreciation for the value of money at all times. Enjoying any profits you make will remind you on why online poker is so much fun when things go well and the reasons we all look to improve our poker game. Moving up limits is fine providing you are comfortable with the extra risk exposure.
By Malcolm Clarke