Poker Semi Pro Definition
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I have not seen definition of poker pro but in my opinion it should be like every other thing which can be both hobby and profession. If your main income is from other source and you play poker. Well my definition is that a pro is anyone who makes his money only from playing poker, semi-pro is somebody who plays on regular bases but still having a normal job and an amateur im not really sure, i guess some one who plays occasionally and poker income is insignificant in relation to his real income. I guess an amateur is the same as fish? I decided that being a full-time professional poker player is not for me. Instead, I decided to try my hand at being a semi-professional poker player. Here are five lessons I learned from Jackie Moon and his pursuit of glory in Semi-Pro. For some, going pro is a desirable but impractical choice. Perhaps consider going “semi-pro” instead. Semipro definition is - semiprofessional. Recent Examples on the Web Several Rocks alumni have gone on to play either semipro or professional football, including Mike Rumph, Brandon Flowers, Al Wallace, Preston Parker, Lance Frazier, Corey Banks, Bobby Butler, Central McCellion, David Clowney and Jason Geathers. Semi-professional (not comparable) (e.g. Of a sportsman or athlete) playing for pay on a part-time basis (of a team) composed of semi-professional players; Synonyms.
'Spumoni! Spumoni!'
This is the safe word Jackie Moon, played by Will Ferrell, yells in the 2008 comedy Semi-Pro when he is bitten by a bear as his attempt to wrestle with it goes horribly wrong. It's also the name of a type of ice cream, which happens to be a comfort food I used quite often to soothe the pain of being bitten by negative variance during my recent attempt to become a professional poker player.
Like Jackie, I finally cried uncle and admitted that the pain is more than I can take. I decided that being a full-time professional poker player is not for me. Instead, I decided to try my hand at being a semi-professional poker player. Here are five lessons I learned from Jackie Moon and his pursuit of glory in Semi-Pro.
Lesson #1: Follow Your Dream
In the trailer for Semi-Pro, an interviewer asks Jackie how he learned to play basketball. His response is 'I saw it on TV a couple times and I thought, I can do that.'
This is exactly how I, and many like me, got into poker. In hindsight, poker has not been as easy as the guys on TV make it look. TV doesn't show the downswings. Sure, we see the suck outs, but the heroes always seem to bounce back and pony up another $10K buy-in for the next episode. Unlike your favorite TV player, when I went busto, I got a job.
Just because I decided to go back to a regular job does not mean I can't continue to follow my dream. 'Dreams sometimes become nightmares' is a line from the movie that ironically describes the first six months of poker for me in 2016. This was because I was depending on poker money as my primary source of income during my downswing. I put a band aid on this problem by getting backers, but when I lost their money, I felt even worse. When I made money for them, I felt great but was still broke after distributing the vast majority of the winnings. It was a lose-lose situation.
By going back to work, I can use my disposable income to play on my own dime. If I win, I get to keep all of the profit. If I lose, I can't play poker anymore... well, at least not until the next paycheck. Going semi-pro seems like a way to follow my dream without it becoming a nightmare.
Lesson #2: Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
In the film, Jackie Moon is a former singer who decides to become a professional basketball player, but he never puts all of his eggs in one basket. Even though he wants to play ball, he continues to sing before and after games. He's also the owner, coach, and promoter for the team. In other words, if he couldn't make it as a player, he still had multiple sources of income.
I was a former teacher who decided to become a professional poker player. When poker took a turn for the worse, I started doing a little tutoring and substituting here and there. Unlike Jackie, I was still depending on poker for most of my income. Now I believe it is best to depend on the non-poker sources primarily and consider any poker income to be icing on the cake. This is what it means to be a semi-pro. It seems like a much easier way to live.
For me, the beauty of this approach is that this hybrid is much better than either extreme. I was not happy as a full-time teacher, but I was not happy as a full-time poker player either. By playing poker for a smaller portion of my income, I can enjoy the game without the stress. Because I don't depend 100% on my income from work, I have more flexibility in choosing which assignments I take as opposed to staying in a dead end position that pays well. The key is to find a comfortable mix of poker and work and maybe even sell some nachos on the side like Jackie.
Lesson 3: Promote Yourself
Jackie Moon is a good singer and an okay basketball player, but he's a master promoter. When he needs to sell tickets to a game, he gives the fans a show they couldn't miss by agreeing to wrestle a bear after the game. I already explained how this doesn't go as planned, but you have to give the guy an 'A' for effort. Even though he gets mauled, he did sell the tickets.
As a poker player, I can do more to promote myself. I'm not about to fight a bear any time soon, but my appearances on podcasts, my Twitch stream, and my presence on social media helps me to get more writing gigs. It also helps to be somewhat known when I am looking to sell action.
If I spend less time actually playing poker, I can do more of these things to increase my public profile. Shameless self-promotion leads to more variance-free income, which in turn leads to happier semi-pro poker players.
Lesson 4: Try New Strategies
When basketball doesn't go well for Jackie, he's not afraid to try out some hare-brained ideas to improve his team's play. Once he decides to have his players wear eye-liner to frighten the opposing team. When his team is losing badly in one game, he's knocked unconscious and has a dream about a brand new play called the alley-oop, which he then 'invents' in this fictional tale. Who knows? Maybe the idea to try a cold four-bet bluff came to somebody in a dream.
As a professional poker player, I depended on tried and true strategies that I used to make my meager income. As a semi-pro, I can take more risks and even some hare-brained ideas of my own to see what works. The downside of this has much less of a negative impact if I am not depending on the money for expenses. As a semi-pro, I can be much more aggressive with ambitious bluffs and thin value bets in spots where I have previously been scared money. By getting comfortable with some of the more 'outside of the box' strategies, I will eventually increase my profitability.
Lesson 5: Go with the Flow
Jackie Moon dreams of playing basketball for a living, but because of his promotion skills, he gets offered a job as the Marketing Director of the NBA. I really like playing poker, but if my involvement with the game leads me in a different direction such as a full-time writer or something else besides actually playing, then I am willing to go with it.
Having a full time off-the-felt job in the poker industry while playing on the side may actually be the Holy Grail of semi-professional poker, now that I think about it.
Conclusion
We constantly hear about serious poker players taking the leap to turn pro. The idea of this scares even some successful players who have made many millions of dollars from encouraging others to do the same because they know how hard dealing with variance can be.
Maybe if we heard more stories of people turning semi-pro, the transition would be a lot easier. Fewer players would be in debt, and the poker community as a whole would be a lot happier. Or at least fewer of us would find ourselves calling out for spumoni.
Image (Semi-Pro): imdb.com
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cash game strategytournament strategybankroll managementmental gamepsychology
by Suzanne Yeagley
Q: You make money playing poker. How did it start?
A: In a way, I was part of the wave that started in 2003. That’s considered the beginning of the modern poker boom, because someone named Chris Moneymaker, who was an amateur, won the World Series of Poker after starting from an online game that he paid like 86 bucks for. He won millions of dollars, and people saw that and were like, “Wait a second, I have 86 bucks, I could do this…”
I wasn’t directly affected by that, but in 2004 or 2005, I got a free ticket for a charity poker event for my work. It was like a $300 entry fee, but I got in for free.
I thought, “Oh no, I’m completely unprepared to do this.” So I bought a poker book and I read it. Then, over the years, I got progressively more serious.
Q: How did you do at the charity game?
A: Not very well. But it’s funny now that I was so serious. It was completely unnecessary. Some people showed up and they literally didn’t even know how to play.
Q: How did you go from that to a semi-professional player?
A: I continued to play home games, to watch poker on TV. It made me want to learn a bit more. I read a few more books. I tried to change the way I played.
For years I didn’t think there was strategy. It seemed like random chance. But I did some studying, and I would go to a circuit of local home games, and I started playing quite a bit. Then I slowly transitioned to playing at casinos here in L.A.
Q: Are home games legal?
A: A lot of things about poker are best left to the legal experts. It’s a bit of a grey area.
Q: What’s the difference between pro and semi-pro?
A: Poker players span a continuum of recreational players, who are clearly just doing it for fun, and elite professionals, who make millions a year. In between are semi-pros.
It’s not like you get officially promoted or demoted. I always considered myself a serious recreational player until last year. It was the second year in a row I made more from poker than my day job, and I started thinking of myself as semi-pro. However, I am a notorious stickler, so that is probably an excessively high bar.
Also, this year I am down several thousand dollars because of COVID and am playing nothing but cheapo online games, and if I end up in the red, technically anyone who doesn’t play poker at all has made more money at poker than I have.
Q: What’s your biggest win and biggest loss?
A: Well, every time you don’t come in first, it’s a loss, so it’s hard to categorize.
But last year I got second at the World Series of Poker Ladies’ Event.
Q: Wow! How many people were in that event?
A: About 1000.
Q: And how long did it last?
A: I think it was three days. It’s 12 hours a day.
Poker Semi Pro Definition Us History
Q: Amazing. What was it like?
A: It’s really stressful. The final table was on CBS All-Access. You’re thinking, “This is a chance for me to make a lot of money. But I could also do something really stupid and walk home with $15,000 instead of $150,000. And everyone’s going to see me do it!”
And people are commentating on you while you’re going through it.
Q: Can you hear them?
A: No, BUT I KNOW IT’S HAPPENING! It’s hard not to hear it in your head, like, “I’m not sure why she’s opening this hand…”
I’m used to my shame being my own personal shame.
I told myself, “It doesn’t matter, no one’s watching this,” but for months afterward people would come out of the woodwork to tell me they watched the game.
Q: Can I ask about the money?
A: For poker that’s never a personal question, it’s just part of the story. I made $103,000.
Q: And how much did you put in?
A: It was a $1,000 entry fee.
It was by far the most I’ve ever won. It was my first six-figure cash. The winner got about $167,000.
It felt very surreal. I was thrilled, but it’s also hard not to feel disappointed. For World Series of Poker events, that was likely to be the only final table I ever make.
And you want the win — you want the bracelet. For the rest of my career, people would say “She’s a bracelet winner. There’s bracelet-winner Nancy Matson.”
Q: Do you remember how you lost?
A: No, I really don’t. Anyone who plays serious poker kind of laughs at how it’s presented in a movie. There’s never really the same level of drama.
Poker Semi Pro Definition Dictionary
Q: Do you have nerves of steel?
A: I would say I’m a lot less bothered by things than a lot of people are.
Q: Can you make a living doing this?
A: That’s where people go wrong. I’m not going to say it can’t be done, but even the really good players will have incredibly brutal downswings.
Some people have some ability at poker, but you really have to have the personality for it. You do nothing but lose. Lose lose lose all the time. It’s just not for everyone.
Q: Do you have any “tells”?
A: I hope not, I don’t know. I think if you play for a while you tend to work them out of your game.
Physical tells are really overstated and not really that much of a part of poker. Like, “Oh, you’re pulling at your earlobe?” That doesn’t really happen.
There was an era where people were obsessively trying not to give out tells. Everyone wore sunglasses and maybe a scarf to cover their neck so you couldn’t see the little vein throb. I’m not saying nobody does it, but it’s much less common now.
Q: What do you like most about it?
A: You get a chance to outwit people. It’s a weird chance to be really aggressive in a situation that’s completely socially acceptable.
The most fun thing for me — I’m a bit older — is when some 24-year-old puts in a massive bet and I get him to fold. I find it so fun!
For me it’s like a puzzle. Like, “Wait a second I know what you have!” When I figure something out it’s fun.
A lot of people are in it for the rush of trying to win, but for me it’s super-satisfying to learn and see myself improve. If you’re just looking to win, you’ll always be disappointed.
Q: How long do you think you’ll continue playing?
A: Tournament poker is kind of grueling. But I’ll play as long as it’s fun and I can afford it.
Poker Semi Pro Definition Francais
Whenever anyone quits poker, I never think, “What a bad decision.” You have to invest a lot of time to get anywhere near decent at it.