What makes a poker a player a professional? Does it mean that by adding the word professional the person loses less money? Or does it mean that the player enter tournaments through out the year? If you are thinking about getting the word professional embossed on your ‘poker resume’, here are some skills that you should consider mastering.
1. The Mathematician
a. These guys have mastered the odds of certain combinations that comes out already. For example, they know that when you hold a pocket pair, you can hit the set with only one in eight and a half chances. Those pocket cards also give you odds of having one in three chance of completing a ‘by the river’ flopped flush draw.
b. Mathematicians also able to compute the number of “outs” because they know it is important. Outs are the number of cards that will improve your hand. They compute it by multiplying it by two and adding one and that’s the percentage of them hitting the pot.
c. Knowing outs will be useless unless it is translated into rational and calculated betting. When you figure out that you have a 20% chance of hitting, you then figure out your chances of winning or losing. You divide the size of the pot at the river by the amount you have to put in. I.E. the current pot and the amount of bets that will be added on in the future. If you have calculated that the bet to you will be 50 and have 20% chance of hitting and the pot at the river will be higher than 250, try to call for it. If not, fold. Confusing right?
d. Review these concepts if you really want to be an expert.
2. Discipline
a. Always try to find a table where you have an advantage. Try finding tables where there are more amateurs or “fish”. Fish only want to win by being lucky. Poker players want to win by skill and by hoping that his opponents don’t get lucky.
b. Every different game, table or opponent set needs the poker player to have different disciplines or styles. He or she cannot always rely on one style. For instance, a player may play the better hands when there are not much pre-flop actions. The player can make a loose call with other speculative hands when lots of opponents are limping in.
c. A disciplined limit player has excellent pre-flop skills. However, the disciplined no-limit player is quite different. This player doesn’t care much with paying lots of blinds but instead this kind of player would not want to be trapped. The difference is that limit players avoid squandering their stack bit by bit while no-limit players avoids losing his whole stack in just one hand. A disciplined no-limit player can play a lot of hands. Even if he or she has cards such as 5 spades and 3 diamonds he or she will still be loose preflop. But expert no-limit players know how to quit as well when their hands are really bad.
d. The disciplined player knows when to quit even when the pot is really juicy.
e. A disciplined player learns from his mistakes and admits that they will still make them later on. Disciplined players will just keep on learning because nobody is a perfect poker player.
There is a ton more to learn about poker and gambling, this is just the start.
There are many among us, myself included from time to time, that like to play a few slots. I usually spend my time at the table games where the stakes are just a bit higher and the action is never ending. But slots have turned the tables a bit on the table games. Progressive slots now make the stakes when playing extremely high and the opportunity to win big is just a click away.
With traditional slots the most a player can win is the max payout that that specific machine offers. While this is usually pretty good in and of itself there a player can’t go any higher. And to win the max payout a player has to have the max bet in and the planets have to be aligned just right, well, you get the idea. With progressive slots, however, the player still has to have everything just right but the payouts can be astronomical. The difference between traditional type slots and progressives is that progressive machines are linked in a series to each other thereby providing a payout to the lucky player based on the all of the machines, not just one. This gives the player a much better opportunity to score in a huge way. In fact, some of the payouts given by the progressive machines have at times been larger than some of the bigger winnings at the table game tournaments.
So my question is why is anyone still playing regular slots? A player can get the same type of gaming fun from a progressive machine with a chance to win a lot more money. There isn’t any reason that I can think of that anyone that is playing slots online isn’t playing the progressive machines. Actually, if all of the players were playing the progressives there would be a lot more money for someone that is playing to win. So actually it would benefit the entire gambling community that is playing progressives for everyone to play progressive slots and hope that they can win their slice of the pie.
Not to say, of course, that normal slot machines and games don’t have their virtues. There are a number of reasons that regular slot machines still enjoy the widespread popularity that they do. Progressive slot machines are nothing new and have been around for quite awhile now and they certainly haven’t cornered the market on the slot machine enterprise.
So I guess it just comes down to personal preference and what a player is looking for. Like anything else in life variety is the spice of life and if you haven’t checked out progressive slot machines it just might be the ingredient that you are looking for.
What is your day to day “job”. Perhaps you are living out those golden years, have been retrenched or let go or are lucky enough to be a trust fund baby, or are otherwise working for a BOSS on the day or night slog. Ever thought of playing Blackjack as a profession- fulltime for a living, to earn a living? There is no reason to stop you, taken you know and can play Basic Strategy backwards flawlessly, have the ability to count a deck down in roughly 25 seconds using a counting method, and know 12 or more Advanced Strategies to increase your odds against the online casinos.
Confident about your playing ability and have no problem with the requirement listed above – you are on your way – YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL BLACKJACK PLAYER already. People require 3 very important things before they will be convinced to becoming a full time professional player – family, security, and finance. In fact these 3 factors will influence any person in any major job decision they take throughout their life, oh….and….where they live! Living in Las Vegas or Nevada is not quite your family neighbourhood! The lifestyle of a professional gambler could also not be to the players’ liking – nor to his family’s and he may lose more than just his money in the end. They must also remember that Blackjack does not come with full medical or unemployment insurance, and that his finance might not be large enough to cover a long run of losses, or to make the big bets needed to get the big one! It is a big decision, as changing any job should be, perhaps it can be taken slowly?
What if the player could make some sort of achievable goal during the time he still ahs that stable job, family, security, and extra cash to play with? If a player has “professional Blackjack” skills, why not let it work for him?
For example: A part time player has a day job making just under $ 100 / day . He keeps records his play at the tables and has a win : loss ratio of about 5 : 1, (5 wins out of 6 times). He wins on average 6 units of his smallest wager / hour. So…., if the table minimum is $5 and he places bets of between $5 – $25, he normally takes in roughly $30 / hour. Sometimes he wins more and sometimes has also lost $300, but consistency will ultimately pay off.
If a player wants to average wins of $100 / playing session, the same amount equal to his daily earned after tax income. Taking the win : loss ratio of 5 : 1, and a implementing a stop-loss set at $100, this means he had to win $120 5 x to cover for a loss of $100 on the 6th session. The players’ stop-loss is set at $100 (daily work rate and maximum amount he can afford to lose). Each playing session would be treated as if it was a day at work, so…off days would simply be breaking even. Though the game of Blackjack is win some, lose some, a player can effectively double his income per day.
Any good player keeping records can come up with a similar plan or system – if he earns $50 a day and wins 2 out of 3 times, he can set a stop loss of $50 and aim to win $75 each time he plays.
The system can help players contemplating the move to professional, see that the income can remain the same or even be better than their current income at their present “jobs”. They can prove it to themselves and …become profit from playing blackjack. This system will show players what they are capable of, over a period as long as they want, until they feel comfortable to make the move.
Players who make the move to Professional must also realise that this play is a long term game, and not short term as played before. Basic playing principles much the same : small wager with a Count of +1 and larger wagers above it. This strategy is a “slowly slowly” strategy that makes most Counters their money (% advantage x size of bankroll). There are players who no bankroll, and only their table betting to play with. Here a conservative approach must be used to remove volatility from the game.
Some players (Counters) use Jerry Patterson’s “Takedown” strategy. Jerry is the Father of “Alternative Blackjack” with his mentions of biases and strings of small and large cards due to shuffling and card pick-up routines. He explains why and how counters can avoid being ‘caught’ by betting large amounts as the count rises. “Takedown” is a method of betting for non-counters and Jerry explains that players should bet as the count drops, not as it rises, as it is now that the 10s are coming out.
Most successful Counters use a bankroll and increase their advantage when placing each wager based on the count, and end up earning more money long term, riding out the swings of the game. One such swing can result in a player quitting Blackjack play all together, usually having lost all his money. 6 and 8 deck games are the hardest to beat due to shuffling biases, which is hard to prove mathematically. Traditional Patterson betting strategies are more effective against one and two deck games, which are still common in Las Vegas.
Jerry in “Takedown” also recommends that players lock up their winnings and play on to other limits. i.e. a player must set a goal of say $150 for the day, but if he needs to bet out of his $120 win, he must not. If he got to $150, same deal. Jerry calls this a “winlock” and explains that players must divide their winnings into 3 piles. Using the above example, the player pockets his $120 and place his $30 win in 3 piles, two $5 chips each. He will place bets from 1 pile only. For the next hand he places a 1 chip bet from pile #3. If he loses, he bets the last chip from pile #3. If he loses, he is done for the day. If the player however gets on a winning streak he replenishes pile #3 back to 2 units. He then places the next win on pile #1, then pile #2, and finally to pile #3, the betting pile. He might get these 3 piles up to 8 units each, then hit a losing streak and lose pile #3, then it is time to QUIT. This is an excellent way to maximize your winnings and minimize your loses.