What does it mean to be a "pro?"

[Billy Baroo]

I've heard many different opinions about what parameters must be met for a poker player to be regarded as a "professional." I was curious as to what 2+2ers feel makes someone a professional.

The way I see it, any person who gains the large majority of his or her income from poker and lives above the poverty line is a professional.

[twistedbeats]

it usually means answering lots of stupid questions about playing in the televised tournaments. but it also entails lots of people telling you how they once hit big on a scratch ticket or with keno.

but i use your definition with the stipulation that the pro pays rent or mortgage. basically that pros don't live in their parents' basements or on their friends' couches

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Some people say you're a pro if poker is your sole source of income.

Other say you're a pro if poker is your primary source of income.

Still others say you're a pro if you play a winning game, and put in a lot of hours.

I say you're a pro if you play well enough all the time that if you put in a reasonable number of hours you COULD support yourself playing poker if it were your only source of income. So, the rich guy who comes to town 5 times a year, and beats the 50-100 game for an average of $40 per hour is a pro in my book. Of course, what that really means is he could be a pro if he wanted. And, if I'm playing against him, that's all that really matters to me, i.e., how well does he play. I don't care how much money he makes elsewhere, the question for me is how much money is he taking off the table in MY game.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[prop]

well a pro is someone who makes their living playing poker. ive been a pro for many years but for some of those years i was just an advantage player because i was doing something else to make a living. like right now i dont play poker full time because im making more money working with my brother. some/many of the best players arent pros, theyre too smart to play poker all day.

[PokerPaul]

greg,

u buying into the foxwoods main event, or do you still put in time to get in for discounts via sattelite?

[MicroBob]

I primarily consider myself 'pro' because it is my sole-source of income.

But a couple of people claimed something like "multi-tabling for a zillion hours on 3/6 does NOT make you a professional."
Evidently, if you regularly bounce around from one big MTT to another you can call yourself a pro even if you suck and are losing a ton of money.

IMO, if you are down to your last $10k and use it all to buy-in to some big MTT you are not behaving very 'professionally' with your money.

Others have argued that the girl at Starbucks who gets your coffee or the dude that rings-up your groceries aren't normally considered "professional" coffee-getters or "professional" grocery-baggers just because they get paid to do it. And certainly, for some who have these occupations it is a sole-source of income and not just a part-time job.
I think it's a reasonable argument but am not sure exactly how much weight to give it.

I'm making money, it's my sole-source of income, I approach it very professionally. Also, on my taxes I will be filing as a 'professional gambler'. It is obvious that I am not the 'other' option being 'recreational gambler'.

But to avoid too much contraversy I just say that I am 'playing full-time for income.'


Interestingly, if I qualified for the WSOP via a Stars-satellite or something, I'm sure I would be referred to as an 'amateur' or 'online-qualifier' which sometimes implies 'amateur' even though many of the online-qualifiers are pretty good AND some of them also play full-time for income.


All in all, it really doesn't matter what the definition is.
If you are a winning player then you are a winning player. And if you are a losing-player then you are a losing-player.

I have much more respect for someone who doesn't consider themselves 'pro' but who can consistently beat the game then I do for someone who says they are a 'pro' and 'look at me, I play 40/80 and higher' but they are deep in debt.

[Blarg]

What's amazing to me is how piss-poor about money some of the best players are. You always read about so many of the best poker players in the world losing hundreds of thousands on proposition bets or dumb sports bets, just squandering in a minute what they had to spend a long time grinding out. And they don't necessarily have anything ro replace it with besides talent.

Obviously interpreting being a pro purely as a measure of poker skill alone doesn't give the kind of picture we normally associate with professionalism in other fields. And there are undoubtedly many mediocre players who do fairly well because they don't screw around with their money, while there is no shortage of brilliant guys who are idiots when it comes to money management. The Stu Ungar model comes to mind of a genius professional who lived without professionalism.

I think both ways of defining a professional player -- as someone who plays at a really high level and as someone who plays for a living -- have merit, but lean toward validating the simple, technically correct, and merely grubby definition of a guy who plays poker for a living. Even if you're a genius poker player, if you can't manage your life, you're incompetent at one of the most important aspects of being a pro poker player.

[Lawrence Ng]

People who I play with often think I'm a pro. I think a lot has to to do with the fact I play tight aggressive, I dress like a bum in the poker room, and I win. The grinders/regulars know I'm a winning player.

By definition being a professional is where one has an occupation of performing a task/service or providing a good and relies PRIMARILY on that profession itself to earn a living.

I don't use poker for this, thus I do not consider myself a Pro.

[jakethebake]

Doesn't it have to be about poker skill alone? Are you saying that a doctor that turns around and blows all his money on gambling or cocaine isn't a professional doctor (which happens quite a bit)? Sure he's an idiot, but it doen't mean he's not a doctor. Or same for lawyer or any other profession?

[morgant]

granted the rich guy may have a good game, but actually making a living off of poker is a different cup of tea than the casual player who can hang with "pro's"