Some of the biggest players in the poker tournament ever. Each has made millions of dollars in live tournaments and online poker.
Chris Ferguson
Chris Moneymaker
Daniel Negreanu
Doyle Brunson
Gus Hansen
Howard Lederer
Jennifer Harman
Johnny Chan
Phil Helmuth
Phil Ivey
Most people think that becoming a professional poker player results in sets of large amounts of money, but not always the case and there are thousands of examples of people doing a professional full-time poker tournament play only. There are at least a few thousand people playing online poker tournaments full time and earn a living. In some cases, players do not even play higher limits, but play a lot of volume.
There are several steps that must be followed if you are considering becoming a pro tournament. You must ensure you have a bankroll large enough, and I do not think a few hundred dollars. If you are serious about playing poker tournaments online full time, you must have a minimum of 1-2 years of expenses recorded in the bank. The hardest thing to play poker full time is to have the bankroll to cover your slowdowns is inevitable.
You can find tournament pros online that play all types of tournaments ranging from massive multi-table tournaments to simple heads-up tournaments. If you play heads-up tournaments you need to play a lot of volume in order to make sure you’re making the most possible income. The players that focus on MTT’s play far less volume, but they also have the trouble of trying to win big cash, which isn’t easy at all. MTT’s always pay out the top 1-2% of the tournament with the majority of the money so trying to become a pro playing MTT’s only can be a tough battle.
Many poker players started out playing online poker tournaments and one of the most popular names is Annette Obrestad. She is famously known for grinding online poker tournaments before ever becoming a known poker pro on the live circuit. Hundreds of other young poker players have also made the leap from playing casually to playing full-time over the years. It takes a lot of skill, money and discipline when you’re starting out, but after a couple years you should have enough saved up that you could make your way through any type of variance.
Great for playing online poker tournaments is that you do not have to worry about buy-in for $ 10K than you would if you were playing in the WSOP. Live Tournaments are great if you already have a huge bankroll, or if you are looking to get lucky once, but if you are seriously thinking of becoming a pro poker tournament you should concentrate on mastering the online gaming tournament.