How Long Does It Take To Learn Poker

4/9/2022

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I recently passed a milestone in my quest to beat 100NL online. That milestone was playing over 500,000 hands of online cash game poker. The truth is that I’ve played more than 500,000 hands of cash online in my life but these 500,000 make up the vast majority of my online cash game experience. I decided to dive into this data and write up as detailed a post as possible to help share some of the hard facts (data doesn’t lie) about grinding micro and low stakes cash game poker online.
The post has dozens of insights backed up with data but I’m sure there are things that can be included in my analysis. If you would like me to discuss something specific which doesn’t appear in the post then please comment below or email me at justin@thegreatgrind.com.

Learning Poker, its types, and all necessary theory has been studied to take as little as 5 minutes. This may seem like an easier field than thought; nevertheless, it is not the case, as mastery of poker is studied to take a lifetime. Practice Online. Whether it’s from books or from tutorials, it is good to get a theoretical. It may seem like poker is a game of odds- that if you know you have a 60-40 chance or a 80- 20 chance over your opponent, then you are the favorite to win. But this is wrong. I’ve lost enough to tell me that and I’ve learned lately that a well rounded experience of scenarios tells you way more than odds. Pick Your Poker Game and Be Consistent. At the beginning of my career, I tried playing different. If you want to learn poker strategy, do not hesitate to spend some time for preparation, asking questions and reviewing all new information when you receive it. I listed my opinion on the best ways to learn poker strategy and get good poker lessons or training! I went over all of these over the years, and I can only confirm, that.

Distribution of the hands played AKA the high level view of the data

As you can see from the table below the 500k hands were played across all buy-in levels from 2NL (1c/2c) all the way to 100NL (50c/$1). Since February last year when I made the decision to move to cash games I started with only $80 in my account with the aim of building a bankroll. My plan for 2013 was to start at 1c/2c and build up a roll and move through the levels until I was comfortably beating 50NL. It is for this reason that 40% of the hands in the 500k sample were played at 50NL and the buy-in levels with the fewest hands are the very first levels. Since I was able to beat 50NL at around the 400k hands mark, my focus has been on moving up in stakes and beating the 100NL level. As you can see in the 100NL row I still have some work to do.

The 500k hands were played over 699 hours which comes to around 715 hands per hour. On average I see around 65 hands per table at full ring which means that on average I’ve been playing 11 tables simultaneously which sounds about right. Initially I played 4-6 tables and April was the first full month that I played 24 tables. I have since gone down to 12 and even 6 tables while trying to beat 100NL.

The table below shows the distribution of the 500k sample by day of the week. You can clearly see that I play the vast majority of my hands over Friday and Saturday (my weekend).

These 500k hands were racked up in 201 different sessions. During these 201 sessions I lost money 75 times (37%) with my longest loosing streak being 6 sessions. My longest winning streak was 15 sessions (unfortunately this was at 2NL:)). The lesson here is that even winning players loss one in 3 sessions on average. During these sessions I’ve paid $10,012 in rake. Unfortunately I haven’t recorded the money I’ve earned from bonuses.

The law of diminishing win rates

One of the most obvious concepts of poker is that the game gets tougher to beat the higher you go up in stakes. An interesting question though is by how much does one’s win rate go down the higher he climbs in stakes. Before we look at my data to get some sense of the drop, it is important to understand that the shape of the graph of someone’s win rate as you go up in stakes will be very different on a player-by-player basis. The main reason for this is because most players don’t stick to a level they can beat long enough to determine their true win rate. This effect can be catastrophic to some players who move up in stakes too quickly after running hot at a new buy-in level. Ask two poker players how many hands you should play to determine your true win rate and you will get three answers. Later in my analysis you will see that the real number is much higher than what most people think.

Do you notice the different between by actual win rate and my EV adjusted winrate at 2NL and 5NL? The reason for this is because my sample sizes for these buy-in levels are small which means I was running very hot (at 5NL) and very cold (at 2NL). In the long run your actual winrate and EV adjusted winrate will match.

The plight of the break-even periods

Below are three graphs of periods within my 500k hands sample which almost drove me mentally insane. Let’s look at each one on their own and lets see what we can learn from the horror.

The first graph shows a period of roughly 166,000 hands where I broke even at 25NL and 50NL. Before embarking on my challenge to beat 50NL I knew I could beat 10NL but always got stuck at 25NL so when I finally reached 25NL I was ready for the challenge. About 2 month into playing 25NL I took my first shot at 50NL and it went badly. After dropping $1,000 dollars I went back down to 25NL expecting to continue to beat the level like I was doing before taking the shot at 50NL. Not only did I not sustain my earlier win rate at the level but my confidence took a big knock and my volume suffered. I knew I could beat the level and that my failed shot at 50NL was mostly as a result of run bad (more on this later) so I held firm and pushed through it, 40,000 hands later I saw the light and continued to build the mountain (you know, the shape of my graph:)).

The second break-even period is a bit different from the first. The main difference here is that instead of experiencing an extended period of time where I failed to maintain a positive win rate, I ended up wiping out 5 months of positive results in a mere 33 hours. My first shot at 100NL was so devastating financially in comparison to my positive results over the months that in a mere 12,784 hands I wrote off the winnings I had accumulated over the first 7 months of 2013. The way I got through this blow was by understanding the big picture and that if I can wipe out so much money so quickly, the opposite is also true when positive variance is on your side. Losing $500-$1000 or 5-10 buy-ins over a period of 12k hands isn’t unheard of. It is very important to keep things in proportion and to remember the final goal.

The final break-even graph shows all the hands I played at 50NL in the 500k sample. Do you notice what happened during the first 80,000 hands? The first 80k hands was a special type of hell but when I finally got through it and I broke even at the level something happened, I started to beat the level and haven’t looked back. I think a very important lesson can be learnt from this graph. 80k hands is a hell of a lot of hands for someone who plays this game on the side and I know there are many players out there who couldn’t handle going through so many hands without showing a profit for their work. The reality is that if I decided to call it quits after 80k hands at 50NL I would have cost myself thousands of dollars and perhaps even tens of thousands of dollars if I successfully beat 100NL. The lesson to be learnt here is that it can take you tens of thousands of hands to beat a level so keep your head up and don’t quit.

Your aces will break 10 percent of the time and you should fold 9 2

Did you know there are 169 different hands you can be dealt in a Texas Holdem hand? I know what you’re thinking, there are a lot more than 169 different combinations of hands that someone can be dealt. You’re right, there are actually 1,326 combinations but if you had to group those into suited combinations and unsuited combinations you would get 169 different combinations. Don’t believe me, just look at the table below. 13 hands per row, times 13 rows equals 169.

Now that we have determined that there are 169 different hand strength combinations that you can be dealt, lets have a look at how each one fairs.

There are a number of very interesting things we can gather from this table:

Even the strongest hand in poker loses 1 in 10 times.
You will flop a set 11.7% of the time (1 in 8.5).
On average you will be flipping (50-50) when all in pre-flop.
Even though 500k hands is a large sample size, when you are breaking it down by 169 different hand combos, there will still be variance on a hand per hand basis. This explains why pocket 3s is my biggest losing hand when looking at dollars won and lost and why I’ve lost more money with QJs vs 82o.
I’ve mis-click folded AA or timed out when I was dealt them 5 times (whoops!!).

One stat which I find very interesting is the fact that I’ve lost money with 130 of the 169 hand combinations shown in the table above, that’s a majority of 77%. I’m beating 50NL for over 3bb/100 and I’m still losing money with 77% of my hands. If you are struggling to beat this game then most likely you are still playing a number of unprofitable hands on a constant basis. Understand that there are hands which can’t make you money in the long run and that you need to cut them out of your game.

How tight is the competition?

Something which was extremely obvious to me when I was moving up in stakes was the increase in the number of regs at my tables. The first level where I noticed this was at 25NL which seems ridiculously reg infested (50 and 100NL aren’t much better). I decided to dive into my data and see the difference in the tightness level for each buy-in level. Check out the pie charts below which show the percentage of players with certain VPIP ranges per buy-in level.

I was surprised by these results because from the 4 pie charts above it seems 10NL is tighter than 25 and 50NL which wasn’t my experience. One of the issues with this data is that we don’t necessarily know the true VPIP of many of the players in the sample. Check out the table below to see the average number of hands for players based on their VPIP. You can clearly see that the tighter players have a much higher average number of hands which makes sense because these are the regulars which are multi-tabling and putting in a lot of hours. We can also clearly see that players which play above 25% of their hands don’t last.

Final thoughts

There is an almost unlimited number of analyses I could add to this post but I’ve decided to stop here. I think there is enough here for now and I hope that even the most seasoned professional will find something in this post which will help them improve their game. I would love to hear your thoughts on this post and what you would like me to include in my analysis.

If you enjoyed this post and want to learn how to analyze your own poker stats then check out this detailed guide on the poker stats which matter at 2NL. You can also subscribe to this blog or follow me on Twitter by clicking on the follow button below.

Good luck at the tables.

People often ask me how long does it take to become a professional poker player.

And as somebody who made a living as a poker pro for many years, I can provide some insight here on how long it takes for the average person to quit their job and be a poker pro.

But I must warn you that the amount of time to become a professional poker player is still going to vary tremendously from person to person depending on their skill level, work ethic and so on.
Nevertheless, I am going to break it all down for you in this article. Here is how long it takes for a typical person to become a professional poker player.

What is a Professional Poker Player?

I think before we even begin though, we do need to define what exactly a professional poker player is. Because many people get it confused.

A professional poker player is simply:

Somebody who pays all or the majority of their bills and expenses with their winnings from the poker table, rakeback and any other poker related endorsements or revenue.

As I have mentioned many times on this blog before, all smart professional poker players these days have realized the need to create several streams of income through the game.

This is why you will see many poker pros streaming live on Twitch these days for example. They are essentially killing two birds with one stone here.

They are making money playing poker and creating an income stream through Twitch subscriptions/selling merch/affiliate deals etc, at the same time.

The same principle applies for somebody who is a 'sponsored pro' at a poker site. The famous poker pro Daniel Negreanu was a long time sponsored pro at PokerStars for example.
The poker site paid him to promote their brand while he plays poker. As a relatively unknown online poker pro, I have even had several sponsorship offers from well known poker sites myself.
So you don't need to be some world famous pro like Daniel Negreanu or Phil Ivey to do this. Anyways, I am not going to go into this any deeper in this article, because it is beyond the scope here.

But I did want to make it clear that most poker pros actually make a substantial part of their income away from the poker tables these days.

Many people do not realize this.

A professional poker player is somebody who makes the large portion of their income from poker related activities, including playing poker, as well as sponsorships, branding and so on.

Those who do not branch out and just try to make it in today's (often tough games) with their poker table winnings alone, usually don't last.

Smart poker pros have multiple income streams, not just playing the game.

How Long Does it Take the Average Person to Become a Professional Poker Player?

So with that definition of a poker pro out of the way, let's get into the topic of how long it takes a typical person to become a professional poker player these days.

And I need to warn you right away, that this isn't going to be the answer that most people reading this want to hear.

But in my experience, it will take a bare minimum of one year for the average person to become a professional poker player.

This is the amount of time it will take both to learn the game at a world class level, and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are a consistent winning player.

Many people rush into becoming a professional poker player these days because they ran hot at the poker tables for a few weeks/months and in some cases they hate their day job as well.

This is almost always a terrible idea because a few weeks or even a few months is not long enough of a time period to prove conclusively that you are a winning poker player.

In fact, as I have mentioned many times before on this blog, I think you need to play a bare minimum sample size of 100,000 hands before coming to any conclusions about your poker results.
Many people (most people actually) simply do not want to hear this. And that is fine, but it has absolutely no impact on the veracity of this statement.
The long run in poker is much, much longer than what most people think.
For many people who play online poker, playing 100k hands will take several months and for somebody who plays live, this might take them an entire calendar year.

But I have run the numbers over sample sizes in the millions in PokerTracker though over my 10+ year career as a pro.
And I am confident that 100k is the very minimum sample size I would even consider before making any real conclusions about my poker results.
And for me personally, I would play 500k hands, minimum, before deciding to make a life changing decision like becoming a professional poker player.

How Long Does It Take To Learn Poker Chips

By the way, for reference, when I first turned pro in 2007, I had already played over 2 million hands of poker at that point in my career, with consistently dominating results.

Your Lifestyle and Expectations Are Big Factors

Now with all that said, I need to point out as well, that everybody has a different situation in life, different levels of expenses and so on.

A single guy living in a low cost city like Bangkok for example is going to have a much easier time becoming a poker pro faster than a guy (or girl) with a family in an expensive city like LA.

Why does this matter?

Because the lower your expenses, the lower the stakes you will have to play to make it as a pro. Lower stakes games are always much easier to beat and therefore you can become a poker pro much faster.

You also have to factor in your lifestyle and how much you need to feel comfortable.

Are you cool driving a 15 year old Toyota or do you need to drive the latest BMW? Do you need to live in a luxury condo/huge house with a huge pool or can you get by in a small apartment?

These are all factors that will influence how long it takes for you to become a poker pro.

I have lived for as little as $500 a month before in a small city like Chiang Mai whereas when I go back to my hometown of Vancouver I could very easily spend $5000 per month.

Guess which city it's going to be easier for me to be a poker pro in?

Poker Pros Must Have a Large Financial Safety Net

You also need to factor in your savings and investments. I always suggest having a large rainy day fund of at least 6 months living expenses or reasonably liquid assets on hand.

This is completely separate from your poker bankroll and poker related expenses by the way.

The reason why you need this is because it does not matter how good you are, poker is a very swingy game and you will go through extended losing streaks at times.

You poker 'salary' is not guaranteed, nor will you be receiving any benefits like medical, dental, retirement and so on that often come with a more traditional career path.

So this is why it is extremely important that as a professional poker player you are better prepared financially than the average person in case of emergency (liquid assets/savings).

All of this is stuff that only you know the answers to, your cost of living, your lifestyle expectations, how many mouths you have to feed, your current savings/investments and so on.

This is why it is difficult for me to say how long it will take you to become a professional poker player. It might take 5 years for some people, it might take 5 months for another person.

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How Can You Speed Up the Time it Takes to Become a Professional Poker Player?

Now with all of that said, there is some good news if your goal is to become a professional poker player in a shorter period of time.

And that is, you can speed up your learning curve towards becoming a professional poker player tremendously by investing in your knowledge and understanding of the game early on in your career.

For example, I have written several best selling poker books like Crushing the Microstakes which are specifically targeted at beginners to help them quickly crush the lowest stakes games.
There is even a 6+ hour video course that comes along with the book now where you can essentially just watch me play live while I crush my opponents and explain every single decision I make to you.
By learning my proven strategies to crush these small stakes games you won't have to waste months or even years of your time like most people do, struggling to figure out how to even win in these games.

When you learn to start winning right from the very start you will also be much more motivated to continue learning more advanced poker strategies and climb up the limits even faster.

This is going to help the average poker player tremendously in achieving their goal of becoming a professional poker player much faster.

Once you have learned how to smash all the 'wild' players at the lower limits, you can continue on with your poker education for high limits by enrolling in a more advanced poker training program like The Upswing Poker Lab.

This is my #1 recommended advanced poker training program these days that will give you the cutting edge tools and strategies to start beating mid and even high stakes poker games.

The Upswing Poker Lab includes tons of advanced material like GTO poker theory, balancing your range, intro to solver analysis, understanding how to use blockers, count card combos and so on.

Should You Hire a Poker Coach?

And if you still want to take your game even further after all of this, you can also consider hiring a personal coach. This is something that I used to do.

I have coached a lot of players in small stakes games in the past myself, 100+. And I have also hired high level technical and mental game coaches to help me improve my own game as well.

In fact, many of the top poker pros in the world do a bit of 1 on 1 coaching on the side these days (this is also an extra form of income like I mentioned above).

But this is also one of the absolute fastest ways to quickly improve your game. You are learning from the very best after all and getting custom advice from them as well, which is huge.

There is one big downside though. It won't be cheap!

Many of the top high stakes poker pros these days will charge $1000 or more per hour because their knowledge and understanding of the game is in extreme high demand.

Even hiring a coach for small stakes games is not cheap these days.

How Long To Learn Poker

Any qualified small stakes poker coach will charge at least $100 per hour. I do not personally coach anymore but I would charge a lot more than this if I did.

So the bottom line is that hiring a coach isn't cheap, but if money isn't an object for you, then this is the absolute fastest way to quickly improve your game and become a poker pro yourself.

Is It Easy for a Normal Person to Become a Professional Poker Player?

Now with all of that said, I must say that it is still going to be pretty difficult for a normal person to become a poker pro these days.

Most will simply not succeed.

And one of the biggest reasons why is because the games are not nearly as easy as they were several years ago.

This is because there are many people out there now who take this game just as seriously as you do, and also work hard on improving their game away from the tables.

This is why game selection has become so crucial. You need to be paying a lot of attention to what tables and poker sites you are playing on these days

You need to make sure that you are actively searching for the 'fish' (bad players) and playing as many hands against them as possible.

Because whether you are an amateur or a pro, the large majority of your profit in poker is always going to come from these players.

Don't make the mistake of consistently playing at tables full of other strong players! This is seriously one of the biggest mistakes that I see people making these days.

They just play on any poker site and hop on any poker table that suits their fancy. This is a total disaster and it is why they don't win.
You need to choose to play at the easy poker sites instead. Because if you consistently play against the weak players you will profit a lot more.

You also need to be chasing the fish around and making sure you are getting on their left. This is not earth shattering news to any poker pro reading this. In fact, they already know that it is part of the job.

Most amateurs totally miss this absolutely crucial part of the game though. If you don't take game selection seriously, your results in poker these days will suffer massively.

Final Thoughts

How To Learn Poker Fast

So how long does it take to become a professional poker player these days? Well, I would say that for the average person, it will take at least a year.

How Long Does It Take To Learn Poker For Dummies

This is because it is important to be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a long term winning player before deciding to go pro.
You can speed up the process by learning some advanced poker strategy.

But being a poker pro is not a decision you want to make rashly. Take your time and make sure that this is the right path for you to go down.

As somebody who has successfully done it for 10+ years, I know it can be tempting to want to take the leap as soon as you see some early success.

But believe me, this is a hard game to make it in. You need to make sure that you are ready, both from a technical understanding of the game, and from the mental side as well.

How Long Does It Take To Learn Poker Without

Because while the freedom and the money are both great parts of being a professional poker player, handling the swings is the most challenging part of it.
You can't learn that emotional and mental control over night. It takes time and experience. It is important to make sure that you are completely prepared.

You should also have a deep war chest of savings and investments (rainy day fund) which is totally separate from your poker bankroll and poker related expenses.

This is because poker is a very swingy game and therefore you need a large financial safety net to back you up during the extended losing streaks that all poker pros go through at times.

For the vast majority of people reading this article, I would recommend that you focus on creating a solid side income from poker while keeping your day job or staying in school.

My free poker 'cheat sheet' gives you a complete strategy guide on how to start quickly making a nice part time income from poker.

You can get a copy of my free poker cheat sheet, right here.

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