Poker Professionals – Really good or just really rich?

I’ve been playing poker since I was 18, and never honestly realized there was such a thing as a poker “pro” until my mid-twenties. Since I love poker, I’d also love to be a pro, but being a teacher doesn’t exactly allow me to build a big enough stake to become a pro.

Recently, I’ve been getting sick of all the press some of these people get. There are some I just simply do not understand why they are referred to as “Greats” – like Harman, Tilly, Moneymaker, and Gracz. They all have horrible tells and essentially won’t win on anything except top ten hands, but the commentators and magazines rant about how wonderful they are…then you read about a lot of these pros and find out they were already wealthy before becoming pros. Ivey said in Maxim article that he “doesn’t care about the money”.

Thus, the question is – are these people really all that great, or are they just coming from families with money or got lucky once and are now considered “pros”?

2 Responses to “Poker Professionals – Really good or just really rich?”

  1. miss_gem_01 says:
    June 4, 2010 at 7:22 am

    Both. they are rich because they are pros.

  2. JRich says:
    June 4, 2010 at 8:10 am

    Well in terms of Poker Professionals it all depends on what players you are talking about in what type of game. You’re right in the fact that some of these poker professionals that people rave about are people who did just get really lucky one time and are now able to call themselves professionals. However, there are some people out there who are actually amazing players and deserve to call themselves professionals.
    In my opinion there are a good amount of players who deserve to call themselves professional since they are very good at the game. Some of these players include Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Howard Lederer and his Sister Annie Duke, Jennifer Harman, Dan Harrington, Phil Gordon, Chris Fergusson, Daniel Negrenau, Mike Matusow, Greg Raymer (in recent years), Erik Seidel, Mike Caro, Scotty Nguyen and there are also quite a few others out there that I can’t remember their full names right now. These players are some of the best poker minds you will find out in the world and they are constantly trying to improve their game. I know you say that some of them say they don’t care about money and that’s because when you play for the kinds of stakes that they play you have to make yourself forget you are playing with cash in those instances and just think your playing poker with chips. All of those players I mentioned have their strengths and weaknesses, for example some of them are great tournament players and some are great cash game players. However, they are all considered poker professionals because they know everything there is to know about the game of poker. They are able to instantly calculate pot odds and winning percentages in certain hands and they are able to pick up on everything you do at a poker table. So in terms of answering your final question yes there are some people out there who really are that great of poker players, but there are also some of them out there who do have a lot of money to begin with and have been able to get lucky with it. I hope that this helps answer your question.

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